STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE — LAST FULL MEASURE
Published by Pocket Books
Edited by Margaret Clark.
In stores May 2006.
336 pgs., Paperback (ISBN: 1-4165-0358-7) $7.99
Click here to purchase Star Trek Enterprise: Last Full Measure at Amazon

Following their previous best-selling and spectacularly-reviewed Star Trek work, Andy Mangels and Michael A. Martin have signed contracts for a new Enterprise novel, based on UPN's television series!

In June 2006, it was revealed that Andy Mangels and Michael A. Martin had signed contracts for a second Enterprise novel, relaunching the series! That book is titled The Good That Men Do, and is slated for release in March 2007. Excerpts from the book and images can be found by clicking the link in blue!

In February 2007, it was announced that in late 2008, Andy Mangels and Michael A. Martin would continue the Enterprise relaunch with Kobayashi Maru, telling major events in Star Trek history! Editor Margaret Clark said that, "we will see the NX-01 and the NX-02 and the unfolding history of Starfleet and the Coalition Compact...and the Klingons... and the Romulans."

Without warning or provocation, a Xindi weapon appears above Earth and unleashes a blast that kills millions across two continents. It is only the first such weapon: a second is being built, and this time it might very well destroy the entire planet. Desperately trying to save the Earth and her people, Starfleet must, in a heartbeat, change its mission from one of peaceful scientific exploration to one of military service.

There is only one ship fast enought to stop construction of this new weapon: the Starship Enterprise. But its crew can't do it alone. Captain Jonathan Archer accepts aboard his ship a contingent of Military Assault Command Operations personnel: battle-hardened soldiers known as MACOs.

Starfleet and the MACOs are two very different services now sharing a common goal, but they are as to how to reach it. It is a culture clash that echoes across centuries of military service. The men and women aboard Enterprise know they must succeed in working together or the price will be paid in the blood of innocents. Failure is not an option.

A chat with Mangels and Martin on July 2, 2006 appears at The Omega Sector.

An interview of Mangels and Martin with Julio Angel Ortiz from May 29, 2006 appears at The Next Chamber.

"The writing duo of Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels have crafted a first-rate story that goes a long way toward reconciling how the two groups learned to work together and trust each other while at the same time fleshing out the characters and bridging some of the gap between Enterprise and the original Star Trek. Then there is the little matter of a very shocking revelation within the framing story...I'll admit that when I began reading Last Full Measure, I wasn't expecting much given the material the authors had to work with. Last Full Measure was surprisingly enjoyable in many different ways so I'm very happy to be proven wrong."
— Jackie Bundy, The Trek Nation

"Mangels and Martin handle the Enterprise characters really well, even managing to make Mayweather interesting... the authors manage to demonstrate a successful sleight of hand technique in a couple of instances, including the resolution of one of the regular MACO soldier's storylines...The quality of this book definitely ensures that I will be back for the post-series novels that will be coming in the next couple of years. And Mangels & Martin also demonstrate that there is some gold to be mined from the series itself.
— David Roy, SFReader.com

"Measure is ace...Not that you’ll need any added incentive to read it right to the end, but page 330 contains one of the best ever Enterprise in-jokes/guest appearances we’ve seen. It’ll make you smile, but, on the strength of what’s come before that point, we’d wager that Enterprise fans’ll be smiling already.
— Sam Ashurst, SFX issue #145 — July 2006

"I loved the emotional depth that was very tangible... The main story is very well written. It captivated me very quickly although I expected a very straight forward pattern: Starfleeters and MACOs have their differences but after working together they develop a better understanding. I expected a straight forward action story in which both sides are learning from each other. I wasn't wrong but I am glad that the story provided more than that.
— Baerbel Haddrell, PsiPhi BBS

"Martin and Mangels do some things that the show never really accomplished. First, the book deals with the tense relationship between the Starfleet crew and the MACOs; second, it features Travis Mayweather, a character criminally underutilized on the show, as a major viewpoint character...As for the story, it's full of action and intrigue...a must-read for Enterprise fans, and a generally solid military action-adventure story for Trek fans who enjoy the darker side of the Trekverse.
— Steve Roby, Starfleet Library

"A very exciting read... The individual plots here (Archer's and Merryweather's) are enjoyable, but are just a bit of a backdrop for the character interactions that are superbly handled.
— Steve, The Eternal Night

"Last Full Measure is a very, very satisfying read. The writing duo of Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels manage to do an outstanding job of laying out several supporting crewmembers who one grows to care for by the end of the story, interweaves the work with a large amount of Star Trek backstory (particularly in the Prologue and Epilogue), and offers up a satisfying moral and interpersonal relations tale...Last Full Measure is good military sci-fi, and a compelling moral and personal tale, one that I would commend to all those looking for a morality tale and an action-adventure rolled into one.
— Father Rob Lyons, StellarCross

also reviewed in Starburst #339 which we don't have yet.

and here are a few who didn't like it as much...

"Given that story would concentrate on a lot of the marines, Martin and Mangels have opted to dispose of many of the major names from the crew, so as to cut down on the number of people...Overall the book is a long talky, introspective piece that just didn't click with me.
— Charles Packer, Sci-Fi-Online.com

"Normally this should have been an instant success, with a rather strong writer pair...The only thing stopping me from giving this novel a really bad rating is the characterization, which is the only part where the authors are near their usual quality...
— DefCon, DefCon's TrekLit

EXCERPT FROM LAST FULL MEASURE

Monday, September 10, 2153.

"We'd better find the Xindi soon, Hoshi. Otherwise I just might have to kill my roommate," Mayweather said very quietly. He tried to punctuate his words with an easy smile, but he suspected it looked more like the grimace of a man passing a kidney stone.

"Oh, come on, Travis," Ensign Hoshi Sato said, grinning around the last few bites of a Reuben sandwich. She leaned forward conspiratorially across the narrow mess hall table as she scooped up some of the sandwich's remaining innards, which had plopped unceremoniously onto her plate. "You've had to live in close quarters with other people before."

Mayweather took another sip of his still too-hot coffee. The burning pain felt perversely good as it spread and slowly faded. "Sure I have. But aboard the Horizon, I was mostly among family. This situation is different. Corporal Chang is a MACO, and I'm Starfleet. That's about as far from family as you can get. It's more like enforced confinement with some hostile alien."

Hoshi snickered. "Don't you think you might be exaggerating just a tiny bit?"

"Maybe. But not by much. Come on, Hoshi, you can't tell me you that you and Corporal Guitierrez have exactly become sorority sisters."

Mayweather saw Hoshi's expression darken slightly; the recent cramped living conditions aboard Enterprise had to be taxing the patience of even the most pleasantly disposed crew members. "Not exactly," she said at length. "But I'm not quite ready to do her bodily harm yet either."

"Then maybe you're just more patient than I am," he said, wondering if anyone who could make a career out of parsing unknown languages might possess patience of an entirely different order than his own. "Give it time."

She shrugged, as though conceding his point, but only somewhat. "You must have learned a thing or two about patience during those long freight runs aboard the Horizon, lumbering along at warp three from Draylax to Vega."

"Try warp one point eight," he said, grinning.

"You're making my point for me, Travis. You're a space boomer. You learned more patience working on that freighter than most people develop over a whole lifetime."

"But I also lost my patience for that sort of life, remember? Which is a big part of the reason I ended up here."

She sighed. "Still, things can't possibly be that bad between you and Corporal Chang."

He shook his head. "Oh, you bet they can. I swear, one or the other of us is going to leave feet first in shirtsleeves through one of the airlocks."

"This isn't like you, Travis. What's he done that's so awful you'd fantasize about making him walk the plank?"

Mayweather opened his mouth, then closed it again. He realized all at once that there wasn't any single incident he could point to. Rather, his irritation stemmed from a seemingly endless series of tiny slights and indignities; it came from the relentless accumulation of Chang's cumulative presumptuousness and arrogance.

"For one thing, he's a neat freak," he said at length.

There was pity evident in Hoshi's eyes, but she also looked perplexed. "A 'neat freak.'"

He nodded. "It must be pathological. My quarters are so spotless they make Doctor Phlox's sickbay look like a Tandaran labor camp. You could eat off the deck plates!"

Impatience began to displace Hoshi's expression of baffled sympathy. "And that's a bad thing?"

"It is when you can't find your own stuff half the time because of it. The copy of Chicago Mobs of the Twenties my brother gave me went missing for two days until I found out Chang had stuck it in the bottom of one of the footlockers. I asked him if he suffers from clutterphobia, or some sort of obsessive-compulsive disorder. He said it was just standard MACO discipline and suggested that I try a little of it some time."

As though anybody could grow up on a freighter as busy as the Horizon and not learn a thing or two about discipline along the way, he thought.

Hoshi suppressed a laugh, which came out as an abbreviated snort. "I don't think the compulsive neatness is necessarily a MACO thing. Selma Guitierrez is a complete slob. Having to clean up after her probably bugs me almost as much as Chang's habits bother you."

Mayweather grinned. "Maybe we ought to consider swapping roommates."

"Very funny. But maybe you've put your finger on a partial solution to your own problem. Why don't you ask D.O. to give you a different room assignment?"

"And admit defeat in front of Lieutenant O'Neill?" Enterprise's third watch commander Donna "D.O." O'Neill had earned her reputation as a no-nonsense officer; the last thing Mayweather wanted was for either O'Neill or Sub-Commander T'Pol, both of whom were working hard to oversee the present difficult crew living arrangements, to start thinking of him as a whiner.

"Okay, then ask T'Pol," Hoshi said with a shrug.

"No, thanks," he added. "Those are my quarters. Remember, I'm not the interloper here; Chang is. Besides, shuffling the room reassignments around won't solve the underlying problem: we're serving aboard a fully-crewed Starfleet vessel designed for a complement of eighty-three--and we have to accommodate a cadre of thirty-six MACOs on top of that."

"Only until we resolve the Xindi problem, Travis."

But there was no telling how long that might take. "Let's just hope we get a few Xindi in our sights before Chang and I get into a shooting war of our own."

"Shhh! He might come in here any minute." Hoshi looked surreptitiously around the room. A handful of off-duty personnel--including a pair of fatigue-clad MACOs--sat quietly, absorbed in their meals and conversations.

"Not a chance. We're 'hot-cotting' these days, remember? I'm sure Chang's off doing combat drills right now, preparing to defend the human race from the Xindi while we lowly Starfleet types handle all the scutwork involved in getting them to their appointed place of battle."

"You sound almost jealous, Travis. That's also not like you. Remember, 'they also serve who only sit and drive.'"

Mayweather was surprised at how her comment wounded him, though he could see from her bantering expression that there was no malice whatsoever behind her words. "You sound just like Chang," he said. "He seems to think I'm some sort of interstellar bus driver." He realized only belatedly that he had spoken a bit too loudly.

Hoshi held up her hands in a placating gesture. "Easy, Travis. You know that's not what I meant."

Mayweather noticed then that two of the Starfleet people present and one of the MACOs was staring at him silently. He tendered an awkward smile, which the other officers returned before turning their attention back to food and talk.

He felt stupid for having blown up at Hoshi. In a much gentler--and quieter--tone, he said, "Look, however good these MACOs may be in close combat, fighting the Xindi is going to take a lot more than just three dozen gung ho, egotistical ground-pounders."

"True enough, Travis. But the MACOs are definitely going to give us an edge when the shooting starts. They certainly earned their rep when they went up against those pirates in the Janus Loop. 'Semper Invictus.'"

"'Ever Invincible,'" Mayweather said, translating the MACO force's famous official Latin motto into English. "I heard they've picked up a few other choice labels over the past few months as well."

Hoshi nodded, smiling an ironic smile. "One of them is even in Latin. 'Semper Invisus': 'Ever Hateful.'"

Mayweather couldn't help snickering. "Chang wasn't very happy last week when he overheard Ensign Marcel using that one. He accused Starfleet of being 'Semper Invitus.'"

"Ouch. 'Ever Unwilling.' I had no idea your roommate was such an accomplished linguist."

"Haven't you heard? MACOs are great at everything."

Hoshi made a gentle "tsk" sound. "You sound like you've adopted one of the other new Latin mottoes a few of MACOs have tried to pin on us: 'Semper Invideo.'"

Mayweather favored her with a shrug and a blank stare. "What's that mean? 'Ever Movie Night'?"

"No. 'Ever Envious.'"

Mayweather had to will his back teeth not to grind together at that, but without complete success. "Listen, Hoshi, I don't doubt the skills of the MACOs for a minute, and I really don't think I'm jealous of them. I just resent the fact that they don't seem to appreciate our abilities. Lieutenant Reed has a whole brace of variable-yield antimatter torpedoes with 'Xindi' written all over them, and he'll need me on top of my game running the helm to help get 'em to their targets. Chang's not giving us nearly enough credit for knowing what the hell we're doing on this mission. His whole attitude seems to be 'we're the fearsome sharks and you're just lowly squids.'"

"That's not surprising, at least from a linguistic perspective," Hoshi said.

He frowned, unable to see just where she was heading with this. "What does linguistics have to do with this? Apart from the silly Latin slogans, I mean."

"Well, the acronym for Military Assault Command Operations sounds quite a bit like mako, the aboriginal Hawaiian word for shark." She pronounced the word "mah-ko," rather than the "may-co" that the MACO troopers used.

Mayweather's eyebrows lofted of their own accord at this revelation; now he understood why the MACO contingent attached to Enterprise wore the image of a voracious great white shark on their uniform insignia.

"And Chang's not the only MACO I've talked with who seems to feel this way," he said. "It's like they're privileged members of a special warrior caste."

A pained expression crossed Hoshi's usually smooth, unlined face then. "Guitierrez has a bit of an arrogant side as well. I chalk a lot of it up to boredom and impatience. After all, the MACOs have been locked and loaded and combat-ready for months, and we still haven't found a single enemy they can put in their cross-hairs. I think it goes all the way to the top; even Major Hayes has been sort of snippy lately."

Come to think of it, Mayweather thought, Captain Archer hasn't exactly been Mr. Congeniality lately either.

"They're impatient?" he said. "I'm just as eager as Chang is to teach those Xindi bastards a lesson."

Hoshi nodded, looking grave. "Me, too. But I'm willing to cut Corporal Guitierrez some slack on that score."

"Why?"

"For starters, her academic specialty was languages and communications," Hoshi said. She paused as a melancholy expression crossed her smooth features. "And she had family living in the same part of Florida that Commander Tucker did. The Xindi attack completely vaporized their home town."

Mayweather suddenly felt very small and petty. A protracted silence stretched between them, until he said, "Let's just hope we find the Xindi before things get any worse."

Not for the first time, he considered the notion that patience might well turn out to be at least as precious a commodity as antimatter, food, or water.