[Originally aired on October 8, 2017 on CBS All Access.]

Burnham accepts a position of no rank on board the Discovery. Tilley brings a delivery in to her which turns out to be Captain Georgiou's last will and testament. This upsets Burnham and she stows it without opening it. She is summoned to the bridge.

Meeting Saru on the lift, she discusses her joining the ship which he wasn't consulted on.

Arriving on the bridge, they find the crew in the middle of a battle with Klingon ships. Despite their best efforts, they are destroyed, failing the simulation exercise.

Captain Lorca takes Burnham to his private labs and reveals that he kept the beast from the USS Glenn. He assigns her to figure out how it killed the Klingons and weaponize it for Starfleet's use.

Aboard T'Kuvma's damaged ship, the remains of his believers are dying of starvation, led by Voq and supported by L'Rell of House Mokai.

Burnham and Landry discuss the beast. Landry names it Ripper. Burnham explains that it isn't designed to be violent. Landry explains that Lorca needs it to be useful to the war effort.

Lorca is ordered to take the Discovery to Corvan-2 to save the people there, using the spore drive jump technology.

Stamets refuses because of the possibility of disaster. They need a supercomputer to navigate but Stamets agrees to try some things.

Kol visits the T'Kuvma ship and swears allegiance, wanting the cloaking technology from the ship in order to fight the Federation.

Discovery is ready to make the spore drive jump. Burnham is with the tardigrade creature. The jump takes them into a star's gravity well instead of to Corvan-2. Burnham realizes that the spore drive causes the creature to react.

Lorca visits Stamets in sick bay and orders him to get the spore drive working. Lorca plays the Corvan-2 final transmission for the crew which motivates Landry to attempt to dissect the beast. It attacks her, killing her, and leaving Burnham to figure out the creature's abilities alone.

L'Rell and Voq harvest the dilithium processor from the Shenzhou, discussing their respective backgrounds. An intimacy and trust seems to grow from the discussion.

Asking Saru to join her in the lab to gauge his threat response to the creature, Burnham uses the opportunity to apologize for her past treatment of him. Saru is unimpressed with her subterfuge. Burnham feels certain that the creature only attack in self-defence. Tilley brings spores to Burnham and they realize that the creature eats the spores.

Discussing it with Stamets, she hypothesizes that the tardigrade creature can navigate the spore drive, that it boarded the Glenn in pursuit of the spores, its food. They beam it into the ship's spore forest and discover that it communicates with the spores. 

Returning to T'Kuvma's ship with the dilithium processor, Voq and L'Rell find Kol feeding the crew with his provisions having gained their loyalty. Even L'Rell appears to abandon him, suggesting he be left to die aboard the Shenzhou. Once left there, she beams over to him and offers to take him to the planet of House Mokai where the matriarchs will train him to be the leader the Klingon Empire needs to unite it.

On board the Discovery, the engineering team beams Ripper into a spore chamber with the Glenn's equipment. The equipment engages, clasping onto the creature in an invasive harness and reading its internal sense of direction. Using the map that appears, they are able to accurately make the jump to Corvan-2 just in time to save a few survivors from the Klingons and to destroy the attacking ships. 

Burnham is uncomfortable with the obvious distress the jump caused the tardigrade creature but doesn't say anything while her shipmates celebrate their victory. Tilly convinces her to open Georgiou's bequeathment. A heartfelt message is played and when Burnham opens the case, she finds Georgiou's heirloom telescope.