T'Pol notes that a Vulcan starship encountered a similar storm a century or so ago and was nearly destroyed, and Enterprise has only four hours to go until the storm comes. Malcolm wants to use reinforcing to protect the ship, but Phlox reveals that won't protect the crew, since the storm produces dangerous radiolytic isotopes. He considers having everyone shelter in sickbay, which is the safest place, but that's not big enough for the whole crew. Trip then suggests that they shelter in the other safest place, the catwalk, with the caveat that when the warp coils are working, it can heat up to 300 degrees. Archer goes along with Trip's suggestion.
Rellus and the other aliens board the Enterprise and Archer talks to them in sickbay, revealing that they're from a system called Takret. Rellus reveals that he and the others are stellar cartographers, so Archer offers to have him help chart the stars, which he agrees to.
Everybody starts moving things into the catwalk (with Phlox talking T'Pol into making room for his pets) but when Rellus and his coworkers are alone, one of them, Guri, admits to not knowing squat about stellar cartography. Archer packs up and notices the storm outside, finding it beautiful. T'Pol gives him some status updates and he expresses fear at the idea of shutting down the power grid, but she points out that a neutronic surge could overload the grid and damage critical systems. Archer then goes to the bridge, transfers the main controls to the temporary command post at the nacelles, orders Malcolm to shut off the main power, and goes into the catwalk with everybody. After an encouraging speech, everyone settles in.
Archer checks up on everyone — he helps a woman with her crossword, talks to Hoshi about her claustrophobia, and then meets up with Trip and the visitors. Trip reveals that the visitors complained about the crew being too noisy. Malcolm then goes to Phlox for anti-nausea meds.
Travis tells Archer about the approaching plasma eddies, which aren't much of a problem, and then Archer and T'Pol try to watch water polo and do work respectively, but decide to just hit the hay when they bother each other. Before going to sleep, Archer tells T'Pol that this situation has a bright side— it's an opportunity to get to know everybody. Trip, Malcolm, Hoshi, and Travis play cards, but begin arguing over various things like showers and movie night. Travis smells burning, which is revealed to be the alien visitors cooking. It turns out human food is bad for them, so Trip promises to have Chef cook their food.
Archer then brings Tucker to the temporary bridge, informing him of a problem— the anitmatter injectors have come online. Trip complains about Rellus and his coworkers, but Archer points out that they were the ones who warned them of the storm. Trip then reveals that to fix the problem, he must go to engineering, so he goes there in an EV suit.
In engineering, strange sounds can be heard and people are walking around. Trip goes to T'Pol's quarters, where he notices that a ship is docked with Enterprise. Using the camera, he looks onto the bridge, where he finds aliens the same species as Rellus making a mess.
The aliens' leader reads through the crew profiles, when his lieutenant, Paltani, tells him that there's no sign of "the fugitives" and the crew are nowhere to be seen. The leader, believing that Archer is hiding in a system, asks the status of the warp engines. Paltani says that there is difficulty with the dilithium matrix, then leaves to keep working on the ship's systems, while his captain starts listening to Archer's logs.
Phlox examines Rellus and his crew and determines they're immune to the storm. Archer asks who the intruders are, and Rellus tries to lie that there's no connection between them, but Guri admits that the intruders are military personnel, who have been pursuing them for weeks. Archer asks why Rellus and his crew are being pursued, and Rallus explains that they used to be in the military, only to find that their commanding officers were murderous and corrupt. They tried to resign, but couldn't, so they ran away, and they would have told the truth but they risked execution if Archer refused to help. Malcolm then reveals that the militia are trying to re-initialise the warp reactor.
In engineering, Paltani tells his captain that the dilithium matrix is active and the warp reactor is ready to initialise. The captain orders him to bring the warp engines online, but Paltani can't work the helm controls because the navigation relays aren't responding.
In the catwalk, T'Pol notes that the Enterprise crew outnumbers the militia, but only has three jumpsuits. Malcolm suggests sending a security team to retrieve more, but Trip points out that there are several Takret in the launch bay. Then, the warp engines come online, putting the crew in danger of heating up.
Archer, T'Pol, and Malcolm prepare to go down to the bridge. Meanwhile, on the bridge, the Takret captain asks for an update on the helm controls, which the others still haven't been able to use. Archer goes to the galley and starts working on some panels, while T'Pol and Malcolm go to a maintenance corridor, where Trip tells them how to shut the injectors off. Archer hails the militia, pretending that the rest of the crew died in the storm, and demands them to leave. He refuses to hand over the fugitives' ship, even when they threaten to charge him with criminal conspiracy, since he only recognises the authority of Starfleet command. He then threatens to destroy the Enterprise if the intruders don't leave.
Archer tells Travis to steer the ship towards a plasma eddy, then is attacked in the galley by Takret. While they fight, T'Pol and Malcolm have trouble disarming the nacelles and the temperature rises. The Takret captain realises that the ship is headed for the plasma eddy and demands helm control. Paltani doesn't believe they can regain control on time and suggests they leave, but the captain still thinks Archer is bluffing. T'Pol manages to shut down the warp reactor, then turbulence strikes, forcing the Takret to leave. Archer thus tells Travis to change course away from the eddy.
Later, back in the catwalk, the crew is watching a western, when Archer informs everybody that they are now out of the storm. Everybody goes back to work and Rellus apologises and heads for another star system.
Tropes in this episode include:
- 2-D Space: The storm is said to be several lightyears wide, but a look out the window when it's only ten minutes from hitting the ship reveals it's only about as high as the diamater of a reasonable-sized gas giant. It would take all of thirty seconds to manouevre above it and watch it pass by harmlessly.
- Big Storm Episode: The neutronic wavefront makes for a Star Trek variant of this trope. Make that a very big storm, one that takes over a week to get through.
- Call-Back: The militia captain plays a Captain's Log entry from "Fallen Hero".
- Chekhov's Gun: The plasma eddies that Travis mentioned are eventually used to repel the Takret intruders.
- Claustrophobia: Downplayed, Hoshi claims that spending days in the catwalk ought to cure anyone's claustrophobia. Unfortunately, we never get enough time with Hoshi to find out how well her theory holds up.
- Die Hard on Enterprise: Complicated by the fact that our heroes can't survive more than a half hour in the radiation, even with EV suits.
- Drawing Straws: Discussed when Phlox suggests that Sickbay might be protected enough for some of the crew to survive.Archer: We can't fit 83 people in Sickbay, and I'm not about to draw lots.
- Evil Sounds Deep: Thank you, Danny Goldring.
- The Faceless: We do get to see Chef deliver food, but his face is just offscreen.
- Hard-Work Montage: The crew moving themselves and any needed supplies into the catwalk.
- It's Probably Nothing: When Trip is told that the antimatter injectors have come online, his first thought is that it's just a computer glitch. When the matter injectors also come online, however, everyone realizes that something else is happening.
- Negative Space Wedgie: The neutronic wavefront.
- Nobody Poops: Averted, Travis asks Trip what they'll do about latrines.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Downplayed, but you can tell that confinement is getting to Malcolm when the guy who "always ate whatever was put in front of him" complains about having pot roast three days in a row.
- Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale / Travelling at the Speed of Plot: The storm is said to be several lightyears wide, and will hit in four hours. In light of Enterprise's performance demonstrated in previous episodes (such as getting from Earth to Qo'nos in four days, or making a 3LY detour inside of a day), it should be easy to simply go around it.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Part of the aliens' Backstory—they deserted from their militia when they realized that their officers were no better than Space Pirates.
- Taking You with Me: Archer threatens to destroy Enterprise to keep the Takret Militia from seizing her.
- Understatement: Trip mentions that the nacelle catwalks get "kinda toasty" when the warp coils are active. As in, 300 degrees C.note Yeah, that's toasty, all right.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: When Archer confronts the militia leader, he pretends his crew were all killed by the radiation and acts sick, as if he's about to expire himself. This adds weight to the idea that he's willing to destroy his ship rather than let them have it.
