I’m certainly not a fan of Rice, but as a dedicated Trekkie I’ll admit that the franchise has been less than scrupulous at times. And by “at times”, I mean, “for the entire run of Deep Space Nine, which was almost certainly ripped off from Babylon Five.”
So, given the parellels you’ve described, it seems likely that either:
- This episde did, indeed, rip off the Rice novel, or;
2.) Both the Rice novel and the Trek episode were adaptations of a similar, earlier story with a similar plot. Was there anything like that?