Trip and Malcolm are shaking on the Romulan drone ship prototype, while the pilot works on controlling it from Romulus. Admiral Valdore orders Nijil to work on the ship's holographic disguise, and the pilot to stabilise it. While Trip and Malcolm recover from their dizziness, the drone ship targets a Rigellian scoutship. After a fight, the Rigellians send a distress call and are subsequently destroyed by the drone ship, which was disguised as Enterprise.
On the bridge of the Enterprise, Archer reveals that nobody on the scoutship survived. He then shows them a visual record of the incident and reveals that the Rigelians are demanding compensation and Archer's arrest. T'Pol and Travis, using a new kind of scanning device they developed, begin searching for the drone ship. Phlox treats Talas, who was shot by Naarg, in sickbay, then Archer enters. He has a plan involving uniting the humans, Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites, but realises it may be hard when Shran expresses enthusiasm at the idea of killing Tellarites.
On Romulus, Sen. Vrax complains that the drone ship is damaged. Valdore reminds him that it can repair itself, but Vrax is worried it'll be discovered. Valdore points out that it has no crew, but Vrax reminds him that its design mirrors that of a warbird. He orders Valdore to return it to Romulus, threatening to hold him responsible for the ship's loss. In Archer's ready room, he talks with T'Pol over the situation— Starfleet is tracking down Enterprise, Columbia can't help as it's being repaired, and the Vulcans are too busy to help. She discovers his plan to involve the Andorians and Tellarites, surprising her. She isn't so sure it'll work, but Archer thinks that they need to act fast.
Trip and Malcolm explore the Romulan ship's bridge, and they speculate that it may be controlled by computers and thus able to be deactivated with a control. With this hypothesis, they search for said control. Back on Enterprise, Shran and Gral argue, and Archer, fearing that they'll start fighting, tells them to put aside their differences lest the Romulans take over.
The drone ship goes into warp and Trip notices a power spike on the bridge, hinting that warp is controlled from there. Thus, he and Malcolm work together and find the controls. Meanwhile, Nijil notes that the vessel's surveillance system is offline and it's dropped out of warp. It's subsequently revealed that Trip cut off the power to the warp controls. Trip and Malcolm then find a map, which, when touched, leads to a secret door. Nijil reports that someone is in the service junction, but that they'll have what they need to kill him there. Trip continues to disable the controls, which the Romulans note will take a day or so to repair, which is too long, so Valdore orders Nijil to seal Trip in the service junction. When he does, Trip and Malcolm try to open the door, but radiation begins leaking into the room and Valdore's voice says over an intercom that if he doesn't fix the warp matrix, he will die in seven minutes.
Shran hands Archer a padd containing the communication codes the Andorians will use in the sensor grid. Archer tells Shran that the Tellarites have also agreed to work with him. Then, the two start admiring Archer's pictures of various other craft named Enterprise and wondering if the two species will be allies and they'll make history. Meanwhile, Trip wants to deactivate the reactor (which is where the radiation is coming from) while Malcolm shoots the door, but neither plan works since the phase pistol has no effect and there is a backup system.
T'Pol gives Archer an update, then Phlox calls him to sickbay, where it turns out that Talas is dead, so Shran cries. Trip, meanwhile, has been trying unsuccessfully to deactivate the backup reactor. He orders Malcolm not to obey the Romulans, but then passes out, so Malcolm does so anyway to save Trip's life. The Tellarites arrive, then Shran enters, carrying some of Talas's blood since when an Andorian dies off-world, a part of them must be carried home. He angrily spills the blood on Naarg, then threatens to remove the Andorians from the sensor grid project.
Malcolm reconnects the warp matrix and demands Valdore stop the release of the radiation. He opens the hatch to the service enters, Malcolm enters, and the hatch closes. Then, it turns out that there is an overloaded phase pistol on the bridge. Valdore then orders Nijil to take the drone back to Romulus. Trip wakes up, and he and Malcolm work on escaping via an access panel. Nijil hears this conversation, but decides not to "deal with" the humans until the ship is back on Romulus, since the access panel leads away from the vital technology.
Back on Enterprise, T'Pol and Hoshi reveal that Shran wants to do a traditional fight to the death with Naarg, and that Gral is forbidding Naarg from fighting but that the Andorians would find that offensive. While Shran sharpens his weapon, Archer enters and tells him not to throw away his chances of an alliance just to avenge Talas. Shran counters that he's lost more than just her; he's lost his ship and most of his crew too and risks losing the Imperial Guard's approval if he backs down. Eventually, Archer decides to take Naarg's place.
Trip and Malcolm head for the outer hull where they may be able to link their communicators to the subspace transceivers and contact Enterprise, while Nijil notes that the ship is starting to repair itself... and Valdore asks to be notified when its self-destruct button is working again. Meanwhile, T'Pol is worried about Archer — Shran is a more experienced fighter and Starfleet is dead-set on destroying the Romulan drone ship, which won't happen if an Andorian or Tellarite is killed. Meanwhile, Hoshi is learning about the code surrounding the tradition and looking for loopholes, with Travis joining in.
They fail to find a way out of the fight, so they decide to find a way for Archer to win instead. The fight begins, and Shran loses, but he survives with a severed antenna. He's embarrassed, but reveals that the Andorians are still part of the sensor grid project, and his antenna will grow back.
The Romulan ship is detected, so Archer orders an intercept course and orders Hoshi to inform the entire allied fleet. The Romulans realise the Enterprise is after the drone ship, so Valdore orders Nijil to turn the disguise on. The Enterprise nears the ship, which is disguised as a Vulcan ship, and they charge their weapons up. Vrax shows up and chews out Valdore for not stopping the intruders, then T'Pol detects two human lifesigns on the ship. Archer hails them, and Trip and Malcolm answer.
Enterprise can't beam Trip and Malcolm back, but they start firing at its disguise generator. Archer tells his two crewmen to move towards the hull. Nijil worries that the drone ship's repair technology will break down again, but Vrax is confident it won't. Trip and Malcolm reach the hull, but T'Pol can't get a transporter lock onto them. Travis orders them to jump off the ship, which they do (meanwhile, the Romulans notice that Enterprise's weapons are offline) and T'Pol's just about to beam them up, when she fails due to being hit. Six allied ships approach the drone ship, but Archer orders them to hold their fire so that Trip and Malcolm don't get shot. Vrax orders the pilot to withdraw the drone ship, then Trip and Malcolm are beamed aboard Enterprise.
In the briefing room, Archer goes over the situation with T'Pol, Shran, and Gral. Shran and Gral agree that a alliance seems good if it can stop the drone ship. The drone ship returns to Romulan space, where the pilot's helmet is removed, revealing him to be an albino Andorian.
Tropes
- Altar the Speed: Discussed - When Hoshi and Travis are searching for a way to get Archer out of his duel, Travis points out a rule that a childless challenger could postpone. Hoshi clarifies that it only applies if the person is married. Travis admits the difficulty of finding the captain a wife in only a few hours.Hoshi: Even if we could, something tells me the Andorians would cry foul.
- Call-Forward:
- Earth, Vulcan, Andoria, and Tellar (the eventual founding members of the Federation) reach their first agreement to work together in common cause.
- While discussing Legacy Vessel Naming, Shran muses, "Perhaps future ships will be named after our vessels, especially if we do something historic."
- Can't Kill You, Still Need You: After slicing off one of Shran's antennae, Archer says that he might've killed him if he didn't still need him.
- Character Death: Talas dies from her phase pistol wound.
- Continuity Nod: T'Pol tells Archer "One man can summon the future," an old Vulcan proverb, in an effort to talk him out of taking place in the duel. Mirror Spock invoked the opposite ("One man cannot summon the future.") as a response to Kirk attempting to talk him into rebellion.
- Danger Deadpan: Archer is remarkably calm during the duel, saying he just wants it done so he can get back to work.
- Duel to the Death: Shran challenges one of the Tellarites delegates to this for killing Talas, but Archer substitutes himself to keep the alliance intact.
- Due to the Dead: According to Shran, it's Andorian tradition to bring the blood of a fallen comrade back to Andoria.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Travis recounts a time in which his father was challenged to a duel to the death. Hoshi asks how he got out of it, and he then asks for the rules of engagement.
- False Flag Operation: Valdore brings the humans into their campaign by destroying a Rigelian ship while the drone is disguised as Enterprise.
- Fragile Speedster: The drone ship. It maneuvers like no other ship ever seen because it doesn't need to worry about a crew, but it's prone to system failures and tends to take a lot of damage when it gets hit.
- Godzilla Threshold: Archer pushes for an unprecedented alliance between bitter enemies because the Romulans are a great threat and may someday have a thousand drone ships at their disposal instead of just one.
- Humans Are Special: Archer is able to get members of long-feuding species to sit at the table and negotiate an alliance. This is attributed to humans being the only one of the four species to have good relations with the others. He also notes that humans are more likely than other species to put differences aside when faced with a common threat, a point that Shran and Gral's constant arguing during the meeting is actually helping to make.
- Insult Backfire:Shran: I'd rather cohabit with Klingon targs than join forces with Tellarites!
Gral: Your personal mating preference is no concern of mine! - Interspecies Friendship: Shran (an Andorian) now considers Archer (a human) his friend and thus isn't totally onboard with fighting him to the death (but decides to do so anyway).
- It Has Been an Honor: Shran tells Archer that it's been an honor knowing him, and promises to ensure he's honored on Andoria.
- Legacy Vessel Naming: Shran gets a look at the drawings in Archer's ready room, and asks if Archer served on all of them, who corrects him and explains that they're all ships with the name "Enterprise." Shran notes that his own ship, the Kumari, was named for the first ice cutter to circumnavigate Andoria.
- Loophole Abuse: Though the duel is supposed to be to the death, Hoshi and Travis realize that the exact stipulation is until one fighter is incapable of combat. Archer chops off one of Shran's antennae, which throws off Shran's equilibrium and wins the duel for Archer. Shran is annoyed, since the antennae take a while to grow back and it was embarrassing, but he respects that Archer would put the effort in and considers the matter settled.
- Manly Tears: Shran is visibly heartbroken when Talas dies.
- More Expendable Than You: This is Archer's reasoning behind substituting himself in the duel. Shran and the Tellarites are too stubborn to budge on the duel and either party getting their way would sour the other on the alliance. If Archer competes, however, worst case scenario is that he dies and Starfleet just replaces him.
- Off-the-Shelf FX: Close ups reveal that Malcolm's Phase Pistol is actually a toy one by Art Asylum.
- Properly Paranoid: Vrax is afraid that even though the drone ship doesn't have a crew, the Vulcans may still trace its technology back to the Romulans. He has no idea that T'Pol has already done so.
- Remember the New Guy?: Vrax has a pair of Reman bodyguards, making this their only appearance in the franchise outside of Nemesis.
- Self-Destruct Mechanism: Valdore considers using the drone ship's self-destruct to stop Trip and Malcolm.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Malcolm destroys the drone ship's bridge and disables half its systems with an overloading phaser.Malcolm: (to Trip) You're good at building things; I'm good at blowing them up.
- Take a Third Option: The duel boxes Archer into this. The Tellarites would rather pull out of the alliance than honor Shran's challenge and wouldn't take kindly to Naarg being killed anyway, but the Andorians will pull out if Shran's challenge is ignored. Archer knows he can take the risk in this duel, though, as Starfleet won't pull out if he's killed and the Andorians won't begrudge him if he wins.
- Think Nothing of It: Of the "You would've done the same for me" when Trip thanks Malcolm for saving his life.
- Thrown Out the Airlock: Trip and Malcolm space themselves to escape the drone ship. Fortunately, they're both wearing their EV suits, and they survive long enough for Enterprise to beam them up.
- Troll: Trip thanks Malcolm for saving his life, but he says he intends to put him on report for disobeying orders. Malcolm is outraged until he learns Trip is just messing with him.
- Wham Shot:
- When the drone ship attacks the Rigellians, Valdore uses a new disguise — Enterprise.
- As the drone crosses into Romulan space, Valdore orders the pilot disconnected...and it's revealed to be an albino Andorian.
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: Archer is practically giddy over the idea of an alliance of planets. The possibility of getting killed in the process hasn't quite fazed him.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: After Malcolm reconnects the marauder's warp drive, Valdore decides to kill him and Trip.
