Star Wars_ Death Star - Michael Reaves [117]
Tenn felt like he’d just fallen down a pooka hole into some bizarre fantasy world. “For practice? Just to see how well it’ll work?”
“Engineering hasn’t gotten itself together, from what they tell me. They say thirty-three percent power is all they can currently store in the capacitors for discharge. We need to see if that’s true.”
“What’ll it do?”
“Nobody really knows. Nothing has been run up even close to that hot before.” There was an awkward pause. Then the CO said, “You okay with this, Chief? Because I can get Beller or Reshias up here—”
Tenn raised his hand. “I’m good, Cap. Not my job to decide where or when, it’s to put the spike where they want it. Still …”
Still, it’s one thing to vaporize an enemy troop carrier or Rebel base, and quite another to destroy an entire world.
“I hear you, Chief. But that’s how it is.”
“Yeah.” Tenn straightened and squared his shoulders. “When?”
“Test is set up for eleven hundred hours.”
Tenn looked at the timer on the control wall. Two hours. “No problem,” he said.
COMMAND CENTER, OVERBRIDGE, DEATH STAR
Motti wasn’t really surprised when Tarkin told him of his decision, but he immediately saw the potential for problems. He voiced his concerns—circumspectly, of course.
“I understand your apprehension,” Tarkin said. “But I believe the political fallout will be minimal.”
“Still, why risk even that?”
“Because, as you well know, we cannot go into battle without knowing what our biggest weapon will do when we need to use it.”
Motti nodded. Tarkin was right. One always tested one’s weapons. How and where, however, were different questions.
It’s not your decision, Motti told himself. A fact for which he was profoundly grateful. Aloud, he said, “You’re the Grand Moff.”
“Indeed I am.”
55
THE HARD HEART CANTINA, DECK 69, DEATH STAR
The cantina was closed; the air-purifying system was being cleaned and the ionizers balanced. It was noisy, but with the door closed to her office, the sound of the droid cleaners was muted enough so that Memah and Ratua could have a conversation.
Ratua had the smug smile that she’d come to know over the last few months. “What have you done now, Green-Eyes? You look entirely too pleased with yourself.”
“Merely supplied a basic human need,” he said.
“Right. C’mon, tell Aunt Memah.”
“Nobody got hurt,” he said, a bit too quickly. “Nobody will even miss a meal, trust me here. Everybody is happy. The quartermaster merely diverted a shipment of electronics and holoprojectors that would likely have sat in a storage bin for ten years doing nothing, because everything on this station is backed up at least twice already. The chances of them ever needing any of that gear are close to zero.”
“Uh-huh.” She wondered why she was even bothering to listen to him justifying himself. Theft was theft, no matter the circumstances. But she knew why she listened. As long as he kept talking she could gaze into those green eyes.
“No, look, it’s true. It’s not doing anybody any good, and there is this market out there for entertainment—people are bored out of their heads in some sectors.”
“And what are you going to show on these entertainment systems you, ah, liberated? Skin holos?”
“No, no, nothing like that!” He sounded honestly affronted by the thought. “We’re talking sports, crashball, low-g gymnastics, Podracing. Good, clean, family programs.”
“And why can’t people see those on the station’s regular entertainment communications gear?”
“Well, they can—but those terminals are set up where the designers want them. Think about the poor guy who’s working in some dark warehouse out on the Rim and gone away from any holo-unit. Sodder’s stacking boxes with a grav-loader all day—boring, mind-numbing work. No entertainment terminals there. What’s wrong with him having a little viewer on his loader, so that he can sneak a peek at his favorite team when he has a break?”
“Or ram his loader into a wall because he’s watching the ’proj instead of paying attention to where he’s going?”
He smiled at her. “Well, that’s not my problem. I sell them