Star Trek: The Original Series: Rihannsu, Book 5: The Empty Chair

by Diane Duane

  Things blew. Things blew beyond even what one might have expected in an explosion involving a failure of a big ship’s matter/antimatter drive. A little sun bloomed where Esemar had been, and scarlet-shot, violet-sparked clouds of dust and gas and half-vaporized dilithium ore blew outward from the primary explosion, following the self-annihilating remnants of Esemar as it kept plunging along its original trajectory. Llendan, still close to Esemar, tried to veer off, but not fast enough, not far enough. The outward-boiling explosion caught it, battered it, and as the particulate, ionized dilithium hit its shields, it took them down. The explosion blew through where the screens had been, and shattered Llendan like an empty eggshell. Its own warp core failed, exploded, and in its turn, as it plunged past, the remnant ignited two more of the asteroids that Sulu had had wireframe-tagged in his last sample. More of that bright-shot smoke blasted outward.

  Emphatic, Jim thought. “Once again your choice of adjective is right on the button, Mr. Spock. Mr. Sulu, my thanks—that was the first thing on my wish list. Engagement command and control is gone.”

  “They’ll have transferred it,” Uhura said.

  “If they had time, they transferred C&C to Gauntlet,” Jim said. “Which is doing nothing.”

  “Its comms are down too, Captain,” Uhura said. “Not silence anymore; carrier is absent.”

  I don’t know what Courhig and his people are doing, but maybe I shouldn’t complain, Jim thought. I’d sooner have Grand Fleet think that we’re using some obscure secret weapon on them than have the word get back that all we did was run away and hit their ships with rocks. “Where are Arest and Berouinn?” Jim said.

  “Heading sunward at warp six,” Chekov said. “On an interception course for Sumpter.”

  FOUR

  The hair stood up on the back of Jim’s neck. “Uhura, get me Bloodwing!”

  “Hailing her, Captain. No immediate response. The other ships are maintaining silence.”

  Jim began to sweat again.

  Spock, looking down his scanner, suddenly looked more tense than he had. “Their screens are shifting frequency, Captain.”

  Tuning! “Engineering!”

  “Bloodwing’s on, Captain,” Uhura said.

  “Scotty, one moment. Ael!”

  “My apologies for the delay, Captain; we were busy.”

  Jim had a look at the tactical display that Sulu had just refreshed for him. Bloodwing was arcing away from a trace that had been Chape, and was now an expanding cloud of air, cooling plasma, and debris. “You hit him with one of Sulu and Khiy’s little presents?”

  “No, I fear that he dodged the wrong way, and into an asteroid that had nothing more special about it than mass.”

  “Mass counts for a lot at even a hundredth of c.”

  “So we find. They are regrouping, Captain.”

  “With intent,” Jim said, studying the tactical. “They don’t dare come after us: they saw what happened to Esemar and Gauntlet. They’re out for revenge now.”

  “I see their shields tuning,” Ael said. “Khiy!”

  “Following them, khre’Riov.”

  “One moment, Bloodwing. Scotty!”

  Scotty’s voice sounded ragged, but relieved. “Warp now, Captain!”

  Finally! Jim didn’t say. “Thank you, Mr. Scott. Sulu, go!”

  Sulu went, kicking the ship into warp so suddenly that it almost felt as if someone had hit the ship’s screens with a spread of torpedoes. But Jim knew the difference in the feeling, and smiled a slight, grim smile. “Captain,” Scotty said from engineering, “keep her under eight until the crystal settles in!”

  Jim watched the three ships ahead of them hurling themselves at the star, with Bloodwing plunging after. “No promises, Mr. Scott,” Jim said. “Just deal with it, because we’re off to the races. Can we catch them, Mr. Sulu?”

  “I’ll give it my best shot, Captain.”

  “That’s Mr. Chekov’s job,” Jim said. “Sulu, do what you have to do. Uhura, that squirt—”

  “I’ll refresh the buoy’s content, Captain.”

  He nodded. “Mr. Spock?”

  “Sumpter, Captain,” Spock said, “as we thought. Another set of power readings coming up.”

  “She’s pulling away from the others, Captain,” Sulu said, suddenly alarmed. “Warp six. Warp seven.”

  They’re going to seed that star and take their chances on killing a whole planetary population, Jim thought. If they can destroy us, someone can always come back later and reoccupy the system at their leisure, because they know Ael’s here, and they figure killing her will take the wind out of the rebellion’s sails. And as for all the people on Artaleirh, that’s just tough.

  Indeed, Arest and Berouinn were approaching Artaleirh now, while Sumpter kept on pulling ahead. “Their weapons are going hot again, Captain,” Chekov said. “Preparing another barrage.”

  “But they can’t do anything to the cities.”

  “Approaches suggest they are heading for the polar caps, sir,” Chekov said.

  Those sons of—Jim swallowed hard. Insurance. If something goes wrong with the seeding, they’ll make the planet uninhabitable another way. “Bloodwing.”

  “It is the old aphorism about the lleirh and the hunters, Captain,” Ael said. “Either choice is deadly.”

  Arest dove in first, and Jim’s hands clenched on the arms of his center seat. “Sulu—” he started to say.

  He was completely unprepared for the hot blue beam that came ravening up at Arest from the nearest city on the planet’s surface. Jim’s eyes went wide. Arest threw herself to one side, just barely avoiding the blast, and rather than falling into orbit, hurled herself onward and away from the planet in Sumpter’s wake. Berouinn’s course, too, changed in haste, following Arest’s.

  “Augmented disruptor-type weapon,” Spock said, looking down his scanner, “with that hexicyclic also involved in its generation.”

  “Ael!” Jim said.

  “Captain, I tell you, that came as a surprise to me as well,” Ael said, and her surprise did sound genuine. “Plainly Courhig forgot to tell me something.”

  The tone of her voice was unusually rueful. He didn’t forget, Jim thought. They don’t quite trust you, either, do they? Something else you’re going to have to deal with in due course. “He’s been a busy man,” Jim said, as offhandedly as he could. “Meanwhile we have other problems. Mr. Sulu?”

  “Helm’s still sluggish to respond, Captain,” Sulu said. “I’ve got warp six, but no better.”

  It wasn’t going to be good enough. “Bloodwing,” Jim said, “this one’s going to have to be yours.”

  “Which one?” Ael’s voice came back, somewhat desperately, as the three ships suddenly became four.

  “There is the new reading we were expecting, Captain,” Spock said. “Same velocity and trajectory as Sumpter for the moment. Now accelerating away. Warp eight point two—eight point three—”

  Arest and Berouinn broke to port and starboard, but both of them were still heading generally sunward. Any one of them could seed the star, Jim thought, but that little splinter off Sumpter, that’s the best candidate for my money.

  Though could it be a decoy?

  He threw his doubts aside. “The new reading. We’ll take Arest for the moment and cover your back—then take Berouinn if there’s time, after you’ve handled what just jumped off Sumpter. Mr. Sulu?”

  “Aye, Captain,” Sulu said, and Enterprise veered after Arest, but still too slowly.

  “New reading,” Spock said. “Coming uncloaked.”

  Oh, now what? Jim thought, and tried to swallow, but his mouth was just too dry. He watched Bloodwing arrowing after the reading that had separated itself from Sumpter. She was making a little headway, catching up to it, but too slowly. Artaleirh’s star was getting close.

  “Free Rihannsu ID,” Spock said. “One of their captured ships, a cruiser. Closing on the new reading.”

  A bloom of fire erupted abruptly in front of
them. Chekov said something fierce and satisfied in Russian. Sulu looked up with a feral grin as he threw the ship after Arest, which had begun veering toward the sun again. “Oh no you don’t,” he said.

  Chekov fired a spread of photon torpedoes ahead. Arest veered again, away from the star, and Sulu followed her, closer now. “Warp seven,” he said. “Seven point five.”

  “Mr. Sulu!”

  “It’s all right, Mr. Scott,” Sulu said to the voice on the comm, almost absently. “We’re not redlining. She’s settled in now. Seven point nine.”

  “Enterprise,” Courhig’s voice said, “this is Sithesh.” He sounded shaken. “Tactical detection imaging has been down for some minutes, secondary to jamming artifact, but we’ve just recovered it, and we have new traces inbound. Six—”

  “Six what, Courhig?” Jim said.

  “Indeterminate. The readings could be K’tinga-class, but whether Imperial or—”

  In streaks of blue fire fading to red, the uncertainty was resolved. Spock glanced up from his scanner. “Klingon, Captain,” he said, and even his controlled tone managed to communicate a sense of alarm. “IDs show six vessels. KL776 Kartadza, KL6044 Tevekh, KL908 Melikaphkaz—”

  Six, Jim thought. Oh my God. And here I was thinking that we’d gotten off lucky this time. “I don’t care who they are, they can’t leave the system. Bloodwing!”

  “I see them, Captain,” Ael’s voice said. “System jamming is holding, but we must engage them and not let them leave!”

  Jim shook his head. Us. Bloodwing. Two, maybe three of the Free Rihannsu vessels capable of taking them. Against six of them? The odds were uncomfortably long. “Sulu!” he said.

  “Arest is breaking off, Captain,” Sulu said. “Berouinn is following. Heading out of system fast, along the ecliptic. Melikaphkaz is following—”

  Enterprise shook violently, and Jim clenched his hands on the arms of the center seat again as the K’tinga-class vessel fired at them en passant. “Number three shield down to fifty percent,” Spock said. “Other shields are holding. Compensating for three.”

  The ship shook again, and again. “Mr. Sulu, abandon pursuit of Arest, form up on Bloodwing.”

  In the tactical display, a light winked out. “No point in chasing Arest anymore,” Sulu said. “Melikaphkaz got her. He’s pursuing Berouinn now.” And another light curved in on a last green-colored one in the display: two lights became one. “That was Sumpter,” Sulu said. “Tevekh got her—”

  Comms was suddenly full of a clamor of voices from all over the system. This is a mess, Jim thought, with entirely unnatural calm, as if watching all this in a classroom. We need much better C&C for these mixed-force engagements. Must sit down with Uhura and design something a little less jury-rigged for the next one. If there is a next one. “Bloodwing!” Jim said.

  “Truly I dislike having my problems solved for me in such a manner,” Ael said, sounding, for one of the few times since Jim had met her, distinctly rattled.

  Four of the Klingon vessels came arrowing toward Artaleirh. One of them peeled off to the side to make a run at the planet. Well, they’re going to have to take care of themselves. We have other problems. The other three ships continued past, plainly targeting Bloodwing and Enterprise. “Wouldn’t you say their timing’s awfully good?” Jim said. “It’s almost as if they expected to find a battle in its late stages.”

  “It is a matter of common knowledge that there are Klingon agents in Grand Fleet,” Ael said, sounding unusually grim. “We have always killed any we found, but in these latter years, treachery roots too deep to dig it all out. I will take the foremost one.”

  “We’ll take the two behind. Sulu, go!”

  Sulu didn’t even nod, but tactical display and the wild veering of stars in the viewscreen showed Enterprise breaking hard to starboard and “under” the approaching vessels as Bloodwing broke to port and “over.” The Klingon vessels broke right and left to follow them as if it were all a maneuver choreographed well in advance.

  “Two to one,” Kirk muttered, his smile grim. “Their kind of odds.” He watched the twisting, spiraling course that Sulu was tracing down between the two closest Klingon vessels, heading for system nadir and spinning Enterprise on her longitudinal axis as she went, firing the phasers from both under and over the primary-hull conduits and spraying phaser fire in a deadly pinwheel at the Klingons, now trying to close from either side. The phaser fire hit their screens without effect. One of the two ships, Zajikh, fell slightly behind.

  “Sulu!” Kirk said.

  Again Sulu didn’t respond, but the Enterprise came out of the spin and curved up, and up, and back the way she had come in a huge arc that left both Zajikh and its brother vessel Pefak behind her and briefly going the wrong way. Another half spin and a lurching tightening of that arc, and now Enterprise was behind the two Klingon vessels. They started curving up in arcs of their own to get back the advantage.

  Sulu grinned and broke hard aport, but let Zajikh drift into range in front of him. As he did, Chekov fired everything he had, phasers and photon torpedoes both. Zajikh’s shields bloomed with fire on the port side, then flickered in one spot. Once again Chekov hit that spot with phasers.

  The beams stabbed through to the port nacelle. Zajikh blew. Sulu threw Enterprise just enough to one side to miss the worst of the expanding debris cloud, but now Pefak was hard on their tail.

  Sulu swung back around, threw Enterprise into another of those bone-groaning turns, and headed in the nadir direction again—but this time the plane of the asteroid belt was under them. Sulu fled toward it. Pefak came after him, fast.

  Chekov pounced on his board again; a spread of torpedoes sprayed out of the aft launchers. “We’re empty until recharge,” he said. “Cycle in five minutes.”

  Jim shook his head. It wasn’t going to be enough. Sulu poured on the speed as Pefak took some hits on his forward screens, slowed a little.

  Bloodwing came swinging in to plant a spread of her own torpedoes all over the same shields Chekov had just hit. Those shields flared, went down. Bloodwing fired disruptors.

  Pefak coasted on by with engines failed, but before she could fire again and finish it, Bloodwing had to veer off once more as Kartadza came in firing, and pursued her away from the stricken ship. “Captain,” Ael said, “I would say we have a problem here.”

  “You would say right,” Jim said, not taking his eyes off tactical. “Sulu—”

  “Coming about, Captain.”

  But not for more than a second, as Kartadza swung around, abandoning Bloodwing and coming after Enterprise instead. Once more Sulu headed nadirward, for the belt, but only a few seconds later Melikaphkaz was arrowing straight at Enterprise, cutting her off. Sulu had to veer away, twisting, to avoid collision, and Enterprise’s hull groaned from stem to stern as he did it. As the Klingon fired at them from behind, and the ship shuddered with the impacts, Sulu dove back down again, but once again Melikaphkaz got between them and the belt, and once again Sulu had to veer away.

  Jim let out a bitter breath. The burning clouds in the asteroid belt and the peculiar spectral readings coming from them had told the Klingons perfectly well what had happened in the belt. They were not going to allow any ship to take refuge there. They’re going to make us fight in the open, cut us to pieces.

  In the tactical display, Bloodwing was describing another long arc that would bring her back toward Enterprise. She started firing at Kartadza, but without effect—the range was too great. Jim watched her come, wondering how much longer they had. Kartadza was swelling in the screen’s view aft. “Shields,” he said to Spock.

  “Down to thirty percent, Captain.”

  Spock did not have to say, We cannot take any more of this. Jim heard it quite clearly in his tone, and swallowed.

  It only remains to see how many of them we can take with us. “Mr. Sulu,” Jim said.

  “Enterprise,” Courhig’s voice came suddenly. “Bloodwing—we have incoming.”


  More Klingons, Jim thought. All right, this is it.

  It was always strange, how being about to die made you feel more alive. None of that nonsense about your life passing before your eyes. The last breathing seconds of life now were too intense and dear to waste on retrospectives. Jim sat up straight in the center seat, took in what was happening on the tactical display. “Let’s sell ourselves dearly, Mr. Sulu,” he said. “Kartadza first.”

  Sulu spared him just a glance. “Aye aye, sir,” he said, and turned back to his console, then said, suddenly, “Warp ingress, Captain!”

  Chekov added, “Massive vessel, Captain.” He actually sounded a little shaken. “Decelerating hard.”

  “Onscreen!”

  The view changed. Jim looked out into the darkness—and stared.

  He had never seen anything quite like it. Big ships, yes, and tremendous habitats and facilities like Mascrar and the starbase at Hamal. But this was something else entirely. It was a triple-hulled design, all three of the huge backswept, cylindrical hulls mounted in parallel, at hundred-and-twenty degree angles, in a mighty central framework. Each main hull had to be at least three kilometers long. If Mascrar had been a city, this was more like a county, or even a very small country. And a well-armed one, as a swarm of smaller vessels came bursting away from it, bright small sparks shooting toward the ships that had been arcing in toward Enterprise and Bloodwing—and were now already beginning, entirely understandably, to veer away.

  “Uhura, hail that vessel!” Jim said. “Find out what it’s called.”

  “The cavalry?” Sulu said under his breath.

  Jim was half inclined to agree. Uhura was speaking softly to her console. “Captain,” she said after a moment, “they ID themselves as the Free Rihannsu vessel Tyrava.”

  “Greet them,” Jim said, “and tell them we’d be glad to talk to them when things quiet down.”