Star Wars_ Death Star - Michael Reaves [128]
“Dantooine,” she said. Her voice was soft. Defeated. “They’re on Dantooine.” She lowered her gaze.
Tarkin looked up, pleased. “There, you see, Lord Vader, she can be reasonable.” He looked at Motti. “Continue with the operation. You may fire when ready.”
Leia looked up in shock. “What?”
Tarkin turned back to face her. “You’re far too trusting. Dantooine is too remote to make an effective demonstration. But don’t worry—we will deal with your Rebel friends soon enough.”
“No!” She struggled, but Vader held her fast.
Motti smiled as he prepared to give the order. Tarkin was right. Fear was the key …
SUPERLASER FIRE CONTROL, DEATH STAR
Tenn heard the order crackle over the speaker. He couldn’t believe it, but there it was:
“Commence primary ignition.”
He hesitated a second. Could it be some bizarre kind of test? To see if he had what it took?
No, that was foolish. He had already killed the prison planet, hadn’t he? They couldn’t have any doubts about his loyalty, both to the Empire and to Governor Tarkin.
But in a way that made it worse—because it meant the order was real. He was about to destroy yet another world—and it wasn’t a virulent jungle planet swarming with criminals this time.
This time it was a world all too similar to his own homeworld.
He was aware of his CO watching him. He reached up, grabbed the lever. All systems were green.
His crew once again performed their functions flawlessly, adjusting switches, checking readouts, balancing harmonics. All too soon, everything was in readiness. All systems were go.
Tenn felt sweat dripping down his neck, under that blasted helmet. He looked at the timer: 00:58:57.
He pulled the lever.
It would take a second or so for the tributary beams to coalesce. He wanted to look away from the monitor, but he couldn’t.
The superlaser beam lanced from the focusing point above the dish.
The image of Alderaan on the screen was struck by the green ray.
It took no more than an instant. Tenn knew that the beam’s total destructive power was much bigger than matter-energy conversions limited to realspace. At full charge, the hypermatter reactor provided a superluminal “boost” that caused much of the planet’s mass to be shifted immediately into hyperspace. As a result, Alderaan exploded into a fiery ball of eye-smiting light almost instantaneously, and a planar ring of energy reflux—the “shadow” of a hyperspatial ripple—spread rapidly outward.
The timer read: 00:59:10.
So little time. So much damage. It was incredible.
If, somehow, the Rebel Alliance were to win this war—not that Tenn Graneet could see how that would be possible, given what he had just witnessed, what he had just done—then surely this act would condemn his ashes to the deepest pit they could find after he was executed.
It was his job, and if he hadn’t performed it, someone else would have, but his belly roiled with the enormity of what pulling that lever had caused.
Billions of lives snuffed out. Just like that.
There was no sense of triumph in it, none. He had not destroyed a Rebel base or a military target. Instead, a planet full of unarmed civilians had been … extinguished.
And he had done it.
It made him feel sick.
G-12 BARRACKS, SECTOR N-SEVEN, DEATH STAR
Nova was taking a sonic shower to relax before trying once again to sleep when he felt a roar in his head—soundless, but nevertheless so loud that it knocked him completely unconscious.
When he awoke, he was lying on the floor of the shower plate, the hum of the sonics still vibrating his body. His nose was bleeding, and his muscles tremored and shook as if he’d been hit by a stunner on maximum. He could barely stand.
Something had just happened. Something terrible.
60
MAIN CONFERENCE ROOM, COMMAND CENTER, DEATH STAR
The Imperial officer strode into the room, his boots echoing on the polished deck. Tarkin sat at the opposite end of the conference table, and Vader had taken a position near the wall to the left of the door. No