Dreadnought
Stardate: 49447
Original Airdate: February 12, 1996
By Christina Luckings
The Story
It is time for Ensign Wildman’s weekly pre-natal check
up and she is discussing possible names with the EMH and Kes.
Unfortunately, the research the EMH has been doing to find a
name of his own, means that he has found less than nice connotations
and associations for all of Samantha’s suggestions for
her son’s name. Despite a tradition in her Ktarian husband’s
family for one particular name, she’d rather have something
simpler. Kes suggests Benaran, her father’s name, which
meets with approval. Once Samantha has gone, however, the EMH
complains that Kes never suggested her fathers name to him. She
defends herself by saying she thought he was only considering
human names, and gives a few more Ocampan ones to try and mollify
him.
The bridge crew are gazing at the debris of an unmanned, shuttle-craft
sized ship floating in space ahead of them. They beam a piece
to Engineering for analysis. Later, Janeway arrives to get Torres
and Chakotay’s conclusions of the analysis. The weapon
that destroyed this very strong hull material was Cardassian,
but it has nothing to do with Seska. Torres claims responsibility
instead.
Paris arrives late for Torres’ briefing on the weapon.
It is a self guided tactical missile with a warhead of 1000 kilos
of matter and anti-matter and a computer system that is adaptive,
evasive and armed with it’s own defence weapons. It’s
original mission was to destroy a Maquis munitions base, but
fortunately it had been fitted with a kinetic detonator which
failed to go off. Torres got inside it, reprogrammed it completely
and they sent it to destroy a Cardassian fuel depot instead.
Now it appears that the Caretaker’s net caught it, just
like he caught Chakotay’s Maquis ship and Voyager. Janeway
orders the sensors to be adjusted to track this missile, which
Torres had named Dreadnought, and dismisses the meeting. Chakotay
confronts Paris about his lateness, and for a moment Tom considers
a ‘clever’ remark, before simply saying ‘Yes,
sir’ and leaving the room.
As they work on the sensors, Torres confesses to Paris that
Chakotay had been defending her by saying that Dreadnought was
a Maquis project. Actually she had done it all by herself, without
telling him, because she had been afraid that he would say no.
When he found out, all he did say was that he was disappointed
because he thought he had earned her trust. Tom reassures her,
and says how envious he is of how well she has learnt to fit
in on Voyager. Torres challenges him about his recent attitude
and asks if it is true that he had a fight with Lt. Rollins.
Yes, it is true that Tom’s helm reports weren’t punctuated
properly and that he got into trouble for it.
With the sensors adjusted, they go after Dreadnought, but the
missile has detected them and is being evasive. With Torres’ information
they finally catch up to it and discover that the missile has
locked onto a target – a populated class M planet over
10 light years away.
Jonas has acquired a new Kazon controller, who is being difficult
over passing on information about Dreadnought without more details.
Someone is about to send a sub-space message, and Jonas terminates
his secret link. That someone is Captain Janeway, who wants to
warn the First Minister of Rakosa of the approaching missile.
He assumes that she is threatening his world, having heard the
mis-information about Voyager being put out by the Kazon. Janeway
tries to assure him that they are trying to disarm it, and that
they have no hostile intent against his planet, but he remains
sceptical, placing his armed forces on alert.
It is 0840, and Torres beams over to Dreadnought, who greets
her in her own voice. She was last on board on 47582, and was
not expected to return during the mission. Torres does something
to the navigational sensors then asks Dreadnought to confirm
it’s position. The missile admits that it is in the delta
quadrant and that it can no longer verify it’s target,
so it shuts down it’s engines, goes to stage 5 and the ‘power
save’ programme. Torres leaves the sleeping weapon.
In Janeway’s ready room, Chakotay and Torres are discussing
how to divide up Dreadnought for their own use – spare
parts and so on – when Paris informs the Captain that the
missile just set off for Rakosa at warp 9. It’ll get there
in 51 hours. When they catch up to it, Dreadnought refuses to
allow Torres back on board. Tuvok fires a pair of type 6 photon
torpedoes at the missile to try and slow it down, but they have
no effect. Then Dreadnought hails them to warn them against interfering
in it’s mission. It is an eerie moment, hearing Torres’ voice
coming over the conn while she is standing there on the bridge.
B’Elanna asks Dreadnought to explain itself, and it calmly
explains that it has decided that she is being coerced by the
Cardassians, under the terms of the Cardassian-Federation treaty
of 2367, into putting false data in the navigational sensors.
This was scenario number 7 of 39 that Torres programmed into
it, and there is no way it will be persuaded that it is 75000
light years away from it’s target. Communications are ended,
and everyone stares at B’Elanna. Thinking hard, she comes
up with an idea that if they can get Dreadnought to fire it’s
thoron shock emitter at full power, the reactor core will destabilise
for thirty seconds. A tachyon beam might then penetrate the core
and destroy it. Three photons are fired at the missile, which
responds as expected. The tachyon beam starts an over load, but
then Dreadnought sends a plasma surge back along the beam, burning
out systems all over the ship. The missile carries on to Rakosa
while Voyager hangs dead in space.
Janeway keeps the Rakosan First Minister informed of the situation.
A few crew members sustained broken limbs, she tells him, to
which he retorts that they are projecting casualties in the millions
when Dreadnought completes its mission. The Rakosa space fleet
are mobilising to intercept the missile. A futile gesture but
they cannot sit there and do nothing. After his initial suspicion,
Kellan is starting to trust Janeway, and asks her to call him
by name, not title.
Harry and B’Elanna finally manage to get past Dreadnought’s
shields and beam the chief engineer back in to do the job properly
this time – 1931 hours to be precise. Her entry is unauthorised
so Dreadnought denies access to the interfaces and circuit pathways,
giving an electric shock as an additional warning not to try
and interfere with the mission. B’Elanna finds away around
it, however, and gets to the navigational sensors just as before,
disappointed that Dreadnought isn’t putting up more of
a fight. Then the missile detects the fifteen ships of the Rakosan
fleet, and arms its weapons. Janeway tries to warn off the ships,
then contacts B’Elanna, who tells her that the fleet has
created a diversion, and that she is making progress. Voyager
moves into weapons range to assist the fleet. Meanwhile, Dreadnought
reroutes her command functions to stop B’Elanna shutting
her down. The fleet attacks, but they are no match for the missiles
defences and have to withdraw. Dreadnought is 1 hour 9 minutes
from it’s target.
B’Elanna is giving a quick report to Janeway when Dreadnought
terminates the communications link and transporter lock, because
it is no longer tactically useful to her. B’Elanna starts
to work in another panel, and Dreadnought announces that she
is trying to detonate the explosive before she reaches her target.
Why would she sacrifice herself if she was being coerced by the
Cardassians? B’Elanna challenges the computer to explain
it’s logic. It cannot, and reassesses the probabilities.
Sensing an opportunity, B’Elanna suggests that they reassess
the probabilities together, as a hypothetical game. She tells
it to assume everything it has been told is true, that it is
in the delta quadrant heading for the wrong target. How could
that happen? If key sensor programmes were damaged or deleted,
comes the answer, so B’Elanna gets her to display those
files, and she spots a Cardassian file which Dreadnought cannot
identify. Then the missile reaches it’s new conclusion – that
B’Elanna is now actively cooperating with the Cardassians.
Life support on board is terminated.
With forty one minutes to doomsday, Janeway tells Kellan that
she is prepared to use Voyager to ram Dreadnought, to try and
destroy it. This deeply impresses the Rakosan who tells her Voyager
has made a friend here. Meanwhile, B’Elanna is trying to
get the old Cardassian file online, while Dreadnought reminds
her that life support has been terminated and she should return
to her ship.
Janeway tells Tuvok and Chakotay that she plans to set off a
large explosion close to Dreadnought, and Tuvok realises that
she means a warp core breach. She orders Chakotay to get the
crew to the escape pods and safely away, while she claims the
prerogative of staying on board. As the crew leave the bridge,
Janeway sets the self destruct sequence for twenty minutes countdown.
B’Elanna gets the Cardassian version of Dreadnought back
on line and the two computer systems begin a battle for control
of the missile. As they argue back and forth, B’Elanna
gets the door to the central core open and climbs inside with
her phaser. With eleven minutes to go to self destruct, Kim gets
communications and a transporter lock back. Torres reports that
she is burning though the magnetic constrictor casing even as
they speak. Janeway lets her get on with it, and orders the remaining
senior officers to report to their escape pods. She takes over
Paris’s position at the helm. They exchange a long look,
and he thanks her for everything. The countdown reaches seven
minutes and Tuvok refuses to go, pointing out that it would be
logical for her to have a second in command in case she is incapable
of completing the mission. She grants him permission to remain.
On Dreadnought, the Cardassian programme is defeated by the
Maquis, and she turns her attention to B’Elanna. Life support
will be restored if she stops trying to breach the containment
field, the computer offers in a last ditch attempt to prevent
it’s mission from being disrupted. With three minutes to
warp core breach, Janeway offers Torres a last chance to come
back and get in an escape pod. She turns it down and Dreadnought
offers to reconsider the delta quadrant hypothesis as the containment
field drops to twenty percent. Two years ago, muses B’Elanna,
the thought that they would end up trying to kill each other
never crossed her mind. Tuvok notices that Dreadnought’s
containment field is collapsing and Janeway orders him to beam
Torres back now as she veers Voyager away from the missile, which
explodes as their own computer reminds the Captain that the warp
core will overload in one minute. Rapidly, Janeway orders the
sequence terminated then tries to contact Torres, only to be
answered by a terse EMH who had been completely forgotten in
all the excitement, and had taken the liberty of beaming B’Elanna
to sickbay, where she is ‘singed around the edges’ but
will make a full recovery. Mission accomplished, Tuvok and Janeway
begin to retrieve the escape pods.
Review:
After the Tuvok and Paris showcase episodes, we have one for
Torres, in which her past actions catch up with her in a very
big way. The wilful, occasionally reckless Maquis has matured
in to a good solid Starfleet officer with the ability to sacrifice
herself for the greater good if need be. Or is that commit
suicide rather than face the consequences of her past deeds.
I have to wonder how she could spend weeks reprogramming a
captured Cardassian missile then send if off on a new mission
without Chakotay at least questioning what she was up to, but
the Maquis can be a devious lot so I’ll have to let that
one pass. This is a good, tense story with last minute resolution
based on character, not fancy technobabble, which pleases me.
Roxanne Dawson does a good job with her character here, and
also has the dubious privilege of voicing the ‘villain’ too,
although I suspect that Dreadnought was ‘looped’ after
filming and she didn’t really spend days talking to herself
on set. Tom Paris has me a little baffled though. In one scene
he is discontented and envious of the way Torres has settled
into this way of life, then later he is genuinely thanking Janeway
for everything she has done for him. Something not quite right
there. Chakotay’s offer to stay with Janeway while she
makes the run to stop Dreadnought is turned down flat in favour
of Tuvok. This to me is a clear indication that Chakotay’s
position as first officer is a political one, and if she really
had had a choice in the matter, it would be Tuvok at her side
instead. The rest of the cast are just padding for this story,
and the teaser with Wildman and the banter over the EMH’s
name simply a light reminder of the two main ongoing threads
to the series.
Grade: 7/10
Cast:
Kate Mulgrew as Kathryn Janeway
Robert Beltran as Chakotay
Roxanne Biggs-Dawson as B'Elanna Torres
Jennifer Lien as Kes
Robert Duncan McNeill as Tom Paris
Ethan Phillips as Neelix
Robert Picardo as The Doctor
Tim Russ as Tuvok
Garrett Wang as Harry Kim
Guest Cast:
Raphael Sbarge as Michael Jonas
Dan Kern as Kellan
Michael Spound as Lorum
Creative Staff:
Director: LeVar Burton
Teleplay By: Gary Holland and Lisa Klink
Story By: Gary Holland
