Star Trek: The Empty Chair by Diane Duane

place before, but had heard tell of it, and now she marveled at a space into which it seemed all of
Bloodwing
could have been fitted. In the background of the view, people moved about their business, dressed in the somber work-clothes of an ostensibly civilian environment. But Ael saw the occasional glance thrown at the screen as the dark shape she had been expecting came walking up to it,and she read those looks to mean that those who gave them were wondering whether they would shortly be in the military—
some
military.
    Veilt tr’Tyrava came to a stand before the viewer and looked at her. Ael gave him a second’s worth of bow more than was strictly required of her, for he was worth it. Here, embodied in this slight, unassuming shape, was a whole Ship-Clan in a single package: wealth, power, and a very specific turn of mind. Greater names than she had come to this man’s door seeking his support, and had gone away with empty hands. Now Ael found her hands full—perhaps too full. She was not easy with the circumstances.
    “We are beholden to you, tr’Tyrava,” she said, also addressing him more formally than she needed to.
    “Yes,”
he said in that light, casual voice,
“so you are. But let us not start reckonings yet. There are many more screenfuls of figures before us, and the full value of some of them is still to be decided.”
    It was one of those cryptic utterances of his that could mean one thing, or a hundred. Ael had gotten used to the sound of them over much time, but was not yet entirely sure that she was capable of winnowing out
everything
behind one. For the moment, though, Veilt smiled that small sword-edge smile of his, as much humor as he normally exhibited to anyone not one of his intimates.
    “Yes,” Ael said. “Well, you were late, Veilt. We were expecting you rather earlier.”
    “You are to count yourself lucky we came at all,”
Veilt said.
“Indeed matters could have gone well otherwise had we not detected, on our way in, the
other
part of the Klingon task force sent to deal with you—but fortunately, they had divided their forces.”
    Ael looked at him in shock. “There were more?”
    “There were,”
Veilt said,
“another ten heavy cruisers. I should not have cared to meet that whole task force atonce—it would have stretched even our resources—but fortunately for us, the Elements have been making our enemies too sure of themselves in these early engagements. They will not stay so for much longer, however.”
    Gazing at Veilt, Ael bowed once more—a much deeper bow, much longer than the last one. “I misspoke myself,” Ael said. “My apology to you.”
    “You could not have known,”
Veilt said.
“No apologies are needed. Yet we must take warning from this, as our enemies doubtless will.”
    “They’ll take more warning away from this than would have pleased me,” Ael said. “Woe to that last ship that got away!”
    “Oh, I think it may not do us such harm, at least not right away,”
Veilt said.
“Only consider that ship’s position. They emerge from warp and return home in disorder from an engagement in which they should have had marked numerical superiority, and in which they should have been, if not easily victorious, at least certainly so. And no other ship comes back to tell any tale. Only they—with an outrageous story of some unidentifiable monster ship that came from nowhere and cut them all to pieces. However true it may be, that’s not a story they’ll have any joy in telling their superiors.”
Veilt raised an ironic eyebrow at Ael.
“Dearly I would love to hear them make that report, and hear what their superiors have to say. That sixteen cruisers were dispatched to deal with
Enterprise, Bloodwing,
and perhaps five or six light cruisers—assuming they do indeed have spies in this system, we may safely conjecture that they know that much, and nothing more than a motley flock of little single ships, not fit to clean out their phaser