Losira
Lee Meriwether
Lt. Rahda
Naomi Pollack
Lt. D'Amato
Arthur Batanides
Ensign Wyatt
Brad Forrest
John B. Watkins
Kenneth Washington
Dr. M'Benga
Brooker Bradshaw
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The
Enterprise is investigating a planet that appears to be too young to account
for its level of evolution. As Kirk dematerialises while beaming down
to the surface with a survey team consisting of McCoy, Sulu and D'Amato
he sees a mysterious woman appear in the transporter room. She touches
the transport operator, Ensign Wyatt, who dies immediately. Arriving on
the planet's surface the survey team is shaken by a large ground tremor.
At the same time, the Enterprise disappears from orbit, having been thrown
990.7 light years away from the planet by an unidentified force, leaving
Kirk and the others stranded.
Wyatt's body is examined by Doctor M'Benga who finds that the crewman
died due to complete cellular disruption. The survey team starts to explore
their surroundings and split up. D'Amato, a geologist, is confronted by
a mysterious woman who seems to appear from nowhere and addresses him
by name. He allows her to approach him and when she touches him he dies
in the same way as Wyatt. On board the Enterprise Spock assesses the ship's
location and charts a course back to the planet. When the ship goes into
warp they discover that the strange force which transported them away
from the planet has reassembled the ship slightly out of phase with normal
space.
Their speed continues to increase uncontrollably and Scotty is sent on
a highly dangerous task to cut the magnetic field which regulates the
flow of fuel to the matter / antimatter chamber. By the time he accomplishes
this, the ship's speed has increased to warp 14. On the planet the remaining
survey team members bury D'Amato's body and make camp, taking turns at
keeping watch as night begins to fall. After Sulu is approached and injured
by the touch of the mysterious woman Kirk has a hunch that she can only
'focus' on one person at a time. When she reappears calling Kirk's name
Sulu and McCoy stake their lives on Kirk's idea being correct and place
themselves between him and the woman, successfully shielding him despite
her entreaties and attempts to touch him.
The three Enterprise men manage to survive the night and explore the area
further to try and find out where the mystery woman is coming from. They
discover a camouflaged entrance hidden in a rock face and go in, finding
themselves in a room with a computer system and a large viewscreen. The
computer is active and creates three identical images of the mystery woman,
one for each of them, which it will be impossible to defend against indefinitely.
The Enterprise arrives back at the planet and resumes a standard orbit.
Spock manages to locate Kirk and the others with the ship's sensors and
beams down to their location with a security man. They arrive in time
to rescue the survivors, disabling the part of the computer that is creating
the image projections and causing the 'women' to disappear.
The woman's face appears on the computer's viewscreen and delivers a pre-recorded
message in which she identifies herself as Losira, 'commander of this
outpost'. The recording tells how her people, the Kalandans, were infected
by a deadly organism created during their terraforming of the planet.
She was the last survivor and the computer used her image in its attempt
to protect the outpost until help arrived. This was never to come as their
supply ships had spread the organism throughout the entire Kalandan race
that has long since been extinct. |
