Star Wars_ Death Star - Michael Reaves [13]
Dressed, Tenn looked at himself in the mirror. A face that was every centimeter the grizzled old navy chief looked back at him. He grunted. He’d joined the Imperial Navy before it was the Imperial Navy, and he expected to die at his post. That was fine by him. A lifetime of military service wasn’t a bad life at all, as far as he was concerned. He left his quarters and headed into the hall.
The Steel Talon was the ninth ship upon which he’d served; on the last four of them his duty had been that of a gunnery chief. An Imperial-class Star Destroyer, the Talon was the backbone of the fleet. Tenn hoped to be transferred, one day, to one of the four new Super-class Star Destroyers that were currently being built. Those were monsters indeed, eight or ten times the size of the Imperial-class ships, which were themselves over a kilometer and a half in length. The SSDs looked like nothing so much as pie-shaped wedges sliced out of an asteroid and covered with armament. Perhaps if he called in the right favors at the right time, he might wrangle an assignment on the next one scheduled to roll ponderously out of the Kuat Drive Yards. He still had a few good years left in him, and who better to run the big battery on one of those monster ships than him? He had his request in, and maybe, if Hoberd got his promotion, he’d put in a good word for Tenn before he left. As long as Hoberd was running the battery, though, that wasn’t likely to happen. He didn’t want to lose the best CPO in the sector, so he said.
Well, thought Tenn, it’s nice to be appreciated. Still, he knew, deep down, that he wouldn’t be satisfied until he could say he’d run the biggest and the best.
Shift change was coming, and officers and crew filled the halls on their way to their duty stations. Even though it would only be a drill, Tenn was looking forward to hearing the generators whine as the capacitors loaded, followed by the heavy vibrations and scorched-air smell as the ion cannons and lasers spoke, spewing hard energy across empty space to destroy the practice targets. To be able to reach out a hundred klicks or more and smash a ship to atomic dust was real power. And nobody was better at it than he was.
Tenn got to the array five minutes early, as always. Fifty meters in diameter, the unit was quiet as shift change neared. He saw Chief Droot and nodded at him. “Chief. How’re we doin’?”
“Shipshape, Gee.” The big Chagrian, one of the few aliens to rise to any kind of rank in the Imperial Navy, glanced around. “You know there’s a surprise drill at eleven thirty hours?”
“Yeah.”
“We cleared the decks, got the caps charged, ready to blaze.”
Tenn grinned. “Thanks, Droot. I owe you one.”
“Nah, I’m still two down—you had the station shining like a mirror on that last inspection. I got a smile out of the admiral himself that time.”
Tenn nodded. Everybody kept track of who owed who what on a ship, and you didn’t let a fellow chief catch flak if you could help out. Even if it wasn’t your watch, it was your station, and what made one look bad made them all look bad. And vice versa, of course.
“Station’s yours,” Droot said. “I’m gonna go get some supper. I hear the mess hall has some berbersian crab on the menu.”
“More likely doctored soypro,” Tenn said.
Droot shrugged. “Yeah, well, it’s the navy, not the Yuhuz Four Star.” He left, ducking to make sure his horns cleared the hatch.
The morning shift crew was already in place—CPO Tenn Graneet wanted his people onstation fifteen minutes early, and if you weren’t, you’d be sorry. Once, and you got your rump chewed like a starved reek was gnawing on it. Twice, and you were looking for another job.
“Good morning, people,” Tenn said.
“Morning, Chief,” came the echo from the crew.