Captain Picard reflects on a missed liason at a Paris cafe years in his past when the Enterprise gets a distress call from a scientist who is experimenting with Time rifts and is married to the lady he was supposed to meet in Paris all those years ago.

The Enterprise encounters a ancient capsule containing cryogenically frozen people from 20th Century Earth. Data then brings them on board while the Enterprise is on its way to investigate a series of destroyed Federation outposts at the edge of the Romulan/Federation Neutral zone. The Enterprise soon encounters a Romulan Warbird after the Romulans presence being long absent.