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Hot on the snail trail of the Xindi, Quantum, Reed, Hoshi and T'Pol investigate a planet. Since they didn't get their malaria shots before they left, they all get infected with some Planet of the Apes virus that leaves T'Pol less gibboning than the rest of them. While QuantumApe clicks, chitters, and touches her inappropriately, T'Pol tries to remind him that his place is on the Enterprise, not on her dinners. Not soon enough, because May-You-Snooze-You-Lose has already musical-chaired himself into the Captain's seat for the rest of the episode. Once some alien interlopers smeg in and make their genetic cleansing intentions known, Trip and Phlox only have the rest of the episode to whip up an antidote and a rescue --will they make it? Here's a hint: yes. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
I think the story behind this episode had real potential, but they spent way too much time on the Walk Like An Alien part of it, instead of examining the broader implications of a race that could manufacture such a powerful weapon. Plus, replacing Pulaski's hairbrush with T'Pol saliva-encrusted peach just doesn't smack of that much creativity.
A red-suited alien runs through a dark jungle as two other forms in EV suits and green headlamps pursue him. The red-suited alien falls (because the prey always falls) and lies on the ground while the EV suits light up some mighty large blow torches and make Alien Brulée out of him. He screams. That was a bit graphic.
You know, I'd even be happier if this theme song was made into a polka instead of its current nation of Casio tones.
T'Pajamas lights candles as she prepares for another node client. It's Trip. He offers her Georgia peaches that have been in stasis since they left Earth, and T'Pajamas tells him that's not going to make up for all times he cancelled their dates -- er, "sessions." For some odd reason, Trip insists that T'Pajamas take a bite of a peach right then and there. I don't think T'Pajamas can be quite normal if she's able to bite soundlessly into a peach without slurping afterwards. Either that or the peaches really suck and have absolutely no moisture left in them. Trip takes off his shirt and sits down. T'Pajamas tells him to take off his shoes as well. Ew, feet! Normally, I don't really have an issue with feet, unlike my old college friend, Savage, who couldn't abide bare feet of any kind. Even the mere mention of them was enough to send her quivering. Except her own, of course, but that was because she deemed her toes to be as cute as "little popcorn shrimp." If anyone went barefoot around her, she would drop a blanket over their feet. I don't have that problem; I even once fell in lust with a guy because of his feet. They were really nice-looking -- normal toenails (even the pinky toe), strong, tan, and not too hairy. He was the only blond guy I ever dated, but he didn't have that weird white blond hair that almost looks worse on tan toes than black hair does on white toes. However, there's just something about the idea of Trip's feet trapped in his sneakers all day as he sweats around the warp reactor that turns my stomach. Plus, stench aside, I'm willing to bet his feet are really funky-looking. Don't you think? He strikes me as the type that would have that problem with the second toe being longer than all the rest, no nail on the pinky toe, and other nails in need of Lamasil. I'm not saying he's unclean or anything. I'm just saying proper toe maintenance is probably not that high on his priority list. He's probably got one or two plantars warts knocking about as well.
Well aware of what evils lurk below his laces, Trip is reticent to remove his shoes. "There are many neural nodes in the soles of the feet," T'Pajamas tells him. Hey, who knew those socks at Origins were handmade by Vulcans? Trip admits that he hasn't showered since that morning. "And I know how sensitive that Vulcan nose of yours can be. And...I'm a little ticklish," Trip finally admits. Beat. "Mebbe more than a little," Trip amends. T'Pajamas says she will cease all feetly activity at the first sign of discomfort. Trip takes off his shirt and shoes and lies facedown. T'Pajamas kneels and commences with the laying of hands on Trip. "Oh!" Trip gasps. "Your hands are ice cold." There is this weird shot -- and I mean really weird -- of T'Pajamas rubbing her hands together to warm them. thing you know, they'll be whipping out the heated oils of various flavors. T'Pajamas tells him to take long, deep breaths. Trip wonders if what she's doing is safe, and if it's ever been practiced on humans before. T'Pajamas knows of no instance in which Neural Node Nudging was done on humans. "The risk of paralysis is minimal," she adds. Trip gives her a look. It's just massage with a fancy name, Trip -- get a grip! T'Pajamas tells him to breathe again. Trip grunts, "That's the spot," just like a dog who has finally located where the flea is biting him. If dogs could grunt like a happy pig, I mean. Quantum -- knowing exactly what's going down in T'Pajamas quarters, and insanely jealous -- comms his Science Officer and orders her to the Command Center. T'Pajamas sends the fluffer in to take care of Trip, and leaves.
I'm on a Pumpkin Ale Quest in San Francisco. I desperately need something to replace my New England nectar, and I actually have a few leads. However, until I fully test them all, I'm settling for a very different form of mental Novocaine: sake. The first U.S. sake store EVER opened in our neighborhood and, after the owner/sake sensei diagnosed my sakeity based on what kinds of wines, beers, and hard alcohols I prefer, I carted two little bottles home. Man, I think I'm in love, and that's powerful stuff!
Command Center. Quantum gets up and says, "Sorry if I woke you," in a tone that tells me he couldn't be less sincere if he had a gold tooth and was promising that a bottle of Dr. Beetles' Batch of Burgeoning Bakula would turn this block of birch back into the charming actor he used to be. T'Pol, now in her onesie that Benjamin Moore calls "Blue Dragon," tells him she wasn't sleeping. She's just daring him to ask what she was doing! She wants him to know, she wants him to suffer, she wants him to plead for some Neural Node Nudging of his very own! I think the Enterprise that I make up in my head is far more diverting than this one. Quantum shows her a picture. "Another species of Xindi?" T'Pol guesses. Not saying where the picture has come from, Quantum says that Phlox thinks this one evolved from an "arboreal primate." Like a gibbon? Or Australopithecus, which was never fully erect because he was nervous? "I managed to piece together some of their starcharts. It took me half the night to figure out how they map coordinates --" "Half the night?! He clearly should have taken my Math 21a last year," the Harassed Dr. Mathra mutters, sifting through his lesson plans. "But I've been able to reconstruct the ships course over the past few months," Quantum finishes before the Harassed Dr. Mathra (the Evil Dr. Mathra's alter ego) can get in any more grumbling. Quantum says that before these Monkey Boys were attacked by the Osaarian pirates, their ship had visited some nearby planet, and now Enterprise is going to that planet to see if they can find something. Oooh, now I get it! This is from that database Hoshi downloaded in the last episode. Forgive me -- I've sort of started a new job, and it's been a long week. Especially since yesterday I went to a party sponsored by Mitchell's ice cream and my brain is a bit sugar-and-cream-addled this morning. What, pray tell, does Quantum hope to find on this planet? I mean, the only thing I can think the Monkey Boys would leave behind would not exactly be things you'd want to bring back to your ship to study, you know what I mean? Well, I guess Phlox would. T'Pol reminds Quantum that they don't know if these were the same Xindi that attacked Earth. "We don't know they weren't," Quantum growls, and orders her to order May-You-Snooze-You-Lose to set a course.
Enterprise approaches a planet. Remember that commercial a few years back that announced the new color of the New VW Beetle as "Vapor"? Well, that's the new color of T'Pol's new onesie -- she's the Vapor Velveteen Vulcan today. That puts her wardrobe up to three distinct colors now, and once I can come up with a shade of blue that starts with "V," I can have a hat trick of wardrobe descriptions for her. Huh -- I wonder if it says anything about this episode that I'm more involved in thinking about T'Pol's clothes than I am in mentioning that the planet is filled with lots of plant life but no humanoid life as yet. I'll have to think about that a little more. Reed picks up signs of a landing craft on some islands, but T'Pol still can't find any bio-signs. Quantum furrows at the screen. A sh'pod launches from the belly of Enterprise with Quantum at the helm. Reed and T'Pol are there too, and Hoshi hangs out in the back looking bored.
On the planet, the Away Team finds the deserted landing craft. T'Pol scans and says it's been there for two weeks. "Right about the time the Xindi were here," Hoshi reminds us. Quantum confirms that it's definitely a Xindi craft: "I recognize it from the database." He puts a lot of hatred into the word "database." Maybe -- since we can't see his face -- that's his verbal equivalent of furrowing. T'Pol goes to examine their databanks, and Hoshi finds the charred remains of Alien Brulée. I'll bet she wishes she had the foresight to bring a spoon. T'Pol says it isn't one of the three species of Xindi they have in their own databanks. Hoshi thinks it could be one of the other two. "What about him?" Reed asks, shining his light on another ramekin of Alien Brulée. T'Pol says the readings are the same as the first ramekin. Reed breathes hard and loosens his collar, saying that he never much cared for the tropics. Well, not since he got depantsed the last time he visited the tropics. Quantum orders them to keep looking. For some reason, T'Pol pulls up a Vapor Velveteen sleeve and sees her skin getting all mottled. She touches her face and feels bumps burping out around her eyes. "Lieutenant?" she calls to Reed, who lifts a head suddenly in need of a haircut and snarl-hisses at her. Quantum hears the snarlissing as he gets out of the abandoned craft, and suddenly his eyes Hulk out. But instead of that pale, pale green with the dark pupil, they're pale, pale blue. Quantum stumbles away and makes a big show of transforming. A really bad CGI takes us inside his rib cage and shows us an eighth-grade health class filmstrip of his heart beating and some dark red stuff spreading out from it. Like his heart has sprung a leak or something. Quantum collapses to his knees and shudders just as T'Pol comes upon him.
T'Pol calls up to Enterprise. May-You-Snooze-You-Lose answers. He's in the captain's seat! Shouldn't Trip have dibs on those squatting rights? Oh, I know what happened -- May-You-Snooze-You-Lose staged a crew coup and locked Trip in the decon chamber after telling him he thought he saw a piece of three-day-old pecan pie in there! Go May-You-Snooze-You-Lose! T'Pol tries to tell the new acting captain that they are being transformed by something, but Quantum interrupts her with his freak speak. "Subcommander?" May-You-Snooze-You-Lose asks. But T'Pol's got her own worries, as a fully transformed Quantum scampers around and continues to freak-speak. T'Pol fends him off with her phaser and fires a stun at his chest. From the trees, another Starfleet uniform jumps on T'Pol (Reed's been waiting for this ever since Shuttlepod One, and now he knows he can totally pass his forward behavior off as being under the influence of alien transformation) and rolls her to the ground. However, since it looks like T'Pol is being strangled by a pre-op Cher, it's apparently Hoshi who is coming on to her and not Malcolm "Bumtrinket" Reed. Quantum recovers from the stun blast and staggers to a crouch again, so T'Pol lets Hoshi go and runs off. Reed humpbacks into the scene, and he and Hoshi run after T'Pol. Quantum bares a purple tongue before following. T'Pol falls. Of course. For some reason, T'Pol then also falls asleep. Witness the side effects of Neural Node Nudging.
The three members of an aging sixties rock band make a rude kind of litter and carry T'Pol away. They carefully set T'Pol down and freak-speak around her as she wakes up. T'Pol tries to address Quantum as "Captain," but Hoshi chitters at her. T'Pol realizes she's tied up, and orders them to let her go. Quantum starts to untie her, but the jealous Hoshi snarls about it. Quantum freak-speaks at her, and two bullfrog balloons on his jaw inflate menacingly. Hoshi backs away and sulks from a distance. Quantum unties T'Pol and grabs her head to examine her neck. He sniffs, then growls, then chitters. I hope they get a Universal Translator working soon, because my sake haze is starting to wear off, and my patience along with it. T'Pol wastes airtime trying to communicate with Quantum and then asks for her UT. There's more filler-chattering from Hoshi, who doesn't want to give it up, before Quantum convinces her to do just that. T'Pol calibrates the UT and begs them to talk. The three Hill People sniff and chitter but aren't that inclined to speechify.
Enterprise. Command Center. Phlox points out a Vulcan bio-sign on a chart of the planet and says the other three are definitely not human. Trip fusses that he hasn't sent a search party down because Phlox wanted more time to analyze the data. Phlox thinks it's possible T'Pol that was speaking literally when she said they were being altered, and that those non-human bio-signs are actually their human crewmembers. When Trip questions this possibility, Phlox cites the influence of the Expanse. That's just great -- they've got their own space-age Hellmouth up there that they can blame anything and everything on. Trip orders May-You-Snooze-You-Lose to prep a sh'pod. Phlox protests. Trip tells him that they'll all wear EV suits with bio-hazard protocols; he wants the decon chamber ready when they get back. I've said it before and I'll say it again; Trip's a much more believable captain than Quantum of the Furrow People.
Speaking of which, Loathe-ar and his Hill People are still trying to process what T'Pol is telling them about Enterprise. Thankfully, they've dropped the freak-speak and are all speaking English. More or less. Hill Person Reed speaks with a Russian accent when he says they have to find "Urquat." Does he mean "Urquhart"? Because they are hell and gone from Scotland. I've been to Castle Urquhart -- it's beautiful, and they have a working catapult that Quantum should personally try out. Hey -- maybe they're all related to the Loch Ness monster, and by some The Chase kind of plan, Nessie's DNA has been scattered throughout the universe! I'm convinced that's totally what's going on here -- it explains the ratty hair, the amphibious faces, and the bad accents. My Chateau de Fantasyland is open to all who wish to visit; I only ask that you wipe your feet first and bring a small bottle of something potent. Hill Person Hoshi says their people are waiting for them and that T'Pol is delaying their return. Hill Person Reed tells Loath-ar that "they" might be able to help them figure out why they can't remember anything. It's not clear if the "they" Hill Person Reed is referring to is T'Pol et al. or if it's their fellow Hill People that Hill Person Hoshi mentioned. Ask me how much I care. I only mention it for the gentle viewer's benefit.
T'Pol tries to convince Loathe-ar to return to the ship. It suddenly becomes an issue that they don't know what T'Pol is, but they do know that she's not Of the Hill People. Loathe-ar sniffs T'Pol some more and starts to touch her. Just before it can become Bad Touch, though, T'Pol distracts him by asking what Urquat is and tells them they should keep searching. Loathe-ar grabs her by the arm and says, "It can't be far." They search. Hill Person Reed scales a tree and brings down some alien papayas. Alpha Alien Loathe-ar knocks them out of Hill Person Reed's hands and takes one for himself. Quantum's even a jerk when he's devolved. Hill Person Hoshi grabs the other one and cracks it open, exposing the squirmy wormy inside. She starts to eat, even though Produce Pete would be of the opinion that wormy fruit is returnable fruit. Hill Person Reed fights Loathe-ar for his spoiled fruit while Hill Person Hoshi watches with interest. Finally, as Loathe-ar backs up, Hill Person Reed lays the piece of fruit down and backs away subserviently. Just like on Enterprise. Loathe-ar cracks open the fruit, which seems to be more like an egg, and sniffs it. On second thought, he darts over to T'Pol and offers it to her. "No, thank you," she tells him politely. Loathe-ar scoops up some of the yolky worms and shoves them near T'Pol's mouth. "I'm not hungry," she tells him firmly. Of course she's not -- she had a bite of a peach back on the ship, that'll keep her going for another few weeks. Loathe-ar eats his egg. Hill Person Reed creeps up to him and chitters. After a moment, Loathe-ar offers him his egg, and Hill Person Reed shoves his face in it.
Sh'pod Two scans the surface with a spotlight. Trip says there's not much in the way of landing strips for them, so he hopes his accompanying Uh-Ohs are up for a walk in the woods.
T'Pol and the Hill People note the sh'pod's approach. T'Pol tries to explain that they won't hurt them if she talks to them, but Loathe-ar grabs her and lugs her off through the jungle. The other Hill People follow.
EV-suited Trip and Uh-Ohs look for their crewmembers.
With cheap Predator eyesight -- it looks like they could only afford red and not the entire spectrum -- Loathe-ar watches Trip and the Uh-Ohs. Hill Person Reed jumps out of hiding at one of the Uh-Ohs and then runs away. Trip turns the Uh-Oh over and says, "Chang!" I wonder if that's really Daniel Dae Lewis in there or if they just want us to think that's him. There is absolutely no way we can know for certain. It was probably cheaper for them to put an extra in a suit and call him "Chang" than to actually get Daniel Dae Lewis on the set for such a minimal role. Hill Person Reed leaps again, and Trip fells him with a phaser blast. Loathe-ar joins in on the attack and starts smacking his Chief Engineer around with a log. Trip sustains a crack in his visor. T'Pol runs in to stop him, so Loathe-ar raises the log at her. She asks if Loathe-ar doesn't recognize Trip. Another Uh-Oh runs toward them, so Loathe-ar takes off into the brush again. T'Pol tells Trip to take Reed to Sickbay and says she's staying with Loathe-ar. She runs after her caveman lover, while Trip can only watch as his Neural Node Nudging sessions go down the drain.
Enterprise. Hill Person Reed freaks out in decon, because he wasn't given a shapely Vulcan to gel down with. Phlox studies him as Trip walks in and comments that Hill Person Reed didn't even recognize him. Phlox says Hill Person Reed's blood is "swarming" with a mutagenic virus that was designed to rewrite the DNA of a host and transform any infected humanoid into another species. Trip wonders about T'Pol's less-than-Neanderthal appearance. Phlox extrapolates that her Vulcan blood K cells have the ability to neutralize the pathogen. Hello, antidote. Phlox says he needs an active sample of T'Pol's DNA to mix up the antivirus as soon as possible. May-You-Snooze-You-Lose announces that two ships are on an intercept course. Trip gets back to the Bridge.
Bridge. The captain of the other ship tells Trip he's in restricted space. "Sorry," Trip says flatly, "it wasn't very well marked." Was it marked at all? The captain tells him he's got an infected crewmember, his ship's under quarantine, and he should prepare to be boarded. Trip clenches his jaw and purses his lips. Well, it's better than furrowing.
What Jake 2.0 gets wrong about the NSA could fill another Bamford book.
Bridge. Trip pretty much refuses the other captain's offer to storm his ship. They argue a bit about whether or not he's going to "neutralize the infected organism." Finally, Trip thunders with a completely smooth brow, "Look, we've only been dealing with this virus for one day so forgive me if I don't take your word for it that they only option is to neutralize our Tactical Officer! You wanna come over to discuss the situation, fine. But if you try to force your way onto this ship, you're going to have one helluva fight on yer hands!" "Well, except for the fact that you just told him that your Tactical Officer was the one infected. I mean, hello? Operational security! You don't go around leaking that kind of information to a potential enemy. Ass!" the Evil Dr. Mathra says, replacing the Harassed Dr. Mathra now that he suddenly has more time to interfere with my recapping.
Planet. It's daylight, and Loathe-ar sneaks through some catacombs. He enters a room that has several recesses with top-lit pieces of pottery. So, what? This is their own weird Visitor's Center? Loathe-ar creeps further in, and the view opens up to the Map Room from Raiders of the Lost Ark, except fake-looking. Loathe-ar must have amazing vision, because we get close-ups of some of the buildings that are clearly miles away from where he's standing. Loathe-ar sinks to his knees but then jumps as a normal Quantum comes around a pillar and looks at him. Loathe-ar jerks awake from his bed of tree logs in the dark jungle. "How loooong. Was. I. Asleeeep?" Loathe-ar asks T'Pol, who is sitting nearby. I'm sorry, I know people hate "Masks," but I much prefer Data's "lamb moussaka is coming" to Bakula's Yoda-cum-Golluming. T'Pol tells him he's only been snoring for a few minutes, and Loathe-ar calls up to Hill Person Hoshi (who drops out of a tree) that he saw "it" in his dream. "Urquat?" Hill Person Hoshi asks. "Our city!" Loathe-ar confirms. T'Pol contradicts them, saying that there aren't any cities on the planet. Loathe-ar says the city is below the surface, filled with a bunch more Hill People waiting for them. T'Pol tries to remind Loathe-ar of his humanity and of his mission to drag down ratings. Loathe-ar doesn't believe her and drags her off. Hill Person Hoshi follows.
Sickbay. The alien captain of the other ship doesn't believe Phlox's promise that the decon chamber is sealed. The alien captain tells him that the virus infected tens of millions of people on his homeworld: "They all had to be destroyed." Trip's agog at the word "destroyed," and the captain explains that the virus would have transformed the whole population within a matter of weeks. The captain goes on to say that the virus was engineered by the natives of the planet, the Loque'eque. Something decimated the species centuries ago, and they couldn't reproduce, so they created the virus to transform other species into their own in order to save themselves from extinction. "Ingenious," Phlox comments, "but why didn't they program the virus to stop replicating once their population was replenished?" The captain says they've been trying to answer that question for a long time. Answering Trip's question, the captain tells him that the virus makes all of those infected want to return to their home city, Urquat, and that's why they can't allow the virus to spread. Other infected species would return to this planet, and the epidemic would get out of control again. The captain gets a comm from his ship that they've detected three more infected bio-signs on the planet. "Prepare a containment team," the captain says. "More of your crewmen?" I'll bet "containment team" is code for "pastry chefs whose specialty is Alien Brulée." Phlox says that one of their crew on the planet has an immunity to the virus, so if he could just take a look at the captain's past research, maybe they could work together. The captain ignores him; they will do the "examining" on their own and let them know. Trip would prefer that Phlox do the examining, but the other captain doesn't give two hoots what Trip prefers. He's under orders to contain the virus by any means necessary. The captain walks off and tells the Starfleet security guard to take him to the airlock. Trip nods his assent, and the two leave. Phlox says that if they don't develop an antivirus by the end of the episode, it will be too late, and there won't be enough of the humans' original genomes to reconstruct them, or the viewers' interest. Trip realizes they can't use a sh'pod because the other ships would detect it, and wonders if T'Pol's infected. Phlox thinks it's a certainty. Trip rules out the transporter. "Whatever you do, Commander, do it quickly, I need that DNA sample!" Phlox says, and a GE 25-watt soft-light bulb appears above Trip's head. He tears off through corridors to T'Pol's cabin. Trip finds the peaches and examines them for the half-eaten one, as May-You-Snooze-You-Lose comms that the other ship has launched a sh'pod. "Keep an eye on 'em!" Trip shouts, and runs back.
Planet. Loathe-ar thinks he's found the passage to the city, and tells Hill Person Hoshi to help him. They remove some rocks and run through dark corridors. Loathe-ar comes upon a body and hisses. Hill Person Hoshi brushes away cobwebs and stares. Loathe-ar puts on his super-vision again and looks miles into the city. It's a destroyed city this time. Loathe-ar falls to his knees as T'Pol looks around.
"They kind of give it away when they show Quantum all cured during the station sign," the Evil Dr. Mathra comments.
Hill Person Hoshi chastises Loathe-ar, "You said they'd be waiting for us!" Loathe-ar whines that he saw everything so clearly, fountains, floating gardens, and fellow freak-speakers. T'Pol tells him that if he comes back to Enteprise, they'll find out what happened to their city. Loathe-ar doesn't like that idea and refuses to leave his home. T'Pol pleads with him to realize that the ruins are ancient and no one has lived there for a long time. Loathe-ar points out the body, insisting that's not an ancient body: "Some. One. Killed. Them. Why?" Loathe-ar wants to know who would destroy the city, and starts to have a breakdown. But he puts it on hold to accuse T'Pol and her people of being the weapons of mass destruction. T'Pol denies this and again pleads with him to come back to the ship. "I don't belong on Enterprise!" Loathe-ar says, throwing T'Pol over a stone pillar and choking her. "I. Belong. Here." Hill Person Hoshi hisses that someone is coming. T'Pol insists that they aren't her humans, and since they aren't safe there, she leads them into the destroyed city. Two EV suits with green headlights arrive on the scene and see them running through the city. They tell their team that they've found them. The captain orders them to take the Vulcan woman and destroy the others.
Run away. Pursue. Run away. Pursue. Fall down. Pursue.
Loathe-ar attacks a solitary EV suit and knocks him down. While Loathe-ar is occupied with bashing the EV suit with his own gun and accusing him of destroying his city, another EV suit tries to abduct T'Pol but is fought off by Vulcan kung-fu and Hill Person Hoshi. Loathe-ar raises a huge rock above his head and goes, "Arrrrrrrgh!" as he prepares to smash the EV's head in. T'Pol stops him and tells him they have to get to the surface. Loathe-ar grunts his agreement, and they run off. The EV suit comes to consciousness and discovers a tear in his EV suit.
Loathe-ar, T'Pol and Hill Person Hoshi run.
Two EV suits find their fellow EV suit, who has become infected through the tear in his suit, and subsequently turn him into Alien Brulée. I really think it's time for Chef to rotate the dessert specials.
Loathe-ar, T'Pol, and Hill Person Hoshi run into a clearing and find themselves surrounded by other EV suits. T'Pol shoves Loathe-ar and Hill Person Hoshi behind her and brandishes a gun at the EV suits. There's a fight, T'Pol is knocked away, and the EV suits close in on the two Hill People, blowtorches aimed. Three Starfleet EV suits beam down and quickly fire at all the Blowtorch EV suits. Trip asks if they're okay. "You said you'd never use the transporter again," T'Pol comments. "Believe me, I wish I had a choice," Trip says, and explains the situation with the other vessels. T'Pol convinces Loathe-ar that he and Hill Person Hoshi, who has wrapped herself protectively around her Alpha Alien, will be safer on the ship.
A sh'pod returns to the ship.
Bridge. May-You-Snooze-You-Lose stands up from the Captain's chair to receive Trip's comm. Trip wants Phlox standing by in decon, and orders the ship to go to warp four as soon as they're all in. May-You-Snooze-You-Lose gets into the pilot's seat, and Enterprise takes off. The other two ships follow. Trip walks onto the Bridge, and May-You-Snooze-You-Lose tells him how close the other two ships are. Trip orders the weapons readied and refuses all their calls. Some Rent-a-Redshirt announces that the other ship is charging weapons. Enterprise is hit. Trip sits down before he falls down in the Captain's seat. They're losing hull plating. The other captain hails them again and appears on screen to order them out of warp. "Look," Trip says, "we both want the same thing -- a cure for this virus, right? Our doctor thinks he's found one but he needs a little more time to --" The other captain says he will contain the outbreak whether Trip plans to help him or not. At that moment, the door slides open, and Quantum stumbles onto the Bridge with Phlox at his side and Hoshi following. "Why're you firing at my ship?" Quantum slur-demands. He still has a few facial remnants of Loathe-ar. The other captain reminds him of the infections on his ship. Phlox angrily points out that Quantum and Hoshi are the two people the captain's EV suits almost caramelized on the planet: "As you can see, they're responding quite well to the antivirus I synthesized." The other captain doesn't believe it's possible. "Run scans, see for yourself," Phlox orders. The other captain nods at someone off the viewscreen. "Like I said, he just needed a little more time," Trip tells him, standing to Quantum. I'm pleased to see that both Quantum and Hoshi stopped to see Mr. Mott on their way up to the Bridge. Trip says they would be glad to share their research with them if they'd reconsider destroying the ship.
Quantum logs that they gave Phlox's serum to the captain of the containment vessel, which they will be able to use to prevent future outbreaks. Quantum comments that it will be a few more days before he and the Half Hill People feel fully human again.
Sickbay. Phlox hyposprays Reed and tells him it will help his headaches. "Have you got anything for the stomach?" Reed groans, holding his. "Chef's food isn't sitting too well." Not even the crème brulée? Phlox suggests he avoid the Mess Hall until his digestive tract is back on track. "What do you suggest I eat?" Reed whines. Phlox shrugs, "You're welcome to some of the moth larvae I feed to my Pyrithian bat." Quantum enters, and Reed gets up to leave. They both ask after each other's health, and Quantum tells Reed to follow T'Pol and Hoshi's leads in taking the day off. Reed thanks him. Quantum claps him on the shoulder as he staggers out. Phlox holds up a vial and tells him it's the last of the mutagenic virus: "I assume you want me to destroy it?" Why are these viruses always electric blue? Quantum looks like he's got the Atari symbol on his forehead. He also doesn't want the virus destroyed because, as he holds the virus in his hand and soliloquizes, "This was created as a final effort to preserve a civilization, a people. That species we became will cease to exist the moment this virus is gone." Phlox tries to interject. Quantum finishes, "We came out here to stop the Xindi from destroying humanity -- I'll be damned if I'm going to have a hand in destroying another race in the process." Quantum hands back the vial: "Put it on ice, Doc. In stasis, whatever. Understood?" Phlox nods and sticks the vial in a lockbox, which emits a blue light from its drawer as it receives the vial.
week: An alien prostitute seduces the entire ship, even the women. But she's not green, so stop chanting "Orion Slave Girl" or I'm gonna have to pop you one.