Catalyst of Sorrows

Catalyst of Sorrows is a Star Trek: The Lost Era novel – the sixth novel in the series – written by Margaret Wander Bonanno. Published by Pocket Books, it was first released in December 2004.

Summary[]

From the book jacket

The year is 2360.

She was trained to be a killing machine. Abandoned as a child, without home or family, past or future, Zetha survived only by her own cunning in the back alleys of Romulus before being taken by the Tal Shiar and remade into one of its deadliest weapons. But Zetha is about to undertake a mission unlike any in her experience.

The mysterious return of a virulent scourge thought to be long extinct threatens devastation on a scale almost too horrific to contemplate. Zetha's only hope of stopping it is across the Neutral Zone – among the enemies of Romulus. Now Admiral Uhura, centenarian chief of Starfleet Intelligence, must decide what to do with the knowledge Zetha has risked her life to bring to her. In order to stop the spread of the disease that is already ravaging the Romulan Empire, Uhura must assign a hand-picked team of Starfleet officers to covertly trace the contagion to its source – and do whatever is necessary to contain it.

But the world awaiting Lieutenant Benjamin Sisko, Lieutenant Tuvok, Dr. Selar, and Zetha herself is a hot zone of secrets, deceptions, and subtle machinations revealing an imminent holocaust beyond anything the away team expected, or what they could hope to combat.

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

Memorable quotes[]

"Don't worry, we won't report you to the Vulcan Perfectionists' Association."
"With all due respect, Dr. McCoy, were there such an entity, it need only be called the Vulcan Association, to avoid redundancy."

- McCoy and Selar

Background information[]

• This was the first Star Trek novel written by Bonanno in over ten years; following the events leading to the publication of Probe, the author believed that she had been blacklisted by Pocket. After fans encouraged her to contact then-Pocket editor, Marco Palmieri, he was able to allay her concerns. As Palmieri noted, "Obviously there were people on all sides of the Probe issue that felt burned in some way, but none of them were on staff at Pocket or at the studio anymore, so I told Margaret she was welcome to pitch for The Lost Era". (Voyages of Imagination, p. 463)
• Cover design by John Vairo, Jr..

Characters[]

Uhura

Admiral.

Leonard McCoy

Beverly Crusher

Selar

Tuvok

Lieutenant.

Benjamin Sisko

Lieutenant.

Kimara Cretak

Romulan senator; had a relationship with Koval

This book gives Cretak's first name as "Kimora".

Koval

Alidar Jarok

Tal

Leyton

References[]

neutral zone; Okinawa, USS; San Francisco; Tal Shiar

External link[]

• Catalyst of Sorrows at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works

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