The lift stopped, and Maul knew he’d been caught.
He glanced down at the blue witch in his hand and then dropped it with disgust, letting it hit the floor with a clink. It rolled to the corner and lay there spluttering feebly for a moment before finally dying out. It served him right for trusting the Muun’s gadget for an instant longer than he had to. He never should’ve taken the lift back up from the cargo bay. Now he was trapped in here. For an instant he imagined Slipher’s severed head lying in the corner, laughing at him.
No matter. Such thoughts were useless to him now. He glanced up at the ceiling, a meter above his head, and then the walls around him, instinctively taking stock of any possible way out. Suddenly the lift itself felt very small, more like a cage—or a coffin.
Bracing his hands on one smooth wall and his legs on the other, he lifted himself upward and began to climb his way to the ceiling. It was a slow process, but there was a maintenance hatch up there, in all likelihood bolted shut from the outside. He didn’t know if he’d be able to get it open without losing his grip on the walls, and even if he did—
“Very impressive,” a woman’s voice said from the speaker inside the lift, a voice that Maul recognized immediately as belonging to Sadiki Blirr. “Of course, at this point I should have expected nothing less from Cog Hive Seven’s most celebrated inmate.”
Ignoring her, Maul crawled another meter upward, keeping his arms, legs, and shoulders rigid to hold himself in position. At this angle, the only way to get the hatch open would be to slam his head against it.
“There’s no sense trying to get out that way,” the warden’s voice said. “The lift is industrial grade, durasteel-reinforced from the outside. We use it to transport our more imposing inmates, like that wampa you fought. It’s got some very interesting features, from my perspective at least.” Something clicked and began to hum inside the walls. “Even if you managed to escape, there’s nothing inside the shaft to hold on to. Which means you’ll die in there, either slowly or quickly, depending on how ambitious you are.”
Maul said nothing.
“Still determined to injure yourself?” she chuckled. “Here, let me help you.”
The lift jerked upward, then plunged. Maul slammed face-first into the ceiling as it dropped straight down. It halted and he hit the floor hard. Sprawled on his back with the walls spinning around him, he reflexively shot out his arms and legs again to stabilize himself for the next move. But the lift began to rise smoothly upward again, as if nothing had disturbed its passage.
“I’d like to make you a proposition,” Sadiki’s voice purred. “As you may have guessed, we don’t get many inmates like you here. In fact, you’re arguably one of a kind. So in the spirit of entrepreneurial enterprise, I’d like to do the only thing that makes any sense.”
Maul glared at the speaker. “Kill yourself and save the universe the trouble?”
“Not quite.” She laughed. “I’d like to offer you a job.”
“My answer is no.”
“You haven’t heard my terms.”
“It doesn’t matter.” His expression remained unchanged. “I prefer death.”
“At least do yourself the courtesy of admitting you’re curious,” she said. “You seem almost supernaturally adept at isolating and exploiting the weaknesses of your opponents under the most adverse of circumstances. So …” She paused long enough for Maul to wonder if he was supposed to be hanging on her every word. “This is what I propose. You come to work here in the executive level of Cog Hive Seven, where you will report directly to me. There are certain aspects of our operation here that you might find very illuminating.”
“What aspects?” Maul asked.
“Before I get into the details, I would expect an oath of absolute loyalty,” Sadiki told him. “Of course, you’ll enjoy complete autonomy, stay here in a luxury suite, and receive a generous salary that reflects exactly how valuable you truly are to this operation. Who knows?” Something eased into her voice, a note of bemusement that Maul could actually hear, though he couldn’t see her face. “You may even discover what you’ve been searching for all along. What do you say?”
“You’re forgetting one thing,” Maul said, bracing himself against the wall opposite the speaker.
“What’s that?”
“This place where you live …”
“Yes?”
“It’s still a prison.”
Pumping one leg straight out, he drove his heel into the speaker and smashed it to pieces, strangling the warden’s voice off into a fuzzy, digitized warble, and then silence. The speaker itself popped loose from its housing, dangling down on a tangle of multicolored wiring.
Seconds later, the lift stopped again.
He’d expected nothing less. Having not received the answer she wanted, the warden was going to make him hurt. Apparently she wasn’t ready to trigger the charges implanted in his hearts, but she wasn’t going to let him get away, either.
Working quickly, Maul yanked the dislodged speaker plating from its wires, paused just long enough to inspect the beveled edge and decided that it would have to suffice, and began the slow, creeping process back up toward the hatchway at the top of the lift.
Halfway up, he noticed it.
Around him, the durasteel walls were starting to get hot.