“Dragon’s Teeth” is episode seven of season six of Star Trek: Voyager.
A city is being destroyed by a bombardment from above. In some tunnels beneath, an alien woman is looking for a man. She finds him and he explains he had to disconnect some biopods. They are going to use pods as well; the man, Gedrin, will have them woken up in five years.
Voyager is travelling through something filled with debris when Captain Janeway arrives on the bridge. They’ve been dragged into a subspace corridor filled with debris; metal fragments, plasma exhaust, organic residue. Some over 800 years old. There are hundreds of corridors like a maze. They encounter a ship which hails them. The alien says this underspace belongs to them. The captain says they are trying to find a way out; can the alien help? They can and push Voyager out, over 200 lightyears from where they were.
The alien has exited as well and the captain wants to negotiate passage through the corridors. The alien, a Turei, is not interested. He wants to board them and purge their computers of any readings they gained. One way or another, he will destroy that information. The captain refuses and more Turei appear and open fire. Voyager needs somewhere to hide and Seven reports a planet 8 million km ahead. Uninhabited and charged with radiogenic particles. They can alter their shields to survive; perhaps the Turei can’t.
This works and they look for a place to land. After getting below the clouds, they discover a destroyed city. The planet looks to be in the middle of a nuclear winter from an orbital bombardment, 892 years ago. Given this is the same city as the beginning, it seems the reviving in five years likely didn’t happen. Once on the ground, repair teams are dispatched and Harry reports faint lifesigns. The captain heads out with Seven and Tuvok to look.
They beam into the tunnels, which still has power; Seven considers their power source efficient. They find two pods and discover that there are more chambers and pods, some of which have failed. Seven decides to open a pod, the one containing Gedrin. Tuvok warns that the alien could be hostile; Seven replies that most humanoid cultures are. Gedrin is revived and asks about the other pod. That has failed. The woman was his wife.
Gedrin is being treated in sickbay when the captain and Seven enter. On hearing they have come from halfway across the galaxy, Gedrin asks if they’ve expanded their territory. No; they’re going home. Gedrin recognises Seven as Borg. He asks if she doesn’t recognise his people. The Vaadwaur. The Borg’s memory from 900 years ago is fragmentary. Gedrin had many encounters with the Borg. He explains that the corridors they found were his people’s. They spent centuries mapping them and were the envy of hundreds of species. Some of whom formed an alliance and attacked.
A single battalion was placed into stasis, along with weapons and transport. They’d planned to come out after five years, when the alliance would likely have dissolved, and rebuild, though on another planet. Gedrin is a bit disappointed with how his wife behaved before death. But maybe they can find new allies. Gedrin recognises Neelix as Talax-ilzay; a word for the Talaxians in the old tongue. Do the Talaxians remember the Vaadwaur? In the old tongue, the word ‘Vaadwaur’ means foolish. Then a plasma charge hits nearby.
There are now six Turei ships in orbit firing at them. Gedrin asks if they can transmit a signal through the atmosphere. He has no intention of speaking to the Turei, but there’s a sentry satellite above the city and they can use the satellite to target Voyager‘s weapons. This results in the Turei leaving, but they will be back. Gedrin says the Turei’s technology is now much more advanced than his people’s; will Voyager help them off the planet? They’ll show them subspace corridors known to no-one else. It will get them one thousand lightyears closer to home.
Captain Janeway agrees. The battalion is woken up; Chakotay compares it to the Greek myth about Dragon’s Teeth. The Vaadwaur could be very useful in getting Voyager closer to home. However, the first sign that something may be wrong is when Naomi declares she doesn’t like them. Then Neelix decides to look up the stories from his home in which Vaadwaur is mentioned. They have worrying titles. The Vaadwaur are not quite what they presented themselves as, and the Turei are also attacking.