The Diviner uses the remains of the Drednok replica to send an ultimatum. He demands the Protostar to be surrendered to him within one day, or he would make the miners pay the price. The ship has power for one jump with the protostar drive left, and it wouldn't be spacious enough to rescue all the "Unwanted". The alternative would be to contact Starfleet, but they may not arrive in time. The crew decides to surrender the ship to the Diviner, but not without preparing some surprises. When they arrive at Tars Lamora, the Diviner alters the terms and wants Gwyn to stay with him. Gwyn agrees, upon which the Diviner disables his robots, the watchers, unfastens the manacles of the Unwanted and embarks the Protostar with her. He overwrites Janeway with a new version that accepts his orders and destroys the power generator of the Rev-12. Artificial gravity fails on Tars Lamora, and the rest of the crew can barely avoid drifting away into open space. But they are prepared. Murf was hiding the protostar core in a replica of Zero's casing, while the true Zero had already beamed down with emergency thrusters. On the Protostar, the Diviner is enraged about the non-functional protostar drive and sets a course back to Tars Lamora. Meanwhile, the crew is working to get power back online, to collect the Unwanted and to fend off the watchers that the Diviner has reactivated. Rok-Tahk manages to repair the power generator and thereby restores gravity, while Dal modifies the manacles of the Unwanted to operate as translators, so they can coordinate their efforts for the first time. When Drednok beams down, they attack and destroy him. But the Diviner finds the coordinates of the protocore and beams it out. The Rev-12 sets out to pursue him. On the Protostar, Gwyn activates the original Janeway again, and they overwhelm the Diviner. While the crew on the Rev-12 is waiting for her to lower the shields, she agrees to her father's plea to let him show her on the holodeck what happened to her people - or rather what would happen because he came from a future in which their homeworld Solum would be in ruins. The Diviner claims this was the fault of the first contact with Starfleet, which triggered a civil war on Solum. He now seeks vengeance and has installed some sort of weapon on the Protostar that would make Starfleet ships attack each other. Dal finally manages to beam over, and he tries to protect Gwyn as Zero appears and takes revenge on the Diviner by exposing him to his true appearance. Gwyn sees a reflection of the radiation on Dal's communicator and is almost driven insane just as well. While the Protostar is on a course for Starfleet, Admiral Janeway on the USS Dauntless picks up a protostar drive signature and hopes to finally rescue the ship and its crew, including Captain Chakotay.

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