“After five centuries, the Dynasty of Shad had survived longer than most.
Now, suddenly, it teetered on the ragged edge of an abyss –and extinction lay ahead…”
Stardate: 7815.3
Captain Kirk throws a surprise birthday party for an aging Dr. McCoy, who is upset about his graying hair (Bones quips: “It’s gray, Jim”). Dr. McCoy complains about the fact that most of the women on the ship are now young enough to be his daughter, and he laments that he hasn’t been called “Lenny” since childhood. But the ship suddenly shifts to warp factor eight as Admiral Paul Harrington urgently summons Kirk, Bones, and Spock to Star Base Twenty-Two for a Priority One signal, Security Condition Red. Why? It turns out there are growing developments in the politically unstable planet known as Shad (why couldn’t Admiral Harrington simply send this information via a deep-space communication to Kirk? Did they really need to meet face-to-face?)
Here, we learn the backstory of the planet Shad. It all started eighteen years earlier when a young lieutenant James Kirk was serving on the Normandy (I guess this was before he joined the USS Farragut?). The ship was dispatched to resolve a burgeoning civil war on Shad which was spurred on by the Klingons and their regional allies, the Mohd Alliance, against the Shaddan loyalists who remained committed to the planet’s traditional dynastic monarchy. Why would the Klingons be interested in controlling Shad? As it turns out, Shad is the key to the surrounding quadrant of J-221 because it possesses high quantities of a highly valuable ore called Tridenite. But when the civil war initially broke out, Kirk sought to protect the monarchy. He convinced King Stevvin to flee into exile, along with his queen and daughter Kailyn, so they fled to a rural, sparsely-populated planet called Orand.
By now, some eighteen years later, Shad has fallen into a stalemate (partially thanks to the existence of the Organian Peace Treaty) and the loyalists seem to have the upper hand. But tragically the elderly King Stevvin is dying. His queen has also died but there is still hope that his twenty-three-year-old daughter, Kailyn, might be able bring peace and stability back to Shad. And the only person the old king will entrust to handle his planet’s future? Captain Kirk (naturally). Thus, Kirk and the Enterprise arrive at Orand, offering safe transportation for Stevvin, his entourage, and his daughter Kailyn back to Shad. Note that his daughter Kailyn suffers from chronic choriocytosis (the same condition Spock suffers from in the TAS episode “The Pirates of Orion” which was also written by Howard Weinstein). Kailyn has to take refrigerated injections of holulin (which she cannot do herself for some reason) otherwise she will fall into unconsciousness, then a coma, and eventually die.
At any rate, before heading back to Shad with the king’s family, first the Enterprise must locate the hidden “Crown of the Covenant,” a jeweled crown that is necessary for the leader of Shad. It has been hidden away on the icy planet of Sigma 1212, a desolate frigid world with extensive radiation belts around its atmosphere. Tragically, after arrival at Sigma 1212, King Stevvin dies and Spock leads Bones and Kailyn on a shuttlecraft mission in the Galileo down to recover the crown but the shuttle crashes and it is tailed by an enemy Klingon craft (especially Commander Kon’s female science officer Kera). Almost immediately, the landing party trio are captured by a native silver-haired hunter before they manage to escape and flee into the caves of the Kinarr Mountains where they meet a group of snowsheep herders, and a character named Shirn O’tay, who just so happens to be the guard of the hidden crown.
Meanwhile, Kirk and the rest of the crew back aboard the Enterprise (including Security Lieutenant Jaye Byrnes) try to sniff out a Klingon spy among the late King Stevvin’s helpers while making a brief trip to a nearby planet (Zenna IV) to cut a stone and fashion a traditional urn for Stevvin’s remains. And back on Sigma 1212, Dr. McCoy and Kailyn have fallen in love (even though she is young enough to be his daughter). It is touching, but eventually Dr. McCoy decides to reject her: “Honesty is not always the best policy, Spock… especially when you’ve got lousy timing.” Still, dodging three-toe clawed bear-like creatures called “zanigrets,” Kailyn crawls through tunnels inside an arctic volcano where, on her second attempt, she demonstrates her “Power of Times” in order to master the sacred crystals inside the Crown and retrieve it for the sake of her home planet.
In the end, Spock, Bones, and Kailyn escape from Sigma 1212 in the abandoned Klingon shuttle. They make their surprise-return to the Enterprise and the crew cleverly manages to ditch a lingering hostile Klingon vessel in the region (the Imperial Cruiser “Nightwing” under the leadership of Commander Kaidin). Kailyn is successfully transported back to Shad where she undergoes the required traditional religious customs, and the civil war is finally brought to an end (much to the chagrin of the Klingons). Dr. McCoy and Kailyn bid farewell to one another. They share one final dance together and Kailyn kisses Bones on the cheek before assuming her new queenly duties.
Final Thoughts:
In the first officially licensed book set after Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Howard Weinstein’s The Covenant of the Crown is a nicely serviceable Star Trek novel that offers a fairly standard adventure akin to a typical TOS episode. There are several richly imagined worlds featured in this novel, as well as plenty of lore concerning the Shaddans and bits of historical Vulcan lore, like the tale of Surak confronting the Army of Ten Thousand. Dr. McCoy is also a stand-out in The Covenant of the Crown as he begins the novel fretting over his age and greying hair, only to fall in love with a young woman half his age, and realize in the end, that he must let her go.
There are two very interesting introductions at the beginning of The Covenant of the Crown. The first is an “author’s note” by Howard Weinstein as he discusses the flawed reception of the then-recently-released Star Trek: The Motion Picture and he fondly remembers watching the TOS episode “The Ultimate Computer” in addition to watching the second season Animated Series episode he wrote while in college entitled “The Pirates of Orion.” He explains a bit of his backstory as co-editor of his high school sci-fi journal called “Probe” and his journey to getting his Star Trek story received by Filmation for the Animated Series. But the second introduction is by David Gerrold. It is another outrageous, smirking little tribute to the author wherein David Gerrold writes things like “…the best I can tell you is that Howard Weinstein is a credit his species. Whatever that is.” And “…I should note that it is a sign of my devotion to Howard (at least, I think it’s Howard. Howard is that you?) that I would interrupt my own writing schedule to take the time to tell you what a marvelous person he is.” Anyway this chuckling ironic time capsule of Trek writing by David Gerrold comes recommended for Trekkies.
Weinstein, Howard. The Covenant of the Crown. A Timescape Book, published by Pocket Books, New York, New York. Dedicated to “Kimberly” and also “Harry Chapin.”