Crisis on Centaurus

Crisis on Centaurus
Author(s)	Brad Ferguson
Cover artist	Boris Vallejo
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre(s)	Science fiction novel
Publisher	Pocket Books
Publication date	March 1986
Media type	Print (Paperback)
Pages	254 pp
ISBN	ISBN 0-671-61115-1 (first edition, paperback)
OCLC Number	13196917
Preceded by	Mindshadow
Followed by	Dreadnought!

Crisis on Centaurus is a Star Trek: The Original Series novel written by Brad Ferguson.

Plot

On the peaceful planet of Centaurus, the capital has been hit by a terrorist anti-matter bomb. Millions are dead, and the Defense Computer has gone in planetary defense mode, preventing any civilian rescue ship from approaching the planet. The USS Enterprise has been sent to give what relief they can, but they are in need of help themselves as the ship is falling apart around them due to an unexplainable massive computer malfunction, and the transport is made inoperable by the antimatter's residual tachyon radiation.

The tragedy has a personal touch, as Doctor McCoy's daughter Joanna is among the missing. Captain Kirk soon is captured by the terrorists, leaving Commander Spock in charge. While the enraged surviving Centaurus government members want to capture the terrorists at all costs, Kirk learns that three more antimatter bombs are armed somewhere on the planet, and is forced to take refuge in the one place he cherishes most - the little cabin he had built in Garrovick Valley, on the river Farragut.

On seeing the names 'Garrovick' and 'Farragut' on a map, Commander Spock correctly surmises the position of Kirk's buen retiro, and a scan from orbit reveals an army of government hovercars flitting around the cabin. By leveraging the Enterprise's crippled warp drive's controls, engineer Montgomery Scott and his second-in-command succeed in enabling the Enterprise to enter a planetary atmosphere. The government hit squad's weapons are no match for a starship's phasers set on stun; the captured terrorists are taken in custody, but the secret of cheap antimatter synthesis is lost: its creator was the suicide bomber who set the first weapon off.

In the epilogue, Spock traces the computer malfunction to a quantum black hole accidentally forming, against all odds, within the Enterprise in warp, drilling a hole straight through a good part of the computer memory banks.

External links

• Crisis on Centaurus at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)