Warp-Speed Tractor Intercept — Snatching the Emissary
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Picard demands a pinpoint intercept; Geordi and O'Brien pitch a warp-speed tractor beam to stabilize a transporter lock, acknowledging the probe might slip. Picard weighs the odds and commits: "Make it so."
Clancey slides the Enterprise onto a precise parallel course while Worf clocks the probe closing at warp nine and Picard times the intercept. The ships settle abeam, the crew holding steady for the catch.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Attentive and cautious; ready to respond quickly to any abnormal vitals or injuries.
Enters the transporter room to stand by with a medical scanner, prepared to render immediate assessment and care as the probe materializes on the pad.
- • Assess the emissary's medical status immediately upon arrival
- • Prevent or quickly mitigate any transporter‑related trauma
- • Rapid medical evaluation is crucial in improvised transport situations
- • Being present and prepared reduces medical risk
Concentrated and professional; quietly confident in her ability to maintain a demanding parallel course at warp.
Holds the conn with exacting inputs, executes warp‑speed adjustments and parallel intercept course commands, and communicates helm status and confirmations to the bridge team.
- • Keep the Enterprise precisely aligned with the probe for tractor engagement
- • Respond instantly to bridge adjustments to avoid losing the probe
- • Piloting accuracy is essential to make high‑risk technical tactics feasible
- • Following command orders exactly prevents mission failure
Reserved and institutional; politely unyielding about withholding information despite Picard's objections.
Appears via viewscreen earlier to issue a terse, top‑security order: transmit rendezvous specifics and instruct full cooperation with the envoy, establishing the mission's secrecy and urgency.
- • Ensure the emissary is delivered and met on schedule
- • Preserve Starfleet's operational secrecy for undisclosed reasons
- • Operational security supersedes full briefings to field commanders
- • Centralized command decisions must be followed by subordinates
Professionally focused and steady; satisfied by a successful, demanding technical execution.
Works the transporter panel, confirms the transporter lock over comms, energizes the beam when ordered, reports 'Probe aboard' and physically effects the rematerialization in the transporter room.
- • Maintain a secure lock and reliably rematerialize the probe aboard
- • Avoid any transporter‑related injury to the emissary
- • Strict procedural discipline yields safe transporter operations
- • Team coordination between engineering and transporter operations is essential
Not directly shown; implicitly vulnerable and dependent on Starfleet's technical success for safety.
Is the enclosed passenger inside the Class‑Eight probe whose safe retrieval motivates the entire operation; the emissary's vulnerability is the tacit reason for Starfleet urgency.
- • Be delivered safely to the Enterprise
- • Receive and convey whatever classified information the mission requires
- • Trusts Starfleet to recover and protect them
- • Their mission's importance justifies risky logistics
Resolute professionalism with private frustration about secrecy; calm confidence as he prioritizes mission urgency over procedural caution.
Commands decisively from the bridge: questions the mission's secrecy, weighs Geordi's risk assessment, then authorizes the warp‑nine tractor/transport gambit and issues follow‑up course commands after success.
- • Secure the emissary as quickly as possible to preserve Starfleet's timetable
- • Minimize risk of diplomatic fallout by recovering the probe intact
- • Maintain crew cohesion and command authority during a risky technical maneuver
- • Speed matters more than comfort when Starfleet declares top‑security urgency
- • The chain of command and professional competence will produce acceptable outcomes
- • Nonlethal retrieval is preferable to destructive alternatives
Calmly analytical; emotionally neutral while supplying data that frames operational urgency.
Provides navigational context (Boradis coordinates and time saved), confirms reception of Starfleet transmission and assists with timing and course alignment for the intercept.
- • Provide exact coordinates and timing to enable a successful intercept
- • Clarify situational context so the captain can make an informed decision
- • Accurate data reduces uncertainty and risk
- • Mission planning relies on precise temporal and spatial calculations
Alert, professional cool — focused on precise measurements and system states without letting personal feelings interfere.
Runs continuous sensor sweeps, acquires and tracks probe bearing/velocity, calls ranges, confirms when probe is standing abeam and reports tractor‑beam readiness to Picard and the bridge.
- • Maintain sensor lock and accurate targeting data for the tractor/transport operation
- • Prevent any tactical surprises during the close at‑warp maneuver
- • Precision and discipline mitigate the inherent danger of the maneuver
- • Duty requires suppressing personal emotion during operations
Concerned and slightly incredulous at the improvised transport method, but composed and ready to execute follow‑through duties.
Provides tactical perspective and voice of concern: flags the probe's tiny size, anticipates operational consequences and immediately moves to personally receive the visitor once the probe is aboard.
- • Ensure the safety and proper reception of the emissary once aboard
- • Keep Picard informed of tactical implications and contingencies
- • A dignitary deserves appropriate care and ceremony
- • Technical risks require human oversight and contingency planning
Confident and pragmatic; intellectually excited by the technical challenge while mindful of the gamble's odds.
Proposes the tractor‑assisted transporter gambit, oversees transporter readiness from engineering consoles, interprets risk probabilities for Picard and coordinates with O'Brien to lock the pattern.
- • Execute a successful transport to save critical time
- • Protect the emissary by ensuring transporter pattern stability
- • Engineering solutions can overcome apparent physical limitations
- • Calculated technical risk is justified when time is of the essence
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The main bridge viewscreen displays Admiral Gromek's encrypted transmission that sets the mission's secrecy and rendezvous; it functions as the institutional mouthpiece that initiates the high‑stakes retrieval sequence.
Pulaski brings the portable bridge medical scanner to the transporter room and holds it at the ready to sweep the emissary or probe casing upon rematerialization, converting uncertainty into immediate diagnostic capability.
The gleaming silver Class‑Eight probe casing is the mission's physical prize: it streaks alongside the Enterprise, is seized by the tractor, and is dematerialized by the transporter onto the pad—its intact recovery proves the gambit succeeded and converts operational anxiety into relieved command.
The Enterprise personnel transporter array is tuned under heavy engineering load to lock onto the probe's pattern while the ship remains at warp. It finalizes the materialization of the probe on the transporter pad once tractor stabilization secures a coherent relative frame.
The bridge tactical tractor projector throws a directed tether to seize the two‑meter Class‑Eight probe at warp. It physically restrains and stabilizes the probe so the transporter can lock on, functioning as the critical enabling tool for the at‑warp retrieval.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The main bridge functions as the command nerve center: where the decision to attempt the warp‑nine retrieval is debated, the tractor is engaged by order, helm and tactical coordinate, and the immediate emotional stakes of secrecy and risk are enacted.
The transporter room is the execution site where O'Brien energizes the transporter, the probe materializes, and Pulaski stands ready with medical equipment — it translates engineering success into physical custody of the emissary's container.
The ribbon of space alongside the Enterprise at warp serves as the kinetic stage for the tractor snare: it is where the probe maneuvers to stand abeam and where the relative motion is stabilized long enough for the transporter to lock.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"The successful warp-speed capture of the probe delivers K'Ehleyr onto the Enterprise."
"The successful warp-speed capture of the probe delivers K'Ehleyr onto the Enterprise."
Themes This Exemplifies
Thematic resonance and meaning
Part of Larger Arcs
Key Dialogue
"GEORDI: "Twenty to one it'll work.""
"PICARD: "Make it so.""
"O'BRIEN'S COM VOICE: "Probe aboard, Captain.""