Proud Helios

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine #9

by Melissa Scott

The free flow of traffic to the Gamma Quadrant is vital to the recovery and survival of the planet Bajor and to Federation interests as well. When a mysterious cloaked ship begins raiding wormhole shipping, cleaning out holds and killing entire crews, Commander Benjamin Sisko of Deep Space Nine™ acts at once to stop the menace. Commander Sisko has unexpected the cloaked vessel has been striking Cardassian ships as well, and the Cardassian commander Gul Dukat intends to destroy the ship at all costs. Their unlikely alliance works well -- until two of Sisko's crewmen are captured by the raiders. Gul Dukat will stop at nothing to gain his victory; now Sisko must locate the predator ship, hold off the Cardassians long enough to rescue his people -- and prevent an interstellar war!

Genres: Star Trek, Science Fiction, Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Fiction, Media Tie In, Space, Speculative Fiction

277 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 1, 1995

About the author

Scott studied history at Harvard College and Brandeis University, and earned her PhD. in comparative history. She published her first novel in 1984, and has since written some two dozen science fiction and fantasy works, including three co-authored with her partner, Lisa A. Barnett.

Scott's work is known for the elaborate and well-constructed settings. While many of her protagonists are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered, this is perfectly integrated into the rest of the story and is rarely a major focus of the story. Shadow Man, alone among Scott's works, focuses explicitly on issues of sexuality and gender.

She won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in Science Fiction in 1986, and has won several Lambda Literary Awards.

In addition to writing, Scott also teaches writing, offering classes via her website and publishing a writing guide.

Scott lived with her partner, author Lisa A. Barnett, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire for 27 years, until the latter's death of breast cancer on May 2, 2006.

Reviews

[Louie the Mustache Matos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Proud Helios is a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novel #9 written by Melissa Scott about the TV series characters and space pirates that have a cloaked vessel that has stalked shipping lanes near the Bajoran wormhole, raiding vessels, and killing their crews. Upon receiving a distress signal, Major Kira and Doctor Bashir use a Federation runabout to attempt a rescue, but the vessel is destroyed by Helios before they arrive. Intrepidly the personnel of DS9 try to stop Helios, but the Cardassians are interfering, and the incident may result in war. Helios seems to have its share of Cardassian spies that may or may not have motives counter to the Federation. This is a solid story that fits well within the continuity, but hints at the possibility that there are some espionage groups which the Federation supports. To my mind, this is a clear example of an author who can write action, thrills, and suspense. To that end, I would say that this is my first Melissa Scott book, and I was extremely impressed with her ability to write a Trek novel that included such disparate elements knit into a cohesive and exciting novel.

[Randy Mcdonald · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I mentioned before , starting in the late 1980s and continuing into the mid-1990s, I bought Star Trek tie-in novels consistently. I bought only the tie-in novels of shows actively running. I stopped buying Star Trek: The Next Generation novels at #37 or so , while with Deep Space Nine I never got past #10 . Proud Helios , #9, may in fact have been the last one that I bought. It was not a bad place to stop: high points rarely are.

Melissa Scott 's Star Trek novel, as noted on its Wikipedia page , is a novel about space pirates.

When asked why she wanted to write a Star Trek novel, Scott commented, "Partly, I think, it's the simple fact that when you encounter a world and characters that you enjoy, you want to be a part of it, too. In a TV series, that temptation is particularly strong, because, after all, it is a series. There are people out there who contribute the stories, create the world, and there's always the possibility that you can become one of them. In my case, because I came to Trek from the Blish novelizations, and was acutely conscious of how the written versions compared to the actual episodes, the idea of writing not screenplays but novels was very appealing. Plus, of course, I'm a better novelist than I am a screenwriter!"

Scott remembers how she got the assignment to write Proud Helios. "John Ordover approached me, knowing I was a Trek fan as well as an established SF writer in my own right, and asked if I'd be interested in doing a book in the DS9 universe. I really liked the series, particularly the constraints of keeping the show to the single station (this was early in the show's evolution), so I jumped at the chance. I asked if he had any guidelines, any stories he particularly wanted to see, or any he didn't, and he said, no, not really, he'd leave that up to me. So I went home, mulled it over and came up with the proposal that became Proud Helios. I sent it to John, who called me back almost at once, laughing. He'd promised himself that he wouldn't do any stories with space pirates--- and here I'd sent him one he wanted to use[."]

Re-reading the used copy I bought here in Toronto, Proud Helios still stands out as a good novel. Set in the third season as the pirate ship Helios ventures desperately from Cardassian space towards the Bajoran wormhole, this is a fast-moving and well-written novel, with believable antagonists and many nice little character moments that shows Scott understood the show's characters nicely. There felt like things were at risk, always an achievement in tie-in novels contemporary with the show. I also looked coming across the notes of queerness in the novel, particularly the smuggler couple Tama and Möhrlein.

[Rob Cook · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the better books of the early DS9 releases, the story roughly breaks down into three sections - the attempted rescue of a freighter, the investigation into a mysterious visitor to the station and the rescue of two kidnapped crew members. The book reads like it should be set during season one (Bashir is treated like a novice at everything, Sisko disapproves of Jake's friendship with Nog and a Runabout is used for a rescue), but one quick line referring to the Defiant being unavaliable due to repairs feels shoe horned in (presumably as this was published in 1995 during season 3).
Gul Dukat features prominently on the cover but only features in about three scenes.
A solid but uninspiring novel that ends rather suddenly and in one main aspect without a proper resolution.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would push this to 3.5 stars, as it has earned my good will. It's a serviceable plot, but I give it credit for being an early novel that actually captures the first season dynamics and characters of DS9 in competent fashion...although the one-line attempt at putting it in season 3 is hilarious. I can never understand why it took so long for the authors of the DS9 novels to get a handle on the series...but I won't begrudge the few that made a successful attempt at it, such as this one.

[Jonathan Lee B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Proud Helios (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine #9) is plain white toast.

[Tomislav · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sometimes I wonder how I ever got hooked on this series of ST:DS9 books. I've read some real bombs, but they do occasionally rise to mediocrity like this one. Either way, they universally consist of predefined characters being marched through simplistic adventures. Pirates. Sheesh. Makes for entertainment if you don't think too hard, but it's just not plausible. And like in a TV series, the whole set-up always returns to initial conditions by the end.

[Patrick Hayes · Rating 3 out of 5]

This 1995 adventure isn't bad, it's just predictable and spends a lot of time with procedures and internal monologues that don't add anything to the plot. I was able to clearly hear the actors' voices in the dialogue and their actions and emotions were true. It's just everything else seemed to be going so slowly. Plus, the ending for a group of characters was left hanging, and I wanted more of a payoff.

The Helios is a lone ship making its way through the quadrant doing whatever it wants, which is essentially being a pirate vessel. It has attacked a ship in Federation space, now making it that power's problem. It is able to cloak itself, in many different ways, and it can't be found. This vexes the command crew of DS9. At the same time, someone has come aboard the station that doesn't seem right. Add to this two men with a history and their cargo vessel. Also causing complications are orders from the Federation for Sisko to work with the Cardassians, under Gul Dukat, to seek out the Helios.

A solid premise, but there's a lot of time spent on things that bogged me down. The last third of the book reads better than the first two-thirds, but that's quite a while to get things rolling. I'm not unhappy I read this book, just disappointed it didn't thrill me. I would only recommend this book to hardcore DS9 fans.

[Michel Siskoid Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Melissa Scott's story is not a complex one, but it is rather enjoyable! The characters are all well characterized, which is something of an achievement for licensed properties, and the entire cast is well featured (aside from Jake). I really can't point a finger at who is spotlighted, really, because they're all in there. Scott is quite adept at giving little details where the show would simply have given us button-pushing and technobabble over the intercom. The technical tasks of Dax, O'Brien and others have meaning and showcase the characters' impressive training and intellect. There's button-pushing, but now you know what the button does, and how the character knew to push it. There's even a scene aboard a Cardassian ship, with Cardassian extras we know nothing about, and it's all very interesting. Scott fills out the world of Deep Space Nine, while still keeping to the feel of an episode. And an action-packed out at that. She doesn't skimp on that either.

[Joe Sullivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the story was okay, it was seriously bogged down by overly descriptive passages for things that didn't need it. You could feel the author grasping for minute details about everything just to pad the book.
The characters are starting to act more like themselves compared to earlier books, but they're still not quite right. The author took a single attribute known to a character and overplayed it. Kira for example gets angry over literally everything, she has no other reactions throughout most of the book.

[Christian Hamilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun book! I’m always a sucker for (space) pirates, and this one was a fun one.

There were a couple plots going on at the same time, which, as all novels tend to show, ended up coming together spectacularly.

The action was tight, and overall, the characters seemed to fit their own personal molds well. My one complaint is that the book ended fairly quickly without any sort of closure on the part of the Helios. I would have loved at least a chapter to show what was going on over there after O’Brien was transported back.

It was a fun read. There’s not much to complain about.

[Craig · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh, I like description but this was a bit much. Glad if I ever need to launch a runabout I know all the pre-flight procedures... Don't expect much of a plot for this one as the story slogs along describing every panel and room as each character moves around the station. It was kind of boring, Kira was just angry at everyone for some reason and for a book about pursuing pirates... there wasn't much of that.

[Samantha L'Esperance · Rating 4 out of 5]

A decent characterization finally!

I enjoyed the ride - I liked the details and little plot deviations. However it did take forever to read. It felt very fast and slow paced at the same time. Would make a fantastic episode - as a book I began to wondered why I cared.

Three stars for keeping me relatively entertained and one extra for making the characters likeable for the first time in the DS9 novels.

[Alexander Milwaukee-Thien IV · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ay yo, so this one was pretty solid. I thought the Helios was interesting too, made me want the book to be longer to get more exposure from its characters. Though the author has a-very specific-writing trope that stuck out to me that I just imitated and I don't know why but it was pretty distracting.

[Kristina Moses · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought it was pretty good, though I wished there had been more scenes on ds9 rather than space battles, but it makes sense given the book synopsis. This is actually the first in the series I read, and I thought the author did a good job with the characterization. It seemed like it could have been a ds9 episode.

[Tracey · Rating 2 out of 5]

A guilty pleasure (ish) – by which I mean guilty(ish) and pleasure(ish).

I was going to use a reference to Princess Bride in my title – “Captured by pirates is good” … except right now that would be the most idiotic thing I could say. Especially since the actual quote is “Murdered”.

Proud Helios. It was there, I was there, I was uncommitted and noncommittal for my next book. I thought, a little Star Trek by a writer I know to be solid can’t be bad, right? After all, two of my favorite writers – top twenty listers both – were introduced to me through Star Trek novels: Diane Duane and Barbara Hambly, without whom my world would be just a little sadder. Nowadays, though, I intentionally avoid Star Trek (and other tv-based) novels, because they’re usually everything they’re cracked up to be: schlock. Except when there’s a familiar name on the cover… A well-done Star Trek novel is a strangely satisfying thing, a guilty pleasure that makes ice cream look nutritious. I’ve read books by Melissa Scott before; she ran (runs?) an online writers’ workshop I deeply wished I could afford, once upon a time; she was approached to write it. She would create an awesome ST novel, right?

Well…

It’s not bad, I need to hasten to say right about there. The writing is perfectly fine. I wasn’t expecting Shakespeare, and didn’t get it; I also wasn’t expecting slush, and didn’t get that either. I was expecting the sort of writing I found in the books I’ve read of hers (like The Armor of Light and The Roads of Heaven). It’s been almost as long since I read a Melissa Scott as it’s been since I saw DS9, though, so … who knows? It has its awkwardnesses; it’s not as clean as it might be (for example, too many mentions in one chapter of Kira’s “mobile” or “animated” face), but it’s better than most.

Mostly.

The sticking point with ST novels, and what won me over with a rabid loyalty to Miladies Duane and Hambly, is characterization. In the case of TOS, I knew those characters better than I knew a lot of 3-D humans, and cared about them at least as much. So I suffered through a lot of bad writing when I still insisted on reading every ST novel. This is the deal-breaker with most based-on-someone-else’s-world books, and why they’re so often not worth thinking about. It doesn’t matter if the plot is good, bad, or ugly, if Captain Kirk – or, more importantly to me, Dr. McCoy (who can easily be made into a caricature) is given life, the author wins. (D & H both did Bones proud.)

It’s been a very long time since I saw DS9 - probably since the show was still on the air, and even then I don’t think I kept watching to the end. (They brought Worf in. I hated Worf.) (A lot.) (They kept *almost* killing him – broke his back once, iirc - and never completed the job. It was demoralizing.) But I knew the characters pretty well; I liked it well enough, though I was never passionate about it. Funny thing is, though this book was published in 1995 while the series was still in full swing (93 – 99), it feels a little like MS was writing it from my current vantage point. Each character is represented by a characteristic or three – Sisko is a deep voice and a longing to spend more time with Jake. Dax is serene and, often, amused. Odo is scowling and not quite trusted or trusting. O’Brien is harried and worried about his family. Bashir is young and … no, that’s about it. Kira is hot-headed and hates Cardassians.

It’s kind of a shame. The series had a lot of meat on its bones; there was a lot to work with there: the interplay of Bajorans and Starfleet and Ferengi and all, the unusual status of the Federation there with the wormhole opening up the universe a little more , and the lurking presence of the Cardassians - it’s a neat set-up. The station should be a character itself, a cranky hey-you-kids-get-off-my-deck sort of character, the underlying Cardassian design fighting with the bright, light, streamlined Federation influences trying to reform it. (I may just have to queue it up on Netflix.)

There isn’t much of any of that here. And it’s a little sad that even the bad guys were rather flat – bad guys who are, after all, pirates, a word which even in these days of Somali and Mexican terrorists still carries with it the waft of roguery and adventure rather than horror and murder. The story … well, in Star Trek there were, at its worst, two kinds of new faces. One was a red shirt – an unknown character who would go down with a security detail and, shortly, die. The other was the alien-of-the-week, who would drive the plot. In this novel it was fairly clear from the beginning that the one major new face was going to be more than expected, and was going to surprise the characters, if not the reader. The big reveal of her actual identity was very much a “yes, and?” moment.

There is a spoiler on the back cover that someone was going to be captured by the pirates, and, really, this took a lot of wind out of the sails of what might have been a suspenseful chase scene. Or series of scenes. Okay, it was one long disjointed and somewhat tedious series of scenes. Would that there had been either wind or sails…

[Frank Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this story but I think I missed something key because the resolution of events was utterly unsatisfying to me.

I thought the characters were sometimes spot on but occasionally a little off, and that there was a bit too much animosity between the station crew at times.

[Ken Giles · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the beginning i was not that keen on this book but i forced my way through and by the end i was enjoying it.
All in all it was ok.

[Alexander Kozdra · Rating 3 out of 5]

generous rating

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

2023: I remembered enjoying this but obviously I didn't the first time around, why would I the second? I didn't read my original review when I decided to reread this and I kinda wish I had. This wasn't worth the reread. in 2015 I rated this 3 stars but I was being generous, I'm updating this to two stars to reflect my current feelings. And I was originally rating books more generously back then. I had shelved this under "spooky" but I think I may have found the Helios scenes a bit more menacing the first time around. And I also really didn't love the sexualization of Dax, yes her actress was attractive but it gets creepy overtime. As always I enjoy the will-they won't-they flirtation of Bashir and Garrak, it is always a highlight. This wasn't worth the reread, but I did learn something from it. Future Daniel needs to read hars reviews before har decides to reread.

2015: I feel like this was very quick. I also think the plot lines could have been more buried to be honest. Most of the characters were very flat, with only a few of DS9's crew being in character or believable. The chase scenes could have been more suspenseful. All in all I enjoyed Proud Helios for what it truly is: A quick read that was as nutritious as a bag of chips.

" 'Can I help with anything?' Bashir asked, and took his place in the copilot's chair without waiting for an invitation. Yes, but keep quiet, Kira though, but curbed her own tongue." Don't kick the puppy dear, Bashir is young and is just trying to help. Kira dear the occupation is over, relax. Remove some of that steel for a soul.

"Odo stood for a moment, staring after her in baffled anger. He considered pounding on the intercom, demanding that she let him in, listen to him-but she had listened, very politely, and was as stubborn as before. And that was a very human trait, for all that Trehanna were not, strictly speaking, humans. There was nothing he could do to stop her, if she was determined to make her own errors, short of locking her in the security office until she changed her mind. And, though it might make a pleasant fantasy, it would never do." Oh Odo dear, obviously you're a virgo.

"And that was one of the greatest temptations of being Trill to forget because of your own long life span that there were things that did demand immediate attention, instant action and reaction. She smiled to herself, acknowledging the new host's contribution, her youth and fire that made it so much easier to remember those things, and turned her attention to the new scanning routine." Another great glimpse into the mind of Dax and a bonded Trill in general. Watching the show you tend to forget that it's actually Dax driving, not Jadzia. I totally understand the temptation they deal with, I'm naturally a very patient person.

"Sometimes it was easier to talk to the computer as though it were another Trill her own thoughts flowed more freely, and it was easier to define what she needed for the computers." Jadzia dear you need to go home and visit the family. At least Sisko has other humans around, same with Kira and Quark. Go buy Odo a cup of coffee and have a chat, you're both the odd men out. Strength in numbers and all that.

"Bashir turned to look, schooling himself to a not too eager smile and found himself looking directly at the ridged face of the only Cardassian left on DS9. Garak Smiled back at him, the ridges curving alarmingly, and Bashir looked past the Cardassian's shoulders, hoping against hope that Kira or Dax or anyone else waiting for him. The other tables in the corner were crowded with lizardlike Genurra, and Garak liefted a long-lingered hand to beckon him over. 'Yes.' Quark said, 'Garak thinks quite well of you.'

The Cardassian beamed up at him, and gestured to the empty chair. 'My dear Julian. Do join me. I've had so little chance lately to enjoy your company.'

Garak spread his hands. They were incongruously beautiful, and the Cardassian used them to unexpected advantage. 'Why, only to pursue our acquaintance. What else could I want? More would be most inappropriate.'

'And someday,' the Cardassian continued, with what sounded to Bashir like suddenly genuine concern, 'you must come to my shop and let me press you properly. It's a great shame that such a nicely built young man should be reduced to Starfleet uniform.' " Bashir you could catch up on Cardassian courting procedure I think. Buying you a drink. Wishing to 'pursue your acquaintance' because anything else would be 'most inappropriate'. Then giving you a compliment on your looks and hinting at Starfleet's lack of ability to clothe you. Sounds like someone is trying to move in and court you dear.

[Kosar7480 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Space pirates using a cloaked ship are attacking shipping around DS9. This one was ok. The pirates themselves aren't that interesting. The focus shifts after the initial pirate attack to a mysterious visitor to DS9 - not giving much away to say that person ends up being connected to the main plot. Having Kira and O'Brien taken hostage did up the stakes, but that didn't happen until the back end of the story. I feel like this one could have been executed better - there were some decent plot points and character moments, but it ended up just average.

[David Sarkies · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another of the many Deep Space 9 novels
14 April 2012

This is another Deep Space 9 books that I think I have read. I am not sure why I am going through all of these books when I am not all that sure whether I have read them. The year was around 1995, which means that this would have been the year that I was finishing off year 12 and getting ready to start university. I knew that I have read a few of the Deep Space Nine books, but I personally can't remember exactly which ones that that I have actually read. I have simply looked at a list of the books and noted down all the ones that I remember.

I have probably already been over this ground before, and unfortunately when we get a series such as this all of the books seem to blur into one. The main difference is that each of the books are only related by the setting. It is a lot like the Doctor Who and Forgotten Realms books that I read, though a number of the Doctor Who books were connected by a similar plot, which is the same with the Forgotten Realms books. The Star Trek books, at least as far as I know, did not really go down the road of writing trilogies. Most of the books are all stand alone stories, which works better when you are developing a series, and I found that the New Doctor Who adventures could be difficult to follow when they decided to release them as interconnected stories. Fortunately in the later books they ended up dropping the idea. What works here though is that you do not need to read them in order.

This book is about a pirate ship that is attacking ships coming through the Wurmloch (Wormhole in German, I love that word). At first they think that it is the Cardassians, but when the Cardassians send a ship to attempt to assist Deep Space 9, it becomes obvious that pirates are not Cardassian. However, the ship has cloaking technology, which also suggests that it is not Cardassian, as I do not believe they have cloaking technology. Hey, not even the Federation uses cloaking technology, but maybe that has something to do with them being somewhat more honourable. However, the Klingons are somewhat honourable (in their own way) and they use cloaking technology.

I think I will leave it there, because there is probably not that much more that I can read this book, and anyway I am going to take my brother see Battleship.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unlike some other DS9 books that come from this same time, this one doesn't suffer as badly from poor characterization. Scott seems to have a pretty decent grasp of who the characters are up to this point in the show (the book was published in 1995, and the jarring and one-time-only namedrop of the *Defiant* indicates it could have been published in early 1995 since "The Search," in which we get the *Defiant* aired in late September 1994, so by then the characters were somewhat well-formed, although goodness knows they evolved), so I can't fault the book for its out-of-character characters. (After reading the author's bio here on Goodreads.com, the scene with Garak makes a bit more...sense, I suppose.)

No, my problem with the book is that the pacing seemed off and the "rising action" of Freytag's pyramid fame isn't all that rising. The denouement and climax are rather flat. Please understand that I'm not a huge fan of epic space battles and plots with twists and turns just for the sake of pulping out several more pages, so it's not that the book doesn't live up to my expectations in this way. The premise of the book is interesting, but I think more could have been done with it. Perhaps if the story had been written a bit later in the show's run, maybe we could have built up the tension a bit better, built in a bit more conflict.

I don't regret rereading the book; in fact, I enjoyed rereading a DS9 book that for once didn't make my eyes glaze over with its poor characterizations. The dramatic thrust I just found lacking, that's all.

[Tobias · Rating 3 out of 5]

Melissa Scott – Der Pirat
Die Science Fiction Geschichte " Der Pirat" von Melissa Scott handelt von einem Piraten, der in der Nähe der Raumstation DS9 Frachtschiffe angreift und vernichtet. Bisher waren nur cardassianische Frachtschiffe betroffen. Doch dann wird ein Frachtschiff der Xave angegriffen. Major Kira und Dr. Bashir machen sich in einem Flitzer auf dem Weg zu einem Rendezvous mit dem Frachtschiff. Aber leider kommen sie zu spät. Als sie bei den Koordinaten ankommen ist das Schiff vollständig zerstört. Da das Piratenschiff über eine Tarnvorrichtung verfügt, ist es nicht aufzuspüren. Die Aufnahmen des Xaves deuten aber auf Beschädigungen am Piratenschiff hin. Sisko vermutet nun, dass auch die Raumstation ein lohnendes Ziel für den Piraten sein kann. Die Cardassianer wollen den Piraten Eleminieren und Gul Dukat versucht alles um dieses Ziel zu erfüllen. Er nimmt auch keine Rücksicht, als Major Kira und Chief O'Brien von dem Piraten entführt werden.
Die Geschichte ist mäßig spannend und fesselnd. Schade, ihr anderes Buch war besser. Sisko, Bahir, Kira und der Rest der Crew sind sich immer noch etwas fremd und versuchen erst feste Bindungen aufzubauen. Das Verhalten entspricht ist auch typisch für die Charaktere und weisen keine Abweichungen auf.

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. It was okay, if a little predictable in parts, and it's obvious it was written during the first season or early second season -- the characters don't behave like the roles they grew into, and there are a few glaring technical issues -- Bajor has 26 hour days, for instance, and I doubt the Klingon would be using carbon fibre in the 24th century. Even keeping all of that in mind, I was willing to give this 3 stars, but then the climax and resolution were not really keeping with the tone of the series.

[Dianah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ah! Space Pirates! In this mostly entertaining tale, a pirate ship is attacking ships in Cardassia space very close to the Bajoran border. They, of course, cross the border. On the plus side of the book, space pirates are cool. The characterizations of the primary characters are good including a fun scene with Garak and Bashir at Quark's. On the downside, I got a wee bit tired of the story by the time the crew had direct contact with the pirates.

[Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Deep Space 9 finds itself between the Cardassians and a ruthless pirate ship - possibly a handy excuse for Gul Dukat to shatter the Federation presence in Bajoran space. The issue in PROUD HELIOS is hostages. How many hostages, held by whom, will it take to make Commander Sisko give way? We meet some interesting crew on Helios, and find Sisko giving an interesting direction to some of Odo's anti-crime campaigns.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a pirate ship attacking ships near Bajor and DS9 have to stop it. Or at least avoid war with Cardassia over it. A straight forward story, with all the characters acting like you would expect. It would make a decent tv episode.

[David Shane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hey, I read a fiction book. Be proud!

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Space pirates! One of my favourites from the series so far.

[John Walkenford · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not one of my favorites. It might make a good tv episode but it was missing a depth I prefer in the books.