Synopsis:
The discovery of a wormhole in deep space raises the crew's
hopes of finding a shortcut home.
When Ensign Kim finds a wormhole that might lead to the Alpha
Quadrant, the crew believes they may have found a rapid route
home. Although the opening to the tunnel in space proves too
small for Voyager to fly through, Janeway decides to launch a
microprobe into it to see what's on the other side.
To Kim's disappointment, the probe gets stuck in a
gravitational eddy before it makes it all the way through, but
he's surprised by readings indicating the probe is being scanned
by someone on the other side. Janeway suggests they transmit a
message through the probe, hoping it will be picked up by
whoever is scanning it. Before long, they receive a subspace
response -- from the Alpha Quadrant, 70,000 light years away!
In the meantime, Kes begins working closely with the Doctor
in Sickbay. She's surprised by how rudely Voyager's staff treats
him because he's "only a hologram." She asks the
Captain if the Doctor can be treated with the same respect as
crewmembers. Janeway agrees, and tells the Doctor he should
begin thinking of himself as a member of the crew. What's more,
she's giving him control over his own deactivation sequence, and
his first taste of independence.
When Voyager finally succeeds in achieving voice contact with
the Alpha Quadrant ship, they are surprised to find it's a
Romulan vessel. The Romulan captain, a scientist named Telek, is
suspicious of the communication from a Starfleet vessel,
thinking at first that they must be Federation spies. But once
they've established a visual link and the two captains can
communicate eye-to-eye, Telek becomes more sympathetic to their
plight, saying he'll consider relaying messages to the crew's
families back home.
Anxious to explore every avenue that will facilitate getting
home, Torres explains that she might be able to "piggyback"
a transporter beam onto the visual link, which theoretically
would allow the crew to beam to the Romulan ship in the Alpha
Quadrant. To test the theory, the Romulan captain allows himself
to be transported onto Voyager.
Regrettably, Tuvok discovers the crew has actually beamed the
Romulan from 20 years in the past, due to a time rift in the
wormhole. Knowing it's pointless to transport the crew back in
time because it would wreak havoc with the timeline of that era,
Janeway asks the Romulan to relay the crew's messages to their
families in 20 years. He agrees, and returns to his ship. Later,
a database check reveals that the Romulan died four years before
he was able to deliver the messages. Although disappointed, the
crew presses forward.
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Cast:
Kate Mulgrew as Kathryn Janeway™
Robert Beltran as Chakotay™
Roxann Biggs-Dawson as B'Elanna Torres™
Robert Duncan McNeill as Tom Paris™
Jennifer Lien as Kes™
Ethan Phillips as Neelix™
Robert Picardo as The Doctor
Tim Russ as Tuvok™
Garrett Wang as Harry Kim™
Guest Cast:
Vaughn Armstrong as Telek
Tom Virtue as Baxter
Creative staff:
Director: Winrich Kolbe
Story By: Hilary J. Bader
Teleplay By: Bill Dial and Jeri Taylor
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