- The Enterprise triggers an ancient yet effective trap left by an extinct race, with a perfectly preserved derelict ship serving as cheese for Picard.
- The Enterprise encounters a rare antique starship from an extinct culture floating in an asteroid field but becomes trapped by the same energy-draining booby trap that killed the other ship's crew. While running simulations of the Enterprise's engine abilities on the holodeck, Geordi, who has been going through some romantic woes, finds himself unusually taken with a holographic simulacrum of Dr. Leah Brahms, the ship's engine designer.—crouchbk
- Geordi keeps striking out when he tries to date Christi (Julie Warner) on the Holodeck. He seeks help from Guinan who says Geordi is perhaps trying too hard.
The Enterprise encounters a rare antique Promellian star ship from an extinct culture (for more than a 1000 years) floating in an asteroid field of Orelious IX. There was a battle between the Menthars and the Promellians, in which both sides fought to extinction. The Enterprise becomes trapped by the same energy-draining booby trap that killed the other ship's crew. Picard is fascinated by the ancient battle cruiser and believes that it belongs in a museum. He decides to personally lead the away team to inspect the ship.
Picard, Worf and Data beam over to the other ship and find dead crew. They find a recorded message from the ship's captain that the crew behaved courageously. Picard believes that the captain was referring to the battle with the Menthars. The away team returns to the Enterprise, and almost as soon as that, power troubles start on the Enterprise. They lose warp and impulse capability as well and can't get away. The power drain on the Enterprise keeps increasing. There is also a radiation burst towards the Enterprise, and the shields will only hold for 3 hours. Picard realizes that perhaps this was a booby trap that killed the Promellian ship as well. The ships sensors are not working and hence the source of radiation or the energy drain cannot be ascertained. Riker decides to return to the Promellian ship as he thinks they had identified their enemy but didn't know how to deal with it.
Riker and Data some more video logs in which the ship's captain says that the asteroid belt has Aceton Assimilators, which are primitive generators, all over them and these devices drain energy from ships and convert it into radiation. These were perhaps installed by the Menthars to trap unsuspecting ships that flew in. Picard tried to phaser the generators, but this only increases the radiation output and increases the drain on energy reserves
Geordi is now tasked with increasing the output of the warp engines for longer periods as once the shields fall, the Enterprise will have 30 mins of radiation exposure before everyone dies. Geordi figures that the counter force from the asteroid belt is increasing in direct proportion as the energy output from the Enterprise. While running simulations of the Enterprise's engine abilities on the Holodeck, Geordi, who has been going through some romantic woes, finds himself unusually taken with a Holographic simulacrum of Dr. Leah Brahms (Susan Gibney), the ship's engine designer. Together they figure out ways to use the Dilithium crystals and the matter-antimatter pathways in different configurations to increase the warp core output by 14%
Leah suggests that there must be a lag between the power surge in the Enterprise and the counter force from the generators. Geordi works on the problem and suggests to Picard that by turning the control of the ship over to the computer, they might have a chance to get out of this trap, since computer can make far faster calculations (even faster than Data). Geordi runs the simulations on the computer. Sometimes the computer is able to navigate the Enterprise out, but sometimes it fails. Meanwhile the shields give out and the ship now has 30 mins stat.
Geordi theorizes that the acetone generators react to increases in power. So, he proposes to fire a short burst of impulse engine to gain some velocity and then shut down all systems (including the computer) and navigate out of the asteroid field using Thrusters. Picard takes the helm from Wesley and guides the Enterprise out. Gravitational force from the asteroids slows the Enterprise, but Picard uses the same field to increase the ship's velocity and slingshot around the large asteroids. They are out Picard orders Torpedoes on the asteroid field, so that no other ship gets stuck there.
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