The Haunted Starship

Cadet Geordi sees a ghost!

Summary

 * From the book jacket:
 * Geordi La Forge has been given the chance of his lifetime! He's been chosen to join the training vessel Benjamin Franklin as assistant engineer, an opportunity rarely given to plebes. Geordi is determined to live up to Commander Sanchez's expectations. Their mission is to chart a neglected sector of the asteroid belt that lies between Mars and Jupiter. That night, Sanchez calls up a history of the old starship and Ben's first commander, the heroic Ike Ikushima, who died after saving the crew from disaster. The next night, Geordi sees Ikushima's ghost, arm raised, pointing directly at him! When he tells Sanchez, everyone begins to doubt Geordi's reliability... until the ghost reappears, pointing a warning finger at them all!


 * What does it mean? Is the ship haunted? Is it an alien invasion? The cadets are about to make history themselves -- if they escape with their lives!

Memorable Quotes

 * "You must always be ready," Hassan went on. "Keeping everything on the ship running is only half the job, Geordi. The main job of a starship's chief engineer is to be as prepared as possible for anything that might happen. That's what a chief engineer's captain wants most of all. Give your captain that and you will have a job for life."

Background Information

 * This is the third Star Trek novel by Brad Ferguson, who has also written Crisis on Centaurus and The Last Stand.
 * La Forge refers to positive remarks on his performance record received during the events detailed in Atlantis Station, an earlier Starfleet Academy novel.

Characters

 * Geordi La Forge : Cadet. A first year engineering student at Starfleet Academy who served as the assistant engineer during this training mission.
 * Brown : Commander. Head of Academy command training, who personally assigned La Forge to this mission to observe his competence in the field.
 * Robert DePalma : Commander. The first officer of the USS Benjamin Franklin at her launch in 2179.
 * "Billy Devil" : The alias of an outlaw miner who was responsible for the murder of hundreds of miners at the Ceresville mining facility. He perished during the Battle of the Belt.
 * Hassan el-Dallal : Cadet. A third year Terran student from North Africa and the chief engineer on the training mission.
 * Iwasaki "Ike" Ikushima : The captain of the USS Benjamin Franklin who was exposed to fatal levels of radiation during an overload of his ship's warp reactor in 2181. Captain Ikushima knowingly exposed himself to the radiation while attempting to prevent a meltdown that would have destroyed the ship.
 * Siobhan McKenna : Cadet. A fourth year mathematics major at the Academy who served as first officer and navigator on this mission.
 * Bernardo O'Higgins Sanchez : Cadet. A senior at the Academy who was in command of the USS Benjamin Franklin for the training mission. As this was his first mission in command, his thoughts often turned to his father who was lost on the Enterprise-C in 2344.
 * Trennek Sann : Cadet. A second year pre-med student from Andoria who served as the communications and medical officer on this mission.
 * Malakeh : Trennek Sann's mother, for whom the asteroid "3300002 Malakeh" was named.