Canon Facts Backstage Info  Speculation

The planet proved to be the homeworld of the Vaadwuar, ancient enemies of the Turei long thought extinct after a great war. In fact many Vaadwuar had been hiding in stasis for some nine centuries. Voyager, believing the Vaadwuar to be victims of the aggressive Turei, planned a joint venture to escape the planet and the Turei fleet now orbiting it. In fact the Vaadwuar had been an aggressive species and immediately began to plot to regain at least a fraction of their former dominance of the region. When Captain Janeway realized what they were planning to do she decided to limit the number of armed ships they would use in the operation. The Vaadwuar replied by attacking Voyager with several squadrons of attack craft.

Voyager had to fight its way up from the surface of the planet while greatly outnumbered by the Vaadwuar ships. Despite poor sensor performance and eventual battle damage to the targeting sensors which forced a switch to manual targeting Voyager performed amazing feats of targeting during the battle, scoring direct hits even when firing three arrays simultaneously.

Nevertheless, the sheer number of Vaadwuar ships threatened to overwhelm the ships defences. Voyager contacted the Turei forces orbiting the planet and assisted them in targeting the Vaadwuar ships, giving them time to get out of the planets thermosphere and engage warp drive. The Starfleet vessel escaped safely, leaving the Turei and Vaadwuar fleets to battle one another.

The Vaadwuar suffered heavily in this battle, but fifty two of their vessels escaped into the underspace corridors. It is more than likely that Voyager has not yet seen the last of this species.