Tasked with exploring territory beyond the Typhon Expanse, a distress call from the Aquorat system draws Hathaway into a modern slavery drama. When a slaver ship approaches the planet, Captain Gor and the crew hide their ship and watch the slavers at work as it becomes clear this venture is more than just one ship. With Hathaway hot on the tails of the slaver ship and their warp signature masked, the crew hatch a plan to board the ship at its next destination and rescue those taken. After an away team uses a shuttle with an altered transponder signal to get close to the slaver planet, they get into position to perform an extraction of their own. When the survivors are returned to their homeworld and the slavers are apprehended, one slaver drops a bombshell about a missing Starfleet officer with far reaching implications…