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Kes returns, seeking revenge on both Voyager and Janeway.

Summary

In 2376, USS Voyager receives a distress call from a small ship. Sensors reveal the ship has one Ocampan lifeform on board. It is an aged Kes, who appears frail and weak, asking for permission to beam aboard. When Captain Janeway questions her motives, Kes cuts the com channel. Immediately after, her ship is on a collision course with Voyager and just before it is destroyed, Kes manages to transport herself on board. Furiously, she makes her way to engineering, giving off high levels of neurogenic energy that destroy the sections she is walking through. She does not respond to any hails from the captain and even force fields cannot hold her back.

All attempts to stop her fail and she finally reaches engineering, making her way to the warp core. While she is holding on to the core, she kills B'Elanna Torres with an energy pulse emitted from it. Holding on ever stronger to the warp core, she lights up and disappears. She somehow uses the warp core to travel back in time to 2371, shortly after Voyager had become trapped in the Delta Quadrant.

In 2371, there are now two Keses: the one that belongs to 2371 and the one that has traveled back in time to 2371. Materializing right next to the warp core, she transforms herself into a duplicate of the young Kes. She makes her way to sickbay and starts fiddling around with some of The Doctor's medical instruments, who is annoying her with his questions about what name to pick for himself. Barely listening to him, she picks up a hypospray and rushes out of sickbay.

In the airponics bay, the real Kes who belongs to the timeline, is attacked by the "old" Kes, sedated and hidden, so that there are not two Keses walking around the ship.

In the mess hall, Tom Paris and Neelix are chatting, when Kes walks in and asks Neelix for some coffee that she wants to bring for the captain. She is a bit grumpy and distanced, unable to laugh at Neelix's jokes like she used to. She grabs a canister with coffee and goes to the captain's ready room. There, she spills some of it on the captain's desk by accident as she claims, and when the captain is called to the bridge, she gets on her computer. When she leaves the ready room, Tuvok, who is standing on the bridge with the others, looks at her from afar as if he sensed something.

Later, during a staff meeting which is all about finding a way to evade the Vidiians and navigate the ship through a region of space densely packed with subspace vacuoles, Tuvok suggests taking the Delta Flyer with its advanced sensors to navigate through the region. This comes as a big surprise to everyone, because they have never heard of a Delta Flyer. Tuvok apologizes, believing that he must have been thinking of another starship. However, he continues to experience hallucinations and premonitions, all of which involve elements and people from a timeline that has not taken place yet.

Kes walks into her quarters to find that Neelix has prepared one of her favorite meals for her, leaving her a message that says how much he misses her. Suddenly, she becomes irrationally angry and furious, throwing everything off the table and yelling at the computer to turn off the music. She then asks it to open an encrypted channel and direct the signal to the Vidiians whom she informs about Captain Janeway's plan to evade their vessels. She offers to send them tactical data on their shields, weapons and anything else they need to take the Voyager. In return, she asks for safe passage to Ocampa for herself and one other person. When asked by the Vidiian why she is abandoning her crew, she coldly states that they are not her crew for they abandoned her long ago.

In the meantime, Tuvok discusses his hallucinations with the captain. He informs her of having run into a half-Human, half-Ktarian girl named Naomi Wildman in the turbolift and also of his encounter with a woman and several children with cybernetic implants. He cannot explain what is happening to him. Even though he has had hallucinations before, it has always been in the context of deep meditation. However, these are specific, evoking a sense of anticipation. He is concerned because Vulcans generally do not have premonitions. Janeway instructs the computer to run a continuous scan around Tuvok so they can monitor what is happening to him next time he has another one of his visions; visions that become so frequent that they begin interfering with his work to the point of requiring him to ask to be relieved of duty.

The Doctor, albeit reluctantly, confirms Ensign Wildman's pregnancy which is producing a half-Ktarian female offspring, Janeway realizes that everything Tuvok said is true and that there is something very strange going on.

Tuvok's hallucinations become stronger and more frequent until he finally breaks down in engineering and goes into synaptic shock. Examining the proximity scan of Tuvok at the time where he broke down in engineering, Janeway discovers a surge in tachyon particles, indicating temporal distortions and thus probably time travel. While nervous about these findings and researching the occurrence of tachyon particles elsewhere on the ship, Voyager suddenly finds itself under attack by the Vidiians who keep matching Voyager's shield frequencies.

The Vidiian ship attaches itself to Voyager's hull, trying to access the ship directly. Janeway asks for the neural agent The Doctor has been developing and asks him to release it in the sections where the Vidiians have cut a hole through the hull, but much to their horror they find that environmental controls are not responding; they have been locked out of that system, all command relays have been fused and the Vidiians are about to board them. That is when Janeway realizes that the Vidiians knew where to find them all along: they knew their shield frequencies and which systems to target. Someone told them.

An electromagnetic fluctuation that could indicate a transmission, is detected in the airponics bay. Bioreadings pick up two Keses. Janeway makes her way down there, where Kes is about to, unsuccessfully, initiate a site-to-site transport. Janeway confronts her in the airponics bay. When asked why she is helping the Vidiians, Kes tells her that she is from a future she is hoping to change, and uses her telekinetic powers to throw Janeway around the bay and out of her way. She says that she won't let them hurt her again by taking her from Ocampa, her home. She claims to have been a prisoner on this ship, a child who was corrupted by their ideas of exploration and discovery. She tells her that in three years she will leave Voyager in search of higher things because Janeway encouraged her to develop her mental abilities; something she was not ready for. What she found, she couldn't control. It scared her, and she felt she had nowhere to go. She thought of returning home to Ocampa, but knew that the people in her home world would be frightened by her mental abilities and not accept her. But they will accept the younger Kes, the one she is holding and wanting to transport over to the Vidiian ship.

All attempts by Janeway to make her understand reason fail, and Kes becomes more and more furious until finally Janeway has no choice but to set her phaser to kill and kill Kes. Meanwhile, Voyager manages to break free of the Vidiian ship and drive them off.

Later, in engineering, Tuvok, who is standing in front of the warp core, says that Kes was standing exactly here during his last premonition, where she appeared older, faceless, tired. They note that tachyons are concentrated in the warp core and that it was possible that she used the core to travel back in time. If that is true, then she will need it again but unfortunately, they don't know when that will be and yet they have to be ready for it.

When young Kes regains consciousness, Captain Janeway tells her in confidence what has happened and that they will need her help to prevent it from happening again...

In 2376, Voyager receives a distress call from a small ship. Sensors reveal the ship has one Ocampan lifeform on board. It is an aged Kes, who appears frail and weak, asking for permission to beam aboard. When she hears that, Janeway is immediately alerted and knows what to do. She raises shields and goes to red alert and orders the emergency evacuation of Deck Eleven. Kes' ship is on a collision course with Voyager and just before it is destroyed, Kes beams herself on board. Furious, she makes her way to engineering, giving off high levels of neurogenic energy that destroy the sections she is walking through. She does not respond to any hails and even force fields cannot hold her back. On the bridge, Janeway orders the shutting-down of the warp-core and signals to Tuvok to be ready and follow her.

In engineering, Janeway plays the hologram Kes had recorded before leaving Voyager. In that, the holographic recording of Kes reminds her older self that no one forced her to do anything; that she was the one who made the decision to leave Ocampa and also the one who made the decision to leave Voyager. She asks her not to take revenge and just find another way home with the Captain's help. She asks her to try and remember who she used to be. Janeway walks in, telling her what will happen if she crosses the timeline again. She offers her to stay with them on Voyager but Kes says that she cannot, for she does not belong there and needs to be with her own people. Suddenly she smiles, saying that she now remembers the holorecording she made years ago to remind herself of who she is. Janeway asks her whether it really matters which Kes goes home...

In the transporter room, the captain and Neelix are sending Kes off. Neelix hands her a few snacks for the journey home and looks at her in reminiscence. When she asks him if he is seeing anyone he knows, he replies that he is only seeing her. When Tuvok asks what they should tell the others, Janeway says to simply tell them that a friend got lost and they helped her find her way. With these words Janeway and Tuvok leave the transporter room and Kes' ship sets a course for home.

Memorable quotes

"We've known each other for how long?"
"Approximately twenty years."
"We've served on three starships together. I was present at your daughter's kolinahr. I consider you one of my closest friends."
"And I regard you with the same esteem."
"I've always been honest with you, but you've been keeping something from me."
"I don't know what you mean."
"Don't you? It took exhaustive research, sifting through teraquads of data, separating fact from rumor, but eventually I arrived at the truth."
"Captain?"
(Janeway turns to her replicator and replicates a small cake with a lit candle.) "Happy birthday."

- Janeway and Tuvok


"It was a fire hazard."

- Tuvok, after reluctantly blowing out his birthday candle


"Identify yourself."
"It's me, Tuvok. Naomi Wildman."

- Tuvok and Naomi Wildman


"State your intentions!"

- Seven of Nine, to the old Kes in engineering


"One down, 215 to go."

- Chakotay, on the number of subspace vacuoles


"What do you remember?"
"I was in airponics, and then I felt dizzy, and then I was watching myself."
"Yourself?"
"Computer, deactivate EMH."

- Tuvok, Young Kes, The Doctor, and Janeway


"They're trying to lock on us with a tractor beam."
"Reverse thrusters, full power!"
"That'll tear the hull apart."
"Then tear it apart!"

- Tom Paris, Chakotay, and Harry Kim, while Voyager desperately tries to escape the Vidiians


"What?"
"Just looking."
"See anyone you know?"
"Only you."

- Kes and Neelix, right before Kes leaves Voyager to return home


"Home for me means a penal colony. Out here, I get to fly a state-of-the-art ship and there's no admirals in sight."

- Tom Paris, to Kes

Background Information

  • This is the only episode in which any direct, face-to-face interaction occurs between Seven of Nine and Kes, and the only time dialog occurs between them. It is a single line, from Seven to Kes: "State your intentions."
  • Prior to the making of this episode, Chakotay actor Robert Beltran said that he "certainly hoped" there would be a forthcoming episode featuring Kes. Template:Brokenlink
  • This episode marks the final appearances of Kes (Jennifer Lien), Ensign Samantha Wildman (Nancy Hower), and the Vidiians on the series.
  • This episode is the third and final episode to include the complete cast of the show from all seasons. The previous two episodes to do this were "Scorpion, Part II" and "The Gift".
  • In the 2371 portions of the episode, Tuvok is (and is referred to as) lieutenant, but he has the rank insignia of lieutenant commander (although this may not be an error, as the same wardrobe mistake is present in most of Season 1, in which the majority of this episode is set). On the other hand, they didn't repeat the other wardrobe mistake of Season 1: Tom Paris being shown as a full lieutenant when, later, he was shown with his real rank at that time, which was lieutenant junior grade.
  • The cockpit of Kes' ship as she enters Voyager is a reuse of the cockpit of the timeship Aeon that Captain Braxton used in the third season episode "Future's End".
  • This episode first establishes the Starfleet guideline "Faster than light, no left or right" or "Maintain a linear trajectory wherever possible while at warp speed." This is the only episode in any of the modern Star Trek series to place a restriction on the movement of a vessel at warp speed. Consequently, this is the only episode wherein a starship is not able to maneuver at warp speeds.
  • When Janeway gives Tuvok his birthday cake, she mentions that he is approaching the "big three digits," but at this time, Tuvok is already over 110 years old, having been born in 2264.
  • In this episode, The Doctor states to Janeway that, as Ensign Wildman is carrying a half-Ktarian child, her pregnancy period is doubled. This confirms what many fans assumed to be the reason for Ensign Wildman's longer-than-normal pregnancy (which had actually lasted a year and a half in the show).
  • Writer Bryan Fuller stated the original outline for the episode was much different. The original draft had no time travel and focused on the Voyager crew reuniting with an older bitter Kes who was nothing like the friend they remembered. The original ending was more open ended and allowed for future appearances by Kes as a possible enemy. (citation needededit)

Video and DVD releases

Links and references

Also starring

Guest stars

Co-stars

Uncredited co-stars

Stunt double and stand-ins

References

airponics bay; annual physical; antigraviton; apple; Asil; Badlands; birthday; Borg; cancer; Cardassians; class 1 shuttle; coffee; coordinates; cortical stimulator; Deep Space 9; Delta Flyer; dizziness; doctor-patient confidentiality; "Double Talaxian with cheese"; Earth; environmental system; Template:ShipClass; graveyard; "Greasy Neelix"; Greskrendtregk; herbs; holodeck; holo-recording; hull polarity; immune system; impulse drives; inertial damper; Jarvik, Robert; Kes's starship; kidney; Ko, Pyong; kolinahr; Ktarian; lectrazine; leola root; Maquis; meditation; millijoule; milliliter; Mulcahey; Neelix 1; neural agent; neural gel pack; neuro-stabilizer; neurogenic energy; New Zealand Penal Settlement; Ocampan; Ocampa (planet); Oshionian Prime; parsec; Paris, Owen; Pasteur, Louis; penal colony; phage; photon torpedo; premonition; Risa; Schweitzer, Albert; site-to-site transport; shield frequency; subspace vacuole; synaptic shock; tachyon; tactical database; telepathy; temporal distortion; teraquad; time travel; tractor beam; Vidiian; Vidiian starship (2371-2372); warp core; warp core assembly; warp energy

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Star Trek: Voyager
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