Read Star Trek: The Empty Chair for Free Online Page B

like the flat, self-assured voice speaking from the sky, but single, simplex and passionate.
“—needs not one hour for an answer,”
she was saying,
“no, not one breath! This is the Free Rihannsu world of Artaleirh. We are the tool of no empire anymore, and the toy of no Senate. We are our own world under our own sky, and we nowtake that sky back to ourselves, in arms with those who know what freedom is worth, and who will help us be slaves no more. Live or die, we have nothing more to say to you, tools in the hands of tyrants!”
    The announcement from the Grand Fleet ships persisted only a few moments longer, then simply broke off, in mid-playback, as if whoever had been playing the recording simply could not believe the response. Behind Ael, Aidoann listened to the silence that followed, and let go a soft hiss of anguish. “
Khre’Riov,”
she said, “if this doesn’t work, all those cities, all those many people—”
    Ael sat silent and watched the curves of the starships’ courses become more acute as they neared the planet.
    “
Khre’Riov,
can we not stop it? Let us stop it!” Aidoann whispered. “If we move quickly enough, we could seed the star—or have tr’Mahan give the order.”
    Ael shook her head. “I will not,” she said, her voice terribly steady, far more so than her heart. “You heard Courhig. You heard our kinswoman down there. The Artaleirhin have made their preparations. They know how this battle must unfold, for their freedom’s sake. Their choice is made. Now we must honor their intention, or condemn them to the loss of their own honor, forever.”
    “But Ael—!”
    She would not answer.
    On the
Enterprise’
s bridge, the whole bridge crew was watching the same view in slightly different colors, and a stillness had settled over them too as they heard what the translator was making of the Grand Fleet’s announcement to the planet Artaleirh. “Captain,” Sulu said, “those orbits will have the capital ships in disruptor or phaser bombardment range within three minutes.”
    Sulu was trying to keep his tone of voice neutral, but the edge showed in it regardless. Jim shook his head, knowingjust how he felt, wishing he could indulge the desire to go and help, but this was one of those moments during which tactics ruled, no matter how it hurt you personally. “I have no interest in going over there, Mr. Sulu,” Jim said, doing his best to keep the edge out of his own voice, though he suspected the minutes to follow might give him nightmares for decades. “I’m not going to throw away what advantage we have by allowing them to draw us out. They fight us here, or not at all.”
    “Yes, Captain,” Sulu said, his voice flat this time. Jim had heard that subdued tone from his bridge crew before—the disappointment, the dread. But he was not going to allow that to affect him either.
    “Thirty seconds to bombardment range,” Chekov said softly.
    Jim had used his own phasers on planets’ surfaces occasionally. It was very difficult to be delicate about it, and when the ship firing was bent on
not
being delicate, the destruction could be terrible. With time and persistence, even large cities could be rendered not merely uninhabited, but uninhabitable. And then there was the matter of the phasers’ effects on the local ecology, on terrain and atmosphere: derangement of the local weather, destruction of water tables and even activation of earthquake faults if any were in the vicinity. But generally the hundreds of thousands of burned and blackened corpses, and the dust of the uncountable vaporized, were no longer in a condition to be able to be concerned about the environmental consequences. The thought left Jim’s mouth drier, if possible, than it was already.
    The alternative to disruptor or phaser barrage, of course, was no better in that regard—possibly worse. Yet there would be many more survivors of seeding this star than a full-scale planetary bombardment would leave. Jim