Hoverbike

Hoverbikes were a type of single-person vehicle used by the Romulan Star Empire in the 24th century. The unenclosed vehicles were crewed by a single Romulan operative, who would wear specialised clothing consisting of a bulky padded suit and full head covering mask. Hoverbikes had a large prow, the top of which extended back to the operator, containing the control device for the vehicle. A tractor beam could be emitted from the lower part of the prow. Towards the rear of the vehicles smalls wings, with an abstract feather like motif, extended out to hold a pair of nacelles.

In 2368 a small group of Romulans, under the command of Tomalak, somehow managed to take several hoverbikes into the holographic tesseract database of the Federation's new archive facility, Daystrom One. The Romulans were hoping to disrupt the database, as bate in a plan to capture Data. Their plan came to fruition and the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D), with Data aboard, was called in to investigate the database's behaviour.

Data and Commander Riker proceed to investigate the database from within, taking a maintenance pod to travel through the holographic interdimensional construct. The Romulans laid several mines to try and cripple the pod and then moved in on a pair of hoverbikes to secure Data, holding the pod in a tractor beam. In an attempt to get free Data and Riker used the pod's servograsp, which had been damaged by the mines, and rammed it into the hoverbike's tractor beam genertor, disrupting the beam and allowing them to make an escape.

The undamaged hoverbike pursued the pod, with the pilot firing his disruptor pistol to try and stop it. In response Riker and Data used to pod to ram the bike into one of the database's data transmission beams, which successfully disabled the hoverbike's engines.

Their pursuers disabled Data and Riker made their escape and called in the facilities security to capture the remaining Romulan operatives. 


 * The hoverbikes were not named in the comic, described simply as "craft". The name comes from correspondence with one of the comic's writers, Scott Tipton, who used the term hoverbike to describe the vehicles in the script for the comic.