Children of the Storm (novel)


 * You may also be looking for the, the species this novel is named after.

Summary
While the USS Voyager (NCC-74656) and the rest of the fleet investigate the Indign mystery, the USS Planck, USS Demeter, and USS Quirinal are sent to follow up on a discovery by the USS Aventine during the recent Borg invasion. Over the next two weeks, the three vessels approach the edge of the system inhabited by the reclusive Children of the Storm, a non-corporeal species capable of unparalleled destruction, and gradually attempt to initiate contact.

Against the guidance of Captain Regina Farkas of the Quirinal, the commander of the Planck orders the Demeter, the fleet's food-production vessel, to make a quick run into the system to relieve his crew of the burden of replicated food. The action provokes the Children of the Storm and through a telepathic ensign aboard the Quirinal, they restate their aversion to Federation contact but express foreboding appreciation for the gift of "the life." As Captain Farkas attempts to determine what "the life" refers to, the Children gather around the three vessels. In the resulting struggle, the Planck is destroyed. As Demeter is taken deeper into the system, offering no resistance to avoid Planck's fate, several crewmembers of the Quirinal become possessed by the Children and escort the non-corporeal aliens through the vessel to engineering.

In the resistance, Captain Farkas recruits a junior engineer, Phinn Bryce, to try and bring the slipstream back online and plot an escape. But in the final showdown with the Children, Farkas is critically injured and the Quirinal makes a jump that eventually leads it to crashland on an uninhabited planet tens of thousands of lightyears away.

Meanwhile, once Voyager and the other Full Circle fleet vessels conclude their business with the Indign, they receive another visit from Neelix who returns the shuttle stolen by the "possessed" holoprogram Meegan McDonnell. Captain Afsarah Eden seeks out the help of Counselor Hugh Cambridge in the developing mystery of her origins when a gift from an alien race elicits more questions. B'Elanna Torres settles into her new role as fleet engineer while butting heads with Commander Tillum Drafar, a Lendrin male who questions her ability to balance work and motherhood.

Once it becomes apparent that the trio of vessels sent to make contact with the Children of the Storm are behind schedule, Eden and Chakotay debate their next step and decide Voyager will travel to the system alone. Despite the mandatory transfer of telepaths to other vessels, Ensigns Aytar Gwyn, the half-Kriosian helmsman, and Kenth Lasren, the Betazoid ops officer, remain aboard. When Voyager arrives at the system, it becomes apparent that the situation went terribly wrong -- the Planck has been destroyed, Quirinal has barely escaped, and Demeter may be trapped deeper in the system.

Onboard Demeter the unorthodox Captain Liam O'Donnell remains in eccentric seclusion while his XO Atlee Fife seeds mutinous thoughts among the senior staff in a single-minded obsession with escaping the Children. After it becomes obvious that "the life" the Children are so infatuated with are any plant-based organisms, O'Donnell orders the crew to provide round-the-clock planting in the extensive aeroponics network onboard Demeter in order to delay the Children's destruction of the ship.

Despite the danger to Demeter, Eden orders the ship to pursue the Quirinal's last known heading, and the vessel is eventually found crash-landed on an uninhabited world. As Achilles is ordered to rendezvous with Voyager to repair the vessel, Eden and Chakotay learn that the Quirinal managed to trap a handful of the Children onboard. Ensign Lasren is recruited to communicate with the aliens. While Lasren works to open a dialogue with the unique aliens, Seven of Nine and Devi Patel, chief science officer, postulate that the solution to their dilemma may lie in finding the "mother" of the Children of the Storm.

After one failed attempt to provide the Children with perpetual plant lifeforms, and despite Fife's growing impatience with his captain, O'Donnell eventually creates an organism that can be injected directly within the energy shells the Children travel inside.

Voyager eventually embarks to locate the mother, and on a hunch from Aytar, travels to the home of the mother early in their search. At first, the mother, a living planet of gaseous lightning storms, offers few clues to the true nature of the Children. But developments soon lead Seven to theorize that the "Children" may really be more analagous to thoughts issued from the mother. With the combined arguments of Lasren and Eden, the captive Children are released and make contact with their mother. Through Aytar, they express a new understanding of the Federation crew and Eden realizes that their xenophobia was instigated by the Borg devastation witnessed by their mother.

The Children reunited with their mother agree to return to their home system and free the Demeter crew -- provided they are still alive. In the home system, O'Donnell is in space-walk directly injecting the plant lifeform into the Children's energy shell, when an impatient Fife mistakes Voyager's arrival for a rescue attempt and opens fire on the Children. The crew of Demeter disable Fife and Eden assures the Children of the Federation's true intentions.

After O'Donnell and the fleet work to seed the Children's "homeworld" -- now dubbed Persephone -- with the lifeform he specifically bred for it, the Full Circle fleet now reunites at the planet where Quirinal crashed for a memorial of the Planck and Quirinal's lost crew. Afterward, B'Elanna confronts Eden about a discovery she made while working on Achilles -- a fleet of small single-fighter attack craft -- and Eden assures her that the intentions of the fleet are solely peaceful, but cautiously so. Meanwhile, Seven chooses to resume her counseling sessions with Cambridge, only to have them discontinued once she expresses her interest in a romantic relationship with him. As Voyager prepares to resume its mission, Eden chooses to open up with Chakotay about her still-unsolved origins, in hopes of feeling a little less alone in the galaxy.

Publisher's description

 * From the back cover
 * ''"YOU WERE TOLD NOT TO RETURN TO OUR SPACE."


 * ''Little is known about the Children of the Storm—one of the most unique and potentially dangerous species the Federation has ever encountered. Non-corporeal and traveling through space in vessels apparently propelled by thought alone, the Children of the Storm at one time managed to destroy thousands of Borg ships without firing a single conventional weapon.


 * ''Now in its current mission to the Delta Quadrant, Captain Chakotay and Fleet Commander Afsarah Eden must unravel why three Federation starships—the U.S.S. Quirinal, Planck, and Demeter—have suddenly been targeted without provocation and with extreme prejudice by the powerful Children of the Storm . . . with thousands of Starfleet lives at stake from an enemy that the Federation can only begin to comprehend. . ..

Characters

 * Reginald Barclay • Shurl Beldon • Cress Benoit • Justin Bloom • Phinnegan Bryce • Hugh Cambridge • Chakotay • Xin Chan • Nancy Conlon • Parimon Dasht • Anthony DeCarlo • Gregor Denisov • The Doctor • Tillum Drafar • Michael Drur • Afsarah Eden • Rich Edmonds • Garvin Elkins • Sten Falto • Regina Farkas • Atlee Fife • Preston Ganley • Clarissa Glenn • Connor Griggs • Danar Grim • Aytar Gwyn • Krim Hoch • Bal Itak • Jepel Omar • Harry Kim • Lamar • Kenth Lasren • Benjamin Lawry • Lern • Illo Mirren • Neelix • Liam O'Donnell • Tom Paris • Davi Patel • Bano Peyman • Julian Psilakis • Malcolm Roach • El'nor Sal • Lynne Selah • Seven of Nine • Sharak • Sienna Kar • Solonor Evert • Hosc T'Mar • T'Pena • B'Elanna Torres • Daniel Tregart • Url Lask • Ranson Velth • Thomas Vincent • Vorik • Derek Waverly

Ezri Dax

Starships and vehicles

 * USS Achilles (NCC-77024) • USS Curie (NCC-81890)  • USS Demeter (NCC-79914)  • USS Esquiline (NCC-82614)  • USS Galen (NX-86350)  • USS Hawking (NCC-81897)  • USS Planck (NCC-81894)  • USS Quirinal (NCC-82610)  • USS Voyager (NCC-74656)

USS Aventine

Locations

 * Delta Quadrant • New Talax

Alpha Quadrant • Beta Quadrant • Gamma Quadrant • Occidon • Parush Desert

Races and cultures

 * Bajoran • Betazoid • Borg • Children of the Storm • Deltan • Hologram • Human • Klingon • Kriosian • Lendrin • Talaxian • Tamarian • Trill • Vulcan

States and organizations

 * Starfleet • United Federation of Planets

Dominion

Other references

 * Borg Invasion of 2381 • Dominion War

Production history

 * 2011, June - First published in mass market paperback by Pocket Books