Jaurais Toujours Faim de

After you've survived angry Romulans, terminal velocity, the implosion of an entire world, Enterprise security, a nerve pinch, an ice planet full of giant monsters, a sudden mind meld with significant emotional transference, experimental transwarp beaming, a raging Vulcan, firefights with more Romulans, a confrontation with your father's murderer, a twenty-five foot leap, three throttlings and at least as many episodes of dangling by your armpits over certain death — oh, and a black hole — who do you think you're going to go see?

~~~

Jim leaned forward in the command chair, aching elbows on aching knees, trying to draw just a little more strength from his crew in the aftermath of the insanity this very long day had become. A mixed blessing, the secret peculiarity passed down from his mother's family line: "emotional vampire" was a term she'd taught him to hate, but empathy didn't really cover the way they "fed" on other people's feelings, nourished and bolstered by emotion the same way most folks were sustained by food.