The Twi’lek’s finger was still tightening on the blaster’s trigger when Maul threw the disassembled lightsaber at him.
The pieces struck Zero flush in the face, more of a distraction than anything else, but it bought Maul enough time to lunge at him, knocking the Twi’lek to the floor. The blast he was firing went wild, caroming off the ceiling and ricocheting to the floor.
Maul took hold of Zero’s throat, already knowing that killing him was pointless, that there was no way out of here even if he slaughtered all of them, that—in finding what he’d been sent to find—he’d only signed his own death warrant. It was too late now. Even Zero seemed to realize that. On the floor beneath Maul, he was shaking his head, laughing at him bitterly.
“You idiot,” the Twi’lek said, spitting blood. “You think this is going to solve anything?”
Maul didn’t answer. He drove his fist into Zero’s chin, and to his great surprise, he felt the inmate’s entire face shiver and go sideways, his flesh appearing to split open and then peel back with a gelatinous suddenness so unexpected that Maul stopped his attack and stared down at him.
The Twi’lek mask was dangling halfway off the newly exposed face of the man underneath him. Maul stared at him, stunned. He knew this face, or one very like it. It was the warden of Cog Hive Seven, Sadiki Blirr—but in a masculine form.
He says that you answer to another name.
“Dakarai?” Vesto Slipher said. The Muun sounded even more shocked than Maul felt. “What …?”
Dakarai Blirr rose to his feet and tore the rest of the mask away from his face, flinging it away, where it landed on the floor in a misshapen heap. He looked completely indifferent to Slipher, and to Maul, for that matter—his full attention was focused on the ceiling.
“I can explain,” Dakarai said quickly, and Maul realized two things simultaneously. First, Dakarai was talking to the voice that had given him the instruction to kill—the voice of Iram Radique.
And second, Dakarai was very scared, for reasons Maul could not determine.
“I needed the disguise to move among the inmates,” the man said, “in order to program the algorithm. It allowed me to serve you as well as my sister. Neither of you needed to know … neither of you could know. It was really the perfect solution. I could meet with you as Zero, and—”
“Finish him, Coyle,” the voice said.
“Wait!” Dakarai said. “You don’t have to do this! You can just—”
The Chadra-Fan acted without hesitation. Picking up the blaster rifle that Dakarai had been holding just seconds earlier, Coyle pointed it at him and fired, discharging a single shot. The point-blank impact flung Dakarai’s body backward across the shop, and he landed in a lifeless heap beneath one of the assembly tables.
“Mr. Slipher,” the voice on the intercom said, as if nothing had happened. “You may proceed as planned.” There was a pause. “Take the Zabrak with you.”
Vesto Slipher managed a queasy nod. “Yes, Mr. Radique.” Without bothering to look back at Maul, he started out the door.
Maul followed.