Titan, Book One
Page 32
“Meaning what?” Riker asked.
Jaza looked up, his expression mild. “We’ve been drawn over the edge of the rift’s event horizon, Captain.”
“Then—where is the rift?” Riker asked, gesturing toward the main screen, which stubbornly continued to display nothing but stars and trackless empty space.
Tuvok rose from his tactical station, an almost haunted look on his face. “It appears that the question isn’t where the rift has gone, Captain. It is where we have gone.”
Riker was liking this situation less and less. “Meaning?”
“Meaning I have begun running comparisons of the stars in this volume of space with our stellar cartography database. Titan seems to have abruptly shifted position.”
“Shifted,” Riker said, cold fingers of dread clutching at his guts. “Shifted how far?”
“My preliminary estimate is a distance of about two hundred and ten thousand light-years.”
Riker tried to get his mind around that. “That would take us well outside the Milky Way galaxy.” Pointing toward the star-dappled viewscreen, he added, “That hardly looks like intergalactic space.”
Jaza, who had apparently been attempting to check out Tuvok’s findings, straightened up from the console he had been hunched over. “That’s because we seem to be inside one of the Milky Way’s small, irregular satellite galaxies. I’ll want to consult with Lieutenant Pazlar to make sure, but I think we’ve landed smack inside the Small Magellanic Cloud.”
Riker noticed then that Tuvok and Akaar had both turned visibly pale.
“Neyel territory,” Akaar said quietly.
Tuvok nodded. “So it would seem.”
“You two have been here before,” Riker said. He wasn’t asking a question.
“Yes,” Akaar said. “On Excelsior. Over eighty years ago. The Neyel made this place their home centuries ago, long before the Federation came to be.”
“These…Neyel,” said Vale. “Is that what the locals call themselves?”
“Yes,” Tuvok said, impassive but still pale with obvious surprise.
“Humanoid?” Deanna wanted to know.
“More than that, Commander,” Akaar said. “The Neyel are human.”
Riker felt his jaw drop involuntarily, his gaze turning back to the viewscreen. Humans? Out here?
And as Titan sailed on through the alien galaxy, her captain wondered what else awaited them among those unfamiliar stars.
THE VOYAGES OF THE
STARSHIP TITAN
CONTINUE IN
THE RED KING
About the Authors
MICHAEL A. MARTIN’s solo short fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. He has also coauthored (with Andy Mangels) several Star Trek comics for Marvel and Wildstorm and numerous Star Trek novels and e-books, including this volume and Titan: Book Two—The Red King (forthcoming); Star Trek: Worlds of Deep Space 9 Book Two: Trill—Unjoined; Star Trek: The Lost Era 2298—The Sundered; Star Trek: Deep Space 9 Mission: Gamma Book Three—Cathedral; Star Trek: The Next Generation: Section 31—Rogue; Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers #30 and #31 (“Ishtar Rising” Books 1 and 2); stories in the Prophecy and Change and Tales of the Dominion War anthologies, as well as in the soon-to-be-released Tales from the Captain’s Table anthology; and three novels based on the Roswell television series. His work has also been published by Atlas Editions (in their Star Trek Universe subscription card series), Star Trek Monthly, Dreamwatch, Grolier Books, Visible Ink Press, and Gareth Stevens, Inc., for whom he has penned several World Almanac Library of the States nonfiction books for young readers. He lives with his wife, Jenny, and their two sons in Portland, Oregon.
ANDY MANGELS is the coauthor of several Star Trek novels, e-books, short stories, and comic books, as well as a trio of Roswell novels, all cowritten with Michael A. Martin. Flying solo, he is the best-selling author of many entertainment books including Animation on DVD: The Ultimate Guide and Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Characters, as well as a significant number of entries in The Superhero Book from Visible Ink Press.
He has written hundreds of articles for entertainment and lifestyle magazines and newspapers in the United States, England, and Italy. He has also written licensed material based on properties from many film studios and Microsoft, and his comic-book work has been published by DC Comics, Marvel Comics, and many others. He was the editor of the award-winning Gay Comics anthology for eight years. Andy is a national award-winning activist in the gay community, and has raised thousands of dollars for charities over the years. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his long-term partner, Don Hood, their dog Bela, and their chosen son, Paul Smalley. Visit his website at www.andymangels.com.
Starship Titan Design Contest
Entry Deadline: August 15, 2005
Official Rules
No Purchase Necessary.
The following Contest is intended for viewing and participation in the United States and Canada only (excluding Quebec). Do not enter this Contest if you are not located within the U.S. or Canada.
Contest begins at 12:00 a.m., Eastern Standard Time on March 29, 2005, and ends at 11:59 p.m., Eastern Standard Time on August 15, 2005.
PURPOSE
Pocket Books is offering Star Trek fans with an aptitude for ship design the opportunity to design the U.S.S. Titan, the starship of Captain William Riker, which was established but not seen in the feature film Star Trek Nemesis.
ELIGIBILITY
This contest is open to Star Trek fans age 18 or older as of March 29, 2005. Open to legal residents of the United States and Canada (excluding Quebec). Void in Quebec, Puerto Rico, and wherever prohibited or restricted by law. Employees and their immediate family members (or those with whom they are domiciled) of the Sponsors, their parent companies, subsidiaries, divisions, related companies and their respective agencies and agents are ineligible.
JUDGING AND NOTIFICATION
All designs will be judged by the Star Trek editorial staff at Pocket Books, together with Star Trek designers Doug Drexler, Michael Okuda, and Rick Sternbach; Associate Producer, Star Trek: Enterprise David Rossi; Senior Director of Licensed Publishing for Viacom Consumer Products Paula M. Block; and Manager of Licensed Publishing for Viacom Consumer Products John Van Citters, all of whom are fully qualified to apply the stated judging criteria. Entries will be judged on the basis of originality (25%), execution (25%), consistency with the U.S.S. Titan Concept Notes (25%), consistency with Star Trek Starfleet style (25%). The winning design will be published in an upcoming Star Trek: Titan novel, and will be used as the basis for cover art on the same book. The winning designer will be credited on the novel’s copyright page. In the event that there is an insufficient number of submissions received that meet the minimum standards determined by the judges, the prize will not be awarded.
Contest results will be announced on or about October 2, 2005. Winner will be notified by telephone and/or by email on or about September 29, 2005. The decisions of the judges with respect to the selection of the winners, and in regard to all matters relating to this Contest, shall be final and binding in all respects.
The winner’s name and winning entry will be posted online at
www.startrekbooks.com/titancontest
PUBLICITY
Winner grants to Pocket Books the right to use his or her name, likeness, and entry for any advertising, promotion, and publicity purposes without further compensation to or permission from such winner, except where prohibited by law.
FORMAT FOR SUBMISSION
Designs must be based on the U.S.S. Titan Concept Notes created for the novels, which appear at the end of this document. Submissions must be in the form of general plans (i.e., technical illustrations), and must include the following five external views:
• side
• front
• back
• top
• bottom
All files submitted must include the designer’s name, addr
ess, telephone number, and email address.
Designs must be submitted via email to
titancontest@simonand schuster.com
in the following electronic format:
• jpeg
• CMYK color
• 14" x 9" at 300dpi
All submissions must be received by 11:59 p.m., Eastern Standard Time, August 15, 2005.
The decision of the judges with respect to the selection of the winner and in regard to all matters relating to this contest shall be final.
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All entries must be original and the sole property of the entrant. Please retain a copy of your submission. All entries and any copyrights therein become the property of Pocket Books and Paramount Pictures and will not be returned. By entering, entrants hereby transfer and assign all intellectual property rights (including, but not limited to, copyright and trademark) in and to the drawing and description, to Sponsors. By entering, entrants agree to abide by these rules and grant to Sponsors the right to edit, publish, display, promote, broadcast and otherwise use their entries without further permission, notice, or compensation, in any media now known, or hereafter developed.
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Sponsors: Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 and Paramount Pictures, 5555 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90038
U.S.S. TITAN CONCEPT NOTES
The Ship:
U.S.S. Titan, NCC-80102, Luna-class. The Titan is a mid-size Starfleet vessel, approximately 450 meters in length (larger than the U.S.S. Voyager, smaller than the Enterprise-D; go to www.startrekbooks.com/titancontest to see size comparison), with a crew complement of 350. Titan’s hull configuration is comparable to other established Starfleet vessels.
The Luna-class is Starfleet’s newest-generation long-range explorer, a starship not built specifically for combat, but like the Constitution-class of the previous century, a vessel designed for a long-term multipurpose mission into un-charted space. Equipped with conventional tactical systems (deflector shields; phasers; quantum torpedoes), Titan also boasts state-of-the-art propulsion and cutting-edge scientific equipment, as well as being a testbed for experimental science tech not yet available on other classes.
The Titan is manned by the most varied multispecies crew in Starfleet history, with humans taking up less than 15% of the 350-member crew. The diversity of the crew is intended to facilitate stories that will explore the ways that beings of different cultures, biologies, psychologies, and physical appearances learn how to work together, or fail to, depending on the circumstances they encounter.
Titan has eight shuttlecraft of various sizes.
The story behind the Luna-class:
The Luna-Class Development Project was initiated in 2369 in response to the discovery of the Bajoran wormhole, and originally conceived as leading a planned Starfleet wave of deep-space exploration in the Gamma Quadrant. The project was spearheaded by Dr. (Commander) Xin Ra-Havreii, a Starfleet theoretical engineer at Utopia Planitia. Field testing on the prototype U.S.S. Luna was under way by 2372 in the Alpha Quadrant, and construction of the fleet was scheduled to begin the following year. Unfortunately, contact with the Dominion and the subsequent outbreak of hostilities mothballed the project indefinitely, as Starfleet redirected its shipbuilding resources to the production of vessels better suited to combat.
Upon the war’s end in late 2375, Dr. Ra-Havreii correctly judged that the Federation’s cultural psychology would eventually shift back toward its pre-war ideals, and pushed to have the Luna-class revisited as a major step toward resuming Starfleet’s mission of peaceful exploration (even though the class would no longer be assigned exclusively to the exploration of the Gamma Quadrant). Construction of an initial fleet of tw
elve Luna-class vessels was completed by 2379, and the Titan was offered to William T. Riker, one of many command officers eager to put the strife of the last decade behind him.
The Luna -class fleet:
The ships of the Luna-class are all named for moons in Earth’s solar system: