Short Trek #3: The Brightest Star

Remember the classic TNG episode “Pen Pals”? The one where a planet is about to explode or whatever, but Data befriends Nikki Cox and tries to get Picard to save her life, but then Picard is like “Mister Data, uhh prime directive much?” But after some epic wrestling with morality and intellectual debate between competing ideologies, the crew finds a way to save the planet and Sarzenka’s people. Happy ending for the characters, the planet, and the audience. Yay! Star Trek!