Star Wars_ Death Star - Michael Reaves [115]
Well, no matter. Even though the ship wasn’t quite ready for full-scale battle maneuvers, Motti would have it running well enough in a matter of days.
What target did the old man have in mind, though? There weren’t any to choose from here; they’d pretty much scoured the system clean. There were two Bespin-class gas giants, one in an outer orbit, the other a sun skimmer, but they were too big to be practical. They needed a solar body at least big enough for its own gravity to crush it into spherical shape. Something that size would be the only way to calculate how powerful the beam would be at a third of its projected strength.
CUBE 24556, RESIPLEX 19, SPRAWL 20, DEATH STAR
Vil leaned back on the couch next to Teela, feeling distracted. “So how was your shift?” he asked.
“Pretty good. The crews finished two sets of officers’ quarters, another five-hundred-person barracks, and a rec center. It’s amazing to stand on an overlook and see these things just sort of appear in a matter of days.”
“Sounds like you’re pleased.”
“Oh, I am. It’s not the job I would have chosen, working on a battle station, but it’s what I’ve been handed. And there is a sense of accomplishment in taking a standard design and tweaking it so it costs less and works more efficiently.”
“That’s great. Congratulations.”
“What’s wrong?”
He looked at her. How could she know? He hadn’t been in all that many relationships, and the ones he’d been in had usually been short and shallow. Teela noticed things that none of the others had seemed to catch.
“Nothing.”
She grinned at him. “You might be able to fly, Vil, but that won’t. What’s up?”
He shifted uncomfortably. “I can’t really talk about it.”
“You mean the battle yesterday?”
“How do you know about that?”
“It’s a big station, but people do talk to each other. Word gets around.”
He signed. “Yeah, I guess. Well, I was part of it.”
“And?”
“I made double ace. You know what that means?”
“No.”
“I shot down ten enemy fighters.”
She sighed. “I’m not a fan of war, but that’s your job, isn’t it? Wouldn’t congratulations be in order?”
“Yeah.”
“But?”
Vil looked at her. Could he really talk about this with her? Yes, he decided. He could. There really was something different about her, something that said she would understand, even if she didn’t necessarily approve.
“It wasn’t as much fun as I always thought it would be.”
She looked at him with an unreadable expression. “I wouldn’t think that killing people would be.”
“You can’t think of them as people, just as the enemy. It’s not that. It was … too easy.”
She leaned back and blinked at him. “Too easy?”
“It was like shooting at targets. They were so intent on getting to the station, they didn’t offer much of a fight. We cut them to pieces.”
“I don’t get it. You wanted them to shoot at you?”
“No, no. Well—yes. I mean, I wanted to survive, of course. I wanted to win, but I wanted it to be … I know it sounds stupid, but I wanted to have to work harder.”
Teela sighed. “I understand.”
He looked at her in surprise. “You do?”
“Sure. Nobody wants to skate along the easy path all the time. You wanted a challenge, so you could feel like you’d accomplished something.”
“Yeah. Sometimes long odds are the only ones worth playing.”
“Well, I can’t say I’m sorry it wasn’t more dangerous. Besides, I assume there’ll be more battles—”
Vil shook his head. “Maybe not. Knowing that Tarkin could just pull up and blow the whole world right out of the sky? I think wars are going to be a thing of the past pretty quick.”
Teela looked puzzled. “And that’s bad because …?”
“Well, it’s not—not for civilization, of course not. Big picture and all that. But for fighter pilots? We’re going to