But... He takes a breath. Why, then, did not Tuvok take responsibility for the insult himself?

He makes at attempt at answering Tom's question. "She behaved quite offensively towards Lieutenant Tuvok. I consider such conduct toward a superior officer unacceptable." His tone goes flat. "But perhaps I am interfering where I should not, in expressing an opinion on the matter."

This is actually super alien to Tom. Is it the general principle of the thing? He finds people ... behaving offensively, in some unspecified way ... to superior officers intrinsically offensive? That's kind of weird though since he just himself picked a fight with a superior officer. Maybe he didn't realize and didn't want to be embarrassed by backtracking? Maybe he considers what he did to be technically not offensive in some way, or less so in a way that makes it not a big deal (for all Tom knows, B'elanna spit in Tuvok's face, so maybe he's right)?

Alternatively, maybe he just really likes Tuvok for some reason? Tuvok presumably had to approve him joining security, so they probably met? Maybe they hit it off?

Alternatively, maybe he doesn't respect B'elanna for some reason he's not articulating, and is mentally adjusting her rank downward to the point where he's allowed to pick a fight with her under his definition of proper behaviour? Maybe because she's an alien? A woman?

Alternatively, maybe he hasn't quite realized he's not a captain?

Well, probably the best bet is to figure out what he's pissed off about. It seems better than "so are you a huge hypocrite or what?".

"What did she do to Tuvok?"

"Open insubordination in front of numerous of her crewmates. Shouted at him and said that her duties at the training were a 'waste of time.'" And, shockingly, Tuvok did nothing about it, which Laurence is regretfully beginning to suspect is an important fact as well.

Ok, so probably Laurence's definition of insubordination doesn't cover snide remarks. Sarcasam doesn't count as open insubordination.

"At the training? Sorry, I'm still trying to catch up here."

"I believe the phrase the captain used was 'boot camp'? For the Maquis crew members, and myself, to learn." He's puzzled that Paris wasn't there, now that he thinks about it, but won't say anything.

(Tom may be a traitor but he's still an academy graduate!)

Wow. That is, in fact, a huge waste of her time. Wasn't the warp core broken? Tom does not say this.

"Oh huh. I'm a bit surprised they're running senior staff through boot camp."

"... senior staff?" Wasn't B'elanna a traitor three weeks ago? How senior can she be?

"She runs Engineering. It's about... 20 people? And if she doesn't do a good job the ship explodes. It's pretty important!"

Tom feel a little bad hyping up B'elanna's status to Laurence like this. It's not that anything he's saying is wrong, but he doesn't really think Laurence should care about that all that much, since he's not in Engineering. On the other hand he's clearly very invested in people's ranks, and maybe this will get him to back off a bit. Probably reconciliation is out of the question here but this might go a ways to make things less hostile.

Voyager is a small ship, and Tom is going to be stuck on it for a very, very long time. That very, very long time would be a lot more pleasent if he didn't have to walk on eggshells whenever these two were in a room together.

At least they're probably not going to the brig for getting in a fistfight, things have calmed down a bit.

Laurence winces.

"I... see."

It is painful to ask so directly, but: "Engineering has the same uniform as security?"

(He glances over at Torres and Kim.)

"Ah."

Well, that explains something.

"Yeah, yellow is Operations, which includes both Security and Engineering, as well as Ops, which is, of course, not the same as Operations as a whole."

B'elanna looks frustrated as she allows Harry to walk her out of the room.

Well.

Mistakes may have been made.

He still doesn't like Torres's attitude, but, well... clearly this wasn't his business. And also clearly, he badly misjudged the relative hierarchy involved.

He thinks for a moment. His time at boot camp is suddenly recast, and Laurence realizes that Tuvok was handling the entire thing frankly quite poorly. Not with encouragement as he'd expect a good superior officer to do. Laurence sees nothing wrong with strict discipline, but it crosses the line into harshness when an officer fails to even make the attempt to gain the trust of his men.

And... there's another thing he didn't notice the first time it went by, blinded as he was.

He addresses Paris, not quite meeting his eyes. "What did Lieutenant Torres mean by saying that Tuvok had betrayed her?"

"Tuvok infiltrated Chakotay's ship, the Val Jean, to help Janeway capture them."

Tuvok was a spy.

Well. That would explain Torres hating him.

He sure did lack context on a lot of this and regrets several of his life choices in retrospect.

He grimaces. "I fear I have made a great fool of myself. I shall have to apologize to Torres; I only hope I do not receive a visit from her second before I do so."

(He's vaguely settled on treating her as a male officer for such purposes, having no better model to work from.)

"I thank you for your timely intervention," he adds, with as much grace as he can muster.

From Lt. Carey? Why would he get a visit from him? For that matter, does Laurence even know Carey?

Anyway.

"No problemo."

Hmm, looks like Harry isn't coming back.

"You know any two-player games? I was hoping to get some navy stories out of you."

Perhaps some of this evening can be salvaged after all.

"I do." He proposes a modification of whist for two players, but adds "If there are other games you would prefer, I am willing to learn as well."

He can tell several entertaining anecdotes about, among other things, ensigns arguing over a large fish and Badger-Bag productions when crossing the equator.

Oh wait he meant, like, for a duel. That kind of second. 

He's not going to interrupt the big fish story for that, since B'elanna isn't going to challenge him to a duel, and it doesn't seem like Laurence wants one at this point. He should make sure to mention that duels are not allowed though.

The big fish story comes to an end, without any convenient segue to bring up dueling. The next story doesn't really offer an opportunity either. 

Wait. This is how Harry managed not to tell Laurence about aliens, isn't it.

At the end of the equator story, he interjects "By the way, I just realized what you meant earlier. You don't need to worry about B'elanna challenging you to a duel. Dueling is illegal, and, maybe more importantly, hasn't been socially accepted for centuries."

Hmm, well, do Klingons duel? Actually that seems like something they would do. But he doesn't think B'elanna would do that. Punch somebody, absolutely, but not duel. 

This is arguably the "I'm not going to bring aliens up because it's awkward" thing again, but he has to be able to stop expositing at some point.

Laurence raises his eyebrows. "Illegal everywhere?"

Dueling was illegal in some places in his time, too, but not where Laurence is from. He dislikes the idea of not being able to answer severe insult.

"Well, in the federation. Actually I have no clue what the laws will be like next time we stop since we've never met anybody from around here."