“Future Tense” is episode sixteen of season two of Star Trek: Enterprise.
Enterprise has encountered something drifting damaged in space. There are no biosigns, according to T’Pol, but the hull is scattering their sensors, and Reid reports no weapons signatures; the damage looks to be from an accident. The captain orders it brought inside and he, Reid and T’Pol check it over. There’s a possible hatch, which Reid uses a phase pistol to unseal, and the captain pries it open. Inside, there’s a single seat, occupied by the pilot. Who looks human.
In sickbay, Phlox confirms it was a human male. He can get a few fragments of DNA; the captain says if the pilot was Starfleet, his DNA will be in the database. T’Pol enters; there are no ships or inhabited systems for several light years. The captain wonders if it was Zefram Cochrane; there were rumours he was testing an experimental warp drive when he disappeared.
Travis, Reid and Trip are checking out the ship; Reid says it would never have shown on their sensors if not for the damage. Trip can’t find an engine and Travis can’t find a power source. Even an escape pod would need an engine.
Captain Archer speaks to Admiral Forrest, who knows of no mission it could be. If it is Zefram Cochrane, they’ll have solved the biggest missing person case in history. Or, according to the captain, discovered an even bigger mystery.
Reid and Trip have found some organic circuitry. And a hatch beneath it. When opened, it reveals a tube going some distance down. Beyond the hull of the ship. They wonder how a ship could be bigger on the inside. Evidently Doctor Who isn’t still going. It’s not a hologram either. Trip starts heading down and, despite Reid saying they should call the bridge first, he follows. Trip thinks he’s found a breached warp reactor.
A Suliban ship with minimal weapons arrives and the captain hails and demands they hand over the ship that one of their cell ships discovered. Archer suggests the Suliban contacts Sillik and discover just how well he responds to threats. Trip and Reid have found something and work to remove it as the Suliban vessel opens fire on Enterprise. As the two leave the salvaged ship, a Suliban appears and knocks Trip down. Reid grabs a phase pistol and shoots that as a second appears and tries to open the launch bay. Enterprise shoots at the Suliban ship, knocking out its weapons, and the two Suliban beam away as the Suliban ship cloaks.
The captain arranges to meet a Vulcan ship in three days which will take the salvaged craft back to Earth.
In engineering, Trip suggests the item they removed might be the black box, then Phlox contacts the captain and asks to see him in sickbay. Archer and T’Pol head there. Phlox hasn’t got a match to the dead man in Starfleet’s database. He has discovered Vulcan nucleotides in the DNA. The captain wonders how a human got Vulcan DNA. The answer is pretty obvious. But Phlox thinks the Vulcan ancestor was further back than his great-grandparent. Longer than Vulcans have been in contact with humans (well, excluding “Carbon Creek”). Phlox has also found Terellian DNA and another he hasn’t identified. The dead man is the result of several generations of interspecies breeding.
The captain and T’Pol head to Daniels’ quarters to look at the database there. As they’re scrolling through, T’Pol says it’s unlikely they could reproduce. At the captain’s look, she clarifies; humans and Vulcans. Not them personally. What they found is in the database with a construction date 900 years in the future. Powered by temporal displacement drive. The captain doesn’t want the Suliban to get it. T’Pol, assuming time travel is possible – the Vulcan Science Directorate has determined that time travel is impossible; even Phlox brings up her refusal to admit the possibility – why hasn’t it been retrieved by the future?
Then another alien vessel approaches. Tholian, according to T’Pol. Extreme xenophobes and it’s unusual for them to travel this far from their system. Three guesses why they have and the first two don’t count. So, both Suliban and Tholians are after the time ship. The captain is worried there may be others, too.