title: The Murdered Sun (Star Trek Voyager, No 6)
author:  Christie Golden 
description: When sensors indicate a possible wormhole nearby, Captain Janeway is eager to investigate, hoping to find a shortcut back to Federation space. Instead, she discovers a star system being systematically pillaged by the warlike Akerians. Janeway has no desire to get caught up in someone else's war, but in order to the check on the possibilities offered by the wormhole -- and to save the innocent people of Veruna Four -- <i>Voyager</i><sup><font size="-2">TM</font></sup> has no choice but to challenge the Akerians.
zlib_text: # CHAPTER
  
  
  # ![](images/Zahn_9780307796189_epub_L02_r1.jpg)  
  1
  
  
  Directly ahead, the star was a marble-sized yellow-orange ball, its intensity
  moderated by its distance and by the viewports’ automatic sunscreens.
  Surrounding it and the ship itself were the stars, a spattering of blazing
  white pinpricks in the deep blackness of space. Directly beneath the ship, in
  the western part of the Great Northern Forest of the planet Myrkr, dawn was
  approaching.
  
  
  The last dawn that some in that forest would ever see.
  
  
  Standing at one of the side bridge viewports of the Imperial Star Destroyer
  _Chimaera_ , Captain Pellaeon watched as the fuzzy terminator line crept
  toward the target zone on the planet below. Ten minutes ago, the ground forces
  surrounding the target had reported themselves ready; the _Chimaera_ itself
  had been holding blockade position for nearly an hour. All that was missing
  now was the order to attack.
  
  
  Slowly, feeling almost furtive about it, Pellaeon turned his head a coupl