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Takes place in: 2298
The USS Excelsior is on a diplomatic mission to the Tholians near the 15 Lyncis system. However, Starfleet is suspicious of the Tholians as Starfleet Intelligence had learned that the Tholians had stepped up their energy-weapons development programs over the past few years. Admiral Heihachiro Nogura orders Captain Sulu to conduct a secret and discret surveillance of Tholian space during the mission. Excelsior sends four probes into Tholian territory, and they discover evidence that the Tholians may be in combat with some unknown enemy.
The Tholians destroy the four probes. Onboard the Excelsior, Tholian Ambassador Kasrene explains to Sulu that he understood Starfleet's suspicions about the Tholians' motives for this meeting with the Federation. Kasrene tells Sulu that the outer reaches of Tholian space had been under attack for the past seven months, and he was about to say why the Tholians had now approached the Federation, when he was apparently attacked by Mosrene, the Tholian junior ambassador. Just before he dies, Kasrene transfers some of his memory to Lieutenant Tuvok.
Mosrene refuses to explain why he killed Kasrene, while Tuvok was able to determine that Kasrene had wanted to provide certain sensitive information only to the Federation representatives and not to the rest of the Tholian Assembly. This leads Sulu to decide to launch an investigation of his own. After the Tholian diplomatic party returned to their ship, the Excelsior penetrates deeper into Tholian space, masking its warp trail as that of a Tholian military vessel. Sulu is determined to find out what secrets the Tholians were trying to hide.
The Excelsior proceeds to the location where the four probes had been destroyed, moving along a course parallel to an interspatial filament so as to avoid detection by the Tholians. Excelsior detects an unknown vessel which was attacking a Tholian border settlement, and Sulu decides to offer assistance to the Tholians. The attacking vessel identify themselves as belonging to the Neyel Hegemony, and soon the Neyel began to attack the Excelsior itself. Despite suffering damage, the Excelsior manage to disable the Neyel ship.
Dr. Chapel examines the body of a dead Neyel recovered in space, and she discovers that the Neyel has human DNA. Sulu suspects that the Neyel could actually be a long-lost population of humans who have subjected themselves through extensive genetic engineering, such that they had a thick hide, opposable thumbs on their feets, club-tipped tails, among other features. The Neyel suddenly comes back to life, and it fights its way out of sickbay.
Meanwhile, the Tholians had received the distress signal from the settlement, and four Tholian ships had arrived at the scene. Although Sulu explains that the Excelsior had responded to the distress signal, the Tholians remain suspicious of the Excelsior's intentions for being so deep in Tholian space, and they order the Excelsior to maintain its position while they conduct an investigation. The Tholians then encase the Excelsior and the Neyel ship in a Tholian web to prevent them from escaping.
The Excelsior's crew manage to recapture the escaped Neyel, and after interrogating the Neyel, Sulu realises that the Neyel had come from an asteroid colony called Vanguard, one of the six human O'Neill Colonies, all of which were presumed destroyed during a warp field test in 2058. Captain Sulu and his boarding party, along with Ambassador Burgess, then beam aboard the Neyel ship to meet with their leader. Although they were initially met with suspicion, Sulu manage to convince the Neyel that the humans and the Neyel were related, having come from Earth. The Neyel explains that they came from beyond a interspatial rift, and they were attacking the Tholian outpost as it held a weapon that was destroying Neyel worlds across the rift. Tuvok determines that the other side of the rift is located in the Small Magellanic Cloud, which was 210,000 light years away from Earth. Sulu then proposes an idea to the Neyal for them to escape from the Tholians together.
After the boarding party returned to the Excelsior, Ambassador Burgess proposes to the Tholians a three-way meeting between her, the Tholians, and the Neyel. However, the Tholians believe that the Federation and the Neyel were in league, since they had already determined that the Neyel and humans were geneticaly related. The Tholians reject Burgess' proposal, at which Sulu decides to challenge the Tholian Admiral Yilskene to a traditional Tholian truthcombat duel, in the hopes of convincing the Tholians to agree to a truce. Yilskene accepts Sulu's challenge and schedules the duel onboard the Tholian ship in three and a half hours.
The Excelsior and the Neyel ship, Oghen's Flame, manage to disrupt the Tholian web and escape from it. The two ships escape across the interspatial rift, and the Tholians did not pursue them as a fleet of Neyel ships was stationed at the rift on the other side. Instead, the Tholians call for reinforcements. The Excelsior visits the nearby Neyel Coreworld of Oghen, and they find the long-lost Vanguard Colony in orbit of the planet.
Soon it was time for Sulu to return for his duel with Admiral Yilskene. The Excelsior and the Oghen's Flame return through the rift, and Sulu beams aboard the Tholian ship, wearing an environmental suit to survive in the harsh Tholian environment. The truthcombat duel is performed using a monoblade and an energy shield, and the duel is resolved when one party yields or is killed.
Ambassador Burgess decides that the only way to settle the current dispute is to bring the Neyel and Tholian representatives together to talk, and she commandeers a shuttlecraft with help from Lieutenant Commander Lojur. First, Burgess beams the Neyel commander aboard the shuttlecraft. She then beams up Captain Sulu, Admiral Yilskene and Ambassador Mosrene. Sulu was angry at Burgess since he had just disarmed Yilskene and was about to offer Yilskene a truce. Meanwhile, the sudden disappearance of the Neyel commander and Admiral Yilskene from their respective ships had led the Oghen's Flame and the Tholian ships to attack not only with each other but also with the Excelsior.
Burgess proposes a provisional truce between the Neyel and the Tholians so as to avoid an all out war, and she allows the two races to communicate with each other for the first time by providing the universal translator. The Neyel complain that weapons from the Tholian outpost were destroying Neyel worlds across the interspatial rift. However, the Tholians reveal that the equipment at the outpost were only designed to seal the rift, and Sulu suggests that the Tholians consider not reactivating the equipment as a sign of good faith. The Tholians agree to consider this as long as the Neyel stop their attacks. Admiral Yilskene then agrees to release the Excelsior and the Neyel ship. After the Tholians returned to their vessel, the Neyel representatives express their belief that they can convince the rest of the Neyel to a truce with the Tholians. Burgess then beams the Neyel back to their ship.
Sulu congratulates Burgess for having saved three worlds from war, but then Burgess unexpectedly beams Sulu back to the Excelsior. The Neyel are a people prone to violence, and Burgess had decided to go to the Neyel to prepare them for their eventual contact with Earth, allowing them to coexist peacefully with their human cousins when that time comes. Burgess then pilots the shuttlecraft through the rift and she arrives at Oghen, where she meets with their leader and is welcomed by the Neyel people.
Captain Sulu briefs Admiral Nogura on the situation with the Tholians, and First Officer Chekov points out to Sulu that he should not punish himself by taking full responsibility as to why the mission had turned out to be so difficult. Sulu comes to a decision on what to put in his final report, and they hope that their next mission would be too troublesome.
. In 2031, Earth was threatened by a group of killer asteroids. The asteroids were eventually deflected from their original trajectory and six of the asteroids took up long-period orbits around the Earth-Moon system. Their orbits were not gravitationally stable, and the asteroids have to be moved every few years to prevent them from hitting Earth. Earth then built colonies on the six asteroids, known together as the O'Neill Colonies. The six colonies were named Moss-Offenhouse, NicholCorp, Starling, Brynner, Roykirk, and Vanguard.
. On August 9, 2058, the six O'Neill colonies were involved in an experiment to generate a sustained warp-field. Zefram Cochrane was involved in the experiment. However, all six colonies were apparently destroyed during the experiment, which led to a delay in the test flight of the Phoenix, Cochrane's prototype warp-capable spacecraft.
. Unknown to Earth, the Vanguard Colony had actually been transported to approximately 200 light years away. The colony was soon visited by the Nausicaans, who tried to plunder the asteroid's resources before they were chased away. Nearly a third of the population were killed by the Nausicaans during the raid.
. Shortly after being stranded from Earth, the Vanguard colonists began to genetically engineer their children so that they would have several advantages, such as enhanced resistance to diseases, radiation and temperature extremes, opposable thumbs on feets, accelerated growth, among many improvements.
. On August 9, 2155, the Vanguard Colony passed through an interspatial rift, and ended up in the Small Magellanic Cloud, some 210,000 light years away from Earth.
. In 2204, the Neyel (the descendants of the Vanguard colonists) discover the planet Oghen and begin to colonise the planet. By now, the Neyel had become warlike, and they enslaved the indigenous population of Oghen. By 2265, the Neyel began to conquer neighbouring systems. In 2268, a Neyel starship had discovered the interspatial rift but it was apparently lost. It was 2294 when another Neyel starship investigated the rift and ran into combat with the Tholians.
. As of 2298, Tuvok was still serving onboard the USS Excelsior, he was assigned to the starship in 2293. Tuvok had found life in Starfleet to be unbearable, highly emotional and illogical, and he had mentioned in VOY "Flashback" that he had decided to leave Starfleet once his current assignment on the Excelsior is complete. The Sundered suggests that Tuvok's assignment is of five years and that he would be leaving Starfleet soon.
. Leonard James Akaar serves onboard the USS Excelsior. He is the baby Kirk saved on Capella IV in TOS "Friday's Child". Lieutenant Akaar is the Chief of Security.
. While Chekov was serving as FIrst Officer onboard the USS Reliant, he had once visited Halka, again attempting to secure rights for the Federation to mine dilithium on the planet. His mission fails, and his landing party were about to leave when the Orions attacked Halka. Although the Halkans abhor violence and did not use any violent means to defend themselves, a Halkan named Lojur helped the Starfleet personnel in driving the Orions away. As Lojur had used violence in defending his people, his village exiles him. Lojur has nowhere else to go, so Chekov takes him aboard the Reliant. Lojur eventually joins Starfleet and serves onboard the USS Excelsior.
. Commander Pavel Chekov serves as First Officer onboard the USS Excelsior.
. Dr. Christine Chapel is the Chief Medical Officer of the USS Excelsior.
. Uhura is said to have attained the rank of Captain by 2298.
. Admiral Heihachiro Nogura still works in Starfleet in 2298. It was he who assigned the USS Enterprise to Admiral Kirk during the V'Ger Incident in 2271.
. After going through the interspatial rift, the Excelsior was said to have encountered the wreckage of the Constitution-class USS Defiant, which was lost in interspace in TOS "The Tholian Web". Obviously this can't be true, since ENT "In a Mirror, Darkly" shows that the USS Defiant had actually travelled into the mirror universe.
. 15 Lyncis is 170 light years away from Earth. As the interspatial rift is said to be approximately 200 light years from Earth, the USS Excelsior traveled about 30 light years to the rift.
The Ashes of Eden
The Return
Avenger
Spectre
Dark Victory
Preserver
Captain's Peril
Captain's Blood
Captain's Glory
Ex Machina
The Fearful Summons
The Last Roundup
War Dragons
The Captain's Daughter
The Sundered
Dark Mirror
Crossover
Ship of the Line
Dark Passions, Book 1
Dark Passions, Book 2
Vulcan's Soul, Book 1 - Exodus