Rise of the Federation: Patterns of Interference (Star Trek: Enterprise) - Softcover

Bennett, Christopher L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1668282070 ISBN 13: 9781668282076

Verlag: Gallery Books, 2026

Inhaltsangabe

The saga of the Star Trek: Enterprise TV series continues with this thrilling original novel!

The time has come to act. Following the destructive consequences of the Ware crisis, Admiral Jonathan Archer and Section 31 agent Trip Tucker both attempt to change their institutions to prevent further such tragedies. Archer pushes for a Starfleet directive of non-interference, but he faces opposition from allies within the fleet and unwelcome support from adversaries who wish to drive the Federation into complete isolationism. Meanwhile, Tucker plays a dangerous game against the corrupt leaders of Section 31, hoping to bring down their conspiracy once and for all. But is he willing to jeopardize Archer’s efforts—and perhaps the fate of an entire world—in order to win?

™, ®, & © 2016 CBS Studios, Inc. Star Trek and related marks are trademarks of CBS Studios, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Christopher L. Bennett is a lifelong resident of Cincinnati, Ohio, with bachelor’s degrees in physics and history from the University of Cincinnati. He has written such critically acclaimed Star Trek novels as Ex Machina, The Buried Age, the Titan novels Orion’s Hounds and Over a Torrent Sea, the two Department of Temporal Investigations novels Watching the Clock and Forgotten History, and the Enterprise novels Rise of the Federation: A Choice of Futures, Tower of Babel, Uncertain Logic, and Live By the Code, as well as shorter works including stories in the anniversary anthologies Constellations, The Sky’s the Limit, Prophecy and Change, and Distant Shores. Beyond Star Trek, he has penned the novels X-Men: Watchers on the Walls and Spider-Man: Drowned in Thunder. His original work includes the hard science fiction superhero novel Only Superhuman, as well as several novelettes in Analog and other science fiction magazines.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Rise of the Federation: Patterns of Interference 1
January 4, 2166

U.S.S. Pioneer

CAROLINE PARIS craned her neck upward to gaze through the pair of portholes on the curving hull above. “Amazing,” she said. “I’ve never seen a Bussard collector this close when I wasn’t in an inspection pod.” The reddish-brown cabochon dome at the fore of Pioneer’s starboard warp nacelle loomed darkly outside the port, powered down but still impressive to see looming just a few meters above her head.

“It is striking,” Malcolm Reed said. “And with the improved cooling and vibration damping Commander Tizahr has promised, it should remain relatively comfortable in here even during warp operations.” The room in question was a small common area and observation bay on C deck, overlooking the starboard cargo bay.

“I’m not sure why they even put viewports here,” Paris remarked. “There’s nothing to see but the nacelle cap.”

“I admit, the Intrepid class is a bit of a kludge,” Reed confessed. “It was an offshoot of the NX class, putting its pieces together more compactly for more efficient warp dynamics, in case the warp-five engine didn’t perform as hoped.”

“Never apologize for your ship, Captain,” Paris said. “Compared to the antique I’ve been serving on for the past five years, this is a regular hot rod.”

Reed chuckled. “It occurs to me that much of our conversation would be incomprehensible to people who aren’t fans of old movies.”

She patted his cheek, leaning in for a conspiratorial whisper. “So much the better. Helps us keep our secrets.”

Paris had never expected her dalliance with Malcolm Reed to last more than a few nights. He wasn’t her usual type; if anything, his formal, stiff-upper-lip English manner, facial hair, and military bearing reminded her of Captain Shumar, which should have been the opposite of a turn-on. But then, “usual” had gone out the window since her close call on Delta IV last April. It was only recently that she had felt ready to explore that side of herself again, and perhaps she had turned to Malcolm Reed because he seemed safe. Though he was clearly attracted to her, he had his own natural reserve—and some sort of inner hesitancy toward intimacy that reminded Paris of her own. They had not spoken of it, but perhaps their mutual recognition of each other’s restraint had let them both feel that they could pursue a casual involvement without feeling pressured to go further.

Yet, as they had spent their time watching movies and playing tennis and talking about their careers, Paris had discovered that there were other things she and Reed had in common. They both loved classic cinema, though Paris had been unable to get Reed to understand her fondness for ancient, youth-oriented adventure serials like Flash Gordon and Captain Proton. They had a similar love of antiques, though Paris’s fancy was vintage toys and games while Reed’s was military hardware and weaponry. They both came from service families with a strong sense of legacy and tradition—though Malcolm had defied his family custom to serve in Starfleet rather than the Royal Navy, while Paris had readily followed the starfaring example of her mother, Argonne, a United Earth Space Probe Agency veteran who had become one of the UE Starfleet’s first flag officers upon its founding in the 2130s, and her older brother, James, who had commanded one of the old Marshall-class ships in the Earth-Romulan War.

Not that there weren’t plenty of differences between them as well. Paris had always been the class clown, the little sister who’d acted out in defiance of her family’s pressure to perform—and who had maintained her irreverent manner even after embracing her aptitude for the family business, as a way of announcing that it was something she did to please herself instead of anyone else. Reed’s reserved, disciplined style couldn’t have been more different, at least on the surface. But as she got to know him better—particularly today, as she saw him interact with the members of Pioneer’s crew who were on duty during the refits—she realized that he wasn’t as much like Bryce Shumar as she’d initially believed. Shumar could be arrogant, prideful, and judgmental. He was a perfectionist who demanded no less than perfection from those around him. Paris had only earned the license to be informal on the bridge by proving to him that it did nothing to diminish her exemplary performance. But Reed’s perfectionism was more self-directed. She got the sense that it came from a deep insecurity, a need to prove his worth to himself and to others. And so he was slow to judge others, as though he did not feel entitled to do so. He ran a looser ship than she expected and gave his crew plenty of rein—as Paris saw when Reed’s tour led her to main engineering, their next stop after the nacelle cap.

“No, no, no!” a woman was shouting as they came into the engine room through the heavy forward hatch. “You have to polarize the magnetic field in parallel with the crystal impurities to reduce the unspent reactants! Calibrate each chamber individually, like this.” The speaker, standing on the raised control platform before the warp reactor, elbowed a fellow engineer aside to enter the settings herself. She was a Jelna Rigelian, craggy-faced and parchment-skinned—an exofemale, if Paris remembered their four-gendered system correctly—but her streaked gray-white hair was cut short and lacked the elaborate beads commonly worn by her people. She wore a red-brown tunic with lieutenant commander’s stripes and a Pioneer mission patch on the shoulder. Paris was still getting used to seeing those two-piece uniforms on Pioneer’s crew. They had been in use fleetwide for several years now, the Class A uniforms meant to stand for the entire Federation fleet—but the member fleets’ individual uniforms had not been entirely phased out, and Shumar was one of a number of human captains who preferred his crew to wear the one-piece gray uniforms of the Earth division, as Paris did now. No doubt Reed favored the fleetwide uniform due to the greater species diversity of his crew.

Completing the recalibration, the Rigelian engineer ordered the ensign next to her to run a simulation of core performance. She frowned at the result. “No, didn’t I say you need to adjust the injector pressure to compensate? Here, like this!” She clambered down off the platform and headed for the port injector frame, where the crewman tending to the injectors hastily stood aside to make room for her. “There. See?” she asked a few moments later. “Now try it.”

“Commander Tizahr,” Reed spoke up, drawing the exofemale’s attention. “A word, if you please.”

“Captain, I’m sure you think you have something important to contribute, but just let me get through with this—”

“Now, Commander.” Tensing at the steel in his voice, Tizahr relented and came over to them, though her lean body practically trembled with impatience. Paris realized that, despite the impression created by her pale coloring and craggy features, she was unusually young for an officer of her rank.

“Lieutenant Commander Kivei Tizahr,” Reed continued, “this is my guest, Commander Caroline Paris, first officer of Essex. Caroline, Commander Tizahr is Pioneer’s new chief engineer.”

Paris extended a hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

Tizahr took her...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Gallery Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2026
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1668282070
• ISBN 13: 9781668282076
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 368
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Indigo Musikproduktion + Vertrieb GmbH; https://www.indigo.de; ; Schlachthofstr. 36a; Hamburg; 21079; Deutschland