The Bonding

Ship's archaeologist Lt Marla Aster is killed by an ancient mine while exploring ruins on a planet once home to the Koinonians, on an away mission led by Worf. Her young son Jeremy is left an orphan. Picard, Troi and Wesley, who lost his own father, try to help him cope, and Worf, orphaned himself as a child, feels responsible. Then Jeremy finds his mother waiting in their quarters, apparently alive, and ready to take him to a perfect copy of their old home. She is the creation of a Koinonian energy being whose people watched physical species destroy themselves in war, and who now wants to spare the boy any pain. The crew argues that facing loss is part of being human. With their help, Jeremy lets go of the illusion, and Worf offers him the R'uustai, a Klingon bonding ritual that makes them brothers.