“Ask Not,” the latest Short Trek — and the last of them to feature major players from the Enterprise crew — is a small package upon which big expectations have been placed. Pike’s in a bind, we meet a vibrant new character, and maybe – just maybe – we get an answer about that Pike series we’ve all been hoping?

Well, maybe not. To get that big question out of the way, no, there’s no announcement in today’s new mini-sode, and we don’t go to credits with a splashy “Captain Pike Will Return!” message. Almost immediately after Anson Mount debuted as the Enterprise captain in Discovery’s second season, viewers began calling for a standalone Captain Pike series.

As Discovery’s second season came to a close, I took the improbability of a Pike show in stride. Yes, I’d love it, but it’s not going to happen, I thought. However, after seeing Pike, Lieutenant Spock (Ethan Peck), and Number One (Rebecca Romijn) reprise their roles across multiple Short Treks, I started to wonder: could CBS really be teasing a Pike show? Apparently not… or at least not today.

Clocking in barely eight minutes, “Ask Not” is the shortest Short Treks entry to date. Even so, the episode uses its time well, squeezing in a lot of dialogue and introducing us to an interesting new character.

The plot of “Ask Not” seems pretty straightforward: Cadet Thira Sidhu (Amrit Kaur), on post in Starbase 28 inventory control, is interrupted by the rumble of weapons fire and the sudden appearance of an elaborately hooded, shackled prisoner. I’m honestly not sure what to make of the decision to spend Starfleet’s research and development time on building remote-controlled, computerized gimp masks, but hey, whatever floats the Corps of Engineers’ boat.

The brig is unavailable, and the small inventory room is the only place to stash the prisoner, soon revealed to be none other than Captain Pike (Anson Mount). Left under Sidhu’s watchful eye, Pike demands to be released, appealing to emotion, urgency, Sidhu’s career ambition, and eventually Starfleet regulations. The cause of the attack on Starbase 28 is frankly rather convoluted — deliberately, I suspect — but suffice it to say, it involves a distress call from Sidhu’s husband’s ship, the USS Bowman, angry Tholians, and a cowardly admiral.

Even with her husband’s safety at risk, Sidhu doesn’t budge; Pike is her responsibility and she’s not letting him go. Tensions come to a head as Pike, making a move for the door, finds himself facing a phaser-wielding cadet, moments from stunning the captain into submission. Just before Sidhu can fire on Pike, however, the ruse is revealed: this whole thing has been the final evaluation before getting her dream internship assignment, the Enterprise.

This shouldn’t be a surprise to any longtime Trek viewer, as Starfleet has a long history of scaring people into demonstrating their competence. While the famed Kobayashi Maru command simulation (seen in The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek ’09) as the most well-known example, there’s also the difficult bridge officer’s test taken by Deanna Troi (“Thine Own Self”), as well as the almost-traumatizing “psych test” administered to young cadet potentials as seen back in “Coming of Age.”

Once Pike and Sidhu beam over to the Enterprise, the pair are greeted briefly by Spock and Number One before the captain escorts the newly-assigned cadet to her post in the ship’s main engineering bay. While visually interesting, the engineering set we see in “Ask Not” doesn’t feel to me like a reimagining of the classic Original Series sets the way the bridge and corridor sets do.

Instead, I see nods to the vertical warp cores of the 24th century — and maybe even the ‘futuristic boiler room’ aesthetic seen aboard the Kelvin Timeline film’s Enterprise, like the industrial spaces created from filming in real-life manufacturing and research facilities.

So now we’re back to the end — and the series announcement that wasn’t there. I’m sure there’s more than a little confirmation bias at play here, given that I sat down to “Ask Not” expectant that a Pike series would be revealed, but “Ask Not” would have been a perfectly serviceable mini-pilot.

We meet a new character with a backstory and a future, and we’re graced with the Pike-era ‘holy trinity’ (Pike, Spock, Number One) even if it’s just for a moment, getting us all set to take our posts aboard the Enterprise alongside Cadet Sidhu!

Or, at least, I’m ready to beam aboard.

Stray observations:

• Interestingly, the glass inset panel in the Starbase 28 inventory control room’s door seems to bear the trademark angular flourishes of the Terran Empire. Perhaps this is a set piece reused from Discovery’s time in the Mirror Universe last year?
   
• During the rigorous back-and-forth banter between Sidhu and Pike, a number of familiar Starfleet regulations, including:
   
  • Directive 010: “Before engaging alien species in battle, any and all attempts to make first contact and achieve nonmilitary resolution must be made.” (VOY: “In the Flesh”)
     
  • Regulation 191, Article 14: “In a combat situation involving more than one ship, command fell to the vessel with tactical superiority, should there not be a higher ranking officer present.” (VOY: “Equinox”)
     
  • The “little known” and “seldom used” reserve activation clause. (The Motion Picture)
• Seen earliest in Star Trek: Enterprise, “Ask Not” marks the first mention of another classic Star Trek alien race in the Discovery era: the elusive Tholians.
   
• First spotted in the early moments of “The Trouble with Edward,” an Enterprise officer wearing a ‘skant’-style uniform can be seen passing through the engineering bay.
   
• While we’ve only seen the Enterprise so far, the simulation display panel shows a graphic with two Constitution-class starships docked at Starbase 28.

The “Short Trek” lineup for 2019 continues next month with a double-header of new animated Discovery-era tales! First is “Ephraim and Dot,” where a mycelial tardigrade encounters a DOT-7 repair drone stationed aboard the Enterprise.

(The name “Ephraim” comes from the original concept for the Discovery tardigrade creature, when it would have actually been a crewmember aboard ship, using that name; the repair drones seen in the Discovery Season 2 finale are coded DOT-7s.)

…and second is “The Girl Who Made the Stars,” a 3D-animated story tying back to the ancient African legend which Michael Burnham described in the opening moments of the Discovery Season 2 premiere, “Brother.”

“The Girl Who Made the Stars” and “Ephraim and Dot” will debut together December 12 on CBS All Access in the US and the CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada; plans for additional international availability remain unknown at this time.