CHAPTER 14

Bevel Lemelisk demanded absolute silence as he worked. He had sealed his quarters, hoping the Gamorrean guards wouldn’t bumble in or pound on his door without realizing they had the wrong cabin number.

He settled into a wobbly metal seat; he had knocked it over in anger when he had been unable to complete his three-dimensional crystal puzzle. Getting the right solution meant a great deal to Bevel Lemelisk, and he disliked failure immensely … though it was much better to fail in private than when other people were watching.

Realizing that he hadn’t eaten in nearly a day, Lemelisk had fixed himself a fast, high-protein meal and set the steaming plate of bright orange gruel beside him at the workbench. He didn’t particularly like the stuff, but eating was little more than the necessary refueling of his mental machine. As he inserted the data cylinder into his terminal and began to work, though, he forgot about the meal entirely.

The image shimmered in front of him, a giant spherical battle station, detailed deck after deck, component after component. Only Lemelisk knew its true complexity.

He began to strip away the outer layers of the holo blueprint, removing extraneous levels, streamlining the construction, and tailoring it to the Hutts’ needs. By eliminating the unnecessary Imperial padding, the superstructures, the personnel quarters, Lemelisk could create a weapon with far more energy devoted to sheer destruction.

The outline diagram of the main superlaser core glowed in front of him with bright lines indicating main support girders: the purity of his superlaser design, unmasked by the external shell. That was much better.

He squinted and leaned close to the projection, remembering how excited he had been to see the original construction actually taking place.…

Grand Moff Tarkin had arrived at the Death Star construction site in a nondescript Lambda-class cargo shuttle. He and Lemelisk sat in the passenger seats and discussed important matters as Tarkin’s alien slave, a Calamarian named Ackbar, piloted them toward the huge mass of girders and construction machinery larger than any space station ever conceived.

Lemelisk couldn’t understand why Tarkin spent so much time with the salmon-colored alien, whose fishy smell and large round eyes made Lemelisk queasy. Tarkin had crushed the world of the Mon Calamari and forced the strange creatures to serve his will. Now he made Ackbar his personal aide as another means of whipping him, tormenting him with the duties he resented so much.

Completely broken, Ackbar meekly followed Tarkin’s every order. He guided the Lambda-class shuttle with wooden talent, chauffeuring them with as little enthusiasm as possible. Lemelisk noted that, though the alien reacted little, Ackbar seemed to hang on every word Tarkin said, as if storing information for whatever possible use a slave might make of it.

The Death Star construction hung in orbit around the penal world of Despayre in the Horuz system. The Outer Rim territories were Tarkin’s personal stomping grounds—and he stomped as often and as hard as possible. The world below was a deep green, fissured with blue and brown rivers and shallow seas. Despayre looked far too calm to be a hellish prison planet, but Lemelisk knew the prehistoric jungles there writhed with vicious insects and predators, poisonous plants, and carnivorous crustaceans. The convicts huddled within the walls of their fortresses, hoping never to be exiled to the wilds.

The penal colony provided a ready pool of willing labor to build the Death Star. The volunteer lists carried five times as many names as the site could possibly support, and thus the workers in the space facility were expendable—but unfortunately they were also uneducated and surly, completely untrained for the type of sophisticated labor the project required.

Lemelisk directed the routine operations from his comfortable remote station. As chief engineer, he watched the progress reports to make sure all the components fit together properly. He didn’t like to venture out into the hazardous construction area, however—he wasn’t a hands-on manager.

Now, though, as Ackbar piloted the Lambda shuttle directly into the forest of girders, Lemelisk looked around, seeing bright flashes of laser welders and the glowing ends of newly smelted durasteel plates that emerged from processing plants. Curls of black smoke and the glow of waste heat spread into open space. Steam glittered in a shower of diamond-ice crystals.

When the Death Star was complete, the world of Despayre would be shrouded in an upper-orbital blanket of industrial debris as a side effect of the work. Unfortunately for the convicts, the debris would make passage to the penal colony virtually impossible. Despayre would then be off limits, and the prisoners would have to fend for themselves  … until supplies ran out and the ferocious jungles came in.

“You’re making good progress,” Tarkin said, looking out the port.

Lemelisk cracked his knuckles. “Awe inspiring, isn’t it?” He had seen the plans so often, knew the details so intimately—but the actual construction still took his breath away, making him feel that all his years of exile in Maw Installation had paid off. The small Death Star prototype had been amazing as well, but that was merely a proof-of-concept model. It functioned, but it wasn’t the real thing.

“I will send my report to the Emperor,” Tarkin said. “Keep up the good work, Engineer Lemelisk.”

The Lambda shuttle proceeded through the gridwork of the Death Star and out the other side, then began a slow orbit of the external construction. The focusing eye for the superlaser gaped at them like a large meteorite crater. In the piloting chair Ackbar remained silent. The alien didn’t seem terribly thrilled at the magnificence of this new weapon.

Lemelisk smiled as the shuttle turned around and returned to the base. Everything was going so well. He felt better than he had in years, watching his dreams come to life.

Lemelisk presented the modified design to Durga the Hutt, while General Sulamar brusquely inspected every step of the process, looking over the engineer’s shoulder. Lemelisk spoke as the general pressed in, squinting and scowling. He longed for an opportunity to “accidentally” jab the general in the stomach with his elbow.

“As you know, the original design consisted of a giant sphere,” Lemelisk said, “whose primary purpose was to house the superlaser. All the framework, the decks, the external shell also made it into a garrison for one of the Empire’s largest troop deployments.”

On his floating pallet, Durga reached over to scoop a dripping handful of some blue gelatinous substance from a bowl and slurped it up with his wide muscular lips and tongue. “Mmm hmm,” he said, “we know all that.”

Lemelisk said, “But you don’t need all that wasted space. You don’t require living space for a million crew members. You don’t need TIE fighter hangars, support squadrons, dozens of docking ports—you just want the weapon itself.”

Lemelisk’s stomach growled. He wished he had eaten, though at least he had remembered to shave this time. He brushed the stubble on his chin … or was that yesterday? He blinked, then cleared his throat. On the holo projector, he called up his modified plans and pointed to the new shape.

“As you can see, I have scaled down the outer hull but increased power at the same time. In the original Death Star design, the superlaser formed the axis of the sphere. All the energy of the reactor core was devoted to powering each blast.

“Here, I have taken the superlaser itself”—the image projected the stalk of focusing lenses and high-energy multipliers—“and encased it in a cylindrical shell. Your new weapon will be the superlaser alone, surrounded by an armored hull, with appropriate navigational capabilities and a small outer ring of living quarters. Even with such reduced amenities, this vessel could hold hundreds of Hutts with their personal entourages.”

“But where is the focusing eye for the laser?” Sulamar said, clasping his hands behind his back and leaning forward. Lemelisk saw an opportunity to nudge backward with his sharp elbow, but the general stepped sideways to look from a different perspective.

Lemelisk sighed and answered, “Note the end of the cylinder. I have moved the focusing eye so that the beam can come out the end directly, a straight shot through the long superlaser that allows us to achieve greater energy conversion. We can provide more power to our punch.”

The plans sharpened to actual simulation of the completed weapon, a black armored cylinder rotating in space. As the animation began, the new weapon fired, and a brilliant beam shot from one end of the tube.

General Sulamar nodded. “That looks like one of those old Jedi weapons—the lightsaber,” he said.

Lemelisk smiled, surprised that the pompous Imperial general had seen the connection. “Yes,” he said, “now you understand why I have code named this weapon the Darksaber Project.”

Durga chuckled with pleasure. “A good name, Engineer.”

Sulamar stood stiffly, pondering the possibilities. The expression on his face tightened with anticipation. “With such a weapon we will be invincible.” He smiled wolfishly at Durga. “We can collect protection money, taxes, whatever. We can hold entire systems hostage. No one will be able to stand against us.”

Durga grinned with his huge lips and slurped another mouthful of the gooey blue gelatin. “We can become the overlords of the galaxy!”

Bevel Lemelisk switched off the animation and shut down the glowing plans. “Yes, Lord Durga—you probably can.”