The U.S.S. da Vinci's cultural specialist, Carol Abramowitz, has always had trouble with first-contact missions, so when she expresses her concerns about dealing with the alien race the da Vinci has rescued, Captain Montgomery Scott tells her a story from the S.C.E.'s past....

A century before the heyday of the da Vinci, an engineering accident on an experimental Kelvan ship sent Scotty and an S.C.E. team led by his old friend Commander Mahmud al-Khaled into uncharted space. When a group of hostile aliens demands that they leave or face the consequences, the S.C.E. must work against the clock to repair the ship or face destruction!