On the launch of the USS Enterprise-B, the ship rescued El-Aurian refugees from an energy ribbon, and James T. Kirk vanished and was presumed dead.
In 2293 the Excelsior-class USS Enterprise-B left spacedock under Captain John Harriman for a short publicity cruise, with retired officers Kirk, Scott and Chekov as guests and Demora Sulu at the helm. The ship was not yet fully equipped, lacking a tractor beam, photon torpedoes and most of its medical staff.
The Enterprise-B received a distress call from two El-Aurian refugee transports caught in an energy ribbon. It was the only ship in range. One ship was destroyed, and the crew beamed aboard 47 people from the other, the Lakul, before it too was destroyed. The survivors included Guinan and Tolian Soran.
To free the Enterprise-B, Kirk went below to modify the deflector so it could release a burst of energy. The ship escaped, but the ribbon struck the hull and tore open the section where Kirk was working. He was presumed killed, but he had been swept into the Nexus, a realm outside normal time, where he lived on until Jean-Luc Picard met him there in 2371. These events open Star Trek Generations.