by James Luceno
Tarkin shook his head negatively. “He is hemmed in by a corrupt and incompetent Senate. Otherwise the Republic would have already raised a military to oppose you.”
“Ah, but the end of his second term is upon him, Governor, with no one of any merit to succeed him. Unless, of course … some crisis results in his term being extended.”
Tarkin tried to decipher the count’s inference. “One might almost conclude that you’re positing an advantage to going to war. But how would that work? The volunteer security forces of the Confederate worlds against—what, Judicials and ten thousand of your former Jedi brethren?”
Dooku adopted an arrogant expression. “Don’t be too surprised, Governor, if the Republic has access to secret forces.”
Tarkin regarded him in open astonishment. “Mercenaries?”
“Proxies is perhaps a more accurate term.”
“Then you have already committed to war.”
“I am committed to the idea of a galaxy ruled by an enlightened leader, with laws that apply universally—not one set for the Core Worlds, another for the Outer Rim worlds.”
“An autocracy,” Tarkin said. “Guided by the count of Serenno.”
Dooku gestured in dismissal. “I am ambitious, but not to that degree.”
“Who, then?” Tarkin pressed.
“We’ll leave that for another day. I’m simply trying to keep you from finding yourself on the losing side.”
Tarkin studied him. “Will there actually be a losing side for men like you and me? I sometimes suspect that this crisis is a mere charade.”
Dooku appraised him. “Would you be opposed to being part of a charade if it meant that the galaxy could be brought under the rule of one?”
Tarkin regarded him for a long moment. “I wonder what you mean, Dooku.”
The count nodded in assessment. “I may not be able to forestall repercussions, Governor, but should this situation escalate to war between the Confederacy and the Republic, I will do my best to see that no lasting harm comes to your homeworld.”
Tarkin’s brows beetled. “Why would you?”
“Because in the end, you and I are likely to find ourselves under the same roof.”
Tarkin had long wondered why Dooku’s prophecy had never come to pass. It was the Separatists who had wound up on the losing side, along with Dooku and, most unexpectedly, the entire Jedi Order, and the Emperor and Tarkin who had found themselves under the same roof.
“The Carrion Spike has launched, Your Majesty,” 11-4D told Darth Sidious.
The droid resembled a protocol model, except for its several arms, only two of which terminated in what might be considered hands; the rest were devoted to tools of varied purpose, including computer interface and power charge extensions. The droid had once been the property of Sidious’s tutor, Plagueis, and had been in Sidious’s possession since his former master’s death, though in several different guises.
The announcement roused Sidious from meditation, and he took a moment to reach out to Vader, his perturbed apprentice.
“Alert me when the ship makes planetfall on Murkhana,” Sidious said.
The droid bowed its head. “I will, Your Majesty.”
The two of them were in Sidious’s lair, a small rock-walled enclosure beneath the deepest of the Palace’s several sublevels that had once been an ancient Sith shrine. That the Jedi had raised their Temple over the shrine had for a thousand years been one of the most closely guarded secrets of those Sith Lords who had perpetuated and implemented the revenge strategy of the Jedi Order’s founders. Even the most powerful of Dark Side Adepts believed that shrines of the sort existed only on Sith worlds remote from Coruscant, and even the most powerful of the Jedi believed that the power inherent in the shrine had been neutralized and successfully capped. In truth, that power had seeped upward and outward since its entombment, infiltrating the hallways and rooms above, and weakening the Jedi Order much as the Sith Masters themselves had secretly infiltrated the corridors of political power and toppled the Republic.
Save for Sidious, no sentient being in close to five thousand years had set foot in the shrine. The room’s excavation and restoration had been carried out by machines under the supervision of 11-4D. Even Vader was unaware of the shrine’s existence. But it was here that they would one day work together the way Sidious and Plagueis had to coax from the dark side its final secrets. In the intervening years he had actually come to appreciate Plagueis for the planner and prophet he had been. Such perilous machinations required two Sith, one to serve as bait for the dark side, the other to be the vessel. Success would grant them the power to harness the full powers of the dark side, and allow them to rule for ten thousand years.
Sidious found himself unable to return to his meditations. Stretching out with his feelings, he endeavored to assess the mood aboard the Carrion Spike. Vader had made clear his thoughts about the mission, but Sidious had learned from Vizier Amedda that Tarkin, too, was displeased with the assignment. During the Clone Wars, Sidious had made every attempt to promote a rapport between Skywalker and Tarkin, but the relationship had never prospered to his satisfaction. Then came that business with Skywalker’s Togruta apprentice, Ahsoka Tano, which, while it had provoked further disaffection in Skywalker, had also created a rift between him and Tarkin that perhaps had yet to mend. Yes, they had partnered since the end of the war, but—to Sidious’s own annoyance—absent a true appreciation for each other’s talents.
Well, if they were going to continue to serve him, Sidious thought, it was long past time that they found a way to work out their differences.
The fact that Sidious held Tarkin in such approbation made the matter all the more wearisome. They had met several years after Sidious—still an apprentice of Darth Plagueis at the time—had been appointed Naboo’s representative to the Republic Senate. Despite the fact that Naboo and Eriadu were very different Outer Rim worlds, Sidious had recognized Tarkin, some twenty years his junior, as a fellow colonial. And more: a human who had the potential to become a powerful ally, not only with regard to Sidious’s political ambitions, but also in helping to implement his true agenda of destroying the Jedi Order.
Toward that end, Sidious had brought Tarkin into the fold early on, even facilitating a meeting between Tarkin and many influential Coruscanti, if only to solicit their opinions of Eriadu’s local hero. The more Sidious investigated Tarkin’s past—his unusual upbringing and exotic rites of passage—the more he grew to feel that Tarkin’s thinking about the Republic and about leadership itself was in keeping with his own, and Tarkin hadn’t disappointed him. When Sidious had asked for help in weakening Supreme Chancellor Valorum so that Sidious himself could win election to the position, Tarkin had stonewalled Valorum’s attempts to investigate the disastrous events of an Eriadu trade summit, thereby helping to foment and hasten the Naboo Crisis. Tarkin had remained loyal during the Clone Wars as well, enlisting in the military on the side of the Republic, despite repeated entreaties by Count Dooku—which Sidious had arranged as a test of Tarkin’s dedication.
Sidious assumed that Tarkin had puzzled out that Vader had once been Anakin Skywalker, under whom Tarkin had served during the war. Tarkin may also have determined that Vader was a Sith. If so, it followed that he accepted that Sidious was Vader’s dark side Master. But Tarkin’s intuitions were important only in the sense that he never revealed them and never allowed them to interfere with his own ambitions.
For his own sake as much as Tarkin’s, Sidious had been careful to keep those ambitions in check. He understood that Tarkin was frustrated with his current position as sector governor and base commander, but overseeing construction of the mobile battle station was too grand an undertaking for any one person, even one of Tarkin’s caliber. As powerful as the battle station might become, its real purpose was to serve as a tangible symbol and constant reminder of the power of the dark side, and to free Sidious from having to portray that part.
Darth Plagueis had once re
marked that “the Force can strike back.” The death of a star didn’t necessarily curtail its light, and indeed Sidious could see evidence of that sometimes even in Vader—the barest flicker of persistent light. Attacks like the one directed against Tarkin’s moon base and discoveries like the one on Murkhana were distractions to his ultimate goal of making certain that the Force could not strike back, and that whatever faint light of hope remained could be snuffed out for good.
LIKE MANY FORMER Separatist bastions, Murkhana was a dying world. The lingering atmospheric effects of years of orbital bombardment and beam-weapon assaults had raised the temperature of the world’s seas and killed off coastal coral reefs that had once drawn tourists from throughout the Tion Cluster. What had been wave-washed black beaches were now stretches of fathomless quicksand, and what had been sheltered coves were stagnant shallows, rife with gelatinous sea creatures that had risen to the evolutionary fore when the fish had died. Battered by relentless squalls of acid rain, the once graceful, spiraling structures of Murkhana City were pitted and cracked, and had turned the color of disease-ridden bone. Even when the rains ceased, menacing clouds hung over the bleached landscape, blotting out light and leaving the air smelling like rancid cheese. Descending through the atmosphere was like dropping into a simmering cauldron of witch’s brew.
Below was what remained of the seaside hexagonal spaceport and the quartet of ten-kilometer-long bridges that had linked it to the city; the Corporate Alliance landing field was slagged and tipped on the massive piers that had supported it, and the bridges had collapsed into the frothing waters. Arriving starships were now directed to the city’s original spaceport at the base of the hills.
“Governor Tarkin, we have a visual on the landing zone,” the captain said as the ship pierced a final low-lying layer of dirty cloud, revealing the ravaged city spread out beneath them from sea to surrounding hills like some terrain exported from a nightmare. “Spaceport control says that it’s up to us to find a place to set down, as their guidance systems are no longer in service and the terminal has been shut down. Immigration and customs have relocated to the inner city.”
Tarkin shook his head in disgust. “I suspect no one makes use of them. What do our scanners tell us of the atmosphere?”
“Atmosphere is a mess, but breathable,” the comm officer said, her eyes fixed on the sensor board. “Background radiation is at tolerable levels.” Swiveling to Tarkin, she added, “Sir, you might want to consider wearing a transpirator.”
Tarkin watched smoke pour into the sky from fires that might have been burning for six years. He considered the specialist’s advice for a moment, gradually warming to the idea of being the only one among the mission personnel to be bare-headed, thus appearing more the commanding officer.
“Looking for an adequate site, Governor,” the captain said.
Tarkin leaned toward the viewport to assess the landing field. It was impossible to tell the bomb craters from the circular repulsorlift pits that had once functioned as service areas for the Separatists’ spherical core ships. The edges of the field were lined with ruined hemispherical docking bays and massive rectangular hangars, their roofs blown open or caved in. The façade of the sprawling terminal building had avalanched onto the field, and the interior had been gutted by fire. Ships of various size and function were parked at random, though most of them looked as if they hadn’t seen space in a long while.
“Twenty-five degrees east,” Tarkin said finally. “We’ll have just enough room.”
Vader entered the command cabin as repulsors were lowering the corvette toward the cracked permacrete.
“A world I never expected to see again,” Tarkin said.
“Nor I, Governor,” Vader said. “So let us be quick about it.”
Tarkin scanned the immediate area as Carrion Spike began to settle on her landing gear and the instruments were shut down. Only a handful of starships occupied their corner of the uneven field, including a decrepit forty-year-old Judicial cruiser and a sleek and obviously rapid black frigate bristling with weapons, its broad bow designed to suggest slanting eyes and bloody fangs thrusting from a cruel mouth.
“Charming,” Tarkin said. “And very much in keeping with the surroundings.”
Wedging a brimmed command cap into the pocket of his tunic, he joined Vader and eight of the stormtroopers as they were filing from the ship. Barely through the air lock, he could already taste acid on his tongue. They had just reached the foot of the boarding ramp when a teetering low-altitude assault transport soared into view, its wing-mounted repulsorlift turbines straining as it dropped from the sky to hover alongside the Carrion Spike. Two Imperial stormtroopers in scratched and dented armor leapt from the open side hatch, while well-armed door gunners kept watch over the field.
“Welcome to Murkhana, sirs,” their squad leader said, offering a lazy salute.
Tarkin heard stifled laughter from someone inside the gunship. Adorning the vehicle’s vaned sliding hatch was the faded insignia of the Twelfth Army.
His posture reflecting obvious displeasure, Vader appraised the noisy gunship. “Are you certain that this relic is capable of carrying us, Squad Leader, or might we end up carrying it?”
The stormtrooper glanced over his shoulder at the gunship. “Sorry to report that we’ve no choice, Lord Vader. The rest are in even worse shape.”
“Why is that?” Tarkin stepped forward to ask.
“Sabotage, sir. We’re not well liked by the locals.”
“No one asked them to like you, Squad Leader,” Vader snapped. With a swirl of his cloak, he climbed aboard the gunship, followed by his personal stormtroopers.
Tarkin paused to comlink Carrion Spike’s captain. “We’re leaving four stormtroopers to guard the ship. Keep the comlink open and contact me at the first sign of trouble.”
“Acknowledged, Governor,” the comm officer said.
Vader extended a hand to Tarkin and pulled him up onto the deteriorated deck plates of the gunship’s deployment platform.
“Go,” the Dark Lord shouted to the cockpit crew.
The gunship lifted shakily off the landing field and began to wheel toward the heart of Murkhana City. Placing himself behind one of the door gunners, Tarkin grabbed hold of an overhead strap and peered out the open hatchway.
He wasn’t surprised to see that most of the city’s charred, devastated buildings had yet to be demolished. Facing sanctions, the local government had not been able to grow the economy, and the substantially reduced population had been forced to rely on black marketeers for goods and resources. Rusting remnants of the war, carbon-scored Hailfire, spider, and crab droids stood idle in the desolate streets, picked clean of usable parts by gangs of scavengers. Scattered among them were a couple of burned-out Republic AT-TE and turbo tanks, along with a Trident transport. The hulk of a Commerce Guild warship protruded like a broken tooth close to what remained of the Argente Tower, which was itself a husk.
Breath-masked residents scurried for cover as the gunship raced over glass-littered avenues, past boarded-up storefronts, toppled monuments, and gloomy cantinas. Packs of famished animals roved the alleyways, and nearly every street corner hosted crews of smugglers and hoodlums. Tarkin caught glimpses of limping war veterans—Koorivar with broken cranial horns, Aqualish with missing tusks, and Gossams with crooked necks—along with children stricken with hideous birth defects.
As the gunship veered through a turn, a hunk of twisted metal slammed into the hatch’s retracted door, hurled by a young woman who had stepped boldly from a lopsided doorway and stood in the street, hands on hips, as if challenging the Imperials to reply.
“Permission to exterminate, sir,” one of the stormtroopers said, his blaster rifle braced against his shoulder.
Vader stretched out his gloved hand to lower the weapon. “We haven’t come all this way to instigate a riot.”
And yet two city blocks later, catching sight of defaced military recruitment posters and walls vandalize
d by hand-scrawled insults aimed at the Emperor, he turned to Tarkin to say: “We should put this place out of its misery.”
“Too magnanimous,” Tarkin said. “Though it may come to that.”
The gunship began to shed velocity as it crossed a cratered plaza; it came to a hovering halt in the middle of a broad concourse obstructed by a collapsed coral archway.
“We’re here, sirs,” the squad leader said.
“Which building?” Tarkin asked, then followed the line of the stormtrooper’s extended hand to see a squat structure with rounded corners three blocks away.
“Originally the property of the Corporate Alliance, sir,” the squad leader continued. “A medcenter, until it was used to house a deflector shield generator that protected a vital Separatist landing platform.”
“And the current proprietor?”
“Unknown, sir. The place has changed hands several times since the end of the war. Identities of the various owners are buried under layers of phony documentation.”
“You have been maintaining surveillance?” Vader asked.
“Continuous since receiving orders from Coruscant three weeks back, Lord Vader. But we haven’t observed anyone coming or going. The locals tend to steer clear of this entire area.”
“Then you have no one in custody.”
“No one, Lord Vader.”
Tarkin’s eyes clouded over with suspicion. “Yes, but who might have been watching you while you were watching the building?”
Vader nodded. “Yes, Governor, it might very well be a trap.”
The stormtrooper indicated several nearby buildings. “We’ve installed rooftop snipers there, there, and there, Lord Vader.”
“Are you carrying remotes?”
“We have a couple of AC-ones onboard, along with an ASN retrofitted with a holotransmitter.”
