“Booby Trap” is episode six of season three of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Geordi is on the holodeck on a date. By how the woman looks, it’s not going great. And it isn’t. Wesley is playing 3D chess against Data in Ten Forward. Out the port is an extremely dense asteroid field. Wesley remarks that this was the site of the final battle and Data says neither side expected Orelious IX to be the final conflict. The destruction is impressive given the primitive weapons of the period. Geordi enters at this point and Wesley realises this is far too early, given the big date he’s supposed to be on, for it to have gone well. Then Commander Riker calls Data to the bridge.
The Enterprise has picked up a signal, an ancient interplanetary code the captain thinks. Data confirms this. Riker doesn’t think it’s possible for a survivor to still be there. The captain says hardly possible, but they will lay in a course. At the source is a ship, a Promellian battle cruiser according to Worf. And the captain comments that the fusion engines are still intact. Data detects no lifesigns. Captain Picard says the ship belongs in a museum; they’re a little late as the call for help was likely initiated over a thousand years ago.
The Enterprise is in the area to chart the battle where two races fought until their mutual extinction. Picard plans to go over; Riker thinks it’s risky. The captain asks if he ever wanted to climb inside the bottle. As in a ship in a bottle? Riker is unfamiliar. The captain used to build them and he bets he had a Promellian battle cruiser. Worf and Data are waiting in the transporter room; Picard mentions ships in bottles again. Neither of them are familiar, or built them when they were boys; Worf did not play with toys – they are not toys – and Data was never a boy. O’Brien states he did, to the captain’s gratitude. After the away team beams out, Riker gives O’Brien a look. O’Brien protests that he really did build ships in bottles. Then, there’s a slight power drain. On the Promellian battle cruiser, the crew are all dead. Worf thinks it’s admirable; they died at their posts. The captain admires the bridge layout and the ship itself.
Geordi is in Ten Forward, commiserating with Guinan. It turns out she’s attracted to bald men; a bald man once took care of her. Geordi would like to take care of someone. He gets the engineering stuff, but not women. Guinan says he’s doing fine talking to her. Because he isn’t trying. On the bridge, main power fades slightly.
Data has restored power to the battle cruiser and they stop the distress signal. There’s a data storage device; crude today, but a thousand years ago it was far more advanced than anything human. On it is the final message from the captain, saying he is responsible for their fate and his crew performed admirably. Picard requests to be beamed back.
On the bridge, Captain Picard is enthused. He wants the Promellian battle cruiser scheduled for retrieval. Troi is smiling; it’s a pleasure to see this side of his personality. Data reports a drop in energy reserves and Worf that they are being bombarded by a field of high intensity radiation. The energy loss is increasing and neither impulse nor warp engines move them. Geordi states that they should be going, but they are not. They have stumbled into the same booby trap that caught the battle cruiser.
At a briefing of the senior staff, it’s stated that energy reserves will be depleted after 3 hours. After which, their shields will fail. They can’t find the source of the energy loss or an explanation. Data can find nothing similar to this used during the war. The captain wants Commander Riker to return to the battle cruiser; the Promellians knew their enemy and may have known what caused this, if not how to escape it.
Dr Crusher recommends to the captain evacuating people from certain parts of the ship, and setting up places to treat radiation symptoms. After shields fail, the radiation will be fatal in 30 minutes. On the Promellian battle cruiser, Riker and Data have found what may be the ship’s logs.
Geordi, meanwhile, is looking up the specs of the Enterprise‘s engines. He finds details on papers by Dr Leah Brahms, who worked on the engines, and heads to the holodeck to set up a simulation. Including Dr Brahms. Finally, Geordi manages to find a woman he can easily speak to. Much of the subsequent focus is on Geordi and Leah as they try to figure out a way to break free of the trap.