Rough Trails

''What does it take to tame a world? Chekov, Sulu and Uhura are about to find out!''

Summary

 * From the back cover
 * Captain Kirk's latest voyage has brought him far into the final frontier. His new mission: to help a determined band of pioneers colonize a harsh and unforgiving world, defend the vulnerable settlers from the constant threat of alien invasion, and protect the planet's unique and precious resources for the sake of the entire Federation!


 * Months after their departure from Earth, the struggling colonists have barely established a precarious toehold on Belle Terre, a ravaged world still recovering from a catastrophic planetary disaster. Fierce cyclones, storms, landslides, and flash floods make survival itself a never-ending challenge. While Captain Kirk and the Starship Enterprise patrol the sector, on guard against predatory aliens and greedy space pirates, officers Chekov, Uhura, and Sulu stay behind to assist the hapless settlers in their desperate battle to put down roots in the turbulent soil of an angry planet.


 * But the imperiled colonists are a fractious and intensely individualistic group, not inclined to take orders or direction from their Starfleet guardians. Chekov and the others find their ingenuity and diplomatic skills tested to the limits – to save a people who don't want their help!

Background Information

 * This novel contained Chapter Twelve of the serialized novel Starfleet: Year One.
 * In Voyages of Imagination, L.A. Graf remarked, "This was fun for us, because we got to recreate a local western Pennsylvania natural disaster: the Johnstown Flood! (If you check the names of several towns on the planet, you'll find they're from the Johnstown area.) By this time, Julia was also doing a lot of herding with her border collies, so we wrote border collies into the plot and used the names of many of our dog-owning friends (with their permission) as characters. And Karen Rose got to use another generation of geoscience students as the scientific crew!"