As Osyraa's ship Viridian and the Discovery arrive at Federation Headquarters, the former begins to fire at the latter. Under the impression that the Discovery is under attack and its comm systems are damaged, Admiral Vance orders to open the protective shield just enough to let the Starfleet ship slip through. Booker and Burnham emerge from the courier network and grasp the last chance to get aboard, by crash landing in the Discovery's shuttlebay. Book has one device to mask lifesigns, which he gives to Burnham, while he himself gets captured. Osyraa contacts Federation Headquarters and demands negotiations. Talking to Vance, she makes the proposal to unite the Emerald Chain and the Federation, upon which Vance demands many concessions. On the Discovery, a scientist named Aurellio investigates the spore drive and possibilities to operate it without Stamets as a navigator. Burnham crawls through the Jefferies tubes, but the Emerald Chain bridge crew led by Zareh locate her and send "regulators" to apprehend her. After securing herself, she sets off a fire, and the pursuers are blown out into space by the fire suppression system. In the meantime, the Starfleet bridge crew including Booker and Ryn have overwhelmed their guards. Ryn hacks into the Discovery's systems that have been purged and reprogrammed by Osyraa's people. After Burnham has freed Stamets, the two get into an argument about whether he should stay on the ship and jump to the Verubin nebula to save Culber, Adira and Saru, or rather get off the ship immediately, so it would be worthless for Osyraa. As the transporters are still blocked, she stuns Stamets, envelops him into a forcefield and sends him to Federation Headquarters. Osyraa returns to the Discovery after the fruitless talks with Vance. Book and Ryn have been apprehended in the meantime. She kills Ryn, although Book proposes that he could show her a passage to the dilithium planet. The rest of the remaining crew under Tilly prepare to retake the ship. They receive unexpected help from the repair robots of the type DOT-23, which now hold the Sphere data...

• E11 Previous
• E13 Next