Civilian Contractor
Marta Suul had never been on a shuttle before the one that took her up to the Death Star. Still, living close by the spaceport as she did, she had seen enough spaceships come and go that she shouldn't be impressed by one small boring shuttlecraft. She was anyway. As she waited, standing in formation by the ramp preparing to board, it seemed as if the shuttle was the biggest, whitest, sleekest and most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
People didn't think of Coruscant as a quiet provincial place, but a planet is a big thing, and there were areas that were countryside in their own strange way. So though she had spent her whole life in high-rise towers in a big city—the big city—Marta was a country girl at heart. After all, to her it wasn't millions of buildings all over the globe; it was the one she lived in and the one she shopped in and the one she worked in. Her sister was downstairs in that same building, her parents lived up two floors, even her husband Berl had lived with a family in the same high-rise before they'd met. Coruscant might be a capital of culture and industry and so on, but to Marta it was really just a few blocks. She didn't have the money to travel, nor the need.
Until now. Now, she was in for at least two years of nothing but travel. Though she wasn't naive enough to think that a four-year tour of duty on the Death Star was really that short. Quite likely, she was signed up for life. And a good thing too. The Imperium had paid for her training as a comlink technician, and now they would pay her, house her, feed her, and care for her future children. It was a damn sight better than spending her whole life slaving in a factory on Coruscant just to barely make the rent each month.
The shuttle door hissed open and folded out into an entry ramp. The stormtroopers boarded first. They were impossible to tell apart in their battle armor, but Marta knew Berl was somewhere among those faceless ranks. They'd be together again, face to face again, soon enough. It was time for the technicians to board. Clad in their green-gray uniforms, they marched up the ramp, not quite as neatly as the stormtroopers. The Imperium didn't waste combat training on those who would never need it. Despite her uniform, Marta was technically a civilian contractor.
Taking off hurt, and the G forces made her want to throw up a little bit, but everyone around her was stoic, so Marta hid her discomfort. In a moment it was over as the shuttle's artificial gravity kicked in, and the approach proper began. Marta leaned over her bored-looking seatmate to try to see out a window.
It was beautiful. Many other shuttles and TIE fighters zipped around it, creating a giant hive of activity with the Star itself at the center. The huge steely sphere that kept peace in the Empire, that would protect them from the Rebellion, that would through sheer power make the universe safe for trillions of beings on hundreds of worlds. That would be her home.
The shuttle drew closer, and the sphere grew until it filled the window and seemed to becomes a flat wall to infinity. Then the woman next to Marta snapped at her, "Do you mind?" and pushed her rather roughly back into her seat.
"I'm sorry," Marta said. "I've just never seen it before. In person, I mean. It's bigger than it looks in its pictures." She smiled.
The woman just shook her head and frowned. Marta didn't try to talk to her again.
The shuttle landed, disgorging its passengers back out over the ramp, into a giant steely cargo bay. Marta dutifully fell into formation with the rest, waiting to receive their arrival orders.
They didn't have long to wait. An officer came out, briefly looked them over, then ordered them to move into their quarters immediately. "Everything is going to be done quickly now. Move in quickly. We'll get you to work quickly. This station needs to be moving by tomorrow. There's an urgent threat in the Alderaan system."