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SUMMARY: Voyager enters a nebula to extract fuel but the 'nebula' is not what it seems, thwarting Janeway's attempt to raise morale by the exercise but that is done through Paris's new holodeck program and Neelix's culinary efforts.
Janeway sees a crewman looking into space and feeling lonely |
With Voyager at the near start of the long voyage home, Janeway is aware of low morale amongst the crew. One reason for the low morale, apart from the very long distance from home, is the shortage of fuel and supplies including, to Janeway's frustration, coffee. There is also a social awkwardness between herself and the crew - at Starfleet Academy she had been taught that a certain distance was preferable, but she is not so sure that principle applies with Voyager stranded in the Delta Quadrant far from Starfleet. |
Voyager enters the nebula
globules splatter against the hull and drain energy
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Eager to raise crew morale of the crew, Janeway jumps at the chance to explore a nebula emitting a high level of omicron particles and to extract some omicron particles to boost the ship's waning energy reserves.
But shortly after Voyager enters the cloud-like formation, it encounters an energy barrier that brings the ship to a dead stop.
Breaking through, the ship continues its penetration of the nebula's inner reaches, only to be bombarded by peculiar globules that attach themselves to the hull.
The globules start draining the starship's energy reserves, so Janeway orders the crew to leave the nebula.
In order to leave, they have to fire a photon torpedo to break through the energy barrier. |
Chez Sandrine - pool table and holocharacters |
That night, Paris invites Kim into his newly-created holodeck program which re-creates Chez Sandrine. This is the bar in Marseilles, France, which Paris frequented during his time at Starfleet Academy days. The holoprogram contains a re-creation of a pool table and a famous historic pool-player. As Paris starts a game of pool with Kim, Kim perceptively realises that, however, much Paris tries to shrug it off, Paris also misses home. |
Meanwhile, Torres is working overtime. She has analysed a sample of the globules which attached themselves to the ship's hull while Voyager was in the nebula. She is surprised by the results, and visits the Doctor who confirms her findings.
Torres looks at the sample, in Engineering. In the Doctor's office, the Doctor notes the nucleopeptide sequences she had spotted
In the meantime, Chakotay brings his medicine bundle to Janeway's Ready Room. He helps her invoke a vision quest and she meets her animal guide. However, they are interrupted by Torres who visits Janeway to report her findings - the globules are organic elements of a much larger lifeform. In other words, the nebula is a living entity and the phenomena they encountered are part of the entity's natural biological defence systems.
Chakotay brings his medicine bundle to Janeway's Ready Room. He places her hand on the akoonah in order to invoke a vision quest.
Janeway's hand on the akoonah.
The stone from the river is engraved with the chah-mooz-ee, a mark of his tribe (named in [#25 Tattoo]),
and the blackbird's wing are part of Chakotay's medicine bundle. |
Janeway sees her animal guide. |
Janeway fears that the encounter with Voyager may have caused the lifeform serious injury, so she decides that they will return and repair the harm they have done. During the pre-mission preparation, the Doctor says that the organic samples seem to indicate that the lifeform has the capacity to regenerate, given the appropriate stimulation, and Torres realises that employing a nucleogenic beam should encourage the lifeform's natural healing functions.
Neelix, however, is displeased when the crewmembers in the Messhall are called away to their posts at yellow alert just as he has served lunch. Neelix gets no satisfaction from Chakotay via the communications channel.
Neelix protests to Chakotay (who is on the Bridge) as the crew (including Lieutenant Ayala) hurry from the Messhall.
Neelix visits Janeway in high dudgeon. He asks that his ship be made ready so that he and Kes can wait out of the way of possible danger while the Voyager crew carry out their mission inside the "monster". But she tells him in no uncertain terms that Neelix (and Kes) must stay on board during the mission and then terminates the interview by dismissing him.
Neelix's protests meet a no-nonsense response from a very busy Janeway
Voyager returns to the "nebula". As the crew prepare to irradiate the wound with the nucleonic beam readied by Torres, the ship is attacked again by the lifeform's natural defence systems, but this time the attack is in the form of multi-polar charges unlike what they encountered before. This throws the ship away from the wound and the ship sustains damage after being hurled into freefall for a time. When the ship's propulsion systems are not in operation, the lifeform's natural defences leave them alone.
the lifeform's multi-polar charges impact Voyager's hull, throwing the crew around as.... |
....Voyager is hurled into freefall! |
Janeway tries one of the stuffed cardaway leaves |
They realise that the flow of omicron particles is actually the lifeform's circulatory system. They get into it and 'surf' back to the wound, 'surfing' so as not to provoke attack by the lifeform's natural defences. In this way, Voyager is able eventually to return to the site of the lifeform's injury. During the journey back to the wound, Neelix and Kes arrives on the Bridge with snacks for the crew. Neelix, the ship's newly self-appointed morale officer, insists the crew eat something. |
Voyager 'sutures' the wound |
There they engage the nucleonic beam, but it induces only a tiny amount of the lifeform's biological regenerative systems.
The Doctor suggests that Voyager act as a conduit to pull the edges of the wound together, based on an old Earth medical technique of "suturing" the wound. They manage to achieve this after distracting the lifeform's defence systems with a microprobe. Immediately before the wound completely seals, Voyager escapes. |
Having lost energy as the result of the encounter, rather than boosting the energy reserves, Voyager then sets course for a planet Neelix knows of which is located 17 light years away. It is off their course but they expect to be able to replenish their depleted energy reserves.
Late that evening, Kim invites Janeway to the Chez Sandrine holoprogram. The officers gathered there, at first uncertain how to treat her, readily accept her socially. She surprises and impresses everyone with her pool-playing expertise. Afterwards she communes with her animal guide and prays for her crew.
the holocharacter known as the gigolo tries to court Janeway, much to Paris' embarassment |
without looking, Janeway nominates the side-pocket and then pots the black |
 | | DOCTOR TO TORRES: What were we doing in a nebula? No wait, don't tell me, we were investigating. That's all we do around here. Why pretend we're going home at all? All we're going to do is investigate every cubic millimetre of this quadrant, aren't we? |
| | JANEWAY TO NEELIX: Dismissed. That's a Starfleet expression for 'get out'. |
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