“Are you suggesting that Murkhana is a trap?”
“I’m suggesting that you pay close attention to what you and Moff Tarkin uncover there. Getting to the heart of this matter may require us to peel away layer upon layer of purpose.”
Vader bowed his head in a gesture of obedience.
Sidious pressed the tips of his fingers together. “Do you know why Tarkin’s ship is named the Carrion Spike?”
“I do not, Master.”
Sidious looked past Vader to the darkening sky. “You should ask him.”
On being informed of the Murkhana mission by Mas Amedda, Tarkin had contacted Commander Cassel to say that he would be delayed in returning to Sentinel Base, and had sent everyone but the Carrion Spike’s captain and communications officer back to the moon. For the moment, the crew would be limited to the dozen stormtroopers Vader had handpicked to accompany them. Amedda hadn’t said whether he or Vader had command of the mission, and Tarkin was trying to puzzle that out on his own. Vader held an invisible rank. But the Carrion Spike was Tarkin’s ship, which gave him authority. Tarkin was also a Moff, but the title alone didn’t grant him jurisdiction in the sector to which Murkhana belonged. Disdain crept into his thoughts. That Vader was a Sith shouldn’t factor into the question of authority, and yet how could Vader’s dark side powers and crimson lightsaber not factor into the matter?
The whole business had the taint of politics.
Twenty years earlier, Tarkin had been on a career track to be appointed provost marshal of the Judicial Department when he resigned his rank and position. Coruscant at the time had been in the throes of an economic upswing for those senators, lobbyists, and entrepreneurs who had placed themselves at the service of the galactic industrial conglomerates. Availing itself of loopholes built into the free trade zone legislation, the monolithic Trade Federation was expanding its reach into the Outer Rim, as well as its influence in the Republic Senate. Against expectation, Finis Valorum’s supporters had managed to secure his reelection to the Republic chancellery, but Valorum was scarcely a year into his second term when the citizens of Coruscant began to place bets on whether he would be able to hold on to his office. Palpatine’s name was already being whispered as someone who might replace Valorum as Supreme Chancellor.
Tarkin and Palpatine had had only sporadic in-person contact during the years of Tarkin’s service with the Judicials, but they had been faithful correspondents, and Palpatine had remained a staunch supporter of legislation that benefited Eriadu and the Seswenna sector. When Tarkin asked to meet with him on Coruscant, Palpatine made the travel arrangements. Tarkin was one of few people to be on a first-name basis with the senator, but out of respect for his elder and mentor of a sort, he most often referred to him by his title.
“You need a new battlefield,” Palpatine said after he had listened in silence to Tarkin’s tale of disillusionment. “I sensed from the moment we met that the Judicial Department was too insular to contain a man of your talents — despite your having garnered a following superseding the one you attained at Sullust.”
They were sitting in stylish chairs in the senator’s red-roomed apartment in one of Coruscant’s most prestigious buildings.
“The Judicials are at the end of their tenure, in any case, as the Jedi seem to have become the Senate’s arbiters of choice.” Palpatine shook his head ruefully. “The Order has been given approval to intercede in matters it normally would have avoided. But complicated times beget wrongheaded decisions.” He blew out his breath and looked at Tarkin. “As I told you so many years ago at Sullust, Eriadu will always be a Tarkin world, no matter who resides in the governor’s mansion. Now more than ever, your homeworld needs the guidance of a leader who is astute in both politics and galactic economics.”
“Why now?” Tarkin asked.
“Because something dangerous is brewing in our little corner of the Outer Rim. Discontent is on the rise, as are criminal enterprises and mercenary groups in the employ of self-serving corporations. In the Seswenna sector, several lommite mining concerns are vying for the attention of the Trade Federation, which is determined to forge a monopoly in the free trade zones. Even on my own Naboo, the king finds himself embroiled with the Trade Federation and off world bankers with regard to our plasma exports.”
Palpatine held Tarkin’s gaze. “Ours are remote worlds, but what transpires in those sectors of the Outer Rim could very well have galactic repercussions. Eriadu needs you, and, perhaps more to the point, we need someone like you on Eriadu.”
Palpatine’s use of the plural was more than an affectation, and yet as close as their relationship had become, the senator never spoke in detail of those like-minded friends and allies he frequently alluded to. Not that that had kept his political opponents from speculating. Aside from the cabal of senators with whom he was often grouped — along with a following of devoted aides who had followed him from Naboo — Palpatine was rumored to have wide-ranging links to a host of shadowy beings and clandestine organizations that included bankers, financiers, and industrialists representing the most important sectors of the galaxy.
“I’ve been away from Eriadu for many years,” Tarkin said. “The Valorum dynasty enjoys an influential presence there, and a political victory by me can hardly be assured. Especially given what happened on Coruscant.”
Palpatine waved his thin hand in negligence and what seemed annoyance. “Valorum didn’t win the election; he was merely allowed to win. The Senate’s special-interest groups require a chancellor who can be easily entangled in bureaucratic doubletalk and arcane procedure. That is how loopholes are maintained and illegalities overlooked. But as regards your doubts, we have sufficient funds to counter the Valorums and guarantee your victory.” He fixed Tarkin with a gimlet stare. “Perhaps you and I could serve each other, as well as the Republic, by taking Valorum down a notch.” His shoulders heaved in a shrug of uncertainty. “With the backing of your family, you may not even need our help, but rest assured that we will bolster you if necessary.” Palpatine quirked a sly smile. “You will be Eriadu’s finest leader, Wilhuff.”
“Thank you, Sheev,” Tarkin said, with obvious sincerity, and using Palpatine’s given name. “I will do what’s best for my homeworld, and for the Republic — in any manner you deem fit.”
Palpatine’s words about Naboo and Eriadu turned out to be prophetic.
After the Naboo Crisis and Palpatine’s election as Supreme Chancellor, many of Tarkin’s former Judicial peers would pin their hopes on Palpatine to keep the Republic from splintering. But the Separatist movement grew only stronger, and Tarkin and others were forced to accept that Palpatine, for all his talents, had come to power too late. Social injustices and trade inequities prompted hundreds of star systems to secede from the Republic, and local skirmishes became the norm. And then came war — a war that soon raged across the galaxy.
Owing to its strategic location in the Outer Rim and its geopolitical alliances, Eriadu found itself in a thorny situation with regard to the Republic and the Separatists. Perhaps Governor Tarkin, too, should have found himself in a quandary. But in fact, there was never a question as to whose ambitions he was ultimately going to serve.
Dawn the following morning, Tarkin went to the Palace landing field to ready the Carrion Spike for the voyage to Murkhana, only to find Vader and a contingent of stormtroopers already on the scene. Unencumbered by helmets or armor, most of the bodysuited soldiers were engaged in overseeing the transfer of a featureless black sphere from a Victory-class Star Destroyer into one of the larger of the Carrion Spike’s cargo holds. Some three meters in diameter, the sphere was flattened on the bottom, and evidently made to nestle in a hexagonal base that was also being lifted toward the corvette. Vader was pacing beneath the repulsorlift cranes in what was either agitation or concern. When the stormtrooper operating the equipment accidentally allowed the flattened sphere to bang against the edge of the cargo hold’s retracted hatch, Vader stamped forward with his gloved hands clenched.