Chapter 2 - Pages 17-26
Not much happens in Chapter 2; if there were subtitles for chapters in this book, Chapter 2’s subtitle would be “X-position” (I was going to think of a better title, but honestly this was the best I came up with).
It starts off back at Space Scotland Xhaldia, where some government official is reading reports of freak mutations all over the planet. There’s a lot of familiar-sounding mutations, and actually the descriptions of the mutated people’s reactions are slightly disturbing.
"A Mercasite gymnast had come close to suffocating when she somehow encased herself in an impermeable, metallic skin."
Basically though, the entire purpose of this chapter is to do two things. The first is to set up the main conflict of the novel, which is the Xhaldian people being dicks and trying to confine all these mutated people into an isolated area away from the rest of society (for their own safety, honest!). The second is to give us a reason for Worf being on the Enterprise. Honestly, nobody needed a reason. He can be just there. One throwaway line is all you need - Insurrection did that perfectly. But then again, without this extended scene, we don’t get the amazing troll job the Enterprise crew pulls on him.
Here’s some brief background: Worf has been living on Deep Space 9 for a while now, and recently married Jadzia Dax. We are told all of this in the novel, largely for the purpose of establishing where in the Trek timeline this takes place (because it’s expected that we know what the hell Friedman is talking about).
Worf is returning to the Enterprise for some sort of diplomatic mission that involves Klingons somehow, and anyway blah blah blah he’s totally looking forward to seeing his old friends. Except that when he arrives, there’s no one to greet him in the transporter room. This is Step 1 of Operation: Troll Worf. Worf’s reaction is priceless. Picture him doing the Charlie Brown sad walk off of the transporter pad. Sort of like this:
Then, he runs into Picard, who also is all, “Oh, what? No we’re not busy we just didn’t come to see you”.
"Mr. Worf!" the captain exclaimed. The Klingon suppressed a smile. "I am pleased to see you, sir."
"You look well," said Picard.
"As do you, sir." He eyed the captain more closely. "Has something pressing come up? Something of which I should be aware?"
Picard looked at him. "I...don't believe so," he responded finally. "Why do you ask?"
Worf sighed. "No Reason."
At this point Worf is completely out of sorts. And instead of being all Ragey Klingon he is Mopey Kilngon. Being the reader, we have the advantage of knowing this is a clear set-up for a surprise party - something which Worf should come to expect by now from his friends.
Here, have an illustration of Sad Worf, courtesy of Xyloart:
But he doesn’t, and the characters literally yell out “SURPRISE!” and engage in a healthy round of mocking Worf. Worf pretends to be annoyed, but deep down, he loves it.
And then some sort of emergency is communicated to Picard by a Lieutenant Sovar, who maybe has some sort of relation to Erid Sovar from the prologue? Maybe?
One last thing - Chapter two addresses a plot hole I didn’t even think about when I watched Worf’s wedding on Deep Space Nine: Worf didn’t have a single Enterprise crewmate attending his wedding (unless you count Chief O’Brien, but by that point he was part of the DS9 crew). It’s like once you join a new post, you drop your old friends unless they show up as a special guest star in some other episode. Whatever. I hope something actually happens in Chapter 3?