Tom’s latest shuttle acquisition blurs the line between man and machine.
When Voyager happens upon a junkyard of old ships, the crew purchases some spare parts from Abadon, the salesman. Tom falls in love with a small shuttle, which he convinces Chakotay he will restore. It has a neurogenic interface, allowing it to interact directly with the pilot’s thoughts. Tom gets to work immediately, naming his new toy Alice. After a brief trial of the interfacing technology, Tom calls it a night. When he leaves, however, Alice powers on by herself, scanning Tom’s brain imprint. In his quarters, Tom hears a female voice calling for him.
Driven by Alice’s seductive power, Tom works nonstop on the shuttle. He and B’Elanna try to celebrate its christening together, but Tom is obsessed to the point of excluding everyone else. Tapping into Alice’s database, he has found the flight suit design of her last pilot and is now wearing it instead of his Starfleet uniform. When Chakotay orders him to put his test flight on hold and tend to his official duties, Tom complains to Alice, who he is now imagining as a flesh and blood woman. She eggs him on, convincing him to use the neurogenic interface again.
Alice goads Tom into stealing power cells from Voyager. She is the voice in his ear, playing to his passion for flight and freedom. When Alice traps B’Elanna, sealing the hatch and shutting off life support systems, Tom realizes the neurogenic interface is out of control. He rescues B’Elanna and tries to alert sickbay, but Alice intervenes, forcing him to launch the shuttle and complete the interface, making him one with the machine. Just as Janeway and the crew realize what is happening, Tom turns on Voyager. He begins firing and escapes into warp drive.
The Voyager crew turns to Abadon for answers. He explains that the shuttle Tom acquired is haunted. Before he can say more, he begins hallucinating himself and suffers a cerebral hemorrhage. After receiving a cortical suppressant, Abadon reveals that he too was once linked with Alice. She was looking for a top biological entity with which to work in tandem, guiding her to an unknown point in space. After reconstructing data Tom left behind, Seven discovers where he and Alice are heading—an anomaly called a particle fountain.
Because Tom’s synaptic functions are linked to the shuttle, Janeway cannot risk firing on him. Instead, Tuvok works to access the main computer and transmit a shutdown sequence. To distract Tom, B’Elanna taps into his interface using a communication signal. With both B’Elanna and Alice’s voice in his head, Tom cannot think straight. Just as he is about to suffer a cerebral hemorrhage, Tuvok succeeds in shutting down Alice. Tom is beamed safely to sickbay, and Alice is destroyed in the particle fountain.
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
GUEST STARRING
Claire Rankin
John Fleck
Teleplay by: Bryan Fuller &
Michael Taylor
Story by: Juliann DeLayne
Directed by: David Livingston
HIGHLIGHT LISTING
STAR TREK: VOYAGER: “Alice”—Tom’s latest shuttle acquisition blurs the line between man and machine.
