Stardate 3177.3 La’an’s log

Enterprise is delivering an atmospheric processor upgrade to Finibus-3, an urgent mission as the planet’s air is weeks away from becoming unbreathable.

They are observing Starfleet Remembrance Day. La’an examines her insignia from the S.S. Puget Sound.

As Pike addresses the crew for Remembrance Day, La’an recalls someone she’s lost.

Hemmer quizzes Uhura as they walk together down the corridor.

Una notices La’an isn’t wearing her pin when she arrives on the bridge. She tries to get La’an to find a way to heal from her trauma but La’an is resistant.

The Enterprise arrives but there is no response to hails from the planet.

Spock reports the colony’s communication satellite has been destroyed.

Una preps a landing party that includes La’an. They find the colony in flames and no one to be found. There are signs of a skirmish and great blood loss but no bodies.

Onboard the ship, an unidentified vessel is spotted. Pike has the landing party beamed back.

Initially, the ship ignores hails but then hails them. On-screen, survivors of Finibus-3 express relief at seeing them.

Because of the cargo ship’s hull, the Enterprise begins to extend a deep-space transport tube to the ship. Dr. Thandie describes the attack that involved a loud ringing sound that disoriented them all. Spock is unable to confirm any sign of other ships around or having been there recently.

The survivors are brought aboard.

Una and La’an question Thandie and both feels there’s something off. A girl runs past, chased by her mother. The girl, Fig, insists the monsters are coming. La’an questions her about the monsters she saw take her father. Fig mimics a sound she heard the monsters make.

La’an immediately contacts the bridge and orders a scan for polarized EN signatures in the area.

Spock’s scans detects a hologram near the second moon. La’an orders the shields raised which Pike reiterates but they can’t with the transport tube extended.

Through a porthole, La’an watches a ship approach. She identifies it as the Gorn.

They fire on the ship, destroying the cargo ship and the transport tube.

As she regains consciousness, La’an sees a man’s face smiling at her.

Chapel scans her and helps a more injured individual to sick bay. Una is nearby, injured. She orders La’an to the bridge.

The Gorn attack has disabled warp. Hemmer and Uhura are in the cargo bay with the atmospheric processor.

Pike is about to order an evasive maneuver when La’an arrives and recommends a full retreat, explaining that the Gorn tactic is to run down a prey’s resources before destroying them.

Pike orders the ship into a brown dwarf gas giant where the entire ship has to run dark but so does any ship pursuing them.

As they make the run into the brown dwarf, the Gorn hit them in several spots with direct fire including the main cargo bay where Uhura and Hemmer are working.

Hemmer’s hand is broken, but the door is blocked so they can’t get to sickbay.

Sickbay’s systems are down. There are nine confirmed casualties and M’Benga warns without the systems, no one is going to get better.

Una arrives in sickbay and collapses. Because they can’t power up the surgery bays, Chapel has to sew Una up by hand.

Pike, Spock, Ortegas, and La’an confer on their strategy. La’an briefs them on the Gorn.

Pike checks in with La’an. He reminds her as acting Number One she needs to provide the crew with hope as well as truth.

Hemmer is struggling with his broken hand. Uhura insists that he can talk her through the procedures to stabilize the processor.

Spock presents a way to track the Gorn without sensors. Pike makes it so and they’re able to detect the Gorn ship. As it approaches, Pike and Una keep the ship steady despite Ortegas’s apprehension. When the Gorn ship alters course, Pike realizes the Gorn are blind in the gas giant and unable to see the Enterprise at all. La’an reminds him that they’re still hunting and won’t give up.

Pike orders the last photon torpedo armed. He plans to drop it on the other ship manually. It works and the enemy ship is destroyed.

Suddenly multiple incoming vessels are detected, including a very large one.

Pike orders the ship deeper into the brown dwarf which Spock warned could crush the ship with its density field. Pike believes Enterprise can outlast the Gorn ships.

In the cargo bay, Hemmer talks Uhura through how to recognize a malfunctioning rod without the diagnostic systems. When she thinks they succeeded, he indicates they’ve just started.

The lower decks begin to collapse but the evaluation isn’t complete. To secure the ship, Pike orders the bulkheads sealed. Kyle is helping an injured crew member out but is pushed through the closing bulkhead when the crew member realizes they won’t both make it out.

As the pressure becomes critical, Pike orders battlestations. Enterprise comes to a full stop, ready to engage the enemy.

As the Gorn ship approaches, the pressure proves too great and its hull collapses and the ship implodes.

In sickbay, M’Benga and Chapel prep Una for one last manual surgery. They start to give her the last plasma dose but another crew member will die without it so she orders them to give hers to the other patient.

On the bridge, Spock reports that the brown dwarf is about to be sucked into the black hole.

La’an proposes they send a shuttle to see if it’s safe to leave the brown dwarf. She volunteers to pilot. Spock volunteers to co-pilot as her backup.

They observe the Gorn mothership and smaller ship exchange something like scans. La’an can’t remember precisely but she knows she’s seen the ritual before.

She asks Spock to use the mindmeld to bring the memories out.

In her head, they witness a young La’an and her brother as the Gorn hunt them. Her brother tells her the light is a communication system. He tells her to run as he draws the hunters after him. He hands her a booklet he’s created, deciphering the light communication.

La’an returns to Spock with the information she’s learned. In the mindmeld, she hears Burnham and Spock bidding each other goodbye. She deduces that he has a sister who sacrificed herself for him, a sister Starfleet has wiped from the records.

Breaking the mindmeld, La’an comes up with a plan. Spock programmed the shuttle to convey that the ship has been taken over by humans. The mothership destroys the vessel, in keeping with the species mandate to cull the weak.

In the cargo bay, Uhura manages to reboot the processor. Hemmer is weak from his injuries so she starts him talking. He reveals that he wanted to be a botanist.

The processor starts to overload. Hemmer says they have to vent the bay into space, including himself and Uhura.

Pike decides to use gravitational red shift to fool the last Gorn ship into thinking they’re dead by slingshotting past the black hole and dropping the atmospheric processor into the black hole as a decoy.

Uhura and Hemmer suit up in EV suits and prepare to survive the cargo bay venting. The plan works and the Gorn ship departs.

La’an is worried about the next Gorn encounter. Pike reassured her that they’ll be ready for them.

Una recovers in sickbay where she’s receiving M’Benga’s plasma directly through a transfusion tube.

La’an puts on her Puget Sound insignia and records a log entry about the Gorn encounter and ends on a positive note.