Failsafe

Star Trek SCE (ebooks) Novellas #40

by David Mack

When a cultural observation probe malfunctions and crash-lands on a pre-warp world, the S.C.E. is sent in to destroy it before the technology falls into the hands of a civilization not prepared for it. Unfortunately, when Commander Gomez and her team arrive, they find that the device has already been captured by terrorist forces who intend to reverse-engineer the technology into a weapon that will change the balance of power on their world to deadly effect! Now it's a race against time for the S.C.E. to find and destroy the probe before it's too late!

Genres: Star Trek, Science, Space, Adventure, Ebooks

175 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 15, 2004

About the author

David Mack is the New York Times bestselling author of 39 novels of science-fiction, fantasy, and adventure, including the Star Trek Destiny and Cold Equations trilogies.

Beyond novels, Mack's writing credits span several media, including television (for produced episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), games, and comic books.

Follow him on Twitter @davidalanmack or like his Facebook page.

Reviews

[Michel Siskoid Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

David Mack wrote Wildfire, in which we lost a member of the crew. I think it's a little self-serving of him to have everyone in the story still traumatized by those events when we spent a large number of books seeing them get over it, but I suppose some scars never go away. Certainly, it works to raise the tension and make the reader think of Mack as an executioner. Who will he kill this time? Hawkins going on the mission instead of Corsi raises an eyebrow - could he be a redshirt? Then Abramowitz gets severely injured - was Hawkins a red herring and we're killing off someone else entirely? By the end, I was ready to believe they might kill off Gomez! So good work, on that score. There's a LOT of action in the book, and it's decidedly UNtrek-like action. Lots of bullets flying, explosions, car chases, and while it's exciting, it does feel more than a little off. ESPECIALLY given how Gomez is portrayed. She's a real hardass in this story, and though it leads to cool moments, it's just not her usual character. Mack has given her a death wish that feels wrong at this point in the series (perhaps at ANY point). And for a writer who stresses the crew's trauma over Wildfire, he seems unconcerned about the trauma THIS story should be generating. The character most roughed up should have feelings about that more profound than "I want to shag someone" (which isn't even played as such). Out of context, well-written and pulse-pounding. In context, I don't recognize the series.

[Daniel Johnston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Go Carol go!

[Julenew · Rating 3 out of 5]

extremely vivid description of "modern" warfare with a few Trek characters thrown in. I felt as if I were reading someone's memoirs most of the time.

[John Barclay · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good adventure story. Nice to see things not work out perfectly on the tech front. Not sure about all of the ending bits, but I'm glad that the characters keep growing and changing.