Death Star (33 page)

“Since I joined up. Eleven standard years.”

“Okay. So the stress level now is what? More, less, the same?”

“A little less, actually. I was posted dirtside before. Some
real touchy types on Despayre, most of ’em crazier than a rabid Shistavanen. Guys detained here on the station are generally military or civilian contractors who got too frisky or greedy. Not many career criminals. Easier to deal with, ’cause they got more to lose.”

“Okay. Recreation?”

“I do martial arts.”

“Getting hit in the head more than usual?”

Stihl laughed. “Other way around. I’m the teacher—I don’t get tagged, much.”

“Anything new or different so far as diet? Alcohol? Quarters? Relationships?”

“Not that you’d notice. I get along with my unit, eat the same stuff I usually eat, don’t spend my time drinking. Basic barracks are the same all over the galaxy; I share a cube with a few other NCOs; they aren’t any trouble. I tend to serial monogamy and don’t have anybody I’m seeing right now.”

Subjective analysis seemed normal. “Could be an allergy. Lot of construction chaff and microscopic dust floating around before the filters catch it. Let’s do a physical, make sure all your systems are online, run some analyses of blood and urine and stuff like that, do a mag-scan. If we find something we can fix, we’ll fix it. If everything checks out, I’ve got meds that will knock you out like you were hit with a mallet, and guarantee a dreamless sleep for six hours.”

“Sounds good.”

Uli did a physical exam, which was unremarkable. The man was as fit as he had first thought, at least to the trained eye. He had C-4ME-O take the patient to the diagnoster array and run the standard battery of tests, covering all the major systems. The machines were fast; the first results started coming in before the second batch of tests began.

Things looked unremarkable. Stihl was in great shape
for a man his age, better than most humans twenty years younger. Myoconduction, brain scan, EEG, MEG, dendrite function were within limits. Afferent/efferent speeds were slightly better than normal; heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, spleen, pancreas, repro, bowels …

Uli looked at the blood composition readout. Platelets fine, WBC normal spread, hematocrit, hemoglobin, all normal.

Except—

His midi-chlorian count was over five thousand per cell.

Uli blinked. That was unusual. Normal human range was less than half that. He didn’t know a lot about midichlorians; nobody did anymore—most of the research on the subject had been done at the Jedi academy by their own healers, and their records were not available for study. A shame. The Jedi were all gone …

Like Barriss …

He shook his head. He didn’t want to rocket down that particular space lane, thank you. When he’d met Barriss, he’d been up for his first tour in the field, young and idealistic. Now Barriss was gone—and so was his idealism.

This blasted war …

He pulled himself back to the task at hand. Could the high midi-chlorian count be somehow responsible for the sergeant’s dreams? If the Jedi were correct, these were the vital living components that connected everything to the Force. And he’d heard that the Force could sometimes cause strange, even prescient dreams. It seemed to make sense, especially given that it was the only anomaly on the tests.

“So what’s the drill, Doc?”

Uli explained the stats to him. The sergeant looked blank. “Mini whats?”

“Midi. Chlorians.”

“And you think that might be the problem?”

“Frankly, I don’t know. Not my specialty. I’ll check into
it and get back to you, but in any case it shouldn’t be dangerous at your levels. You aren’t going to die from it.”

Stihl looked relieved. “That’s something, anyhow.”

“I’ll give you some tablets that should allow you to rest.”

“Thanks, Doc. I appreciate it.”

“Just doing my job,” Uli said.

After the sergeant was gone, Uli accessed the station’s medical library. Not surprisingly, there was no more to be had on midi-chlorians than he already knew.

Maybe there was a doctor with specialized knowledge of cell biology on the station, or assigned to one of the warships in the area. He started to post a query on the Med-Net, but then stopped. Was this a good idea? he asked himself. The Emperor had ordered a complete ban on any and all data having to do with Jedi and the Force. So thorough had been the revisionism that now, barely two decades after the Jedi heroism of the Clone Wars, nearly every reference in every data bank in the galaxy had been purged of matters and information relating to the order. Most beings born since then knew little, if anything, about those larger-than-life characters whose names had once been on everyone’s lips, and their elders were smart enough not to talk about the subject. The ban, as far as Uli knew, was still in effect. Did he really want to put up a query on a public forum concerning such a highly sensitive topic? After all, Sergeant Stihl seemed to be in no danger, immediate or long-term. He’d never heard of midi-chlorians being associated with any pathology. Did his oath to heal extend so far as to put himself in harm’s way by asking for information on a forbidden topic, especially when the patient seemed to be in no danger?

Yes, he reluctantly decided. If there was the slightest chance that the midi-chlorians were causing, or had the potential to cause, ill health for Nova Stihl, It was Uli’s duty as a healer to pursue all courses of inquiry.

C-4ME-O entered. “Your next patient is ready, Doctor.”

As he interviewed the next patient, Uli realized that, while he’d resented Hotise’s laying additional work on him initially, now he was glad of it. It took his mind off what a moral quagmire the galaxy had become.

“L
ord Vader?”

“What is it, Lieutenant?”

The lieutenant practically stank of fear. Normally that was to be expected and not a problem, for fear was a useful tool. But occasionally it could be time consuming.

“You aren’t afraid,” Vader said, drawing his fingers together to concentrate the Force.

“I’m not afraid,” the lieutenant echoed. The tightness in his face and body relaxed, somewhat.

“You have something for me?”

“Yes, sir.” The lieutenant held up a printout flimsi sheet. “One of your warning flags has been tripped. A surgeon on board the battle station has requested from the local Med-Net information on midi-chlorians.”

“Very well. Leave it here. You may go.”

“Sir.” The man left. Weak-minded idiot he still was, but at least he wasn’t shaking in his boots.

Vader read the new dispatch with interest. He considered the knowledge therein. Why would someone on the battle station be looking for information on midi-chlorians?

Vader knew all about midi-chlorians, of course—he personally had the highest count per cell ever recorded, more than twenty thousand. More than Yoda, and, he knew, more than his erstwhile Master, Kenobi. Which meant that, potentially, he could have a stronger connection to the
Force than anyone. Since most, if not all, of the Jedi were no more, that was all the sweeter, though Vader was convinced that Obi-Wan had remained hidden all these years, as had Yoda, assuming the latter had not finally shuffled off into death. Yoda had been very old, after all, and the defeat and deaths of the Jedi could not have helped him age any easier. He could be dead. But it was unwise to make such assumptions about such a powerful Jedi Master.

Back to the subject at hand. It might be wise to have a word with this medic and see what he was up to. Midichlorians did not normally figure into the medical treatment of most beings. This was unusual.

Not unusual enough to leave his current mission and go investigate, however. Soon enough he would have reason to return to the battle station. He would deal with this doctor and his strange request when he went.

For now, it was time to go again to his hyperbaric chamber, to rest and recharge. There was much that needed to be done in the service of his Master, and never enough time to do it all.

Teela saw the flowers on her desk when she arrived for her shift, a spray of everlilies, rojos, blueblossoms, and purple passions, artfully arranged by somebody who knew how to mix and match them for the most visual appeal. She could smell the spicy, peppery scent of the rojos wafting in the office air currents as she drew nearer.

The card with the arrangement said,
SO WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

That
, she thought,
is a good question
.

There wasn’t any real future for them. He was an Imperial TIE fighter pilot on war duty, and she was a convicted criminal working as a trustee on the biggest battle station
ever designed and built. Their backgrounds were too different, their loyalties too far apart. While it was true that they would both go where the Empire told them to go, and do what they were ordered to do, Teela did so because there was no real choice, whereas Vil gloried in his work.

Construction on the station kept getting faster as the crews learned from the first sections built and were able to build new ones with less wasted effort. Some parts of the process had been so streamlined that the work went nearly twice as fast as it had before. The army of construction droids worked tirelessly, day in and day out; an interior structure that would ordinarily take months to finish with organic labor would often be completed in only a few days. It was amazing and, to an architect, most gratifying to see such constructions appear as if by magic. The only ones who came close to matching the droids’ speed were the Wookiees. Teela remembered an old saying: Give a Wookiee a knife and send him into a forest in the morning, and by evening he would have carved you a table to eat dinner on—and a house to put it in.

They were on schedule in many areas, ahead in many more, and behind in only a few. Teela felt mixed emotions at this. After the station was completed, it would go off to engage the Rebels and help destroy the insurrection, and Vil would be in the thick of all that. And where would she be? Probably back on the prison planet for the rest of her life.

Then again, life was always uncertain. You could get hit by a hovertruck crossing a street. There were myriad diseases that would kill you in short order. Somebody could forget to weld a seal and a decompressive blowout could spit you into cold vacuum, where you’d be dead and frozen solid before anybody came to collect you, if they even bothered. You didn’t get up every morning expecting such things to happen—that way lay depression as deep as
space itself—but you had to know that life was short and there were no guarantees.

So at the moment she had a spray of beautiful flowers on her desk that probably cost a couple of days’ pay, and the attention of a not-unattractive man who wanted to spend his time and energy with her. Today, tomorrow, a month, a year … nobody knew how long they had, so why not seize the moment and enjoy it as much as possible?

Her inner self allowed as how that made sense.
Go for it, girl
.

She moved her hand over her desk’s console and lit the comm. After a moment, the holo came up. Vil smiled at her.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey, yourself. The flowers are lovely. Thank you.”

“We still on for dinner tonight?” he asked.

“Yes. But I’m betting I can do a better fogu than any restaurant on board. Why don’t you come to my cube and let me cook for you?”