Star Wars_ Death Star - Michael Reaves [144]
It was the archivist. “Time to take a walk, Sergeant.”
“Copy.”
Nova left his post and started toward the turbolifts.
“What’s up, Sarge?” the guard at the lifts asked.
“Sudden call of nature,” he said. “Those lamitos at the mess hall last night.”
The guard laughed. “I hear that. I’ll keep an eye on your hall till you get back.”
“Thanks.”
COMMAND CENTER CORRIDOR
As Vader strode down the hall, one of his own crew officers hurriedly approached.
“We count thirty Rebel ships, Lord Vader. But they’re so small, they’re avoiding our turbolasers.”
Vader’s burned face twisted into its unseen, stiff smile. Once again, Tarkin had been overconfident, so certain his beloved monster was proof against anything. A fly could sting you if you missed swatting it. He had his own personal wing of TIE fighters on board. He would lead them out, and they would deal with what Tarkin could not.
“We’ll have to destroy them ship-to-ship. Get the crews to their fighters.” His officer knew the command referred only to Vader’s elite fliers. A squadron would be more than enough.
68
ARCHITECTURAL OFFICES, DEATH STAR
Somebody with access or clout or both had installed a first-rate holoprojector in the conference room that had access to external cams, and a small crowd had gathered around the images flashing across the screen.
Teela walked into the room. She said to one of the drafting droids, “What’s going on?”
“The station is apparently under attack by Rebel fighters,” the droid said. “And the station’s gunners seem to be having little success hitting them.”
She nodded. Of course. The turbolasers were designed and timed to track larger targets. She had seen the specs. “Why haven’t they scrambled TIE fighters? That’s what they’re for, isn’t it?”
The droid said, “That is beyond my capability to comment on. I do drawings, not military tactics.”
As she watched, a pair of the attacking fighters, both X-wings, dived into one of the surface trenches, firing all the while.
One of the architects laughed. “They’re wasting their ammunition. Their guns’re too small to penetrate very far into the armor.”
Teela frowned. That trench looked familiar …
She stepped out of the conference room and moved to her office. She tapped her computer console, waved her hand over the reader, and brought up a schematic.
Why would those fighters think they had a snowflake’s chance in a supernova against the Death Star? If they had the plans, like she’d heard, they’d know the ship could withstand anything they could possibly fire at it without sustaining major structural damage—they could shoot themselves dry and whatever harm they did would be repaired in a couple of shifts as if it had never happened.
Something nagged at her, tugging at the edge of her memory. Let’s see, that was the trench that led to the main heat exhaust vent, wasn’t it? Of course that vent was heavily shielded by both plate and magnetics, so no fighter would be able to penetrate it.
So why would they try—if they had the plans, they’d know it would be futile, wouldn’t they?
She blinked and looked closer. Oh.
Oh!
The secondary port, the unnecessary one that she’d tried to keep from being built! It was just beyond the main!
Teela Kaarz was an architect, and a good one, and she had an engineer’s eye. That portal was small, only two meters or so. If you didn’t know it was there, you’d never spot it. The ray shielding at the mouth was minimal, meant to stop stray particle beams. And even if one of those got through, it would be absorbed by the anisotropic walls of the tube before it traveled half a kilometer, so no problem there.
But if something like, say, a proton torpedo were to be fired directly into it …
Her comlink chirped. The sound’s clarity surprised her, because it wasn’t coming from her pocket, where she’d thought she’d put it. She felt a quick surge of panic upon the realization; what if one of her