“Inside Man” is episode six of season seven of Star Trek: Voyager.
Tom is asking Harry about the datastream from Starfleet as last month’s never arrived. Harry says the transmission is larger than usual and he and Seven have been up all night trying to download it. Harry arrives in astrometrics and Seven has found the problem; the datastream is a hologram. Harry is going to transfer it. Seven warns him that could burn out the relays. It does, but they have the hologram. In the holomatrix, he and Seven activate it for the captain. It’s Lieutenant Barclay. Well, designed by him, the hologram says. And with any luck, in a few days they will be seeing their friends and family face to face.
Holo Barclay explains to the senior staff that in three days’ time Voyager will be passing by a red giant star. A team of Federation scientists will be orbiting another red giant in the Alpha Quadrant. In 72 hours, they will puncture space time to create a geodesic fold between the quadrants. Captain Janeway says they’d considered this themselves, but their shields can’t take the geodesic radiation. Holo Barclay says that a lot has happened in the field of geodesic research and he has shield upgrades and medical treatments. Seven wonders why Starfleet didn’t inform them of this. Because they didn’t want to get the crew’s hopes up. Last month’s attempt to send Holo Barclay overloaded the Midas array. This will also require Holo Barclay to have access to parts of the ship without holoemitters. So, he’s going to use the Doctor’s mobile emitter. Seven suggests seeing if Borg technology will help. Chakotay wants to know how long until the transceiver is fixed. About two hours. The captain wants to send a thank you note to the real Barclay.
Harry is looking forward to returning home. Tom is less optimistic, reminding him about the slipstream drive and the space going pitcher plant that tried to eat them. They’ll probably end up in the Gamma Quadrant. Seven is explaining Borg transwarp behaviour to Holo Barclay. She isn’t interested in the welcome home party. Holo Barclay says people are looking forward to seeing her. Why?; she was Borg. That’s the point, according to Holo Barclay. She was. Now she isn’t.
On Earth, Barclay is talking to his boss, Pete. He’s worked out where the datastream was lost. The same place last month’s was lost. Something is preventing it from reaching Voyager. Barclay wants to send a ship to investigate. Pete thinks that this just proves a hologram is too complex. Next month, they are going back to what they were doing before. It was a good idea, but it didn’t work. Well, Voyager has a hologram but Starfleet didn’t manage to send it all the way there. That means Holo Barclay is not what he appears to be.
Pete is showing schoolchildren around the facility, asking them to name the races Voyager encountered. Talaxians and Ocampa and Barclay shouts out ‘Borg!’ Barclay thinks the Borg stole his hologram. Or perhaps the Romulans. Pete thinks Barclay should take some leave. A week off. Try to relax. That’s not a request. Pete offers a beach house in Malaysia. Barclay has his own idea as to where to go.
Fake Holo Barclay is now speaking to the Doctor. The Doctor is concerned; the medical treatments Starfleet sent won’t be enough to prevent the crew being, well, liquified. Fake Holo Barclay reassures him that they are intended to work in combination with the shield modifications. Don’t worry, everything will be fine. Unlikely.
Fake Holo Barclay meets B’Elanna and Harry in astrometrics. They’ve finished repairing the transceiver and are about to send a broadcast. Fake Holo Barclay wants a report squeezing in. That’s agreed and transmitted. Starfleet doesn’t get the message; a Ferengi ship does. This is all a ploy to get their hands on Seven’s nanoprobes.
Barclay’s holiday involves heading to a beach. Where Troi is on vacation. She isn’t terribly happy to see him and points out that it’s inappropriate to follow his therapist on vacation. That’s not why Barclay is there. He explains that he thinks someone stole his hologram. Which is accurate. Which means they need to find out what’s going on and find some way of warning Voyager before they make a one-way trip into a geodesic fold. One way for anything living, anyway.