Upon responding to an automated beacon message, the crew finds stasis pods, some of which still have living inhabitants. Several, though, have dead bodies. The cause of their passings appears to have being scared to passing.
The crew also finds that the live bodies in the stasis tubes are interacting with each other. The crew decides to uses an available tube to interact with the survivors. What they find shocks them, and puts the rescuers' lives in danger.
While chasing a renegade Maquis ship in the Badlands, the USS Voyager and the Maquis ship they are chasing are pulled into a vortex, which sends them instantly to the Delta Quadrant. However, after the destruction of the device that transported them to the Delta Quadrant, the crew of Voyager and the crew of the Maquis ship must join together to fight their way back to their home in the Alpha quadrant, which is many years away. They will meet many foes and many obstacles along the way, but they will also bond as a crew, between those of the Maquis and those of Starfleet.