“The Swarm” is episode four of season three of Star Trek: Voyager.
Tom and B’Elanna are in a shuttlecraft investigating some intermittent sensor readings whilst Voyager is taking on supplies. B’Elanna looks to be bored out of her skull. It’s been 5 hours and they’ve seen nothing; she wants to head back. Tom wants to look a while longer. After B’Elanna claims she has cramp from 5 hours of sitting, Tom asks if she’s got a dinner date, because she has been trying to get him to head back for the last two hours. Suggesting Ensign Bristow, who seems to be finding a reason to hang around engineering. And B’Elanna. B’Elanna thinks Bristow is a child. Tom believes he looks grown up. B’Elanna admits Bristow has a crush on her. Tom is saying that for someone with Klingon blood she lives like a month and suggests a holodeck program. Then the energy signatures return and the shuttle lurches. A ship has locked onto their hull. Two aliens seem to beam aboard – those are the first people other than Voyager who have transporter technology if that’s the case – and says something incomprehensible before shooting them both and beaming off again.
The Doctor is in the holodeck singing opera, when he gets into an argument with the other singer. He restarts the program, then stops because he’s forgotten the words. Captain Janeway contacts him and tells him that there’s a medical emergency.
B’Elanna is conscious but Tom isn’t. The Doctor says the weapon used must have been very painful. They have no idea who attacked them or why. The captain is going to speak to Neelix to see if he has any idea. Kes tells the Doctor that Tom doesn’t seem to be responding to treatment. He looks for a piece of equipment, but can’t find it at first. Then tells B’Elanna that she’s perfectly healthy and why is she still there? Having said only minutes before that she couldn’t leave.
All Tuvok has detected ins a single incomprehensible repeating message; the language must be so unlike their own that the universal translator can’t handle it. Neelix says that, if the aliens are who he thinks they are, they are very bad news. He hasn’t encountered them, and from what he’s heard he’s glad he hasn’t. Most ships who enter their space never return. Some return with everyone dead. No-one knows anything about them, other than that they really, really don’t like trespassers.
The amount of space the aliens claim is huge. Going around it would add 15 months to their journey at maximum warp, and they couldn’t sustain maximum warp for 15 months. The captain wants another option to going around. Tuvok points out that the only other option is going through. B’Elanna and Tom hit a sensor net when they crossed the border; Harry thinks there may be a way to sneak past. Tuvok tells the captain that what she’s proposing is against Starfleet regulations. She knows, but she’s not adding 15 months to their journey.
In sickbay, the Doctor is singing opera and he tells Kes about his interest. Only he’s having problems finding a holographic partner. They’re arrogant, superior and condescending. He can’t imagine people behaving like that. Kes doesn’t respond, given that the Doctor has described his own tendencies. The Doctor is about to start operating on Tom when he runs into a problem. He can’t remember how to do the operation. Kes has to talk him through it using the database.
According to B’Elanna, the Doctor has a cascading overload of his database and his memory circuits are deteriorating. He was never meant to be used for as long as he has been. B’Elanna installed some safety buffers but they’re breaking down. Standard protocol would be to reinitialise his program, which would work. But it would also restore the Doctor’s original program. Kes wants that to be the last option, because the Doctor has changed so much in the past 2 years. The captain agrees to this.
A way to cross the border without being detected has been devised, and there’s an area where there are no vessels. They can slide through a narrow part of the aliens’ territory in only four days.
B’Elanna is working on the Doctor and decides she needs to head to the holodeck, and will transfer the Doctor there. This is to get a second opinion, using the Jupiter Station diagnostic program; Jupiter Station being where the Doctor was created. The Doctor says he should have remembered that. The diagnostic program is embodied as Dr. Lewis Zimmerman; on hearing his attitude, B’Elanna can see where the Doctor got his charming personality. The diagnostic program says the problem is obvious; the EMH was only supposed to run for 1,500 hours at most. Not 2 years. B’Elanna wants a solution other than a systemwide reinitialization.
Across the border there appears to be a very large vessel. Only it isn’t; it’s a swarm of a lot of small ships. Voyager has to get across the territory without being detected. The Doctor, meanwhile, is getting a lot worse. And sneaking past the swarm isn’t as easy as hoped.