Stardate 2510.6: As Uhura's assignment to the Enterprise comes to an end, she is still unsure whether her place is in Starfleet. Pike receives orders from Starfleet Command to salvage the USS Peregrine. The sister ship of the Enterprise attempted an emergency landing on the L-class planet Valeo Beta V when contact was lost. Captain Pike leads a landing party with two shuttles to the surface, while the Enterprise delivers vidium power cells to Deep Space K-7. Due to ionic interference on the planet, no contact with the outside world is possible during that time. Upon their arrival, the landing party does not register any lifesigns near the ship, but soon discovers the bodies of many Peregrine crew members. A log entry by the ship's captain states that they picked up three castaways on a Class-M planet: a human girl, an unknown humanoid and an Orion. The Orion turned out to be infested with Gorn eggs. The girl named Oriana and the alien she calls Buckley are the only survivors. Oriana and Buckley stay with Nurse Chapel and Cadet Chia in sickbay, while Uhura and Hemmer work on restoring power. Suddenly Gorn hatchlings emerge from Buckley's body and kill Chia. Oriana runs away. La'an arrives and, together with Chapel, finds the girl in the coldest area of the ship that the Gorn would avoid. As Pike, Spock, Kirk and the freshly promoted Lt. Duke are investigating the corridors, the Gorn also kill Duke. Just as a Gorn is about to attack Hemmer and Uhura in engineering, La'an appears. But she can't prevent that Hemmer gets sprayed with an acidic secretion. Pike recalls the landing party to sickbay. The plan is to set up a trap, with the landing party themselves serving as the bait. Spock tries in vain to lure the creatures out of their hiding and enters a state of rage to infuriate them. After the two last Gorn have fought for dominance, this leaves only one of them, the alpha Gorn. La'an makes it follow her into engineering where Hemmer has set up a trap that freezes the creature to death. Hemmer, however, was infested with a hatchling when he was hit by the acid. He commits suicide in order to save the rest of the crew. The Enterprise lifts the damaged Peregrine off the surface. At the memorial service for the dead crew members, Spock can't control his resurfaced emotions and finds consolation when Chapel tells him that this is his human side. La'an asks Pike for an extended leave to find a new home for Oriana, to which the captain agrees.

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