Rancit had amplified an area of the star map and was gazing up into it. “They’ve jumped clear across the sector, inward of the Perlemian Trade Route!” He looked at Motti. “Do we have any resources there?”
Motti had a datapad in hand and was gazing at the device’s display screen. “A small garrison of ground troops and a squadron of V-wing starfighters protecting TaggeCo’s mining interests.”
“The holofeed is streaming,” the junior officer said.
Above the table’s inset projector a holographic video of the attack resolved and stabilized. Centered in the field floated TaggeCo’s city-sized orbital processing plant, an entire section of it engulfed by spherical explosions, the company logo effaced by melted metal. Quanta of unleashed energy were raining down on the facility, blowing chunks of it into local space. Drifting into view between the continuous barrage of beams were pieces of V-wing starfighters and prosaic ore haulers, one of which was falling toward dun-colored Lucazec in flames, its ablative shields glowing red hot. Farther below, clouds of thick black smoke were coiling into the smudged sky.
“They’ve targeted surface operations, as well,” Tagge said, still on his feet and clenching and unclenching his hand.
Ison glanced from him to the junior officer at the comm board in visible alarm. “Who’s transmitting this holovid? Is it being sent live by an orbital facility? An outlying ship?”
“The transmission is arriving on an Imperial HoloNet frequency,” the junior officer said.
“Yes,” Ison said, “but the point of view … It looks as if one of our own ships is the aggressor.”
Screed and Motti traded worried glances.
In the summit of the Palace spire, Sidious sat back into his chair, folding his arms across his chest as sinuous currents of the dark side played through him, and as if he meant to contain them.
“Have you puzzled out what is happening, droid?” he asked.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” 11-4D said, simultaneous with a further update from the junior officer.
“Sirs, we have confirmation that the holovid is being transmitted by the Carrion Spike.”
Sidious swiveled toward the tinted windows, behind which the sky above and Coruscant below were the color of ash. Narrowing his gaze, he reached out for Darth Vader, whom he sensed was observing the holovid, as well.
Yes, Lord Vader, Sidious sent through the Force, you shall have your starfighter.
Moving with fierce purpose, Tarkin exited the Liberator’s hangar command post and walked briskly along the dorsal flight deck, passing starfighters and ground-effect vehicles as he closed on the shuttle craft awaiting him. The Star Destroyer’s massive overhead doors were closed, and the light on the flight deck was dim. The captain of the Liberator was standing at the foot of the shuttle’s boarding ramp. A short man with gray hair and a meticulously trimmed beard, he saluted as Tarkin approached.
“Sorry we couldn’t be of more help, Governor Tarkin.”
Tarkin gestured in dismissal. “You’re not to blame, Commander. You came when called, and for that alone you have my gratitude.”
The commander nodded. “Thank you, sir.”
Tarkin extended his hand, and the commander shook it decorously. “Are you returning to Belderone base?” Tarkin asked.
“No, sir. Coruscant has ordered us to jump directly to Ord Cestus.”
Tarkin’s brow furrowed in question. “Why so far down the Perlemian?”
“Triage redeployments,” the commander said, “as a result of what happened at Lucazec, I suppose. The same at Centares and Lantillies. No telling where your — uh, the missing ship is going to revert next.”
“Perhaps,” Tarkin said, and let it go at that.
He ascended the boarding ramp and walked aft, settling into a seat in the main cabin, the Theta-class shuttle’s only passenger. High overhead, the Liberator’s hangar doors parted down the middle and retracted, and the shuttle rose off its skids on repulsorlift power, dropped its wings, and sped toward its rendezvous point, a pod-shaped support carrier named the Goliath, which had recently arrived from deepdock at Ord Mantell. Tarkin had a port-side glimpse of bleak Nam Chorios as the shuttle angled away from the Star Destroyer, the system’s sun providing barely enough light to illuminate the planet let alone warm it to human standards.
Tarkin turned inward to consider the commander’s remarks. Capital ships redeploying from bases as distant as Centares and Lantillies, all because of the Carrion Spike. He trusted that naval command knew better than to disperse the fleet too thinly, though there was no denying that the shipjackers had once again taken everyone by surprise.
That might not have been the case if Coruscant had placed Lucazec on alert, but no one, including Tarkin, had given much thought to the possibility that the dissidents would target a lightly defended TaggeCo mining concern. Entering the star system with an altered transponder signature but transmitting authentic Imperial codes, the Carrion Spike had opened fire on both the orbital facility and groundside operations before Lucazec could react. Jova would have applauded the shipjackers’ tactics, the idea of masking oneself in the scent of one’s enemy.
He could still summon the odors of musky excretions he had been forced to smear over himself during hunts or surveillance exercises on the plateau. The rodent Jova had struck with the airspeeder one night had only been the beginning. After that had come the dizzying, often nauseating scents of sly vulpines, antlered ruminants, squat felines … But in countless situations the excretions had given them the upper hand, allowing them to kill or infiltrate as needed.
Except at the Spike. But of course that wasn’t the idea.
At Lucazec, the shipjackers hadn’t even bothered to activate the Carrion Spike’s stealth systems until they had reached their target. They were experimenting, perhaps in preparation for their next attack. Deflector shields had protected the mining facility for a time, but its fate had been sealed. The destruction and casualties the ship had left in her wake were consistent with what she had wrought at Galidraan.
When the shipjackers’ HoloNet transmission had been received by the Liberator, Tarkin had tried to convince himself that it was another counterfeit, that the holovid had been cobbled together from wartime news feeds and created images, as had been the case at Sentinel and on Murkhana. In his eagerness to prove himself correct — and to the bewilderment of some of the Liberator’s petty officers — he had practically placed himself inside the blue holofield, searching for evidence of corruption that would have identified the feed as a fake. But he found no such signs. It had taken some time to disabuse himself of the notion that the shipjackers were deliberately provoking him, and to accept that they were merely making use of the Carrion Spike’s sophisticated communications suite to call attention to their agenda, as Count Dooku had managed to do early on in the Clone Wars. And like Dooku, the shipjackers had succeeded in broadcasting the Lucazec holovid live over civilian HoloNet frequencies to thousands of Outer and Mid Rim star systems before Coruscant was able to shut down vast portions of the communications grid.
Still, the damage had been done. According to the latest reports from Naval Intelligence, the shipjackers were already attracting media attention in some of the outer systems, and certain members of the Ruling Council were worried about blowback: that disaffected factions might begin to think that the Empire was vulnerable, and that imitators would spring up, convinced that they, too, could make themselves heard far and wide.