by Josepha Sherman & Susan Schwartz
“You will not, I fear, escape the consequences of that fear. Some of them fear contagion.”
Ambassador Spock, his wife Captain Saavik, Commander Data, Captain Scott, and Starfleet Intelligence Chief Admiral Uhura are now joined by Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his Enterprise crew in trying to prevent war between the Romulans and the Watraii. They must discover the secret of the Watraii and recover the stolen Romulan artifact.
Meanwhile in the past, Remus has become a prison planet, mutating the Vulcans into ‘modern’ Remans. The ‘second exiles’ resent being trapped and plan revenge.
Random Thoughts Written Down as I Read:
Fucking fuck. We are waging peace in the prologue. So BEFORE PAGE 1.
Now:
There is a Tal Shiar agent aboard Capt Saavik’s ship.
Charvanek has an exquisitely decorated office. She is fierce and elegant.
The Federation president thinks the Watraii are tactless to ask for help. Tactless.
Generalizations are illogical.
All Romulans have a volatile temperament.
Predicting behavior is illogical.
You can stop a marauding Romulan in his tracks by shouting “Right of Statement.” They must stop everything and let you speak.
How sad is it that the Romulan Senate Chamber floor is a map of Federation/Romulan space, split by the Neutral Zone? How sad they define themselves that way.
Threats are illogical.
In the midst of a space battle, we learn that Enterprise’s conn officer is a Trill.
Spock puts his huge intellect to work and realizes the Watraii are despairing and desperate.
Violence is illogical.
Oh here’s Geordi! But Spock is better at the job, so let him do it. Bye, Geordi!
Flattery is illogical.
Spock remotely takes control of the Romulan ship stolen and occupied by the Watraii by using prefix codes supplied by the Tal Shiar agent on Alliance who seems to have been placed there just for this plot contrivance.
Blame is illogical.
The Watraii leader removes his mask and Spock suddenly realizes what we have known for at least 2 books: the Watraii are Vulcan. (They are Sarissa’s people.)
Dying without having one’s death mean something is illogical. Hope I don’t die in my sleep. Wait. That’s exactly how I hope to go.
Delay is illogical.
Pages of the musings of the Romulan Praetor as he waits to be assassinated. Then he is assassinated. Who cares?
And now a chapter on Charvanek’s musings.
Compassion is logical. (Ha! Thought I was gonna say illogical, didn’t you?)
Then:
Terror is illogical.
8 paragraphs on opening and closing an airlock.
Has it been days? Weeks? Months? I cannot follow the timeline. I don’t want to wage peace ever again.
T’Olryn has long, thoughtful eyes.
Hope is illogical.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Disappointment is illogical.
Don’t you think there would be a better, less violent way to wake someone from a healing trance than slapping the crap out of them? I mean, it’s a HEALING trance, which suggests a certain delicacy of health. So physical violence would seem counter-productive.
The useless recapping in Karatek’s thoughts does not move the plot along. We are just stuttering over the same points.
Solor escapes to Romulus and tries to—wait for it—wage peace. He is killed for the attempt. I admit it. I killed him. For daring to say ‘wage peace’ to me one more time.
Forgiveness is logical.
Screw waging peace. Screw yielding to the logic of the situation. Screw the needs of the many and the needs of the few. I cannot bear to read any of these phrases any longer.
Sarissa, Karatek’s adopted daughter, leads some of the Remans in a revolt to steal a ship and escape. She is the Vulcan heart. She is the Vulcan soul.
Karatek sacrifices himself to allow Sarissa and her people to escape. Dying, he is so very cold. Dying, he is so very warm. I don’t write; I just report.
Refusal to fight is illogical.
I am suffering from comma exhaustion.
The ship is damaged in the escape and they limp to the nearest planet. The old high Vulcan word for betrayed is watraii.
WTF:
“What sorcery is this?”