Flashback - Diane Carey [2]
"I'm sorry, Neelix," the captain told him. "You're going to have to make other arrangements."
"Of course, Captain." Clearly disappointed, Neelix complied, but not without mentioning, "You know, if I injected sirillium gas into my thermal array, it might improve cooking time."
"Yeah," Engineer B'Elanna Torres said with her Klingon rasp barking, "and blow up half your kitchen in the process. Sirillium is far more useful as a warp plasma catalyst."
She brushed back her straight brown hair and seemed to think she'd made the only reasonable case. Just as she was about to preen her technical victory, she was overridden by Lieutenant Tuvok's ever-precise enunciations.
"The gas can also be used to boost deflector shield efficiency," the ship's chief of security said, his stiff Vulcan demeanor giving particular substance to his words. Straight as a board, his posture alone insisted that his use of the sirillium would be best.
Amused, Commander Chakotay leaned toward his captain and murmured, "The vultures are circling ..."
Janeway smiled. "Well, there's certainly no shortage of good ideas." She turned to Chakotay, and with that movement signaled an end to bridgeside debate. "Have all department heads submit proposals for sirillium usage."
Tuvok responded as his console beeped, then reported, "The anomaly is within visual range."
Janeway faced the main screen with anticipation. "On screen," she said.
A pretty section of space, the Delta Quadrant. Small comfort, but welcome. In her career she'd seen upward of a thousand gaseous formations, nebulae, thermals, clouds, spurts, novae, elephant trunks, and toxic soups, most up close and personal, and found that no two were alike enough to take casually. The privilege of seeing one of those had never been lost on her, until now.
Today she would gladly have tra ded the haunting blue cloud on the main viewscreen for a picture of Earth's marbled globe. As gas rolled, plasma boiled, and energy crackled within it and vibrant Bahama tide pools surged inside it, the blue of the nebula made her wish to see the blue of an ocean.
A pretty sight, yes, but barren of the life they all needed to see. It would help keep them alive and moving, but that was bare sustenance to a crew so very alone.
She sighed, then hoped no one noticed. To hide it, she glanced at her command crew. Chakotay seemed unimpressed. Torres and Neelix were inwardly fighting for control. That made her glance at Tuvok.
Yes, he too was hooked on that blue mass, staring with uncharacteristic attraction, almost as if held by some magnetic power. She almost commented, then forced herself not to. Vulcans didn't like to have their inner thoughts exposed, or let it be known that they had feelings down deep under the plaque of restraint. No sense embarrassing him just for a chuckle.
Well, not usually.
She looked at the screen again. "Analysis, Mr. Kim?"
Tactical Officer Harry Kim flinched as if she'd asked him to run out there and scratch the cloud with a fingernail to see if anything came off. He pulled his attention from the screen to his console. "It's a class-seventeen nebula. I'm detecting standard amounts of hydrogen and helium . . . and seven thousand parts per million of sirillium."
He seemed relieved to be able to confirm their find, and glanced at Janeway.
She turned away from him so he wouldn't see her accommodating grin, and found herself looking again at Tuvok.
He was looking down at his hand.
She looked there too. His hand was trembling.
A muscle spasm? Or was she seeing something else in his face? Was there expression in his eyes? Worry?
She'd seen him experience those before and instantly fight them.
He didn't seem to be fighting right now.
Again she walked the line of whether or not to call attention to his momentary lapse. She wouldn't want anyone calling attention to hers, but. . .
"That's the highest ratio I've ever encountered," she mentioned, just to hear her own thoughts aloud.