Stardate 50126.4   Tuvok suddenly begins having strange, disorienting attacks which cause a disturbing childhood memory to resurface. As the trauma begins to degrade his neural system, he knows he must take action or he will die. To access and conquer the debilitating memory fragment, he asks Captain Janeway to act as his guide and enter into a mind-meld with him. Amazingly, the mind-meld takes Tuvok and Janeway to the scene of the young Vulcan's first Starfleet duty - on the bridge of the U.S.S. Excelsior with Captain Hikaru Sulu in command.
While the Doctor and Kes monitor them, Janeway and Tuvok delve deep into the mind-meld. Tuvok attends to duties with his them fellow crew members including Commander Janice Rand, while Janeway is an unseen observer. She learns that Tuvok's first deep space assignment, as a junior science officer aboard the Excelsior, was a disagreeable tour of duty for the young Vulcan and sees how it eventually led to his departure from Starfleet over 50 years ago. Janeway also has a chance to see firsthand what her kindred officer, Captain Sulu, chose to do in the heat of battle with the Klingons; led by Commander Kang ("Deep Space Nine").
Tuvok clashes with Sulu over the Captain's orders to make the bold mission to the Klingon Homeworld to rescue Captain Kirk and Doctor McCoy (Star Trek VI) and Janeway gets to "ride shotgun" with a different breed of Starfleet officer. Janeway and Tuvok continue with the mind-meld in hopes that it will yield just which repressed memory is causing such a physical reaction in Tuvok - until something goes wrong and without warning, Sulu and the Excelsior crew and see Janeway.