Sixth Novel Fiver: First Frontier

[NAHTMMM]

Or seventh, if you prefer to count the Very Special . . . er, the non-standard one I did for New Frontier as being part of the standard list.

Next up is probably Incident at Arbuk, and after that maybe The Devil's Heart. (Both of which are good reads, IMO.) I think those two are the nearest to completion, anyhow.



I may seem to be giving this book a hard time, but I really do like it quite a bit despite a few defects. I would definitely recommend reading the novel before the fiver, but then I tend to like Diane Carey's Star Trek work. As always, there are a lot of details of varying size (read: lots more good stuff) that I don't touch on here.

If you haven't read the novel and want to read the fiver anyway, one word of explanation: The Clan Ru are a species of dinosauroids. If you have read the novel and notice a few minor details are off, one word of explanation: The fiver was getting too long, even for a big novel, as it was. (Also, comedic timing.)



First Frontier by Diane Carey and James Kirkland

The Clan Ru rue their attempt to change the past. Bannon learns that dinosaurs and bad exposition don't mix.


Oya: Attack!
Scientists: GAK!
Clan Ru: Lunchtime!
Guardian of Forever: That's kinda sick.
Clan Ru: Nobody asked you. Wheeee—

Scorpion: *JAB*
Kirk: Gak!
McCoy: That's gonna leave a mark. Literally.

Captain's Log: Since surviving the act of skimming along the surface of a huge star requires the utmost skill and concentration from everyone on the ship, I'm gonna go ahead as scheduled with the test of the new shields, even though I keep fainting onto someone every three minutes. After all, I'm getting good at timing it so I fall into a babe's lap, so it can't be that bad, right?

Chekov: Aah! We're under attack from technobabble, Captain!
Spock: We are experiencing an intrarecursive noncausality temporal loop.
Kirk: What?
Chekov: Aah! We're under attack from technobabble, Captain!
Kirk: Oh. Never mind.
Spock: Massive displacement wave heading this way from the direction of the star's core.
Kirk: Get us out of here, Mister Sulu!
Spock: No, that's what the wave expects us to do. We'll be destroyed. Our only chance is to countercharge the wave, incidentally passing straight through the blue giant, and hope that we take it by surprise.
Chekov: Aah! We're under attack from techno—
Kirk: Shut up, Pavel. Mr. Sulu, do what Spock said.

Enterprise: Chaaarge!
Wave: Wha? . . . Nuts, they got away.

Scott: You do realize we just went through a blue giant and survived.
Spock: Actually, I was kidding about that part.
Sulu: Er, you were?
Scott: If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go have a nice quiet nervous breakdown in my quarters.

Uhura: Sir, the radio is working, yet all I can get it to play is static.
McCoy: Nothing else? No Starfleet messages, no jazz, nothing?
Uhura: Well, static and traces of political talk shows, but that's hardly an improvement.
Kirk: True, true.

Huge Romulan Ship: Hello, whoever you are. Die please.
Enterprise: Eep! Sorry, gotta run . . .
Second Huge Romulan Ship: You're not going anywhere, weirdo.
Enterprise: Yes I am.
Second Huge Romulan Ship: Oof! Hey, watch where you’re going, freakish ship we’ve never seen before!

Spock: It's Earth, but not as we know it. I hypothesize that someone was playing around with the timeline while we were running the test near the blue giant, and just happened to drop and bust it at the very moment the experimental shields attracted that ridiculously rare "cosmic string" that was left over from the Big Bang. I did mention that's what almost definitely caused the wave, right?
McCoy: Ooookay, the odds of that kind of timing have got to be way higher than 7,824.7 to 1.
Spock: Actually, the odds are approximately—
Kirk: Never tell me the odds. Hmm, maybe this is a time travel story that's already been done. If we know what it is, then we'll know what to do. Sooo, is Earth covered by square metallic continents?
Spock: No.
Kirk: Nuts, I wanted to upstage that bald dweeb. Is Seattle still there?
Spock: No.
Kirk: So this isn't Ishmael . . .
Spock: We have not traveled through time, Captain. At least, not yet.
Kirk: All right, I give up. Let's have the exposition.
Spock: It appears to be a peopleless Earth.
Kirk: Oh, wonderful job, Mr. Spock. Next time, I'm doing the exposition.

Louise LaCerra: Awww, isn't it cuuute?
Dale Bannon: Yeah, for a nasty little carnivore. Now get away from it.
LaCerra: Oh, stop being so protective. You're the one wearing red.
Bannon: I don't care about your shirt. That animal has wicked claws, forward-facing eyes, blood dripping from a mouth filled with sharp teeth . . .
LaCerra: Uh, are we forgetting who the professional, Starfleet-trained biologist is? That's right, it's me. And as any first-year biology major could tell you, all those features you're trying to demonize indicate that it's herbivorous. It's probably this timeline's version of a bunny rabbit.
This Timeline's Version Of A Bunny Rabbit and its Friends: Did we mention we're color-blind? *pounce*
(lots of gory violence)
LaCerra: GAK!

Kirk: Eww, gross.
Spock: Go for it, Captain.
Kirk: Fine. *ahem* Although Terra lacks Terrans, it clearly still holds its terruhs.

Captain's Log: . . . and then Spock insisted on leaving the planet so that our exposition wouldn't damage it any further. Hmph. Anyway, then we got beat up by more Romulans and were saved only by a couple of kamikaze Klingons. Then we got captured by some Vulcans, who told us that all the other races in the area are non-existent, enslaved, or obliterated. The worst of it is, the only babe in sight has already gotten killed. This has not been my week.

[NAHTMMM]

Clan Ru: —eeee!
Clan Ru males: Ooo, dinner! Attack!
Rusa: Awww, look at our boys and those little dinos hunting each other. Isn't it cute?
Oya: If our boys getting outfoxed and killed by their million-great grandparents is your idea of "cute", yes.
Rusa: Whoops. Well, let’s scram.
Oya: Shouldn't we drive the predators off before our kin are eaten?!
Rusa: What's the worst that could happen? Time-travelling humans find the remains and realize something's up?

Klingon 1: Hi, I'm Roth. I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I'm a reasonable kind of guy, and I know a good thing when I see it.
Klingon 2: And I'm Zalt. And all you people are good for is targets of plundering and violence. Roth, you're worthless. I can tell these people are turning you softer already!
Kirk: Yeah, sure. You sound more like Blaggut and Slipp to me.
Roth: Buh?
Spock: Sir, no humans were born in this timeline. That includes Brian Jacques.
Kirk: Whatever.

Chekov: So basically, the only folks surviving in this timeline are these loser Klingons, the powerhouse Romulans, and those cowardly Vulcans.
Kirk: In other words, we're alone. In an unfriendly version of the galaxy.

Captain's Log: Dude, where's my babe? Not a single guest starlet so far. This is violating my contract! . . . Unless that scorpion was female. That had better not have been the babe . . .

Sulu: We have reached the Guardian of Forever's planet, Captain.
Kirk: All right, I want everyone important to the story to transport down now. That's me; Spock; the two Klingons; Bannon; a few redshirts; and you, Bones.
McCoy: Jim, how many times do I have to tell you I don't like the transporter? If there's one thing I hate, it's—
Kirk: Let me rephrase that. There are a bunch of ticked-off, extremely powerful Romulan ships combing the sector for us; a bunch of desperate, powerful Klingon ships that might stumble across us; and a big fat reset button down on the planet.
McCoy: —sitting here and waiting for my doom. I'll be right down after I pack a few things.

Kirk: Wait for it . . .
Enterprise: GAK!
Kirk: That's our cue, everyone!
Everyone: Wheeeee—

Everyone: —eeee!
Tyrannosaur: ROAR!
Titanosaur: EEP!
Everyone: Eep!

McCoy: Here, have some foxglove.
Kirk: Drug use in Star Trek? Thanks!

McCoy: This dead dinosaur is from Earth, except it isn't. And it's sentient, except it shouldn't be.
Kirk: That certainly is dino-mite news.
Bannon: Aargh! I can't take it anymore! All this awful exposition is killing me!
Kirk: Keep talking like that if you want to get fired.
Bannon: You can't fire me — I quit! Nyaaah!
Kirk: That's it. Prepare to feel the T's fist!
Riker: "The" T? I too have a middle name beginning with that letter, you know.
Mr. T: Both of you wanna-be foo's shut up or prepare to feel the real T's fist!
Harry S Truman: You two should be glad you have actual middle names. All I ever got was an initial.
World B. Free: And what is wrong with that, may I ask?
Picard: Did I hear someone mention tea?
Bannon: (clutching his head) ACK! Cameo overload! Cameo overload!

Zalt: Apparently these "humans" are telling the truth about themselves after all. Huh. Roth, stay here and pretend to cooperate. I shall escape, and then foil their plans at the worst possible moment, once everyone has forgotten about me.
Roth: You aren’t afraid that I’ll turn traitor to our Klingon Empire, with devastating results?
Zalt: I prefer to accept the evidence that you learned your lesson the first time.

Rusa: Apparently we have some time-travelling humans after us after all. Huh. Technicist Oya, take some males and go attack them.
Oya: We've got a head start on them and a tight schedule. Shouldn't we press forward and only kill them if they become an immediate threat?
Rusa: Maybe, but you're too sympathetic a character to get killed with the rest of us in their inevitable assault. Go get yourself captured.

Oya: We decided to go into the past to destroy the rock that wiped out your dinosaurs, so that our race could attain its rightful supremacy in the galaxy. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Spock: Highly logical. You forgot, however, one minor detail: the other races more powerful than yours. In particular, the Romulans, but also the Klingons, Vulcans, Andorians, Gorn, Tellarites, Orions--
Kirk: Take your Vulcan sarcasm and bury it, Spock, or we'll be here all day.

Captain's Log: Ugh. So she's the babe. Next time my contract will specify that the babe must be compatible with humans.

Oya: The asteroid deflector launcher is almost ready. We must defeat the other Clan Ru members quickly!
Kirk: Done.
Oya: Now dismantle the launcher quickly, before anybody has the chance to trigger it!
Spock: I believe my exposition is more important right now.
Oya: But—
Zalt: Mwahahaha!
Oya: Sigh.

Zalt: But . . . but . . . we are Klingons!
Roth: Is that all you can say? You're bad, through and through.
Zalt: GAK!

Roth: I killed my own Cap'n today . . .
Kirk: Fine, just as long as you've stopped denying you're Blaggut. Now help us build a boat.
Spock: Spaceship.
Kirk: Whatever.

Kirk: Let's blow this thing and go home!
Asteroid Deflector: GAK!
Everyone: Yay!
Kirk: And we should get yoinked back to our time riiiight abooouuut . . .
(prehistoric crickets)
Asteroid: BLAM!
Kirk: This has really not been my wee—

Kirk: So the asteroid's impact served as an alarm clock for the Guardian, waking it up so it would save our hides like it was SUPPOSED to do.
Scott: But you fixed time, right?
Kirk: It depends. Is Oya a hot babe now?
Oya: (on the viewscreen) Hi. Everything's back to normal and I'm going to get us to join the Federation!
Kirk: Then no.

(The Enterprise sails away at Ludicrous Speed)

THE END