Balant

Balants are a non-humanoid warrior race native to the rogue Balant planet.

Background
Balants have reddish-orange skin with a natural light-yellow bioluminescence. They are about six feet tall, with flat, oval heads. They are a digitigrade lifeform, with their legs having extended metatarsals and three phalanges. Hands have one thumb and two bulbous digits.

Balants are biologically capable of absorbing phaser energy. Through psychokinesis, they can levitate and manipulate objects from a distance. However, oxygen is deadly to them.

They can fly by harnessing wide, invisible rays within the planet's atmosphere. But the vast gas cloud surrounding the planet severely restricts uses of mechanical power, effectively trapping the Balants within the cloud. Their skills for invention are limited, though they claim otherwise and have crafted small items for various uses, such as a device which emits intense heat. They were able to adapt energy from native trees to shoot energy discharges from guns, but have little control over the blasts and would use them only as a last resort.

Balants are physically indistinguishable from their neighbors, the peaceful Kalins.

History
In 2266, at least 20 Balants attempted to commandeer the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) and escape their planet. They first tried to manipulate Captain James T. Kirk into killing Spock. When that failed, they buried Kirk and Spock under a pile of meteorites in a Kalin city. The Balant leader boarded the Enterprise through an airlock, only to be disintegrated by exposure to the ship's oxygen atmosphere. Kirk convinced the rest of the Balants to remain on their planet until they learned how to take the gas cloud with them, and suggested that they make peace with the Kalins.