Stormy Weather

Discovery enters a subspace rift created by the anomaly and finds itself stranded in a featureless void. A DOT robot sent outside is destroyed, and the spore drive cannot get the ship home. Book begins seeing visions of his late father on what would have been his birthday, and Stamets realises the hallucinations come from particles linked to the barrier at the galaxy's edge, a clue to where the anomaly came from. Zora, the ship's sentient computer, struggles to keep up with her duties and the escape effort, and becomes overwhelmed. Gray helps her clear her mind with a game, after which she spots tiny variations on the external sensors that can guide the ship out. Because the journey would be deadly to the crew, Burnham stores everyone in the transporter's pattern buffer and pilots the ship alone with Zora. Burnham wakes in sickbay to learn that Discovery made it out.