Star Wars: Death Star

It was a pity that most people didn't actually go to libraries anymore, not when they could sit in the comfort of their own quarters and access files electronically. Want to read the new hot interstellar caper novel, or the latest issue of Beings holozine? Input the name, touch a control, and zip - it's in your datapad. . . . There were, of course, old-fashioned beings who would still actually trundle down to where the files were. On some worlds the most ancient libraries kept books - actual bound volumes of printed matter - lined up neatly on shelves, and readers would walk the aisles, take a volume down, sniff the musty-dusty odor of it, and then carry it to a table to leisurely peruse. There weren't many of those readers left, and they were growing rarer all the time . . . But there were some who still knew how to actually turn a page - and for those who were willing to do so, the rewards could be great indeed.

Hey, I don’t make the rules, I just work here. You have a complaint, take it up with the Emperor.

And concepts rejected when they came from someone else often looked better when rethought as one’s own. Even the Emperor, it seemed, was not immune to that particular hubris.

Vader’s burned face twisted into its unseen, stiff smile. Once again, Tarkin had been overconfident, so certain his beloved monster was proof against anything. A fly could sting you if you missed swatting it.

As it sometimes happened, the good suffered for the faults of the bad.

This latest shift didn’t really matter all that much: Republic, Empire, it was six to one, half a dozen to the other. It meant little to the average person struggling to make a life. Either form of government could make the mag-levs run on time, and both stepped on individual rights far more than they should. As far as Atour was concerned, the best government was that which governed least. Something a step or two above anarchy would be ideal. Now there was a power-hungry Emperor running things. Both history and personal experience had taught Atour that in as little as a few years, or as much as a few centuries, there would come evolution - or revolution - and this, too, would pass. The new rulers would start out full of promise and hope and good intentions, and gradually settle into mediocrity. A benevolent but inept king was as bad as a despot.

She was working for the Empire, a thing she had sworn she would never do, helping design a vessel that would, in all probability, be the most fearsome weapon the galaxy had ever seen. While it was true that improving the biometrics and seating pattern in an assembly hall was not the same as devising a superlaser that could melt moons, still… Still, one was either a factor in something’s success, or a factor in its failure. Working for the enemy, said the little voice she sometimes heard in her head. She often visualized it as a miniature version of herself, shaking a chastising finger. How sad is that? Not as if I had a choice, is it? she replied mentally. Nobody asked me if I wanted the job, now, did they? You could have turned it down, the avatar of her conscience shot back. And been sent back to that serpent’s nest of a planet to rot and die? To what end? Her inner self fell silent.

What do you think, Kaarz?” Standing next to him in the recently pressurized but still-cold office annex, Teela knew she was once again being tested. Every time she was around the Old Man, he did that. She’d heard that it took awhile for him to trust you - but once he did you were golden in his eyes. It seemed that everybody worth the salt in their bodies who worked for him wanted him to feel that way. And why shouldn’t they? A missive of recommendation from Stinex, even just a line or two, was worth just about any conceivable torture one could imagine and endure. It was a ticket for the hyperlane that could lead to wealth, fame, and the most desirable thing of all: Freedom. The freedom to design what one wished, to give free rein to one’s artistic expression, to create something that might truly outlast the ages, that might - Teela realized that the Old Man was waiting patiently for an answer to his question.

Someday, if he lived long enough, Atour intended to write a history of the times that had begun with the Clone Wars and run through the current conflict between the Empire and the Rebel Alliance. Of course he had to wait and see who won before he could get to that part, but he was always on the lookout for research material. The plans for this battle station, upon which the war-in-progress might well hinge, certainly seemed worthy of a place in that research. He’d have to write the account under a pseudonym, of course. No matter which side won, they would want to have words with the author of such a tome, which would hold both sides up to a bright light that would flatter neither. Likely the information would be suppressed, but that didn’t matter. There would always be copies of it floating around, and beings who wished to know its contents. Knowledge was like that - once it was ushered into the light, putting it back into the shadows was difficult, if not impossible.

called?—who’d been self-aware enough to play sabacc and gloat over the winnings. It had had a sarcastic circuit a klick wide. Uli

Peace is found neither in hot blood nor in cold sweat,” Nova said.