The Haunting of Deck Twelve ( episode ) While the USS " Voyager " is without power for several hours , Neelix tells the children a ghost story of the events that lead up to it . . . or is it " more " than just a story ? Summary . Teaser . In the empty mess hall , Neelix shuts off the burners on the kitchen stove , straightens chairs and has the computer extinguish the lights . Seeming unsettled , he walks to the doors to leave . They open and he walks into Seven of Nine as she is about to enter . He jumps in fright . Seven apologizes but he says it is okay ; he is just a bit jumpy , especially considering " " what happened the last time . " " Seven asks him to supervise the Borg children during the imminent ship - wide shutdown of main power , a task he is glad to perform . ( ) On the bridge , Captain Kathryn Janeway , Chakotay , and the duty officers watch the viewscreen , looking at a class J nebula the is approaching . Ensign s Harry Kim and Tom Paris comment on its unsettling appearance , but Lieutenant Commander Tuvok is unimpressed . Captain Janeway gives the order to shut down main power . Across the ship , panels and lights shut down . In sickbay , The Doctor enters one final note into a PADD before turning himself off . In astrometrics , Seven of Nine is present as power is cut and the room goes dark . In Cargo Bay 2 , power to the Borg alcove s cuts out , curtailing the four children ' s regeneration cycle . The children wake up , alarmed , their alarm increasing when the lights go out . Neelix , there with a lantern , tries to calm them down . In engineering , Lieutenant B ' Elanna Torres works with her staff to safely shut down the warp core . All over the ship , the only light comes from portable lanterns . On the bridge , Kim reports that shutdown has been completed on all decks . Janeway hails Seven of Nine and tells her they are " ready " . Seven acknowledges . " Voyager " , now moving only on inertia , glides into the nebula . Act One . In Cargo Bay 2 , Neelix tries to soothe the still - alarmed children with an explanation as to why main power was cut . He tells them that it is to prevent EM emissions from entering the ship from the nebula they were going through ; a poor excuse since , as Icheb , the oldest , points out , the ship ' s deflector shield s provide sufficient protection against any nebula discharge . The children continue to press Neelix with questions , until Mezoti , the only girl in the group , asks if the shutdown has anything to do with Deck 12 , which Naomi Wildman , had told her was haunted . Icheb amplifies the mystery by informing them that Section 42 of that deck is closed to all but senior officers with level 6 security clearance . Neelix tells them there ' s no such thing as ghost s . But they press him for an answer as to what " is " there , if not a ghost . He finally caves in and agrees to tell them the " real " story of Deck 12 . Several months earlier , he begins , before they had come aboard , the ship was in another J - class nebula gathering deuterium , the " matter " in the matter / antimatter reaction that powers the ship ' s warp drive and other systems . In the mess hall , Neelix was startled as the ship jolted from turbulence within the nebula . When Tuvok walked in , Neelix sat down with him , and , attempting to hide his unease , he asked Tuvok how long they would be in the nebula . However , Tuvok ' s answer of several days made Neelix ' s fear evident . He explained that the nebula was bringing back a horrid childhood memory of a huge plasma drift that passed through the Talaxian system . For months , the star s and moon s in the Talaxian sky were blotted out by the fearsome - looking cloud . On the bridge , Captain Janeway , Chakotay , and the duty officer s also felt the jolt . Kim reported that nadion emissions from the ship ' s Bussard collector ( Icheb points out to Neelix that the Bussard collector did not produce nadion emissions ) were destabilizing the nebula . Chakotay suggested to Janeway that they be satisfied with having collected 80 % of the amount of deuterium they wanted , and leave . Janeway concurred , ordered engineering to stop the collection and then ordered Paris to take the ship out of the nebula . But just as Paris was about to engage the impulse engines to do so , the ship was shaken again . In the mess hall , those present saw an energy discharge spread over the ship in a spiderweb - like pattern for an instant , then disappear . On the bridge , sparks flew . Chakotay read aloud the report on the command console between his and the captain ' s seat ; an EM discharge had penetrated the hull . Damage appeared to be minor : power outages on three decks and the loss of the auxiliary subprocessors , no casualties . Janeway ordered repairs and the ship ' s course be resumed . " Voyager " moves away from the nebula , but , as she passes , an entity , looking like an energy discharge , can be seen crawling on the back of the saucer section , just above the ' scruff of the neck ' ( the junction between the saucer section and the stardrive ) . Neelix tells the children that everything seemed fine , but they now had a stowaway on board . Act Two . The children try to guess the species of the lifeform , suggesting different possibilities . Neelix gives them the choice of continuing their attempts or listening to him . They ask him to continue , and he does , recounting the malfunctions that had begun to plague the ship after they had left the nebula . Chakotay went to Janeway ' s ready room and presented the repair teams ' report ; damage had proven to be greater than initially thought : one of the ship ' s two personnel transporters was out , half the sonic showers were off - line , and in deck five had lost artificial gravity and Ensign Mulchaey hit his head on the ceiling . Janeway listened and sipped her coffee , but found it tasted terrible . She instructed the computer to replicate another cup . . . and watched as it replicated the coffee " without " the cup , in a cup shape ( of course on completion , it collapsed into a spill ) , and " then " replicated the empty cup . Replicators were added to the list of damages . Chagrined , she walked to her windows and stood , looking out . As she looked , she saw a meteoroid cluster and drew Chakotay ' s attention to it . Chakotay saw nothing odd about it , but Janeway did ; they had passed that same cluster an hour before . The ship was going in circles . Immediately they went onto the bridge to find out why . Paris told them the navigational sensors appeared to be functioning normally , but , on Chakotay ' s order , Tuvok ran a diagnostic which revealed that they were indeed malfunctioning and the ship was going back from whence it had come . Janeway ordered all stop and reinitialization of the sensors . Paris obeyed , then turned around in the pilot ' s chair to speak to her . He had just finished when suddenly the warp drive engaged , seemingly of its own accord , and the ship surged forward at warp six . Attempts to shut it down failed . Janeway tried to call Torres in engineering , but got no answer . Then , as suddenly as it had engaged , the warp drive shut down , and the ship came to all stop again . Janeway again tried to contact engineering , and again got no response . Chakotay instructed the computer to locate her . She was indeed in engineering ; but then the computer began to recite a litany of crew member locations that it had not been instructed to give , reporting that the Ensign Trumari was on deck four , section 30 ; the Lieutenant Commander Tuvok was on bridge ; the crewman U ' Lanai was in the mess hall and the Ensign Vorik was in main engineering , level two . Increasingly annoyed , Janeway ordered Chakotay to go to engineering and find out what was happening Chakotay boarded the turbolift and tried to get to engineering . But when the lift stopped and he exited , he found that he was not on engineering ' s deck , but that of the mess hall . He re - boarded the turbolift , but the doors would not close . Making up his mind to walk , he tried to get off , but the doors suddenly shut , trapping him inside . Then , the descent stabilizers failed and the turbolift car plunged eleven decks down the shaft at very high speed , pinning Chakotay to the ceiling . Had the stabilizers not suddenly reactivated at the last moment , the car would have crashed into the bottom of the shaft , killing him instantly and possibly damaging the hull . Finally arriving at engineering , he conferred with Torres , who was working to trace the source of the problems with her staff . The source appeared to be a series of bio - neural gel pack s on Deck 13 . In another part of the ship , Crewman Tal Celes was just about to run a diagnostic on a circuit panel when Seven of Nine stopped her . She moved aside as Seven began to run her own diagnostic to find a fault which she thought Tal had caused , and which had cut power to astrometrics . She was surprised when Tal told her she had not even started as yet , thus the fault could not have been hers . On Deck 13 , Chakotay and Torres examined the suspect bio - neural gel packs . They appeared to be in good condition , but Torres noticed on her tricorder an EM discharge which seemed to be moving from system to system through the bio - neural circuitry . She traced it as it moved to a series of gel packs interfacing with the environmental control systems of Cargo Bay 2 , located just outside that cargo bay . The two officers hurried to get there before it moved again . In Cargo Bay 2 , Seven was at a terminal running diagnostics in an attempt to find the source of the systems malfunctions as Chakotay and Torres were doing . Absorbed in the task , she was unaware that the EM discharge Chakotay and Torres were tracking had entered the room . Behind her back it exited from a circuit panel , silently snaked across the floor and up into her alcove . She only realized something was wrong when the alcove ' s lights began to flicker . When that happened she looked up , picked up her tricorder and began scanning ; this was yet another system malfunction , and she could perhaps find pertinent data here which would help her . But then she heard a hiss from the ventilation duct . She looked up toward the duct to see gas from the nebula pouring in . She tried to hail the bridge , but got no response . She walked briskly to the doors to leave , but they would not open . She looked back with mounting alarm as the deadly advancing cloud filled more and more of the room behind her , crackling with sparks of EM energy . She tried to open the doors from the control panel , but the panel beeped in denial . Her only hope was the emergency manual override built into a hatch in the floor . She opened it and pulled the switch , opening the doors . She quickly exited , but , on turning to go down the corridor , walked straight into a force field . She turned to go in the other direction . but found a force field blocking that escape as well . Trapped , she could do nothing as the gas , having filled the cargo bay , poured forth from the open doors and filled the space contained between the force fields . She collapsed , the life being asphyxiated out of her . Act Three . As Neelix continues to regale the four enthralled children , the lantern goes out . He changes the power cell , inadvertently scaring them when they suddenly see his face in the harsh light . He continues . Chakotay and Torres reached the cargo bay deck after crawling through a series of Jefferies tube s , eschewing the turbolift after Chakotay ' s earlier experience . Rounding the last corner before the bay , they found Seven lying unconscious behind one of the force fields used to trap her . When attempts to have the computer drop the force field failed , Chakotay destroyed the control panel with a phaser shot , cutting power to the field generators , dropping the field . They quickly took Seven to sickbay . In the mess hall , Neelix was cooking in the kitchen while crew members , including Ops Manager Kim , sat , ate and talked . Then the lights began flickering . Kim tried to call engineering ; Neelix tried the bridge ; both failed . Kim , the only officer in the room , ordered everyone to return to their stations . Neelix offered to go with Kim , but Kim told him to stay there , since the mess hall was his station . Kim then left , leaving Neelix in the mess hall alone . The lights went out , leaving the room in darkness . Neelix whimpered with unease . Neelix recounts that system after system were failing , including the environmental controls . Neither that warp drive nor impulse engines were responding ; the ship was dead in space . On the bridge , according to Paris , the temperature was very uncomfortably hot for all except Tuvok , accustomed to the heat of his home planet , . The conn console began beeping . Paris checked it on Janeway ' s orders and found helm control working again . He sat down to try to get the engines back on line , but Janeway saw from a readout at the auxiliary tactical station that an EM surge was building in the conn console . She warned Paris , but before he could move away , he was struck in the face by an EM discharge and severely burned . Janeway and a duty officer rushed to his aid . She tried to call sickbay ; no answer . She asked Tuvok if the transporters were working , to transport Paris to sickbay , but " they " were also off - line . Then the computer began warning of oxygen depletion ; air was being removed from the bridge . Attempts to reroute emergency power to restore the air failed , and Janeway ordered everyone to evacuate , coughing and gasping for breath . In sickbay , The Doctor treated Seven of Nine as well as other injured crew members . Once it was ascertained that Seven of Nine suffered no serious injury , and she had recovered consciousness , she got up , intending to help Torres with repairs . Then Janeway and Tuvok brought Paris in , groaning in intense pain from his burns . He was laid on a bed and The Doctor rushed over to him , along with the Seven , Chakotay and Torres . The group began comparing notes : Paris was burned by an EM discharge and Seven was almost killed when she was trapped in an enclosed space that filled with lethal nebula gases . Chakotay informed them of two other crew members who had been brought in as patients ; they had tried to vent nebula gas from Deck 7 and had been struck by EM discharges as well . It was beginning to look as if an intelligence was at work ; they realized that the EM discharge that had entered the ship was actually a lifeform that had come from the nebula . It was apparently trying to make the ship more like its native environment and attacking anyone who tried to interfere . Just then , The Doctor ' s holomatrix began to destabilize . They quickly transferred him to his mobile emitter to save him . Then power began to fail in sickbay . Janeway ordered everyone to evacuate to engineering . Deck by deck , Neelix tells the children , the crew was losing the ship . Crew members were scattered all over , with no idea what was going on . Through the darkened corridors , lit intermittently by blood - red emergency lighting , Kim walked , with a wrist - borne light , looking for other crewmembers . As he rounded a corner , a frightened Crewman Tal Celes hit him in the stomach , thinking he was an alien invader . He angrily assured her that the ship had not been invaded by aliens and the two proceeded together to engineering . Neelix recounts that for over four hours , he was alone in the darkened mess hall , with no idea what was happening . Then he began to hear noises from outside the mess hall . Armed with a phaser , which he always keeps hidden in the kitchen for emergencies , and with a wrist - borne light , he slowly and nervously walked to the doors , calling , " " Hello ? Is anyone there ? " " He stepped outside , following the sound of the noise , and found it was the turbolift doors opening and slamming shut repeatedly . He suddenly sensed someone behind him . He turned and came face to face with Tuvok , who had come to get him . Tuvok was wearing an oxygen mask and looked very much like a hostile alien in the dark . Neelix screamed and nearly shot him . The Vulcan told him to calm down , explained the situation as far as he knew , and the two , like Tal and Kim , set off for engineering . Act Four . Neelix goes on with his story . He and Tuvok made their way toward engineering through the Jefferies tube s . To pass the time , and to counteract his fear , he attempted to make conversation with the Vulcan , but Tuvok , in the way of Vulcans , preferred to silently focus on the task at hand . They were making progress , but then found their way cut off by an inflow of nebula gas into a tube that was behind a closed hatch . Tuvok began trying to access environmental controls from a circuit panel to try to vent the tube . Janeway and the others from sickbay had gathered in engineering , now one of the few places left with light or any kind of working computer access . Chakotay told her that ninety other crew members were accounted for , in other areas of the ship . Seven of Nine worked with Torres to try to wrest system control back from the alien , but to no avail . Then , suddenly , the computer began reporting Janeway ' s location : in main engineering . It sounded like another computer malfunction , but Janeway had a hunch that it was the alien trying to communicate . She had Torres call up the system ' s syntax subroutines to show the alien how to respond to her words as she spoke . Her hunch proved correct . When Janeway asked why it had come aboard , it told her to go to astrometrics . She went , taking Seven with her , hoping to negotiate with it to get control of the ship back . In the Jefferies tubes , Tuvok attempted to teach his companion a Vulcan meditation technique to try to calm his fear . At first it seems to work ; Neelix casts his mind back to a happy moment when the crew held a party for him and cooked his favorite foods . But so great was his fear that he envisioned nebula gas with a demonic face flying up at him when he uncovered the plate . Thus the attempted meditation failed . Janeway and Seven arrived in astrometrics , where the alien called up the navigational logs to show them the nebula they had been collecting deuterium from . Janeway realized that the alien wanted to return to the nebula , its home , and the alien confirmed this , verbally using the computer system ' s syntax , and by returning helm control . It told Janeway to go to the bridge , but it instituted a level 10 security clearance to enter the bridge , which only Janeway had as captain . This meant that Seven could not go with her ; she had to go alone , which she did . The captain , Neelix tells the children , had developed a fragile rapport with the alien . On the bridge , she engaged the warp drive and piloted the ship back to the nebula . But when the ship arrived at the nebula ' s coordinates , and she cut the warp engines , the viewscreen showed only stars ; the destabilization of the nebula had continued after the ship ' s departure , and now it was completely gone . At this , the alien became furious , though still communicating through the emotionless computer voice . It cut life support on all decks and , through the computer , sent a ship - wide message to abandon ship . An eye for an eye . " Voyager " had destroyed its home . It intended to deprive the crew of theirs and take " Voyager " for itself . Act Five . The captain ' s only hope of keeping the ship , Neelix tells the children , was to try to reason with the livid alien . On the bridge , she tried to convince it to let her find it a new home , in another nebula . But the alien rejected her overtures . It overloaded the helm control circuits , destroying the ability to pilot the ship , and refused to even allow her to use the comm system to warn the crew to abandon ship ; its warning using the computer was all the notice they would get . Janeway hurriedly left the bridge to return to engineering to tell the crew members there that the warning was no computer malfunction ; they " had " to abandon the ship . In the Jefferies tube , Tuvok was still attempting to vent the gas from the sealed tube that he and Neelix needed to go through . The alien , however , attacked him with an EM discharge as it had done to Paris and others , and released nebula gas into the tube where the two men were . Tuvok ordered Neelix to go on without him , but Neelix refused , picking him up and helping him continue forward . On her way back to engineering , Neelix recounts , Janeway tried to make the alien reconsider what it was doing . She told it that without a crew to maintain them , the ship ' s systems would eventually fail . This meant that it would drift through space , a wreck , until destroyed by some cosmic phenomenon such as an asteroid shower without shields to protect it or propulsion to get it out of the way , leaving the creature without a home , without which it could not survive . But the creature seemed bent on its course of action . Janeway , Neelix tells the children , could not afford to wait any longer . She returned to engineering and ordered everyone to get to the escape pods and shuttles . Neelix and the injured Tuvok climbed out of a Jefferies tube hatch just in time to join them . All shuttles and pods were launched but one , on which Chakotay was to leave with Janeway . Chakotay went first , but as Janeway was about to go through the door to get to the pod , it shut . The creature had , in fact , listened to what she had said about the ship needing to be maintained , and it intended to keep one crew member aboard to do just that ; Janeway herself . It told her to go to engineering . Outraged , she flatly refused , telling it she would " not " be its prisoner ; it would have to kill her . It attempted to force her by trapping her between two force fields and filling the space between with nebula gas . But she remained steadfast as she sank to the floor , coughing and asphyxiating , telling the creature that they would die together ; within two minutes of exposure to the gas , she would be dead and it would be on its own , with nobody to maintain the ship . Seeing that it was simply " not " going to get her to acquiesce , no matter what it did , even threatening her with death , the creature finally relented . It withdrew the gas , dropped the force fields and restored all the systems , giving her back the ship ; it would accept her proposal of a new home in another nebula . It took nearly two days , Neelix says , for the entire crew to return . An isolated environment was created - on deck 12 - to contain the creature until another suitable nebula was found for it . The creature has been there ever since , Neelix concludes . Suddenly the ship is shaken . Then , a few seconds later , main power is restored . The lights come back on and the Borg alcoves power up again . Neelix tells them that it was probably the alien leaving the ship to take up residence in the nebula they are going though ; the new home the captain found for it . He has them return to the alcoves ( the equivalent of Human children being sent to bed ) . As they are about go back onto the platforms , another child , Azan , asks him what if the jolt they felt was the creature coming to take revenge . Neelix then tells them that he made the whole thing up . Mildly chagrined , they mount , turn around , and close their eyes as their regeneration cycles kick in , the Borg equivalent of going to sleep . Neelix turns off the lantern and wishes them pleasant dreams . Neelix then goes to the bridge , where all is back to normal . Seated in their respective command chairs , Janeway and Chakotay ask him how the children handled the . Neelix says he kept them occupied with a story . Paris asks him if it was a " Mother Goose " story , to which he responds : Janeway answers that they were just taking some final readings before resuming course . She has Kim show him a final viewscreen image of the nebula . A tiny bright flash light is seen within it ( is it the creature making itself at home ? ) Neelix looks at the image , pleased , and says : " Voyager " cruises away at impulse , then engages warp drive , resuming course for Earth . Memorable quotes . " " Gather round , but I ' m warning you : this is not a tale for the faint of heart . " " " " We ' re not faint of heart . " " " " Our cardiopulmonary systems are reinforced . " " " " Did I ever tell you about the " Salvoxia " ? " " " " If I say yes , will it prevent you from telling the story ? " " " " Now , " there ' s " a creepy image ; reminds me of something out of Edgar Allan Poe . " " " " Looks like a vampire bat . You can make out the wings , even the ears . What do you see , Tuvok ? " " " " Two Starfleet officers with juvenile imaginations . " " " " I won ' t be your prisoner . You ' ll have to kill me ! " " " " Acknowledged . " " " " The turbolift started to fall faster and faster . . . ! Anybody hungry ? " " ( Outraged ) " " Neelix ! " " " " Well , you haven ' t touched your snacks . . . " " " " Snacks are irrelevant ! Continue the story ! " " " " I wonder what the crew of the Salvoxia did for food after their emergency rations were gone . " " " " Maybe they ate each other . " " " " All right , uhh , that ' s enough ! " " " " I am giving you an order . " " " " And I ' m disobeying it ! You ' re coming with me if I have to drag you by your pointy little ears ! " " " " If I didn ' t know better I ' d swear this ship ' s trying to kill me . " " " " Captain Janeway , report to engineering . " " " " I TOLD YOU . . . THE ONLY WAY I ' M HELPING , IS IF YOU . . . RETURN . . . CONTROL . . . OF MY . . . SHIP ! " " Links and references . References . " The Adventures of Flotter " ; artificial gravity ; asphyxiation ; assimilation ; auxiliary subprocessor ; bio - neural circuitry ; ; bluff ; Bussard collector ; cardiopulmonary system ; " chadre ' kab " ; class J nebula ; class M ; coffee ; curtain s ; dark nebula ; decomposition ; " Delta Flyer " ; descent stabilizer ; deuterium ; electromagnetic lifeform ; emergency power ; EPS diagnostic ; escape pod ; fairy tale ; field generator ; Galactic Cluster 8 ; ghost ; ; hive mind ; hyperventilation ; Jefferies tube ; kelvin ; interphasic species ; lung ; McMinn ; Maquis ; meteorite ; micro - nebula ; " Mother Goose " ; Mulchaey ; multispectrum particle lifeform ; nadion ; navigational array ; navigational sensor ; neural transceiver ; non - corporeal lifeform ; ogre ; plasma drift ; ; " Salvoxia " ; security clearance ; sextant ; SIMs beacon ; singalong ; sonic shower ; space - dwelling lifeform ; Species 5973 ; syntax subroutine ; Talaxian ; Talaxian freighter ; Talaxian system ; Tarkanian desert ; tera nut soufflé ; Trumari ; U ' Lanai ; " Val Jean " ; vampire bat ; Vorik ; Vulcan ; ; ; xenobiology External link .