The crew rescues Scotty from a transporter buffer after seventy-five years.
The Enterprise discovers a Dyson sphere and, on its surface, the wreck of the USS Jenolen. Inside its transporter buffer, Geordi finds Montgomery Scott, who has been kept in the pattern for about seventy-five years.
Scotty struggles to fit in aboard a ship where his skills seem out of date, and he clashes with Geordi. On the holodeck he recreates the bridge of the original Enterprise to remember better days. When the Enterprise is pulled inside the sphere, Scotty and Geordi repair the Jenolen and use it to hold open the sphere's door so the Enterprise can escape. Picard then lends Scotty a shuttle for his retirement.