Voyager Scavenges Fuel While Chakotay Confesses His Vision
Book: Star Trek: Voyager #7 - Ghost of a Chance
Authors: Mark A. Garland and Charles G. McGraw
ISBN: 0671567985
Chapter 2 is quieter on the surface, but the pressure underneath keeps building.
Janeway retreats to her ready room to trace the brown dwarf’s path through Drenar. The math is fascinating and useless. Voyager cannot afford a research vacation. Chakotay reports they’re orbiting the sixth planet’s largest moon. Impulse engines are holding. Fuel is still critical.
Casualty reports are mostly bruises. Kes broke her arm in sickbay during the shaking. The Doctor is doing fine work and would like Neelix to stop hovering. Janeway suppresses a laugh and gets back to business.
Ramscoop refueling
Tuvok reconfigures the main deflector. Kim wraps the Bussard fields into a funnel aimed at the moon’s upper atmosphere. Paris skims close. The fields collapse when they dip too deep, then recover when they rise. It works on a limited scale. Torres says they can hold it about twenty-seven minutes.
Janeway wants a full system survey next. Chakotay agrees and almost mentions something else. Janeway notices. He asks for privacy.
In the ready room he tells her about the ghost. The beautiful world. The destruction. The plea for help. He thinks it might be Drenar Four. Other crew members have reported nightmares too. Two mentioned ghosts specifically.
Janeway’s reaction is perfect early-season captain energy: “As if we didn’t have enough problems.”
Prime Directive debate
They argue the familiar Voyager argument. Chakotay says contact already happened through visions. Tuvok notes action and inaction may be equally dangerous. Janeway draws a hard line. If Drenar Four has a pre-warp culture that has never seen aliens, there will be no contact.
They will survey at half impulse. Repairs will take days. Janeway tries to sleep. She fails.
By morning, Drenar Four looks lush and habitable. No industrial society. Then night-side scans show too many small fires for natural causes. Someone is down there.
Janeway feels a chill. She looks up. She is not alone.
My take
This chapter is setup done right. The fuel scene shows Janeway the scientist still alive inside the captain. The Chakotay confession gives the ghost plot weight without turning the bridge into a seance.
The Prime Directive conversation is recycled theme for Voyager, but it matters here because the book is about to stress-test every word Janeway just said.
Ending on “she was not alone” is a clean handoff into Chapter 3’s ready room visitation.
Book: Star Trek: Voyager #7 - Ghost of a Chance
Authors: Mark A. Garland and Charles G. McGraw
ISBN: 0671567985
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