Review/Summary Written by Thomas Sharp
The third book in the Section 31 series is set on Deep Space Nine, a few days after the events in S.D. Perry’s Avatar books. If you haven’t read Ms. Perry’s two books, then you’re missing out on a great new beginning to the Deep Space Nine saga. But, don’t worry, Abyss author Jeffrey Lang does a good job of updating the reader to what’s happened, but in broad strokes instead of minor details.
I am in the process of reading Cloak, the Section 31 story set during the original series, but I have read Shadow & Rogue. And I think that out of the first three, Abyss has the best story.
A few days after Colonel Kira Nerys dumped the station’s power core to keep it from overloading & blowing up the station, Nog and the Starfleet Corps of Engineers have towed Empok Nor, the abandoned Cardassian station from DS9 ‘Empok Nor’, ‘The Magnificent Ferengi’ & ‘Covenant’, to the Bajoran system. The plan is to remove its power core to replace DS9’s, and then keep it close by, to use for spare parts when they need them.
The Defiant is still undergoing a refit, to make it suitable for defense as well as exploration.
Tactical Officer Bowers gets a first name.
Julian Bashir has been promoted in rank to lieutenant commander & Ezri Dax is wearing the red turtleneck of command.
The tension between Commander Elias Vaughn and Ensign Prynn Tenmei is mentioned when she tells him to go to hell after he invites her to dinner. The reason is given, but not truly explained. I would say what it is, but I don’t want to spoil the book that much.
During a conversation between Kasidy Yates on Bajor & Joseph Sisko on Earth, they both realize that Jake Sisko has gone missing. If you’ve read Avatar, you know that he is in the wormhole. He went in thanks to an ancient prophecy that told him that he would enter the temple alone, but return with his father in time for the birth of the new baby, carried by Kasidy.
These are all subplots to the big story, of course. Cole, an agent of Section 31, has a mission for Doctor Bashir. The Dominion set up a Jem’Hadar hatchery/breeding facility on an M-Class planet in the Badlands, but the war ended before it was brought online. Doctor Ethan Locken, a genetically enhanced human, was recruited by Section 31 and given the task of breeding the Jem’Hadar to follow their orders, instead of worshipping the Founders. Instead, Locken betrayed Section 31 and decided to set himself up as the ruler of the New Federation. And he’s targeted the Romulans first.
Bashir, Dax, Lieutenant Ro Laren, and Taran’atar go to Sindorin to stop Locken. Once they get there, the runabout Euphrates is attacked by a scavenged orbital weapons platform and three ships cobbled together from spare hulls & warp nacelles. Ro & Taran’atar beam down to relative safety on the planet, while Bashir & Dax crash and are taken prisoner. In Locken’s compound, they each realize how twisted their enemy is, and how mad he can be scares Bashir, since he’s genetically engineered, too. Taran’atar and Ro, who has been to Sindorin when she was part of the Maqui, encounter the primate-type life on the planet.
Although the mission isn’t an outright success, it isn’t a terrible failure, either. It manages to maintain the ‘good guys don’t always have clean hands’ idea of the television series.
And, as a nice twist, the events in Star Trek: Insurrection, you know, when the admiral was going to relocate the Ba’ku and use Son’a technology to be young forever. Well, that was a failed Section 31 operation, but only the late Admiral Dougherty was blamed for it.
Jeffrey Lang, who also wrote Dead Man’s Hand in Star Trek: The Lives of Dax, wrote quite a good full novel for the Section 31 series. David Weddle receives top billing, though, since it says that he came up with the story & he co-wrote DS9 'Inquisition', the episode that introduced Sloan & Section 31. It raises enough questions to keep Deep Space Nine fans interested for the next novel, resolves a few problems from the Avatar books, and it introduces a brand new bad guy in the form of Cole, the Section 31 agent who sent Bashir on the mission to stop Locken.
Section 31 Novels
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