- The Galileo, under Spock's command, crash-lands on a hostile planet. As the Enterprise races against time to find the shuttlecraft, Spock's strictly logical leadership clashes with the fear and resentment of his crew.
- A shuttle craft under Mr. Spock's command is forced to land on a hostile planet. His emotionless approach to command does not sit well with some crew members, particularly Mr. Boma who challenges Spock at every opportunity. The Enterprise and Captain Kirk meanwhile have only a short time to find the lost shuttle craft as they must deliver urgent medical supplies to Markus III in only a few days.—garykmcd
- Ambassador Ferris (John Crawford) (who is on board the Enterprise) is pressuring Kirk to complete the mission that the Enterprise has been commissioned for (to deliver Medical supplies to Makus 3). He informs Kirk that the mission takes top priority and that all other considerations must wait, as there is a plague out of control on the New Paris colonies and the medical supplies can save them.
Kirk is also investigating a quasar, Murasaki 312, around which it is passing. Kirk sends 7 crewmen on the Galileo shuttle-craft to investigate closely. The Galileo is hit by severe radiation and goes off course, Its communications with Enterprise are broken. On Enterprise, Kirk finds that the quasar has ionized the entire quadrant with an area of 4 solar systems. And somewhere amongst the 4 systems is Galileo.
Kirk has a dilemma. Seven of his crew are caught on the surface of one of the planets, inside the Galileo shuttle-craft, including Spock, McCoy, Scott, Mister Boma (Don Marshall) (a militant black officer), an inexperienced yeoman, and two red-shirts. The weather conditions make it impossible to leave the planet. Uhura reckons that the Planet Taurus 2 is a class M planet with a oxygen, nitrogen atmosphere. But this planet is dead center of Murasaki 312. Kirk takes the Enterprise there. Meanwhile the Galileo has crashed on the planet, but has all instrumentation damaged. Spock knows that Enterprise will looks for them, but with the lionization effect of Murasaki, their instruments wont work.. And its a huge planet.
The Enterprise does reach the planet, but even the transporter beams wont work. Kirk sends shuttle-craft Columbus to search the surface. Scotty and Spock learn that the shuttle-craft has lost a lot of fuel and has no means of reaching escape velocity till it lightens its load by 500 pounds. Two red-shirts are killed by monsters (ape like, with primitive weapons) on the planet,and Mr Boma is arguing with Spock always, especially about the insanity of burying the dead, which Spock feels is a waste of when they are so near death themselves.
Scotty proposes to use power from the phasers to get the engines enough thrust to lift them into orbit, but that leaves the Galileo without any defenses. Meanwhile on Enterprise the crew gets the transporters to work, speeding up the search.
The yeoman and McCoy try to encourage him. In space, Kirk is pressured but will not relent to the authority of Ferris. Finally the ship must leave, but on impulse power only, by Kirk's order, with scanners directed to the rear. Yeoman Mears (Phyllis Douglas), Boma and the three irreplaceable crewmen finally lift off, having drained power from their phaser weapons, but it is too late. The ship has to use boosters to attain orbit and use up most of its fuel and so cant land back again. The Enterprise will not be able to see them. The jolt of the craft when coming through the atmosphere throws the yeoman to the floor. Then Spock ignites the fuel, the craft creates a red line, they are spotted and rescued, and Spock defends his decision to do something drastic as logical. Spock is very proud. And the whole crew laughs, including the yeoman, because they are happy and the lost red-shirts have been buried with ceremony.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content