Darth Maul: Saboteur

Darth Maul: Saboteur is a short story eBook written by James Luceno, set in 33 BBY. It is available for immediate download from Amazon.com for US$1.99 and is approximately 14,000 words in length. The story was later published in the paperback version of Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter.

Editions

 * ISBN 978-0-345-44735-7 and ISBN 0-345-44735-2); Del Rey, February 15, 2001, eBook
 * Bonus in Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter paperback (ISBN 0345435419), Del Rey, December 2001, 54-page insert

Publisher's summary
A dazzling new short story featuring Darth Maul, merciless apprentice of evil&hellip;

''On the distant planet Dorvalla, precious ore is mined by two competing companies: InterGalactic Ore and Lommite Limited. Neither rival suspects that they are central to a sinister plot masterminded by Darth Sidious, Lord of the Sith, himself.''

''Dispatched by Sidious on his very first solo mission, Darth Maul infiltrates Lommite Limited. There, his unique gifts of deception and subterfuge will set off an explosive chain of events that could destroy both companies, leaving them ripe for takeover by the Trade Federation. But a vengeful Lommite Limited Manager with his own thirst for retaliation against InterGal could blow Maul's cover — and all of Sidious's fiendishly laid plans&hellip;''

Excerpt
Nearly every world in the Videnda sector had something to recommend it—warm saline seas, verdant forests, arable grasslands that stretched to distant horizons. The outlying world known as Dorvalla had a touch of all of those. But what it had in abundance was lommite ore, an essential component in the production of transparisteel—a strong, transparent metal used galaxywide for canopies and viewports in both starships and ground-based structures. Dorvalla was so rich in lommite that one-quarter of the planet's scant population was involved in the industry, employed either by Lommite Limited or its contentious rival, InterGalactic Ore.

The chalky ore was mined in Dorvalla's tropical equatorial regions. Lommite Limited's base of operations was in Dorvalla's western hemisphere, in a broad rift valley blanketed with thick forest and defined by steep escarpments. There, where ancient seas had once held sway, shifts in the planetary mantle had thrust huge, sheer-faced tors from the land. Crowned by rampant vegetation, by trees and ferns primeval in scale, the high, rocky mountains rose like islands, blinding white in the sunlight, the birthplace of slender waterfalls that plunged thousands of meters to the valley floor.

But what was once a wilderness was now just another extractive enterprise. Huge demolition droids had carved wide roads to the bases of most of the larger cliffs, and two circular launch zones, large enough to accommodate dozens of ungainly space shuttles, had been hollowed from the forest. The tors themselves were gouged and honeycombed with mines, and deep craters filled with polluted runoff water reflected the sun and sky like fogged mirrors.

The ceaseless work of the droids was abetted by an all but indentured labor force of Humans and aliens, to whom the mined ore served as a great equalizer. No matter the natural color of a miner's skin, hair, feathers, or scales, everyone was rendered white as the galactic dawn. All agreed that sentient beings deserved more from life, but Lommite Limited wasn't prosperous enough to convert fully to droid labor, and Dorvalla wasn't a world of boundless opportunities for employment.

Still, that didn't stop some from dreaming.

Dramatis personae

 * Jurnel Arrant; executive officer, Lommite Limited (male Human)
 * Patch Bruit; chief of field operations, Lommite Limited (male Human)
 * Caba'Zan; head of security, InterGalactic Ore (male Falleen)
 * Nute Gunray; Viceroy, Trade Federation (male Neimoidian)
 * Darth Maul; Sith apprentice, Dark Lord of the Sith (male Zabrak)
 * Hath Monchar; Deputy Viceroy, Trade Federation (male Neimoidian)
 * Darth Sidious; Sith Master, Dark Lord of the Sith (male Human)
 * Wilhuff Tarkin; Lieutenant governor, Eriadu (male Human)
 * Nort Toom; Toom clan (male Weequay)

New characters

 * Jurnel Arrant
 * Patch Bruit
 * Caba'Zan
 * Nort Toom

New droids

 * R-series guidance droid
 * Demolition Droid

New organizations

 * Dorvalla Mining
 * Eriadu Manufacturing
 * InterGalactic Ore (InterGal)
 * Lommite Limited (LL)
 * Toom clan
 * Trade Federation Directorate
 * Valorum Shipping and Transport

New planets and locations

 * The Castle
 * Dorvalla
 * Dorvalla system
 * Rimma 13
 * Rimma 18 (This redirect needs to be fixed.)
 * Riome

Behind the scenes

 * The Microsoft Reader eBook version of Saboteur was not ready for release on February 15, 2001 due to a technical error.