“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.