Star Trek: The Empty Chair Read Free Page B

other matter is potentially more painful. You’re likely to lose a significant number of your little ships to both firepower and confusion.”
    “Our pilots understand that,”
tr’Mahan said.
“They are willing to take the risk, and to pay the price, or they would not all still be out there in the belt, waiting, as they have been for several days. Such long waits out in the dark and the cold give plenty of opportunity for second thoughts, but we have had very few defections.”
    Jim glanced at Spock, now understanding the source ofsome of those extra “energy sources” in the asteroid belt that he had mentioned. “But, Commodore—”
    “Please, Captain. Tr’Mahan is good enough; I haven’t yet done the service to earn me such a title, and taking names to oneself without justification is only tempting the Elements.”
The man eased his bulk down into his command chair.
“I understand your concerns. Courage and luck are not enough: skill is needed too. I can say only this: before I was a planetary governor, when I was just starting to be a politician, I was also a dilithium miner. I am used to working out in that belt. Some reflexes don’t get lost over time, and are quickly recovered in life-or-death situations like this. The rocks are not close together, of course, but working at substantial fractions of lightspeed can make them seem so, and in such circumstances, my pilots and I may show you a thing or three about rock-dodging that you didn’t previously know.”
    “I hope so.” Jim let out a breath. “You also have to understand that as far as saving those big ships for you goes, I’ll do what I can within reason. But as for myself, if things get too hot for
Enterprise,
I’ll blow up just as many of them as I have to.”
    “Feel free,”
said tr’Mahan, and he grinned.
“In the aftermath, we will simply tell the Empire that we have
all
their ships, and are keeping some in reserve. By the time they find out the truth, they will have many other things to worry about. But in any case, if we cannot have those ships, they are better destroyed. They’ll not then make trouble for us later, when we move on ch’Rihan.”
    Jim had to smile slightly himself. He was beginning to like this man.
    Ael said,
“A number of other systems, Captain, are watching to see what happens here. If we can make a success of this engagement, they will come out into the open and join us.”
    “We get to be the pebbles that start the landslide,” Jim said. “Better than being at the bottom of the slope watching it come down, I guess.” He pushed his chair back. “I’m going to go look at your schematics now.”
    “Your communications officer has them,”
tr’Mahan said. He paused and added,
“My own ops officer tells me that a subspace message just in from the monitoring buoys associated with a nearby system confirms the approach of those nine ships. They are coming in together, from the galactic north-polar direction. For us, that is a dive straight into the system, most likely toward the planet, at an angle nearly perpendicular to our local ecliptic. My ship is presently in orbit around Artaleirh. If you’ll follow me out on impulse, I’ll show you where we will make our stand.”
    “We’ll be right along. A pleasure to talk to you, tr’Mahan. Let’s meet again after this is over.”
    “Preferably while still breathing,”
tr’Mahan said, grinning again.
    His image flicked away. “Ael,” Jim said, “give me a few minutes.”
    She nodded; the screen went dark. Jim got up and headed for the door, Spock right behind him.

TWO
    A few minutes later Jim came up into the bridge with Spock. “I have a lock on
Sithesh,
Captain,” Sulu said as they entered. “Following them into the belt.”
    “Very good, Mr. Sulu. Spock, let’s have the detailed schematic of the belt.”
    Spock brought it up on the main screen. It was not a dangerous place for small ships working at small fractions of impulse, nor was there any