Epis­ode Num­ber: 4×07

Writ­ten by: Erin Mac­Don­ald, PhD

Dir­ec­ted by: Jon Crew

Trans­mis­sion: 3^rd August 2025

Guest Stars:

• Lan J’Lan: Holy Cap­tain of the K’si sci­ence ves­sel Eye of Har­mony.
• Kot J’Kot: Proc­tor of the Eye of Har­mony.

We’ve found a research ves­sel stran­ded in the middle of a class IV ion storm. Stand­ard pro­tocol says that we should res­cue it, but the issue is com­plic­ated by the fact that the ves­sel appears to be K’si. Giv­en our past rela­tions with that cul­ture, I find myself won­der­ing if this is an oppor­tun­ity… or a trap.

Cap­tain’s Log: Stard­ate, 9994.9

Plot: Lyo­n­esse enters the ion storm to attempt a res­cue of the stran­ded K’si vessel.

The ‘A’ Plot: The cap­tain has decided that stand­ing orders over­ride any risk con­sid­er­a­tions, so they will attempt a res­cue. If they are suc­cess­ful, this and the pre­vi­ous aid to the colony at BC-12b may help over­come the K’si gov­ern­ment’s inher­ent dis­trust in future encounters.

The cap­tain holds a meet­ing and the seni­or staff dis­cusses the situ­ation. The stran­ded ves­sel is nestled in the shel­ter of a cloud of newly-formed aster­oids, but is sur­roun­ded by the worst of the storm. The cloud of dust and gas sur­round­ing the new­born star would make the approach dif­fi­cult at the best of times, but the raging ion storm makes it very dan­ger­ous. Jin reports that his attempts to reach the K’si ves­sel by sub­space radio have failed, due to the inter­fer­ence gen­er­ated by the storm. Dr Vale notes that res­cuers will be exposed to dan­ger­ous levels of radi­ation if the shields fail at any point.

A shuttle­craft would def­in­itely not sur­vive the jour­ney, so they will have to take Lyo­n­esse her­self into the sys­tem. Valik will recon­fig­ure the sub­space field pro­duced by the warp core to ease their travel through the neb­ula, while Jin adjusts the nav­ig­a­tion­al deflect­or to ward off the worst of the ion radi­ation from the star. James looks at remodu­lat­ing the shields to provide addi­tion­al pro­tec­tion against the radi­ation, while Vale organ­ises a ship­wide inn­ocu­la­tion pro­gramme to provide radi­ation treat­ments for the crew.

With everything in place, James takes the ship into the storm, Lock provid­ing nav­ig­a­tion­al assist­ance to avoid the worst pock­ets of radi­ation. Their pro­gress is rap­id, but des­pite James’s care­ful con­trol, the ship is soon caught in a power­ful mass ejec­tion from the star, which pen­et­rates the shields, throw­ing people from their seats and caus­ing skin burns amongst the crew.

For­ging through, they make it to the shad­ow of the aster­oid cluster pro­tect­ing the K’si ves­sel. Lock attempts to make con­tact once more, but has no luck until they come with­in visu­al dis­tance. Jin has spent much of the trip work­ing out a lot of the nuances of the K’si lan­guage and he con­ducts the conversation.

The K’si com­mand­er responds, identi­fy­ing her­self as Holy Cap­tain Lan J’Lan of the K’si sci­ence ves­sel Eye of Har­mony, and demands to know who they are. Jin iden­ti­fies the ship, but receives a hos­tile reac­tion; it seems that the Lyo­n­esse has now been declared “ana­thema”, and her Proc­tor is advising that her crew should be pre­pared to die, rather than accept help from such heretics.

After some thought, Jin sug­gests that if they will not will­ingly accept help, maybe it will be “forced on them”. In this instance, it would not be J’Lan’s fault that Lyo­n­esse res­cued her crew. They over­hear traces of a heated argu­ment on the K’si bridge, but even­tially J’Lan hints that this would be accept­able to her.

Work­ing from the tac­tic­al sta­tion, Par­ish estab­lishes a tract­or beam lock on the K’si ves­sel, and Lock extends Lyo­n­esse’s shields around it. As they begin to tow the Eye of Har­mony out of the sys­tem, they are caught by anoth­er strong flare, again lead­ing to injur­ies and some dam­age across the ship.

They release the K’si ves­sel, which departs without anoth­er word, and begin plan­ning their own trip around the exter­i­or of the new star’s bubble with­in the nebula.

The Arc: The Lyo­n­esse crew takes anoth­er step towards a pos­sible peace with the K’si.

Obser­va­tions: The Eye of Har­mony is a K’si research ves­sel, large in com­par­is­on to equi­val­ent Star­fleet ships, but much smal­ler than the pre­vi­ously encountered Host Car­ri­ers. It has a crew of around 60, and its com­mand­ing officer has the rank of Holy Cap­tain. It also appears to have a reli­gious com­mis­sar, ensur­ing the crew avoids heresy, titled the Proctor.

Ensign Saur­ik estim­ates that BC-19 is only a few hun­dred thou­sand years old and has transitioned into its cur­rent, highly-act­ive stage with­in the last few years. The sur­round­ing mater­i­als are start­ing to con­dense into a pro­to­plan­et­ary disc, and some have begun to coalesce into very loose clumps, resem­bling the aster­oids they will one day become.