Stardate 57538.9: The USS Cerritos joins the USS Merced on a mission to salvage an ancient generation ship. This ship's cargo includes a fluid that converts inorganic matter to life. During a meeting with the Merced's Captain Durango, a Tellarite, Mariner annoys everyone with her disinterest - and frequent yawning. Captain Freeman decides she has to get her to transfer off the ship and consults with Ransom to give her daughter the nastiest jobs on the ship. But Mariner manages to turn even those tasks into fun events. Freeman and Ransom have to change their strategy. They promote Mariner to lieutenant so she is part of the ship's senior staff and has all kinds of boring duties - which, much to their pleasure, exasperates Mariner. In engineering, Tendi tries to make up for the accidental destruction of a sand mandala that was supposed to help a crew member named O'Connor in his "ascension". But O'Connor was never seriously considering to reach a higher plane of existence; he just wanted to appear as more interesting. While the two Starfleet vessels are towing the generation ship, Durango changes position without previous consultation. This has the disastrous result that the Merced's tractor beam rips off a hull plate and sets the mysterious fluid free, which travels though the tractor beam and begins to terraform the ship. Soon the Cerritos is affected as well. Freeman and Mariner dig their way to a control console from where they successfully trigger the reversion of the ship's matter. The Merced can't be saved, and the crew is evacuated to the generation ship. In the meantime, after he has saved Tendi's life, O'Connor gets actually transformed into pure energy. Mariner works on her demotion, which she achieves very quickly when she mocks an admiral after just having received a medal. But she keeps the special senior officer access card to the replicator to Boimler's delight.

• E03 Previous
• E05 Next