Teller fell silent for a moment. “You never know what events give shape to someone’s life, to someone’s moral choices. Maybe it was centuries of having to defend themselves against the predators, or the centuries of raids by pirates, slavers, and privateers that shaped the Eriaduan character. Maybe the history of the place seeped into their genetic makeup, resulting in an appetite for violence. But even that doesn’t fully explain Tarkin, because most of the Eriaduans I’ve met aren’t anything like him.”

Teller’s gaze favored Hask. “When Outland succeeded in chasing off what was left of the groups they hadn’t killed, Tarkin turned his wrath on anyone who had come to Eriadu in flight from intersystem conflicts or in search of new lives, employment — you know, the ones taking jobs from native Eriaduans, crowding the cities, ruining the economy. The entire Tarkin clan waged a campaign against them. It didn’t matter if they were human or other than; the point was that these social parasites were cheating Eriadu out of its just and hard-won rewards, and keeping the planet from attaining the status of the Core Worlds. By this time Tarkin was Eriadu’s governor, and probably the most popular one the planet ever had. Fresh from Outland and years of academy life, he had the support of a cabal of influential officers who had trained to become Judicials, but in fact were just itching for galactic war to break out.

“Palpatine turned a blind eye to what was going on in the Seswenna — the deportations, the purges, the atrocities committed against any who found themselves on the Tarkins’ extermination list. And not surprisingly, under Tarkin’s rule, Eriadu finally achieved the celebrity it had been clamoring for. It became the rising star, the planet other eager-to-be-exploited worlds began looking up to. So of course the invisible players who had put Palpatine in power were just as eager to embrace Tarkin. Hell, he had already formed a military. It was to Eriadu that Coruscant looked when embarking down the same path. Why else do you think he attained so much in so few years and became such fast friends with Palpatine, those senators who were pushing for passage of the Military Creation Act, the members of the Ruling Council? Why do you think he makes such a perfect partner for Vader?”

Teller answered his own question. “Because all of them share the same vision. They’re the entitled ones who know what’s best for the rest of us — who should live, who should die, to whom we should bow and how low.” He glanced at Cala, Artoz, and Salikk. “I don’t need to remind any of you what Tarkin did at the end of the war when there weren’t Jedi around to keep a lid on the violence and retribution. We wouldn’t be aboard this ship otherwise. The Emperor is going to win-now the populations of the galaxy until the only ones left are the ones he can control. And he and Vader and Tarkin are going to accomplish that with an army of steadfast recruits who might as well be clones for the little independent thinking they do, weapons that haven’t been seen in more than a thousand years, and fear.”

Teller stepped away from the bulkhead, limping slightly as he found his way in the scant light to one of the acceleration chairs. “You can think of the Carrion Spike as just a ship, but she’s more than that. She’s an expression of who Tarkin is; a small-scale example of the lengths he’s willing to go. Stealth, speed, power … That’s Tarkin, the omniscient, ubiquitous Imperial enforcer. And that’s why we’re turning her into a symbol of something else: of resistance.”

Hask narrowed her feline eyes and nodded in an uncertain way. “You know, it’s funny, Teller. The last time you uncorked one of these lectures, you were saying how none of those we’ve killed were civilians because they were serving the Empire. To me, it sounds a lot like Tarkin’s targeting of anyone who was aiding the pirates.”

Teller nodded back at her. “Yeah, Hask, except for one thing—”

“We’re the good guys,” Anora said, pinning Teller with a sardonic look.

Back in uniform and hands clasped behind his back, Tarkin stood side by side with Vader at the center of the Goliath’s bridge, their presence imbuing the cabinspace with a sense of uncharacteristic urgency.

“Anything?” Tarkin sharply asked the noncom seated at the communications board.

“Nothing, sir.”

“Keep trying.”

The escort carrier was still in Phindar space, in part so that Tarkin could iron out responsibility for the tanker’s destruction with the planetary leadership. Off to his left sat the ship’s ashen-faced commander, not yet over the fact that he had nearly been made answerable for the deaths of the few starfighter pilots who had survived the fierce engagement with the Carrion Spike.

While he didn’t show it, Tarkin felt more accountable than the commander realized. He and Vader had been baited and had come close to paying the price for rushing headlong into a trap. He took himself to task for his overconfidence at having predicted where the shipjackers would turn up, and promised that he wouldn’t allow himself to make the same mistake twice. That the Goliath’s arrival had taken the shipjackers by surprise only made their cunning escape all the more impressive.

A tone sounded from the comm board and Tarkin stepped forward in a rush, realizing at once that he had been premature.

“Report from Phindar’s rescue-and-recovery operation, sir,” the noncom said after listening to her headset feed for a moment. “They suspect that the tanker was destroyed by an explosive device concealed inside a spent fuel cell.”

“Then the dissidents weren’t merely attempting to use the tanker as cover,” Tarkin said. “They were hoping to draw us in, as much to avoid having to face the storm of our unexpected arrival as in the hope that we, too, would be caught up in the explosion.”

A short holovid of the clash, the ensuing chase, and the explosion had been received three hours earlier by a couple of local systems. The delayed transmission of the holovid told Tarkin that the shipjackers had waited until the Carrion Spike emerged from hyperspace, which also provided him with some idea of the distance the ship had traveled, though not in which direction.

Turning to Vader, he said, “Perhaps it would have been wiser to target the tanker from the start.”

Vader folded his arms across his chest and shook his head. “The Emperor would not have approved.”

Tarkin regarded him. It was an odd comment coming from Vader, given the atrocities he had perpetrated for the Emperor since the end of the war. He wondered if Vader was testing him, just as he felt the Emperor had been doing during their most recent meeting.

“If we aren’t willing to do whatever is required,” he said finally, “then we risk losing what we have been mandated to protect.”

The remark paraphrased something Skywalker had said to him following the Citadel rescue. But it got no reaction from Vader beyond his saying, “You misunderstand, Governor. As I said, we need to gather all of them in our net.”

The comm board chimed again, this time with better and more anticipated news.

“Sir, we’re receiving location coordinates from the tracking device.”

Tarkin didn’t bother to hide his excitement. “The Phindian administrator did one thing right. I was almost certain he lied to me.”

Vader nodded. “He served the Empire well in his final moments.”

Tarkin stood behind the noncom at the comm board. “What is the source of the transmissions?”

The noncom waited for interface data to arrive from the Goliath’s navicomputer. “Sir, the source is sector-designated as LCC-four-four-seven. Parsec equidistant from the Sumitra and Cvetaen systems.”

“Those are Coreward — in the Expansion Region,” Tarkin said, with genuine unease.

“Yes, sir. Closest principal planets are Thustra and Aquaris.”