Beneath the Raptor's Wings

The Romulan War: Beneath the Raptor's Wings
© 2009 Michael A. Martin
450 pages (Trade Paperback)

Humanity's enthusiastic expansion into the Cosmos and Earth's leadership in forming the Coalition of Planets have earned it an enemy in the Romulan Star Empire. Ambitious, sinister, and ruthless, the Romulans  intend on striking down all those they cannot control. After repeated failed attempts to sow discord between the Coalition allies,  the Star Empire decides on a more direct approach: war.  Armed with fleets of their own and the ability to hijack the computers of other ships,  "those who march beneath the raptor's wings" are intent on crushing humanity beneath them.

Though the Coalition Compact supposedly guarantees Earth  support from her allies,  the Vulcans are reluctant to be drawn into a conflict with their long-seperated cousins, whose very existance embarrasses them. Andor and Tellar are far more enthusiastic, but when their flagships are turned into Romulan playthings,  they, too question the use of coming to Earth's defense.  Earth, defended only by a handful of NX-class starships and a dozen or so older Daedaluses, stands alone against enemies whom they've never seen face to face. Captain Archer and his fellow captains must hold the line in the wake of multiple defeats while political intrigues and episonage abound.

The TOS episode "Balance of Terror" set a few elements of the Earth-Romulan war in stone. It was a primitive affair, fought with nuclear bombs and missiles, and fought expressly between Earth and Romulus. Martin manages to reconcile this with the much more modern feel of Enterprise and the existence of the Coalition, while at the same planting seeds for the idea of a stronger union -- the future Federation. Beneath the Raptor's Wings is a busy story: though Archer and Tucker's separate stories constitute most of the book, they're joined by more than few other plot threads and viewpoint characters, including Romulans. While this isn't disjointing, the frequent thread shifts (there are 85 short chapters) did take some getting used to. As is common with most Trek books in this generation, Martin seeds continuity references and in-jokes all over the place.

The book is essentially a combination of war story and espionage thriller with a good bit of politics thrown in. It kept me reading -- I think I read most of its 450 pages in one day, which was rather wearisome but I did not want to stop.  (It was well after midnight when I finished, and I came close to going to sleep on the floor where I was reading.)  Though I know the war eventually concludes in a rough draw (which established the Neutral Zone), Martin still managed to make me feel concerned about Earth's extensive losses, and I could never predict the course of the action.

Treklit readers, especially Enterprise relaunch fans, will find it worth their while.

Related:
Starfleet: Year One, Michael Jan Friedman. This book is set in the last part of the Earth-Romulan war, though it was published before Enterprise and is sadly not reconcilable with the modern canon. That's a shame, too, because this book along with the first Stargazer book sold me on Friedman, and offers a compelling look into the founding of the Federation and the formation of Starfleet and its mission goals. It's also very much in the feel of TOS -- a believable predecessor.

While Daedalus are treated as obsolete buckets from yesteryear in Raptor's Wing, in Starfleet: Year One, they're the cutting edge and every captain in Earth's space fleet wants to sit in the prototype's captain's seat. 

Kobayashi Maru

Star Trek Enterprise: Kobayashi Maru
© 2008 Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels
482 pages

"This is the Kobayashi Maru, nineteen periods out of Altair VI. We have struck a gravitic mine and have lost all power..."

The Kobayashi Maru has a special place in Trek lore,  featuring prominently in both Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek (2009).  A training-command scenario based on the ship's destruction tasks a cadet with effecting the rescue of the Federation fuel transport disabled in enemy territory against impossible odds -- literally impossible, for the simulation is rigged. No matter what brilliant tactics and deft maneuvering ordered by the commanding cadet,  there are always more Klingon ships to contend with: their every choice leads inexorably to death. That is, of course, the point of the scenario -- the "no-win" scenario. It forces the student in command to face fear, defeat, and death.

Authors Martin and Mangels set the original ("historical") Kobayashi Maru in early Federation history, shortly before the Romulan war. The Federation as we know it does not yet exist, and its predecessor -- the Coalition of Planets -- is still young and fragile. Its four founding members are strong-willed, driven by separate ambitions. They don't hesitate to deal behind the others' backs to gain an advantage, but such disunity is dangerous. The Klingon Empire is strong and mighty, its warships formidable and intimidating even to Vuclans. Skulking in the shadows are the Romulans, who live by Julius Caesar's "divide and conquer": having failed to prevent the coalition alliance from forming in Enterprise's fourth season, they are nonetheless still at work attempting to sow division between their rivals until such time as the Star Empire is ready to rule them.

As Earth, Vulcan, Tellar, and Andoria grouse amongst themselves, seemingly anxious to go poking dozing Klingons with sticks,  Captains Johnathan Archor and Ericka Hernandez ply the trade routes looking for foes in the wake of recent attacks against Coalition shipping rumored to be the work of Klingons. Archer sees the string of mysterious attacks as the work of Romulans, and is anxious to prove it -- but his best friend and former chief engineer Trip Trucker is still working as a covert agent inside Romulus,  hoping to prevent the Star Empire from creating a warp-seven capable starship. Drama mounts throughout the book as attacks on Coalition interests increase and Trip's 'Romulan' comrades become more paranoid. Archer, feeling increasingly alone as the only commanding officer in Starfleet working to keep the peace with the Klingons and urging the Coalition to take a harder look at Romulus, is left without his first officer and best tactical hand when two of his senior staff steal a shuttle and attempt to infiltrate enemy territory The drama reaches its climax around the same time that Archer receives a distress call from the Kobayashi Maru, a fuel freighter stranded in enemy territory, forcing Archer into a difficult decision.

Though it started out slow,  I liked Kobayashi Maru more the deeper I ventured into it. Drama abounds, mostly political and character-driven. Though I knew how the book would end (I bought this at the same time I bought its sequel, Beneath Raptor's Wings: the Romulan War),  Martin and Mangels still managed to provide plenty of tension, sending Archer to Quo'nos to be manhandled by insulted Klingons and sending Trip on a path so perilous that he sighs in text at the prospect of having yet another disruptor leveled at his head.  I didn't expect the plot twists in Trip's thread of the story.  The authors pepper the text with humor and little tie-ins to other Trek books and episodes, though the frequent uses of "Jesus Christ!" as an expletive were jarringly anachronistic. This is, unfortunately, not simply a trait of Martin and Mangels: I've noticed it in other authors, as well.  While I'll cop to being plenty biased (I like the predominant secularism of Roddenberry's Federation culture) the all-too-frequent use of contemporary expletives, Jesus Christ among them, make the characters seem more 20th century than 24th. I will admit, though, that Archer's silently mouthing "Whiskey...tango...foxtrot" got a smile from me. The only major flaw of the book is that it seems strangely-titled: while the Kobayashi Maru appears at a climactic moment, it's really more a moment of personal crisis for Archer than a question of strategy. The ship's legendary appearance is overshadowed completely by the diplomatic crisis that leads us straight into the Romulan War miniseries. 

While I generally disdain quantitative scales in regards to books, rating my reads on Shelfari has broken down my resistance somewhat. I'd probably call this a 3.7- 3.8 out of five, or a "pretty good" on the vernacular scale.