Star Trek: The Next Generation: Starfleet Academy #6: Mystery of the Missing Crew Read online

  Before he was an officer aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise™...

  An android is found in the ruins of a colony on Omicron Theta. The crew of the Tripoli reactivate the android and discover his name is Data, a name that suits his incredible curiosity. With the encouragement of his new friends, Data applies to Starfleet Academy™ and is accepted

  Cadet Data begins his journey to Starfleet Academy aboard the science vessel, Yosemite. Even as he looks forward to the Academy, he struggles to find his own identity and to fit in with the other cadets.

  But Data's worries are cut short when the Yosemite is suddenly attacked by an unknown vessel and suffers severe damage. When the power is restored, Data discovers that the adult crew has mysteriously disappeared, and only Data and the other Academy-bound cadets are left to face the wrath of a new alien race … who are demanding that Data and his cadet crew surrender their ship, or be destroyed!

  Cover art by Catherine Huerta

  Interior Illustrations by Todd Cameron Hamilton

  Data and the intruder spotted each other at the same time....

  Data was expecting to see a machine much like the one they had encountered earlier, with much the same abilities.

  He was wrong.

  And he would have been dead wrong if he hadn’t managed to pull his head back in time.

  As it was, the intruder’s energy beam ripped away a large section of the bulkhead where he’d been standing, leaving only a smoking heap of metallic sludge in its place. Pulling Sinna along, Data took off back down the corridor.

  “That blast—” the Yanna began.

  “Was much stronger than those we have seen previously,” the android noted. “That is because we are dealing with a different sort of invader—”

  Then there was no more time to speak, because the bulkheads on either side of them were turning into blazing slag under the intruder’s phasers….

  Star Trek: The Next Generation

  STARFLEET ACADEMY

  #1 Worf’s First Adventure

  #2 Line of Fire

  #3 Survival

  #4 Capture the Flag

  #5 Atlantis Station

  #6 Mystery of the Missing Crew

  Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

  #1 The Star Ghost

  #2 Stowaways

  #3 Prisoners of Peace

  #4 The Pet

  Star Trek movie tie-in

  Star Trek Generations

  Available from MINSTREL Books

  The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed.” Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this “stripped book.”

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A MINSTREL PAPERBACK Original

  A Minstrel Book published by

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 1994 by Paramount Pictures. All rights reserved.

  STAR TREK is a Registered Trademark of Paramount Pictures.

  This book is published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc., under exclusive license from Paramount Pictures.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN: 0-671-50108-9

  First Minstrel Books printing June 1994

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

  A MINSTREL BOOK and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  Cover art by Catherine Huerta

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  For Drew Leslie Friedman,

  who took his own sweet Time

  STARFLEET TIMELINE

  2264

  The launch of Captain James T. Kirk’s Five-year mission, U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC-1701.

  2292

  Alliance between the Klingon Empire and the Romulan Star Empire collapses.

  2293

  Colonel Worf, grandfather of Worf Rozhenko, defends Captain Kirk and Doctor McCoy at their trial for the murder of Klingon chancellor Gorkon. Khitomer Peace Conference, Klingon Empire/Federation (Star Trek VI).

  2323

  Jean-Luc Picard enters Starfleet Academy’s standard four-year program.

  2328

  The Cardassian Empire annexes the Bajoran homeworld.

  2341

  Data enters Starfleet Academy.

  2342

  Beverly Crusher (née Howard) enters Starfleet Academy Medical School, an eight-year program.

  2346

  Romulan massacre of Klingon outpost on Khitomer.

  2351

  In orbit around Bajor, the Cardassians construct a space station that they will later abandon.

  2353

  William T. Riker and Geordi La Forge enter Starfleet Academy.

  2354

  Deanna Troi enters Starfleet Academy.

  2356

  Tasha Yar enters Starfleet Academy.

  2357

  Worf Rozhenko enters Starfleet Academy.

  2363

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard assumes command of U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC-1701-D.

  2367

  Wesley Crusher enters Starfleet Academy.

  An uneasy truce is signed between the Cardassians and the Federation.

  Borg attack at Wolf 359; First Officer Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Sisko and his son, Jake, are among the survivors.

  U.S.S. Enterprise-D defeats the Borg vessel in orbit around Earth.

  2369

  Commander Benjamin Sisko assumes command of Deep Space Nine in orbit over Bajor.

  Source: Star Trek® Chronology / Michael Okuda and Denise Okuda

  PROLOGUE

  Earth Date 2338

  Data opened his eyes for the first time and realized that he was lying on a stone slab in the middle of a large clearing. The sky overhead was a blanket of unbroken gray, the air still and unnaturally silent.

  And he wasn’t alone.

  There were four people standing over him—three men and one woman, all of them humanoid, all of them dressed in brightly colored Starfleet uniforms. One of the four, a thin man with blond hair and high cheekbones, knelt to get a better look at him. Of the entire group, he was the only one dressed in the cranberry of command.

  “He’s awake,” the man said, his eyes widening. He seemed surprised at his own conclusion.

  Data didn’t respond with a remark of his own. After all, he wasn’t sure that one was called for.

  “Amazing,” muttered one of the other officers, a man with freckles and red hair. He was glancing at his tricorder. “Electronic activity in the area where his brain would be just jumped … to a whole other level.”

  “Our presence must have tripped some sort of activation system,” commented the third member of the party, a broad man with hard, dark eyes and a black beard.

  A fourth officer knelt beside the thin man. This one was a woman, with pleasant features and light brown hair. She was wearing the blue of the medical corps.

  “My name is Dr. Reynolds,” she said, “but my friends call me Kathy Lou. And
this,” she added, tilting her head to indicate the thin man in the command uniform, “is Commander Sahmes. His friends call him Tim.”

  The android understood what they were doing. “I am called … Data,” he told them.

  “Data…?” the thin man repeated. It appeared that he was asking for a surname.

  “Just Data,” replied the android. He sat up on his slab and brushed a thin layer of dust off his clothing. He had no idea how long he’d been here, but it had to have been a while if he’d gotten this dirty.

  A question occurred to him. “If I may ask,” he said, “what ship are you with?”

  “We’re with the Tripoli,” said Commander Sahmes. “Why?”

  Data thought for a moment. “I have no recollections of the Tripoli,” he said. “However, I am aware that it is a Hokule’a-class vessel. Dr. Ingraham knew the registry number and class of every ship in the fleet. Starships were his hobby.”

  Commander Sahmes eyed him closely. “Dr. Ingraham … you mean one of the colonists?”

  The android returned his gaze. “Yes.”

  “Dr. Frederick Ingraham,” noted the redhead, consulting his tricorder again. “Biochemist. Civilian. Came to Omicron Theta a little more than a year ago, with the second wave of colonists.”

  The commander grunted. “Thank you, Mr. McAvennie.”

  Abruptly Data remembered something. It wasn’t anything specific … just a vague sense of danger, followed by an eerie silence.

  “Dr. Ingraham is gone,” he said suddenly. “They are all gone.”

  Dr. Reynolds nodded. “Yes, Data, they are. Do you have any idea what happened to them?”

  Data wanted to provide her with an answer, but he couldn’t. “I do not know,” he confessed. “I was not … activated at the time.”

  “Not activated?" repeated Sahmes. His eyes narrowed as he scrutinized the android. “But didn’t you say you knew Dr. Ingraham? That he’d told you about ships and their registries?”

  “I did not speak with Dr. Ingraham,” Data replied. “I simply have his memories. In fact, I have the memories of all four hundred and eleven colonists who resided here.”

  Dr. Reynolds shook her head. “We don’t understand.”

  “I was programmed with information each of the colonists recorded at one time or another,” he explained. “I do not know why this was so … only that it was.”

  The commander frowned. “I see.”

  It appeared to Data that he didn’t see at all. Obviously, the android told himself, he had a few things to learn about human nature.

  “But if you weren’t sentient at the time … how did you know that the colonists were gone?” asked the doctor.

  Data felt something tighten ever so slightly inside him. “It is difficult to put into words,” he said.

  “Just … a feeling?” suggested Commander Sahmes.

  “I am incapable of feelings,” the android responded. “They were not included in my programming. However, the colonists did have feelings, and their records are filled with a sense of …” He searched for the right word. “Foreboding,” he stated at last.

  The thin man’s frown deepened. “I see,” he said again.

  “Commander?”

  Everyone turned in response to the distant voice. There were two more officers, one male and one female, coming over a rise in the terrain. It was the female who had called for Sahmes’s attention.

  “Yes?” the commander answered.

  “All the plant life around here looks brown,” the woman replied. Jogging almost effortlessly, she and her companion narrowed the gap between them and the larger party. “Maybe it’s just dormant … a seasonal condition. But if you ask me, I think it’s all dying.”

  As she caught sight of Data, her mouth opened in bewilderment. But in the next moment she seemed to regain control of herself and closed it.

  Why are these people so surprised to see me? the android wondered. Surely, there were others like him somewhere in the vastness of their star-spanning Federation.

  Weren’t there?

  Dr. Reynolds grunted. “Whatever destroyed the colonists must have affected the flora. It’s all got to be related.”

  “No doubt,” Sahmes agreed. “But I won’t report that till we get some of our biologists down here to make sure.”

  “We should tell the captain,” advised the bearded man.

  “Yes,” said the doctor. “But let’s wait until we’ve got some more information. No point waking him when he’s still recovering from that bug he picked up … especially when there’s nothing he can do down here anyway.”

  “Commander Sahmes,” Data began, “may I ask you another question?”

  “Sure,” said the commander, his curiosity evident in his expression. “Go ahead.”

  The android took his time framing his query. What he wanted was really a very simple piece of information, but it was also a very important piece of information.

  “What will become of me now?” he inquired.

  Sahmes looked at him and sighed. “That all depends,” he said, “on what Captain Thorsson wants to do with you.”

  “Don’t worry,” added Dr. Reynolds. “We’re not just going to leave you here, Data.” She paused. “That is … unless you want us to.”

  The android mulled that over for a moment. “No,” he concluded. “I do not think I would like that.” He looked from one flesh-and-blood face to another. “I believe I was built to be among other sentient beings,” he said. “And humans in particular. My appearance certainly suggests that that was what my creator had in mind.”

  The doctor looked at him in a new way … a little sadly, Data thought. “Then I’m sure we’ll find a place for you,” she assured him. “Somewhere.”

  Data sat down tentatively on the biobed that Dr. Reynolds had indicated, then looked from her to Commander Sahmes. “Like this?” asked the android.

  The doctor nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Just like that. Now, if you don’t mind waiting here for a couple of minutes, we’ll go get the captain. He’ll be eager to meet you.”

  Data wondered why it was necessary for Dr. Reynolds to get the captain personally, when she could have called for him over the ship’s intercom system. However, she was already halfway to the exit before he could ask her about it. A moment later the doors slid closed behind her and Commander Sahmes, leaving the android all alone.

  Perhaps he would be supplied with an answer when she returned to sickbay, Data mused. In the interim he would have no shortage of subjects to ponder. For instance … who had created him? For what purpose? And why had he not been destroyed along with the rest of the Omicron Theta colony?

  The android looked around at the otherwise empty medical facility. Judging from the colonists’ memories, the equipment here was a good deal more advanced than anything the colony had had at its disposal. It inspired confidence in him that Dr. Reynolds and her colleagues would eventually find the answers to his questions.

  He then inspected the gold-and-black uniform his benefactors had acquired for him. It, too, inspired confidence somehow—not only in the way it looked, but the way it felt against his artificial skin. It was considerably snugger than the coveralls in which he had been discovered—and therefore more reassuring, though he could not have said why.

  Abruptly the doors whooshed open again. However, it wasn’t the doctor or Commander Sahmes who walked in. It was a gray-haired man with a deeply lined face and dark, shaggy brows.

  At first, the newcomer seemed not to notice Data. He was too wrapped up in his own thoughts to notice anything but an office on the far side of sickbay, which he approached purposefully and with long strides.

  Seeing that the office was empty, he muttered some sort of complaint and made his way to one of the other biobeds, which was positioned parallel to the android’s. Sliding himself onto the bed, he pivoted and leaned back, intertwining his fingers behind his head. And he only took in Data with the most cursory of glances.

  “
Here for a check-up?” the man asked rather casually. He appeared to be staring at a bare spot on the opposite bulkhead, though the android couldn’t imagine what his motive might be.

  “So it would seem,” Data replied.

  His neighbor grunted. “Wish I was. Seems I picked up this virus back on Tellarion Four, and Doc Reynolds wanted to make sure it wasn’t turning into something contagious. She wants to make sure nobody but me manages to expire from it.”

  The android didn’t quite know the appropriate response for such a comment. All he could devise was: “That is an admirable sentiment.”

  Still intent on the bulkhead, the man frowned, accentuating the lines in his face. “I believe that was a joke, son.”

  Again, Data didn’t know what to say. “A joke?” he repeated—rather lamely, he thought.

  “That’s right, son, a joke. Surely, they had some of those where you come from … didn’t they?”

  The android pondered the question. The only way, he could answer it accurately, he decided, was to rifle through the colonists’ memories—an activity which took no more than a fraction of a second.

  “Actually,” he replied, “there were jokes where I came from. A great many, apparently.”

  Abruptly, his neighbor’s demeanor became noticeably somber. Sighing heavily, the human closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his aquiline nose.

  “Tell me one, will you, son? A good one. It’s been a wretched night, and I could use a little comic relief.”

  Data would have liked to comply, but he couldn’t. While the colonists had made numerous references to jokes, they seemed not to have supplied the complete text of any of them. Or perhaps they had, and he simply didn’t recognize them as such.

  “I … cannot,” was all he could utter in response to the man’s request.

  His neighbor’s expression took on a slightly pained quality. “You can’t … tell a joke?” he concluded incredulously. Finally turning to face the android, he opened his eyes and said: “Of all the absurd—”