Wow. This is now one of my favorite books. It jumped back & forth between the “past” (in the days of Surak, the father of Vulcan enlightenment).. telling the story of how the Romulans broke away from the Vulcans.. very interesting, if not a little confusing.. and the “present,” where a race called the Waatari claim that the Romulans are murderers that kicked them out of planets that supposedly belonged to the Waatari (Romulus & Remus).. and plan on Romulan genocide because of it.
The Federation is torn, because of an uneasy truce with the Romulans and not knowing exactly what happened when the Romulans found their now-homeworlds… the Romulans’ history is sketchy and filled with myths, so that not even most Romulans know what happened in their early history.
This first book tells the tale of one Vulcan man’s journey.. meeting and befriending Surak and eventually being forced off-planet because of the civil wars. At the end of the book he ends up leading a “wagon-train” ship to the stars, full of Vulcan refugees, never to return home again.
The “present-day” story involves a few of the original Star Trek cast… Ambassador Spock, Captain Saavik (Spock’s wife now), Admiral Uhura, and Admiral Chekov. These lead a fleet of non-sanctioned Federation ships, a few Klingon, as well as some Vulcan ships into the Neutralized Zone to meet up with the Waatari (as well as the Romulans) to try to find out the truth, in hopefully the most peaceful way.
Spoiler Warning:… in the last page of the book, it looks like Chekov is killed in a transporter accident, while he’s wrestling with one of the Waatari! But as we all know… no one stays dead forever in Star Trek.