The Enterprise crew comes across a ship floating lifeless in space, and despite warnings from T'Pol an away team goes across to investigate it. But when they find the alien crew within dead and being drained of fluids, will they stay to find out who did such a thing, or flee before it happens to them?

With no guest cast to speak of, this is a dangerous episode to use as your second one out, but all credit to Rick Berman and Brannon Braga for kicking in the characterization very early on as we continue to explore the trials and tribulations of life on board a fairly slow-moving starship. Before the episode even kicks in we have plenty of strong scenes among the cast, with Reed trying to get weapons working so they'll actually hit things and many of the crew bored as they travel through sections of space with nothing in them. This more realistic approach will hopefully provide plenty of time for us to get to know the characters while we learn a little more about the universe in which they live.

The story itself is interesting, with the crew dealing with strange technology, an unknown race and an unknown language, a concept that is a little difficult to believe when Hoshi manages to master a basic grasp of an alien tongue within a few hours, but we'll let that go. Throwing all these extra problems at the crew is a good move, making their every plan very difficult to accomplish as they don't have the skills or the technology to interact with people they may meet. The ending is wonderfully tense, and it's all because of the language barrier, which could get all of them killed at any time.

Admittedly the story is a little slow to get going, but I for one appreciated the time that is taken to let us meet and get to know these characters a little better before throwing them into weekly pitched battles that such a relatively fragile ship is unlikely to be able to handle. Even in a brief firefight here they manage to lose a nacelle and the impulse engines. A fine attempt to build on what we know from the first episode, and it really holds the interest.

****

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