Star Trek: The Next Generation: Starfleet Academy #13: The Haunted Starship by Brad & Kathi Furguson

Author:Brad & Kathi Furguson [Furguson, Brad and Kathi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0-671-01432-3
Publisher: Minstrel Paperback
Published: 1997-11-30T16:00:00+00:00

“Meet the bad guy,” Geordi said. “His real name is unknown to this day. At the time of our story, in 2179, this man is about thirty-five years old. He probably used to be a miner but, not too long ago, he organized a gang of outlaws and began robbing and murdering other miners for their meager hordes of supplies and money. This man and his gang have killed perhaps hundreds of miners. There’s no way to know just how many victims there have been, since the miners live alone and keep to themselves most of the time. It’s hard to tell when one’s disappeared.”

“That’s shocking!” Hassan exclaimed. “Where are the local police? They should be doing something about capturing these people!” He was so excited that he seemed to forget the whole thing had happened almost two centuries before.

“There are no police in the Belt,” Geordi said. “The Belt has no government at all. Finally, though, someone has decided that Starfleet should get involved. The situation has gotten so bad that ore shipments to Earth’s orbiting refineries have fallen off drastically. Captain Ikushima’s mission is to capture this man and as many members of his gang as he can, and turn them over for trial before a Federation court in Geneva.”

“Wait a minute,” Siobhan said. “This story is ringing a faint bell with me. Isn’t the freaky guy with the hair and the beard actually the one and only—?”

“That’s right,” Geordi stated. For the benefit of the others, he pointed up at the figure floating above them. “Meet Billy Devil, the biggest and baddest and ugliest—outlaw the Belt ever knew.”

“Ah,” Trennek said. “I’ve come across stories of Billy Devil in my reading. He had quite a reputation, didn’t he? Geordi, are you saying that Ikushima is the man who ended Billy Devil’s criminal career?”

“That’s right,” Geordi confirmed. “Ikushima took on Billy Devil himself. They used to say Billy was a hundred kilograms of bad hair and worse attitude.”

“He looks it,” Siobhan said.

“But I don’t remember reading anything about Billy Devil ever being captured,” Trennek recalled. “In fact, I don’t think he was.”

Geordi nodded in the firelight. “That’s right. He wasn’t. Benjamin Franklin, alone, faced down Billy Devil and more than thirty renegade ships in what was called the Battle of the Belt. Captain Ikushima and Ben smashed Billy Devil’s operation and captured more than a dozen renegade ships. The rest of Billy Devil’s forces were destroyed in the battle. Ikushima tried to capture Billy Devil, too, but Billy put his ship on self-destruct, killing himself and everyone else aboard.” Geordi erased the figure of Billy Devil from over their heads.

“He blew himself up?” Hassan said. “Well, good riddance to bad rubbish, as they say.”

“For many years afterward,” Geordi continued, some people claimed that Billy Devil hadn’t really died. There were reports of him being spotted here and there in the Belt, on Earth, and even in other Federation star systems. None of those reports was ever confirmed, and they’re very unlikely to have been true.

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