Fair Trade
Stardate: Unknown
Original Airdate: Jan 8, 1997
By Chakoteya
The Story
Neelix seems desperate for more duties on
Voyager. He has studied the security protocols and thinks he is
qualified to be a junior grade officer. Tuvok tells him that promotion
has to be earned on a starship. Next stop is engineering, where
he chides Torres for not turning up for his special Klingon breakfast.
Neither she nor the rest of the crew were keen on cold gagh to
start the day. She does not have time for his enquiries about
engineering matters, but fortunately Captain Janeway summons him
to the bridge.
The viewscreen is filled with a purple swirling
thing which Neelix believes in the Nekrit Expanse a vast area
thousands of light years wide, with plasma storms. They decide
to stop at a space station to pick up supplies before proceeding.
Once there, they are hailed by the manager, Bahrat. He curtly
informs them that he gets a twenty percent cut on all trades on
the station, and that communications and their whereabouts may
be monitored. With no choice but to agree, Janeway takes Paris
and Chakotay with her when she goes to discuss their requirements
with him.
Bahrat is busy trying to watch a whole rack
of security monitors while looking over Janeway’s list of
needs. He notes that she is after pergium, a rare item. The trades
won’t be easy, but he’ll put her in touch with possible
suppliers. Meanwhile on the promenade, Paris and Chakotay are
accosted by a dealer. They want magnetic spindle bearings but
instead he offers them drugs to make long journeys seem like moments
of ecstasy. Neelix has also gone to the station, looking for a
map of the expanse, but it seems there are none. Just then his
old friend and colleague Wixiban turns up and invites him to have
a drink and catch up talk.
At first, Neelix is upbeat about his situation,
bragging about his many roles on Voyager. Then Wixiban tells him
how hard life has been since their run-in with the Ubeans. Neelix
changes his tone, and starts to lament that really he isn’t
needed on the ship, especially if he cannot find a map to let
them know what is in the Expanse. He’s never been beyond
this point in space before and feels his usefulness to Captain
Janeway is about to end. He will do anything to get a map.
An hour before dinner, Neelix is back in his
kitchen when Vorik arrives to adjust the replicators. Chakotay
brings in Wixiban to see him and tells him that his friend managed
to find the spindle bearings. They briefly sing each others praises
in front of Chakotay and Vorik, then once they are alone, Neelix
demands to know that the bearings were not stolen. They weren’t,
Wix assures him. He has also tracked down pergium, and a map !
All they have to do is use a shuttle to pick up medical supplies
from a freighter, beam into the station to do the trade to avoid
Bahrat taking his cut, then they’ll get the map. Neelix
agrees, slightly reluctantly. Without having to pay the manager
his cut, Wixiban will make enough to get his ship unimpounded
and finally head back to a Talaxian colony after three years on
the station.
Returning on the shuttle, Neelix is unhappy
about getting less than half the pergium he told Chakotay he would
be collecting. Wix tells him that he has had it too easy recently,
then takes a phaser from a locker before they beam over to corridor
14L. There they meet with Sutok, the drug dealer who accosted
Paris and Chakotay earlier. Wix hands over the case but Sutok
draws a weapon and fires. Wix returns fire and kills the drug
dealer, then they make their escape on the shuttle again.
Neelix is upset at the whole thing. Wix had
lied to him and now he wants to tell Janeway the whole story.
However, Wix manages to keep his silence by threatening to reveal
his shady past. After all, he spent a year suffering in an Ubean
prison whilst Neelix managed not to get caught.
‘Captain's log, supplemental. I have
called a meeting of the senior staff to inform them of some very
disturbing news I have just received.’
Captain Janeway breaks the news of the murder
to the senior staff. Bahrat is also there, because he has determined
that the weapon used was from Voyager. Tuvok will be assisting
in the investigation. Neelix looks very worried, and is still
apprehensive when Tuvok summons him to his office for routine
questions about Wixiban’s visit to Voyager. He tries to
distance himself from his former comrade, and is unhappy to be
asked to accompany the Security Officer when he goes to question
Wixiban in the station tavern later that day.
The whole interview was very polite, and Wixiban
was very smooth and plausible about his movements on Voyager and
his whereabouts at the time of the murder. Tuvok leaves Neelix
to have a glass of ale, and Wixiban breaks the bad news to him
about his principals in the drug trade. The Kolaati want some
of Voyager’s warp plasma to enhance their own engines. Neelix
refuses. He will not steal from his friends, he insists, but Wixiban
points out that his ‘friends’ are ready to leave him
behind, and if he doesn’t come across with the goods then
the Kolaati will kill him.
Back on Voyager, Neelix walks into the storage
room to find Tom Paris hunting for container reference L647X7
for some biomimetic gel they will be collecting the next day.
He asks the young man about his criminal past, and Tom sums it
up as failing to tell the truth. Neelix’s conscience gets
even more troubled at this admission. Nevertheless, he heads off
to engineering and talks his way past Ensign Vorik into the Jefferies
tubes where he has the opportunity to take some warp plasma. He
cannot bring himself to go through with the theft but meets with
Wixiban on the station as arranged. While he tries to convince
his friend to tell the truth, Bahrat and his guards come onto
the promenade and arrest Chakotay and Paris, because he has them
on security tapes talking to the dead drug dealer. Janeway and
Tuvok are not impressed with this level of evidence, especially
as the punishment is fifty years in cryostatic suspension.
As the two Starfleet officers leave, Neelix
resolves to go to Bahrat with or without Wixiban. Wixiban gives
in and goes with his friend. Bahrat believes their evidence, but
is dismayed to be told that the Kolaati have been dealing drugs
under his nose despite his much vaunted security. Neelix outlines
his plan, in return for immunity from prosecution. Bahrat will
have to supply the warp plasma as bait for the Kolaati, but it
won’t be as pure as a sample from Voyager.
The Kolaati are running late, and the two
Talaxians are getting nervous. In his control room, Bahrat sees
the security image of the pair suddenly be replaced by an empty
corridor, and knows that the criminals are coming on board. It
is Tosin, the main Kolaati, who has come for the plasma, but before
he hands it over, Neelix does something to the container. Tosin
scans the plasma and finds it contaminated. He draws his weapon,
but Neelix tells him that the container is now leaking plasma,
and the detonation would kill them all. Activating his transporter
would have the same effect. Tosin is doubtful, but Neelix keeps
encouraging him to fire, and put him out of his misery. Finally
convinced, Tosin hands the container back just as Bahrat arrives
to arrest him. One of the other Kolaati fires a weapon and there
is a big green explosion which engulfs them.
Neelix awakes in sickbay to hear the EMH proudly
tell him how he has healed his third degree burns and concussion.
Tuvok says that Wixiban got his shuttle back and has already left
for pastures new. Then Captain Janeway comes in, dismisses everyone
else, and has a serious word with her errant cook. He assures
her that he had never lied to her before, but one thing just led
to another because of his overriding need for a map. Her expression
turns to incredulity as he explains his fears for his position
because he does not know what lies ahead of them. Then she points
out that Starfleet is about truth, and not knowing what is coming,
and counting on each other no matter what. He will be spending
the next two weeks scrubbing exhaust manifolds while he thinks
it over. Relieved that he still has a place on Voyager, Neelix
accepts his punishment.
Review
This is a episode which gives us more Neelix
back-story, and also marks a watershed for the character. Remember
how in season one particularly, it would be Neelix on the bridge
supplying details about the Alien-of-the-Week? No more. He’s
never been further out than here. Back in Caretaker, he sold himself
to Janeway as her guide to this part of the Quadrant, as well
as cook. With the replicators working, a cook isn’t really
needed and now his services as guide are coming to an end. He
hasn’t yet fully got a grip on what it means to be Starfleet
and one of the crew, and thinks he is going to be dumped. So he
returns to some of his old scavenger-survivor ways, via Wix, a
former partner in crime. Literally. Sometimes I wonder just how
old Neelix is, given that he has been so many places, done so
much.
Another plus about this show is that it gives
us a glimpse into how Voyager has kept going the past couple of
years, trading, stopping off at space stations for supplies. It
may seem like a bit of a cheat, bartering replicated goods, but
it cost energy to make them, which is also a commodity. However,
I wonder about the nature of the goods bartered – are they
technology? Medical supplies? The sort of thing Janeway was willing
to die for rather than have fall into the hands of the Kazon?
And isn’t it wonderful that a totally alien culture has
just the part Voyager needs for it’s engines? There’s
this strange contradiction between what the crew can make for
themselves and what they cannot, which I have yet to get straight
in my mind.
That’s the minus point about the show.
I start asking questions about the practicalities, and come up
with more questions. Then I see the name on the teleplay, and
all is revealed. Andre Bormanis is not my favourite writer. He
may have come onto Star Trek as science consultant, helping with
those strange technobabble terms to make them sound vaguely plausible
and slightly related to current terminology, but as a story writer
I am not impressed.
So, in all, a good lesson for Neelix in what
it means to be Starfleet, but an average show to watch.
Grade: 5/10
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:
Carlos Carrasco as Bahrat
James Horan as Tosin
Steve Kehela as Sutok
James Nardini as Wixiban
Creative Staff:
Director: Jesus Salvador Trevino
Teleplay By: Andre Bormanis
Story By: Ronald Wilkerson and Jean Louise
Matthias
