A cylindrical doohickey pops out of the bottom of the Enterprise and unfolds itself to become a satellite. “Echo 2 is away, sir,” Reed announces to Captain Archer, who then strolls across the bridge to comm officer Hoshi Sato. “How long until subspace is online?” he asks her. About an hour. Echo 2 is sister to Echo 1, a pair of transceiver/amplifier satellites that broadcast communication signals between Earth and wherever the Enterprise is. They were just about to deploy the first one on an earlier episode, so there is continuity at work here. Reed’s sensors pick up a ship asserting itself on reality 12 kilometers away. It is a vessel design unfamiliar to everyone, even Know-it-all T’Pol. Armed with equal amounts of ignorance and optimism, Archer orders, “Hail them.” He gives his usual, “Hi! Here’s more than probably wanted to know about who we are. Please teach us the value of paranoia,” speech. They hear him, but don’t respond. When Archer points out that, since they approached Enterprise, it’s their own fault they’re listening to him prattle on right now, the take the hint and zip-dang out of the area. “Was it something I said?” Archer jokes. Odd thing, though. Reed notices the alien ship utterly failed to register on the ship’s sensors. Other than as a volume of non-zero mass, that is. Plus, they could see it. So it’s not a cloaking device in the traditional sense. It’s just freaky.

Archer gathers everyone around the map table in the strategy alcove to justify them all getting paid this week. He wants someone to explain to him why the aliens refused his generous offer of chit-chat. “Maybe they got our signal, but it didn’t make any sense to them,” Hoshi offers. “The universal translator is far from perfect.” She then offers to commit seppuku for the failure with a phase pistol, but Archer wrestles it out of her hand. Okay, not really. I was just trying to inject a little action into the first act. “Not every species has motives that can be understood in human terms,” T’Pol points out. It’s a good point, but not likely to be something they’d hang an episode on, so let’s dispose of that theory now. Mayweather thinks the aliens thought we were too dull to meet. Reed takes mock offense at the idea. “Let’s calibrate the subspace amplifier,” Archer decides, having run out of ideas for pursuing the A plot. “At least the people back home want to talk to us.” As the meeting breaks up, Hoshi attracts Archer’s attention. “Sir? I tracked them down.” Something sneaky is afoot. I’m sure it’ll turn out to be of little or no real consequence. I’ve been watching Braga Trek for too long. Whatever Hoshi has tracked down, it’s in Malaysia. “Let’s break in that new amplifier,” he tells her.

Archer sits in his ready room, facing a video monitor. On the screen are two wrinkly English people, whom we quickly learn are Reed’s parents. Mom is the same actress who played Londo Mollari’s last remaining wife on Babylon 5, and also the group leader/therapist on NBC’s “Dear John” many years ago. Dad is one of those actors I see all over, but can’t place in any particular role. I hate that. I’m going to feel like an idiot when I finally think of where I’ve seen him. Archer mentions Reed’s impending birthday, which prompts the folks to reveal that they rarely see him on that occasion, and that they haven’t heard a peep from him since Enterprise left Earth. Dad asks, “What are Malcolm’s duties on your ship, Captain?” It seems Reed never mentioned to them exactly what he’s been up to. There’s some implied disappointment that Reed went into space instead of joining the Wet Navy on Earth. With such a loving, nurturing home life as is displayed here, Reed’s personality begins to make a lot more sense. Archer explains to them that he wants to make a special birthday dinner for Reed, and, “I was hoping you could tell me what he likes to eat.” A simple question, easily shot down. “He always ate whatever was put in front of him,” Dad explains. It seems Malcolm never once indicated any preference, good or bad, for anything in his entire youth. I’m getting a serious beating-with-a-leather-strap vibe from Dad, while Mom is begging, in her uptight repressed British way, for any sort of emotional connection with her son. Tragic.

I know I just spent a lot of words on what should be a very trivial characterization matter. This is because they spend more time on this B plot than they do on the alien menace. What the hell. It’s the closest Reed’s gotten to a him-centric episode, and it gives Hoshi something to do besides pretending to push buttons and looking pretty, as you will see.

All right, I’m page two and scene four. I talk too much. Archer enters the bridge and walks with a deliberate lack of chalance over to Hoshi. After summing up the disaster that was the phone call, Archer orders her, “I want you to find out what he likes to eat, but don’t let Malcolm know.” Hoshi tries to get out of it, but Archer insists. “Sir, I’m running a diagnostic on our subspace transceiver array.” Forget it! I never listen to anyone anyway! He really says, “Make this top priority. That’s an order.” Hoshi, wondering what she did to deserve this, finally relents.

Archer runs into Trip walking down a hallway. Archer asks why Trip missed dinner. “Now that they’ve got the amplifier workin’, I wanted to answer a few letters.” Some guy named Duval got assigned to be captain of the Shenandoah, which they both find amusing and disturbing. And Trip got a letter from Natalie, from Pensacola. I think I know a Natalie from Pensacola. The one I’m thinking of is a lesbian, so it probably isn’t the same girl. “They say long-distance relationships never work. Well, this is about as long distance as it gets,” Trip philosophizes. He takes it very well, upset only that he wasn’t there to have her dump him to his face. Which she wouldn’t have done if he were there. As you can see, he’s pretty messed up inside. If I were Archer, I’d keep him away from antimatter for about a week.

Archer, who’s out of uniform, by the way (It’s casual Friday in space), continues to follow Trip around and prevent him from concentrating fully on his job. Porthos the wonder dog trails along behind them. Archer starts digging for information about Reed. “I was in the armory yesterday [with Reed] for a few hours, swapping out some power relays.” “Talk about anything interesting?” Archer inquires. “Power relays,” Trip replies. Now that’s a Starfleet engineer. Archer asks Trip if his parents know what his favorite food is. He just can’t get past that. Trip guarantees that they could. Archer explains Reed’s parents’ lack of Malcolm-related data, then muses, “We don’t know that much about Malcolm, do we?” Archer is then pulled away from this, his most pressing duty, by the ill-timed return of the mystery aliens.

Archer arrives on the bridge, still in his sweats. The alien ship is 500 kilometers dead ahead. Archer tries talking to them again. You’d think he’d notice by now that every time he tries that, he gets shot at. “I was hoping we’d have an opportunity to meet again.” He assures the aliens that the Enterprise’s intentions are peaceful. In response, they scan the Enterprise with a beam so powerful it is painfully audible. Just accept it and move on. The alien ship then moves in and starts blasting. See?! After one pass they warp away. Their incredible streak of luck continuing for its eleventh straight episode, no one was killed in the assault. On the upside, Reed was able to scan the other ship while they were pummeling Enterprise. On the downside, “I doubt very much our torpedoes could have penetrated their shielding.” Irked, Archer orders T’Pol to follow him off the bridge for a little logical lovin’. To go survey the damage and talk to Trip, I mean.

Archer and T’Pol show up where Trip and a work crew are patching up some damage. Archer asks for a report. “If that last shot had been half a meter higher, we’d be looking at stars.” Thirteen people would have died, including Trip, if that had happened.

Stomping down the halls back toward the …someplace, Archer asks T’Pol, “Did your people run into as many hostile aliens when they first went into deep space?” No, because, “There were fewer warp-capable species.” Archer finally realizes, “This ship just isn’t equipped to deal with some of the threats we’ve been coming up against. It’s time we did something about that.” Namely, hook up the phase cannons Enterprise was designed to carry, but never had installed because they had to leave spacedock early, and never made it back because they were in such a rush to get exploring. “We should head back to Earth,” Archer decides.

“Just give us two weeks, Captain,” Reed requests. He and Trip are in the armory trying to convince Archer to let them install the guns instead of heading back to take advantage of the factory warranty. Archer wants certified mechanics on the job and doesn’t want to pull the ship’s engineering crew off all the other jobs they have to do to keep that bucket afloat. “Look at the bright side,” Archer consoles Trip. “At least you’ll get a chance to say goodbye to Natalie.” Reed tries Plan B. “Sir, with your permission we could at least begin the work, get a few things started for Jupiter Station.” Archer agrees, then walks over to the wall intercom and orders Mayweather to head for home.

Standing before a group of engineers and technicians in the armory, Reed begins his presentation. “This, ladies and gentlemen, is a phase modulated energy weapon,” he says, indicating a diagram on the screen behind him. A testosterone haze visibly rises off him as his voice quavers with an anticipation bordering on lust. “Enterprise was built to carry three of them. We have one.” Trip takes over from the emotionally spent Reed. “Our job is to get it running, and build two more from scratch.” Using only those items found in a normal American kitchen. Trip continues with a pep talk, Reed joining back in after his refractory period. “When we reach Jupiter Station, I don’t want their engineers to have a thing to do but give us a wash and a wax.” The crew is nervous at first, but eventually come around.

A blonde British woman on a viewscreen says to Hoshi, “He once told me that he loved to eat octopus.” It’s Reed’s sister, who isn’t sure if Reed was joking when he said that. “You can never tell when my brother’s joking. Can I talk to him?” Hoshi refuses. Probably the first time anyone in that family ever reached out to anyone, and Miss Communication blocks it. This is why they eventually decided to have therapists on board. Sis relates the tale of the time Reed went a week without eating as some sort of self-imposed survival training. There’s your answer, Hosh: nothing. Give Reed a big platter of nada and get back to your real job. Someone walks onto the bridge, and Hoshi has the presence of mind to look over her shoulder to make sure isn’t Reed. It’s such a nice touch I’m going to pretend it wasn’t scripted and Linda Park was really that into her character. “Malcolm isn’t the easiest person to get to know,” Sis reflects. “I’m figuring that out,” Hoshi responds.

Next, Hoshi calls someone Reed went through Starfleet with. Here’s the short form. He liked to go to this place on the Embarcadero (A cool place I recommend, by the way. Visit the chocolate factory), but only because he dug a waitress there. After a quick trip through the Monty Python Cheese Shop sketch, with fish, this guy decides he remembers that Reed hates fish. Even Hoshi’s getting sick of this plot. Mayweather comes over and asks, “How’s your secret mission coming?” “The most anyone seems to know about his eating habits is that he, occasionally, eats.” T’Pol, eavesdropping with those big pointy…uh, ears of hers, suggests that if she wants to know something about Reed, she should ask him directly. Hoshi rushes off to implement this mad scheme.

Reed is minding his own business in the mess hall, eating unidentifiable multicolored things and reading a book, not bothering anyone, when Hoshi walks up and asks to join him at his table. He allows it. She tries to strike up a food-related conversation, but Reed is too busy to pay attention. Watch her put her foot in it. “I used to love to cook, but I never get the chance to anymore. And the way the chef protects the galley. One of these nights, I should fix something myself. You’d love my enchiladas.” Reed contributes, “Enchiladas?” Enchiladas. You know, oral sex. “If you don’t like them I could fix something else. What’s your favorite food?” Reed looks as uncomfortable as an emotionally stunted man can be. “I appreciate the offer, but it’s not necessary.” She continues, oblivious to her derailment. “Dinner in the mess hall can lack a certain… personal touch. I have a hot plate in my quarters.” Reed handles himself with remarkable aplomb, considering what he thinks she’s offering him. “That’s very flattering. I’m just not sure it would be appropriate.” He turns her down so gently it takes her a minute to understand what he’s turning her down about. Once she realizes what she’s done, they fall over each other trying to apologize and get apart as quickly as possible.

As the Enterprise warps for Earth, the A plot follows along behind them. T’Pol detects it 8 kilometers astern. And closing fast. Archer polarizes the hull, just as a shot from the foe impacts. From the mess hall, Reed tries to contact the bridge and the armory, but no one is answering. He orders everyone in earshot to their stations and heads off himself.

I haven’t said it in a while. Everything breaks. As the lights go out on the Enterprise, a landing pod launches from the alien ship. An ensign breaks out the MagLites and starts passing them around the bridge. I wonder why they don’t have those battery powered lights that charge up when the power is on and come on when the power is out? Power probably goes out too often for them to collect a charge. Or maybe Trip keeps rerouting them to the warp engines. The alien ship docks.

A pair of crewmen are pulling a motherboard out of its wall socket when they hear footsteps running nearby. They shine their flashlights down the hall and see two CGI aliens run past, down an intersecting hall. They foolishly investigate. They get jumped, of course, and their flashlights go off before we get to see what got them.

Archer and his merry retinue of searchers walk down the halls and shine their lights on things. I’m pretty sure there’s a crisis in progress that needs the captain on the bridge, but it’s his show so I’ll let it pass this time. They spot one of the errant flashlights of the poor saps in the last scene, and round the corner to find two aliens crouched over them scanning their heads. Archer commands, “Get away from those men!” One alien says, “Ack ack! Ack! Ack ackack ack! Ack!” so Archer shoots him. The CGI artists never programmed in a “Respond to phaser” animation, so the alien just stands there. Then, he and his alien buddy lope clumsily away before Archer can set his phase pistol to “Slim Whitman.” Archer sends the security team after the aliens while he calls Dr. Phlox to come fix the hurt people. Security reports that the aliens got back to their shuttle and took off. After the aliens return to their ship, the ship swooshes in and blows the hell out of the Enterprise’s port warp engine.

Archer and T’Pol march into sickbay for a report from Phlox. “I’ve stabilized them, but they were subjected to some rather invasive scans.” Archer waves his hand over the eyes of one of the deathscanned crewmen, who is staring unblinking at the ceiling. “There could be some residual neurological damage,” Phlox warns. Archer accuses T’Pol of holding back information on the enemy by way of asking if the Vulcans ever heard of anything like these aliens. She claims not to know anything she hasn’t said. Trip calls from Engineering, the good news being that impulse propulsion is almost working, and the bad news being that the busted warp engine will take two days to fix.

On the bridge, T’Pol reports to Archer, “No Vulcan ships are within scanning range.” Mayweather suggests that they contact the Vulcan High Command for help, which, if you’ve been watching, is something Archer would rather almost die than lower himself to do. Since there’s no “almost” about it, he tells Hoshi to make the call. I’d love to be Starfleet’s long distance carrier. However, there’s a glitch. Echo 2 isn’t functioning. “That’s because it isn’t there,” T’Pol announces. “There’s nothing but debris.” Somehow, she’s able to scan Echo 1 from here and determine that it, too, is toast. That makes me wonder why they can scan so much farther than they can broadcast, but that way lies insanity, so I’ll ignore it.

In the armory, people are working feverishly on the phase cannons. Reed bites the head off an underling for misreporting some progress. Reed and Trip pop a hatch off the wall and enter what is not yet called a Jeffries tube to fiddle with the electronics within. Reed gets zapped touching an active circuit. Trip asks why he was messing with it. “Bypassing the EPS grid,” Reed explains. “We can draw power for the cannons directly from the impulse engines.” Screw safety! Gimme power! Trip does not like the idea. “We’ve got to do this by the book, or we’ll end up blowing a bigger hole in ourselves than the bad guys.” Reed’s getting frustrated. “It’s an acceptable risk.” Trip pulls rank. “Why don’t you let the chief engineer decide what’s an acceptable risk.” It’s the classic struggle between Doing It Fast and Doing It Right. Mythic, really.

Archer saunters into Engineering. Did I mention the lights were back on? Have been for the last three paragraphs. “I can’t sleep without the warp engines on line,” Trip tells him. “I hope you get them fixed soon because you look like hell,” Archer points out. Trip asks Archer to help him align the dilithium in the warp core. Dilithium is a real substance, by the way. Two lithium atoms bound together. Has no use in the area of high-energy physics that I’m aware of. This has been another Useless Fact. Archer admits to Trip that he tried to call the Vulcans for help. They chat about seeing Earth again. Archer says, “This time, we won’t be leaving before we’re ready.” Trip thinks Archer sounds like a Vulcan. Archer has started to realize that his “humans are always right”, strong jaw and good intentions attitude has been putting a great many people into a great deal of danger many times in the last six months. Unlike Kirk, he’s starting to regret and reconsider it. Trip gives Archer a pep talk of dubious efficacy on the subject of risks and rewards. Archer walks away with plenty to think about.

Trip comes up behind Reed in the Jeffries tube where he is installing a phase cannon. “Have you still got those guns of yours hooked up to the impulse engines?” “I’m just disconnecting them now, sir,” Reed explains. “Hang on a minute. You’re sure this will work?” Trip asks. When Reed confirms it, Trip decides the risk is worth it.

Two days pass without incident. Enterprise approaches a lifeless planetoid as Archer records his starlog, praising the crew’s ability to manufacture and install the phase cannons so quickly.

The ship orbits the planetoid, the main screen focused on a mountain in the center of a crater. Archer contacts Reed to start the weapons test. “Let’s start small. Shave a couple of meters off the top of that peak.” Reed fires. The mountain disintegrates, along with the crater wall and a couple other craters that happened to be in the neighborhood. Things start overloading. Alarms sound. “I just asked for a little off the top!” Archer shouts over the pandemonium. One nice thing about writing is that you get to use the word “pandemonium” in a sentence once in a while. Amidst all the damage reports, T’Pol’s quiet announcement, “I’m getting an anomalous reading from Launch Bay Two,” is noticeable for its calmness. Archer orders Trip and T’Pol to come with him to check it out.

Reed and a supply of phase pistols meet up with the others by the time they reach Launch Bay 2. They threaten the empty room with their guns while T’Pol scans things. Together, she and Trip spot a spherical object mounted to one wall near the ceiling. “It’s putting out a tremendous amount of energy,” T’Pol reports. “They’re toying with us,” Reed concludes. “They want us to know they can destroy us whenever they want, even with our own weapons.” T’Pol continues, “Whatever it is, it’s tapped into most of our systems, including internal sensors and communications on every deck.” Archer walks over to a wall panel and tells it to start watching him. Here’s what he says. “I assume you planted that device because you wanted to learn more about us. I’ll give you a quick lesson. We’re not here to make enemies, but just because we’re not looking for a fight doesn’t mean we’ll run away from one. You may think you’ve left us defenseless, but let me tell you something about humans. We don’t give up easily. We’ll protect Enterprise, any way we can.” Then Archer shoots the spyball with his phase pistol and the picture, an alien-eye-view of the launch bay from that wall panel, goes black.

Hoshi enters sickbay, which is way over-lit. “I see you’ve released your patients,” she notices. Phlox tells her they’ll be fine, despite his earlier dire warnings. She asks him, “Have you ever had a meal with Lt. Reed?” Phlox has no personal idea what foods Reed likes or dislikes, other than peanut butter pancakes. I may have to try that. I, my immediate family, and no one else I’ve ever met, know that peanut butter and jelly on waffles is yummy, but I’ve never tried it on pancakes. Hoshi asks if a medical scan of Reed’s tongue would help. Phlox informs her, “Medically speaking, there’s no accounting for taste.” However, there is something in Reed’s medical file that may be of use. But that’s confidential information. Hoshi bats her eyelashes at him and his scruples fly out the airlock. “Lt. Reed suffers from a number of allergies,” Phlox explains. Including an allergy to bromilin, a plant enzyme. “Over the last several years, he has been taking regular injections so that his body can tolerate bromilin.” Which is commonly found in pineapple. Here’s the logic path. He’s allergic to pineapple. Instead of avoiding the fruit, he goes out of his way to endure a long series of injections just so he can digest it without complications. Which he would only do if he likes pineapple so much as to be worth the trouble. Ta da! Mystery solved. And it only took running up a phone bill they’re still deducting from Picard’s paycheck to pay off and the violation of Reed’s doctor-patient privilege and possibly his basic human rights to do it. Hoshi runs off with her hard-gained information and a spring in her step.

T’Pol tells Archer the aliens have reappeared 20 kilometers behind them and closing fast. “Come about. And hold our position,” Archer orders. Archer alerts Reed in the armory that his target has arrived. “Get a lock and stand by.” At 11 kilometers, the aliens stop and hail the Enterprise. The broadcast is clips from Archer’s speech down in the launch bay, spliced together to form their message, which is this: “You are defenseless. Prepare to surrender your vessel.” Unless I seriously misquoted earlier, many of these words weren’t in Archer’s speech. The alien ship approaches again, and Archer orders Reed to fire the phase cannons. They dance across the enemy’s shields, doing no damage. “Is that the best we can do, Lieutenant?” Archer demands of Reed. Reed claims the cannons are working as well as they can. “What about yesterday? I saw you blow up something the size of Mt. McKinley.” Reed reminds Archer that that was the result of an overload. “Can you overload them again?” Archer asks. Reed thinks he can, but worries that “the plasma recoil could knock out two decks.” Again, I recommend you flow with the babble. Suddenly, Trip has an idea. “I think there’s a way to handle the recoil.” He uses many words to say he’s going to pump the recoil energy into the structural integrity field, making the ship stronger and therefore better able to handle the overload stress. Yes, I simplified that. Meanwhile, the bad guys get closer.

Displays flash, things beep. Reed says, “Stand by.” He and Trip nod at each other. It’s all very tense and exciting. Archer gives the word, and Reed fires, slicing through the enemy shields like a burning column of collimated energetic ionized gas through a protective focused planar energy sheath. T’Pol announces, “Their shields are failing.” Archer orders torpedoes as followup. Two hits, and the bad guys turn and run.

On the Enterprise, some stuff broke, and the guns are dead for good hour at least, but on the whole they’re in better shape than the other guys. Archer says, “I see no reason for us to go back to Jupiter Station now.” Hoshi is happy to get to drop off another subspace amplifier to replace Echo 1 while they are so much closer to Earth. Archer orders Mayweather to “Resume our previous course.” Away from Earth.

Later, in the armory, Archer, Trip, and Reed are enjoying a frosty beverage of the alcoholic variety, toasting the enemy who motivated them into finally strapping some guns on. “Don’t get too used to drinking on duty,” Archer warns. Hoshi walks in, carrying an ungainly case of the type used to carry around awkward and shock-sensitive equipment. Archer opens the case and takes out what is inside. Turning around, he presents it to Reed. It’s a cake. “As long as we have you here, Malcolm, Happy Birthday.” Thank God that song didn’t survive the Eugenics Wars. Reed cuts the cake and serves up the first slice. “Pineapple!” he exclaims, well, as much as he ever exclaims about anything that isn’t normally used to kill people. “That’s my favorite. How on Earth did you know?” Hoshi, so pleased with herself she’s about to pop right out of her boots, tells him, “Oh, we have our sources.” And there was much rejoicing. Yay.

If Reed has any sense, for his birthday present he’ll ask that the rest of the ship be upgraded so that the phase cannons can be fired in overload mode all the time.