Star Trek: The Captain's Table, book 06 : Where Sea Meets Sky
Jerry Oltion1998

Years before Kirk took command, Captain Christopher Pike guided the Starship Enterprise on a five-year mission. Pike's journey took him to many new and unexplored realms, none more strange or perilous than a devastated star system where huge, space-faring lifeforms, vital to the survival of one inhabited star system, wreak havoc on the humanoid inhabitants of the other. Captain Pike must thrust the Enterprise into deadly danger as he fights to save one innocent civilization without dooming the other.