“We had to override that tractor beam—”
“No.”
Teller looked at Artoz, who was sitting quietly in the comm officer’s chair, watching both of them. “Any ideas?”
The Mon Cal thought for a moment, tapping his webbed hand on the console. “The hyperdrive motivator may be addled. We could try recalibrating the synchronization relays.”
Salikk forced an exhale. “It’s probably nothing.” His hand was reaching for the navicomputer controls again when Teller told him to hold off, and then shouted through the ruined hatch for Cala, who was in the conference cabin.
“You’ve gotta put the hazmat suit back on,” Teller said as the Koorivar entered from the afterdeck.
Cala stared at him. “You’re trying to overdose me on rads, is that it? You’ve decided I’m expendable.”
“Calm down,” Teller said, gesturing. “I just need you to go into the fuel bay and run tests on the fuel cells we took on at Phindar. You’ll know them because they’re Wiborg Jenssens, marked with the tanker’s logo — a kind of triple S.”
Cala’s shoulders sagged in defeat. “What am I supposed to be looking for?”
“With any luck, nothing more than an empty or faulty cell,” Artoz said.
Cala scowled. “That Phindian cheated us!”
“Let’s hope so,” Teller said, freeing himself from the chair’s safety webbing and getting to his feet. “Come on, I’ll help suit you up.”
Frozen hatches and malfunctioning air locks forced them to follow a circuitous route to the fuel hold. Once sealed into the hooded, face-shielded hazmat suit, Cala disappeared through the air lock and Teller returned to the command cabin, where he found Anora seated in the copilot’s chair.
“What’s going on?” she asked, her words more a demand than a question.
“It’s probably nothing,” he started to say, then stopped himself. Enabling the intraship comlink, he said: “Cala, you inside?”
“I’m checking them now. Power-level indicators look good.”
Teller had turned toward Anora when Cala added: “Wait. The sensor found one. The cell is reading empty.”
“One of the Phindian’s?”
“It has the logo.”
“Can you remove it?”
Cala replied with a lengthy curse. “I told you we should have brought a droid along.”
“I know you did, but think of the headaches a droid would have caused Salikk.” Teller aimed a grin at the magnetically sensitive Gotal. “Besides, we didn’t, and you’re our best bet. Is the repulsorlift conveyor still in there?”
“Right where I left it after rigging the bomb.”
“Task the conveyor to remove the cell,” Artoz said toward the audio pickup, “and transfer it into the decontam bay so the diagnostic unit can have a look at it.”
“Have a look at it how?” Cala said. “The sensor says it’s empty.”
“We need to open it up,” Teller said.
“Are you out of your mind?” Cala barked. “Suppose there’s a bomb inside?”
Teller tried to make light of the idea. “That’s something only we do. Anyway, that’s why you’re letting the diagnostic unit do it. It’ll scan the cell first.”
“This is the last time I’m putting this suit on,” Cala said.
“Deal. Next time I’ll have Anora do it.”
A gesture from her revealed her feelings on the matter.
Another curse from Cala broke the long silence. “It’s not empty.”
Teller exchanged nervous glances with Salikk and Artoz. “What’s inside?”
Everyone stared at the command center enunciator, as if the Koorivar were there, in the command cabin.
“A device of some sort,” Cala reported finally. “Nothing like I’ve ever seen.”
“All right,” Artoz said, trying to keep his resonant voice calm. “Task the diagnostic to cam the device, then run the image through the ship’s library.”
Cala exhaled loudly. “Hold on.”
Again the intraship comlink went quiet, and Teller ran a hand down his face.
“It’s probably noth—” Anora started to say when he shushed her.
“Damn, Teller, it’s an Imperial homing beacon!” the Koorivar said. “Database describes it as a paralight tracker — a kind of HoloNet transceiver that parses commands from the ship’s navicomputer.”
Salikk swiveled to face the others, his eyes wide with astonishment. “Tarkin knows not only where we are, but also where we’re planning to go. Which means we’re essentially marooned, unless you want to get there by sublight, which will only take”—he glanced at a console readout—“on the order of fifty years.”
“Maybe we’ve done enough,” Anora said, touching her injured scalp. “We call it quits right here.”
Teller shook his head at her. “We haven’t done near enough.”
Cala’s distant voice intruded. “Should I disable this thing?”
“No, don’t do anything just yet,” Teller told him. “Let it sit in there, and get yourself forward.” He glanced around the command cabin. “Let’s consider this from Tarkin’s side.”
“Yes, why don’t we,” Anora said in plain anger.
“Tarkin knows we’re here,” Artoz said, “and he is convinced that he has a good read on our intentions.”
“With good reason,” Salikk said.
“He knows we’re here,” Teller said, thinking out loud, “but he hasn’t come for us.” He cut his gaze to Artoz. “Obviously he’s waiting to see what we enter into the navicomputer so he can beat us there.”
“So he and Vader and whoever else — maybe the entire Imperial Navy by this time — can beat us there,” the Mon Cal said. “No doubt they’re calculating all possible jump egresses from this system.”
Teller nodded in agreement. “Of which there have to be dozens.”
“Meanwhile,” Salikk said, “the navy’s deploying ships to every system where Tarkin thinks we’ll show ourselves.”
Anora looked up from studying her hands. “Is there a way to enter false coordinates into the navicomputer?”
Salikk shook his head negatively. “Not while that tracker is enabled.”
No one spoke for a moment; then Teller said: “At this point, we just need to buy some time, right? So suppose we supply Tarkin with jump coordinates into a very busy star system.”
Anora’s thin eyebrows formed a V. “I don’t see how that helps us, unless you’re counting on hiding in a traffic jam.”
“We supply the coordinates,” Teller said, “but we don’t jump.”
“You mean—”
“We get someone else to do it.”
Standing proudly on the elevated command bridge walkway of the Star Destroyer Executrix, Tarkin felt more at home than he had in years. An Imperial-class wedge-shaped titan, the warship had just decanted in the Obroa-skai system after a jump from Lantillies, on Tarkin’s learning that the Carrion Spike was on her way. The panoramic view through the bridge’s bay of trapezoidal windows included nearly all the ships that made up the task force. In the distance, positioned against a radiant sweep of stars, floated three Interdictor vessels, a Detainer CC-2200, a newer-model CC-7700 frigate, and — fresh from deepdock in the Corellia system and as yet untested — an Immobilizer 418. Thickly armored, the former two had downsloping bows and stubby winglike lateral projections housing quartets of gravity well projectors. The Immobilizer, by contrast, featured four hemispherical projectors aft on the ship’s sharp-bowed hull. Deployed in the middle distance between the Interdictors and the Executrix were frigates, pickets, and gunboats. The centermost picket carried Vader, Crest — promoted by Vader to lieutenant — and some two dozen stormtroopers, who made up a boarding party, in the unlikely event that the Carrion Spike could be retaken without a fight or at least put out of commission rather than reduced to wreckage.