USS Malinche
The USS Malinche was a 24th century Federation  starship operated by Starfleet. 

In 2373, the Malinche was commanded by Captain , and assigned to patrol the Demilitarized Zone near the Gamma 7 outpost. The Malinche was one of the starships equipped with a holo-communicator, testing it when Captain Benjamin Sisko had to contact Sanders for assistance in dealing with the Maquis. 

The Malinche helped to intercept a Maquis raider commanded by Starfleet traitor Michael Eddington with the ; unfortunately, Eddington managed to escape after disabling the Defiant with a planted cascade virus. Due to this, the Malinche towed the Defiant back to Deep Space 9.

Following the incident, Captain Sanders was given the duty of apprehending Eddington at Veloz Prime, despite great odds that they wouldn't reach the planet in time. However, Sanders would have no more luck at the task than Sisko did. 

When the Malinche responded to a distress signal from a Cardassian freighter, it was discovered that the freighter was actually a booby trap left by the Maquis; a focused particle beam punched through the starship's gyro-shielding, and three Maquis raiders then attacked and disabled the ship, damaging the Malinches navigational systems and warp core matrix compositor.

The barely-functional Defiant responded to the Malinches distress call, and provided material assistance for repairs before continuing the search for Eddington. However, it was due to the Maquis disabling the Malinche that allowed Sisko to end the mass-genocide of the Cardassians from the Maquis and to bring Eddington to justice. ()

Appendices

Background information
According to Ronald D. Moore, this ship was named for , "Cortez's Indian lover, a brilliant woman who had a gift for languages."  The  described La Malinche as a "16th century Mexican princess who was originally a slave given as a peace offering to the Spanish s by the ."

Robert Hewitt Wolfe once commented "When Hans [Beimler] was doing a polish on the DS9 episode 'For the Uniform', he named a ship the USS Malinche. In my gringo ignorance, I thought Malinche was a made-up word. Faux Vulcan maybe." 

The  listed the USS Malinche with a registry of NCC-38997.

The studio model was likely a reuse of the smaller  model built by Greg Jein for , as the larger original Excelsior had been permanently converted into the  by this point.

Apocrypha 
In the video game Star Trek Online, the Malinche is still in service in the year 2410 and is coordinating allied efforts to counter a Terran Empire invasion of the Badlands.

External links 
 
 

bg:USS Малинче
cs:USS Malinche
de:USS Malinche
es:USS Malinche
ja:USSマリンチェ
nl:USS Malinche
Malinche