Thin Ice

Riker finds himself on thin ice!

Summary
The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) proceeds through space when a distress call from Captain Lyrinda Halk of the USS Marco Polo, attacked by unknown assailants and near destruction. The Enterprise races to the scene, and Will Riker reveals Captain Halk is a childhood friend, with whom he shared an intimate relationship. The Enterprise is briefly waylaid by a super-string phenomenon -- long energetic gravity anomalies in their path. The crew then finds the Marco Polo adrift, and rescues Captain Halk and a few survivors, before the robot-controlled starships come about and chase the ships apart. The vessels, programmed by the long-dead Darzun civilization, are designed to attack anything within a certain radius from their fleet and home system. Riker, cut off aboard Marco Polo, leads the robot ships into the super-strings, where they are destroyed.

Background Information

 * An earlier version of the cover was shown in some previews for the comic. Captain Halk was originally depicted with longer hair, the final version has her hairstyle much shorter.
 * Several points in Riker's past were illustrated in this story: his childhood, Academy days, and as a junior officer on the USS Hood (Excelsior class). This story had a reference to a variant of a Constellation-class starship (with a Refit Constitution engineering hull attached in place of the lower two nacelles. In the story it was called the Challenger-class. This reference created some confusion with Michael Okuda's writings assigning that name to one of the Battle of Wolf 359 wreckage models. Some fans believed that the Challenger-class model built for that scene might be of the configuration shown in the comic, but later photos of the actual model, of a different configuration, were shown by Mr. Okuda at a convention. Other starships in this issue were designs taken from FASA's role-playing games and one was even derived from the unofficially published Ships of the Star Fleet series.

Creators

 * Based on Star Trek: The Next Generation created by Gene Roddenberry
 * Writer: Michael Jan Friedman
 * Artists:
 * Matt Haley (pencil art)
 * Carlos Garzon (inking)
 * Juliana Ferriter (color art)
 * Bob Pinaha (letter art)
 * Jerome K. Moore (cover art)
 * Editor: Robert Greenberger

Characters

 * Jean-Luc Picard : USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) captain.
 * William T. Riker :Enterprise-D exec.
 * Data : Enterprise-D operations officer.
 * Lyrinda Halk : Marco Polo captain.
 * Geordi La Forge : VISOR-sighted Enterprise-D chief engineer.
 * Worf : Klingon Enterprise-D security chief.
 * Deanna Troi : Half-Betazoid Enterprise-D counselor.
 * Miles O'Brien : Enterprise-D transporter chief.
 * Ledbetter : Hood captain.
 * David Brett: Maro Polo ensign.
 * Calabria : Enterprise-D crewmember.
 * Marco Polo operations commander
 * Farmer
 * Bond : Enterprise-D nurse. Bond appeared in one interior art panel. He had no dialog in this issue.
 * Leung
 * Silas
 * Pierce
 * Epstein

Timeline

 * 2340s : Lyrinda's father died in a nuclear plant accident when she was 12.
 * Mid 2350s : Riker and Lyrinda are Starfleet Academy cadets on the Caspian exercise.
 * Early 2360s : Riker and Lyrinda meet in Alaska, on leave from the Hood and Fearless, respectively.
 * 2367 : The Darzun robot ships attack Marco Polo.