Homeostasis, Part One

Homeostasis, Part One was the fourth issue of Marvel Comics' 1996 series of Star Trek: Voyager comics and the first to feature Howard Weinstein as a writer. The issue consisted of a 22 page story penciled by Jesus Redondo and inked by Sergio Melia, with Bobbie Chase credited as editor.

Act 1

 * Captain's log, Stardate 49236.3: After two weeks travel through an unusually barren stretch of the Delta Quadrant, Commander Chakotay reports that Voyager is running low on supplies of all kind... The ship and crew are showing more wear and tear than i'm comfortable with. We hope to remedy the situation soon.

In a one of the Jefferies tubes of Voyager's engineering, Chief engineer B'Elanna Torres reports to Captain Janeway that the main phaser array base channels have as sustained structural stress fractures and that a full power phaser blast would crack them like egg-shells. She and Torres come to the conclusion that they need Duranium. An hail from Neelix summoning Janeway to the mess hall cuts their conversation short. Once there she finds Neelix in the kitchen and as they discuss the sparsity of supplies the ship is rocked by a tremor. The bridge immediately reports to Janeway that they are under attack by a Kazon raider.

Once on the bridge, Chakotay reports that a single ship is responsible for the assault. As the Kazon ship maneuvers to make another pass, Janeway orders Lieutenant Commander Tuvok to set the phasers at one-one-hundredth of their power and aim to miss. Reluctant to showing that their phaser are almost useless she also asks for a photon torpedo to be launch simultaneously. Once the raider gets in range, Voyager fires, hitting the Kazon ship's starboard engines, forcing them to retreat. Janeway remains suspicious about their encounter as pointless unprovoked attacks are not the Kazons style. She orders for yellow alert to be maintained and heads back to Neelix to see if he as any ideas.

Janeway runs into Neelix near the Airponics garden, as they walk towards the garden she asks if he as any ideas were to find duranium. He tells her about Praja, a Camborg colony he visited several times some years ago. In the garden they find Kes harvesting kapkap melon bushes.

Act 2

 * Captain's log, supplemental: According to Neelix, the Cambrog colony, one of several in this sector, has been on Praja for more than twenty years... With its prosperous mix of mining and agriculture, we hope Praja will fill our pressing need for food and duranium.

As the USS Voyager gets in range of Praja, Neelix notices that something is wrong. He notes that the inviting green look of the planet is gone and there are plums over the Orshan continent where the main colony is located. Ensign Kim reports that sensors show fires burning through forests and agricultural development’s, they also showed massive destruction of floral life across the surface.

Janeway, Neelix and Kim head to sickbay where The Doctor informs them that the planet as suffering from botanical plague and if it remains unchecked, it will consume all plant life on the planet. He assumes that the fires were probably futile attempts at stopping the plague. Kes reports that here are large herds of dead animals on every continent. Kim also reports that the settlements are deserted. Janeway tells Chakotay to assemble an away team and to bring Neelix and Kim along, Kes requests to be part of the team and Janeway accepts, much to the dismay of Neelix of fears for her safety.

Later Janeway is in the mess hall and orders Darjeeling tea and a slice of New York City Cheese cake from the replicator but Neelix comes up to her offering a dish of kapkap pudding. Janeway reluctantly accepts as she had her mind set on cheese cake and much to her surprise she finds the pudding delicious. Neelix takes this time to request that Kes be taken off the away team, as he shares his concerns with the captain, he does not notice Kes who is standing behind him. Janeway leaves before Kes storms out, furious at Neelix's behavior.

Act 3
The away team beams to the colony only to find a ghost town. The sight reminds Kes of the nightmare she had about the world decimated by polaric energy. Not wanting to lose any time Chakotay orders Kim and Kes to head to the fields and gather fauna and flora samples while he and Neelix investigate the fate of the colonist.

In the fields they find nothing but devastated land, Kes asks Kim if they would be allowed to help the Cambrog if this disaster was an attack on the colony. He answers that if she is talking about the Prime Directive then it depends on if a colonist survived and asked for Voyager's help. Kim's tricorder eventually picks up trace of a virus as Kes stumbles on a large number of dead animals. They gather samples and the away team beams back to Voyager for further analysis.

Characters

 * Kathryn Janeway • The Doctor • Tom Paris • Harry Kim • B'Elanna Torres • Chakotay • Tuvok • Neelix • Kes •

Starships and vehicles

 * USS Voyager ( cruiser)

Shipboard locations

 * USS Voyager : bridge • corridor • mess hall • engineering • Airponics garden • sickbay

Planetary and planetoid
Praja

Stellar locations

 * the galaxy • Delta Quadrant

Races and cultures

 * Human • Kazon • Talaxian • Vulcan • Ocampan • Cambrog

States and organizations

 * Federation • Starfleet • Kazon Collective

Other references
death •tricorder Prime DirectiveNew York City Cheese cakeDarjeeling teapolaric energykapkap puddingreplicatoraway teamsensors