Setting:
the 24th century. A renegade band of freedom fighters known as the Maquis
are operating outside Federation law. When a Maquis ship disappears in
"The Badlands" with undercover StarFleet Security Officer Tuvok
aboard, the Federation's new starship, U.S.S. Voyager and her Captain,
Kathryn Janeway, are dispatched to retrieve Lieutenant Tuvok. Captain
Janeway recruits a StarFleet washout/Maquis prisoner, Tom Paris, to help
on the mission. Before Voyager departs Deep Space 9 to undertake her mission,
Paris rescues a fresh Academy graduate, the starship's Ops Officer, Harry
Kim, from Quark's dubious salesmanship. The two become friends, in spite
of warnings to Ensign Kim that Lieutenant Paris caused the death of fellow
crewmembers and then lied to cover it up. (Janeway leaves last-minute
instructions about her pregnant dog with her fiance, Mark). In The Badlands
Voyager encounters a bizarre phenomenon that sweeps it some 70,000 light
years away to the Delta Quadrant.
The
catapult effect is costly: First Officer Cavit, Conn Officer Stadi,
the Chief Engineer, and the Chief Medical Officer, as well as several
others, are killed. When the Chief Medical Officer dies, an Emergency
Medical Hologram materializes to care for the wounded.
Voyager's survivors soon realize the Maquis ship is also in the Delta
Quadrant. They discover that an alien, known as "the Caretaker"
is behind their appearance there. The Caretaker has been providing for
the native Ocampa people and their world since his race severely damaged
their atmosphere in an accident. Knowing his own death nears, the aged
alien is collecting people of different
species in order to test them for compatible DNA to provide him with
a mate that will bear offspring to carry on his work. The Caretaker
kidnaps both crews and examines them, but they are returned to their
vessels some three days later, except for Ensign Kim from Voyager and
B'Elanna Torres, a half-Klingon, half-human Engineer from the Maquis
vessel.
Banding together to successfully rescue their missing mates, the two
crews encounter Neelix, a Talaxian scavenger and jack-of-all-trades
and his lover Kes, an Ocampan who strives for more than her people's
sedate and dependent lifestyle underground.
The
Ocampan planet also introduces the Federation crew to the Kazon, a warlike
alien race on the planet's surface, who covet the power and resources
-- especially water -- that the Caretaker bestows on the sealed-off
Ocampa underground. To save the natives from the Kazon as the Caretaker's
death nears, Janeway destroys the Caretaker's Power Array -- and her
own people's best and perhaps only way home. Deprived of their target,
the enraged Kazon are beaten only by a kamikaze run on their mother
ship by Maquis Captain Chakotay and his ship, after his crew is beamed
safely aboard Voyager.
Chakotay takes up Janeway's offer to merge their crew under a Starfleet
operation; he considers Paris a traitor for helping Starfleet, but he
knows Tuvok's undercover work was just following orders. Neelix and
Kes convince Janeway of their usefulness and are allowed to stay on
board. Chakotay is assigned to be First Officer, and Tom Paris is reinstated
to service as a Lieutenant and serves at the Conn. They must all work
together to find the way back home.
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