Star Trek

Archer on the Tellarite ship

The crew of the Enterprise encounters Skalaar, a Tellarite who offers to give them a tour of a nearby planet. As it turns out, Skalaar is actually a bounty hunter who kidnaps Archer, planning to turn him over to the Klingons for a reward. The Klingons have apparently placed a substantial price on Archer's head since his escape from Rura Penthe. Archer tries to plead his case with Skalaar, but the Tellarite doesn't want to listen, and claims not to care if Archer is guilty of the crime he was imprisoned for. Archer soon learns that Skalaar plans on using the substantial reward money to buy back his cargo ship, the Tezra.

The Tellarite runs into trouble when a rival bounty hunter tracks him down and demands that he turn over Archer. Skalaar refuses, and the rival bounty hunter opens fire on the Tellarite's ship. Archers convinces Skalaar to temporarily free him — while Skalaar makes repairs, Archer will pilot the craft. The two men end up landing on a nearby planet, where they make further repairs to Skalaar's ship. As they work, Archer learns more about Skalaar's circumstances. The Tezra is very important to Skalaar — it was the first ship of its class, and Skalaar retrofitted the engines himself. On one mission, Skalaar and his brother were hauling cargo when Skalaar decided to take a shortcut through Klingon space. Unfortunately, the Klingons caught them and took the ship. Skalaar dreams of buying it back one day.

On Enterprise, T'Pol and Phlox are undergoing decon in order to get rid of a microbe they picked up on a recent away mission. T'Pol is acting strangely — she's having a hard time controlling her emotions and is making sexual overtures to Phlox. It appears that the microbe has activated T'Pol's mating cycle — she is undergoing pon farr. If she doesn't mate with a male soon, she will die. Phlox races to find a treatment, but T'Pol's emotions keep getting more and more erratic. Finally, she knocks Phlox out and escapes from Sickbay. Luckily, Reed and a security team manage to track her down and sedate her.

Meanwhile, Skalaar pays his brother Gaavrin a visit. Gaavrin now works as a maintenance engineer and is skeptical of Skalaar's schemes to win back the Tezra. Skalaar asks for an antimatter injector and tells Gaavrin it's only a matter of time before he's able to get the Tezra back. Gaavrin angrily informs Skalaar that his plan won't work — the Klingons cannibalized the ship a long time ago. There's nothing left of it. Skalaar is devastated by this news. Even if he can't get the Tezra back, he still has to give Archer to the Klingons ... or he may end up dead as well. Archer, however, has an idea.

Skalaar turns Archer over to the Klingons as planned, but hides a small lock pick in the captain's handcuffs. Meanwhile, he also alerts Enterprise to the location of the Klingon ship. Archer frees himself and departs the Klingon ship in an escape pod, just as Enterprise is arriving on the scene. Enterprise locks on to Archer and fends off the Klingon ship, damaging it enough to make a quick getaway.

In Sickbay, Phlox has managed to treat T'Pol and she wakes up feeling more or less like her usual self. Though T'Pol is embarrassed by her actions, Phlox promises not to mention what happened to anyone.

Finally, Skalaar contacts Archer to make sure the captain escaped the Klingons. He also warns that the price on Archer's head will probably double. Grateful to have made a new friend, Archer bids Skalaar farewell.