During an away mission on Beta III, Boimler accidentally reveals through an open comm link that Beckett Mariner is Captain Freeman's daughter, while the bridge crew is listening. In the following, various crew members try to ingratiate themselves with Mariner. As this gets exasperating, she decides to go for a promotion so she can leave the ship and start over again. Tendi tends to a new crew member, Ensign "Peanut Hamper", an exocomp, who proves its skills in sickbay. In the Kalla system, Captain Dayton, who formerly commanded the USS Rubidoux, is concerned about keeping her new ship, the USS Solvang, in perfect shape. Then an unknown huge vessel shows up and destroys the ship with all hands. The Cerritos still receives a distress call from the Solvang and arrives in a debris field. Soon the enemy ship begins to tear apart the Cerritos as well and rips off a nacelle. The enemies turn out to be the Pakled, who add any piece of technology they pillage to their ship. Captain Freeman runs out of options and orders her daughter to come up with a plan that breaks the rules. Mariner consults with Rutherford, who goes to the holodeck and asks "Badgey" to create a computer virus against the Pakled. Peanut Hamper is supposed to carry the virus over to the enemy ship but refuses to go on a suicide mission. Rutherford volunteers, and stores the virus in his implant. Shaxs grabs Rutherford, and they use a decommissioned shuttle to escape from the Cerritos and penetrate the hull of the Pakled ship. As Rutherford uploads the virus, the progress bar stops and the vengeful Badgey says the activation will only work with Rutherford still aboard. As the virus activates, it leads to the imminent destruction of the ship. Shaxs rips off the infected implant from Rutherford's head, puts him in the shuttle and stays behind as the Pakled ship explodes. As the Cerritos regains power, the ship gets surrounded by three more Pakled vessels. But then the USS Titan with Will Riker and Deanna Troi appears with blazing phasers and chases the attackers away. In sickbay, Rutherford doesn't remember Tendi any more. After the memorial service for Shaxs, Mariner and her mother pledge not to fight each other any longer. Boimler, on the other hand, is offered a promotion by Riker and a transfer to the Titan, which he accepts.

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