Episode Synopsis : Season 4
ONE
Episode 93

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SUMMARY: Seven faces a challenge when she alone is responsible for taking the ship and crew safely through a dangerous nebula. The Voyager crew enters a vast Mutara-class nebula (it extends for at least 110 light-years) but everyone, except the Doctor and Seven of Nine, is severely affected by its radiation. A female bridge crewmember dies as a result of the exposure to the radiation, forcing Janeway to reverse course and leave the nebula while she considers what to do. Since it would take a year to go around it, Janeway decides the best course of action is to put the crew into stasis while the ship takes a month long trip through the nebula. As she describes the process: the crew will enter the units with each unit having independent life support, their cardiopulmonary systems will be slowed, neural activity suspended, and later they will wake up feeling as though they had had a good night's sleep. Seven and the Doctor will check the crew's vital signs four times a day. As the stasis unit can be opened from the inside, it is not unheard of for people to come out of stasis and start wandering in a "sleepwalk"-like state. The stasis chambers are set up on Deck 14 so it will be easy to monitor them. Seven of Nine and the Doctor will also monitor the ship's status until ship and crew reach the other side of the nebula. Janeway credits her instinct as the reason why she believes in Seven and that Seven will do well by the crew. After several days, the lack of social interaction and activity begins to put a strain on the Doctor and Seven. The computer alerts them that the antimatter storage tanks are failing and plasma is leaking. Seven rushes to engineering to eject the tanks only to find that it was a false alarm. Malfunctioning bioneural gel packs are found to be responsible for the false sensor readings. While the two attempt repairs, the Doctor's program begins to degrade in the holo-emitter. He manages to make it back to Sickbay, but with his mobile emitter malfunctioning he will have to stay there for the remainder of the trip. Now that Seven is even more isolated, she begins to have disturbing dreams and visions. When an alien named Trajis hails her, she beams him aboard and agrees to trade some equipment. But when she feels threatened, she tries to escort him off the ship, but he breaks free of her. Although sensors show no evidence of Trajis or his ship, Seven searches Voyager for him. She hears voices of the crew calling for her, and Trajis begins controlling the ship's functions, playing off her fears. When the Doctor finally gets his mobile emitter to work by tying it into the EPS system, he rushes to Seven and discovers that she is hallucinating - the radiation is starting to degrade her Borg implants. Then the EPS conduits overload and the Doctor's program goes offline. Seven is now truly alone. With the fate of the crew entirely in her hands she begins to panic. Quantum failures are present in 33 per cent of gel pack relays, and Seven has the sluggish computer reroute all functional relays through a particular subprocessor. With hours to go before Voyager clears the nebula, the primary EPS conduits overload and the propulsion system begins to fail. Fighting against the hallucinations, Seven struggles to re-route power. At every turn she is met by her fears visualised. With only minutes left until Voyager exits the nebula, Seven first re-routes power from stasis chambers 1 through 10, before cutting the ship's life support system and routing the power back into the stasis chambers, and as a result she falls unconscious. She regains consciousness and finds herself in Sickbay, with the crew awake and Voyager having successfully cleared the nebula - she has managed to save everyone on board.      CHAKOTAY TO JANEWAY: Maybe you need to step outside yourself for a minute, look at the fact that here's someone who's butted horns with you from the moment she came on board, who disregards authority and actively disobeys orders when she doesn't agree with them. In a nutshell. I know your bond with Seven is unique, different from everyone else's. From the beginning you've seen things in her that no one else could.    SEVEN'S PERSONAL LOG: I believe I'm beginning to feel the effects of this prolonged isolation. My dreams have been disturbing. But I am determined to fulfil my responsibilities. With the Doctor confined to Sickbay I have taken on increasing duties.