“Shuttlepod One” is episode sixteen of season one of Star Trek: Enterprise.
Reed and Trip are in Shuttlepod One. They’re entering an asteroid field that Enterprise is supposed to be mapping. Reed can’t find them, but the pod wasn’t expected back for three days; the Enterprise may have departed. The sensor array is down and so is the comm. Trip would be more comfortable fixing it before they return. Reed will catch up on some reading. Which leads into banter about how British schools have a well-rounded education and Reed thinking that North Americans only read comic books and sci-fi novels. According to Trip, Superman is laced with metaphor. Reed thinks that, if Cochrane was European, the Vulcans would have been far less reticent to help. Trip is saying no Europeans had invented warp drive when Reed calls him over. There’s debris on an asteroid. And part of the Enterprise.
On Enterprise, Hoshi enters the captain’s ready room. Apparently, Dr Phlox can only keep a dozen Tesnians in the decon chamber at once. The other 22 are rotating. They need at least 6 hours of boron a day. The Tesnian ship captain doesn’t know what happened and feels terrible about the damage to Enterprise. They were approaching to dock when systems failed. Fortunately, the life pods still worked. Archer checks with Travis how long to their destination, which is plenty of time to get back for Reed and Trip, so he wants to drop out of warp to inspect the damage.
The captain inspects the ship with T’Pol; they need a new starboard door for launch bay two. According to T’Pol, the damage could have been caused by micro singularities. Which Archer says are a Vulcan myth. And nothing happened to Enterprise. Their hull plating was polarised, though, T’Pol tells him.
Reed and Trip are trying to work out what to do. With no sensors or comms, they can’t scan the debris for such as black boxes. Which would also result in them discovering the wreckage isn’t from the Enterprise. Their distress beacon has limited range, they have 10 days of air and are weeks or months from anywhere. Reed states by the time they get anywhere they will be long dead. They argue and Trip orders Reed to determine the way to go. Does Trip have a sextant? No; he left it with his slide rule. Reed thinks he recognises a blue giant they passed.
Reed starts recording a log about what happened that led to the Enterprise’s destruction. He and Trip were testing the targeting scanners on the shuttlepod. The third test resulted in a jolt that took their sensor array offline. Totally fried, according to Trip. They headed back. Without sensors, they couldn’t determine the cause of the destruction. Trip wants Reed to help, instead of pessimistically recording a log. Trip thinks they will find someone. As they are a long way from anywhere, Reed does not. Reed gets the rations out and finds some Kentucky bourbon. The captain was planning to give that to someone, according to Trip. He guesses it’s theirs now.
Trip is trying to sleep but Reed is recording a message to his parents. Reed thinks they have too little time to waste it sleeping. Trip warns him if he doesn’t get some sleep, he will get cranky.
Reed wakes up in sickbay with Phlox, Archer and T’Pol hovering over him. Trip is unconscious. The behaviour of everyone seems a little off. Except for T’Pol’s behaviour, which is a lot off. It’s not surprising that Reed gets woken up from a dream. Just before T’Pol would have kissed him. Trip has repaired the transceiver. Then the shuttlepod suffers another impact like before and the hull is breached.
Almost all of the episode is spent in the shuttlepod, with only Trip and Reed getting much screen time. Much of which is spent bickering with each other. Including over who gets to die first so that the other one can live longer and the large number of recordings Reed is making.