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Star Trek: Destiny #1
Gods of Night
The first novel in an epic crossover trilogy uniting characters from every corner of the Star Trek universe, revealing the shocking origin and final fate of the Federation's most dangerous enemy—the Borg.Half a decade after the Dominion War and more than a year after the rise and fall of Praetor Shinzon, the galaxy's greatest scourge returns to wreak havoc upon the Federation—and this time its goal is nothing less than total annihilation. Elsewhere, deep in the Gamma Quadrant, an ancient mystery is solved. One of Earth's first generation of starships, lost for centuries, has been found dead and empty on a desolate planet. But its discovery so far from home has raised disturbing questions, and the answers harken back to a struggle for survival that once tested a captain and her crew to the limits of their humanity. From that terrifying flashpoint begins an apocalyptic odyssey that will reach across time and space to reveal the past, define the future, and show three captains—Jean-Luc Picard of the U.S.S. Enterprise, TM William Riker of the U.S.S. Titan, and Ezri Dax of the U.S.S Aventine—that some destinies are inescapable.
431 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 1, 2008
344 people are currently reading
2226 people want to read
About the author
David Mack
123 books666 followersDavid 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 277 reviews
February 26, 2016
The Destiny of the Federation begins here!
This is the first novel in a “Star Trek” book trilogy named “Destiny”
FEAR THE BORG!
The Federation has suffered more casualties from hostile action in the past five weeks than in all the previous wars of its history combined.
The Romulan War. The Cardassian War. The Dominion War. Even the Battle of Wolf 359.
None of those bloody conflicts of the Federation against opposite powers, combined, produced so many loses of lives as in the very first stage of a massive invasion of the Borg Collective.
Not only Starfleet vessels, but also whole Starbases, and even whole planets are suffering the rage of the Borg, that in an unexpected turn, instead of assimilating technology and species, they are just…
…destroying everything!
Obliterating without any single show of mercy.
Starships’ debris, Starbases’ floating pieces, dead worlds, are the only remnants in the ruthless wake of multiple Borg cubes, suddenly appearing everywhere in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants.
And they are just warming up!
FOUR STARSHIPS, FOUR DESTINIES
I’m required by regulations to remind you, Captain, that this is a really stupid thing to do.
This story is so big that four Starships, one of them even in a different time period, will be required to play pivotal roles with uncertain destinies, in a hopeless effort to avoid the extinction of the whole United Federation of Planets!
COLUMBIA – NX-02
In the middle of Twenty-Second Century…
Under command of Captain Erika Hernandez, the Columbia was escorting a civilian convoy of space vessels in an Alpha Quadrant sector, when it suffered an insidious attack by Romulans, forcing them to play a costly ruse, leaving it without Warp Speed and Subspace Communications, and away of common used routes.
While changes are never permanent, change is.
In the late of the Twenty-Fourth Century…
The Columbia is discovered, by the USS Defiant, in a deserted planet of the Gamma Quadrant, without any clue of how it could reach such far away position. However, its mystery will have to wait since the Dominion War is about to begin.
USS AVENTINE – NCC-82602
Under command of Captain Ezri Dax, the Aventine is doing an investigation about the discovery of the Columbia, some years ago, and while the Federation is short of vessels due the newly rising of Borg hostilities, Ezri Dax asked for some time on the Columbia since maybe the explanation of how that vessel was able to reach such far away place can be something useful against the Borg, but they haven’t much time to perform the investigation.
Time is short, -- And the perfect is the enemy of the good.
The Columbia is empty, and it seems that it has been empty for a long, long time, however…
…Aventine crewmembers are starting to die while exploring the empty vessel.
USS TITAN – NCC-80102
Under command of Captain William T. Riker, the Titan is on its deep exploration mission (considered being to be too far away of Federation space to be recalled in the newly Borg invasion), when it discovered something odd…
…a whole Planetary System under some kind of cloaking.
USS ENTERPRISE – NCC-1701-E
Under command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, the Enterprise-E has been the only Starfleet vessel really useful against Borg attacks, thanks to the advantage of being authorized to use the Top Secret Transphasic Torpedoes (technology from the future brought by the older Admiral Kathryn Janeway during the TV events of the Star Trek: Voyager finale “Endgame”), the only weapon that the Borg have been unable to be adapted against it, so far, but the Federation Council and Starfleet Command are worried that if that weapon is begining to use widely by the whole fleet, the Borg will find a way to counter it, so, the decision is that only the Enterprise-E would be authorized to use that futuristic vantage.
Therefore, the rest of the fleet is falling like flies without doing much difference against the Borg raids, only a few of them have been successful against the Borg but with costly sacrifices.
This is a clash of civilizations, -- and it will end when one of us falls.
Captain Picard knows that the Federation won’t be able to hold this bloody situation for much time. The Borg cubes are appearing deep in Federation territories without any early warning. The Borg are using something new to mobilize its cubes, and he had to find out what is, before it would be too late for everybody.
This is the first novel in a “Star Trek” book trilogy named “Destiny”
FEAR THE BORG!
The Federation has suffered more casualties from hostile action in the past five weeks than in all the previous wars of its history combined.
The Romulan War. The Cardassian War. The Dominion War. Even the Battle of Wolf 359.
None of those bloody conflicts of the Federation against opposite powers, combined, produced so many loses of lives as in the very first stage of a massive invasion of the Borg Collective.
Not only Starfleet vessels, but also whole Starbases, and even whole planets are suffering the rage of the Borg, that in an unexpected turn, instead of assimilating technology and species, they are just…
…destroying everything!
Obliterating without any single show of mercy.
Starships’ debris, Starbases’ floating pieces, dead worlds, are the only remnants in the ruthless wake of multiple Borg cubes, suddenly appearing everywhere in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants.
And they are just warming up!
FOUR STARSHIPS, FOUR DESTINIES
I’m required by regulations to remind you, Captain, that this is a really stupid thing to do.
This story is so big that four Starships, one of them even in a different time period, will be required to play pivotal roles with uncertain destinies, in a hopeless effort to avoid the extinction of the whole United Federation of Planets!
COLUMBIA – NX-02
In the middle of Twenty-Second Century…
Under command of Captain Erika Hernandez, the Columbia was escorting a civilian convoy of space vessels in an Alpha Quadrant sector, when it suffered an insidious attack by Romulans, forcing them to play a costly ruse, leaving it without Warp Speed and Subspace Communications, and away of common used routes.
While changes are never permanent, change is.
In the late of the Twenty-Fourth Century…
The Columbia is discovered, by the USS Defiant, in a deserted planet of the Gamma Quadrant, without any clue of how it could reach such far away position. However, its mystery will have to wait since the Dominion War is about to begin.
USS AVENTINE – NCC-82602
Under command of Captain Ezri Dax, the Aventine is doing an investigation about the discovery of the Columbia, some years ago, and while the Federation is short of vessels due the newly rising of Borg hostilities, Ezri Dax asked for some time on the Columbia since maybe the explanation of how that vessel was able to reach such far away place can be something useful against the Borg, but they haven’t much time to perform the investigation.
Time is short, -- And the perfect is the enemy of the good.
The Columbia is empty, and it seems that it has been empty for a long, long time, however…
…Aventine crewmembers are starting to die while exploring the empty vessel.
USS TITAN – NCC-80102
Under command of Captain William T. Riker, the Titan is on its deep exploration mission (considered being to be too far away of Federation space to be recalled in the newly Borg invasion), when it discovered something odd…
…a whole Planetary System under some kind of cloaking.
USS ENTERPRISE – NCC-1701-E
Under command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, the Enterprise-E has been the only Starfleet vessel really useful against Borg attacks, thanks to the advantage of being authorized to use the Top Secret Transphasic Torpedoes (technology from the future brought by the older Admiral Kathryn Janeway during the TV events of the Star Trek: Voyager finale “Endgame”), the only weapon that the Borg have been unable to be adapted against it, so far, but the Federation Council and Starfleet Command are worried that if that weapon is begining to use widely by the whole fleet, the Borg will find a way to counter it, so, the decision is that only the Enterprise-E would be authorized to use that futuristic vantage.
Therefore, the rest of the fleet is falling like flies without doing much difference against the Borg raids, only a few of them have been successful against the Borg but with costly sacrifices.
This is a clash of civilizations, -- and it will end when one of us falls.
Captain Picard knows that the Federation won’t be able to hold this bloody situation for much time. The Borg cubes are appearing deep in Federation territories without any early warning. The Borg are using something new to mobilize its cubes, and he had to find out what is, before it would be too late for everybody.
May 4, 2020
An epic, thrilling Trek story with crossover from every ST series except TOS. With frequently shifting narrative perspective between four ship crews, one of which occurs centuries earlier, there's a lot going on here, with a large cast of characters, many well known from the various series. The author provides a crew guide, listed by ship, as an appendix, which is of great help in keeping things straight early on.
As a standalone, the scope of the story would certainly be way too ambitious. As a trilogy however it promises to be absolutely epic. Action initially centers around conflict with the Borg, however the author introduces a new highly advanced and reclusive alien species and some intriguing cosmological mysteries with potentially catastrophic consequences for the Federation that promise to make the story much broader.
David Mack has a remarkable talent for capturing the spirit of ST and the dynamics and nuances of many of the key character relationships we have come to know and love. Great stuff, whether you're a fan of TNG, DS9, Voyager or, and especially, like me, all of them.
As a standalone, the scope of the story would certainly be way too ambitious. As a trilogy however it promises to be absolutely epic. Action initially centers around conflict with the Borg, however the author introduces a new highly advanced and reclusive alien species and some intriguing cosmological mysteries with potentially catastrophic consequences for the Federation that promise to make the story much broader.
David Mack has a remarkable talent for capturing the spirit of ST and the dynamics and nuances of many of the key character relationships we have come to know and love. Great stuff, whether you're a fan of TNG, DS9, Voyager or, and especially, like me, all of them.
January 14, 2022
A different sort of space opera...but a good one. Can't wait to see where the story goes from here!
February 8, 2016
One of the best star trek book out there to finally find out how the borg came to be
November 4, 2019
This is an incredibly strong start to the Destiny trilogy, both when I first read it years ago and in my most recent re-read. The action sequences are among the best in Star Trek, and the character moments work very well for the most part. I found the Columbia sequences to be equal parts heartbreaking and horrifying. It's clear from the very start that this is a very tightly-plotted story, with twists and turns that readers will not see coming. At the same time, the story is pure Star Trek through and through. If you haven't read Destiny yet, do yourself a favor and put it on your list immediately; this is Trek lit at its absolute finest, and the best is still yet to come.
Full review: https://www.treklit.com/2019/11/Desti...
Full review: https://www.treklit.com/2019/11/Desti...
March 31, 2012
"So, uh, we got this joined Trill who's a bit bungled up in the brain, ya know what I'm saying?"
"Like a bit on the neurotic side?"
"Exactly. The the funny things is, she's a counselor. On a space station."
"On a space station?"
"Yeah, that's what I'm sayin'. What um I s'posed tu do with a neurotic counselor?"
"Duh...."
::fingers snap::
"I got it! Make her a ship's captain. Make her totally unrecognizable. Problem solved. Bada-bing bada-boom."
"Ya think?"
"I ain't payin' ya to think. I'm payin' ya to write. Now shut up and churn us out some books."
Because we Trek fans are gullible enough to buy crappy books so long as it has the "Star Trek" logo on the cover.
"Like a bit on the neurotic side?"
"Exactly. The the funny things is, she's a counselor. On a space station."
"On a space station?"
"Yeah, that's what I'm sayin'. What um I s'posed tu do with a neurotic counselor?"
"Duh...."
::fingers snap::
"I got it! Make her a ship's captain. Make her totally unrecognizable. Problem solved. Bada-bing bada-boom."
"Ya think?"
"I ain't payin' ya to think. I'm payin' ya to write. Now shut up and churn us out some books."
Because we Trek fans are gullible enough to buy crappy books so long as it has the "Star Trek" logo on the cover.
August 14, 2020
Really good! I enjoyed the Captain Hernandez and NX-02 chapters the most.
April 8, 2010
I wish Goodreads allowed me to give a 4-1/2 star rating. This book was almost perfect. I could not put it down and only had a few small complaints that would keep me from giving it a 5 star rating.
After reading a few of his books, I would say that Mack is one of the best Star Trek writers. He gives his stories a very human element and manages to make large casts very exciting. (I usually prefer smaller casts allowing you to focus on a few characters.)
In this book, he has an extremely large cast. Besides the Captains and crews of four starships, he also has scenes dealing with some of the other folks around the galaxy. He is telling a sweeping tale here that affects the entire Federation, so he tells you a bit about what is going on around the whole Federation.
The Borg are attacking again. Yeah, the Borg are over-used and honestly, I am sick to death of them. They haven't really been cool since "Best of Both Worlds." However, Mack does make them feel like a threat again. In fact, they feel like more of a threat even then when they were in "Best of Both Worlds." This fact almost kept me from reading the book, and did keep me from reading the TNG books that led up to this trilogy. I am just really bored of the Borg.
However, the book includes so much more. There are the personal stories as Picard deals with how the Borg affects him, Troi and Riker deal with trying to conceive a baby, Pazlar's dealing with being a low gravity person on a high gravity ship, etc., etc.. There is also the flashback tale of the USS Columbia (from the 22nd Century) making first contact with a powerful alien species. There are the mysterious deaths on the USS Aventine (Ezri Dax's ship). There is so much more than just the Borg....and it all ties together.
Speaking of Ezri, that is another thing that keeps this book from a 5 star rating. Like many folks on Goodreads, I just couldn't buy her as a Starship Captain. The last time we saw her in the show, she was still extremely unsure of herself and certainly did not seem like Captain material. Of course, she could grow, but the book never really tells us what changed her or demonstrates her as that strong of a leader.
Small complaints aside, this is a fantastic read that I couldn't put down. Then, it ends with a nice little cliffhanger. I'll be picking up book 2 as soon as I find a used copy. (I'm frugal, not cheap.) I can't wait to read the next book. 4 and a half stars!
After reading a few of his books, I would say that Mack is one of the best Star Trek writers. He gives his stories a very human element and manages to make large casts very exciting. (I usually prefer smaller casts allowing you to focus on a few characters.)
In this book, he has an extremely large cast. Besides the Captains and crews of four starships, he also has scenes dealing with some of the other folks around the galaxy. He is telling a sweeping tale here that affects the entire Federation, so he tells you a bit about what is going on around the whole Federation.
The Borg are attacking again. Yeah, the Borg are over-used and honestly, I am sick to death of them. They haven't really been cool since "Best of Both Worlds." However, Mack does make them feel like a threat again. In fact, they feel like more of a threat even then when they were in "Best of Both Worlds." This fact almost kept me from reading the book, and did keep me from reading the TNG books that led up to this trilogy. I am just really bored of the Borg.
However, the book includes so much more. There are the personal stories as Picard deals with how the Borg affects him, Troi and Riker deal with trying to conceive a baby, Pazlar's dealing with being a low gravity person on a high gravity ship, etc., etc.. There is also the flashback tale of the USS Columbia (from the 22nd Century) making first contact with a powerful alien species. There are the mysterious deaths on the USS Aventine (Ezri Dax's ship). There is so much more than just the Borg....and it all ties together.
Speaking of Ezri, that is another thing that keeps this book from a 5 star rating. Like many folks on Goodreads, I just couldn't buy her as a Starship Captain. The last time we saw her in the show, she was still extremely unsure of herself and certainly did not seem like Captain material. Of course, she could grow, but the book never really tells us what changed her or demonstrates her as that strong of a leader.
Small complaints aside, this is a fantastic read that I couldn't put down. Then, it ends with a nice little cliffhanger. I'll be picking up book 2 as soon as I find a used copy. (I'm frugal, not cheap.) I can't wait to read the next book. 4 and a half stars!
September 12, 2023
I don’t rate all books against each other but against my expectations and enjoyment of them.
These Star Trek tie in books are hit or miss most of the time. This is one of the best ones. It’s a bit complicated with characters from different ships and timelines to keep track of but we’ll done. It’s the first book in a trilogy so there’s not much of an ending but it was good enough for me to continue the series.
These Star Trek tie in books are hit or miss most of the time. This is one of the best ones. It’s a bit complicated with characters from different ships and timelines to keep track of but we’ll done. It’s the first book in a trilogy so there’s not much of an ending but it was good enough for me to continue the series.
April 28, 2019
Not bad, I will continue the series.
May 4, 2013
It's been a long, long time since I've read a Star Trek book, so I thought I'd just jump in and pick a spot to begin again. And it seems I chose well. The first book of the trilogy is well written and exciting, full of "character" moments as well as action. There are A LOT of characters, though. 631. I counted them. Luckily, Mack gives you tiny updates just in case you haven't read EVERY Star Trek book, or have forgotten key moments in the TV shows. And Ezri Dax has my favorite line, when told by another officer that she's, perhaps, not making the best judgement in wanting to lead a dangerous away mission. "Sam, what's the point of being a captain if I don't get to do something stupid once in a while?"
And I really didn't count all the characters. But there were 631.
And I really didn't count all the characters. But there were 631.
February 29, 2012
It's relentless, warp speed plotting -- aside from the Riker/Troi prengancy issue, there isn't a lot of room for character development...and I find the Columbia crew to be rather cliched much of the time, especially the typically hard-nosed MACOs. But all that aside, this is EPIC plotting on a grand scale...and considering the juggling of characters, planets, and battles that occurs in this novel, you have to give David Mack credit for keeping all the balls in the air, and never once letting one of them fall to the ground. It's certainly a breathless beginning to the "Destiny" trilogy...let's see where it goes from here.
January 9, 2022
Solange es um technische Sachen geht oder sogar um Actionszenen war es wirklich ein ordentliches Buch. Der Rest... hölzern. Für mich ein mittelmäßig geschriebener Fan Fiction, der davon lebt, dass es die Filme/Serien auch geschafft haben, Emotionen bei den Zuschauern hervorzurufen. Ich lass es dann mal bei Teil eins und werde die Folgeteile nicht lesen.
May 7, 2024
Balancing between four crews was a bit of a stretch. It meant there was a little too much going on throughout and not enough of the cast got their share of the lime light. Though I suspect the large cast will continue towards an epic conclusion involving all of the crews in some way. On to book 2!
November 9, 2010
David Mack continues to show his strength as a ST author – fast paced adventures, good characterizations, well described space battles. The only complaint I would have in this first book of the Star Trek Destiny trilogy is that there’re too many dramatis personae – we’re following the crews of four starships, Enterprise, Titan, Aventine and Columbia. While Mack ably distinguishes most of his people, he still can’t develop them enough to make you care overmuch about them. Often he’s saved by the fact that half of the crews are already familiar to Trekkies from the TV shows and other novels.
In a personal aside, I’ve never been as interested in the post-TOS crews (Picard excepted) as with the original crew. And I’ve never liked where the canonical Star Trek went/is going. For example, Picard and Crusher get married? And they're having a son? WTF?! (pardon my French) I know there’s supposed to be a history and a certain amount of sexual tension between the two (and Picard has lost what little family he ever had*) but Jean-Luc in a domestic setting is just wrong . Then there’s Riker. I never liked Riker (even after he got the beard) so his and Counselor Troi’s domestic travails don’t engage me.
However, despite what I consider flawed material, I still think Mack does a good job with it, and I can continue to recommend his work without guilt. (Though, alas, there’s no Vulcan/Klingon lesbian sex** in this trilogy…. At least not yet.)
* See the movie ST: Generations***
** See my reviews of the Star Trek Vanguard series.
*** On second thought, don’t watch Generations, take my word that he’s lost his family. But, on third thought, Generations also gives us a glimpse of just how wrong a domesticated Picard is. No, on fourth thought, continue to trust me and don’t subject yourself to the movie.
In a personal aside, I’ve never been as interested in the post-TOS crews (Picard excepted) as with the original crew. And I’ve never liked where the canonical Star Trek went/is going. For example, Picard and Crusher get married? And they're having a son? WTF?! (pardon my French) I know there’s supposed to be a history and a certain amount of sexual tension between the two (and Picard has lost what little family he ever had*) but Jean-Luc in a domestic setting is just wrong . Then there’s Riker. I never liked Riker (even after he got the beard) so his and Counselor Troi’s domestic travails don’t engage me.
However, despite what I consider flawed material, I still think Mack does a good job with it, and I can continue to recommend his work without guilt. (Though, alas, there’s no Vulcan/Klingon lesbian sex** in this trilogy…. At least not yet.)
* See the movie ST: Generations***
** See my reviews of the Star Trek Vanguard series.
*** On second thought, don’t watch Generations, take my word that he’s lost his family. But, on third thought, Generations also gives us a glimpse of just how wrong a domesticated Picard is. No, on fourth thought, continue to trust me and don’t subject yourself to the movie.
December 18, 2016
If this was someone's fanfiction, I would say it's pretty good. But it's not.
The writing is problematic at parts. Most of the character interaction happens through teasing, which is boring and in some cases, odd. And then he takes two happy couples, and decides that the next logical step is babies. Fine, but both? And make one of them have very present-day Earth problems (miscarriages) with only present-day solutions? I don't remember Deanna ever even caring about having children, but now she's apparently completely unreasonable? And there could be a much more creative process here. Genetic manipulation, for one. It just feels tired, like he didn't know what to do next with a happy couple. The Time Traveler's Wife had the same problem.
I also really, really didn't like who he turned Dr. Beverly Crusher into. I didn't recognize her.
The writing is problematic at parts. Most of the character interaction happens through teasing, which is boring and in some cases, odd. And then he takes two happy couples, and decides that the next logical step is babies. Fine, but both? And make one of them have very present-day Earth problems (miscarriages) with only present-day solutions? I don't remember Deanna ever even caring about having children, but now she's apparently completely unreasonable? And there could be a much more creative process here. Genetic manipulation, for one. It just feels tired, like he didn't know what to do next with a happy couple. The Time Traveler's Wife had the same problem.
I also really, really didn't like who he turned Dr. Beverly Crusher into. I didn't recognize her.
June 28, 2021
I read this entire trilogy last summer and was immediately hooked by book one. It was my favorite of the three books but I had not read any of the novels leading up to the series, so decided to embark on that effort this past year. I just reread book one and it is even better than I remember. The added context from the previous novels greatly improved my enjoyment of it and I noticed a lot more foreshadowing this time around that I took for granted on first read. This is a brilliant introduction to the Caeliar. The story bounces between four different crews and is about as effective of a crossover as one can imagine. I’ve read 45+ Star Trek novels at this point and this is still easily in my top 5 (and honestly higher if I sat down to do a proper ranking).
October 9, 2017
Love the premise of the final showdown between the federation and the Borg. But the author just has way too many perspectives. There are way too many ships with their unique situations and each ship have large crews and it just becomes a jumbled mess. Committing to finishing the trilogy but damn, not some of Trek's best literature.
October 24, 2024
Gets better everytime i read it
July 13, 2024
The literary equivalent of taking all of your action figures from TNG, DS9 and Voyager, and smashing them into each other, but it was good fun.
March 26, 2024
Summary:
2373: Prologue: While en route to DS9 from the Gamma Quadrant, an odd signal emanating from an unnamed planet piques Jadzia Dax's curiosity. The Defiant investigates and finds the Columbia NX-02 crash-landed in a desert, buried in sand for 200 years. O'Brien estimates it will take days to interface with it's computer; Kira feels like the ship is haunted. Before they can get anything working, Worf signals that Jem'Hadar attack ships are inbound, and they're forced to retreat.
2381: 7 years later, Ezri Dax, captain of the Starship Aventine, returns to crash site of the Columbia. Ezri became the captain after the original captain was killed in a Borg attack in the heart of Federation space 5 weeks prior. She hopes that the mystery of how the Columbia traveled so far so fast could answer how the Borg are traveling from the Delta Quadrant instantaneously.
Commander Sam Bowers is the Aventine's first officer; Dr. Sam Tarses the chief medical officer; Lt. Mikaela Leishman the chief engineer; Lt. Lonnoc Keddair the chief of security. Over 250 crew were killed in the battle with the Borg.
Dax tells Bowers that Admiral Nechayev has recalled them to defend Trill; 5 more ships have fallen to Borg attacks. They have 24 hours to download the Columbia's data core. Like before, the away team feels that the ship is haunted, constantly seeing flashes of blue light from the corner of their eyes.
2156: The Columbia NX-02, captained by Erika Hernandez, is escorting a mining convoy when they're attacked by Romulans. They use a computer virus to take over the Columbia, disabling it, then use it's own weapons to destroy the convoy. Just as the Romulans are about to destroy the Columbia as well, the chief engineer comes up with a plan to jump to warp immediately after detonating a photonic torpedo, so it looks like they were destroyed.
2381: Christine Vale, XO of the USS Titan, is still maudlin from the loss of Jaza Najem, who was left between on the planet Orisha in it's distant past. The Titan is continuing it's mission of exploration, months away from the front-line. Tuvok receives a report that the Borg have destroyed 5 more ships.
Xin Ra-Havreii visits Melora Pazlar in her zero-g stellar cartography lab to demonstrate the new holo-presence system he's installed throughout the ship, which allows her to go anywhere onboard without leaving her lab. She is pleased at how well it works, but when he leans in for a kiss, she rebuffs him. He's embarrassed; she is still emotionally vulnerable after Tuvok, psychically influenced by a spaceborn entity carried a star jelly, assaulted her a few months back.
Dr. Ree tells Riker and Troi that their baby has irreparable genetic abnormalities, and the fetus needs to be aborted. Having suffered 1 miscarriage already, Troi rejects the doctor's suggestion and Will echoes it, though she can sense he disagrees.
Vale questions Riker about his behavior, saying he's been acting off ever since Troi mentioned they were having trouble conceiving. He breaks down in tears and tells her what's happened, how he feels cut off from Deanna emotionally. They hug and he feels like it's more than platonic on Chris's side.
Troi meets with Tellarite counselor Pral glasch Haaj. His therapy style induces her into a fit of rage, but she she eventually admits that she resents her baby for failing her, after she's given it so much of herself. She says she won't terminate the baby and doesn't know why.
Captain Picard has been hearing the voice of the Collective since the Borg attacks began. Months earlier, he had become Locutus again to stop a new Borg Queen. Since then, Picard and Beverly, who is pregnant with his child, decided to start a family.
The Enterprise arrives at the planet Ramatis to find it annihilated, not assimilated, by a Borg cube. XO Worf quickly dispatches the cube with a bevy of transphasic torpedoes; the Enterprise is the only ship equipped with the torpedoes, which were reverse-engineered from those acquired from the alternate future Janeway. Worf suspects that the Borg attacks are building to a critical mass, and that there will be no stopping them soon.
The Aventine crew continue to feel a haunted presence on the Columbia. 2 crew members are killed when a lightbulb explodes with energy, and a ghostly aura electrocutes them to charred husks.
2156-2157: The Columbia's warp engines are destroyed, as is the subspace communications array. Half the crew and most of the MACOs were killed. Hernandez decides their best course of action is to head towards the nearest M-class planet 4 light-years away, using overclocked impulse engines--which will result in time dilation. For the crew it will take months to get to the planet, but on Earth it will be 12 years. The MACOs, unhappy with this decision, consider a mutiny.
2381: Pazlar gets an alert that a massive triquantum subspace distortion has been detected; the readings are similar to Borg transwarp conduits. Gravitational readings in the sector seem to indicate a star system, yet none is visible. Riker orders the Titan to investigate.
Lt Choudhurry deduces that the Borg are likely going to attack Korvat next, so the Enterprise tries to head them off. Later, Worf finds Choudhurry in the holodeck during his reserved time. She tells him she finds him intriguing and wants to learn anything he's willing to teach her. He begins his Mok'bara training program.
2168: After 63 days/12 years, the Columbia arrives at the M-class planet. They detect cities scattered across the globe, but a scattering field prevents them from detecting lifesigns.
An away team beams down into a dense primeval forest outside the alien city. The MACOs lead them on an intense 6 hour hike until they reach a clearing; a few kilometers away sits the austere alien megalopolis, levitating 100s of meters off the ground with no apparent entry.
A vaguely humanoid being descends from the city and welcomes them to Erigol. It says it's name is Inyx, and his people have observed them for their 12 year journey. He grants them entry to Axion and says his people are the Caeliar. Hernandez asks about repairing their ship, but Inyx says it will not be repaired, and they cannot contact Earth; the Caeliar wish to remain hidden from the rest of the galaxy. The Columbia crew will remain on Erigol as honored guests, but can never leave.
2381: As the Enterprise intercepts the cube about to attack Korvat, Picard hears the Collective in his head again and realizes this is just 1 of 5 targets. The Queen tells him humanity is to be exterminated.
At Khitomer, the USS Ranger uses a molecular phase inverter to slip through the attacking cube's shields at warp, turning the ship into a kamikaze missile and vaporizing the cube. Martok learns of their sacrifice and rallies the Council to support their Federation allies.
At Starbase 234, Admiral Paris sends an apology message to Tom just as the base is destroyed. The base manages to destroy the cube as well.
The Enterprise destroys the cube at Korvat, but not before 2 Federation ships are destroyed, and 10 million people on the planet are killed. They get word that Captain Calhoun's ship stopped the cube at Starbase 343. The crew is relieved that the battle is over, but Picard tells them it has only just begun.
Tuvok and Pazlar trace the Borg entry into Federation space to a supernova remnant that would also mask their presence. Pazlar needs to run more simulations to confirm.
Dr. Ree tells Troi that when she became impregnated by an unidentified energy being many years ago, whereby she had a child named Ian, her exposure to the being's radiation mutated her ova. He says she cannot have children, and that if the fetus is not removed soon, she could die. Troi leaves, and knowing the captain will likely support her, he contacts Vale.
Vale confronts Riker about Troi, and they have a heated argument. He says he'll try to talk to her again. Titan drops out of warp after they're hit by one of the high-powered sensor beams that Tuvok and Pazlar are studying. Their warp drive is disabled, as is their subspace communications array.
2168: The Columbia crew debrief. They've found that the Caeliar can change their shape, float, etc by using programmable matter consisting of nanomachines. They're unsure of the power source. They have unrestricted access to most of the city, but not the underground. They are all both artists and scientists, and don't sleep. Inyx interrupts them to say the Quorum has agreed to grant them an audience.
Hernandez pleas for the Quorum to wipe their memories and send them home, but to no avail. Ordemo says that many aliens have tried to beg for or steal their technology, and they've been forced to relocate whole civilizations to other galaxies in defense, which they find distasteful. They wish for their privacy to complete their "great work", which is to contact a civilization even more advanced than their own.
Inyx's companion for thousands of years, Sedin, disapproves of him allowing the humans on Erigol, saying he just wants them there for his own curiosity.
Major Foyle makes plans with the MACOs to take out the Caeliar scattering field by destroying its power source, so they can beam back to the ship. They still have grenades and are not worried about collateral damage, even if that proves to be the captain, who they decide to keep in the dark for now.
2381: La Forge tells Picard he detected sirillium on the hull of the last cube they destroyed. He traces it to the nearby Azure Nebula, and they set a course. Worf orders Picard to sleep, but he's afraid to let his guard down against the Collective. Picard tells Beverly that with their 1000s of ships, there's no chance the Federation can survive against the Borg's war of attrition. She tries to slap him out of it, saying they need hope for their son, but she can tell he doesn't really believe it.
Admiral Akaar tells President Bacco that Captain Calhoun tried to use the MPI maneuver to destroy a cube like the Ranger, but they adapted. He managed to destroy it with phased torpedoes instead, but Akaar doubts it will work again. He says the Enterprise is headed to the Azure Nebula on the tri-border, and Bacco asks for a meeting with the Klingon and Romulan ambassadors. Bacco introduces 7 of 9 as her new security deputy.
Martok addresses the Council. Despite earlier opposition, the Federation's sacrifice at Khitomer is enough for him to rally them to declare war on the Borg.
Several months ago, B'Elanna took her child Miral and left Tom Paris for a Klingon religious cult that believes Miral is the messiah. Tom's father Owen treated Tom as if it was his fault, and a rift opened up between them again. Tom receives a recording from his father apologizing, right before he's killed at Starbase 234. Already reeling from the loss of his wife, child, and Admiral Janeway, he is devastated.
Dax's crew finds a large section of the Columbia's logs are missing. They determine that the subspace tunnel is different from a wormhole in that it only exists in subspace, and it's powered by dark energy--the biproduct of which is hyperphasic radiation, which they estimate killed the Columbia crew in 20 seconds. They think the tunnel is still there, and set about finding how to enter it, and how to adjust the shields to block the radiation.
While performing maintenance on one of the Aventine's runabouts, another crew member is burned/liquified. Dax locks the ship down and tells Starfleet Command they're not leaving orbit until they find the intruder.
2168: Inyx shows the Columbia crew their Great Work, which allows them to observe and communicate with anyone/anything they discover. They coax out of him that the device is powered remotely, and that they bypass the scattering field with a phase-shifted soliton pulse. Inyx also says they're only days away from using the device, so the MACOs decide they need a plan fast.
The MACOs present their findings to Hernandez, and suggest that the subspace tunnels created by the Great Work could be used to travel back in time as well. The captain says she's not willing to violate the timeline and risk the Caeliar displacing Earth, and tells them to drop it. She says she's going to ask the Caeliar to bring down the rest of the crew.
Major Foyle decides to place the mission under military authority, and the other MACOs back him. They plan to deploy munitions before the big experiment, and Foyle will distract the crew--and kill the captain.
2381: Kadohata says all subspace frequencies are being jammed as they approach the Azure Nebula. Picard says there are no reinforcements coming, and that their sole mission is to stop the Borg's means of reaching Federation space.
Vale and Dr. Ree come up with a compromise wherein Troi will get daily injections of a drug to slow the baby's growth, delaying the need to terminate it.
Torvig creates an inoculation that will render someone assimilated immune to the psychological effects of assimilation. Since he has implants of his own, Torvig can't use the injection. He also suggests isolating Titan's system functions by shutting down the data network between them, so the Borg can't seize any console to access the ship's main computer.
2168: The MACOs bind and gag the Columbia officers and tie them together. Foyle decides not to kill the captain. They make their way into the Caeliar's apparatus, climbing the dome and descending into the opening with ropes. Inside, they encounter Caeliar, but since the MACOs' weapons pose no threat to them, they shoot off the foot of Lt. Thayer (a non-MACO who joined them) and threaten to kill her if the Caeliar don't cooperate with their escape plan. Being pacifists, the Caeliar agree and even correct their crude time-travel formulae, but say the Quorum will stop them before they can escape. Then one of the alien cities explodes and the Caeliar gestalt is filled with pain and horror.
Inyx frees Hernandez and the others, and says the MACOs sabotaging a node of the apparatus, destroying one of their cities. Hernandez begs Inyx to take her to the Quorom, and he obliges.
The Columbia beams up Foyle and Yacavino, along with a Caeliar prisoner. Foyle tells the crew to beam up the rest of the team, and says the captain and the other officers didn't make it. The rift in space-time opens in front of the Columbia.
In the Quorom, Hernandez convinces Ordemo to turn the scattering field back on and let her talk to the MACOs; he obliges. She tells the MACOs that the Caeliar will no longer cooperate, and orders them to end their game and kill Lt. Thayer. None of them can go through with it, so they surrender. Ordemo lets Hernandez contact her ship, and she explains to the crew what happened. Foyle and Yacavino are placed under arrest for mutiny. The transmission is interrupted when the Caeliar receive a tremendously powerful feedback pulse from the galaxy they contacted, which disrupts all of their technology; Inyx says the signal was sent with malicious intent, and their star system is being destroyed by a chain reaction in their solar and geothermal taps. Erigol will be destroyed, but he says they may be able to save the city. Graylock contacts the Columbia and tells them to break orbit and save themselves.
The Caeliar cities rise up but cannot enter the subspace tunnels until the time-manipulation equations are purged. Erigol explodes, and a number of the cities are destroyed by the subspace shock wave. The Columbia enters the tunnel and in a few seconds, the crew vanish into ash. Graylock tells the Caeliar that if they don't enter the tunnel now, they'll all be dead. A few city-ships enter the rift, but are mostly destroyed save for small sections that are shielded.
When they exit the tunnel, Inyx tells them they haven't moved far in space, but are 650 years in the past; the tunnel collapsed behind them. He says if not to save the humans, the Caeliar would've chosen to perish instead of altering the timeline. He says they will obscure their presence for now while they heal and rebuild.
The city-ship Mantilis, where Graylock and Pembleton are, crash-lands on a planet. The Caeliar Lerxst says that the 12 Caeliar and 6 humans are all that survived.
2381: The Aventine still hasn't been able to detect the intruder. The Columbia's transporter logs show a number of transports that account for the missing personnel, plus 1 extra. An explosion in shuttlebay 1 rocks the ship; the runabout blasted open the bay doors and headed for the planet, no life signs aboard. It emits a soliton pulse and enters the subspace tunnel; the Aventine pursues. They end up in the Azure Nebula in the Beta Quadrant.
Dax leads an away team over to the shuttle where they find a humanoid shape collapsed on the deck. It tells them it is Arithon of the Caeliar; it was taken as a prisoner on the Columbia. It says it did not mean to kill Dax's crew; after centuries of hibernating in the machines alone, it needed energy and didn't remember itself until the runabout gave it enough power to rebuild itself. However, it says that with the Gestalt gone, it was all for naught. It disintegrates into dust. The away team is beamed back when the Aventine receives a distress call from the Enterprise, which has engaged the Borg.
The Titan arrives to find Dyson shells surrounding a sun and a planet. They hail the planet and ask to meet, but get no response aside from a hatch opening. An away team consisting of Vale, Troi, Dr. Ree, Tuvok, Keru, Torvig et al take a shuttle in. Inside they find vast seas, plant and animal life, and a floating city. They land the shuttle outside and enter, where they're greeted by Caeliar and a human woman, who Tuvok recognizes as Erika Hernandez. She welcomes them to New Erigol.
Review: 5 stars. It's a real page-turner, with captivating mysteries on each of the 4 ships that all come together at the end, without resolving the main mystery of what exactly is going on in the Azure Nebula.
The story is very dense and there are tons of characters. The first time I read it, I hadn't read many of the preceding books or watched DS9, so I was constantly checking the character index in the back of the book. After getting caught up and re-reading, this book was even better.
The Borg aren't really in the story all that much, but every time they do pop up, it's intense: they destroy starbases and eradicate entire planets, and only the Enterprise has weapons that are effective against them. They feel scary again.
I really enjoyed this book, and can't wait to read book 2!
2373: Prologue: While en route to DS9 from the Gamma Quadrant, an odd signal emanating from an unnamed planet piques Jadzia Dax's curiosity. The Defiant investigates and finds the Columbia NX-02 crash-landed in a desert, buried in sand for 200 years. O'Brien estimates it will take days to interface with it's computer; Kira feels like the ship is haunted. Before they can get anything working, Worf signals that Jem'Hadar attack ships are inbound, and they're forced to retreat.
2381: 7 years later, Ezri Dax, captain of the Starship Aventine, returns to crash site of the Columbia. Ezri became the captain after the original captain was killed in a Borg attack in the heart of Federation space 5 weeks prior. She hopes that the mystery of how the Columbia traveled so far so fast could answer how the Borg are traveling from the Delta Quadrant instantaneously.
Commander Sam Bowers is the Aventine's first officer; Dr. Sam Tarses the chief medical officer; Lt. Mikaela Leishman the chief engineer; Lt. Lonnoc Keddair the chief of security. Over 250 crew were killed in the battle with the Borg.
Dax tells Bowers that Admiral Nechayev has recalled them to defend Trill; 5 more ships have fallen to Borg attacks. They have 24 hours to download the Columbia's data core. Like before, the away team feels that the ship is haunted, constantly seeing flashes of blue light from the corner of their eyes.
2156: The Columbia NX-02, captained by Erika Hernandez, is escorting a mining convoy when they're attacked by Romulans. They use a computer virus to take over the Columbia, disabling it, then use it's own weapons to destroy the convoy. Just as the Romulans are about to destroy the Columbia as well, the chief engineer comes up with a plan to jump to warp immediately after detonating a photonic torpedo, so it looks like they were destroyed.
2381: Christine Vale, XO of the USS Titan, is still maudlin from the loss of Jaza Najem, who was left between on the planet Orisha in it's distant past. The Titan is continuing it's mission of exploration, months away from the front-line. Tuvok receives a report that the Borg have destroyed 5 more ships.
Xin Ra-Havreii visits Melora Pazlar in her zero-g stellar cartography lab to demonstrate the new holo-presence system he's installed throughout the ship, which allows her to go anywhere onboard without leaving her lab. She is pleased at how well it works, but when he leans in for a kiss, she rebuffs him. He's embarrassed; she is still emotionally vulnerable after Tuvok, psychically influenced by a spaceborn entity carried a star jelly, assaulted her a few months back.
Dr. Ree tells Riker and Troi that their baby has irreparable genetic abnormalities, and the fetus needs to be aborted. Having suffered 1 miscarriage already, Troi rejects the doctor's suggestion and Will echoes it, though she can sense he disagrees.
Vale questions Riker about his behavior, saying he's been acting off ever since Troi mentioned they were having trouble conceiving. He breaks down in tears and tells her what's happened, how he feels cut off from Deanna emotionally. They hug and he feels like it's more than platonic on Chris's side.
Troi meets with Tellarite counselor Pral glasch Haaj. His therapy style induces her into a fit of rage, but she she eventually admits that she resents her baby for failing her, after she's given it so much of herself. She says she won't terminate the baby and doesn't know why.
Captain Picard has been hearing the voice of the Collective since the Borg attacks began. Months earlier, he had become Locutus again to stop a new Borg Queen. Since then, Picard and Beverly, who is pregnant with his child, decided to start a family.
The Enterprise arrives at the planet Ramatis to find it annihilated, not assimilated, by a Borg cube. XO Worf quickly dispatches the cube with a bevy of transphasic torpedoes; the Enterprise is the only ship equipped with the torpedoes, which were reverse-engineered from those acquired from the alternate future Janeway. Worf suspects that the Borg attacks are building to a critical mass, and that there will be no stopping them soon.
The Aventine crew continue to feel a haunted presence on the Columbia. 2 crew members are killed when a lightbulb explodes with energy, and a ghostly aura electrocutes them to charred husks.
2156-2157: The Columbia's warp engines are destroyed, as is the subspace communications array. Half the crew and most of the MACOs were killed. Hernandez decides their best course of action is to head towards the nearest M-class planet 4 light-years away, using overclocked impulse engines--which will result in time dilation. For the crew it will take months to get to the planet, but on Earth it will be 12 years. The MACOs, unhappy with this decision, consider a mutiny.
2381: Pazlar gets an alert that a massive triquantum subspace distortion has been detected; the readings are similar to Borg transwarp conduits. Gravitational readings in the sector seem to indicate a star system, yet none is visible. Riker orders the Titan to investigate.
Lt Choudhurry deduces that the Borg are likely going to attack Korvat next, so the Enterprise tries to head them off. Later, Worf finds Choudhurry in the holodeck during his reserved time. She tells him she finds him intriguing and wants to learn anything he's willing to teach her. He begins his Mok'bara training program.
2168: After 63 days/12 years, the Columbia arrives at the M-class planet. They detect cities scattered across the globe, but a scattering field prevents them from detecting lifesigns.
An away team beams down into a dense primeval forest outside the alien city. The MACOs lead them on an intense 6 hour hike until they reach a clearing; a few kilometers away sits the austere alien megalopolis, levitating 100s of meters off the ground with no apparent entry.
A vaguely humanoid being descends from the city and welcomes them to Erigol. It says it's name is Inyx, and his people have observed them for their 12 year journey. He grants them entry to Axion and says his people are the Caeliar. Hernandez asks about repairing their ship, but Inyx says it will not be repaired, and they cannot contact Earth; the Caeliar wish to remain hidden from the rest of the galaxy. The Columbia crew will remain on Erigol as honored guests, but can never leave.
2381: As the Enterprise intercepts the cube about to attack Korvat, Picard hears the Collective in his head again and realizes this is just 1 of 5 targets. The Queen tells him humanity is to be exterminated.
At Khitomer, the USS Ranger uses a molecular phase inverter to slip through the attacking cube's shields at warp, turning the ship into a kamikaze missile and vaporizing the cube. Martok learns of their sacrifice and rallies the Council to support their Federation allies.
At Starbase 234, Admiral Paris sends an apology message to Tom just as the base is destroyed. The base manages to destroy the cube as well.
The Enterprise destroys the cube at Korvat, but not before 2 Federation ships are destroyed, and 10 million people on the planet are killed. They get word that Captain Calhoun's ship stopped the cube at Starbase 343. The crew is relieved that the battle is over, but Picard tells them it has only just begun.
Tuvok and Pazlar trace the Borg entry into Federation space to a supernova remnant that would also mask their presence. Pazlar needs to run more simulations to confirm.
Dr. Ree tells Troi that when she became impregnated by an unidentified energy being many years ago, whereby she had a child named Ian, her exposure to the being's radiation mutated her ova. He says she cannot have children, and that if the fetus is not removed soon, she could die. Troi leaves, and knowing the captain will likely support her, he contacts Vale.
Vale confronts Riker about Troi, and they have a heated argument. He says he'll try to talk to her again. Titan drops out of warp after they're hit by one of the high-powered sensor beams that Tuvok and Pazlar are studying. Their warp drive is disabled, as is their subspace communications array.
2168: The Columbia crew debrief. They've found that the Caeliar can change their shape, float, etc by using programmable matter consisting of nanomachines. They're unsure of the power source. They have unrestricted access to most of the city, but not the underground. They are all both artists and scientists, and don't sleep. Inyx interrupts them to say the Quorum has agreed to grant them an audience.
Hernandez pleas for the Quorum to wipe their memories and send them home, but to no avail. Ordemo says that many aliens have tried to beg for or steal their technology, and they've been forced to relocate whole civilizations to other galaxies in defense, which they find distasteful. They wish for their privacy to complete their "great work", which is to contact a civilization even more advanced than their own.
Inyx's companion for thousands of years, Sedin, disapproves of him allowing the humans on Erigol, saying he just wants them there for his own curiosity.
Major Foyle makes plans with the MACOs to take out the Caeliar scattering field by destroying its power source, so they can beam back to the ship. They still have grenades and are not worried about collateral damage, even if that proves to be the captain, who they decide to keep in the dark for now.
2381: La Forge tells Picard he detected sirillium on the hull of the last cube they destroyed. He traces it to the nearby Azure Nebula, and they set a course. Worf orders Picard to sleep, but he's afraid to let his guard down against the Collective. Picard tells Beverly that with their 1000s of ships, there's no chance the Federation can survive against the Borg's war of attrition. She tries to slap him out of it, saying they need hope for their son, but she can tell he doesn't really believe it.
Admiral Akaar tells President Bacco that Captain Calhoun tried to use the MPI maneuver to destroy a cube like the Ranger, but they adapted. He managed to destroy it with phased torpedoes instead, but Akaar doubts it will work again. He says the Enterprise is headed to the Azure Nebula on the tri-border, and Bacco asks for a meeting with the Klingon and Romulan ambassadors. Bacco introduces 7 of 9 as her new security deputy.
Martok addresses the Council. Despite earlier opposition, the Federation's sacrifice at Khitomer is enough for him to rally them to declare war on the Borg.
Several months ago, B'Elanna took her child Miral and left Tom Paris for a Klingon religious cult that believes Miral is the messiah. Tom's father Owen treated Tom as if it was his fault, and a rift opened up between them again. Tom receives a recording from his father apologizing, right before he's killed at Starbase 234. Already reeling from the loss of his wife, child, and Admiral Janeway, he is devastated.
Dax's crew finds a large section of the Columbia's logs are missing. They determine that the subspace tunnel is different from a wormhole in that it only exists in subspace, and it's powered by dark energy--the biproduct of which is hyperphasic radiation, which they estimate killed the Columbia crew in 20 seconds. They think the tunnel is still there, and set about finding how to enter it, and how to adjust the shields to block the radiation.
While performing maintenance on one of the Aventine's runabouts, another crew member is burned/liquified. Dax locks the ship down and tells Starfleet Command they're not leaving orbit until they find the intruder.
2168: Inyx shows the Columbia crew their Great Work, which allows them to observe and communicate with anyone/anything they discover. They coax out of him that the device is powered remotely, and that they bypass the scattering field with a phase-shifted soliton pulse. Inyx also says they're only days away from using the device, so the MACOs decide they need a plan fast.
The MACOs present their findings to Hernandez, and suggest that the subspace tunnels created by the Great Work could be used to travel back in time as well. The captain says she's not willing to violate the timeline and risk the Caeliar displacing Earth, and tells them to drop it. She says she's going to ask the Caeliar to bring down the rest of the crew.
Major Foyle decides to place the mission under military authority, and the other MACOs back him. They plan to deploy munitions before the big experiment, and Foyle will distract the crew--and kill the captain.
2381: Kadohata says all subspace frequencies are being jammed as they approach the Azure Nebula. Picard says there are no reinforcements coming, and that their sole mission is to stop the Borg's means of reaching Federation space.
Vale and Dr. Ree come up with a compromise wherein Troi will get daily injections of a drug to slow the baby's growth, delaying the need to terminate it.
Torvig creates an inoculation that will render someone assimilated immune to the psychological effects of assimilation. Since he has implants of his own, Torvig can't use the injection. He also suggests isolating Titan's system functions by shutting down the data network between them, so the Borg can't seize any console to access the ship's main computer.
2168: The MACOs bind and gag the Columbia officers and tie them together. Foyle decides not to kill the captain. They make their way into the Caeliar's apparatus, climbing the dome and descending into the opening with ropes. Inside, they encounter Caeliar, but since the MACOs' weapons pose no threat to them, they shoot off the foot of Lt. Thayer (a non-MACO who joined them) and threaten to kill her if the Caeliar don't cooperate with their escape plan. Being pacifists, the Caeliar agree and even correct their crude time-travel formulae, but say the Quorum will stop them before they can escape. Then one of the alien cities explodes and the Caeliar gestalt is filled with pain and horror.
Inyx frees Hernandez and the others, and says the MACOs sabotaging a node of the apparatus, destroying one of their cities. Hernandez begs Inyx to take her to the Quorom, and he obliges.
The Columbia beams up Foyle and Yacavino, along with a Caeliar prisoner. Foyle tells the crew to beam up the rest of the team, and says the captain and the other officers didn't make it. The rift in space-time opens in front of the Columbia.
In the Quorom, Hernandez convinces Ordemo to turn the scattering field back on and let her talk to the MACOs; he obliges. She tells the MACOs that the Caeliar will no longer cooperate, and orders them to end their game and kill Lt. Thayer. None of them can go through with it, so they surrender. Ordemo lets Hernandez contact her ship, and she explains to the crew what happened. Foyle and Yacavino are placed under arrest for mutiny. The transmission is interrupted when the Caeliar receive a tremendously powerful feedback pulse from the galaxy they contacted, which disrupts all of their technology; Inyx says the signal was sent with malicious intent, and their star system is being destroyed by a chain reaction in their solar and geothermal taps. Erigol will be destroyed, but he says they may be able to save the city. Graylock contacts the Columbia and tells them to break orbit and save themselves.
The Caeliar cities rise up but cannot enter the subspace tunnels until the time-manipulation equations are purged. Erigol explodes, and a number of the cities are destroyed by the subspace shock wave. The Columbia enters the tunnel and in a few seconds, the crew vanish into ash. Graylock tells the Caeliar that if they don't enter the tunnel now, they'll all be dead. A few city-ships enter the rift, but are mostly destroyed save for small sections that are shielded.
When they exit the tunnel, Inyx tells them they haven't moved far in space, but are 650 years in the past; the tunnel collapsed behind them. He says if not to save the humans, the Caeliar would've chosen to perish instead of altering the timeline. He says they will obscure their presence for now while they heal and rebuild.
The city-ship Mantilis, where Graylock and Pembleton are, crash-lands on a planet. The Caeliar Lerxst says that the 12 Caeliar and 6 humans are all that survived.
2381: The Aventine still hasn't been able to detect the intruder. The Columbia's transporter logs show a number of transports that account for the missing personnel, plus 1 extra. An explosion in shuttlebay 1 rocks the ship; the runabout blasted open the bay doors and headed for the planet, no life signs aboard. It emits a soliton pulse and enters the subspace tunnel; the Aventine pursues. They end up in the Azure Nebula in the Beta Quadrant.
Dax leads an away team over to the shuttle where they find a humanoid shape collapsed on the deck. It tells them it is Arithon of the Caeliar; it was taken as a prisoner on the Columbia. It says it did not mean to kill Dax's crew; after centuries of hibernating in the machines alone, it needed energy and didn't remember itself until the runabout gave it enough power to rebuild itself. However, it says that with the Gestalt gone, it was all for naught. It disintegrates into dust. The away team is beamed back when the Aventine receives a distress call from the Enterprise, which has engaged the Borg.
The Titan arrives to find Dyson shells surrounding a sun and a planet. They hail the planet and ask to meet, but get no response aside from a hatch opening. An away team consisting of Vale, Troi, Dr. Ree, Tuvok, Keru, Torvig et al take a shuttle in. Inside they find vast seas, plant and animal life, and a floating city. They land the shuttle outside and enter, where they're greeted by Caeliar and a human woman, who Tuvok recognizes as Erika Hernandez. She welcomes them to New Erigol.
Review: 5 stars. It's a real page-turner, with captivating mysteries on each of the 4 ships that all come together at the end, without resolving the main mystery of what exactly is going on in the Azure Nebula.
The story is very dense and there are tons of characters. The first time I read it, I hadn't read many of the preceding books or watched DS9, so I was constantly checking the character index in the back of the book. After getting caught up and re-reading, this book was even better.
The Borg aren't really in the story all that much, but every time they do pop up, it's intense: they destroy starbases and eradicate entire planets, and only the Enterprise has weapons that are effective against them. They feel scary again.
I really enjoyed this book, and can't wait to read book 2!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 24, 2016
Star Trek: Destiny: Gods of Night by David Mack "Destiny" is set more than a year after the events of ST: Nemesis. It builds upon the TNG-relaunch novels, the Titan-series and various other familiar characters - but don't worry, Destiny is quite a good point to get back into Trek without prior knowledge of the mentioned book-series.Given the split nature of the book that's jumping from one stage to the other, I'm going to follow those jumps in my review.
Enterprise-E
The Federation is at war with the Borg, and the Enterprise is the only ship with weapons that stand a real chance at destroying the cubes. Fear of the Borg adapting, though, stays Starfleet's hand in distributing the transphasic torpedos, based on plans from future-Janeway, to the rest of the fleet. The result is watching while other ships try and mostly fail to defend those planets the Enterprise can't reach in time. And Picard is shocked to find that the Borg, this time, have but one single goal: the annihilation of the Federation.Having read none of the TNG-relaunch books, I was a bit surprised to read that Picard apparently was retransformed into Locutus - but other than that, this plotline is rather unremarkable. Of course, there's the usual angsting about the Borg, Picard's relationship with them bordering either on obsession or on defeat, but it's nothing that we haven't seen before in TNG. Getting a glimpse of Worf as First Officer wasn't as dreadful as I would have thought since I can't stand him, or rather what has been done to his character in DS9. Discovering that Beverly and Picard finally tied the knot and are even expecting their first child was on the other hand a nice touch - and kind of a couterpoint to Riker and Troi's dilemma. But I very much enjoyed their delight and comfortable relationship which is quite as I expected it, to be honest, as is Beverly's support of Picard even though she's worried about his state of mind. It's interesting to see how much has changed on the Enterprise, yet how much still stays the same. Granted, the main protagonists are still the same and the focus wasn't so much on the new characters around, but the setting on Enterprise-E still resonated well with me, somehow like coming to visit an old friend one hasn't seen in a long time.TitanWhile the actual battle against the Borg centers around the Enterprise, Titan gets unusual readings about possible transwarp-conduits. Their explorations are overshadowed by the personal tragedy of Troi's again failed pregnancy.This is actually the most thought-provoking plot-thread. Troi and Riker's second attempt at a child fails when Ree diagnoses the child non-viable (but the pregnancy itself's still intact) and recommends (read: urges) Troi to abort the fetus - better even, to let him perform a hysterectomy to prevent any further pregnancies. Troi wants to hear nothing about abortion, miscarriage or hysterectomy, Riker falls into despair, and Ree later on threatens to force Deanna to submit to the operation, or to be called unfit for duty... Well, so far, so good.Mack walks a fine line, alluding to the ongoing debate about prenatal diagnostics and the pro-life vs. pro-choice conflict. But in my opinion, the whole discussion is more of an academic one since the fetus isn't viable, it will die before birth, there won't be a child born (at least at this point in the story - there are species far more advanced than the Federation who could still intervene...) - and that's the spinning point. The whole dilemma would feel more real if there were at least a chance that Deanna could carry full term and deliver a child, albeit perhaps a child with defects. Then we'd really face the choice of pro-life vs. pro-choice.It's more the surrounding events that turn this tragic development into something I wouldn't have expected as such in Trek. Granted, the miscarriage could happen at the most inconvenient time, but practically forcing Deanna to submit to an abortion - if not by an actual order then at least by pressuring her into a decision she isn't ready yet? I get that Ree doesn't actually understand what a pregnancy involves, the investment of hope and love, the bond that's forged between parents, and mothers in particular, and the child that's growing in their womb. And of course, the suggestion of an abortion seems sound in this case where there's no hope of a successful pregnancy. On the other hand, he isn't able to treat Deanna properly, he just doesn't get the whole picture - and thus, should have relinquished her care to another doctor on Titan, one who's perhaps better suited to deal with mammal pregnancies.The other thing I don't quite understand is the haste to perform the abortion. Just the fact that the fetus won't live for much longer doesn't necessarily pose a risk to Deanna. The imminent danger is a miscarriage, accompanied by heavy bleeding... but why should Deanna be at risk of a ruptured uterus? Granted, she could face serious complications had the fetus already died and been left in her womb (i.e. infection) - but that's not the case, at least as far as I understood Ree's explanations. He just reiterated the fact that it wasn't viable - not that it was dead already. This is perhaps the worst diagnosis Ree could give her, especially coupled with the fact that due her first pregnancy and exposure to the radiation Ian exhibited she likely will never be able to bear a healthy child. Deanna needs time to come to terms with not only the loss of this child, but also the idea that her dream of a child won't ever be realized. Actually, I find it appalling that no one is willing to grant her that time of grief and to say good-bye to this child...I won't really start about the total hysterectomy... This is just a ridiculous notion because it's not her womb that causes the problems. Potentially she'd be able to carry a child to term - just not a child created from her own DNA. It's only her ovaries that are damaged and at risk of developing cancer due to the radiation after all. Even nowadays there are so many possibilities with IVF, why should there be less in the 24th century? Again, I don't think Ree quite grasps the ramifications of his suggestions. On the other hand, doctors have always been quick in suggesting hysterectomies, and the idea that such a procedure, even "only" the removal of the womb, leaving the ovaries in place, seriously disturbs the feeling of self-worth and the self-image of a woman has emerged only in recent years - and still it's not acted upon often enough. In this case, as a preventive measure Ree should have suggested an ovarectomy, a hysterectomy seems a bit of an overkill...But it's not just Ree that bothers me - it's Vale as well. Her attitude to go behind Riker's back and collaborate with Ree, sorry but that's taking the duty as First Officer a bit too far. Of course, Riker's distracted, that's the problem with having your spouse on the same ship, but in no way did he seem incapable of carrying out his duties in such a fashion that warrants such a move by Vale. Perhaps she, too, didn't quite get what was happening. To her it just seemed as if Deanna went against the rational solution in dismissing Ree's treatment. But she didn't really pause to think beyond the mere physical... because does she really think that Riker and Troi would be back to normal as soon as the "parasite"'s removed?!? And what about removing Deanna from duty till the termination of the pregnancy?!? Why that? Just because of a risk of miscarriage? I mean, come on, then you would have to remove any pregnant officer from duty, because there's always a risk of some complication... At least the compromise between Deanna and Ree, that she's unwittingly brought about, buys some time... hopefully not for the introduction of some kind of deus-ex-machina solution that circumvents all mentioned conflicts and dilemmas. And I'm not dismissing the Troi's position in the chain of command. On her decision doesn't solely rest her own well-being, but that of those who could be trapped with her when she goes down due to a possible spontaneous abortion. I understand that Ree has to serve both as Troi's personal physician and the CMO of the ship, it's just the *way* he goes about that with absolutely no sympathy, no consideration at all for Deanna's pain, that's making this situation so difficult to tolerate for me. Is his recommendation of an abortion medically sound? You bet it is. And I'd say given a bit of time to herself without any outside pressure, Deanna would have agreed - and quite soon too.I could sympathize with both Riker and Troi very well. Troi's denial and anger at herself, Riker and the baby was palpable - as was Riker's helplessness. He just doesn't know how to deal with the situation, he's just human after all. Still, he supports Troi's decisions although he doesn't really understand them. Given that Troi feels everything he feels, his not understanding her is bound to cause a rift - and I'm looking forward whether the two are able to overcome this tragedy with their relationship intact. (On the other hand, Beverly's being isolated on the Enterprise did cause me to think about Deanna's transfering back to the Enterprise. There are after all quite a few other counselors on Titan, but none worth mentioning on the Enterprise... Granted, having to witness a successful pregnancy wouldn't really improve Deanna's state of mind, I guess.)Other than that, I enjoyed reading about Keru facing his Borg demons and his friendship with Torvig. I'm not sure, though, what to think about Pazlar's being able to project herself anywhere in the ship - but not actually having to go anywhere herself. It's well meant by Ra-Havreii, I'm sure, but she's got to be careful not to isolate herself even further.Aventine / ColumbiaEzri Dax, commanding the Aventine, in the mean time investigates the relics of the starship Columbia found on some remote planet in the Gamma-Quadrant, hoping to find clues as to what happened more than 200 years ago. The ship might just hold the key to solving the mystery of the Borg's random appearances and the origin of the conduits so similar to the Borg transwarp conduits that were found near attack sites. But then, members of her away-team are killed in a gruesome way by an unknown entity that just might have found its way aboard the Aventine.Ezri's plot is a rather straight forward fact finding mission. It's interesting to see her in command and removed from DS9 - but what happened to some members of her crew just didn't touch me as much as it probably should have. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and frankly, I simply sympathized with the perpetrator who's been practically kidnapped and left alone after the whole crew of the Columbia died a sudden and horrible death... not that that justifies murder but still...I welcome, though, the return of Simon Tarses. I understand he appeared in some DS9-relaunch books (I think so at least), but since I haven't read any of the more recent ones, I must have missed that... His dry "You're standing in my blood" had me in stitches, however... medical humour, I guess.After an attack supposedly by Romulans, the Columbia limps to a relatively nearby planet - only to become stranded there when the Caeliar refuse to let the landing party leave or even establish contact with the ship or Earth in order to stay hidden from the rest of the galaxy. An escape attempt leads to tragic and unforseen consequences.I wasn't terribly fond of Hernandez or the introduction of the Columbia in "Enterprise", especially the way Tucker used to skip ships just to escape his relationship problems with T'Pol. But with time this plot thread grew on me. It reminded me of Voyager's plight, being far from home, knowing that during your absence life continued and that you may no longer be part of that life once you return. And in this case, it's not just distance that prevents a joyful reunion, but also a planet's inhabitants that while polite and self-claimed pacifists still hold the ship and its crew prisoner. And the dilemma is that I also understand their motivation. Ordinarily they would simply send a ship that comes too close to their planet into the unknown regions of space, sometimes even whole planets - but this time they took the risk of getting to know the landing party, given the poor state of the Columbia... with dire results, because humans just don't like to be put in a cage, even a gilded one, and not all humans share their pacifist attitude but stop at nothing to escape. And that's perhaps the most interesting part of this plot thread. While Hernandez and most of her senior crew share the goal of getting home, they find that not all ends justify the means, unlike the rest of the landing party. While I can't condone the actions of Foyle and his minions, going behind Hernandez, threatening to kill her, torturing a crewmember in order to get the Caeliar to comply with his wishes, at least both positions were fleshed out properly. I'm very curious to see how this story line will continue - and how it will shape the future we all know, especially the emergence of the Borg.Honorable mentions go to Calhoun and his Excalibur that once again make the impossible possible and defeat a Borg cube without having to sacrifice themselves (like other ships did, and in doing so forced the Klingons to enter into the conflict... think Narendra III). I'd really like to read more about him - but I'm afraid I've outgrown Peter David's writing style, and reading the most recent NF-books felt more like a chore than a joyful occasion. Perhaps in the not so distant future other authors will be able to pick up the reins here... Well, one can hope after all. And change can happen as we've witnessed recently...On another note, Mack even managed to include little tidbits about Voyager's crew in the recitation of the havoc the Borg wreak upon the Federation. Not only did Janeway apparently die in an earlier book (not that I particularly regret that!), but Paris and Torres' marriage suffers serious problems which caused another rift in Tom's relationship with his father. At least, Owen Paris tried to mend the fences in his final message to his son - although Tom now appeared as lost and embittered as at the beginning of Voyager's season 1. And Seven of Nine is asked to help in the conflict by the President of the Federation herself...While this book didn't have me gnawing at my fingernails in suspense it's a very good setup to a trilogy that will, hopefully, deal with the Borg once and for all. When they first appeared in Trek, they were technologically so advanced that one could hardly imagine the Federation winning in an all-out war. Add to that the threat of assimilation, and you get the ultimate enemy - not just aiming to kill you, but to deprive you of your very essence of being. Could it get any scarier? But all this was slowly destroyed during the course of Voyager. We have crewmembers who let themselves be assmiliated without any negative effects, we have Borg that no longer act as a real collective but have definite leaders (starting with First Contact)... They were just explored to death, losing what was making them so unique. Perhaps it's best to let them go out with a bang - and I hope this trilogy will deliver that bang.
Destiny: Gods of Night gets a definite thumbs-up. I'm already looking forward to part 2, hoping it will bring all the plot-threads together - I for one would love to see a reunion of Titan and Enterprise's crews...
~~
review originally written in 2008
Enterprise-E
The Federation is at war with the Borg, and the Enterprise is the only ship with weapons that stand a real chance at destroying the cubes. Fear of the Borg adapting, though, stays Starfleet's hand in distributing the transphasic torpedos, based on plans from future-Janeway, to the rest of the fleet. The result is watching while other ships try and mostly fail to defend those planets the Enterprise can't reach in time. And Picard is shocked to find that the Borg, this time, have but one single goal: the annihilation of the Federation.Having read none of the TNG-relaunch books, I was a bit surprised to read that Picard apparently was retransformed into Locutus - but other than that, this plotline is rather unremarkable. Of course, there's the usual angsting about the Borg, Picard's relationship with them bordering either on obsession or on defeat, but it's nothing that we haven't seen before in TNG. Getting a glimpse of Worf as First Officer wasn't as dreadful as I would have thought since I can't stand him, or rather what has been done to his character in DS9. Discovering that Beverly and Picard finally tied the knot and are even expecting their first child was on the other hand a nice touch - and kind of a couterpoint to Riker and Troi's dilemma. But I very much enjoyed their delight and comfortable relationship which is quite as I expected it, to be honest, as is Beverly's support of Picard even though she's worried about his state of mind. It's interesting to see how much has changed on the Enterprise, yet how much still stays the same. Granted, the main protagonists are still the same and the focus wasn't so much on the new characters around, but the setting on Enterprise-E still resonated well with me, somehow like coming to visit an old friend one hasn't seen in a long time.TitanWhile the actual battle against the Borg centers around the Enterprise, Titan gets unusual readings about possible transwarp-conduits. Their explorations are overshadowed by the personal tragedy of Troi's again failed pregnancy.This is actually the most thought-provoking plot-thread. Troi and Riker's second attempt at a child fails when Ree diagnoses the child non-viable (but the pregnancy itself's still intact) and recommends (read: urges) Troi to abort the fetus - better even, to let him perform a hysterectomy to prevent any further pregnancies. Troi wants to hear nothing about abortion, miscarriage or hysterectomy, Riker falls into despair, and Ree later on threatens to force Deanna to submit to the operation, or to be called unfit for duty... Well, so far, so good.Mack walks a fine line, alluding to the ongoing debate about prenatal diagnostics and the pro-life vs. pro-choice conflict. But in my opinion, the whole discussion is more of an academic one since the fetus isn't viable, it will die before birth, there won't be a child born (at least at this point in the story - there are species far more advanced than the Federation who could still intervene...) - and that's the spinning point. The whole dilemma would feel more real if there were at least a chance that Deanna could carry full term and deliver a child, albeit perhaps a child with defects. Then we'd really face the choice of pro-life vs. pro-choice.It's more the surrounding events that turn this tragic development into something I wouldn't have expected as such in Trek. Granted, the miscarriage could happen at the most inconvenient time, but practically forcing Deanna to submit to an abortion - if not by an actual order then at least by pressuring her into a decision she isn't ready yet? I get that Ree doesn't actually understand what a pregnancy involves, the investment of hope and love, the bond that's forged between parents, and mothers in particular, and the child that's growing in their womb. And of course, the suggestion of an abortion seems sound in this case where there's no hope of a successful pregnancy. On the other hand, he isn't able to treat Deanna properly, he just doesn't get the whole picture - and thus, should have relinquished her care to another doctor on Titan, one who's perhaps better suited to deal with mammal pregnancies.The other thing I don't quite understand is the haste to perform the abortion. Just the fact that the fetus won't live for much longer doesn't necessarily pose a risk to Deanna. The imminent danger is a miscarriage, accompanied by heavy bleeding... but why should Deanna be at risk of a ruptured uterus? Granted, she could face serious complications had the fetus already died and been left in her womb (i.e. infection) - but that's not the case, at least as far as I understood Ree's explanations. He just reiterated the fact that it wasn't viable - not that it was dead already. This is perhaps the worst diagnosis Ree could give her, especially coupled with the fact that due her first pregnancy and exposure to the radiation Ian exhibited she likely will never be able to bear a healthy child. Deanna needs time to come to terms with not only the loss of this child, but also the idea that her dream of a child won't ever be realized. Actually, I find it appalling that no one is willing to grant her that time of grief and to say good-bye to this child...I won't really start about the total hysterectomy... This is just a ridiculous notion because it's not her womb that causes the problems. Potentially she'd be able to carry a child to term - just not a child created from her own DNA. It's only her ovaries that are damaged and at risk of developing cancer due to the radiation after all. Even nowadays there are so many possibilities with IVF, why should there be less in the 24th century? Again, I don't think Ree quite grasps the ramifications of his suggestions. On the other hand, doctors have always been quick in suggesting hysterectomies, and the idea that such a procedure, even "only" the removal of the womb, leaving the ovaries in place, seriously disturbs the feeling of self-worth and the self-image of a woman has emerged only in recent years - and still it's not acted upon often enough. In this case, as a preventive measure Ree should have suggested an ovarectomy, a hysterectomy seems a bit of an overkill...But it's not just Ree that bothers me - it's Vale as well. Her attitude to go behind Riker's back and collaborate with Ree, sorry but that's taking the duty as First Officer a bit too far. Of course, Riker's distracted, that's the problem with having your spouse on the same ship, but in no way did he seem incapable of carrying out his duties in such a fashion that warrants such a move by Vale. Perhaps she, too, didn't quite get what was happening. To her it just seemed as if Deanna went against the rational solution in dismissing Ree's treatment. But she didn't really pause to think beyond the mere physical... because does she really think that Riker and Troi would be back to normal as soon as the "parasite"'s removed?!? And what about removing Deanna from duty till the termination of the pregnancy?!? Why that? Just because of a risk of miscarriage? I mean, come on, then you would have to remove any pregnant officer from duty, because there's always a risk of some complication... At least the compromise between Deanna and Ree, that she's unwittingly brought about, buys some time... hopefully not for the introduction of some kind of deus-ex-machina solution that circumvents all mentioned conflicts and dilemmas. And I'm not dismissing the Troi's position in the chain of command. On her decision doesn't solely rest her own well-being, but that of those who could be trapped with her when she goes down due to a possible spontaneous abortion. I understand that Ree has to serve both as Troi's personal physician and the CMO of the ship, it's just the *way* he goes about that with absolutely no sympathy, no consideration at all for Deanna's pain, that's making this situation so difficult to tolerate for me. Is his recommendation of an abortion medically sound? You bet it is. And I'd say given a bit of time to herself without any outside pressure, Deanna would have agreed - and quite soon too.I could sympathize with both Riker and Troi very well. Troi's denial and anger at herself, Riker and the baby was palpable - as was Riker's helplessness. He just doesn't know how to deal with the situation, he's just human after all. Still, he supports Troi's decisions although he doesn't really understand them. Given that Troi feels everything he feels, his not understanding her is bound to cause a rift - and I'm looking forward whether the two are able to overcome this tragedy with their relationship intact. (On the other hand, Beverly's being isolated on the Enterprise did cause me to think about Deanna's transfering back to the Enterprise. There are after all quite a few other counselors on Titan, but none worth mentioning on the Enterprise... Granted, having to witness a successful pregnancy wouldn't really improve Deanna's state of mind, I guess.)Other than that, I enjoyed reading about Keru facing his Borg demons and his friendship with Torvig. I'm not sure, though, what to think about Pazlar's being able to project herself anywhere in the ship - but not actually having to go anywhere herself. It's well meant by Ra-Havreii, I'm sure, but she's got to be careful not to isolate herself even further.Aventine / ColumbiaEzri Dax, commanding the Aventine, in the mean time investigates the relics of the starship Columbia found on some remote planet in the Gamma-Quadrant, hoping to find clues as to what happened more than 200 years ago. The ship might just hold the key to solving the mystery of the Borg's random appearances and the origin of the conduits so similar to the Borg transwarp conduits that were found near attack sites. But then, members of her away-team are killed in a gruesome way by an unknown entity that just might have found its way aboard the Aventine.Ezri's plot is a rather straight forward fact finding mission. It's interesting to see her in command and removed from DS9 - but what happened to some members of her crew just didn't touch me as much as it probably should have. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and frankly, I simply sympathized with the perpetrator who's been practically kidnapped and left alone after the whole crew of the Columbia died a sudden and horrible death... not that that justifies murder but still...I welcome, though, the return of Simon Tarses. I understand he appeared in some DS9-relaunch books (I think so at least), but since I haven't read any of the more recent ones, I must have missed that... His dry "You're standing in my blood" had me in stitches, however... medical humour, I guess.After an attack supposedly by Romulans, the Columbia limps to a relatively nearby planet - only to become stranded there when the Caeliar refuse to let the landing party leave or even establish contact with the ship or Earth in order to stay hidden from the rest of the galaxy. An escape attempt leads to tragic and unforseen consequences.I wasn't terribly fond of Hernandez or the introduction of the Columbia in "Enterprise", especially the way Tucker used to skip ships just to escape his relationship problems with T'Pol. But with time this plot thread grew on me. It reminded me of Voyager's plight, being far from home, knowing that during your absence life continued and that you may no longer be part of that life once you return. And in this case, it's not just distance that prevents a joyful reunion, but also a planet's inhabitants that while polite and self-claimed pacifists still hold the ship and its crew prisoner. And the dilemma is that I also understand their motivation. Ordinarily they would simply send a ship that comes too close to their planet into the unknown regions of space, sometimes even whole planets - but this time they took the risk of getting to know the landing party, given the poor state of the Columbia... with dire results, because humans just don't like to be put in a cage, even a gilded one, and not all humans share their pacifist attitude but stop at nothing to escape. And that's perhaps the most interesting part of this plot thread. While Hernandez and most of her senior crew share the goal of getting home, they find that not all ends justify the means, unlike the rest of the landing party. While I can't condone the actions of Foyle and his minions, going behind Hernandez, threatening to kill her, torturing a crewmember in order to get the Caeliar to comply with his wishes, at least both positions were fleshed out properly. I'm very curious to see how this story line will continue - and how it will shape the future we all know, especially the emergence of the Borg.Honorable mentions go to Calhoun and his Excalibur that once again make the impossible possible and defeat a Borg cube without having to sacrifice themselves (like other ships did, and in doing so forced the Klingons to enter into the conflict... think Narendra III). I'd really like to read more about him - but I'm afraid I've outgrown Peter David's writing style, and reading the most recent NF-books felt more like a chore than a joyful occasion. Perhaps in the not so distant future other authors will be able to pick up the reins here... Well, one can hope after all. And change can happen as we've witnessed recently...On another note, Mack even managed to include little tidbits about Voyager's crew in the recitation of the havoc the Borg wreak upon the Federation. Not only did Janeway apparently die in an earlier book (not that I particularly regret that!), but Paris and Torres' marriage suffers serious problems which caused another rift in Tom's relationship with his father. At least, Owen Paris tried to mend the fences in his final message to his son - although Tom now appeared as lost and embittered as at the beginning of Voyager's season 1. And Seven of Nine is asked to help in the conflict by the President of the Federation herself...While this book didn't have me gnawing at my fingernails in suspense it's a very good setup to a trilogy that will, hopefully, deal with the Borg once and for all. When they first appeared in Trek, they were technologically so advanced that one could hardly imagine the Federation winning in an all-out war. Add to that the threat of assimilation, and you get the ultimate enemy - not just aiming to kill you, but to deprive you of your very essence of being. Could it get any scarier? But all this was slowly destroyed during the course of Voyager. We have crewmembers who let themselves be assmiliated without any negative effects, we have Borg that no longer act as a real collective but have definite leaders (starting with First Contact)... They were just explored to death, losing what was making them so unique. Perhaps it's best to let them go out with a bang - and I hope this trilogy will deliver that bang.
Destiny: Gods of Night gets a definite thumbs-up. I'm already looking forward to part 2, hoping it will bring all the plot-threads together - I for one would love to see a reunion of Titan and Enterprise's crews...
~~
review originally written in 2008
February 26, 2025
The Borg are coming, and this time its winner takes all!
For an unknown reason the Borg have begun a full scale invasion of the Alpha Quadrant and they aren’t assimilating, just annihilating. In the midst of this we follow four starships: The Enterprise (of course), the Titan, the Aventine, and the Columbia.
The Enterprise has got experimental torpedoes that can actually destroy Borg vessels. The problem: they’re the only ship that has them because command doesn’t want the Borg to adapt to them. Picard is hearing the collective’s call and is acting erratically. Can one ship really hold back an invasion?
The Titan captained by our old pal William Riker is off exploring. Much to his chagrin, Riker is too far away to be recalled to fight the Borg. However, he stumbles upon a hidden solar system that may have ties to the invasion. On the personal side he and his wife Deanna are facing severe pregnancy issues. I’ve noticed other reviewers not liking the inclusion of this plot thread but I did appreciate the inclusion of something real people deal with. Also everyone’s favorite desert comber, Tuvok is part of the crew.
Far in the past the NX vessel Columbia with Captain Erika Hernandez has been critically damaged and has to limp to a nearby planet. The planet is inhabited by an extremely advanced race that won’t let the ship or its crew leave so they won’t reveal their existence to the rest of the galaxy. As tensions grow among the crew we see that this race may have something to do with events in Picard and co’s time. It’s noted that Hernandez and the Columbia were in a couple episodes of Star Trek Enterprise.
Finally we have the Aventine under the command of Ezri Dax from Deep Space Nine. Ezri and her crew are off in the gamma quadrant investigating the modern day remains of the star ship Columbia. How did it get all the way to the gamma quadrant, and could this be linked to the Borg somehow? Meanwhile a strange energy being seems to be lurking in the wreckage.
The plot is going in a lot of different directions but by the end, the thread’s interweaving them more clear. Definitely looking forward to reading the next one and seeing how it plays out!
This is the first big series in the post nemesis universe of novels and seems to be the most acclaimed. I went into this without having read any other post nemesis books but it was easy to follow. There definitely was some events that I had missed but enough context is given by the author to get up to speed. A lot of the crew is new but we get to know them pretty quick.
My main gripe with this book is that they made Ezri a captain. I thought she was the counselor! That’s like giving a starship to Frasier Crane…… hey wait a second!
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/mem...
For an unknown reason the Borg have begun a full scale invasion of the Alpha Quadrant and they aren’t assimilating, just annihilating. In the midst of this we follow four starships: The Enterprise (of course), the Titan, the Aventine, and the Columbia.
The Enterprise has got experimental torpedoes that can actually destroy Borg vessels. The problem: they’re the only ship that has them because command doesn’t want the Borg to adapt to them. Picard is hearing the collective’s call and is acting erratically. Can one ship really hold back an invasion?
The Titan captained by our old pal William Riker is off exploring. Much to his chagrin, Riker is too far away to be recalled to fight the Borg. However, he stumbles upon a hidden solar system that may have ties to the invasion. On the personal side he and his wife Deanna are facing severe pregnancy issues. I’ve noticed other reviewers not liking the inclusion of this plot thread but I did appreciate the inclusion of something real people deal with. Also everyone’s favorite desert comber, Tuvok is part of the crew.
Far in the past the NX vessel Columbia with Captain Erika Hernandez has been critically damaged and has to limp to a nearby planet. The planet is inhabited by an extremely advanced race that won’t let the ship or its crew leave so they won’t reveal their existence to the rest of the galaxy. As tensions grow among the crew we see that this race may have something to do with events in Picard and co’s time. It’s noted that Hernandez and the Columbia were in a couple episodes of Star Trek Enterprise.
Finally we have the Aventine under the command of Ezri Dax from Deep Space Nine. Ezri and her crew are off in the gamma quadrant investigating the modern day remains of the star ship Columbia. How did it get all the way to the gamma quadrant, and could this be linked to the Borg somehow? Meanwhile a strange energy being seems to be lurking in the wreckage.
The plot is going in a lot of different directions but by the end, the thread’s interweaving them more clear. Definitely looking forward to reading the next one and seeing how it plays out!
This is the first big series in the post nemesis universe of novels and seems to be the most acclaimed. I went into this without having read any other post nemesis books but it was easy to follow. There definitely was some events that I had missed but enough context is given by the author to get up to speed. A lot of the crew is new but we get to know them pretty quick.
My main gripe with this book is that they made Ezri a captain. I thought she was the counselor! That’s like giving a starship to Frasier Crane…… hey wait a second!
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/mem...
September 13, 2023
This almost ended up as a DNF and part of me still wishes it had.
The first 40% of the book can easily be ignored: nothing of note happens, just a lot of dialogue about virtually nothing and some subplots that aren't really subplots. But they keep lingering around anyway.
There are multiple POV's and a lot of them seem totally random. It's as if the author is replaying a Star Trek tv show scene in his head and then tries to convert it to paper.
On top of that, a lot of characters get introduced to you, and I really mean A LOT. The author gives you their their name, which makes you think these characters are important, so you'll make an effort to remember their names. Then another is introduced, and another, and another, ad infinitum. And then, most of them are never heard of again or only play a very minor role in the grand scheme of things.. It's totally confusing and makes for a very unpleasant and convoluted read.
Which reminds me: most characters are only defined by their name, and perhaps the color of their hair or skin. That's it. No personality, nothing.
When the story finally gets going, it is mildly interesting but more in a "it has potential" kind of way as opposed to actually delivering on it.
The characters most of us will probably know and like, feel off for the most part.
The events playing out on the Columbia are easily the best. The part about the MACO however, is the most inane thing I've read in a long while.
Lastly, the author seemingly has an obsession with using synonyms for adjectives, which became very annoying to read, very fast.
This just barely gets 2/5 stars.
The first 40% of the book can easily be ignored: nothing of note happens, just a lot of dialogue about virtually nothing and some subplots that aren't really subplots. But they keep lingering around anyway.
There are multiple POV's and a lot of them seem totally random. It's as if the author is replaying a Star Trek tv show scene in his head and then tries to convert it to paper.
On top of that, a lot of characters get introduced to you, and I really mean A LOT. The author gives you their their name, which makes you think these characters are important, so you'll make an effort to remember their names. Then another is introduced, and another, and another, ad infinitum. And then, most of them are never heard of again or only play a very minor role in the grand scheme of things.. It's totally confusing and makes for a very unpleasant and convoluted read.
Which reminds me: most characters are only defined by their name, and perhaps the color of their hair or skin. That's it. No personality, nothing.
When the story finally gets going, it is mildly interesting but more in a "it has potential" kind of way as opposed to actually delivering on it.
The characters most of us will probably know and like, feel off for the most part.
The events playing out on the Columbia are easily the best. The part about the MACO however, is the most inane thing I've read in a long while.
Lastly, the author seemingly has an obsession with using synonyms for adjectives, which became very annoying to read, very fast.
This just barely gets 2/5 stars.
July 17, 2023
Gods of Night is an absolute gem that had me completely hooked from start to finish. David Mack's storytelling is nothing short of extraordinary, and he effortlessly transports readers into the heart of the Star Trek universe. The characters came alive in ways that made me emotionally invested in their journeys, and the intricate plot kept me on the edge of my seat, eagerly turning the pages. Looking forward to reading the next two books.
March 19, 2018
I’ve been waiting for this day for years: finally embarking on the journey into the great unknown (for me) of Star Trek post-A Time To... fiction, really starting with the Destiny Trilogy.
This is a solid opener to the trilogy, and I’m not exactly sure what the overarching story will be, but I’m enjoying the journey so far!
This is a solid opener to the trilogy, and I’m not exactly sure what the overarching story will be, but I’m enjoying the journey so far!
July 6, 2019
Star Trek: Destiny, a trilogy of novels by David Mack is widely regarded by Star Trek fans as the height of Star Trek prose fiction. Unfortunately, my reading of Star Trek: Voyager - Full Circle first spoiled my reading of this book as Full Circle revealed the ending of Destiny. Still, it is a great read and one I've enjoyed nonetheless.
May 15, 2025
WOW.
I understand that this is the first of a trilogy. I can't wait to see how the other two books turn out, because this one is great!
Newly promoted Captain Ezri Dax of the USS Aventine is assigned to follow up on a mystery she never got to solve as Jadzia Dax: the crash of the starship Columbia 200 years ago on a planet light years from her last reported location that they never could have reached given their level of technology. Their exploration reveals a potential subspace tunnel that the Borg might be using for their attacks on the Federation- and a potential menace to their ship and crew.
Captain Picard and the Enterprise find themselves embroiled in battle after battle with Borg cubes. As the only ship in the fleet with transphasic torpedoes, they are the best hope to save worlds closest to their location from Borg attack. They're also on the trail of a transwarp system the Borg may be using as they hammer world after world in their quest to destroy the Federation.
While deep in uncharted space, Captain Riker and the Titan detect triquantum waves, a telltale sign of Borg transwarp conduits. As they move to investigate, Riker also has his wife's health to worry about. Deanna is pregnant, but the pregnancy is in danger and threatens Deanna's health as well.
As the three starships unknowingly investigate the same phenomenon, they move toward resolving the mystery of the Columbia. Over 200 years ago, a Romulan sneak attack left the Columbia crippled with no warp drive, no communications and no way to repair either system. They managed to limp to the nearest inhabited planet where they meet a reclusive race, the Caeliar. It stuns them to learn that the Caeliar have the technology to repair their ship and send them back home, but will not do so to protect their privacy.
Captain Erika Hernandez and her crew want to escape, but realize that the Caeliar have the power to transport the Earth into another galaxy and will do so if any of the Columbia crew were to reach home and tell anyone of their existence. Some of them don't agree with their captain's decision to stay there for the rest of their lives to protect the Earth and launch a plan to get free. They are emboldened by the knowledge that the Caeliar's technology can send them back in time- they think that if they do this, they never would have been there and therefore, cause no danger to the Earth. Unfortunately, their plan coincides with a ruthless attack from a civilization the Caeliar reached out to in peace. Instead of just dropping the dampening field, the two pronged attack causes their system's star to go nova. The Caeliar opened subspace apertures to escape, and Columbia was able to use one of them to escape, leaving behind twelve of their crew (Captain Hernandez, most of the senior officers and their security team).
Two plus centuries later, Dax and the Aventine crew learn that some of the Columbia crew forced the Caeliar into dropping the dampening field around their planet so they could beam back up. Two of them and a Caeliar prisoner beamed up, but only the Caeliar survived their transit through the subspace aperture. Deprived of energy, it accidentally killed three Aventine crew members before stealing a shuttlecraft in an attempt to reach home. Aventine followed it back through the aperture and found the star system devastated by the long ago supernova. Before they could investigate, they receive a distress call- from the Enterprise.
The Titan traces the triquantum waves to New Erigol, home of the surviving Caeliar- and a surprisingly youthful Captain Erika Hernandez. Heck of a cliffhanger- can't wait for the next book! :-)
I understand that this is the first of a trilogy. I can't wait to see how the other two books turn out, because this one is great!
Newly promoted Captain Ezri Dax of the USS Aventine is assigned to follow up on a mystery she never got to solve as Jadzia Dax: the crash of the starship Columbia 200 years ago on a planet light years from her last reported location that they never could have reached given their level of technology. Their exploration reveals a potential subspace tunnel that the Borg might be using for their attacks on the Federation- and a potential menace to their ship and crew.
Captain Picard and the Enterprise find themselves embroiled in battle after battle with Borg cubes. As the only ship in the fleet with transphasic torpedoes, they are the best hope to save worlds closest to their location from Borg attack. They're also on the trail of a transwarp system the Borg may be using as they hammer world after world in their quest to destroy the Federation.
While deep in uncharted space, Captain Riker and the Titan detect triquantum waves, a telltale sign of Borg transwarp conduits. As they move to investigate, Riker also has his wife's health to worry about. Deanna is pregnant, but the pregnancy is in danger and threatens Deanna's health as well.
As the three starships unknowingly investigate the same phenomenon, they move toward resolving the mystery of the Columbia. Over 200 years ago, a Romulan sneak attack left the Columbia crippled with no warp drive, no communications and no way to repair either system. They managed to limp to the nearest inhabited planet where they meet a reclusive race, the Caeliar. It stuns them to learn that the Caeliar have the technology to repair their ship and send them back home, but will not do so to protect their privacy.
Captain Erika Hernandez and her crew want to escape, but realize that the Caeliar have the power to transport the Earth into another galaxy and will do so if any of the Columbia crew were to reach home and tell anyone of their existence. Some of them don't agree with their captain's decision to stay there for the rest of their lives to protect the Earth and launch a plan to get free. They are emboldened by the knowledge that the Caeliar's technology can send them back in time- they think that if they do this, they never would have been there and therefore, cause no danger to the Earth. Unfortunately, their plan coincides with a ruthless attack from a civilization the Caeliar reached out to in peace. Instead of just dropping the dampening field, the two pronged attack causes their system's star to go nova. The Caeliar opened subspace apertures to escape, and Columbia was able to use one of them to escape, leaving behind twelve of their crew (Captain Hernandez, most of the senior officers and their security team).
Two plus centuries later, Dax and the Aventine crew learn that some of the Columbia crew forced the Caeliar into dropping the dampening field around their planet so they could beam back up. Two of them and a Caeliar prisoner beamed up, but only the Caeliar survived their transit through the subspace aperture. Deprived of energy, it accidentally killed three Aventine crew members before stealing a shuttlecraft in an attempt to reach home. Aventine followed it back through the aperture and found the star system devastated by the long ago supernova. Before they could investigate, they receive a distress call- from the Enterprise.
The Titan traces the triquantum waves to New Erigol, home of the surviving Caeliar- and a surprisingly youthful Captain Erika Hernandez. Heck of a cliffhanger- can't wait for the next book! :-)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 14, 2009
It's been a while since I visited the Star Trek novel universe. My biggest beef and the reason why I stopped was because at the end of every novel, it felt like there was a giant reset button that was pressed, and none of the characters would remember any of the events in the novel within the regular continuity of the series. Apparently that's been left behind, and I quite enjoy that point.
The book picks up with Captain Ezri Dax commanding her very own starship (how cute!! Last time I saw her she was frolicking around Deep Space Nine's Promenade with her boyfriend Bashir) Now she has some authority and knows how to take charge, apparently. I assumed that must have happened in some previous novel, because in the last season of Deep Space Nine she was mostly a gutless whiner (except that time she made out with mirror-universe Kira -- yowza!). Then the book jumps to Riker's ship, where him and Troi are having problems conceiving a kid, giving Troi a reason to mope around the ship and Riker an excuse to wimp out on command decisions. We also pay a visit to the Enterprise, where Picard and Crusher are going to have a kid. The big threat though, is the BORG! Yes, they're back with another badly-hatched techno scheme to ruin the Federation -- again. The Borg, the series' best villains, were overused in the days of Voyager, and there should be a ban placed on using them for the next few years. Oh, and there's some other captain on some old ship back in Archer's time doing some stuff, but none of that crap really matters because the Enterprise series was the reason the Star Trek franchise self-destructed.
I stopped reading at the point where I found out that Picard and Crusher were going to have a kid. I always wanted the two of them to get together during the series, but Picard with a kid?! That's way to much of a stretch for me. I closed the book up and decided maybe I should check out New Frontier or some other Star Trek series that doesn't involve the characters from any of the TV shows.
I had high hopes and really wanted to get back into the Star Trek novels, but alas, it's not to be.
The book picks up with Captain Ezri Dax commanding her very own starship (how cute!! Last time I saw her she was frolicking around Deep Space Nine's Promenade with her boyfriend Bashir) Now she has some authority and knows how to take charge, apparently. I assumed that must have happened in some previous novel, because in the last season of Deep Space Nine she was mostly a gutless whiner (except that time she made out with mirror-universe Kira -- yowza!). Then the book jumps to Riker's ship, where him and Troi are having problems conceiving a kid, giving Troi a reason to mope around the ship and Riker an excuse to wimp out on command decisions. We also pay a visit to the Enterprise, where Picard and Crusher are going to have a kid. The big threat though, is the BORG! Yes, they're back with another badly-hatched techno scheme to ruin the Federation -- again. The Borg, the series' best villains, were overused in the days of Voyager, and there should be a ban placed on using them for the next few years. Oh, and there's some other captain on some old ship back in Archer's time doing some stuff, but none of that crap really matters because the Enterprise series was the reason the Star Trek franchise self-destructed.
I stopped reading at the point where I found out that Picard and Crusher were going to have a kid. I always wanted the two of them to get together during the series, but Picard with a kid?! That's way to much of a stretch for me. I closed the book up and decided maybe I should check out New Frontier or some other Star Trek series that doesn't involve the characters from any of the TV shows.
I had high hopes and really wanted to get back into the Star Trek novels, but alas, it's not to be.
July 24, 2018
DNF. The advancing plot kept me reading for a while, but the writing turned me off. You get the sense that the author cycled through synonyms in Microsoft Word to decide on adjectives that ultimately feel out of place in an otherwise basic style. There are other odd choices as well, like the use of the descriptor, “a London-like accent”. Surely it’s just a London accent? Mack also relies on superficial qualities to give characters flavour. For instance, a character named Hernandez says ‘gracias’ and is responded to with ‘de nada’. Great, job’s done. We’ve got a Spanish speaker here. Can’t you tell? Also, as some reviewers have already said, a lot of the interactions between men and women are reduced to flirtatious, come-hither banter. Then there’s the odd injection of fanboy phrases pulled from other franchises. For instance, the author cites a character’s grandfather as saying: “It’s not the years, it’s the mileage.” Pulling quotes from the land of Lucas just feels out of place here. Anyway, I didn’t want this trilogy ruining my guilty pleasure of reading Star Trek books, so I had to quit. Mack and his publishers got my £5 for the Destiny trilogy, but “the line must be drawn here - this far, no further!”. Oh...oops.
*Potential Spoiler*:
Deanna Troi and Beverly Crusher are both pregnant at the start of this book. The TNG elements take place after Star Trek: Nemesis. The author justifies this by stating that Betazoid women remain fertile longer than humans, so that’s Troi’s pregnancy ‘explained’. But Crusher’s? Why can’t an older couple like Picard and Crusher simply have a normal, mature relationship like many people do when they link up with someone later in life? Why is the only valid coupling between men and women one in which procreation has to be possible?
*Potential Spoiler*:
Deanna Troi and Beverly Crusher are both pregnant at the start of this book. The TNG elements take place after Star Trek: Nemesis. The author justifies this by stating that Betazoid women remain fertile longer than humans, so that’s Troi’s pregnancy ‘explained’. But Crusher’s? Why can’t an older couple like Picard and Crusher simply have a normal, mature relationship like many people do when they link up with someone later in life? Why is the only valid coupling between men and women one in which procreation has to be possible?
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