Stardate 58724.3: The crew of the USS Cerritos is tasked with transporting USS Voyager NCC-74656 to Earth, where the historic starship is going to be displayed at Starfleet Command. Billups and T'Ana are beamed back to the Cerritos just before Voyager goes to warp. However, a leaf from a plant causes their patterns to be fused to an entity named T'Illups, the same way it happened to Neelix and Tuvok. Captain Freeman learns that Janeway eventually solved the problem by killing the hybrid Tuvix. Freeman's goal is to find an alternate solution. Yet, T'Illups has already prepared to save their existence, by replicating the accident and combining the patterns of other crew members as well, starting with Freeman and Dr. Migleemo. Tendi and T'Lyn can escape. The Vulcan ensign takes control of the transporter and beams all the fused crew members into a confinement field. Unfortunately she thereby creates a meatball, whose individual patterns she can't isolate. Tendi, however, finds a way to separate the personal traits and restore the original people. Meanwhile on Voyager on the way to Earth, the bridge crew accidentally sets macroviruses free that reproduce and spread through the ship, launch harmful holoprograms such as Chaotica and eventually activate Borg nanoprobes. The ship is on the way to the Borg now, and Boimler is the only one of the crew not yet incapacitated. He confesses to Mariner that he doesn't want the promotion that Ransom announced to him, but Mariner tells him that it was her who suggested him because she believes in his abilities. With new confidence, Boimler confronts the villains, while Rutherford disables the ship's bioneural computer system using Neelix's cheese. As the ship is on display now as planned and the Cerritos crew has been restored to normal, Ransom promotes the Lower Decks ensigns except for Rutherford to the rank of lieutenant junior grade. Meanwhile in Klingon space, Ma'ah's Bird-of-Prey runs into a seemingly disabled unknown vessel that suddenly gets activated and destroys the Klingon ship.

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