by James Luceno
"Lord Vader," Appo said while the crew was being whisked away, "security reports that two humans have been found in a secret compartment beneath the ship's galley"
Vader turned in the direction of the transport. "Interesting. Let's see what security has uncovered."
By the time Vader and Appo had moved around to the transport's port side, a detail of troopers was emerging from the ship, with two humans in custody. The man was tall and longhaired, and very protective of the young woman by his side. The pair were dressed alike in robes and headcloths typical of the mercenary brigade that had fought for the Separatists on Murkhana.
Their eyes widened on seeing Vader.
"They are unarmed, Lord Vader," one of the troopers announced.
"We stowed away without the captain's knowledge," the man said. "We're only trying to get to Ord Mantell."
"You're not stowaways," Vader said. "The captain was well paid to take you aboard his ship, and you have been promised payment, as well."
The girl began to quake in fear. "We didn't know we were doing anything illegal! We're not smugglers or criminals. I'm telling you the truth. We did it only for the credits!"
Vader appraised her. "I will consider sparing your lives if you tell me who hired you to carry out this deception."
The man firmed his lips, then swallowed hard and spoke. "Some of Cash Garrulan's goons."
Vader nodded. "Just as I suspected." He swung to Appo. "Commander, have the Exactor's scanners detected anything yet?"
"Nothing yet."
"They will, soon enough."
Vader turned to the head of the trooper detail. "Lock these two away with the crew."
All color drained from the girl's face. "But you said—"
"That I would consider sparing you," Vader cut her off.
"Lord Vader, our sensors may have found something," Appo said suddenly. "The craft is only a CloakShape that launched from the outskirts of Murkhana City. But it is pursuing a course that will take it close to the Exactor's previous position, and it is attempting to evade our scans."
"The Jedi are aboard that craft. Can we interdict from our present position, Commander?"
"No. The CloakShape is out of the range of our tractor beam."
Vader growled in displeasure. "We will need to remedy that. Is my starfighter prepared?"
"It's waiting in launching bay three."
"Assign two pilots to serve as my wingmates. Tell them to rendezvous with me in the launching bay." Vader shrugged his cloak behind his shoulders. "And, Commander, the vigo will be attempting to flee Murkhana. Don't bother capturing him. Target his vessel, and make certain that everyone on board is killed."
The CloakShape, a broad-winged craft with a transverse maneuvering fin, had been modified for spaceflight. The cockpit had been enlarged to accommodate pilot and copilot, and a rear‑facing gunner's chair had been installed in the tail section. Shryne was forward; Starstone, aft; and in the pilot's seat was Brudi Gayn, a freelancer who made occasional runs for Cash Garrulan. A rangy, dark-haired human a few years older than Shryne, he spoke Basic with a strong Outer Rim accent.
Shryne had already decided that Gayn was the most casual pilot he had ever flown with. Any farther from the instrument panel and his chair would have been adjacent to Starstone's. His hold on the yoke was negligent. Yet he handled the craft masterfully, and didn't miss a trick.
"Well, they've got a good fix on us," he told Shryne and Starstone through their helmet comlinks. "Definitely going to have to upgrade our countermeasures at some point."
Hanging far to starboard, Vader's massive warship was just visible through the CloakShape's triangle of transparisteel view-port.
"I hate the look of these new mass-produced Imperator-class Destroyers," Gayn continued. "None of the artistry that went into the old Acclamators and Venators—even the Victory Twos." He shook his head in disappointment. "So goes elegance."
"Wars'll do that," Shryne said into his helmet comm.
The console issued an alert chime, and Gayn leaned forward a bit to study one of the display screens.
"Three bandits closing on our tail. Signatures Ill them as two V-wings and what might be a modified Jedi Interceptor. This Vader character?"
"Good bet."
"Guess the Empire isn't any more choosy about commandeering Jedi hardware than it is Sep gear."
"Obviously, we're still serving Palpatine in our own way." "Are you two aware that three starfighters are chasing us?" Starstone broke in.
"Thanks for the heads-up, sweetheart, but we're on it," Gayn said.
"Here's another heads-up for you, flyboy. They're gaining on us. Can't you coax any more speed out of this junker? It's about as lethargic as you arc."
Gayn laughed shortly. "I suppose I could try jettisoning the tail gunner. That ought to lighten us up."
"First you might try letting some of the hot air out of yourself," Starstone fired back.
"Ouch," Gayn said. "Is she always like this, Shryne?"
"She was a librarian. You know how they can be."
"A librarian with the Force . . . Very dangerous combination." He chuckled to himself, then asked: "What happens to the Force now? Without the Jedi order, I mean?"
"I don't know," Shryne said. "Maybe it goes into hibernation."
Gayn rocked his head from side to side. "Well, here's a little something to show you that the Force isn't the only game in town."
Gazing in the direction indicated by Brudi Gayn's gloved right hand, Shryne saw a swift space skiff approaching the Cloak-Shape on an intercept course.
"Hope it's on our side."
Gayn laughed again. "It's our ticket out of here."
All but wedged into the cockpit of his black interceptor, Vader was in full command of the situation. He had the starfighter's inertial compensator dialed down, and felt revitalized by the experience of near weightlessness. In another life he had flown without helmet or flight suit, but those necessary accoutrements notwithstanding, he felt unburdened, released from gravity's reign.
This was not the craft Anakin Skywalker had piloted to Mustafar, and the starfighter's socketed astromech droid had a black dome. Nor was this the craft he would have chosen to fly. But the interceptor would do, at least until Sienar Fleet Systems completed the starfighter that was being built to his specifications.
After all, despite the manifold losses he had endured, he remained the galaxy's best pilot.
The CloakShape's lead evaporated as he made adjustments and poured on speed. The Jedi's choice of escape vehicles was a reflection of their desperation, since the CloakShape lacked a hyperdrive of any sort. But Vader saw what they had in mind. They hoped to rendezvous with the Sorosuub skiff that even now was angling toward them. The plan would have worked, however, only if Vader had taken the Twi'lek crime boss at his word. And because he hadn't, the Jedi wouldn't have enough time to transfer to the larger ship. By then both the CloakShape and the skiff would be in proton torpedo range.
"Form up on me," he told the clone pilots in the escort V-wings, "and fire on my command. There's no need to take them alive."
"Lord Vader, we have identified the Sorosuub," one of the pilots returned. "The registry is Murkhana. The owner is Cash Garrulan."
"So," Vader said, mostly to himself. "It all ends here."
"But there is something else, Lord Vader. The CloakShape appears to be fitted with external booster-ring adapters."
Glancing at the display screen in which the CloakShape was centered, Vader issued a command to the astromech droid to display the skiff on a secondary screen.
Instantly he understood.
"All speed," he ordered the clone pilots. "This is not a rendezvous. Fire proton torpedoes the moment our targets are in range."
It was going to be close, Vader realized.
He enabled the interceptor's laser cannon. The CloakShape, too, was traveling flat-out, and was faster than he would have thought possible. The pilot was skilled and artful. At th
is distance it would be difficult to keep him in laser lock.
The astromech sent an update to the cockpit data screen, and at the same time the voice of one of the escort pilots issued through the console comlink.
"Lord Vader, the skiff is positioning a hyperdrive booster in the CloakShape's flight path."
The vision enhancers built into Vader's mask delivered a close-up of the red-and-white hypermatter ring. Quickly he thumbed the triggers on the steering yoke, and a hail of crimson bolts streaked from the interceptor's long-barreled laser cannons. But it was unlikely that the bolts would ever reach their targets, because the targets would be long gone.
Still calling all power from the ion drive, Vader watched the CloakShape slip neatly into the precisely positioned booster ring and make the jump to lightspeed. A split second later Cash Garrulan's skiff engaged its hyperdrive and disappeared.
Allowing the interceptor to power down, Vader gazed in defeat at the distant starfield.
He had much to do to make himself whole once more.
One of the V-wing pilots hailed him. "Escape vectors are being plotted, Lord Vader."
"Delete the calculations, pilot," he said. "If the Jedi are so determined to disappear, then let them."
PART III
IMPERIAL CENTER
17
You have my full assurance that I will not disband the Senate," the Emperor told the small audience he had summoned to his new chambers. "Furthermore, I don't want you to think of yourselves as mere accessories, ratifying legislation and facilitating the business of governing. I will seek your counsel in enacting laws that will serve the growth and integrity of our Empire."
He fell silent for a moment, then delivered his bombshell.
"The difference now is that when I have taken into account your contributions and those of my advisers, my judgment will be final. There will be no debates, no citations of constitutional precedent, no power of veto, no court proceedings or deferrals. My decrees will be issued simultaneously to our constituent worlds, and they will take effect immediately."
The Emperor leaned forward in the high-backed chair that was his temporary throne, but not so far forward that his disfigured face was placed in the light.
"Understand this: you no longer represent your homeworlds solely. Coruscant, Alderaan, Chandrila . . . All these and tens of thousands of worlds far removed from the Core are cells of the Empire, and what affects one, affects us all. No disturbances will be tolerated. Interplanetary squabbles or threats of secession will meet with harsh reprisals. I have not led us through three years of galactic warfare to allow a resurgence of the old ways. The Republic is extinct."
Bail Organa barely managed to keep from squirming in his chair, as some of the Emperor's other invited guests were doing—Senators Mon Mothma and Garm Bel Iblis especially, in what almost amounted to overt defiance. But if the Emperor was taking notes, he was doing so without most of his guests being aware of it.
The Emperor's new chambers—the throne room, for all intents and purposes—occupied an upper floor of Coruscant's tallest building and, in design, more closely resembled what had been Palpatine's holding office below the Senate Rotunda than his former quarters in the Senate Office Building.
Divided into two levels by a short but wide staircase, the sanitized room was longer than it was wide, with large permaplas windows surrounding the upper tier. Flanking the burnished staircase were a pair of cup-shaped duty stations, in each of which stood a Red Guard—an Imperial Guard—with the Emperor's advisers seated behind them. The center of the gleaming dais was occupied by the throne, the back of which arched over Palpatine's head, placing him in perpetual shadow, as the cowl of his cloak did his sallow and deeply lined face. Recessed into the wide arms of the chair were modest control pads into which his slender fingers would enter occasional input.
The corridors of the Senate were rife with rumors that the Emperor had a second and more private suite, along with some sort of medical facility, in the very crown of the building.
"Your Majesty, if I may," the human Senator from Commenor said in a suitably deferential tone. "Perhaps you could shed some light on the matter of why the Jedi betrayed us. As you are undoubtedly aware, the HoloNet seems reluctant to provide details."
Well beyond the need to employ diplomacy or deception to achieve his ends, the Emperor made a derisive sound.
"The Order deserved all that it received for deluding us into believing that they served me in serving you. The complexity of their nefarious plan continues to astound me. Why they didn't attempt to kill me three years ago is something I will never understand. As if I could have stood against them. If it were not for the recent actions of my guards and our troopers, I would be dead."
Palpatine's off-color eyes clouded with hatred.
"In fact, the Jedi believed that they could oversee the galaxy better than we could, and they were willing to perpetuate a war simply to leave us defenseless and susceptible to their treason. Their vaunted Temple was a fort, their base of operations. They came to me with tales of having killed General Grievous—a cyborg, no less—and sought to arrest me because I refused to take them at their word that the fighting was suddenly over, the Separatists defeated.
"When I dispatched a legion of troopers to reason with them, they drew their lightsabers and the battle was met. We have the Grand Army to thank for our victory. Our noble commanders recognized the truth of the Jedi's treachery, and they executed my commands with vigor. The very fact that they did so, without question, without hesitation, suggests to me that our troopers had some inkling all along that the Jedi were manipulating events.
"After all these weeks, we still lack confirmation that Viceroy Gunray and his powerful allies are dead. That their battle droids and war machines stand motionless on hundreds of worlds we can take as a sign of their surrender. At the same time, however, we must focus our attention on solidifying the Empire world by world."
Palpatine sat back in his chair.
"The Jedi order is a lesson to us that we cannot permit any agency to become powerful enough to pose a threat to our designs, or to the freedoms we enjoy. That is why it is essential we increase and centralize our military, both to preserve the peace and to protect the Empire against inevitable attempts at insurrection. To that end I have already ordered the production of new classes of capital ships and starfighters, suitable for command by nonclone officers and crew, who themselves will be the product of Imperial academies, made up of candidates drawn from existing star system flight schools.
"No less important, our present army of clone troopers is aging at an accelerated rate, and will need to be supplemented, gradually replaced, by new batches of clones. I suspect that the Jedi had a hand in creating a short-lived army in full confidence that there would be no need for troopers once they had overthrown the Republic and instituted their theocracy based on the Force.
"But that is no longer a concern.
"By bringing the known worlds of the galaxy under one law, one language, the enlightened guidance of one individual, corruption of the sort that plagued the former Republic will never be able to take root, and the regional governors I have installed will prevent the growth of another Separatist movement."
When everyone in the room was satisfied that Palpatine was finished, the Senator from Rodia said: "Then species other than human need not fear discrimination or partiality?"
Palpatine spread his crooked, long-nailed hands in a placating gesture. "When have I ever shown myself to be intolerant of species differences? Yes, our army is human, I am human, and most of my advisers and military officers are human. But that is merely the result of circumstance."
"The war continues," Mon Mothma said to Bail.
Confident that they were beyond the reach of the building's assortment of eavesdropping devices and far enough from anyone who might be an Internal Security Bureau spy, Bail said: "Palpatine will use his disfigurement to distance himself further from the Senate. We may never
get that close to him again."
Mon Mothma lowered her head in sadness as they continued to walk.
Coruscant was already beginning to adapt to its new title of Imperial Center. Red-patched stormtroopers were more present than they had been at the height of the war, and unfamiliar faces and uniformed personnel crowded the corridors of the building. Military officers, regional governors, security agents . . . the Emperor's new minions.
"When I look at that hideous face or survey the damage done to the Rotunda, I can't help thinking, this is what's become of the Republic and the Constitution," Mon Mothma said.
"He maintains he has no plans for disbanding the Senate or punishing the various hive species that supported the Confederacy—" Bail started.
"For the moment," Mon Mothma interrupted. "Besides, the homeworlds of those species have already been punished. They are disaster areas."
"He can't afford to move against anyone just now," Bail went on. "Too many worlds are still too well armed. Yes, new clone troopers are being grown and new capital ships are coming off the line, but not fast enough for him to risk becoming enmeshed in another war."
She looked at him skeptically. "You're very confident all of a sudden, Bail. Or is that circumspection I hear?"
Bail asked himself the same question.
In the throne room, he had tried to puzzle out which among the Emperor's cabal of advisers, human or otherwise, were aware that Palpatine was a Sith Lord who had manipulated the entire war and eradicated his sworn enemies, the Jedi, as part of a plan to assume absolute power over the galaxy.
Certainly Mas Amedda knew, along with Sate Pestage, and possibly Sly Moore. Bail doubted that Armand Isard or any of Palpatine's military advisers knew. How would their knowing change things, in any case? To the few beings who knew or cared, the Sith were nothing more than a quasi-religious sect that had disappeared a millennium ago. What mattered was that Palpatine was now Emperor Palpatine, and that he enjoyed the staunch support of most of the Senate and the unwavering allegiance of the Grand Army.
