Sadiki was in her office, watching the live holo of the underwater match, when her brother burst in behind her.
“Good,” she said, “you’re just in time. It’s starting now. Take a seat.”
Dakarai didn’t move. He stood over her, his pale face mottled with high splotches of red in his cheeks and forehead. In his silence, his indignation was all the more apparent. It seemed to ripple off his skin in nearly visible waves.
“What’s wrong?”
But of course she already knew. They had been through all this before. In the final weeks before Cog Hive Seven became fully operational—when Dakarai had realized how much of his original design was going to have to be jettisoned in order for them to move forward—he’d become sulky and remote, withdrawing even more thoroughly from her, disappearing for days at a time. His silence had taken on an almost palpable weight. Only by promising him absolute autonomy when it came to the algorithm and the bouts had Sadiki been able to placate him.
And now she had violated that rule as well.
“I can see that you’re upset.” Sadiki rose to her feet with a sigh. “Forgive me. I know this particular match isn’t what your algorithm called for. But Dakarai, you have to trust me on this. The Zabrak is becoming a real problem for us. He needs to be broken. And this fight—”
He thrust a thin sheaf of flimsiplast in her face. Sadiki took it from him and glanced down at it. It was a printout of the algorithm’s actual match, which was supposed to have pitted two completely different inmates against one another.
“I know,” Sadiki said. “But I’m telling you—”
“Warden.”
Sadiki turned and glanced at the holoscreen that had gone active above her head. Gaming Commissioner Dragomir Chlorus’s face glared down at her, inflamed with fury.
“Commissioner,” Sadiki said. “I’m beginning to think your position doesn’t keep you busy enough.”
“Sadiki, what do you think you’re doing?”
“Matching my reigning champion. As you can see—”
“The bout that you posted indicates a completely different set of opponents. The odds that you gave on this fight have nothing to do with the Zabrak or the Aqualish. Which means that you either deliberately chose to defy the Gaming Commission regulations …” He paused. “Or you’ve been hacked.”
“Hacked?” Sadiki chuckled. “Commissioner, I assure you—”
“Do you see a third explanation?”
“Please.” She glanced at Dakarai, as if he might somehow, in defiance of everything she knew about him, speak up on her behalf. “If you’ll just allow me to investigate—”
“It’s too late for that. You’ve overstepped your bounds for the last time.” There was a portentous silence as Chlorus summoned the full weight of his authority. “The Galactic Gaming Commission is shutting you down.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“You …” Sadiki’s face didn’t change, but her neck flushed red, the color rising slowly to her hairline. “You really don’t want to start down that road with me, Dragomir.”
“If you’re implying that I don’t have the authority,” Chlorus said, “then you’re sadly mistaken. If you think I’m bluffing, then you’re wrong about that, too. And if I were you, I would keep all your inmates in lockdown until this is sorted out.”
“Now you’re telling me how to run my prison?”
Chlorus glared at her. “You should be thanking me. You have far bigger problems. And if you’d made the slightest effort to listen to me earlier, none of this would have reached the crisis point.”
“I’m telling you, the Hutts haven’t shown the faintest interest in—”
“The Desilijic Clan has already infiltrated your prison,” the Commissioner said.
“Excuse me?”
“According to intelligence that I’ve just received, they’ve had their foot soldiers inside Cog Hive Seven for months in an ongoing effort to ferret out Radique. It’s uncertain how many exactly, but the data that’ve come across my desk so far seem to indicate that their presence within the prison is significant.”
“You’re the gaming commissioner,” Sadiki said. “How is this your business?”
“Let’s just say you need someone to watch over you.” Chlorus sighed. “I know your tendency to get in over your head.”
Sadiki allowed herself a slow, restorative breath. In all the years she’d been here, this was as close as Chlorus had come to acknowledging the brief relationship that they had enjoyed during her early days managing the sabacc tables at the Outlander Casino and Resort on Coruscant. She’d been very young at the time, new to her position, easily swayed and even seduced by his authority. What happened between them had ended badly, with misgivings on both sides. But now was not the time or place to exhume that particular corpse and find out whether there was any life left in it.
She forced a smile. It felt like work.
“Dragomir, that’s very kind. Under normal circumstances I’d be flattered, but—”
“Stop. Just—stop.” Chlorus paused, and when he spoke again, he sounded more concerned than she’d ever heard him. “Sadiki, I’ve heard all your excuses and prevarications, but at this point, if you do know anything at all about the whereabouts of this man Radique, I recommend that you share it with the Hutts straightaway. Otherwise you may have a mutiny on your hands that even you cannot control.”
“Mutiny? You mean a riot?” Sadiki glanced over her shoulder at Dakarai, but her brother remained expressionless, his face maddeningly unreadable. She turned back to the holoscreen. “All our inmates carry electrostatic charges implanted in their hearts. I can terminate any of them with the touch of a button. If any of them were foot soldiers sent in here by the Hutts—”
“Sadiki, I’m not talking about inmates,” Chlorus said. “I’m talking about guards.”
She just stared at him. “I beg your pardon?”
“How many guards does Cog Hive Seven employ at any given time?” Chlorus asked.
“Between seventy and eighty. But we screen each one carefully, with a full background check and identity verification—”
“All of which the Desilijic Clan could have easily forged in order to get their people inside,” the Commissioner said. His voice was grave. “Be vigilant, Sadiki. I’ll speak to you again soon.”
Sadiki turned back to look at Dakarai again. But her brother was no longer looking at the commissioner.
He was watching the match.