by James Luceno
At a round table in the adjoining room sat a Rodian and two Twi’leks, ostensibly engaged in a game of cards—sabacc, in all likelihood. Maul watched them for a moment. Their playing was desultory. He observed their facial expressions as the security agents continued to converse. When one of the men said something of interest, the Rodian’s faceted eyes would flash and his short snout would curl to one side. At the same time, the Twi’leks’ head-tails would twitch and their pasty faces would flush ever so slightly.
The Rodian’s left ear was sporting an earbead receiver, while the Twi’leks’ receivers took the form of dermal patches, disguised as lekku tattoos.
Maul was certain that the trio were in the secret employ of Lommite Limited’s onworld competitor, InterGalactic Ore. He recognized the Rodian from the disk Sidious had given him. It was possible that they were the saboteurs themselves.
His eyes darted back to the listening device and the security men. Creatures of habit, they probably occupied the same booth night after night, completely unaware that their conversations were being monitored. Such carelessness exasperated Maul to the point of fury. The men were deserving of whatever harm would surely come their way.
The three security men left the cantina on foot and wended their way to a ribbon of trail that wove through a dense stand of forest. Maul followed from a discreet distance, keeping to the shadows when Dorvalla’s moon came up, full and silver-white.
The trail eventually arrived at a tight-knit community of flimsy dwellings, many of them raised on stilts to keep them above pools of runoff water left by the rain. The humidity was oppressive.
The dwelling that was the trio’s destination was an elevated cube with a metal roof angled to channel rainwater into a ferrocrete cistern. The cube’s only door was accessed by means of a ladderlike stairway. A rusted landspeeder with a cracked windscreen was parked in a muddy front lot.
Maul kept to the trees while a thickly built human responded to the stout agent’s raps on the door frame.
“Come on up,” the man said. “Everyone else is already here.”
Bruit. Darth Maul waited until the three agents were inside, then he hurried from the shadows and planted himself under an open side window. Not content with his choice, he ducked beneath the house and clambered up one of the stilts to wedge himself between the floor joists of the front room. In the room above, someone was pouring liquid into several glasses.
Maul extracted a miniature recording device from the breast pocket of his utility suit and placed it against the underside of the rough-hewn floorboards.
“Here’s the long and short of it,” Bruit said while the glasses were being filled. “Arrant has decided that we need to level the playing field. We’re going to strike at InterGal at Eriadu. Our shipments will reach the planet, and theirs won’t.”
Someone whistled in astonishment.
“Does the boss realize what he’s letting loose?” perhaps the same man asked. “This is going to lead to a shooting war.”
“This comes straight from Arrant,” Bruit said. “He’s been in the trenches before. Those are his words, and this is his show.”
“His show and our livelihood,” someone pointed out. “There has to be a better way of settling this. What about petitioning the senate to intervene?”
“A cure that can be worse than the disease,” another answered, much to Maul’s amusement. “The senate will defer to committees run by corrupt bureaucrats. It will take months for it to get to the courts.”
“No senate, no courts,” Bruit said. “That much has already been decided. It’s up to us.”
“So what happens at Eriadu?”
“We’ve been able to learn the hyperspace route InterGal’s ships are going to take. They’ll arrive by way of Rimma 13, and are scheduled to decant from hyperspace at 1400 hours, Eriadu local time. The folks we’re employing to execute the strike will be able to calculate the precise reentry coordinates.”
“Who are we employing?”
“The Toom clan.”
Expressions of dismay flew from all corners.
“Cutthroats,” someone said.
“Exactly,” Bruit said. “But we need to team up to accomplish this, and Arrant’s willing to spend the necessary credits. By using them, no one will suspect us, and Arrant doesn’t care, because he doesn’t want to know any more than he has to. He wants to keep his hands clean while I make the connections. Besides, the Tooms have the means to get the job done.”
“And no scruples to stand in the way.”
“Have they agreed to terms?”
“At first contact,” Bruit said. “Although I have to say that I sometimes wish I could see both Lommite and InterGal brought down, so that someone with real foresight could build a better organization from the dregs.”
Several glasses clinked together.
“So what’s our part in this, Chief, if the deal has already been struck?”
Bruit snorted. “We need to prepare ourselves for InterGal’s counterpunch.”
Maul peeled the recorder from the floorboards and dropped down to the loamy soil below the house. He remained still for a long moment, crouched in the darkness, listening to sounds of distant laughter and the stridulations of profuse insect life. Then he thought back to Coruscant, and the question his Master had put to him regarding his double-bladed lightsaber.
It made sense to me to be able to strike with both ends, Maul had answered.
With a note of approval, his Master had said, You must bear that in mind when you go to Dorvalla.
Maul reached within his cloak and unclipped the long cylinder from his belt. One end, then the other, Maul told himself. Both, to effect a single purpose.
Maul waited until the moon was low in the sky before he went to Lommite Limited’s headquarters at the base of the escarpment. The incidents of sabotage had caused the complex of buildings to be placed on high alert. Armed sentries, some accompanied by leashed beasts, patrolled, and powerful illuminators cast circles of brilliant light over the spacious grounds. A five-meter-high electrified stun fence encompassed everything.
Maul spent an hour studying the movements of the sentries, the periodic sweeps of the illuminators, the towering fence, and the motion detector lasers that gridded the broad lawn beyond. He was certain that infrared cams were scanning the grounds, but there was little he could do about those without leaving evidence of his infiltration. A probe droid would have been able to tell him all he needed to know, but there wasn’t time and he wanted to do this personally.
To test the possibility that pressure detectors had been installed in the ground, he used the Force to propel stones over the fence. As they struck specific places on the lawn, he waited for some response, but the guards stationed at the entry gates simply continued to go about their business.
When he was satisfied that he had committed the results of his reconnaissance to memory, he shrugged out of his cloak and leapt straight up over the fence, landing precisely where some of the rocks he had tossed rested. Then he sprang to a series of other sites that ultimately carried him to the wall of the principal building, moving with such speed the entire time that whatever holorecordings were being made wouldn’t show him unless they were played in slow motion.
He reached one of the doors and found it locked, so he began to work his way around the building, testing other doors and windows, all of which were similarly secured.
He tested the building’s flat roof for motion and pressure detectors as he had the lawn. Vaulting to the top, he was confronted with an expanse of solar arrays, skylights, and cooling ducts. He moved to the nearest skylight and ignited his lightsaber. He was ready to plunge the blade through the transparisteel panel when he stopped himself, and peered more intently at the panel. Embedded in the transparisteel were monofilament chains, which, when severed, would trip an alarm.
Deactivating the blade, he reclipped his lightsaber and sat down to think. It was unlikely that Lommite Limited’s central compu
ter was a stand-alone machine. It would have to be accessible from outside locations. Bruit would have remote access. Maul berated himself for not having recognized that fact earlier. But it wasn’t too late to rectify his oversight.
* * *
Maul returned to Bruit’s dwelling just before sunrise. Unlike the headquarters complex, the stilted house had no security. The chief of field operations either didn’t have enemies or didn’t care, one way or the other. Perhaps Bruit was that resigned to fate, Maul thought. It scarcely mattered, in any case.
He circled the house, occasionally chinning himself on the windowsills to peer inside. In a rear room Bruit was sprawled atop a knocked-together bed, half in, half out of a net tent that was meant to keep nocturnal insects from feasting on his blood. He was fully clothed, snoring lightly, and dead drunk. A half-emptied bottle of brandy sat on a small table alongside the bed.
Maul gritted his teeth. More carelessness, more lack of discipline. He couldn’t summon any compassion for the man. The weak needed to be weeded out.
Maul let himself in through the unlocked door and scanned the front room. Bruit was a man of few worldly possessions, and not a particularly orderly one. His dwelling was as chaotic as his life appeared to be. The confined space smelled of spoiled food, and lommite dust coated every horizontal surface. Water dripped from a sink faucet that could have easily been repaired. Arachnids had woven perfect webs in all four corners of the room.
Maul searched for Bruit’s personal computer and located it in the bedroom. It was a portable device, not much longer than a human hand. He called the machine to him and activated it. The display screen came to life and a menu presented itself. It took only moments for Maul to find his way to Lommite Limited’s central computer, but for the second time that night he found himself locked out.
The computer was demanding to see Bruit’s fingerprints.
Maul might have been able to slice his way inside the central computer, but not without leaving an easily followed trail. What is done in secret has great power, his Master had said.
Maul gazed at Bruit. With a scant motion of his left hand, he caused the man to roll over onto his back. Born of some uneasy dream, a prolonged groan escaped the human. Maul gestured for Bruit’s right arm to rise, wrist bent, with the palm of his hand facing outward. Then he stealthily carried the computer to Bruit’s hand, easing the display screen into gentle contact with the outstretched fingers. When the machine had toodled an acknowledgment, Maul dropped Bruit’s arm and rolled him back onto his side.
By the time Maul left the bedroom, the directories for the database were scrolling onscreen. Maul pinpointed the files relating to the imminent Eriadu delivery and opened them.
The cantina was doing a brisk lunchtime business when Darth Maul stole through the entrance and took a seat at a corner table in the smaller room. Outside, a gloomy downpour was inundating the town. He kept the dripping hood of his cloak raised, and he angled himself away from the crowd, ignoring the few second glances he received.
Two of Lommite Limited’s security men occupied their usual booth, feeding their faces with fatty foods and talking with their mouths full. Not far from where Maul was seated, the Rodian and the two Twi’leks he had identified the previous evening as agents of InterGalactic Ore were gathered around a card table. Shortly the three were joined by a dark-haired human female, who placed a stack of company credits on the table and joined the sabacc game in progress. Maul recognized the piece of cuff jewelry that adorned the woman’s left ear as a receiver.
He waited to act until the four of them were engaged in monitoring the security agents’ conversation. Then, with a slight motion of his hand, he Force-summoned the listening device to peel itself from the wall above the booth, zip into the small room, and alight at the center of the card table.
The Rodian sat back, startled, clearly failing to recognize the artificial bug as their own device. “A new player joins the game.”
One of the Twi’leks raised his open hand to shoulder level. “Not for long.”
The Twi’lek’s long-nailed hand was halfway toward smashing the flitter when the human female grabbed hold of his wrist and managed to deflect the downward strike.
“Hold on,” she whispered urgently. “I heard your voice.”
“That’s because I said something,” the Twi’lek said.
“In my earpiece,” the woman said, gesturing discreetly. “And now I’m hearing my voice.”
“I’m hearing your voice,” the Rodian said, confused.
“What in the name of . . . .”
The Twi’lek allowed his voice to trail off, and all four of the agents sat back in their stiff wooden chairs, gazing in astonishment at the listening device.
“It’s ours,” the woman said finally.
The Rodian glanced at her. “What’s it doing here?”
Maul called on the Force to move the bug.
“It’s crawling around, is what it’s doing,” one of the Twi’leks said, with a measure of distress. He glanced over his shoulder at the preoccupied security men, then at his comrades.
Maul activated the remote control he had tuned to the frequency of the insect transmitter.
“This comes straight from the Toom clan,” the bug sent to the earpieces and dermal audio patches worn by the conspirators, all of whom traded wide-eyed looks.
“Here’s the long and short of it. Arrant has decided to move against InterGalactic Ore shipments. No petitioning the senate. He’s letting loose a shooting war. That much has already been decided.”
Absorbed in what she was hearing, the woman used her right forefinger to tilt the ear cuff for clearer reception.
“The Toom clan has a way of settling this—a cure for the disease. InterGal can level the playing field by employing us to strike at Eriadu. We of the Toom clan wish to see LL brought down. Someone with real foresight could build a better organization from the dregs.
“We’ve been able to learn the hyperspace route Lommite Limited’s ships are going to take to Eriadu, and the precise reentry coordinates. They’ll arrive by way of Rimma 18, and are scheduled to decant from hyperspace at 1300 hours, Eriadu local time.
“We’ve been in the trenches. This is our livelihood. We can intervene and execute the strike. The Tooms have the means to get the job done. No one will suspect us. We have no scruples about what happens.
“To team up to accomplish this, be willing to spend the credits necessary. Contact us.”
Maul had spent all morning adulterating the recording he had made during the meeting at Bruit’s dwelling, and modifying the resequenced phrases to sound as if they had been uttered by a single individual. The result appeared to be having the desired effect. The four agents were continuing to stare at the bug they themselves had installed. The woman’s mouth was slightly ajar, and the Twi’leks’ head-tails were twitching.
Maul was pleased to hear the Rodian say, “This has to go directly to the top—and I mean now.”
The Toom clan had a motto: “Pay us enough and we’ll make worlds collide.”
They had started out as legitimate rescue workers and salvagers, using a powerful Interdictor ship to retrieve ships stranded in hyperspace. By mimicking the effects of a mass shadow, the Interdictor had the ability to pull endangered ships back into realspace. While the rewards for such work were substantial, they were never substantial enough to satisfy the desires of the clan, and over the course of several years, the group had launched a second career as pirates, employing their Interdictor against passenger and supply ships, or hiring themselves out to criminal organizations to interfere with shipments of spice and other proscribed goods.
However, unlike the Hutts and Black Sun, both of which could usually be relied upon to honor the terms of any agreement, the Toom clan was motivated solely by profit. A small outfit, they couldn’t afford the luxury of turning down jobs out of respect for some hazy criminal ethic—a stance that had made them outcasts even among their own kind.
Headquartered in an underground base deep in Dorvalla’s unpopulated northern wastes, the clan received routine payoffs from both Lommite Limited and InterGalactic Ore, to ensure the safety of their shuttles and ore barges. The Tooms used much of the funds to bribe the commanders of Dorvalla’s volunteer space corps to ensure the clan’s own safety—with the understanding that the clan would refrain from operating within the Videnda sector.
Because Eriadu was outside the sector—and notwithstanding the fact that they were already receiving payoffs from InterGalactic—the clan had accepted Lommite Limited’s generous offer of Republic credits to perform a bit of sabotage work. InterGalactic would simply have to understand that the nature of their arrangement with the Toom clan had changed. More important, the contract with LL didn’t preclude the possibility of the clan’s entering into a similar contract with InterGal—as certainly might be the case after the Eriadu operation. In fact, the clan had every intention of contacting InterGal to suggest as much.
No one in the clan had expected InterGalactic to contact them before Eriadu.
A leather-faced Weequay, Nort Toom himself accepted the holotransmission from Caba’Zan, head of security for InterGalactic Ore. The clan was mostly made up of far-from-home Weequay and Nikto humanoids, but Aqualish, Abyssin, Barabels, and Gamorreans also numbered among the mix.
“I want to discuss the most recent offer you tendered,” Caba’Zan’s holopresence began. He was a near-human Falleen, burly and green complexioned.
“Our most recent offer,” Nort Toom said carefully.
“About destroying Lommite Limited’s ships at Eriadu.”
