Star Wars_ Darth Maul 02_ Shadow Hunter - Michael Reaves [102]
Well, there would be no more of that. He’d had his eye on this droid for some time; the weapons modifications alone would make him a valuable asset. Since Sal occasionally had dealings with Black Sun, it was not a bad idea at all to have a bodyguard, and he was certain that I-Five would make a very good one—once the droid’s memory had been wiped, of course.
He wasn’t overly concerned with how Lorn might feel about this. After all, he fully expected never to see Lorn again. And even if he did, it wasn’t a capital crime to steal and reprogram a droid. The most he could expect in terms of legal repercussions might be a fine, which wouldn’t be nearly as much as the cost of a new droid with I-Five’s special features.
No matter how you looked at it, even throwing in that clunker of a ship, it was good business.
The Temple’s roof sparkled in the afternoon sun as Sal’s skycar shot by it. Soon it was lost to sight among the countless other flying craft that filled the skies of Coruscant.
The Infiltrator settled into one of the space station’s docking sleeves, and Maul heard the muffled metallic sounds of the air lock’s outer hatch sealing with the station’s. He deactivated the life support and artificial gravity systems—then, weightless, he made his way through the ship’s dark interior to the air lock.
This point of egress to the station was in one of the outlying service modules. Darth Sidious had promised him that there would be neither human nor droid to interfere with his progress, and as Maul emerged from the air lock he saw that this was so. The lock opened into what appeared to be a service corridor—narrow and low, the walls and ceiling covered with pipes, conduits, and the like. The artificial gravity was not on in this region of the station, no doubt for budgetary reasons. No matter; Maul had operated in zero-g environments before. He pushed himself away from the lock and floated down the corridor, using the impedimenta that festooned the walls to pull himself along.
The directions Darth Sidious had given him were clear in his head; he was to proceed down this passageway to the module proper, and then take a vertical shaft up to one of the larger habitation modules. At a prearranged time—less than fifteen minutes away—he would rendezvous with Maul. Maul would then hand him the crystal.
And then his mission would be complete.
Lorn let the autopilot take care of the docking procedure; he wasn’t all that good of a pilot. I’m not all that good at anything, he thought bitterly, except getting those I care about in trouble. He still had the blaster he had taken from the Raptor, but he only now remembered its power pack wasn’t good for more than a few shots. Of course, a few shots would probably be all he would have time for, one way or another.
After the green light flashed, Lorn crossed into the service shaft. It had been some time since he’d experienced zero-g. When he could afford to, he used to work out fairly regularly at a spa that featured null-grav sports. He’d enjoyed the workouts; feeling like he could fly, even if only within the small confines of the spa’s structure, had always been good for taking some of the weight of his existence off him.
He was under no illusions, however, that his familiarity with weightlessness gave him any kind of edge over the Sith. He had no doubt that his opponent could handle himself with consummate and deadly skill in any kind of environment. He would need an enormous amount of luck to pull this off.
Once inside the corridor, he moved very cautiously and slowly. There was no sign of his enemy anywhere ahead, and it didn’t look like there was anyplace to hide here. Nevertheless, he was taking no chances. Lorn wouldn’t have been surprised if the Sith suddenly materialized