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"Prison Break" was an 18-page Star Trek: The Original Series comic strip. It was the 23rd weekly story arc in the UK comic strips series, published in six installments in TV21 Weekly in 1971. This was the fifth of six stories drawn by Vicente Alcázar and Carlos Pino. In this story, four murderers escaped from a Federation penal colony.

Description[]

Teaser, August 7, 1971
While the starship Enterprise lay in orbit above the prison planet of Certax, undergoing repairs, four convicts — Jarman, Mendoza, Kelly and Schirach — had smuggled themselves aboard...

Summary[]

The Enterprise's number six warp reactor suddenly blows apart. While putting out fires, crewman Corcoran is accidentally exposed to lethal levels of radiation. Captain James T. Kirk diverts the starship to the nearest Federation port with hospital and engineering repair facilities, which turn out to be Certax, a penal colony.

Four of the convicts learn about the situation in orbit above them. They kill a guard and four engineering technicians, then slip aboard the Enterprise as part of Certax's repair crew. They hold the bridge crew at gunpoint and lock Montgomery Scott and Nyota Uhura in a storeroom under guard. The colony governor warns the ringleader, Cal Jarman, that he will not hesitate to fire missiles at the Enterprise if he does not surrender.

Jarman retaliates by threatening to drop the irradiated warp reactor onto the colony, which will strike like a nuclear bomb. Kelly suggests that they bomb the colony anyway, and leaves with Mendoza to arrange it. Leonard McCoy finds the two convicts entering an airlock. He'd hoped to knock them out with an anesthesia gas gun, but they are wearing environmental suits. McCoy fills two syringes with a drug and follows them in an EVA suit into the shuttle bay, where the damaged reactor had been stored within a lead container. During his confrontation with the criminals, McCoy punctures their suits, and they fall into space along with the reactor.

The reactor strikes the port side of the secondary hull and breaks apart, scattering irradiated material and shaking the Enterprise. Jarman losess his balance, and Kirk and Spock subdue him. McCoy gasses the fourth convict, freeing Scott and Uhura, but lethal radiation outside the ship poses a serious danger to the crew. A repair shuttle arrives from Certax with one technician aboard. It is Corcoran, the dying crewman – he salvages the debris and then gives a salute, sacrificing his life to save the ship.

References[]

Characters[]

BradleyBrunoBurrowsChristine ChapelPavel ChekovCorcoranCal JarmanKellyJames T. KirkMendozaLeonard McCoySchirachMontgomery ScottSpockStrangHikaru SuluNyota Uhuraunnamed USS Enterprise personnel (2260s)

Starships and vehicles[]

class F shuttlecraftcraneUSS Enterprise (Constitution-class heavy cruiser) • repair shuttletruck

Locations[]

Certax

Races and cultures[]

HumanVulcan

States and organizations[]

Starfleet (command divisionoperations divisionsciences division)

Science and technology[]

airlock GanesthesiaC-6 gas grenadecrowbarenvironmental suithelmethypo-gunintercomjackhammermissilenerve gasnuclear bombnumber six warp reactorphaserpistolradioriflesyringewarp nacelle

Ranks and titles[]

captainchiefcolonelgovernorcrewmandoctorensignFederation Starfleet ranks (2260s)guardnurseranksawbonesskipperStarfleet ranks

Other references[]

assignment patchbridgedisposal unitdogfirefire squadhostagehourlambleadminutepenal colonyprisonradiationsecondsickbayStarfleet uniformStarfleet uniform (2265-2270)storeroom

Appendices[]

Related stories[]

Background[]

Errata[]

  • The damaged reactor's location was inconsistently located. Kirk stated it was in the port nacelle, as depicted in artwork. However, narration as well as dialogue from Chekov and Spock placed it in the starboard nacelle.
  • The Enterprise was shown with the registry NCC-1701-B on the first segment's cover.
  • At one point Montgomery Scott alerted the crew over the intercom to look out for four lost Certax engineers. Oddly, this took place before the engineers had boarded the ship. Two pages later, James T. Kirk assumed command just as Uhura received a report that the four engineers were lost. Kirk said he would alert the crew, but instead announced that the engineers' shuttle was now docking. The two dialogue balloons had been swapped.
  • Colonel Strang had white hair when he met Kirk and Spock, but blond hair in close-ups.
  • Schirach spoke with a thick German accent in the July 17th segment, but had no apparent accent in the August 21 segment.

Images[]

Connections[]

UK comic strips
Weekly story arcs "Life Form Nonexistent" • "The Crucial Element" • "Beware the Beast" • "The Third Party" • "The Children of Stai" • "Skin Deep" • "The Eagles Have Landed" • "Spectre of the Zond" • "Nor Any Drop to Drink" • "Menace of the Moloth" • "The Klingon Ultimatum" • "The Marshall Plan" • "Mutiny on the Dorado" • "The Ageless One" • "Thorpex" • "Under the Sea" • "Revolt on Dak-Alpha" • "Where Giants Tread" • "I, Emperor" • "Slaves of the Frogmen" • "Key Witness" • "Nova-Thirteen" • "Prison Break" • "Vibrations in Time" • "The Aging World" • "By Order of the Empire" • "Creeping Death" • "Ground Zero" • "The Collector" • "To Swiftly Go..." • "The Mindless Ones" • "The Perithees Alliance" • "The Saboteur Within" • "The Void of Storms" • "Spheres of War" • "Shell Game" • "To Rule the Universe"
Annual stories "Target: Zargot" • "A Bite of the Apple" • "Captives in Space" • "Planet of Rejects" • "Gateway to the Future" • "The Zodian Sacrifice" • "Smoke and Mirrors" • "Planet of the Dead" • "What Is This Thing Called Spock?" • "The Gods Have Come!" • "Rock and a Hard Place"
Collections The Classic UK Comics (123) • Graphic Novel Collection (102029121)

Timeline[]

Published Order
Previous comic:
Nova-Thirteen
TOS comics (UK comic strips) Next comic:
Vibrations in Time
Chronological Order
Previous adventure:
The IDIC Epidemic
Memory Beta Chronology Next adventure:
First, Do No Harm
Constellations
Previous comic:
The IDIC Epidemic
Voyages of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), Year Three Next comic:
First, Do No Harm
Constellations
Production history[]
July 1971
August 1971
December 2016
Reprinted in the omnibus The Classic UK Comics, Volume 2. (IDW Publishing)
28 September 2017
Reprinted in the omnibus Graphic Novel Collection, Volume 20. (Eaglemoss Collections)

External link[]

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