USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-C)
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In the fictional Star Trek universe, the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-C was the fourth Federation Starship Enterprise to carry that name. The Enterprise was an Ambassador class starship built at Earth Station McKinley in orbit above Earth.
The Enterprise made only one appearance when she appeared in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Yesterday's Enterprise".
History
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Rachel Garrett on Star Trek TNG
When the ship was built, or when the ship was commissioned has not been revealed. Fans have assumed that the ship had been in service for at least several years prior to 2344. In 2344 the ship was under the command of Captain Rachel Garrett, it's not known if anyone else commanded the ship.
In the year 2344, Romulans attacked the Klingon outpost at Narendra III. The Enterprise, under the command of Captain Garrett, answering the distress call from the outpost, went to the planet, but found herself outgunned by a number of Romulan warbirds. When torpedoes were fired at the ship, she briefly disappeared in a temporal disruption.
The Enterprise was enveloped by the disruption, and found herself in an alternate timeline in the mid 2360's. In this timeline, the Federation and the Klingon Empire were at war, with the Federation slowly losing the war.
The Enterprise encountered the next Enterprise, the Enterprise-D. The Enterprise-D managed to repair most of the damage to the Enterprise-C, and treat the injured crew. But less than 100 crew were alive by then. Captain Jean-Luc Picard talked Captain Garrett into returning through the disruption. When a Klingon ship attacked, Capt. Garrett died due to injuries sustained. Her surviving crew, along with that timeline's Lt. Tasha Yar took the ship back into the disruption. This act returned the Enterprise-C back to Narendra III in 2344, back at the moment she had previously disappeared.
After an intense but losing battle, Enterprise was destroyed by the Romulan forces. Even though the Narendra III outpost also didn't survive the Romulan attack, the fact that the Enterprise and its crew members sacrificed themselves in a failed cause to protect a Klingon outpost convince the Klingons that the Federation is honorable and thus trustworthy. This event reaffirmed the friendship between the two powers and eventually led to full alliance of the Federation and Klingon Empire.
For many years, rumors persisted that the Romulans took prisoners back to Romulus. However without proof Starfleet did not take any action on those rumors. However, in 2368 Romulan Commander Sela told Captain Picard that there were survivors taken back to Romulus. But without actual proof, Picard and Starfleet have still not taken those rumors seriously.
While not canon, several authors so far have written books that in whole or in part concern this Enterprise and her crew. One author, Quills, gave the Ambassador class starship and her captain, Rachel Garrett, a background history in the popular fanon series, The Captain Soma Adventures. In them, Garrett is a young first officer under the command of the Enterprise-C's first captain, Jonathan Soma, the fanon son of T'Pol and Charles Tucker III who served together under Captain Jonathan Archer aboard the Enterprise NX-01.