Trek It!

by Robert T. Jeschonek

  Kirk refuses to make any guarantees, given the enormity of the events that have transpired and Flint's important role in them. When Flint presses the matter, Kirk tells him he shouldn't expect any favors after being responsible for so much death and destruction. Flint says it was his son's doing, not his own, and he did his part to stop it...but Kirk tells him it could have been avoided if Flint had bothered to warn Starfleet.

  "Fortunately for you," says Kirk, "you've managed to avoid paying for your mistakes. Again. It's what you're good at."

  Turning from Flint, Kirk looks at Rayna, and it almost seems that something passes between them. He kisses her hand and wishes her well...and says he hopes they will meet again. After shooting a challenging look in Flint's direction, he marches off down the corridor.

  As Kirk walks away, Flint asks Spock if Kirk has somehow managed to remember the full story of what happened during his first visit to Flint's world. Spock says he doesn't know, though it's possible the trauma of Kirk's possession by Redjac has shaken loose the memories.

  Flint thanks Spock for his help, then, and says goodbye. Spock tells him not to worry about being mentioned in the ship's logs; he's sure he can convince the captain to respect his wishes.

  As Flint and Rayna step onto the transporter pad, Spock asks Flint if he has any other descendants they should be aware of. Flint says he has too many descendants to count; much of humanity, he imagines, shares his bloodline.

  "Perhaps even you, Mr. Spock," he says as the transporter takes him. "After all, you're half human, aren't you?"

  FLINT – TYREE, 2288 A.D.

  Later, on the surface of Tyree, Flint stares down at the artifact in the sand at his feet. Maeve appears beside him and tells him he must leave the object right where it is.

  "Why did you insist we bring it here?" says Flint.

  "In a century, it will be found by another man of destiny," says Maeve. "An emissary who will save the Prophets and the world they love."

  "All of this," says Flint, spreading his arms to encompass the wasteland. "Was it all the result of your manipulations? Was all this death just a means of placing this object where you wanted it to be?"

  "The question you should be asking," says Maeve, "is what if we hadn't been involved at all. How would you have stopped Phobos then?"

  Flint knows she's right. Without her intervention, Shell would not have been born...Redjac would not have been neutralized...and Flint would not have his chance for redemption. Nevertheless, he doesn't like being used.

  Leaning down, he lifts the artifact from the sand. "I'm not a chess piece," he tells her. "Maybe I'll just take this with me. What would happen to your plans then?"

  Maeve smiles. "You won't," she tells him. "Goodbye, Dorian." And then, she disappears.

  After she leaves, he stands there, holding the artifact – the Orb of the Emissary, which Benjamin Sisko is destined to find a hundred years later. He thinks about taking it with him, just to irritate the Prophets and prove a point. That's exactly what he'll do, he thinks. History is in his hands, and he'll shape it as he likes, just as he always has.

  He imagines Maeve, hovering invisibly nearby, watching nervously as he toys with her carefully arranged destiny...and he smiles.

  FAIL CALL: Redjac: Soul of the Ripper - FAIL or UNFAIL?

  FAIL! This one did not get the nod from Pocket Books. I still wish it had; I would've loved to write it.

  New Frontier

  My pitches didn't seem to be getting any traction at Pocket Books. Then, when I least expected it, a new opportunity rolled my way.

  In March 2003, I traveled to Lincoln City, Oregon to attend a workshop conducted by Strange New Worlds editor (and Trek fiction writer extraordinaire) Dean Wesley Smith and his wife, Kristine Kathryn Rusch. At this two-week workshop, the Master Class, Dean and Kris took a group of writers who'd made professional sales and gave us the tools we needed to get to the next level in our writing careers.

  Just before setting out for Oregon, I got word that Pocket was looking for pitches for a first-ever Star Trek: New Frontier anthology. This would truly be a historic effort, as never before had other writers been invited to play with Peter David's beloved creation. I knew I could never forgive myself if I didn't pursue this opportunity.

  The problem was, the anthology was being produced on an extremely tight schedule. If I wanted to submit any pitches, I would have to do it right before or during Dean's two-week workshop. This proved to be challenging, to say the least.

  The workshop was a head-spinning and life-changing experience for me. I was pushed to the limits in every way--creatively, intellectually, physically, and emotionally. It took all I could do to keep caught up on my daily assignments. I was determined, however, to pitch for New Frontier: No Limits. In spite of the heavy workload, long hours, and high stress of the workshop, I managed to produce and submit four pitches, one each focusing on Janos, M'Ress, Xyon, and Burgoyne. I sent them off to the Pocket editor and hoped for the best.

  Did they all fail? Check them out, take a guess, and see the results in the FAIL CALL afterward.

  Star Trek: New Frontier: "Fighting Like Cats and Dogs," "Domo Arigato, Mr. Mugato," "Great Bird Droppings" and "The Gender Bomb" – FAIL or UNFAIL?

  1. "Fighting Like Cats and Dogs"

  This story is set during Shelby's command of the Trident, following the destruction and rebirth of the Excalibur.

  M'Ress (the Caitian crew member from the animated series) pursues a Dimoran rodent on Rigel VII (the "cat" chasing a "mouse"). It's the same type of intelligent rodent mentioned by Gary Mitchell in "Where No Man Has Gone Before."

  M'Ress was part of a Trident team assigned to recover a map that Starfleet believes reveals the location of a hidden weapon. She left the rest of the team behind because they couldn't keep up; she had to lose them or lose the prey. She's enjoying the thrill of the chase...maybe a little too much.

  The intelligent rodent, Eeyek, stole the map, which he believes leads to a treasure, when he stowed away onboard a Cardassian ship. The weapon was said to have been left behind in the Alpha Quadrant by the Founders during the Dominion War.

  Supposedly, this weapon is a powerful neural inverter, a device that scrambles neural impulses and makes anyone affected by it do the exact opposite of what they intend to do. According to reports, this particular neural inverter is capable of affecting large groups of people, even planetary populations.

  Just when M'Ress is about to snag the rodent, a pack of Dogs of War roar past her in hot pursuit of the creature. Fighting an instinctive aversion to canines, especially ones as dangerous as the Dogs of War, she follows them, trying to figure out a way to steal their prey from them.

  She almost succeeds in snatching Eeyek, but a Dog interferes and the rodent escapes. This Dog, Sirus, seems different from the others...more approachable and rational. After giving her the sniff test, he proposes that the two of them team up to keep the map out of the hands of the other Dogs.

  Working together, M'Ress and Sirus trap the rodent and take the map. It turns out to be a scent map, which is little more than a ball soaked with urine scents in a pattern.

  Sirus sniffs his way across the countryside, following the pattern of urine deposits left behind by the Dog who hid the "treasure." When he and M'Ress reach the location of the "treasure," however, the other Dogs show up and take over. Sirus has betrayed her.

  The Dogs dig up the buried prize...and M'Ress finally discovers what she's really been tracking this whole time: not a weapon at all, but a bunch of bones.

  Supposedly, they're the bones of one of the Dogs' creators. In the past, it was a custom for all Dogs to gnaw the bones of a creator as a spiritual rite of passage...until one Dog stole the bones for himself, buried them, and promptly died.

  To escape from the Dogs (who are a little too interested in the exact location of her feline-populated homeworld), M'Ress turns to another ally: the rodent, who happens to be carrying a "circus" of Antarian hyper-fleas in h
is kit bag.

  Eeyek unleashes the hyper-fleas, the Dogs are infested and go wild, and M'Ress escapes with her newfound friend. She now has a better appreciation of what it feels like to be prey.

  2. "Domo Arigato, Mr. Mugato"

  In the time between the destruction and rebirth of the Excalibur, Starfleet sends Ensign Janos to investigate reports of a second intelligent Mugato in Japan. Janos teams with Hatori Nogura – a Starfleet security specialist and grandson of Admiral Nogura – and Shyell, a Starfleet xenobiologist and native of Neural, the homeworld of all Mugatos except Janos. A kanutu woman who has lost family members to Mugato attacks, Shyell is hostile toward Janos, at first refusing even to speak directly to him. The people of Japan, on the other hand, adore Janos; the team arrives at the height of the Monkey God Festival, and he is mistaken for his popular doppelgänger, who claims to be the reincarnation of the mythical Monkey God himself. At a Buddhist temple, the Starfleet team finds that the second intelligent Mugato has a huge following and preaches discontent with Starfleet and the Federation. During an up-close meeting, however, Janos' powerful olfactory sense alerts him that the second Mugato, Haska, is a counterfeit. A Godzilla-style clash of the titans (on a smaller scale) ensues in the streets of Tokyo between the furry opponents, during which Janos saves Shyell's life. Abandoning his Mugato disguise, Haska is revealed as a changeling left behind from Founder infiltration during the Dominion War. As Haska flees, Janos pursues him, tracking him in different forms through a sumo match, a kabuki theater, and a karaoke bar. (Comedy ensues.) Janos and his team lose the changeling, but manage to track him to Monkey Mountain (an actual wildlife park in Japan). Battling his fears of attack by primitive creatures like the savage Mugatos of Neural, Janos fights his way through the wild monkeys and apes with the help of his companions. During a final battle with the shape-changer, Nogura turns against his teammates; Shyell is knocked unconscious and Janos is restrained. It turns out that Haska and Nogura are actually under the control of the parasitic aliens from the TNG episode "Conspiracy." Haska and Nogura reveal a huge cache of the organisms; they explain that they've been spreading the parasites throughout the Japanese population, planning to use Japan as a beachhead in their conquest of Earth. When Haska tries to implant one in Janos, however, Shyell comes to the rescue, casting aside her anti-Mugato prejudice. Haska and Nogura are defeated, the parasites are destroyed, and Janos and Shyell end their adventure with newfound mutual respect, if not friendship.

  3. "Great Bird Droppings"

  After his supposed "death," Calhoun's son, Xyon, tracks the Great Bird of the Galaxy that hatched from Thallon. Xyon's staying clear of Federation space. His ship, Lyla, teases him for acting like a glorified bird watcher.

  An alien species tries to direct the Bird toward their planet, which is dying. They want the Bird to lay an egg inside their homeworld, revitalizing it with its gift of incredible energy.

  Xyon and Lyla thwart the aliens' attempt to herd the creature. They want the Great Bird to freely choose its own course (as they have).

  Though Xyon and Lyla disrupt the aliens' efforts, the Great Bird flies to their world and roosts their anyway. However, when it leaves, it leaves behind giant droppings (some kind of plasma) instead of an egg.

  As they follow the magnificent creature away from the system, Xyon and Lyla witness an even more spectacular sight: the Great Bird's "date" with another of its species. Watching the two creatures bond against a glorious backdrop, Xyon and Lyla feel a special bond bordering on the romantic. He misses Kalinda...they're both isolated with only each other to turn to...and they definitely feel a connection (which can never be consummated in the usual way, of course).

  3. "The Gender Bomb"

  This story is set before the events of New Frontier Volume 1. Burgoyne is serving as an engineer onboard the U.S.S. Ulysses.

  Burgy and a J'Naii doctor work together as part of an away team. (The androgynous J'Naii were featured in the TNG episode "The Outcast.")

  Naturally, they irritate the heck out of each other. Hermats revel in expressing their dual genders, while J'Naii suppress all gender.

  They beam down to a planet in crisis, where a state of complete gender confusion has broken out. The planet's population was already diverse, with multiple genders instead of two or one...but now, the inhabitants have been transformed, creating hundreds of different gender variations. The worst of it is that many of the variations are not compatible with each other.

  Burgy and the team discover that the gender transformations are the result of nanoprobes meant for use as weapons against the Borg. The nanoprobes, which were accidentally released, were designed to make Borg drones incompatible with the Collective; in the same way, the probes are making the planet's inhabitants incompatible with each other.

  Working together, Burgy and the J'Naii manage to reverse the activity of the rogue nanoprobes...but not before being transformed themselves.

  Burgy comes to see that gender multiplicity is not necessarily a good thing.

  The J'Naii comes away from the experience with a greater appreciation for variety and diversity.

  FAIL CALL: Star Trek: New Frontier: "Fighting Like Cats and Dogs," "Domo Arigato, Mr. Mugato," "Great Bird Droppings" and "The Gender Bomb" – FAIL or UNFAIL?

  THREE FULL FAILS...AND A SEMI-FAIL! The editor rejected the first three pitches, but he asked for a rewrite on "The Gender Bomb." I incorporated his comments and came up with another pitch. Instead of the "gender bomb" menace from the original pitch, I introduced the STARFLY probe, which I envisioned as sort of a sentient, scaled-down starship. I wanted to answer the question, "What if an artificial lifeform possessed all the capabilities of a starship...and went on a rampage?" I thought it was logical that Starfleet might use highly intelligent and fully enabled probes like STARFLY for ultra-deep space exploration. The new pitch was titled "Oil and Water."

  "Oil and Water" – FAIL or UNFAIL?

  "Oil and Water"

  While Burgoyne is serving as an engineer onboard the U.S.S. Livingston, the ship is summoned to deal with a crisis on Damiano (a Federation world whose inhabitants have three genders). A Starfleet prototype techno-organic ultra-deep space probe has gone rogue and landed on Damiano, where it is wreaking havoc. The probe is small but is equipped with biomechanical phasers, shields, a tractor beam, and warp drive.

  En route to Damiano, the Livingston takes on a J'Naii specialist in techno-organic systems. The J'Naii, Dovan, meets Burgoyne on the Livingston's holodeck, while Burgoyne is in the middle of a violent program. Dovan seems to take an immediate dislike to Burgoyne, which Burgoyne attributes to the fact that J'Naii have no gender and Hermats have two apiece.

  For hish part, Burgoyne quickly moves past hish initial discomfort at meeting a being without gender...but it's a strain working with the unfriendly Dovan to prepare for the mission on Damiano. Burgoyne reaches out and tries to get to know Dovan better, but is consistently rebuffed.

  When the Livingston team beams down to Damiano, they meet with some of the locals. Burgoyne can't resist needling Dovan about the fact that the Damianos have three genders. Dovan responds with its usual contempt for Burgoyne, but doesn't display any negative reaction toward the Damianos, which puzzles the Hermat.

  The team finds the techno-organic probe in a dormant state. Burgoyne and Dovan make progress on disabling it...but the probe reactivates and attacks. Thanks to the efforts of Burgoyne and Dovan, the probe is crippled, and its systems function intermittently. However, it still manages to corner Dovan and moves to kill the J'Naii, who takes no action to defend itself. Burgoyne intervenes, rescuing Dovan in the nick of time and deactivating the probe.

  After the rescue, Dovan confesses that it was repelled not by Burgoyne's dual genders, but the violent tendencies s/he demonstrated in the holodeck. Dovan, it turns out, is an avowed pacifist...but now that Burgoyne has saved Dovan's life, the J'Naii sees the Hermat in a new, more positive light.

  FAIL CALL: "Oil and Water" –
FAIL or UNFAIL?

  UNFAIL! The editor liked my revised pitch and gave me the go-ahead to write the full story, which became my first Trek fiction sale after Strange New Worlds. I was especially happy about this one, since it was a privilege to have a New Frontier story published. To this day, I think that anthology, New Frontier: No Limits, is the only time other writers have been allowed to play with Peter David's special corner of the Star Trek universe.

  Easy as S.C.E.

  After my success with "Oil and Water" in New Frontier: No Limits, I zeroed in on the Starfleet Corps of Engineers (S.C.E.) titles, a direct-to-e-book series featuring a ship and crew unique to the e-books.

  I studied the series, did some thinking, and worked up a proposal for an S.C.E. e-book novel called The Killing Machines. Have a look at the proposal for yourself.

  S.C.E.: The Killing Machines - Fail or Unfail?

  Sonya Gomez is contacted by an old boyfriend from her teen years--Paul Haleakala. Paul, who is of Hawaiian descent, got into some trouble as a teenager, which led to their break-up; he stole something and mistakenly blamed her for turning him in to the authorities. He has spent the years since trying to make something of himself. In spite of some bad breaks, he now serves as an aide to Lugo Rad, Federation ambassador to Ish (and a descendant of Tongo Rad, Dr. Sevrin's follower in the TOS episode "The Way to Eden"). Haleakala and Gomez did not part on the best of terms, but he has kept track of her through the years and knew he could reach her on the da Vinci.