Star Trek: The Empty Chair (28 page)

“Certainly, go on with you,” Ael said. “I won’t get lost.”

Aidoann grinned at that. It was about as easy to be lost in
Bloodwing’
s bridge as it was to be lost in one of her heads, the main difference being that the heads were far more peaceful. Aidoann lifted a hand to Ael and went out; the lift door shut behind her.

Ael sat down in Aidoann’s seat at the comms post, stretching her legs out in the quiet, and looked across her dark, cramped little bridge, watching the stars flow by on the viewscreen. Their reflections glinted in brief flickers on
the end of the blade of the Sword, which stuck out far enough from the arms of her center seat for her to see it from there. Ael twitched a little in the hard seat, thinking about how long it had been since she’d sat in her own chair while in command.
What a fool I was to put that there,
she thought—and then laughed softly at herself. Not that she was
not
a fool, but the comms seat was just as hard-cushioned as her own.

The Firefalls
…Ael thought. Well, it was part of her family’s land, though ages and ages ago. Even were she a Praetor, she would have trouble moving in up there now. The Falls were a Rihannsu world cultural site—a rocky place, and a barren one because of the fire, but also a famous and terrible one, because the Firefall cliffs and their valley were the only place on ch’Rihan where the rarest and most dangerous Element occurred naturally and continually. The top of the cliffs was the exit site for a huge upwelling of natural gases and liquid hydrocarbons under pressure; they poured out and down over the stones in an intermingled, toxic solution that constantly shifted states between gas and liquid, and all of which burned. Probably it was a mercy that they did so, otherwise the uncombusted fumes would have made the whole area fatal to any oxygen-breathing life that ventured there. As it was, between the fire and the smoke, no one in their right mind would really want to live there. Ael tended to use the idea of retreating to the Falls as a metaphor for how very much she simply wanted to get away, when everything was over, and be completely alone for a while.

But how likely is that to actually happen?
she thought.
Say worst case happens, and you fall in battle. Likely enough, in space, or on the ground; maybe even at those Falls themselves.
For the Firefalls were a strategic landmark as well as a cultural one. The valley of the Fires was the only practical way for a ground force to pass the mountain wall rising to the south of the plain where Ra’tleihfi stood on its
broad river. In these days of transporter access and troop transport by air or space, this was less of a problem, but the area was nonetheless one of importance as a matter of perception, land that had been fought over in ch’Rihan’s past, and doubtless would be again.
No matter. If you fall, then no quiet time for you first—though whether you’ll care, being in the Elements’ care at that point, it’s hard to say.

And if she lived?
As a captive, perhaps? You will have little time to rest then.
Anyone who would bother to make Ael prisoner would be best served by seeing her quickly dead.
And otherwise, if you live, and your cause triumphs? Then there will be no rest for you either, for having dragged your people through war and out the other side—or having, in your turn, been dragged so by them—they will condemn you to go on as you have begun. They will lock you in an office in the Senate, or some obscure reconstruction authority, and it will be years before matters are well enough settled again that you might be let out.

You
are
a fool.

Yet there was no arguing that Ael had felt she had no choice but to do what she was now doing. Kirk had the right of it there.
The trouble is, I did not think things through. I saw an image of my world, free, of the Sword replaced on its proper place under the Dome, and the evil Senators and Praetors cast out, and good ones put in their place. I was willing enough to use myself as a tool to that end, to let myself be used as such a tool by others. And then, I thought, I would slip away.

Whatever made me think I would be allowed to?

She laughed again, and the comms board chirped as she did, recalling her to the moment. Ael swung around in the seat and touched the control that brought the capsule of the message up on the screen for the comms officer to examine and decide how to handle.

Ael frowned at the screen as only a few lines of code displayed
themselves there. The message was addressed to her, but the capsule was not labeled as to origin or time. The structure of it was Rihannsu, but the routing was peculiar; it had apparently come via raw subspace transmission, rather than through one of the much faster transfer satellites.
Of course, if it is something sensitive—but then, at the moment, what is
not
sensitive?

She told the console to copy the message to her encrypted storage, and then instructed the comms system to break the capsule for her. The screen filled about halfway with green text.

Ael read the message, and within only a couple of sentences found her heart starting to pound in her side. So shocked was she by what she read that she couldn’t continue to sit, but rose in alarm and read the rest of the message standing, leaning over the screen, simply unable to believe it.

This is not for me. This is for Kirk—but does he know? He must not. If he did, how could he
possibly
have been so calm last night?

But whether he had known this menace was coming or not, he did not have
this
much information about it; the message itself made that plain.
I must get this new data to him immediately!

But she could not. While possible, transport between their ships while they were in warp and running would raise too many questions. It would have to wait for a little while. And there was not much time—

Ael looked again at the coordinates, with the sweat breaking out on her, and did math in her head.
Six days,
Ael thought.
Six standard days—

She straightened and stood there with her hands clenched together, the message a mere blur in front of her now. The back of Ael’s neck prickled with reaction: horror, terror, rage.
Suppose it was Eisn,
she thought.
Dear Elements, only suppose! How can anyone actually
order
such a thing? Their
hatred of humans, or else their mere callousness, is unbelievable. Or their fear.

It was more likely to be fear that was at fault, for aliens had been the great terror of the Rihannsu since before they left their ancient homeworld and went out into the night.
And shortly that fear will become worse yet, in some quarters at least,
she thought.
For into the battle for the Homeworlds, the aliens will once again intrude. One alien in particular.
Not so much those who rode inside one specific starship, perhaps, but the ship herself, seen as almost a live thing by those who hated and feared her. And curious it was that the captain saw her so as well, and treated her so.
But then perhaps that is why she responds so well to his command. And why she has kept him and his crew alive all this while. It’s as the old saying goes: Better treat matter as soul than soul as matter. That way at least no one is offended at a crucial moment.

The lift door hissed open, and tr’Keirianh came in. Ael glanced over at him as he made his way toward his engineering station. He met Ael’s eyes, and she saw something odd about the look on Giellun’s face—perhaps a reaction to Ael’s own look of distress and disgust. “Ael,” tr’Keirianh said, “what’s the matter?”

She opened her mouth to tell her friend, then stopped herself.
Not even to him,
she thought.
This information is too sensitive. Should he chance to let it drop—
Yet the shame took her by the throat almost immediately.
We have been at each other’s side in a hundred battles, he has saved my life and all the crew’s, he has—

Ael shook her head, clearing the screen as she turned back to it, and erasing what she had just read from the bridge computers’ buffers, leaving only the encrypted version of the message in the private storage in her quarters. “My fears beset me,” she said, “and they shame me, Giellun.”

“You are too hard on yourself,” tr’Keirianh said, “and you do not confide enough in those of us who are here to help
you.” He said it lightly enough, and he had said it a hundred times before. But suddenly today it sounded different.

Ael shook her head. “I must go over to
Enterprise
as soon as we reach the rendezvous point.”

“I will have the transporter ready for you,” said Giellun, and Ael went out, feeling the strangeness of his look on her back.

I have been wounded, and I have lost husband and son,
she thought,
and I have come close enough to death in my time. But this hurts worse than any of those.
Au,
to lose the very trust that life depends upon, all that was left when everything else has failed
…

It is gone. No matter how alone I have been, no matter how alone I would be if I ever did move into that cave up by the Falls, it does not matter. I was never really alone before. Not until now.

They came to the rendezvous point some five hours later, and though she dared not show anything else she was feeling at the moment, Ael was at least able to rejoice at what they found waiting for them in that empty space. There were no less than eighteen vessels of various sizes there, corvettes or bigger. Some of them, as at Artaleirh, had been purloined from the Empire after they had attempted punitive missions in other systems. But there were several of them that, to Ael’s way of thinking, were worth much more. Those were the ships whose crews had independently turned against the Empire and had sought out the colonies in rebellion, looking to find ways to be of help.

She could not trust them either, right now, and they would look suspiciously enough at her, those ships’ captains who would meet her on
Tyrava
with various people from
Enterprise
and from the Artaleirh system. But that could all keep for the moment.

Ael came up from her quarters with nothing in her
pocket but a data solid with that message’s contents on it. “Would you call
Enterprise
for me?” she said to the comms officer.

“Right away,
khre’Riov—”

Ael turned to the screen and saw Lieutenant Commander Uhura’s face.
“Good afternoon, Commander,”
she said.
“How can I help you?”

“I need to talk to the captain about a matter concerning our approach to Augo,” Ael said. “It is rather urgent, and I would like to get the matter handled before we meet with the commanders of the new ships.”

Uhura glanced to one side.
“He’s free at the moment, Commander; he’s down in sickbay. Come on over and I’ll let him know you’re on the way.”

“Thank you, Commander,” Ael said. As the screen flicked to darkness and then back to the images of the eighteen ships hanging in the starlight, Ael made her way to the lift.

“How long will you be gone,
khre’Riov?”
said the comms officer.

“No more than an hour, I’d think,” Ael said. “Tr’Keirianh wanted me to come down to the engine room before the captains’ meeting this afternoon. Tell him I’ll see him there as soon as I return.”

“Ie, khre’Riov.”

Ael made her way down to her own transporter room and beamed over to the
Enterprise.
The transport technician there nodded to her as she materialized. “Commander, can I help you get anywhere?”

“I am meeting the captain in sickbay,” Ael said.

“Do you need escort, ma’am?”

“I think not; I know the way.”

The transport tech nodded at her, and Ael headed out into the corridor, heading for the lift. She remembered how huge and overblown this ship had seemed to her once. Now, though,
Enterprise
seemed the right size for the people in it;
it was
Bloodwing
that seemed pitifully cramped.
I have spent too long with these people, they would tell me in Fleet. Yet what is wrong with having enough room for the crew not to have to live in one another’s laps?
How wonderful it would be to have an empire rich enough to build ships like this, where
all
the people who served in them had enough room, not just the privileged few who commanded.

She walked into sickbay and paused just inside the door, looking around. There was no one in sight except, against the rear door, a gentleman in medical uniform who did not look particularly medical. Ael thought she detected a bulge under his uniform tunic that the tunic was not modified to handle; and he was looking at her with some interest, though he didn’t move. As she was about to speak to him, the door to McCoy’s office opened, and McCoy came out. “Commander,” he said. “I was wondering when you might turn up. It’s all right, Geoff, she’s with me.”

“I was looking for the captain,” Ael said, following McCoy into his office.

“I know,” McCoy said. “Uhura just spoke to me. You both just missed him, though. Scotty needed him for something down in engineering. He’ll be back here shortly—Uhura will let him know you’re here. Come on in.”

The office door closed behind him, and Ael found herself looking at a desk that reminded her too much of her own master surgeon’s. The desk was all scattered with papers and printouts and printed images and data solids and cassettes and books and bindings and the Elements only knew what else. “Sorry about this,” McCoy said, picking up an armful of the stuff and depositing it carefully into a large box near the desk. “Every now and then my drawers get too full, and I have to call someone from clerical to come down and help me get it sorted out.” He sat down and sighed. “I’m a doctor, dammit, not a file clerk.”

Ael sat down by the desk and smiled, for she had heard
something similar from tr’Hrienteh on occasion. “How is Gurrhim doing?”

“He’s asleep right now. He’s still running on the time they were using on
Gorget;
he probably won’t be awake until late this afternoon.” McCoy picked up another pile of papers and data solids and other such objects. One object in particular started slipping off the pile as McCoy moved it, and he stopped it from doing so and put it back down on the desk. Ael eyed it as he bent down to put the papers on top of the others in the box.