Free Death Star by Michael Reaves

She had thought that would be his response, but there was no harm in asking. The Old Man had considerable power when it came to design alterations. Several times Teela had seen specifications upgraded and improved to heights well beyond what she had expected. This project had support at the highest levels. While the admirals who controlled the credits were always trying to pinch and hold on to as many as they could, nobody was going to stint on anything that would make it function as intended.
    Too bad the original designers hadn’t had that mandate.
    Teela hadn’t seen all of the master plans—she didn’t think anybody below the Old Man’s standing had seen all of them—but there were plenty of design flaws in the sub-plans she had reviewed. Nothing so major that the place would fail to function or fall apart if somebody bumped into a wall, but enough little bits and pieces here and there said without a doubt that the designers had paid less attention to details than they should have. Another draft or two of the schematics would have corrected most of those; many were being caught and fixed on the fly, such as she had just done—poorly placed entrances and exits, less-than-adequate ventilation systems, thermal vents badly located … the usual minutiae that cropped up in big construction projects. There was just more of it, but thenthere was a lot more vessel for mistakes to happen in, wasn’t there? This Death Star was, after all, as big as a Class IV moon, with a
minimum
of over a million beings making up the crew. Nothing this size had ever been built before … at least as far as Teela was aware.
    What it all came down to was, she would do what she could do. Working for the Empire was bad, no getting around that, but not as bad as living in a makeshift hut on a world that was, for the most part, either jungle or swamp, and whose inhabitants would sooner kill you than look at you. After all, what could
she
do? Architecture wasn’t exactly the sort of exciting and dashing thing that people could rally around. She would, in all probability, just get herself killed if she tried to aid the Rebels. But by doing what she knew how to do, she might actually save a few lives, or at least make those lives more comfortable. Yes, those lives would belong to servants of the Empire, but after all, not every single being here was evil.
    As rationalizations went, that one wasn’t so bad. Her inner self almost bought it.

10

MEDICAL FRIGATE
MEDSTAR FOUR
, POLAR ORBIT, DESPAYRE
    T he secretary droid C-4ME-O stood gyroscopically balanced on its single wheel in the hallway as Uli exited the surgery theater. The procedure had been routine, an operation to graft in a new liver for a Wookiee slave injured in the recent explosion at the construction site. Some of the enslaved species were considered expendable, as there were always more potential conscripts on the planet below, but Wookiees were too valuable to lose, a colonel had told him. They were worth three of just about any other worker, and Uli had already heard it at least ten times since he’d gotten here: if you want a job done right, get a Wookiee to do it. They were able to better withstand the temperature extremes of vacuum, they had more endurance than the other species, and their work ethic was unimpeachable—they seemed incapable of giving less than 100 percent, even on a project they had been conscripted for. The only drawback was that their vacuum suits had to be specially made to accommodate their huge, hairy forms. Uli had wondered why he’d seen so many of them when he’d arrived. He’d soon realized that like himself, they were not here by choice.
    “Dr. Divini,” the droid said, in its pleasing tenor. “How are you?”
    “As well as can be expected, Fourmio. Is there something you need?”
    “I am quite self-sufficient, thank you, Doctor. But Commander Hotise would like to see you when it is convenient.”
    Inwardly, Uli groaned. He’d been pretty