Ankeshtan K’til Vulcan Criminal Rehabilitation Center, 3rd Moon of Omicron Lyrae

Stardate 1997.9

T’Pring’s personal log. She’s reflects on how she is trying to “spice things up” in her relationship with Spock by researching the human perspective on sexual relations. Spock appreciates her efforts but suggests they research together.

Chapel walks with Spock and asks about Dr. Aspen. Spock is distracted and inattentive. He asks her advice about T’Pring again. She tells him to be honest.

Over dinner with the senior crew, Dr. Aspen describes the situation of the colonists in her sector and their desperation. They are on the edge of non-Federation space and lost power twenty-six days ago.

Una reports rumors of an unaffiliated vessel called the Serene Squall carrying out raids along the border. Basically, pirates.

La’an notifies Pike that they’ve arrived at the coordinates but two of the three colonists’ ships have been destroyed. The third is nowhere in sight.

La’an theorizes the pirates took the colonists to sell as slaves. Pike realizes if that is the strategy, the pirates escaped back into non-Federation space. Spock warns that they need Starfleet approval to enter non-Federation space but they are so far out it would take two days to get that approval.

Pike orders the request sent but immediately sets a course into non-Federation space.

Spock is sent to find Dr. Aspen when Pike is unable to reach her. He finds her in her quarters working out to loud music.

They arrive on the bridge and Pike informs them a distress signal’s been detected. Aspen warns pirates have been known to set up ambushes by cloning ship signals.

Pike sets a course to investigate and the Enterprise triggers a trap, a net made of lasers, set up in a field of asteroids equipped with reflectors.

Aspen hypothesizes that since it’s a series of reflectors, the asteroid with the highest intensity beam is the source of the entire net.

As the net starts to constrict, they target the asteroid with the highest intensity reading. Before firing, they realize two asteroids have nearly identical readings. Spock is ordered to go with his gut. He makes a decision, La’an fires, and the net drops.

As the Enterprise passes by, a small vessel detaches from the far side of an asteroid and follows them.

Aspen visits Spock in his quarters to discuss his extreme reaction to playing a hunch with the asteroids. She questions whether there is a need to choose Vulcan or Human when he could be neither. Before she leaves, she states the trap wasn’t set by the Serene Squall as they’d be dead if it had been.

Ortegas is flying Enterprise manually when La’an picks up the signature of the third colonial ship. Based on life signs, it appears all the colonists are being held prisoner in the cargo hold.

As they have the element of surprise, Pike leads a boarding party to take back the ship from the Serene Squall hijackers. They arrive to find no colonists aboard. When the Enterprise tries to beam them back, they are jammed.

In an Enterprise corridor, Chapel hides when she hears and sees weapons fire. On the bridge, Spock reports multiple individuals beamed aboard the Enterprise when the boarding party beamed over.

On the colonial ship, Pike’s team is surrounded.

The Serene Squall hijackers get to the bridge just as Una locks down the ship’s controls. Spock manages to fight off several intruders but Aspen knocks him into the turbo lift to save him from a shot. The bridge is taken.

The leader, Remy, approaches Pike and welcomes him to the Serene Squall.

Spock and Aspen make their way to the sick bay but cross paths with the pirates taking the bridge crew captive and hide.

The pirates are trying to beat the codes out of Pike to unlock the Enterprise. He offers to make them a meal when he discovers they’ve been eating Remy’s Orion speciality.

Chapel discovers that communications are locked down with all the other systems just before a couple of pirates find her. She subdues them with a hypospray.

Pike serves up a meal the Squall’s crew enjoys. He tries to reason with Remy about drawing the Federation’s ire over taking the Enterprise. Remy hints that he’s interested in selling the crew off to the Klingons as slaves. His second-in-command looks unimpressed by the idea. Pike notices.

Spock treats Dr. Aspen in sickbay. They want to escape but Spock states that he plans to retake the ship. Aspen reveals that their husband was Vulcan and fought back against the pirates and died.

Pike is thrown in a cage with the other captive crew. He informs them that they are going to start a mutiny.

Spock and Aspen find Chapel in Engineering. Spock overrides the lockdown and transfers the controls to Engineering. Suddenly the system controls are returned to the bridge and Dr. Aspen has weapons on them both. They reveal they are actually Captain Angel of the Serene Squall.

The real Dr. Aspen has been abandoned on a planet. The colonists were invented to lure the Enterprise out.

Upon questioning her objectives, Angel reveals that she actually wants Spock.

T’Pring is notified of a subspace transmission from the Enterprise. Angel offers her Spock in exchange for a Vulcan friend of hers who is being held at Ankeshtan K’til.

Una and Pike seed doubt with Remy’s second. They offer support if she wanted to mutiny.

T’Pring arrives at the rendezvous site. Spock tries to get her to destroy the Enterprise but Angel stuns him and threatens to kill him next time if she doesn’t get her lover back in ten minutes.

When Spock revives, T’Pring is about to make the transfer. He apologizes in advance to Chapel and hints that he has been unfaithful to T’Pring. Chapel picks up the hint and announces that they are having an affair and are in love.

They kiss to prove it.

T’Pring announces that their mating bond is severed. She and Spock speak the ritual words and T’Pring says goodbye.

When Angel orders they fire on T’Pring’s ship, the systems are immobilized. Suddenly the Serene Squall appears and they fire on the Enterprise. An incoming transmission shows PIke and his crew in control of the Squall.

Spock advises Angel surrender. She rejects his logic and comments that her lover always spoke about him and she enjoyed meeting him. She uses a point-to-point transporter and abandons her crew, beaming herself over to the shuttle that had been tailing the Enterprise on a nearby asteroid.

Pike contacts Spock and asks him to beam them over right away as the ship’s mutiny is still in process.

On the bridge, Pike does his best pirate impression. Una asks him to stop.

T’Pring joins Spock in his quarters and expresses appreciation for his gambit. She understood it was a ruse. They reconcile.

Spock visits Chapel in sickbay. They clear the air about the kiss. Chapel asks about the identity of Angel’s lover. Spock has deduced that it is Sybok, his illegitimate half-brother.