Incident at Arbuk Ch. 2: Neelix Warns Voyager to Stay Away

Book: Star Trek: Voyager #5 - Incident at Arbuk
Author: John Gregory Betancourt
ISBN: 9780671520482

Previous: Chapter 1: Harry Kim Finds a Distress Signal | Next: Chapter 3: Paris, Dvorak, and the Space City

Neelix finally arrives

Before Chapter 2 even starts, we get a galley scene that tells you everything about Neelix’s week.

Janeway calls him to the bridge while he’s mid-lunch prep. He tries to say he’s busy. She says not this time. He drafts Maquis ensign Paul Fairman to stir pots in exchange for help finding a portable power supply. Fairman hates it. Neelix does the barter speech anyway. Fairman stirs, badly.

Neelix bounds to the bridge thinking he’ll save the day again. Instead he gets a light reprimand about prioritizing captain’s orders. Janeway has to walk a careful line with him. She needs Neelix and Kes more than they need Voyager, and his ego bruises easy.

“Nothing there, Captain”

Janeway asks if he knows the binary system ahead. Neelix squints at the screen, performs a little memory search, and then nails it: the Arbuk system.

His advice is blunt. Steer clear. No planets. No food. No resources. Strong gravimetric currents around the white dwarf. Basically a cosmic junk drawer with bad weather.

Then she plays the distress transmission. Neelix recognizes the species immediately.

“It’s just a Sperian,” he says, waving it off. “Nothing to be concerned about.”

Janeway says it looks like a distress call. Neelix says Sperians are always animated talkers and she should leave them alone. He doesn’t even speak their language and seems weirdly proud of that.

The Sperian reputation

This section is comedy with teeth.

Neelix explains Sperian culture in one long rant. They don’t fight wars because nobody can stand them long enough to conquer them. They argue about everything. Haggling is a lifestyle. He once spent three extra weeks buying dabinroot because a Sperian debated every line item whether it helped him or not.

Even the Kazon avoid them. Neelix whispers like he’s sharing state secrets: he refuses direct Sperian deals unless there’s no other choice.

Janeway thanks him for invaluable advice. Neelix accuses her of not taking it. She’s honest. She can’t pass a distress call. He says she’ll be sorry.

He storms off muttering about lunch. Chakotay tries not to smile. Janeway lets it go because the Sperian on screen really did look desperate.

Galley disaster

Neelix runs back thinking fifteen minutes couldn’t ruin anything.

He smells burning paga stew before he reaches the doors. Black smoke pours out. Fairman stands in the middle waving a spoon like a white flag. The stew boiled over onto the heating element. Classic.

Neelix saves what he can. He moves the pot, dunks the heating coil in a dishwater tub, fans smoke, cranks filtration to max. Tuvok calls about a “blazing fire ravaging the kitchen.” Neelix says there’s no fire, just lunch boiled over. Alarm stops.

The ruined stew becomes pagaloaf. He dumps the congealed mass, slices it, covers it in Drayonian red sauce, and declares victory. Lunch saved. Neelix to the rescue, again.

It’s silly. It’s also very Voyager. Real stakes in space, petty stakes in the galley.

Chakotay and Dvorak read the clues

Back on the bridge, Chakotay replays the transmission and freezes on the damaged silver structure. He thinks secret research base, maybe military. The design looks like interlocking rooms, maybe city-scale. Neelix should have been more helpful.

Ensign Marta Dvorak runs science analysis. White dwarf static would be perfect camouflage for hidden work. Civilian or military. Chakotay likes her read. Long-range scans coming soon.

Dvorak is interesting right away. Maquis background, Academy dropout, cool and professional like Tuvok. Chakotay notices. The book is setting up more than one thread here.

Coffee and bad news

Janeway hides in her ready room with replicator coffee, honey and chestnuts, personal setting number three. She signs Neelix’s wild weekly menu while thinking about the Sperian.

Chakotay interrupts with sensor news: heavy construction activity in Arbuk. Maybe a space station going up fast. Janeway asks if they’re building or repairing.

Building. Not the same structure from the distress call.

Eight minutes to visual range. She whispers to a photo of her fiancé that she’ll be home soon, drains her coffee, and heads out.

My take

Chapter 2 is doing three jobs at once and mostly pulls it off.

Neelix gives you Delta Quadrant color and a reason to care about the Sperians before you meet one properly. The galley B-plot is pure sitcom, but it reinforces how thin everyone’s patience is running. And the bridge scenes start shifting the mystery from “battle damage” to “something stranger is happening here.”

Janeway ignoring Neelix’s advice isn’t reckless. It’s character. She’s not going to sail past a screaming distress call because the local species has a reputation for annoying negotiations.

The Fairman power supply setup is a Chekhov’s gun too. He wants something for a “morale surprise.” We’ll hear more about that soon.

What I liked less: Neelix’s bridge comedy leans hard on “humans are clueless” bits. It fits early-season Neelix, but it dates the book a little.

Still, by the end you’re locked in. Construction in an empty system. A species everyone avoids. A chef who just invented pagaloaf. Voyager is two hours out and the picture keeps getting worse.

Previous: Chapter 1: Harry Kim Finds a Distress Signal | Next: Chapter 3: Paris, Dvorak, and the Space City