Starfleet Academy - TNG 13 - The Haunted Starship by Star Trek

Author:Star Trek [Star Trek]
Language: deu
Format: epub
Published: 2011-02-06T10:07:03.727000+00:00

them. "Meet Billy Devil, the biggest and

baddestand 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. Sometimes, people

just make things up to suit themselves."

SB

"And those weren't the only tales about BIIIV,

were they, La Forge?"

Sanchez prompted.

"No, Captain, they weren't," Geordi said.

"There were also stories that the ghost of Billy Devil

was haunting the Belt, causing all sorts of

mischief aboard ships passing by. The stories

said that Billy's ghost could never find rest because it was

condemned to float around inside the Belt, weightless

and alone, for all eternity."

"That's ridiculous!" Hassan said with some heat.

"There are no such things as ghosts."

"It's just a story, Hassan," Geordi

replied. "That's all."

Trennek shrugged. "It must be tempting to blame

your own incompetence or bad luck on the work of a

mischievous ghost," she said. "Just for the record, I

don't think Billy Devil snuck up

behind me today and yanked out my air line."

"Maybe it was one of Billy's pirate

pals," joked Siobhan. "Booga booga!"

They all laughed.

"Geordi," Trennek asked, "what happened

to Captain Ikushima?"

"He died saving this ship," Geordi answered.

"Captain Ikushima was killed two years after the

Battle of the Belt, while Ben was on patrol in

another star system. It happened during an

emergency in the engine room. Ben's old-fashioned

impulse engines were powered by nuclear reactors.

One of those reactors suffered a massive

mechanical failure that nearly caused it to melt

down. If it had melted down, the ship would have been

destroyed, and all hands would have been lost. Ben's

entire engineering staff had been disabled

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