Thin Ice

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Riker finds himself on thin ice!

Summary

The USS Enterprise-D proceeds through space when a distress call from Captain Lyrinda Halk of the USS Marco Polo, attacked by unknown assailants and near destruction. The Enterprise races to the scene, and Will Riker reveals Captain Halk is a childhood friend, with whom he shared an intimate relationship. The Enterprise is briefly waylaid by a super-string phenomenon -- long energetic gravity anomalies in their path. The crew then finds the Marco Polo adrift, and rescues Captain Halk and a few survivors, before the robot-controlled starships come about and chase the ships apart. The vessels, programmed by the long-dead Darzun civilization, are designed to attack anything within a certain radius from their fleet and home system. Riker, cut off aboard Marco Polo, leads the robot ships into the super-strings, where they are destroyed.

Background information

• An earlier version of the cover was shown in some previews for the comic. Captain Halk was originally depicted with longer hair, the final version has her hairstyle much shorter.
• Several points in Riker's past were illustrated in this story: his childhood, Academy days, and as a junior officer on the USS Hood. This story had a reference to a variant of a Constellation-class starship (with a Refit Constitution engineering hull attached in place of the lower two nacelles. In the story it was called the Challenger-class. This reference created some confusion with Michael Okuda's writings assigning that name to one of the Battle of Wolf 359 wreckage models. Some fans believed that the Challenger-class model built for that scene might be of the configuration shown in the comic, but later photos of the actual model, of a different configuration, were shown by Mr. Okuda at a convention. Other starships in this issue were designs taken from FASA's role-playing games and one was even derived from the unofficially published Ships of the Star Fleet series.

Creators

• Based on Star Trek: The Next Generation created by Gene Roddenberry
• Writer: Michael Jan Friedman
• Artists:
  • Matt Haley (pencil art)
  • Carlos Garzon (inking)
  • Juliana Ferriter (color art)
  • Bob Pinaha (letter art)
  • Jerome K. Moore (cover art)
• Editor: Robert Greenberger

Characters

Jean-Luc Picard

USS Enterprise-D captain.

William T. Riker

Enterprise-D exec.

Data

Enterprise-D operations officer.

Lyrinda Halk

Marco Polo captain.

Geordi La Forge

VISOR-sighted Enterprise-D chief engineer.

Worf

Klingon Enterprise-D security chief.

Deanna Troi

Half-Betazoid Enterprise-D counselor.

Miles O'Brien

Enterprise-D transporter chief.

Ledbetter

Hood captain.

David Brett

Maro Polo ensign.

Calabria

Enterprise-D crewmember.

Marco Polo operations commander

Farmer

Bond

Enterprise-D nurse. Bond appeared in one interior art panel. He had no dialogue in this issue.

Leung

Silas

Pierce

Epstein

References

Alaska

Beta Marada

USS Caspian (NCC-5507)

The Caspian appeared to match the configuration of a refit-style Larson-class starship, as seen in FASA's Federation Ship Recognition Manual.

cosmic string

Darzun

Far-Pel VII

USS Fearless

Federation starship, an assignment of Lyrinda Halk.

USS Hood

Federation starship, assignment of Commander William Riker.

USS Marco Polo (NCC-7219)

Federation starship, identified as "Challenger" class.

USS Repulse

Federation starship, mistaken by Riker to be the duty station of Lyrinda Halk.

training vessel

USS Trieste

Federation starship, first assignment of Ensign Lyrinda Halk.

Timeline

2340s

Lyrinda's father died in a nuclear plant accident when she was 12.

Mid 2350s

Riker and Lyrinda are Starfleet Academy cadets on the Caspian exercise.

Early 2360s

Riker and Lyrinda meet in Alaska, on leave from the Hood and Fearless, respectively.

2367

The Darzun robot ships attack Marco Polo.

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