Jim hasn't thought much about starship orientation in those terms, but it isn't inaccurate. "That's true, although I'm not sure the Constitution class was designed with that in mind. A head-on position gives a potential enemy less to shoot at, and paralleling another ship as an escort exposes the entire length of the ship."

Right, he did bring it up at some point. "Starships need a lot of energy to operate efficiently, and the more powerful types of reactions - in this case, nuclear fusion - give off radioactive energy as a byproduct. We have the technology to contain it," he manages to say without wincing too noticeably, "but it's dangerous stuff. It can't be heard, seen, smelled, or felt, and even just a short exposure can make most species very sick or kill them outright." Something he has an uncomfortable, quietly horrifying experience with now, far more intimately than he ever wanted to know. "Its lethality does gradually decay over time, though if left alone, that can take thousands of years for it to be safe. Containment breaches are really rare, and so is needing to eject the core entirely, so it's not worth the risk of doubling your chances for something going wrong."