Star Wars_ Darksaber - Kevin J. Anderson [14]
The command deck personnel whirled at his words and cowered as if they had just been browbeaten. Lemelisk noticed that not a single one of them remained seated at their stations. He smelled singed meat in the air like badly cooked morning sausages; his empty stomach rumbled again.
General Sulamar hunched forward as he strode toward Lemelisk. The glittering medals and badges on his chest jangled with a dizzying flash of color. Lemelisk ignored him. The Imperial General—with all his blustering talk of military exploits such as the Massacre of Mendicat, the Subjugation of Sinton, and the Rout of Rustibar—was all hot air. Lemelisk himself had, after all, overseen the construction of the Death Star battle station. How could mere military exploits compare to that?
Seeing the weapons engineer, Durga issued a wordless roar of outrage and annoyance that sounded like a cross between a belch and a boiler explosion. Lemelisk stalled in his confident stride. He had never heard such anger in the Hutt’s voice before.
Lemelisk blinked his pale eyes, and his attention flickered to the bridge windows. He saw the spiraling orbits of rocky debris in the asteroid belt. Then he noticed the sputtering remnants of the two automated Mineral Exploiters that had torn each other apart. His throat felt as if it had been filled with quick-drying duracrete. “Uh-oh,” he said.
Durga eased his repulsorsled closer to Lemelisk, who stood transfixed, trying to think up an excuse faster than the Hutt could do anything that Lemelisk might regret.
“I am most displeased with your performance, Lemelisk,” Durga growled, his birthmark throbbing dark and threatening.
Lemelisk shuddered violently, wincing as the clear and painful memories flooded back to him. The Emperor had said exactly those words just before he had executed Bevel Lemelisk for the first time.…
Shortly after the Death Star was expected to crush the Rebel base on Yavin 4, Bevel Lemelisk had been summoned to meet personally with Emperor Palpatine deep within the Imperial palace.
Lemelisk had been flanked by red-armored Imperial bodyguards as they whisked him off on a high-speed shuttle across the skylanes of the planetwide city. The millions of illuminated windows winked like corusca gems. Each point of light seemed to be another torch celebrating his triumph.
Lemelisk rubbed his jowls, pleased that he had remembered to shave this time. The red Imperial guards were a silent lot, standing at attention like statues. Lemelisk hummed and grabbed his jutting knees as the shuttle approached the enormous pyramid of the Imperial palace.
The guards rushed him down the hall so quickly that their flowing scarlet cloaks billowed around them. When the group reached the door to the Emperor’s private chambers, the guards stood at attention, their force pikes raised, their smooth plasteel helmets obscuring any expression.
Lemelisk jaunted happily into the vaulted room, pleased to see the black-cowled Emperor waiting for him. Palpatine hunched in his chair, reptilian yellow eyes glowing through the oily shadows cast by his hood. The Emperor appeared to be falling into ill health: His skin was blistered and folded in upon itself like a pasty drapery over his bones, as if decay had set in well before the advent of death.
But Lemelisk couldn’t be troubled by unpleasant thoughts right now. He stood on the polished stone floor and made a cursory bow of obeisance. “My Emperor,” he said. “I trust you have received word by now that our Death Star has destroyed the secret Rebel base.”
“I have received word,” Palpatine said and gestured with one long-clawed finger. Lemelisk glanced up at a clattering sound and saw a flexible wire cage released from the vaulted ceiling above. He ducked, but the cage fell squarely down over him, seating itself to the floor as if Palpatine were directing it with invisible powers. The cage was made of fine mesh, the grid barely large enough