Yes, I would. Escorting them back over decades is a huge waste of resources. You have 3 ships exploring the same territory. Fixing stuff and dropping off personnel seems kind of weird.. here's some groceries, see you in twenty years. If these ships are both huge and fast then they should take on VOY's crew and complete their mission which I'd imagine would involve returning home by then. Voyager itself should be blown up to prevent the technology falling into the wrong hands (a very dumb thing to do but that's what would happen).
There is a basic problem with the "faster than a meeping roadrunner" theory: When it left, Voyager was the fastest kid on the block. So unless Hayes doesn't read the Starfleet Gazette, it's improbable that there are six years later ships so fast that they could go 5-6 times faster than Voyager (if we assume that there are still 30k light years to reach Voyager) So, were the ships so close to Voyager's position that they could actually reach them in 5-6 years? What then, as teacake asks very astutely? What kind of help can they give, besides taking around 120 passengers and either go on with their mission or spend a few decades going back to Federation space? There might be a fanfic in there... EDIT: Oh cool! I'm a vice too!
Fast is a relative term. If these ships are 20 years from the Federation that means that they left about 20 years ago, which is a long ago time when Ambassador class Starships were the bees knees... That is if they would waste state of the art ships on a 60 year long suiside mission like this. Are they together? Or did Hayes say 5 or 6 years because these two ships are in very different parts of space a long way away from each other, that one will show up in 5 years and the other in 6 years give or take a few months? Bigger ships can stay in open space longer and take a more direct route home. Voyager has to hug against a lot of alien empires to guarantee a constant supply of resources... Three ships with pooled resources could ignore a lot of unsavoury and dangerous ports of call, "lets skip this planet, they look like assholes" which means that they could get home much faster even if these twenty year old ships "sustainable" top speed is just warp 8. Ever gone for a big walk with a fatty or a three year old? You're walking at regular speed for a full minute, only to turn around and see that your fatty or 3 year old is 20 meters behind you screaming that they don't want to be abandoned, so you have to sit down for 5 minutes to wait for them, or actually retrace your steps.
I can't imagine spending 20 years trapped on a ship with a thousand people. People's usual midlife crisis timetable must be altered by longer lifespans, no currency and holo entertainment. Imagine you're 25 and you sign on for this incredible go where no man has gone before tour of duty.. 15 years later you want to kill yourself. You hate everyone you work with, you can no longer convince yourself that holo-Risa satisfies, and every failed relationship brings you closer to actually running out of people you might have something in common with. Island fever and there's no way off the island. You are sent to the ship's counselor after your jerkness starts pissing off your colleagues and you get a speech about Starfleet and how meaningful it is to be an explorer. And every single day is exactly the same.
The other other way to go is one guy, or one girl on the ship alone. No failed relationships. Just someone who wants to spend forty years alone.
Sure someone might want to spend 40 years alone but if they find an amiable planet to spend those 40 years the mission might end up abandoned. Unless you find someone with the mentality of a japanese soldier refusing to abandon their jungle post.
Humans and their philosophy of self improvement. Remember Riker was offered his own ship in Icarus, and his dad was proud for the first time in his life, but the monkey turned it down because the ship was already signed up for a few years of deep space survey missions in the boondocks which was hardly as classy as waiting for Picard to have a stroke or a really bad hernia. That ship they offered him was humorously converted into debris by the Borg at Wolf 359... Am I conflating again?
No one is ever going to remember these deep space survey missions unless they find God. Riker is too shallow to spend a decade of his life doing real science, he only wants flashy science that makes headlines and for that he needs to be on a ship in the thick of things. It's sad though that this opportunity to assimilate him for the betterment of Trek was not followed through on. Anyone wanting to spend 40 years alone doing science is already outside of the ratrace of self improvement.
These ships clearly had the TOS-style warp drive installed. Rim of the galaxy, centre of the galaxy, Earth to Vulcan in a blink... no biggie.
I would surmise that those 2 deep space ships were already far out enough to meet Voyager in 5 or 6 years. In terms of what they would be able to do... Well, for one thing, they might have systems on-board specifically made for deep-space travel that could be adapted to Voyager and provide some support - though, speaking strictly from a pure technological point of view, that's utter nonsense since practically every ship equipped with functioning transporters and replicators or at least recycling technology would have to set up shop near a star and use solar power for energy source and replicate or manufacture however things are needed. They have the means to pull it off, but the writers conveniently forgot this notion for the sake of 'drama'. Even a small Equinox would be able to do the same and restock in any uninhabited star-system like that... the only limiting factor is the Nova class ship Warp speed (which is probably why it was mentioned that it wouldn't do deep-space exploration very well in the first place). If SF chooses to do so, they could easily redirect those 2 ships to act as escorts to Voyager on its way back to the AQ - though that would seem like a waste of resources. Voyager is a medium class ship and has more than enough technology/means in it to alleviate resource concerns (unlike what we were shown). The only conceivable thing I can think of is that those 2 ships could provide assistance to Voyager should combat situations arise. But, its a bit odd... it would have been interesting if Janeway at least tried to communicate with those 2 ships using the hyper-subspace antennae array that was installed on Voyager (it is conceivable those 2 ships would have similar technology since SF was able to redirect them to Voyager in the first place) and see if they could provide her with some interesting details in regards to their upcoming path - such as resource rich systems (at least ones where they could easily extract them without setting in orbit at a star and replicate things for some time), which species to avoid, etc.
Perhaps those ships were scheduled to return soon anyway, and a convoy of 3 ships does have some advantages.
So they spent a year travelling out of their way, and probably extending their mission if they were at the limits of their deep space mission... And suddenly, they're sent a message "Voyager is home, you might as well turn around and come home too, see you in twenty years. How did Voyager get home? Don't worry, you don't have the balls to do what they did, so just truck along at warp 6, besides, it's your job to chart space not get home super quick." Hmmm. What are deep space missions for? 1. Fomenting diplomatic relations. 2. Dropping transspace radio antenna boosters. 3. Mapping unknown space. If Janeway is drafted into a deep space mission, then by the new rules of her existence she isn't allowed to take shortcuts any more, because she has a job to do for Starfleet, and if chance supplies an opportunity, leaping through a wormhole towards the AQ is desertion and dereliction of duty. They'll all be in chains as criminals when they get back to Earth.
But she wasn't drafted into deep space, she just decided to seize upon that idea to give the crew something to feel good about doing for 70 years. It's like when you get lost walking somewhere and you try and tell kids you're having an adventure.
You're not thinking fourth dimensionally enough. When they rendezvous. After they teamed up into small fleet. The other two ships would continue dropping subspace radio boosters and charting space. Voyager goes and looks at interesting shit, the new directive for the mission back is too look at everything, and even nothing. So Janeway is either going to help (join) the deep space missions, so that those ships can continue close to spec, who have completely compromised their timetables to play search and rescue for woe is me Voyager, or Voyager is too much of a princess to engage in hard science and share the workload. "There's no point in scanning that star field. It's just a field of stars it's boring. its a waste of my time." says Janeway "It's on the list. We have to make sure it's boring so that mom and pop on a holiday with the kids in 50 years don't run afoul of a time eddy we were too lazy to tag." says some other Captain. "But that's pointless." says Janeway. "True, but it's also your job." the other Captain snaps.
Except Janeway would never respond like that. She's the one that is always adding days and weeks to their trip back to look at phenomenon.