Pike's crew tracks captured colleagues to a hidden Gorn homeworld and tries to rescue them.
The third season opens with the Enterprise pursuing a Gorn ship that has taken La'An, M'Benga, Ortegas, Sam Kirk and many colonists, defying Starfleet orders with Admiral April's quiet approval. Using Scotty's Gorn transponder, the crew finds a hidden binary star system holding the Gorn homeworld and an invasion force.
The Enterprise triggers an artificial coronal mass ejection that sends the Gorn into a long hibernation, while the captives escape and the colonists are rescued, though Ortegas is wounded and the ship badly damaged. Spock and Chapel use Number One's Illyrian blood to neutralize the Gorn eggs inside Batel. Davy Perez wrote the teleplay and Chris Fisher directed.