Tarkin

Burying the lead

OUTBOUND FROM MURKHANA, the Carrion Spike’s new pilot and three members of the new crew were gathered in the command cabin marveling at the wonders of the ship. The shipjackers — a human, a Mon Calamari, a Gotal, and a Koorivar — some standing, others seated in the chairs that fronted the curved instrument console, could hardly keep still, having pulled off an act of piracy that had been close to two years in the planning.

The human, Teller, was a rangy, middle-aged man with thick dark hair and eyebrows to match. His long face was perpetually shadowed with stubble, and his chin bore a deep cleft. Dressed in cargo pants, boots, and a thermal shirt, he stood between the principal acceleration chairs, watching as the Gotal pilot and the Koorivar operations specialist familiarized themselves with the ship’s complex controls. The bulkhead left of the forward viewports bore traces of carbon scoring and blood from the brief blaster fight that erupted when the shipjackers had had to burn and battle their way through the command cabin hatch to deal with Tarkin’s defiant captain and comm officer.

“Getting the hang of it?” Teller asked the Gotal, Salikk.

The twin-horned, flat-faced humanoid nodded without taking his heavy-lidded scarlet eyes from the instrument array. “She flies herself,” he said in accented Basic. A native of the moon Antar 4, he was short and dark-skinned, with tufts of light hair on his cheeks and chin. He wore an old-fashioned but serviceable flight suit that left the clawed digits of his sensitive hands exposed.

“It will fly itself, but we’re going to tell it where to go,” Dr. Artoz told him.

The Mon Cal wore a flight suit whose neck had been altered to accommodate the amphibious humanoid’s high-domed, salmon-colored head, and whose sleeves ended mid-forearm to allow passage for his large webbed hands. Pacing the length of the instruments console, Artoz was pointing out individual controls, his huge eyes swiveling independently of each other to focus simultaneously on Salikk and the ops specialist, Cala.

Teller had known all three of them for years, but what with Salikk’s sweaty scent and the saline smell Artoz emitted, he was grateful for the spaciousness of the Carrion Spike’s command cabin. Then again, from what he’d been told by his nonhuman friends, humans weren’t exactly a picnic when it came to body odor.

“Computer-assisted fire control for the lateral lasers and in-close weapons,” Artoz was saying, indicating one set of instruments after the next. “Full-authority navicomp, stealth system initiator, sublight ions, hyperdrive.”

“State-of-the-art Imperial technology,” Cala said. Jutting from a headcloth that fell past the Koorivar’s shoulders, his spiraling cranial horn was twice the height of Salikk’s conical projections and thicker than both of them combined. He wore pouch-pocketed pants not unlike Teller’s under a roomy tunic that reached his thick thighs. “This corvette will easily exceed a Star Destroyer.”

“Nothing less than what I promised,” Artoz said, though without a hint of self-importance. He gestured to the auxiliary controls. “Sensor suite, rectenna controls, alluvial dampers, reverse triggering acceleration compensator—”

“Which one empties the toilets?” a second human asked as she stepped through the scarred cockpit hatch. Fit and scrappy looking, she had a narrow frame and skin the color of a tropical hardwood. Her short curly hair was naturally black but had been lightened to a mishmash of brown and blond. She wore a white utility suit and ankle-length ship-tread boots. The Zygerrian female who followed her into the command cabin was also slender, though somewhat taller, and distinctly feline in appearance. Pointed, fur-covered ears sprang straight up from the sides of a narrow-nosed, triangular face. Her innate exoticism was enhanced by reddish coloring.

Teller turned to them. “Everything locked down back there?”

The woman, Anora, nodded. “The outer hatch is fully sealed. The air lock, not so much.” She gestured with her pointed chin to the Zygerrian. “Hask’s going to keep working on it — since it was her blaster that did the damage.”

Hask snorted. “When she slammed into me.” She spoke Basic flawlessly, but with a thick accent.

Anora showed her a long-suffering look. “You were supposed to keep the safety on.”

“For the last time,” she said, “I’m not a soldier, and I’ll never be one.”

“Plenty of blame to go around,” Teller said, cutting them off. “The holocams survive?”

Enthusiasm informed Hask’s nod. Her head bore a symmetrical pattern of small spurs. “They’re in the main cabin. I’ll get started slaving them to the HoloNet comm board—”

“As soon as she’s repaired the air lock,” Anora said, blue-gray eyes bright over her smile.

Hask ignored her. “Nice of Tarkin’s stormtroopers to carry some of the storeroom components aboard. I thought we were going to have to sacrifice them.”

“We have Tarkin to thank for a lot of things,” Teller said. He swung forward in time to catch the end of Artoz’s instrument rundown.

“Air lock overrides, blast-tinting for the viewports … What else?”

“Do all the Emperor’s Moffs rate one of these?” Anora asked, running a hand over the console in appreciation.

“Only Tarkin,” Artoz said, “as far as we know.”

“A testament to his friendship with Sienar,” Teller said.

“Sienar Fleet Systems wasn’t the only contributor,” Artoz amended. “The company’s design sense is all over the corvette, but every shipbuilder from Theed Engineering to Cygnus Spaceworks played a part in outfitting it.”

“Not to mention Tarkin himself,” Teller said. “The Moff was designing ships for Eriadu’s Outland Security Force when he was nineteen.”

Hask made a sour face. “More Prefsbelt Academy legends.”

Anora shook her head negatively. “True by all accounts.”

Teller perched on the arm of one of the secondary acceleration chairs. “The way I heard it, Eriadu was losing a lot of its lommite shipments to a pirate group that had fortified the bow of one of their ships to use as a rostrum — a kind of battering ram — after destroying too much cargo with their lasers.”

“The pirates weren’t acquainted with ion cannons?” Salikk said from the pilot’s seat.

Teller glanced at the Gotal. “Seswenna’s ships were too well ray-shielded for that — another Tarkin innovation, I might add. Anyway, he designed a narrow-profile ship with cannons that could swivel on pintles to direct all firepower forward. Confronted the rammer bow-on.”

“Damn the particle beams, full speed ahead,” Hask said, still refusing to buy into the legend.

Teller nodded. “Burned through the pirates’ armor like a knife through butter and blew the ship apart.” He turned to point to toggles on the control console. “Same system here.”

Cala grinned. “Should come in handy.”

“We can hope,” Artoz said, giving the console a final appraisal with his right eye while his left remained fixed on Salikk. “Proximity alarms, hypercomm unit, Imperial HoloNet encryptor …”

“Why is it called the Carrion Spike?” Anora said.

Teller drew his lips in and shook his head. “Not a clue.”

Everyone fell silent for a moment, gazing through the viewports at the Murkhana system’s small outermost planet and the vast starfield beyond.

“I still can’t get over Vader being there,” Hask said finally. “I mean, why would the Emperor send him to escort Tarkin?”

“Vader paid Murkhana a visit just after the war ended,” Cala said. “Executed a Black Sun Twi’lek racketeer, among other acts.”

“Still,” Hask said. “Vader …”

“Stop calling him by name,” Anora said harshly; then softened her tone to add: “He’s a machine. A terrorist.” She looked at Teller. “You took a real risk having him and Tarkin walk right into that sliding door ambush.”

Teller shrugged it off. “We had to make the scenario ring true. Besides, their getting themselves blown up wouldn’t have affected our plans one way or another.”

“The Emperor wouldn’t have been happy losing two of his top henchmen,” Cala pointed out.

“He’s not going to be happy either way,” Teller said.

The console issued a loud tone, and Cala lifted his eyes to the display. “Uh, Teller, we’ve got a starship on our tail.”

Teller’s dark eyebrows quirked together. “Can’t be. You certain you have the stealth system enabled?”

The Koorivar nodded. “Status indicators say so. We should be invisible to scanners.”

Everyone crowded around the sensor suite. “Put the ship on screen,” Teller said.

Cala’s stubby-fingered hands raced across the keypad, and a black ship with forward fangs resolved on the display. “Waiting for a transponder signature …”

“Don’t bother,” Salikk said. “That’s Faazah’s ship. The Parsec Predator.”

Teller nodded. “The Sugi arms dealer.”

“Murkhana’s most wanted,” Salikk said.

Cala ran his gaze over the sensor indicators. “Matching our every move.”

Teller stared at the screen and scratched his head in bafflement. “I’m willing to entertain explanations.”

Artoz spoke first. “Perhaps this Sugi is simply heading for the same jump point we are.”

Teller nodded to Salikk. “Put this thing through some maneuvers, and let’s see what happens.”

The corvette changed vectors, slewing to port, then to starboard before rocketing through an abrupt, twisting climb that delivered them swiftly to the dark side of the impact-cratered planet.

Everyone fell silent again, waiting for the Koorivar’s update. “The Predator’s still with us, just emerging from the transitor.” Cala swiveled to Teller. “And here’s something strange: We’re not being scanned.”

Teller and Artoz looked perplexed. “You stated that it is matching our every maneuver,” the Mon Cal said.

“It is,” Cala emphasized. “And I repeat, we’re not being scanned. No sensor lock, no indication that we’re being observed.”

Teller traded glances with Artoz. “A homing beacon?” he suggested.

The Mon Cal’s confusion didn’t abate.

Teller looked at Hask. “It was your job to check for trackers.”

“I did,” the Zygerrian all but snarled. “There weren’t any.”

“Or you didn’t find any,” Teller said.

“Why would this Faazah attach a locater to Tarkin’s ship?” Anora said. “Or is that just a Sugi thing to do?”

“Offhand, I can’t imagine a reason,” Artoz said. “But we can certainly outrace the Predator if we have to.”

Teller considered it. “That doesn’t make me feel a whole lot better, Doc. Not if we’ve got a faulty stealth system.”

“Teller, we are not being scanned,” Cala repeated. “The stealth system is operating impeccably. Check the status displays for yourself if you don’t trust me.”

Teller made a placating gesture. “Of course I trust you. I just don’t get it.”

“Should we contact our ally?” Salikk said.

“No, not yet,” Teller said. “We’ll be updated soon enough, in any case.”

“Unless …,” Hask began.

Anora aimed a faint smile at the Zygerrian. “I’ll bet I know what you’re going to say, and yes, that occurred to me, too.”

Teller and the others looked at the two of them. “What am I missing?” Teller asked.

“Vader,” Hask said, exhaling. “Vader and Tarkin.”

Teller continued to regard them. “What, the Sugi is giving them a ride?”

Anora rocked her head from side to side. “Or they appropriated his ship.”

“They could have.” Teller plucked at his lower lip. “Still doesn’t make sense, though — not if we’re invisible to the Predator’s sensors. Or are you saying that Tarkin’s got some secret way of locking onto us?”

Cala spoke to it. “We disabled the slave circuit when we silenced the stormtroopers’ comlinks and the ship’s comm.”

“Maybe Tarkin is a telepath, along with being a ship designer,” Salikk said.

“Vader,” Hask rasped. “Va-der.”

Teller locked eyes with her. “Vader has a way of neutralizing stealth technology?”

Hask spread her slim, furry hands. “Who knows what’s inside that helmet of his? Besides, what other explanation is there?”

“We should have launched sooner,” Cala said. “We’d be out of the system by now.”

Teller shot him a gimlet look. “A couple of jumps from here, I’m going to remind you that you said that.” He glanced at Salikk. “How soon until we can go to lightspeed?”

The Gotal studied the navicomputer display. “As soon as you give the word.”

Teller took a breath and let it out. “Let’s see them try to track us through hyperspace.”

“Is this ship fast enough to close the distance?”

Darth Vader pulled the yoke toward him. “It is faster than most, Governor, but unfortunately not as fast as yours. We need to disable the corvette before it can elude us.”

Tarkin despaired. As disturbingly well armed as the late crime lord’s ship was, disabling the Carrion Spike was easier said than done. If the ship was, in some sense, a measure of his standing in the Imperial hegemony, then his vaunted reputation just might go down with her.

They were at the edge of the Murkhana system, the eponymous world well behind them, already a memory, and a bitter one. He and Vader were sharing the controls, Vader wedged into an acceleration chair made for a much smaller being, Tarkin strapped into the copilot’s chair. Crest and the other stormtroopers were amidships, manning the ship’s quad laser cannons.

Never having shared a cockpit with Vader, Tarkin was astonished by the Dark Lord’s piloting skills. Though perhaps he shouldn’t have been.

The sound of Vader’s slow, rhythmic breathing overwhelmed the cockpit as he indicated an area dead ahead and slightly to port. “There.”

Tarkin saw nothing but star-studded blackness. Nor did the ship’s instruments register the Carrion Spike, which was obviously running in stealth mode. He couldn’t imagine how Vader was managing to track the ship, but was for the moment content to be mystified.

“Why are they still in system?” he said. “They can’t have shipjacked it for a joyride.”

Vader glanced at him across a center console. “They were convinced we couldn’t follow them. They are merely taking time to familiarize themselves with the instruments.”

“Then they must know that we’re tracking them.”

“Indeed they do.”

Tarkin found himself actually warming to Vader, especially after what had happened in the Sugi’s headquarters. No sooner had word arrived that Sergeant Crest and his stormtroopers were in possession of the Parsec Predator and the codes necessary to launch her than Vader exacted his revenge on the crime lord for having been kept waiting. Tarkin knew merely by the gasping sounds that began to erupt from the Sugi that Vader was performing that thumb-and-forefinger dark magic of his to crush the crime lord’s windpipe. By then, too, the ambassador’s stormtroopers had rushed into the headquarters, unleashing flash grenades and blaster bolts that had caught the Sugi’s underlings by surprise. At one point Vader had asked them whether they actually wanted to die for their leader, and it was when they replied with weapons that Vader drew his crimson-bladed lightsaber from beneath his cape. Tarkin had witnessed numerous Jedi wield lightsabers during the Clone Wars, but he had never seen anyone put an energy blade to such determined purpose or achieve such rapid and lethal results. Two stormtroopers had died in the exchange, but all the Sugi had paid with their lives; Vader’s blade had even reduced the repurposed battle droids to useless parts.

“The ambassador owes you a big favor,” Tarkin had told Vader at the time.

Now he said: “Surely we weren’t lured all the way to Murkhana just so the Carrion Spike could be shipjacked.”

“And why not?” Vader said. “Stealth, firepower, alacrity.” He paused as if he were about to ask a follow-up question, but said nothing further.

“Granted it’s one of a kind, but what is their plan? To strip and sell it for parts? To have it dissected and replicated?” Tarkin heard the words tumbling from his mouth in a rush and got control of himself.

“A flotilla of Carrion Spikes,” Vader said, clearly dubious.

Tarkin gestured in dismissal. “Not without the help of the top engineering conglomerates in the galaxy. More to the point, whoever they are, they now have the corvette, as well as a capital ship.”

“You are convinced that the piracy was carried out by the same beings who attacked Sentinel.”

“I am. Anyone with skill enough to create counterfeit holovids of ships and beings and to interrupt Imperial HoloNet signals would also have the skill to wrap the Carrion Spike in a mantle of silence, disabling not only the ship’s slave system but also her various communications systems, including comlinks and helmet radios.” He paused briefly. “Vice Admirals Rancit and Screed were correct about the cache being part of a more far-reaching plan. If the cache was merely the lure, then the plot is still unfolding.”

“Then tell me how to disable your ship, Governor.”

Tarkin firmed his lips. “There is a weakness. If the thieves can be persuaded to lower the shields, concentrated fire on the spine where the main fuselage meets the aft flare should do the trick. We were never able to resolve the problem of properly safeguarding the hyperdrive generator while the power plant is supplying the ion drives, the deflector shields, and the weapons. It’s not so much a design flaw as an accommodation to the ship’s size in relation to her armament. Even Sienar Fleet was at a loss.”

“I will bear that in mind,” Vader said, though mostly to himself.

“Frankly, Lord Vader, I’m more concerned about what the Carrion Spike’s weapons can do to us while we’re attempting to line up what has to be a very precise laser blast.”

“Leave that to me, Governor.”

“Do I have a choice?”

Abruptly Vader poured on all speed, accelerating away from the system’s outmost planet and taking the crime lord’s ship into the starry space he had indicated earlier. But then only to loose a guttural sound of anger and frustration.

“They’ve jumped to lightspeed!”

Tarkin ground his teeth. The situation was growing worse by the moment. In star systems lacking nearby hyperspace relay stations, a ship’s pilot had to navigate by beacon or buoy, unless the ship was equipped with a sophisticated navicomputer of the sort the Carrion Spike boasted, which could plot jumps well beyond the next beacon, all the way to the Core if necessary. According to the Predator’s inferior device, the Murkhana system had no fewer than a dozen jump egresses, and most of those were into other Outer Rim systems where beacons were still more plentiful than hyperspace relay stations.

Vader broke his protracted silence to say, “They have jumped, but not far.” He stretched out his left hand to enter data into the ship’s navicomputer.

Tarkin was nonplussed. Then it dawned on him: Vader wasn’t tracking the ship; he was tracking the mysterious black sphere he had had transferred to the Carrion Spike!

Even so, his optimism was short-lived, undermined by a memory of something Jova used to say when they had turned the tables on a predator, making it the hunted rather than the hunter.

“Think first when you’re in pursuit: Is your prey trying to escape, or is it going for reinforcements? Is it perhaps looking for a temporary hiding place from which to spring at you, or — still driven by hunger — has it decided to search out a more vulnerable target?”