DARTH SIDIOUS WAS ANNOYED about having been disturbed from his meditations at the shrine. By the time he ascended to the pinnacle of the Palace spire to meet with Mas Amedda, he was ready to take someone’s head off.
“Must I attend to every trivial matter, Vizier?”
“I apologize, my lord. But I believe you will want to attend to this one.”
Sidious eyed him for a moment. “Murkhana,” he said in arrant disgust.
The Chagrian bowed his horned head in acknowledgment. “Just so, my lord.”
Sidious took to his tall-backed chair while Amedda readied the table’s holoprojector, then moved to stand silently by the window-wall. In the hologram that emerged, several members of Military Intelligence and the Imperial Security Bureau were grouped before a positioning grid in one of the ISB’s situation rooms.
“My Lord Emperor,” Harus Ison of ISB began, “I’m sorry—”
“Reserve your apologies for when they are most needed, Deputy Director,” Sidious said.
“Of course, my lord.” Ison swallowed hard and found his voice. “We thought it prudent to apprise you of recent developments on Murkhana.”
“I’m well aware that Lord Vader and Governor Tarkin found and investigated the cache of communications devices.”
“Of course, my lord,” Ison said. “But we have since received a subspace transmission from Lord Vader and Governor Tarkin informing us that the Carrion Spike has been seized.”
Sidious sat straighter in the chair. “Seized?”
“Yes, my lord. From a landing field on Murkhana—by unknown parties.”
Sidious used the chair’s armrest controls to mute the audiovisual feeds and swiveled to Amedda. “Why have I heard nothing of this from Lord Vader?”
“Without the Carrion Spike, neither Lord Vader nor Governor Tarkin has access to the Imperial HoloNet or other suitably encrypted communications devices. The first subspace message originated from the ambassador’s residence in Murkhana City. The second was sent from a starship in the Murkhana system.”
“Lord Vader has procured a replacement ship?”
“Yes, my lord.”
Sidious re-enabled the holofeeds to the situation room. “Proceed with your report, Deputy Director.”
Ison bowed his head once more. “Lord Vader and Governor Tarkin have commandeered the starship of a local crime lord and are in pursuit of the Carrion Spike. In their most recent transmission, they stated that they were jumping the commandeered ship to the Fial system, Coreward of Murkhana, though still far removed from the Perlemian Trade Route.”
“Do we have a military presence in that system?”
Vice Admiral Rancit stepped forward to address it. “No, my lord, we don’t. We do, however, have a presence in the Belderone system, which is nearby.”
“My lord, if I may interrupt briefly,” Ison said.
Sidious motioned with his right hand.
“My lord, most of the star systems in that region of the Tion Cluster lack hyperspace relay stations. Given the likelihood that the ship Lord Vader commandeered has only a standard navicomputer, he and Governor Tarkin will be forced to navigate buoy-to-buoy.”
“Your point?”
“Only that we face a hopeless task in trying to establish a rendezvous while the pursuit is in progress.”
Sidious swiveled the chair slightly. “Vice Admiral Rancit?”
“Military Intelligence is even now calculating and prioritizing possible jump and egress points in those local systems, and on into the Nilgaard sector. Ships can be dispatched accordingly, my lord.”
Sidious muted the feed once more, steepled his fingers, and brought them to his lips. During his meditations he had tried without success to trace a snaking current of the dark side to its source. What had it been trying to communicate to him?
No doubt Vader was tracking the Carrion Spike by focusing his attention on his meditation chamber. But why had he not sensed a disruption in the Force when Tarkin’s ship had been taken? In the private transmission he had sent from Murkhana he had dismissed the communications cache as inconsequential; nothing more than misplaced hardware left over from the war. So did his inattention owe to a lingering sense of frustration about the mission? Perhaps he was at odds with Tarkin. Or had he allowed himself to step willingly into the trap, as Sidious had encouraged him to do?
“Tell me, Deputy Director Ison,” he said when the audio feed was reestablished, “do you suspect any link between the communications devices and the theft of Governor Tarkin’s ship?”
“My lord, we are investigating the recorded evidence and serial numbers in an effort to ascertain the identities of those who gathered the components. At the moment, however, we have no leads.”
“There has to be some link, my lord,” Rancit said. “Those now in possession of the Carrion Spike had to have sliced into the ship’s security systems, and are likely the same assailants who launched the attack on Governor Tarkin’s base. That means they have now added one of the navy’s most sophisticated ships to their arsenal of warship and droid fighters.”
Harus Ison was shaking his head. “There’s no proof of that. We don’t have enough information to establish a solid connection.”
Sidious took a moment to consider the options, then said, “Vice Admiral Rancit, instruct your analysts to continue their calculations. You will also inform the Admiralty that their resources in the Belderone system should be prepared to jump to whatever target systems Lord Vader and Governor Tarkin deem significant.” He leaned toward the holocam’s lens. “Deputy Director Ison and the rest of you are to devote yourselves to unraveling the intentions of our new enemy.”
“Imperial Security will not rest until it has done so,” Ison said with a stiff bow of his head.
“We will apprehend them, my lord,” Rancit added. “Even if that requires repositioning half the capital ships in the fleet.”
The Carrion Spike reverted to realspace in the Fial system with the eyes of the six shipjackers focused on the main display of the sensor suite.
“Anything?” Teller asked Cala.
“No sign of the Predator so far.”
Teller waited a long moment, then breathed a guarded sigh of relief and got to his feet. “Time to get down to business.” He turned to Salikk. “Coordinates for Galidraan?”
Salikk watched the navicomputer. “Coming up.”
The words had scarcely left the Gotal’s full-lipped mouth when Cala said, “Teller!”
“I knew it, I knew it,” Hask said, pacing through tight circles while Teller hurried back to the sensor suite.
Cala was sitting stiffly in the chair, staring fixedly at the display. “The Predator!”
“Right on cue,” Artoz said from the far side of the command cabin.
Teller blinked in disbelief.
In a gesture of concern, Cala touched his forehead below the dangling headcloth. “It’s the Predator, and she’s coming for us all speed.”
“Not even Vader could do this,” Teller said. “There’s a tracking device hidden somewhere aboard this ship.”
“Or on the hull or concealed in a landing strut or just about anywhere,” Hask said. “But unless you want to power down and perform a full EVA search you better come up with a revised plan.”
Teller clenched his jaw. “We’re not revising anything. Not now, not anytime.” He glanced around him.
Artoz and Salikk nodded, then Cala and Anora, and finally Hask.
Teller rolled his head through a circle to work the kinks out of his neck and nodded to Hask. “You’ve got the comm board.” As Cala stood up from the chair, Teller added: “Doc, you and Cala better get yourselves positioned.” Then he turned to Salikk to say: “Jump us to Galidraan.”
Seated in the copilot’s chair, Tarkin watched Vader expectantly as the Predator emerged from hyperspace.
“Full ahead,” the Dark Lord said.
Tarkin was glad to oblige, though he saw nothing through the viewports but star-strewn space and nothing on the sensor screens but background noise.
One moment Vader’s gloved hands were clamped tight on the yoke, then they flew to the navigation console. “They’ve jumped to lightspeed again.”
“Just as I would have,” Tarkin said.
Vader fell silent, then lifted his head as if just roused from a nap and swiveled to the navicomputer display, the fingers of his left hand punching the control pad keys.
“Galidraan,” he said at last.
Tarkin gave him a moment to complete the request for jump coordinates. “The chamber,” he said. “That’s how you’re tracking them.”
Vader glanced at him, as unreadable as ever, but said: “Very discerning of you, Governor.”
Tarkin called up a star map of the Galidraan system and began to study it. “An even shorter jump. Two populated planets.” He frowned in uncertainty. “Why not jump farther afield? An error in judgment?”
Vader made no reply.
Tarkin retrieved additional information on the system. “An Imperial space station in fixed orbit at Galidraan Three.” The onscreen image of the station showed it to be an outmoded wheel with numerous space docks radiating from the perimeter.
“There is little point in alerting the station,” Vader said, “as we will arrive long before a subspace transmission.”
“The station won’t be able see the Carrion Spike coming, in any event.”
Vader grunted and reached for the hyperdrive control arm. Beyond the viewports the starfield elongated, and the Predator leapt to lightspeed.
Tarkin sat back in his chair, allowing his vision to adjust to the mottled corridor the ship had entered. No past or future here, he told himself. Time’s blank canvas. And yet he couldn’t keep his thoughts from running wild and in all directions.
Reflecting on Jova’s sage advice, he could recall countless instances of each scenario playing out during his years of training on the plateau. Animals had escaped despite the team’s best efforts to track and hunt them down. Others had hidden and sprung from concealment, on one occasion nearly making a meal of the Rodians had Jova, Tarkin, and Zellit not come to their rescue. Some with braying calls had summoned reinforcements too numerous for the humans and Rodians to compete with, and they had been the ones to go hungry. And yes, there had been numerous instances of hunted animals skulking off to sniff out more vulnerable game, softer targets. In deep space, similar circumstances had transpired. Pirate groups had gone hungry, sounded calls for support, abandoned the Greater Seswenna for less fortified zones, and employed every method of concealment, taking every advantage of the glower of starlight, the glittering tails of comets, iridescent clouds of interstellar gas.
Again Tarkin tried to assemble all the pieces: the counterfeit distress call, the sneak attack on Sentinel, the bait set out on Murkhana, the theft of the ship, and now the flight.
But to where? To what end?
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Vader prepare the Predator for the transition to sublight. The timeless corridor narrowed and vanished and the starlines compacted to pinpoints of light, skewing slightly as the ship reverted to realspace. No sooner had Vader engaged the ion drives than proximity alarms began to squeal and something large and white caromed off the forward deflector shield.
Tarkin quickly captured an image of the object on one of the display screens. It was the mangled and frosted body of a stormtrooper.
In the middle distance, fiery explosions flared at the edge of Galidraan III’s atmospheric envelope. Plumes of incandescence, like stellar prominences, erupted into space.
Vader firewalled the throttle and the Predator raced deeper into the system, the space station coming into unassisted view, an arc of its silvery rim blown wide open and hemorrhaging gas, flames, objects, and bodies. The source of the destruction was invisible to the naked eye and the Predator’s scanners, making it appear as if green packets of bundled energy were being fired from deep space. Even so, particle-beam weapons emplaced along the station’s curved outer surface were returning fusillades that streamed futilely into the void. Like some sea creature lunging forward to chew flesh and withdraw before it could be counterattacked, the invisible menace continued to advance and retreat, its lasers opening surgical lacerations along the spokes of the wheel as if intent on separating the rim from the hub. Larger explosions blossomed, along with dense clusters of superheated ejecta.
Tarkin bent to the controls, searching for a heat signature, gravitational flux, evidence of propellant glow, anything that might pinpoint the location of the Carrion Spike, all the while well aware that the ship was beyond his efforts to track. She could conceal herself from any sensor, contain her own reflection and heat, accelerate out of danger, maneuver beyond the capacity of any ship her size. But worse still was Tarkin’s realization about her new crew: They weren’t mere shipjackers; they were, as Vader had intuited early on, dissidents. Partisans with a deadly agenda to fulfill.
Flights of ARC-170 and V-wing starfighters, like swarms of stinging insects, were accelerating from the station’s launch bays in search of the veiled thing that was pummeling their nest. Keeping to the edge of the battle to avoid being inadvertently targeted, Vader abruptly veered the Predator starboard in an obvious attempt to parallel the curving storm of destruction the Carrion Spike was sowing.
Tarkin saw a rash of melt circles erupt along the station’s already pockmarked hull, an efflorescence of globular explosions.
Vader changed vectors and decelerated to match the Predator’s speed to that of the Carrion Spike. “We have you now,” Tarkin heard him mutter.
Through the viewports, he could see the ARC-170s and the V-wings playing a dangerous game with their opponent, speeding directly into hails of energy bolts in the hope of forcing the Carrion Spike to betray her location, and sacrificing themselves in the process.
His hands tight on the yoke, Vader called out, “Sergeant Crest, prepare to fire.”
The stormtrooper’s voice crackled from the cockpit nunciator. “Standing by, Lord Vader. But we have no visual on the target.”
“Follow the tracers back to their source, Sergeant, and pour all the power of those quad lasers toward the point of origin.”
“Shots in the dark,” Tarkin said.
“Only from your vantage,” Vader said; then he took his hands from the steering yoke and turned to him to add: “Your ship. Flank speed.”
Tarkin pulled the copilot’s yoke into his lap and began to slalom the Predator through the debris field spewed by the crippled station. At the same time, Vader swiveled to position himself at the controls for the forward guns. Wary of allowing the ion engines to overheat, Tarkin slued the ship through clusters of slagged alloy, incinerated starfighters, and tumbling bodies.
Far to starboard the explosions were thinning. The Carrion Spike had enough firepower to destroy the entire station, but the dissidents were tapering off the attack, perhaps to reserve energy for future targets. Was that the goal? Tarkin wondered. To use his ship to inflict as much damage as possible?
The thought of having the Carrion Spike leave such a legacy hollowed him.
“Commence fire,” Vader said.
Hyphens of raw energy surged from the Predator, the chuddering of her reciprocating quad lasers loud in the cockpit. Ahead, fire spattered against the Carrion Spike’s ray and particle shields, and for the briefest instant the ship was revealed. Quickly, then, the Predator’s beams were streaking into empty space.
Tarkin yawed to port, hoping to evade the Carrion Spike’s response, but the shipjackers yawed with him and their first salvo nearly overwhelmed the Predator’s inferior shields. Tarkin pushed the yoke away from him, skimming the atmosphere of Galidraan III with the Carrion Spike hewing to his trajectory and preparing to pounce. In the grip of a second barrage, the Predator shook in his grip and the console lights began to flicker.
“Drop behind them,” Vader said.
Tarkin rushed a deceleration burn and starboard feint, hoping to trick the shipjackers into overflying the Predator. Instead the Carrion Spike leapt and spun through a half turn—which Tarkin grasped only when he saw a tempest of energy beams converging on the cockpit.
Tarkin’s sudden swerve and spin almost threw Vader from his chair.
“They’re employing the pintle guns,” Tarkin said in a rush. “They’ll burn right through us.” He risked a glance at Vader. “We’ve one chance to survive this. Redirect all power to the aft shields.”
Vader took Tarkin at his word, and the Predator slowed significantly as a result. The Carrion Spike’s beams found their mark, all but driving the smaller ship forward.
“Shields at forty percent,” Vader said.
Tarkin pulled on the shuddering yoke, taking the Predator into a sudden climb, but there was no escaping his own ship. Another barrage rattled the Predator to her rivets.
Vader slammed his fist on the console. “They have jammed our instruments. Shields at twenty percent.”
A powerful explosion aft worked its way forward to the cockpit, conjuring fire from the sparking instruments, stripping the ship of shields and propulsion, and leaving the Predator dead in space.
“Damage assessment!” Teller called toward the audio pickup as he scrambled to his feet in the Carrion Spike’s command cabin. Still strapped into the pilot’s chair, Salikk was in the midst of bringing some of the stunned systems back to life, tufts of his fur wafting through the cabin on currents of recycled air.
Anora’s voice issued through one of the speakers. “Air lock controls for the escape pods are fried.”
“We’re not going to be needing the pods, Anora. Move on.”
Hask’s voice was the next to ring out. “Fire in cargo hold three has been extinguished.”
“Lock down the hold and disable the exhaust fans,” Teller said quickly. “I don’t want us venting any smoke or fire-suppressant foam.” Clapping grit from his hands, he dropped himself into the comm officer’s chair. “Cala, where are you?”
The speaker crackled. “Aft maintenance bay. The hyperdrive generator seems to be operable, but it’s making some awfully strange noises. Don’t know what it will do when we jump. Can’t now, anyway, until self-diagnostics are complete.”
“How long?”
“Ten minutes. Fifteen at the most.” Cala’s forced exhalation could be heard through the speaker. “They knew just where to hit us, Teller.”
“Of course they did—it’s Tarkin’s ship!”
“And they tracked us through hyperspace again.”
Salikk spoke before Teller could reply. “The station has launched another squadron of starfighters. They’re flying search formations, radiating out from the Parsec Predator.”
Teller called up a magnified view of the incapacitated ship. “I was hoping they’d mistake the Predator for us, but Tarkin must still have limited comm.” He shook his head in vexation. “We must have put on quite a show for the station personnel.”
“The starfighters,” Salikk repeated.
Teller watched the ARC-170s and V-wings begin to fan out. “Do we have sublight?”
“We do. But I’m worried those starfighters will sniff out our ion signatures.”
“Worry more about Vader. He’s probably guiding them right to us.” Teller thought for a moment. “Take evasive action. Full silent running.”
Salikk glanced at him. “Shouldn’t we finish them off? I mean, when will we have another chance like this—to kill two of the Empire’s chief commanders?”
“They’re replaceable.”
“Tarkin, maybe. But Vader?”
“For all we know the Emperor has a dozen more like him in deep freeze. Besides, we need to make the most out of this ship while we’ve got her.”
Salikk nodded. “I reluctantly agree.”
“Reluctance is fine.” Teller swung toward the audio pickup. “Doc, where are you?”
“Cargo hold one,” Artoz said. “And there’s something here you need to see before we go to lightspeed.”
Teller looked at Salikk. “You okay here?”
“Go,” the Gotal said, fairly bleating the word.
Teller pushed himself out of the chair and hurried through the command cabin hatch into the afterdeck. Racing through the conference cabin, he took the starboard connector to the turbolift, only to find it unresponsive. He hurried back to the main cabin and took the emergency stairwell down one level to the engine room, then wormed his way through a narrow cofferdam that accessed the cargo holds. As he came through the hatch of cargo hold one, he saw Artoz crawling out from around a large black sphere set into a hexagonal dais that took up most of the hold.
“What’s so important I need to see it?”
The Mon Cal got to his big feet and gestured to the sphere. “This.”
Teller regarded the sphere from top to bottom. “Yeah, I saw this during our initial recon. What of it?”
“To begin with, do you know what it is?”
“Cala thinks it’s a component of the stealth system—”
“No, it is not,” Artoz cut in. “If the cloaking device was powered by hibridium, then yes, that would provide a possible explanation. But this ship’s stealth system runs on stygium crystals, which obviates the need for a device of this sort.”
“Okay,” Teller said in a tentative way.
Artoz indicated the sphere’s vertical seams. “The hemispheres are designed to separate longitudinally, but I can’t find a control panel or any way to prompt the device to open.”
Teller walked partway around the sphere. “You think it’s housing a tracker of some sort?”
“Our scanners haven’t detected any.”
Teller made his eyes bright with mystification. “So?”
“I think this is the homing beacon.”
Teller gaped at him.
“What I mean to say is that I think this belongs to Vader, and that Vader was able to follow us to Fial, then Galidraan, by tracking his property.”
Teller’s brow wrinkled. “Look, he may be more machine than man, but—”
“We’ve combed the ship forward-to-aft and belly-to-spine and found nothing in the way of a locator capable of tracking us through hyperspace.”
Teller’s comlink chimed before he could answer.
“The hyperdrive generator’s completed its self-test,” Cala updated. “It’s still protesting, but we should be good to go.”
“Then get down here.” He commed the cockpit. “Salikk, navigate to the jump point, but hold there until I give you the word. We’ve got something to take care of before we go to hyperspace.”
“Understood,” Salikk said.
“Oh, and one more thing: Destroy Galidraan’s hyperspace buoy on the way out. We don’t want anyone following us this time.”
Vader stood unmoving at the Predator’s forward viewports, the scarlet light of emergency illuminators reflecting off his helmet, the black orbs of his helmet mask seemingly fixed on the escaping Carrion Spike.
“Galidraan Station is dispatching a shuttle and readying their fastest corvette for pursuit,” Tarkin said from the copilot’s chair. “Sergeant Crest reports three dead.”
“Your ship is still in the system,” Vader said slowly. Then, turning his head, he barked, “Squadron Commander, are you hearing me?”
A warbling voice drifted from the cockpit nunciator. “Loud and clear, Lord Vader. Awaiting your orders.”
“Commander, direct your starfighter squadron toward the bright side of Galidraan Four’s outermost moon.”
“My scanners aren’t showing anything in that vicinity, Lord Vader.”
“I will supply all the targeting data you need, Commander.”
“Affirmative, Lord Vader. We’re keeping the battle and tactical nets open.”
Tarkin pressed the padded speaker of a comm headset to his left ear. “Station navicomputers are calculating all possible egress points.”
Vader clasped his hands behind his back. “The Perlemian Trade Route is a short jump from this system.”
“Escape is not their intention,” Tarkin said.
Vader turned away from the viewport to look at him.
“If escape were their plan,” Tarkin said, “they would have already done so.” He cleared his throat meaningfully. “No. They have something else in mind. Perhaps to strike at another target.” Once more he pressed the headpiece speaker to his ear, then toggled a switch that routed the audio feed to the enunciator.
“—calculations are ready, Governor Tarkin,” a deep voice announced. “We’re transmitting them to the shuttle, so that you and Lord Vader will have immediate access to them.”
“Thank you, Colonel,” Tarkin said into the headset mike. “In the meantime, I want a list of local systems that host Imperial resources.”
“I can provide that information now, Governor. We have a large garrison in the Felucia system. Rhen Var has a small dirtside outpost. Nam Chorios has both a mining colony and a small Imperial prison facility. We have additional outposts at Trogan and Jomark. And of course, the naval base and R/M Facility Four deepdock at Belderone.”
“What do we have parked at R/M, Colonel?”
“Several CR-ninety corvettes, two Carrack-class light cruisers, a couple of Victories, and a Venator-class destroyer—the Liberator.”
“Stand by, Colonel.” Tarkin muted the audio feed and swiveled toward Vader. “Are you reasonably certain that our particle beams wounded them?”
Vader nodded.
“If the hyperdrive is damaged, they might opt to lie low to effect repairs,” Tarkin said.
Vader nodded again. “Or go in search of replacement parts.”
“And if they’re not wounded?”
“Continue their mission,” Vader said with finality.
Tarkin fell silent for a long moment. Never having had an opportunity to put the Carrion Spike through her paces, the recent engagement had left him with an even more profound appreciation for the ship. “Why didn’t they kill us when they had the chance? Could it be they believe they were being pursued by the Sugi crime lord?”
“No,” Vader said sharply. “They know that we are here.”
“Then perhaps they didn’t kill us because they have a rendezvous or a schedule to keep?”
“Perhaps,” Vader said.
Tarkin swiveled in place. “Belderone?”
“Too heavily fortified—even for your corvette.”
“Felucia, then—in reprisal for the way the Republic left it.”
“Of no significance.”
“Rhen Var is merely an outpost…So: Nam Chorios?”
Vader took a moment to respond. “Instruct Belderone to send the Liberator there.”
Tarkin activated the headset microphone. “Colonel, we need to contact Belderone and Coruscant,” he started to say, then cut himself off on hearing Vader growl.
“What is it?”
“Whoever they are, they are resourceful.” The Dark Lord turned slowly from the viewports. “They have jettisoned the meditation chamber.”
The voice of the starfighter squadron commander issued from the enunciator. “Lord Vader, our scanners have detected an object—”
“Commander, order your pilots to open fire along that vector—lasers and proton torpedoes if they have them.”
“Lord Vader, we have a detonation,” the commander said a moment later.
Tarkin leapt from the chair to stand alongside Vader. “Did they hit the Carrion Spike?”
The answer was slow to arrive. “Lord Vader,” the commander said, “the enemy has taken out the system hyperspace buoy. Our sensors are also picking up wake rotation readings.”
“They have jumped to lightspeed,” Vader said.
Tarkin ran a hand over his high forehead. “Then they’ve managed to make themselves untraceable, as well as invisible.”