What Bruit did was look away.

The screams and cries, the groans and sobs, the strobes of explosive light flashing across the polished floor of the habitat's esplanade deck told him everything he needed to know. LL's and InterGal's barges had been manipulated into ma.s.s collisions. Without looking, Bruit could see the lommite ore streaming from fractured hulls, turning local s.p.a.ce as white as the molten anger that seethed behind Bruit's tightly shut eyelids.

"The Toom clan," he barked to his security man. "They've double-crossed us." Someone collided with Bruit from behind. It was Jurnel Arrant, backing away from the display screens in numb horror.

"We're ruined," he mumbled. "We're ruined."

Bruit cleared his head with a shake and clamped his hands on the shoulders of the security man. "Send a message to Caba'Zan at InterGalactic," he ordered. "Tell him that we need to meet as soon as possible."

Lovingly crafted, the listening device was a perfect facsimile of a fire flitter. It sat between Bruit and Caba'Zan on a low table in Bruit's living room, singing its song: "Here's the long and short of it. Arrant has decided to move against InterGalactic Ore shipments. No pet.i.tioning the senate. He's letting loose a shooting war. That much has already been decided . . . ."

Caba'Zan ran a hand over his bald pate. "Strange. It almost sounds like your voice."

Bruit squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them and looked the Falleen in the eye. "That's because underneath the warping, it is my voice. I spoke those wordsmost of them anywayright in this room."

Caba'Zan's forehead wrinkled. "I don't understand."

"I was briefing my men about the plan for InterGal's ships at Eriadu. Someone recorded the conversation." "One of your men?"

Bruit shook his head in dismay. "I don't know."

"One of the Toom clan, then."

Bruit took his lower lip between his teeth. "Then why the need to warp the recording, and put on a song-and-dance show for your people in the cantina? Besides, there's no way the Tooms could have gained access to LL's database and gotten the reentry coordinates for our ships.

They're not that clever. It has to have been one of your men."

"They're not that clever," Caba'Zan said. "Or that industrious. We wouldn't have known anything about your plans if it wasn't for the bug."

Bruit silenced the facsimile flitter and worked his jaw in vexation.

"I'll figure out who it was later on. After I deal with the Toom clan."

Caba'Zan narrowed his eyes. "They played us both for fools, Bruit.

If you're implying vengeance, I want some of the action."

Secreted beneath the stilted dwelling, Darth Maul smiled to himself, dropped to the ground, and hurried into the darkness.

Maul never doubted that the Toom clan would enter into contracts with both mining companies. Nor did he think that the clan would fail to deliver on its promise to sabotage the ships. Thus he had had no need to go to Eriadu to witness the fatal collisions. Instead he had pa.s.sed the time watching members of the Toom clan shut down and abandon the base on Dorvalla. Surmising correctly that their betrayal would unite LL and InterGal against themeven brieflythe mercenaries had decided to abscond while they could. Maul had trailed them to Riome, a small, ice-covered world deeper in the Dorvalla system, where the clan already had established a secret base.

A more astute group of outlaws might have elected to put as much distance as possible between themselves and Dorvalla. But perhaps the Toom clan was convinced that even the combined security forces of Lommite Limited and InterGalactic Ore wouldn't be a match for them. Whichever, Maul's next task was to make certain that Bruit learned the location of the Riome sanctuary by planting evidence at the site of the clan's former base.

Maul spent a full day in frigid temperatures and howling winds, waiting for Bruit and his men to arrive. Armed with blasters and an a.s.sortment of more powerful weapons, they raced from the shuttle that had delivered them from Dorvalla's equator and stormed the underground base.

Accompanying them was a male Falleen and several aliens who answered to him, including the four saboteurs Maul had deceived in the cantina.

Frustrated to find the base deserted, they began a search for clues as to the mercenaries' whereabouts. For too long Maul was convinced that he would have to intrude on their sloppy search and rub their noses in the evidence he had so artfully sown. But ultimately they discovered it on their own. Maul was inside his ship when Bruit and the rest reboarded the shuttle and launched, presumably for Riome. The thought of the impending contest invigorated him. He thrilled at the prospect of being able to partic.i.p.ate.

Riome loomed white as death in the blackness of s.p.a.ce.

In his smaller and faster craft, Maul arrived ahead of Bruit's mixed squad of would-be avengers. His ship hugged the snow-covered terrain, racing over rolling foothills and skirting the edge of a turbulent gray sea studded with islands of craggy ice. Maul had seen no sign of the clan's Interdictor ship in orbit, and a.s.sumed that the mercenaries had concealed it in the asteroid field coreward of Riome.

In establishing a base, the mercenaries had found the warmest spot on the small world. It was an area of active volcanism, with immense glaciers pocked with ice-blue light, and patches of coa.r.s.e gra.s.sland, through which bubbled dark pools of magma-heated water. The base itself was a series of interlinked semicylindrical bunkers that had once sheltered a team of scientists. Through the long intervening years, the scientists' abandoned droids and equipment had become outlandish ice sculptures. Maul landed his ship a kilometer from the base. As on his first visit, he found no evidence of a radar installation. He watched Bruit's shuttle drop from azure skies, fly over the complex, and set down on a circle of permacrete, alongside a disk-shaped Corellian freighter and a gunship of equal size.

The Toom clan could not have been unaware of the shuttle's arrival, but Bruit had managed to catch the mercenaries unprepared nevertheless.

His force of twenty emerged from the shuttle aboard a troop carrier equipped with both repulsorlift engines and weighty tracks for surface-effect locomotion. The clan rallied a quick defense, loosing blaster bolts from retrofitted firing holes and a self-contained laser cannon emplacement. The aggressors answered with the troop carrier's top-mounted repeater blasters and rocket launchers, making it abundantly clear that they were resolved to win the day.

Cyan laser bolts clipped the carrier's repulsorlifts and sent it coiling deeply into the snow. Clothed in cold-weather gear and helmets fitted with tinted face bowls, Bruit's legion leapt from ranks of bench seats. A direct hit from the laser cannon blew the carrier to pieces.

Molten bits of alloy fountained into the thin air, sizzling as they showered to the frozen ground.

The forces of the mining companies fanned out and began a methodical advance on the bunkers, finding shelter behind boulders that had been carried down the mountainsides by glaciers. What Bruit didn't know, however, was that the base couldn't be taken by a frontal a.s.saultnot, in any case, by a mere handful of men wielding twenty-year-old weapons. The lead bunker had been fortified with blast doors, and the coa.r.s.e gra.s.s ap.r.o.n that fronted it was impregnated with fragmentation mines and other traps.

Maul decided that he had to show himself. He appeared briefly on a rise, east of the base, a two-legged stranger dressed in a long cloak, deep black against the snowfield. The a.s.sailants took him for one of the clan and immediately opened fire. Maul propelled himself over the rise with leaps and bounds, though scarcely of the sort of which he was capable. Bruit did the wise thing and split his team, figuring, as Maul predicted he would, that the lone enemy knew another way into the base.

Maul kept himself in plain sight, dodging the blaster bolts fired by his pursuers, without using his lightsaber. He couldn't have been a better guide if he had been one of them. Briefly hidden by a snowdrift, he called on the Force to twirl himself deeply into the white wave. From the depths of his self-excavated tomb, he heard Bruit's men dash for the relatively undefended entrance to which he had led them.

Maul waited until he was certain that the last of them had disappeared through the entrance. Then he corkscrewed out of the ice cavity and followed them inside. The sibilant reports of blasters and the acrid smell of fire and cauterized flesh had brought his blood to a near boil, and he came close to drawing his lightsaber and rushing headlong into the fray. But slaughter was not his intent. His Master's plans would be better served if the miners and the mercenaries killed each otherthough Maul might yet have to dispose of the ultimate victors.

Judging by the way the a.s.sault was progressing, it was Bruit's forces that would be left standing at the end. Despite being outgunned and outnumbered, the miners' a.s.sault was invigorated by the wrath of the betrayed. Even with a third of their group already wounded or dead, Bruit and his InterGalactic a.n.a.log persevered, continuing to bring the fight to the Toom clan, which held the rear of the bunker, behind overturned laboratory counters and a.s.sorted pieces of instrumentation.

Explosions from the front bunker indicated that Bruit's teammates had blundered their way into the minefield. Shortly, the survivors were turning their weapons loose against the blast doors in an attempt to burn their way through. Maul scampered along the long wall of the central bunker and found a place from which he could observe the fighting. To contain his eagerness, he gave himself over to evaluating the combat techniques of one contestant or another, making something of a game of antic.i.p.ating who would be killed by whom, and at just what moment. His predictions grew more and more accurate as the opposing sides drew closer together.

A powerful detonation rocked the front bunker. The blast doors slid open with a prolonged grating sound, and five a.s.sailants stormed through a swirling cloud of dense smoke. Two were cut down before they had gone ten meters. The rest angled for the sides of the bunker and began to work their way forward.

The ferocity of the fighting made it apparent that neither side would tolerate surrender. It was a battle to the deathas Maul preferred it, in any case. His attention was drawn time and again to Patch Bruit.

For all the disorder in his life, Bruit's displays of daring made him deserving of the lofty position he held in Lommite Limited. Maul was impressed. He didn't want to see Bruit fall to the mercenaries, who were nothing more than the blasters they cowered behind.

Bruit and the Falleen led the final charge, their combined forces going hand to hand with Weequay and Aqualish members of the clan, whose weapons were exhausted. The miners showed them no mercy, and in moments the battle was over, with Bruit, the Falleen, and five others left standing amid the carnage.

Maul wondered briefly if he could leave things as they stood. Bruit would report back to Lommite Limited's executive officer that the Toom clan had double-crossed both companies, and that they had paid with their lives for their betrayal. But it was unlikely that Bruit would let it rest at that. He would want to know who had a.s.sembled the adulterated recording, and he might even learn that the information about LL's shipping route to Eriadu had been accessed through his personal computer.

Then he would begin to think again about the cantina bug, and perhaps he would scrutinize whatever surveillance recordings were available. For all Maul knew, images of an Iridonian with a face full of red and black tattoos might appear in one them. Of course, there was no danger of his being traced to Coruscant, much less to his Master's lair. But the last thing he wanted was for Darth Sidious to see his apprentice's face turn up on some HoloNet most-wanted list.

Maul had to finish what he had begun.

He drew his lightsaber, ignited it at both ends, and leapt down to the floor of the prefab bunker.

Bruit, the Falleen, and the others spun around when they heard the resonant thrumming of his weapon, which Maul whirled over his head and around his shoulders. But no one fired. They stood staring at him, as if he were some hallucination born of bloodl.u.s.t or snow blindness.

Maul realized that he would have to goad them into doing what he needed them to do. He began to march forward, glowering at them with his yellow eyes and showing his teeth, and at last someone firedthe Rodian from the cantina. Maul deflected the bolt straight back at him with the lower of his blades and kept coming. "We have no fight with you, Jedi,"

the Falleen yelled.

The remark brought Maul up short.

"This is our business," the humanoid went on. "It doesn't concern Coruscant."

Maul growled and advanced.

Crouching suddenly, a Twi'lek fired, and Maul twirled, deflecting the bolts with his twin crimson blades. The Twi'lek and another security man dropped. Then the rest opened fire at once. Maul leapt and jinked, spun and rolled, an acrobatic wonder, impossible to target. He stopped once to raise his hand and pepper his opponents with a flurry of Force-hurled gla.s.sware and sharp instruments. He turned blasters against each other and wrenched one fighter down onto a table with enough force to snap the man's spine.

His hand weapon depleted, the Falleen rushed him. Maul spun through a fleet kick, breaking the Falleen's arm. Then, without lowering his leg, he broke the security chief's neck.

Only Bruit remained. Gaping at Maul in disbelief, he let his blaster drop from his rigid hand. Maul continued to approach, the lightsaber held off to one side, its blades horizontal to the floor.

"I don't know how, and I don't know why," Bruit began, "but I know that you must be responsible for everything that's happened."

Maul decided to hear him out. "You recorded my conversations. Then you altered the recordings to trick the saboteurs you had identified in the cantina. You probably arranged for us to find this place." Bruit gestured broadly. "Can I at least know why before you kill me?"

"It is something that had to be donefor a larger purpose."

Bruit c.o.c.ked his head, as if he hadn't heard Maul correctly.

Maul gazed at him. "You needn't dwell on it."

He raised his energy blade, preparing to thrust it into Bruit's chest, then restrained himself. A lightsaber wound wouldn't do, not at all. Deactivating the blade, he raised his right hand and made a vise of his gloved fingers. Bruit's hands flew to his windpipe, and he began to gasp for breath.

Jurnel Arrant was in his office when he received the details of Bruit's death on Riome. The messenger was a judicial agent, who had been dispatched from Coruscant at Arrant's request.

"I'm to blame for this entire business," Arrant said in a tone of anguished confession. "I'm guilty of ordering Bruit to bring in outsiders to do the dirty work. I escalated this conflict."

The lommite ore could still be mined, but LL no longer had enough barges to transport it. Replacing them would cost more than the company was currently worth. From what Arrant had learned, InterGalactic was in the same fix.

Anger gripped him. "I'm convinced that the Neimoidians with the Trade Federation got to the Toom clan and paid them to sabotage our ships, along with InterGalactic's." "That will be difficult to prove,"

the judicial said. "The Toom clan has been effectively wiped out, and unless you can produce evidence to support your theory, we can't show good cause for interrogating the Neimoidians." He was about to add something when Arrant cut him off.

"Bruit was a good man. He shouldn't have died as he did."

The judicial frowned, then prized a wafer-thin audio device from the pocket of his tunic and placed it on Arrant's desk. "Before you beat yourself to a pulp, you might want to listen to this."

Arrant picked up the device. "What is it?"

"A recording found at the Toom clan's base, here on Dorvalla. It's incomplete, but there's enough to warrant your attention." Arrant activated the wafer's play function.

"I wish to see both Lommite and InterGal brought down," a male voice said, "so that someone with real foresight could build a better organization from the dregs."

Arrant's eyes widened in nervous astonishment. "That's Bruit!"

"I understand," a second male voice was saying. "I want some of the action."

Arrant paused the playback. "Who's" "Caba'Zan," the judicial supplied. "Former head of security for InterGalactic Ore."

Reluctantly, Arrant reactivated the device.

"We need to team up to accomplish this," Bruit said. "No one will suspect us, and Arrant doesn't need to know any more than he has to."

"He's not that clever."

"The Toom's have the means to get the job done. We're going to make a move against everyone at Eriadu" Arrant silenced the device and pushed it away from him. "I don't know what to say."

The judicial agent nodded, tight-lipped.

Arrant got to his feet and spent a long moment gazing out the window. When he turned, his expression was bleak. He touched a key on the intercom pad, and seconds later his protocol droid secretary entered the office.

"How may I be of service, sir?"

Arrant glanced up at the droid. "I need to make two holocalls. The first will be to the chief executive of InterGalactic Ore, to discuss terms of a possible merger." "And the second, sir?"

Arrant took a moment to reply. "The second call will be to Viceroy Nute Gunray, to discuss terms of granting the Trade Federation exclusive rights to the shipping and distribution of Dorvalla's lommite ore."

In a dank, fungus-encrusted grotto on the Neimoidian homeworld, Hath Monchar and Viceroy Nute Gunray received a startlingly sudden holovisit from Darth Sidious. First to reach the holoprojector and the cloaked apparition that was the Dark Lord of the Sith, Monchar inclined his lumpish head in a servile bow and spread his thick-fingered hands.

"Welcome, Lord Sidious," he said. Though his eyes remained concealed by the cloak's raised hood, Sidious seemed to be gazing through Monchar at Gunray, who was perched atop his claw-footed mechno-chair a few meters away.

"Viceroy," Sidious rasped. "Dismiss your underling, so that we may speak in private about recent events on Dorvalla."

Monchar stared openly at Sidious, then whirled on Gunray. "But, Viceroy, I was the one who made contact with Lommite Limited. I deserve at least some of the credit for what has occurred."

"Viceroy," Sidious said, with a bit more menace, "advise your underling that his contributions in this matter were inconsequential."

Gunray glanced nervously at Monchar. "You had better leave." "But"

"Nowbefore he gets angry."

Monchar's gut sack made a sickening growl as he hurried from the grotto.

Gunray slid off the mechno-chair and approached the holoprojector.

He had a jutting lower jaw, and his thick lower lip was uncompanioned. A deep fissure separated his bulging forehead into two lateral lobes. His skin was kept a healthy gray-blue by means of frequent meals of the finest fungus. Red and orange robes of exquisite hand fell from his narrow shoulders, along with a round-collared brown surplice that reached his knees.

"I apologize for the indiscretion of my deputy," he said. "He is high-strung from too many rich foods." Sidious's face betrayed nothing.

"Apology accepted, Viceroy."

"Hath Monchar regards me much as I regard you, Lord Sidious: with a mix of awe and fear."

"You need fear me only if you fail me, Viceroy."

Gunray seemed to take the remark under advis.e.m.e.nt. "I have been antic.i.p.ating your visit, Lord Sidious. Though I confess that I had no idea you were aware of events on Dorvallamuch less that the Trade Federation had an interest in the planet."

"You will find that there are few matters of which I am unaware, Viceroy. What's more, we have not seen the last of Dorvalla. There is something we will need to attend to in due course." "But, Lord Sidious, the matter has been resolved. Lommite Limited and InterGalactic Ore have merged to become Dorvalla Mining, but the Trade Federation will transport the ore, and will now represent Dorvalla in the Galactic Senate."

"More important, you have a permanent place on the directorate."