 Old family friends of Captain Archer , Doctor Emory Erickson and his daughter Danica , beam aboard Enterprise to test new sub @-@ quantum transporter technology Erickson has developed . Catching up , Danica confides in Archer that her father has not been himself since the loss of her brother , Quinn , some 15 years ago in an early transporter experiment . After they arrive in “ the Barrens ” — a sub @-@ space node void of starlight for a hundred light years — in order to test Erickson 's new work , a strange anomaly is detected on the ship . Crewman Burrows is sent to investigate but is found dead , having been exposed to high levels of Delta radiation . 
