Star Trek: The Motion Picture) was an actual link to the Collective. This also gives Starfleet another advantage; thanks to the meld, Spock knows the location of the Borg homeworld. Taking a Defiant-class starship (renamed Enterprise for the mission), the Enterprise-D senior staff, accompanied by Kirk, Spock and McCoy, travel directly to the Borg homeworld thanks to a stolen transwarp drive. Once there, the Enterprise neutralizes the Borg/Romulan fleet around the planet with a wave, dampening the Borg's communication and making them unable to maintain their link to the Collective, effectively neutralizing them. Taking this as a distraction, Kirk and Picard beam down to the planet in search of the Borg central node. Using Picard's memories as Locutus, they track down the Borg central node which, when deactivated, will sever the Borg Collective; every Borg ship will be separate from every other ship, and what can defeat one will always work a second time. However, the result will cause a cataclysmic explosion that will kill whoever operates the node. Picard and Kirk debate on who will go, each attempting to be the hero and sacrifice himself. Kirk appears to give in and let Picard pull the lever, but he takes the sudden calm to knock Picard out and beam his unconscious body back up to the Enterprise. Kirk then pulls the lever and triggers the explosion. However, even as the crew watches, Spock, who has always been able to sense Kirk ever since they first mind-melded, still does not believe that his friend is dead. Background The working title for the book was The Fires of Olympus. Reception Gideon Kibblewhite reviewed The Return for Arcane magazine, rating it a 5 out of 10 overall. Kibblewhite comments that "There is enough pace and action, enough in-jokes, enough of wide-eyed Kirk whispering 'Spock!' fiercely (yes, all the old favourites are wheeled on literally, in one case), and quite enough of Kirk rolling around as if he was 30, but not one new idea, character or race is introduced." Reviews Review by Neil Jones (1996) in Interzone, #108 June 1996 See also List of Star Trek novels References External links Novels based on Star Trek: The Original Series Novels based on Star Trek: The Next Generation Novels by William Shatner 1996 American novels Novels by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens Pocket Books books Fiction about resurrection