Image: Left/front view

Image: Above/right

Image: Left/rear

Image: Underneath

by Brian Miller

In the book The Return, Picard and Beverly Crusher join a special forces Starfleet Team for a covert operation on a combined Romulan/ Borg outpost. The story centers around the re-creation of William T. Kirk after his death, but that’s not important here.

While the book may not be the best Star Trek novel around, the part of the book that captured my imagination was the ship; a specially equipped Defiant-class starship that incorporated the latest cloaking technology, as well as being coated in microdiffracted carbon to absorb visible light.

The ship is designed in the Federation's efforts to combat the Borg, and is essentially an over-armed command saucer with warp nacelles. She is “over-powered, densely shielded, and heavily-armed, carrying more weaponry than any three Galaxy class starships”.

I have never been a big fan of the color pattern of the Defiant, so I was intrigued by the idea of an all-black version.

The kit is the basic AMT kit, with seams glued, clamped and filled. Fit was poor, as is typical of many of the AMT releases. The bussard collectors, deflector, and engine grilles at the rear were replaced with DLM’s translucent colored pieces. I also used LED’s to light the model, with a few marking lights, the deflecter, the warp engines and the impulse engines.

Decals from JT Graphics with custom registry, name and colors were the finishing touch.