Ortegas bonds with a stranded Gorn on a barren moon, but La'An's reaction to the Gorn ends in tragedy.
Ortegas is pulled through a wormhole and crashes on a barren moon, where she survives with the help of a stranded Gorn pilot. Despite her deep distrust after her captivity, the two become friends. With a vaccine delivery looming, Uhura persuades Pike to take the Enterprise partway into the wormhole, overstating the odds of success. Ortegas and the Gorn ignite the atmosphere to signal the ship, but when La'an beams down she mistakes the Gorn for an enemy and kills him.
A Metron, one of the powerful beings from the original series episode Arena, explains that they brought the two together to test whether peace is possible, then erases Ortegas's memory of the conversation, yet she still remembers and mourns her friend. The near two-hander centers Ortegas, whose trauma from the Gorn runs through the season, and gives the series' monstrous enemy a sympathetic face. Alan B. McElroy wrote the episode.