Star Trek The Next Generation - 49 - Crossover by Star Trek

Author:Star Trek
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780671896768
Publisher: Star Trek
Published: 1983-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

Proconsul Eragian stood with his hands clasped behind his back and surveyed the bridge of the Federation starship. As his aides went over each station with the utmost scrutiny, he shook his head.

"Leave it to Starfleet to cobble together such a confusing amalgamation of equipment," he mused. "Such an outright mess."

At his side, Lennex nodded in agreement. But he added no comment of his own.

Typical, thought Eragian. Probably, the Tal Shiar was busy contemplating the implications of the Starfleet captain's offer. Free the unificationists indeed. Even if it were within his power—which it wasn't at the moment—the proconsul would hardly entertain such a notion.

Still, a way to capitalize on the human's arrogance might yet occur to him, Eragian was glad he had left the matter open for further discussion. He might even find a way to use it as leverage against Tharrus.

For now, however, he had other things on his mind. A puzzle, as it were. The puzzle of this ship.

The registry on its hull had suggested this was the Yorktown—a Constitution-class vessel employed more than a century ago, according to the intelligence Lennex had garnered on it.

At the same time, the plaque beside the turbolift, translated for him by his own ship's computer, indicated that the bridge came from a vessel called Enterprise.

Obviously not the Galaxy-class Enterprise currently in service, but a predecessor—though Romulan records showed that at least two of those predecessors had been destroyed. One of them, apparently, had been a victim of the great military victory at Narendra III, still commemorated as a holiday among his people.

But by far the strangest part of the puzzle was the one that had spawned his interest in the first place—the cloaking device that had been discovered in the engineering section. It was one of the original modules developed on the homeworld, it seemed, long before they perfected cloaking technology.

Of course, it had since been upgraded, and by someone who knew what he was doing. But its rudimentary construction was still eminently recognizable.

How had the Federation gotten its hands on it? None of the records Lennex had obtained could give him an answer. But then even a Tal Shiar couldn't access quite everything in the imperial data banks.

Unfortunately, this vessel would be of little or no use to them from a tactical standpoint. He had a hard time believing that it bore any real resemblance to the Starfleet ships in use today.

However, here it was. Someone had gone to the trouble to construct it. And beyond that, someone had used it to cross the Federation Neutral Zone.

Of course, there was speculation that the one who had performed that feat was demented. A madman, the report said, who had somehow had the gall and the great good luck to steal a Federation starship, only to be caught by the ever-vigilant imperial border patrols.

A madman with the talent to run a fair-sized, space-going vessel all on his own. Eragian had heard of idiot savants capable of such things among his own people— but this was the first he'd heard of a human with such capabilities.

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