A freighter is attacked by a group of Nausicaans and the Enterprise renders aid. However, the capture of one of the invaders puts the freighter top of the Nausicaan hit list and the Enterprise smack in the middle of a fight.

Now, we all know the freighter crew is hiding something from the word go, and when it turns out to be a Nausicaan prisoner, it begs the question 'why?' closely followed by 'how did they capture such a vicious fighting machine?' We're not really given an answer to either, and the whole episode draws out the will they, won't they premise of returning the Nausicaan to a ridiculous degree.

It's evidently an episode designed to give Travis some time in the spotlight, as he can relate to the situation of the freighter crew, practicing some old frontier justice and refusing to be beaten by the Nausicaans. However, he spends most of his time talking endlessly about how he can help and how Archer is making the wrong decisions, leading to a ridiculously dull speech at the end about making the right choices and how we all have to learn to live in peace with each other. The fact that Archer gives him free reign to do so is typical Star Trek heavy-handed moralizing, and I came away feeling that there was maybe some deeper meaning here, some kind of symbolism about a situation today, maybe that of truckers or road hauliers or something. But whatever it was, it's completely passed me by.

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