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Kalback’s eyes widened even further: a Mon Cal frown. “General, we don’t necessarily have to honor the truce; after all, this Shadowspawn has not conducted his operations like a soldier, but like a pirate.” He swiveled his right eye toward the ground base. “It seems a pity to let such a tempting target go to waste.”

“No. If word gets out that that’s how we treat surrendering Imperials, no one will surrender. This business will get a whole lot bloodier.”

“Then how should we proceed?”

“I don’t know,” Luke said, more grimly than before. “I just don’t know.”

A chime that sounded like the splash of icy water over river stones caught Lieutenant Tubrimi’s attention, and he swung back to his console. “Incoming message from the shuttle, sirs.”

Kalback nodded. “Bring it up.”

“Um,” Luke said, “with your permission, Admiral?”

The admiral gave his assent with a roll of his left eye.

“Lieutenant, set the playback for audio only,” Luke ordered. “Artoo, keep the tactical going. Plot the Justice, the shuttle, and the shuttle’s vector.”

“General?” Kalback leaned toward him, chin palps flaring in concern. “Is there a problem?”

“I’m pretty sure there is,” Luke said, nodding. “Lieutenant?”

Tubrimi waved a hand. The darker-than-black purr of Shadowspawn’s voice seemed to come from everywhere at once while the tactical holodisplay highlighted the relative positions of the Justice and the warlord’s shuttle.

“How am I to offer surrender, when our eyes have not met? Am I to cast the lives of my men into wind and wave before I have judged the angles of your gaze?” Shadowspawn sounded honestly puzzled, almost plaintive. Luke’s frown deepened to a scowl. The warlord was playing on Kalback’s cultural inclinations: to his people, the truth of a being’s character was expressed through its eyes. “Pray indulge this one humble request from a defeated foe; do not force me to deliver the lives of my men unto some figment of my hopes for mercy.”

The flare of Kalback’s chin palps widened. “General?”

Luke barely heard him. That voice …

He recognized the quality now: it was electronically synthesized, modulated deeper, darker, with subtle harmonics that worked on primitive parts of the human brain, commanding instant attention. Demanding respect. Requiring obedience. Inspiring dread.

That was it: Shadowspawn sounded like Vader.

The only other time he’d come across a voice that dark, that unsettling, that downright chilling had been another synthesized voice, speaking from a holoprojected silhouette filled with stars—

Could it be?

Luke’s jaw clenched. “Blackhole.”

Kalback swiveled one vast eye toward him. “You say that like a curse.”

“It is for me,” Luke said grimly. “We’ve had dealings before. He’s an Emperor’s Hand. I should say, was an Emperor’s Hand. I’ve seen some reports that suggest he might have been director of Imperial Intelligence back around the time of Yavin. I should have pegged him right away—that strange headgear, for one thing—but these raids really aren’t his style.”

“No?”

“He was more, I don’t know, kind of theatrical. He would always appear as a holoprojection of empty space—you know, just an outline filled with distant stars, and—” Luke’s eyes went wide. “—and he never did his dirty work in person!”

He lurched toward the shifting star that was the tactical display’s representation of the shuttle: that shifting star was shifting entirely too fast. “Is this accurate?”

The ensign at the tactical console angled his eyes in a shrug. “Yes, sir. In fact, he’s accelerating.”

“Project his course.”

A cone of blue haze spread forward along the shuttle’s vector. “That’s assuming constant acceleration—no, wait, he’s increasing acceleration. Eight gravities … eleven …” The cone kept spreading until it enveloped the holodisplayed Justice.

“Order marines to the landers, and all hands to environment suits.”

Kalback blinked. “General?”

“You, too, Admiral.” Luke strode across the deck to a suit locker and starting pulling out flight suits. “Come on,” he told a nearby yeoman.