Read Online Star Trek: The Empty Chair by Diane Duane - Free Book Online Page B

while
Esemar
and
Llendan
and
Chape
hunted them behind. Disruptor bolts jolted past them on the viewscreen, Sulu avoiding them by whatever synthesis of skill and instinct. For lack of anything else to do, Jim hit the comms button on the command chair. “Scotty?”
    “Aye, Captain?”
    “It’s heating up out there, Scotty. It’d be nice to have warp capacity sometime soon.”
    If a voice could break out in a sweat, Scotty’s did so.
“Fifteen minutes, Captain.”
    “Right,” Kirk said, and hit the button again.
    Sulu flung
Enterprise
into a ninety-degree angle to the plane of the asteroid belt, and plunged along “upward,” into regions where there were fewer asteroids, smaller ones, easier to evade.
Esemar
came along after her, not even bothering to evade the smallest ones anymore, taking them on her shields, pulverizing them in passing.
    “Mr. Sulu!”
    “Working on it, Captain.”
    Sulu flung
Enterprise
into what would have been a hairpin turn on Earth, if the hairpin was being bent in three dimensions instead of two. Jim wondered briefly how long it had been since anybody on Earth had used a hairpin, and watched the viewscreen hard, that being the best way to keep his stomach under control. The two smaller ships arced out wide and came along behind
Enterprise
again.
Esemar
matched the turn, much wider, rather slower, and came hard along behind again, blowing the smaller asteroidal chunks and fragments into glowing dust against her screens as she came.
    Spock was still gazing down his viewer. “Indeed,” he said abruptly.
    Sulu grinned. “As Mr. Spock said, the relative rarity of dilithium makes some kinds of testing difficult. Or impossible.”
    Spock was working at his console again.
Don’t jog their elbows,
Jim thought,
let them get on with it.
But it was so hard!
    This is what they always said was the hard part of command,
Jim thought, holding himself still, though it was tortureto stay that way.
The delegation. To command, and sit back, and let those who’ve been commanded get
on
with it.
He watched as
Esemar
came howling along behind them, firing again now, disruptors splashing against
Enterprise’
s shields, but for how much longer?
But it’s rarely been as hard as this to command, and do nothing else.
“Mr. Sulu!”
    Sulu was twisting and corkscrewing among the asteroids, bigger ones now, and bigger ones yet. Once again the tactical array was outlining one or another of the asteroids visible on the viewscreen, showing masses, compositions. They were in “friendly” territory again, getting closer to the dilithium processing facility, and
Llendan
and
Chape
were soaring in from port and starboard, hounds in front of the hunter. In the distance, on tactical,
Bloodwing
could be seen executing the same kind of desperate evasive maneuvers in the van of the two other Grand Fleet heavy cruisers.
But how desperate are they?
Jim thought.
    “
Bloodwing!”
Sulu said suddenly, as in the now triply split screen view
Esemar
could be seen getting closer and closer behind
Enterprise,
holding its fire as if waiting for one really good shot.
    “Enterprise,” came the reply, and it was Antecenturion Khiy, not Ael,
“are you seeing the annihilation spectra I am?—4551 angstroms and better.”
    “Confirmed,” Spock said. “If rocks are to be thrown, this would be the time to start. But not those originally planned. Vectors will naturally add, and large masses will not propagate the effect correctly, so you are enjoined from using anything bigger than 1.4 to the third kilograms at this point.”
    “You’re a spoilsport, Mr. Spock,” Sulu said, but he glanced at Chekov. “Twenty seconds,” he said, and threw
Enterprise
into a new set of maneuvers.
    The screen subdivided again, bringing up a map of wire-framed asteroids no more than a few tens of thousands of miles from the dilithium processing facility. “No chance youcould get
Gauntlet
to follow you in there, is there, Khiy?” he said.
    Half the