Trapped on an alien mining colony, a young man named Dal struggles to find a way to escape the planet and start a new life free from the grasp of the ruthless Tars Lamora.
Dal recruits a group of misfit miners in the hopes of activating an advanced Federation ship discovered in the mines, to escape the planet before Tars Lamora catches them.
With help from a Starfleet hologram the young crew of cadets attempt to learn how to operate the U.S.S. Protostar ... before the ship is destroyed by an encounter with a cosmic phenomenon.
The crew of cadets embark on their first away mission after the Protostar detects an M-class planet ... unaware that it conceals a dangerous life form.
Marooned on a deadly planet, the crew must work together – with help from their prisoner Gwyn – to survive long enough to escape ... while the Diviner closes in on them.
When the young crew discovers an advanced holodeck on board the Protostar, Dal decides to test his leadership with Starfleet's famous captain's test – alongside some of the finest officers from Starfleet history.
The crew meets Nandi, the Ferengi smuggler who raised Dal, who convinces them to help her acquire a valuable crystal from a nearby planet – though in doing so they risk violating the Federation's Prime Directive.
The Protostar is fractured in time by an anomaly, stranding each member of the crew in a different fracture — and forcing one of them to step up and save the ship from destruction.
After the Diviner issues a brutal ultimatum the crew agrees to return the ship to Tars Lamora, giving up their dream of Starfleet to save the enslaved miners.
The crew's plan to turn the tables on the Diviner goes sideways, forcing them to call on the miners to help retake the Protostar. On board the ship, Gwyn discovers a dark secret that threatens Starfleet.
The crew is eager to apply for asylum when they discover a Federation communications relay outpost, manned by a single Starfleet officer. But things go horribly wrong when their sabotaged ship infects the station.
The crew discovers a dormant Borg Cube and sends an away team aboard, hoping that the dangerous enemy vessel might hold the key to removing the Living Construct from the Protostar.
When the crew responds to a distress call they find a colony of people who have modeled their society after Starfleet, after an officer crashed their in a shuttlepod a century earlier.
After hiding the ship the crew visits an outpost in hopes of finding transportation to the Federation, only to unwittingly cross paths with Vice Admiral Janeway herself.
When the crew seek refuge on a planet in the Neutral Zone, Dal meets a rogue geneticist who can reveal the truth of who he is – and perhaps make him better.
While working to repair the Protostar the crew tell their stories of how they came to be imprisoned together on Tars Lamora. Meanwhile the Diviner learns about his own past from an unlikely source.
When the ship is cornered by the Dauntless Dal attempts to telepathically connect with Janeway in order to warn her ... only to inadvertently trade bodies with the Vice Admiral.
