After a helpful rerun from episode 10 in the holodeck, the prodigies are up to speed on Gwyn’s dad and his plan to use the Protostar as a Trojan horse to destroy the Federation. This sets off a desperate search for “the weapon,” The weapon which is a red-glowing orb eventually found in a hidden sub deck below the bridge. After some attempts, it is determined this future tech isn’t easily destroyed and is too dangerous to just throw out an airlock, even if they could figure out how. Maybe Starfleet could help, but they now know they can’t go anywhere near Starfleet or risk a repeat of what happened to the communications relay. And that’s when the ship detects another vessel.
Holo Janeway is definitely nervous, telling the kids they have stumbled upon the Borg, a race of ”enhanced humanoids, mindless drones that assimilate everyone they come across into their collective.” Instead of heeding her wise counsel to leave immediately, the kids are intrigued. Learning the Borg can adapt to any weapon, Dal sees an opportunity to get their help with Diviner’s weapon, and since it appears this cube is dormant, The captain is foolhardy enough to think they can sneak in and get the info they need without becoming part of the collective themselves. Relenting, Janeway advises the kids to “act harmless”—the old standby for Borg away teams. Entering the Borg cube, they climb their way to the cube’s central nerve center to find the only way to tap into the vinculum to get the knowledge they see is for one of them to enter one of the alcoves. Zero volunteers, as they have some experience with hive minds. After a while the drones start waking up and start coming towards them.
Aboard the Dauntless, Vice Admiral Janeway continues her hunt for Chakotay and her big lead is The Diviner, now in sickbay incoherently rambling about a “daughter” and a “mission.” We meet Dr. Noum. The Tellarite tells the admiral she should be thanking him for just getting this unknown alien out of stasis, but he has no clue how actually to wake him up. Asencia suggests using the fluid from the suit The Diviner was wearing, which impresses Janeway, and annoys the Tellarite doctor. While they wait to see what that does, the admiral orders the ship to the last known proto-jump point, Communications Relay station 721.
With transporters not working while they are blocked from transporting by the borg cube, the kids have to escape their way back to the ship and make the heartbreaking decision to leave Zero behind for the moment. Inside the collective consciousness, the Medusian is still on mission, trying to get Borg help on the weapon, which they describe as a “living construct,” but their only suggestion is to just assimilate the Protostar and its crew. The others try to make their way back to the ship but are blocked by the Borg in a chase across the cube. After some heroics from Dal, all but Gwyn are captured. She can save them if she listens to Janeway and stops fighting, so Gwyn gathers all her courage and puts down her sword to walk against the terrifying tide of drones back into the heart of the cube. There she finds Pog, Dal, and Rok strapped to boards prepared to be assimilated. Zero shows up as being assimilated by the borg.
The Medusan drone begins the process of assimilating his former crew, telling Gwyn there is no Zero anymore. But Gwyn knows Zero is still in there somewhere, and appeals to their love for their friends, reminding the Medusan of their desire to no longer cause any harm. Zero breaks free of the hive mind with the revelation they are already part of a collective, albeit a smaller one, his friends. Their green glow turns back to purple and the Medusan resets the drones to their dormant state. They all escape the cube, and find the mission wasn’t a total bust: Zero reveals the Borg confirmed The Diviner’s weapon cannot be deactivated or removed from the Protostar. Janeway is impressed at how this kid collective is adapting as they remain determined to use the ship to help those in need, and right on cue, they pick up a distress signal.
As for real Janeway, she and the Dauntless arrive at the relay station to find it completely destroyed. Shaken, she now knows Chakotay is not in command of the Protostar, and she’s phaser-focused on finding and stopping the madman who would destroy a helpless frontier outpost. The Diviner wakes up in the Dauntless's sickbay.
This was a good episode and it's good to see the Borg back in Star Trek, mind you the last time we saw them was in the second season of Star Trek Picard with the Borg Queen. It's nice to see that the kids are getting along a lot better after the first part of the series the first 10 episodes and they are trusting each other more. We see them starting to feel like a family.
At least being a kids show we didn't see to many scary things for them, but I'm sure now days kids have seen plenty of other Borg episodes with their parents. It this story we are getting to see that Vice Admiral Janeway is slowly starting to catch up on the Protostar and is only a matter of time before she catches up on them, and will be interesting to see how she reacts upon seeing kids commanding the ship.
We still haven't learned anything this episode on the fate of Chakotay, but it's only a matter of time before we find out.
Using The Borg as a vehicle to move Zero’s character story forward along with setting the parameters for the “living construct” weapon was a great choice.
The brief moment played for a gag with Murf getting sick in the holodeck is likely just the start of the “metamurfosis” coming later this season. Keep a close eye on that cute little blob. It might have been fun to see how the Borg reacted to Murf, but so be it.
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