Story Questions about Shadow of the Eight (Minka Lesk) - Light Spoilers

Hi, hope it's the right place to ask fellow readers about some things I'm left wondering about after reading the book.

It was just random chance that Minka found the important item that kicked the story off, right?

If so, how did the other bad guys know what disguise to use? They could not have known that the imperials were coming to their planet?

The original bad guys were hiding on the planet for some time, while the other bad guys were also always just there? But they did not attack the first ones because they were waiting for the imperials to come to start some elaborate scheme? How would they know that their target moved if they were not able to locate it before?

And what about the multiple times it was mentioned how the enemies bodies disappeared like they were ghosts or something - nothing ever came of it?

And who even were the second bad guys that were hunting the first ones? It's possible I missed something, or is it just not explained?

I enjoyed the book quite a lot, but the plot didn't really make sense to me in some aspects. I did like that it felt like there was a bigger story going on that our protagonists were not aware of or even played a part in, but I wonder how much of that was intentional and how much I just missed to connect the dots.

Cheers!