During a test on the warp engine, Trip is seriously injured and falls into a coma. His heroic actions do save the ship from a breach, but Enterprise sustains damage and is left drifting in a dangerous polaric field. Phlox is concerned that Trip may not survive, and poses one potentially controversial alternative: using one of his creatures, a Lyssarrian Desert Larvae, Phlox could clone Trip with a simbiot, then use its neural tissue for a transplant. The simbiot would have Trip's genetic make-up, but it would grow old and die in a span of 15 days. Archer is uneasy about this plan, but he eventually decides that he has no choice: he must complete his mission and he needs Trip to do so.