Star Wars_ Death Star - Michael Reaves [35]
After a few passes, and with what had seemed a slow, offhand, lazy series of rolls and loops, Vader came around, nailed Barvel with his training beams, and it was “Game over.” All the pilots hanging there in space had to reach up and shut their mouths manually.
The ADO looked down the hallway, but no more pilots were inbound. He turned and pointed. “Better get to your ship, Dance.” A short pause, then: “Vader’s good, huh?”
“Better than good. If it was him against me, I’d just overload my engine and blow myself up—that way I’d get to pick my own moment to die.”
What Vil hadn’t mentioned, mostly because he still didn’t believe it himself, was that the mechanic who’d serviced Vader’s borrowed TIE fighter afterward had come out of the bay shaking his head. The nav and targeting comps had been turned off, he’d said. Cockpit recorder showed that Vader had done that before he’d left the dock. So if the mechanic was to be believed, not only had Vader beaten the best pilot in the navy as easily as if Barvel had been a crop duster on some backrocket world, he had done so on manual.
Which was simply impossible.
“Go,” the ADO said. “Hit vac—you don’t want to be late to the party.”
“No, sir.” Not that Vader needs the escort, Vil thought. Nobody here could get in his way.
Vil hurried onto the deck, his mechanic waving him to his TIE. “Been takin’ a nap, rocketjock? Get in!”
As Vil clamped down his helmet and checked his readings, he had a moment to ponder the purpose of the escort. Darth Vader, commanding a big Destroyer. Wonder what he’s doing here?
Had to be something big. You could have a headful of hard vac and still suss that out.
The air lock doors opened. Vil lit his engines and was gone.
14
RECEIVING DECK SEVEN, HAVELON
Tarkin frowned as he waited on the receiving deck for Vader to arrive. It was certainly true that the Emperor could send whomever he liked, whenever he liked, to check on the station’s progress. Tarkin had no reason to be anything but grateful to the Emperor—how many Grand Moffs were there, after all? Who had elevated him to that puissant position and given him command of the most important military project in galactic history?
All that was true. And he was grateful—to Palpatine. But one feels differently toward the one holding the leash than toward the one on the leash.
There was something about Vader that set his teeth on edge. It wasn’t just the prosthetic suit with its mask and breather, nor the fact that he couldn’t see the eyes behind those polarized lenses. Vader had power, both personal and as the Emperor’s tool, and Tarkin’s sense of him was that he cared about as much for a human life standing next to him as he did about a mistfly in the far-off swamps of Neimoidia. Standing next to Vader was like standing next to a giant thermal grenade—it might just go off at any moment.
And the man in black had a temper, no doubt about that. Thus far, he had not unleashed it in Tarkin’s direction, but Tarkin had seen it loosed on others, and those who thought to give Vader grief quickly realized that it was a fatal mistake.
No matter how much people decried the Force as being a superstition that hadn’t saved the Jedi from annihilation, it was real enough to enable Vader to stop a man’s heart or keep the breath from his lungs simply by willing it. Not to mention knocking blaster bolts from the air with that lightsaber of his. True, nothing would be able to withstand the force of this battle station’s armament, once it was operational. But it wouldn’t be fully operational for another few months, and anybody who was both strong enough and foolish enough to slay Vader would have to deal with the Emperor’s wrath—and he made Vader seem like an Iridonian hugglepup.
The shuttle hatch opened. With most military VIPs, there would be an honor guard of elite stormtroopers or even Imperial Red Guards emerging first. Not so with Vader. He strode through the hatch and down the ramp alone, his cape billowing behind him in the wind of his own passage, fearless, not the