The following mission briefing contains spoilers for the novel "Star Trek Maximillian: Beyond the Final Frontier".  The novel is available for purchase at http://www.lulu.com/content/3419545, or for download free-of-charge at the following link.

STAR TREK: MAXIMILLIAN  BEYOND THE FINAL FRONTIER

Spoilers begin below.

On Stardate 53000.0, a strange energy reading was detected at Sunburst point, site of the Archer Observatory.  Admiral Dennis Winslow, caretaker of the Observatory, ordered a probe sent to investigate, but when the probe reached the source of the reading, there was a bright flash.  When the flash receded, all that remained was a crystal vessel, which proceeded to annihilate the observatory and all on board.

A month later, Admiral Robert Lyon ordered the USS Maximillian NCC-74997 out of a fruitless pursuit in the Menkare Expanse.  At an assemblage of the entire crew, he ordered the ship to meet with a small task force to attempt to uncover the truth about what happened.  Lyon would be joining the Maximillian, along with Admirals T’Kill and Blobbin, much to their chagrin.  This was Captain Septaric’s first main assignment.

Humanoid Android Lieutenant Commander Critch Starblade approached the Maximillian and boarded it after looking at the specs of the crystal vessel, thinking something familiar.  Meanwhile, the admirals were arguing over the application of Admiral Blobbin’s new Errsedorian shielding and weapon enhancements, which were proving to be too much of a power drain on the ship.  Septaric’s brother Kragnar, first officer of the ship, was arguing with her about Lyon’s presence perhaps being the first steps to his retaking the ship over.  However, the ship, refit and upgraded, was able to leave spacedock without incident.

As Chief Engineer Amy Armstrong Thomas worked late in engineering, Admiral Lyon and Lieutenant Commander Starblade played a game of Monopoly, and Captain Septaric was in stellar cartography, finding out that the vessel was on a direct course for sector 001.  As they could not figure out why, the ship continued to the rendezvous point, where they met with three other ships.  A Gorn ship, captained by Maktar, a old compatriot of Admiral Lyon; A Klingon Ship, the Km’pec, captained by T’Mar, and a Romulan ship, led by Seral.  While Septaric urged caution, the other members of the task force disagreed, and set upon attempting to destroy the vessel.  However, upon firing upon it, their weaponry went right through it as though it wasn’t even there.  In response, the vessel fired and destroyed every ship that had fired, leaving the Maximillian.  The Gorn ship had launched a distress probe, which the vessel turned and followed, a path that would lead it to the Gorn’s home system.

Starfleet Command orders the Maximillian to continue ‘escorting’ the vessel, as Kragnar attempted to convince Septaric to attempt to destroy it in a blaze of honor.   She believes that the vessel may have been merely defending itself.  Starblade and Lyon share a quiet moment as Lyon tries to get the android to find out more about the vessel.  As Lyon relaxes on the holodeck with the other two admirals in a approximation of Cyprus, Starblade hits upon a realization, that the vessel can be fired through because it is not actually matching our frequency at all.  They must be from another universe.

A plan quickly comes together.  A small team will beam over to the vessel, using the transporters to change their universal frequencies so that they can exist on the vessel.  Once there, they will disable it.  However, Admiral Lyon refuses to let Starblade go on the mission, fearing for what he may discover.  Starblade storms off, fuming.  As the vessel moved into Gorn space, destroying all opposition, Starblade leaves his post in Operations, and is unnoticed until Lieutenant Thomas discovers his absence.  Going in search for him, she breaks into his room and finds a padd with pictures of pieces of the vessel that he was found with, and when put together the pieces form a identical twin of the vessel that invade.  She rushes quickly to the transporter room, reaching it just as the away team, along with a disguised Critch Starblade, fades away.

     Lieutenant Thomas runs to the bridge to inform them of Starblade’s subterfuge, but are interrupted when the Gorn armada engages the object.  The armada is destroyed as the vessel continues to the planet.  On board the vessel, Commander Korjac discovers Starblade, just as they find out that the vessel is much, much larger on the inside than it is on the inside.  They also find out that there is something else on board, as one of their team is killed.  On the Maximillian, Lyon seizes command, due to his years of experience and not wanting this handled by an inexperienced Captain.

     On the vessel, one by one the entire away team is killed save for Starblade and Korjac, and he is injured.  Starblade sends Korjac back to the Maximillian, and remains behind to challenge whatever else is on the vessel on his own.  He engages another being,  which is humanoid, and finds that it is just as powerful as he is, and has metallic blood.  Lyon is confronted by the Admirals, but is unwilling to give up his command.  He then orders the preparation of Blobbin’s Errsedorian shielding and torpedoes, and uses them to attack the vessel.  Meanwhile, Starblade speaks to the humanoid, who seems surprised that he cannot remember something.  The torpedoes  seem to pass into the vessel itself, and are detonated remotely.  The blast sends Starblade over  the edge of a catwalk, and the humanoid catches his arm.  Starblade stares at the face of the attacker…who looks exactly like him.  Starblade, shocked, falls to the ground way below him.  As the Maximillian continues to fire, the weaponry begins to overload the ship.  Captain Septaric notices Lyon’s console about to explode, and throws herself in front of it just as it goes, killing Septaric.    The vessel, barely damaged, destroys the Gorn homeworld, and disappears into space.

     As Starblade wakes up, he realizes that he is not alone, just as repairs begin on the Maximillian.  Lyon orders T’Kill to assemble a fleet to protect Earth, and for Blobbin to continue working on integration of his weaponry.  But first, T’Kill informs Kragnar of the death of his sister.  Lyon reports to Stellar Cartography and agrees with Lieutenant Meowran that the vessel will return to it’s original course, directly for Earth.  It will arrive in a little over two days.  Word spreads throughout the ship of Septaric’s death.  Kragnar confronts Lyon, but Lyon manages to defuse the situation.  Starblade on the vessel is confronted by a creature as the funeral for Septaric takes place, but the battle stops as the creature sees his face, and then it leads the android through the vessel.  The creature reveals itself to be named “Karey”, and leads Starblade to a machine which reveals to him his lost memories.  That Admiral Lyon was responsible for erasing his memories in the first place.  The translator manages to kick in then, and Karey and Starblade are able to communicate more effectively.  Karey leads Starblade to the creature’s master, an identical humanoid who calls himself “Canty.”  Canty explains that Karey is his ‘Ka-Ki-Ri’, or slave.  He and Starblade are Marconians from an alternate universe.  As Lyon, T’Kill, and Blobbin argue on the holodeck and attempt to sort out their next steps, Canty explains that Lyon had originally sent a probe into their universe improperly, sending a energy backwash that destroyed much of their society.  In response, the Marconian military corps took command and developed weaponry such as this vessel.  Starblade had snuck over on the initial weapon, which was destroyed upon universal transfer, and now Canty is on board to stop this one.    He also wants to reveal Lyon’s actions.

     Lyon on the Maximillian, against Dr. Alexander’s wishes, awakes Korjac to attempt to get information out of him as to what happened on the vessel.  He then tells Lieutenant Thomas to double her efforts, that they must be at ninety percent efficiency.  She attempts to tell him that the crew needs time and explanation, but he will hear none of it.  The Maximillian attempts to locate the vessel by contacting Starblade, thereby ascertaining their location.  The plan works, but Starblade sends over what he was shown: the destruction of much of the Marconian empire.  Lyon is accused by Starblade, and Lyon attacks the vessel, even while resisting efforts of the other Admirals to remove him from command.  The improved weaponry still drains the Maximillian, but the damage is even more substantial.  Canty attempts to stop the automated defensive systems of the vessel, but as the battle intensifies, Starblade realizes that Canty is not trying to stop them at all, instead is controlling them.    The Maximillian is hit dead center of the saucer section, and loses power, tumbling end over end through space.  Before Canty can strike the final blow, Starblade pushes him away and orders the vessel to move away.  Lieutenant Cynthia Ayers, Communications chief, has her hearing destroyed in the conflict, and Lieutenant Thomas dies keeping the warp core from destroying the rest of the vessel.  Canty strikes Starblade, paralyizing him temporarily, as he explains some of the truth.  Critch and Canty were both in the military corps, and Canty idolized Critch’s ruthlessness.  Critch was the leader, and designed the very vessel they are on.  When Critch crossed over, Canty took over, and now is leading the charge.

     With the body of Lieutenant Thomas on the floor, Lyon confronts what he has done to himself, as T’Kill and Blobbin remove him from command, choosing Kelvok to fill the role of Captain, at least temporarily.  Starblade as well comes to grips with who he is as the Ka-Ki-Ri Karey comes to his cell, ordered to gloat.  Starblade manages to convince the creature to release him, so that he can face Canty and stop him from his mission.  Karey leads him to an information station, where he discovers that the true purpose of the vessel is to enter a sun’s corona, completely destroying it and anything within the path of the shockwave.  This would be a deathblow to the Federation, making this an excellent place to start an invasion.  The ship would be undamaged, and survive to do it again, and again, and again.  He also discovers that Canty was the one that disabled his vessel in the first place, causing him to be stranded in the Alpha Quadrant.  Lastly, he discovers that it was he himself that caused the destruction of the Marconians, not Lyon.  The energy backwash could have been contained, but Starblade wanted it used as a way to convince everyone of the need to invade this other universe.  Canty appears, and Starblade runs away, managing to escape.  Now knowing what he needs to do, he sets off for the centralized power core, which if destroyed will overload the rest of the vessel’s systems, destroying it.  En route, he contacts Lyon and the Maximillian, letting him know that he was not responsible, that he himself was tricked, and that they need to work together to solve this.

     On the Maximillian, Blobbin and T’Kill develop a way to use the ramscoops on vessels as a way to feed the Errsedorian technology.  Lyon leaves the command to Kelvok, as T’Kill goes to speak with Tamak about the last bit of upgrades they can do.  As they reach Earth, Admiral Janeway discusses the situation with Lyon and T’Kill, and they begin a quick upgrade of the armada quickly forming in defense of Earth’s sun.  Captain Montgomery Scott helps Blobbin, and the pair share a moment.

     The vessel passes by Earth,and heads for the sun, where all but one ship are standing in it’s way as part of Joint Task Force Alpha.  The Maximillian is tailing it.  The Vessel flies right in the middle of the ships, as they form a orb around it, as Starblade climbs a great tower to reach the power core.  He manages to contact the Maximillian, but is cut off before he can change the frequency to reveal it’s location as Canty appeared unexpectedly.  They begin to battle as the armada began to fire on the vessel.  The torpedoes caused some damage, but the vessel still continued.  Starblade managed to change the frequency, revealing the true size of the vessel.  Now fully in the universe, the vessel destroyed the USS Sovereign as the armada began targeting the many power cores.  The smaller ships and the larger ships worked together, and managed to destroy most of the main weaponry, but not before most of the ships were destroyed or disabled.    Kohan took part in the battle, destroying the main crystal weapon, as Canty continued his war with Starblade.  The Explorer II was destroyed in the conflict.  Starblade is struck to the ground, and Canty regains control of the weaponry, destroying the Black Elk in the process, and attacks the Maximillian, searing off a nacelle.  The damage sends radiation seeping into the torpedo bays, killing everyone inside and rendering them unable to fire.  The ship is also unable to move, until Tamak ejects the warp core, using the explosion to push the Maximillian towards the vessel.

     Starblade is nearly defeated, but he manages to distract Canty, so that his doppelganger turns to him to finish him off.  As he begins the final strike, Karey grabs his arm and holds him back until Starblade can struggle to the controls, removing the protective shielding .  Karey and Canty fly into space, instantly burning in the heat of the sun.  As Starblade sends the location of the central power core, a large amount of debris falls on him.

     Lyon has left the bridge, removing his pips, and runs into T’Kill and Blobbin.  He fires a phaser on stun at T’Kill, and Blobbin lets him go pass, as he goes to the torpedo room, able to withstand the radiation long enough for the ship to fire.  As he dies, the torpedo strikes the power core, and Starblade crawls from underneath the wreckage, signaling the Maximillian to beam him out, which they do at the last second.

     Afterward there is a mass funeral, and everyone mourns in their own way.  Starblade was both demoted and promoted, so his rank remains at Lieutenant Commander.  Kelvok is placed in permanent command.  Starblade worries about what will happen if the Marconians come back, and T’Kill and Blobbin find a holodeck with a single program running, with a familiar face inside.