Quite an episode, but hardly efficient. There’s a lot of story going on here – Battlestar Galactica would’ve stretched this out to half a season. A space battle, kidnapping, negotiations, double-crosses, moles, more kidnapping, eegads. What they’re really doing in this episode is telegraphing to the audience – “please, please, our show is different from TNG. Janeway faces different problems from Picard. And we’ve gone all in on the Kazon, so please like them as a bad guy!!”
This is, for the most part, achieved. The tribes of the Kazon were actually victims of an apartheid structure under the Trabe, who are now running scared from all the different (and warring) Kazon tribes. Can Janeway bring peace to everyone? Or can she just get people to leave her the hell alone?
