Jova smiled and nodded. “A good strategy. We’re never too old to learn new tricks.”
The epicenter of a bustling throng of construction droids, supply ships, and cargo carriers, safeguarded by four Star Destroyers and twice as many frigates, the deep-space mobile battle station hovered in fixed orbit above secluded and forbidding Geonosis. When viewed from mid-system or from even as close as the asteroid belt that further isolated the planet from celestial interchange, one could be fooled into believing that the irradiated world had added another small moon to its collection. Still youthful, the spherical station had yet to grow into the features by which it would be recognized a decade on. The northern hemisphere focus lens frame for the super-laser was scarcely more than a metallic crater; the Quadanium hull, a mere patchwork of rectangular plates, so that one could see almost to the heart of the colossal thing. The sphere’s surface city sprawls and equatorial trench might as well have been dreams.
By the time Tarkin arrived, at the conclusion of his travels through the Outer Rim systems, some of the hyperdrive components had been installed, but the station was far from being jump-ready. Nevertheless, work on some of its array of sublight engines had recently been completed, and those were ready to be tested, if only to determine how well the globe handled.
The project’s chief scientists and engineers had taken Tarkin on a tour of finished portions of the station that had lasted a week, and yet he still hadn’t seen half of it. From the interior of a repulsorlift construction craft, his guides had pointed out where the shield and tractor beam generators would be installed; they had laid out their plans for housing a staff and crew of three hundred thousand; they had described gun emplacements, mooring platforms, and defensive towers that would stipple the gray skin.
Tarkin was in his glory. If he felt at home on the bridge of a Star Destroyer, here he felt centered. The station was a vast technoscape, ripe for exploration; an unknown world awaiting his stamp of approval and his mastery.
While most of the construction work was done in micro-g, omnidirectional boosters supplied standard gravity to a large cabinspace near the surface that would one day become the overbridge, with designated posts for Tarkin and various military officers, a conference room featuring a circular table, a HoloNet booth dedicated to communicating with the Emperor, and banks of large viewscreens. There, in the company of the station’s designers and construction specialists, Tarkin gave the order for the sublight engines to engage.
A faint shudder seemed to run through the orb — though Tarkin thought that the vibration could easily be the effect of exhilaration coursing through him in a way he hadn’t experienced since his teenage years. Then, with almost agonizing sluggishness, the battle station began to leave its fixed orbit. Ultimately it surpassed the speed of the planet’s rotation, emerging from the shadow of Geonosis and moving into deep space.