"Would you mind telling me your name," inquired Smith in the lift. "Seven," said seven. "I did not ask your age," Smith stated. "Wait a minute, you can't be seven, why you look older than Will, even; fine young man, he is." "I was rescued from a group of people called the Borg. I am too accustomed to my Borg classification to go back to using my human name. My full name was 7 of 9," she explained. Smith shuddered. "That sounds scary. Even the name - the Borg!" "They are imposing, but we have taken them down quite a few notches." Smith grinned. "Ah, no doubt thanks to your superior weapons and cunning, the great power of human ingenuity vanquished them, correct?" Seven shrugged. "No, we just rely on writers." Dr. Smith stared at her, incredulous, as he stepped out onto the bridge with 7. He gazed at the viewscreen in front of them and gasped. "Oh no, we're adrift among the stars!" "That sounds familiar," noted Kim. Tuvok stood straight so that it looked as though he'd swallowed a baton and spoke. "That line was used by Professsor Moriarty when the holodeck image was somehow brought onto the bridge of the Enterprise." Smith scowled. "Oh, be quiet, you miserable, pointy-eared alien." "Now, you sound like Dr. McCoy of the original Enterprise. Who else can you do?" Janeway got out of her chair and walked over to the doctor and 7. "Forget who he can pretend to be, let's get one thing straight first. Who are you and what are you doing aboard my ship?" Seven calmly noted "that's two things, Captain." "Im not interested in numbers, Seven." Prais turned around and said "but you just said a number, Captain." "What else am I going to call her, she's called Seven of Nine." Chakotay suggested "maybe you could call her Of'?" Seven of Nine, trying to recall a human joke to bring some levity to this tense moment, said "well, call me anything, but don't call me to the other side." Everyone on the bridge except Tom Paris looked quite bewildered. "You're confusing that with the one about the chicken, Seven. It's don't call me late for supper.'" Seven nodded toward him. "Thank you." To Janeway, she said "call me anything, but don't call Ensign Paris late for supper." Paris slapped his forehead as Chakotay laughed at him. Tuvok interrupted by reporting "another ship just took off from the planet, carrying six humans and a robot." "Let them go, if they wish to play Q's game. We've got more important things to do." "But I am supposed to be on that ship," explained Dr. Smith. The captain told 7 to "take him down to the transporter room and send him to the Jupiter II." "But if we're both in space, how can you send me there," whined the doctor. "We take your molecules and we..." Seven stopped to think a moment. She turned to the captain. "Yes, how does that work?" "Just make something up, Seven, he won't know the difference." Seven nodded and turned to him. "We bioprocess your smectic micellar membranes down to the molecular level, transpose them into a fancy little pattern, and co-ordinate the isoelectronic disintregration like a radio signal over to the other ship, converting it like a morse code signal." "Wow," exclaimed Smith, "you can do anything with that, then." Chakotay was astonished. "You understood what she said?" "Not in the least. But it's fun to pretend," noted the doctor. Janeway ordered them to maneuver within transporter range, and soon Dr. Smith was back on the Jupiter II. "Well," spoke the captain, "that little adventure is over." Kim shook his head. "I don't know, we almost never have things that easy." Sure enough, a "Mayday" call was quickly heard. "Mayday - but it's November," exclaimed Kim. "Put it on the viewscreen," Janeway ordered. "This is the USS Voyager, representing the United Federtion of Planets. What is the nature of your problem?" "Warning, warning, danger, danger!" Suddenly, they saw the Jupiter as the ship veered out of control. Janeway noticed that nobody but Smith and the robot were around, and they were tussling near the controls. "Why is the robot shouting that," wondered the captain, suddenly getting very cautious as Seven of Nine appeared back on the bridge. "Please," she requested as Smith pressed buttons at random, "state the nature of your problem." "AAAUUUUGGGHHHH," shouted Dr. Smith as he tripped while trying to push the robot asisde, jamming his hand into a lever and sending the ship off course some more. Janeway quickly said "I think the universal translator's not working. Seven," she ordered, "you're familiar with alien languages from your time with the Borg, what did he say?" "I believe he said AAAUUUUGGGHHHH,' Captain." Kim leaped out of his seat and ran to the lift doors. "That sounds like someone in trouble!" He stopped as the doors flung open, and said "Captain Proton to the rescue!" Janeway looked at him. "Good thinking, go down to the transporter room, but without your cape. B'Elanna, they need an engineer over on that ship. Seven, you join them." They left. Tuvok looked up from his science counsel. "Captin, another ship is emerging from the planet; it contains the final group of humns, and is basically an island surrounded a a titanium hull." "Is it spaceworthy," inquired Janeway. "Barely," noted Tuvok. "It is having troubles mostly because of some errors in the..." He stared at the computer. "Captain, what is this word?" Janeway walked up to the science station and read. "Asymbiomorphakalogistan." "Thank you. The asymbiomorphakalogistan thrusters are offline, due to some questionable engineering work." The captain shook her head. "I already sent my best engineering people over to that other ship, they'll have to make do." Meanwhile, on board the Jupiter II, B'Elanna, Kim, and Seven appeared. The robot quickly requested that they unfreeze the people in the tubes, which they did. "What's going on," shouted Don at Dr. Smith, "and who are these people?" "Yes," echoed the major, "what's going on, and who are these people?" Dr. Smith, now somewhat bruised from his fighting with the robot, explained. "This is a Klingon, this is a former Borg with a number for a name, and this is..." He looked at Kim. "Who are you?" "I'm just a human." Kim explained. "I'm Ensign Harry Kim of the USS Voyager, this is B'Elannam Torres and this is Seven...." Will suddenly went running to the controls and jerked a lever to the left, sending them all crashing into a far wall of the ship. "Why don't they put seatbelts in these things," complained Smith. "Trust me," noted 7, "they don't have them in the 24th Century, either." "You're from the future, then," inquired Don. "Either that," 7 remarked, "or you're from the past." "Excuse me," Will began, still manning the controls. "Well, how do we tell...wait a minute, which Earth is that creature..." "Q," interrupted Kim. Major West nodded. "Yes, which Earth is that Q sending the winner of this race?'" "Excuse me," came Will a little louder. His dad looked at him. "What is it, son?" "Don't you want to know why I jerked the controls to the left like that?" "Probably saving the ship again," noted Dr. Smith. "A fine boy you've got there, Mr. Robinson." "Yes," came the retort, "saving it from your crazy schemes. Why, it's your fault we're in this mess!" "Yeah," shouted Don, "you almost got us kiled several times, and you're always pulling these schemes..." As Major West continued to shout at Dr. Smith, 7 noted lowly "I believe the captain was mistaken in sending him back." "That's our captain," Kim said proudly, "she may not always make the right choices, but at least she's decisive - except when she isn't." "EXCUSE ME," shouted Will above the din, "don't you want want to know what we almost ran into?" Suddenly, a ship of several dozen different colored creatures, all with antenna on their heads and small rectangles in their bellies, appeared in front of them. "E'o," spoke one of them, the voice coming over their radio, "oo a oo." "What's wrong, the universal translators don't work," fretted B'Elanna. "How convenient," noted Kim, as he scanned the voice into his tricorder. Seven elaborated. "If that was their actual speech, it would have been modified by a nuocutaneous, dermal microaction in the glottal reagion of their larnyxes." "What does that mean," Will inquired. "They sound like they talk baby talk," explained Seven. Dr. Smith walked over to the radio and spoke into it. "Goo goo." "A oo al a'ou," came the voice in return. B'Elanna surmised "apparently they can't understand us, either." "Nobody can understand Dr. Smith," remarked Don. Suddenly, the Voyager people heard on their comm badges "away team, come in, what's the situation over there?" B'elanna tried to sum it up. "We've encountered a ship that we nearly ran into - the universal translators aren't functioning." "I see," spoke Janeway, "they tried to contact us, too, and ours were also ineffective. How's the ship?" B'Elanna snapped her fingers. "I knew there was something we wanted to do while we were here. Thanks, Captain." She turned to the Robinsons. "How are the engines here?" "Fine," spoke Major West. "I guess we'll all have to just stay awake and alert so Dr. Smith doesn't try anything else." "Good." B'Elanna reported this, and the three soon beamed back to Voyager. As Kim re-entered the bridge, Janeway asked "can you figure out a way to contact those aliens?" "I could try." "Good, open hailing frequencies." A large number of hailstones shot forth. "What was that?" "Those were the hailing frequences." A large ball came firing from the alien ship. "They're firing their weapons at us!" "Evasive maneuvers, Mr. Paris!" The ship luches to the right, with the weapon just missing them.