The Starfleet officer in command of the Epsilon IX station, who tracks the V'Ger cloud as it destroys three Klingon cruisers and is himself killed when it reaches his post.
Commander Branch appears in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Epsilon IX is a communications and sensor station near Klingon space, and it is his crew who relay the pictures of the Klingon attack on the cloud and plot the intruder's course straight for Earth.
Branch later reports to the Enterprise, by then under way, with what the station's scans have shown. The cloud is immense and seems to hold something at its heart. As he speaks, the cloud turns its power on the station, and Kirk's bridge crew watch as it is engulfed and vanishes.
Branch was played by David Gautreaux, who had been cast as the Vulcan Xon for the abandoned Phase II television series.