In today’s episode, Sisko and his old chums head to Mars to celebrate a new version of their old ship, but one of them has a dangerous detour in mind. Meanwhile, Quark tries to do Kira a favor, but when he gets waylaid by Ferengi chicken pox, it’ll be up to Odo to close the sale. Can he pass Rom’s pop quiz? Does the counselor need a counselor? And why do some Star Trek authors choose their worst material to rehash? All this and more in Saratoga, the book where the fake culprit is more shocking than the real one.

Saratoga
Author: Michael Jan Friedman
Pages: 275
Published: November 1996
Timeline: Between seasons 3 and 4
Prerequisites: General awareness of pre-DS9 lore, specifically that which involves Sisko and Wolf 359, but otherwise none

If Michael Jan Friedman wanted to recycle one of his own past ideas for a new novel, he could make a worse choice than Reunion, but only barely. Although it did set up the pins for the later, beloved Stargazer novels, it was honestly pretty dang awful, or at least I thought so in my initial assessment. And at first glance, Saratoga seems like it might be a near carbon copy of it. You’ve got a special occasion bringing the show’s captain and a good number of his former crewmates back into each other’s orbit—in this case, the commissioning of a new Saratoga (the old one of course having been destroyed in the Battle of Wolf 359), at which Sisko has been invited to speak. As in Reunion, one of them sabotages the journey to the event. There are even repetitions of incredibly specific details, such as an early brief layover with a captain who can’t wait to unload these bickering weirdos, and one of them being knocked out and stuffed in a biobed for the majority of the story.

It made me think about the difference between how a reader perceives an author’s work and how that author feels about it. My mind wandered more than once back to Possession, J.M. Dillard’s sequel to the TOS-era Demons. Dillard has written more than a few good Star Trek novels. So of all the ones to sequelize, why Demons? It was terrible! Why not, say, Mindshadow, which was really good?

But that’s only one guy’s opinion. Authors are way closer to their own work and have way more insight into it than a jamoke like me ever will. Demons was bad, I don’t think I’ll change my mind about that any time soon, but Dillard was right to imagine it had potential for continuation, and she tried, even if Possession wasn’t up to snuff either. In much the same way, I can say “Reunion sucked, never show me anything like that again” as much as I want, but Friedman knows its potential best, or at least well enough to think I can make this work with DS9. And for much of the time I spent reading the final product, I would have disagreed, but for one ace it has up its sleeve that Reunion doesn’t that ultimately saved it.

And so we meet our Saratogans. Esteban Lopez, a communications officer with notably more success in love than in gambling. Aidan Thorn, a tree trunk of a man, now the security chief on the Endeavor. Zar, the gregarious Bolian tactical officer, not to be confused with Spock’s progeny. Graal, a Craynid, an insectoid engineer who thinks very slowly, but sharply nonetheless. Dr. Laffer, whose name is rather ironic, given how extremely serious and deeply strange she is. And last but not least, Constance Barnes, a trainee who joined the Saratoga not long before its destruction and attracted little notice, and is now the Endeavor’s counselor.

In another glaring similarity to Reunion, much of the first half is consumed by getting cozy with the new arrivals, who generally hang out with their positional counterparts, ask a lot of questions, ask to see this or that bit of the station, and create a vague air of suspicion around each of themselves with their inscrutable behavior. Except for Zar, none of them make a great first impression, and it’s kind of hard to believe Sisko actually liked these people. My faith in this story was fading fast, and I was nearly ready to write it off as Reunion 2.0 with the ship and character names Ctrl+H’d.

But for all its matching qualities, Saratoga has one aforementioned ace up its sleeve that Reunion lacked and that singlehandedly saves the book, and that is a fun B-plot. While Sisko tries to pull the Mars-bound Defiant out of an anomaly it should have handily avoided driving straight into, Kira asks Quark to call in a favor to get a cheaper rate on some power coils an old friend from the resistance needs to repair the water pumps that keep his village hydrated. Quark agrees to negotiate with an old associate named Fel Jangor, but before the trip, he contracts gruw’r—essentially, the Ferengi equivalent of chicken pox, in that it’s plenty a nuisance to a kid, but potentially fatal in adults. Unwilling to disappoint his friend, Kira cajoles Odo into impersonating Quark to finish the job. Odo’s inability to convincingly recreate humanoid forms fills him with doubt, but between Fel Jangor’s decaying vision and Rom’s crash course in the Rules of Acquisition, it might be crazy enough to work.

This thread is a blast. It’s consistently funny and trades on character dynamics in a natural and engaging manner. But best of all, it’s also a rising tide that lifts all boats. Bolstered by the buoyancy of the B-plot, the action on the Defiant starts to pick up and get more exciting as well. The two crews start vibing better, and in a peculiar but fascinating turn, the fakeout actually produces a more shocking revelation than the actual culprit.

By the end of the book, I turned a corner on my feelings about the Saratoga crew, having been more persuaded of their loyalty to each other and their camaraderie. And while the Rom/Odo material certainly had an indirect hand in that, I also think maybe just being a plain old numbered novel and not having to live up to the hype of being an event might have helped some too. Now I’m a little sad that it’s the Stargazer crew we’ll be revisiting in future prequels and not the Saratoga bunch. But it just goes to show that just because an idea didn’t work the first time doesn’t mean it never will.

MVP & LVP

• Picking an MVP was a tough decision this week. I wanted to go with Zar, because he’s a Bolian, and I love Bolians, and even though it was telling more than showing, the scene where he and Sisko reminisce about past missions marked the first instance where I felt like there actually was something to the Saratoga crew’s bond. But I think Odo is more deserving. Sure, there’s some burning love motivating his decision to help Kira, but I think true friendship plays an equal part, and once he decides to toss out the script and craft his own negotiating style, it becomes such a joy to read. Who knew Odo would make such a good Ferengi? Right, yes, Michael Jan Friedman did, but it was rhetorical.
• Our LVP this time is Dr. Laffer. In this case, it’s a literal LVP, since she’s biobedridden for the bulk of the story. It’s too bad, really—it would have been fun to get a gradual acclimation to her intensely off-putting demeanor.

Stray Bits

• Here’s something you probably thought you’d never hear about a DS9 story: Saratoga might have benefited from being set in an earlier season. Okay, put that down and hear me out. Captain Sisko and Counselor Barnes are each definitely picking up what the other is laying down. Sisko, however, has to pump the brakes because he’s already got a good thing going with Kasidy Yates. And that’s kind of too bad, because Barnes makes a confession near the end that would have had a lot more impact if she and Sisko had reached at least second base by that point. That’s really saying something, because as it is, it still made me have to put the book down for a few minutes while my brain rebooted after blue-screening. Kasidy’s first appearance isn’t until near the end of season three, so I think she became a thing after Friedman started writing Saratoga but before it went to press, because the lines using her to prevent Sisko from doing anything with Barnes feel pretty tossed off. But it had been set too much earlier, Friedman might not have been able to use the Defiant, certain character dynamics wouldn’t have been so locked in, etc. So I don’t know.
• Rom, p. 200: “Of course, I’d be smiling too, if I’d consummated such a profitable deal.” Yes, it technically means simply to finish or complete something, but did you really have to use that word, Rom?

Final Assessment

Good. I didn’t think it was going to be at first, as it was shaping up to be a sad retread of an idea that didn’t exactly pan out the first time around. But thanks to a fun B-plot that put the pep in its step, the whole thing came around, and by the end I was sufficiently sold on the old Saratoga crew. If Reunion didn’t quite get you fired up, maybe Sisko’s recipe will be a little more to your taste.

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