Men in camouflage clothes and carrying guns with scopes (?) are scouring the forest in haste. After much searching, they come up behind a person whose clothes are those of Starfleet. Chakotay turns around, startled.
Under armed escort, Chakotay is taken back to their camp. It becomes obvious that they use different terms than we use. They state that Chakotay is not a Krady beast, but he is not wearing Vori colors either. His glimpse (looks) is too tame to be a Kradin. He is not a nemesis (enemy) so they decide to set him free.
After the novice (lowest rank soldier) unties Chakotay from his restraints and gag, the officer volunteers that he is Team Leader Brone of the Fourth Vori Defense Contingent. He apologizes to Chakotay--stating his defenders (soldiers) are new to the clash (war).
Feeling more comfortable, Chakotay replies that he was on a survey mission and picked up Omicron radiation on his scanners and came in for a closer look. After coming under attack, he had to make an emergency transport to the surface.
Team Leader Brone asserts that Chakotay came under fire by the Kradin--their nemesis. Brone alleges that the Kradin crave supremacy in the air and fire on any craft that does not show Kradin colors. When Chakotay makes known that his attempts to contact his ship had failed, Brone explains that all dispatching (communication) in the clash zone has been suppressed.
Chakotay wanders over and sits down beside the novice who proceeds to share his provisions (food) with Chakotay. The novice introduces himself as Rafin. Another defender volunteers the information that Rafin has never seen a nemesis either and this is Rafin's first walk (patrol) in the clash zone. The other defender makes the unfeeling remark that there is no heart thumping (beating) beneath their nemesis' flesh and that he intends to nullify (kill) a nemesis for each person he has lost plus more. When he proceeds to ask Rafin how many he will nullify, he accuses him of having the trembles (doubts and fears) and tells him with contempt in his voice to get it under control before the Kradin nullifies Rafin.
Rafin gives an horrid (terrible) description of the nemesis that he had been told to Chakotay. Chakotay explains that people say terrible things about their enemies to make them seem worse than they really are. Rafin tells of the deaths that the Krady beast caused his family and also prevented them from going to the afterlife because they were killed faceup.
Team Leader Brone enters the clearing where the men are gathered. He asks for a volunteer to escort Chakotay back to the trunks (forest) to look for his craft (ship) when new light (daylight) comes. After Chakotay turns the offer down, Brone asks Rafin to volunteer. Rafin begins to stutter his answer when Namon volunteers to defend Chakotay.
At new light, as they make their way back to where they found Chakotay, Namon continues informing Chakotay how terrible the Krady beasts are. Chakotay replies that there are other ways to settle disputes between opposing parties on the planet he comes from with peaceful solutions and negotiations.
When Chakotay finds a piece of metal that indicates that his ship is in pieces, Namon states he will have to walk with them to the Seventh Contingent. The words no sooner leave his mouth than the Kradin launch a surprise attack and hit Namon, who returns fire and knocks a Kradin to the ground almost simultaneously as he goes down backwards from the force of the Kradin’s weapon fire. Chakotay charges the other one and retrieves the Kradin’s weapon and has the weapon pointed at him when the Voirdefenders suddenly come up behind Chakotay and shoot the Kradin dead even though he was offering no resistance.
While they turn Namon facedown and cover him with rocks for burial, Chakotay is told to put on Namon's coverings (clothes) and carry his arms (weapon) under protest, but finally agrees.
On their way back to the Seventh Contingent (after Rafin instructs Chakotay in using Namon's weapon), they come upon a dead soldier staked out with his face toward the sky. When they cannot contact the Seventh Contingent, Rafin finds the courage to volunteer with another defender to find out why.
Rafin and the other defenders return with the news that twenty defenders were nullified and desecrated by the Krady beast by being upturned (died faceup).
Brone with contempt in his voice confronts Chakotay and wants to know if he understands. When Chakotay states with dismay that he is sorry, Brone continues with the horrors of the Krady beast--receiving everyone's affirmation about how evil they are.
A surprise weapon bombardment causes them to retreat. When they regroup again they are attacked again with most receiving fatal wounds, Chakotay with a shoulder wound escapes with a wounded Rafin and Brone escapes in the opposite direction with a wounded soldier. Rafin dies and Chakotay turns him facedown before moving on.
The next morning Chakotay approaches a village that greets him like a defender with much praise when he passes out.
On Voyager, Neelix informs Captain Janeway that Ambassador Treen's people have been defending themselves against a particularly savage aggressor for more than a decade. Tom, B'Elanna and Harry are dismayed at the savage aggressor mentioned and Tuvok is rebuked by Paris when he states that the ambassador's people resources are extremely limited and the condition on the surface are chaotic.
Neelix continues with the assurance that if the ambassador's people do find Chakotay that he will receive medical attention and be transported to the nearest commandpost.
Back on the sphere (planet) Chakotay spends the night in the civilian camp while they make him feel needed. A young girl asks him to take a letter to her brother Dargo in the Seventh Contingent if he should see him. Chakotay does not tell her about their deaths.
The next morning after receiving provisions and farewells, Chakotay leaves camp at new light. He soon returns after seeing aircraft overhead and sounds of explosions. He approaches the camp to see the Kradin rounding up the survivors of the attack with children crying. When he takes aim, two Kradin come up behind him and capture him.
Back on Voyager Janeway, Tuvok and Tom discuss how Chakotay has probably been captured by the nemesis--the vicious enemy of Ambassador’s Treen's people.
Tuvok informs the others that a single crew member should make the infiltration with a commando unit that Ambassador Treen has agreed to provide and that he (Tuvok) is the logical person to carry out this mission.
After the Kradin have interrogated him, Chakotay is shoved into a hut with some other civilians at nighttime. He is knocked to the ground when he demands to know what has happened to the girl's grandfather (Penno).
When the Kradin attempt to take first the grandfather and then the granddaughter to an extermination camp the next morning, Chakotay again attacks the Kradin by knocking one down and then goes after another--delivering blow after blow while calling the Kradin a motherless beast. A Kradin comes up behind Chakotay and knocks him unconscious with the butt of his weapon.
The crew beam Ambassador Treen (a Krady beast) on board Voyager unaware of the part his people are playing in Chakotay's life and are informed that any victim of their bloodthirsty nemesis the Vori will always find friends among the Kradin people!
Chakotay is staked out faceup to die when Team Leader Brone comes upon him and sets him free. Chakotay questions him about the villagers from the Larhara settlement and learns that they were all fastwalked through the trunks and all the defenders were nullified. Chakotay tells Brone that he named them well when he called them beasts.
Brone informs Chakotay that he will try to join with the Fifth Contingent after taking Chakotay to Command to signal his people. Chakotay turns down the offer to communicate with Voyager until he can help Brone nullify the nemesis.
That night Brone and Chakotay are in the thick of an assault on the Kradin when they are forced to retreat. After they regroup an explosion wounds Brone and others and knocks Chakotay to the ground. Chakotay begins firing until the one who looks like a Kradin calls him Commander Chakotay and convinces him that he is Tuvok. Tuvok informs Chakotay that he has been brainwashed to fight the Vori war. When Chakotay finally sees that what he had thought was a Kradin is Tuvok he is still unconvinced about the Vori's manipulation. They go back to the Larhara settlement and the villagers greet Chakotay as a defender once again. Penno, the grandfather calls his granddaughter, Karya, and she greets Chakotay the same as the first time without recognizing him.
Back on board Voyager in sickbay, the Doctor apprises them that the Vori used a combination of mind control techniques including photometric projections, heightened emotional stimuli and highly sophisticated physotrophic manipulation. Janeway asserts that as far as they know it was all done to make Chakotay bond with the Vori so that their deaths would enrage him.
The Doctor informs Chakotay that he has been subjected to a highly sophisticated form of propaganda. Chakotay states that all he cared about was the Vori and hated the Kradin so bad that he wanted to kill every one of them. Janeway affirms that evidently that was the point.
Chakotay leaves the sickbay soon after Ambassador Treen enters and tells him how happy he is that they were able to rescue him and help with his recovery. The ambassador is startled at Chakotay's hasty retreat and ask them if it was something he said.
Janeway hurries after Chakotay. He turns around and states that he only wished it was as easy to stop hating as it was to start.
