Watch: Fan film provides a bridge between Thomas Riker and the taking of the Defiant

Fan films for Star Trek have improved in quality over the past few years, and one of the better producers is Power543 Fan Films. Its latest offering is a short that ties in neatly with the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Defiant."

In that season three episode, Jonathan Frakes returned as Commander William Riker...at least that's who he portrayed himself to be. In reality, he was Thomas Riker, and he wasn't on Deep Space Nine for a good reason.

The short film, "Living the Dream," brings back Nimran Saund as Ensign Keeley, who first appeared in Star Trek: Temporal Anomaly. She has been on Deep Space Nine for three months and really is living her dream, especially when she has the opportunity to meet one of her heroes, Commander Riker. Only, there's something about him that is strange to her. His answers are short and clipped, and all he wants to talk about is the Defiant.

Saund plays the perfect fresh-faced ensign who is eager to meet Commander Sisko's expectations and who is excited about her job. Her bubbly personality helps to create the perfect young Starfleet officer. The other character, Thomas Riker, was created with CGI and is done amazingly well. We get a brief shot of the back of Commander Sisko, but, the film centers on Ensign Keeley whose voiceovers take us through a short journey from being excited about her upcoming meeting to shocked at the revelation that someone was stealing the Defiant.

Overall, this is a nice little tie-in to the third season episode. Even though it's Major Kira who gives Riker a tour of the Defiant, it's entirely plausible that Thomas Riker would have used an ensign to get as much information as he could about the ship before he stole it. So this really does work well and is a short, satisfying watch.