Star Wars_ X-Wing 04_ The Bacta War - Michael A. Stackpole [29]
Tycho led him to the core of the station and punched a button on the wall. “Here at the core we have nine turbolifts: six are for personnel and three are for freight.”
Wedge reached up and tapped a knuckle against the gray duraplast ceiling. “Everything seems shrunk down a bit. I feel like a giant.”
“It is very compact. I think it was built this way to cause stormtroopers problems if they ever invaded.” As the turbolift door slid open, Tycho passed through the opening. “There are twenty-five living levels above the docking facility and twenty-five below it. We’re starting at sub-twenty-five. I’ve got Emtrey working on the moves that will be necessary to clear the last ten sublevels for our personnel.”
“Moving everyone but our people off would make me feel better, since we know Isard will eventually figure out where we are.”
“Agreed, Wedge, but if we send people away she’ll find out about things all that much sooner. Because we hit this station not too long ago, and because Warlord Zsinj evacuated his folks, what’s left behind is pretty much of a skeleton crew. If we do get rid of them, we’re going to have to use our people to perform a lot of nonmission-specific duties.” Tycho winced. “I seem to recall the meal you tried to make out of tauntaun meat on Hoth and …”
“I get the hologram, Tycho.” Wedge frowned. “Do they know there’s danger here?”
“They seem to think that after Zsinj, Isard might be taken as a change for the positive. I’ve spoken with the key employers here, and they know there could be trouble. They seem to think that with us here it’s actually going to be safer because the scum of the galaxy isn’t going to be drifting in every time they have liberty.”
“True, but their revenues are going to be down, and that could make for trouble.”
The turbolift stopped and opened onto the docking facility. Tall transparisteel walls gave Wedge a spectacular view of Yag’Dhul. Though small and dense, the world took on a curious appearance because of the three moons orbiting it and the tidal forces they generated as they orbited in the opposite direction to the planet’s rotation. The atmosphere boiled and swirled, with storms sowing lightning through the gray clouds and flashes of red stone visible even from the station.
“Hard to believe life could have arisen in that maelstrom.” Wedge folded his arms across his chest and shivered. “No wonder the Givin have an exoskeleton and can exist in a vacuum.”
“It’s a good thing they can. Our attack here apparently opened some of the station up to the vacuum, so they used Givin to make the repairs. Everything is fine now, though, with one exception: the old Station Master died while on an inspection tour of the repair work.”
Wedge frowned, recalling an old Twi’lek with a pockmarked face who had been as oily as Darth Vader had been evil. “His name was Valsil Torr, right?”
“I guess so. Apparently he tried to force a Givin task leader to pay him a bribe. They agreed to discuss it in Torr’s office, and there was a catastrophic loss of atmosphere.” Tycho winced. “The Twi’lek was sucked out of his office through a hole the size of, say, a blaster bolt. The Givin lived and patched the hole.”
“So now no one is running the station.”
“The merchants here have formed an Economic Council and seem to be running things fairly well as far as they are concerned. We’ll need to put someone in to control them, but I don’t have a candidate in mind yet.” Tycho opened his arms. “This is the main docking area, which contains ten levels all its own. The middle six deal with cargo transfer and storage. The outer two on each side contain crew housing, some small shops and two tapcafs—home