4. Conquering Chang | Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
The fate of peace between the Federation and Klingons hinged on what the crews of the USS Enterprise and USS Excelsior did or didn’t accomplish at Camp Khitomer in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Facing a seemingly invincible opponent in a Bird-of-Prey that could fire while cloaked — under the command of the duplicitous General Chang (Christopher Plummer) — it was Uhura who figured out how to bring down the stealthy Klingon vessel.
The Enterprise was equipped to catalog gaseous anomalies, and Uhura realized during the one-sided firefight with the invisible Bird-of-Prey that the vessel must have a tailpipe. With those words, Spock and McCoy hurried to perform emergency surgery on a photo torpedo that could target and seek out the invisible enemy successfully. Uhura was absolutely right, and the photon torpedo inflicted serious damage to its target, bringing down the vessel's invisibility screen.
After taking a fierce barrage of photo torpedoes from both the Enterprise and Excelsior, the Bird-of-Prey exploded! The villains trying to pull off another assassination attempt at Camp Khitomer lost their only line of defense. Thus, Kirk and company were able to transport down and save the day. However, Uhura should get much of the credit for the peace shared between the Federation and the Klingon Empire moving forward after her quick thinking in The Undiscovered Country.