- Upon returning from covertly observing a pre-warp culture, Lieutenant Reed realizes he lost his communicator somewhere on the planet. Archer and Reed return to recover the lost technology, only to find the natives found it first. Captured and interrogated, the crewmen find themselves doing even more damage to the culture, who have scanned the prisoners and know them to be of another race. Meanwhile, Tucker and Mayweather try to figure out how to activate the cloak on the Suliban cell ship so they can mount a discreet rescue.—Meribor
- After returning from an exploratory away mission to a pre-warp society on the brink of war, Lieutenant Reed is unable to locate his communicator. A search of the shuttle bay area proves fruitless. Sato starts a search of the planet's surface and is able to locate the communicator within an area of 2 sq kms. Captain Archer and Reed return to the planet to try to find it, so as not to leave a contaminant within the culture (The planet is on the brink of a war with factions on opposite sides). Unfortunately, they then manage to walk into a trap set by the local military, who have already found the communicator (It was in a tavern that the trio visited prior to taking off). With their capture, the local commander, General Gosis (Francis Guinan), also possesses 'contaminant' scanners and a phase pistol as well.
Becoming desperate to locate the away team, Sub-Commander T'Pol's attempt at contact actually divulges the Captain's identity, and Archer and Reed are physically interrogated. They are moved to a military prison about 30 kms from the original location where they landed. After a mild beating, it is discovered that not only are Archer's and Reed's forehead morphology not the same as the locals', but they also have iron-based red blood, and vastly different internal organs (as determined by Dr Temec (Brian Reddy)). Archer is determined not to contaminate the society further by revealing that they are aliens from another world. Gosis theorizes correctly that Archer and Reed are aliens and have a larger ship hiding in orbit, which is used for interplanetary travel.
In response, Archer and Reed improvise a story about being genetically-altered prototypes (with prototype equipment) from an opposing faction known as the Alliance. The Alliance has ancestral claims on the city, in a long running feud. Reed says that the biological enhancements are experimental to make them immune to bio-chem weapons and increase cellular regeneration by 30%. While allaying suspicion that they are aliens, the military commander decides to hang Archer and Reed so that autopsies can be performed to discover more about their "enhancements".
Meanwhile, on Enterprise, a rescue mission is planned by Commander Tucker using the captured Suliban cell ship (as seen in episode "Broken Bow"), but problems arise with its cloak. working on the ship to fix the cloak, Tucker blows out a circuit and as a result half of his body goes under cloak. Phlox says that Tucker has received a large dose of the cloaking radiation and his body will re-materialize on its own as the radiation dissipates.
In their cell, Archer and Reed contemplate the irony of their adherence to an early version of Starfleet's Prime Directive. As they are about to be hanged, the cloaked Suliban ship with T'Pol, Tucker, and Ensign Mayweather arrives, enabling Archer and Reed to escape with their shuttle-pod and captured technology. Later, back on Enterprise, Archer reflects on the consequences of their actions even in the absence of foreign artifacts, and T'Pol is impressed that Archer was willing to sacrifice himself in the line of duty.
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