| |
SUMMARY: The crew has to deal with a Malon freighter leaking toxic radiation before it explodes and devastates the region. But in their race against time, they are hindered by an apparently mythical creature.
Torres reluctantly visits Tuvok's quarters to attend the first in an intended series of meditation lessons. She has been instructed to attend due to her volatile and often violent temper. She recalls her childhood in which she was teased in a bullying way about her being a half-breed (half-Klingon, half-Human).
Voyager picks up a distress call and rescues two Malon, named Fesek and Pelk, from escape pods contaminated with radiation. The source of the radiation is a disabled Malon freighter - during a mission to export their toxic waste, a leak forced them to evacuate. Fesek explains that when the ship explodes, the toxic waste will ignite and destroy everything within three light-years.
 |
 |
| the still unconscious Pelk, with the Doctor, Tuvok......and Fesek |
Pelk (pictured left) |
Before Voyager can travel to a safe distance, its warp drive collapses. The only option is to board the Malon ship and disable it. Janeway obliges Fesek and Pelk to join the Voyager away team, despite Pelk's fear of the "vihaar", a fiercesome violent creature whose existence aboard Malon freighters Fesek dismisses as myth. |
With only six hours to go before the freighter's storage tanks explode, Fesek, Pelk, Chakotay, Torres and Neelix prepare to beam to the freighter. They start in the least affected chamber and gradually clear a path to the control room by opening airlocks and decompressing the ship, while an inoculation created by the Doctor affords them a few hours of protection from the radiation.
 |
 |
| aboard the freighter |
Fesek and Torres crawl through an accessway |
Torres is openly hostile toward the Malon, whom she accuses of environmental crimes by dumping their toxic waste. Fesek surprises her by telling her that he is a sculptor who has, like many other Malon, sacrificed his time for a shorter life-expectancy in order to carry out the service of removing the toxic waste from Malon Prime. |
While checking on a jammed airlock, Pelk is attacked. He claims the attacker to be a creature that many Malon superstitiously believe is created by radiogenic waste, but he fails to convince Fesek and the Voyager team that the creature exists; they think he is hallucinating. Pelk dies and his body is beamed to Voyager's Sickbay for a post-mortem to ascertain the cause of death.
 |
 |
| Pelk's passing |
As they work together, Fesek notices a blister on Torres' face and informs her that she has contracted 'freighter blight' - it is the start of radiation poisoning. They visit the freighter's infirmary where her shock at the body of a core labourer prompts him to explain that the core labourers suffer the worst radiation poisoning and shortest lives, but that they do so in return for high material rewards for their families that will be bereaved.
'freighter blight' |
Torres sees the body of a core labourer |
Meanwhile, Janeway prepares a contingency plan based on a nearby star. She concludes the corona would absorb the radiation from the blast if the freighter could be nudged close enough to it. On the freighter, as the team races through the decks to the control room, an airlock opens and creates a sudden vacuum. Everyone escapes but Chakotay, who is struck by flying debris. He has to be beamed back to Voyager for treatment, leaving Torres in charge of the mission.
 |
 |
| trying to evacuate the area, Chakotay is on a ladder, is knocked flying and suffers a bad fall |
Fesek and Torres crawl through an accessway |
Now in command of the mission, Torres makes an effort to draw on reserves of strength and struggle to control her frustration. She even spends a moment meditating, as taught her by Tuvok during her abortive first lesson. |
Reaching the freighter's control room, Torres, Neelix and Fesek work to re-initialise the power matrix.
entering the control room (view looking into the room) |
trying to re-initialise the power matrix |
Meanwhile, on Voyager, the Doctor finds tissue samples on Pelk that indicates a being is aboard the freighter that has developed a resistance to the radiation. He asks Seven, who is on duty in the Astrometrics Lab, to scan for a lifeform blended in with the ambient toxins on the ship. She des so, and the creature's presence is then revealed.
 |
 |
| the Doctor finishes tests on Pelk's body and reports to Chakotay |
Suddenly, the creature closes in on the team in the freighter control room. Neelix and Fesek are attacked, but Torres keeps the creature at bay and realises that it is a Malon core laborer.
 |
 |
| Torres meets the "vihaar" - actually a Malon core labourer who has adapted to the theta radiation |
The labourer insists sabotaging the ship is the only way to make the Malon understand how horrifying the radiation poisoning is to the men who sacrifice their lives working on the core. As Voyager emits a series of tractor pulses to steer the freighter into the star, the labourer uses maneuvering thrusters to disrupt its course. Torres tries to reason with him, but ultimately she has to resort to violence to stop him.
 |
 |
| Torres strikes the core labourer and keeps hitting him until he stays down, with each blow venting her anger and frustration |
At the last second, Torres, Neelix and Fesek are beamed to Voyager before the freighter explodes into the star's atmosphere.
 |
 |
 |
 |
| above 4 pictures: the freighter is drawn into the star's atmosphere and explodes, while Voyager manages to escape in the nick of time |
The Doctor finishes treating the away team. When Fesek wonders how to report the incident, Torres urges him to tell the Malon authorities the truth about the core labourer. Torres goes to her quarters to get cleaned up, and as she does so she contemplates the role that her violence played.
 |
 |
| Torres gives advice to Fesek: "Tell them the truth. Tell them the Vihaar is no myth." |
 | | CHAKOTAY TO TORRES: This isn't the Captain talking, it's me, and I'm giving you an order. Keep your temper in check. Understood? Understood?! ..... B'Elanna, I need your expertise on this mission, not your bad mood. |
|
