[Book] [Darth Maul] - Saboteur

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DARTH MAUL

SABOTEUR

JAMES LUCENO

THE BALLANTINE PUBLISHING GROUP

NEW YORK

A Del Rey® Book

Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group

division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Del Rey is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

www.starwars.com

www.starwarskids.com

www.randomhouse.com/delrey/

eISBN 0-345-44735-2

v.1

Also by James Luceno:

The ROBOTECH Series (as Jack McKinney, with Brian Daley)

The Black Hole Travel Agency Series (as Jack McKinney, with Brian Daley)

A Fearful Symmetry

Illegal Alien

The Big Empty

Kaduna Memories

The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles: The Mata Hari Affair

The Shadow

The Mask of Zorro

Rio Passion

Rainchaser

Rock Bottom

Star Wars®: The New Jedi Order: Agents of Chaos I: Hero’s Trial

Star Wars®: The New Jedi Order: Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse

Star Wars®: Cloak of Deception *

*Forthcoming

Nearly every world in the Videnda sector had something to recommend it—warm saline seas,

verdant forests, arable grasslands that stretched to distant horizons. The outlying world known as

Dorvalla had a touch of all of those. But what it had in abundance was lommite ore, an essential

component in the production of transparisteel—a strong, transparent metal used galaxywide for

canopies and viewports in both starships and ground-based structures. Dorvalla was so rich in

lommite that one-quarter of the planet’s scant population was involved in the industry, employed

either by Lommite Limited or its contentious rival, InterGalactic Ore.

The chalky ore was mined in Dorvalla’s tropical equatorial regions. Lommite Limited’s base of

operations was in Dorvalla’s western hemisphere, in a broad rift valley blanketed with thick forest

and defined by steep escarpments. There, where ancient seas had once held sway, shifts in the

planetary mantle had thrust huge, sheer-faced tors from the land. Crowned by rampant vegetation,

by trees and ferns primeval in scale, the high, rocky mountains rose like islands, blinding white in

the sunlight, the birthplace of slender waterfalls that plunged thousands of meters to the valley

floor.

But what was once a wilderness was now just another extractive enterprise. Huge demolition droids

had carved wide roads to the bases of most of the larger cliffs, and two circular launch zones, large

enough to accommodate dozens of ungainly space shuttles, had been hollowed from the forest. The

tors themselves were gouged and honeycombed with mines, and deep craters filled with polluted

runoff water reflected the sun and sky like fogged mirrors.

The ceaseless work of the droids was abetted by an all but indentured labor force of humans and

aliens, to whom the mined ore served as a great equalizer. No matter the natural color of a miner’s

skin, hair, feathers, or scales, everyone was rendered white as the galactic dawn. All agreed that

sentient beings deserved more from life, but Lommite Limited wasn’t prosperous enough to convert

fully to droid labor, and Dorvalla wasn’t a world of boundless opportunities for employment.

Still, that didn’t stop some from dreaming.

Patch Bruit, Lommite Limited’s chief of field operations—human beneath a routine dusting of

ore—had long dreamed of starting over, of relocating to Coruscant or one of the other Core worlds

and making a new life for himself. But such a move was years away, and not likely to happen at all

if he kept returning his meager wages to LL by overspending in the company-run stores and

squandering what little remained on gambling and drink.

He had been with LL for almost twenty years, and in that time had managed to work his way out of

the pits into a position of authority. But with that authority had come more responsibility than he

had bargained for, and in the wake of several recent incidents of industrial sabotage his patience

was nearly spent.

The boxy control station in which Bruit spent the better part of his workdays looked out on the

forest of tors and the shuttle launch and landing zones. To the station’s numerous video display

screens came views of repulsorlift platforms elevating gangs of workers to the gaping mouths of the

artificial caves that dimpled the precipitous faces of the mountains. Elsewhere, the platform lifting

was accomplished with the help of strong-backed beasts, with massive curving necks and gentle

eyes.

The technicians who worked alongside Bruit in the control station were fond of listening to

recorded music, but the music could scarcely be heard over the unrelenting drone of enormous

drilling machines, the low bellowing of the lift beasts, and the roar of departing shuttles.

The walls of the control station were made of transparisteel, thick as a finger, whose triple-glazed

panels were supposed to keep out the ore dust but never did. Fine as clay, the resinous dust seeped

through the smallest openings and filmed everything. As hard as he tried, Bruit could never get the

stuff off him, not in water showers or sonic baths. He smelled it everywhere he went, he tasted it in

the food served up in the company restaurants, and sometimes it infiltrated his dreams. So pervasive

was the lommite dust that, from space, Dorvalla appeared to be girdled by a white band.

Fortunately, everyone within a hundred kilometers of Lommite Limited’s operation was in the same

predicament—miners, shopkeepers, the beings who tended the cantina bars. But what should have

been just one big happy lommite family wasn’t. The recurrent incidents of sabotage had fostered an

atmosphere of wariness and distrust, even among laborers who worked shoulder to shoulder in the

pits.

“Group Two shuttles are loaded and ready for launch, Chief,” one of the human technicians

reported.

Bruit directed his gaze to the droid-guided, mechanized transports that were responsible for ferrying

the lommite up the gravity well. In high orbit the payloads were transferred to LL’s flotilla of

barges, which conveyed the unrefined ore to manufacturing worlds along the Rimma Trade Route

and occasionally to the distant Core.

“Sound the warning,” Bruit said.

The technician flipped a series of switches on the console, and loudspeakers began to hoot. Miners

and maintenance droids moved away from the launch zone. Bruit looked at the screens that

displayed close-up views of the shuttles. He studied them carefully, searching for anything out of

the ordinary.

“Launch zone is vacated,” the same technician updated. “Shuttles are standing by for liftoff.”

Bruit nodded. “Issue the go-to.”

It was a routine that would be repeated a dozen times before Bruit’s workday concluded, typically

long past sunset.

The eight unpiloted craft rose from the ground on repulsorlift power, pirouetting and bringing their

blunt noses around to the southwest. The air beneath them rippled with heat. When the shuttles were

fifty meters above the ground, their sublight engines engaged, flaring blue, rocketing the ships high

into the dust-filled sky.

The ground shook slightly, and Bruit could feel a reassuring rumble in his bones. He took a deep

breath and let it out slowly. For the next hour, he could relax somewhat. He had turned from the

view of the launch zone when his bones and his ears alerted him to a shift in the roaring sound, a

slight drop in volume that shouldn’t have occurred.

Sudden apprehension tugged at him. His forehead and palms broke an icy sweat. He whirled and

pressed his face to the south-facing transparisteel panel. High in the sky he could see two of the

shuttles beginning to diverge from course, their vapor trails curving away from the straight-line

ascent of the rest of the group.

“Fourteen and sixteen,” the technician affirmed. “I’m trying to shut down the sublights and convert

them back over to repulsorlift. No response. They’re accelerating!”

Bruit kept his eyes glued to the sky. “Give me a heading.”

“Back at us!”

Bruit ran his hand over his forehead. “Enable the self-destructs.”

The technician’s fingers flew across the console. “No response.”

“Employ the emergency override.”

“Still no response. The overrides have been disabled.”

Bruit cursed loudly. “Vector update.”

“They’re aimed directly for the Castle.”

Bruit glanced at the indicated tor. It was one of the largest of the mines, so named for the natural

spires that graced its western and southern faces.

“Order an evacuation. Highest priority.”

Sirens shrieked in the distance. Within moments, Bruit could see workers hurrying from the mine

openings and leaping onto waiting hover platforms. Two fully occupied platforms were already

beginning to descend.

“Tell those platform pilots to keep everyone aloft,” Bruit barked. “No one’ll be any safer on the

ground than in the mines. And start moving those droids and lift beasts out of there!”

A colossal bipedal drilling machine appeared at the mouth of one of the mines, engaged its

repulsorlift, and stepped off into thin air.

“Thirty seconds till impact,” the technician said.

“Jettison the shuttles’ guidance droids.”

“Droids away!”

Bruit clenched his hands. The two rudderless shuttles were plummeting side by side, as if in a race

to reach the Castle. The technicians had already managed to shut down fourteen’s sublight, and

sixteen’s flared out while Bruit watched. But there was no stopping them now. They were in

ballistic freefall.

In the control station, droids and beings alike were crouched behind the instrument consoles—all

except for Bruit, who refused to move, seemingly oblivious to the fact that concussion alone could

turn the booth’s transparisteel panels into a hail of deadly missiles.

The shuttles struck the Castle at almost the same instant, impacting it above the loftiest of the

mines, perhaps fifty meters below the tor’s jungled summit.

The Castle disappeared behind an explosive flare of blinding light. Then the sound of the collisions

pealed across the landscape, reverberating and crackling, echoing thunderously from the twin

escarpments. Immense chunks of rock flew from the face of the tor, and two of its elegant spires

toppled. Dust spewed from the mine openings, as if the Castle had coughed itself empty of ore. The

air filled with billowing clouds, white as snow. Almost immediately the ore began to precipitate,

falling like volcanic ash and burying everything within one hundred meters of that side of the

mountain.

Bruit still didn’t budge—not until the roiling cloud reached the control station and the view became

a whiteout.

Lommite Limited’s headquarters complex nestled at the foot of the valley’s western escarpment.

But even there a half a centimeter of lommite dust covered the lush lawns and flower gardens LL’s

executive officer, Jurnel Arrant, had succeeded in coaxing from the acidic soil.

The soles of Bruit’s boots made clear impressions in the dust as he approached Arrant’s office, with

its expansive views of the valley and far-off tors. Bruit tried to stomp, brush, and scuff as much dust

as he could from his boots, but it was a hopeless task.

Jurnel Arrant was standing at the window, his back to the room, when Bruit was admitted.

“Some mess,” Arrant said when he heard the door seal itself behind Bruit.

“You think this is bad, just wait’ll it rains. It’ll be soup out there.”

Bruit thought the remark might lighten the moment, but Arrant’s piqued expression when he turned

from the view set him straight.

Lommite Limited’s leader was a trim, handsome human, just shy of middle age. When he had first

come to Dorvalla from his native Corellia, he had not been above rolling up his shirtsleeves and

pitching in wherever needed. But as LL had begun to thrive under his stewardship, Arrant had

become increasingly fastidious and removed, choosing to let Bruit handle day-to-day affairs. Arrant

favored expensive tunics of dark colors, the shoulders invariably dusted with lommite, which he

wore as a badge of honor. If his nonindigenous status had been held against him initially, few had

anything disparaging to say about the man who had single-handedly transformed formerly

provincial Lommite Limited into a corporation that now did business with a host of prominent

worlds.

Arrant glanced at the white prints Bruit’s boots had left on the carpet. Sighing with purpose, he

motioned Bruit to a chair and settled himself behind an old hardwood desk.

“What am I going to do with you, Bruit?” he asked theatrically. “When you asked for enhanced

surveillance equipment, I provided it for you. And when you asked for increased security personnel,

I provided those, as well. Is there something else you need? Is there something I’ve neglected to

give you?”

Bruit compressed his lips and shook his head.

“You don’t have a family. You don’t have a girlfriend that I know about. So maybe you just don’t

care about your job, is that it?”

“You know that isn’t true,” Bruit lied.

“Then why aren’t you doing it?” Arrant put his elbows on the desk and leaned forward. “This is the

third incident in as many weeks, Bruit. I don’t understand how this keeps happening. Do you have

any leads on the shuttle crashes?”

“We’ll know more if the guidance droids can be located and analyzed,” Bruit said. “Right now

they’re buried under about five meters of dust.”

“Well, get on it. I want you to devote all your resources to rooting out the saboteurs responsible for

this. Do you think you can do that, Bruit, or do I have to bring in specialists?”

“They won’t be able to learn any more than I have,” Bruit rejoined. “InterGalactic Ore is becoming

as desperate as LL is successful. Besides, it’s not just a matter of industrial rivalry. A lot of the

families that work for InterGal have vendettas with some of the families we employ. At least two of

these recent incidents have been motivated by personal grudges.”

“What are you suggesting, Bruit, that I terminate everyone and ship in ten thousand miners from

Fondor? What’s that going to do to production? More important, what’s that going to do to my

reputation on Dorvalla?”

Bruit shrugged. “I don’t have any answers for you. Maybe it’s time you brought this to the attention

of the Galactic Senate.”

Arrant stared at him. “Bring this to Coruscant? We’re not in the midst of an interstellar conflict,

Bruit. This is corporate warfare, and I’ve been in the trenches long enough to know that it’s best to

resolve these conflicts on your own. What’s more, I don’t want the senate involved. It will come

down to a contest between Lommite Limited and InterGalactic, as to who can offer the most bribes

to the most senators.” He shook his head angrily. “That’ll bankrupt us quicker than this continued

sabotage.”

Bruit had his mouth open to reply when a tone sounded from Arrant’s intercom, and the voice of his

protocol droid secretary issued from the annunciator.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, sir, but you have a priority holotransmission from a Neimoidian, Hath

Monchar.”

Arrant’s fine brows beetled. “Monchar? I don’t know the name. But go ahead, put him through.”

>From a holoprojector disk set into the floor at the center of the office rose the life-size

holopresence of a red-orbed, pale-green Neimoidian draped in rich robes and wearing a black

headpiece that aspired to be a crown.

“I greet you in the name of the Trade Federation, Jurnel Arrant,” Hath Monchar began. “Viceroy

Nute Gunray conveys his warmest regards, and wishes you to know that the Trade Federation was

sorry to learn of your latest setback.”

Arrant scowled. “How is it that whenever tragedy strikes, the first ones I hear from are the

Neimoidians?”

“We are a compassionate species,” Monchar said, his heavily accented Basic elongating the words.

“Compassionate and Neimoidian don’t belong in the same sentence, Monchar. And just how did

you come to hear of our ‘setback,’ as you call it? Or was it that the Trade Federation had a hand in

the matter?”

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DARTHMAULSABOTEURJAMESLUCENOTHEBALLANTINEPUBLISHINGGROUPNEWYORKADelRey®BookPublishedbyTheBallantinePublishingGroupCopyright©2001byLucasfilmLtd.&TM.AllRightsReserved.UsedUnderAuthorization.AllrightsreservedunderInternationalandPan-AmericanCopyrightConventions.PublishedintheUnitedStatesbyTheBallantine...

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[Book] [Darth Maul] - Saboteur

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