Cyrano Jones Cyrano Jones was a licensed asteroid locator and prospector and intergalactic trader and , to Captain James T . Kirk , a general nuisance who lived during the mid - 23rd century . From 2261 to 2268 , Cyrano Jones earned a marginal living as a trader buying and selling rare merchandise . Among his wares , Jones pawned articles such as Spican flame gem s , Antarean glow water and tribble s . Four months before stardate 4523 , Jones was in the Klingon sphere - of - influence . In 2268 , Jones was present on the Federation Deep Space Station K - 7 during the Klingon plot to control Sherman ' s Planet , having arrived on the station aboard his merchant starship , the " Spacematic " . He was responsible for the station ' s infestation with tribbles , which he was sentenced to clean up or face a twenty - year prison sentence for transporting a dangerous lifeform off its native planet . His sentence was expected to take 17 . 9 years , which Kirk cuttingly suggested can best be considered " job security " for the massiveness of the task . ( ; ) Jones managed to escape his sentence and made off for a Klingon planet where he illegally sold a number of tribbles . In 2269 , while on the Klingon planet , Jones acquired a genetically - engineered Klingon tribble predator called a glommer , which he claimed under space salvage laws . He escaped the planet in a one - man Federation scout ship and was pursued by a Klingon battle cruiser commanded by Captain Koloth for causing ecological sabotage to the planet . The rescued Jones and a number of tribbles from his scout ship moments before the Klingons destroyed it . Kirk immediately arrested Jones for breaking the law for transporting animal s proven harmful as well as for three violations of Federation mandates and forty - seven local ones . Jones , however , declared that they were safe tribbles that he had genetically engineered for compatibility with humanoid ecology – they were incapable of reproducing . Koloth contacted the " Enterprise " demanding they turn over Jones and the glommer , noting that they were even prepared to go to war if they had to . Kirk refused until Koloth explained that they needed the glommer Jones stole in order to grow more of them so that they could rid the Klingon planet of the tribbles Jones had sold on it , before it became completely overrun . Kirk handed over the glommer to Koloth , and following the successful removal of the tribbles from the " Enterprise " , turned Jones over to the proper authorities . ( ) Appendices . Background information . Jones was played by actor Stanley Adams , who was one of three returning guest stars to portray the same character in both their original and animated appearances . According to an early draft of " The Trouble with Tribbles " , available in David Gerrold ' s " " , Cyrano ' s full name was originally Cyrano Day Jaymin . On the name , Gerrold noted that " " [ he ] did not like this name at all when [ he ] wrote it , but [ he ] had not realized that the name Jones was once again available for this story . " " The mini - bio that appeared in this draft of the script drew Cyrano in a slightly different light than he ultimately became : " Cyrano Day Jaymin is a planetary scout . He locates planets for the Federation and is paid by the Federation according to the intrinsic value of each planet he reports . Most planets are gas giants like Jupiter , but still there are a great many Earth - type planets in the galaxy that need locating . The situation is roughly akin to gold - mining in California in 1840 . Cyrano ' s success as a locator is evidenced by the fact that his clothes have an air of well - used shabbiness about them – but they are still flamboyant and colorful . He is a sort of faded swashbuckler . " J . J . Abrams used Cyrano Jones as a pseudonym for two songs he created for . In , an illustration of Cyrano Jones was seen when Data was assimilating the Dixon Hill novels . This illustration was from the FASA RPG module " The Federation " . Apocrypha . In the IDW comic miniseries " Legacy of Spock " , his alternate reality counterpart assisted Ambassador Spock in traveling to Romulus to discover the Empire ' s plans for eliminating the surviving Vulcans . Cyrano Jones is portrayed as a cat in Jenny Parks ' book " Star Trek Cats " .