I don't think it would be a good idea to player poker against Janeway. Even when the inspector guy had her kissing him good bye passionately on the transporter pad, she was still planning a way around in case he turned out to be lying to her. And in this case she was clearly right. Having telepaths be the oppressed minority in this culture makes a lot of sense, maintaining state secrets with mind readers walking around would be rather challenging. At the same time it is easy to see why Janeway would want to come to their assistance. I liked the clue that she was up to something in the opening where she mentions Tuvok being killed in a shuttle accident. We aren't sure how much time has passed, but she obviously is up to something. This of course causes a problem because when the Devore return since Tuvok is back on the bridge and their ignoring him seems like it would break the cover rather quickly.
We open with Voyager being thoroughly searched for Telepaths by two Devore warships. Janeway orders the crew to comply and they do, but in conversation Janeway mentions both Vulcans and the Betazoid crew being killed in a shuttle accident hinting that she is up to something. The head inspector named Kashyk is clearly into Janeway but she is creeped out by him. As soon as the Devore leave Janeway has the hidden crew and several alien telepaths rematerialized in cargo bay where they were being stored in the transport buffer. It seems she is planning on smuggling them to a wormhole out of Devore space but something has gone wrong. The rendezvous with the smugglers keeps getting moved and the repeated transporter storage is starting to damage their bodies. They come up with a plan to find a local wormhole expert, but before they can a Devore ship shows up, but it isn't a warship. It is a small scout ship with only Kashyk on board and he claims to be there to defect.
Janeway isn't buying it but he gives her a sob story and she agrees to help smuggle him to the wormhole if he helps her avoid the Kashyk. They track down the wormhole expert and after some bluffing by Janeway he gives them the information. But it is an algorithm, not a location as the wormhole keeps moving. They encounter a Devore sensor probe and despite their best efforts they set it off. Janeway and Kashyk have been spending a lot of time together and it really looks like she trusts him. He convinces her to let him return so he can keep the authorities at bay long enough for the refugees to escape. Kashyk departs Voyager after sharing a passionate kiss with Janeway. He returns with the warship soon after and gets her alone and she tells him they have the location of the wormhole, right in front of them at which point he reveals he was a traitor and takes control of the ship. But when he tries to destroy the wormhole it doesn't work since it isn't there. And neither are the refugees, they are in two shuttles and escape through the wormhole before he can stop them. Rather than face the consequences of failing Kashyk decides to cover it all up and gets the hell out of there.
Review: I really liked this episode. It is one where you are sure Janeway has finally messed up, but something about the look on her face after Kashyk played his cards made me feel sure she had a plan. And other than a few problems it was a damn good plan.
7 out of 10
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