Tarkin leaned toward the viewport to assess the landing field. It was impossible to tell the bomb craters from the circular repulsorlift pits that had once functioned as service areas for the Separatists’ spherical core ships. The edges of the field were lined with ruined hemispherical docking bays and massive rectangular hangars, their roofs blown open or caved in. The façade of the sprawling terminal building had avalanched onto the field, and the interior had been gutted by fire. Ships of various size and function were parked at random, though most of them looked as if they hadn’t seen space in a long while.
“Twenty-five degrees east,” Tarkin said finally. “We’ll have just enough room.”
Vader entered the command cabin as repulsors were lowering the corvette toward the cracked permacrete.
“A world I never expected to see again,” Tarkin said.
“Nor I, Governor,” Vader said. “So let us be quick about it.”
Tarkin scanned the immediate area as Carrion Spike began to settle on her landing gear and the instruments were shut down. Only a handful of starships occupied their corner of the uneven field, including a decrepit forty-year-old Judicial cruiser and a sleek and obviously rapid black frigate bristling with weapons, its broad bow designed to suggest slanting eyes and bloody fangs thrusting from a cruel mouth.
“Charming,” Tarkin said. “And very much in keeping with the surroundings.”
Wedging a brimmed command cap into the pocket of his tunic, he joined Vader and eight of the stormtroopers as they were filing from the ship. Barely through the air lock, he could already taste acid on his tongue. They had just reached the foot of the boarding ramp when a teetering low-altitude assault transport soared into view, its wing-mounted repulsorlift turbines straining as it dropped from the sky to hover alongside the Carrion Spike. Two Imperial stormtroopers in scratched and dented armor leapt from the open side hatch, while well-armed door gunners kept watch over the field.
“Welcome to Murkhana, sirs,” their squad leader said, offering a lazy salute.
Tarkin heard stifled laughter from someone inside the gunship. Adorning the vehicle’s vaned sliding hatch was the faded insignia of the Twelfth Army.
His posture reflecting obvious displeasure, Vader appraised the noisy gunship. “Are you certain that this relic is capable of carrying us, Squad Leader, or might we end up carrying it?”
The stormtrooper glanced over his shoulder at the gunship. “Sorry to report that we’ve no choice, Lord Vader. The rest are in even worse shape.”
“Why is that?” Tarkin stepped forward to ask.
“Sabotage, sir. We’re not well liked by the locals.”
“No one asked them to like you, Squad Leader,” Vader snapped. With a swirl of his cloak, he climbed aboard the gunship, followed by his personal stormtroopers.
Tarkin paused to comlink Carrion Spike’s captain. “We’re leaving four stormtroopers to guard the ship. Keep the comlink open and contact me at the first sign of trouble.”
“Acknowledged, Governor,” the comm officer said.
Vader extended a hand to Tarkin and pulled him up onto the deteriorated deck plates of the gunship’s deployment platform.
“Go,” the Dark Lord shouted to the cockpit crew.
The gunship lifted shakily off the landing field and began to wheel toward the heart of Murkhana City. Placing himself behind one of the door gunners, Tarkin grabbed hold of an overhead strap and peered out the open hatchway.
He wasn’t surprised to see that most of the city’s charred, devastated buildings had yet to be demolished. Facing sanctions, the local government had not been able to grow the economy, and the substantially reduced population had been forced to rely on black marketeers for goods and resources. Rusting remnants of the war, carbon-scored Hailfire, spider, and crab droids stood idle in the desolate streets, picked clean of usable parts by gangs of scavengers. Scattered among them were a couple of burned-out Republic AT-TE and turbo tanks, along with a Trident transport. The hulk of a Commerce Guild warship protruded like a broken tooth close to what remained of the Argente Tower, which was itself a husk.
Breath-masked residents scurried for cover as the gunship raced over glass-littered avenues, past boarded-up storefronts, toppled monuments, and gloomy cantinas. Packs of famished animals roved the alleyways, and nearly every street corner hosted crews of smugglers and hoodlums. Tarkin caught glimpses of limping war veterans — Koorivar with broken cranial horns, Aqualish with missing tusks, and Gossams with crooked necks — along with children stricken with hideous birth defects.
As the gunship veered through a turn, a hunk of twisted metal slammed into the hatch’s retracted door, hurled by a young woman who had stepped boldly from a lopsided doorway and stood in the street, hands on hips, as if challenging the Imperials to reply.
“Permission to exterminate, sir,” one of the stormtroopers said, his blaster rifle braced against his shoulder.
Vader stretched out his gloved hand to lower the weapon. “We haven’t come all this way to instigate a riot.”
And yet two city blocks later, catching sight of defaced military recruitment posters and walls vandalized by hand-scrawled insults aimed at the Emperor, he turned to Tarkin to say: “We should put this place out of its misery.”
“Too magnanimous,” Tarkin said. “Though it may come to that.”
The gunship began to shed velocity as it crossed a cratered plaza; it came to a hovering halt in the middle of a broad concourse obstructed by a collapsed coral archway.
“We’re here, sirs,” the squad leader said.
“Which building?” Tarkin asked, then followed the line of the stormtrooper’s extended hand to see a squat structure with rounded corners three blocks away.
“Originally the property of the Corporate Alliance, sir,” the squad leader continued. “A medcenter, until it was used to house a deflector shield generator that protected a vital Separatist landing platform.”
“And the current proprietor?”
“Unknown, sir. The place has changed hands several times since the end of the war. Identities of the various owners are buried under layers of phony documentation.”
“You have been maintaining surveillance?” Vader asked.
“Continuous since receiving orders from Coruscant three weeks back, Lord Vader. But we haven’t observed anyone coming or going. The locals tend to steer clear of this entire area.”
“Then you have no one in custody.”
“No one, Lord Vader.”
Tarkin’s eyes clouded over with suspicion. “Yes, but who might have been watching you while you were watching the building?”
Vader nodded. “Yes, Governor, it might very well be a trap.”
The stormtrooper indicated several nearby buildings. “We’ve installed rooftop snipers there, there, and there, Lord Vader.”
“Are you carrying remotes?”
“We have a couple of AC-ones onboard, along with an ASN retrofitted with a holotransmitter.”
“Those will do. Prepare them.”
The gunship touched down and Vader stepped from the deployment platform, all but floating to the buckled street. When his stormtroopers had followed, he turned to Sergeant Crest.
“Take four of your men and trail the remotes inside. We will monitor the holofeeds from here. Perform a full reconnaissance of the building, but do not enter the room where the devices are said to be located until we follow on your all-clear.”
Crest saluted and pointed to four of the stormtroopers. By then the spherical remotes had already been tasked and were whirring off toward the building. The squad leader placed a handheld holoprojector on the deployment platform deck plates and enabled it. A moment later the device began receiving transmissions from one of the remotes. While Vader paced, Tarkin watched as illuminated views of narrow hallways and short staircases resolved above the holoprojector. The squad leader shifted feeds from one remote to the next, but the views and sounds remained largely unchanged: puddled hallways, dark stairwells, dripping water, creaking doors, indistinct noises that may have come from still-working machines.