The Star Trek Pocket Books series continues the voyages of Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise in all-new adventures. The numbered paperbacks (#1-#97) are mostly fun, simple reads that sometimes give insight into characters the TV series never seemed to have time for.
Pocket Book #62, Death Count, written by L.A. Graf (a pen name for a team of women writers who produced other Star Trek Pocket Book novels), is a delight for those who want to know more about the show’s minor characters. In this adventure, published in 1992, Sulu, Uhura, and particularly Chekov take the spotlight as an Orion-Andorian conflict threatens to spark a war that only the crew of the Enterprise can prevent!
Death Count summary
This adventure takes place somewhere in between the events of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The Enterprise is called to a starbase at the border of Andorian-Orion space, as the disappearance of an Andorian scientist has hostilities between the two species at an all-time high. The presence of Enterprise and her crew is meant to ease tensions, but then strange incidents begin to occur on board.
As the ship’s security chief, Chekov must deal with missing weapons, an auditing team that dogs his every move, and then the eventual murders of each of the auditors. This leads to the suspicion that a saboteur is on board, and after a bomb goes off in Chekov’s office that nearly kills him, he must track the assailant in the explosion-ravaged section of the ship.
Redshirts Always Die doesn’t reveal spoilers, but the identity of the saboteur is a surprising one, and the chase gives us a mature, confident, intelligent, and resourceful Chekov, a fully-formed Starfleet officer that’s a far cry from the boy who screamed in fright over a dead body when he was an ensign!
Minor character deep dives
While the mystery of the missing scientist and an assassin on board the Enterprise keeps things exciting, what really sells this book for me is the relationship between Sulu, Chekov, and Uhura. Their bond in this book is obvious, and their banter is a Kirk/Spock/McCoy echo that is highly entertaining.
We also gain plenty of insight into their personal lives, such as Sulu’s constantly shifting hobbies, Uhura’s continued love of music and other cultures, and how Chekov’s gruff nature hides his affection and concern for those he cares about. One of my favorite moments is when he cares for some small, timid lizards Sulu purchased at the starbase and keeps them in his bathtub so they wouldn’t be harmed in all the chaos.
This isn’t my favorite B-team book (that would be Uhura’s Song), but I did enjoy it. The mystery of the missing scientist and the identity of the killer are not so simplified that it’s easy to guess early on, and the characterizations are both familiar and enjoyable. At 276 pages, fast readers can finish this paperback in a day or so.