Stardate 58499.2: The Cerritos has returned to Douglas Station for repairs after the Breen attack. Captain Freeman has been summoned to Starfleet Command, only to learn that after the reportedly bad performance of her ship the California class will be retired and replaced by the new automated Texas class, Admiral Buenamigo's pet project. But she is not willing to accept that and challenges Buenamigo to a "second contact race" of her ship against the Texas-class USS Aledo. The first stop is Galardon, where the Cerritos crew needs some time to install a new power plant, whereas the Aledo just beams down a complete prefabricated module. On LT-358, the away team stops the construction of an outpost when Tendi discovers microbes that could be sentient, whereas the Aledo does not bother, beams down the outpost and gains an edge. When the Cerritos arrives at Ockmenic 9, a Brigadoon-type planet that only phases into our dimension a couple of hours per year, it is too late and the planet has just vanished. Buenamigo rules that the Aledo wins the competition, although Freeman complains that his ship cheated by not investigating the microbes. Rutherford, however, has discovered what has been bothering him about the program of the Aledo all along: It is a code he himself came up with! After Rutherford's accident, Buenamigo stole it and erased his memory. The code is flawed, and it already caused a disaster when Rutherford created Badgey from it. Rutherford confronts the admiral, who reacts by setting the Aledo to full autonomy. But instead of destroying the Cerritos as ordered, the ship kills its creator. The Aledo then activates its two sister ships, which begin to attack the starbase. The Cerritos is no match for these vessels, but Captain Freeman lures them away by claiming that Rutherford knows the code and could disable the ships and then orders to go to warp. The three automated ships catch up with the Cerritos, and ultimately only Shaxs's usual suggestion to eject the warp core proves useful. The detonation destroys two of the three ships, but the Aledo keeps attacking the now defenseless Cerritos. Mariner, however, has called all other California-class ships for help. In a combined effort, the ships destroy the Aledo. Back on the Cerritos, her friends apologize for not trying harder to defend Mariner when she was accused of damaging the ship's reputation. Her mother offers her to resume her position, which Mariner gladly accepts. Rutherford decides to keep his implant in spite of everything. Meanwhile in the Kalla system, his old implant with Badgey's evil program still in it has been salvaged...

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