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It is the 10th anniversary
of the U.S.S. Voyager's triumphant return to Earth after 23
years in the Delta Quadrant. Kathryn Janeway is an admiral,
Harry Kim is a starship captain, Tom Paris is a full-time
holonovelist, and the Doctor is married to a human woman and has
named himself "Joe." At a reunion party, Admiral Janeway talks
with B'Elanna Torres, who is now Federation Liaison to the
Klingon High Council, about arranging a political favor for a
Klingon named Korath. Later, the admiral serves as guest
lecturer in Commander Reginald Barclay's Starfleet Academy class
about the Borg, but when a cadet asks a question about Seven of
Nine, Janeway evades the subject. She's pulled away from class
to receive a message from Ensign Miral Paris, the daughter of
Torres and Paris, who is on a secret mission to arrange some
sort of exchange between the admiral and Korath.
Admiral Janeway stops to say
goodbye to Tuvok at his hospital room where he is suffering a
neurological disorder that has destroyed his mind, telling him
she may never come back. She then has the Doctor over to her
apartment and asks him to procure for her a supply of
Chronexaline, an experimental drug that can protect biomatter
from tachyon radiation, for "classified" reasons. She arranges
to get some downloaded information and a shuttle from Commander
Barclay, and finally she visits Chakotay's gravesite, promising
that when she's through things will be better for everyone.
 Twenty-six years earlier, when Voyager is still in the Delta
Quadrant, the pregnant Torres is having repeated occurrences of
false labor, and Seven of Nine is developing a serious romance
with Chakotay. Tuvok is concerned when he is defeated by Icheb
in Kal-toh, so he visits the Doctor and learns his neurological
condition is slowly deteriorating. Seven is playing Kadis-Kot
with Neelix by remote when she is interrupted by the detection
of high neutrino emissions indicative of a wormhole. Seven later
tells the crew that the center of a nearby nebula may contain
hundreds of wormholes, any of which could lead to the Alpha
Quadrant.
Back in the future, the Doctor visits Tuvok, who has become
increasingly agitated about the "disappearance" of Admiral
Janeway, and blurts out that she's never coming back. Curious,
the Doctor visits Commander Barclay to get in touch with Janeway,
and Barclay says simply that she's out of town. But when Barclay
starts stammering, which he hasn't done in years, the Doctor
knows he's hiding something. Meanwhile Admiral Janeway has taken
the shuttle to a moon where she meets up with Miral Paris, who
introduces her to the House of Koroth. After dismissing the
Ensign, Janeway meets with Koroth, who has something for her but
demands information on her shuttle's shield modifications. The
admiral won't go beyond the original terms of their agreement,
so she is shown out.
In the present time, Voyager enters the murky nebula and barely
misses colliding with a Borg Cube. Captain Janeway orders the
ship out of the nebula, refusing to go back despite Ensign Kim's
appeal to not give up on those wormholes. Later, Seven asks the
Doctor to perform a procedure he devised to remove a failsafe
device in her cortical node, so she can pursue more intimate
relationships — specifically, with Chakotay.
 Admiral Janeway tells Koroth she's "reconsidered" his offer —
she'll give him the shield emitter, but first she has to inspect
the device he's offering. Korath allows her to scan the device,
whereupon Janeway attaches a transport enhancer to the device
and beams it and herself to the shuttle. The enraged Klingons
send one of their futuristic ships to fire upon her, but Janeway
deploys a new armor technology around the shuttle that absorbs
the phaser blasts. She jumps to warp and escapes, but when she
arrives at her destination, she is met with the Federation
starship Rhode Island, commanded by Captain Kim, who orders her
to stand down. Kim has learned of her plan from the Doctor, who
coaxed it out of Barclay, but Janeway insists the consequences
are too great if she doesn't follow through, and asks him to
trust her judgment one last time. Kim helps her prepare Korath's
device — a chrono-deflector which is now affixed on top of the
shuttle — and realizes it will burn itself out with one use.
Janeway already assumed this would be a one-way trip. Unable to
talk her out of the scheme, Kim beams back to his ship, and
Janeway activates the chrono-deflector. Two Klingon ships
decloak and begin firing, and Janeway is unable to deploy the
ablative armor. The Rhode Island comes back and distracts the
Klingons while Janeway activates a tachyon pulse.
Meanwhile on the present-day Voyager, Seven of Nine and Chakotay
are having their first kiss when they are summoned to the
Bridge. Some sort of temporal rift is forming in front of the
ship, and Klingon weapons fire is being detected. But then a
Federation vessel comes through the rift and hails Voyager.
Captain Janeway sees the older version of herself on the
viewscreen, ordering her to emit an anti-tachyon pulse from the
deflector to close the rift before the Klingons come through.
Startled, the Captain hesitantly fulfills that order and seals
the rift, then asks what the hell is going on. Admiral Janeway
says she's come to bring Voyager home. What she doesn't realize
is that the Borg Queen is monitoring her transmission.
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