Val Jean

The Val Jean was a small raider-type craft operated by the Maquis during the early 2370s. The impulse engines of Val Jean were originally built in 2332.

In 2371, while under the command of Chakotay, the Val Jean was pursued by the Cardassian warship Vetar, Gul Evek's flagship. Chakotay ordered the ship into the Badlands to try to escape the Cardassians.

After eluding pursuit, the Val Jean was scanned by a coherent tetryon beam and transported into the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker. Once there, the crew was abducted and subjected to medical tests to determine their biological compatibility with the Caretaker. One of the crew, chief engineer B'Elanna Torres, was removed from the others and sent to the surface of the Ocampa homeworld.

In order to recover his missing crew member, Chakotay reluctantly joined forces with Starfleet captain Kathryn Janeway of the USS Voyager, who had been sent to capture him but had instead been pulled into the Delta Quadrant as well. The cooperation proved successful, and both Torres and Voyager crew member Harry Kim were rescued.

Subsequently, both Voyager and the Val Jean were engaged in a dogfight by a small fleet of Kazon-Ogla warships, including a massive Kazon carrier vessel. Because the Kazon vastly outgunned both Voyager and the Val Jean, Chakotay chose to perform a ramming maneuver to destroy the much larger ship and "take some heat off [Voyager's] tail." The ramming was successful; the carrier was destroyed after colliding with the Caretaker's array, and Chakotay was beamed out of the cockpit in the nick of time.

Following the destruction of their ship, the Maquis crew were accepted as members of the Voyager crew and given temporary Starfleet commissions. Although they came from hostile backgrounds, the two crews would have to work together to survive in the Delta Quadrant and return home to Earth. 

Crew manifest

 * See: Val Jean personnel

Background information
The name of Chakotay's ship, Val Jean, comes from, where it is seen on Teero Anaydis' computer. The ship was probably named for Jean Valjean, the hero of "Les Misérables". Michael Eddington also referenced him, comparing his situation to the Maquis in.

Another popular name of Chakotay's ship, Zola, comes from a cut line in that was never aired. This name probably comes from, a 19th century French novelist, but it's not considered strictly canon. The same is true of Liberty, which was the name given in Jeri Taylor's novel Pathways, or Selva, the name given in book two of Susan Wright's novel The Badlands. Geronimo is the latest name attributed to the ship in the Star Trek: Mirror Universe: Obsidian Alliances anthology from Pocket Books, in the story "The Mirror-Scaled Serpent".

The cockpit of the Val Jean was a re-dress of the runabout set from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, with older-style display graphics first used in.

In the novel Quarantine, the ship is called the Spartacus, though it is stated that Maquis captains frequently change the names of their ships in order to make it appear that the Maquis have more ships than they actually do.

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