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By Root 767 0

had stood in his dress uniform during important examinations, staring at the surviving Omwati children as they wrestled with problems that had stymied the Empire’s best designers. Qwi remembered how alarmed they had been when one of her classmates, a young male named Pillik, suddenly fell to the floor in some kind of secure, grasping his head and screaming. He managed to climb to his knees, weeping, before the guards grabbed him. He still grasped for his examination paper as they hauled him away, yelling that he wanted to finish his work.

In silence Qwi and her three surviving classmates went to the window of the educational sphere so they could watch as turbolasers from the Victory-class Star Destroyer obliterated Pillik’s honeycomb settlement in punishment for his failure.

Qwi could not be distracted by consequences. If her concentration faltered, everyone would die. She had to lock away all caring. Problems were pure, and safe, to be solved for their own sake. She could not allow herself to think beyond the abstract challenge at hand.

In the end Qwi had been the only one of her group who made it through the training. She received no instruction in biological sciences, saving her memory space for more physics, mathematics, and engineering. Tarkin had whisked her off to the new Maw Installation and placed her under the tutelage of the great engineer Bevel Lemelisk. Qwi had been in the Maw ever since.

Problems had to be solved for their own sake. If she allowed herself to be distracted by feelings, terrible things would happen. She remembered images of burning Omwati cities winking like faraway campfires from orbit, the laser-ignited wildfires that swept across the savannas of her world—but she had too many calculations to finish, too many designs to modify.

Qwi had salved her conscience by laying the responsibility on others. But the truth was, she created devices that had directly caused the deaths of entire civilizations, the destruction of whole worlds. With the Sun Crusher she could wipe out solar systems with the push of a button.

Qwi Xux had a lot of thinking to do, but she didn’t know how to go about this kind of pondering. This was an entirely new and different type of problem to solve.

Chewbacca stood like a statue, refusing to move and daring the keeper to use his power-lash again.

The keeper did.

Chewbacca roared at the pain lancing across his skin; his nerves writhed in the aftermath of the charge. He raised his hairy arms, seething with the desire to rip the fat, placid man’s limbs from his spherical torso.

Fourteen stormtroopers leveled their blasters at him.

“Are you going back to work, Wookiee, or do I have to nudge the power setting up a couple more notches?” The keeper tapped the handle of the power-lash against his palm, gazing at Chewbacca with a bland expression. His complexion was dusty-looking and bloodless, as if no hint of life had ever passed beneath the skin.

“Any other time I might have enjoyed the challenge of breaking you, Wookiee. I’ve been here fourteen standard years with an entire crew of Wookiee slaves. We lost a few during the process, but I cracked them all, and now they follow orders and do their work. But Admiral Daala insists that everything be in top-notch condition for mobilization by tomorrow.”

He flicked the sizzling green tip of the lash in the air in front of Chewbacca’s face, singeing some of the fur. Chewbacca peeled back his black lips and growled.

“I don’t have time to play games right now,” the keeper said. “If I have to waste any more time disciplining you, I’m going to dump you out into space. Do you understand?”

Chewbacca considered roaring in his face, but the keeper looked serious. At the very least Chewbacca had to survive long enough to find out what had happened to Han. A long time ago Han had rescued Chewbacca from other enslavers, and he still owed the man a life debt. He gave a low grunt of acquiescence.

“Good, now get back to that assault shuttle!”

Chewbacca wore gray work coveralls with pockets to hold engine diagnostic tools and hydrospanners.