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It had happened to Seven of Nine again, while she was in the cargo bay. Her vision had shimmered in one certain spot, but she was not going to irritate the Doctor further by returning to sickbay. If this hallucination began to interfere with her work, then she would do so. In the meantime, she would turn her not inconsiderable powers of concentration to ignoring it

B'Elanna felt sick. Very, very sick.

She envied Janeway's headache and Tom's paranoia. She'd trade her delicate stomach for either of those any day. She'd been to the Doctor, of course, and he had given her something that had made the queasiness subside. But he had also predicted it would return, and damn him, he'd been right.

As it was, B'Elanna had to walk slowly and deliberately and remember to breathe deeply. Any sudden

movement made her stomach roil and threaten to void its contents, and Torres was determined with every ounce of human and Klingon pride that she was not, absolutely was not, going to throw up in front of Yorik, Carey, and me rest of engineering.

She felt all eyes on her as she walked carefully to the console. Yorik came up to her and asked solicitously, "Are you unwell, Lieutenant?"

"Yes," she replied honestly. "I'm sure you've got some problems of your own. Maybe you've got an earache or something." It was a deliberate insult and it came so naturally that B'Elanna winced.

Fortunately, it seemed that insults escaped the young Vulcan. "My ears are fine," he said, taking her words at face value. "However, I have noticed a slight loss in my manual dexterity."

"Oh, great. I'm going to be sick and you're going to punch the wrong button." She took a deep breath and pretended that her stomach was as fine as Vorik's ears. She needed to slide underneath the console to examine and probably replace yet another pair of damaged couplings and was uncertain as to what a supine position might do to her stomach.

She had just gotten to her knees when the ship rocked violently. Bile rose in her throat and she clapped a hand to her mouth, ferociously willing the contents of her stomach to stay right where they were. For the time being, they obeyed.

Seeing that his superior officer was in no condition to speak, Yorik tapped his combadge. "Yorik to bridge. What has occurred?"

"A miscalculation by Ensign Paris at the conn," came Chakotay's voice. "It's taken care of. There's nothing to worry about."

Sitting cross-legged on the engineering floor, still struggling to keep from vomiting, B'Elanna felt a chill. She knew Chakotay well enough to know that when he repeated a reassurance, it meant that there was indeed something to be worried about.

Tom. She hoped he was okay, but-

A sudden sound seized her attention. The console was beeping frantically. Adrenaline shot through Torres and she leaped to her feet, her stomach temporarily forgotten hi the sudden flood of urgency.

Everyone knew what that sound meant and sprang into action. A warp core breach was imminent Her mind became clear and focused. She realized that die emergency safeguards were failing to operate. Dimly, Torres heard Carey shouting something, heard Vorik contacting the bridge as she sprang to the console and manually activated the cylindrical forcefield that would isolate die engine from the rest of Engineering.

It didn't respond.

On to another console, to frantically tap in other commands. "Come on, come on," Torres muttered. The angry beeping and die wailing klaxon dial indicated Red Alert numbed her ears. Sweat dampened her face, funneled away from her eyes by die ridges in her forehead. Her fingers danced, but their motion didn't feel quick enough to Torres. There. The emergency shutdown procedure would shut off all fuel feeds and activate magnetic quenching fields.

Except that didn't work, either. It was as if everything had been frozen.

Torres didn't waste another precious second fiddling with the controls. "Evacuate!" she screamed, waving her arms. "Everybody out, now, now,