Maul looked at Radique for a moment in silence. After searching for him for so long, the sight of him standing less than two meters away brought with it a distinct tremor of unreality, as if this too might be little more than a dream.
Radique was a tall near-human with blue skin, gleaming black hair, and glowing red eyes. He was dressed in black robes, with black gloves and boots fashioned from the same thick, well-polished reptile skin. His face was lean and cold, as if carved from a solid block of Vardium steel. Crimson eyes gazed back at Maul, and his lips twisted with a kind of quiet arrogance that spoke of a thousand enemies vanquished, a thousand attempts on his life survived.
The clawbirds had settled around behind him, gathered at his feet.
“I see you found my pets,” Radique said. “Or they found you.”
“You knew they would,” Maul said. “You sent them for me.”
“Perhaps I did.”
“We have to go,” Maul said. “The Bando Gora is already among us.”
“The Gora.” Radique’s face tightened with the briefest flicker of pain. “You’ve made a grave mistake bringing those vermin here.” He glanced at Eogan. “The boy’s father paid for it with his life. Now it seems that your life too shall be forfeit because of them.”
Maul didn’t move.
“You don’t believe me? Or you don’t believe in the power that I wield?”
“Neither.” Maul stepped forward. “I’ve simply been given no choice in the matter, and neither have you.” He cast his gaze across the weapons shop. Of the assembly line of eyeless inmates that had been laboring over the different gun parts and components the last time he’d been here, fewer than half remained. The ones that were left sat rigid in front of partially assembled weapons, gripping the table with white knuckles. Were Radique’s people deserting him, fleeing during these final moments? Or was there some deeper mutiny taking place?
“You’re mistaken,” Radique said.
Maul looked back at those red eyes. For a long moment neither of them spoke. Then all at once the entire prison gave a violent, galvanic shudder, hard enough to shift the racks and rows of crates strapped down against the back wall. Radique never lifted his gaze from Maul.
“It’s all coming to an end,” Maul said. “If we don’t act now, we’ll all die here.”
“We’ll die regardless.” Radique pressed his finger into Maul’s chest. “You still carry an explosive in your heart, Jagannath, don’t forget. And your time is running out.”
He nodded down to the floor beneath the workspace, and Maul looked down to see where the other prisoners had gone. They lay dead under the table, their eyeless sockets upraised into whatever version of oblivion had overtaken them.
“What happened?”
“If I had to speculate,” Radique said, “I believe that Warden Sadiki has launched the Omega Initiative. It’s a fail-safe mechanism designed to systematically trigger the electrostatic charges in the hearts of all the inmates here.”
“Including you?”
“Well.” Radique’s smile was razor thin. “I’ve got what you might call a special dispensation.”
“Wait,” Eogan said. “So you mean—” He glanced at Maul, then back at Radique, his voice going higher in pitch. “How much time do we have?”
“That depends on your number. Lower ones go first. But you’ll get your turn, I’m sure.”
“Then we have no time to waste,” Maul said. “Somewhere in your shop you’ve got a proscribed nuclear device. You’re going to help me deliver it into the hands of the Bando Gora. That’s all.”
The room shook again, harder. On the floor, the piles of the eyeless dead shifted and twitched together like a deputation of spastics.
“Why would I defy a lifelong oath never to do business with a cult of criminal thugs who tried to kill me?” Radique asked.
Without answering, Maul pushed past him toward the table, where a half-packed crate of Radique’s synthetic lightsabers sat open, forgotten by the inmate who’d been working on it. He reached in and took one of them out, popped open the hilt, and withdrew the crystal.
“Boy,” he said, “open the package.”
Eogan blinked and then dropped to his knees next to the parcel that they’d brought up from the loading bay. Peeling back the outer shell, he withdrew an oblong console, laying it out on the floor. The compressor unit itself was sleek and nearly featureless, with the exception of a small transparent dome on top.
“You recognize the new geological compressor,” Maul said. “You were expecting its arrival—you sent Slipher to go retrieve it.” Without waiting for Radique’s response, he lifted the lid and dropped the synth-crystal inside.
He closed his eyes, placing both hands on the compressor, letting the power of the dark side move through him as the console warmed beneath his palms. He could feel the crystal changing inside it, its very atoms shifting, the lattice tightening and binding together into new molecules, becoming something utterly different beneath the applied pressure of the Force.
Opening the compressor, he removed the crystal and held it up. It looked different now—darker, heavier, its facets gleaming with a deeper shade of red.
Maul slipped it back into the lightsaber, reassembled the components, and held the weapon up, flicking the switch.
The beam sprang to life in his hand, filling the shop with the familiar oscillating hum that he would’ve recognized in his sleep. The blade was solid, straight, and true. Maul could feel the power of the thing vibrating through the bones of his forearm, a natural extension of his own innate strength.
Extending his arm to its full length, he waited while Radique examined it. The arms dealer’s bluish face had changed color in the light of the beam.
“Remarkable,” he whispered.
“I can show you how it’s done,” Maul said. “But first I need the nuclear device delivered. And I need the explosives disarmed inside my chest—the droid from medbay can do that.”
“What makes you think—”
“There’s no time to argue. Do we have a deal or not?”
Radique looked at him. The room gave another jerk, and Maul saw that several more of the workers had dropped to the floor on top of the bodies that were already there.
He held out his hand.
Switching off the lightsaber, Maul placed it in the other’s waiting palm.
“The nuclear device is in that crate,” Radique said, giving a side nod to the large box strapped to the wall in the far corner of the shop. He hadn’t taken his red-eyed gaze from the lightsaber in his hand. “Over there. At the end.”
“Come, boy.” Maul nodded at the crate. “We don’t have much time.”
“Wait, what about the electrostatic charges in our hearts?” Eogan asked.
“We’ll detour past the medbay,” Maul said, keeping his eyes fixed on the red-eyed man. “Mr. Radique will have the droid ready for us.”
“How do we know—”
“It’s in his best interest. If I’m dead, I won’t be able to show him what he needs to know about the lightsabers.”
Without waiting for acknowledgment from Radique, Maul crossed over to the crate and unstrapped it. It was warm to the touch, and humming slightly from within.
“Now, boy.”
Reluctantly Eogan picked up his end and they lifted, carrying it out of the shop. One of Radique’s clawbirds flew in front of them, and they followed it down the concourse toward the upper levels of the prison.
Not long afterward, they started to come across the bodies.