Death Star (22 page)

The same dream.

This was the fourth time he’d had it since he’d transferred onto the battle station. There were slight variations in it—sometimes he was fighting alone; sometimes there were more guards, sometimes fewer. The last time he’d had it he’d been crisped by the laser’s energy beam and “died.” That had been bad.

Maybe I should have the medics check me out
, he thought.

Yeah. Right. And wouldn’t
that
look good on his record? Bad dreams?
What kind of tough-guy martial arts expert are you, Stihl, going to see the doctor because of a dream?

He shook his head. No. He wouldn’t be doing that anytime soon.

Besides, it didn’t happen that often. He was usually able to go back to sleep, and he never had a repeat of the dream on the same night. Nova shrugged. Most likely it was something that the filters would eventually strain out of the air. Nothing to get all in a lather about. He’d start practicing one of the mind-clearing meditations he knew before he went to bed. That might help.

If not, well, he could learn to live with it. But that sure wasn’t his first choice.

“C
ome up with a name yet?” Rodo asked as they looked around the inside of the finished cantina.

“I think so.” Officially it was going to be given a deck, area, and room number, but unofficially people liked descriptive names. Her Southern Underground establishment that had burned had been “the Soft Heart.” This new one, while she didn’t own it, was hers to run, and given where it was and the patrons who’d frequent it, Memah thought a variation on the old name would fit.

“I’m calling it the Hard Heart.”

Rodo nodded. “Works for me.”

The construction droids and a couple of Wookiee supervisors had worked quickly, but as far as she could tell they’d done a good job. Rodo had inspected bits and pieces and seemed satisfied. The basic layout was the standard military pub/cantina model she’d seen in dozens of places throughout what was now Imperial Space. The main room was more or less square, with the bar running nearly the length of the east wall. In the northeast corner was a small stage, just in case they were lucky enough to get live talent for skits or music, or in case some of the drunker patrons felt moved to render heartfelt versions of their favorite songs. Unisex/unispecies refreshers were sited off the northwest wall, and a manager’s office next to those. There were three entrances—one each on the south and north
walls, plus an emergency exit on the west wall behind the bar.

Twenty tables filled the room, bolted to slides inset into the deck, each with half a dozen low-backed stools adjustable for height. If a large party came in, as many as five tables in any row could be scooted together into a larger module. The stools could be also moved, but normally were held in place with electric locks controlled by the tender from behind the bar. People could adjust seating as necessary for their size or number, but once all was in place the tender could flip a switch and lock the stools. That way, if the crowd got rowdy, they wouldn’t be using the furniture on one another. Not that such a scenario was likely with Rodo on the job, but better safe than trashed.

The consumables were all behind the bar, on shelves running up the wall or underneath the counter—liquor, puffs, eats. Food was generally pull-tab heated modmeals; you could live on them, but that was about all. A cantina was not the place for fine dining.

The ceiling and tabletops had blowers and vacuums built in, and the table’s units could be controlled either at the table or by tenders or servers at the bar. If the boys at table six were smoking pickled rankweed and producing billowing clouds of fragrant, intoxicating blue smoke, they could adjust the vacuums so it didn’t drift like fog over the girls at table seven, who were licking up spirals of kik-dust, or the drinkers at table five chugging down steins of Andoan ale. The air scrubbers weren’t 100 percent, of course, but effective enough.

The serving droid, SU-B713, aka Essyou, rolled up, looking very much like a large domed ale can. Essyou had been programmed with a feminine vocabulator: “Stocks are topped off, boss. We are ready to soak and smoke.”

Memah smiled. Whoever had programmed SU-B713 must have had fun doing it. “Good. Run a final check on the credit interface, make sure all the readers are online.”

A multicolored light array sparkled on the droid’s computer screen. “Copy, money readers are green and mean. I’m going to go run internal systems checks and then defrag, keep my drive alive.”

After the droid rolled away, Rodo said, “Professional comedians starving on the HNE circuit and we get a head server droid who does stand-up.”

“Hey, if it keeps the troops happy.”

“Yeah, but how am I going to get my workouts if the patrons all behave themselves?”

She grinned. “Come on, you can help me adjust the scrubber in the oversized ’fresher stall. We get a couple of Hutts or a Drack in there, we don’t want the air circ to be overwhelmed.”

With the last few tasks completed, they were probably as ready as they were going to get, Memah decided. Everything she could think of had been seen to as best as could be managed, but she was still a little nervous. A new cantina opening was a fluttery-gut thing at best. True, it was just a cantina, nothing huge in the cosmic scheme of the Galactic Empire, but when it was
your
cantina, you wanted it to go well. A station like this would be around for decades, and a good reputation out of the box never hurt business. She was, after all, getting at least a small piece of the action, and the better things went, the more she would make.

“Systems reports are all normal, Admiral.”

Motti nodded. This tiresome business on the ship had to be done, of course, but he wanted to get it done quickly and return to the station. He felt an almost superstitious concern when he was off-site for very long. Yes, Tarkin was
the Moff, and he was in charge, but the real running of the station fell to Motti—as well it should. No man in the Imperial Navy had more of an interest and investment in the “Death Star” than Admiral Conan Antonio Motti.

The captain reporting saluted and departed, and Motti glanced up at the chrono inset into the bridge wall. In another hour he could leave, shuttle back to the station, and get back to important functions. Because, superstition aside, there were also practical, real-world reasons for Motti to be wary of long enforced absences from the station. The biggest being that he didn’t trust General Bast or General Tagge.

Both were officers from the Imperial Army contingent, and technically both outranked Admiral Motti, despite the fact that the station was a navy venture. Tarkin, of course, being Grand Moff, was above the petty distinctions of service branches. He outranked everyone.

Motti feared Tagge the most. The House of Tagge was an old and wealthy family, well respected in the corridors of power back on Imperial Center. Tagge held sway with the Emperor, and he knew how to use it. He’d used it to land his current position as adviser to Tarkin.

Bast, Tagge’s subordinate, was also a focus of worry. Although possessed of no personal aspirations beyond serving the Empire, he was loyal to both Tagge and Tarkin, and might become an obstacle at some future point.

Motti had tried to enlist Tarkin, subtly, in the idea that the man who controlled the battle station, once it was fully operational, would effectively be the most powerful person in the galaxy. It was true that the Emperor and Vader supposedly had that mystical connection with the Force, and Motti well remembered, as a young man, witnessing firsthand some of the astonishing accomplishments of the Jedi during the Clone Wars. But not even superhuman abilities could stand against a weapon that could blow a planet to pieces.

In any event Tarkin had either not picked up on the hints or, more likely, he had, but had chosen to keep his options open—and to himself. No matter. If Tarkin wanted to pretend loyalty to the withered old man who sat at the head of the Empire, that was fine—for now. Motti knew the ins and outs of the station better than anyone. And he had developed a certain loyalty among the senior officers. Eventually, the time would come. If Tarkin wasn’t with him, then it was the Grand Moff’s misfortune. The risks were high, but so were the stakes. To be the ultimate power in the galaxy—maybe the universe? Who could walk away from that, given the chance to have it?

“P
ull up, Kendo!” Vil Dance said. He waited for the acknowledgment, but none seemed to be forthcoming. “Lieutenant Kendo, have you gone deaf?”

Vil’s own TIE vibrated as he leaned into the sharp turn, port and “up,” accelerating hard to avoid the robotic target drones grouped in a tight formation only six hundred klicks ahead of him.

“Pulling up, sir,” Kendo finally said. Through the comm-set, the man’s voice sounded—what? Laconic?

No, more like … 
bored
.

Vil watched Kendo’s ship peel away from the course that would have smashed him into the drones in another two heartbeats.
A sliver is as good as a parsec
, the old pilots’ saying went, and while that might be true, following orders was more important.

A fact that new recruit Lieutenant Nond Kendo badly needed to learn.

The rest of the squad hung back a few hundred klicks, watching the newbie Kendo and the veteran Dance as they made their first warm-up run at the targets. They kept the chatter down, because it didn’t take a petahertz processor to see that their squadron leader was ready to bite somebody’s head off and spit it halfway to the Core, given this newbie’s performance.

They all thought they were the hottest pilots to ever lay hands on a stick when they first arrived, every one of them. Vil had felt the same way. But he had learned pretty quickly that when the squad leader told you to do something there were reasons, and if you decided you knew more about flying than he did, it could cost you. Severely.

There was no way he was going to have anything less than perfect performances on his first few weeks at his new assignment. He’d shipped over from the
Steel Talon
to the Death Star only a couple of weeks before, and he wanted to make sure that the brass had no reason to rethink their decision.

This was a simple training exercise; each of the squad members got solo runs at the target drones, with Lieutenant Commander Dance behind them, looking over their shoulders. The first pass was to check range and distance. On the second, it was targeting lasers only—you painted the target, got the kill electronically, and the squad leader rated your run. Only on the third pass did you get to shoot for real. The drones—old freighters refitted for naval exercises—were heavily armored, and it would take a lot more than a blast from a single TIE to seriously damage them, so a dozen squads could hit them before they had to be repaired; the Imperial Navy thus saved a few credits. Where you put your shot was important, and you learned how to do it by full-speed runs and full-power guns—but only in steps and by the numbers.

Vil had seen Kendo’s targeting lasers sparkle on the lead drone, and the practice shot had been pretty good to his eyes. He checked his ship recorder on the second run’s completion, and it confirmed his opinion as they curved around for the third and final run.

Okay, fine, the kid could shoot. Which got him no slice at all in Vil’s eyes—he was still a potential supercritical reaction.

“Listen up, Kendo, and pay close attention. You fire five
seconds out, target the aft sensor array, and break off
immediately
, you copy?”

There was a two-second pause, then: “Ah, copy, Squad Leader. Request permission to target the aft pilot port. I can hit either gun—you call it.”

“I am sure you can, Lieutenant, but that’s not the
assignment
I just gave you, is it?”

Another pause. “No,
sir
.”

“Good. You’re teachable, at least. Now bring it around and let’s run it by the book.”