Red Directive

At a celebration at Federation headquarters, Saru is offered an ambassadorship that would mean leaving Starfleet, and Burnham is given a classified Red Directive: recover an artefact from an 800-year-old Romulan science vessel. Couriers Moll and L'ak reach it first and steal a Romulan puzzle box, and a desperate pursuit almost costs Burnham her life. The USS Antares, under the headstrong Captain Rayner, joins the hunt. Book, once a courier himself, helps track the thieves to the planet Q'mau, where L'ak kills Fred, a Soong-type synth dealer. When an avalanche threatens a settlement, Discovery and the Antares shield it with their own hulls, and the thieves slip away. Saru decides to accept the ambassadorship and to marry T'Rina. Finally Kovich reveals what is at stake: the stolen box held the journal of a Romulan scientist, Vellek, which points to technology left by the Progenitors, the ancient beings who seeded life across the galaxy.