Stardate 1943.7

Magellan System, a minor star cluster at the edge of Federation space. Pike was here ten years ago on a rescue mission. This time, it’s a routine cartographic survey.

Pike meets Uhura in the turbo lift. She’s sore from combat training with Lt. Noonien-Singh on her security rotation. Pike sympathizes.

They arrive at the bridge where La’an is waiting, annoyed that Uhura needed a break.

Una reports a distress call from a non-Federation shuttle under attack. When Pike tries to hail the aggressor, a combat cruiser, they fire on the Enterprise.

Pike orders the weapons taken out without damaging the vessel but as Uhura attempts to fire a grazing shot, the vessel fires again and changes course directly into the line of fire. The cruiser is incapacitated and falls away. The shuttle hails the Enterprise and requests evacuation.

Pike and Una meet the evacuees in the transporter room. The woman who arrives recognizes Pike but identifies him as “Lieutenant”. He remembers her too. Alora was the rescue mission he was on ten years ago.

Alora’s companion’s are a young boy and a man. The man, Elder Gamal, the boy’s biological father, insists they are taken to sick bay to see to the boy’s wounds.

M’Benga is reading to his daughter, Rukiya, who points out he just read the same chapter twice. He explains that he doesn’t always remember what he’s read to her when she’s been pulled out of the buffer. She returns to the buffer suddenly as it’s on a timer.

Alora explains that the child is the First Servant. She and Gamal were bringing him back to their planet when they were attacked. The attackers demanded the child. She claims the nearest inhabited planet is a colony of alien descendents they have coexisted with peacefully for a long time.

When La’an and Spock state that they’ll investigate the crashed ship, Alora insists that an investigation isn’t necessary. As it is procedure, Pike informs her they will be investigating. Her response is that she will join the landing party.

In the sickbay, Chapel scans the First Servant and finds some head trauma. Gamal insists on caring for the boy himself. He recalibrates the scanner and checks on the boy’s quantum bio-implants.

Gamal has a poor opinion of the tech in sick bay. He explains that in his clinic, healing begins at a subatomic level and his planet has eradicated all disease.

La’an and Uhura enter the crashed alien ship. After making sure there is no threat, La’an lets Spock and Alora know they can enter.

Spock finds a device Alora does not recognize. She then finds a medallion she does recognize. It is an oath coin given to the guards. This coin has been scratched up, defaced. She theorizes to Pike in his ready room that one of her guards has betrayed his oath.

Pike offers an armed escort to take the three back to Majalis but Alora says foreign representatives aren’t welcome. Pike offers to come as a friend. Alora plans to question the guards.

Spock brings the device to Elder Gamall. Gamall doesn’t recognize it. Spock explains that it’s a neural dampener. Spock believes it was meant for the First Servant.

The First Servant engages Spock in a discussion about radio polarization. He tells Spock that he once developed his own subspace channel on an unused frequency.

Alora orders the guards to renew their vows by presenting their oath coins. One guard has a damaged case. When Alora asks to look more closely at the coin, he runs, pursued by the other guards. He vaporizes one and continues to flee.

Pike takes him down and Alora tries to question him. He renounces Majalis and grabs Alora, holding a blade to her neck. When he shouts, “Long live the First Servant!” he makes to cut her, but she fights him off. In the struggle, the blade ends up in his chest.

Uhura scarfs down her food in the mess hall. La’an joins her and asks her to translate the data chips La’an “liberated” from the crash site.

M’Benga wonders at the tech Gamall uses to heal the First Servant’s wounds. He asks him, hypothetically, whether their tech could cure a patient with his daughter’s disease. Gamal says he could probably cure the hypothetical patient on Majalis but it is illegal to share their tech with unaffiliated races. The First Servant overhears the conversation.

Pike walks Alora back to her quarters. When she shares her concerns that there are other traitors around, he offers to post a guard. Instead, she invites him in with her and kisses him. They spend the night together and discuss their relationship. Pike shares his vision of his future. She offers him a place on Majalis where the doctors could heal him if he were willing to become one of them and live their way.

Uhura debriefs La’an with the information she’s found from the data chips. La’an is impressed and wants Uhura to present the findings to the captain.

M’Benga brings food into sickbay and finds Gamal asleep. He follows the sounds of playing and finds the First Servant and Rukiya playing together. M’Benga tells her she needs to go back into the buffer but that it might not be like that for much longer.

Pike is brought back to the ship for Uhura’s findings so that Alora won’t overhear. The attackers are from Prospect VII. Their language shares roots with the language on Majalis. They aren’t alien, they are an off-shoot from Alora’s own people. Pike struggles to come up with an explanation.

M’Benga informs them that Gamal and the First Servant are trying to go back to the planet.

In the transporter room, Pike and La’an try to convince Gamal to stay on the ship where it is safer for the First Servant. Suddenly, they beam away, but it wasn’t Chief Kyle’s doing.

Gamal reappears just as Una identifies a nearby combat cruiser attempting to flee. The First Servant does not reappear.

On the bridge, Pike orders a tractor beam on the cruiser. The cruiser attempts to go to warp anyway. As they disengage the tractor beam to prevent damaging the cruiser, it explodes. As the First Servant's bio signs were detected on the ship, it is assumed that he died in the explosion.

Pike breaks the news to Alora who insists that if the First Servant doesn’t ascend, Majalis will fall into the lava rivers on the planet’s surface. She doesn’t explain how the two are connected.

When Pike seeks answers for how the First Servant was beamed off the ship, Uhura offers an explanation. Elder Gamal accessed the biopatterns of the First Servant right before taking him to the transporter. The combat cruiser used the patterns to lock onto the boy. Gamal is hesitant to explain himself. Spock interrupts and calls Pike to Deck 17.

Spock has picked up a distress signal from the First Servant’s subspace channel. He takes Pike right to a medical transport cube and they find the First Servant inside.

The First Servant insists he be taken directly to Majalis for the Ascension.

The celebrations are very festive. Alora thanks Pike for saving the planet. He confronts her with the knowledge that the attackers were off-shoots of her own people. She has no response.

Elder Gamal asks Una to be released and to speak to Pike. Una informs him Pike is on the planet with the First Servant. Once he knows his son is taking part in the Ascension, Gamal looks defeated. He confesses that he’d violated his planet’s laws and his own beliefs to save his son.

On the planet, Pike is invited to the Sacred Chamber, an offer never before offered to an outsider.

On the ship, Una is unable to contact Pike. Spock also informs her the electro-static barrier interfering with the coms is also making it impossible to beam down.

In the sacred chamber, Alora begins the ritual with the First Servant. He falters in his responses when a stretcher is carried by him. Pike is initially blocked from seeing what is on the stretcher but Alora gives him permission to see. The stretcher carries the remains of the last First Servant, a child now emaciated and dead.

The new First Servant takes his seat at a great machine, and is wired into it through his brain. Pike tries to fight through to stop the process from taking place but is knocked out by a guard.

He wakes up in Alora’s chamber. She dismisses the guards and invites Pike to stay with her. He is repulsed by what he now knows and intends to find the chamber and rescue the boy. Alora tells him that severing the connection will kill him.

They discuss the Majalis system that sacrifices a child for the benefit of the planet. Pike rejects it and tells her that he’ll be reporting this to Starfleet. Alora points out that Majalis is not a Federation world and Starfleet has no jurisdiction. When she expresses her hope he’ll change his mind about their system, he orders Una to beam him up.

In sickbay, Gamal visits M’Benga. He has decided to join the rebels on Prospect VII. He hopes to save the next First Servant. He offers to walk M’Benga through the theory behind the treatment for his daughter’s illness. It could be a start to finding a cure.

In his quarters, Pike stares out into space silently.