The USS Pacific Palisades, in support of the Fourth Fleet Corps of Engineers, has deployed to Stratara Prime, a planet near the Klingon border in dire need of infrastructure modernization. However, the colonists are skeptical of Starfleet’s motivations, and a leading political figure is downright critical, claiming that things were going fine before and that they’d be better off without Starfleet’s aid. The Palisades’ mission is undermined as things start to go wrong. First, they struggle to meet schedules as equipment goes missing, and then a water purification plant malfunctions, making people sick. All of this pales in comparison to what happens next when the new planetary reactor they installed loses containment. While the team manages to stop a catastrophic failure that would have left a multi-kilometer crater in the middle of the capital city, it plunges the colony into darkness and prompts mass hysteria from the residents.

While Captain Saito and Commodore Agarwal struggle to manage the anger of the populace, Commander Westmoreland makes an unsettling discovery: containment was lost, not because of a system failure, but because of a virus that bypassed their fleet-grade cybersecurity suite. Commodore Agarwal briefs Rear Admiral Grayson, who dispatches Fleet Admiral Reyes and Commander Robert Drake, along with the USS Diligent and a contingent of the Advanced Science, Technology and Research Activity, to investigate. At first, it appears to be locally-inspired terrorism, but as they dig deeper, the ASTRA and JAG investigators discover it has roots to something far more sinister.