“Where Silence Has Lease” is episode two of season two of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Captain Picard wanders onto the bridge from his ready room. He wanders around uncertainly, then takes a seat. Troi says he’s worried. With reason, the captain replies. For Word or Riker? Both. It is perhaps best to be ignorant of certain elements of the Klingon psyche.
Worf and Riker are creeping around some ruins in a jungle. Worf picks up some sort of fighting glove, then Riker warns him as someone jumps down and attacks. Another appears and attacks Riker. Both Riker and Worf deal with their assailants, and Worf, whose blood is clearly up, starts heading for Riker, until the latter tells him to be at ease. Riker calls for the holodeck door and asks Worf if he does this every day. No; usually his calisthenics are more strenuous. But those are too personal to be shared.
The Enterprise is in an area that has yet to be visited by a manned Federation vessel. Riker and Picard are standing over Data’s station; the commander and Data are telling the captain that there’s an area of blackness that appears and disappears with no predictable pattern. The captain orders it to be put on the screen; an area of blackness is not easily distinguishable from space. It’s spotted and Wesley suggests it’s a hole in space. It’s different to a wormhole. Sensors show nothing there; a void without matter or energy. On a comment that it has a form, Data says perhaps, perhaps not. Troi senses nothing and Data can find no record of anything similar encountered by a Federation vessel.
The captain decides it’s worth investigating, so a probe is fired in. It vanishes. Worf wants to go to yellow alert. When asked why, he is first reluctant to explain, then admits there’s an old Klingon legend about a gigantic black space creature that devours entire vessels. He admits that’s not the sort of thing to base a judgement on. A second probe is sent and it, too, vanishes. Worf now wants to fire a photon torpedo. Wesley says that he’s been able to map the outer boundaries, so they can move closer. They do, and the thing abruptly expands so that they are inside it.
Briefly, communications within the ship are affected, but there are still no comms outside the void. Picard decides they can finish collecting data and leave. Dr Pulaski arrives on the bridge. Increasing the magnification of the viewscreen reveals no change, and Pulaski asks if ‘it’ – Data – knows what it’s doing. She apologises, very badly, for calling Data an it, then apologises again for the poor apology.
Geordi reports that everything in engineering is functioning. The void lacks dimension by any accepted standard, and should therefore not exist. Clearly, though, it does. Data wonders if a lack of dimension could be another dimension in itself. Pulaski thinks that’s an interesting question, but the captain interrupts before Data can start discussing the matter. He thinks it’s time to leave; a science vessel can be despatched for a closer look.
After travelling for some time, the Enterprise is still in the void. Riker checks with Geordi that the engines are working. They are. Increasing to warp 2 results in no change, even after 1.4 parsecs have been travelled. They are past the point where they entered the void, yet are still inside it. Data suggests deploying a stationary beacon as a fixed point of reference. The beacon fades away to astern and they are about to go to warp 2 again when Data detects a signal dead ahead. No surprise; it turns out to the beacon they dropped behind them.
Worf detects a disturbance, possibly another vessel. A cloaked one. A Romulan uncloaks and opens fire. The Enterprise returns fire and the Romulan is blown up with one shot. Improbable, to say the least. Captain Picard thinks that was too easy. There’s no debris. Then another ship is detected, this one Federation. The Yamato; the Enterprise‘s sister ship. Which is supposed to be nowhere near.
The Yamato doesn’t answer hails and there are no lifesigns. On board the ship, it is both deserted and creepy. Something powerful is clearly messing with the Enterprise. It doesn’t want them to leave the void, and they will not get out unless it lets them.