Rihannsu Book Five: The Empty Chair
ONE
When Enterprise and Bloodwing dropped out of warp together in the Artaleirh system, the tension on Enterprise's bridge was considerable. The ship was on red alert for safety's sake, though Jim had told Uhura to kill the siren, which was no longer doing any good as regarding alertness, but only getting on people's nerves. Spock was bent over his scanner, intent, and as the warp drive's hum faded down into silence, Jim said, "Report."
"Long range scan shows no other vessels incoming at this time," Spock said.
McCoy, standing behind the center seat, gave Jim a thoughtful look. " 'What if they gave a war and nobody came?' "
"Fat chance," Jim said. "We're just early. Now we have to see what use we can make of whatever extra time we have."
He looked at the schematic of the system that the front viewscreen was now displaying, courtesy of Spock. Artaleirh was a big star, an F0 "demigiant," with a big solar system: twelve planets, mostly sunbroiled rocks or gas giants of various sizes and types, along with the asteroid belt that was the system's main source of wealth, i ... read full excerpt from Rihannsu Book Five: The Empty Chair (Star Trek: The Original Series) ebook
