Death Star (36 page)

“Tributary beam shafts one through eight clear.”

“Targeting field generator, ready.”

“We have primary beam focusing magnet at ten-sixteenths gauss … now fourteen-sixteenths … now at full.”

Tenn scanned his board. All green. Twenty-eight seconds. Not their fastest time, but not bad. “We’re good to go,” he told the CO.

The CO nodded and said to the comm, “Grand Moff, superlaser is primed.”

The Grand Moff’s voice over the comm was calm but crisp: “Then fire.”

The CO nodded at Tenn.

As he had hundreds of times in simulated practice, Tenn thumbed the safety button on the shifter above his head and pulled the lever down. He counted silently:

Four … three … two … one—

“We have successful primary ignition,” the computer’s voice said.

Tenn waited. The target was two thousand klicks away, so the time would be only—

“A hit!” the targeting tech said. There was a pause as he scanned his scopes.

“Well?” Tenn asked tensely.

“It—it’s … 
gone
, Chief. Nothing left.”

Tenn blinked at the report. He looked at the CO, who looked just as dumbfounded.

They had vaporized a carrier three kilometers across—with four percent power on the beam. Just like that.

A cheer went up from the men in the room. The CO thumped Tenn’s back. Tenn grinned in response, but inside, he was still having trouble believing it.

Four percent. The total destructive potential was nothing short of astronomical. The power of a star, at his command.

“W
ell,” Motti said, “it appears that the superlaser works.”

Tarkin smiled. “So it does. But there are still five hundred enemy fighters out there and they have no place to go, so they have nothing to lose.”

“And we already have them outnumbered more than two to one, with TIE pilots itching to shoot them down, and plenty more where they came from,” Motti said. “It’s a cleanup operation now, Governor. They can’t run, and they can’t hide.”

Tarkin nodded. “Give the order,” he said. “Tell our fighters to hit them hard and fast, while they’re still reeling from what they just saw.”

“Sir? Your private channel again.”

Tarkin nodded and took the call.

The man who appeared before him seemed upset. After a moment, Tarkin recognized the man as Daala’s ship runner.

“Yes, Captain Kameda?”

“We were attacked by a squadron of X-wing fighters, sir. We destroyed them, but we took damaging fire.”

“Why isn’t Admiral Daala telling me this herself?”

“Sir, we lost shielding on the bridge. There was an explosion. Admiral Daala was injured.”

Tarkin felt his belly clutch tightly. “How bad?”

“Not life threatening, sir. The medics have stabilized her.”

Tarkin let out the breath he was holding.

“But she sustained a head wound and is … disoriented. There is a piece of shrapnel in her skull. We need a surgeon.”

Tarkin nodded. “Get her to the station immediately.”

“We’re on our way, sir, should be arriving in a few minutes.”

Tarkin broke the call, then activated the station intercom.

Captain Hotise answered. “N-One MedCenter.”

“Admiral Daala has been injured in the attack and is on the way in with a head wound. Have your best team of surgeons standing by.”

“Yes, sir.”

Tarkin sundered the connection. This was not good news. It mitigated his triumph at the success of the super-laser’s first firing. He did not want to lose Daala—that would sour the taste of victory.

And of course, he did care for her …

The first wave of X-wings outnumbered the line of TIE fighters two to one, but they were flying nonevasive—hoping, Vil guessed, to blow right past the defenders.

That wasn’t going to happen. Vil targeted the first X-wing to get within range, fired, and blew it apart, just like that. The enemy pilot never got a pulse off.

With zone defense, you moved around, but you held a certain position within specified limits. The X-wings were trying to get past, not engage. They shot if a TIE was right in front of them to clear a path, but they didn’t deviate from their trajectories. They were intent on the Death Star. That made them easy targets.

What kind of lunatic strategy was that?

Vil quickly took out a second ship, then a third.

Behind him, the battle station had scrambled more TIE ships, and behind the X-wings the Star Destroyers were sending out even more. Very soon the odds would be even, if not in the Empire’s favor.

The flight commander’s voice crackled in his ears: “Alpha One, Beta One, Gamma One, Delta One—break zone and pursue, targets of opportunity!”

Drolan intended for his units to collect as many of the kills as possible, Vil knew. The next wave would stop any who got past, but folks late to the game weren’t going to have anything to shoot at when they got here.

Vil shrugged. If the Rebels were intent on suicide, then his men would be glad to oblige them. He blipped his squad: “Alpha One, you heard the man. Fan out and take ’em apart! Ten-klick global pattern; don’t get too far away.”

He heard the chorus of “Copy, Lieutenant!” as he pulled his TIE around and started chasing the X-wings.

It wasn’t a battle; it was a massacre. The X-wings were so intent on hitting the station that they didn’t fight back. The eighty or so that Vil’s wave couldn’t collect were cut to pieces by the next wave of TIEs coming from the Death Star. The second wave of X-wings didn’t get a single fighter past the Star Destroyers’ TIE squadrons.

When it was done, Vil had ten kills, duly recorded by his nose cam and logged into his file.

Five kills made you an ace. Just like that, Lieutenant Dance had become a double ace, as had more than a few others. The total number of TIE fighters lost was fewer than a hundred.

It had been his first real battle against the Rebels, but Vil took no pride in it. It had been easy.

Far too easy.

“S
ir?” Motti said.

“You heard me, Admiral. We are moving the station. The Rebels knew where to find us, and I won’t allow that to happen again.”

Tarkin had that look on his face that brooked no argument. It was a look that Motti knew well. Nevertheless, it was his duty to point out impediments. “Sir, we aren’t really ready for full lightspeed maneuvers yet.”

The Grand Moff looked impatient. “I know, Admiral. We don’t need to go far; the other side of Despayre will do for now. The Rebels will know that their attempt failed, so they won’t try the same tactic again. No one but the commanders of the Star Destroyers and their chief navigators are to be given the new coordinates—and aside from you and our chief navigator and myself, no one else on this station is to be given that information, either. There are spies among us, Admiral, and while we will eventually hunt them down and remove them, I will not risk this station in the meantime. Understand?”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

“Within the hour, Motti. Leave two Star Destroyers here.”

“By your command, sir.”

Tarkin turned away. “I’m going to Medical. Admiral Daala’s surgery is in progress.”

After Tarkin was gone, Motti considered his task. It made sense to move, there was no questioning that. If a Rebel armada showed up and there was nobody there … well, it was a big galaxy. They wouldn’t know where to start looking, and it likely wouldn’t occur to any of them that their enemies had gone to all the trouble of powering up just to lumber around to the other side of the planet. Every additional hour it took for them to locate the Death Star would be one more hour closer to it becoming fully operational.

And once that happened, the entire Rebel fleet would be powerless to stop it.

That the Grand Moff’s paramour was injured was too bad, but hardly any of Motti’s concern. He held little respect for her as an officer. Without Tarkin’s patronage, she would never have risen to her rank. As far as he was concerned, women didn’t have what it took to command. If she died on the operating table, Motti would shed no real tears, though he would, of course, pretend sadness to keep Tarkin mollified. The old man was a bit touchy about her, and it wasn’t a good idea to get on his bad side. Daala was a distraction; Tarkin cared for her too much. That was another chink in the Grand Moff’s armor, a chink that someday Motti might want to exploit.

Uli was not a neurosurgeon by specialty, but he had learned a great deal about the subject by necessity in operating theaters all over the war-torn galaxy. He’d lost count of the number of hands-on neurosurgical procedures he had done, and he couldn’t even begin to estimate the number of species he had operated upon. If you were the only surgeon available, you cut what needed to be cut.

He was not the primary on this case, only one of the
three-person team of surgeons digging into the admiral’s head. The stakes, as they were keenly aware, were very high. She was the only woman admiral in the Imperial Navy, and she was, according to the scut, Grand Moff Tarkin’s very personal friend. It was not beyond possibility that if she didn’t make it through the procedure, the Grand Moff might have them all shoved through the nearest lock into unforgiving space.

There were seven more surgical assistants in the room—three nurses and four droids. So far the operation was going well. All vital signs were good.

“Okay, we are removing the artifact now.” That was from Abu Banu, the station’s only real neurosurgeon. He was a Cerean, one of the few nonhuman species in any position of authority aboard the Death Star—no doubt because he was one of the best brain surgeons in the galaxy.

“Stand by the pressor field in case we get a bleeder,” Banu said.

Uli, who was running the field, nodded, but he didn’t need to be reminded. They all knew their jobs; Banu was talking for the recorder that was taking it all down. On a high-profile procedure like this, if something happened, somebody would get blamed, and the recording would help pin it down. Sometimes patients died who should have lived, but you didn’t want to be the man held responsible for allowing the Grand Moff’s lover to expire.

No pressure …

A small blood vessel began to ooze, and Uli dialed the pressor field up a hair—enough to stop the seepage, but not enough to put too much pressure on the naked brain upon which they were working.

“Sponge,” Banu said.

One of the droids extended a rock-steady arm and blotted the tiny bit of blood that the pressor hadn’t stopped.

“Roa, dab a little glue on that arteriole.”

Dr. Roa reached in with the applicator’s ultrafine tip and
touched the torn vessel. A tiny bead of orthostat solution welled, flowed into the cut, and sealed it.

“Got it,” Roa said.

Banu straightened, and Uli heard his spine crack. No surprise there; Cereans were notorious for back trouble. It was the price paid for those huge craniums they carried around.

“Okay, crew, what do we think here?” Banu asked. “Uli?”

“The shrapnel went into the hippocampus and adjacent cortex, mostly dentate gyrus. Not much in the Cornu Ammonis fields, or the subiculum, but even so, I’d guess she’s going to have some memory problems. Old ones, maybe making new ones.”

“Dr. Roa?”

“I’m with Divini. Stick a piece of jagged, hot metal into CA-one, CA-two, and CA-three, wiggle it around, and you’ve got definite declarative memory loss. Can’t tell how much or how bad.”

Banu nodded. “I concur. Given the injury, I don’t see any problems with general cognitive function, but expressive and factual material will likely be compromised.”

“Anybody see anything else we need to fix?”

Nobody did.

“All right. Let’s close her up.”

Uli was degowning in the post-op changing room with the other two surgeons and the assistants when Grand Moff Tarkin strode in. Uli’s first thought was,
He’s not supposed to be here
. But—who was going to tell him that?