Tarkin extracted holoimages of the twin-horned humanoid and the single-horned near-human and placed them on the far side of the holograms of Fair and Taff; then, changing his mind, he moved them to float between those of Teller and Knotts.

A tremor of excitement coursed through him.

He propelled the castered stool to the HoloNet array and contacted the escort carrier, Goliath, ordering the specialist he eventually spoke with to forward from the ship’s database a record of his transmission with the Phindian administrator of the fuel tanker. When the recording arrived, he extracted the image of the scar-faced, red-haired human who had requisitioned fuel cells and ordered the computer to compare the hologram of Teller to the bogus Imperial commander with the ocular implant.

In short order, text flashed above the holotable between the two holograms:

MATCH: 99.9 %

Tarkin’s jaw fell open in wonder as he stared at the man who had stolen his ship.

Shifting his gaze between his dictated text and the holograms of the suspects, he began to think through everything from scratch.

Yes, Teller could have learned about the Carrion Spike during his short tenure at Desolation Station. And it would have been easy enough for him to persuade “Salikk” and “Cala” to join him, since he had probably been responsible for exfiltrating them from Antar 4—just as he’d been responsible for saving the lives of Fair and Taff by whisking them from Coruscant. At that point, Teller would have had a pilot, an operations and munitions specialist, and two HoloNet experts.

Tarkin ran a hand down over his mouth and took hold of his chin.

Something was missing; someone was missing.

He reentered the top-secret database to scan the few reports he could access relating to Desolation Station.

Teller wasn’t the only being who had disappeared from the secret facility. Motivated by grievances against the Empire, many had fled and become fugitives. The count was so high, in fact, that COMPNOR had compiled a most-wanted list of missing scientists and technicians who had held high-priority security clearances. The disappearances were often offered up as an explanation for harassment attacks against Imperial bases and installations.

Tarkin scrolled through the list several times, returning after each read-through to a Mon Cal starship systems engineer named Artoz, who had gone missing shortly after Teller. “Dr. Artoz,” as he was apparently affectionately known, was a former member of the Mon Cal Knights, a group that had fought against his planet’s Separatist-aligned Quarren. Artoz certainly would have known about the Carrion Spike, as parts for the corvette’s stygian crystal stealth system had been manufactured at Mon Cal shipyards after the concept-design team had given up on attempts to utilize hibridium.

Tarkin blinked, rubbed his eyes, and stared at the midair holograms.

What about Bracchia, the Koorivar asset on Murkhana? Was he involved in the plot, despite the part he had played in procuring a replacement starship?

Were the Crymorah crime families involved?

What about the crew of the freighter Reticent? Had they perhaps been aboard the cobbled-together warship that had attacked Sentinel Base?

Then there was the matter of the warship itself. Who had funded the purchase of the modules, droids, and starfighters? Where and by whom had the ship been assembled? Just how wide reaching was the conspiracy? Did it involve only former Republic Intelligence operatives, or did it penetrate Imperial agencies, as well?

Sentients, like animals, have their fussy behaviors, Jova would say. Learn the particulars of one, and you begin to understand the entire species.

If Tarkin’s hypothesis about Antar 4 being the nexus of the conspiracy was correct, could the involvement of the Reticent’s crew owe to something as simple as having lost friends or relatives to the mass executions? Relatives who were perhaps affiliated with Teller’s partisans?

Tarkin continued to scan the 3-D images.

If he was right and he was actually looking at those who had stolen his ship and discovered how to replicate the Clone Wars Shadowfeeds, then as it happened they were not former Separatists nursing a grudge against the Empire, but rather former Republican loyalists with a vendetta.

Supreme Chancellor Palpatine’s onetime allies had become the Emperor’s new foes.

Saving his research to an encrypted file, Tarkin thought: The trail continues beyond where you lose it.

Were the dissidents leading him on a chase calculated to disguise their actual objective?

The thread that had begun to unspool at Sentinel Base could end at only one point.

The Carrion Spike stumbled out of hyperspace to an interstellar reversion point ten parsecs from Nouane. The near miss in the autonomous region had left the corvette so rattled that, for a long while, the damaged navicomputer couldn’t even establish where the ship was. It was easier now to list the instruments that were still functioning than those that were damaged beyond repair.

“We have two forward laser cannons and one starboard battery,” Cala reported to the others in the corvette’s main cabin, where Artoz was tending to Salikk’s facial injuries. “Shields are down to nothing. Hull armor’s the only thing protecting us from a collision with space dust. Hyperdrive motivator is marginal, but probably good for one, possibly two more jumps—”

“One is all we need,” Teller said, while the ship groaned like a wounded animal and Salikk’s shed fur wafted in all directions.

“Stealth systems and sublight drives are hit or miss,” the Koorivar continued. “Same with communications and the HoloNet.”

Hask gave her pert-eared head a woeful shake. “We don’t come off very well in the vids the Empire released of the Nouane engagement.”

“There go our ratings,” Artoz said.

Anora scowled at him and threw Teller a peeved look. “So much for trusting your ally to hold up his end of the bargain.”

“I said I trusted him up to a point,” Teller shot back. “If I trusted him entirely, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”

The remark was not an exaggeration. Had the Carrion Spike decanted in the Nouane system at the anticipated reversion point, she would have been instantly annihilated by Imperial fire. Instead, Teller had had Salikk decant the ship deeper in system, as far from the capital ships as was feasible. Regardless, they had been forced to make a run for it without firing a beam at the star system’s Imperial facility, its inconsequence notwithstanding. Boxed in and pounded by laserfire, they had jumped to lightspeed with a maneuver that in itself had been no mean feat.

“Besides,” Teller went on, “he had to make it look real.”

Anora loosed a bitter laugh. “They weren’t just making it look real, Teller. Face facts: We’ve been betrayed.”

Teller snorted a bitter laugh. “Probably. But in the end it won’t matter.” He looked at Salikk, then Artoz. “Is he going to be all right, Doc?”

“I’ll live,” Salikk said for himself. “At least for long enough to finish this.”

“The autopilot also survived,” Cala said.

Teller blew out his breath and nodded. “Then we’re good to go on that score. Plus, we’ve been assured of clear skies.”

“As long as he’s still convinced we’re on our way,” Anora said.

Teller nodded. “The Carrion Spike will arrive on schedule.”

“You realize that the Empire won’t rest until we’re found and dealt with,” Artoz said.

Hask glanced around. “Assuming anyone’s figured out who we are.”

“I wouldn’t put it past Tarkin and Vader — not with the Reticent crew in hand.” Teller compressed his lips. “Even if not, we’ll be given up at some point.”