Review: Star Trek: Voyager: Protectors

Cover Summary:

Following the destruction of four fleet vessels at the hands of the Omega Continuum, the U.S.S. Voyager and U.S.S. Demeter set course for a region of the Delta Quadrant far beyond anything previously explored. Captain Chakotay is determined to prove to Starfleet Command that the fleet's ongoing mission is vital to Federation interests . . . and the key to doing so may lie in a distress call Voyager received nine years earlier but could not investigate.

Meanwhile, Vice Admiral Kathryn Janeway is recalled to the Alpha Quadrant for an evaluation period to determine her next assignment. Given the trauma she has recently endured, Admiral Akaar, Starfleet's commander in chief, is questioning Janeway's fitness to command the fleet. Janeway's primary concern remains the fleet's safety; for their mission to continue, she must find a way to secure the resources they require. But the uncertainty of her superior officers has left her powerless to act in their best interests.

Kirsten Beyer’s latest installment in the Star Trek: Voyager series does not disappoint; quite the opposite. Like their characters, these books go above and beyond the call of duty, delivering not only the exciting space battles, exotic aliens and heartwarming idealism at the base of the Star Trek franchise, but also highly nuanced, thoughtful, and compassionate characterization, of OC’s (even minor ones) as well as characters from the show. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who hasn’t read the previous volumes, as there are dozens of side characters and subplots to catch up on; let alone a working knowledge of the TV series, which is essential. If you haven’t heard of the starship stranded 70, 000 lightyears from home, its epic journey, and its lovable misfit crew led by the fearless Kathryn Janeway, you will be every bit as lost as they once were. Warning: spoilers!

There are several parallel plotlines, with strong and creative references to the original episodes. Firstly, with Janeway under evaluation to determine her fitness to command the Full Circle fleet, only two out of nine vessels remaining in the Delta Quadrant, and over eight hundred crewmembers lost, Captain Chakotay's search for a mission interesting enough to be worth the trouble, but not so dangerous as to risk another catastrophe, leads to a communication that Voyager received in the early years of the TV series (season 2, “Twisted”). Ms. Beyer extrapolates it as a distress call, sent by the titular “Protectors”: the distortion ring that twisted the ship in the original episode is one of a swarm of unknown technological creations trying to save a dying ecosystem, the so-called Ark Planet. Chakotay and Commander O’Donnell, the only fleet captains present, get into a classical Trek debate about how to respond to the distress call: are the protectors sentient, and if not, would terraforming the planet for them be a violation of their non-interference directive? It’s not often that the peaceable Chakotay finds someone he can’t get along with, but his anxiety about proving themselves to Starfleet Command does not mix well with O’Donnell’s unconventional command style. It speaks well for Ms. Beyer, however, that she can write about characters with conflicting opinions while keeping them both sympathetic. Also, O’Donnell’s and his first officer’s character development since Children of the Storm is satisfying to watch: Fife has learned to trust his eccentric captain, while O’Donnell has emerged from his lab and actually contributes to the running of his ship.

Secondly, at the same time, Seven of Nine is dreaming vividly of Axum, her first love from “Unimatrix Zero”. This is not as pleasant as you might imagine; not only is she over him and dating Counselor Cambridge (who, for once, is in need of counseling himself over this situation), but Axum is in danger and needs her. As freed members of a collective of cyberorganisms, their bodies contain technology (“catoms”) they themselves do not fully understand. The Starfleet doctors who discovered his badly injured body have more things on their minds besides his recovery; namely a disease they fear is spread by catoms like his. Voyager’s holographic Doctor, the only known catom expert, becomes fiercely protective of Seven and Axum, afraid of them being experimented on – but there is something “off” about his protectiveness, since at the same time, he is more clinical and indifferent to Seven than he has been for years. Has someone been interfering with his program, or is it there something wrong between the two old friends? Lewis Zimmerman, the Doctor’s programmer, plays a small, but important role in this subplot. His fatherly feelings for his creation, usually buried under layers of sarcasm, come out in a very touching, if questionable way. Here is the only minor criticism I had with this book, apart from the length of time until the arrival of its sequel; Zimmerman’s attempt to help his son is understandable, but after so many times on the TV show where the Doctor tried something similar, he really should have known better.

Thirdly, we come to what I believe is the heart of the Voyager saga: Kathryn Janeway. She has died horribly, come back to life with the help the omnipotent Q family, and it’s affected her in ways she’s only beginning to understand - all this on top of an entire lifetime of pushing herself to impossible achievements and tormenting herself when she fails. She wants to lead the fleet, but her superiors’ distrust and her own misgivings make her doubt herself at every turn. Ms. Beyer captures the essence of this character on every page: the intense love and loyalty that is her greatest strength, as well as her greatest weakness. She blames herself for any harm that comes to her friends, whether it really is her fault or not, and then turns the universe inside-out trying to save them. If anyone needed therapy, she does, and Counselor Austen, who has a flower garden in her office and the wry, incisive wisdom of her namesake, is the perfect person to provide it. This part of the story is much less action-oriented than the others’, but no less interesting; Janeway’s own emotional landscape is as wild, mysterious and lovely as any alien planet, and readers will be rooting for her to explore it with her customary courage.

All three of these major storylines, and the minor ones as well, involve some form of protection, as promised by the title. Janeway, Chakotay, the Doctor, the wave form creations, almost every character is trying to protect something or someone. However, not all forms of protection are healthy or helpful, either for the protector (Janeway, burning herself out for her crew) or for the one being protected (the Ark Planet, which the wave forms crowded with too many organisms at once). Sometimes it comes with the price of dishonesty: Tom Paris, who faked the deaths of his wife and daughter to protect them from a terrorist sect that believed the little girl to be an omen of the apocalypse, now has to face the rage of his own mother for not telling her the truth. Sometimes it is a thin disguise for selfishness, as with Mrs. Paris contesting her son’s fitness to raise her granddaughter, or Phoebe Janeway demanding that Kathryn leave Starfleet because she cannot stand the risk of losing her again. The best form of guardianship, in this novel, requires compromise: taking into account the needs and wishes of everyone involved, finding a balance between kindness, courage, common sense and personal well-being.

In this way, the Voyager novels are much more than just written echoes of a TV series, or a way for the franchise to make money; they are solid works of literature in their own right. Ms. Beyer’s heart is in her writing; if you read her dedications and acknowledgements, you will find that her own beloved family and friends inspire the bonds between her characters, and that Star Trek: Voyager is a shared source of joy and inspiration among them. More than ten years after the end of the show, they still inspire us fans to “set a cource for home” – wherever, and whoever, home may be.