- The Enterprise pursues a race of "gatherers" who continue to raid Federation outposts, unaware of the dangers lurking among them.
- The Enterprise is transporting the Sovereign Marouk in an attempt to get a break away group of her people to return to the fold, so to speak. They broke away almost 100 years ago and and are now known as the Gatherers, a band of scavengers forever raiding and scavenging anything they can get their hands on. Marouk is prepared to offer them an amnesty but there is a great deal of mistrust between them. Commander Riker meanwhile takes an interest in Marouk's cook Yuta, but the attention of the crew is diverted to finding a saboteur when one of the Gatherers is killed.—garykmcd
- The Enterprise finds a ransacked spaceship with 2 heavily injured scientists. A piece of metal shard has some blood on it, which upon analysis is found to be Acamarian. Picard knows that a race of Acamarians called Gatherers are marauders but they have never ventured so far outside their base. He takes the Enterprise to their system.
The Enterprise is transporting the Sovereign Marouk (Nancy Parsons) of the Acamarians, in an attempt to get a breakaway group of her people (called the Gatherers) to return to the fold, so to speak. A cluster is suspected in the Hromi cluster. They broke away almost 100 years ago and are now known as the Gatherers, a band of scavengers forever raiding and scavenging anything they can get their hands on. Their last attempt at an amnesty was 18 years ago. 100 years ago the Acamarians were a savage and violent race. Clans battled clans in feuds that lasted for generations. The Acamarians overcame those ways after the Gatherers separated from them. Picard argues that till the Gatherers are united with the parent race, the civilization will remain divided. It is time for them to return home. The Enterprise finds the presence of life forms on the Hromi III planet and sends an away team to establish contact, which they do.
Marouk is prepared to offer them an amnesty but there is a great deal of mistrust between them. The Gatherers are led by Brull (Joey Aresco). Marouk says that the clan wars are over, which is why the Gatherers had to leave, but now is the time for them to come back and re-integrate within their society. Marouk tells Picard how the clan wars went from generation to generation. Loyalty to the clan was absolute and a small injury to any clan member had to be answered in kind. With each confrontation, the violence grew.
Commander Riker meanwhile takes an interest in Marouk's cook Yuta (Lisa Wilcox), but the attention of the crew is diverted to finding a saboteur when one of the Gatherers is killed. Yuta identifies herself as of the clan Trelesta to one of the gatherers and touches one particular gatherer Volnath (Marc Lawrence), which leads to his death while the negotiations are going on. Brull wants a settlement and promises to take Marouk's offer to his leader Chorgan (Stephen Lee). But then Brull's men find Volnath's dead body. Beverly confirms he died of a heart attack, but says he had a strong heart and no arterial blockages.
Brull agrees to travel on board the Enterprise to meet Chorgan. Yuta admits to Riker that she is a servant to Marouk and can never have freedom. As a servant she can leave anytime she wants, but she is bound to Marouk due to a sense of duty that she cannot explain to Riker. She ends up having sex with Riker. Riker treats her as an equal and not as a servant. Meanwhile Beverly figures that Volanth had a micro virus in his blood, which caused the heart attack. The micro virus was programmed to work only on one specific DNA (it would only kill 1 Acamarian in a million), and hence could not be naturally occurring. Volnath was murdered.
Enterprise reaches Chorgan's ship. Chorgan thinks Brull has betrayed him. Marouk tells Chorgan that she offers amnesty to all gatherers and land on Acamar for them to start a new life. Chorgan wants Autonomy. Riker and Beverly figure out from Acamar records that Volnath was from the Lornak clan, and 1 more member of the same clan died from the same micro virus. Chorgan belongs to the same clan, and someone is going after them all. The Lornak had massacred the Trelestas 80 years ago. Data figures out that Yuta was the common factor between the 2 deaths of the Lornak clan.
Riker goes on board Chorgan's ship just as Yuta was about to touch Chorgan and kills her with a phaser. Yuta had survived that day 100 yrs ago when her clan was massacred and her cells were altered to prolong her aging process, so she could kill the remaining Lornaks. Riker takes some shore leave to grieve for Yuta.
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