Aboard the Enterprise, chaos erupts as Poilant drones attack without warning. With the ship under fire, Ortegas must push her piloting skills to the limit to buy Uhura a narrow window ? one last chance to reconnect with their stranded crew and unlock the deadly mystery hidden within Poilant?s strange, ancient symbols. Meanwhile, on a desperate mission to locate a missing Starfleet research team ? and their friend Jinare ? Chapel, La?An, Una, Spock, Scotty, and their unlikely robotic ally D6 stumble into the clutches of a terrifying parasitic hive-mind known as the Seed. As the alien collective tightens its grip, one question looms: Is this the force behind Jinare?s vanishing… or just the beginning of something far worse?