Starfleet honor is tested when two captains fight a battle of wills.
As aliens attack Voyager through fissures on every deck, Janeway uses a deflector pulse to reinforce the shields. By transmitting a message of peace through the translation matrix, the Captain hopes to extend an olive branch to the aliens. However, they do not respond, and she turns her attention to stopping the Equinox. Captain Ransom cannot get the enhanced warp drive online because Seven has encoded the power relays. He turns to the Doctor, who has been downloaded into the Equinox database, to extract the codes from Seven’s cranial infrastructure. When he refuses, Ransom deletes the Doctor’s ethical subroutines.
Seven’s cortical array will be extracted, leaving her without higher brain functions. Ransom pleads with her to give him the codes and join his crew, but she refuses. Suddenly, he is alerted that Voyager has entered the Equinox’s orbit. After polarizing the hull, Janeway and her crew have ambushed his away team, which was exploring a nearby planet for nucleogenic particles.
Voyager and Equinox begin trading fire, and Ransom uses his ship’s thrusters to set a course for the nearby planet. As Voyager quickly loses its shields in the pursuit, Janeway backs off to avoid vulnerability to alien attack. She demands that Ransom’s captured crew member reveal his captain’s tactical status, even going so far as to leave him without protection from the aliens, but Chakotay rescues their hostage. There is an Ankari vessel nearby, and Chakotay believes they can help the Voyager crew communicate with the hostile aliens. In response to his open defiance, Janeway relieves Chakotay of his duties.
Once Janeway hails the Ankari Captain and convinces him to summon the aliens, she asks them to cease their attacks. However, they want to destroy the Equinox crew as payback for destroying them, and will not listen to reason. Relenting, Janeway offers to take them to the Equinox in exchange for Voyager’s safety. Meanwhile, Ransom struggles with his conscience when he learns they will have to kill even more lifeforms to have enough fuel to get home.
When Ransom announces his intention to surrender to Voyager, his Commander, Max, stages a mutiny and sends him to the Brig. With the help of one of his crewmembers, Ransom secretly accesses transporter control and hails Janeway to tell her of his change of heart. After dropping the shield grid so everyone on board can be beamed to the safety of Voyager, Ransom heroically goes down with his ship, as does Max, who is attacked by the aliens.
CAST
CAPTAIN KATHRYN JANEWAY
KATE MULGREW
CHAKOTAY
ROBERT BELTRAN
B'ELANNA TORRES
ROXANN DAWSON
TOM PARIS
ROBERT DUNCAN MCNEILL
NEELIX
ETHAN PHILLIPS
THE DOCTOR
ROBERT PICARDO
TUVOK
TIM RUSS
SEVEN OF NINE
JERI RYAN
HARRY KIM
GARRETT WANG
SPECIAL GUEST STAR
JOHN SAVAGE
CAPTAIN RANSOM
GUEST STARRING
TITUS WELLIVER
OLIVIA BIRKELUND
RICK WORTHY
Teleplay by: Brannon Braga &
Joe Menosky
Story by: Rick Berman &
Brannon Braga &
Joe Menosky
Directed by: David Livingston
HIGHLIGHT LISTING
STAR TREK: VOYAGER: “Equinox, Part II”—Starfleet honor is tested when two captains fight a battle of wills.
