Star Trek: The Empty Chair (11 page)

“No, sir,” they said in near-perfect unison.

“Uhura,” Jim said, “get the relief helm and weapons officers up here.” Jim jerked a thumb at the turbolift. “And you two, go take the rest of the day off. You’ve earned it.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Chekov said, and “Thank you, sir!” said Sulu. They both got up and stretched.

The intercom whistled. “That’s another thing,” Jim said. “I should get down there and see how Dr. McCoy’s patient is doing.”

“He’s fine,”
came the rather irritated voice,
“much to my surprise, the way you threw us around. At least the power didn’t go out on us, I’ll give you that much. Did we win?”

“Uh. Bones, if we hadn’t, we would now be exploring some other plane of existence, I guarantee you.”

McCoy snorted genially.
“Well, whatever else I can say about sickbay, it’s hardly heaven. Gurrhim woke up for about ten minutes and gave me rather the opposite about the noise and vibration you were inflicting on him, then fell asleep again.”

“Everybody’s a critic,” Jim said. “I’ll apologize to him later. Kirk out.”

He hit the button. The relief helm and weapons officers came in, and Sulu and Chekov ambled toward the doors, followed by the muted congratulations of most of the bridge crew. “A regular roller coaster,” Chekov said as they went, sounding completely satisfied. “Invented in Russia, of course.”

Sulu rolled his eyes. Everybody else on the bridge groaned.

Chekov looked stricken. “No, but really, it was!”

Laughter broke out, and all around the bridge people went back to work. “Truly!” Chekov said. “In 1766—”

“Pavel,” Sulu said, getting into the turbolift, “don’t push your luck. You did a great job. Let’s go get something to eat and congratulate ourselves on a
genuine
Russian accomplishment.”

The doors closed on the two of them. Chekov’s expression was a little woebegone.

Jim smiled to himself and just sat there in the center seat, listening to the sound of his bridge calming itself down. Once again the unexpected had occurred around him, as he’d seen it happen before. The very nature of space itself had changed, and a volume of empty vacuum had suddenly become a battlefield, and a matter of history. Ten minutes, maybe twelve, was all it had taken to turn the surroundings into the Battle of Artaleirh, something that would be analyzed and pored over in the future by historians, and by other officers who would look over Jim’s shoulder with the comfortable augmentation of twenty-twenty hindsight and say,
He made a big mistake there. If only he’d done such and such…

Feeling something, he glanced up. Spock was standing by the center seat, gazing at the viewscreen, and
Tyrava.

“We got lucky today,” Jim said.

“Random elements of chance,” Spock said, and raised one eyebrow. “The wise tactician knows they are not to be depended upon.”

Jim smiled half a rueful smile. “Well, on the other hand, it’s not every day you get to have a fight in an asteroid field full of raw dilithium.
That
at least was interesting.”

Spock nodded. “Your adjective, too, is apt, Captain. But the next fight will be of an entirely different order. Grand Fleet sent to Artaleirh what they considered more than ample force, and we demonstrated to them that their reckoning was faulty. Next time they will make no such mistake. The next
engagement will feature crushing force, administered not from arrogance, but anger, uncertainty, and fear—a much worse configuration to face.”

Jim nodded slowly. “Meanwhile, sufficient to the day are the victories thereof.”

Spock’s expression was neutral. “I would not quite describe this one as Pyrrhic, yet its consequences are likely to be complex in the extreme. For all of us—but most especially for you.”

Jim nodded, and said nothing more.

Ael stood with her hands on the back of her center seat, staring at the viewscreen, in which the dark of space was completely blocked by
Tyrava.
She was finding it hard to do anything but tremble, and not entirely because of the battle. Out there, hanging huge and dark, a great mailed shadow, her future had come for her. And perhaps, in the shadow’s shadow, death…

She took a long breath and thrust the feelings of ill-omen away from her, stepping around from behind the seat to step up to the viewscreen.
Nothing ails me but after-battle shakes, and lack of a meal or two,
Ael thought, trying to become annoyed with herself. That was always her way, to cope with a crisis first and react to it later. This battle was like any other, if only a little more complicated.

But the darkness hung there and said to her heart that this battle was different—and the others to follow would be more different still.

She glanced over her shoulder. Her bridge crew were putting themselves to rights without comment. Aidoann had been slammed against a console during the battle, and stood there now with her sleeve up, examining a bruise on her arm that was already coming up most splendidly turquoise-black. Others were dusting themselves off, leaning back in their seats or against their stations; Khiy had his head down on his console. Ael peered at him and heard a slight sound that
shocked her. He was snoring. And there behind him, glinting in the normal day-running light, lay the Sword, right where she had left it, across the arms of her command chair, nearly an eternity ago.

Ael could only shake her head. “Aidoann,” she said softly.

“Khre’Riov?”

She glanced at Khiy. “Have you seen him do this before?”

Aidoann stepped softly down beside her. Together they stood looking at Khiy: he emitted a snore rather louder than the previous ones, then subsided again. “Never
during
battle,” Aidoann said quietly, and smiled.

Ael had to smile as well. “It is reaction, I’d say,” Aidoann said. “He did not sleep at all last night, and I think not much the night before. And then to go from such a pitch of action to peace in the space of a few breaths…”

“I envy him the ability,” Ael said. “Nonetheless, we have business. Get me
Tyrava;
and if Khiy does not wake by the time I’m done and out of here, then find some way to rouse him that will not let him know or suspect what we’ve seen.” Aidoann started to step away, and Ael halted her with a hand on her arm. “And one thing more,” she said quietly. “Have Surgeon tr’Hrienteh have a look at him afterward; but not a word as to why. Let it be said that I have asked all crew to be checked after such an encounter. Indeed, that’s not a bad idea. Have her see to it.”

“Ie, khre’Riov.”

Aidoann stepped back to her console. A moment later, the screen flicked into a view of
Tyrava’
s vast battle bridge. Ael had never seen the place before, but had heard tell of it, and now she marveled at a space into which it seemed all of
Bloodwing
could have been fitted. In the background of the view, people moved about their business, dressed in the somber work-clothes of an ostensibly civilian environment. But Ael saw the occasional glance thrown at the screen as the dark shape she had been expecting came walking up to it,
and she read those looks to mean that those who gave them were wondering whether they would shortly be in the military—
some
military.

Veilt tr’Tyrava came to a stand before the viewer and looked at her. Ael gave him a second’s worth of bow more than was strictly required of her, for he was worth it. Here, embodied in this slight, unassuming shape, was a whole Ship-Clan in a single package: wealth, power, and a very specific turn of mind. Greater names than she had come to this man’s door seeking his support, and had gone away with empty hands. Now Ael found her hands full—perhaps too full. She was not easy with the circumstances.

“We are beholden to you, tr’Tyrava,” she said, also addressing him more formally than she needed to.

“Yes,”
he said in that light, casual voice,
“so you are. But let us not start reckonings yet. There are many more screenfuls of figures before us, and the full value of some of them is still to be decided.”

It was one of those cryptic utterances of his that could mean one thing, or a hundred. Ael had gotten used to the sound of them over much time, but was not yet entirely sure that she was capable of winnowing out
everything
behind one. For the moment, though, Veilt smiled that small sword-edge smile of his, as much humor as he normally exhibited to anyone not one of his intimates.

“Yes,” Ael said. “Well, you were late, Veilt. We were expecting you rather earlier.”

“You are to count yourself lucky we came at all,”
Veilt said.
“Indeed matters could have gone well otherwise had we not detected, on our way in, the
other
part of the Klingon task force sent to deal with you—but fortunately, they had divided their forces.”

Ael looked at him in shock. “There were more?”

“There were,”
Veilt said,
“another ten heavy cruisers. I should not have cared to meet that whole task force at
once—it would have stretched even our resources—but fortunately for us, the Elements have been making our enemies too sure of themselves in these early engagements. They will not stay so for much longer, however.”

Gazing at Veilt, Ael bowed once more—a much deeper bow, much longer than the last one. “I misspoke myself,” Ael said. “My apology to you.”

“You could not have known,”
Veilt said.
“No apologies are needed. Yet we must take warning from this, as our enemies doubtless will.”

“They’ll take more warning away from this than would have pleased me,” Ael said. “Woe to that last ship that got away!”

“Oh, I think it may not do us such harm, at least not right away,”
Veilt said.
“Only consider that ship’s position. They emerge from warp and return home in disorder from an engagement in which they should have had marked numerical superiority, and in which they should have been, if not easily victorious, at least certainly so. And no other ship comes back to tell any tale. Only they—with an outrageous story of some unidentifiable monster ship that came from nowhere and cut them all to pieces. However true it may be, that’s not a story they’ll have any joy in telling their superiors.”
Veilt raised an ironic eyebrow at Ael.
“Dearly I would love to hear them make that report, and hear what their superiors have to say. That sixteen cruisers were dispatched to deal with
Enterprise, Bloodwing,
and perhaps five or six light cruisers—assuming they do indeed have spies in this system, we may safely conjecture that they know that much, and nothing more than a motley flock of little single ships, not fit to clean out their phaser conduits.”
Veilt smiled. It was a wintry look.
“And then all of those big ships were destroyed by such a paltry little band? If I were in the Klingon High Command, I would find it hard to believe a word that ship’s commander said. Indeed, I’d suspect that they had turned and fled in the
face of forces not nearly so overwhelming—just because
Enterprise
was there. You know what effect that name has on Klingons as well as I.
Enterprise
would be assumed to have done yet another of its sorcerer’s tricks on the task force.
That
they would believe. But that last poor ship’s command would be assumed to have run for their lives, and then made up the rest of the tale about giant ships out of nowhere to justify their cowardice. Were I the Klingon admirals in their High Command, I would have that ship’s officers all shot.”
That smile became more wintry yet.

Ael had to smile herself, a touch ferally, at the truth in what he said. “Yet no word will come back to the Klingons from the other fifteen ships,” Ael said. “They are going to have to explain their loss to themselves eventually.”

“By the time they find out the truth of what’s happened,”
Veilt said,
“we may hope it will be too late for them. They will already have committed more forces using tactics now outdated, and those forces will again be too scattered to deal with
Tyrava
properly. The big engagements to come, in the space outside Eisn’s heliopause, those give me concern indeed; but at those, I think we will have help.”

Ael’s heart leapt in her side. This was the news she had not dared ask, for fear it would be bad. “
Divish,
then?”

“Not only
Divish,
but
Taseiv
as well. Both ships’ complements were overwhelmingly in favor.”
Veilt gave her one of those obscure looks that had always made Ael so uneasy in the past.
“It will have had a great deal to do with the company you are keeping, and the way he has performed so far. The news that will come to them from Artaleirh will only solidify their decision.”

“Are you going to tell
him
that?” Ael said.

“Should I?”
said Veilt.

It was that question of trust again.
Sharpen the knife cautiously, lest it turn in your hand.
So the saying went.
But at the same time,
Ael thought,
a knife that’s not sharp enough
does no one any good, and can be a danger when you try to cut.

“I think you should, and must,” Ael said. “The alternative makes us look like fools, or makes us seem to think him one. Or it gives the impression we fear what Kirk will do if he comes to know himself indispensable to what we do. Like it or not, Veilt, indispensable he has been, and is. Pray the Elements with all your heart that
Enterprise
lasts until we get at least as far as Eisn space, otherwise I much fear all of this, and all of us, will come to nothing at the last.”

Veilt was silent for a while.
“He has kept faith,”
he said at last,
“so far.”

“He is no dayside fighter,” Ael said, “to slip away when the dark makes it easy. You will see, when you meet him. And then you will ask yourself how you could have thought I would deal with such a one for more than a single engagement.”

Veilt held up his hands in a gesture of mock alarm.
“Cousin
thrai,” he said, very mild,
“keep your teeth for better use. I am willing to be convinced, if you’re right. For the moment, though, I need to make things ready for our guests to come.”