Galactic Empire, Core Worlds, Alderaan, Imperial Fourth Army Headquarters.
Beneath the magnificent dome, Wilhuff Tarkin sat silently on the sofa, utterly still. Ancient music played on repeat throughout the hall, a movement from the Galactic Republic's golden age.
He listened to it over and over, again and again, never stopping for even a moment. He maintained the same posture throughout, motionless as though asleep.
Before him, the glaring red alert zone across the Eastern Territory on the holographic star map seemed like flowing blood. Yet Wilhuff Tarkin remained unmoved, simply sitting there in silence.
He was only listening to the music, again and again.
Yet within him, a flame burned... the flame of hatred, the flame of vengeance!
It burned soundlessly, yet was hotter than any star.
Garrosh Tarkin, his eldest son; Gideon Tarkin, his younger brother... both had been completely buried in the chaotic star systems of the Eastern Territory. Now, his fingertips slowly traced that scarlet region on the star map—once seen as the beginning of the Tarkin family's glory for ten thousand years, it had now become a graveyard for his bloodline.
The two people he treasured most had both turned to dust. Gideon Tarkin had not even had a body recovered—with the flagship destroyed by the Purification Beam, everything aboard had been vaporized by the extreme heat.
And after paying such a devastating price, what had Wilhuff Tarkin gained?
Nothing.
Worse still, the Twelfth Army, which he had planned to cultivate into the Tarkin family's foundation for ten thousand years, had launched an extraordinarily fierce backlash under Governor Seben's leadership.
The Tarkin family's influence in the Twelfth Army had been uprooted, and they had suffered grievous losses in the process. The family had already begun investing there, yet everything had been stripped away.
Even some peripheral