Title: Star Trek: Section 31: Cloak
Author: S. D. Perry
Publication: July 2001
211 Pages
Star Trek: Section 31: Cloak is the first book of a series of four that are about Star Trek’s Section 31. Section 31 is the most secret, rogue shadow group that is committed to safeguarding the Federation at any cost.
No Law. No Conscience. No Stopping Them.
The story begins a few months after Kirk’s daring theft of the Romulans’ cloaking device in the Episode The Enterprise Incident. Our heroes receive a distress signal from the starship U.S.S. Sphinx: condition red, disaster status. The Enterprise rushes to the aid of the Sphinx only to discover that all aboard are dead apparently killed by their own captain. Enterprise tows the Sphinx to the nearest star base where Starfleet takes over the investigation. Our heroes discover residual traces of cloaking activity on the hull of the Sphinx implying that the Sphinx was up to things that it shouldn’t have been doing.
As the story unfolds, the mysterious deaths of the crew of the Sphinx is only the beginning and different events in the lives of the crew of the Enterprise cause the loose ends to come together in the oddest of blind-luck occurrences. Spock finds that he must meet with an old adversary; Bones searches for an old friend; and Kirk finds a new friend.
And maybe that’s what makes the difference, between continuing to fight the good fight and losing one’s resolution, one’s faith-not to take it for granted. Remembering that it is a choice, every day, just like everything else. – James T. Kirk
“I think there has always been and always will be
people who will uphold their ideals, no matter what-just as there are people who
are weak, who will fold when the pressure gets to be too much. But I also think
that there are those who eventually come to believe that it’s not as simple as
all that, that there are complexities to be considered beyond black and white,
right and wrong. People who start to see that purity of purpose is an illusion.
A cloak, really . . . a moralistic disguise, that can actually end up
jeopardizing the very ideals they seek to uphold.” – Dr. Jain Suni
The manuscript has a
definite feel for the characters-they feel like the heroes that we have seen on
the small as well as the big screen. The adventure is a quick read, feels like a
TOS story, and yet has a complexity to it
that gives you a few precious answers. You realize rather quickly that the
answers it does give create more questions-questions that you fear to ask.
On Roger’s scale, I rate this book a B-
