Stardate 1029.46: A diplomatic ship of Vulcan origin requests a person to beam over to the Discovery. To Michael Burnham's surprise, the visitor is not Sarek but Amanda Grayson. Spock's mother says she tried to visit him in the facility on Starbase 5 but was not admitted. She then stole his medical file and asks Burnham to decrypt it. Burnham, however, seeks Captain Pike's permission in this delicate issue. Pike contacts Starbase 5, only to learn that Spock is wanted for murdering three of his doctors. The captain now orders Burnham to find out what is on the file. Amanda admits that she never gave her full love to Spock because she agreed to him being raised the Vulcan way. When a winged figure appears in the data, she recognizes it as the "Red Angel", an apparition that dates back to the day that young Michael ran away from her home. Spock claimed that the Red Angel led him to her. Michael tells Amanda that she is determined to find him, also because she once hurt him in good faith that through the separation she could protect him from the Vulcan extremists, who already tried to kill her. Amanda leaves hastily, saying that she, not Burnham, would find him. Captain Pike offers Ensign Tilly, who is in her Command Training Program, to sit in his chair on the bridge. But she screws up because of the "ghost" of the dead schoolmate May that is haunting her. Tilly announces that she quits. In the meantime on Qo'noS, tensions rise between Chancellor L'Rell and Kol-Sha, the father of the late Kol. Kol-Sha accuses L'Rell of being a puppet of the Federation, and he has only contempt for her Torchbearer Voq (in the guise of Tyler), whom he calls a "plaything". Kol-Sha refuses to remove his "war paint", upon which Voq assaults him, trying to wipe it away. Voq, on the other hand, is under the impression that he doesn't have the full trust of L'Rell and her House of Mo'Kai. He confronts her uncle, Ujilli, who eventually shows Voq the secret: L'Rell's son, whose father he is. Kol-Sha, however, learns of this secret too because there were sensor implants in his paint that got transferred to Voq when the two struggled. He kills Ujilli, kidnaps the child and demands L'Rell to abdicate. L'Rell and Voq try to fight their way out, but Kol-Sha erects a stasis field around them. Just when he is about to kill them, Philippa Georgiou appears to their rescue. L'Rell uses the opportunity to kill Kol-Sha. Georgiou calls herself a "Starfleet security consultant" and says that it is in her interest to maintain the peace with the Klingon Empire. But she wants L'Rell to get rid of Voq and of her son, who weaken her position on Qo'noS. After talking to Burnham, Tilly becomes aware that "May" is not a ghost of a teenage girl, but a parasite that entered her body from the spore network. Stamets uses the dark matter sample to extract the parasite and contains it in a forcefield in engineering. In the High Council on Qo'noS, L'Rell calls Voq a traitor and presents his head as proof that he is dead. She also shows the head of her son who was allegedly slain by Voq, a crime that Kol-Sha was going to prevent but got him killed. The real Voq and his son are on a Section 31 ship on the way to Boreth, where the still nameless boy will be raised as a monk. Georgiou plans to recruit Voq for Section 31 just as she herself was recruited by the secret organization.

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