When Captain Picard asks Geordi to escort a visitor, Dr. Leah Brahms, aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, Geordi is thrilled. He confides to Guinan that Leah, the woman who designed the U.S.S. Enterprise's engine, is the woman of his dreams. During a crisis, he recreated a Holodeck image of Dr. Brahms to help him and felt a strong rapport with her. But when the real Leah finally transports aboard, he is crushed to discover that she is cold, cerebral and humorless. She puts him through his paces, icily examining and criticizing the adjustments he has made to the engine she helped design. Meanwhile, Picard and the crew discover a large energy source floating in space. When they approach the creature to learn its origin, it suddenly latches onto the starship, bombarding the ship with deadly radiation. In defense, Picard fires the ship's phasers to release the U.S.S. Enterprise from the alien's clutches. Picard is saddened when the phaser assault kills the lifeform, but he is intrigued when Data detects another energy reading within it. To everyone's surprise, Data explains that they have discovered a 'baby' struggling to escape its dead mother's womb.
