Extreme risk
B'Ellana is one angry women in this episode. Her behavior is odd. She is quite angry with everyone, including Tom. She also trusts Seven and allows her to make changes without questioning her. The strangest part, she wants to catch up with Neelix....
The crew begins building the shuttle that Tom has suggested, but the aliens are also building their own ship, and they are expecting to finish first.
While running a simulation of the shuttle going into the atmosphere, B'Elanna gets knocked out. Chakotay finds her out cold and she gets sent to the doctor. She has had severe injuries, but many of them are a month old. The captain restricts her to her quarters and begins to examine her logs. Chakotay finds that she started running these programs the day after she learned the maquis had been annihilated. Chakotay demands to know why, and b'ellana tells him that she feels dead inside. She has lost all of the family she has ever had, and she's lost all of her reason to live.
The aliens launch their shuttle, and Tom needs another set of hands to keep the ship from breaking up. B'ellana heads chakotay off and asks to let her go instead. They go into the gas giant, right on the mellar's tails. They damage the mellar's shuttle, but they struggle to keep the delta flyer together. As the shuttle begins to rip apart, b'ellana welds a grate over the micro fractures that are about to burst. She jerryrigs a phaser to act as a temporary force field,allowing them to make it back to voyager.
Back on the ship, b'ellana thanks chakotay, by simultaneously threatening to kill him.
Favorite part: banana pancakes are the solution to all forms of depression.
Least favorite part: while this was a good way to see growth from a previous episode for her character, B'ellana's recovery was too immediate. It would have been more interesting to see a growing arch out of this.
