Star Wars_ Death Star - Michael Reaves [60]
One of the men he’d pegged as ground-pounders said, “I c’n handle m’self okay.”
Stihl gave him a welcoming grin. The ground-pounder was taller, heavier, and he did look like a man you wouldn’t want mad at you. Vil had the feeling, however, that that wasn’t going to make a whole lot of difference to Sergeant Stihl.
“Okay,” the instructor said. “Come and show me something. Knock me down and I’ll buy your drinks for the next month.”
The ground-pounder grinned at that. “Comin’ right up, Sarge!”
Vil thought, This’ll be interest—and before his mind could finish the thought, it was over. The big ground-pounder stepped in, swung a punch that would have dented quadanium plate, and a second later was lying flat on his face.
Vil didn’t have a clue what the sergeant had done to cause it. He’d just made some kind of fast sidestep and what looked like a wave of his hands, and bam! the attacker hit the floor hard enough that Vil could feel it vibrate.
Ouch …
There was a surprised murmur from the others that indicated they didn’t know what Stihl had done, either. Bet the next class is a lot bigger once this gets around, Vil thought.
“Anybody else want to give it a shot?”
Much shuffling of feet, inspection of fingernails, and sudden interest in the ceiling. Nobody did, apparently.
“Good.” Stihl reached one hand down and helped the ground-pounder to his feet. “Then let’s get started.”
MEDCENTER, DEATH STAR
Because there weren’t enough medical doctors or droids to go around, Uli found himself, somewhat to his annoyance, doing routine physical exams on new arrivals to the station. Using a surgeon for such work was rather like using a protocol droid to run a water converter—the task would be accomplished, speedily and efficiently, but it would definitely not be the most effective use of the droid’s time and skill.
He gave the diagnoster printout of the just-finished scan a look-over while his latest patient got dressed. The man was human, originally from Corellia, but he’d been eking out a grim existence on Despayre for the last four months. Nowhere on his dossier did it list the reason he’d been banished to that pesthole. Why should it? No point in wasting pixels on a man who, for all intents and purposes, was dead.
The stats were unsurprising: elevated urinary nitrogen, compromised immune system, vitamin and mineral deficiencies, incipient scurvy … borderline malnutrition, in short. The man was lean as a Givin, with no excess fat at all to soften sinew and musculature. He’d been able to survive, but, if he hadn’t been scooped up in one of the regular sweeps for more workers, he wouldn’t have lasted much longer. Now his problems were over, for the short run at least. No more subsisting on boiled knobblypears and roasted ratbats; the mass-produced rations that were the workers’ diet might not be particularly tasty, but they would be nutritious enough to keep him alive and laboring for the Empire.
Until he was, most likely, worked to death.
After the Corellian had been led out by a med droid, Uli rubbed his eyes and asked, “Who’s up next?”
C-4ME-O said, “Memah Roothes, female, Rutian Twi’lek, Ryloth, arrived onstation nine days past from Imperial Center.”
“Coruscant,” Uli corrected the droid. “I always hated that name change.” He glanced at the wall chrono. Nearly eleven forty-five hours; he’d been on his feet since twenty-three hundred.
“Memah Roothes is a civilian contractor whose designation is RSW-Six, subgrade two, Miscellaneous Entertainment and Services.”
“Which means what?”
“She was hired to run a cantina in this sector.”
Uli couldn’t help but feel slightly peeved at the droid. “Why didn’t you just say that in the first place?”
“I did, Captain Dr. Divini. If you had studied your Imperial Designation Manual, you could hardly have reached any other conclusion.”
“I don’t need a droid telling me to read the manual, thank you very much.”
C-4ME-O made a snorting sound.
“What was that?”
“Condensation on my vocabulator. It needed to be cleared.”
Uli grinned and shook his head. “Give me the chart.”
In the exam room,