919. Cold FusionPUBLICATION: Starfleet Corps of Engineers #6, Pocket eBooks, June 2001 (collected into print with S.C.E. ebooks #5-8 as Miracle Workers in February 2002)
CREATORS: Keith R.A. DeCandido
STARDATE: Unknown, follows last novel, is simultaneous with the next two novels, and sits between Deep Space Nine's Avatar Book 2 and Section 31: Abyss. It's been 4 months since the Dominion War ended.
PLOT: Deep Space Nine is in need of a new fusion core, and the USS Da Vinci is sent to help Nog retrieve Empok Nor's. When they get there, they find the station's being turned into a massive mobile weapons platform by a scavenger race called the Androssi, which they've faced before. A confrontation ensues in which the SCE gets the upper hand. They leave, but not before shunting all their tech into "Dimension 7". Unfortunately for DS9, this damages the fusion core so that it can't safely be removed. Nog hatches a plan to tow the entire station to the Bajoran system, makes a couple side deals to get all the ships required and, having proven himself, is offered a place in the SCE (he declines).
CONTINUITY: First appearance of the Androssi, who will return to plague the SCE. In Avatar Book 2, DS9's fusion core is destroyed. At the start of Abyss, Nog arrives from Empok Nor (which first appeared in the eponymous episode) with a new one. This book covers the distance between those two books. Also appearing as part of the cross-over: Kyra Nerys and the Rio Grande. The Androssi once tried to convince the Maquis to accept their help, and adapted technology from the "Beast" (The Belly of the Beast).
DIVERGENCES: None.
SCREENSHOT OF THE WEEK - I made this before I looked at the cover art of the original ebook...
REVIEW: You know what? I really love these characters. Duffy has grown on me. Captain Gold is fun and engaging. A one-night stand subplot between Corsi and Stevens gives a lot of dimension to these two characters (and sparks off a mystery concerning Corsi). Bart, while kept off the plot, has a great scene with Stevens about it. And then there's Nog, perfectly captured by DeCandido. He's nervous and not being taken very seriously, but gets to shine in the end, as any student of O'Brien's should. It was actually very realistic that the SCE team, so used to working together, would hijack his whole process. One thing this series does well is setting up believable professional protocols without boring you with them. Cold Fusion also introduces a recurring enemy for the series, the appropriately tech-minded Androssi. Now, these ebooks are really short, so it's great how DeCandido is able to draw their portrait so well and this economically (leaving room for the plot, the guest-star's arc and the romantic subplot). They're given their own culture and their own technology (which has its own terminology, which the universal translator usually does away with, taking all cultural flavor with it) and I especially like how all their tricks are very much based on stuff we've seen before. There's no "new tech", only old tech used in a new and surprising way. The galaxy's other salvage experts, the Borg, adapt. The Androssi upgrade. I can't wait to see more of these "evil engineers".
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