Star Wars_ The Jedi Academy Trilogy 03_ Champions of the Force - Kevin J. Anderson [85]
Han listened to them talk but devoted most of his thoughts to his family. “I just want to go home. No more side trips.”
The Falcon sped away from the wispy corona of escaping air toward the large moon. Once leaving the turbulent atmosphere of Kessel, they coasted smoothly in the vacuum of space as if on glass.
Suddenly an alert flashed on their communications panel from the moonbase. “Warning! We’ve detected a large vessel approaching Kessel—and I mean large.”
Han reacted instantly. “Lando, check the scanners.”
Lando stared at the copilot station and sat up quickly, his eyes as big as viewports. “Not just large,” he said.
Han could see the globe-shaped object through the viewport. Spherical, but skeletal, crossbraced and arched with giant girders. The size of a miniature moon.
“It’s the Death Star.”
The repairs took longer than expected, much to Tol Sivron’s frustration, but the prototype was finally ready to approach, and attack, the nearest planetary system.
Sivron shifted in his seat, pleased to observe the stormtrooper captain giving all the right orders. Delegating responsibility was the first lesson of management. He liked sitting in the pilot’s chair while others did the work.
Squat, bald Doxin leaned forward from one of the other chairs. “The target is coming into view, Director Sivron.”
“Good,” Sivron said, looking at the streaked atmosphere fuzzing around the planet and its close-orbiting moon.
“There seems to be significant ship activity in the area,” Yemm, the Devaronian, said. “I’m tracking and documenting it for posterity. We’ll want a careful record in case we need to file a report on the performance of this prototype.”
“It’s a Rebel base,” Tol Sivron said. “No doubt about it. Look at those ships. Look at its position. This must be where our prisoner Han Solo came from.”
“How can you be sure?” said Golan da.
Sivron shrugged. “We need to test this Death Star, right? We’ve got a handy target right here—so it might as well be a Rebel base.”
The stormtrooper captain sat at the tactical station. “We’re picking up numerous alarms from the moonbase. It appears to be some sort of military installation.”
A flurry of ships departed from a large opening in the moon, spewing a random collection of well-armed and fast cruisers around Kessel.
“They can’t get away from us,” Tol Sivron said. “Target the planet. You may fire when ready.” He smiled, and his pointed teeth formed a serrated edge against his lips. “I’ve got a good feeling about this.”
Doxin grinned in breathless delight. “I never thought I’d get a chance to see this weapon in action.”
“It’s never been calibrated, you know,” Golanda said with a sour expression.
“It’s a planet-destroying superlaser,” Doxin shot back. “We can turn that whole world into rubble. How well does it need to be calibrated?”
“Targeting now,” the stormtrooper captain said.
In shielded firing chambers below, lit only by flickering blazes of colored light from complex control panels, other stormtroopers functioned as Death Star gunners, after having been told to scour the instruction manuals.
“What’s taking so long?” Tol Sivron fidgeted against the uncomfortable fabric of the command seat.
Suddenly the white-noise background hum of the operating systems dropped an octave. The lights dimmed on the panels as the prototype consumed an incredible amount of energy.
Out the front viewport, past main support struts that arched like giant steel rainbows over their heads, smaller superlaser beams fired out of the Death Star’s focusing eye, phasing together at the intersection point. The green beam gained in power and lanced out in an immense blast, greater in diameter than a starship.
Its target erupted in a blaze of smoke, fire, and incandescent rubble.
Tol Sivron applauded.
Yemm took careful notes.
Doxin let out a cry of triumph and amazement.
“You missed,” Golanda said.
Tol Sivron blinked his small dark