“It was an outrageous proposition. A mission doomed to fail. Una didn’t care.”
Stardate: Unknown (2268)
At the start of Best Defense, a historian’s note tells us that this novel takes place after the Enterprise’s diplomatic mission to Babel (“Journey to Babel”), one week after the mission to Argus X (“Obsession”), and roughly six weeks after a foreign spy (Yeoman Lisa Bates) stole the Transfer Key and escaped to the Romulan Star Empire (as depicted in the first book in the trilogy, Captain to Captain). In this book, we pick up with Una right where we left her in the previous book, wandering in the Jatohr universe on an arid desolate planet in search of her crewmates who disappeared there eighteen years ago. It is an odd place seemingly devoid of life, with two suns, salt crystals, and a general feeling of echoing emptiness (it reminded me a bit of “World’s End” in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise). We learn that “Number One” was Una’s Academy nickname for having always taken top honors. She leaves a scorched “X” in the salt to remind her of the spot where she will meet back up with Kirk and crew in sixty days.
At the same time, the Enterprise heads back to the planet Usilde in the Korinar Sector while tracking down the stolen Transfer Key. There is a fascinating scene in which a landing party, consisting of Sulu, Spock, Scott, and Chekov, don diving masks and swim through the odorous algae-filled waters, through an airlock, and into the huge citadel of the Jatohr (as depicted in the previous book). But, of course, the Klingons also arrive (hoping to weaponize the citadel) and a dramatic sequence of fighting and running occurs as the landing party narrowly escapes through the lake and sprints through the forest.
Meanwhile, a diplomatic series of peace talks are taking place between the Federation and the Klingons at New Athens University on the planet Centaurus (following from the Organian Peace Treaty). The talks are led by Spock’s father Sarek and Klingon Commander Gorkon (presumably the same Klingon commander who is dramatically assassinated in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country). But the peace talks are disrupted when two lead negotiators disappear without a trace, Commander Gorkon and Mister Beel Zeroh, and it becomes clear someone is intending to sabotage the meeting and spark renewed war between the Klingons and the Federation.
David Mack also grants readers a rare insight into the mind of the enemy in this book. We are given chapters devoted to Elara Soath, an expertly trained Catullan spy working undercover at the diplomatic conference for the international crime organization known as the Orion Syndicate, quietly passing information along to an enigmatic figure known as the “red man.” Likewise, we are also given chapters from the perspective of the Romulan spy, Sadira, formerly known to the Enterprise crew as “Ensign Lisa Bates,” who stole the Transfer Key at the end of Captain to Captain. She is actually a major in the Romulan intelligence agency known as the Tal Shiar and she slowly causes a mutiny among various centurions under Commander Creelok on the Romulan bird-of-prey named “ChR Velibor.” Later in the book, we learn that it is Sadira who is sabotaging the peace talks on Centaurus (at the behest of the Orion Syndicate) using the Transfer Key to make key diplomats disappear into the alternate Jatohr universe.
As the novel comes to a climax, Una notices the strangeness of this new world where she doesn’t seem to get dehydrated, her memories seem to slip by, and her mind seems to wander. She finally reconnects with her old crew in the alternate universe –Lt. Commander Martinez, Ensign Tim Shimizu, Lt. Griffin, Ensign Le May, Petty Officer Cambias, Ensign Cheryl Stevens, Ensign Bruce Goldberg, Ensign Dylan Craig, and Lt. Ingrid Holstine. They barely recognize her, but eventually break down in an emotional reunion scene. And they explain that when the portal opens, the whole world shimmers and ripples (it always opens at the salt flats). Together, they plot a desperate attempt to escape by confronting the grotesque gastropod aliens known as the Jatohr (here she meets Woryan again). The Jatohr are once again depicted as enormous creatures with a pair of limbs in metallic coils, and bare glistening heads crowned with six pairs of sensory tentacles. We learn that the Jatohr have actually found other universes using their Transfer Key, but all of them have been either uninhabitable or filled with too many species. At present, they only wish to colonize Una’s universe. The Jatohr capture and imprison Una and her crewmates, but in this surreal and hypnotic universe, Una realizes the world can be mentally controlled and manipulated (reminiscent of the Talosians). Una then saves her crew from imprisonment by employing her “lucid dreaming techniques,” dodging the atonal, discordant, theremin-like hum of the Jahtor sentry sphere, while mentally releasing herself from in this universe.
And back in the main universe, Elara Soath is eventually outed as an Orion spy, but she takes none other than Dr. McCoy’s estranged daughter Joanna as a hostage (in an engaging action scene inside New Athens University hospital store room) before she is captured, though under interrogation she admits she was not involved in the recent string of diplomat disappearances. Then, Kirk treads lightly in convincing the Klingons (and their ship the “HoS’leth”) to join the Federation in directing their joint ire toward a cloaked Romulan bird-of-prey somewhere in orbit around Centuarus. At the same time, Sarek is wounded in the conflict and tended to by the nursing skills of Bones’s daughter, Joanna, before the two of them are suddenly sent into the alternate Jatohr universe by Sadira and the Romulans. A battle ensues, and Sadira is assassinated by one of the Romulans for sowing discord and mutiny on the ship shortly before the Velibor is destroyed and the Transfer Key is recovered.
The book ends with Klingons abandoning the peace talks on Centaurus in order to strategically blame the Federation for the loss of Gorkon so they can secure the citadel on Usilde for themselves. And Kirk realizes that, in order to salvage the peace talks, they must retrieve Sarek from the alternate universe, along with Joanna, Una, and the rest of the missing crew members.
“There’s only one path left to us, whether we like it or not. We need to rescue our people from the alternate universe –without starting a war.”
Final Thoughts:
Best Defense is a wonderful, action-packed Trek novel from David Mack, a fitting sequel to Captain to Captain in honor of the 50th anniversary of Star Trek. It presents of tons of background information for characters like Una, and a unique perspective aboard a Romulan bird-of-prey, but the real standouts here are Dr. McCoy (“I’m a doctor, not a linguist!”) and his estranged daughter Joanna who plays an important role in the book. Their complicated relationship is one of push and pull, but it is a welcome portrayal nonetheless. And apparently, Joanna previously appeared in the earlier TOS novel Crisis on Centaurus (1986) which I have not yet had the opportunity to read.
As the middle book in the trilogy, Best Defense ends on a wild cliffhanger. What will happen to Una and her crew? Will they escape the Jatohr? Can they make it out of the alternate universe? And will Kirk be able to salvage the peace talks with the Klingons? Suffice it to say there are myriad other references in this novel, from the Rihannsu Romulans, to deep-track lore nuggets from the original series and the films, as well. All things considered, I thought Captain to Captain was a slightly better Trek book, but both are excellent —Best Defense being even more of a mile-a-minute adventure– and I look forward to finishing the trilogy in the near future.
Mack, David. Best Defense. Pocket Books, New York, New York, 2016. Dedicated to: “all those architects of imagination in whose footsteps I am privileged to walk… and for Leonard.”