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Confined to 30 days in the brig,
Paris composes a letter to his father explaining how he got
there. He flashes back to the day Voyager's sensors detected an
ocean in the shape of a planet. After Janeway communicates to
the Monean leader, Burkus, that her ship means no harm to his
people, he and Riga are beamed onboard. They explain that their
people live underwater, farming sea vegetation and extracting
oxygen for their ships, but now it is losing containment, and
they don't know how to stop it. Paris requests permission to
take the Delta Flyer to the center of the ocean, where the
gravitational currents are located, and investigate.
After researching the Moneans'
predicament, Janeway tells Burkus the ocean will suffer a
complete loss of containment in less than five years. Meanwhile,
deep beneath the ocean's surface, the shuttle crew encounters an
ancient field reactor controlled by a core computer. As they
upload information from it, the Delta Flyer is attacked by an
enormous marine creature discharging an electrical current. It
retreats when hit by a phaser, but the shuttle has already been
breached, and water begins pouring into the cabin.
Once the leak is repaired, the shuttle crew determines the
reactor core is unstable, so Paris initiates a power transfer as
a temporary solution. Reviewing the uploaded information, he
finds the ocean was once part of a landmass inhabited by a very
advanced civilization. They used a kinetic transfer system to
draw the water around the reactor, but it is not responsible for
the containment loss. Instead, Paris determines it is the
Moneans' mining operation that is destroying the ocean.
Janeway offers Burkus several solutions that would make the
refineries obsolete, but he only plans to include them in a
subcommittee report. Paris is distraught over the ocean's
destruction and feels Burkus doesn't understand the magnitude of
the crisis. Forbidden to disrupt the internal affairs of an
alien race, Paris instead convinces Riga to take the oxygen
refineries off-line, and the two commandeer the Delta Flyer.
Janeway immediately orders Paris to cease his mission. When he
refuses, she prepares to modify a photon torpedo as a "depth
charge" to stop him. Once they reach the reactor, Paris and Riga
launch their missile at the same time Voyager fires. Paris'
missile is deflected, and he is brought back to the ship and
reduced to the rank of ensign. Once he finishes the letter to
his father, he files it in his personal log to be sent when
Voyager is within Earth's range.
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