[Transporter room 3] (Music)
You're on the Starship Voyager. I'm Captain Kathryn Janeway of the United Federation of
Planets. I'm Dereth, of the Vidiian Sodality.
You attacked one of our crewmembers and you have lured us into this asteroid. Why?
We are gathering replacement organs and suitable bio-matter. It is the only way we have to
fight the phage. A virus? Some kind of disease?
Yes, it attacked our people over two millennia ago. It consumes our bodies, destroys our
genetic codes and cellular structures. So you harvest the bodies of other beings
to replace your own tissues as they're consumed by this phage?
Our immuno-technology cannot keep up. The phage adapts. It resists all attempts to destroy
it. Our society has been ravaged. Thousands die each day. There is no other way for us
to survive. I have a great sympathy for what your race
has endured, but I cannot allow you to keep the organs you removed from one of our crew
members. We need them back immediately. I'm afraid that isn't possible. I have already
bio-chemically altered the air-breathing organs and grafted them into Motura's body. They
are a part of him now. He is my honatta. His task is to find the
organs I need for survival. We, we try to extract them from the dead
But sometimes, when the need is immediate, more aggressive actions are required.
So now I am left with the same choice you made. Whether to commit murder to save a life,
or to allow my own crewman to die while you breath air through his lungs.
It must be impossible for you to understand how any civilised people could come to this.
Before the phage began, we were known as educators and explorers, a people whose greatest achievements
were artistic. I myself am a sculptor of note on my world. All I can say is that when your
entire existence is at stake You don't have to explain yourself, Motura.
If the consequence of this act is a death sentence, so be it. At least it will put an
end to my suffering. I can't begin to understand what your people
have gone through. They may have found a way to ignore the moral implications of what you
are doing, but I have no such luxury. I don't have the freedom to kill you to save another.
My culture finds that to be a reprehensible and entirely unacceptable act. If we were
closer to home I would lock you up and turn you over to my authorities for trial, but
I don't even have that ability here, and I am not prepared to carry you forever in our
brig. So I see no other alternative but to let you go. Take a message to your people.
If I ever encounter your kind again, I will do whatever is necessary to protect my people
from this harvesting of yours. Any aggressive actions against this ship or it's crew will
be met by the deadliest force. Is that clear?