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The Doctor, who voluntarily
joined the renegades, is furious with the group's leader, Iden,
but Iden promises to let Torres go once she has a chance to
decide for herself whether to help the Holograms. Meanwhile, the
Voyager crew struggles to repair the ship in Torres' absence,
and Janeway learns that the Doctor betrayed and abandoned the
ship, and wonders if his matrix may have been altered by the
other Holograms. When Torres wakes up on the Hologram ship, she
intends to leave immediately, and rebukes the Doctor for
switching allegiances. The Doctor points out she did the same
thing as a Maquis, and tries to convince her that by providing
her technical expertise, she can help stop the violence. He
takes her to meet Iden, and she agrees to look at the photonic
field generator, but makes no promises.
On Voyager, the crew has no
luck locating the Holograms. Donik thinks he can modify the
ship's sensors to detect them, and asks to stay aboard rather
than go back with the other Hirogen. Two much larger Hirogen
vessels arrive and retrieve all their people except for Donik,
and the new Alpha-Hirogen threatens to turn the Voyager crew
into prey if they interfere with their hunt. The Hirogen vessels
go to warp, and Janeway decides to follow using a plan by Donik
to hide Voyager in the ion wake of one of the Hirogen vessels —
a "blind spot."
Torres looks at the photonic field generator with Kejal,
suspicious of the Holograms' motivations. When she comes to
realize she's prejudged these beings, Torres proceeds to help
enhance their technology. Meanwhile, Iden approaches the Doctor,
who is having doubts about being with the Holograms. Iden shows
him their destination: a Class-Y planet he calls "Ha'Dara,"
which is Bajoran for "Home of Light." He plans to install the
generators on that planet because its environment is toxic to
organic life, so they'll be left alone there. Just then, the
Holograms realize that two Hirogen vessels have detected them,
so they proceed to hide in a nebula. The Hirogen ships also fly
into the nebula, unaware that Voyager is trailing one of them
from within its ion wake.
 The Holograms try to evade the Hirogen while Torres works a
little faster to get the field generator on line. She
successfully tests the generator by running Kejal through it,
and lets the hologram know that as the closest thing they have
to an engineer, she's the most important member of her crew.
Meanwhile, the Doctor tells Iden that in their new society on
Ha'Dara, he hopes to expose the others to music and art from
various worlds. Iden responds that the Holograms will develop a
culture of their own without emulating organics. In fact, he
plans to establish a new religion with himself being worshipped
as the "Man of Light" who delivered his people to freedom. The
Doctor's doubts grow stronger.
A Nuu'bari mining ship is detected, and Iden orders an intercept
course, planning to liberate the holograms on board. The Doctor
expresses his concerns to Torres, revealing that Iden is showing
signs of megalomania. Meanwhile, the Hirogen detect the Hologram
ship on the other side of the nebula and move to intercept, with
Voyager surreptitiously tagging along. On the Hologram ship,
Iden contacts the Nuu'bari miners and tries to coerce them to
turn over their holograms. They refuse, so Iden fires upon them
and has Kejal steal the hologram programs. The Nuu'bari threaten
to retaliate, so Iden targets torpedoes upon their warp core and
destroys them, to the Doctor's and Torres' horror. He then sets
a course for Ha'Dara as Torres accuses him of murder. He has her
confined and then asks Kejal to bring their new "friends"
on-line. Because their programs are incompatible with their
emitters, she needs Torres' help, who agrees because she thinks
she can get through to Kejal. As they work, Torres lets Kejal
know that Iden doesn't have to be the one to make all the
decisions, and she has the power to deactivate him. Finally the
Nuu'bari holograms come on-line, but they are incapable of any
interactions — they are only programmed with very rudimentary
subroutines. Torres points out that Iden killed two living
beings to "liberate" mindless machines, but Iden fervently
declares that they are "children of light" and he will deliver
them to freedom. Just then the bridge announces they are
approaching Ha'Dara. Iden orders the generator to be deployed
immediately, and refuses the Doctor's request to release Torres.
 The Hirogen follow the Holograms to the planet, and when they
drop out of warp, Voyager immediately fires weapons and disables
both hunting vessels. Voyager then turns on the Hologram ship.
Iden has the Hirogen hunters transported to the planet's surface
so that the Holograms can hunt them in retaliation. The Doctor
objects to his actions, so Iden deactivates his program, but not
before assuring him that he'll be remembered in their prayers.
He takes the Doctor's mobile emitter and transfers his own
program to it, and orders the field generator transported to the
surface. He rallies the other Holograms, declaring that this
time, the hunt is theirs.
On the surface, the unarmed Hirogen have trouble breathing. The
Holograms materialize around them and begin pursuing them with
weapons. Meanwhile on the ship, Torres convinces Kejal to stop
the massacre, but their transporters and communication system
were damaged by Voyager. Torres tells Kejal to shut down the
Holograms, which she does, and the Holograms on the surface
dematerialize before they can kill more Hirogen. However, Iden
is using the mobile emitter, so she can't deactivate him. Torres
suggests sending the Doctor to the surface through the
generator.
The Doctor materializes on the planet with a Hirogen hunting
rifle, and he begins pursuit. Just as Iden is about to kill the
Beta-Hirogen, the Doctor catches up with him and demands he
lower his weapon. Iden refuses, so the Doctor fires and
obliterates his fellow Hologram.
The surviving Hirogen are rescued by Voyager, and after
recovering, the Beta-Hirogen intends to reclaim the Hologram
vessel along with everything in its database. But Neelix
convinces him that the stories that are told about this hunt
will reflect more favorably upon him if the Hologram ship is
thought to have been destroyed. The Hirogen agrees, and leaves
Voyager empty-handed. Janeway transports to the Hologram vessel
and learns from Torres that Iden is unrecoverable, but the other
Holograms are intact in the database. Janeway offers Kejal
refuge on Voyager, but she insists that this ship is her home,
and Donik volunteers to stay with her and reprogram the
Holograms to undo some of the damage he caused. Torres vouches
for them, and Janeway urges them to always consider the
consequences of their actions, which she's saying just as much
to herself as the others. Back on board Voyager, the Doctor
offers to let Janeway take his mobile emitter away and revoke
his freedom, but she won't punish him for becoming as fallible
as those who are made of flesh and blood. |
