The reason our Emperor was able to negotiate the dark waters that characterized the terminal years of the Republic and remain at the helm through a catastrophic war that spanned the galaxy is that he has never been interested in status or self-glorification. On the contrary, he has been tireless in his devotion to unify the galaxy and assure the well-being of its myriad populations. Now, with the institution of sector and oversector governance, we are in the unique position to repay our debt to the Emperor for his decades of selfless service, by lifting some of the burden of quotidian rulership from his shoulders. By partitioning the galaxy into regions, we actually achieve a unity previously absent; where once our loyalties and allegiances were divided, they now serve one being, with one goaclass="underline" a cohesive galaxy in which everyone prospers. For the first time in one thousand generations our sector governors will not be working solely to enrich Coruscant and the Core Worlds, but to advance the quality of life in the star systems that make up each sector — keeping the spaceways safe, maintaining open and accessible communications, assuring that tax revenues are properly levied and allocated to improving the infrastructure. The Senate will likewise be made up of beings devoted not to their own enrichment, but to the enrichment of the worlds they represent.
This bold vision of the future requires not only the service of those of immaculate reputation and consummate skill in the just exercise of power, but also the service of a vast military dedicated to upholding the laws necessary to ensure galactic harmony. It may appear to some that the enactment of universal laws and the widespread deployment of a heavily armed military are steps toward galactic domination, but these actions are taken merely to protect us from those who would invade, enslave, exploit, or foment political dissent, and to punish accordingly any who engage in such acts. Look on our new military not as trespassers or interlopers, but as gatekeepers, here to shore up the Emperor’s vision of a pacified and prosperous galaxy.
The media took to calling it “the Tarkin Doctrine,” and some commentators began to wonder if he wasn’t destined to become the new voice of the Empire.
He made it his business to meet with senators representing star systems over which he now had authority. Most seemed relieved about having to answer to him rather than the Emperor or the Ruling Council, but he made clear to one and all that he wouldn’t tolerate acts of sedition or anti-Imperial propaganda, and that he would be merciless with all perpetrators.
He met, too, with the Joint Chiefs of the Army and the Navy, and with the directors and top officers in the intelligence agencies. Through them he instituted changes at Desolation Station, replacing many key personnel and altering supply schedules and convoy routes. He authorized reevaluations of every scientist and technician and established new parameters for both secrecy and security. He ordered that no convoys were to move without adequate protection. And to the dismay of countless beings in systems along the supply routes, he limited the HoloNet to Imperial use. The populations of those worlds viewed his actions as the start of an Imperial conquest of the Outer Rim.
At Geonosis, he enacted procedures that would limit contact between workers — whether contractors, employees, or slaves — and the outside galaxy; leaves were canceled and communications of any sort were strictly monitored. He reinforced Sentinel Base and the marshaling stations, and deployed patrol flotillas to the nearby systems. His most trusted officers were sent in search of pirates and smugglers, with orders to eliminate them on sight.
To complement his new station, he designed and had made a gray-green uniform whose thick-belted, round-collared tunic featured four code cylinders and a rank plaque of twelve multicolored squares, six blue over trios of red and gold. In all dealings with the Emperor he was referred to as Grand Moff, but for ordinary interactions with military personnel he retained the honorific Governor.
His agenda on Coruscant complete, he traveled from the Core to the Greater Seswenna sector aboard the Executrix, which was now his personal vessel—“The least the Empire can do to compensate you for the loss of the Carrion Spike,” the Emperor had said on awarding him the Imperial-class Star Destroyer. In addition to the thousands of troops and technicians who staffed and crewed the massive ship, he had a personal bodyguard of thirty-two stormtroopers who accompanied him wherever he went — or at least when he allowed as much.
Arriving by Imperial shuttle at Phelar Spaceport, he was greeted by cheering crowds, media representatives, and a military marching band. In Eriadu City he visited with family and old friends and granted more interviews. The local governor, who happened to be a relative, awarded him the key to the city and held a parade in his honor. While residing at his former home, he sat for a sculptor who had been commissioned to create a statue that would stand in the city’s principal public space.
He had one last mission to carry out before he left his homeworld, and with some effort he managed to persuade his platoon of personal guards that it was an undertaking he needed to fulfill alone, as it was a kind of personal pilgrimage. The stormtroopers were not pleased, as it was their duty to protect him, but they relented inasmuch as he would be spending his time on ancestral ground. Potential assassins notwithstanding, he made no show of secrecy the morning he left for the plateau, in an old airspeeder that had gone unused for years by anyone residing at the family estate. Once removed from the confines of Eriadu City, he relaxed into the journey, almost as if in an attempt to reexperience the annual trips he had made to the plateau as a youth. He even wore clothes of the sort he would have worn in those days, more suited to a hunter or trekker than to an Imperial Grand Moff.
When after several hours of ragged flight the plateau and surrounding volcanic terrain came into view, he felt as if he had never left; and indeed he hadn’t, because he had carried the place within him wherever he had ventured. He had been accused by lovers and others of being heartless, but it wasn’t true; it was simply that his heart was here, in this pristine part of his homeworld. His attachment to the place was not as one who worshipped nature; rather as one who had learned to tame it. And he would leave the area unchanged, the animals and riotous growth, as a reminder of the control he exercised over it.
He took the airspeeder through several passes over the plateau, observing herds of migrating animals. The day was bright and clear and he could see in detail everywhere he looked. Ultimately he landed the antique vehicle on the savanna, close to the hill of boulders he had come to climb. He set out on foot, with the legs of his trousers tucked into his high boots and the sleeves of his lightweight shirt secured at the wrist as protection against swarms of stinging insects. Arrived at the hill, he began to pick his way up over the pitted rocks, leaping over crevasses and finding finger- and toeholds as he bouldered to the summit. The hill seemed a lonelier place without its troop of guardian veermoks, but also a more sacred one — sanctified by what he had accomplished here.
He was breathing hard when he reached the top, the hot wind blowing across the rocks and garish light reflecting from the obsidian pool at the base of the Spike. He had given thought to scaling the column but realized now that it was enough simply to stand at its base and savor his recollections. He lingered for hours, as a veermok might have, sprawled on the warmed rocks, allowing himself to become nearly dehydrated in the heat. He left as that part of the planet was slipping into darkness, carefully picking his way down the boulders, a task more difficult than the ascent. One skid, one wrong step or stumble …