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acknowledged. But he didn’t pay attention. Get to sickbay. Get the scalpels. That was more useful than anything else he could do on the crowded Engineering deck.
    The thoughts occupied him in the turbolift until he arrived at sickbay, where he was greeted by The Doctor and Kes, both preparing for the worst. First aid supplies, normally stowed in cabinets, were laid out ready on tables. Medical tricorders and other equipment that was strangely reminiscent of the tools strewn across the flooring in Engineering was arranged next to bandages and a rank of prefilled hyposprays.
    “Yes, what’s the matter, Commander?” The Doctor asked, visually examining the exec for any overt signs of trauma.
    “Engineering needs several laser scalpels,” he said.
    “I don’t have any to spare,” The Doctor replied. “The charges are low, and we’ve been put on alert. Medical supplies are a top priority.”
    Chakotay didn’t want to argue. This was absurd. “You’ve got to be able to spare a couple,” he said. “I know that last month Ensign Ortega used one for an art project.”
    “And didn’t return it. Why don’t you go hunt down Ensign Ortega?
    We have work to do, if you don’t mind.”
    Chakotay was about to turn and leave, feeling as if the effort to understand what had been going on had been futile. He was engulfed again, and worse. The Doctor turned his back and went to the office.
    Chakotay went back to the door when Kes came up to him and touched his arm lightly. “You have to forgive him,” she said softly. “The strain is getting to everyone. Come, I’ll give you a few of the larger scalpels. We don’t have many Ordanu or Karesi in this quadrant to use them on.”
    For the first time since they had entered the tachyon field, Chakotay smiled. “I’ve never even seen an Oradanu or Karesi, not the whole time I was in Starfleet. I think they don’t get out much.”
    Kes handed over three wrapped packages. “If this won’t do, come back and talk to me. I’m sure I can find things that aren’t vital to sickbay.”
    Chakotay thanked Kes warmly. He had had little interaction with the Delta Quadrant native. Their duties didn’t intersect and his health was excellent. He hadn’t considered her at all really a part of the ship’s crew, but was pleased to find himself impressed.
    ***
    “Okay, people, let’s pull the plug,” B’Elanna Torres said. And every board at every control station in Engineering went dark.
    All the colors disappeared and only the plain white worklights lit their forms.
    “Well, if the computer’s gone crazy, it can’t do anything else to us now,” It. Carey observed.
    “Computers don’t go crazy,” Torres said. “That’s just in stories.”
    They were talking loud enough that most of Engineering could hear them.
    Without the constant background noise of engines, the place seemed unnaturally quiet, haunted, maybe even dead.
    But it was dead, B’Elanna thought. She felt its death as a visceral thing. She was connected to those drives, they lived inside of her, breathed with her.
    And now they were silent.

CHAPTER 6
    “The computer is crazy,” Chakotay told the captain.
    They were in her ready room, a comfortable space decorated with antique instruments and artifacts, mementos of various scientific expeditions.
    Janeway was one of the few command officers who had started out in science. She had never lost the taste for it, and her interests were reflected all around her.
    Tuvok, a silent presence behind the captain, raised an eyebrow.
    “Indeed?” he asked.
    “It’s the tachyon field. It has somehow affected either basic function or communications through the consoles, but essentially what it means is that the computer is not responding in the normal pattern.”
    Captain Janeway smiled at that. “Well, we knew it wasn’t a normal pattern, but I hadn’t considered that the tachyon field might be disturbing our internal communications.”
    “What about neural gel-packs