Precious Cargo

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

Synopsis

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

Plot

Trip is in his quarters playing his harmonica in the window when he 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 Goff's ship, he notices the stasis chamber, clears the frost covering the canopy, and sees a beautiful female alien. Goff tells him that she is a passenger traveling home from a planet where she was studying medicine. He 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 there is not enough food to support her. 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 its warp trail; Plinn is left behind.

The female passenger, Kaitaama, is rather hostile. However, until Trip finds the translator Hoshi left with him, he is unable to figure out why. She seems to be a high-ranking soon-to-be First Monarch and she is a prisoner. Goff and Plinn kidnapped her in 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 soon Goff finds them using the homing beacon on the escape pod. Trip and Goff fight until the latter is subdued, just as 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 of Krios Prime, with an invitation for Trip to see her when she is in power.

External links

• Precious Cargo at the Internet Movie Database
• "Precious Cargo" at TV.com
• Precious Cargo at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• Precious Cargo at StarTrek.com