episode4x04a

SYNOPSIS FOLLOWED BY REVIEW ON PAGE X: 
On the bridge of a Klingon ship, a crewman tells the commander that they’ve come across a transport shuttle. The vessel is disabled and has a crew made up of two humans. The Klingons use a tractor beam to secure it. When the two occupants of the shuttle are brought on board, they suddenly turn on their captors, easily overcome them and take their weapons. They make their way to the Bridge and kill the commander and the rest of the crew.

At a prison facility, a man in a cell is writing something on a piece of paper. A voice on the intercom tells him he has a visitor. He’s not pleased. The voice continues: “Stand up, Doctor”. It adds: “Arms”. The man sticks out his arms and metal handcuffs magnetically join together. A man appears at the door of the cell. Archer is with him. The doctor asks Archer what he wants. Archer has questions. The doctor apologizes for the way the cell looks. He is not allowed any recording devices. Archer tells him that it’s because he had programmed one to unlock all the security doors in the facility. There are papers covering the walls on which the doctor has written down the cures for some diseases and genetic enhancements but he tells Archer his work is usually cleared away and destroyed. Archer asks why he bothers doing it. The doctor argues that genetic engineering is a good thing. Archer disagrees and cites how it has caused a lot of suffering. The doctor counters that splitting the atom also caused suffering but that it also led to humans being able to go to the stars. The doctor stops and tells Archer: “…but you’re not here to discuss that.” Archer tells him that someone attacked a Klingon ship and that “the entire crew was massacred”. He adds: “The ship is missing” and “the crew was jettisoned into space”. Archer continues that DNA found on the bodies of the Klingons was that of human Augments. He tells the doctor that the “…DNA matched embryos stolen from a medical facility over 20 years ago…stolen by you”. The doctor tries not to react but his eyes light up when he hears this.

In the Command Center, Archer is briefing his officers. He tells them about Arik Soong, a doctor who worked at “Cold Station 12”. It is “a top secret medical facility” where “stockpiles of infectious diseases” are kept “along with genetically engineered embryos left over from the Eugenics Wars”. Archer tells them that Soong had stolen some of the embryos and had taken them to the “Trialis system where he raised them”. They would have been around 10 years old “when Soong was captured a decade ago”. They are on the loose and Archer is bringing Soong along to search for them. Archer continues that Soong thinks he can get them to “surrender without a fight” and that he is “familiar with the “Borderland”, the area where the Klingon ship was taken. T’Pol adds: “It’s a volatile region between the Klingon Empire and the Orion Syndicate. It attracts the most dangerous elements of both”. The Klingons have warned that they will attack Earth so Archer and crew must find the Augments and return them. Archer adds, “It’s the only way to avert a war”.