PHAGE
Episode 5

 

As a consequence of being stranded in the Delta Quadrant far from the resources of Starfleet, Voyager's power reserves are low. The ship is en route to a planetoid that Neelix says is rich in dilithium, the mineral that helps power the engines. On the way to take her breakfast, Janeway's chat with Chakotay reveals that Torres is modifying the auxiliary impulse reactor to refine the dilithium. When she enters the captain's private dining room, Janeway is surprised to find that Neelix has converted it into a galley. He is supplementing the crew's diet of emergency rations with some home cooking. When Janeway queries the fact that he did not ask permission, he expects to have to remove the cooking equipment and restore the cabin. Their discussion is interrupted by Chakotay's com. signal that they are approaching the planetoid. The planetoid is Class-M and has subterranean passages. Neelix's enthusiasm gains him a place on the away team along with Chakotay and Kim - Neelix explains he has prepared for this away mission all week: he has studied the tricorder operations manual and learned dilithium geophysics from Torres. Inside the planetoid's caves, the away team split up and explore but find no dilithium. However, Neelix's tricorder detects a lifeform. Suddenly he is attacked by an alien. Chakotay and Kim beam him to Voyager's Sickbay where the Doctor informs them his lungs have been removed! The Doctor stabilises Neelix. Unable to fit artificial lungs and with none of the crew being a compatible match for transport due to Neelix's Talaxian physiology, the Doctor devises a revolutionary treatment for long-term care - holographic lungs. For them to work, Neelix is kept in isotropic restraint, unable to move more than 2 microns in any direction. He will have to stay like that for the rest of his life, unless his original lungs can be found and re-attached. Searching for Neelix's lungs, Janeway leads an away team back to the planetoid. There they discover a repository of harvested body organs but Neelix's lungs are not among them. Moments later they detect a humanoid and give chase, but an alien ship flees the planetoid. Voyager pursues. In Sickbay, a despondent Neelix is having emotional problems adjusting to his situation. He urges Kes to go on with her life regardless, even though he fears that she will fall prey to Tom Paris' romantic pursuit. The Doctor admits to Kes that he is having difficulty adjusting to the demands of being a full-time physician, and one without a nurse - although Paris has been assigned to him his medical knowledge is inadequate. Kes' intelligent and soothing advice makes the Doctor think that she would make a good medical assistant instead. Voyager pursues the alien ship into the interior of an artificial asteroid. The walls of the chamber inside emanate severe electromagnetic interference, confusing Voyager's scanners. The result is that the Voyager crew appear to see numerous reflections of Voyager and the alien ship, and are unable to determine which is the real alien ship. Janeway observes: "It's like trying to move through a hall of mirrors. You never know when you're going to walk into the glass." In addition, the alien ship puts out a dampening field that bleeds energy directly from Voyager's warp nacelles. To find the alien ship, Voyager sends out a phaser beam on the minimum level. The beam reflects, or riccochets, off the bulkheads until it encounters a non-reflective material - the real alien ship. The aliens are then beamed aboard Voyager. When confronted, the aliens introduce themselves as being of the Vidiian Sodality. One is called Dereth, the other Motura. They admit that they stole Neelix's lungs. But they defend their actions by explaining that for over two millennia their species has been fighting the 'phage', a horrible disease which destroys their genetic codes and cellular structures. They try to scavenge healthy organs from the dead to replace their own diseased parts but in emergencies 'more aggressive' action is taken, as with Neelix. Dereth is Motura's 'honatta' - one charged with finding and transplanting healthy organs for Motura. They cannot return Neelix's lungs because they have already been transplanted into Motura, and that involved irrevocably biochemically changing them for Motura's physiology. Unwilling to sentence Motura to death to regain Neelix's lungs, Janeway reluctantly releases the prisoners, but with a dire warning message to be taken to the Vidiians. Dereth Motura Motura, grateful to Janeway for sparing them, offers the use of the Vidiians' superior medical technology to help Neelix. Using that technology, one of Kes' lungs is successfully transplanted into Neelix, thereby allowing him to live a normal life. Janeway informs Neelix that he can keep his galley, until they get replicators back online (although the Galley becomes permanent). When Kes regains consciousness, she is pleased when the Doctor tells her that the transplant operation was successful and that Janeway has granted permission for her to begin training as a medical assistant.    JANEWAY TO MOTURA: So now I am left with the same choice you made: whether to commit murder to save a life, or to allow my own crewman to die while you breathe air through his lungs.