[Darth Maul](2)

“Sound the warning,” Bruit said.

The technician flipped a series of switches on the console, and loudspeakers began to hoot. Miners and maintenance droids moved away from the launch zone. Bruit looked at the screens that displayed close-up views of the shuttles. He studied them carefully, searching for anything out of the ordinary.

“Launch zone is vacated,” the same technician updated. “Shuttles are standing by for liftoff.”

Bruit nodded. “Issue the go-to.” It was a routine that would be repeated a dozen times before Bruit’s workday concluded, typically long past sunset.

The eight unpiloted craft rose from the ground on repulsorlift power, pirouetting and bringing their blunt noses around to the southwest. The air beneath them rippled with heat. When the shuttles were fifty meters above the ground, their sublight engines engaged, flaring blue, rocketing the ships high into the dust-filled sky.

The ground shook slightly, and Bruit could feel a reassuring rumble in his bones. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. For the next hour, he could relax somewhat. He had turned from the view of the launch zone when his bones and his ears alerted him to a shift in the roaring sound, a slight drop in volume that shouldn’t have occurred.

Sudden apprehension tugged at him. His forehead and palms broke an icy sweat. He whirled and pressed his face to the south-facing transparisteel panel. High in the sky he could see two of the shuttles beginning to diverge from course, their vapor trails curving away from the straight-line ascent of the rest of the group.

“Fourteen and sixteen,” the technician affirmed. “I’m trying to shut down the sublights and convert them back over to repulsorlift. No response. They’re accelerating!” Bruit kept his eyes glued to the sky. “Give me a heading.”

“Back at us!”

Bruit ran his hand over his forehead. “Enable the self-destructs.”

The technician’s fingers flew across the console. “No response.”

“Employ the emergency override.” “Still no response. The overrides have been disabled.”

Bruit cursed loudly. “Vector update.”

“They’re aimed directly for the Castle.”

Bruit glanced at the indicated tor. It was one of the largest of the mines, so named for the natural spires that graced its western and southern faces.

“Order an evacuation. Highest priority.” Sirens shrieked in the distance. Within moments, Bruit could see workers hurrying from the mine openings and leaping onto waiting hover platforms. Two fully occupied platforms were already beginning to descend.

“Tell those platform pilots to keep everyone aloft,” Bruit barked. “No one’ll be any safer on the ground than in the mines. And start moving those droids and lift beasts out of there!”

A colossal bipedal drilling machine appeared at the mouth of one of the mines, engaged its repulsorlift, and stepped off into thin air.

“Thirty seconds till impact,” the technician said.

“Jettison the shuttles’ guidance droids.” “Droids away!”

Bruit clenched his hands. The two rudderless shuttles were plummeting side by side, as if in a race to reach the Castle. The technicians had already managed to shut down fourteen’s sublight, and sixteen’s flared out while Bruit watched. But there was no stopping them now. They were in ballistic freefall.

In the control station, droids and beings alike were crouched behind the instrument consolesall except for Bruit, who refused to move, seemingly oblivious to the fact that concussion alone could turn the booth’s transparisteel panels into a hail of deadly missiles.

The shuttles struck the Castle at almost the same instant, impacting it above the loftiest of the mines, perhaps fifty meters below the tor’s jungled summit.

The Castle disappeared behind an explosive flare of blinding light. Then the sound of the collisions pealed across the landscape, reverberating and crackling, echoing thunderously from the twin escarpments. Immense chunks of rock flew from the face of the tor, and two of its elegant spires toppled. Dust spewed from the mine openings, as if the Castle had coughed itself empty of ore. The air filled with billowing clouds, white as snow. Almost immediately the ore began to precipitate, falling like volcanic ash and burying everything within one hundred meters of that side of the mountain. Bruit still didn’t budgenot until the roiling cloud reached the control station and the view became a whiteout.

Lommite Limited’s headquarters complex nestled at the foot of the valley’s western escarpment. But even there a half a centimeter of lommite dust covered the lush lawns and flower gardens LL’s executive officer, Jurnel Arrant, had succeeded in coaxing from the acidic soil.