The Free Trader starship was an armed pirate starship commanded by Sturdevant in the Free Trader Lanes sector near Federation space in the 23rd century.
Service history and disposition[]
The vessel was armed with directed energy weapons and defended with a cloaking device. It was based out of the Free Trader station in the 2270s decade.
In the year 2274, Sturdevant and his crew kidnapped Starfleet Academy Cadet Kyoshi Nogura and his friends while negotiating with them to add obstacles for a rally race the cadet was organizing in honor of his grandfather, Fleet Admiral Heihachiro Nogura. The pirate ship then departed for the Hydra Daco system, where it destroyed one of the racing ships, the USS Rim Explorer.
After Rim Explorer's crew were rescued by the USS Enterprise, the pirate ship followed her under cloak to Thoris Amarnis IV, where Sturdevant planned a similar assault. However, the cadets escaped imprisonment and disabled the pirate ship's cloaking device, leaving it vulnerable. Captains James T. Kirk and Vera DiMarco boarded the ship and disabled two of the bridge crew. When Sturdevant was confronted at gunpoint, he surrendered his ship. (TOS comic: "The Nogura Regatta")