by Star Wars
Sidious said nothing.
“Unless there is something else that you had intended him for,” Plagueis finished.
“As I said,” Sidious began, “the assassination of Iram Radique was necessary in order to further our ultimate goals with the Grand Plan …” He paused, deliberately leaving the explanation unfinished long enough to observe whether Damask might be interested in hearing more of the cover story, which had been carefully fabricated to hold up to the most intense scrutiny, if necessary. At no point in the operation could the Muun be allowed to speculate that Sidious had truly sent Maul to Cog Hive Seven in order to purchase the nuclear device that the Bando Gora would ultimately use against Plagueis. Such a possibility, even now, was inconceivable.
But Plagueis had already waved aside the explanation, and then, as quickly as it had appeared, the casual tone was gone. Gazing back at the holoscreen where they had watched the contest, his mood darkened. “He is a prideful one, the Zabrak, is he not? As excellent as he is in combat, it must be incredibly difficult for him to show restraint in not using the Force.”
“He has had experience in such restraint,” Sidious reminded him, although he knew where the discussion was leading now, and saw little purpose in defending Maul at this point.
“I do not doubt it. It would be a great shame, however, if, instead of merely killing the arms dealer, Maul inadvertently revealed more about his identity … and the identity of those who sent him.” Plagueis was staring at him directly now. “In fact, I would venture to say that such an unfortunate turn of events would prove to be extremely humbling for its original architects.”
Humbling. The word plunged to the pit of Sidious’s stomach and lay there like a rock. “I will take measures to personally ensure that such a thing never happens,” he said stiffly.
Plagueis didn’t say anything for a long time. When he spoke again, the voice in which he answered was low but firm.
“Contact the Zabrak,” he said. “Inform him that he is to destroy Cog Hive Seven immediately, eradicating all evidence of our plans there.” He paused. “If you wish, you may allow him to think that he will have the opportunity to escape.”
Sidious drew in a breath and held it. The muscles of his diaphragm felt uncannily unsprung. Over the past few minutes, the tension that had gathered within the penthouse had left him feeling suffocated, as if the oxygen content within these walls had been slowly but steadily drained.
“Is there anything else, then?”
“Nothing pressing,” Plagueis said. “I do enjoy our conversations, Darth Sidious. There is no one else with whom I know I can be completely and totally candid. Let us not wait so long until the next meeting.”
“Certainly not.” Sidious nodded and, making his good-byes, found his way out, hearing the hatch seal and lock itself behind him.
Humbling.
The word was still there, twisting in his guts like poison.
By the time he reached the turbolifts leading down through the tower to the main lobby, he was breathing normally again, and the shaking within his chest was almost completely gone.
44
SHOP
Smight crawled out of the conduit and fell on the floor.
He didn’t remember how he’d gotten there, how long he’d been fumbling along in the dark, trying to find his way through a steadily narrowing capillary bed of ventilation shafts and pipelines that fed the prison its continuous ration of power and water and heat. His brain had long ago stopped recording outside stimuli. All his more sophisticated sensory and analytical skills had reduced themselves down to a nearly primordial state.
He’d seen too much.
It had started with the worm. Watching the enormous white thing in the tunnel eat the Bone Kings had been bad enough. If Smight lived to be a hundred, he knew he’d never forget the way that Strabo and Nailhead and the others had disappeared, sucked upward from the floor of the tunnel directly into the hideous, Y-shaped mouthparts as they wrapped themselves around the inmates. But it was the sound that would stay with him most—the suppurating, slurping noise that the thing had made, not quite loud enough to cover the high, keening peals of their screams. And the wet slap and clomping sounds of the jaws as they snapped shut.
It made him sick to think about it.
The thing had devoured them wholesale, leaving Smight—sprawled low on the floor of the shaft where he’d fallen—just enough time to scramble backward, while the white worm finished consuming its prey. He was afraid that if he ran, it would sense him; if he made too much noise, it would hear.
And so he’d crawled.
Silently.
Agonizingly.
Slowly.
He’d crawled.
The rattling tattoo of his heart, the pounding in his skull, had made it impossible to say whether the thing was still pursuing him or whether it had stayed where it was to digest the feast, and at this point Smight had discovered that he didn’t much care. If it got him, then it got him; if it didn’t, he’d spend the rest of his life having nightmares that it had. Neither prospect was particularly tempting.
Now, having finally stumbled and fallen through an errant hatchway leading from the tunnel where he’d spent an unknown stretch of time, he lay motionless against the cold smoothness of some unfinished stretch of floor, his hands and knees aching from the long, endless trek.
For a long time he didn’t dare to open his eyes, certain that when he did, the worm would be there waiting for him, coiled above him, its gasping sucker poised ready to strike. After a moment he became aware of bright lights shining through his eyelids and the acerbic stench of unfamiliar chemicals. Ultimately, curiosity got the best of him.
He opened his eyes.
What …?
The spotless, brightly lit space that surrounded him was like no other area of the prison that he’d seen before. It was part warehouse, part laboratory. Long tables held scientific equipment whose names Smight didn’t know—glass crucibles, slender tubes, and exotic-looking flasks, strangely elegant in shape and size, lined up alongside a miniature cityscape of mixing and spinning machines, instruments for heating and cooling.
Along the far wall, stacks of shipping crates, all different sizes, stood in neat rows with various destinations and manifests stenciled on their sides.
Not sure where he was going or why, Smight paced among the boxes and circled back to the lab equipment. None of it made any sense, nor did he expect it to. He’d long ago come to terms with his own limitations when it came to matters of science and intellect.
But beyond it, on the far side of the lab, he saw something more familiar. The entire second half of the room was a different kind of workstation, equipped with state-of-the-art grinding and boring tools, fabricating machines, metal shears, drills, and precision calibration devices.
Smight stared at them. He’d had an uncle who’d worked in the yards at BlasTech, and he knew these things.
They were weapon-making tools.
The realization of what he’d stumbled across dawned in his mind like the warmth of a new sun rising, and for a moment he couldn’t quite believe the magnitude of what was happening.
It’s here. This is it. I actually found it.
He stepped back, taking in the entire space around him—the lab, the packaged crates—in light of this new revelation.
Radique’s operation. It’s here.
When Jabba had dispatched him to help infiltrate Iram Radique’s operation inside Cog Hive Seven, Smight had gone in with a certain degree of incredulity. Like everyone, he’d heard the stories of the enigmatic arms dealer operating under any number of aliases, and like most thinking people, he’d already decided there was a good deal of folklore mixed in with the truth. Why would any self-respecting gunrunner, especially one as successful as Radique, ever choose to hide out inside a prison, particularly one in which he’d have to fight other inmates as a condition of his stay?
Yet Smight had taken the job—of course he had. As
an opportunity to work his way up in the Desilijic Clan, the assignment had been impossible to turn down. Falsified ID and background papers in hand, he had arrived onsite to confer with the other foot soldiers that Jabba already had working undercover as guards, gathering information from the inmates and reporting back whatever he found. The stim had helped to take the edge off, and the matches had made it interesting, but he’d never really expected—
This.
The crates. He needed to check them. Smight crossed hurriedly to the nearest steel box, popped open the steel fasteners, and leaned forward to peer inside, sucking in a breath of whistled appreciation at what he found there.
Like most of Jabba’s hired hands, he prided himself in knowing about weapons. Consequently, although he might not have actually fired a J8Q-128 Finbat missile before, he recognized it immediately from its listing in Gundark’s Gear Catalogue. The Finbat was a portable, shoulder-fired concussion warhead, precision-tooled to penetrate the armor plating of military-grade vehicles.
Reaching down, Smight lifted the launch tube from its packaging, hoisting it up to his shoulder, feeling the heft and power of the thing as he lowered his head toward the sight. His finger gripped the trigger. The weapon’s silent promise of death spoke directly to the remnants of panic and fear still rattling around inside him from his encounter with the worm. One blast from the Finbat would annihilate anything in a five-hundred-meter radius, including the worm. For one completely irrational moment Smight almost considered bringing it back into the tunnel to go after the creature himself, although of course such an idea was madness—detonating a concussion missile inside a space station was suicide. But he would’ve loved to splatter that thing’s guts all over the ventilation shaft.
He set the Finbat aside and went on to the next crate, exploring its contents, already wondering how he was going to tell Jabba about what he’d found, and how he could use it to maximize his position here. Just moments earlier he’d assumed he was a dead man—if, by some miracle, he managed to get out of here alive, Jabba would track him down and treat him like any other loose end, chopping him off.
But now—
He imagined the conversation, how he would tell his boss he’d discovered the very heart of what he’d been sent to find. How best to execute such a plan?
While thinking it over, Smight did a quick inventory of the crates. Among many other items, he found a proton missile launcher, a pulse cannon, an entire box of Mandalorian assault rifles, flechette launchers, and something that he was pretty sure was an LS-150 heavy accelerated charged particle repeater gun. There were several packages of explosives, including a crate of breaching grenades, anti-starfighter cluster bombs, and a carefully packaged selection of freshly manufactured thermal detonators. Upon further reflection, Smight realized that none of the weapons were technically up to factory spec—Radique had assembled them here, making subtle improvements in their precision and firing capability.
He reached the last crate and stopped.
Unlike the others, this one was locked. Although it was smaller than the others, it was also considerably heavier. There was no type of writing or information on it whatsoever. Even the most cursory inspection revealed that its shell was constructed of something far more formidable than durasteel.
Smight placed his hands against it.
The case was warm.
No, check that—the case was hot.
It also seemed to be humming.
Right away, even before he’d detected the vibrations inside it, Smight knew whatever was in the last crate was different, far more valuable and potentially dangerous than anything else down here—something special. Radique would never leave it here alone for very long, and he sensed that a man of Radique’s intellect and experience wouldn’t want to hold on to it any longer than he absolutely had to.
Which meant he would be back soon.
Good, a voice inside him whispered, and the idea rose into his mind unbidden.
That was how Augustine Smight, once just another lackey among thousands in Jabba’s army, first realized that he was destined for greatness: by the ease with which he adapted to his situation and turned it to his advantage.
There wasn’t much time. He went back around to the guns and artillery that he’d sorted through, handpicking the weapons that felt most comfortable in his grasp. In the end he settled for a DT-12 heavy blaster pistol like one that he’d first used when he’d learned to shoot, and—because he’d always wanted to try them—a pair of flechette gauntlets.
And so it was that he found himself strapping the holster to his belt and the gauntlets to his wrists, positioning himself against the last crate in the room, and engaging in the one activity that he’d never expected to do while he was here—smiling.
“I don’t think those belong to you.”
Startled, Smight stared at the figure standing in front of him. “What—” He swallowed and found his voice. “What are you doing here?”
He jerked the DT-12 upward, but it was already too late. A shattering blow struck him in the side of the head, just above his right ear, and he knew no more.
45
RED SABER DREAMS
Maul lay dreaming.
It wasn’t common for him, and when he did dream, he was rarely aware of it at the time. His equivalent of REM sleep was not the sort that invited the typical neurological sorcery between conscious and unconscious thought. His warrior’s brain had no use for it.
So the fact that he was dreaming now, heavily sedated and stretched out in medbay with tubes and wires running through his body as he recovered from his last fight, would have come as a surprise. The simplicity of the dream only underscored its verisimilitude, and for a short time he believed it was actually happening.
He was in another bout.
Standing in front of the hatchway in his cell, waiting for his opponent to show himself, he looked down and saw something sitting on the floor in front of him, an unremarkable black steel box no bigger than a mouse droid. Yet one glance told him that it held what he’d come here to find, the goal behind all his time spent slogging through the slime and filth of Cog Hive Seven.
He reached down for the box to open it, and a noise came from the other side of the wall—a grunt, the sound of something alive, preparing itself to come forth and do battle to the death. With that same irrefutable dream logic, Maul understood that this particular foe would be the most indomitable yet, far worse than the thing he’d fought upon first arriving, worse than the wampa or the Aqualish or the Weequay with his clawbird.
This would be the one that defeated him.
The hatch slid open and his enemy stepped out.
Maul stared at him.
And in the end, that part of the dream was not such a surprise after all.
“Open it,” the other Maul said, staring past him, down at the black box. “It’s yours. What are you waiting for?”
Maul stared back at himself, an identical reflection standing five meters away. Somehow, at least in the dream, the fact that he’d come here to fight himself made perfect sense—as if this moment, and not the arrangement with Iram Radique, had been the inevitable goal he’d been seeking the entire time he’d been here.
And all at once, Maul knew what was in the box.
“No,” he said. “My Master forbids it.”
“Your Master?” this other Maul snarled. The answer only seemed to enrage the doppelgänger. “Don’t be a fool. It belongs to you. You’ll need it if you’re going to defeat me. Otherwise, you’re as good as dead. Take it!”
“I can’t. It will undermine the mission that I’m sworn to uphold.” Maul’s voice constricted. “I need to show restraint. I need to—”
“You’re lost without it!”
Dream or no dream, Maul felt anger boiling up in his chest, taking hold of his lungs and the nerves in his spine. His jaw clenched.
“Perhaps,” he told his other self, “before you make such statements, you’d better try me f
irst.”
“Really.” The doppelgänger laughed. “It’s too late for that. You’ve already been weighed and measured, and found wanting.” He nodded back down at the floor. “See for yourself.”
With a sudden sense of foreboding, Maul looked back at the box.
It was open.
It was empty.
Because the item that it contained was already in his hand.
His saber staff.
Staring at it, Maul felt a crushing wave of shame come thundering over him—the realization that, in opening the box and taking up the weapon of the Sith, he’d failed his Master. He had done the one thing he’d sworn not to do, and as such—
The other Maul lunged for him. On reflex, without a moment’s hesitation, Maul flicked the activation stud on the saber. It sprang to life in his grasp, its two red blades shooting out on either side, and in spite of everything, Maul felt a surge of power explode through his being, swallowing him up and enveloping his very soul.
The certainty was upon him, the realization of his own true strength.
This was what he was made for.
He swung the saber staff around in a graceful whirring arc, and in a single, sweeping motion he bisected the other Maul cleanly at the waist, the upper and lower halves coming apart bloodlessly, landing in pieces on the floor of the cell. Looking down at his own face, Maul saw his own dying face smiling back up at himself.
“Good,” his voice said, and in an instant he realized his error.
He was the one on the floor, the fallen one.
Looking up at himself, the other, the victor.
But it wasn’t his own face staring down at him anymore. It was a Muun, one he didn’t immediately recognize, though an uncanny familiarity encompassed his presence, the nagging sense that he should have known him, had perhaps encountered him elsewhere, in a dream within a dream. An unfamiliar name came over him like a death rattle.