Tarkin: Star Wars by James Luceno

Author:James Luceno [Luceno, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9780553392890
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2014-11-04T00:00:00+00:00

ITS TIERED ROOF a canopy of scanner, sensor, and communications arrays, Naval Intelligence headquarters heaved from Coruscant’s metallic crust as if thrust up by tectonic forces from the depths of the planet. Along with the Palace and the byzantine COMPNOR arcology—which housed the Imperial Security Bureau, the Ubiqtorate, and other ambiguous organizations—Naval Intelligence was the third point of the Federal District’s supreme triangle. The fact that the shielded, hardened, near-windowless complex more resembled a prison than a fortress had given rise to speculation that its sheer walls were designed as much to keep the agency’s staff of tens of thousands of military officers inside as to keep ordinary Coruscanti out.

Constructed soon after the end of the war atop monads that had once made up the Republic’s strategic center, Naval Intelligence was a nexus for gathering and analyzing transmissions that poured in from across the ecumenopolis and from all sectors of the expanding Empire. And yet its operations were not conducted in complete secrecy. During the construction phase, micro-holocams had been installed in every nook and cranny so that the actions and conversations of every staffer could be monitored at any hour of the day or night; not by the members of the Senate’s various oversight committees, however, but by the Emperor and the most trusted members of the Ruling Council. Everyone involved with Naval Intelligence knew that the cams were there and had gradually grown accustomed to their presence. While the officers and others no longer played to the spy eyes as they had early on, they went about their business well aware that at any given moment they might be on stage.

Just now the Joint Chiefs of the Empire’s military were gathered—Admiral Antonio Motti, General Cassio Tagge, Rear Admirals Ozzel, Jerjerrod, and others—along with several top officers from COMPNOR, including Director Armand Isard, ISB deputy director Harus Ison, and Colonel Wullf Yularen. Naval Intelligence was represented by Vice Admirals Rancit and Screed, who had requested the meeting.

With the bright light of late afternoon pouring through the tall windows of the Palace spire’s pinnacle room, Sidious studied their holograms from his chair, using controls in the armrest to choose from among several cams and to provide alternative vantages. The droid, 11-4D, stood by him, one of its appendages plugged into an interface socket that routed holofeeds to the summit from what had been a Jedi communications suite in the base of the spire.

“Tint the windows,” Sidious said without taking his gaze from the projected holograms.

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

With the daylight dimmed, the cyan-hued holograms acquired more detail. The intelligence officers had asked for an audience in the Palace, but Sidious had turned them down. Similarly he had declined to attend their meeting virtually. As nettlesome as it was to have learned that the dissidents in possession of Tarkin’s starship had embarked on a killing spree in the Outer Rim, Sidious found the cachet-driven spitefulness of the intelligence chiefs to be even more tedious. So he had dispatched Mas Amedda and Ars Dangor in his stead.

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