Maneuvers (episode)
From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference.
- Also see: Maneuver (disambiguation) for related usages of the term.
| This article is written from the Real World point of view |
 |
| "Maneuvers" | ||
|---|---|---|
| VOY, Episode 2x11 Production number: 127 First aired: 20 November 1995 | ||
| ← | 26th of 168 produced in VOY | → |
| ← | 26th of 168 released in VOY | → |
| ← | 389th of 726 released in all | → |
 | ||
| Written By Kenneth Biller Directed By David Livingston | ||
| 49208.5 (2372) | ||
| ← | Arc: Seska (2 of 7) | → |
After Seska steals vital transporter technology from Voyager, Chakotay sets off on his own to recover it.
Contents |
[edit] Summary
[edit] Teaser
Commander Chakotay and Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres enter a turbolift. They're wearing civilian clothes. It quickly becomes apparent that they have just been pulled away from a game they've been playing — one that Torres insists she was winning easily. Chakotay counters that he was just letting her run up a substantial lead so she would tense up when he staged a rally. She balks at the idea, virtually proving his point. "Easy, B'Elanna," he says with a smile. "It's just hoverball."
Before she can respond, the lift halts at the bridge. There, Tuvok and Janeway explain that USS Voyager is being hailed using a Federation signal emanating from a nearby beacon.
[edit] Act One
Initial analysis of the beacon's carrier wave frequency indicates that its security code dates from a month after Voyager was thrown into the Delta Quadrant. Brief optimism that it might actually be from a Starfleet effort to find Voyager is quickly dashed by the appearance of a Kazon raider that immediately starts firing its weapons. A second, much smaller ship appears, clarifying the larger ship's pattern of attack. It is cutting a small hole in Voyager's shields so that the Kazon shuttle can breach Voyager's hull. The plan is successful, largely because the attack employs detailed knowledge of Starfleet vessels and security protocols. The Kazon shuttle enters the ship at cargo bay 2 on deck 4. Once inside Voyager, the raiding party outruns Tuvok's security detail, and heads for the transporter room on the same deck. They steal a transporter module and beam back to the main Kazon vessel — after completely disabling Voyager's remaining transporters.
The shuttle lodged in deck 4 has not only caused a dangerous hull breach, it's also preventing Voyager from establishing a stable warp field. Left with few alternatives, Janeway orders Chakotay to hold the Kazon vessel in a tractor beam. The vessel hails, revealing First Maje Culluh. Janeway insists on the return of the module, but Culluh refuses. Instead, he shows the secret to his successful raid: Seska emerges from behind Cullah to give a special greeting to Chakotay. Now undergoing therapy to restore her Cardassian physiology, Seska seems almost disappointed with Chakotay's predictability. She initiates a feedback loop with her deflector shields which disrupts the tractor beam. Free from Voyager, the Kazon ship quickly goes to warp. Voyager cannot pursue. Their heist of Federation transporter technology appears complete.
[edit] Act Two
Most of the senior staff examine the damage done by the Kazon shuttle. They sort through their repair priorities following the attack and determine that the shuttle's removal must take priority. Without its removal, Voyager cannot pursue the Kazon raider. Neelix initially resists Janeway's plan to pursue the Kazon ship, failing to understand why the extreme danger of tangling with the Kazon again is worth the risk. Janeway is firm. She explains that the impact of stolen Federation technology will irrevocably alter the balance of power in the Kazon Collective. Neelix and the rest of the senior staff quickly fall in line behind Janeway's priorities. Tuvok begins planning a response immediately, suggesting that Chakotay use his intimate history with Seska against her.
On the Kazon raider, Cullah indicates that he's not going to stop with just the transporter module. He tries to enlist the aid of Maje Haron, leader of the Kazon-Relora. The basic terms of the deal are simple. If the Relora lend their support to Cullah, the Kazon-Nistrim will share Voyager's technological spoils with them.
Back in engineering, Torres has hit on the technological solution to the problem. She tells Chakotay that the stolen transporter module contains a quantum resonance oscillator. If they modify a coil scanner to detect the oscillator, it will be possible to lock onto the module and beam it out. Chakotay believes that Seska will have anticipated this move, and so presses for a backup plan. Chakotay recalls a move Seska once made on a Maquis mission as providing the key to the problem. If he uses an anti-proton beam, he'll be able to destroy the module. The problem is that they have to get relatively close to the Kazon raider for the plan to work. For the moment, Chakotay doesn't answer how he plans to get that close.
Torres notes that Chakotay is taking Seska's reappearance very personally. She triest to comfort him by explaining that everyone was fooled by Seska. When that fails to ease him, Torres echoes his own words back to him. "Don't tense up", she says.
Meanwhile, the negotiations between Majes Haron and Cullah continue. However, Haron appears to have the upper hand. He has far greater numbers of troops and suggests that the only reason the Nistrim need help with this operation is because Cullah's grandfather wasted the Nistrim's resources. Therefore he proposes that Cullah should give the transporter to him, and allow the Relora to perform the operation alone. This meets with violent objection, but Seska manages to calm tensions between the two leaders temporarily.
Voyager unwittingly discovers how she was able to do this. Paris finds a gap in the raider's warp trail. When Voyager slows to investigate, they find Haron's body floating in space. Neelix ties together evidence supplied by the Doctor and Kes, along with his own visual inspection of Haron's uniform. Since the uniforms betray the corpse as belonging to the Relora — known enemies of the Nistrim — he suggests that the transporter module was used to beam Haron and his guards to their death in space.
Janeway convenes a meeting of the senior staff to discuss the implementation of the plan devised by Chakotay and Torres, only to discover that Chakotay is no longer on the ship. A shuttlecraft has gone missing from the shuttlebay, taken by Chakotay. Dumbfounded by the lack of adequate safety protocols that could have prevented Chakotay from leaving, Janeway tries to understand what her first officer is doing. With the coil scanner missing from engineering, it becomes apparent that Chakotay intends to effect the plan on his own.
Cullah upbraids Seska for suggesting that the Relora would join them. She apologizes, but spins the incident deftly. She intimates that his decision to kill the Maje of the Relora will send shockwaves through the Collective. Word will spread quickly that he is a powerful leader with superior technology. Cullah warms to the idea. He theorizes that the Relora were too strong to be sufficiently interested in his newfound technology. However, weaker sects, like the Mostral and the Hobii, might now join with him. When, however, Seska says that she's sent messages of invitation to other Majes in his name, he becomes enraged. She has overstepped her boundaries, and he makes sure she knows it. Only he leads the sect. She begs his forgiveness, and his anger abates. She tells him they've responded positively to "his" invitation. He dreams of being the first leader since Sankur to unite the sects.
Torres enters the captain's ready room to try to explain why Chakotay has behaved as he has. Since Chakotay will likely not speak on his own behalf, should he be found, Torres wants to ensure that someone offer a defense for his actions, before she passes judgment on him. While Janeway remains firm in her conviction that there's no real excuse for his open defiance of the chain of command, she partly allays B'Elanna by insisting that they worry about finding him now, while deferring discussion about his punishment until after his safe return.
Meanwhile, Chakotay's shuttle is now powered down, and parked just off the hull of the Kazon raider. He uses the oscillator to locate the transporter module. Just as he's about to release the anti-proton beam, however, Seska unmasks his position with a coherent polaron pulse, and fires on the shuttle. She has the shuttle tractored into the raider. When a security team opens it up, however, they discover he's not there. He's beamed himself into position near the transporter module. He destroys it by firing on it with his phaser then taps on his combadge to instruct the shuttle to begin transmitting a message from a probe he launched just prior to the attack on his shuttle. He surrenders his phaser with the words, "Lovely to see you again, Seska."
[edit] Act Three
Voyager detects the probe's message. In it, Chakotay explains that the signal has only been activated because he successfully disabled the transporter module. He warns Voyager to avoid coming to rescue them.
Seska begins an interrogation, of sorts, with Chakotay back on the Kazon raider. He's non-responsive to a variety of approaches, including seduction. Along the way, he explains that he's not only deprived her of the transporter module, but that he also completely wiped the computers on the shuttle, rendering it worthless. He still has something she wants, though: Voyager's command codes. He refuses.
Back on Voyager, Tuvok, Torres and Janeway struggle with how to proceed. Tuvok recommends that they follow Chakotay's recorded advice, and abandon him to the Kazon. Janeway is conflicted. Her better judgment agrees with Tuvok, but her "gut reaction" is to go after him. Torres agrees with Janeway's gut. She asks the difficult question, "How would the loss of our first officer affect this crew? What would it do to the morale on this ship?" Janeway considers for a moment, then orders Paris to continue a course to Chakotay's shuttle.
Meanwhile, Cullah has joined the interrogation of Chakotay. Now the questions are rougher, punctuated by hard fist blows. Chakotay responds to each punch by trying to appeal to Cullah as a man who's experienced Seska's manipulation. When he refuses to break, he is injected with a serum of some kind that affects his mind. Cullah insists on the command codes, but he doesn't break. Instead he says he has better information: "When Seksa's through with you," he intones, "she's going to kill you." Seska interrupts the interrogation by claiming Chakotay is delirious. Cullah exits, promising to retun in one hour. When he's gone, Seska disagrees with Chakotay's assessment of her. She says that if she were a killer, he would have been dead long ago. Simultaneously, she pushes a needle between his shoulder blades, at the base of his neck.
[edit] Act Four
Tuvok announces that the Kazon raider is now only about a half a light year away, but it has been joined by six other vessels. Neelix ponders the improbability of Cullah having that many ships, and says that they must come from rival sects. He quickly adds, though, that he's never known of Kazon sects to form an alliance like this. Leaving the political ramifications to one side, Tuvok says that it would be tactically unsound to proceed into an area with so many enemy ships. The only solution, Janeway asserts, is to find a way to remove Chakotay "without picking a fight".
Torres offers a radical solution. She suggests that they can beam Chakotay while traveling at warp speed. Kim, Tuvok and Janeway — namely, the Starfleet personnel — are dubious of Torres' plans, mainly because it flies in the face of Starfleet safety protocols. Torres insists she can do it, because she has done it while in the Maquis.
Meanwhile, Cullah is conducting negotiations between the various Majes — Loran of the Hobii, Surat of the Mostral, and Valek of the Oglamar. He appeals to them to make today the day that future Kazon children will remember as the day that the hegemony of the Relora and Ogla was ended. If they join together to seize Voyager, they will be the masters of the Kazon Collective. Valek is vocally opposed, and wonders whether they can actually defeat Voyager. Cullah claims he has Voyager's command codes. When Valek demands proof, Cullah at first seems slightly surprised, then has Commander Chakotay brought into the conference room. Chakotay looks like a man defeated by aggressive interrogation.
As Voyager nears, Torres is having problems finding Chakotay's life signs. Tuvok reminds the captain there is no guarantee that Chakotay is still onboard the raider, or even alive. Janeway refuses to concede that point just yet, and asks Torres for an update. She claims there's a dampening field in place which is disrupting the targeting scanners. Janeway theorizes that Seska could be masking Chakotay's signal. Torres reinitializes the transporter scanners to compensate for the field and finds him. Nevertheless, the dampening field prevents accurate beaming.
Valek demands that Cullah uses the command codes to disable Voyager. Cullah hesitates, and instead orders a direct assault on the Federation ship.
Now that a battle has been joined, Janeway presses Torres for results. She gets a transporter lock on Chakotay, and almost pulls him through. At the last moment, though, the Kazon ship alters the frequency of the dampening field and Chakotay is pulled back to the Kazon ship. As Voyager gets rocked by more direct hits, Janeway continues to wonder whether Torres can complete the procedure.
Back on the Kazon raider, Valek continues to demand the use of the command codes. Cullah claims that he's having problems interfacing with the Federation technology. With their backs turned on the other Majes, Cullah and Seska look furtively at each other. Seska decides to leave for the bridge, claiming she might have better luck interfacing with Voyager there. Valek moves to stop Cullah from joining her, however.
With Voyager's shields now almost depleted, Tuvok urgently recommends retreat. Janeway holds his recommendation briefly to consult with Torres. She asks how big the dampening field actually is. Torres responds that it's comparatively tiny — just enough to block transport of Chakotay. Janeway thus orders a change of tack.
Back in the Kazon conference room, Valek brings the issue of the command codes to a head. He accuses Cullah of lying. Cullah admits as much, saying that it does not matter if they have the command codes as long as they work together to defeat Voyager. Angered by that response, Valek pulls his weapon on Cullah and threatens to take over the ship. Before he can make good on his words, however, the Majes are beamed aboard Voyager instead. Their weapons disarmed by the transporter, the Majes are forced to concede to Tuvok's security team. Tuvok declares the terms: they will be beamed back to their ship in exchange for Chakotay and the shuttlecraft. They agree. The crisis is over.
Janeway calls Chakotay into her ready room in order to discipline him. In the end, she chooses not to offer any tangible punishment, aside from putting him on report. She stresses her profound disappointment in him. "How do you expect me to keep order," she asks him, "when the first officer decides to run off like some cowboy because he believes it's a good idea?"
The question goes unanswered, because the two are called to the bridge when another automated message beacon is discovered. This one is directed to Chakotay. Opting to view the message in the presence of others, Chakotay soon discovers it's Seska calling with some very disturbing news. She claims to have extracted his DNA in order to impregnate herself with it. She congratulates him on his impending fatherhood.
[edit] Log Entries
- Captain's log, stardate 49208.5. I have convened a meeting of the senior staff to determine how we can get close enough to the Nistrim ship to deploy the anti-proton beam.
- Captain's log, stardate 49211.5. Now that Commander Chakotay has made a full recovery, I'm faced with the difficult task of responding to his failure to follow procedure.
[edit] Memorable Quotes
"Hello, Chakotay. Congratulations on your victory. I look forward to our next meeting. Oh, and there's something you should know. While you were unconscious, I took the liberty of extracting a sample of your DNA. I impregnated myself with it. So, I guess more congratulations are in order. You're going to be a father."
- - Seska to Chakotay
[edit] Background Information
- The original working title of this episode was "Manipulations."
- This episode reintroduces Seska, who has shed her Bajoran nose ridges and now sports a far more Cardassian appearance.
- The Kazon shuttle breaches the hull of cargo bay 2 on deck 4. This is not the same "cargo bay 2" which later gets converted into Seven of Nine's alcove 2 years later. That "cargo bay 2" is established to be on deck 8. (VOY: "Equinox, Part II"). It is also likely not the "cargo bay 2" in which Kes' airponics bay was set up (VOY: "Parallax"), as no evidence of vegetation is seen during the firefight that occurs in the area. Perhaps this bay originally had another number when Voyager launched, and was reassigned as "bay 2" after Kes' alterations to the original bay 2 caused it to be known as the "airponics" (or, as it's called in "Parallax", "hydroponics") bay. Following the massive damage to the "Maneuvers" "cargo bay 2", perhaps it was declared unsafe for a long enough period of time that the bay on deck 8 took over its designation.
- The story about Seska and her pregnancy is continued in "Basics, Part I".
- This episode marks the first of two conferences held between the First Majes of the principal Kazon sects (excluding the Kazon-Ogla), the other being held in "Alliances".
[edit] Video and DVD releases
- UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 2.4, 22 April 1996.
- As part of the US VHS collection Star Trek - The Greatest Battles: 3 April 1997.
- As part of the UK VHS collection Star Trek - Greatest Battles: 16 November 1998.
- As part of the VOY Season 2 DVD collection.
[edit] Links and References
[edit] Guest Stars
[edit] Co-Star
- Majel Barrett as the computer voice
[edit] Uncredited Co-Stars
[edit] References
access code; advisor; annular confinement beam; antiproton beam; antiproton generator; automated message beacon; Bajor; beacon; Cardassian; Cardassian frigate; chain of command; cognac; coherent polaron pulse; coil scanner; command code; computer core; cowboy; DNA; dampening field; Deep Space 9; emergency containment field; encryption key; enemy's blood; evasive pattern; First Maje; frequency; hoverball; hull breach; hydrogen cloud; inertial dampers; intruder alert; Jal; Kazon; Kazon-Hobii; Kazon-Mostral; Kazon-Nistrim; Kazon-Ogla; Kazon-Oglamar; Kazon-Relora; Kazon raider; Kazon shuttle; maneuvering thrusters; Maquis; pattern buffer frequency; photonic charge; physiology; polaron; probe; quantum resonance oscillator; report; Sankur; security codes; sex; shadow maneuvers; shield harmonics; Starfleet; Starfleet Academy; targeting scanners; towing emitter; tractor beam; tractor emitter; transporter module; transporter oscillator; warp core frequency
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