Star Trek: Typhon Pact
Zero Sum Game
A spy for the Typhon Pact — a new political rival of the Federation — steals the plans for Starfleet’s newest technological advance: the slipstream drive. To stop the Typhon Pact from unlocking the secrets of slipstream drive, Starfleet Intelligence recruits a pair of genetically enhanced agents: Dr. Julian Bashir, of station Deep Space 9; and Sarina Douglas, a woman whose talents Bashir helped bring to fruition, and who Bashir thinks of as his long-lost true love.
Bashir and Douglas are sent to infiltrate the mysterious species known as the Breen, find the hidden slipstream project, and destroy it. Meanwhile, light-years away, Captain Ezri Dax and her crew on the U.S.S. Aventine play a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse with a Typhon Pact fleet that stands between them and the safe retrieval of Bashir and Douglas from hostile territory.
Reviewers' Comments
“Fast and thrilling”
“Zero Sum Game kicks off the Typhon Pact series with a bang.”
“[G]iven new life here is the Breen Confederacy. The enigmatic suited figures from Deep Space Nine are finally fleshed out in full with Zero Sum Game.”
“Fast and thrilling, Zero Sum Game is a spy thriller with more depth than first meets the eye.”
“Verdict: 4/5”
“[W]e discover that Bashir doesn’t just like holo spycraft, he’s actually the twenty-fourth-century reincarnation of Rogue Nation-era Ethan Hunt, with some Moonraker-Bond thrown in for extra spice.”
“Bashir is at a low point when Zero Sum Game opens, which adds believability to the way he gets sucked into this covert mission, despite its icy ends-justify-means brand of morality. … Mack is giving us a complex, successful, highly intelligent individual—who has become, by dint of his ego, susceptible to a hubristic fall from grace.”
“Swift and gritty; 8/10”
"Mack deftly handles the various plot strands, and provides some thrilling action sequences, including a chase through a crowded city and a seat-of-the-pants rescue (with a lovely tip of the hat to the 2009 Star Trek movie casually thrown in)."
"A great start to the latest 24th-century adventures."
—Peter Quentin, TotalSciFiOnline
"Mack completely floors you within the first few chapters by turning DS9 upside down…"
"The incredibly detailed look into Breen society was fantastic."
"These are dark times for this characters, and this miniseries, which has started with a huge bang, will shape the future of the various Star Trek series as much as Destiny did…"
"Highly recommended!"
—Keith Brown, Reviews for Kicks