The dinko sprayed venom directly into Maul’s face. Maul flinched as the venom hit him, stinging his eyes. He howled, then brought his boot down hard on the creature. He felt a certain satisfaction as he removed his heel from the crushed dinko and inspected its remains. Pleased at the way he had dealt with the dinko, he turned to look back at his Master.
“You flinched,” Sidious said without pleasure. “You were afraid of the dinko?”
“Yes, Master. But I controlled my fear.” Maul stated his claim with great certainty.
Sidious responded with a nod. But from experience, Maul knew his Master was displeased. He also knew a punishment would come.
They returned to Mustafar. Maul ate his evening meal as usual. He was not confined to a sensory deprivation suit or forced to sleep on a hard floor. The atmosphere controls in his quarters were not turned off.
No punishment came the next day, or the next, or anytime soon. Eventually, Maul forgot about the dinko incident on Tosste.
And then one night, after a particularly exhausting series of exercises, Maul went to his quarters in the training room. After he entered his quarters, the door hissed closed behind him. He undressed in the darkness. Then he turned back the coverlet that was draped over his sleep mat, and a dinko jumped straight at him.
Maul was startled. He batted the dinko away but missed when he tried to stomp it to death. He hesitated, fearing that its claws would tear into his bare foot.
Another dinko jumped out from a corner. That dinko was followed by another, and then another. Maul realized the room was filled with the creatures.
The boy ran to the door and slapped the button to open it. The door remained shut. He tried to turn on the lights. The lights stayed off. In the darkness, one dinko jumped onto Maul’s shoulder and dug its claws into his ear. Another latched on to one of his toes. Maul cried and screamed as he tried to shake them off. The dinkos sprayed their venom and blinded him. The stench was nauseating. Maul threw his body against the walls in a desperate attempt to crush them.
It took Maul almost an hour to kill all the dinkos. When he was done, he passed out on the floor of his gore-filled quarters.
The door did not open until the next morning. It slid back to reveal Sidious standing in the doorway. He looked at Maul’s inflamed skin, swollen eyes, and bloody hands and feet. He said, “Do not flinch again.”
Maul understood. He learned. He obeyed. And after his test against the dinkos, he never ever flinched.
“Hold still,” said the six-legged droid as it wiped blood from Maul’s rib cage.
Maul squirmed on the edge of the metal table and said through clenched teeth, “You have the bone-knitter on the wrong setting.”
“No, I don’t,” said the droid as it moved the medical tool deeper into the wound on Maul’s left side. Then it repeated, “Hold still.”
They were in the expansive training room in the Mustafar facility. Five months had passed since Sidious had begun training Maul in lightsaber combat. In recent days, the droid had been teaching him how to throw blades with great accuracy, and also how to dodge and catch blades that the droid threw at him while he did his exercises. As for running up walls and flipping backward to the floor, Maul had become so adept that he could do it with his eyes closed. However, he had been unprepared when, a few minutes earlier, he had kicked away from the wall and straight into one of the droid’s waiting pincers.
The droid set aside the bone-knitter, then sprayed an exotic salve over Maul’s skin. “You should be relieved that Master Sidious was not present when you allowed me to break two of your ribs,” the droid said. “He would have been most displeased.”
“I didn’t allow you to break my ribs,” Maul said as the droid began wrapping a bandage around his torso. “I thought you were standing near me to watch me exercise.”
“Well, you know what Master Sidious would say.” Adjusting the pitch and tone on its vocabulator to perfectly mimic Sidious, the droid rasped, “To leave yourself vulnerable is an open invitation to death.” Switching back to its usual voice, the droid said, “Still, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. It was an accident.”
The droid’s words surprised Maul. The droid had never before imitated Sidious or apologized to Maul. No one had ever apologized to Maul before. Maul said, “I will be more careful next time.” Then he looked at the droid’s red photoreceptors and added, “Do you have a name? I learned from the computer that many droids have names.”
The droid responded with a chittering noise that sounded like a cross between grinding gears and laughter. “I was programmed and engineered for training and discipline. My designation is TD-D9. If you wish, you may call me Deenine.”
“Thank you, Master Deenine.”
The droid chattered again. “No. Just Deenine.”
“Oh.” Maul was suddenly curious about the droid. “Have you always been on Mustafar, Deenine?”
“No, I’ve visited other worlds. I’ve been to Coruscant, Naboo, and…” The droid flicked its photoreceptors to face Maul and said, “Forget I said that. You didn’t hear that from me.”
“I won’t tell.”
“Good. You may put on a shirt now.”
Maul eased himself off the table and reached for the shirt he’d been wearing earlier. It now had a hole in it, where the droid’s pincer had torn through the fabric, and was stained with blood. But before Maul could pick up the shirt, the droid snatched it and added, “You may put on a clean shirt.”
Maul walked across the training room and stepped through a doorway to enter his quarters. Nearly twice the size of his former room, his quarters had a lighting system that he could control, a sleep mat with a coverlet, and a small trunk for storing clothes. It also had a door that he could open from inside or outside. Except when Sidious or the droid locked him up, he was generally free to go to the training room at any time.
But there was one thing his quarters lacked. A window.
Maul’s former room had been in almost every way unmemorable, but it had had a view. He had spent many hours scanning the rocks for Mustafarians and their lava flea mounts, but his memories of that time seemed increasingly dim. Back then he had wished for a view of a different world. Now he wondered if he would ever see the lava flowing into the fiery sea again.
He reached into his trunk and removed a clean black shirt. He thought it was strangely kind of the droid to suggest that he should wear a clean shirt. He had learned about friendship from an educational recording, which showed how some creatures lived and worked together without harming each other. He wondered if the droid might be his friend.
Maul pulled the shirt on and felt a stab of pain at his left side. He gnashed his teeth and took a series of quick and shallow breaths through his nose, careful not to expand his lungs so much that they’d make his ribs hurt. He wondered how long it would take for his ribs to heal.
As he exited his quarters, he said, “Deenine, when will my ribs—?” He stopped short when he saw Sidious standing beside the droid. He had not heard Sidious enter the training room.
Sidious was holding Maul’s torn, bloodied shirt. Sidious looked from the droid to Maul and said, “Maul, tell me what happened.”
Maul glanced at the droid, then said, “I was training, Master Sidious. I ran up the wall, and when I jumped away from it, Deenine stuck out a pincer and broke two of my ribs. It was an accident. Deenine didn’t mean to hurt me.”
“Really?” Sidious said. “I didn’t know the droid was capable of doing anything accidentally. Or that you and…‘Deenine’ were on familiar terms.” Still holding the torn shirt, Sidious faced the droid. “Is it true? Did you injure Maul by accident?”
“No, Master Sidious,” the droid said. “When Maul leaped from the wall, I raised my pincer knowing that it would break his ribs if he did not adjust his body in midair.”
“So why did Maul think it was an accident?”
“Because I told him it was an accident, Master Sidious.”
&nbs
p; “In other words, you lied?”
“Yes, Master Sidious. I lied.”
Sidious looked back at Maul. “Have you learned anything from this, Maul?”
Maul glared at the droid. He felt betrayed and angry. He could not believe he had trusted the droid. Looking back at Sidious, he said, “Yes, Master Sidious. I have learned I must not trust anyone. I must be ready to attack and fight back at all times.”
“Excellent,” Sidious said as he tossed the torn shirt onto the metal table. “And because ‘at all times’ includes right now, you will now repeat the exercise you were doing with the droid. Only this time, you will avoid breaking any more ribs.” Sidious gestured to the nearest wall. “Begin at once.”
The droid made a chittering noise, then said, “I beg your pardon, Master Sidious, but I suggest you allow Maul’s ribs to heal before he attempts to—”
“I do not recall asking for anyone’s opinion,” Sidious said, keeping his eyes on Maul. “Especially an opinion from someone who is an admitted liar.”
The droid offered no response.
“Now, Maul,” Sidious continued, “what you said is absolutely true. You must be ready to attack and fight back at all times. If your bones were broken during a fight with an actual enemy, do you think that enemy would wait for you to heal before attacking you again?”
“No, Master Sidious.”
Sidious gestured again at the wall. “The droid will stand near while you run up the wall and leap back to the floor. At any given moment, the droid might attack. And the droid will not hold back because you are already injured. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Master Sidious.”
Glancing at the droid, Sidious added, “Do you understand?”
“Yes, Master Sidious.” The droid shuffled over to the wall and waited for Maul to run.
Maul went straight for the wall. He tried to ignore his broken ribs, but with each step, he felt the sharp pain intensify. He did not cry out. He would give neither his Master nor the droid the satisfaction of hearing him cry. He was angry at both of them, especially at the droid. He let the pain feed his anger, let his anger feed his strength. He ran up the wall several steps before he kicked off, keeping his left arm close to his side to prevent the droid from striking his rib cage again.
Maul did not think the droid would attack on his first flip away from the wall. He was still in midair when the droid lashed out with violent force. Maul felt his left arm snap as the droid’s swat knocked him clear across the room. Maul crashed into the opposite wall and then everything went dark.
When Maul opened his eyes, he was lying on the sleep mat in his quarters. His upper left arm was heavily bandaged. He pushed himself up carefully. Every part of his body hurt. Moving his right hand over to his left side, he felt that the bandages were wet with blood. And then he noticed a familiar shadow fall across the floor from the doorway.
“Master Sidious is very displeased,” said TD-D9 as it stepped into Maul’s quarters. “Very displeased with both of us.”
Maul noticed the droid was carrying a medkit. He looked away from the droid and faced the wall. “Go away and leave me alone.”
“Your bandages need to be changed.”
“I said go away!”
“But if don’t apply bacta, your wounds won’t heal. They’ll become infected and—”
“You keep your claws off me! I’ll take care of myself!”
The droid chattered a mechanical sigh, then placed the medkit on the floor beside Maul’s sleep mat. But as the droid retreated for the doorway, it paused and said, “There’s something I want to tell you, Maul. I want you to know that I—”
“I don’t care what you have to say,” Maul interrupted. “You’re a liar.”
“That’s right, I lied,” TD-D9 said. “But I didn’t lie to you. I lied to Master Sidious.”
Maul listened.
“When I told Master Sidious that I lied to you, that was a lie. The truth is that I accidentally broke your ribs. But if I had told Master Sidious the truth, he would have destroyed me.”
Maul looked away from the wall and scowled at the droid. “Are you also going to tell me that breaking my arm was an ‘accident’ too?”
“No, Maul. I did that on purpose. It was the only way to immediately end the exercise. I did not want to prolong your pain. I did not want to hurt you. I hit you so hard that I knocked you out because I did not want Master Sidious to hurt you more than that.”
“You broke my arm!”
“I’m sorry for that. But I believe Master Sidious would have done worse.”
Maul thought about this, then said, “What makes you think I won’t tell Master Sidious that you lied to him?”
“If you do, he’ll replace me with another droid. Maybe he’ll replace me with a droid who actually enjoys inflicting pain.” The droid sighed again. “I told you I’m sorry. Your bandages really do need to be changed.”
“I’ll do it myself,” Maul said sullenly. “I don’t want to talk with you anymore.”
The droid walked out through the doorway, leaving the medkit behind. Maul looked at the medkit and wondered if his Master or the droid had done something to the bandages so he would be in even more pain after he put them on.
He faced the wall that was opposite the doorway. He thought of the tapestries that decorated the walls in Sidious’s chamber, and how one tapestry concealed the passage to the training room. He wondered if a secret passage might be hidden behind the wall right in front of him.
Too weak to walk, he crawled over to the wall and pressed his right hand against it. The wall did not yield to his pressure, but as he removed his hand from its surface, he saw he had left traces of blood. He had forgotten that he had touched his wounded side earlier.
He recalled his Master’s words on Tosste: To live without leaving a mark is a terrible thing. To die forgotten is even worse.
Maul reached to his wound again, then extended his index finger and drew a vertical smear of blood directly onto the wall. He then drew another vertical line to the right of the first one and then added two horizontal lines that connected with the vertical lines to form a rectangle. Next Maul concentrated on the area within the rectangle. It took him just over twenty minutes to fill the rectangle with a drawing of what he remembered of Mustafar from his view through the window of his old room. By the time he was done, he felt very tired.
Maul crawled back onto his sleep mat and lay down again, positioning his head so he could look at the drawing he’d made with his own blood. He wished he could leap into the drawing and run away. He was still looking at the drawing as he drifted off to sleep.
When Maul next awoke, he was still in his quarters but dressed in fresh bandages. He realized that TD-D9 must have taken care of him while he was sleeping. He also noticed that all the walls had been cleaned, and that his drawing had been completely erased.
TD-D9 appeared in the doorway. Maul frowned at the droid. TD-D9 said, “Master Sidious instructed me to bring you to him now.”
Maul decided it was best to not mention the drawing. He thought it would hurt for him to get up, but he felt surprisingly better than he had earlier. He suspected the droid had given him medicine while he had slept. Leaving his quarters, he followed the droid out through the training room and up through the passage that led to Sidious’s private chamber. As they walked, Maul said, “Deenine, do you know if Master Sidious intends to kill me?”
“I don’t think so,” TD-D9 replied. “He has invested so much time into your training that I suspect he wants you to stay alive. But I don’t think you should have drawn that picture on the wall.”
Maul’s steps did not falter as he continued following the droid, but his mind was suddenly racing. He wondered what consequence he might suffer because of the drawing. He said, “Did Master Sidious see the drawing?”
“I don’t know. I erased it right after you fell asleep.”
“Then how would he even know about the drawing…unless you told
him?”
“I didn’t have to tell him,” TD-D9 said. “You should know by now, child…Sidious knows everything.”
Before Maul could ask the droid any more questions, they exited the passage. They found Sidious standing beside the hovering watery orb. Maul noticed that the orb had been restocked with living fish. He spotted the two survivors of the previous menagerie lurking at the bottom of the orb. The big gray fish was looking away from Maul, but the smaller one with red and black stripes had one yellow eye fixed on the boy. The striped fish had grown larger since the last time Maul had seen him.
Sidious looked at Maul, then frowned. “Tell me, do you think I’ve been rough on you?”
“No, Master Sidious.”
“You do understand that your training serves a greater purpose?”
“Yes, Master Sidious.”
Sidious smiled. “I suspect that others might question my teaching methods, but I am glad you do not. I can assure you that you are an excellent pupil. Not once did you cry out during your recent exercises. Not once. You are an exceptionally strong boy, and you are becoming stronger every day.”
“Thank you, Master Sidious,” Maul said as he bowed, ignoring the pain of his aching ribs.
Sidious raised his eyebrows. “Now, there is another matter that has come to my attention. Evidently, you are not entirely satisfied with your quarters. You miss the view that you once had of Mustafar. Is this correct?”
Without hesitation, Maul replied, “I was not thinking clearly when I drew a picture on my wall, Master Sidious.”
“You have no wish to return to your former room?”
“No, Master.”
Sidious smiled again. “I didn’t think you would want to go back to that little box. But if you missed the sight of Mustafar, you should have told me. After all, seeing Mustafar is something that can be easily arranged.” Sidious waved a finger at TD-D9.
The droid responded by firing a tranquilizer dart into Maul’s neck. Maul collapsed to the floor. TD-D9 did not attempt to break his fall.
Lives & Adventures Page 32
