Tributary lasers

“His vision of the Death Star was far from complete, but he had enough information now to begin piecing together exactly where he might be. When he passed a sign warning of the presence of Tibanna gas, he was sure of it.

A battle station was no use to anyone unless it was armed—and not just armed with greater numbers of conventional weapons. Something this size was bound to wield a weapon of mass destruction never seen before. Tibanna gas was a rare and highly reactive compound found on some gas giants, like Bespin. When combined with a stream of coherent light, it vastly increased the laser’s output, leading to its use in several advanced ship designs and, it seemed, on the Death Star.

Looking around him more closely, he could see that the machinery dwarfing him could be the components of a massive laser system, one in proportion with the station’s enormous size.

When he reached a laser tube wider across than some small cities, he knew he had found the place his Wookiee guide had been referring to. The system was being test-fired, with dozens of Imperial technicians and weapons experts observing its performance. He had to get past them all, and avoid the beam of the laser itself, in order to reach his goal.

He shrugged, abandoning all suggestion of secrecy in exchange for haste. Too much time had passed. Everyone between him and Darth Vader was irrelevant. He would fight to the very last person in the station if he had to, but that would make no difference in the end.
It’s time, Master, he whispered as he fought. You stole my life and left me for dead, and now I’m coming for you …

WHEN HE REACHED THE TOP of the laser tube, he realized that his conception of the Death Star’s weapons system hadn’t been nearly grand enough. The laser he had been observing was just one of eight tributary lasers that would merge into one shockingly destructive beam. Carefully timed pulses down each of the eight channels would create a force capable of destroying any ship that he could think of. Possibly even a planet. He felt ill at the thought. Misinformation, slavery, and torture clearly weren’t enough to keep the masses in line, so the Emperor was going to resort to genocide. If he wasn’t stopped soon, there’d be no one left alive but him, cackling maniacally in the empty halls of Coruscant.

(...)

“Coherent vermilion pulses came and went in arcane sequences as the weapon continued its test run. Each discharge consumed enough energy to power a Star Destroyer. The station’s tightly wrapped atmosphere roiled with booming concussions and whispering aftershocks. Workers visible on the station’s skin and in the sky above stopped to stare at these harbingers of what lay in the weapon’s future.

***

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Part 3 Chapter 38