Maximum Warp Book Two: Forever Dark (Star Trek The Next Generation, No 63) [Mass Market Paperback]

Dave Galanter (Author), Greg Brodeur (Author)

Book Description

Series: Star Trek Next Generation (Numbered) | Publication Date: February 27, 2001

A former Romulan war criminal who is on the brink of madness is the only man who can help Picard halt the decay that threatens to engulf the universe...Starbse 27 has gone dark, functions grinding to a halt as its energy source mysteriously fails. A province on Bajor reverts to pre-cardassian power plants - where it can. Three Vulcan cargo ships are lost with all hands aboard. The mysterious dead zones continue their expansion, creating havoc throughout civilised space. Communication, transportation, medical facilities, replicators - without this technological infrastructure, the United Federation of Planets will descend into primitive chaos. On board the Starship Enterprise is the one man who may be able to halt the deadly decay. T Sart, an egomaniacal war criminal whom Picard and his crew suspect of treachery and lunacy, plans to save both the universe and his own career by manoeuvering Picard into a position of weakness even as the two men work together as allies. He leads Picard to a planet on the edge of a black hole from which the decay appears to emanate. There, Picard and the Enterprise must hijack technology beyond their comprehension to save the lives of billions - and prepare themselves to sacrifice millions on the planet below.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dave Galanter and Greg Brodeur are a writing team whose successful collaborations include Star Trek novels set both in the Voyager and the Next Generation universes.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter One

U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC-1701-E
Romulan Neutral Zone
Section 19

Three weeks ago

"Transfer auxiliary power to shields. I want those sensors on-line. What's happened to main power?"

"I don't know, sir. Warp and impulse are off-line. Helm is not responding."

"Thrusters to station-keeping." Captain Jean-Luc Picard jabbed at the panel on the arm of his command chair. "Picard to Engineering. What's happening down there?"

Silence.

"Comm systems are down, Captain." Lieutenant Chamberlain's voice from tactical was tense but controlled. "Aux power is not responding, sir. Life support is on battery backup and holding."

Picard spun toward the ensign at the engineering station. "Get down there, Bradley. Have Mr. Riker return with a report on all systems, and have Engineering put priority on sensors and shields."

Bounding from his chair and into the turbolift, Bradley only had time for a half-nod and a chopped, "Aye, sir."

The captain hoped he had put priority on the right systems. Eyes and claws -- it seemed logical. But without knowing the status of Engineering...He half wanted to race down there himself. "Helm?" He edged toward the conn.

Ensign Barbara Rossi shook her head. "Still negative helm control, sir, but thrusters are maintaining station-keeping." Only her second month on bridge duty, Picard thought, and she was suddenly steering an anchor, not a starship.

The captain leaned over the helm and ran his own hands over the near-dead controls. No helm, no sensors, and the last reading they did get was of a Romulan warbird decloaking between them and the Federation cargo hauler that had found itself stuck in the Neutral Zone.

It wasn't long before the starboard lift door opened, and Picard pivoted toward it as Commander William Riker shot onto the bridge.

"Status?" Picard demanded.

Riker dropped down to the lower deck. "Verified we've lost all main power. Sickbay is on internal batteries. So are the lifts. Every nonessential system is down." He lowered himself into the console seat at Picard's right. "Inertial dampers and SIF generators are using the artificial gravity power grid. La Forge did that first."

"Repair estimate?"

"None, yet. We don't even know why it's happened."

"Not good enough," Picard said. "We need the cause. Romulan defensive weapon? Sabotage?"

"I thought we were supposed to be allies now."

The captain grunted. "Supposed to be" was the key phrase. The Dominion War was over finally, at great cost. Now some allies, in their weakness, could turn paranoid toward their war-weary partners.

Riker shook his head, and a single strand of dark hair bounced once before becoming matted to his damp forehead. "Well, whatever it is, it's the damnedest thing I've ever seen, sir. Everything but electrical power seems dead. Even Data is having problems. He's had to switch around all his internal power settings."

Picard looked up, then rose, taking a step toward...he wasn't sure where. "Data? How bad?"

"Not sure. He said he'll 'function adequately' for now. I'm guessing that's the android equivalent of a stiff upper lip. But if whatever's keeping us from using most of our power systems is hampering him, too, that tells me it's not internal to our systems." Riker's tone was suddenly softer, more concerned. "He's working through it. He wants to deploy an optic buoy so we can see what's going on outside." He shook his head. "Blasted bay doors won't override manually. I'm not even sure they've found the old buoy. Pretty old technology."

Turning toward the blank forward viewscreen, Picard glared, wishing he could see right through the bulkhead. "Let's assume this is some dampening field the Romulans have developed as a defensive tool." That would have been a better assumption before the Dominion War. Now...would the peace fall apart so quickly? There was no way to know. A Romulan ship with a renegade commander could be mistrustful of the Enterprise appearing in the Neutral Zone. Picard might have been, if the situation were reversed, and he was no renegade. Usually.

The captain turned back to Riker. "Signal General Quarters, deck by deck. Until the internal comms are working, we fall back on relays. Then see if hand phasers are working. Priorities: arming the crew, sensors, shields, communications. Go."

"On screen." Picard usually didn't have to wait so long for such a simple order to be followed, but in the moments that dragged on into minutes, he did just that. He paced a bit, not wanting to sit down. Any moment he thought he'd hear the hum and feel the static of a Romulan transporter beam. An enemy guard could be deposited next to him, behind him...throughout his ship. He held a phaser in his hand, ready. It was useless, he'd learned just moments earlier. Fully charged phasers, not working.

The trigger was warm to the touch. Hand phasers worked on battery packs, so why didn't they work when they should have? And why did he still keep it in his hand, now that he knew it was a dunsel? What would he do? Throw it at a Romulan invader? The idea that the Romulans would offer resistance rather than help was probably wrong, in any case. There had been good relations with the Romulans since the end of the war. But he couldn't get the feeling out of the back of his mind that something was just...entirely wrong here.

Again, a bit too harshly, he ordered, "Visual tie in, Ensign Rossi."

"Trying, sir."

Of course -- it wasn't his crew's fault. Optical buoys were low-tech and hard to calibrate. But they ran on battery power, and they didn't broadcast in subspace. With one deployed, Enterprise would at least have eyes outside the ship. And ears -- they might be able to set up local-space communications as well. He'd have preferred that shields and sensors came on-line first...but he'd take what he could get. "Ensign Shapiro?"

"Still nothing, sir." The ops officer shook his head. He struggled with the old-fashioned, seldom-used comm protocols, not something heavily taught at the Academy. "Coming through now, Captain."

Static-scratched and jumpy, a picture formed on the main viewscreen. Space looked odd, black. A digital picture, not one created by sensors. Digital. Video. Antique.

But even with the electronic equivalent of naked eyes, a Romulan warbird's stalking presence was unmistakable in the distance.

Picard moved toward the viewer, standing between Rossi at the conn and Shapiro at ops. "Try to raise them, and the cargo ship as well."

"Aye, sir."

Shapiro toiled again with his mostly lifeless console. "Cargo ship doesn't respond, Captain. They may not be able to read a frequency this low. Visual data only...they appear to be drifting. No external lights or beacons."

A nod, and Picard paced a step away. He thumbed his chin thoughtfully. "And the Romulans?"

"No response yet. But they should be able to hear us if they're monitoring these bandwidths."

"If they're smart, they're monitoring all bandwidths," Picard murmured.

Suddenly, Shapiro looked up, slightly surprised. "Captain, they're returning the hail."

"Hold a moment." He turned toward the rear of the bridge and holstered his phaser. "Voices low. Let's not show all our cards. As far as this ship is concerned, we're doing as well as we can sell them." He turned back to Shapiro. "Now, patch them through."

"Patch" was right. Picard had time to pace between the helm and the command chair three times before he settled into his seat. Finally, the warbird commander appeared on the viewer.

No need for introductions. They knew who commanded the Enterprise. And Picard knew the Romulan by appearance as well.

"Commander...J'emery, is it?"

The Romulan's features were marked with distaste, dark angles cutting in on themselves. Hi --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 221 pages
• Publisher: Star Trek; 1st PB Edition edition (February 27, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671047574
• ISBN-13: 978-0671047573
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,114,330 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another Foray Into Galactic Catastrophies, February 28, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Maximum Warp Book One: Dead Zone (Star Trek The Next Generation, No 62) (Mass Market Paperback)

This two book series is set against the backdrop of the Alpha Quadrant three or so months after the conclusion of the Dominion War. The Federation and Romulan Empire are both straining under the fragile peace that the War brought upon them, but find themselves in a staring contest as a series of "Dead Zones" crop up across the quadrants; these Zones somehow render a drastic change in substance, rendering everything from communications to warp drive to even the seemingly infallible Data useless.

The Enterprise is sent on a covert mission to the Neutral Zone, carrying with them one Ambassador Spock. Together, with their reluctant Romulan allies, they must discover the true nature of the Subspace Deserts, and it may cost them their lives, or perhaps signal the end of the civilization that they have fought so hard for.

It is only fair to say that the "End of The Universe" storylines have been overused, but, like the Genesis Wave duology, Maximum Warp offers up a fresh spin on the tired old tale. Brodeur and Galanter (who always does the bulk of the work) follow the plot well, and the characterization is as I've come to expect from this team of writers.

The idea is original and begs the question: what would happen to the universe of the 24th Century if everything they'd come to depend on would serve them no more, and to what extreme measures would they go? These questions are answered, and aside from the occasional hopping around (especially early on; but it does drive the plot forward) and somewhat obvious plot twists, the books reads well and is worth buying.

The end will leave you hanging, and the desire to start (and finish) book two will probably overtake you. All in all, an excellent work that gives us a rare glimpse in a little-seen race from the television series', the Romulans. Well written, well-plotted, well-characterized, but a little choppy. Final verdict: Four stars.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A surprisingly good storyline with many different plots., May 21, 2001

By 

B. Elliot (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Maximum Warp Book One: Dead Zone (Star Trek The Next Generation, No 62) (Mass Market Paperback)

I thought this series of two books was much better than some other reviewers seem to have. The authors brought in elements from more than just the Next Generation, like Voyager, which made an appearance. What was particularly impressive was the pseudo-science the writers intertwined throughout the two novels to build the main storyline, namely "dead zones" that had suddenly appeared throughout the universe. Any ship or planet that happened to be where one of these zones was would lose all main power. This would have meant the end of the universe as we know it, so naturally it is up to Picard and his crew, with help from a shady Romulan named T'sart and also a heroic Romulan named Folan whom we never really know until the end where her loyalties lie. The addition of suspicious Klingons adds yet another possible area of conflict. The multiple story lines were really engaging. They were so involving, in fact, that I read both novels in a day, one right after another. While there may be a few loose ends that were never tied up, they really do not take away from the resolution of the story. The resolution involves a highly advanced alien device and some real scientific theories about how after our universe has expanded as far as it will go, it will contract back together into its original mass of energy and matter, the universe will end, another Big Bang will occur, and the uviverse will begin anew. All this science mixed in with the Star Trek pseudo-science is very believable. I truly advise against being swayed by anyone away from these books. They are worth your valuable time.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just Couldn't Put It Down..., April 5, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Maximum Warp Book Two: Forever Dark (Star Trek The Next Generation, No 63) (Mass Market Paperback)

Maximum Warp Book 1 is by far one of the best TNG novels I have read , that is just my opinion. I really loved the story line. It was great to see Ambassador Spock turned back to Captain Spock working with Picard in this story. While you are reading it gets you thinking about who or what is behind what is happening the galaxy. My opinion of T'sart is he is a pain in the backside, but what do you expect from a Romulan. After finishing read book 1 recently I had to to start book 2 [not finished yet with book 2] to see how it ends up. I highly recommend both books 1 and 2 to any die hard Star Trek fan or if someone is looking for a good story to sink their teeth into.