Star Trek Re-Cap #2 - Mission to Horatius
This book is called Mission to Horatius (Written by Mack (not Mark) Reynolds and illustrated by...oh my god his name is SPARKY! Sparky Moore!) which though it sounds like Shakespeare is involved, he is not. But cavemen, religious nuts, gladiators, and Nazis are so I guess that's good news.
Okay! Well, this book doesn't have as many hilarious quotes, but what it lacks in accidental hilarity it makes up for in ILLUSTRATIONS! Which astoundingly aren't as bad as the cover would have you believe, but they ARE in PURPLE INK!
Anyway, THE COVER:
Honestly, I couldn't even see Spock and Kirk on the cover inside the library, lols. Not to mention how TERRIFYING their eyes are 8C Though I admit the enterprise looks pretty cool. But what's with that background? SO 80s WALLPAPER! There's no excuse, this book was printed in 1999.
...this is promising.
SO LET'S GO IN ORDER.
The first thing I noticed is that Mr. Reynolds starts off really just HATING Spock. Maybe he's jealous of his ears? I dunno. He refers to Spock's features as "Satanic".
"...Mr. Spock, with his long face, his pointed ears, his satanic eyes, never allowed himself to show more than mild surprise;"
and two pages later
"Spock lifted his satanic eyebrows in question."
Uhhhh needs moar adjectives. Also, they never mention his features as being satanic ever again. He quits doing it on page 20.
After that, every so often Spock will go on a long ramble of exposition so the reader knows what the crew is talking about and Kirk will be like "*SIIIGH* That's enough, Spock" and I really want Spock to be like "WELL THEN DON'T FUCKING ASK FOR COMMENTS WHEN YOU DON'T WANT THEM, GOD."
Ok after some exposition about McCoy complaining about their new TOP SECRET MISSION because everyone's been on the ship for like a billion years and they need to stop for leave and supplies but NO they have to go on a MISSION because Starfleet is a jerk. So McCoy fumes:
Or talks about five dollar footlongs, either way. So he complains about how some people have CAFARD. OH MY GOD NO NOT CAFARD wait what's cafard. So Spock explains to the reader Kirk who cuts him off after he doesn't want the walking library to talk anymore. Dick.
Anyway they explain cafard is basically space cabin fever, but it's apparently contagious? and has like destroyed ships in the past with people going nuts with boredom and killing people. Awk.
So they go to Horatius which is actually a group of 3 class-M planets (Which I accidentally nerded about. In front of non-nerds. And they laughed at me.) and they're looking for somewhere that sent a distress signal.
RIGHT AFTER THIS, Kirk notices the hump on Sulu's back is moving. Wait no Sulu ain't got no hump, wassat? Sulu pulls out, no joke, a large rat from some planet they just came from and is like "I NAMED HIM MICKEY :U" and the higher ups are like "...what?" and get mad and Sulu's like "I WANNA COLLECT AMINALS FROM EVERYWHERE!" and quote:
"'...someday, perhaps, there will be a section of a zoo back on Earth called the Lieutenant Sulu section, consisting entirely of exotic animals I've donated.'"
Dream big, Sulu.
Of course then Spock goes into how the damn thing's a brown Earth rat and Sulu sucks at animal-ing.
So, they like, let it get away or it escapes or something or they put it in a box I don't remember.
SO INSTEAD they land on the first planet on Neolithia. Guess who lives there. Cavemen. Duh.
So they land, get attacked by a kid on a weird looking horse-donkey
Who they zap and stun and make him take them to his leader who is like a dude wearing a bat hat
(...used a little too much ink there.)
Who tries to shoot them with arrows
Then Spock is like "what arrows?" and everyone is like "UHHH EVERYWHERE?" and Spock punches out the bat hat man and the arrow dudes disappear and Spock is like "Dude, it was hypnotism. You kids would have died because you THOUGHT you got hit with arrows. Noobs."
In short, they weren't advanced enough to have given the distress signal.
So they beam back and through a hilarious fiasco, the boy who led them to the bat hat cave man stows away in a box they brought in case Sulu wanted to capture an alien bear or something.
SO OF COURSE they bathe him and show him around the ship because the CAFARD is looming and the crew needs a change of pace.
Oh also, while this is going on, Uhura tries to liven spirits by playing guitar, but the strings keep breaking. Like, all the damn time. And of course since they have no supplies, she's got no more strings.
And so this kid (whose name is Grang) goes around and meets the people and at one point meets the recreation dude who comments on how well built the kid is (...pedo? Maybe not, the kid is like 15. Statutory?)
...the kid was NOT having his shit.
So onto Mythra, the next planet. GUESS WHAT RUNS IT? MYTHOLOGY! Or...religion, whatever.
They beam down and look around and NO ONE is astounded that they materialized out of nowhere because they're all like "8D" and that...that's weird. Then some dudes in robes come out and a serf dude runs into a cloak dude and the cloak dude disintegrates him and the NCC crew is like "NUUUU" and the cloak dude is like "What, he was a pleeb." (my word not his) so they led the crew into this like amalgamation building of roman/byzentine/whocares architecture:
And on the way in Spock talks to...someone, Sulu or Chekov, about the Vulcan god Maripol who needed the blood of twins to be satiated into not like...hurricane-ing and earthquake-ing the Vulcans anymore. Spock was like "lul religion is a silly thing"
And this whole time the cloak dudes are like "U WILL TAKE ANODYNE" and the crew is like "but I don't wanna." So they don't but then they talk to the HEAD DUDE with a FUNNY HAT
And he's like "YOU! TAKE YO ADONYNE" and they give the crew a cup of liquid each and McCoy is like "DON'T DO IT, IT'S LSD!" (this is not a joke, he tricorders that shit) and they're like "woa that's why everyone's all '8D' all the time," but of course Chekov already drank it (that's why he's retard-o in the illustration) and the head dude is like "Gimme yo phaser" and so Chekov does because he's balls out and Kirk is like "uhhh beam us up" so they do and they beam up the phaser which apparently was hilarious to the beaming dude. Wut.
After this, Mickey is ratnapped, Sulu is mad, and they go to the last planet in Horatius, Bavarya. Which actually just makes me think of cookies, but these kids are not cookie people.
So they contact the Bavaryans and are like "u in distress?" and they're like "NO. WE PEW PEW YOU!" so they shoot them with laser guns but the NCC-1701 has convenient deflector shields and THE LAZERS. THEY DO NOTHING!
No really, Kirk actually comments about how it "looks pretty".
So the planet comes back on the communicator, Nummer Ein to be specific. He's like...you know, the Hitler of Bavarya. So they get invited to a PALACE PARTY! and they take Grang who is familiar with the "space raiders" that have plagued his own planet so he can identify them as being space criminals. SO they give Grang a haircut (thank GOD) and they take him to the PARTAAAY!
Where Kirk meets some dudes, figures out that 90% of Bavarya's population looks exactly the same, and meets a lady who he surprisingly does NOT sex (but she was described as plump but attractive earlier)
Hm. Anyway, the girl is the one who sent the distress signal and is like Bavarya's Lenin/Trotsky which is sort of cool but it's on the DL right now.
(...why is Grang wearing a small version of the green captain's uniform? He was written as being in an Ensign's uniform...)
Then Kirk's like "U BE SPACE INVADERS" and Nummer Ein is like "nu-uh" and then Grang is like "BULLSHIT I seen u kill my mom" ok so not his mom but his people and then Nummer Ein is like "...UH...UHHHHH PUTTEM IN LOCKUP" so they're imprisoned. And then a soldier (who is reffered to as a Doppelganger, not even a joke) tells them to choose their weapons for the arena and the crew is like "wtf" and the soldier is like "WE HAVE GLADIATOR BATTLES! :D Pick your Roman weapon!" so Kirk is like "Spock, uh, did they have wrestling/boxing?" and Spock's like "yeah sure" and so they pick hand to hand. They pick three of the 6 people beamed down so they pick Kirk, Grang, and Spock. The Spock thing had me wtf-ing for a second but then I remembered he's stronger than Earthmens.
(...by the way a Billy Mays commercial just came on TV. I'm sad.)
Anyway, Scotty is PISSED because he doesn't get to battle and Kirk basically calls him and McCoy old and McCoy's like "yeah whatever I'm girly I can't fight" and Scotty is...still pissed lol
SO they put everyone in kilts.
Er, I mean
Dude, Spock looks BEEFED and RIPPED. What the hell? Hahahaha
So they hand battle these dudes and everyone's ok for round 1, tackle them no prob, Spock's fights are hilariously calm because he like punches and moves out of the way and punches and moves out of the way and the dude collapses lol
The best part is they describe in detail how Kirk uses his MAD MARTIAL ARTS SKILLS and is like "lol this beefy dude is unfamiliar with Judo" and I'm like "what the hell is the fourteenth position kata?" and then realize I don't care so then the second round starts, where the same dudes come out, but they seem perfectly fine and rested up even though the break between rounds was one minute and this happens a few times and the NCC team are getting tired, EVEN SPOCK oh god but Spock held his own through the third round aw yeah.
So they get taken back to their cells for an hour before round four and the Trotsky lady comes in and ZAPS THE GUARDS and Kirk is like "BITCH YOU KILLED THEM" and she's like "dude they're clones" and Spock's like "they got no souls, it's k" and then everyone's like "ok whatev" so the lady BUSTS THEM OUT and takes them to the cloner room and explains her father, Nummer Ein, is actually a clone and her real father died forever ago and she's part of an underground movement against the opposition.
Now in the clone room, Scotty sits down at a control panel and pretty much literally is like "WHAT'S THIS BIG RED BUTTON DO?" and the Nummer Ein BUSTS IN with Spock's phaser in hand and Spock's like "dude don't hit the trigger, it's on overload" so of course he tries to phase Scotty and blows himself up and Spock's like "FUCK why doesn't anyone LISTEN TO ME?" and everyone's like "ohkaaay" so Scotty's like "no, really, the red button" and someone, I can't remember if it's Spock through Vulcan magic or the lady herself but the button vaporizes all the soldier clones so of course he presses it and Nummer Ein's body DISINTEGRATES.
So everyone's all "our work here is done c:" and beam back to the ship which sort of made me lul because I pictured Kirk, Spock, and Grang still in the kilts lols.
Then they take Grang back to his planet where he's HAILED AS A HERO because he pwnt the space raiders.
Then the ship is STILL UNDER DANGER OF CAFARD and in sick bay there's like 40 people with THE CAFARD so some shit goes down where someone sees Mickey and he's "dancing" and everyone's like "SHIIIIT" and by everyone I mean McCoy and Sulu. Sulu actually at one point just yells "PLAGUE" lol and so they think the rat's got plague and he's trying to tell Kirk that they don't have any plague vaccine because there's no reason for it and they don't know anything about it medically because it's outdated and crazy shit goes down and they can't find the rat so they GAS THE ENTIRE SHIP WITH CHLORINE to kill it.
Kirk does this spacesuit make me look fat?
And then they DON'T kill it because Sulu finds it and Uhura writes a song about it and then at the very very end they find it and McCoy allegedly kills it and then a bit before they land at a starbase Kirk goes to Spock's room where Spock and McCoy are having a "serious conversation" and Kirk's like "you're both full of shit, we have plague info" and they're like "yeaaahh we know, BUT IT ENTERTAINED THE SHIP SO THEY DIDN'T ALL GET CAFARD! :D" and then the book ended really horribly because usually they end with a joke Spock doesn't get but this time it's McCoy saying "Kirk. Don't do that again, that was super fucked up".
That's seriously the end, Kirk doesn't even get to say "ok, mom".
But that's the book. THE END!
Okay! Well, this book doesn't have as many hilarious quotes, but what it lacks in accidental hilarity it makes up for in ILLUSTRATIONS! Which astoundingly aren't as bad as the cover would have you believe, but they ARE in PURPLE INK!
Anyway, THE COVER:
Honestly, I couldn't even see Spock and Kirk on the cover inside the library, lols. Not to mention how TERRIFYING their eyes are 8C Though I admit the enterprise looks pretty cool. But what's with that background? SO 80s WALLPAPER! There's no excuse, this book was printed in 1999.
...this is promising.
SO LET'S GO IN ORDER.
The first thing I noticed is that Mr. Reynolds starts off really just HATING Spock. Maybe he's jealous of his ears? I dunno. He refers to Spock's features as "Satanic".
"...Mr. Spock, with his long face, his pointed ears, his satanic eyes, never allowed himself to show more than mild surprise;"
and two pages later
"Spock lifted his satanic eyebrows in question."
Uhhhh needs moar adjectives. Also, they never mention his features as being satanic ever again. He quits doing it on page 20.
After that, every so often Spock will go on a long ramble of exposition so the reader knows what the crew is talking about and Kirk will be like "*SIIIGH* That's enough, Spock" and I really want Spock to be like "WELL THEN DON'T FUCKING ASK FOR COMMENTS WHEN YOU DON'T WANT THEM, GOD."
Ok after some exposition about McCoy complaining about their new TOP SECRET MISSION because everyone's been on the ship for like a billion years and they need to stop for leave and supplies but NO they have to go on a MISSION because Starfleet is a jerk. So McCoy fumes:
Or talks about five dollar footlongs, either way. So he complains about how some people have CAFARD. OH MY GOD NO NOT CAFARD wait what's cafard. So Spock explains to the reader Kirk who cuts him off after he doesn't want the walking library to talk anymore. Dick.
Anyway they explain cafard is basically space cabin fever, but it's apparently contagious? and has like destroyed ships in the past with people going nuts with boredom and killing people. Awk.
So they go to Horatius which is actually a group of 3 class-M planets (Which I accidentally nerded about. In front of non-nerds. And they laughed at me.) and they're looking for somewhere that sent a distress signal.
RIGHT AFTER THIS, Kirk notices the hump on Sulu's back is moving. Wait no Sulu ain't got no hump, wassat? Sulu pulls out, no joke, a large rat from some planet they just came from and is like "I NAMED HIM MICKEY :U" and the higher ups are like "...what?" and get mad and Sulu's like "I WANNA COLLECT AMINALS FROM EVERYWHERE!" and quote:
"'...someday, perhaps, there will be a section of a zoo back on Earth called the Lieutenant Sulu section, consisting entirely of exotic animals I've donated.'"
Dream big, Sulu.
Of course then Spock goes into how the damn thing's a brown Earth rat and Sulu sucks at animal-ing.
So, they like, let it get away or it escapes or something or they put it in a box I don't remember.
SO INSTEAD they land on the first planet on Neolithia. Guess who lives there. Cavemen. Duh.
So they land, get attacked by a kid on a weird looking horse-donkey
Who they zap and stun and make him take them to his leader who is like a dude wearing a bat hat
(...used a little too much ink there.)
Who tries to shoot them with arrows
Then Spock is like "what arrows?" and everyone is like "UHHH EVERYWHERE?" and Spock punches out the bat hat man and the arrow dudes disappear and Spock is like "Dude, it was hypnotism. You kids would have died because you THOUGHT you got hit with arrows. Noobs."
In short, they weren't advanced enough to have given the distress signal.
So they beam back and through a hilarious fiasco, the boy who led them to the bat hat cave man stows away in a box they brought in case Sulu wanted to capture an alien bear or something.
SO OF COURSE they bathe him and show him around the ship because the CAFARD is looming and the crew needs a change of pace.
Oh also, while this is going on, Uhura tries to liven spirits by playing guitar, but the strings keep breaking. Like, all the damn time. And of course since they have no supplies, she's got no more strings.
And so this kid (whose name is Grang) goes around and meets the people and at one point meets the recreation dude who comments on how well built the kid is (...pedo? Maybe not, the kid is like 15. Statutory?)
...the kid was NOT having his shit.
So onto Mythra, the next planet. GUESS WHAT RUNS IT? MYTHOLOGY! Or...religion, whatever.
They beam down and look around and NO ONE is astounded that they materialized out of nowhere because they're all like "8D" and that...that's weird. Then some dudes in robes come out and a serf dude runs into a cloak dude and the cloak dude disintegrates him and the NCC crew is like "NUUUU" and the cloak dude is like "What, he was a pleeb." (my word not his) so they led the crew into this like amalgamation building of roman/byzentine/whocares architecture:
And on the way in Spock talks to...someone, Sulu or Chekov, about the Vulcan god Maripol who needed the blood of twins to be satiated into not like...hurricane-ing and earthquake-ing the Vulcans anymore. Spock was like "lul religion is a silly thing"
And this whole time the cloak dudes are like "U WILL TAKE ANODYNE" and the crew is like "but I don't wanna." So they don't but then they talk to the HEAD DUDE with a FUNNY HAT
And he's like "YOU! TAKE YO ADONYNE" and they give the crew a cup of liquid each and McCoy is like "DON'T DO IT, IT'S LSD!" (this is not a joke, he tricorders that shit) and they're like "woa that's why everyone's all '8D' all the time," but of course Chekov already drank it (that's why he's retard-o in the illustration) and the head dude is like "Gimme yo phaser" and so Chekov does because he's balls out and Kirk is like "uhhh beam us up" so they do and they beam up the phaser which apparently was hilarious to the beaming dude. Wut.
After this, Mickey is ratnapped, Sulu is mad, and they go to the last planet in Horatius, Bavarya. Which actually just makes me think of cookies, but these kids are not cookie people.
So they contact the Bavaryans and are like "u in distress?" and they're like "NO. WE PEW PEW YOU!" so they shoot them with laser guns but the NCC-1701 has convenient deflector shields and THE LAZERS. THEY DO NOTHING!
No really, Kirk actually comments about how it "looks pretty".
So the planet comes back on the communicator, Nummer Ein to be specific. He's like...you know, the Hitler of Bavarya. So they get invited to a PALACE PARTY! and they take Grang who is familiar with the "space raiders" that have plagued his own planet so he can identify them as being space criminals. SO they give Grang a haircut (thank GOD) and they take him to the PARTAAAY!
Where Kirk meets some dudes, figures out that 90% of Bavarya's population looks exactly the same, and meets a lady who he surprisingly does NOT sex (but she was described as plump but attractive earlier)
Hm. Anyway, the girl is the one who sent the distress signal and is like Bavarya's Lenin/Trotsky which is sort of cool but it's on the DL right now.
(...why is Grang wearing a small version of the green captain's uniform? He was written as being in an Ensign's uniform...)
Then Kirk's like "U BE SPACE INVADERS" and Nummer Ein is like "nu-uh" and then Grang is like "BULLSHIT I seen u kill my mom" ok so not his mom but his people and then Nummer Ein is like "...UH...UHHHHH PUTTEM IN LOCKUP" so they're imprisoned. And then a soldier (who is reffered to as a Doppelganger, not even a joke) tells them to choose their weapons for the arena and the crew is like "wtf" and the soldier is like "WE HAVE GLADIATOR BATTLES! :D Pick your Roman weapon!" so Kirk is like "Spock, uh, did they have wrestling/boxing?" and Spock's like "yeah sure" and so they pick hand to hand. They pick three of the 6 people beamed down so they pick Kirk, Grang, and Spock. The Spock thing had me wtf-ing for a second but then I remembered he's stronger than Earthmens.
(...by the way a Billy Mays commercial just came on TV. I'm sad.)
Anyway, Scotty is PISSED because he doesn't get to battle and Kirk basically calls him and McCoy old and McCoy's like "yeah whatever I'm girly I can't fight" and Scotty is...still pissed lol
SO they put everyone in kilts.
Er, I mean
Dude, Spock looks BEEFED and RIPPED. What the hell? Hahahaha
So they hand battle these dudes and everyone's ok for round 1, tackle them no prob, Spock's fights are hilariously calm because he like punches and moves out of the way and punches and moves out of the way and the dude collapses lol
The best part is they describe in detail how Kirk uses his MAD MARTIAL ARTS SKILLS and is like "lol this beefy dude is unfamiliar with Judo" and I'm like "what the hell is the fourteenth position kata?" and then realize I don't care so then the second round starts, where the same dudes come out, but they seem perfectly fine and rested up even though the break between rounds was one minute and this happens a few times and the NCC team are getting tired, EVEN SPOCK oh god but Spock held his own through the third round aw yeah.
So they get taken back to their cells for an hour before round four and the Trotsky lady comes in and ZAPS THE GUARDS and Kirk is like "BITCH YOU KILLED THEM" and she's like "dude they're clones" and Spock's like "they got no souls, it's k" and then everyone's like "ok whatev" so the lady BUSTS THEM OUT and takes them to the cloner room and explains her father, Nummer Ein, is actually a clone and her real father died forever ago and she's part of an underground movement against the opposition.
Now in the clone room, Scotty sits down at a control panel and pretty much literally is like "WHAT'S THIS BIG RED BUTTON DO?" and the Nummer Ein BUSTS IN with Spock's phaser in hand and Spock's like "dude don't hit the trigger, it's on overload" so of course he tries to phase Scotty and blows himself up and Spock's like "FUCK why doesn't anyone LISTEN TO ME?" and everyone's like "ohkaaay" so Scotty's like "no, really, the red button" and someone, I can't remember if it's Spock through Vulcan magic or the lady herself but the button vaporizes all the soldier clones so of course he presses it and Nummer Ein's body DISINTEGRATES.
So everyone's all "our work here is done c:" and beam back to the ship which sort of made me lul because I pictured Kirk, Spock, and Grang still in the kilts lols.
Then they take Grang back to his planet where he's HAILED AS A HERO because he pwnt the space raiders.
Then the ship is STILL UNDER DANGER OF CAFARD and in sick bay there's like 40 people with THE CAFARD so some shit goes down where someone sees Mickey and he's "dancing" and everyone's like "SHIIIIT" and by everyone I mean McCoy and Sulu. Sulu actually at one point just yells "PLAGUE" lol and so they think the rat's got plague and he's trying to tell Kirk that they don't have any plague vaccine because there's no reason for it and they don't know anything about it medically because it's outdated and crazy shit goes down and they can't find the rat so they GAS THE ENTIRE SHIP WITH CHLORINE to kill it.
Kirk does this spacesuit make me look fat?
And then they DON'T kill it because Sulu finds it and Uhura writes a song about it and then at the very very end they find it and McCoy allegedly kills it and then a bit before they land at a starbase Kirk goes to Spock's room where Spock and McCoy are having a "serious conversation" and Kirk's like "you're both full of shit, we have plague info" and they're like "yeaaahh we know, BUT IT ENTERTAINED THE SHIP SO THEY DIDN'T ALL GET CAFARD! :D" and then the book ended really horribly because usually they end with a joke Spock doesn't get but this time it's McCoy saying "Kirk. Don't do that again, that was super fucked up".
That's seriously the end, Kirk doesn't even get to say "ok, mom".
But that's the book. THE END!