Precious Cargo (Enterprise episode)

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Star Trek: Enterprise episode
"Precious Cargo"
Trip escapes from kidnappers with an alien princess Precious Cargo
Episode no.	37
Prod. code	211
Airdate	December 11, 2002
Writer(s)	Rick Berman Brannon Braga Teleplay by: David A. Goodman
Director	David Livingston
Guest star(s)	Padma Lakshmi Leland Crooke Scott Klace
Year	2152
Stardate	unknown
Episode chronology
Previous	"Vanishing Point"
Next	"The Catwalk"

Precious Cargo is the 37^th episode (production #211) of the television series Star Trek: Enterprise.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

1 Synopsis
2 Plot
3 Trivia
4 External link

[edit] Synopsis

While answering a distress call, Trip is kidnapped along with a spoiled and beautiful alien princess.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Trip is in his quarters playing his armonica while in the window notices that the Enterprise had dropped out of warp and sees an alien ship. Captain Archer hails him throught the comm and call him for a task. Goff, the captain of an alien cargo vessel, asks Archer for help; a passenger-carrying stasis pod on his ship is malfunctioning. Archer offers Trip's services to help repair it while also extending an offer of Enterprise hospitality to the captain and his associate, Plinn.

When Trip entered the cargo hold inside Goof's ship, he notices the stasis chamber and when he cleared the frost covering the canopy, he saw a beautiful female alien. Goff told him that she is a passenger traveling home from a planet where she was studying medicine. Goff explained that because his ship can't travel over warp 3, the trip is too long and shw had to be kept in stacis because she could deplete the limited food rations if she stays awake. Not long after Trip starts working on the stasis pod, it begins to fail. Fearing that the beautiful occupant is suffocating, he releases her. Tucker is promptly knocked out by Goff who escapes from the faster Enterprise by disabling her engines and ionizing it's warp trail -- though Plinn is left behind.

The female passenger, Kaitaama, is rather hostile, but until Trip finds the translator Hoshi left with him, he's unable to figure out why -- seems she's a high-ranking soon-to-be First Monarch and she's a prisoner. Goff and Plinn kidnapped her is exchage for ransom. Trip has a plan for escape, and though she believes that her status will keep her safe, she reluctantly agrees to escape with Trip in a one-man pod. Trip finds a system with a habitable world and guides the pod to it, while doing his diplomatic best to endure Kaitaama's barbs. Meanwhile Captain Archer and T'Pol ploted a small ruse similar to "Good Cop, Bad Cop" to persuade Plinn to tell them how to locate Goff's ship. Captain Archer told Plinn that life aboard the Enterprise is very tough and higly disciplined and because Goff's actions to escape and damaging the ship, Plinn might be punished and disciplined like any other member of the crew. T'pol played her role as a judge magistrate and started to proceed the mocked trial. Archer implied that T'Pol is very strict, and fond of handing down extreme sentences. The plan worked and Plinn told everything they wanted to know.

They soon set up camp on a swampy island, and argue their way into a passionate kiss. But it’s not long before Goff finds them from the homing beacon on the escape pod. Trip and Goff fought until He was subdued just before the Enterprise rescue team (who tracked Goff's ship after Plinn was duped into giving information) arrives. Kaitaama is picked up by a battle cruiser from her home world, with an invitation for Trip to see her when she's in power.

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[edit] Trivia

The plot detail of having a beautiful woman in stasis is reminiscent of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode The Perfect Mate, which guest-starred Famke Janssen.

This section is a stub. You can help by expanding it.