The crew plans to hide the Protostar and travel on another ship, but Janeway disables their vessel and they flee to the Neutral Zone.
Hoping to reach Starfleet without the dangerous Protostar, the crew hides the ship near a busy transport hub and looks for passage on another vessel. The smuggler Okona overhears and offers them a ride, but he is arrested for smuggling before they can leave. Admiral Janeway, who is at the hub hunting Frex, realizes the young crew is there, and they race back to the Protostar with Okona stowed away aboard.
The Dauntless chases them at warp, Murf hatches from his cocoon in a more humanoid form, and Janeway fires on the Protostar, disabling its warp drive. The crew escapes into the Romulan Neutral Zone. The episode heightens the irony at the center of the season, since the Starfleet officer the kids most want to reach is pursuing them as fugitives. Okona is a returning character from the Next Generation episode The Outrageous Okona. Lisa Schultz Boyd wrote the episode, with Steve Ahn and Sung Shin directing.