The Planet of No Return

   

An expedition team discovers its secret—too late… K-G, planet of death!

K-2, planet of death, where cannibal plants stalk animal prey!

SummaryEdit

Captain's log, stardate 18:09.2 : Enterprise carrying out exploration mission through Galaxy Alpha. So far we've seen no indication of life anywhere in the galaxy.

The Enterprise's space scope detects a fertile green planet. Scotty comments that it looks "Kelly Green" and Captain Kirk orders a landing party to be assembled. While approaching the planet, the Enterprise passes through a mist, within which float plant spores which fasten themselves to the hull and quickly penetrate the ship. The spores cause the laboratory guinea pigs to transform into tree-like plants which attack Spock and Dr. McCoy, but are soon destroyed by security guards.

While Spock investigates how the transformation occurred, Kirk leads the landing party to the planet, which has been named K-G. While exploring, Crewman Hunt is exposed to spores and transforms into a giant plant. The rest of the landing party are nearly devoured by a carnivorous plant, but the transformed Hunt sacrifices himself to save them. After a brief funeral, the party discovers that K-G is inhabited by intelligent plants. They escape from attacking trees and take shelter in a nearby cave, but Rand is grabbed by a vine and dragged away. The others chase after the plant, which deposits her inside a large enclosure where animals are grazing.

The landing party uses their phasers on the wall of thorns which surrounds the enclosure, but the thorns regenerate as fast as they are destroyed. Kirk sees the plants herding the animals away, and after gaining a vantage point from a rock pinnacle, they see that the plants consume the animals for food. Kirk calls the Enterprise and has Spock fire a pinpoint phaser beam at the thorn wall, destroying it and allowing them to rescue Rand from being eaten. Kirk orders Spock to beam them back up to the ship just before the plants can infect them with more plant spores.

On the Enterprise, Spock tells Kirk that the spores pose a threat to life on all other planets in the galaxy. They therefore use the ship's weaponry to destroy all life on K-G.

Captain's log, stardate 18:10. 

We are orbiting the planet Kelly Green, performing what will be our last duty here... Total destruction - a mission that must be fulfilled before we can continue our tour of research through the vast reaches of the universe...

ReferencesEdit

CharactersEdit

Dean • Hunt • James T. Kirk • Leonard McCoy • Janice Rand • Spock • K-G giant cannibal plant • K-G running vine plant • K-G cattle beasts • K-G tumbleweed plants • USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) personnel • unnamed USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) personnel

Starships and vehiclesEdit

USS Enterprise (Constitution-class heavy cruiser)

LocationsEdit

Shipboard locationsEdit

bridge • teleportation chamber • laboratory • briefing room

Planets and planetoidsEdit

K-G

Stellar regionsEdit

the galaxy's Alpha or Beta Quadrants (Galaxy Alpha)

Races and culturesEdit

Human • Vulcan • plant species

Technology and weaponsEdit

binoculars • identification bracelet • phaser • space scope • starship • teleporter • TV radio • TV scanner

States and organizationsEdit

Starfleet • United Federation of Planets

Ranks and titlesEdit

captain • commander • commanding officer • crewman • first officer • lieutenant commander • scientist • science officer • security officer

Other referencesEdit

animal • bloodhound • captain's log • cattle • cave • cobra • film • five-year mission • fog • galaxy • guinea pig • language • lifeform • log entry • nation-state • nightmare • orbit • planet • plant • sheep dog • space • spore • star • stardate • technology • thorn • universe • weapon

AppendicesEdit

BackgroundEdit

• This is Janice Rand's sole Gold Key Comics appearance, aside from a one-panel cameo in issue #24, TOS comic: "The Trial of Captain Kirk", and the first of her very few appearances in any Star Trek comic.
• A new cover painting created for the reprint edition depicts the attack on the landing party by a K-G running vine plant. It showed Dean's arm and leg mutating into tree branches. In the story, this transformation actually happened to Hunt during a prior attack by a K-G giant cannibal plant.
• In 1975, Gold Key began augmenting its Star Trek run by reprinting occasional issues. This was the first issue to be reprinted.
• This story has been released 32 times. In English, it was printed 14 times, scanned for a DVD and reproduced on filmstrips. In other languages, it was printed 16 times: French (3x), German (3x), Portuguese (3x), Dutch (2x), Italian (2x), Finnish, Serbian and Spanish.

ImagesEdit

Cover image.

Back cover image.

Reprint edition cover.

James T. Kirk.

Spock.

Hikaru Sulu.

USS Enterprise orbits K-G.

James T. Kirk.

Hunt.

Dean.

Dean.

Janice Rand.

Janice Rand.

James T. Kirk.

James T. Kirk.

Spock.

Hunt.

K-G running vine plant.

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ConnectionsEdit

External linksEdit

• The Planet of No Return article at Memory Alpha, the wiki for canon Star Trek.
• The Planet of No Return article at When Comic Books Ruled.
• The Planet of No Return article at The Movie Blog.
• Mighty TV Comic article at the Albion British Comics Database Wikia.