The Haunted Starship

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(written from a Production point of view)

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Reference(s):	0671014323 (paperback) ISBN 0613101251 (library binding)

Cadet Geordi sees a ghost!

Summary

From the book jacket

Geordi La Forge has been given the chance of his lifetime! He's been chosen to join the training vessel Benjamin Franklin as assistant engineer, an opportunity rarely given to plebes. Geordi is determined to live up to Commander Sanchez's expectations. Their mission is to chart a neglected sector of the asteroid belt that lies between Mars and Jupiter. That night, Sanchez calls up a history of the old starship and Ben's first commander, the heroic Ike Ikushima, who died after saving the crew from disaster. The next night, Geordi sees Ikushima's ghost, arm raised, pointing directly at him! When he tells Sanchez, everyone begins to doubt Geordi's reliability... until the ghost reappears, pointing a warning finger at them all!

What does it mean? Is the ship haunted? Is it an alien invasion? The cadets are about to make history themselves – if they escape with their lives!

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Memorable quotes

"You must always be ready," Hassan went on. "Keeping everything on the ship running is only half the job, Geordi. The main job of a starship's chief engineer is to be as prepared as possible for anything that might happen. That's what a chief engineer's captain wants most of all. Give your captain that and you will have a job for life."

Background information

• This is the third Star Trek novel by Brad Ferguson, who has also written Crisis on Centaurus and The Last Stand.
• La Forge refers to positive remarks on his performance record received during the events detailed in Atlantis Station, an earlier Starfleet Academy novel.

Characters

Geordi La Forge

Cadet. A first year engineering student at Starfleet Academy who served as the assistant engineer during this training mission.

Brown

Commander. Head of Academy command training, who personally assigned La Forge to this mission to observe his competence in the field.

Robert DePalma

Commander. The first officer of the USS Benjamin Franklin at her launch in 2179.

"Billy Devil"

The alias of an outlaw miner who was responsible for the murder of hundreds of miners at the Ceresville mining facility. He perished during the Battle of the Belt.

Hassan el-Dallal

Cadet. A third year Terran student from North Africa and the chief engineer on the training mission.

Iwasaki "Ike" Ikushima

The captain of the USS Benjamin Franklin who was exposed to fatal levels of radiation during an overload of his ship's warp reactor in 2181. Captain Ikushima knowingly exposed himself to the radiation while attempting to prevent a meltdown that would have destroyed the ship.

Siobhan McKenna

Cadet. A fourth year mathematics major at the Academy who served as first officer and navigator on this mission.

Bernardo O'Higgins Sanchez

Cadet. A senior at the Academy who was in command of the USS Benjamin Franklin for the training mission. As this was his first mission in command, his thoughts often turned to his father who was lost on the Enterprise-C in 2344.

Trennek Sann

Cadet. A second year pre-med student from Andoria who served as the communications and medical officer on this mission.

Malakeh

Trennek Sann's mother, for whom the asteroid "3300002 Malakeh" was named.

References

Battle of the Belt

A conflict that occurred in 2179 when Captain Ikushima attempted to capture Billy Devil. Of the thirty renegade ships that opposed the USS Benjamin Franklin, fourteen were captured and the rest were destroyed. Included among the destroyed ships was Billy Devil's vessel, which he self-destructed to avoid capture.

Ceresville

A domed mining community on Ceres, the largest asteroid in the belt. It was mostly abandoned by 2354 due to the widespread use of replicators and the resulting decline in the mining of raw materials.

Pioneer 10

The first Earth probe to pass through the asteroid belt studied on this mission.

USS Benjamin Franklin

A Daedalus-class starship, NCC-013, that was first launched under the command of Captain Ikushima in 2179. As of 2354, it was being used as a cadet training vessel and was believed to be the oldest ship in Starfleet still on active duty. Limited by her old-style fission-powered reactors, the Benjamin Franklin could only reach a maximum speed of warp two.

USS Independence

An Ambassador-class starship.

USS Ohio

An Excelsior-class starship commanded by Captain Manning.

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