Trek It!

by Robert T. Jeschonek

  FAIL CALL: Star Trek: Constellations: 9 pitches – FAIL or UNFAIL?

  FAIL! The editor at Pocket rejected all nine and declined to look at more.

  Citizens of the Universe

  When a fellow Trek writer invited me to pitch for a new anthology she was pulling together, of course I jumped in with both feet. It sounded like a fantastic project: each story would focus on an unsung supporting character, someone who'd had a major impact on the Trek universe but whose story had not yet been told in full.

  After thinking it over a bit, I came up with three pitches and sent them her way.

  Star Trek: Citizens of the Universe: 3 pitches – FAIL or UNFAIL?

  "Blue Dawn" starring Shran from Star Trek: Enterprise

  Underprivileged young people protest and riot in the streets of the planet Andor, fifteen years before the Andorians' first contact with humanity. Sparked by a fiery genius named Shran, the young Andorians demand political and economic gains...and the government finally agrees to negotiate. On the way to the talks, however, Shran's team is attacked...and Shran dies from his wounds!

  The sole survivor of the ambush is Shran's con man/gang-banger lieutenant, Tykon. Always quick to recognize an opportunity, Tykon invokes the Andorian tradition of likuta-no, which enables Andorians to assume the identities of fallen family or comrades to seek revenge, repay debts, or carry on important work. Tykon, however, only becomes Shran for his own personal gain. In league with his Orion-Syndicate-backed street-gang allies, he plans to use the protests to make the score of a lifetime.

  As Tykon/Shran whips the protests to violent new heights, forces from the original Shran's past try to control him. The original Shran's father, Senator Sanab, lectures him on patriotism and duty. Original Shran's secret lover also tries to steer him with ideas about logic and diversity; shockingly, she turns out to be the famed Vulcan ambassador to Andoria, V'Lar.

  Tykon/Shran handles Sanab and V'Lar with characteristic aloofness...but the truth is, both of them get under his blue skin, opening his eyes to new possibilities. For the first time, Tykon/Shran considers a life driven by more than self-interest and regret. He bonds with Sanab as a father figure...and even finds himself falling in love with V'Lar.

  That's why it hurts so much when both of them betray him. Their plans backfire, setting in motion a terrible fate for the downtrodden protestors and all of Andoria...but Tykon/Shran has learned the value of noble causes, negotiation, working together...and trickery. He forges an uneasy alliance of Andorians, Vulcans, and Orions that saves the world, plants the seeds of a future interplanetary federation...and at the same time sets the stage for the bloody conflicts that must come before the dawn of a brighter tomorrow.

  *****

  "Cochrane's War" starring Zefram Cochrane

  Only Zefram Cochrane can stop a federation of evil from dominating Earth and the future of the Alpha Quadrant.

  Twenty years after First Contact, Earth vice president Lilly Sloane recruits Cochrane, the inventor of humanity's first warp drive, to join her at a secret interstellar conference. Cochrane only agrees to go along because he lost Lilly's love years ago and hopes to regain it.

  The fact is, this conference could be the most important in Earth's history. An alliance of powerful species has invited Earth to join it, casting aside the Vulcan mentors who've guided humanity since Cochrane's spacecraft drew their attention.

  It's a tempting offer. Instead of the baby steps the Vulcans have allowed, humanity could leap right into the galactic community. The alliance offers protection, information, and advanced technology without the need for more decades of cautious, plodding progress.

  Earth's president likes what he's heard. It's up to Lilly and Cochrane to make the final arrangements and look for danger signs...not that the president expects them to find any. After all, the Alliance's members--the Klingons, Romulans, Tholians, Chalnoth, and Breen--have made a strong case and appear most trustworthy. (No one knows that the Romulans are in disguise, of course.)

  Good thing the Alliance doesn't fool Cochrane and Lilly for a second. Befriending the Benzites (TNG: "Coming of Age") --Breen subjects and denizens of the world on which the conference takes place--Cochrane and Lilly uncover evidence of the Alliance's hostile intentions. The evidence might not do much good, however, when Lilly is framed for murder and imprisoned. Cochrane leaps into action to save her. Working with the Benzites, he uses stealth, deception, and engineering magic to set Lilly free and pit the Alliance delegates against each other. When Cochrane's war is over, the Alliance has disintegrated, its members hate each other, and the Benzites have been freed from Breen domination. Cochrane has saved Earth from alien tyranny and cleared the way for a benevolent future alliance: the United Federation of Planets. If only he could have won back Lilly's heart in the bargain.

  *****

  "Redjac's Children" starring Redjac and Flint

  Sarah Claudius, "the she-wolf of Gagarin IV," made life hell for the Romulans who occupied her colony during the recently-ended Romulan War. Now, she's raising hell for the Federation, and Captain Shadrach Cutter must stop her.

  Cutter--the latest alias of Flint the immortal from "Requiem for Methuselah"--sets out on a rogue mission to bring down Sarah Claudius. She looks like a decorated war hero and colonial governor to the rest of the Federation, and she might even have a shot at the presidency, but Cutter/Flint suspects a darker truth: that Claudius is possessed by Redjac, the avatar of death.

  With his first officer (and lover), Rayna Kapec, at his side, Cutter/Flint goes undercover on Gagarin IV...and discovers that a peaceful façade hides a blood-drenched reality. Claudius has taken the tactics she used to terrorize the Romulans--the same tactics for which she has been lionized--and turned them against the colonists. Gagarin IV, dubbed "Bloodworld" during the war, is still living up to its name...and the horror is about to spread.

  Thanks to Romulan weapons technology, Redjac has found a way to reproduce itself. Claudius will project the violent consciousness throughout the quadrant, infecting billions and transforming the Federation into an empire of savagery and bloodlust.

  Cutter/Flint and Rayna fight to prevent the nightmare from becoming a reality. It's the latest chapter in a millennia-long struggle between Flint and Redjac--the immortal force of intellect and enlightenment versus the immortal force of evil.

  In the end, Claudius/Redjac is defeated...at the cost of Rayna's life. All that's left of Rayna is a psychic imprint recorded by Claudius' projection device. Cutter/Flint is "immortalized" as a hero who saved the Federation in one of its darkest hours...but he is so overwhelmed by the loss of Rayna that he leaves everything behind and goes off the radar. As he flies toward his new, secret refuge, he has an idea: maybe, with the bit of Rayna's consciousness captured by Claudius' device, he can recreate his lost love.

  FAIL CALL: Star Trek: Citizens of the Universe: 3 pitches – FAIL or UNFAIL?

  FAIL! The writer assembling the project was enthusiastic about my work, but Pocket decided not to move forward with the anthology.

  Kzinti Encounters

  Though Citizens of the Universe didn't fly, another Trek writer also came up with an anthology project. This one, Kzinti Encounters, would feature stories about the feline Kzinti species that appeared in the animated episode "Slaver Weapon." The Kzinti are the creation and property of science fiction writer Larry Niven, and "Slaver Weapon" was their only appearance in televised Trek.

  Once again, I seized the opportunity and churned out some pitches. I sent them to the writer who was heading up the effort and hoped for the best.

  Star Trek: Kzinti Encounters: 3 pitches – FAIL or UNFAIL?

  "Tigereye" (Star Trek: Deep Space 9)

  The Dominion War has ended, and a fleet of the Kzinti--who stayed neutral during the conflict--roars out to pick up the pieces. Federation, Klingon, and Dominion forces unite to fight the invaders, but the Kzinti seem to be unstoppable. Maybe it's because of their leader, a firebrand admiral name
d Sift--nicknamed "Tigereye"--who was once posted to Deep Space Nine and who has a history with her crew. Even as Defiant heads for a pivotal showdown with Kzin forces, Tigereye's former stationmates recall his turbulent time on DS9, searching for a means to defeat him. Guided by Bashir, the DS9 team draw on their various experiences with Tigereye to piece together the incident that turned him against them: a memory-bending assassin killed Tigereye's three children on DS9 and made it seem to station personnel that they had never existed. Enraged at the crew's seeming indifference, Tigereye swore to destroy the Federation...and made his move when the Federation was at its weakest. In the midst of a cataclysmic battle for Earth itself, only Dax (to Tigereye, a female worth respect, because of the male personas of her symbiont) and Odo can convince Tigereye of the truth behind his children's murders...and the need to end the Kzin assault. In the end, Tigereye gives his life to stop the Kzin leaders who engineered the assassinations and manipulated him into leading their war effort.

  *****

  "Bast's Abattoir" (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

  Answering a distress call, the crew of the Enterprise-D must solve a series of horrific murders on Takadi VII, a disputed world that's home to both Kzin and Klingon outposts. For once, the Kzinti are not the alpha predators; something far stealthier and deadlier is killing and devouring the colony's Kzin inhabitants...but not the Klingons. The situation is at the boiling point, with the Kzinti blaming the Klingons and beginning to lash out at them. Things aren't made easier by the fact that Will Riker has issues with the colony's Kzin leader, Chugla, who killed one of Will's best friends in a long-ago skirmish. Chugla has been in charge since the actual governor, Vulge, disappeared weeks ago. As the investigation continues, the crew follows one dead end after another. Meanwhile, Enterprise personnel struggle to keep hostilities between the Kzinti and Klingons from exploding. Things quickly go from bad to worse, however: a Kzin ship arrives to scour the survivors from Takadi VII and prevent all-out war with the Federation. As Kzin warriors arrive on the planet's surface, the away team finally tracks down the killer: the missing governor, Vulge, who has become a demented Kzin Borg. Normally, Kzin physiology prevents assimilation, which is why this is the first Kzin Borg the crew has encountered...and he's out of his mind. The Kzin Borg has used pieces of his victims to build a heavily armed monstrosity that rampages through the colony. Only by working together are the Klingons and Kzin--and Riker and Chugla--able to defeat and destroy it. As a result, the road to a brighter future for the two enemies--Klingons and Kzin--seems to be just a little bit closer.

  *****

  "Black Cat Bones" (Original series era between movies V and VI)

  The Alpha Quadrant is ruled by Kzinti. Tyranny and oppression crush every living world, and every living species is meat for the Kzinti's table. Only McCoy, who has become a Kzinti himself, seems to realize that this isn't normal. The problem is, none of his shipmates aboard Bloody Enterprise, who are also Kzinti, believe his stories or will help him investigate...and a catastrophe looms over all of them: male Kzinti everywhere are starting to lose their sentience, becoming like the females of the species. If McCoy can't discover the cause and halt its effects, the entire Kzin Empire will tumble down, its rulers plunging into savagery. Though McCoy is tempted to let the disaster run its course, he realizes his own life and the lives of his friends depend on his finding a cure. Plus, in this new reality, McCoy has a loving family, and he is driven to protect them. He and his medically-gifted sons fight to unravel the mystery, following clues across the quadrant, even as Bloody Enterprise is harried by merciless Vulcan rebels. The ship and the worlds in its path take heavy losses, and the crew comes to see McCoy as a bad luck charm. Meanwhile, in his dreams, McCoy drifts back to the other world he once knew, the Alpha Quadrant in which the Kzinti do not rule supreme. He begins to realize the truth: the Kzinti-controlled reality is a dream shared by all Kzinti, whose minds link during REM sleep, (there's a precedent for telepathy in their species) and he has become trapped in it. Eventually, he discovers that he voluntarily entered this dream to stop the sentience-killing illness that is spreading through it, threatening all Kzinti in the true reality. In the end, as the Kzin dream world crumbles amid rebel attacks and spreading senility, McCoy finds the cause and cure of the affliction. The Kzinti, it turns out, contracted the dream sickness like mad cow disease, from eating an infected alien species. McCoy designs and applies a cure, and the Kzin males regain their sentience in time to fend off the rebel attacks and save the empire. McCoy and his unreal sons say emotional goodbyes, and then he exits the dream, leaving the Kzinti to go on dreaming of their conquered galaxy.

  FAIL CALL: Star Trek: Kzinti Encounters: 3 pitches – FAIL or UNFAIL?

  FAIL! Again, Pocket declined to move forward.

  The Sky's The Limit

  Though the latest writer-driven anthology projects fizzled, Pocket invited me to pitch for an anthology of their own devising. This one, Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Sky's The Limit, would celebrate the 20th anniversary of The Next Generation. Naturally, I put my nose to the grindstone and fired off a set of pitches.

  Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Sky's The Limit: 4 pitches – FAIL or UNFAIL?

  "The Five-Minute Captain"

  In a whimsical moment on the Enterprise-D, Captain Picard promises barber Mr. Mot that he can be captain of the ship for five minutes when he retires. Years later, the Enterprise-E heads for Bolia to drop off Mot on the eve of his retirement. En route, the crew encounters an endangered Bolian vessel, under attack by the Dominion. The attack is meant to lure the Enterprise over a boundary line, breaking a treaty with the Gorn so they'll ally with the Dominion. Mot's niece is onboard the Bolian ship; Mot reveals that she's the spitting image of his late wife. In fact, the scene echoes one from Mot's youth, in which he and his wife served on a Bolian cargo ship attacked by Orion pirates; Mot, the captain, failed to save his wife's life. The incident always haunted him and led him to become a lowly barber. During the current crisis, Picard tries one maneuver after another to save the Bolian ship...and they all fail. Mot saves the day, however: he stages a "mutiny" and claims his five minutes of command from Picard. Then, he takes the Enterprise over the boundary and saves the Bolians. The Dominion cries foul, but Picard makes it clear to the Gorn that the unauthorized move was conducted by a mutineer who has been placed under arrest. The Gorn are appeased, the Dominion frustrated...and Mot is taken to a Starfleet stockade to serve time (at least a little). It's not so bad: on the inside, Mot's barber/psychoanalyst skills make him the most popular man in the cellblock. (Plus, he's studying for Starfleet Academy.)

  *****

  "The Man Who Stole History"

  On an isolated planet, where a primitive society grows from the ashes of a devastating Final War, the only living man with memories of his planet's history—Grion the elder—has the equivalent of Alzheimer's. Grion only remembers chaotic fragments of a past no one else recalls or has record of...so the society he guides, which tries to follow past glories, is in shambles. Dr. Crusher works to restore Grion's memory, because the Enterprise crew seeks the forgotten cure for a plague identical to one that's ravaging a nearby world. Crusher's treatments bring back bittersweet personal memories for Grion...and memories of unthinkable atrocities committed by his once-warlike people. Eventually, Grion remembers how he and a group of scientist colleagues worked together to give the world a fresh start, to restore its innocence after the Final War: they destroyed all records and wiped out all memories of the past. Grion's motives were partly selfish: he wanted to erase memories of the misdeeds he'd committed; indeed, he's the only one left who remembers them...but he tortures himself more than anyone else ever could for what he's done. Once Grion's memories fully return, violent upstarts kidnap him and use his knowledge of the past to stage battles and conquer other tribes. (No one else in the world remembers the ancient strategies or outcomes.) When the upstarts learn of the Final War, they want Grion to give them the se
crets to that, too. In the end, Crusher gets her cure, the upstarts are quelled, and Grion decides to teach the world everything about its past...good and bad.

  *****

  "The Unreachable Star"

  When the Enterprise answers a distress call, Worf and Geordi are held captive by Panishad, a powerful villain who controls a mostly dead world. Panishad wants them to revive the spirits of his only opponent, Galidax, who opposed him for centuries but is now a broken man. To force them to act, Panishad puts all three in dire danger: a chase across country by mutant warriors. As the chase ensues, Worf and Geordi try to get Galidax to help, but he won't. He does explain the history of his world and his conflict, though; he tells them how Panishad kept him alive and took away all and everyone he loved to motivate him to fight. The better Galidax got, the better Panishad became...until Galidax decided to stop fighting. He still won't lift a finger...at least until Worf and Geordi come up with a plan to turn the tables on Panishad. The plan fails, but we learn that everything until that moment was part of Galidax's own plan. He realized that if he stopped fighting, Panishad would bring in someone to motivate him. This would distract Panishad and give Galidax the opening he needed to strike a final blow against him. In all the centuries, suffering defeat after defeat, Galidax never gave up hoping and scheming to defeat his monstrous enemy...and he has finally succeeded.