Aboard the USS Kennedy, Ambassador Drake sets out on a diplomatic tour of several worlds within the Meronia Cluster. When they arrive at Leipa IV, an agrarian colony regarded as a breadbasket of the sector, he encounters skepticism from the colonial leadership, both pent up from decades of neglect and driven more recently from the sense of abandonment when the Vaadwaur arrived.

While the command staff attempt to repair damaged bridges with the colonial leadership, a pair of ensigns take a walk through the fields. What they find there, beneath the soil, is something far more concerning, the return of a blight thought extinguished. Members of the Advanced Science, Technology and Research Activity are called in to assist.