17. Unity

Commander Chakotay (Robert Beltran) and Ensign Kaplan (Susan Patterson) hear a distress call while scouting ahead for Voyager in a shuttlecraft. They land the vessel but come under fire from hostile aliens, killing Kaplan and injuring Chakotay. He wakes in a room with a woman called Riley Frazier (Lori Hallier). She informs him that she is part of a group of survivors on the planet from a variety of races. There are other groups nearby, including those that attacked him. She calls her group a "Co-operative".

Meanwhile, the USS Voyager discovers a derelict Borg cube and Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) decides that an investigation is required in order to learn more about the Borg's technology. An away team boards the cube, discovering that either an accident or another species disabled the vessel. They take a Borg drone back onto Voyager, where the Doctor (Robert Picardo) accidentally revives it.

After being told by Frazier to remain where he is, Chakotay breaks out of his room where he sees that all the people around him on the alien planet possess Borg implant technology in their bodies. Frazier explains that an electro-kinetic storm broke their link with the Borg hive mind. Instead, the separated drones settled on a nearby planet. Because the connection between them was deactivated, different groups soon started fighting each other over the planet's limited resources. As Chakotay's health gets worse, the ex-Borg offer to connect him to a joint mind to heal his injuries, and he reluctantly accepts. Once part of the hive mind, he sees a montage of their memories. The ex-Borg remove the connection device as soon as Chakotay's health improves, however a residual telepathic link lingers and allows Chakotay and Frazier to get closer.

After Voyager arrives, Frazier and her group want Janeway to re-activate the neuroelectric generator on the damaged cube to extend a new joint mind across the entire planet, in order to stop the infighting. Chakotay pleads their case, but Janeway decides not to help them. As Chakotay returns to Voyager on board a shuttle, the Co-operative are attacked by hostile groups and use their telepathic link to force him to travel to the Borg cube, with Voyager in pursuit. Both Chakotay and an away team board the cube, and despite a firefight, he manages to reactivate the generator.

This creates the new joint mind as expected, but also activates the cube, which begins powering up to attack Voyager. Chakotay and the away team are beamed back to Voyager as the Co-operative trigger the cube's self-destruct before it can endanger the Federation ship. The planet's inhabitants thank Voyager, but as a result of their actions, Chakotay later questions the morality of the Co-operative's motives with Janeway, as it connected many of the former Borg together in a new hive mind without consulting them.