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The Enterprise arrives in orbit around planet Minara 2, whose sun is about to go nova, to pick up a research team (Jason Wingreen, Davis Roberts), but they find the station deserted. A record tape shows that the crew was abducted by some unseen force, which does the same thing to Kirk (William Shatner), Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and McCoy (DeForest Kelley). They find themselves trapped below the planet's surface -- with the Enterprise out of range because of a solar storm -- and encounter a mute humanoid woman (Kathryn Hays) and a pair of alien captors, Lal (Alan Bergmann) and Thann (Willard Sage). The two identify themselves as Vayans, and are performing an strange experiment which has already killed the two scientists and threatens to do the same to the three Enterprise officers. The woman, christened Gem by McCoy, proves to be an empath, capable of linking emotionally and neurologically to those around her and healing physical injuries -- sometimes at great physical cost to herself. In some way that the officers can't comprehend, the Vayans' experiments have a logical basis, all surrounding Gem, the solar system that is about to be destroyed, and the relationship between the three of them -- but it may cost the lives of one or all of them, as well as that of Gem, to find out what that purpose is.