Stardate 46682.4: The Enterprise is evacuated for a baryon sweep in the Remmler Array in orbit of Arkaria. Picard is unwilling to attend a reception, in which he would meet Commander Hutchinson, who is notorious for his tiresome small talk. When he learns that he could go on a riding tour, Picard returns to the ship to get his saddle. There he discovers that the maintenance crew are actually terrorists. They are going to steal highly volatile trilithium from the ship's warp core. The gangsters also capture the planet base and kill Hutchinson, while they hold the Enterprise senior crew hostages. On the disabled ship, which is being swept by a deadly beam from the stern to the bow, Picard begins a cat-and-mouse game to prevent the terrorists from completing their plan. He manages to kill or disable all of them, until he and gang leader Kelsey meet in Ten Forward, the last location on the ship which is not yet affected by the beam. Kelsey escapes with the trilithium, but her ship explodes because Picard has removed the stabilizer. After the crew has turned tables among the terrorists by modifying Geordi's VISOR to emit a hypersonic pulse, they can stop the beam in the last moment before it reaches Picard.

• E17 Previous
• E19 Next