In today’s episode, Calhoun smells a rat in the Thallonian refugees’ new digs, but without a reg to stand on, he goes against his better judgment. Meanwhile, Zak Kebron has to babysit a panicky doofus and Dr. Selar needs help getting mentally unconstipated. Can a bad lounge nickname hurt crew morale? Would anyone know if a Vulcan just made a ritual up? And is there such a thing as a conern lay? All this and more in The Two-Front War, the New Frontier book with the highest Peter David Quotient yet.

The Two-Front War
Author: Peter David
Pages: 152
Published: August 1997
Timeline: Immediately following Into the Void
Prerequisites: House of Cards and Into the Void, seeing as they’re all basically pieces of the same book

When we last saw the Excalibur, they were rendering aid to the Cambon, a private freighter transporting Thallonian refugees, when they were attacked by an unknown assailant. Things calm down after a well-placed warning shot from the Excalibur, at which point the attackers agree to grant the Thallonians asylum on their world, Nelkar. Something about it doesn’t pass Calhoun’s sniff test—in fact, he’s so adamantly against it that he tells the two Thallonians chosen to represent the group that he won’t allow it. But Shelby reminds him about these little things called regulations that are part of a Starfleet captain’s balanced breakfast, and so he capitulates.

He has similar misgivings about the Marquand’s situation, but trusts Zak Kebron to handle it. Kebron is no more thrilled than Calhoun, and also suspects that a trap has been laid for Si Cwan. He’s right to be wary: there’s no little sister over on the Kayven Ryin, only Zoran, a former comrade of Si Cwan’s who wants the kill all to himself. Kebron ultimately tries to back out, but Zoran destroys the Marquand. Kebron and Si Cwan emergency-beam over to Zoran’s ship just in the nick of time, but now must hide out until they can work out a means of escape.

Meanwhile, in matters of the heart, Burgoyne takes another pass at Selar, claiming that as a Hermat s/he can smell the pheromones on her. I wasn’t a big fan of Burgoyne’s approach in the previous installment, but here s/he demonstrates some credible concern for Selar. The doctor insists they will never be an item, but when she pictures Burgoyne in a bathing suit while trying to recenter herself with fond memories of the Starfleet Academy swimming pool, she’s forced to admit there may be something there. She asks Soleta to engage in Succor with her, a Vulcan ritual that pretty much boils down to “you have to do me a favor because I asked you to, no questions asked, no takesy-backsies”. Soleta gives her a laundry list of excuses for why she’s not the best Vulcan to ask for this (which we’ll talk more about in a minute), but the ensuing bonding experience clears the air and she agrees to it. Together, they discover that although Selar’s pon farr went unfulfilled, the abortive attempt produced a traumatic shock that dulled its edge. And now that shock is beginning to wear off…

The Selar thread may not end with a bang, but the Kebron/Cwan one does. Having violently dispatched Zoran’s cronies, the two are left on it with a bomb. Do they actually blow up? Of course not! How do they get out of it? That’s for next time! Also, Calhoun’s suspicions about Nelkar bear out when they ask for Starfleet tech in exchanging for providing asylum to the Thallonians, then slit the Cambon captain’s throat when Calhoun tells them no and threaten to kill Thallonians if he persists. Calhoun says, “Fine, do it, I told them it was a bad idea, but they wanted it so bad, so it’s their mess now. That said, if you do kill them, I’m opening fire on you.” The clash of wills is afoot, and it’s on like Donkey Kong for part four.

Of the four parts of this first New Frontier story (I’ve already finished reading End Game as I write this), The Two-Front War feels the most stuffed. It’s almost entirely rising action, which is invigorating. It’s also the most emblematic of both what the series purports to offer and what one can typically expect from the Peter David style. A lot of folks love the latter across the board; I’m more up-and-down on it. This time I’m into it, because even though the graphic violence and the un-Trek-like personalities and the use of certain traumas for character development are as potent as ever, they work better when the characters are built to function smoothly with them right from the get-go. Sure, some appeared once or twice previously, but they’re pretty much all blank slates. It’s far preferable to trying to cram grimdark elements into a franchise that is fundamentally very optimistic and forward-looking. So when Zak Kebron tears a dude limb from limb or Soleta initially declines Succor because she’s half-Romulan on her biological rapist father’s side, it’s a lot easier to roll with it.

I’m not used to seeing a Star Trek spinoff hit its stride so quickly, but I suppose being guided by a single authorial voice helps. The 90s was a big time for antiheroes and moral gray areas, and New Frontier fits very comfortably in with that trend. There’s a chance it will eventually get a little far out into the weeds, but for now, I think it’s being executed reasonably well. We still have one part left to look at, but I think I can already say with confidence that it’s off to an auspicious start.

MVP & LVP

• My MVP for part three is Zak Kebron. He’s got the most thankless job of anyone in this installment, having to keep the ridiculously reckless Si Cwan reined in, and he’s in the most immediate danger of all the crew. He smells a trap and makes the best of a bad situation—which is also what Calhoun does, but it seemed gauche to give it to him three times in a row.
• The MVP of the book, naturally, is saddled with the LVP, Si Cwan. Si Cwan is so consumed by the prospect of getting to reunite with his sister that he routinely forgets himself, fails to consider the extremely likely possibility that the Kayven Ryin is lying about having Kalinda on board, and runs headfirst into moronic situations. I’m wondering if he’d have been less of a load if he had just stayed in the Excalibur cargo bay for the whole tour of duty.

Stray Bits

• The Excalibur’s lounge is called the Team Room, which is frankly a dreadful name, nowhere near as zippy as Ten Forward. It sounds like what Mark Zuckerberg would call an employee lounge. I would never feel like I could kick up my heels and fully relax in a “Team Room”.
• “Dackow never voiced an opinion until he was absolutely positive about how a situation was going to go, at which point he supported the prevailing opinion with such forcefulness that it was easy to forget that he hadn’t expressed a preference one way or the other until then.” I think we’ve all known a few folks like that. Also, this is such a specific description that I have a hard time believing it isn’t about an equally specific person. (pp. 44, 45)
• Burgoyne’s story about meeting Scotty is a nice little side jaunt, with a touching ending to boot. (pp. 54–58)
• Soleta mentions a ship called the Aldrin. How has that name never been used before now? (p. 115)

Final Assessment

Excellent. Easily the most action-packed of the four installments that comprise the “pilot episode” of New Frontier. Many of the secondary characters start to come into their own in this one, and the dynamics are really starting to gel. There’s as much Peter David–brand edginess as ever, but it works better here because these characters are designed to roll with it from the outset.

NEXT TIME: The “pilot” wraps up with End Game