- Counselor Troi is held captive on a deserted planet by a slick, black, oily, sentient and immortal puddle of evil.
- Enterprise is going through the Zed Lapis sector, to rendezvous with Deanna on shuttle craft 13. She is returning from a conference. The shuttle is stuck by a buffeting force of some kind and is now crashing towards the Vagra II planet, which is uninhabited. The shuttle in touch with the Enterprise, but Enterprise can't get there quickly to help as Dilithium crystals are under maintenance and they are on impulse power only.
Enterprise gets to Vagra II and finds the shuttle under a lot of debris. Due to this, transportation is not possible. Worf is able to pick up faint life signals but is not sure. Picard orders an away team. Away team of Riker, Beverly, Data and Yar beam down, but Counsellor Troi is held captive on a deserted planet by a slick, black, oily, sentient, and immortal puddle of evil. The Slick prevents the away team from reaching the shuttle. The Slick is called Armus (Mart McChesney) and speaks to the away team about their analysis about it, by taking a humanoid form.
Yar tries to bypass Armus but is thrown away by it. Phasers have no impact. Yar is pronounced dead by Beverly. The away team is beamed back up on orders from Picard. Dr Crusher makes all efforts to revive Tasha Yar, but is not successful. Dr Crusher says that there was too much synaptic damage.
Meanwhile, the slick covers the shuttle craft, where Deanna regains consciousness. She had felt Tasha die and knows that the act of killing Tasha had no meaning for Armus. Deanna communicates with Armus and finds that Armus has a great need to make living things suffer. He killed Yar for no reason at all and wanted her to suffer more before she died. Armus wants to break spirits of other living beings.
Deanna figures out that Armus was left on the planet by some other beings, and they never came back for him. Therefore, he is angry. He is also surprised when Riker, Beverly, Data and Geordi again beam down to rescue Deanna. Armus tries to play with them and humiliate them, but they refuse to participate in his mind games.
Armus tells Deanna that a species found a way to discard all that was evil and vile within them. The process created the Slick, and in time the Slick developed a 2nd skin, which became Armus. The species left Armus on the deserted planet, as they had no need for it. Armus envelops Riker completely. Armus threatens to kill everyone if any of them try to leave the planet. Deanna can feel Riker's pain inside Armus. Picard finds out that Armus's energy field goes down whenever it is speaking to Deanna. Now Picard beams down to speak to Armus. Picard refuses to negotiate with Armus. Armus returns Riker as Picard won't order his crew to entertain Armus unless he can see his people. But Armus still won't allow Picard to go near the shuttle and see Deanna.
Armus then allows Data, Riker, Geordi and Beverly to leave. Armus tells Picard he will spares lives in exchange for Picard giving him transportation to a destination of his choice. Picard engages with Armus and says he believes Armus is not evil. His aim is to lower the energy level of Armus below 2.7, so they can beam up Deanna and Picard. Picard is successful and Enterprise is able to beam up both Picard and Deanna, leaving Armus down on the planet all alone.
They destroy the shuttle and declare Vagra II off-limits to prevent any possibility of Armus leaving the planet ever. Tasha Yar is still dead.
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