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Sent by Admiral Forrest to respond to an automated
distress call, Enterprise intercepts the Earth cargo freighter Fortunate
and finds it badly damaged and not responding to hails. Captain Archer leads an
away team to board the vessel, and they are greeted by the freighter's acting
commander, first officer Matthew Ryan. Ryan informs Archer that the Fortunate
was attacked by Nausicaan pirates, who have been harassing freighters in the
sector for years, including the one Ensign Mayweather grew up on. Claiming the
distress call was a mistake, Ryan resists Archer's overtures of help, but Dr.
Phlox insists on tending to the injured captain. Once Phlox determines that
Captain Keene will need two or three days of treatment, Archer talks Ryan into
letting Enterprise engineers come aboard the Fortunate to upgrade
its defenses. This forces Ryan and another crewman named Shaw to take special
precautions to hide their secret: they have a Nausicaan prisoner on board whom
they are torturing for information.
Later, a proud Mayweather gives Ryan a tour of the
impressive new Enterprise. They bond as fellow "boomers" who
both grew up on freighters, but Ryan proves to be disdainful toward Mayweather
for having left his parents' cargo ship to join Starfleet. Meanwhile on the Fortunate,
suspicious activity leads T'Pol to run scans and detect the bio-signs of an
injured Nausicaan. Informed of this discovery, Archer confronts Ryan, who
confesses they indeed are keeping a prisoner and argues they have every right
to. Archer concurs, but counters that he also has a right to remove the
improvements made on the freighter. Ryan appears to relent and let Archer and
his team see the prisoner, but as he leads them into a cargo module, it proves
to be double-cross — Ryan and Shaw trap them in the compartment with a breach
in its hull, and detach it from the freighter.
The Fortunate then fires upon Enterprise
and jumps to warp, escaping while Enterprise rescues the trapped crewmen.
Commander Tucker sets out to the repair the damaged long-range sensors so Enterprise
can track the renegade freighter, which they figure is after revenge against the
Nausicaans. Mayweather approaches Archer and asks him to consider that maybe
they should stay out of Ryan's way. But Archer argues that human beings have a
code of behavior whether they're Starfleet officers or "space
boomers," and Mayweather agrees. On the Fortunate, Ryan succeeds in
beating the information he wants out of his prisoner, namely the shield
frequency codes for the Nausicaan raider ships. They find the ship that attacked
them and chase it to an asteroid where two other Nausicaan vessels are
off-loading cargo to a docking station. Ryan orders an apprehensive Shaw to fire
weapons, but their plasma bursts fail to penetrate the Nausicaan shields. A
counterattack disables their engines and ability to escape, so the crew prepares
to fight the Nausicaans face-to-face as they board the freighter to retrieve the
captive. Meanwhile Enterprise has detected the Fortunate's weapons
fire and sets course to intercept. As an intense firefight ensues on the Fortunate,
Archer hails one of the Nausicaan captains to negotiate a peaceful solution,
letting the freighter go in exchange for the hostage. Faced with the superior
firepower of the NX-Class Enterprise, the Nausicaan captain agrees to let
Archer deliver the prisoner, but he must be quick or he'll "take his
chances" with an assault on both ships. Archer contacts Ryan and implores
him to listen to reason. Ryan stubbornly refuses to give up his hostage, but
then Mayweather speaks up and chastises Ryan for putting all freighter crews at
risk to satisfy his thirst for revenge. When the Nausicaan ships start firing,
Ryan finally gives in and releases the hostage to the boarding party, and the
Nausicaan ships retreat. Ryan is later stripped of his rank by Captain Keene,
and Keene confesses to Archer that it'll be hard for freighter crews to get used
to seeing the space they've been traveling for three generations get a lot more
crowded.
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