GHORMAN
Though he would rather crush the Ghorman System under his heel, what Palpatine
considered to be his better judgment interceded, based on the political rumblings and
quarrelling still rampant in the Senate since his inception of the Galactic Empire. Better,
he thought, that he should send a single representative to downplay, for the moment, his
intentions of a threat.
Wilhuff Tarkin was such a gifted and charismatic speaker. If anyone could assuage the
unrest of the defiant world with a few glib strokes of a silk tongue, Tarkin could do it.
Better yet that he should do it with his wife at his side, a leading member of the
Corporate Sector and an officer of the Mining Guild who understood economics and
commanded respect in her own right. Their unified presence, he also noted, would cast a
safe and family-oriented light on the New Order.
A quick and quiet diplomatic excursion to speak and collect the Ghormani taxes. That's
what Palpatine had told them. A vacation of sorts, to rebuild their confidence after their
ordeal at Geonosis, and to reaffirm his confidence in them. This time, they would take the
Xephyr, the light but nimble cruiser that Tarkin had inherited from his great-uncle
Ranulph. Only he and a few other family members knew what the small ship could really
do.
After appearances at a dozen diplomatic events culminating with the recent Gala Aldera
on Alderaan, the Tarkins found themselves quite tired, lacking their usual focus, and
badly in need of a break. Furthermore, they wanted to be alone, so the Emperor
arranged for an appropriate security detail to meet them on Ghorman instead of traveling
with them. Contrary to public opinion, Wilhuff and Thalassa Tarkin, as they were known
formally, actually loved each other very deeply, perhaps too much so. More than once,
knowledge of their bond had been used against them by those in power--rather, those
more so in power than they.
After they reached cruising speed in hyperspace, Lady Tarkin began to move around the
cabin, directing the one servant droid they'd brought with them to unpack their things and
put them away in the sleeping alcove. They'd be three days in hyperspace to Ghorman,
two there, and another three back to Coruscant. Both looked forward to six days of rest,
though each defined that term a bit differently. No sooner had they settled in than Tarkin
sat himself down at the general computer terminal with a briefbag full of papers and
datacards. His wife merely smiled bemusedly at him. His brain never shut down, she
knew, as she ambled up behind him to look over his shoulder.
"Visions of the New Order," she read from the screen. "That sounds . . . idyllic."
"No, Typhani, quite the contrary," he replied lightly as he scrolled through the file. "It's
actually very formulaic."
"Cos is going to restructure the entire government, isn't he?" she asked, taking a seat
nearby.
"Yes, he is, and this is the blueprint. We're going to rise very rapidly now, Typhani," he
assured her in his customary crisp, clipped tone, an ingrained trait of his that relented
only in bed. Typhani sank back in her chair, drifting in thought, somewhat disappointed.
She had looked forward to them spending a great deal of the travel time together, in a
place that did not call for clipped, commanding speech, but rather the lazy moans of
erotic ecstasy. After all, they'd been married a decade, and had been trying to start a
family. But now she found her husband writing another book.
His juxtapositions seemed odd to her at times, a military commander at one moment, her
husband and lover the next, a writer the next, a ship architect at another instant, then a
diplomat, followed by a few hours of being a xenobiologist. His intellect was so vast; it
seemed to her that there was nothing he couldn't do, no subject he couldn't master, if he
set that mind of his to it. She found it very awe-inspiring, sometimes overwhelming, to be
in the presence of such a powerful mind.
Not that her own intelligence paled in any way next to his. In fact, their mutual intellect
brought them together. She, too, had taken on many roles since their marriage at the
hands of then-Chancellor Palpatine. In addition to running her company, a vast and
profitable Phelarian megonite munitions facility that had been her birthright, she had
carried out a number of "covert operations" at the behest of Palpatine over the years,
and often assisted her husband in his endeavors. She drank in his knowledge and his
essence with an uncanny ability to absorb. Adrian loved to teach, she had realized, in
that it gave him a sense of power over those who would learn from him. One of her
secret fantasies was that one day they would leave all of the danger, intrigue, and
ambition inherent in the new Empire behind and become what she called their "shadow
selves," roles in which Adrian would become a high school science teacher, she would
have a booth featuring her handmade jewelry at the local street market, and no one
would know who they really were. Perhaps in another incarnation, she thought.
Typhani had found that she could get closer to Adrian when he would be in one of his
distant moods, absorbed in some project, if she could coax him to teach her something.
Of late, he had been teaching her to fly light spacecraft, like the Xephyr. She allowed him
to work for a while longer. Then, when the keystrokes slowed, she moved to the cockpit
area and began to peruse the instrument panels. Earnestly interested in improving her
piloting skills, she studied the controls, comparing their positions and settings to the
readouts on the monitors, some of which she already understood well, particularly the
navicomputer. He hadn't allowed her to take off yet, but with Adrian over her shoulder,
she had brought them into Port Tarkin once and Eriadu City twice.
It wasn't long before he hovered over her again, having emptied the temp file in his brain
into the computer and grown stiff from sitting in the uncomfortable chair. "These are the
controls for the comms station," he explained. "We have hyperspace text/data transmit
and receive, and voice, text, and data on the subspace transponder."
She understood the function of a subspace transponder, but this equipment looked odd
to her. "This one doesn't look a thing like the one in my office," she pointed out.
He chuckled softly at her. "No, Typhani, of course not. The units that work from space
have a very different configuration, but the operations concept is similar. Here," he
continued as he brought the transponder online. As she had hoped anticipated, their
activities in the cockpit soon moved to a more comfortable part of the ship.
And so they spent the next three days, pursuing mutual and private interests, learning
the fly the Xephyr, catching up on reading, working on the new book, and Typhani had
brought some of her beadwork along.
When they arrived at the jump point just outside of the Ghorman System, Adrian
assumed the controls to take them out of hyperspace. It seemed so easy for him,
Typhani observed, as she watched him carefully. Everything seemed easy for him.
"We'll be another hour or so at sublight speed. I'd like to get this chapter finished," he
announced as he stepped back into the main part of the cabin and resumed his place at
the computer terminal. An hour passed without incident.
"We've dropped into orbit," Typhani noted as she glanced at one of the overhead
monitors. She dropped her beadweaving into her bag and stood up.
Adrian looked up from the computer. "Go on. Take us in," he urged her.
"Alone? Do you think I'm ready? I don't have my certification yet . . . "
He smiled softly at her. "Of course, Typhani. Otherwise, I wouldn't have told you to do it. I
have every confidence in you!" Then he turned back to the computer and continued
typing busily.
She smiled back at him, and started to turn toward the cockpit, but then thought of
something else. "Shall I open a comm channel and hail them to verify the coordinates?"
"Oh, no, don't bother. They know we're coming. Just use the ones they transmitted to us
on Coruscant."
Typhani nodded in understanding, then proceeded to the cockpit of their cruiser, where
she initiated the landing sequence just as her husband had taught her, carefully entering
into the navicomputer the landing pad coordinates they had received previously. But as
they entered Ghorman's atmosphere, an alarm began to beep, an alarm with which she
was not familiar. Typhani quickly double-checked the coordinates she had entered, but
determined them to be correct. After perusing the control panel for a moment, she
realized that someone was trying to open comms with them. As a novice, it took her
another few moments to tune a clear signal on the subspace transponder. She wasn't
overly concerned, expecting merely an automated welcome message. At first, all that
came through was static, but then a strained male voice crackled urgently from the comm
station speaker.
" . . . people on the platform! Repeat, you are not clear for landing!"
She glanced at the navicomputer screen. The warning flashed in bright red letters,
"LANDING COORDINATES INVALID--PLANETFALL DESTINATION POINT
OCCLUDED--DIVERT AT ONCE--PLANETFALL DESTINATION POINT OCCLUDED!"
"Adrian!" Typhani called frantically. "Something's wrong! It's the landing sequence! The
landing pad is not clear!"
Tarkin pushed his work aside and bolted to the controls. He paled at what the
instruments told him. "It's too late!" he shouted. "We can't divert! Strap yourself in--
quickly!" He scrambled to activate the cruiser's crash shields, then reached for a safety
harness . . .
He braced himself for a hard impact with what he suspected would be another vessel,
but at first it seemed that the ship had landed normally. Then it began to slide forward, as
if the landing gear had not been able to make good contact with the pad. He braced
himself again, knowing they were going to go over the side, but the ship ground to a halt
just short of the edge of the landing platform.
Then he heard the screaming. Both human and non-human screaming. Hundreds of
voices screaming . . .
One scream rose above all the rest. Finally allowing himself to draw a breath, he turned
to his wife, who had managed to secure herself to one of the four crew seats in the
cockpit. "It's all right, Typhani," he assured her. "We've stopped." Trembling
uncontrollably, she bolted for the hatch when he released her safety harness. He caught
her before it was too late. "No, don't open that! There may be nothing below us!"
"But we have to get out!" she cried. "It's going to explode!"
He pulled her close. "No, we didn't hit anything, nothing solid, that is. The fuel cells are
all right. It's not going to explode." Two thoughts came first to his mind, that Typhani had
entered the wrong coordinates, or that the pad had not been properly prepared for their
landing. Typhani calmed down as he held her, but she was facing one of the side
viewports.
"Adrian . . . " she gasped.
"What is it?" With Typhani silenced, he could hear the other screaming again. Slowly, he
turned his head to look out the viewport. The landing pad, he realized, now lay strewn
with charred and torn human and non-human remains, some with their protest posters
still clenched in a death-grip. They had landed on a platform packed with protestors.
Then came the angry pounding on the external hatch. Out of the corner of his eye,
Adrian spotted four men rushing toward them with blaster rifles that could potentially
penetrate the ship's viewports. Their attire revealed to him at once that the approaching
marauders were not their appointed security detail.
Typhani looked up at her husband, deep terror in her dark gray eyes.
"Come on! We have to get out of here!" he snapped.
Hundreds who were attempting rescues scrambled away as the cruiser's engines whirred
to activity again. Adrian only hoped that they had enough solid pad under them for the
thrusters to work. He initiated liftoff before the Ghormani spaceport patrol could pin him
to the landing pad. Five patrol craft came in pursuit anyway, and attempted again to open
comms. Adrian shut the comm station down with a forceful blow from his right fist, and
then quickly activated his small craft's deflector shields in case the Ghormani patrol ships
decided to fire.
As one patrol ship came around, Tarkin revealed that his craft was indeed armed, as he
deployed two laser torpedo cannons from their concealment bays.
Typhani screamed again. "They're going to fire at us!"
"It's all right--the shields are up," Adrian told her as he trained his cannons on the small
patrol ship, its pilot merely trying to establish comms.
Although he could see full well that the patrol ship's laser cannons were not in attack
position, he nonetheless squeezed the firing mechanism. The smaller ship exploded in
an array of fire and shards. Tarkin felt exuberant exhilaration as the shockwave washed
over his cruiser. "All right, where are the rest of you?" he asked rhetorically, checking his
monitors for the positions of the other four ships.
He felt the jolt from behind as the shields took the impact from the patrol ship that had
returned fire. Typhani reeled from the gravitational forces that nearly rendered her
unconscious as her husband brought their ship around hard and fast, then suddenly
reversed direction, throwing off the trajectories of the attacking patrol ships.
"Ah ha!" he exclaimed as they spun around behind one of the other patrols. A quick
squeeze of Adrian's right hand dispatched the small ship and its pilot into oblivion.
Typhani watched her husband in awe, having never before seen him in a true combat
situation.
"Would another of you like to try it?" he taunted the three remaining vessels. They
promptly beat a hasty retreat. "That's what I thought," he chuckled smugly. He glanced
quickly over his shoulder. "Stay put, Typhani! I'm about to make the jump to light speed!"
Once again in the relative safety of hyperspace, they both sat back, drawing deep
breaths of relief. Adrian then looked tensely contemplative for a moment, trying to sort
out in his mind what had just happened. He first turned to the navicomputer, to verify the
coordinates Typhani had entered against those transmitted to him on Coruscant. They
matched. Next he checked the comm station's text log. The situation was not good. He
would be held responsible for the deaths of hundreds of beings, he was sure, regardless
of who was at the controls when it happened. Typhani simply shouldn't have been flying,
and he had allowed her to do it. If only she'd reacted more quickly, or called out to him as
soon as the alarm went off. She should have at least had that much sense, he fumed. He
glanced over at her. She stared back at him wide-eyed, still shaky, her mind also in
turmoil. She too realized the awful responsibility that would be pinned on them. Better
they should own up and let the Emperor hear it from them instead of over the holonet.
"Hadn't we better let Cos know what just happened?" she suggested hesitantly, her
throat and mouth dry from the intensity of the last half hour.
Adrian turned incredulous. How could she possibly even think of the Emperor at that
moment, let alone mention him? "Don't be ridiculous!" he snapped icily. "Your dawdling
back there has very likely just put an end to my career, Typhani, and you seek only to
hasten it by contacting Coruscant?"
She winced visibly, obviously hurt. "But Adrian, I didn't--I didn't know--"
Angry in the moment, isolated, and cornered by his present situation, circumstances that
usually produced an apoplectic rage in him, he turned on the only target available to him.
He rose from his cockpit chair and began pacing in front of her. "You didn't know! You
didn't act! You didn't think, Typhani!" He pounded his right fist into his left palm. "Now
look what you've gotten us into! You have ruined us--that's what you've done! We can't
possibly go back to Coruscant now! And I presently have no idea where we can go!"
"I did exactly what you taught me, Adrian!"
"You should have been watching the monitors instead of playing with the dials on the
comm station! Then you'd have seen the occlusion warning in time! But you were too
busy twittering with technology that you obviously have no business touching and cannot
comprehend! I see that my efforts have been wasted on you!"
Lady Tarkin shot up out of her seat and lunged at her unsuspecting husband, slamming
her body hard into his with her full Phelarian force, equal to his in size and strength,
pinning him to the cabin wall. She grabbed his tunic collar in a fistful of rage, and
rammed that knot of fabric up under his chin. His face darkening with raw anger, he
brought one hand up to defend himself, but she released his collar and caught his hand
instead, driving it and the fist she'd clenched around it into his gut. He instinctively
brought his other hand around, but she caught it by the wrist with her free hand, twisted
it over his head, and held it to the wall. Her dark eyes flashed with anger as she drove a
knee up into his groin. "You arrogant, insolent, self-consumed son-of-a-Sith!" she
seethed through clenched teeth. "Don't you even dream of laying all of the blame for this
at my feet! I asked you if I should verify the coordinates before initiating the landing
sequence, and you said don't bother! And I reminded you pointedly that I don't yet have
my flight certification! Perhaps you've conveniently forgotten about all I've done for you
over the past ten years--helped to put you where you are now! Do you think you'd have
done as well with some dithering little idiot like Genevieve Ozzel or Theala Vandron? Do
you?! Do you think you'd have survived that illness you had just before you and Raith
went traipsing off to Zonama Sekot? No! You'd have lain there in that bed in that dismal
little apartment and died, Adrian! Or do you think you would have gotten out of the Maw
alive if I hadn't nosed up to Cos to find out where the hell you were? Not to mention all
the dirty work I've done for him over and over again to secure your precious promotions!
You said it yourself once, we're both trapped in Cos' web! You are the one who got us
into this situation in the first place by aligning yourself with him! Gideon warned you
otherwise, but you wouldn't hear it! You said he was just a stupid kid! You are the one
with all the grand philosophical ideas--with all these visions, as you call them, for Cos'
New Order! So you figure out a way to get us out of this mess! And if this is the way you
are going to treat me, then it may well be far more than your career that is over!"
At last, she released him. He slumped forward, half bent over, as he clutched himself
until the pain of the pressure she'd exerted passed. When he could finally come up for
air, he rubbed his left wrist as he glared at her. She'd nearly cut off his circulation. For
one fleeting, ugly, and disgusting instant, the thought of his blaster aimed squarely at her
head passed through his mind. For the first time in over ten years of marriage, they
turned coldly and bitterly away from each other, and for several excruciating hours did
not speak.
As his rage slowly subsided and he accepted their mutual culpability, Adrian turned the
scenario over and over in his mind, trying to come up with a remotely reasonable
explanation that the Emperor would accept. He saw no way out. He had been sent on a
diplomatic mission, sent to maintain order and diplomacy, to avoid a conflict until the
Senate reached an equilibrium that Palpatine found satisfactory. This, he realized with a
slight inward shudder, would likely cause Senatorial dissent to conflagrate. The Emperor
would indeed be most displeased, and very likely most unkind to them. For another
fleeting instant, he considered that their best fate might be to run the Xephyr headlong
into a supernova. Cos had been unkind before, Adrian remembered. He remembered the
overwhelming pain and his wife's agonized cries as Palpatine rained Sith lightning down
upon them--for far lesser infractions of his goals. Worse, they would be returning empty-
handed, having not collected the Ghormani taxes. The thought of what the Emperor
might do to them this time--of what he might do to Typhani--or, still worse, force him to do
to her or her to do to him--caused his stomach to turn in on itself. He had to at least find
a way to keep her out of danger.
As usual, when they fought, he would be the first to relent. He stepped up behind her
and put a hand on her shoulder. She jerked away. "Don't touch me!" she spat, still angry.
Her words seared his ears, and caused his already pounding head to throb even harder.
He turned and sauntered into the cockpit, and for another hour sat staring blankly out the
forward viewport.
Typhani retreated into the sleeping alcove, sealed herself in, and collapsed onto the bed
with an exasperated sigh. She lay on her back, staring out the overhead viewport as the
galaxy that had once held so much hope and promise for them streaked by. Then she
too remembered what happened the last time they had inadvertently crossed Palpatine's
will and incurred his wrath. She also realized that Adrian would bear the greater
responsibility, notwithstanding whether he himself landed his ship on an occupied
platform or allowed an uncertified passenger to do it. She began to fear not only for her
husband's career, but for their lives as well. She shuddered and choked back tears as
the portent of a horrible fate welled up inside her--that she would lose Adrian to
Palpatine's lightning device, or some other terrible torture, and that the Emperor would
then take her as another of his concubines.
She made her way tentatively to the cockpit entryway, leaning on the bulkhead as she
stared at him for a moment. He glanced around quickly to acknowledge her presence.
"What are we going to do?" she asked, her voice a bit tremulous.
He turned toward her. "I don't know," he said flatly, but reached out for her to come sit
with him. For a long time, they just held each other.
"We have to figure something out," Typhani said urgently, the uncertainty causing her
more stress than she cared to bear.
"I know," he acknowledged. "For a start, Typhani, I was flying the ship. That's the way it
has to be."
She put her arms around him and rested her head on his shoulder. "I can't let you face
this alone," she whispered. "Besides, why would you do such a thing in defiance of Cos'
orders. It wasn't a Jedi gathering after all."
He returned her embrace, rhythmically stroking her long, black hair. "I've been thinking--
about the book I'm writing. Perhaps I can try to couch this as an example of the power of
the New Order, an example that mass insurrection will not be tolerated. The main
outcome I'm afraid of is that word of this mishap may cause those who nurture
undercurrents of dissent within the Senate to manifest themselves in outright defiance.
That recalcitrant Chandrillan Mon Mothma and her noisome Alderaani consort Bail
Organa are particularly ripe for that sort of thing."
Typhani sat up. "But if they engage in open defiance, wouldn't they make themselves
targets? Better a fixed target than ambiguous unrest. And what if you struck those targets
down?"
"It's all speculation, Typhani. You know what Cos did to us before . . . " He looked away
at that.
"Come to bed, Adrian," she suggested. "We've nothing to gain by exhausting ourselves."
He nodded in agreement, checked the autopilot, and followed her to the sleeping alcove.
Typhani was so exhausted from their ordeal that she did manage to sleep, albeit lightly.
Adrian could not, however, and lay staring out at the stars warping past overhead until
he heard the persistent beeping of the comm station alert. It sent a rush of ice down his
spine. Reluctantly, he rose to check it.
"What is it?" Typhani asked as she came up behind him. He stood staring blankly down
at the comm station readout screen. He turned to face her, and she was taken aback by
how pale he looked.
For a moment, the words would not come. "It's Vader," he finally croaked. "Cos has sent
him after us. He's locked on to the signal from the tracking device on one of the
remittance containers in the hold. He knows where we are. And . . . we're to go to
sublight at Carida, where we are to meet him and he is to escort us back to Coruscant."
The life seemed to drain out of his voice with every word, not from fear, but from failure.
Typhani stood frozen for a moment, and then sank into a chair. Then she looked up
suddenly at her husband. "What about the escape pods? We could jettison to some
world, to someplace where no one knows us."
Adrian looked over at the hatch to one of the Xephyr's two escape pods for a moment,
then sat down next to her, taking her hand. "We can't hide, Typhani. I told you that
before. He'd have Fett and every other bounty hunter in the galaxy looking for us.
Besides, could you really live like that?"
"Yes," she muttered.
"And give up everything you have, your birthright, your position in the Mining Guild?"
"Not quite everything," she said, looking down into her lap. She slowly raised her free
hand to her pelvis. "I'm late," she continued. "I wanted to wait to tell you until I knew for
sure."
For a long, loving moment, he just stared at her, then embraced her fully. He tenderly
took her face in his hands, and drew very close to her. "I love you so much, Typhani, and
I certainly didn't mean those awful things I said to you earlier, about my efforts being
wasted upon you."
She reached up to take his wrists. "Nor I," she said. "I have no regrets with you, and the
thought of being without you, well . . . "
He tucked his hand under her chin to make her look at him. "Typhani, you have to go in
the lifepod. I can drop you at Corulag, and there you can make your way to Morgana's.
Then she can take you someplace safe. I can then proceed to Carida at sublight speed
so Vader won't think anything of it."
"No!" she protested. "Not without you!"
"I am the one Cos will blame for this! If he has me, he won't care about you!"
"But--"
"Typhani, you may have something far more important to protect now! If by some
miraculous chance I should survive this, I'll come for you at once. But if I don't survive, at
least something of me might," he insisted as he cupped his hand over her womb. She
just shook her head, and her face drew up as the tears came. They embraced each
other tightly, not knowing what fate awaited Adrian on Coruscant.
Typhani gathered some of her things into a small bag that she could manage easily as
Adrian prepared a message for his sister. When they arrived at Corulag, Adrian had to
pry his wife's arms from him and force her into the lifepod. "You have to go. It's for the
best," he kept telling her. At last, they stared longingly at each other through the hatch. In
the rare instance of struggling to control his emotions, he leaned into the pod. "I love you,
Typhani. No matter what happens, always remember that."
She drew close for what could be a final kiss. "I love you," she cried, nearly choking on
her tears. With that, he pulled back, before he lost his will to do it, and sealed the hatch
between them. He then proceeded quickly to the cockpit, where he cut the engines to
sublight speed at the jump point off Corulag. He took the Xephyr into a high-orbit
position, and, with knots in both his stomach and his throat, released the lifepod.
"Goodbye, Typhani," he whispered tremulously. "Protect our legacy. Protect it well." He
watched the lifepod for a moment, then put his head back and shut his eyes. No sooner
had he done so than the incoming ship alert signal sounded. Adrian snapped alert, and,
to his horror, the lifepod was no longer traveling toward the atmosphere of Corulag, but
rather back out into space! He quickly scanned his control panel, only to see the signal
of a large ship behind and above him. He brought up visual scan. The new Imperial Star
Destroyer Decimator had also just exited hyperspace and loomed just aft.
Vader.
"No!" Adrian shrieked. "Leave her alone!" He brought the cruiser around hard just in time
to see the pod enter the Destroyer's underbay, a powerful tractor beam gently pulling it
aboard. Then he felt a slight jerk as the beam locked on to the Xephyr.
Aboard the reeling lifepod, Typhani Tarkin steeled herself up for the horror she feared
would come. Trembling violently, she choked back her tears and sat quiet and still,
facing the hatch, as she heard and felt the exterior of the pod make contact with the
docking bay deck. She waited for the crew to open it, taking only quick, shallow breaths.
When the hatch opened, she faced Vader himself. Surely he would not hurt them, she
thought, after all they'd done for him.
"Lady Tarkin!" Vader exclaimed when he realized she was alone. "Where is your
husband?" He stepped toward her as two stormtroopers helped her climb out of the pod.
Then he noticed her tear-stained face.
She knew she had to answer him. "He's . . . he's still aboard the ship," she squeaked.
Vader then looked up an over the top of the lifepod. "What's wrong with it? Did you incur
much damage?"
"I--I don't . . ." Typhani began. She looked over her shoulder to see what Vader was
looking at, only to see the Xephyr being hauled into the docking bay. The ramp lowered,
and Wilhuff Tarkin strode down, prepared to accept his fate if Vader would help him get
Thalassa to safety.
The two military men faced each other. "What in the name of the Empire happened out
there?" Vader asked, having heard the initial reports.
"I can understand that the Emperor is upset," Tarkin began.
"Yes!" Vader interceded. "When he heard about the ambush, he feared intensely for your
safety. He was concerned that your ship had been damaged, and so he ordered me to
cut to sublght here at Corulag so as to come in behind you and intercept you should you
have a problem exiting hyperspace. When I saw you here, and the lifepod, I assumed the
Emperor had been correct. Are you both all right?"
Adrian and Typhani shot quick glances at each other. "Yes," Adrian confirmed. "We're
fine." Vader then cocked his head questioningly at the lifepod. "Oh, that,” Tarkin
continued. “I was uncertain as to whether we might have drawn foreign matter into the
sublight engines upon liftoff from Ghorman. It can cause a serious fire in this type of ship.
I wasn't taking any chances with the Emperor's Hand; better to deliver her to the safety of
my sister," he invented, casting an arm around his wife.
"Good! The Emperor eagerly awaits your arrival back at the Imperial Palace so he can
hear about this victory first-hand."
"And we shall be glad to brief him!" Tarkin clipped confidently.
Then, Typhani began to make a face. As the Xephyr acclimated to the docking bay,
Tarkin received confirmation that his ruse was believable, as the unmistakable odor of
burnt flesh emanated foully from his ship. The crew would discover several body parts,
seared, fused, then frozen to the hull, trophies for dissenters.
Vader's crew retrieved the Tarkins' needed belongings from the Xephyr so that the ship
could be properly scanned and sterilized, then escorted them to the Decimator's
currently unoccupied admiral's quarters, as Admiral Zaxx Takur had not yet officially
assumed command of the vessel.
Once they were sealed inside, Adrian and Typhani embraced each other again, this time
laughing openly, spinning each other around in circles. They couldn't believe their turn of
luck! "You don't think it's a ruse," Typhani asked urgently, "that Darth is just teasing or
placating us until he can deliver our heads to Cos?"
"No, I don't think so. He used an interesting word back there. I think Cos believes we
were ambushed."
"Well, in a way, we were," she pointed out.
"Let's just hope it stays that way. What happened out there never leaves our lips,
Typhani. I was flying the ship. You must always insist that was so." She nodded in
understanding.
“But . . . “ she began, but could not finish her thought.
“What?” Adrian prompted her.
After another moment she continued, her voice low and devoid of the exuberance of the
preceding moment. “There . . . were . . . dozens of them—hundreds, perhaps—all . . . all
. . . dead. And I—“
He caught her quickly. “It’s all right,” he assured her. “That’s what combat is all about.”
“But it wasn’t combat, Adrian! We were going there to give speeches, that’s all!”
“And the Ghormani had other things in mind for us, no?”
She nodded, but still didn’t look convinced.
“Typhani, it’s no different than your actions against Uul Sre Renm or Padmé Amidala, or
any of the other vermin Cos has set you on.”
“Yes, well, I—“
This time he silenced her with a kiss, and she finally put the noisome thoughts aside.
The next afternoon, they arrived back on Coruscant. The Emperor seemed overjoyed to
see them. "Ah, my dear Typhani, are you quite all right? What an experience that must
have been for you!" he greeted as the Royal Guards left them in private.
"Yes, Cos, I'm fine. I must say it was quite wonderful to have had the opportunity to see
my husband in action," she replied with a wide smile.
Palpatine smiled back at her, then turned to Adrian. "Yes, I'm sure it was! I do wish I
could have been there to see that! I tell you, this galaxy is riddled with sniveling idiots like
the Ghormani! I extend dialog through diplomatic representation, and they respond by
staging a mass protest to ambush one of my best commanders, with his wife aboard, no
less? This is a prime example of why we need the New Order! Some of those slogans of
theirs incense me! How dare they oppose me! How dare they slur my name so! 'No
Payments for Palpatine's Patsy' indeed! I tell you, Tarkin, that was a brilliant move! Now I
see what you mean in your latest manuscript about examples of force. And never mind
the taxes. The Ghormani fools have chosen to pay their taxes in blood, and in doing so
have sent a fine message to the rest of the galaxy that will serve our purposes well!
You've done quite well in demonstrating the iron will of the New Order, and with a bit of
audacity, I might add!" Palpatine then walked over to his desk.
"I've finished reading the first draft of your new book. A brilliant work, your most brilliant
yet. And I see now that you are a man who puts action behind his words. Therefore, I
think it's time to move forward, Moff Tarkin. I hereby grant you that provincial
governorship you've always wanted--of your homeworld of Eriadu and the Seswenna
Sector! And, since you've done so well at Ghorman, I would also like you to assist Moff
Kaine in being equally persuasive in his Atravis Sector!"
And so, for the next two decades, Wilhuff Tarkin wrought untold death and destruction
upon billions of other beings who would oppose his Emperor, and found himself forever
linked with the foul stench of the burnt flesh of Ghorman.