“Barge of the Dead” is episode three of season six of Star Trek: Voyager.
B’Elanna is on a shuttle that is in poor shape from an ion storm. She contacts Voyager and comes into the shuttle bay hard. Very hard. Tom enters the shuttle and checks on her; she has a mild concussion. Best thing that’s happened to her all day.
In her ready room, Captain Janeway tells B’Elanna that when she gives an order, she expects B’Elanna to follow it, not chase a probe into the centre of an ion storm. It was their only multispatial probe; B’Elanna didn’t want to lose it. They have only one B’Elanna Torres, and the captain doesn’t want to lose her either. As B’Elanna leaves the room, the captain calls her by a shortened name, one her mother used to use.
Chakotay arrives in B’Elanna’s quarters. He found something lodged in her port nacelle; she likely ran into it after the deflector field collapsed. The big question is how it got into the Delta Quadrant. It’s a piece of metal with the symbol of the Klingon Empire on it. And it’s old. The Klingons appear to have beaten Starfleet to the Delta Quadrant by several hundred years. It might be the most important archaeological find in Klingon history. B’Elanna thinks the simplest explanation is that the Borg assimilated a Bird of Prey in the Alpha Quadrant and blew it out the airlock on the way home.
After Chakotay leaves, B’Elanna puts the fragment on a table. Blood starts to pour from the symbol and she hears voices. Then both vanish. She and Harry try to find out why. Harry is less than enthused; it’s three in the morning and he can’t find anything odd. Then Neelix rolls up. He’s been researching Klingon history to have a party to celebrate B’Elanna’s discovery. B’Elanna doesn’t see the point. Neelix explains his logic. Harry agrees with it. And Neelix has already replicated five barrels of blood wine. Harry thinks B’Elanna should rest up.
Tuvok suggests that the blood came from B’Elanna’s self-loathing. She despises being a Klingon. It was a subconscious manifestation of her hatred. And was the blood disappearing her trying to vaporise that part of herself? Tuvok states yes, though B’Elanna was being sarcastic. He thinks they need a different exercise to meditation, and retrieves a bat’leth. What is B’Elanna’s first though. A clumsy design, overstated. Tuvok states it is elegant design, a warrior’s blade. He wields it and cuts her face, then launches into a tirade about her not being worthy of Klingon blood. Which is odd.
In the mess hall, the Doctor talks Seven into joining him in a Klingon drinking song. B’Elanna is less than happy at all the Klingon things. Tom says they are doing it for her. If he joins in, she will rip out his tongue and wear it as a belt. Yes, that’s not Klingon at all. B’Elanna says the only things she’s inherited are the forehead and the bad attitude. But her mother would have loved this; she was obsessed with Klingon ritual and myths. Including putting B’Elanna into a Klingon monastery.
Captain Janeway starts giving a speech about this being a great day for the Klingon Empire. Everyone seems to be taking the Klingon thing rather far. Then the light changes and Klingons appear and kill everyone, finishing with B’Elanna. She comes around on a boat. When B’Elanna asks where she is, she is told the dead don’t ask questions by another Klingon.
The Klingon is given a brand, which he tries to brand B’Elanna with. It doesn’t work. She asks where she is. The Barge of the Dead, where dishonoured souls are taken to Gre’thor. Klingon Hell. B’Elanna thought that was a myth. So did the other Klingon. The bit on Voyager, that was the dream before dying., creating an illusion of life to hold onto. Those weren’t her friends being slaughtered, only the dream. B’Elanna thinks she can hear her friends. Jumping off the boat is a bad idea, as someone demonstrates.
B’Elanna is brought before the ship’s helmsman, Kortar, who says it isn’t her time. She has come close before, though. Kortar is the first Klingon, the one who destroyed the gods who created him and was sentenced to ferry the souls of the dead. Then B’Elanna’s mother appears.
Then B’Elanna wakes in sickbay. She was found unconscious on the shuttle. It was all just a dream. Except B’Elanna can’t treat it like that. According to Klingon myth, B’Elanna’s mother is being sent to Gre’thor for B’Elanna’s misdeeds. B’Elanna thinks she has to fix this.