“It appears that some of you have failed to pay attention,” Vader was saying, jabbing his pointer figure in the chill, recirculated air. “Or perhaps you are simply choosing to ignore our guidance. Whichever the case, the time has come for you to decide between setting safer courses for yourselves and suffering the consequences.”
“Wise counsel,” Amedda said.
Tarkin nodded in agreement. “Counsel one dismisses at one’s own peril, I suspect.” Glancing at the Chagrian, he added: “I know Ison, but who are the others?”
“Riffraff from the lower levels,” Amedda said with patent distaste. “Gangsters, smugglers, bounty hunters. Coruscanti scum.”
“I might have guessed by the look of them. And the Twi’lek standing alongside Lord Vader?”
“Phoca Soot,” Amedda said, turning slightly toward him. “Prefect of level one-three-three-one, where many of these lowlifes operate.”
Vader was in motion, pacing back and forth in front of his audience, as if waiting to spring. “The liberties you enjoyed and abused during the days of the Republic and the Clone Wars are a thing of the past,” he was saying. “Then there was some purpose to turning a blind eye to illegality, and to fostering dishonesty of a particular sort. But times have changed, and it is incumbent on you to change with them.”
Vader fell silent, and the sound of his sonorous breathing filled the room. Tarkin watched him closely.
“The Tarkin heritage will grant you access to many influential people, and to many social circles,” his father had told him. “In addition, your mother and I will do all within our power to help bring your desires within reach. But nothing less than the strength of your ambition will bring you together with those who will partner in your ascension and ultimately reward you with power.”
Since the end of the war, Vader had on occasion been such a partner in Tarkin’s life, both in Geonosis space and in political and military campaigns that had taken them throughout the galaxy. Tarkin had long nursed suspicions about who Vader was beneath the black face mask and helmet, as well as how he had come to be, but he knew better than to give open voice to his thoughts.
“Lest any of your current activities infringe on the Emperor’s designs,” Vader continued, “you may wish to consider relocating your operations to sectors in the Outer Rim. Or you may opt to remain on Coruscant and risk lengthy sentences in an Imperial prison.” He paused to let his words sink in; then, with his gloved hands akimbo and his black floor-length cape thrown behind his shoulders, he added: “Or worse.”
He began to pace again. “It has come to my attention that a certain being present has failed to grasp that his recent actions reflect a flagrant disrespect for the Emperor. His brazen behavior suggests that he actually takes some pride in his actions. But his duplicity has not gone unnoticed. We are pleased to be able to make an example of him, so that the rest of you might profit at his expense.”
Vader came to an abrupt stop, scanning his audience and certainly sending shivers of fear through everyone — Toydarian, Dug, and Devaronian alike. As his raised right hand curled slowly into a fist, many of them began nervously tugging at the collars of their tunics and cloaks. But it was the Twi’lek prefect, standing not a meter from the Dark Lord, who unexpectedly gasped and brought his hands to his chest as if he had just taken a spear to the heart. Phoca Soot’s lekku shot straight out from the sides of his head as if he were being electrocuted, and he collapsed to his knees in obvious agony, his breath caught in his throat and blood vessels in his head-tails beginning to rupture. His eyes glazed over and his red skin began to pale; then his arms flew back from his chest as if in an act of desperate supplication, and he tipped backward, the left side of his head slamming hard against the blood-slicked floor.
For a long moment, Vader’s breathing was the only sound intruding on the silence. Without bothering to gaze on his handiwork, the Dark Lord finally said: “Perhaps this is a good place to conclude our assembly. Unless any of you have questions?”
The stormtrooper commander made a quick motion with his hand, and two of the white-armored soldiers moved in. Taking hold of the prefect by his slack arms and legs, they began to carry him from the room, tracking blood across the floor and passing close to Tarkin and Amedda. The vizier’s blue face was contorted in angry astonishment.
Tarkin hid a smile. It pleased him to see Amedda caught off guard.
“Lord Vader,” the vizier said as the Emperor’s deputy approached, “we’ve refrained from requesting that you grant stays of execution to those in your sights, but is there no one you are willing to pardon?”
“I will give the matter some thought,” Vader told him.
Amedda adopted a narrow-eyed expression of exasperation and withdrew, leaving Tarkin and Vader facing each other. If Vader was at all affected by the Chagrian’s words, he showed no evidence of it, in either his bearing or the rich bass of his voice.
“We haven’t stood together on Coruscant in some time, Governor.”
Tarkin lifted his gaze past Vader’s transpirator-control chest plate and grilled muzzle to the unreadable midnight orbs of his mask. “The needs of the Empire keep us elsewhere occupied, Lord Vader.”
“Just so.”
Tarkin directed a glance at the exiting stormtroopers. “I am curious about Prefect Soot.”
Vader crossed his thick arms across the illuminated indicators of the chest plate. “A pity. Tasked with controlling crime in his sector, he succumbed to temptation by hiring himself out to the Droid Gotra.”
“Well, clearly his heart wasn’t in it,” Tarkin said. “Strange, though, that the Crymorah crime syndicate had no representation in your audience.”
Vader looked down at him — blankly? Perturbed?
“We have reached an accommodation with the Crymorah,” Vader said.
Tarkin waited for more, but Vader had nothing to add, so Tarkin dropped the matter and they set out for the turbolifts together, with Amedda and his retinue of Royal Guards trailing behind.
Nothing about Vader seemed natural — not his towering height, his deep voice, his antiquated diction — yet despite those qualities and the mask and respirator, Tarkin believed him to be more man than machine. Although he had clearly twisted the powers of the Force to his own dark purposes, Vader’s innate strength was undeniable. His contained rage was genuine, as well, and not simply the result of some murderous cyberprogram. But the quality that made him most human was the fierce dedication he demonstrated to the Emperor.
It was that genuflecting obedience, the steadfast devotion to execute whatever task the Emperor assigned, that had given rise to so many rumors about Vader: that he was a counterpart to the Confederacy’s General Grievous the Emperor had been holding in reserve; that he was an augmented human or near-human who had been trained or had trained himself in the ancient dark arts of the Sith; that he was nothing more than a monster fashioned in some clandestine laboratory. Many believed that the Emperor’s willingness to grant so much authority to such a being heralded the shape of things to come, for it was beyond dispute that Vader was the Empire’s first terror weapon.
Tarkin didn’t always agree with Vader’s methods for dealing with those who opposed the Empire, but he held the Dark Lord in high esteem, and he hoped Vader felt the same toward him. Very early on in their partnership — soon after both had been introduced to the secret mobile battle station — Tarkin grew convinced that Vader knew him much better than he let on, and that behind the bulging lenses of his face mask, whatever remained of Vader’s human eyes regarded him with clear recognition. More than anything else it was those initial feelings that had provided Tarkin with his first suspicion as to Vader’s identity. Later, observing the rapport the Dark Lord shared with the stormtroopers who supported him, and the technique he displayed in wielding his crimson lightsaber, Tarkin grew more and more convinced that his suspicions were right.