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By Root 587 0

able to build new ones with less wasted effort. Some parts of the process had been so streamlined that the work went nearly twice as fast as it had before. The army of construction droids worked tirelessly, day in and day out; an interior structure that would ordinarily take months to finish with organic labor would often be completed in only a few days. It was amazing and, to an architect, most gratifying to see such constructions appear as if by magic. The only ones who came close to matching the droids’ speed were the Wookiees. Teela remembered an old saying: Give a Wookiee a knife and send him into a forest in the morning, and by evening he would have carved you a table to eat dinner on—and a house to put it in.

They were on schedule in many areas, ahead in many more, and behind in only a few. Teela felt mixed emotions at this. After the station was completed, it would go off to engage the Rebels and help destroy the insurrection, and Vil would be in the thick of all that. And where would she be? Probably back on the prison planet for the rest of her life.

Then again, life was always uncertain. You could get hit by a hovertruck crossing a street. There were myriad diseases that would kill you in short order. Somebody could forget to weld a seal and a decompressive blowout could spit you into cold vacuum, where you’d be dead and frozen solid before anybody came to collect you, if they even bothered. You didn’t get up every morning expecting such things to happen—that way lay depression as deep as space itself—but you had to know that life was short and there were no guarantees.

So at the moment she had a spray of beautiful flowers on her desk that probably cost a couple of days’ pay, and the attention of a not-unattractive man who wanted to spend his time and energy with her. Today, tomorrow, a month, a year … nobody knew how long they had, so why not seize the moment and enjoy it as much as possible?

Her inner self allowed as how that made sense. Go for it, girl.

She moved her hand over her desk’s console and lit the comm. After a moment, the holo came up. Vil smiled at her.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey, yourself. The flowers are lovely. Thank you.”

“We still on for dinner tonight?” he asked.

“Yes. But I’m betting I can do a better fogu than any restaurant on board. Why don’t you come to my cube and let me cook for you?”

PART TWO

SHAKEDOWN

47

CORRIDORS ADJACENT TO DETENTION BLOCK AA, LEVEL FIVE, DEATH STAR

“Sergeant Stihl, we have intruders! There’s a breakout on Level Five, Detention Block AA-Twenty-three. Take a squad and get over there!”

Nova stared at the lieutenant in disbelief. Intruders? A breakout? How was that possible?

“Sergeant!”

No time to wonder about it now. “Copy, sir, on our way! Bretton, Zack, Dash, Alix, Kai, with me! Mahl, Cy, Dex, Nate, on point! Move out, people!”

The squad hustled out of the barracks and into the hall, the sound of their armor rattling as they moved. The corridors were strangely deserted, which Nova chalked up to luck. Fewer people meant fewer civilian casualties.

“Who are we after, Sarge?” That from Dash.

Nova didn’t know. Who were they after?

Well, kark it, he’d know them if he saw them.

“Just shoot who I tell you to,” he told the trooper. Then he raised his voice to include the rest of the squad: “Double-time it, people!”

They ran through the gray-and-black halls, following the four guards on point, their sidearms held up, fingers outside the trigger guards, as per regulations. The ceilings and floors were covered with blaster-proof absorbital, so if somebody accidentally cooked off a round it wouldn’t do any damage. If you carried your weapon pointed at the floor, however, there was a good chance in a crowd that you’d shoot somebody’s foot off, and the walls and vent grates weren’t all that sturdy, either.

The corridor branched ahead. As they approached, Nova was desperately trying to remember which one led to D-Unit when a blaster bolt sizzled through a cross corridor ahead. The four guards on point skidded to a stop, then moved ahead slowly