Riker is offered a command as his estranged father arrives.
Riker is offered command of the USS Aries, and the civilian adviser sent to brief him is his father, Kyle Riker, whom he has not seen in years. The two are still bitter over Will's childhood, and Dr. Pulaski, who once had a romance with Kyle, is caught in the middle.
Meanwhile, Worf is short-tempered and withdrawn. Wesley and his friends learn that it is the tenth anniversary of Worf's Age of Ascension, a painful Klingon rite, and they recreate the ceremony for him on the holodeck.
Will and Kyle finally settle their differences in an anbo-jyutsu match, a martial-arts contest they used to fight when Will was a boy, and Will learns that his father had cheated to win. The two make peace, and Riker decides to stay on the Enterprise.