Thin Air
Kirk must hold New Earth at any cost!

Thin Air is a Pocket TOS novel – #93 in the numbered series, and the fifth novel in the Star Trek: New Earth series – written by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith. Published by Pocket Books, it was first released in .

Summary 
From the back cover
Many light years from the safety of the Federation, the Starship  stands guard over an alien world whose unique natural resources could change the balance of power throughout the galaxy. The ships crucial assignment: to maintain a Federation presence on the planet below, to defend the world's newly arrived inhabitants from hostile aliens, and to fight a solitary battle against all who would claim the planets riches for their own.

Against all odds, Kirk and his crew have preserved the struggling Federation colony on Belle Terre, but their heroic efforts may have been in vain. In a last-ditch attempt to drive the entrenched settlers off their new home, the alien Kauld have contaminated the planet's atmosphere with a destructive biochemical agent that will soon render the entire world inimical to Human life. With only weeks to spare, Spock races to find a scientific solution to their dire predicament, while Kirk takes the battle to the enemy, determined to wrest the secret of their salvation from the very forces out to destroy the future of this new Earth!

Background information 
 The title references a quote from The Tempest by William Shakespeare: "These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits and are melted into air, into thin air..."

Characters 
James T. Kirk
Spock

References 
Belle Terre; colony; ; Kauld; Quasar olivium

External link 
 

Novels