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At the end of the (non-canon) novel Star Trek Titan: Sword of Damocles there feels like there is something missing or forgotten. Near the end,

Xin Ra-Havreii (the ship's Chief Engineer)

is left behind in an attempt to allow other members of the crew to escape.

Xin is attempting to counteract Titans pulse at the end of chapter 14.
'No commander' he said, 'I have to stay with the network'
and then at the end of the page
'Good-bye, Commander,' he said. 'If I never see you again, thank you for calling me Xin.'

The problem here is that:

He is never picked up from the Eye of Erykon, Vale, Veru, Deanna and Modan all manage to escape whilst he continues to stabilise the eye.

This wouldn't be a problem apart from in the following book (Star Trek: Destiny: Gods of Night), he is already back on Titan!

Am I missing something here? Did I misread somewhere? How was he returned to the ship or is it a plot hole?

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I've just asked my new friend Christopher L. Bennett (bestselling author of Star Trek: Titan #5: Over a Torrent Sea) to explain this. His response was very illuminating.

Q. I’ve just been reading through the Star Trek: Titan books and I’ve found myself a little confused. At the end of book 4 (Sword of Damocles), Dr. Xin Ra-Havreii was left on the Eye of Erykon. It was quite an emotional moment. But wait … He’s back on the Titan at the start of book 5 (Over a Torrent Sea) with no comment made about the events of the previous book or how he managed to escape. Was he rescued somehow? How did he get back onto the Titan?

CLB: I think you’re misremembering. There was a character who was left behind in Sword of Damocles, but it wasn’t Ra-Havreii. Also, the Destiny trilogy by David Mack takes place in between Titan 4 & 5. OaTS begins with a crew complement consistent with the end of Destiny.

This lines up with what we see in the book. The away team are in a facility on the planet's surface, not on the Eye itself. Four of the five leave to go back to the Titan and Ra-Havreii remains behind.

“Right now you need to get down to the planet and do what you can to help Commander Ra-Havreii.”

Once the tesseract stabilised (and the planet reappears in normal space), it's presumably a simple matter to beam Ra-Havreii back up from the surface.

As an aside, the response from David Mack (author of Star Trek: Destiny) was somewhat less helpful ;-)

Q. Dr. Ra-Havreii was left on the Eye of Erykon at the end of Sword of Damocles. How did he get back for ST: Destiny?

David Mack: He used Uber.

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  • If that's the case why did Xin say that >! If I dont see you again thank you for calling me Xin I think I'll have to read that section again as >! it never specifies that he was rescued from inside the tesseract
    – MrDobilina
    Commented Jun 1, 2016 at 12:15
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    @MrDobilina - Because if they cock up the stabilisation pulses the planet is going to explode into a gazillion pieces.
    – Valorum
    Commented Jun 1, 2016 at 12:16
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    "He didn’t. In fact, his news was about as bad as it could get. He and Modan had managed to stabilize the network again and were in the process of implementing the timed stepdown of the Spires when the entire network was hit by a powerful energetic pulse." - “What do you mean, ‘hit by’?” said Vale. “A second field, one outside the network, is interfering with the Orishan Veil,” said Ra-Havreii. “I believe it is trying to collapse it.” “Is it something you didn’t account for?” said Vale. “Is the tesseract somehow reacting to what you’re doing there?”
    – Valorum
    Commented Jun 1, 2016 at 12:18
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    @MrDobilina - Yes, that's what seems to be the case. Once the tesseract dissipates, the planet is left in place. The worry is that if they mis-time it, the planet will emerge farther back in time where there's already a planet, forcing the two to occupy the same space (kaboom!)
    – Valorum
    Commented Jun 1, 2016 at 12:20
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    @MrDobilina - Well, it was sufficiently tricky that I ended up asking the author for help :-)
    – Valorum
    Commented Jun 1, 2016 at 12:31

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