“I thank you for remaining in service to the Empire and not turning your hand to writing,” the Emperor said, “as some of your contemporaries have done.”
“Oh, I still dabble, my lord.”
“Doctrinal writings?” the Emperor said in what seemed genuine interest. “Examinations of history? A memoir perhaps?”
“All those things, my lord.”
“Even with your obligations as sector governor, you find the time.”
“Sentinel Base is remote and mostly tranquil.”
“It suits you, then. Or is it that you are well suited to it?”
“Sentinel isn’t exactly privation, my lord.”
“Even when attacked, Governor?”
Tarkin restrained a smile. He knew when he was being goaded. “Is this the reason you summoned me, my lord?”
The Emperor sat back in the chair. “Yes and no. Though I am familiar with the report you transmitted to the intelligence chiefs. Your actions at Sentinel bespeak a keen intuition, Governor.”
Tarkin adopted an expression of nonchalance. “The important thing is that the mobile battle station remains secure.”
The Emperor imitated Tarkin’s affected indifference. “This isn’t the first time we’ve been forced to deal with malcontents, and it won’t be the last. From both near and far.” He paused. “There is no refuge from deception when adversaries remain.”
“All the more reason to safeguard the supply lines, especially through sectors that aren’t under my personal control.”
The Emperor placed his elbows on the table and steepled his long fingers. “Clearly you have thoughts about how to rectify the situation.”
“I don’t wish to be presumptuous, my lord.”
“Nonsense,” the Emperor said. “Speak your mind, Governor.”
Tarkin compressed his lips, then said: “My lord, it’s nothing we haven’t discussed previously.”
“You are referring to the need for oversector control.”
“I am. Each oversector governor would then be responsible for maintaining control beneath him — if only as a means of policing districts without having to request guidance from Coruscant.”
The Emperor didn’t reply immediately. “And who might assume your position if I were to remove you from Sentinel?”
“General Tagge, perhaps.”
“Not Motti?”
“Or Motti.”
“Anyone else?”
“Nils Tenant is very competent.”
Again the Emperor fell briefly silent. “Are you certain that Sentinel’s unknown assailants managed to override the local HoloNet relay station?”
“I am, my lord.”
“Have you some notion as to how they achieved this?”
Tarkin wet his lips. “Travel to Coruscant prevented me from carrying out a complete investigation. But yes, I have some ideas.”
“Ideas you are willing to share with our advisers and intelligence chiefs?”
“If it will serve your purpose, my lord.”
The Emperor exhaled forcibly. “We will see at length just whose purpose it serves.”
The Emperor's new spies
SIMILAR IN DESIGN to the pinnacle room, the audience chamber on the penultimate level of the central spire was a circular space, but without partitions and featuring a ten-meter-tall podium reserved for the Emperor, who accessed it by private turbolift from his residence. Tarkin arrived by means of the more public turbolift, entering the vast room to find nearly a dozen people waiting, all of whom he knew or recognized, loosely divided into three groups that made up the Empire’s uppermost tiers. First, and positioned closest to the podium, was the Ruling Council, represented just then by Ars Dangor, Sate Pestage, and Janus Greejatus, all three dressed in baggy costumes of riotous color and floppy hats more befitting a night at the Coruscant Opera. More or less on equal footing, the two other groups were made up of members from the Imperial Security Bureau and the more recently created Naval Intelligence Agency, with Harus Ison and Colonel Wullf Yularen speaking for the former, and Vice Admirals Rancit and Screed for the latter. Feeling like the odd man out, Tarkin gravitated to where Mas Amedda and Darth Vader were standing, off to one side of the podium.
Tarkin acknowledged his military comrades with a friendly nod to each. Some he had known since his academy days; others he had served with during the Clone Wars. Interestingly, the Emperor’s advisers were also a kind of clique, having attached themselves to the Emperor since his early years as an untested senator from Naboo. Perhaps their outlandish garb was in some sense a tribute to the sartorial extravagance of Naboo’s nobility. Even those who should have known better tended to dismiss Dangor, Greejatus, and Pestage as sycophants, when in fact members of the Ruling Council oversaw the everyday affairs of the Empire and wielded wide-ranging and sometimes menacing powers. Even the Empire’s twenty Moffs were obligated to answer to the Imperial cadre.
On receiving a signal from the Emperor, Amedda banged his statue-tipped staff on the floor as a sign that the briefing should commence. First to step forward was white-haired ISB deputy director Ison, who bowed to the Emperor before turning to address everyone else in the chamber.
“My lords, Moff Tarkin, Admirals … With your permission, and for the benefit of those of you who may not be fully conversant with the matter at hand, I offer a brief summary. Three weeks ago, one of our intelligence assets reported a startling find on Murkhana.”
Tarkin came to full alert at Ison’s mention of the former Separatist stronghold world.
“Due to the nature of the find, ISB wasted no time in bringing the matter to the attention of the Ruling Council, as well as to our counterparts in Military Intelligence.” Ison glanced at Rancit and Screed. Having lost an eye in the war, Screed was sporting a cybernetic implant. “Normally ISB would have pursued an investigation on its own, but on Vizier Amedda’s recommendation we are opening it up to discussion, in the hope of resolving how best to proceed.”
Tarkin wasn’t surprised by Ison’s equivocal introduction. ISB functioned under the auspices of COMPNOR, the Commission for the Preservation of the New Order, which itself had arisen from the dregs of the Commission for the Protection of the Republic, and the deputy director was determined to spearhead the investigation without appearing overly proprietary and ambitious. And so he was generously “opening the matter up to discussion,” when it was clearly his hope that the Ruling Council would grant ISB full oversight, exempting the bureau from having to share sensitive information with Military Intelligence or anyone else.
“Please don’t leave us hanging, Deputy Director,” Amedda said in his most sniping voice, “and come to the point.”
Tarkin watched Ison’s square jaw clench. The deputy director was surely biting his tongue, as well.
“The Murkhana discovery consists of a cache of communications devices,” Ison said. “Signal interrupters, jammers, eradicators, and other apparatus, which, to ISB, suggests evidence of a potential stratagem to incapacitate the HoloNet, as was temporarily achieved by the Separatists during the Clone Wars.”
Obviously in the dark about the find, advisers Greejatus and Dangor traded looks of bewilderment. Where Greejatus’s dark sunken eyes and puffy face granted him an ominous look, Dangor’s long, braided mustachios and broad, furrowed brow imparted a bit of élan to an otherwise surly aspect.
“Director Ison,” Dangor said, “perhaps these devices — though recently discovered — are nothing more than a cache left over from the war. They may even have been discovered elsewhere by beings unfamiliar with such devices, and relocated to their present site.”
Ison had an answer ready. “That’s entirely possible. The cache is so large that our agent didn’t have time to inspect every crate and container, much less catalog every component. However, his preliminary report suggests that some of the devices may not have been available to the Confederacy during the war.”