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

by Diane Duane

  Just a moment too late, Jim thought.

  More of the Romulan vessels fled, and were pursued at high warp by some of the Starfleet ships and the remaining Free Rihannsu vessels. Most of those who fled never made it out of the system. San Diego circled back to join the other Starfleet vessels in the mopping up. In a matter of five or ten minutes, it was all over: the firing finished, the smaller ships gathering together about the larger ones.

  Jim sat there in his center seat and looked out at the darkness, feeling both relieved and sick at heart. “Report,” he said.

  “Forty-eight Rihannsu vessels destroyed,” Spock said, “certainly a significant portion of Grand Fleet. Eighteen capital ships co-opted by the Free Rihannsu. Fourteen Free Rihannsu smallships destroyed, the capital ships Lallasthe and Nesev destroyed, Sallai and Dushill disabled. A decisive engagement.” But his voice, as he said it, was flat even for a Vulcan.

  “Decisive, yes,” Jim said. He stood up. “Elapsed time?”

  “Nineteen minutes, Captain.”

  Jim just stood there, looking out into the dark.

  “My compliments to the ships’ captains who’ve just joined us,” he said, “and I’d be pleased to see them at their earliest convenience aboard Enterprise. We have some catching up to do.”

  It did not happen for nearly two hours, while damage control assessments were run and communications were established and other housekeeping secondary to a major engagement was completed. And when they all finally met in Enterprise’s biggest briefing room, Jim found it hard to look at the captains gathered there, although he knew almost all of them and was friendly with some. There was one empty chair down at the end of the briefing-room table, to which all their eyes kept being drawn. Jim kept telling himself that it was just a coincidence, that the room just happened to be set up that way…

  “Afterburner” Gutierrez was there, and Helga Birgisdottir, whom Jim had not seen since Mascrar. The other captains, human and nonhuman, deferred to Birgisdottir, as she was the most senior in rank and history. She sat now with her hands folded on the table in front of her, looking haunted; she and the others had just finished reviewing Enterprise’s logs with Jim.

  “Yet another plan that did not survive contact with the enemy,” she said.

  Jim nodded. “Our best estimates of the enemy’s strength were badly skewed, for one of two reasons. Either we were purposely fed disinformation, or this—which should have been an ‘assessment’ engagement to see who we were and whether we could fight—had its priorities changed.”

  Helga looked up at Jim. “You’re suggesting that this was not a feint, but a ‘last throw’ meant to stop us here?”

  “A go-for-broke engagement,” Jim said, “meant to conceal the fact that there are not enough ships in the Hearthworld system to hold it successfully against us. If I’m reading this correctly, then the war could be almost over, if we can tough it out.”

  They looked at him with still, grim faces. “We have sustained serious enough casualties, believe me,” Jim said. “I would never have called for this kind of assistance if I’d thought that anything like this would have happened. Yet now it has, and it remains to me to decide what to do next. So now I have to ask all of you what you’re going to do.”

  The expressions they all turned on Jim were uneasy. Afterburner looked up at Jim. “Several of us were given a message by Commodore Danilov to pass on to you after the engagement should the worse come to the worst. Which it has. The message is, ‘That’s your favor. You’re on your own now.’”

  Jim sat there and for some moments could think of nothing whatever to say. But finally he shook his head and broke out of the pain that had descended over his thoughts since the end of the battle. There was no time to indulge it now.

  “So as for us toughing it out,” said Helga quietly, “I’m afraid you are going to have to redefine ‘we.’”

  He swallowed. There it was. “In other words, Fleet has given you no authorization to proceed beyond this engagement.”

  “We are to ‘report the results,’” Afterburner said, “‘and return to the other side of the Neutral Zone with all possible dispatch.’”

  “And what does it say about Enterprise?” Jim said.

  There was something of a pause. “Nothing,” Captain Birgisdottir said.

  Jim pulled in a long, long breath and let it out again. He could feel himself being given just one more length of rope, and wondered if he were going to be able to escape the tightening of the noose when he came to the end of it. In particular, he felt sure that his being thrown the rope at all was entirely contingent on the results of this particular battle. If Augo had not gone well, doubtless the orders would have had a lot more to say about Enterprise, and Jim, than “nothing.”

  “I understand you,” he said.

  “What will you do?” Afterburner said.

  “Go straight through,” Jim said. “This is an advantage that must be immediately followed up, before the Romulans have a chance to react. If we hit them immediately, our odds of success increase exponentially.” He let out a breath. “Meanwhile, I’ll be sending a copy of our logs and tactical assessments home with you, and certain other small packages. Regarding the packages—you’ve got to believe me when I tell you that they are individually more important than all your ships and crews put together. They have got to get back to Starfleet. There is also other news in a sealed packet that I would ask you to pass on to your immediate superiors when you get back. I cannot stress enough its urgency.”

  They nodded, but Jim somehow wasn’t sure they were at all convinced, and suddenly he felt deadly tired.

  He stood up. “I want to thank you all. You absolutely made the difference in this engagement. A very few more ships on the other side would have tipped it over the other way. We were extremely lucky, and you were the luck.”

  Some of the captains nodded to Jim, acknowledging the thanks. But the rest sat very still and made no sign.

  Just like Starfleet Command, he’d said to Ael yesterday. No problem.

  The captains stood and filed out. Only Gutierrez and Birgisdottir shook Jim’s hand. “Good luck,” Afterburner said, but not another word. They went out, and like all the other captains, headed for the transporter room, and their ships.

  Jim stood there in the empty conference room for a long while, and learned what “the loneliness of command” felt like at an entirely new level.

  SIXTEEN

  On ch’Rihan, in their shielded room, the Three were meeting.

  “How dare you use your personal power to undermine a Fleet action! How dare you!”

  Urellh was working up to another of his rages. Tr’Anierh sighed. They were becoming so tiresome.

  “I did nothing that you have not done in your own time,” tr’Anierh said. “I was informed of certain—shall we say, disaffected?—personnel aboard those ships who were about to embark, in a concerted manner, on courses of action that would have been detrimental to the good order of our Empire as it stands at present, and to Fleet actions to be taken in the future. I therefore instructed those ships’ commanders to withdraw before they reached station at Augo, and to return to intermediary bases where the personnel in question could be removed and questioned regarding their actions.”

  The others looked at him. Urellh was going quite pale with his rage. Tr’Kiell, for his part, was looking very much out of countenance.

  “Those ships would have turned the tide at Augo!” Urellh shouted. “Their removal from the battle, your unilateral action—”

  “It is treason,” said tr’Kiell, “of the blackest kind.”

  “So was what those personnel would have done to the Empire after Augo,” tr’Anierh said, “but let us leave that issue to one side for the moment. As well as the question of ‘unilateral’ action, which both of you have employed in the past. Sometimes,” tr’Anierh added, “together.”

  They stared at him. “No matter,” he said. “That particular blow against me has missed
, and those involved are in no condition to strike another. The ships in question, having been cleansed—”

  “You mean purged!”

  “Tr’Kiell, I will not play semantics games all afternoon—we have too much to do. The ships are now back on active duty. And indeed we see that it was something of a blessing that they were not at Augo. Had they been, they would have been destroyed, or otherwise lost to us. Now we still have those ships in reserve, and they will be where they need to be in thirty-six hours. So our interests have been served. As have yours, because once again, one or the other of you has learned that we work best in concert.”

  The other two said nothing.

  “There have also been certain unfriendly moves made against Senators affiliated with me,” tr’Anierh said. “I think we have had enough of those, or I will have to start trumping up charges against some of your more egregious creatures. And trust me when I say that I know those charges will stick. But I would prefer not to have to waste my time right now, or yours, with such inconsequential matters. The rebels are coming. We have two worlds to protect, a number of threatened subject systems to consolidate, and numerous other tasks to perform that are associated with the maintenance of Empire. So I suggest we get on with them.”

  Silently Urellh and tr’Kiell sat down, and took the suggestion.

  On Bloodwing, Ael went trudging down the corridor toward the ship’s little sickbay, desperately tired. We have won, she kept saying to herself. We have won. But this is not the final victory. Nonetheless, now there was nothing to stop the inward plunge toward ch’Rihan and ch’Havran. And very soon will come what I’ve been waiting for all this time, Ael thought as she came up to tr’Hrienteh’s door. Soon, one way or the other, it will all be over, and I can rest.

  She touched the door signal. There were, of course, still many other matters of concern. The news that had come to them from the Federation agent on ch’Rihan regarding the disposition of those missing ships was good, but not entirely as good as it could have been. Jim was right, as it turns out, but for the wrong reasons. Disaffection, as a blanket term, can mean all kinds of things. It need not be permanent. And what tr’Tyrava had suggested to her was that those missing ships were not permanently out of play. They had simply been recalled, and once they were purged of politically “incorrect” staff, they would be sent out again. We will see them at ch’Rihan yet, Ael thought. And as for our little Senator…

  The door opened. Tr’Hrienteh stood there, looking a little surprised. “My sorrow to keep you waiting, khre’Riov,” she said. “I was calibrating some equipment.”

  “That’s fortunate, for it’s equipment I have come to see you about,” Ael said. “You said you had some new biofeedback gadgetry from McCoy?”

  “Indeed I have, khre’Riov,” tr’Hrienteh said. “Come in, sit down. I will set it up for you.”

  Ael came in willingly enough, and sat on the low bench near the left-side wall. As usual, the place was cramped and crowded with stacked-up medical equipment and supplies. This was no open, spacious sickbay like McCoy’s, but a room hardly much bigger than some minor officer’s quarters. Ael leaned against the wall, glancing up at the medication cabinets set overhead, and then at the sleek-looking little contraption that tr’Hrienteh brought over and set down on the bench beside her. The surgeon turned again and came back with some wrist-straps and wireless transpacks. “What manner of device is this?” Ael said, with a yawn.

  “Oh, a clever thing that reroutes neural transmission in the brain,” said tr’Hrienteh. “Another of their medical wonders of which they take so little note. It makes the alpha states much more accessible.” Tr’Hrienteh touched the transpacks awake and fastened first one wristband, then the other, onto Ael’s wrists. Again she turned and came back with soft round pads for Ael’s forehead. Ael held her arms out, looking at them with interest.

  “So nothing needs be done now except for you to relax,” tr’Hrienteh said. “Just lean back and rest yourself.”

  Ael was more than glad enough to do that. “I cannot believe,” she said, “how long it has been since I could do just this.” She closed her eyes, not minding the hard surface against which she leaned, so long as there was, just for the moment, truly some rest. “Soon enough there will be—”

  And then the voice froze in her throat. Everything froze.

  She tried to open her eyes, and could not. She tried to move her arms, and could not. She was in the dark, all alone—and a pressure, a weight, began to come down around her mind.

  Disbelief. Sheer disbelief descended upon her, as relentlessly as the darkness that also began to press down on her, as relentlessly as the pain that began to grow. Disbelief raged in her, and shock, and pure fury.

  Not again.

  Not again!

  The voice she began to hear seemed to come from right inside her bones. Now, traitress, it said, you have only one way to live through this. You must tell me who the Federation agent on ch’Rihan is. You must tell me all the details of the proposed attack. You must tell me everything. And the pain began to grow more terrible.

  The disbelief that had briefly defended her was now fading, and with it, its ability to stave off the pain. It was, as she remembered, very like hooks, tearing, worrying at her mind till the thoughts began to tatter away like rags. You cannot resist, came the voice. It seemed to fill the whole world, just as the pain seemed to do. There is nothing you can do. Speak, tell me what I need to know, and live; live the poor short wretched life that is all that will be left to you. Or try to keep your silence. The pain scaled up again.

  Tr’Hrienteh, Ael thought, desperate, hoping still that this was some kind of bizarre delusion, some side effect of McCoy’s machine. But moment by moment, as the pain grew, she knew better. This was no delusion, and the machine had nothing to do with McCoy. Tr’Hrienteh! My friend! My friend of how many years? All those years together on Bloodwing, all this time since Bloodwing had gone free of the fleet. Why? she thought. Why!?

  Tell me what I want to know! the voice cried. The pain pressed down harder and harder from outside. It was like fire, now, akin to the one radiation burn Ael got all those years ago: a terrible thing, which always seemed as if it could get no worse, and yet got worse with every breath. Tell me! the voice cried.

  Ael could not move, or breathe, or see, as that ruthless force tore at her mind. But she was not unarmed. Rage, that she had in plenty. And countering the rage, she also had the memory of standing on a plain of dark-crusted volcanic stone that stretched straight away from her to an unseen sky—the symbol of a defense, a barrier. She had been walking on that barely-solidified lava for some time now. Often enough, when she first began, it had cracked beneath her, but of late she had become more skilled in walking over the crust and not breaking through. Tell me! that voice shouted at her now, and the pain scaled up. But Ael, in the darkness, began to find the way through to asserting her own defense.

  It was as Spock had said; practice made it easier. She stood in the darkness, and saw the lava, black, streaked with sullen red, spreading away all around her. Under that crust, the pain moved, but she did not have to let it through. It could not come through, not without her leave. And she did not give it leave.

  It subsided, then surged again, trying to break through the crust. Ael thought of a cold wind blowing across that crust, a freezing wind from some planet’s pole, freezing the molten fire down to darkness again. Now, my Element, she thought, now I call on You. Come to my aid! All around Ael, the lava began to darken. She caught, for the first time, a scrap of sound outside her prison—the sound of a device’s controls being used, settings being altered. The pain scaled up again, trying once again to break through the crust, glowing solid red cracks spidering out, but once again, the wind came down from away behind Ael’s back, and blew the lava dark. Once again it crusted over, and she began to walk slowly across it to a faint, faint glow on the horizon.

  Tr’Hrienteh! Ael cried. How can you be doing this?

/>   She sensed some agitation in the other’s mind. Feedback from my own condition? she thought. Perhaps. If the operator of a mindsifter could hear the victim think, there was surely no reason the effect couldn’t go the other way. Either way, it was a moment before an answer came back. You cannot resist! tr’Hrienteh said, but the tone was less certain. The pain will only increase!

  It tried to increase again, and once again Ael called the wind from behind her, and the lava once more went dark. Over that crust she once again began slowly to advance. She was sure now that away at the edge of things, she saw light that was not the red sullen light of the magma-rage buried under the crust. Toward that faint chilly radiance she walked. I was your friend, she said. We were good comrades for many years. How could you betray me so?

  I was your friend, the answer came back, furious. The pain scaled up once more. And I was your son’s friend.

  Ael started.

  No, tr’Hrienteh said, you never did notice, did you? You were too busy with your eternal plotting, with your vain dreams of freedom, to notice what was going on under your very nose. Tafv forbade me any role in the rising against you. He knew too well our old friendship, and did not want to wound me further by involving me in what was going to happen. I begged him, I pleaded with him, for I wanted to be with him, to protect him. I knew what you would do to him. And you did it. That day, the day you walked into MakKhoi’s damned sickbay to see him, while he was yet alive, and then came out and left him behind you, dead, that day was the day I turned. That day I contacted Grand Fleet. Since then—

  She broke off briefly, wrestling with her own emotion. You will never know from me the damage I have done you and your cursed Kirk. You would have gone to your death anyway. Now, at least, I will have the pleasure of sending you into the dark myself, and the rebellion assembled around you will fail. It will fail here and now, before it ever comes near the Hearthworlds. That will be some small repayment for the lost life of the one who would have been my life-mate—except for you. Now tell me what I want to know, before I kill you!