Her sneering expression ridiculed the very idea of it. “Barely a whisker on his chin, but luck enough for a professional sabacc player.”
“It was your vanity that turned out to be a laudable substitute for luck,” Wilhuff told her. “Your need to leave your signature all over Eriadu’s convoys.”
Her real eye opened wide and she quirked a grin that told him she understood what he had accomplished, but she followed up the begrudging grin with a snort of contempt. “There isn’t a prison that can contain me, boy — even on Eriadu.”
Wilhuff offered the sly smile that would later become a kind of signature. “You’re confusing Eriadu with worlds that have noble houses and trials by jury, Q’anah.”
She searched his youthful face. “Execution on the spot, is it?”
“Nothing so straightforward.”
She continued to appraise him openly and defiantly. “There’s hardly a part of me that hasn’t been replaced, boy. But take my word: I’m not the last of my kind, and your convoys will continue to suffer.”
He allowed a nod. “Only if we fail to discourage your followers.”
Outland had Q’anah and her crew transferred to one of the stolen containers, whose sublight engines were programmed to send the ship slowly but inexorably toward the system’s sun. The plight of the captives was broadcast over the pirates’ own communications network, and several of Q’anah’s cohorts succeeded in determining the point of origin of the transmission and hastening to her rescue. Their ships were destroyed on sight by Outland forces. The rest were wise enough to go into hiding.
Wilhuff demanded that the container ship’s audio and video feeds be kept enabled to the very end, so that Outland’s forces and any others who might have been listening could either savor or lament the agonized wails of the pirates as they were slowly roasted to death. In the end, even the notorious Q’anah succumbed to the torture and wailed openly.
“Your task is to teach them the meaning of law and order,” Jova would hector his nephew. “Then to punish them so that they remember the lesson. In the end, you’ll have driven the fear of you so deeply into them that fear alone will have them cowering at your feet.”
Imperial center
BRIGHT-SIDE CORUSCANT air-traffic control directed the Carrion Spike to the Imperial Palace, and there into a courtyard landing field that was large enough to accommodate Victory- and Venator-class Star Destroyers. As repulsors eased the ship down through the busy skyways and into the court, Tarkin realized that the Emperor’s current residence had once been the headquarters for the Jedi — though practically all that remained of the Order’s elegant Temple complex was its copse of five skyscraping spires, now the pinnacle of a sprawling amalgam of blockish edifaces with sloping façades.
At the edge of the landing courtyard, centered among a detail of red-robed Imperial Guards armed with gleaming force pikes, stood Mas Amedda, dressed in voluminous shoulder-padded robes and carrying a staff that was taller than him, its head ornamented by a lustrous humaniform figure.
“How charitable of you to make time for us, Governor,” the Chagrian said as Tarkin approached from the corvette’s lowered boarding ramp.
Tarkin played along. “And for you to welcome me personally, Vizier.”
“We all do our part for the Empire.”
With crisp turns, Amedda and the face-shielded guards led him through elaborate doors into the Palace. Tarkin was familiar with the interior, but the expansive, soaring corridors he walked years earlier had contained a rare solemnity. Now they teemed with civilians and functionaries of many species, and the walls and plinths were left unadorned by art or statuary.
Tarkin felt curiously out of step, perhaps because of the increased gravity, the pace, the crowds, or a combination of all those things. For three years the only non- or near-humans he had seen or had direct contact with had been slaves or recruited laborers at outlying bases or at the battle station’s construction site. He had heard that one needn’t have been absent from Coruscant for years to be startled by the changes, in that each day saw buildings raised, demolished, incorporated into ever larger and taller monstrosities, or merely stripped of Republic-era ornamentation and renovated in accordance with a more severe aesthetic. Curved lines were yielding to harsh angles; sophistication to declaration. Fashions had changed along similar lines, with few outside the Imperial court affecting cloaks, headcloths, or garish robes. By most accounts, though, Coruscanti were satisfied, especially those who lived and worked in the upper tiers of the fathomless cityscape; content if for no other reason than to have the brutal war behind them.
Tarkin’s most carefree years had been spent on Coruscant and neighboring Core Worlds before he had been elected governor of Eriadu, with some help from family members and influential contacts. He had a sudden desire to sneak outside the Palace and explore the precincts he had roamed as an adventurous young adult. But perhaps it was enough to know that law and order had finally triumphed over corruption and indulgence, which had been the hallmarks of the Republic.
Someone called his name as he and Amedda were moving down a colonnaded walkway, and Tarkin turned, recognizing the face of a man he had known since his academy years.
“Nils Tenant,” he said in genuine surprise, separating himself from the Chagrian’s retinue to shake Tenant’s proffered hand. Fair-skinned, with a prominent nose and a downturning full-lipped mouth, Tenant had commanded a Star Destroyer during the Clone Wars, and displayed on his uniform tunic the rank insignia plaque of a rear admiral.
“Wonderful to see you, Wilhuff,” Tenant said, pumping Tarkin’s hand. “I came as soon as I learned you were coming.”
Tarkin affected a frown. “And here I thought my arrival would be a well-kept secret.”
Tenant sniffed in faint amusement. “Only some secrets are well kept on Coruscant.”
Clearly bothered by the delay, Mas Amedda tapped the base of his staff on the polished floor and waited until the two had joined the retinue before moving deeper into the Palace.
“Is that the new uniform?” Tenant asked as they walked.
Tarkin pinched the sleeve of the tunic. “What, this old thing?” then asked before Tenant could respond: “So who let it be known that I was coming? Was it Yularen? Tagge? Motti?”
Tenant was dismissive. “You know, you hear things.” He moved with purposeful slowness. “You’ve been in the Western Reaches, Wilhuff?”
Tarkin nodded. “Still hunting down General Grievous’s former allies. And you?”
“Pacification,” Tenant said in a distracted way. “Brought back to attend a Joint Chiefs meeting.” Abruptly he clamped his hand on Tarkin’s upper arm, bringing him to a halt and encouraging him to fall back from Amedda and the guards. When they seemed to be out of earshot of Amedda, Tenant said: “Wilhuff, are the rumors true?”
Tarkin adopted a questioning look. “What rumors? And why are you whispering?”