Precious Cargo

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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 harmonica while in the window notices that the Enterprise had dropped out of warp and sees an alien ship. Captain Archer hails him through the comm and call him for a task. Goff, the captain of an Retellian 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 brother, Plinn.

When Trip enters the cargo hold inside Goof's ship, he notices the stasis chamber and when he clears the frost covering the canopy, he sees a beautiful female alien. Goff tells him that she is a passenger traveling home from a planet where she was studying medicine. Goff explains that because his ship can't travel over warp 3, the trip is too long and she has to be kept in stasis 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 will suffocate, 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 -- 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 exchange 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 plot a small ruse similar to "Good Cop, Bad Cop" to persuade Plinn to tell them how to locate Goff's ship. Captain Archer tells Plinn that life aboard the Enterprise is very tough and highly disciplined and because Goff's actions to escape and his damage to the ship, Plinn may be punished and disciplined like any other member of the crew. T'pol plays her role as a judge magistrate and started to proceed with a mock trial. Archer implies that T'Pol is very strict, and fond of handing down extreme sentences. The plan works and Plinn tells everything they want to know.

Trip and Kaitaama 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 fight until the latter is 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.

Spoilers end here.

[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.
Leland Crooke previously played Gelnon in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episodes "One Little Ship" and "Honor Among Thieves."
The Ardanan power relay is a reuse of the Chrono deflector used by the future Admiral Janeway in VOY: "Endgame".
The stardate is mentioned at the end of the episode; Capt. Archer saying "Captian's star-log September 12, 2152..."