“Oasis” is episode twenty of season one of Star Trek: Enterprise.
Captain Archer, Trip and T’Pol are having dinner with a trader, D’Marr. The captain says they need engineering supplies but D’Marr prefers dealing in more exotic goods. Two days away is a system where they might find what they are looking for, though. T’Pol says they haven’t picked up any inhabited planets. D’Marr says it’s not inhabited. Not exactly. Then talks about the coffee. The captain thinks he’s bargaining, but D’Marr isn’t. Or, not exactly. There’s a crashed ship and D’Marr says no lifesigns were detected, so he landed to claim salvage, A transport vessel, largely intact. He could have made a fortune stripping it bare. He didn’t, because the crew objected. T’Pol reminds D’Marr he said there were no lifesigns. True. There was nothing alive. Is he suggesting it’s a ghost ship? It sounds like he is.
The Enterprise heads there and Reed locates the ship. No power signatures, no biosigns and it appears deserted. Travis is concerned they are disturbing a tomb, but D’Marr didn’t mention finding any bodies. Trip tells Archer that they’re suffered more damage than expected and that ship would patch a lot of hull fractures.
The captain, Trip, T’Pol and Travis head down to the ship. T’Pol and Trip head to engineering. Travis asks Archer why, if D’Marr left in such a hurry, he bothered to close the hatch behind him. In engineering, T’Pol hears something. But detects nothing alive. Trip suggests she imagined it. Vulcans do not imagine things. Nor does T’Pol get frightened. By anything. Archer and Travis find a computer terminal and remove the data modules to take back to Enterprise.
Trip is surprised that the dilithium crystals are in perfect shape. They could get the ship flying again. T’Pol sees a reflection and turns around. There’s nothing there. Trip thinks she’s trying to scare him, until he sees a shadow of a person. He contacts the captain. T’Pol has detected a space behind a bulkhead. They cut through and find a hydroponics bay; apparently shielded from sensors. Trip finds a woman who runs off. Both he and T’Pol follow and find a lot of armed people.
Travis and the captain join them. The ship’s captain, Kuulan, is saying they were heading back from a colony when they were attacked by unknown raiders. They’re just a supply ship and ended up making a crash landing. They didn’t make a distress call because that might attract the raiders back. They’ve been here nearly three years. Archer says they can take them home and Trip says he can get the ship flying. The engineer, Ezral (Rene Auberjonois, best known as Odo in DS9), says they’ve tried. They don’t seem that enthused about the idea of going home.
Trip is working later on when the young woman, Liana (Annie Wersching), startles him again. He continues working until she warns him not to touch something; her father, Ezral, routed power through it. Liana’s mother doesn’t want her with Trip it seems, when she comes looking for her daughter.
T’Pol and Trip are looking at the power and Trip suggests that Liana could help T’Pol. T’Pol thinks she can help Trip. Trip says Liana is very competent. So was the female engineer on the Xyrillian ship, according to T’Pol. She reminds Trip that the last time he found someone this competent, he wound up carrying her child. Liana arrives with food at this point. T’Pol leaves and Liana and Trip are chatting when Kuulan arrives. There’s something else that Trip might be able to help them with. The computer core is having problems and starting to degrade. Trip has worked on something similar. On a Xyrillian ship. He needs something from Enterprise and invites Liana along.
The crew of the downed ship are hiding something, and the crew of the Enterprise realise that they are. The question is what.