1066. Proud HeliosPUBLICATION: Star Trek Deep Space Nine #9, Pocket Books, February 1995
CREATORS: Melissa Scott
STARDATE: Unknown (between The Search and The House of Quark)
PLOT: Helios is a heavily modified bird-of-prey run by pirates who have been giving the Cardassians a bloody nose for years. When they destroy a peaceful trader heading for DS9, Sisko and his crew get involved. Helios is getting more desperate because it is heavily damaged, and it sends a mysterious woman to the station to bargain for equipment with smugglers. Though she seems demure and naive, she turns out to be a ruthless pirate. When her plans are discovered, she disables the station's shields and kidnaps O'Brien and Kira. Prisoners aboard Helios, they force DS9 to give them their supplies, but after treacherously keeping O'Brien anyway, Sisko mounts a rescue attempt before the Cardassian fleet can get there to destroy Helios and O'Brien with it. The rescue occurs in the nick of time and the crew witnesses the battle in which Helios manages to escape through the Wormhole.
CONTINUITY: The Helios is equipped with metaphasic shields stolen from the Ferengi (Suspicions). Bashir's portrayal in this story is surprisingly coherent with his latter-day status as a mutant - he spots a pattern in a numbers sequence where the computer guys do not.
DIVERGENCES: The cover features an unmodified Klingon ship that doesn't match the book's description. There's a reference to the station being on a 24-hour clock, but we've never seen it on anything but 26-hour Bajoran time. Sisko has a slip of the tongue and calls Bajoran space, Federation space (oops!).
SCREENSHOT OF THE WEEK
REVIEW: Melissa Scott's story is not a complex one, but it is rather enjoyable! The characters are all well characterized, which is something of an achievement for licensed properties, and the entire cast is well featured (aside from Jake). I really can't point a finger at who is spotlighted, really, because they're all in there. Scott is quite adept at giving little details where the show would simply have given us button-pushing and technobabble over the intercom. The technical tasks of Dax, O'Brien and others have meaning and showcase the characters' impressive training and intellect. There's button-pushing, but now you know what the button does, and how the character knew to push it. There's even a scene aboard a Cardassian ship, with Cardassian extras we know nothing about, and it's all very interesting. Scott fills out the world of Deep Space Nine, while still keeping to the feel of an episode. And an action-packed out at that. She doesn't skimp on that either.Next for the SBG Book Club: Ambush (SCE), Trek to Madworld (TOS), A Call to Darkness (TNG), Warped (DS9).
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