Locks were no match for the dark side. Lord Maul easily let himself into his new workplace and crossed the enormous hangar silently in soft-soled boots, hyperaware for any sound of GV/3 guardian droids, or anything larger and more menacing than that.
Halfway across the hangar, a savage satisfaction filled him. Clearly, rumor substituted for security around here. He had seen no sign of any system, sophisticated or not. He would enter the engine compartment of the 3000, perform the alterations he needed to, and his mission would be complete. He felt almost disappointed by the ease and the lack of challenge afforded him by this task. This was beneath him. His master could have hired anyone to do this.
And then he smelled it. A medicinal odor, just tickling his senses …
Before he realized what had happened, he was slowly waking and the sun was rising. He blinked and found himself in a small round chamber with a steel door that appeared to be quite thick. He lay on hard stone, and stone blocks comprised the walls around him. He sat up, a groggy feeling making his head spin. A tray lay close by with a sandwich and a glass of water, but he left it untouched. Whatever drug Wabo's security system wafted into the air inside that hangar had left his stomach unsettled.
He checked the secret compartment sewn into his left sleeve: Yes, he still had the holotransmitter with which he could contact Lord Sidious if it became absolutely necessary.
He had never had to contact his master for backup on a mission before. He did not intend to do it now. Although his master was, in fact, nearby, attending an awards ceremony at one of the fashionable hotels in Worlport, he did not expect Lord Sidious would be at all pleased should his apprentice interrupt a highly publicized appearance for Senator Palpatine.
A gentle breeze caressed his face. Maul looked up to see, of all things, a very old-fashioned window blocked by simple steel bars. He snickered at that. An old stone cell, no cameras that he could see, bars on the windows … what was this place? Certainly, they could not expect anyone to remain contained within it for very long.
To bend the bars enough to admit his body to pass through was an easy task in the dark side. Maul leaped to the window—
—and stopped himself abruptly. The ground dropped some ten levels below him, green and dotted with fathiers, calmly grazing.
He reached below the sill; the stones that made up the edifice offered plenty of holds for him to climb down, with the help of the dark side. Before he did, he took advantage of his position to survey the estate around him, noting the positions of any personnel.
His target, Wabo's 3000 yacht, had been moved from the hangar for final flight checks and to be stocked with provisions. Three bulky cargo droids, looking like every image Maul had ever seen of Lord Freedon Nadd except for their height, lumbered to and from the hangar, hoisting containers of supplies into the main hold. Two levels tall themselves, they reminded Maul of holonet Behemoth droids from the afternoon serials the boys at his boarding school had enjoyed. They did not pose a problem for Lord Maul.
The twelve droidekas that surrounded the yacht, evenly spaced in a sentry ring around the ship … they would pose a problem.
Not even Lord Sidious could handle twelve droidekas at once. At most, Maul himself could fend off two; he had seen his master demolish three. But twelve?
The Sith would never be born who could handle twelve droidekas at one time.
Not only that, but his orders were to remain unobtrusive, to slip in and out and sabotage the ship as silently as a wraith, attracting no notice.
He would most certainly attract the notice of at least one of those droidekas now, attempting to enter the ship and carry out his objective; and once that happened, any hope of completing his mission silently and without notice would meet an abrupt end.
Lord Maul drew away from the window to think.
None of his choices were at all palatable.
He could let Wabo go and abort the mission. This would not please Lord Sidious, since Wabo would be inside the Trade Federation compound on Cato Nemoidia indefinitely, and assassinating him there would be much more difficult.
He could do his best to slip past the droidekas, board the yacht, and complete his mission, but he had a high chance of dying if he did that.
Maul growled low in his chest. He would almost rather be dead than admit to Lord Sidious that he had been careless enough to be drugged and captured; that was worse than failing his objective. Nonetheless, it went without saying that his own existence represented years and years of discipline and training … years that would have to be repeated were he foolish enough to get himself killed, thus dealing his master's plans and the destiny of the entire Order a blow from which they might not recover in this lifetime.
Not only that, but it was he who was to assume the mantle once he was finally strong enough to eliminate Lord Sidious. Lord Maul, not some second, some lesser apprentice.
The failures he had already committed, he had no way to hide. It was probably most prudent to inform his master of the situation, and defer the decision of how best to handle those failures to him.
Lord Maul swallowed very hard, and reached into his sleeve for the holotransmitter.
Lord Sidious paced about the table, listening intently as fifteen-year-old Maul stumbled through part of a ritual in Balc, that more difficult dialect of ur-Kittât with which even the Master admitted to some trouble.
Maul understood that his master was displeased. Every fitful twitch of Sidious's black robes telegraphed it; his irritation pulsed through Maul in the Force, deranging Maul's own pulse at a moment when concentration was crucial. "Ur-Kittât is the dialect you speak; Balc is the dialect you spit," his master often said during these lessons.
It was awfully difficult to spit the words with force when one's spirit quailed with fear. Worse, the more fear Maul felt, the more halting his delivery, which made his master angrier, which frightened Maul more.
And he understood this, yet he could do nothing to stop it, so strong was his fear of his master's punishment.
Master stopped pacing at the head of the table. Crossed his arms. Just visible under one elbow, something gleamed gold in his hand.
Maul swallowed with a gulp.
"Young Maul. I do not even ask that you memorize this, only that you read it correctly. What is exactly your problem?"
Maul's mouth went dry.
His master approached, every movement taut with anger.
"Young Maul. You will put out your tongue."
The crimson blade of a lightsaber was so hot it didn't even need to touch an area so sensitive as the tongue to leave an exquisitely painful burn.
Lord Maul would bear the scar on the tip of his tongue for the rest of his life. The burn would take weeks to heal.