|
Seven of Nine returns from a
survey to find the crew has discovered what they think is a
wormhole leading to Earth. A probe detects Starfleet signals
containing letters full of good news to the crew. Although
sensors detect erratic neutrino levels in the wormhole,
Starfleet says the flux is unimportant. Suspicious of everyone's
unfettered optimism despite signs the anomaly may not be all it
appears to be, Seven accesses Janeway's logs. At first the
captain reports that scans determined the wormhole was a
deception, but in supplemental logs, Janeway suddenly believes
it is real.
When Seven locates an alien
vessel in the wormhole not detected by Voyager's sensors, she
hails it. The alien, Qatai, warns her that her ship is being
deceived, but they are cut off when Janeway routes power from
the lab to another system. When Naomi Wildman tells her everyone
is acting strangely, Seven realizes they are the only two
unaffected by whatever is manipulating the crew. Soon, the crew
is ordered by Starfleet to take the Doctor off-line to avoid
system interference, and to put Seven in stasis to avoid
attracting Borg attention while Voyager passes through the
wormhole.
 As Chakotay escorts Seven to her alcove, she tricks him and
erects a forcefield to contain him. With Naomi's help, she keeps
security at bay while she transports to Engineering and stuns
Torres with a phaser. After erecting another forcefield, Seven
attempts to shut down the impulse drive to keep Voyager from
entering the wormhole. However, Janeway transmits a surge to the
engineering console that knocks Seven out.
Once they enter the anomaly, the crew is unconscious. When Naomi
wakes Seven, the two hail Qatai and convince him to beam aboard.
He explains the crew has been a victim of psychogenic
manipulation. They are inside a bio-plasmic organism, a beast
that consumes starships by telepathically preying on their
crews' desires. Qatai has been trying for years to destroy the
creature, not always successful at evading its deceptions.
After activating the Doctor's program, Seven informs him that
Voyager is being devoured in the digestive chamber of the
organism. Realizing that bodies are designed to expel foreign
objects, they plan to fire one of Qatai's tetryon-based weapons
at a pocket of antimatter released from Voyager's warp core. It
creates an unpleasant reaction that causes the beast to expel
the two ships through its esophagus. Once Janeway and the others
regain consciousness, Voyager resumes its course to the Alpha
Quadrant, but Qatai returns to the beast, obsessed with
defeating it.
 |
