After sustaining severe damage in an ion storm, the Enterprise is forced to seek repairs at Starbase 11. Here, Commodore Stone investigates the loss of records officer Ben Finney, who was killed when the ion pod in which he was taking readings had to be jettisoned in order to save the Enterprise. Stone finds that despite Kirk's insistence to the contrary, the computer record shows that Kirk ejected the pod during yellow alert, before red alert had been signaled. Kirk is further incriminated when it is learned that although they were once close friends, Finney had deeply hated Kirk and held him responsible for Finney's lack of promotion. This stemmed from an incident aboard the Republic (NCC 1371), when Kirk had replaced Finney on watch and discovered a circuit open to the atomic matter piles that should have been closed. Finney was sent to the bottom of the promotion list, and began to blame Kirk for ``keeping him down.'' Kirk stands by his testimony, and draws a court martial for perjury and culpable negligence. His former flame Ariel Shaw is the prosecuting attorney, and Kirk seeks the services of attorney Samuel T. Cogley.
Testimony from McCoy, Spock (S 179-276 SP), and himself (SC 937-0176 CEC) proves unenlightening, and Spock is forced to admit that there is nothing mechanically wrong with the computer (confirmed by a later megalite survey). Just as sentence is about to be pronounced by Stone, Space Command Representative Linstrom, and starship captains Chandra and Crisnowski, Spock discovers something amiss in the program bank of the Enterprise after he is able to beat the computer 5 times, despite the fact that its program should not be capable of losing. Spock rushes down to the Starbase, and the entire court reconvenes aboard the Enterprise to determine what is going on. Using a auditory sensor (intensified by a factor of ``1 to the fourth power,'' that's a whopping total of 1 to the uninitiated), the computer detects one more heartbeat aboard than can be accounted for. Kirk soon locates the hiding Finney who has managed to tap out the primary energy circuits. Finney tells Kirk how to return power and prevent the Enterprise from burning up in the planet's atmosphere only when Kirk tells him that his daughter Jamie is aboard. Kirk's record is cleared, and Samuel Cogley takes on a new case: defending Finney.