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Captain's Private Dining Room. Trip gnaws on a bread roll and winces, saying, "I thought Cajun food was hot." Quantum nonchalantly takes a mouthful of food and Dramatically Pauses. T'Pol watches him placidly. He swigs some iced tea and says, "D'Marr?" The bluish-whitish alien at the table looks up. "What did you call that spice?" Quantum asks. "Hajjlaran. The warlords on Preenos use it to test their courage," D'Marr tells him, and asks T'Pol if she's sure she doesn't want to try it. T'Pol tells him her courage isn't in need of testing. "I have other items to trade. I can get you some Triaxian silk for, say, another protein resequencer?" D'Marr asks, looking at Trip and Quantum. "I'd bet you'd look good in Triaxian silk," Trip comments suggestively to T'Pol. Now, we just had a mandatory "Good Touch, Bad Touch" seminar at my work in the AOL coal mines, and I'm pretty sure that comment might fall in the "bad touch" region. T'Pol glares at him slightly, and I can't say that I blame her. If my managing editor, Itchy McNastyFace, said that to me during a production meeting, I'd be pretty pissed as well. Probably vomit on his attempting-to-be-New-York-hip shoes as well. Quantum ignores Trip's loutish behavior and tells their alien trader that they are really in need of engineering supplies. Trip corroborates his captain's statement by listing a few items on the technobabble shopping list. D'Marr tells them he can't help, as he "prefer[s] to deal in more exotic goods." The alien trader goes on to tell them about a small system a two days' journey from their present course, indicating that they might find what they need there. T'Pol says they weren't aware of any inhabited planets in that direction. "It's not inhabited," D'Marr says, "Not exactly." Quantum's curious. D'Marr drinks from his coffee cup and says, "Mmm! This is excellent! What is it again?" Quantum tells him that it's coffee, and that their chef can wrap up a few kilos for him. "If you wouldn't mind telling us where we can find those supplies," Quantum says. It's just like the marketplace of Agrabah. "Captain, please, this isn't a matter of negotiation. I'm thinking of your safety," D'Marr tells him. Trip looks concerned, but Quantum continues to look indulgently amused. "Ten kilos?" Quantum offers. "It is pure luck that I even found it," D'Marr begins. "Found what?" Trip asks. "A ship. Crashed on one of the inner planets. There were no lifesigns aboard so I landed to claim my rights of salvage." D'Marr rolls his eyes as he says this -- almost self-deprecatingly. I only mention it because it was a nice sliver of acting by this character. Trip asks what he found, and D'Marr tells him he found a transport vessel, "largely intact. I could have stripped it bare and made a fortune." T'Pol asks why he didn't do just that. "The, uh, crew objected," D'Marr tells her. "You said there weren't any lifesigns aboard," Quantum points out. Do you have any lifesigns aboard, Quantum? "There weren't. There wasn't anything alive," D'Marr says, leaning forward. Trip looks at Quantum, snorts, and looks back at their guest to ask, "What are you saying -- that the ship was haunted?" D'Marr just stares at him.
“ Quantum meditates on this as the creepy music attempts to swell into something creepier. We know that you're trying to make the most of your role on this mission, May-June-July, but not everything has to be meaningful. ”
A soundtrack for Enterprise is coming out soon. That just makes me so sad.
Bridge. Reed's located the ship and puts it up on Bridge TV. It looks like a triangle in some misty mountains. T'Pol reports finding no power signatures and opines that the ship "appears to be deserted." "What? Are your sensors calibrated for ghosts?" Trip asks. Quantum smiles indulgently at his Mini-Me. "So far, D'Marr's battin' a thousand. I'm readin' duratanium, beryllium and dilithium," Trip reports. Hoshi wonders what caused the crash, and Quantum says there's no way of hypothesizing without examining the thing bow to stern. "Well, let's git down there," Trip says. May-something-that-rhymes-with-feather asks, "Are we sure that's a good idea?" Hoshi asks him if he's really afraid that it's haunted. Mayweather says, "We don't know what happened to the crew. That ship could be a tomb. You really think we should be picking through it for spare parts, sir?" I really don't think you should question your captain, Mayweather. He'll take all your lines away and demote you to an extra. "D'Marr didn't say anythang about bodies," Trip says. Well, that's comforting. Quantum looks at him. "Captain, we've taken more damage out here than we ever expected to. There's enough duratanium down there to patch a lot of hull fractures." Quantum makes a command decision: "Let's pay her a visit." Now, that line was delivered pretty naturally, but he flubs the second part of it by wandering into John Wayne's corral when he says, "If we feel the spirits don't want us there, we'll leave." Who are you trying to kid, Cpt. Buttinski? Anyway, back to my critique. Other than placing a period after every word, there's really no good way to represent on paper how Bakula screws up these lines. He seems to deliver each word as though it were a complete thought. "If. We. Feel. The. Spirits. Don't. Want. Us. There. We'll. Leave." I wish he would stop it. Quantum tells Reed he's on bridge duty and says, "Travis, you're driving." After months and months of virtual anonymity, Mayweather gets to be the captain's chauffeur again. You gotta wonder, though -- is Quantum dragging Mayweather along because he expressed some squeamishness about pilfering the ship? He does seem to do that. Hoshi and the upside-down ugly bags of mostly water in "Fight or Flight," for example. It's like he's trying to make them do stuff for their own good or something.
Deserted triangular ship. The away team, carrying flashlights, forces open the doors and splits up, Trip and T'Pol to Engineering and Quantum and Mayweather to another dark place. Mayweather pauses in one particularly poorly-lit corner. Quantum asks him if he's okay. "Yes, sir. I was just wondering if that trader left in such a hurry, why did he bother to close the hatch behind him?" Quantum meditates on this as the creepy music attempts to swell into something creepier. We know that you're trying to make the most of your role on this mission, May-June-July, but not everything has to be meaningful. I think it's pretty fair to assume that others have actually been there to investigate the deserted ship since the trader and maybe, just maybe, they didn't spook as easily.
Oasis
“ Vulcans don't imag-- 'Vulcans don't imagine things,' T'Pol interrupts me. God. I was kidding. ”
Deserted triangular ship's engineering. Trip fiddles with stuff, as T'Pol swings her flashlight around. She pauses, and Trip looks behind him. "What is it?" he asks. T'Pol says she heard something. "Rats, maybe?" Trip suggests. T'Pol scans and says, "No." "Well, then you probably imagined it," Trip tells her, going off to fiddle with more stuff. Vulcans don't imag-- "Vulcans don't imagine things," T'Pol interrupts me. God. I was kidding. Trip tells her it's nothing to be "ashamed" of. "Spooky ship, missin' crew, thangs goin' bump in the night -- it'd give anyone the creeps," Trip reassures her. "'The creeps'?" T'Pol repeats. "Yeah. Willies. Heebie-jeebies," Trip says by way of non-clarification. T'Pol just looks at him. Trip asks if she ever gets frightened, and T'Pol answers with a flat negative. "Not by anythang?" Trip asks. "No," T'Pol repeats. "That's too bad," Trip says, putting his flashlight under his chin so it shines up over his face. Heh. "Nuthin' like a good skeer," Trip drawls. Nothing like a good heart attack, either.
Trip and Quantum speculate around the ship. "What do you think that trader really saw down here, sir?" Mayweather asks. "I dunno. Maybe someone else wanted to salvage this wreck, and they were trying to scare him off," Quantum suggests. "That makes sense," Mayweather starts to say, then changes tacks: "Except scavengers would have stripped this ship to the keel." Except that keels only exist on water-faring vessels. Their reason for being is to provide sufficient weight so that a ship has a hard time tipping over. Last time I checked, spaceships weren't really concerned with tipping over. Of course, it could just be a turn of phrase, but I still don't understand why it would be in his lexicon if Mayweather was reared in space. "This isn't turning into one of your famous ghost stories, is it?" Quantum asks. Silly captain -- nothing about Mayweather is famous. Mayweather comments that it would make a good ghost story. The two chuckleheads go to investigate a piece of technobabble, and the captain's chauffeur confirms that it's a computer terminal with no power. "But the data modules look intact," Mayweather says, scanning. Quantum says they should take it back to the ship so they can attempt to figure out what happened to the ship.
Oasis
“ Trip comms Quantum and tells him, 'We're not alone down here.' Quantum says they're on their way, right after they stop in front of a mirror and say 'Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary' ten times. ”
Team Tri'Pol scans something else. Trip confirms it's dilithium and then says, "Huh." T'Pol asks if there's something wrong. "No," Trip says, "the crystals are in perfect shape. It wouldn't be that hard to get this ship flyin' agin." While Trip fiddles, T'Pol catches sight of an alien face reflected in the glass of the power module. She spins around and shines her flashlight behind her. "There's someone here," she tells Trip. "You said there weren't any biosigns," Trip reminds her. "There aren't," T'Pol tells him, walking toward a corner. "If yer tryin' to skeer me, I appreciate the effort, but --" Trip breaks off as a shadow flits by. Trip comms Quantum and tells him, "We're not alone down here." Quantum says they're on their way, right after they stop in front of a mirror and say "Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary" ten times. Trip and T'Pol continue to investigate, and continue to find nothing. They get to the end of the corridor and T'Pol says, "There's a space behind this bulkhead." Trip uses his phaser to cut through a section of the bulkhead, which they remove and step through to another area. T'Pol presses a panel, and a door slides open to reveal an overgrown greenhouse. It's not scary anymore. Eighteen minutes into the episode, and it's not scary anymore! As they skulk around the forest of Arden, Trip wonders why it didn't show up on their sensors. Scanning, T'Pol reports a dampening field in the area generated by an unknown power source. They keep tiptoeing through the tulips. Trip rounds some fronds and sees a bug-eyed humanoid chick. "Hi," he says cautiously. She goggles at his weapon; he lowers it quickly and assures her he's not going to hurt her, but she dashes off anyway. T'Pol and Trip run after her, right into a room full of other humanoids in onesies. Humanoids in onesies with weapons pointed directly at them. T'Pol and Trip sheathe their phasers, and the camera cuts to a shot of Odo in the background.
They must've all made with the nice-nice with the Onesies, because later that night, one of them -- who kinds of looks like C.C. Capwell from Santa Barbara gone to seed -- tells the Enterprise crew how they happened to crash on the planet. They were attacked while on their way back from their colony on Kotara Barath. Quantum asks who attacked them. "They didn't introduce themselves, they just opened fire," the C.C. Capwell Onesie tells Quantum. Odo says, "We're a supply ship. We don't carry large weapons. We tried to defend ourselves." A female Onesie speaks up, saying, "The captain was able to make a crash landing. It's a miracle we all survived." Mayweather asks if they sent out a distress signal, but C.C. Capwell tells him that they didn't want to be detected by their attackers. "So you set up this dampening field to hide," Trip states. The other Onesies nod. T'Pol asks how long they've been there, and Odo says, "Nearly three years." Quantum comments that they've "made quite a home for [themselves]" in three years. C.C. Capwell says they didn't have much choice. "Well, you do now," Quantum tells him. "Our ship is big enough for all of you. We can take you home." C.C. Capwell says, "You're very generous, Captain, but our world's over a year away."
Mayweather steps forward passionately and says they can't just leave them there. "As you say, we've made a home for ourselves," C.C. Capwell reminds him. Quantum -- and I can't believe I didn't broker a deal with Bunting to get paid a buck every time I type this -- FURROWS HIS BROW and asks his Chief Engineer how the Onesies' engines are. Trip reports, "Their dilithium matrix is stable. They've got plenty of anti-matter reserves. I think we can git this ship flyin'." Odo stands up and says they've already tried. "We have resources you may not have," Quantum pesters. "It's worth a shot." Odo nods and thanks him. Now, it would be at this point that Troi would say, "I sense they are hiding something, sir." Although I did notice that she went from being extremely intuitive with every creature they came across -- almost to the point of knowing what they had for breakfast -- to just being able to "sense that something isn't right."
Trip does some stuff to their systems. In an anemic attempt to recreate mysterious creepiness, Trip is made to hear a noise. He investigates a dark, dark corner but doesn't see anything. When he turns around, he sees the bug-eyed girl he met in the forest of Arden. He jumps and makes startled noises. I can see why she might scare people. Those eyes, dude. "You startled me," Trip tells her, just in case his startled noises didn't get the point across. "That's twice in one day." Bug-Eyed Girl doesn't say anything. "You ever say anythang?" Trip asks. Still nothing from Bug-Eyed. "Unless yer unable to say anythang," Trip hypothesizes, "in which case, I apologize." Trip edges around her and goes back to his workstation. Bug-Eyed follows and watches him work. Suddenly she blurts out, "Don't touch that!" Trip stops what he's doing. "The power's been routed to our living area through that relay -- it's very dangerous," Bug-Eyed tells him. Trip says, "Well, I'm glad you finally decided to speak up. Thanks." Yeah, good thing Trip was just mucking about in there, not really knowing what the hell he was doing. Trip gives her his million-dollars'-worth-of-Edam smile and asks if she knows a lot about her ship's systems. Bug-Eyed tells him that her father's the engineer, and he taught her how things work. I love those books. Trip tells her, "Stick around, then. You can warn me about whatever else I need to keep my hands off of." How about her dinners for two? The female Onesie from earlier appears and says, "He's busy. Don't bother him, Liana." Bug-Eyed Liana looks disappointed, and Trip assures Female Onesie that she's no bother. "My daughter has other responsibilities," Female Onesie says. Bug-Eyed Liana leaves, but manages to cast a come-hither look over her shoulder at Trip. Do you know how we know the Onesies are aliens? They have little nearly imperceptible dots congregating around each temple. It's a way to make them not-human but still attractive enough in case one of the crew of Enterprise wants to have a fling.
“ 'I've got lady friends back there ["Lady friends"? What is this? Petticoat Junction?], but nobody special, if that's what you mean.' ”
Trip and T'Pol work on the grounded ship's systems. T'Pol notes the cross-circuitry, and Trip explains that Bug-Eyed and her engineer father rerouted power according to their needs. "Efficient," T'Pol comments, "but I'll need to reconnect the bridge systems." Trip says he'll get Bug-Eyed to help her. T'Pol tells him it's unnecessary. "It'll go faster," Trip argues. "I can take care of it," T'Pol states, getting up. "She knows the ship's system inside and out. She kept me from getting fried on a live plasma feed," Trip says. "Perhaps she can help you then," T'Pol says pointedly. "What's that supposed to mean?" Trip whines. "By the way you keep talking about her, you obviously appreciate her 'technical' expertise," T'Pol explains. Bamp-chicka. Trip crosses his arms and says, "She's very competent." "So was the female engineer on the Xyrillian ship," T'Pol says. Wah wah. "Yer never gonna let that go, are yeh?" Trip snits. "I'm simply noting that the last time you found someone this competent you wound up carrying her child," T'Pol reminds him. A lot of people seem to think that this was a scene of simmering jealousy on T'Pol's part. I couldn't disagree more. First of all, need I remind everyone that she's a freakin' Vulcan and doesn't experience jealousy? Second of all, I see T'Pol playing the exact same role with Trip and Quantum and their dalliances that Spock did with Kirk and his. She's merely calling them on the obvious and raising her eyebrow at it. Just because she happens to be female doesn't automatically mean that the exact same observations which Spock, a male, made are now stemming from a feeling of sexual competition with every female any of her male crewmembers happen to take a personal interest in. Jeez, give her a little more credit.
Bug-Eyed arrives with a tray of food and asks if she's interrupting anything. "Not at all. Commander Tucker and I were just discussing his ...repair experience," T'Pol tells her. Bug-Eyed offers T'Pol some sustenance, which T'Pol refuses; she leaves the room to continue with her work. Bug-Eyed timidly walks over to Trip and asks if he's hungry. Trip thanks her, and she sets the food down. It looks like a gourd with the top sliced off. Trip starts eating tentatively. "Mmm, it's delicious, what is it?" he asks. Bug-Eyed tells him it's "lorella," grown in their airponics bay since nothing will grow outside. Trip comments that he's surprised they were able to survive. Bug-Eyed watches him eat until he asks, "Why do I feel like it's feeding time at the zoo?" Bug-Eyed gets even more so and says she didn't mean to be rude. She sits down, and Trip tells her he wished more women paid attention to him that way. Bug-Eyed bugs out some more and asks, "Do you know a lot of women?" Trip says, "Well, nearly a third of the crew is female." Bug-Eyed asks if he knows a lot of women on his home planet. "I've got lady friends back there ['Lady friends'? What is this? Petticoat Junction?], but nobody special, if that's what you mean. Not anymore. What about your world?" Trip asks. Bug-Eyed wants to know what about it. Trip points out that she'll be going home soon to see her friends, and she must be excited at the prospect. Bug-Eyed doesn't say anything. Odo, C.C. Capwell, and another random Onesie interrupt their tte--tte. "I hear you've been making progress," C.C. Capwell says. Trip tells them they're "gittin' there." C.C. Capwell tells him there's something else he might be able to help them with.
T'Pol and Trip are ushered into a room that looks like big tanning booth. "Your computer core?" T'Pol asks, circling around the large console in the middle of the room. "It controls all the ship's vital functions. Environmental systems, main power -- you might say it keeps us alive," C.C. Capwell says. Yeah, you might say that about any ship's computer core; it's not novel. T'Pol looks at him sharply and says, "These are optronic relays." C.C. Capwell agrees, and tells her the system is starting to break down and could crash at any time. "I've worked on something like this -- on the Xyrillian ship," Trip says. "Then you can fix it?" C.C. Capwell asks. Trip says he can try, but he'll need some diagnostic equipment from the ship, and extends the offer to the Onesies -- Bug-Eyed in particular -- to come along and take a tour of Enterprise. Bug-Eyed bugs with delight, but C.C. Capwell answers for all of them that they'd rather not. "Oh, you've been marooned for three years, a change of scenery for an hour or two couldn't hurt," Trip presses. Why don't he and Quantum EVER take a gentle hint? They have to be beaten over the head before they stop being so pushy! "Another time," C.C. Capwell says. Trip finally lets the matter drop and says he'll be right back. T'Pol has barely left the room when Bug-Eyed appeals to Odo, asking why she can't go. "You know why," Odo tells her. Bug-Eyed wants to know what's wrong with seeing their ship and meeting their crew. "I think you've met enough of their crew already," Odo says. Bug-Eyed insists that "they're good people" who just want to help them. "I promise not to say anything," she pleads.
Enterprise Situation Room. Reed, Quantum, and Mayweather discuss the situation. Reed deduces that the engines only sustained impact damage, not damage incurred by weapons fire, and he's also not buying that they've simply been hiding for three years. "Just because they're a little skittish doesn't mean they're up to something," Quantum says. "And there's also their airponics bay," Reed starts to say. Quantum wants to know what about it, and Mayweather tells Quantum that it's not big enough to feed everyone on the ship. "How are they surviving down there? It doesn't make any sense," Reed says. They're insects. Quantum asks if they still have the downed ship's data module. Mayweather tells him it's in the sh'pod, and Quantum tells him to get Hoshi on downloading duty. Mayweather "aye sirs" him and leaves his captain to furrow away.
“ 'Why wouldn't Liana have told me?' Trip wonders. Sure, because on the strength of your TWO-DAY acquaintance, she should trust you implicitly with all her deepests and darkests -- right, Cletus? ”
Trip gives Bug-Eyed a tour of the ship. Bug-Eyed asks many pointless questions: How many people aboard the ship? Are they all human? Can she meet Dr. Phlox? What's a dog? And Trip answers them: eighty-three; all humans, save the Vulcan, the Denobulan doctor, and Porthos the dog; Dr. Phlox would never forgive Trip if he didn't introduce him to Bug-Eyed; a dog is a pet. Bug-Eyed wants Porthos put on her show-me list as well, and Trip asks if she going to have any time left for him. "I don't know, it sounds like I'm going to be very busy," Bug-Eyed flirts. Trip wants to know about Kentare, her home planet, but she assures him it's boring and asks him what places he's visited. "Our mission's really just getting started," Trip says. "We haven't been to many planets yet." Bug-Eyed asks where their port of call is, and Trip tells her they have no idea: "That's the fun part." "What's your favorite planet?" Bug-Eyed asks, gamboling to him. "If I had to choose right now -- I'd say this one," Trip says. Well, that's one for keeping continuity of the episodes. He certainly wouldn't choose Planet of the Psychedelic Rock People. Just as they're getting warmed up for a mating dance, Quantum throws some ice on them and orders Trip to his Ready Room. Trip hands Bug-Eyed over to some red-shirt named "Billy" and asks him to continue "this lady's" tour. "Oh, they gave you a name, now you're gonna die, Billy!" Mathra crows. Trip tells Bug-Eyed that he still owes her lunch and will meet her in the Mess Hall.
Quantum's Ready Room. "I hear you've been spending a lot of time with Liana?" Quantum says. Reed looks at Trip with interest. Not one bum question out of your mouth, buddy. "Did T'Pol say somethang?" Trip whines. "Sir, I swear, I've been nothing but a perfect gentleman." Quantum tells him he's sure he has, but that's not what he's getting at. "Oh," Trip says, looking uncomfortable. Quantum asks if he's noticed any "strange behavior" from her or the other Onesies. You mean besides the fact that they're actually good actors? Trip asks, "'Strange behavior' -- what's going on?" Yeah, you know, strange behavior, Trip. Like wanting to be left alone, not welcoming others meddling about in their daily lives, having -- god forbid -- a way of life different from the one the crew of the Enterprise leads. Reed explains that the Hoshi-translated data module reveals what happened to the ship right before they crashed. "Yeah, they already told us what happened," Trip says. "According to this, they weren't attacked. There was an accident on board," Quantum says. Trip wants to know what the accident was. "There are some gaps in the data, but it looks like some kind of catastrophic malfunction. There was a massive depressurization when the ship went down," Reed tells him. Trip suggests that the data module got damaged during the crash. Anything! Anything other than the fact that the love of the last forty-eight hours of his life is lying to him. Quantum tells him it's not just the data module. Trip looks at Reed. "When their story didn't check out, the captain asked me to run some detailed scans of the ship. According to the oxidation rate of the hull plating, that ship's been sitting down there a lot longer than three years," Reed finishes, showing Trip his data. "It went down nearly twenty-two years ago, Trip," Quantum says. Trip argues that it doesn't make sense, and Reed offers to let him check the scans himself. "Why wouldn't Liana have told me?" Trip wonders. Sure, because on the strength of your TWO-DAY acquaintance, she should trust you implicitly with all her deepests and darkests -- right, Cletus? Reed tells Trip that his data shows that the ship launched a number of escape pods right before the crash. "Malcolm found one," Quantum says. "We're bringing it on board."