Four junior officers find themselves tested beyond their expectations when a top-secret mission takes the place of their promotion evaluation.

Dan Gauthier (Ensign Sam Lavelle)
Shannon Fill (Ensign Sito Jaxa)
Alexander Enberg (Ensign Taurik)
Bruce Beatty (Ben)
Patti Yasutake (Nurse Alyssa Ogawa)
Don Reilly (Joret Dal)
Joyce Robinson (Ensign Gates)

• This episode's story is written from the junior officers' point of view.
  
• Ben has apparently taken over for Guinan in Ten Forward.
  
• Cardassian Joret Dal is a Federation operative. The mission is to have Joret pretend to "hijack" a shuttlecraft and have Sito, a Bajoran, pose as his prisoner to get past the border. Later, they find the remains of an escape pod and Sito is declared lost in the line of duty. (Jeri Taylor mentioned that Sito may show up later on DS9, but it never worked out.)
  
• Nurse Ogawa is promoted from Ensign to Lieutenant (junior grade), as is Lavelle.
  
• Ogawa has been seeing Andrew Powell and announced to Beverly that they are getting married.
  
• Ensign Sito was a member of Nova Squadron with Wesley Crusher (see "The First Duty") and was posted to the Enterprise because Picard wanted her to have a fair chance.
  
• Alexander Enberg is Trek writer/producer Jeri Taylor's son. Alexander later played recurring Vulcan character Ensign Vorik on Voyager, who first appeared in the episode "Fair Trade".