“The ambassador owes you a big favor,” Tarkin had told Vader at the time.
Now he said: “Surely we weren’t lured all the way to Murkhana just so the Carrion Spike could be shipjacked.”
“And why not?” Vader said. “Stealth, firepower, alacrity.” He paused as if he were about to ask a follow-up question, but said nothing further.
“Granted it’s one of a kind, but what is their plan? To strip and sell it for parts? To have it dissected and replicated?” Tarkin heard the words tumbling from his mouth in a rush and got control of himself.
“A flotilla of Carrion Spikes,” Vader said, clearly dubious.
Tarkin gestured in dismissal. “Not without the help of the top engineering conglomerates in the galaxy. More to the point, whoever they are, they now have the corvette, as well as a capital ship.”
“You are convinced that the piracy was carried out by the same beings who attacked Sentinel.”
“I am. Anyone with skill enough to create counterfeit holovids of ships and beings and to interrupt Imperial HoloNet signals would also have the skill to wrap the Carrion Spike in a mantle of silence, disabling not only the ship’s slave system but also her various communications systems, including comlinks and helmet radios.” He paused briefly. “Vice Admirals Rancit and Screed were correct about the cache being part of a more far-reaching plan. If the cache was merely the lure, then the plot is still unfolding.”
“Then tell me how to disable your ship, Governor.”
Tarkin firmed his lips. “There is a weakness. If the thieves can be persuaded to lower the shields, concentrated fire on the spine where the main fuselage meets the aft flare should do the trick. We were never able to resolve the problem of properly safeguarding the hyperdrive generator while the power plant is supplying the ion drives, the deflector shields, and the weapons. It’s not so much a design flaw as an accommodation to the ship’s size in relation to her armament. Even Sienar Fleet was at a loss.”
“I will bear that in mind,” Vader said, though mostly to himself.
“Frankly, Lord Vader, I’m more concerned about what the Carrion Spike’s weapons can do to us while we’re attempting to line up what has to be a very precise laser blast.”
“Leave that to me, Governor.”
“Do I have a choice?”
Abruptly Vader poured on all speed, accelerating away from the system’s outmost planet and taking the crime lord’s ship into the starry space he had indicated earlier. But then only to loose a guttural sound of anger and frustration.
“They’ve jumped to lightspeed!”
Tarkin ground his teeth. The situation was growing worse by the moment. In star systems lacking nearby hyperspace relay stations, a ship’s pilot had to navigate by beacon or buoy, unless the ship was equipped with a sophisticated navicomputer of the sort the Carrion Spike boasted, which could plot jumps well beyond the next beacon, all the way to the Core if necessary. According to the Predator’s inferior device, the Murkhana system had no fewer than a dozen jump egresses, and most of those were into other Outer Rim systems where beacons were still more plentiful than hyperspace relay stations.
Vader broke his protracted silence to say, “They have jumped, but not far.” He stretched out his left hand to enter data into the ship’s navicomputer.
Tarkin was nonplussed. Then it dawned on him: Vader wasn’t tracking the ship; he was tracking the mysterious black sphere he had had transferred to the Carrion Spike!
Even so, his optimism was short-lived, undermined by a memory of something Jova used to say when they had turned the tables on a predator, making it the hunted rather than the hunter.
“Think first when you’re in pursuit: Is your prey trying to escape, or is it going for reinforcements? Is it perhaps looking for a temporary hiding place from which to spring at you, or — still driven by hunger — has it decided to search out a more vulnerable target?”
Soft targets
DARTH SIDIOUS WAS ANNOYED about having been disturbed from his meditations at the shrine. By the time he ascended to the pinnacle of the Palace spire to meet with Mas Amedda, he was ready to take someone’s head off.
“Must I attend to every trivial matter, Vizier?”
“I apologize, my lord. But I believe you will want to attend to this one.”
Sidious eyed him for a moment. “Murkhana,” he said in arrant disgust.
The Chagrian bowed his horned head in acknowledgment. “Just so, my lord.”
Sidious took to his tall-backed chair while Amedda readied the table’s holoprojector, then moved to stand silently by the window-wall. In the hologram that emerged, several members of Military Intelligence and the Imperial Security Bureau were grouped before a positioning grid in one of the ISB’s situation rooms.
“My Lord Emperor,” Harus Ison of ISB began, “I’m sorry—”
“Reserve your apologies for when they are most needed, Deputy Director,” Sidious said.
“Of course, my lord.” Ison swallowed hard and found his voice. “We thought it prudent to appraise you of recent developments on Murkhana.”
“I’m well aware that Lord Vader and Governor Tarkin found and investigated the cache of communications devices.”
“Of course, my lord,” Ison said. “But we have since received a subspace transmission from Lord Vader and Governor Tarkin informing us that the Carrion Spike has been seized.”
Sidious sat straighter in the chair. “Seized?”
“Yes, my lord. From a landing field on Murkhana — by unknown parties.”
Sidious used the chair’s armrest controls to mute the audiovisual feeds and swiveled to Amedda. “Why have I heard nothing of this from Lord Vader?”
“Without the Carrion Spike, neither Lord Vader nor Governor Tarkin has access to the Imperial HoloNet or other suitably encrypted communications devices. The first subspace message originated from the ambassador’s residence in Murkhana City. The second was sent from a starship in the Murkhana system.”
“Lord Vader has procured a replacement ship?”
“Yes, my lord.”
Sidious re-enabled the holofeeds to the situation room. “Proceed with your report, Deputy Director.”
Ison bowed his head once more. “Lord Vader and Governor Tarkin have commandeered the starship of a local crime lord and are in pursuit of the Carrion Spike. In their most recent transmission, they stated that they were jumping the commandeered ship to the Fial system, Coreward of Murkhana, though still far removed from the Perlemian Trade Route.”
“Do we have a military presence in that system?”
Vice Admiral Rancit stepped forward to address it. “No, my lord, we don’t. We do, however, have a presence in the Belderone system, which is nearby.”