Enterprise-B Launch and Kirk's Disappearance

Later in 2293 the Excelsior-class USS Enterprise NCC-1701-B, commanded by Captain John Harriman, left Spacedock for a short ceremonial cruise with the press and three distinguished guests: the retired James T. Kirk, Montgomery Scott and Pavel Chekov. The ship was still incomplete, lacking key equipment and much of its crew.

Shortly after launch, the Enterprise answered a distress call from two transports carrying El-Aurian refugees, trapped in a powerful energy ribbon later known as the Nexus. Both ships were destroyed, and only a portion of the refugees could be beamed aboard; among the survivors were Guinan and the scientist Tolian Soran. When the ribbon seized the Enterprise itself, Kirk went to the deflector control room to free the ship, and a burst of energy tore open the section where he worked.

Kirk was declared dead, his body never recovered. In reality he had been drawn into the Nexus, an extradimensional realm where time has no meaning. The ordeal also shaped Soran, whose obsession with returning to the Nexus would threaten millions of lives seventy-eight years later.