“Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision.”
Stardate: 3795.4 (July 2267)
An Original Series tie-in and a Vanguard Series crossover novel, David Mack’s Harm’s Way is a top-tier Star Trek adventure. This is a tense, tactical, high-octane story and it comes highly recommended from me. The premise: a Federation scientist goes missing on a stormy planet inside the Klingon Neutral Zone. His ties to the classified Vanguard Project leads to dueling Federation and Klingon landing parties as they confront the horrors that lie deep inside the planet.
Harm’s Way takes place roughly one month after Spock returned to Vulcan for his pon farr (the episode TOS “Amok Time”) and about a week after the Enterprise destroyed the planet killer leading to the death of Commander Decker (as portrayed in the TOS episode “The Doomsday Machine”). Throughout the novel, Captain Kirk is tormented by Commander Decker’s death while the memory of the extremely dangerous planet killer casts a shadow over this whole story. Additionally, it has been one month since the Enterprise first made an unexpected detour to Starbase 47 (as depicted in the Star Trek Vanguard novel Harbinger which was also written by David Mack).
The Enterprise is paused in interstellar space with a refueling tanker (the Jamnagar) which is replenishing the ship’s antideuterium and delivering fresh dilithium crystals for the warp reactor, when suddenly Admiral Fitzpatrick calls upon Kirk to lead a search and rescue mission of a missing scientist, Doctor Johron Verdo, a Zee-Magnees prize-winning xenobiologist from Ardana. Dr. Verdo was conducting important classified research on the ancient race known as “Shedai” and their volatile meta-genome. The Shadai is an ancient precursor species and their mysterious meta-genome is a genetically encoded information string which they have seeded into the primordial soup of dozens of worlds in the vast region known as Taurus Reach. This is highly secretive, dangerous research. But Dr. Verdo is also well-connected within Starfleet, his brother-in-law is the planet Ardana’s influential representative on the Federation council. He has gone missing on Kolasi III, a primitive jungle, stormy Class-M planet with a small pre-warp humanoid civilization with an endless storm encircling planet. It has one moon (another moon was destroyed millions of years ago which now constitutes a cold, icy ring around the planet). Kolasi III is located inside the newly established Federation-Klingon Neutral Zone in between Klingon territory and the mysterious Tholian Assembly at the edge of “Taurus Reach.” There are both Prime Directive and Klingon/Organian treaty violation issues at play here so this will need to be as covert a mission as possible. Dr. Verdo was joined by two colleagues on the planet. After a faint distress signal is received, Starfleet wonders what has happened: Is Dr. Verdo still on the planet? Is he trying to defect to the Klingons? Do the Klingons know he’s there? What will he do with the Shedai meta-genome? Is he dangerous?
When the Enterprise arrives at Kolasi III, they quickly encounter a mysterious vessel which turns out to be the Sagittarius helmed by Captain Nassir (the Sagittarius is a speedy scout ship from Starbase 47 where Project Vanguard is being conducted). Both ships are skeptical of each other and this leads to a political leadership feud within the top ranks of Starfleet (Admiral Nogura vs Vice Admiral Fitzpatrick) until Admiral Nogura angrily takes over the mission and instructs the two ships to work together on this highly important rescue mission. Thus, both Kirk and Nassir outfit a joint landing party using the Kepler shuttlecraft because the heavy magnetism around Kolasi III makes use of the transporter too dangerous. However, shortly after the Kepler departs, the Klingons suddenly arrive on the scene and things get risky very quickly. Both the Sagittarius and the Enterprise conceal themselves (the Enterprise hides behind the nearby moon).
The Klingon ship (the Suvwl, a D4 Klingon battlecruiser) is helmed by Captain Kang, his wife Lieutenant Mara, and his first officer Commander D’Gol instructions to head to planet. Note that Kang and Mara make an appearance in the TOS episode “Day of the Dove.” For the Klingons, Kolasi III is located in the “Gonmog” sector (superstitious area of space). There is lots of impeccably well-researched Klingon language and customs in this novel as we are given a delightful look behind the curtain of Klingon politics, tactics, and lore. And as it turns out, Captain Kang has a history with Kirk. Kang last encountered the Enterprise about two years ago around the time both Kang and Kirk became captains and the Enterprise illegally entered Klingon space headed for the Klingon homeworld Kronos, but it turned out that Kirk’s ship had been hijacked by Klingon renegades. Since Kirk got away that time, Kang views Kirk as a particularly odious nemesis. The Klingons also send a landing party down to Kolasi III, with both racing to find the missing Dr. Verdo.
Aside from Enterprise regulars like Spock, Chekov, and Sulu, the Federation landing party consists of Dr. Lisa Babitz (a humorous germophobe, a Saurian “reptiloid” scout named Razka, Master Chief Ilucci (pronounced “eye-loochi”), and Ensign Singh, a human female. While the Klingon landing party consists of: Commander D’Gol, Hartur, Keekur, Naq’chI, CheboQ, Dolaq, and Mara (Kang’s wife).
While evading the Klingons the Enterprise landing party finds the crashed S.S. Heyerdahl, along with the two bodies of Dr. Verdo’s associates. Shortly thereafter, while trapsing through the jungle, Spock and crew are captured and taken prisoner by the native green-skinned, red-eyed Kolasian species called the “Chwii.” They are brought into a temple before a terrifying tentacled smoke monster (a “chimeric horror” like something straight out of Lovecraft). He is a giant creature with dark serpent-like vapors that are released. Calling himself the “Godhead,” he has the power to release lightning from his eyes. Spock wonders if he may be a Shedai-human hybrid. Could it be the embodiment of Dr. Verdo? After all, he did come to this planet to find a sample of the Shedai meta-genome and he might, in theory, have been able create a new hybrid life form, trying to turn himself into a god.
“This was one of my greatest fears when I first read the briefing for this mission. I’ve seen Verdo’s type before: a genius iconoclast, egomaniacal, obsessive, ready to play God at the drop of a hat. So certain that he alone has the answer and everyone else is flailing in the dark. Letting a person like him anywhere near Operation Vanguard was bound to present a temptation too great for him to resist” (175).
The monster begins assessing the crewmen to see which of them might be suitable as a “vessel” but before further action can be taken, the monster is quickly alerted to something nearby, so the prisoners are taken to a nasty water-logged dungeon where they uncover the dead body of Dr. Verdo –hence, the mysterious smoke monster could not be Dr. Verdo! So who could it be?
Spock uses his telepathic abilities (as he once did with the Horta) to convince the Chwii prison guard to release them, while outside in the jungle, the Klingon landing party engage in a brutal battle with hundreds of Chwii as they are chased over a waterfall by the smoke monster. Eventually both landing parties meet at the crashed Klingon shuttlecraft (the QInqul). They agree to a truce and parley deal in pursuit of the common enemy (the Godhead), and mutually agree to destroy whatever research is discovered, since the rescue mission is no longer feasible. Meanwhile, above the planet in outer space, a tense stand-off ensues. The Klingons release a disruptive signal buoy to block communications in the surrounding area leading the Enterprise and Sagittarius use an old “Semaphore” code (Uhura’s idea) wherein the computer translates spoken or written words and the ships then blink their lights at each other (perhaps akin to Morse Code). The Federation crews then set up a plot to evade the Klingons by releasing six reconfigured photon torpedoes as “passive gravitic mines” to cause the Klingons trouble. To complete this, the Sagittarius must go completely dead and cold, hiding in the planet’s dangerous icy rings to evade detection by the Klingons.
On the planet surface, Chekov locates a data card that shows Dr. Verdo actually had a rival scientist a female named Doctor Chunvig, who boasted about using an RNA splicer to augment herself with the Shedai meta-genome. Thus, the Godhead is the abominable result of Dr. Chunvig’s experiments. Indeed, the Godhead is Dr. Chunvig. From here, a massive gruesome battle takes place, leading to many deaths (most of them chwii) but a few Klingons are also killed (the pierce of the multi-headed Godhead and its tentacles causes people to solidify into a parasitic crystal). The battle is bloody and intense, and it only concludes when the crew rams a shuttlecraft into the Godhead. “The Godhead’s form resembled nothing else Spock had ever seen. It defied simple taxonomical classification. It was not crustacean or reptilian, neither cephalopod nor insect, but it manifested features of all those phyla and others for which Spock had no names. It had a spike misshapen thorax and a bulbous head littered asymmetrically with eyes of many different shape, sizes, and kinds; it hovered as if in defiance of gravity, and beneath its enormous scaled-and-plated abdomen it trailed seven black tentacles, each over twenty meters long and lined with thousands of suction cups and countless undulating cilia” (304). The only Klingon survivor on Kolasi III winds up being Mara (she is rescued by the Federation crewmen) and Spock et al regroup with the Enterprise after having destroyed all of Dr. Verdo’s research on the planet… But does Mara still know something? Will she bring the knowledge of the Shedai meta-genome back to the Klingon Empire?
At any rate, in a final face-off with the Klingon battlecruiser the Suvwl, which has scooped up all of the gravitic mine floating around Kolasi III, the Enterprise unveils their final secret. One of the mines is actually an “isolitic pulse device” disguised as a gravitic mine. Once unleashed, it shuts down the Klingon vessel, leaving it suspended in space for a period while the Enterprise speeds away. Kang wonders if he can use the description of the stealth vessel (the Sagittarius) to convince the Klingon high council to make a treaty with the Romulans for their cloaking technology. The book ends as Starfleet debates and discusses this wild mission, and in a uniquely revealing moment, Spock privately confesses to Kirk his moral concerns about the nature of knowledge –perhaps some forms of knowledge is too harmful, even evil. It is a rare moment of anti-enlightenment thinking from Spock as he ponders if the horrifying planet killer from “The Doomsday Machine” might have actually been the product of the Shedai race.
Harm’s Way is an incredible Star Trek adventure. This is a smart, dense, thoroughly researched novel offering a wild fantastical adventure that gives readers a unique glimpse into the tenuous political situation facing both the Federation as well as the Klingons, who remain strident enemies, but in this case they must join together to fight a common enemy –the Godhead. But in the end, the real problems for the Federation are shown to be the Tholians and the Shedai, the latter of whom wants to disrupt the Federation’s mission in Taurus Reach, rather than the Klingons. After all, if the Godhead on Kolasi III is merely a hybrid creature, how fearsome must a real Shedai be?
Assorted Notes:
- Harm’s Way reminds us that the Prime Directive includes protections for the ecosystem (i.e. not to destroy the environment of planets). The Prime Directive is about more than just disrupting a pre-warp civilization. It’s also about minimizing the effect of Starfleet on fledgling terrains. Spock once likened it to the time-travel concept of he “butterfly effect.”
- The familiar face of Dr. M’Benga appears on the Sagittarius.
- Dr. Verdo’s ship is the S.S. Heyerdahl, a decades-old but well-maintained Ardanan research vessel.
- Yeoman Martha Landon is romantically interested in Chekov (this is briefly mentioned at the beginning of the novel).
- Spock receives a recording from his mother Amanda Grayson and we are reminded that Sybock is still alive at this point.
- There are dragon creatures native to the planet Kolasi III.
- Sulu and Chekov play three-dimensional chess at the outset.
- Dr. Verdo’s two companions are Rashid from Mars and Lofarras th’Sailash of Andoria.
- Starbase 47 is a watchtower class station known as “Vanguard” with 2000+ personnel. There are three major ships: a heavy cruiser the Endeavor, the frigate Buenos Aires, and a scout ship the Sagitarrius.
- Treaty of Organia has been recently signed as this novel begins.
- Kang’s Klingon starship is called the I.K.S. Suvwl’ a D’ama class battle cruiser.
- Klingon food: gagh, pipius, rokeg blood pie, Klingon “d’k tahg” dagger, “qams” unit of Klingon measurement, “Fek’lhr”, “Gre’thor”, “novpu” and “Ha’DIbaHpu’, “melIqam”, St-Vo-Kor, “juuk” fat, “bat’leth”, “nIyma”, “pIqaD” the Klingon writing system, “yIntaugh”
- Lt. Cmdr ch’Nayla is the chief diplomatic officer at Vanguard.
- A long three-gimlet lunch at L’enclume in San Francisco is mentioned.
- Many planets and species are mentioned like Orions, Andorians, Argelius, Nimbus III, Gamma Tauri IV, Denobulans and so on.
- This book mentions a human-made “augment virus” which altered Klingons.
- The Sagittarius is an Archer-class starship.
- At one point Scotty alludes to the Bard and “The Scottish Play” (i.e. Macbeth).
- The Denebian slime devil is mentioned again! (as mentioned in the episode “The Trouble with Tribbles”).
- Lt. Elliot makes an appearance after his role on the Constellation ( as in the episode “The Doomsday Machine”).
Mack, David. Harm’s Way. Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, New York, NY (2025).