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Crossroad

Kirk must stop a power-hungry alliance from destroying the Federation.

Crossroad is a Pocket TOS novel – #71 in the numbered series – written by Barbara Hambly. Published by Pocket Books, it was first released in August 1994.

Summary[]

From the book jacket

The crew of the Nautilus, a battered starship of mysterious origin, is beamed aboard the starship Enterprise. The group claims they are freedom fighters from the far future working to save the Federation from the Consilium, a group of corrupt power-seekers.

When the Nautilus crew members then seize control of the USS Enterprise, and a starship from the future arrives to arrest the renegades, Kirk must separate his true allies from those who wish to destroy the Federation.

Excerpts of copyrighted sources are included for review purposes only, without any intention of infringement.

Memorable quotes[]

"They have forgotten now– Kirk and his crew, who answer to no master but their duties as they see them, and the dictates of their judgments and their hearts. And this is as it should be. But I have not forgotten. Nor will I, so long as I live…"

- Varos

"But friends do not forget their friends.
McKennon had let him die.
The Consilium had let him die."

- Varos, contemplating his friend's demise

"You are my past, but I am not necessarily your future. There are a thousand possible futures, and one degree of difference in a trajectory can change a starship's path by thousands of parsecs, to destroy, or to save, a world. All we can do is try.

A thousand possible futures. Whether one was thirty-four going into a five-year mission, or thirty-nine coming out of one, wondering what the future would bring. Whatever the future actually was."

- Unknown writer

Background information[]

This was the last Star Trek novel written by Hambly.

Characters[]

James T. Kirk Spock Leonard McCoy Montgomery Scott Uhura Hikaru Sulu Pavel A. Chekov Lao Zhiming

21-year old Starfleet ensign

Mahásë

Communications lieutenant.

Mahásë first appeared in Diane Duane's The Wounded Sky (Pocket TOS #13).

Tonia Barrows

Operations division lieutenant. Kirk noted, four years and nine-months into the five-year mission, that Barrows was one of the crew that had been there from the start.

Winfield

Engineering lieutenant

Dykstra

Bridge operations officer crewman.