Small delay in securing sources of unique blue gemstone (4,4)

'small delay' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I can't tell whether this works.

'securing sources of unique blue gemstone' is the wordplay.
'sources of' suggests taking the first letters.
'unique blue' becomes 'tar' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'gemstone' becomes 'ruby' (ruby is a kind of gemstone).
The first letter of 'securing' is 's'.
's'+'tar'+'ruby'='STAR RUBY'

'in' is the link.

Can you help me to learn more?