Star Wars_ Death Star - Michael Reaves [41]
Stenza stopped to look through the window at a lower walkway. Uli moved closer to see what was so interesting.
A group of pedestrians was moving along the wide passage. It consisted of guards, high-ranked officers, and one man in black who towered over them all.
“Who’s that?” Uli asked, feeling like he should know.
“Darth Vader,” Zam said. “He’s here on an inspection tour.”
Uli stared at the tall, black-cloaked figure. He knew about Vader, of course. He’d seen vids of the man—if that was what he really still was under the suit, which looked like it contained some kind of cyclic respiratory system, and probably bionic prosthetics as well, judging by his gait. The stiffness was subtle, but there if you knew where to look.
“Inspection tour?”
“Yes,” said C-4ME-O, who had come up behind them. “This project is of prime concern to the Emperor.”
“And just how do you know this, Fourmio? Tight with the Emperor, are you?”
“No, but I was put into service on Coruscant before it became Imperial Center. I’ve never had a mindwipe, so I have my memories of that time. Droids do sometimes talk to one another, you know. Word gets around.”
Uli nodded. Yes, that was true enough. There was a lot of truth in the old saw that said, If you want to know what goes on, ask the droids. They see, they hear, and they don’t forget. He had known some droids who were every bit as clever and talkative as any natural-borns or clones he’d been around. There’d been that protocol droid back at Rimsoo Seven on Drongar—what had it been called?—who’d been self-aware enough to play sabacc and gloat over the winnings. It had had a sarcastic circuit a klick wide.
Uli watched the procession pass. “Walked right past us, didn’t they?”
“The word is that Lord Vader is not fond of medics,” C-4ME-O said. “Apparently he has had some unpleasant experiences in that area.”
Uli nodded. He could see why. The only reason he could imagine that someone would be stuffed into a lung-suit with a respirator breathing for him would be because his own breathing passages had been terribly damaged and, for some reason, new lobes and trachea could not be cloned and implanted. That would be a strange malady in this day and age, but not impossible. Some kind of autoimmune problem, perhaps. There were those rare people, one in a billion, who would reject their own matched genetic tissue implants—even skin grafts. Had to be something like that, Uli mused—nobody would voluntarily walk around looking like Vader otherwise.
“Supposedly he can kill a man just by looking at him,” Stenza said. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “I heard a rumor that he was once a Jedi.”
Uli nodded. The mysterious Force was fairly amazing when manifested by an expert in its use. Uli had seen it demonstrated by a woman who had been part of the team on Drongar. She had been a Mirialan, a Jedi healer named Barriss Offee. Only a Padawan when he’d met her; later she had become a Jedi Knight. He’d learned a lot from conversations with her, both about the ways of the Jedi and, in broader terms, about life. She’d been strong in the Force, he’d been told. Not that it had been enough to save her. Barriss had died on Felucia, so he had heard, when the clones had turned on their Jedi masters.
The news had hit him far worse than he’d expected. He’d told himself many times, in the nearly two decades since his first posting on that fetid swamp world, that what he’d felt for Barriss had been nothing more than youthful infatuation. It might be true, but he could still see her face in his mind, hear her voice, feel the power that had lived inside her. Even after all these years.
Maybe he hadn’t loved her. Maybe he’d been too young to know what love was, back then. But when he had heard of her death …
So many people he had cared deeply for were dead because of that karking war. Probably some of the Jedi had escaped death, but the official