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While travelling in a shuttle to
the planet Ledos for a conference on Warp Field Dynamics,
Chakotay and Seven of Nine take a detour to admire the natural
landscape of one of the planet's subcontinents, and in doing so
they scrape a mysterious energy barrier that starts to break the
shuttle apart. Seven uses phasers to open a rift in the barrier,
and they beam to the surface before the shuttle explodes. They
find themselves stranded in a lush jungle, and in spite of
Chakotay's leg injury, set out to find the shuttle debris in
hopes of constructing a beacon to send a distress signal.
Meanwhile Tom Paris flies the
Delta Flyer somewhat recklessly through the bustling Ledosian
spaceport, and learns from the Port Authority that he has
committed a piloting violation. Captain Janeway later informs
Paris that his penalty, under local law, is to take a three-day
course in flight safety, and since she has decided to grant the
crew shore leave on the planet, he'll have time to complete it —
much to his chagrin.
On the surface, Chakotay and Seven discover a tribe of primitive
humanoids living in the jungle. Agreeing they should avoid
contact with them, Chakotay — who is developing an infection —
rests while Seven continues searching for debris. While she's
away, three native men sneak up on Chakotay. Just then Seven
finds a working piece of the shuttle and summons Chakotay, and
the natives, startled by her disembodied voice, grab his
combadge and destroy it. Seven returns and finds that Chakotay
has been taken into a cave. It turns out the natives are
friendly, and they are treating his wound. Chakotay talks Seven
into staying the night, but she is uncomfortable with the degree
of fascination the unspeaking natives have for them, especially
an adolescent girl who is intrigued by her Borg implants.
 As Harry Kim, Neelix and B'Elanna Torres prepare to beam down to
the planet for shore leave, they tease Paris for having to
attend "pilot school." Paris is confident he can skip right to
the test and join them in a couple of hours, but then the flying
instructor, Mr. Kleg, beams aboard and makes it clear he intends
to take as much time with Paris as he deems necessary.
The next morning, Chakotay begins to learn the natives' sign
language as he draws a map in the ground to get his bearings.
Seven tells him she can construct a beacon by connecting the
components she found with the shuttle's deflector, which she has
detected six kilometers away. Since he's still injured, Chakotay
suggests letting one of the locals guide her, but she won't
because she's still trying to limit contact with them. As she
makes her way through the dense jungle brush, she takes a fall
and loses her tricorders into a crevice, and has to proceed
without it. Meanwhile, Chakotay makes a startling discovery: the
native men have started painting tattoos on their foreheads that
look like his.
That night, Seven has to endure cold and rain, but then the
adolescent girl shows up and brings her a blanket. The girl
builds a fire and offers Seven food, which she turns down. The
next morning Seven finally accepts the food, and allows the girl
to guide her through the jungle. Along the way, though, the girl
insists they stop and admire the view of spectacular triple
waterfall. Back at the encampment, Chakotay is worried about
Seven, and when he tries to communicate that he needs help to
find his friend, a native man misunderstands him and brings out
a woman who has strapped a small piece of shuttle debris to her
forehead, to emulate Seven. Chakotay finds out they have
retrieved several pieces of technology from the shuttle, and
gets them to lead him to where they found it. Meanwhile, Seven
and the girl find the shuttle deflector.
On Voyager, Tuvok reports to Janeway that Chakotay and Seven
have failed to report in, and they never showed up at the
conference. Tuvok and Kim have located a wing from their shuttle
resting on top of the energy barrier surrounding the southern
subcontinent, which means the missing crewmen are probably
there, but they cannot be sure because the barrier is deflecting
all their scans. Janeway contacts the Ledosian Ambassador, who
informs her that the barrier shields the territory of the
indigenous Ventu, and it was erected centuries ago by aliens to
protect the Ventu from having their culture destroyed by the
Ledosians' own unenlightened ancestors. But the technology is a
mystery to them, so they can't lower the barrier, and since it's
generated from the inside, the Ambassador holds no hope that the
crewman, if alive, can ever get out.
 On the surface, Chakotay meets up with Seven, and they recruit
help from the Ventu men to move the deflector to a spot where
Seven believes she can generate a deflector beam to temporarily
neutralize the barrier, thus allowing them to escape and Voyager
to beam away all their technology. Meanwhile Voyager is
attempting to penetrate the energy barrier with phasers, but
feedback from the barrier is interfering with the ship's
systems, forcing them to cease. A short time later, though, the
crew learns the barrier is being deactivated from the inside.
Seven has successfully generated a dampening field, but the
Ventu girl gets too close to the deflector and receives a
serious shock. When Janeway's voice comes through telling the
crewmen to stand by for transport, Seven reports that she needs
to remain behind to treat an injury.
After the Ventu girl recovers, Seven says goodbye and accepts
the girl's blanket as a gift. Just then she hears voices
approaching — a Ledosian expedition has arrived to conduct scans
and evaluate the habitat for development. Barus, the expedition
leader, tells Seven she did the Ventu a great favor by lowering
the barrier, because now they can benefit from education and
technology. On board Voyager, Seven, Chakotay and Janeway debate
whether or not the Ventu would be better off losing their
isolation, but decide their unique way of life is worth
preserving. When Janeway announces to the Ledosian Ambassador
her intention to restore the barrier, he protests, but says he
will remove his people from the territory. However, when Voyager
tries to beam up the deflector assembly, a Ledosian vessel fires
and knocks out their transporters. Janeway then contacts Paris,
who is still in the Delta Flyer maneuvering through a training
course with Mr. Kleg, and gives him encrypted orders. Over
Kleg's objections, Paris suddenly peels away from the course and
rushes to the planet. He beams up the expedition team, then
finds the deflector and vaporizes it with phaser fire, and zooms
away a split second before the energy barrier goes back up. Mr.
Kleg tells Paris he has failed the course.
Back on board, Seven tells Chakotay she's concerned that the
Ledosians may have scanned her deflector modifications and could
find a way to remove the barrier themselves. She realizes if she
hadn't made those modifications, the Ventu would be safe, but
they would still be stranded. All she and Chakotay are sure of
is that they're glad to be back on Voyager. |
