Star Wars_ The Dark Lord Trilogy - James Luceno [319]
The astromech sent an update to the cockpit data screen, and at the same time the voice of one of the escort pilots issued through the console comlink.
“Lord Vader, the skiff is positioning a hyperdrive booster in the CloakShape’s flight path.”
The vision enhancers built into Vader’s mask delivered a close-up of the red-and-white hypermatter ring. Quickly he thumbed the triggers on the steering yoke, and a hail of crimson bolts streaked from the interceptor’s long-barreled laser cannons. But it was unlikely that the bolts would ever reach their targets, because the targets would be long gone.
Still calling all power from the ion drive, Vader watched the CloakShape slip neatly into the precisely positioned booster ring and make the jump to lightspeed. A split second later Cash Garrulan’s skiff engaged its hyperdrive and disappeared.
Allowing the interceptor to power down, Vader gazed in defeat at the distant starfield.
He had much to do to make himself whole once more.
One of the V-wing pilots hailed him. “Escape vectors are being plotted, Lord Vader.”
“Delete the calculations, pilot,” he said. “If the Jedi are so determined to disappear, then let them.”
PART III
IMPERIAL CENTER
You have my full assurance that I will not disband the Senate,” the Emperor told the small audience he had summoned to his new chambers. “Furthermore, I don’t want you to think of yourselves as mere accessories, ratifying legislation and facilitating the business of governing. I will seek your counsel in enacting laws that will serve the growth and integrity of our Empire.”
He fell silent for a moment, then delivered his bombshell.
“The difference now is that when I have taken into account your contributions and those of my advisers, my judgment will be final. There will be no debates, no citations of constitutional precedent, no power of veto, no court proceedings or deferrals. My decrees will be issued simultaneously to our constituent worlds, and they will take effect immediately.”
The Emperor leaned forward in the high-backed chair that was his temporary throne, but not so far forward that his disfigured face was placed in the light.
“Understand this: you no longer represent your homeworlds solely. Coruscant, Alderaan, Chandrila … All these and tens of thousands of worlds far removed from the Core are cells of the Empire, and what affects one, affects us all. No disturbances will be tolerated. Interplanetary squabbles or threats of secession will meet with harsh reprisals. I have not led us through three years of galactic warfare to allow a resurgence of the old ways. The Republic is extinct.”
Bail Organa barely managed to keep from squirming in his chair, as some of the Emperor’s other invited guests were doing—Senators Mon Mothma and Garm Bel Iblis especially, in what almost amounted to overt defiance. But if the Emperor was taking notes, he was doing so without most of his guests being aware of it.
The Emperor’s new chambers—the throne room, for all intents and purposes—occupied an upper floor of Coruscant’s tallest building and, in design, more closely resembled what had been Palpatine’s holding office below the Senate Rotunda than his former quarters in the Senate Office Building.
Divided into two levels by a short but wide staircase, the sanitized room was longer than it was wide, with large permaplas windows surrounding the upper tier. Flanking the burnished staircase were a pair of cup-shaped duty stations, in each of which stood a Red Guard—an Imperial Guard—with the Emperor’s advisers seated behind them. The center of the gleaming dais was occupied by the throne, the back of which arched over Palpatine’s head, placing him in perpetual shadow, as the cowl of his cloak did his sallow and deeply lined face. Recessed into the wide arms of the chair were modest control pads into which his slender fingers would enter occasional input.
The corridors of the Senate were rife with rumors that the Emperor had a second and more private suite, along with some sort of medical facility, in the very