Review/Summary Written by Tom Sharp
Star Trek S.C.E. Book One – Have Tech, Will Travel is the first paperback reprint of the ‘eBooks’ that Pocket Books began to release last year. This particular paperback contains the first four eBooks – ‘The Belly of the Beast’ by Dean Wesley Smith, ‘Fatal Error’ by Keith R.A. DeCandido, ‘Hard Crash’ by Christie Golden, and ‘Interphase: Book One’ by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore, as well as several pages about the authors. And, thankfully, readers didn't have to wait long until the conclusion of the ‘Interphase: Book One’ cliffhanger, since Star Trek S.C.E. Book Two – Miracle Workers came out the following month.
In the Star Trek universe, there is a division of engineers, scientists and linguistic specialists. They go in, clean up after space battles or study cultures, and move on to their next assignment. The Starfleet Corps of Engineers is under the supervision of Captain Montgomery Scott, formerly of the USS Enterprise and USS Enterprise-A. S.C.E. Book One focuses on just one of the ships, the USS da Vinci under the command of Captain David Gold. The crew of the ship consists of former characters from the television series, and a few new faces.
The Belly of the Beast by Dean Wesley Smith
The first story begins with a space battle between the USS Enterprise-E and an unknown alien vessel that was attacking a defenseless colony. The battle had ends with the Enterprise victorious, of course, but with a new mystery on their hands. Rather than try to solve it, the S.C.E. is called in to investigate. Captain Picard leaves his Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge and his Security Chief Vale behind in a shuttle, so that they can join up with the da Vinci crew.
The smaller ship, with only about forty crewmen arrives, several hours later and the investigation begins. The ship is nicknamed The Beast by the crew, due to its immense size. No signs of life are detected and since the Enterprise destroyed the command center of the ship, they don’t know why this ship attacked the colony. Commander Sonya Gomez (ST: TNG ‘Q Who’ and ‘The Samaritan Snare’) leads the S.C.E. team in the investigation.
They have a hard time scanning the ship, but everything they discover points to the fact that the ship was built for comfort, and it is suggested that The Beast was an interstellar cruise ship. But, in the depths of the ship, the true threat is discovered.
Dean Wesley Smith’s most recent contributions to the Star Trek universe are Star Trek: Voyager Section 31 – Shadow and ENTERPRISE – By the Book, both with his wife Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
Fatal Error by Keith R.A. DeCandido
Picking up immediately after ‘The Belly of the Beast’ – ‘Fatal Error’ begins with the planetary computer system on Eerlik showing increasing signs of failure. Captain Scott sends the da Vinci off their course to return La Forge to the Enterprise to fix the computer and save the alien culture.
The da Vinci arrives, and finds a user-friendly master computer built in the moon of Eerlik. The S.C.E. team is beamed in, and they go to work. While the crewmembers are in the corridors of the computer system, the da Vinci comes under attack by the one other ship in the system that isn’t under the control of the computer.
The da Vinci arrived in the middle of a revolution intent on destroying the computer, and make the planet of Eerlik free.
Keith R.A. DeCandido’s most recent contributions to the Star Trek universe are Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Gateways – Demons of Air and Darkness and Star Trek: Gateways – What Lay Beyond ‘Horn and Ivory’. He also wrote the fan favorite, Star Trek: The Next Generation – Diplomatic Implausibility.
Hard Crash by Christie Golden
A massive vessel has crashed on a vacation planet, destroying one of its major cities. The da Vinci is called into action once again.
When the S.C.E. team beams into the control center of the ship, they find just one body sitting in the chair. Due to the chair’s design, and the spikes running up into and through the body’s arms, they think that the chair is a torture device. After the body was removed, 110, the Bynar computer expert, is shocked and thrown across the bridge.
The team evacuates and returns to the da Vinci as the alien vessel attacks the ship in orbit of the planet.
Doctor Elizabeth Lense (ST: DS9 ‘Explorers’) performs an autopsy on the decaying body, along with the Mark Three Emergency Medical Hologram, Emmett, after stabilizing 110. The autopsy shows extensive alterations throughout the female body, to provide a direct connection between the pilot and the ship. The da Vinci crew begins to believe that they have discovered a new type of Borg.
But the true nature of the ship and its dead pilot is even more surprising.
Christie Golden’s most recent contributions to the Star Trek universe include Star Trek: Voyager Gateways – No Man’s Land and Star Trek: Gateways – What Lay Beyond ‘In the Queue’. She is also the author of Star Trek: Voyager – Homecoming and Star Trek: Voyager - The Farther Shore, the first two books of the Voyager Relaunch, to be released in 2003.
Interphase: Book One by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
After almost a hundred years, the Defiant has returned. Not the ship docked at Deep Space Nine, but the original Constitution-class vessel lost near Tholian space. Admiral Ross and Captain Scott decide to send the da Vinci into Tholian space to retrieve the ship. But is it a relic that could start a new conflict?
Captain Gold decided to join the S.C.E. team, leaving the ship’s Chief Engineer Duffy in command. While attempting to remove the vessel from interphase, a rift in space where the Defiant has remained for a century, the Tholians attack.
The weapons’ fire disrupted the distortion, trapping the Defiant and cutting off communications between the Away Team and the da Vinci. As the Defiant was pulled back into the dimensional rift, the Tholians began an attack on the da Vinci.
And the Defiant vanished...
Dayton Ward has had stories published in the three of the fan-written Strange New Worlds anthologies. His first contribution to the Star Trek paperback novels was In the Name of Honor. Kevin Dilmore is a writer for the Star Trek: Communicator, the official magazine of the Star Trek Fan Club. The two work together regularly on the S.C.E. eBooks again, including the ‘Foundations’ trilogy.
I admit, I liked the S.C.E. stories more than I thought I would. I refuse to buy stuff online, so Have Tech, Will Travel is the first chance I’ve gotten to read the new series created by Keith R.A. DeCandido and John J. Ordover. Similar to the Star Trek: New Frontier series, the S.C.E. borrows some of it’s characters from both Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, as well as creating new characters from other races. And there are ongoing story arcs, which is always a good thing, if done well. And the three-story arc concerning Soloman the Bynar is a good one. Also, like New Frontier, the S.C.E. is not limited to budget or actors’ contracts, allowing for cameos from Captain Picard, Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge and Admiral William Ross.
The first book does end with a cliffhanger, but that isn’t a big deal, since the S.C.E. Book Two – Miracle Workers was going released just a few weeks after Have Tech, Will Travel.
Though it is impossible to judge an entire series on just four one hundred-page stories, I think the S.C.E. series is a good one, and the writers have done a pretty good job so far.
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