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Commander Tucker and Lt. Reed have
been on a mission to test the targeting scanners on Shuttlepod
1, requiring them to fly the craft at least 20,000 kilometers
from Enterprise. During their trials they experienced an unusual
jolt that disabled their sensor array and com system, forcing
them to return early to the asteroid field where Enterprise has
been engaged in a mapping project. Upon arriving at the
rendezvous point, the two men are shocked to find a field of
debris on an asteroid's surface, including a hull fragment that
is unmistakably a piece of Enterprise.
Meanwhile Enterprise is
actually transporting a group of Tesnians back to their
homeworld after their ship was mysteriously destroyed in the
asteroid field. The Tesnian ship was attempting to dock with
Enterprise when it went out of control, tearing off the
Enterprise launch bay door and crashing into the asteroid.
Fortunately the crew escaped, and Captain Archer expects to
reach Tesnia in enough time to get back to the rendezvous point
before Tucker and Reed return. T'Pol hypothesizes that the
damage was caused by a micro-singularity, which Archer dismisses
as a Vulcan myth.
Under the belief that the wreckage is the remains of Enterprise,
and with sensor and com systems off-line, Tucker and Reed can
only assume the worst, that their crewmates are dead. With only
10 days of air, Tucker decides to set course for Echo III, the
nearest subspace amplifier, grimly accepting the fact that at
the shuttlepod's sublight speed they will never get a distress
beacon out in time to be rescued, but at least Starfleet will
know what happened. En route Tucker tries in vain to restore the
pod's systems, while Reed spends hours logging letters to family
and old girlfriends saying goodbye and tying up loose ends in
his life. The two men get on each other's nerves as Tucker's
hope that they will somehow be found alive clashes with Reed's
more "realistic" pessimism. With nine days of oxygen left,
Tucker insists they get some rest. Reed finds himself in
Sickbay, with T'Pol seductively congratulating him for his
heroics, but unfortunately it's just a dream, which he's torn
from as he's awakened by the noise of the receiver Tucker just
repaired. Suddenly the pod jolts—the same kind of jolt that
knocked out their sensor array earlier—and air starts escaping
into space. Using nitrogen gas to find the tiny leaks and
leftover mashed potatoes to temporarily seal them, they realize
whatever hit them went clear through the pod. And on its way out
of the cabin, it was kind enough to rupture one of the oxygen
cylinders, leaving them with less than two days of air.
Using valve sealant to permanently fix the cabin leaks, they
wonder how such a tiny object could penetrate the skin of the
pod that's designed to withstand meteors five times that size.
Then Tucker realizes they can buy another half day of air by
diverting power from the temperature regulator to the atmosphere
recyclers, so the men opt to endure freezing cold. On
Enterprise, T'Pol presents evidence to Archer that the Tesnian
ship indeed was struck by a micro-singularity, because three of
these "tiny black holes" also collided with the polarized
Enterprise hull, but dissipated on impact. Though skeptical of
her theory, Archer decides it would be dangerous for the
shuttlepod to enter the asteroid field again, so he orders T'Pol
to hail Tucker and Reed to set a new rendezvous point.
Meanwhile, under the stress of extreme cold, the two stranded
officers argue over their respective attitudes toward their
plight, Tucker accusing Reed of being a "grim reaper" and Reed
accusing him of "treacly optimism." But they do come together in
a toast for the brave men and women of the Starship Enterprise.
As they huddle together under a blanket with a bottle of
Kentucky bourbon, they hear a crackling voice on the receiver —
it's Hoshi, giving them new rendezvous coordinates. Enterprise
is okay! The bad news is, they're still two days away and the
pod only has only a day's worth of air, and with the transmitter
still out, there's no way to tell them to get there sooner.
Desperately trying to figure out what to do, such as finding
ways to extend their air supply, Reed and Tucker realize the
math is just not on their side. So their only course of action
is to attract the starship's attention to get them to go to high
warp. At Reed's suggestion, Tucker agrees to jettison the pod's
impulse engine rigged to self-destruct, causing an explosion
that they hope will show up on T'Pol's viewer. But doing so
leaves them adrift, and they go hours without knowing if their
message got through. Finishing off the bourbon with ten hours of
air left for two people, Tucker decides to double the odds of
one of them surviving, so he climbs into the airlock to seal
himself off, but Reed tries to argue him down and even points a
phase-pistol at him — he'd rather Enterprise find both of them
dead than one, but he's become hopeful things will work out.
Tucker relents, and the two men sit side by side in the cold,
waiting and shivering.
Reed opens his eyes to find himself in Sickbay, with Archer,
Phlox and T'Pol informing him he's suffering from hypothermia,
but was rescued with only two or three hours of air left. Reed
wonders if T'Pol has something to say to him about "heroics,"
but she doesn't — this isn't a dream. He turns to the
still-unconscious Tucker and acknowledges his fellow officer as
his friend.
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