From a Certain Point of View Page 26

  The intruders, rebel scum, we now hear, are down in Detention Block AA-23. Were it up to TD-787, we would jettison the whole of the block into space. That wouldn’t be my call. I’d rather look the rebels in the eyes as we blast them into atoms. I would rewatch the logged record of it for a month. I’ve done it before. It’s important to see what you do right. The recordings that we download to the information banks allow for that. I see a look in the eyes of my victims that satisfies me, as if every one of them finally realizes that they should not have refused the succor of the Empire, but now it is too late. Resistance to aid from your betters makes you, as my Alphon was, too stupid to enjoy the gift of life. I wish I had a record of my Alphon from when I sent him to congregate with the ancients of Parsh. I would watch it forever.

  As the moff gives us our orders, I feel a tickle in my skull. The headache had receded nearly entirely but now plants itself firmly into a ridiculous itch. Did I catch something on Tatooine? The mission brief didn’t mention brain parasites, but it looked like the kind of planet to have plenty, and since when are mission briefs perfect? I’ll have to visit the infirmary once I send the targets in AA-23 to meet the ancients of whichever planet they’re stupid enough to be from. Or I would, if that were where we were being dispatched. We’re being sent to a docking station. Control Room 327 has been compromised. We receive orders to investigate the security breach and get comms back online. I hope the insurgents that compromised it are still there. My unit will take them offline.

  I make TD-787 the point man for this assault. This itch, this tickle, is nagging at me, and I’ll be cursed if I let some head flu or parasite from planet Podunk hink the mission. It feels like I’m about to sneeze, but from the back of my head. If I could just go ahead and sneeze already, I’d feel better. For want of that, TD-787 is on point. It won’t be a complex mission. He can handle it.

  He needs to start handling it.

  If he doesn’t call us into formation in five seconds, I’m taking him off point.

  TD-787 calls us into formation. Finally.

  We cross other units on their way to the detention block. MG-26 gives me a nod as he passes. His unit backed ours on Lothal. He’s a conscript but loyal. We take mess together from time to time. We’re due another meal. The moffs can’t tell one of us troopers from another, which is by design. I don’t know if they know that we can tell who’s who, but I’m sure they wouldn’t approve. We recognize one another by how we move. When we run, we may as well be yelling our call signs. There’s SS-922, maybe the laziest stormtrooper, bringing up the rear of his unit, to no one’s surprise. There’s TA-519, the first stormtrooper I ever met, devoted and wise. PD-528 and I came up in the ranks together. He owes me thirty-five credits. He nearly trips on a mouse droid, then he nearly shoots it. On our way to the control room, I see units I’ve fought beside. Units alongside which I’m proud to serve. Units that will exterminate the rebels so completely and so quickly that we’ll all be back in our bunks in no time, watching the feed of whoever is lucky enough to have killed the trespassers.

  We run past that zealot Darth Vader as he exits the office of our boss’s bosses’ boss. I don’t think Vader is a good manager of people. I’m constantly surprised to see him fail upward, but that, more than anything, is the way it goes. There are so many qualified military minds on this base, and they all defer to him. There are so many rumors about what his relationship with the Emperor must be to have such sway. I know better than to care too much about what might be true. As we take the stairs toward the control room, I think a sarcastic May the Force be with you at him with all my might, knowing that there has never been, nor ever will be, such a thing as “the Force.” He swivels his thick helmet to look at me, and my mind races—Oh my ancients, the Force is—The Force is—The Force is a coincidence is what the Force is.

  That’s when, and how, the dam bursts. That itch, the tickle in my brain, floods my skull and crashes into memory. Our mission on Tatooine was to locate and detain a pair of droids, and I saw those droids! An old man fanned his fingers at me and I—I can’t believe this—I let them pass. I didn’t even check his papers. I just sent them through. I have never disobeyed a single order and now I—

  Ow! I crack my head on the threshold on my way into the control room. It snaps me back into the moment. There are dead men all over the place. TK-421 is dead. I didn’t know TK-421 well, but he was strong. He didn’t deserve this. None of them did. Our soldiers are dead, and there is no sign of anyone to punish for it.

  Punishment.

  I will be punished for what I did on Tatooine. I deserve to be. Why would I let them through? Why wouldn’t I check their identification? My own voice echoes in my ears. Move along. I must have a parasite. Maybe I have twin-sun poisoning.

  Panic is unfamiliar. I remember it poorly from when I was a helpling, but it comes back now. Separated from my clan, lost in the woods as the moon set and true darkness set in. It would be hours before the first sun would come, and there was no certainty I would see it. I lose focus and the room goes dark, like the woods. I snap back to attention; these helmets require focus or it can be hard to see in them. TD-787 is doing the job, even if I’m not. He’s flushed a pair of droids from the supply closet. I give them a cursory glance; they are not the droids I’m looking for. They direct us to the prison level, which is where we’d all rather be. It’s all the excuse TD-787 needs to lead the unit to action.

  He leaves me to stand guard, alone with my thoughts. Is there something, anything, I can do about my infraction on Tatooine? Should I report to the moff now? In the middle of a mission? Do I leave my post? There’s no telling how urgent the report could be. Those droids were important enough to dispatch a contingent to Tatooine, the most useless planet in the sector. For all I know those droids hold the key to another millennium of Empire rule. For all I know, those were the most important droids in history. The protocol droid—the one I’m meant to be minding—interrupts my thoughts, bringing me back from Mos Eisley to the control room. He excuses himself and his counterpart. They have to go to maintenance. You and me both, I think bitterly, and wave the droids on their way.

  Again.

  I waved the droids on their way again.

  Recognition smacks me across the helmet. Those were the same droids! Tall, officious goldy and stubby blue. The old man on Tatooine must have spiked my intake unit somehow. There will be time for blame later. For now, I have to catch those droids!

  Before I can report that I’m in pursuit, my comm crackles to life and I’m told to report to command. I no longer feel the tickle in my head. I feel warm, despite my suit’s cooling system. I know with utter certainty that they’ve reviewed my feed. They know what I’ve done.

  My only hope is to redeem myself right now. There! The blue astromech rolls with purpose while goldy struggles to keep up. I raise my firearm. Two shots is all it will take. My call sign rings out in my comm again. I shake it off and take aim. I’ll put a hole through the blue one first…

  “TD-110, lower your weapon,” the moff sighs urbanely, “and do report to command. Are you awaiting an engraved invitation? Consider this that”—he looks at me from the corner of his eye—“and go.”

  “But…” I say, and he stops me with a look. I’m torn. I want to defend myself. I know my future hangs on this moment. I may grumble and grouse when I’m spent and tired, but all I possess in this life is the need to serve the Empire.

  “Further comment is not required, TD-110. All that is required is compliance.”

  I lower my weapon, bite my lip, and watch the two droids leave the docking station.

  PB-106 relieves me of my weapon. He and his unit escort me to command. I know better than to speak unless spoken to, and they know better than to speak to me. I cannot read anything in PB-106’s gait. Not sympathy, not duty, not anger. I’ll never be able to ask, because the moffs have seen the feed, and now they’ll expel me from the Death Star. Probably to some floating ice chunk like Ottinger 7
to spend the remainder of my days shivering and dodging woolly long-tailed tawds.

  I take in the hallways one last time. I love this place. More than anywhere I’ve been, it was home. I swear to the ancients of Parsh and the elders of the Empire, if I have to fight for one hundred years, I will prove myself. I’ll return to the Death Star. I swear I will fight my way back home.

  Commander Pamel Poul rolled her neck and stood from the command chair, lifting the datapad in her hand to check the time.

  Just ten minutes to go. Ten long, long minutes, until the end of another twelve-hour shift of…well, of almost nothing at all. Twelve hours of routine, of protocol, of answering simple queries, giving simple orders. Twelve hours of supervising a skeleton crew as they monitored the largely autonomous, redundant systems of the largest battle station in the history of the galaxy.

  And that suited Commander Poul perfectly. She may have been a career officer, one dedicated more to the Imperial Navy than to the Emperor it served, but she was no warrior. Unlike many of her childhood friends who grew up in a more affluent sector of the Coruscant ecumenopolis, Poul had never had any desire to be a pilot or a field officer. She never had any desire to serve on the front lines—never had any desire to be a hero. Because the business of the Imperial Navy was one of war, and in war, being a hero got you killed. And with the Empire’s struggle against the rebel insurgency feeling like it was about to reach a flashpoint, dying in battle was the last thing Pamel Poul intended to do.

  No. Commander Poul was an administrator. She reveled in the functions of an executive officer: logistics, management, supervision. Yes, it was dull. It could be boring. But she enjoyed her work and, more important, she was good at it—good enough to earn a quick promotion, good enough to be assigned to the Empire’s greatest technological achievement, the DS-1 Orbital Battle Station, as a station commander.

  That the Death Star didn’t require much actual command was irrelevant. The battle station was so vast—160 kilometers in diameter, with a full crew rumored to number more than a million, although the exact number remained classified—that it would be impossible for it to be run from a single control room or command center. What the Death Star had instead was a multitude of command posts, communications posts, and supervisor stations, scattered at various levels across the station sectors, all of which fell under the watch of one of the four control rooms, each positioned mid-level in one of the station’s hemispheres. Commander Poul was assigned to Station Control West, and while it was possible for her to take direct control of the Death Star’s systems if absolutely required, Poul was proud of the fact that hundreds of thousands of station crew in her hemisphere depended on her constant vigilance.

  As she put her datapad to sleep, Poul glanced around the room. Station Control West—like its three counterparts—was a circular chamber, the circumference lined with monitor consoles, at which sat two dozen ensigns and junior officers, patiently staring at monitors, checking readings, the room filled with the constant sound of their murmuring as they quietly spoke into their headsets. Above the ring of consoles, four huge, trapezoidal display screens shone, one at each of the compass points, providing a continuous stream of status information. The data was almost too much to taken in, but Poul appreciated the at-a-glance updates for various systems she was responsible for.

  One of which had been causing something of a minor headache for the last thirty minutes. Poul stepped down from the command dais and folded her arms as she glanced up at the screen directly ahead. On it, a swarm of ever-moving, multicolored indicators representing traffic control for hangars 250 to 350 crawled like zess-flies, but Poul ignored the confusing mess, focusing instead on a red block that pulsed on the left-hand side.

  Docking Bay 327 was on lockdown, all traffic diverted to Bays 328 and 329.

  Flight delays were not uncommon, an unavoidable consequence of the sheer volume of traffic and coordination this required—both automated and manually supervised—between the five hundred different hangars and docking bays that were buried all over the skin of the battle station. Having Docking Bay 327 out of action was, in reality, nothing more than a minor inconvenience, but it would remain an annoying status alert sullying her otherwise perfect shift report unless she could get the diversions cleared in the next—

  She checked the time on her datapad again.

  —seven minutes.

  Poul frowned and headed over to the monitor station beneath the display. Two crew were positioned at their control consoles, one—Ensign Toos—hunched across the controls as he stared at a small square display in front of him, while his companion, Sublieutenant Slallen, leaned back in her seat, arms folded, shaking her head. As Poul approached, neither seemed aware of her presence.

  “Remind me again,” said Slallen. “What am I looking at here?”

  Toos clicked his tongue and tapped the screen with an index finger. “Come on, you’re telling me you don’t recognize a classic when you see one?” He whistled softly between his teeth. “Just wait until I tell your brother when he gets back from Scarif.”

  Slallen cocked her head. “What I do recognize, Ensign, is a piece of junk when I see one. I’m amazed it didn’t break up as soon as the tractor beam got a lock.”

  “Piece of junk? Sublieutenant Slallen, I despair, I really do. That piece of junk, as you call it, is—”

  “A YT-1300 light freighter,” said Poul, resting one hand on the back of Slallen’s chair, “that is currently disrupting the docking bay schedule.”

  Slallen and Toos immediately straightened up, their backs ramrod-straight. Toos cleared his throat.

  “Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am.”

  “Don’t apologize, Ensign,” said Poul. “Just get the docking bay cleared, now.”

  “Ma’am,” said Slallen. “Captain Khurgee still has a scanning crew aboard the vessel. We need an all-clear from the hangar deck before we can lift the lockdown.”

  “The scan still isn’t finished? What are they doing down there?”

  Toos and Slallen said nothing, both junior officers just looking up at their commander. Poul sighed. “Fine,” she said. “Continue monitoring and let me know when Captain Khurgee is done.”

  On the other side of the control room, the turbolift hissed open. Poul turned and saw her shift replacement step out.

  “Actually, no,” said Poul. “You can let Commander Sheard know.”

  Poul turned and gave Sheard a casual salute, which he returned before heading around the arc of the room toward her. Poul handed the datapad to her fellow officer and briefed him on the events of the last shift—in particular, on the status of the mystery freighter currently holding up the schedule down in Docking Bay 327.

  Sheard nodded as he listened, brushing one index finger along the underside of his thick mustache, then he tapped the back of Toos’s chair.

  “Show me the ship, main screen.”

  “Sir.”

  Ensign Toos swung back around to his console. He snapped a switch, and the view of the freighter in the docking bay shown on his console’s screen flashed up onto the main wall display. Toos and Slallen sat back and looked up at the image, while Poul took a step back and tapped a finger on the edge of her datapad.

  “I didn’t even know these things were still flying,” said Commander Sheard.

  Poul nodded. He was right—the YT-1300 was an old ship, virtually a relic. And the example down in Docking Bay 327 was no exception, she thought as she gazed up at the screen. The vessel was battered, the hull carbon-scored in several places, the vector thrust plates that cradled the main drive ports in serious need of not just cleaning but replacing altogether.

  But…there was something else about the ship. Poul had seen a couple of YT-series freighters in her time—both long past their service and certainly not operational—and while she couldn’t remember the exact models, this one looked…different. Wasn’t the sensor dish larger than standard? And the dorsal armament…it was a quad laser cannon. The YT-1300
had weapons, certainly, but a gun like that just had to be unlicensed.

  Poul didn’t know why the ship had been captured and dragged into the docking bay, but there was more than a fair chance it was smugglers, or pirates. That made sense. The ship was modified, customized, far beyond factory specs.

  Although quite what the Death Star was doing policing the hyperspace lanes was another question entirely.

  Poul cocked her head as she looked at the display. “Ensign Toos said you have a brother on Scarif, Slallen? Ship designer?”

  Sublieutenant Slallen turned in her chair. “Naval architect, ma’am. We took starship design together as an elective at the Academy, but he was the one with the talent.” She turned and pointed back at the main display. “You don’t see many working examples of this older kind of ship. I’ll have to send him a data tape, once he’s out of operations.”

  “What’s his assignment?” asked Commander Sheard.

  Slallen gave a shrug. “I don’t know, sir. The operation on Scarif is classified. I haven’t heard from him in four weeks.” She slumped, just a little, in her chair. “We were due to meet for shore leave, but I haven’t heard from him yet. I guess his operation has been extended.”