Quarantine – John Vornholt

In the fourth entry of the Double Helix series, the artificial virus attacks a planet in the demilitarized zone between the Federation and the Cardassians.  Lt. Tom Riker teams up with a group of the Maquis to try and help, stealing medical supplies from the Federation to help control the outbreak while avoiding the Cardassians, both on the surface and in orbit around the planet.

John Vornholt, whose work I last read in 1998, brings us the appropriately titled Quarantine, focusing on the band of Maquis who would eventually serve on board the USS Voyager.  He brings a new approach to the virus, avoiding the plot overlap from investigating the plague that dragged down some of the earlier efforts in the series.  Unfortunately, Voyager is not really my favorite entry in the Star Trek pantheon and having the focus be on characters from that show tested the limits of my interest.  Now that I am more than half way through the series, I am still cautiously optimistic on where the series is headed and that the payoff of who is behind the creation of these viruses will be worth the journey.