January 1975 got underway with a new adventure of the U.S.S. Enterprise courtesy of Gold Key Comics. Issue 28 featured a story by George Kashdan, and the continued art of Alberto Giolitti and a cover painting by George Wilson.

The issue’s splash page shows McCoy and Spock under fire from Captain Kirk and Lt. Calder on an adventure set on a wandering asteroid. How did they get there? and what’s happening?

The story begins with the Enterprise arriving at a wandering asteroid christened Tactis II.Their assignment is to judge whether the asteroid is a threat to any of the planets in the Federation. It appears to be a dead lifeless piece of rock. Or is it? Despite negative scans, Kirk prepares a landing party to investigate.

Captain Kirk, Spock, Calder and two security officers (who are not wearing red shirts) take the Galileo down for a closer inspection of the asteroid. They discover that there is an atmosphere and when the shuttle touches down there is another federation shuttle there, a mirror image.

A nearby volcano’s eruption traps the security officers aboard the duplicate shuttle. Inside, they are overcome by a strange dizziness and they collapse, and it seems there is someone else in there with them. It’s… the security team?

Meanwhile, aboard the actual Galileo, Kirk, Spock and Calder work to escape an approaching lava flow! And as they watch the duplicate shuttle dives towards the now calm volcano. They report that the volcano is safe, and that they want to investigate it.

Inside the volcano crater, the duplicates drop off the security officers. The fake shuttle vanishes, as the duplicated security officers return to the rest of landing party as Kirk discovers that all of their comms, along with the shuttle, seems to be dead.

Aboard the Enterprise, Scott and McCoy wonder why there has been a lack of contact with the landing party. So, leaving Sulu in charge, they arrange to beam down.

Back on the asteroid, Kirk and Calder are attacked by the strange beings that, in appearance, resemble large protein chains . The pair collapse, and are dupllicated, leaving Spock as the only member of the landing party.

When the duplicates come for him, he recognizes that his physical reaction to them, a draining sensation, seems to be similar to the drain that affected the shuttle’s systems. Spock works to stay safe in the shuttle as Scotty and McCoy beam down. Both officers are shocked as they come under fire of what appears to be Captain Kirk and the landing party!!

Seeing them, Spock urges McCoy and Scotty to fire! When they do the duplicates revert to their light being form and submerge into the cooled lava flow.The Vulcan science officer also knows where to go to recover Kirk and Calder and the group arrives back at the Galileo.

Spock concludes the answers that they aree seeking must be within the volcano and asks the Enterprise for a robot assistant, we’d call it a drone. Sending the drone into the crater, they make a grisly discovery of dead bodies, which the glimpse before the robot is duplicated.

The duplicate makes a run at the landing party, but Spock has done some quick thinking and has the Enterprise (with a colour changing Uhura aboard) fire a negative ion beam into the crater. The beam momentarily shuts down the duplicates, allowing the landing party to discern who the doubles are, and fires their phasers on them.

Thee shuttle’s power returns, and the landing party is able to make their escape back to the Enterprise. It seems the life form is a parasitic being and it feeds on positive energy, both mechanical and natural, the negative beam slowed it down, allowing the Enterprise to escape.

Which they do. But they don’t even quarantine the asteroid! The Enterprise leaves, and the parasite is still there, working to lure its next victim down to the surface.

Seems like they made a huge mistake there. Let’s see what happens when they deal with the Death of a Star.