Star Wars: Death Star

by Michael Reaves

  It was tempting, but only momentarily. Vader’s pace was fast, and Tenn didn’t think the man in black had any intention of altering his course even a hair. Tenn Graneet thought himself as tough as a vacuum seal, but he wasn’t stupid or suicidal. He allowed himself to drift to the right, just enough so that when they passed, their shoulders were within a hand span—actually, Vader’s shoulder passed within a hand span of the top of Tenn’s head. Close enough so that the edge of the flowing black cape slid over Tenn’s arm and threatened to catch, for just an instant, on the chief’s chrono. The material had a smooth, silky texture, and was cooler than he would have thought.

  In fact, the very air seemed cold in the wake of Vader’s passage.

  Tenn slowed his pace slightly, feeling as if he had just brushed up against a primal force of nature; the edge of a hurricane, perhaps, or an icy comet that simply could not be stopped. Had he challenged Vader by staying in his path, he had no doubt that he would have regretted it for as long as he lived. Which quite probably wouldn’t have been all that long.

  The chief resisted an urge to glance back. If Vader had even noticed his passing, there had been no sign. “Whoo,” he said softly to himself as the sound of the other’s boots diminished. That had been an experience he’d remember for a while. He’d almost been the man who’d tugged on Darth Vader’s cape.

  20

  FLUTTERBIRD DINER, SOUTHERN UNDERGROUND, GRID 17, IMPERIAL CITY

  Neet Alamant was a polished fellow, his voice as smooth as drive lube; never an awkward pause or loss for words. Seated in the retro-style dining booth across from him, Memah felt very little in the way of trust or warmth for the human. Rodo was at the counter, overwhelming a stool and not trying very hard to look inconspicuous as he nursed a cup of caf. Memah wasn’t afraid of this officious little man, but it did feel comforting to have Rodo nearby, and to have that be obvious, just in case.

  “So let me see if I have the gist of your offer,” she said. “You want me to run a cantina at a military installation, for which I will be paid a fat signing bonus and a very generous salary, plus a percentage of the profits. This will entail a two-year contract, during which time I will be required to stay at this base full-time. Is that a fair summation?”

  “Yes. Recreational facilities will be available. I am given to understand that the installation in question will be on a par, at least, with this area of the Underground, insofar as supplies, traffic, and general working conditions are concerned.”

  Memah looked thoughtful. That last statement didn’t mean much, but she had lived in worse places than the Underground. She didn’t need luxury; in the last couple of years she hadn’t had occasion to visit the surface but a few times, and she could have skipped those without any real sense of loss. Her life pretty much revolved around her work at this point.

  All in all, it seemed a straightforward proposition. Alamant was not forthcoming as to where and what the military installation was, but she could understand that. There was, after all, a war on, and the Empire was, not surprisingly, protective of its secrets. What little clues she could sieve from his words, it was probably a naval base on some far-flung planet. If it was big enough to justify having a civilian-run cantina, it probably wasn’t in the middle of a hot war zone. And if it had the comforts of the Southern Underground, without the concomitant dangers, it couldn’t be too bad.

  Of course, this guy was a recruiter, and he just might be inclined to shade the truth a bit if it served him to do so. He probably got paid for every qualified warm body he delivered. Then again, an Imperial Work Contract had to spell out the reality to be valid, even these days. If you were in the army or navy, you didn’t have many rights, but as a civilian you usually got a better deal.

  And it wasn’t as if she was besieged with offers of work. Cantina operators had certain skills, of course, but there wasn’t a formal course of study in the craft that she knew about, and others of her ilk weren’t in particularly short supply.

  “I can bring my own security chief?”

  “As long as he, she, or it doesn’t have a felony criminal record and there are no outstanding Imperial warrants for major crimes. An appropriate salary will be provided for such work, and quarters will be provided for you and any security assistant you might wish to bring, as part of the package. Yours includes a single-occupancy room, standard officer’s suite,” Alamant said. Then he pointedly turned to look at Rodo before looking back at her. “Your security guy gets his own private quarters, too.”

  She nodded, still thinking.

  “Not to pressure you for an answer, but the next civilian crew vessel for this venture leaves from Mainport in three days. If you’re not interested, I will seek another for the position.” He slid out of the booth and stood up. “I’ll need to know your decision tomorrow.”

  Memah held up a hand. “Wait here a moment, please.” She slid out of the booth as well and walked over to where Rodo sat.

  “Bad caf,” he said, looking at the cup. “Tastes like dishwater.” He shook his head.

  “And how would you know that? Drink a lot of dishwater?”

  He shrugged and flicked his gaze at Alamant. “What does he want?”

  “He’s offering me a job running a military cantina … won’t say where. I need to sign on for two years, no leave. Pay is good, plus a piece of the profit, some benefits—housing, medical, like that.”

  Rodo nodded. “You gonna do it?”

  Memah made a show of looking around the diner. “Amid all these other offers to put a roof over my head and food on the table? I don’t know; it’s so hard to winnow them down.” She sat down beside him. “I know someone like you can always get a job—but if I take this, I want you as my security man.”

  Rodo nodded once. “Okay, I’m in.”

  “Just like that?”

  He grinned. “A chance to thump active military guys who get rowdy? Why not? The guys in the field usually have better skills than the benchwarmers. More interesting that way. Besides, I’d miss you.”

  She had to smile at that. “You’re a Branded Aesthete, Rodo. You don’t engage in intimate relations with women.”

  He nodded again. “Keep ’em on a pedestal where they belong, that’s our motto. But everybody’s got to be somewhere. Beauty is where you find it.”

  Memah felt a wave of relief. “Ship leaves in three days.”

  “No problem. I can pack in five minutes.”

  She nodded. Yeah. It would take her about that long, too.

  “So I’ll tell the man we’ll take the job.”

  “Might as well. Caf can’t be any worse.” He lifted his mug in a salute to the recruiter at the other table.

  21

  MEDCENTER SURGICAL COMPLEX, SECTION N-ONE, DEATH STAR

  When the only tool you have is a knife, the old joke went, every problem looks like a steak. Thus Uli, being a surgeon, was primarily concerned with procedures surgical—after all, if your speeder breaks down, you don’t call a plumber. But there was more to it than just the operation under the sterilizing lamps. Until the patient was back on his or her or its feet, he or she or it was the surgeon’s responsibility, and there was another old saw that spoke to this: You cut it, you take care of it.

  That was precisely why a surgeon had to know a certain amount of general medicine before he was allowed to pick up a laser scalpel. Because if your wonderful cardiothoracic procedure to repair a ballooned aorta before it could burst in a deadly aneurism was perfect, but the patient died two days later in recovery, that brought up the third hoary old saying: The operation was a success, but the patient died.

  There were surgeons who could separate the two and still sleep at night, but Uli was not one of them. And so he found himself standing near the bed of a grizzled old Wookiee construction chief who had been involved in a nasty decompression accident that had required a heart-lung transplant three days past. Despite the best sterile procedures, sometimes patients developed secondary infections, and somet
hing like that had apparently happened here.

  The usual antivirals, antiprions, and antibiotics had been ineffective thus far, and no pathogenic agents had been collected. Nevertheless, the old Wook had a fever, he was coughing, and his blood work showed a strange shift that wasn’t bacterial, prional, or viral. The patient had an elevated eosinophil count, hyper to the level of Second-Stage HES. Naturally, Uli had called in more expert help, but the medical specialist had ruled out the usual trans-species suspects—it wasn’t kozema, leukemia, asthma, autoimmune disease, or drugs. The only remaining possibilities were some kind of parasitic or protozoal infestation. But the QRI scans were clean, there were no telltale nanocam images, and nothing cultured out. Save for the elevated white cells, there weren’t any other real indicators. If this wasn’t some previously unknown form of nosocomial infection, the only other possibility seemed to be black magic.

  The Wookiee, named Hahrynyar, wasn’t critical, but he didn’t seem to be getting any better. He was sick enough that he needed to stay in bed. Uli glanced at the array of telemetry gear on the wall and stands, and shook his head in weary bafflement. No change.

  His understanding of the Wookiee language was rudimentary on a good day. He could understand “Yes” or “No,” and a few other medical responses to questions like “On a scale of one to ten, how much does it hurt?” but he wasn’t going to be having any deep philosophical discussions with the big furry biped. Fortunately, he didn’t have to. He gestured to C-4ME-O, who was filling a nearby bacta tank with fluid. The droid wheeled over, ready to translate.

  “Good day,” Uli said to the Wookiee. “How are you?”

  “Wyaaaaaa. Ruh ruh?” The droid’s dulcet tones made the snarls and moans of Wookiee-speak oddly pleasing to the ear.

  The patient moaned a response, which 4ME-O translated as, “For you, maybe.”

  The old Wook had kept his sense of humor, even though he was obviously still feeling pretty bad. Uli was glad to see that: a willingness to fight was the single most important aspect of the healing process, no matter the species.

  “We’re going to try something new,” he continued. “We think maybe you have some kind of parasite. Probably been dormant in your system for years, and the immunosuppressives somehow triggered it. The internal medicine team has a broad-spectrum medication, Nicosamide-Mebendazole Complex, that seems to work on a variety of occult mammalian parasites. If you have what we think you do, this should cure it.”

  “Whuahh yun yorra ellihenn?”

  “Well, the side effects are generally mild. There are a couple that might cause some discomfort.”

  “Arrn whoon urr.” This was, according to C-4ME-O, an idiosyncratic phrase structure indicating an affirmation couched in weary cynicism. The droid translated it roughly as “Of course there are.” Hahrynyar motioned for Uli to continue.

  “Um, sometimes there’s an associated diarrhea. And very rarely, it affects a patient’s finger- and toenails.”

  “Yaag?”

  “Well, the nails sort of … fall out.”

  “Whuahh?”

  “Oh, they grow back in a few months, good as new. And, as I say, it is quite rare.”

  The next comment was one 4ME-O seemed reluctant at first to translate; when it did, Uli had to hide a smile. He hadn’t been aware that members of this species were so imaginative.

  “I understand this is distressing, but you can’t leave the unit until you’re better, and you can’t go back to work until we are sure what you have isn’t contagious.”

  The Wookiee scowled.

  “Hey, I don’t make the rules, I just work here. You have a complaint, take it up with the Emperor.”

  Hahrynyar snarled an offensive remark concerning Palpatine’s personal hygiene that Uli was ready to swear brought a blush to 4ME-O’s durasteel skin. Then the big Wook reluctantly conceded to the treatment.

  After finishing his rounds, Uli went back to his office and looked at his calendar. Barring an emergency, he had nothing on his surgical schedule until tomorrow, and that was a routine triple bypass on a naval officer who was too fond of fats in his diet. The man was just a hair short of clinically obese; a kilo more, and he’d have to be put on medical waivers to continue serving. Given the nature of the war, that wouldn’t surprise Uli—the Empire’s need for warm bodies in some arenas was critical, as he well knew. Short, tall, thin, fat, it didn’t matter; they always needed more blaster fodder.

  He shrugged. Every time he thought about it, it made him angry, but his anger didn’t matter. The war kept going. There were times when he thought he’d never get home again, that the war would never end, and that he’d die an old man on some pity-forsaken rock in the middle of nowhere, patching up the endless lines of wounded.

  If only there was something he could do to change it.

  COMMAND CENTER, OVERBRIDGE, DEATH STAR

  Tarkin was pleased. As much as he distrusted Vader and his motives, the coming of the man in black had visibly improved functions wherever one looked. Nobody wanted to face the Sith Lord’s wrath, and the best way to avoid that was to do one’s job with the utmost efficiency. Vader was a catalyst; he caused reactions that went well beyond his personal sphere of influence, great as that was. The fear he inspired in others was far more than merely the sum of his various and sinister parts. Even Tarkin, a Grand Moff, had sensed it occasionally, like a whiff of ozone presaging an ion storm. It was odd, Tarkin reflected. His rational mind knew that Vader was only a maimed remnant of a man, sealed for the rest of his life in biosupport armor. A figure more to be pitied than anything else. But in person, the last thing he inspired was pity. Vader had power, and he knew how to use it, no matter if he was overseeing the scouring of a continent from the bridge of his Star Destroyer or striking a man dead from across the room.

  Tarkin shook his head slightly. That which stays hidden and mysterious is always more intriguing than that which can be seen. He certainly couldn’t compete with Vader on a physical level, nor did he wish to. But when this dream of his became cold durasteel reality, Vader’s vaunted flagship would be yesterday’s holos. Why waste time finding and incinerating Rebel bases on various and sundry asteroids and moons when, with a single command, he could see an entire planet decimated?

  And he would have that power, very soon now. Repairs on the recent damage were well under way, and the crew chiefs, directing three shifts, reported that over the course of the next few months the original work schedule should be reclaimed. Tarkin had every hope that the fifth-column activity had been scotched. Certainly, anyone who came under Vader’s steely gaze who had anything to do with it would be removed forthwith from the playing board—permanently.

  This battle station would be built—and when it was done, it would be the ultimate power in the galaxy.

  Tarkin could be patient until then.

  22

  MACHINE TOOL STORAGE UNIT ALPHA-FOUR, POLAR ORBIT AROUND DESPAYRE

  Ratua had no specific plan as to how he would get from the orbiting warehouse to the battle station called the Death Star. But he wasn’t stupid. The section in which he found himself was apparently dedicated mostly to replacement supplies for assorted kinds of mechanical devices. No kitchen stores and no weapons were apparent on his initial examination of the premises. Things didn’t look particularly bright for his immediate future.

  Perhaps, though, Fem Fortune had decided at last that Celot Ratua Dil had suffered enough by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, for three very good things happened to him within hours of slipping from the transport ship and into the warehouse.

  First, he practically tripped over a huge store of gas tanks, and among these were copious amounts of both oxygen and hydrogen. With two parts of the latter and one of the former and a spark—no problem, given all the gear available—he could produce pure water, which, in a pinch, could keep him alive without any food for weeks.

  Second, he found a locker full of vacuum suits, one of which fit him tolerably well, so
that in the event the rumors were true and the warehouses were periodically opened to the airlessness of space to get rid of pests that had somehow managed to find their way within, he wouldn’t freeze or suffocate to death.

  And third, he found a case of dehydrated Vulderanian grain flakes that had obviously been mislaid—it was stacked in a rack of machine tool parts. Add water and, while it would probably not be the tastiest meal he had ever enjoyed, and would certainly grow quite monotonous over time, it would offer sustenance.

  So he had food and water, and he could breathe. Things could be a lot worse.

  After another day of cautious exploration, Ratua came across a crate containing a general-service droid, and he marveled at his continuing good fortune. Long ago and far away, he had spent some quality time hiding out in a droid repair shop while avoiding the local authorities, due to an unfortunate misunderstanding. After a few days with nothing better to occupy his time, Ratua had taught himself the basics of droid programming. Nothing fancy, but enough that he could upload simple instructions. And general-service droids were often pressed into service as loaders.

  Now he had a plan. All he needed was an opportunity, which came a few days later—just after he had finished his preparations for it. How lucky was that?

  A troop of droids arrived on an unloaded cargo vessel. Seeing this from his hidden vantage point in a maintenance conduit, Ratua quickly activated his programmed droid and hurriedly donned his vac suit. Then he concealed himself in a packing crate, sealed the crate shut from inside, and waited.

  Now it was up to the droid.

  He’d programmed it to observe the loaders, see what stores they had come to acquire, and quickly mark the crate containing Ratua so that it appeared to contain the same items. Once this was done, the droid “borrowed” a null-g platform and moved the crate onto the supply vessel. Nobody stopped it—there was no reason to do so. Even if there had been a living security agent on the cargo ship, a mechanical loading a crate of machine parts would be what he expected to see, and that’s what he would see.