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When Ensign Kim finds a wormhole
that might lead to the Alpha Quadrant, the crew believes they
may have found a rapid route home. Although the opening to the
tunnel in space proves too small for Voyager to fly through,
Janeway decides to launch a microprobe into it to see what's on
the other side.
To Kim's disappointment, the
probe gets stuck in a gravitational eddy before it makes it all
the way through, but he's surprised by readings indicating the
probe is being scanned by someone on the other side. Janeway
suggests they transmit a message through the probe, hoping it
will be picked up by whoever is scanning it. Before long, they
receive a subspace response — from the Alpha Quadrant, 70,000
light years away!
In the meantime, Kes begins working closely with the Doctor in
Sickbay. She's surprised by how rudely Voyager's staff treats
him because he's "only a hologram." She asks the Captain if the
Doctor can be treated with the same respect as crewmembers.
Janeway agrees, and tells the Doctor he should begin thinking of
himself as a member of the crew. What's more, she's giving him
control over his own deactivation sequence, and his first taste
of independence.
When Voyager finally succeeds in achieving voice contact with
the Alpha Quadrant ship, they are surprised to find it's a
Romulan vessel. The Romulan captain, a scientist named Telek, is
suspicious of the communication from a Starfleet vessel,
thinking at first that they must be Federation spies. But once
they've established a visual link and the two captains can
communicate eye-to-eye, Telek becomes more sympathetic to their
plight, saying he'll consider relaying messages to the crew's
families back home.
Anxious to explore every avenue that will facilitate getting
home, Torres explains that she might be able to "piggyback" a
transporter beam onto the visual link, which theoretically would
allow the crew to beam to the Romulan ship in the Alpha
Quadrant. To test the theory, the Romulan captain allows himself
to be transported onto Voyager.
Regrettably, Tuvok discovers the crew has actually beamed the
Romulan from 20 years in the past, due to a time rift in the
wormhole. Knowing it's pointless to transport the crew back in
time because it would wreak havoc with the timeline of that era,
Janeway asks the Romulan to relay the crew's messages to their
families in 20 years. He agrees, and returns to his ship. Later,
a database check reveals that the Romulan died four years before
he was able to deliver the messages. Although disappointed, the
crew presses forward. |
