[Darth Maul](13)

“I’m certain that this will be an auspicious day for all of us,” the lieutenant governor was telling Arrant and the head of Eriadu Manufacturing. Tarkin was a slight man, with a quick mind and an even quicker temper. He stood as rigidly as a military commander, and his blue eyes held neither humor nor empathy.

“Tell me, Arrant,” the manufacturing executive said, “do you foresee a time when Lommite Limited, on its own, could supply enough ore to meet the demands we’re projecting for the near future?”

“Of course,” Arrant answered confidently. “It’s simply a matter of expanding our operations.” He turned and tugged Patch Bruit into the conversation. “Bruit, here, is our field supervisor, among other things. He has just notified me of a rich find, not a hundred kilometers from our present headquarters.”

Bruit nodded. “Our survey teams” he started to say, when one of LL’s security agents cut him off. “Chief, I’m sorry to bust in, but we need to talk in private.”

Arrant watched worriedly as Bruit allowed himself to be led away.

“What’s going on?” Bruit demanded when he and the security man were just out of earshot.

“Something has yanked the barges out of hyperspace short of their reentry coordinates. We don’t know the cause. It might be a problem with the hyperspace generators, or maybe an uncharted mass shadow.”

Bruit heard people gasp behind him. When he turned, everyone’s attention was fixed on the huge monitor screens that displayed views of the orbital shipyards. Some distance from the shipyards, and way off course, several lackluster space barges were reverting to realspace. “Bruit, are those our vessels?” Arrant asked in mounting concern.

“Yes, but there has to be a good reason for their decanting early.”

“This is most unexpected,” Tarkin remarked. “Most unexpected.”

The well-bedecked crowd gasped again. Bruit watched in shock as a second group of ships began to emerge from hyperspace.

“InterGalactic,” his security man said in disbelief. “They’re going to collide!” someone said.

“Bruit!” Arrant screamed, as the color drained from his face. “Do something!”

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 mass collisions. Without looking, Bruit could see the lommite ore streaming from fractured hulls, turning local space 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 petitioning 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.”