Dead Stop

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Star Trek: Enterprise episode
"Dead Stop"
The automated repair station is too good to be true.
Episode no.	31
Prod. code	204
Airdate	October 9, 2002
Writer(s)	Michael Sussman Phyllis Strong
Director	Roxann Dawson
Guest star(s)	Roxann Dawson (uncredited)
Year	2152
Stardate	unknown
Episode chronology
Previous	"Minefield"
Next	"A Night in Sickbay"

"Dead Stop" is the 31st episode (production #204) of the television series Star Trek: Enterprise.

[edit] Synopsis

After the Enterprise's debacle in the previous episode, "Minefield", the crew finds itself in need of assistance to affect repairs. They send a distress call and the Tellarites send the coordinates of a station — a station capable of serving their every need at a cost which seems too good to be true.

[edit] Plot

Four days after surviving the Romulan minefield, Archer and Trip inspect the extensive damage to the ship. Archer figures that it's about time someone helps them out for once and orders Hoshi to craft a general distress call. A passing Tellarite freighter sends a garbled message directing them to an automated repair facility, with a warning about some undefined "cost" for using it.

Upon arriving at the facility, which appears ill-equipped at first, the ship is scanned and the station reconfigures itself to suit their needs. The unmanned station (voiced by uncredited episode director Roxann Dawson) sets the full repair price, including healing Reed's previously injured leg, at 200 litres of warp plasma, an excellent bargain. With its advanced replication technology, it can do this in just 32 hours, whereas Starfleet's best repair teams would take months. Notably, this marks the first appearance of such technology (timeline-wise) in Star Trek canon.

Archer has a gut feeling that not everything is as it appears, but he can't put his finger on it. Tucker and Reed sneak around the station to find its computer — not out of suspicion, but out of curiosity, since the only place it could be is a room several times smaller than the computer running Enterprise — but their attempt is foiled by the computer, which beams them back to the ship. Meanwhile, a comm message, ostensibly from Archer, directs Ensign Travis Mayweather to an area currently being repair. He is found dead soon after. Stranger still is the fact that Archer never sent any such message, and Mayweather never received or sent any comm messages beforehand.

When Phlox discovers that the dead Mayweather isn't actually Mayweather at all, but instead a replicated dummy, Archer resolves to search the station for him. Reed leads Archer and T'Pol in the same air duct that he and Tucker used to find the computer. He again trips the alarm which sent him back to the ship the first time, giving T'Pol and Archer the information needed to overcome it. They find the computer room is filled with bodies — apparently the computer takes a crewmember from every customer and uses their brain to augment its own processing power. Among the alien bodies are a Klingon and a Cardassian. Mayweather is rescued just as the station starts attacking Enterprise in retaliation. Archer uses the warp plasma payment as a bomb to blow up the station and escape.

In the aftermath of the explosion, the few active components of the station set to work repairing the damage, getting ready to serve the next potential customer.