|
Upon leaving the Enolian homeworld,
Archer and Trip are mistakenly identified as smugglers and
arrested. The two men are placed on a prison transport headed
for the penal colony known as Canamar. Among their fellow
prisoners are the menacing Kuroda, a hulking Nausicaan and a
young, talkative alien named Zoumas.
Back on Enterprise, T'Pol
manages to convince an Enolian official that Archer and Trip are
innocent and he arranges for their safe return. Just as Archer
and Trip are about to be set free, however, Kuroda breaks free
and, with the Nausicaan's help, takes down the guard and pilot.
With the pilot out of commission, there's no one to fly the
ship. Hoping to figure out an escape plan of his own, Archer
volunteers to pilot the craft. He also pretends to be a
smuggler, hoping that Kuroda will come to trust him. When the
vessel comes under attack from Enolian patrol ships, Archer also
convinces Kuroda to allow Trip to assist them. Trip manages to
create a plasma cloud that, once ignited, fends the patrol ships
off, allowing prison transport jumps to warp.
Meanwhile, Archer has also managed to covertly transmit a
distress signal from the prison ship, and the Enterprise crew
picks up on it. Unfortunately, the Enolian official has bad news
— his superiors have issued orders to destroy the prison
transport. Although Archer and Trip are still onboard, the
Enolians are determined to get rid of the violent Kuroda. If the
crew is to save their fellow officers, they have to find the
prison transport before the Enolian patrol ships do.
Back on the prison transport, Kuroda is impressed with Archer's
ploy to fend off the Enolian ships. In fact, Kuroda has come to
respect Archer and asks the captain to join him on his next
endeavor. As the two men talk, Kuroda reveals that he was 14
when he first spent time in a penal colony. He was innocent, but
he still spent five years in prison, where he picked up many new
skills. He started making a living as a criminal after he was
released. Kuroda also finally reveals where he's taking the
transport: a trading outpost called Tamaal. Once there, they
will rendezvous with another ship and Kuroda will set the
transport on a decaying orbit. The other prisoners will be
incinerated. Naturally, this doesn't sit well with Archer, but
when he tries to talk Kuroda out of it, the other man merely
dismisses him.
Archer is determined to save the other prisoners and enlists
Trip's aid. Trip is freed under the pretense of fixing a docking
hatch, but Archer wants him to overpower the Nausicaan so they
can take control of the ship. Trip manages to render the hulking
alien unconscious, but the commotion draws the attention of
Kuroda, who stuns Trip with a weapon and realizes that Archer
has been plotting against him all along. The transport docks
with another ship at the Tamaal rendezvous point ... but when
the doors open, Reed, Mayweather and a Starfleet security guard
appear! The crew manages to get all of the prisoners off the
transport, which is now in a decaying orbit, but Kuroda refuses
to come. He would rather die than return to prison. As the
others leave, he remains on the transport and the vessel
explodes.
Back on Enterprise, the Enolian official demands a report for
his superiors. Archer, however, is in no mood to give one. He
tersely informs the official that Kuroda is dead and that he and
Trip were falsely arrested. Angrily, Archer wonders how many
others are on their way to Canamar that don't belong there.
 |