The USS Malinche was an Template:ShipClass Federation starship in service during the late 24th century.
In 2373, the Malinche was commanded by Captain Sanders, and assigned to patrol the Demilitarized Zone, near the Gamma-7 outpost. The Malinche was one of the starships equipped with a holo-communicator, testing it when Captain Benjamin Sisko had to contact Sanders for assistance in dealing with the Maquis. The Malinche helped to intercept a Maquis raider commanded by Starfleet traitor Michael Eddington with the USS Defiant; unfortunately, Eddington managed to escape after disabling the Defiant with a planted cascade virus. Due to this, the Malinche towed the Defiant back to Deep Space 9.
Following the incident, Captain Sanders was given the duty of apprehending Eddington at Veloz Prime, despite great odds that they wouldn't reach the planet in time. However, Sanders would have no more luck at the task than Benjamin Sisko did. When the Malinche responded to a distress signal from a Cardassian freighter, it was discovered that the freighter was actually a booby trap left by the Maquis; a focused particle beam punched through the starship's gyro-shielding, and three Maquis raiders then attacked and disabled the ship, damaging the Malinche's navigational systems and warp core matrix compositor.
The barely-functional Defiant responded to the Malinche's distress call, and provided material assistance for repairs before continuing the search for Eddington. However, it was due to the Maquis disabling the Malinche that allowed Sisko to end the mass-genocide of the Cardassians from the Maquis and to bring Eddington to justice. (DS9: "For the Uniform")
Background information
According to Ronald D. Moore, the ship was named for La Malinche, "Cortéz' Indian lover, a brilliant woman who had a gift for languages." (AOL chat, 1997) She assisted Cortés in his conquest of Mexico.
Robert Hewitt Wolfe commented "When Hans was doing a polish on the DS9 episode "For the Uniform," he named a ship the USS Malinche. In my gringo ignorance, I thought Malinche was a made up word. Faux Vulcan maybe". [1]
The Star Trek Encyclopedia lists the USS Malinche with a registry of NCC-38997.
External link
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