Well, it’s another day and another Star Trek novel. This one
is a little special though. Today’s post is the start at a look at an anthology
series that was released throughout 1998 called “The Captain’s Table.” The
basic premise is that there is a special bar called The Captain’s Table and
captains of all sorts come and relax for a bit. Six books
looked at the different captains at that time. There are even a couple of
surprises in there if you don’t know who I’m talking about. Obviously, there
isn’t one for Enterprise (this early series anyway), so just look to my The
Good That Men Do review for that goodness. I’m going to try to look each book
during the next few months.
Today’s book is called War Dragons and features Captain
James T. Kirk and surprisingly, Captain Hikaru Sulu. The writers are Julia
Ecklar and Karen Rose Cercone. They did the book under the pseudonym of L.A
Graf. The two, as well as a third writer, came together to write different Trek
books. Now, the book actually has two timelines for a bit. The first is right after the TOS episode,
“Where No Man Has Gone Before,” while the other timeline takes place between
the fifth and sixth movie.
Star Trek: The Captain’s Table – War Dragons
Author(s): L.A.Graf
BRIEF BLURB: Captains Kirk and Sulu visit a bar at the
Utopia Planitia colony on Mars. There, they tell the patrons about their
dealings with the Nykkus and Anjiri, a race of space pirates.
SYNOPSIS
The book starts out with Kirk meeting Sulu on Mars. He
decides to take Sulu to this lesser-known bar called the Captain’s Table. At
the bar, they run into all sorts of captains from other ships. The other
captains ask the two Starfleet guys if they have any stories to tell especially
about space pirates. Captain Kirk tells the patrons about his first encounter
with the Nykkus and Anjiri, a group of lizard-like people, about 20 years ago. Sulu also ends up chiming in on the race but
his part takes place a few weeks ago.
Kirk’s old story takes place after the death of Lt. Gary
Mitchell. At this point, he’s getting used to having Spock as his first
officer. The Enterprise finds a damaged vessel in space that houses the Anjiri
and Nykkus. The universal translator doesn’t recognize their pattern, so Lt.
Uhura is assigned to work with it and try to get what the race is saying. The
Enterprise ends up dropping off the race with Orions but are then told that the
Nykkus and Anjiri ended up stealing one of the Orions’ ships.
The Enterprise tracks the ship to a planetoid.
Unfortunately, the Enterpise gets trapped in some sort of tractor beam. The
race contacts them and tells Kirk to meet them on the planetoid. Kirk takes
Uhura and a couple of others in a shuttle to the planetoid. At the meeting
place, Kirk basically tells them that their stealing could get them into
trouble especially if they steal from the wrong race. The Nykkus and Anjiri
agree that they need to scavenge for parts elsewhere. Ultimately, the problem
gets settled and the crew heads back to the Enterprise.
When Kirk ends his part, he adds more to Sulu’s story which
took place a few weeks ago. The Excelsior was on a mission on receive some FL-70
Falcons, small reconnaissance ships, at Deep
Space Three. Suddenly, the station is attacked by space pirates. They
end taking some of the crew hostage including Commander Chekov who was the Excelsior’s
first officer. Sulu ultimately finds out through Tuvok (he was a cadet at the
time) that the pirates were there to steal the FL-70s and use them against a
Federation outpost. The Excelsior then chases after them.
Sometime later, the Excelsior find out that the pirates went
into the Neutral Zone. They find a downed Klingon ship and all of its crew has
been killed. They do find one of the pirates and Dr. Klass of the Excelsior studies
it. It’s revealed that the pirate is a male Nykkus. Later, they find the Nykkus’
ships but it all turns out to be a trap. The FL-70s are taken and the Excelsior
is left badly damaged. They were only able to save some of the hostages. Chekov
is still a hostage.
Sulu lets Starfleet know what happened and the Enterprise is
sent in to help with the situation. The two crews get together and realize that
the Nykkus have gone through some changes. In order to find out what has made
the race get this dangerous, Sulu, Uhura and a few others take a shuttle to the
race’s planetoid. The Enterprise is left to find the Nykkus and stop them from
doing more harm. They eventually find Chekov in one of the FL-70s. He tells
Kirk and Spock that the Nykkus are now planning on attacking a Klingon outpost
since they believe that the Klingons have technology that can increase their
army.
Meanwhile, Sulu and his small crew reach the planetoid of
the Anjiri and Nykkus. It’s been ravaged by a battle. They find the remaining female
Nykkus and it is revealed that the male Nykkus have rebelled and are taking to
the stars in force. The last of the Anjiri, the Egg Bringer, tells some of her
people to go back with the crew and stop the male Nykkus from doing more harm.
Back with the Enterprise, they find the Nykkus attacking
Kreth, a Klingon science outpost. Since the Nykkus are in Starfleet ships, it
looks like the Federation’s starting a war the Empire. During the skirmish, the
Enterprise and outpost is badly damaged. The Nykkus land their ships and head
inside. Kirk and Chekov head over to see if there are any survivors. They do
find some survivors and they come up with a plan to lower the station’s
shields. It takes a minute, but they succeed in lowering the shields.
After they get the survivors out of there, a Klingon cruiser
(led by Koloth) tries to take the Nykkus so they can be tried. Sulu and his
crew eventually show up and the female Nykkus deal with the leaders of males of
their race in a harsh way. Let’s just say it got a little bloody. Things do eventually
calm down between the two sexes. Koloth lets Starfleet take custody of the male
Nykkus. In the end, all is right and Chekov ends up going back to the
Enterprise to get his bearings back after these events.
In Present Day, Kirk and Sulu leave the bar and find Chekov.
The three men then head off to do their own thing. We then switch bases and
follow Captain Jean-Luc Picard in the 24th century. He’s with a
fellow captain who takes him to the Captain’s Table. Picard loses track of his
friend but ends up with enough on his hands. After he beats another captain in
a sword duel, he joins another group of captains and starts to tell them a
story. The book ultimately ends with some words about Kirk and Sulu.
OPINION
While it has some issues, I did enjoy this book. I thought
that this was a cool way to have a crossover between these two captains. I’ve
really only experienced Sulu as captain through the Star Trek VI and that one
Voyager episode (“Flashback”). By the way, it was nice to see a young Tuvok
here. The early story with Kirk’s first encounter was pretty cool too. It
showed him getting used to some changes around the ship. It also felt like a
nice bridge between “Where No Man Has Gone Before” and “The Man Trap.”
The stories themselves were told in first person view and
that was okay. I did think that Kirk’s and Sulu’s words felt in character. The
stories were also jam-packed with some good stuff. The action was nice too. We
got some returning characters like Janice Rand and Koloth. I also thought the
framing sequences involving the bar were okay. An actual Gorn showed up and
that part was actually funny.
The Anjiri and Nykkus were okay aliens of the week. They
kind of reminded me of the Gorn since they're basically lizard people. The issue
with their language was something I liked reading about. It gave Uhura
something cool to do and was rare that the TOS crew would run into that. That
being said, the race’s “Yoda speak” got grating after a while. In fact, it was
worst than Yoda’s because it never really got better over the story. it stayed
in that weird, stilted speech pattern.
While I liked the book, there were some things I didn’t
like. First, the book took a long while for it to get going. The beginning was
especially weird because Kirk had his TOS story while Sulu had his current day
story. It got a little confusing in the beginning. When Kirk got included in
Sulu’s story, things started to gel better. I also thought it was weird that
Chekov was once again the whipping boy. The guy can’t seem to get a break at
times. I did like how he had an extended role in the story though. Lastly, some
of the writing could be a little dull.
Overall, this was a decent start to this anthology miniseries.
It gave us some Kirk goodness and threw in some Sulu goodness too. One more
thing: what’s up with that cover? That barely looks like George Takei! Also, I
can see a little bit of William Shatner but not a lot. At least the other
covers to the books look like the actual people. Well, I’m outta here. I need
to get back to doing nothing before I head back to work next week. Peace, God
Bless, and be careful out there.
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