“Precious Cargo” is episode eleven of season two of Star Trek: Enterprise.
Trip is in his quarters when Enterprise comes out of warp. There’s a ship approaching and the captain contacts Trip, asking him if he’s up for a little repair work and to mee them at docking port two.
Trip meets the captain and T’Pol. The ship is a Retellian freighter and they’re having problems with one of their life support systems. The two Retellians are greeted and they explain they were hired to transport a young woman to her homeworld. A few days ago, the stasis pod began to malfunction. She’s a passenger, but their ship is designed to hold cargo. It’s a very long journey, with another five months left, and if she wakes up, they won’t have enough food or air. If they have to abort, they won’t get paid. Trip leaves with one of the Retellians, Plinn, to take a look and the other, Goff, asks the captain if they could have a bath.
Trip takes a look at the pod and asks if he can get Hoshi to translate the language. And takes a look at the, attractive, woman in the pod.
The captain meets with Goff in his ready room and says that Enterprise could have them at their destination in four days, if they dock their craft (even though said craft looks like it wouldn’t fit in the saucer section, never mind the shuttle bay). Goff doesn’t seem that eager and declines the offer. He says everything has been carefully prearranged. The woman’s family isn’t expecting her four five months and aren’t even on their homeworld currently.
Hoshi takes Trip a translation of the language. And tells him it’s not polite to stare, as he’s fixated on the young woman. After Hoshi leaves, Trip hears a noise. The woman has woken up and is banging on the inside of the pod.
The two Retellians are dining with Captain Archer and T’Pol when Goff gets a warning that the stasis pod has malfunctioned. He heads back to the ship and ends up helping Trip get her out. Trip seems to overlook that the ‘passenger’ has had her hands bound and Goff hits him over the head. Plinn is called away as well and the captain gets concerned. He tries to contact Trip and, on net getting an answer, calls Reed to escort Plinn to his ship. Goff opens fire as they arrive and gets away in the ship, leaving Plinn behind. Enterprise pursues it and takes out a nacelle, but the freighter dumps gunk that blocks Enterprise‘s plasma vents and gets away into warp.
Trip comes to and gets hit by the woman this time. She’s making demands in a language he doesn’t understand when Goff enters and tells him to repair the pod to put the passenger back into stasis. After Goff leaves, Trip looks for his universal translator; the woman finds it. When the translator starts working, the woman asks Trip knows about her captors. She was returning from a diplomatic mission when her transport was attacked and her guards murdered. Doesn’t Trip know who she is? He does not. Her family is known on hundreds of worlds. Well, Earth isn’t one of them. She will be the First Monarch of the Sovereign Dynasty of Krios Prime. She is willing to wait until the ransom is paid. Trip is not, likely rightfully concluding that once he’s fixed the stasis pod, he will die. He is going to find the escape pods. The First Monarch tries ordering him. It doesn’t work.
Plinn is being questioned by Captain Archer and isn’t proving to be very helpful. He ends up using a deception on Plinn to convince him to cooperate. Trip is not getting on with the First Monarch; though she doesn’t want to leave, she does end up leaving in an escape pod with him. Complaining all the time. The two are arguing and not getting on; there’s only one way that’s going to end up.