While this is the second book in this new "Star Trek" series for teens, it really jumps back in time to the point when Jim Kirk and his classmates are starting off at the Academy. It quickly becomes clear that their time at the Academy is going to be filled with all sorts of challenges, both physical and intellectual. It starts off with a race across the desert in which only one of the plebes, or freshman, will be winner. Everyone else might as well not matter. Knowing Kirk as we all do, this will be an important race, but can he recover from being beaten by an Andorian cadet with a bloated ego?

One good thing about the race is that it gives him an opportunity to get to know one of the other cadets a bit better, and the two quickly find themselves with a budding relationship.

Love and academics are not the only thing that will be challenging our favorite cadets. When one of the new plebes ends up being found dead by his roommate, previously mentioned egotistical Andorian, Starfleet gets a little suspicious. His body exhibits signs that he was suffering from a large number of internal injuries that occurred over a number of weeks. Bones McCoy notices some indications that this might be due to the fact that the young man had some sort of procedure to weaken the young man's pain receptors, allowing him not to be held back from injuries.

When another cadet, this time a friend of Uhura's, collapses, it starts to become clear that a number of plebes both from this year and earlier years have been having different procedures to help them with the rigorous curriculum at the Academy. Can Kirk and the gang figure out what is going on and who is doing it before someone else turns up dead?

This book moves a little more slowly than the previous book in the series. While that one definitely focused more on the mystery at the core of the plot, this one tries to give the primary characters (Kirk, Bones, and Uhura) a chance to have some character development with the characters around them. In a number of ways, Josephs is successful. Kirk's involvement with his girlfriend really forces him to consider what will make a successful student, and later a successful officer and question his rebellious past.

Similarly, Uhura finds herself looking for some quiet space to study only to run into Commander Spock, providing readers with an opportunity to see how their relationship got its start in this alternate timeline that started with the 2009 film. I do have to say I thought the previous volume was a bit stronger, but that didn't stop me from finishing this up in just a couple of days in two sittings. It is definitely worth the read.