Free Star Trek: The Empty Chair by Diane Duane Page B

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