Flashback - Diane Carey [11]
"It is difficult to forget," he said, "when you are wearing a neurocortical monitor at your parietal bone."
Chakotay offered a tolerant smile. "Good point."
For the first time, Tuvok found himself wishing the conversation with this former Maquis rebel leader could go on a bit longer. This vulnerability, which he saw as a complete negative, seemed to have its positive points. These humans empathized with him for this weakness rather than holding him in disrespect for his disability. They took weakness as a chance for strength. There was a unity among them in times of stress which Vulcans often dismissed as ... silly.
It wasn't silly.
Not at this moment, when he felt a rare link with such a man as Chakotay. Could a good result come from such sensations of torment and guilt?
Guilt was illogical. He had let the girl fall to her
death, but he knew no girl of such description. The event had never happened to him.
Not that he could recall.
Such a chink in his armor was damning. He tried to resist the sensation as he and Chakotay strode through the main entrance to the engineering deck.
Together they crossed the deck to where Ensign Kim and B'Elanna Torres were studying a wall monitor that displayed a live exterior view of the nebula and fed out corresponding technical information about what the sensors were picking up.
"Mr. Kim?" Chakotay began, by way of jump-starting the moment and sifting for answers on Tuvok's part.
Tuvok was inwardly grateful, because he knew Chakotay and the others were studying the nebula as much for his well-being as for the rich sirillium deposits.
The nebula glowed on the small screen, and he felt his heart begin to pound.
"I checked all the sensor logs," Kim reported. "There's no sign of anything emanating from the nebula that would've affected Tuvok or Voyager."
"Anything unusual about the nebula itself?" Chakotay pursued diligently.
"No, it's a standard class-seventeen."
Tuvok found himself grasped by the vision on the monitor, unable to look away. The cloud rolled across the screen. Captain Sulu would know about such things, after spending so many years at the helm of a starship on deep-space exploration. This close to the Neutral Zone, there were many dangers.
A faint beeping in his ear . . . the neurocortical sensor ... a buzz .. .
"We should conduct a tachyon sweep of the nebula," he said. His own voice sounded as if it were coming at him through water. "It would reveal the presence of cloaked ships."
Chakotay turned to him, concern creasing his expression. "Cloaked ships?"
"Yes," Tuvok clarified. "We should be extremely cautious this close to Klingon space."
They were all looking at him. He barely recognized them. They weren't part of this ship's crew . . . Excelsior had no female chief engineer, no Asian tactical officer . . . the captain was Asian, but. . .
"Tuvok," Torres began tensely, "the Klingon Empire is on the other side of the galaxy."
He looked sharply at her, but her image was blurry. He forced himself not to close his eyes or give away the trepidation he suddenly felt.
"Yes," he uttered. "You are right, of course. I am uncertain why I would make such an obvious error."
Chakotay took his arm. "Maybe you should go back to sickbay," he suggested.
Tuvok tried to answer, but he had made the mistake of turning again to the monitor, to the cobalt-blue cosmic sea through which they were passing at such intimate quarters. There was so much wind here, so much heat. .. anxiety coursed through his body again.
Again.
"Tuvok?" Chakotay's voice was far away.
Before his eyes were the girl's eyes now, wide and distressed, small feet flashing below in his line of sight.
She was slipping over the cliffs edge. He had failed to watch her, and she had ventured too close.
Now the wind had knocked her small body into a bow. Her arms flailing upward, her tiny