Sate Pestage cast a grim look into a pair of orange-red eyes. He did not know what Darth Maul had been told about him, but he knew the Sith Lord would be ruthless and efficient just by the look in those glowing eyes.
If he were even half what his master was, that alone commanded a great deal of … respect.
He stood behind the pilot's chair of Maul's own specially modified Star Cruiser as the ship shot like an arrow through hyperspace, toward the coordinates where Pan-Republic Flight 83770 lay dead in space, boarded by Baylis Ascaris's hijackers.
"Our orders are to bring one Sereine Lumisol back to my master on Coruscant," Maul was saying, gloved hands tight on the controls. "If we can."
"I understand," said Sate, which constituted the understatement of the heisfucking her.
A pinpoint of light ahead resolved itself from just another star to a very ungainly-looking ship, to a corvette already fused to a luxury passenger liner.
"They're already docked," said Pestage.
"Easy enough to fix," said Maul. His finger on the joystick blew the corvette to pieces.
"I have been instructed not to employ the lightsaber," said Maul. "If I must, we are to leave no living witnesses."
Sate raised an eyebrow. "What becomes of Ms. Lumisol in that event?"
"We bring her to my master. I presume," said Maul, guiding theScimitarin the approach to the passenger vessel's newly vacated airlock.
Sate turned and tapped his own hyperwave transceiver. Palpatine's taut face appeared, and Sate told him, "We're late. By the time we rendezvoused and made it back here, the hijackers boarded the ship."
"They boarded," said Palpatine, and paused. A blank expression crossed his face, and then his brows drew together in anger. "The two of you will board, eliminate the hijackers, and take care of Ms. Lumisol."
"To be clear, master," said Pestage smoothly, adopting Maul's form of address, "we are to bring her home safely to Coruscant. Even should Lord Maul be forced to employ the lightsaber and she should witness it."
Pestage did not perceive hesitation from Palpatine very often.
It made for a fascinating thing to watch.
A moment; then Palpatine said, "Affirmative."
Pestage ground his teeth and said, "Roger. We'll contact you when we have finished." Infuriating to have to save the woman who, he was fairly sure, had just conned him out of a promotion.
TheScimitarturned and settled over the passenger ship's airlock. If it were damaged, the mission was over; but, no, it docked nicely into place with an irritating clang.
Maul sprang from the pilot's chair, reached into a box on the floor to his left and palmed a blaster, and cast Sate the look every soldier gives another just before they step into battle.
His performance here would be duly reported to Palpatine, Sate knew. He met those blood-orange eyes with a grim nod.
Maul opened theScimitar'sside of the lock and made a circular gesture. The liner's lock opened like a flower to the mysterious power of the Force. Sate flanked the Dark Lord as he strode onto the other ship.
A shout echoed through the short tube: "Intruders!"
A large seating area met his eyes, rows of luxury leather seats half full of well-dressed travelers bent forward, hands over their heads. Moans and weeping filled the air.
Light glinted off a blaster swung in Sate's direction. The hijackers were easy to spot; they were the ones standing. Holding blaster rifles.
Maul put out his hand. Invisible tendrils of the Force yanked the blaster from the terrorist and bent it in half. Blaster fire sizzled from their right; Maul put out his hand and deflected a bolt that would surely have taken Sate's head off.
Five beings stood here and there around the passenger compartment; five blasters aimed directly at them. Beings screamed. Somewhere close, an infant cried.
Sate's blaster was already in his hand. Maul palmed his, and with surgical precision they took out the hijackers, Sate counting under his breath.
He glanced around to see if any passengers had been caught in the crossfire, specifically, one with long red hair.
"We should finish this before Judiciary vehicles arrive," Maul said in his ear.
"She knows me," said Sate. "Let me look for her."
Maul nodded. "My master would prefer that she not identify me at all."
From the direction of the cockpit came two more beings, armed with blasters, firing. Maul swung into the aisle, returning fire as Sate zeroed in on clattering and screaming that arose from a bevy of compartments in the rear.
Sleeping compartments. Someone was being attacked back there. Several someones, from the sound of things.
Sate slipped past Maul and sprinted down the aisle. He peered in on several struggles, looking for long red hair.
Sereine scarcely knew how the cabinet frame ended up in her hands. The crimson face of a man who towered over her protruded above it, surrounded by jagged splinters, the square frame atop his shoulders like a broken wooden necklace.
She gripped the other end with everything she had. It was the only thing keeping this beast off of her. "Yield!" he shouted.
Bloodshot eyes drilled hers in a face flushed with rage. His hands stretched toward her but couldn't quite reach her. He heaved forward, driving her backwards into the wall. She struggled, trying to keep herself from being impaled by a dagger of broken wood.
"Whore!"
Sereine was no athlete. Her heart pounded, sweat ran into her eyes. Her streaming hair nearly blinded her.
Fatigue stalked her. Any moment now, either the frame or her arms would break, and this man would be on her. Her arms burned, her shoulders ached. She panted and wheezed, too exhausted now even to scream.
He reached again and she felt a tug and heard her dress tear. Time snapped forward in a series of broken images: The reddened face, sitting atop the frame like a grotesque child's toy; the rose drapery in the sleeping cubicle behind him; bright lights in her face. She felt breathless, as if she may be about to faint.
A sizzling sound, a flash. The man's face changed. Two bulging eyes widened with surprise, then narrowed in fear and pain. With a groan, he sagged to the floor. Her stomach turned at the burn and the blood that bloomed in the center of his chest from a blaster shot to the back.
She looked up and received another shock, of recognition. Sate Pestage stood in the doorway over a blaster pointed directly at her, his eyes glowing like twin coals.
She glanced around her. Somehow they were in the fresher. She was trapped between the sink and the toilet, both pressing cold against her sweat-soaked body. For a stunned second she believed he was among the hijackers—she had always been irrationally afraid of him—before she remembered.
He worked for Sheev. Somehow Sheev had known, and sent him.
Sate lowered his blaster and stretched out a hand to her. "We have to leave," he said. "Now."
Shock rooted her to the spot. His burning black eyes raked her up and down, and she realized suddenly that her skirt hung open, that her torn bodice exposed her bra and most of her midriff.
Sate snapped his hand out again. "Come on. Let's go."
She let go of the wooden frame with difficulty; her hands felt welded to it. It clattered to the floor.
She gathered her torn and trailing skirts and stepped around it, stepped over the man's body, and took Sate's hand.
She stumbled as he pulled her down the aisle. Moans and sobs reached her ears. She heard someone scream. "Oh, please, sir!" People in the seats looking uncertainly around, reaching for loved ones, wiping tears.
She realized Sate where Sate was leading her. A tall wraith in a black cloak slipped ahead of them into the airlock. By the time Sate Pestage led her in, the wraith was gone.
The dimly lit boarding tube led into a small ship, almost as dimly lit, large enough but spare and short on luxury. At the piloting controls some distance to her left sat the wraith, cloaked in black, a hood covering his head.
Sheev had a garment like that. For a moment, she almost called his name.
Pestage gestured her to a bench. "Sit," he said. She sat, feeling suddenly very cold, and then her body began to shake and tremble violently. She pieced her bodice together and held it, disliking his eyes on her.
She would not cry in front of him. She wouldn't.
Pestage stared at her a moment longer; then he moved to unlock the docking apparatus. As the ship tilted and hyperspace streamed in the viewport, he moved forward and exchanged a murmured conversation with the pilot.
At length he walked back into the hold, reached into a cabinet, and pulled down a blanket and offered it to her.
She wrapped it around herself, shaking.