- Michael Burnham. - Ash Tyler.
Give a sign that you're interested.
All my life, the conflict inside me
has been between logic and emotion.
You remind me of everything good.
You are my tether.
A Klingon took an interest in me.
It's you.
Speak your name.
We modified Voq into a shell that appears human.
We grafted his psyche into Tyler's.
An activated Klingon spy.
When I look at you now, I see Voq's eyes.
Was there ever really an Ash Tyler?
I loved him.
They've planted a bomb in the heart of your homeworld.
Use the fate of Kronos to bend them to your will.
I am the Torchbearer.
Voq has always believed in you, I'Rell.
I'm going with her.
- I'm gonna miss looking at you. - I see you, Ash.
In your eyes.
A new leader is needed to fulfill my lord's vision.
I am that leader.
The reunification of our race
begins
now.
Stardate 1029.46.
Personal log, Commander Michael Burnham.
Any rational explanation for the seven signals
that have appeared across the galaxy continues to escape me.
And with it, perhaps any chance of a relationship
with my brother, Spock.
What did he see in them that I can't?
My failure to understand feels like a failure
to reach him at a time when he might need me most.
Trainee half-marathon approaching.
On your left.
- Hi. - Hello.
- Hi. It's me. - Hello.
- It's me. - It's me.
Silly Stilly.
You're not really there.
You're dead. You're dead. You're not really there.
Of course I am, Silly Stilly.
Where did you come from?
- How come they don't see you? - Only you can.
Why
Don't you remember? I'm May, from junior high.
We were friends.
You're the nicest person I've met at this awful school.
I went to that school for six months.
Then my mother got another post, and we moved away,
and you and I have not spoken since then.
And another thing, you died.
Years ago.
Is that why you're upset
I'm upset because you are a symptom of an unfit mind.
And I can't have that right now. I just can't.
Oh, my...
The Command Training Program's half-marathon has a victor.
A lovely show of endurance and fortitude, Tilly.
You are dismissed, everyone.
But we will reconvene later in the day for Shadow Exercises.
We won.
There is no one else I would rather cheer on.
And support.
- And help. - Causing a nervous breakdown doesn't help.
- Tilly. - Set a new course record.
She also achieved...
Saru says you not only won, you beat your personal best.
See? That's how I'm helping you.
What a team we are.
It's the training you put me through.
Thank you, Michael.
I've gotta go, but congratulations.
You're amazing. Saru, wait up.
Yellow alert.
Undeclared craft on intercept course.
Bearing 358 mark zero.
Range, 9000 kilometers, and closing fast.
No other propulsion signatures in the sector.
Hailing on all frequencies, sir. They haven't responded.
Tell them if they get closer without saying who they are,
we will activate tactical systems.
- Aye, captain. - Owo, got anything on scans?
Detecting a small ship. Two life-forms.
Captain, they've opened up a channel.
It's a private vessel with a diplomatic registry number.
They aren't required to tell us more.
Captain asked to beam one aboard.
Now in range for a visual.
- On screen. - Aye, captain.
That ship is Vulcan.
That ship is Sarek's.
I recognize it.
He assembled a Federation task force to study the seven signals.
- He might have news for us. - He may want to discuss something else.
I reported Spock's advance knowledge of the signals to Command.
Information likely got back to the ambassador,
with the news that his son admitted himself
into a psychiatric hospital.
You didn't betray your friend, captain.
You followed protocol.
It's easy to say, harder to believe.
Have you heard from Spock's doctors on Starbase Five?
No, not yet.
Report to the transporter room, commander.
- Welcome the Vulcan ambassador aboard. - Yes, sir.
Deck Four.
Boarding confirmed.
Transporter lock established.
- Energize. - Aye, commander.
Amanda?
Please, don't react.
Spock needs our help.
I could only turn to you.
Out of the fire of war, life begins anew.
As your chancellor, this dynasty springs from me.
From the 24 great houses,
one offspring rises up.
Behold the D7,
the future battle cruiser of the Imperial Fleet.
It bears the banner of no single house,
but the insignia of our united empire...
My Torchbearer will oversee production of this ship...
A ship that shows the galaxy who we are,
and what it means to...
remain Klingon.
Remain Klingon!
Will you make this human our new fleet captain, too, chancellor?
Perhaps we should speak in the standard tongue, too.
Whatever language you prefer,
the truth remains the same.
The Torchbearer was anointed by T'Kuvma himself.
You mean Voq was.
If you want whatever this is as your plaything,
he belongs in your bed,
not here.
He belongs wherever I am.
Just like the allied Klingon houses,
our union is what makes us strong.
Your old way of thinking kept us at each other's throats.
Remove the paint from your face, Kol-Sha.
We are one culture now.
Your union is an insult to my son, Kol.
And all our sons who died by human treachery.
It is no coincidence
those seven red lights appeared from the sky
so soon after she took power.
They are an omen.
Seven drops of blood, ready to rain down on us.
Remove the paint.
Your chancellor doesn't get her hands dirty.
That's the Torchbearer's job,
whether he be human,
Klingon,
or both.
You know about the seven signals?
Yes.
Sarek informed me.
People are anxious to know what they are.
Attention, all cadets.
Duty log has been updated...
Spock's connected to them.
How?
He left a log claiming that he saw them,
long before they appeared to the Federation.
But until we can speak to him, we have no answers,
and I don't know what else to do.
I have no new angles to investigate.
Except the one I'm giving you.
I just came from Starbase Five.
I went to the psychiatric unit.
They wouldn't tell me where he was.
They wouldn't let me see him. They wouldn't say what was wrong with him.
They wouldn't even give me his personal effects.
You're his next of kin, and you're a diplomat's wife.
So, I did the only logical thing.
I stole his medical file.
It's encrypted.
Can you please open it?
- Mother. - Please.
Ujilli, you are looking well.
How was your walk?
I dedicated everything to your cause. Your uncle could acknowledge me.
He and the rest of House Mo'Kai believe in you.
We have enemies enough.
No need to dream up imaginary ones.
Kol-Sha is telling council members
that you are advising me to eliminate the great houses entirely.
My uncle is disseminating the truth to counteract his lies.
He looks at me and sees a human. They all do.
You should not care what anyone sees when they look at you.
On that subject, only my opinion matters.
Why do you insist on speaking English to me?
I'm not a human, I'Rell.
I'm a Klingon whose body was changed to resemble one.
If we expect others to acknowledge my Klingon side,
accept me as the Torchbearer, you must treat me like Voq.
If you are Voq, then want me back.
Want me.
You touch me...
and that intimacy...
to me, Tyler...
feels like...
violation.
Spock speaks highly of you, Captain Pike.
My daughter does, too. I've come to the right people.
That makes it all the harder for me to tell you.
I can't open this file.
I'd be in violation of the rules. My mother wouldn't like that.
There is precedent in Starfleet case law
for a captain to invoke...
Was she this bossy as a kid?
On Vulcan we call it "persistent." Yes, she was.
She learned that from me.
Hmm.
Bryce.
Get me Captain Vela on Starbase Five.
- Tell him it's high priority. - Yes, sir.
- Ah. - Chris.
You and my bisabuela Nena are the only people
in this quadrant still communicating on screens.
Your grandma sounds like a smart lady. Introduce us.
- Sorry I haven't returned your call. - Calls, Diego.
I'm waiting for an update on my officer, Spock.
I'm sorry, I can't give you one.
His case is classified.
I'm well within my rights as his captain to get a prognosis.
Even if that weren't the case, Spock has information
on the signals I was assigned to investigate.
Starfleet declared my mission priority-one.
The signals have nothing to do with it, Chris.
Your guy is wanted for murder.
He killed three of his doctors, then fled the starbase.
Why isn't word out about his escape so that every starship can be on the hunt?
Elements of the case just got complicated.
Some of Spock's files are missing. We have no idea how.
Rest assured,
they've got people on it.
Thanks, Vela.
Pike out.
It's not true.
My son is gentle and kind.
He wouldn't do that.
I agree, captain.
Well, that makes three of us.
But I don't think the people handling his case would concur.
Our boy's in trouble.
He needs a fair shake. We need to find him before they do.
Burnham,
break into Mr. Spock's medical file.
That's an order.
Lieutenant Spock's intellectual abilities and capacity for reason are intact.
Instead, his dissociation appears acutely emotional.
E.Q. tests and his current disaffected state
suggest extreme empathy deficits.
I'll transfer the rest of the files, and then...
we'll decide the best place to start.
Your wheels are already turning.
Logic dictates a few theories.
Spock didn't do it, and he's wrongfully accused.
Or he did murder those doctors, in a... mentally compromised state,
or... in what he thought was self-defense.
- Or... - He did it
because he's emotionally compromised.
"Extreme empathy deficit"...
is code for "psychopathy."
I can't deny that possibility.
He didn't have a normal childhood.
Sarek wanted Spock raised in the Vulcan manner.
And any display of emotion was strongly discouraged.
And in order not to confuse my son...
I began to hide my own.
I was not...
a real mother.
I wasn't what he needed.
You gave us love, every second.
It was different with you, Michael.
I gave you all my joy...
and my... affection that I was not permitted to give to him.
But Spock is half-human.
If he had been permitted to embrace the feelings
that I know he has inside of him,
it would've saved him from all the trouble that he's in now.
Stop. Stop.
Those images.
Spock drew them.
I'm sure of it.
He must've...
done them in treatment.
I thought that he left it in the past.
But it's back.
What is it?
Your brother called it the Red Angel.
He started seeing it when he was a little boy.
It changed him.
I'm sorry.
I have to answer this.
Michael.
Thanks for answering.
Of course.
Are you all right
For now. She's still in power.
But her opponents continue to challenge and discredit her.
It's volatile.
How can I help?
The Federation needs to know the situation.
If I'Rell falls, peace falls with her.
I'll pass it up the chain of command immediately.
Thanks.
- I should go. - Wait.
What?
I...
I don't know.
I like the beard.
I heard, postwar, the Klingons are growing their hair again.
The rumors are true.
How are you?
I'm dealing with some things regarding my foster brother.
I hit a dead end, but Amanda came and got me back on track.
Ship her here when you're done with her.
I'm feeling a little stuck myself.
You've got me...
right now.
I understood my role here, to aid I'Rell.
But I'm afraid I'm hurting her.
I'm an easy target for the old guard.
- What does I'Rell think? - Their opposition is part of the fight.
And their ignorance...
will be their downfall.
You admire her.
I do.
Sounds like she feels the same about you...
and values having you there.
Try to take her at her word.
It's, uh...
It's late here, so...
Take care of yourself.
You, too, Ash.
Yeah.
Greetings, everyone, and welcome to Shadow Exercises.
As Starfleet's future chiefs and captains,
this is your opportunity to build rapport with a senior officer,
and see firsthand what their duties entail.
So, let us begin.
Look sharp, people.
This is our future competition.
Is that your captain?
Um... Ensign Sylvia Tilly, sir.
Fully present and focused on this important exercise
for which I am all ears, captain.
Your dedication is noted.
So, what should we do?
Marry some folks who aren't into each other?
Oh. Very good, sir.
Captain, I need your authorization for this.
I don't understand. That was funny.
The captain of this ship isn't funny, he's terrifying.
You may be thinking of an old captain, Captain Lorca.
Was he shorter?
And blonder
- Because that's who I'm looking for. - I'm ready if you are.
He's not the man I need to talk to.
- Hop in the chair. - Yes, sir.
Let's run a systems test.
Where's the other captain?
Uh, a systems test. Uh, where?
Where? In the chair.
Oh. Sorry.
Run checklist protocol.
Acknowledged.
- Step one... - This is not right.
- My plan is falling apart. - Calm down.
I'm hearing fewer syllables out of you than normal.
I know the chair can be intimidating, but...
are you okay?
No. We are not okay.
- I want the captain. - This is the captain.
Ensign, what is going on?
Tilly, answer Captain Pike.
Tilly...
I'm not listening to you anymore. You tricked me.
And you lied to me.
I didn't lie.
He's lying.
He's an imposter.
Shut up!
Ensign Sylvia Tilly.
No, I didn't. I'm... I...
She drove me to it. I...
That doesn't make any sense. I'm...
I'm not...
I'm not.
I quit.
You were spying on me.
Your mind plays tricks.
What do you have against me
You'll speak now, or I'll slit your throat.
If you feel aggrieved, take it up with my niece.
It is not House Mo'Kai that is keeping secrets from you.
What secrets?
L'Rell will be angry
I broke her trust.
But I cannot keep this from you any longer.
Behold,
the son of I'Rell and Voq.
I learned I was pregnant
right as Voq was being transformed into a human.
I could not activate him on Discovery while carrying a child.
The gestation occurred ex utero.
That is why it is so small.
It?
- Does he even have a name? - No.
I have never met the child.
The baby is a vulnerability.
He's just a vulnerability to you?
All these secrets and lies, to protect a failed wartime mission.
What did you gain, I'Rell?
You think your discovery, made moments ago,
is somehow greater than the pain I have lived with all this time?
Would you have told me?
I wanted you to be able to return to a human life without obligation.
You will not be here forever, Tyler.
Why do say that?
With such certainty, like you know who I am better than I do?
I chose to be here. I'm committed to that decision.
Why did you call Michael Burnham?
I trusted her to notify the Federation
that an insurrection of the High Council might be brewing.
So, she is the only one you trust.
That is the only reason it was that particular human woman?
Yes.
That is the reason.
On my way home, I looked into one of Voq's memories.
You and he walked across the ancestral cliffs of the Mo'Kai.
The sun set.
The sky dripped amethysts.
Our love was greater than that of Kahless and Lukara.
Voq thought so, too.
When I stared down at that baby...
his skin, the same as Voq's,
the distinction that made him feel like an outsider,
that made his life so hard, I felt like I was looking at myself.
For the first time, the two sides of me felt whole.
I can't be Voq.
I can't give you back those memories of long ago.
But I can promise you a new love story.
I am his father...
and I am devoted to you.
Let's bring our son home.
The rest will come.
When did it first appear to him?
It appeared to Spock the night you ran away from home.
Logic Extremists bombed the Learning Center
and almost killed you.
I don't blame you for wanting to escape from Vulcan to Earth.
I didn't make it past the outskirts of ShiKahr.
- I still don't know how Sarek found me. - He didn't.
That was Spock.
We were about to alert the High Command to begin a search effort.
And Spock walked into the room. He was still in his pajamas.
His eyes were wide, and he said...
that the Red Angel had visited him...
and told him where you were.
That's where Sarek looked, and there you were.
Sarek and I always believed that Spock used logic
to pinpoint your direction.
He might've known what time you left,
how fast you were walking, what direction you went in,
and we just wrote the vision off as a figment of his imagination.
But Spock never wavered.
He said that the Red Angel was real.
I've seen this angel, too.
It appeared to me on our mission to the first signal.
Were you the only one?
Yes.
And I wrote it off as a trick of the mind.
And I didn't get the sense that it was nefarious.
I cannot believe I'm talking like this.
I'm not even sure it was real.
It is.
What saved you hurt your brother.
That vision changed him forever. I...
I watched him withdraw.
I saw him lose trust in other people.
I watched his openness vanish.
It wasn't because of a vision.
It was because of me.
My presence was a danger to the family.
If the Logic Extremists couldn't get to me,
they would try to get to him.
And he was my little shadow.
So, I had to wound him deep enough to keep him away from me.
What did you do?
The fact that you're not saying anything means
that you must have hurt him irreparably.
Which is why us four can never get together,
why you're always too busy to see each other.
I'm sorry.
I am sorry for what I did.
What I thought I had to do.
I've reached out so many times to make amends.
He's not interested.
But I won't give up on him.
I will find him.
No.
I will.
He will not know me.
He didn't know me either.
Uncle.
No, no.
I've been awaiting your arrival.
Your son is handsome.
But I thought he could use a little color.
I will hunt you down
and rip out your entrails with my bare hands.
Doubtful.
The paint I begged you to wipe from my face
was swimming with sensor implants.
They are a listening device.
I was only hoping to eavesdrop on your political strategies.
But I never imagined I'd learn of this.
The High Council will not tolerate this dishonor.
Well, I think they are more likely to condone kidnapping
than harboring a spy.
Your pet betrayed the Council to Commander Burnham.
Did he not?
What do you want?
I'm willing to part with him and let you flee...
in exchange for control of the Empire.
You will agree to my terms
and meet me at your residence.
Saru called down, looking for you.
You all right?
What's wrong
I asked first.
Attention, all personnel, the CTP exercises...
Talk to me.
I need a problem I can solve.
More than you know.
Talk to me. Haven't I been punished enough?
What happened there was upsetting to me. I panicked.
- Tilly? - Tilly.
Don't ruin what we have.
We're not defeated yet. We're not defeated yet.
After the dark matter hit me, I...
I started to see a...
ghost.
She's a girl that I knew when I was a teenager.
Her name was May, but she's dead.
And the May that I knew was really meek and, uh...
goofy when you got to know her.
But this May is different. She's, um... She's insistent.
- She's grooming me for something. - For what?
She hasn't said.
Because you're ignoring me.
And I'm getting scared.
And we need a new plan.
I am losing it, Michael.
She's wearing me down.
I've been avoiding Sickbay.
But at this point, I don't know what to do. I'm desperate.
And after today, I'm never gonna make captain.
Your eyes are dripping.
'Cause I'm crying.
She doesn't know what crying is.
I've got to think.
I'll be back to talk some sense into you later.
She left.
How can she not know what tears are?
That's impossible.
Show me a teenage girl who's never cried.
You can't.
I know. I'm a xenoanthropologist.
And if May were a hallucination, pulled from your subconscious,
she'd know that emotion because you do.
So, May is something, Tilly.
But I don't think she's a ghost.
Or an illusion.
She appeared to you after the asteroid shocked you.
But why did it shock you?
I held a piece in my hand,
and I wasn't zapped.
The dark matter component of the asteroid, it reacts when in proximity to one thing.
Spores.
You don't need Sickbay.
You need Stamets.
Sign.
I am still your chancellor.
You are the Federation's puppet.
Why is she such a threat to you, Kol-Sha?
The female?
She's nothing but a...
...that lies with a human.
If that is the gravest insult you can hurl,
you are even less than I imagined.
I know I am nothing to you once I have signed,
so, be sure to kill us both, Kol-Sha.
The one left standing will be the one who returns for you.
Enough.
Yes.
Feel it.
Paralysis is spreading to your organs.
But I will not let you suffocate until you've signed.
Thank you for my ink.
Now pass me that pretty little finger.
Now...
for my first act as chancellor...
an execution.
Now...
you can watch your Voq die...
for good.
What is that?
Why have you been spying on me?
Don't be cranky about it.
We have to ensure that she stays in the chancellor's seat.
Who's "we"?
- Emperor. - You have me confused with someone else.
I'm Philippa Georgiou,
retired captain of the U.S.S. Shenzhou,
now Starfleet security consultant.
Children are parasites.
Ungrateful. Inconvenient.
I had to find someone else to feed mine, or I would have gotten nothing done.
I will consider that advice.
Thank you for your help.
Gratitude is premature,
as long as the disemboweled leader of House Kor
is splattered on your floor.
He took our child, to force her to abdicate.
We defended ourselves.
Kol-Sha killed your uncle. It's an eye for an eye.
I need a word with the chancellor.
Every minute you remain here,
your councilors must reorganize their tiny male brains
to rationalize why it isn't them standing on the dais.
They will assume that all your decisions are Tyler's.
He is a liability.
Can you kill him?
I had to ask.
He is a liability, too.
You can't show weakness when it comes to either one of them.
I will not choose between the chancellorship
and my son and his father.
I told you what I am here to protect.
I am not giving you a choice.
Sorry I didn't tell you.
I am sorry, too.
Thanks to Burnham's insights, we are closer to a solution.
And getting you back into the Command Training Program.
What about Captain Pike?
I am not familiar enough with him to anticipate his reaction,
but I do know that he has a sense of humor...
and he is fond of you.
We should have results in one second.
I told you, he was shorter, blonder,
whiter...
There he is. That's the captain.
- No, he's not. - Yes, he is.
- That's where he flies. - What's going on?
She's back. She's pissed. Maybe at you.
- Hurry. - Don't talk until I tell you what to say.
Just as I suspected.
You are hosting a eukaryotic organism.
A fungus?
Obviously multicellular, since it has opinions.
Fungus. Don't you dare diminish me. Don't you dare diminish me.
Anyone who works around the spore drive is inoculated.
How did she contract it?
It's possible that a spore evolved a resistance.
- Like bacteria. - Don't you call me bacteria.
Or it's a different spore than ones we harvest here.
When Discovery escaped the Terran universe,
their spores rained down on Engineering.
If one attached itself to you...
- Hey, May. - Is that her?
He's the villain. Don't let him poison you against me.
There's our hitchhiker. A multidimensional fungal parasite.
Why does it appear as someone I knew as a teenager?
Brain manipulation, perhaps?
These people are lying.
I am not a manipulator.
You're special, Tilly.
You're my only chance.
I need you.
- How do we get rid of it? - We use
the attraction between the fungal spores and the dark-matter asteroid
to suck her out of you.
This might hurt a bit.
If you think you can destroy me, captain, you're in for a fight.
Ow.
Security breach by unknown alien species in Engineering.
Engage quarantine protocol Alpha-Omega.
I had a child. Voq was the father.
I made the human my Torchbearer to honor Voq.
I can no longer say his name...
such was the dishonor he brought.
Secretly, he communicated with the Federation.
He told them we are disunited and therefore weak.
He betrayed us.
Lest anyone think my arrangement with the human
outweighs my loyalty to the empire,
think again.
The traitor slaughtered a Klingon infant.
My son.
He would've assassinated your chancellor, had Kol-Sha not intervened.
The leader of House Kor gave his life to defend mine.
One house defending another.
His sacrifice is a lesson to us all.
I, too, have sacrificed.
I will bear a child but once.
Now...
you are my children,
as I raise this family to greatness.
Do not refer to me as chancellor,
for I deserve a fiercer title.
From this point forth, you may call me...
Mother.
You synthesized our heads down to their neural mapping and genetic codes.
This isn't everyday Federation espionage.
What kind of organization could pull that off?
This kind.
Section 31.
I've heard of black badges, never seen one.
We settled into orbit around Boreth.
Are you sure you want your boy to become a monk?
It's what I'Rell wants.
And you?
To know where I belong, and to whom, and who belongs to me.
My son will be raised by devout followers of Kahless.
No one leaves the monastery.
No one who doesn't belong ever gets in.
Not even his parents?
He'll never know me.
Never know I'Rell, either.
But he'll be safe.
You should consider staying around.
Our command believes misfits have merit,
so, we keep busy.
I'm surprised you call yourself a misfit, emperor.
The freaks are more fun.
Take us to warp.
Control values his skill set.
We would like you to work on your recruitment speech.
Don't give me notes.
He's in.