Vader might very well be Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, whom Tarkin had fought beside during the Clone Wars, and for whom he had developed a grudging appreciation.
“How is life on the Sentinel moon, Governor?” Vader asked as they walked.
“In a week we’ll be back on the bright side of the gas giant, where security is improved.”
“Is that the reason you were opposed to coming to Coruscant?”
Vader shouldn’t have known as much, but Tarkin wasn’t surprised that he did. “Tell me, Lord Vader, does the vizier always share confidences with you?”
“When I ask him to, yes.”
“Then he should have qualified his statement. I may have been reluctant to leave my post, but I wasn’t opposed to doing so.”
“Certainly not when you learned that the request originated with the Emperor.”
Tarkin smirked. “Why not simply call it an order, then?”
“It is unimportant. I might have done the same.”
Tarkin looked at Vader askance, but said nothing.
“Will your absence affect the construction schedule?”
“Not at all,” Tarkin was quick to say. “Components for the hyperdrive generator will be shipping on schedule from Desolation Station, where initial tests have been completed. Work continues on the navigational matrix itself, as well as on the hypermatter reactor. At this point I’m not unduly concerned about the status of the sublight engines or shield generators.”
“And the weapons systems?”
“That’s a bit more complicated. Our chief designers have yet to reach an agreement about the laser array, and whether or not it should be a proton beam. The designers are also debating the optimum configuration for the kyber crystal assembly. The delays owe as much to their bickering as to production setbacks.”
“That will not do.”
Tarkin nodded. “Frankly, Lord Vader, there are simply too many voices weighing in.”
“Then we need to remedy the situation.”
“As I’ve been proposing all along.”
They fell silent as they entered a turbolift that accessed the Palace’s primary spire, leaving Amedda and the Royal Guards no choice but to wait for a different car. The silence lingered as they began to ascend through the levels. Vader brought the lift to a halt one level below the summit and exited. When Tarkin started to follow, Vader raised a hand to stop him.
“The Emperor expects you above,” he said.
—
The turbolift carried him to the top of the world. He stepped from the car into a large circular space with a perimeter of soaring windows that provided a view for hundreds of kilometers in every direction. A curved partition defined a separate space that Tarkin assumed was the Emperor’s personal quarters. Prominent in the main area was a large table surrounded by oversized chairs, one of them with a high back and control panels set into the armrests. Alone, Tarkin wandered about admiring artworks and statues positioned to catch the light of Coruscant’s rising or setting sun, some of which he recognized as having been moved from the Supreme Chancellor’s suite in the Executive Building, in particular a bas-relief panel depicting an ancient battle scene. A circular balcony above the main level contained case after lofty case of texts and storage devices.
The Emperor emerged from his quarters as Tarkin was regarding a slender bronzium statue. Dressed in his customary black-patterned robes, with the cowl raised over his head, he moved as if hovering across the reflective floor.
“Welcome, Governor Tarkin,” he said in a voice that many thought sinister but to Tarkin sounded merely strained.
“My lord,” he said, bowing slightly. Gesturing broadly, he added: “I like what you’ve done with the place.” When the Emperor didn’t respond, Tarkin indicated the bronzium statue of a cloaked figure. “If memory serves, this was in your former office.”
The Emperor laid a wrinkled, sallow hand on the piece. “Sistros, one of the four ancient philosophers of Dwartii. I keep it for sentimental value.” He gestured broadly. “Some of the rest, well, one might call the collection the spoils of war.” His glance returned to Tarkin. “But come, sit, Governor Tarkin. We have much to discuss.”
The Emperor lowered himself into the armchair and swiveled away from the window-wall so that his ghastly face was in shadow. Tarkin took the chair opposite and crossed his hands in his lap.
As Nils Tenant had reaffirmed, there were as many rumors circulating about the Emperor as there were about Darth Vader. The fact that he rarely appeared in public or even at Senate proceedings had convinced many that the Jedi attack on him had resulted not only in the ruination of his face and body, but also in the death of the sanguine politician he had been before the war, betrayed by those who had served him and had supported the Republic for centuries. Some Coruscanti even confessed to having fond memories for ex-chancellor Finis Valorum, about whom they could gossip to no end. They yearned to see the Emperor strolling through Imperial Plaza or attending an opera or officiating at the groundbreaking of a new building complex.
But Tarkin didn’t speak to those things; instead he said: “Coruscant appears prosperous.”
“Busy, busy,” the Emperor said.
“The Senate is supportive?”
“Now that it serves rather than advises.” The Emperor swiveled slightly in Tarkin’s direction. “Better to surround oneself with fresh loyal allies than treacherous old ones.”
Tarkin smiled. “Someone once said that politics is little more than the systematic organization of hostilities.”
“Very true, in my experience.”
“But do you even need them, my lord?” Tarkin asked in a careful, controlled voice.
“The Senate?” The Emperor could not restrain a faint smile. “Yes, for the time being.” With a dismissive gesture, he added: “We’ve come far, you and I.”
“My lord?”
“Twenty years ago, who would have thought that two men from the Outer Rim would sit at the center of the galaxy.”
“You flatter me, my lord.”
The Emperor studied him openly. “I sometimes wonder, though, if you—born an outsider, as I was—feel that we should be doing more to lift up those worlds we defeated in the war? Especially those in the Outer Rim.”
“Turn the galaxy inside out?” Tarkin said more strongly than he intended. “Quite the opposite, my lord. The populations of those worlds wreaked havoc. They must earn the right to rejoin the galactic community.”
“And the ones that waver or refuse?”
“They should be made to suffer.”
“Sanctions?” the Emperor said, seemingly intrigued by Tarkin’s response. “Embargoes? Ostracism?”
“If they are intractable, then yes. The Empire cannot be destabilized.”
“Obliteration.”
“Whatever you deem necessary, my lord. Force is the only real and unanswerable power. Oftentimes, beings who haven’t been duly punished cannot be reasoned with or edified.”
The Emperor repeated the words to himself, then said, “That has the ring of a parental lesson, Governor Tarkin.”
Tarkin laughed pleasantly. “So it was, my lord—though applied in a more personal manner.”
The Emperor swiveled his chair toward the light, and Tarkin glimpsed his sepulchral visage; the molten skin beneath his eyes, the bulging forehead. After all these years, he was still not accustomed to it. “When one consorts with vipers, one runs the risk of being struck,” the Emperor had told Tarkin following the attack on him by a quartet of Jedi Masters.
There were many stories about what had occurred that day in the chancellor’s office. The official explanation was that members of the Jedi Order had turned up to arrest Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, and a ferocious duel had ensued. The matter of precisely how the Jedi had been killed or the Emperor’s face deformed had never been settled to everyone’s satisfaction, and so Tarkin had his private thoughts about the Emperor, as well. That he and Vader were kindred spirits sugges
ted that both of them might be Sith. Tarkin often wondered if that wasn’t the actual reason Palpatine had been targeted for arrest or assassination by the Jedi. It wasn’t so much that the Order wished to take charge of the Republic; it was that the Jedi couldn’t abide the idea of a member of the ancient Order they opposed and abhorred emerging as the hero of the Clone Wars and assuming the mantle of Emperor.
“I thank you for remaining in service to the Empire and not turning your hand to writing,” the Emperor said, “as some of your contemporaries have done.”
“Oh, I still dabble, my lord.”
“Doctrinal writings?” the Emperor said in what seemed genuine interest. “Examinations of history? A memoir perhaps?”
“All those things, my lord.”
“Even with your obligations as sector governor, you find the time.”
“Sentinel Base is remote and mostly tranquil.”
“It suits you, then. Or is it that you are well suited to it?”
“Sentinel isn’t exactly privation, my lord.”
“Even when attacked, Governor?”
Tarkin restrained a smile. He knew when he was being goaded. “Is this the reason you summoned me, my lord?”
The Emperor sat back in the chair. “Yes and no. Though I am familiar with the report you transmitted to the intelligence chiefs. Your actions at Sentinel bespeak a keen intuition, Governor.”
Tarkin adopted an expression of nonchalance. “The important thing is that the mobile battle station remains secure.”
The Emperor imitated Tarkin’s affected indifference. “This isn’t the first time we’ve been forced to deal with malcontents, and it won’t be the last. From both near and far.” He paused. “There is no refuge from deception when adversaries remain.”
“All the more reason to safeguard the supply lines, especially through sectors that aren’t under my personal control.”
The Emperor placed his elbows on the table and steepled his long fingers. “Clearly you have thoughts about how to rectify the situation.”
“I don’t wish to be presumptuous, my lord.”
“Nonsense,” the Emperor said. “Speak your mind, Governor.”
Tarkin compressed his lips, then said: “My lord, it’s nothing we haven’t discussed previously.”
“You are referring to the need for oversector control.”
“I am. Each oversector governor would then be responsible for maintaining control beneath him—if only as a means of policing districts without having to request guidance from Coruscant.”
The Emperor didn’t reply immediately. “And who might assume your position if I were to remove you from Sentinel?”
“General Tagge, perhaps.”
“Not Motti?”
“Or Motti.”
“Anyone else?”
“Nils Tenant is very competent.”
Again the Emperor fell briefly silent. “Are you certain that Sentinel’s unknown assailants managed to override the local HoloNet relay station?”
“I am, my lord.”
“Have you some notion as to how they achieved this?”
Tarkin wet his lips. “Travel to Coruscant prevented me from carrying out a complete investigation. But yes, I have some ideas.”
“Ideas you are willing to share with our advisers and intelligence chiefs?”
“If it will serve your purpose, my lord.”
The Emperor exhaled forcibly. “We will see at length just whose purpose it serves.”
SIMILAR IN DESIGN to the pinnacle room, the audience chamber on the penultimate level of the central spire was a circular space, but without partitions and featuring a ten-meter-tall podium reserved for the Emperor, who accessed it by private turbolift from his residence. Tarkin arrived by means of the more public turbolift, entering the vast room to find nearly a dozen people waiting, all of whom he knew or recognized, loosely divided into three groups that made up the Empire’s uppermost tiers. First, and positioned closest to the podium, was the Ruling Council, represented just then by Ars Dangor, Sate Pestage, and Janus Greejatus, all three dressed in baggy costumes of riotous color and floppy hats more befitting a night at the Coruscant Opera. More or less on equal footing, the two other groups were made up of members from the Imperial Security Bureau and the more recently created Naval Intelligence Agency, with Harus Ison and Colonel Wullf Yularen speaking for the former, and Vice Admirals Rancit and Screed for the latter. Feeling like the odd man out, Tarkin gravitated to where Mas Amedda and Darth Vader were standing, off to one side of the podium.
Tarkin acknowledged his military comrades with a friendly nod to each. Some he had known since his academy days; others he had served with during the Clone Wars. Interestingly, the Emperor’s advisers were also a kind of clique, having attached themselves to the Emperor since his early years as an untested senator from Naboo. Perhaps their outlandish garb was in some sense a tribute to the sartorial extravagance of Naboo’s nobility. Even those who should have known better tended to dismiss Dangor, Greejatus, and Pestage as sycophants, when in fact members of the Ruling Council oversaw the everyday affairs of the Empire and wielded wide-ranging and sometimes menacing powers. Even the Empire’s twenty Moffs were obligated to answer to the Imperial cadre.
On receiving a signal from the Emperor, Amedda banged his statue-tipped staff on the floor as a sign that the briefing should commence. First to step forward was white-haired ISB deputy director Ison, who bowed to the Emperor before turning to address everyone else in the chamber.
“My lords, Moff Tarkin, Admirals…With your permission, and for the benefit of those of you who may not be fully conversant with the matter at hand, I offer a brief summary. Three weeks ago, one of our intelligence assets reported a startling find on Murkhana.”
Tarkin came to full alert at Ison’s mention of the former Separatist stronghold world.
“Due to the nature of the find, ISB wasted no time in bringing the matter to the attention of the Ruling Council, as well as to our counterparts in Military Intelligence.” Ison glanced at Rancit and Screed. Having lost an eye in the war, Screed was sporting a cybernetic implant. “Normally ISB would have pursued an investigation on its own, but on Vizier Amedda’s recommendation we are opening it up to discussion, in the hope of resolving how best to proceed.”
Tarkin wasn’t surprised by Ison’s equivocal introduction. ISB functioned under the auspices of COMPNOR, the Commission for the Preservation of the New Order, which itself had arisen from the dregs of the Commission for the Protection of the Republic, and the deputy director was determined to spearhead the investigation without appearing overly proprietary and ambitious. And so he was generously “opening the matter up to discussion,” when it was clearly his hope that the Ruling Council would grant ISB full oversight, exempting the bureau from having to share sensitive information with Military Intelligence or anyone else.
“Please don’t leave us hanging, Deputy Director,” Amedda said in his most sniping voice, “and come to the point.”
Tarkin watched Ison’s square jaw clench. The deputy director was surely biting his tongue, as well.
“The Murkhana discovery consists of a cache of communications devices,” Ison said. “Signal interrupters, jammers, eradicators, and other apparatus, which, to ISB, suggests evidence of a potential stratagem to incapacitate the HoloNet, as was temporarily achieved by the Separatists during the Clone Wars.”
Obviously in the dark about the find, advisers Greejatus and Dangor traded looks of bewilderment. Where Greejatus’s dark sunken eyes and puffy face granted him an ominous look, Dangor’s long, braided mustachios and broad, furrowed brow imparted a bit of élan to an otherwise surly aspect.
“Director Ison,” Dangor said, “perhaps these devices—though recently discovered—are nothing more than a cache left over from the war. They may even have been discovered elsewhere by beings unfamiliar with such devices, and relocated to their present site.”
Ison had an answer ready. “That’s
entirely possible. The cache is so large that our agent didn’t have time to inspect every crate and container, much less catalog every component. However, his preliminary report suggests that some of the devices may not have been available to the Confederacy during the war.”
“Accepting that at face value for the moment,” Dangor went on, “what importance do you attach to this technological trove?”
Colonel Yularen took over for Ison. “My lords, ISB fears that political dissenters may be planning to launch a propaganda operation similar to the wartime Shadowfeeds but directed, of course, against the Empire.”
Close to Tarkin’s age—though with more gray in his hair and especially in his bushy mustache—Yularen had traded a distinguished career in the Republic Navy for a position in Imperial Security, heading a division devoted to exposing instances of sedition in the Senate. He now served as a liaison between ISB and Military Intelligence. But not everyone in the audience chamber was touched by the colonel’s justified concerns. In fact, Greejatus appeared to be cackling.
“That’s a bit far-fetched, Colonel,” he managed to say, “even for ISB.”
“Has there been any evidence of HoloNet tampering that might support such a claim?” Dangor asked in a more serious tone.
“Yes, there has,” Yularen said, though without explanation or so much as a glance in Tarkin’s direction.
Vice Admiral Rancit stepped forward to speak. “My lords, while Naval Intelligence agrees with ISB regarding the possibility of HoloNet sabotage, we feel that Deputy Director Ison is understating the importance of the evidence and the real nature of the threat. Yes, Count Dooku succeeded in using the HoloNet for Separatist propaganda purposes, but Republic forces were quick to shut down those Shadowfeeds.” He looked at Ison. “If memory serves, COMPNOR itself was established as a result of the navy’s actions at the time.”
The Rise of the Empire: Star Wars: Featuring the novels Star Wars: Tarkin, Star Wars: A New Dawn, and 3 all-new short stories Page 11