Captain Sisko must protect a planet from total destruction!

Objective: Bajor is a Pocket DS9 novel – #15 in the numbered series – written by John Peel. Published by Pocket Books, it was first released in May 1996.

Summary

From the book jacket

The Hive came from another galaxy: billions of alien beings living inside a vast, biological starship. They have already destroyed one planet, converting it into raw material and fuel for their endless voyage through the cosmos. Now the Hive is heading for Bajor and they have given the planet's inhabitants an ominous warning: evacuate in three days or die along with their world.

The Bajorans would rather die than abandon their sacred home, but their hastily assembled military fleet does not stand a chance against the awesome power of the Hive. Unless Captain Sisko can penetrate the Hive's defenses – and discover their most closely guarded secret – all of Bajor faces extinction.

Background information

• According to author John Peel, the original story for this novel featured the Borg, but editor John Ordover suggested developing an original antagonist instead, in case Paramount wanted to use the Borg in the series outside of "Emissary", which ultimately never occurred. (Voyages of Imagination, pp. 239-240)
• Peel also noted that the original draft started with what became Chapter Two of the final novel. It was only changed after his wife felt that the book didn't open with enough action. (Voyages of Imagination, pp. 239-240)
• Mary F. Taylor wrote, "One of the most fascinating aspects of Objective Bajor is that Peel told much of the story from the Hive's point of view. How the Hive dealt with its social problems is as interesting as how Sisko learned to communicate with the Hive and make them understand that Bajor must not be harvested." (Adventures in Time and Space, p 363)
• The novel features several recurring characters from the series: Gul Dukat, Kai Winn, Rom, Shakaar and Jaro.
• An audiobook of this novel was produced by the American Printing House for the Blind. The audiobook was provided on two cassettes, but, by using multi-track recording (four-track cassettes, 7 tracks in total) and reduced speed playback on a specialized machine, this was sufficient to contain an unabridged recording.
• The novel takes place before "The Way of the Warrior" and foreshadows it; military power on Cardassia is on the wane and Dukat makes a deal with the man behind the civilian revolt. A large Cardassian fleet is also destroyed in the novel, leaving fewer ships to defend against the coming Klingon invasion.

Characters

Canon characters listed below are linked to the main article about them. Non-canon characters are not linked, but those that recurred, appearing or being mentioned in more than one story, are defined further in Pocket DS9 characters.

Regular and recurring characters

Benjamin Sisko

Starfleet captain, the CO of Deep Space 9.

Kira Nerys

Odo

Julian Bashir

Jadzia Dax

Quark

Worf

Jake Sisko

Miles O'Brien

Dukat

Winn Adami

Shakaar Edon

Jaro Essa

External link

• Objective: Bajor at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works