The colonists of a mining colony are working, when one of them notices a shuttle, which lands, and Archer, T'Pol, and Trip climb out. They want some deuterium, but the colonists refuse to give them any despite their large stockpile of it. Their leader, Tessic, explains that they're saving it for someone else, and tells the Enterprise people to leave before these other people arrive. Eventually, they make a deal— if the Enterprise crew can repair some pumps within two days, and give the colonists medical supplies and power cells, they can have some deuterium.
Trip meets a boy named Q'ell, who sneaked into the shuttle out of curiosity. Trip explains about the shuttle, making Q'ell even more curious, so Trip offers him a tour of Enterprise. The crew then finds out that the colony is poor, which makes Archer suspicious because they have so much deuterium and are expecting a deadline. In sickbay, Phlox gives medical supplies to a woman named E'Lis, who lacks even the most basic medical equipment, requests strange items (apparently to treat plasma burns) and seems bothered.
Just then, a Klingon ship arrives. Apparently, the Klingons are the ones the deuterium was intended for, and they've arrived several days early. Tessic tells the crew to hide, which they do, all the while observing his meeting with the Klingons, who demand all the deuterium. When the colonists can't give the Klingons enough, their leader, Korok, attacks Tessic, demands more deuterium in four days, and leaves with the rest of the Klingons.
Tessic explains to Archer that the Klingons have been giving them a hard time for a while now, and they tried to revolt but it resulted in several fatalities. Tessic wants the Enterprise crew to settle their deal and leave before the Klingons come back, which they do, but Archer feels guilty about not helping. T'Pol agrees that intervening would be best, so the Enterprise arrives back to fend off the Klingons and teach the colonists self defense.
Archer arrives back at the colony at night and offers help, which Tessic initially refuses lest more of his people be killed, but Archer convinces him to let him help. In a tent, Malcolm examines the weapons and tells the colonists they will require deception and T'Pol points out that Klingons have crude tactics and are slow to adapt. They consider moving the colony to put it in range of the deuterium field, and agree to hide inside the hills and train on the weapons.
Archer, Trip, and Travis help move the buildings, while Malcolm trains some of the colonists on the Enterprise's weapons. Later, T'Pol and Travis teach the colonists some Vulcan weapon strike avoidance tactics. Over the past few days, the colony is relocated well, the colonists' training progresses, and Q'ell bonds with Trip.
Archer enters a tent, where Tessic is cleaning his weapon and looking pensive. He tells Archer that he's worried about deaths, and Archer says that he can relate since he always wants peace but was made to fight when the Suliban attacked. He says that, while nervous, he's still confident that they can pull it off, when the Klingons arrive.
The Klingons return to the colony, but are confused to find no one is around (since the colony has moved). A colonist lures them forward, knocking one over with a tripwire, and then Malcolm starts a firefight, during which a colonist lures a Klingon into a tent to be knocked unconscious by Archer and another Klingon is knocked out by T'Pol.
The Klingons discover the hiding colonists, who move them into a trap and set the path on fire. Tessic demands that the Klingons leave and never come back, and an embarrassed Korok claims that the deuterium is useless and leaves, provoking everyone to celebrate. The Enterprise crew gets rewarded with heaps of deuterium, Trip gives Q'ell some schematics, and they say their goodbyes.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Artistic License – Physics: Deuterium is a rare isotope of hydrogen, which could theoretically be mined in several ways that generally involve filtering through massive amounts of hydrogen or hydrogen compounds to get it (on Earth, the most efficient source is sea water, and you'd have to filter many tons of water to get a kilogram). None of those methods would look the slightest bit like petroleum extraction, which the mining operation is an obvious analogue to with pumps and tapped veins (right down to flares to burn off natural gas - which would include the precious deuterium). Presumably the episode's writers confused deuterium with dilithium.
- Call-Back:
- Archer references the two other times they helped Klingons, hoping that'll give him enough clout to stop the marauders, before it's decided that they probably don't answer to any authority.
- Also from the premiere, Archer tells Tessic about their battle with the Suliban and how it wasn't the mission he signed up for.
- Interspecies Friendship: Q'ell, an alien, gets along well with Trip, a human.
- Title Drop: T'Pol refers to the Klingons as marauders while discussing the situation with Archer.
- Training the Peaceful Villagers: Archer decides to do this, since Enterprise can't protect them forever."There's a saying on my world. 'Give a man to fish, and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime.'"
