The Chance Factor
Cadet Janeway is exiled to a wilderness planet!

The Chance Factor is a Star Trek: Voyager - Starfleet Academy young adult novel – the second novel in the series – written by Diana G. Gallagher and Martin R. Burke. Published by Pocket Books, it was first released in .

Summary 
From the book jacket
It's Cadet Kathryn Janeway's last chance to prove her fitness as a future Starfleet officer: a field study on a wilderness planet involving alien animals and their handlers. Captain Holbrook's menageries of snarling, exotic beasts doesn't bother her. Their unruly alien handlers do. With an arrogant Klingon, an aggressive Talarian and an insecure Betazoid on the team, the war has begun even before they're beamed down to Diehr IV.

How can I prove myself when I'm saddled with this bunch? Kathyrn wonders. It seems like an impossible mission as she desperately tries to get everyone to cooperate… Time is running out as Kathryn leads her mission through treacherous territory to the exit point – only to discover that they are marooned on the alien planet! Now they must pull together – or perish!

Background information 
 This is the only Star Trek novel written by Martin Burke, who is the husband of co-author Diana Gallagher. Burke was interested in writing, and this novel "seemed like a good one to use as a launch pad to see how it went". Shortly after, however, Burke suffered a debilitating illness which prevented him from pursuing a professional authorial career. ()
 The authors wanted to use animals from all four of the Star Trek series at the time; in particular, they were keen to include an Aldebaran serpent, but changed it to a single-headed dinosaur at the suggestion of the editorial staff, as it was noted that the serpent would not work as a riding animal. However, this change was not communicated to the cover artist, Herring, who produced a cover with a three-headed animal. As a result, the manuscript needed further revision to accommodate the cover design. Gallagher noted that "[o]riginally, we were going to give the serpent three individual personalities, but that was too complex a fix for a revision of a completed manuscript. Instead, we gave our dinosaur one brain at the base of his neck and three heads that operated like arms. That way, we just had to add head actions. ()

Characters 
 Kathryn Janeway  Cadet.
 Holbrook  Captain.

References 
Starfleet Academy; Talarian hook spider; zabathu

External link 
 

nl:The Chance Factor
Chance Factor