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 …
Returned to the tall grass, he followed traces of the path left by his earlier transit, then, as if avoiding obstacles concealed by the stalks, began to pursue a more zigzag route as he neared the airspeeder and an isolated patch of forest beyond. The noise of his legs swooshing through the grass competed with the buzz and drone of insect life. Otherwise there was only the sound of his respiration and a faint echo of his movements. He was fifty or so meters from the airspeeder when he heard the sound of branches snapping and giving way behind him, and the surprised exclamation of the human who had fallen into the trap.
Pleased with himself, he stopped, turned about, and started for the pit he had excavated so many years earlier.
“Welcome, Wilhuff,” someone said from the towering grass off to his left before he reached the pit.
Jova stood from where he had been hiding. He was gnarled, wrinkled, and deeply tanned, but still spritely for his age. Thirty additional years of living on the Carrion didn’t seem to have done him too much harm. Parting the savanna grass with leathery hands, he began to make his way toward Tarkin, proffering a sleek blaster when they reached each other.
“He dropped this when he fell in,” the old man said. “A WESTAR, isn’t it?”
Tarkin nodded as he accepted the blaster, switched off the safety, and tucked it into the waistband of his trousers. “Where’s his speeder, Uncle?”
Jova’s crooked finger pointed east. “Behind the trees. I thought he might follow you up the hill, but he stayed at the bottom, making a little nest for himself in the grass, then tracked you when you came down and started for your ship.”
Together they walked to the pit to gaze down at Teller, some four meters below them, somewhat stunned by the unexpected plunge but squinting up as their heads appeared over the rim. Fortunately for Teller, the sharpened stakes that had once studded the floor of the pit had rotted to mulch. The fall, however, had damaged some of the mimetic circuits of his camouflage suit, and he was alternately blending in with the mulch and visible to the naked eye.
“I made it as easy as I could for you to stalk me, Captain,” Tarkin said, using the rank Teller had earned during the Clone Wars. “I even left my stormtroopers behind in Eriadu City.”
“Very bighearted of you, Governor — or do I have to start calling you Grand Moff now?” Teller tried to get to his feet, but promptly winced in pain and sat back down to inspect a clearly broken ankle. “I knew you were leading me on,” he said through gritted teeth, “but it didn’t matter. Not as long as I had a shot at getting to you.”