The crew is investigating the disappearance of Captain Picard while on a personal investigation and find themselves in a seedy alien bar where they're able to get information from a patron who says he witness Picard being vaporized during an attack my a group of alien mercenaries.
Riker, now in command, manages to get the Enterprise on temporary detached duty while he investigates Picard's death, the investigation leads them to a nearby planet in the sector and the investigate a site that seems to have clues to the aliens responsible for Picard's death, according to their informant.
They find signs of a battle and some missing alien artifacts and are soon attacked by the mercenaries, during the battle Riker is captured. Data, back on the ship, pursues a fleeing alien vessel but it eludes detection and manages to escape. Geordi is able to determine that the ship's hull is made out of a material that absorbs energy making it nearly undetectable. Data, much to Worf's annoyance, decides to not go with Geordi's theoretical attempts to track the ship and decided to continue their investigation until they have something more solid to move forward on.
On the mercenary ship, Riker meets its commander and challenges his superiority in the situation only to be rewarded by the commander using a pain-inflicting device attached to Riker's neck, as well as everyone else on the crew. The alien commander uses it to keep his crew under control, including a new human member of the crew, Picard.
Picard has taken on the guise of Galen a human mercenary and archaeologist who's services the alien commander has made use of on their current mission. "Galen" manages to convince the commander that Riker is an unideal Starfleet officer on the verge of a court martial and he should be killed. Riker is able to prove his worth when he manages to correct a critical engine failure set-up by Picard.
In Riker's room, Picard enters and fills Riker in on what's going on. The mercenaries are visiting various Romulan planets in the sector and collecting various artifacts for as-of-yet unknown purposes. He was investigating this when captured by the aliens using a device that allows them to initiate a transporter by using their weapons, making it appear their victim was vaporized rather than abducted. The alien commander doesn't trust "Galen" and Picard hopes Riker can gain that trust by being useful and opposing "Galen."
Data and the rest of the crew determine the next likely location for the mercenary ship, a Federation Outpost, and head for it.
While conducting tests on the recovered artifacts to see if they match the specific ones they're looking for Picard speaks with another of the mercenaries, a Romulan female and the commander's right-hand, who also has reservations about their leader and the only reason why everyone obeys is because of his torture device. But the two seem to have similar goals, and neither cares for their commander.
The mercenaries arrive at the outpost and Riker tries to use his Federation clout to gain access to the surface without having to fire on the outpost but he's unsuccessful. Working together, Picard and Riker are able to disable the outpost's shields in order to transport aboard some of the alien artifacts without harming the outpost's crew but the commander wants all of the artifacts. Before he can get them to fire on the outpost the Enterprise arrives and confronts the mercenary vessel. Riker, again, uses his position to command Data to allow him to access the outpost and to leave the area but Data refuses; though he seems to suspect something is amiss.
Riker attempts to use his command codes to gain access to the Enterprise's systems but he's locked out of them. Data realizes this and suspects Riker's up to something and allows Riker's command codes to work and lowers the ship's shields. Once lowered, Picard fires the mercenary ship's disruptos and the Enterprise's starboard nacelle.
To be continued....
.......
A lot of set-up here for the pay-offs in the second part, so not a lot to discuss.
I do think "Gambit" is one of the show's better two-parters and still holds up pretty well. Picard's facade as "Galen" is pretty fun to watch, especially the way him and Riker play their respective roles off one another. The stuff with Data commanding the ship is interesting but goes more places in the second part.
There's a bit of the "alien racism" here as the Yaridian informant they take in is given the guest quarters of the smaller, less nice, quarters available on the ship (the type the secondary officers have as opposed to the nicer quarters with the windows most of the higher-ranking officers have), Riker says there's no other rooms available but... come on. The ship is huge, they have nicer quarters available. Yeah, the Yaridian is a smuggler informant and arguably not "worthy" of the nicer room, but you'd thing 24th Century ethics would cause them to not have such biases and would have given the alien a nicer room, especially since he has information they need.
I've little else to add until after the second part. But, again, I find this two-parter to be one of the better ones.
It's interesting that after the writers wrote the previous episode it's said the writers began to realize they were running out of ideas and that maybe it was time to end the series; and with some of the episodes we get in S7 it's easy to agree with that.
But then we get an episode like this and handful of others in S7 and it doesn't seem to be the case. There were still ideas and things to do with these characters, it's just their talent was spread thin or largely over at DS9 at this point.
Til next week.
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