"Wow, I was pretty sure she was pulling my leg. Good job!"

"Uh, not that I think it's good that you had to jump on a sword, it's just that under the circumstances-"

Tom decides he should probably put Harry out of his misery.

"He knows what you meant, Harry."

"He's right, though, good job. We really could have used somebody who's good with a sword on the bridge, it got pretty hairy."

Laurence will look slightly embarrassed by the praise and immediately take the opportunity to deflect. "What happened on the bridge?"

"Mostly, the problem is that Starfleet officers are trained for phaser combat, and hand to hand combat, but not so much sword-fighting, it doesn't really come up much. Most of the crew were pretty useless."
"Tuvok threw one of them clear across the room into another. I probably should have expected he could do that but it was a pretty big surprise at the time. He got a neck pinch in too, I think he might have gotten like a third of them all told."

"Janeway got the sword from the neck pinch guy and actually seemed to have any idea what to do with it, which I can't say I was expecting."

Tom attempts to recruit his silverware as a visual aid as well, but doesn't seem to have the knack for it and drops it halfway through.

"Impressive," Laurence comments, a bit puzzled. "He... pinched their necks?"

"Yeah, Vulcans can pinch people's necks and they pass out. I have no clue how it works."

"Oh I read about this in the academy! It works because-"

"Please, spare us both."

"I suppose I must take care not to offend Lieutenant Tuvok," he remarks. "He sounds quite formidable.

"But I take it he was injured as well? He came to sick bay not long after I did."

"Yeah. I didn't see exactly when- I didn't think it was too bad, is he OK?"

"I believe so. He and the captain were having a... spirited conversation by the time the doctor was finished with him. ... Janeway dismissed the doctor rather abruptly after he was finished, in fact."

 "Dismissed him abruptly?"

"She ended the hologram while he was midsentence."

He knows the doctor is just a hologram, but he actually feels a little uncomfortable with that. Philosophical questions aside, it just seems rude.

On the other hand, he doesn't really want to criticize the captain 2 weeks (almost 3 now! wow!) into his first post.

Tom has been working with the doctor for a few days since he was assigned to be a nurse (which, by the way, was a classic "punish people for complaining by making the thing their problem" move). He's seen enough of the doctor to guess what happened.

"Let me guess, he tried to kick her out of sickbay?"

"He was scolding her for disturbing his patient."