Red Sector

"I don't mind being dead, but being dead for nothing stinks."

So says then Ensign Eric Stiles, unlikeliest of heroes. Eric was sent into a volatile political mess to evacuate an ambassador and an embassy no longer welcome. Things turned rough, and Eric winds up a prisoner with none but a Romulan companion, who despite all the odds, turns out to be one of the best things for him. The two make quite a team.

"Look what you and I have done here, with tricks and dirt and screwdrivers. I explain what I'm doing, and you provide the leap of imagination that sends us to the next step."

Erric and Zevon part ways when Eric is rescued, but when the deadly manufactured plague strikes once more - this time at the Royal family of the Romulan Star Empire, Eric remembers that Zevon had royal blood too - presumably safe from infection due to his political incarceration.

And the race is on, of course - to save as many of the Romulans as possible, to find an uncontaminated source of blood in a still locked-down sector of space, and to see if the strain of time and detention can still bind people in friendship, when years of imprisonment had bonded them closer than anyone could have guessed.

I have a love-hate relationship with Carey, I think - I either really enjoy the works or I hate them. more to the former than the latter and this no exception, the story was action-packed and the nuances brilliantly handled. I love the grunt side of trek; the opening scene where the transport and fighters land is superb, the chatter between the crew reminded me quite vividly of [a:Robert A. Heinlein|205|Robert A. Heinlein|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1192826560p2/205.jpg]'s [Book:Space cadet] - what was his name, Dodson? matthew Dodson, I think. The sort of camaraderie between mat and his mates was quite evident in this scene, and the CST duty with the Lafayette held some of that same magic.

"The cough made him seem perfectly mortal and gave Stiles a bit of comfort that otherwise might've slipped on past him."

Then there's the hero worship of legends Spock and McCoy - not just familiar faces to us, of course, but legends to the youth of the next generation as well. We know both these men are alive and active in Canon, but it does take a special blend of writing to make them come alive in the 24th century, surrounded by the contrivances of an era for which they aren't generally associated. Reading, it really does feel like the young men in the story appreciate Spock and co as much as we do.

"For a brief moment Beverly Crusher stood in awe of this elegant race, so Vulcan in their stature, so human in their passion."

and the final layer of complexity to draw your attention to is the portrayal of the Romulans, of course - proud yet vulnerable, embroiled in a political nightmare and ravaged by disease.

The first 2 novels in this series had a feeling of build-up but lacked much in the way of making us feel that the universe was about to end. This one would happily sit in as a standalone, yet adds that little bit extra to the disease story. because there's so much else happening, the fact that the virus isn't as centre-stage as it has been isn't a problem, in fact it's something of a plus because it gives us other things to focus on. Still, the virus is the arc - so on we go.