Lives & Adventures

by Ryder Windham

  Over the crashing noise of lightsabers, the destroyer droids’ cannons, and the Naboo guards’ blasters, Maul heard a starfighter’s laser cannon firing across the hangar. He did not need the Force to be peripherally aware that the shots came from one remaining Naboo starfighter, which had just lifted off the deck and was now angling for the destroyer droids. He kept up his assault on the Jedi while the starfighter fired again and again, knocking out the destroyer droids’ shields before shattering them completely. A moment later, the Queen and her group fled through a doorway, and then the Naboo starfighter soared out of the hangar.

  Maul was not worried about the Queen. He would deal with her later. But for the moment, he was busy.

  He kicked Qui-Gon in the chest so hard that he knocked the Jedi off his feet. He flipped away from Obi-Wan, flinging his body through the air to land before a doorway that led to Theed City’s power generator. With one hand gripping his lightsaber, he reached out with the Force and seized a large piece of debris from one of the ruined destroyer droids, then launched it at the door’s opening mechanism. The mechanism exploded in sparks and the door began to slide open.

  Qui-Gon was already up and he rushed toward Maul, but Obi-Wan reached him first. Maul spun his lightsaber, deflecting his opponents’ strikes as he backed through the open doorway. He launched a high kick that connected with Obi-Wan’s jaw. As Obi-Wan fell back and rolled across the floor, Maul backed up, luring Qui-Gon toward the power generator. Obi-Wan got up fast and sprinted to rejoin the fight.

  That’s it. Come to me.

  Qui-Gon swung. Maul parried and swung back fast, clipping Qui-Gon’s blade and then Obi-Wan’s. The double-bladed lightsaber was a blur. Maul backed onto an inspection platform that was suspended high over the generator’s deep shaft, and kicked off, backflipping to one of the many catwalks that spanned different levels in the shaft. Both Jedi leaped after him, and the fight proceeded along the catwalk.

  Maul leered at the Jedi as he edged around a towering acceleration shaft that glowed brightly with plasma used to energize Theed City. With his lightsaber in constant motion, he kicked Obi-Wan straight off the catwalk. Before he could determine whether Obi-Wan had plummeted to his death, Qui-Gon struck and surprised Maul with a backhanded blow to the head that sent Maul over the catwalk’s edge.

  Maul did not cry out. He knew the shaft’s central catwalk lay below him. He kept his lightsaber activated and held its pommel close to his chest as he landed hard on his back on the catwalk. The impact would have broken an ordinary man’s back, but Maul was not by any means ordinary. He did feel pain, but as ever, the pain only fueled his rage.

  He was still lying on his back as he saw Qui-Gon leaping from above. The Jedi landed close to him, and Maul had to move fast to block the Jedi’s blade. Then Maul was up again, moving backward along the central catwalk. In the distance, beyond Qui-Gon’s back, Maul sighted Obi-Wan clinging to the edge of a lower catwalk. Maul realized he didn’t want Obi-Wan to fall, because that would deprive him of the pleasure of killing the young Jedi.

  Maul leered again at Qui-Gon. You think you’re driving me back. You have no idea that I’m in control. You don’t know where I’m taking you.

  The central catwalk terminated at the entrance of a security hallway that led to the generator’s core. The hallway was protected by six consecutive laser doors that opened and locked shut in response to potentially lethal power outputs that occurred intermittently during the generator’s plasma-activation process. As Maul lured Qui-Gon toward the hallway, he saw Obi-Wan leap up onto the central catwalk.

  You’ll both be dead soon.

  Maul sensed the laser doors opening behind him. Qui-Gon was unrelenting in his ongoing attack, but Maul parried every blow. Qui-Gon swung at Maul’s legs, but the blade swept under his feet as Maul jumped backward. Maul continued moving back, leading Qui-Gon into the hallway. They passed the first four security barriers before the doors activated and shut.

  Transparent red curtains of pure energy, the doors would kill any life-form on contact. Maul was suddenly sealed in the passage between the fifth and sixth doors, and Qui-Gon between the fourth and fifth. Gazing past Qui-Gon, Maul saw Obi-Wan trapped between the first and second doors.

  Facing Maul, Qui-Gon deactivated his lightsaber and dropped to one knee. Maul jabbed at the laser door that separated him from the Jedi, and succeeded only in producing a noisy flash. Maul deactivated his own weapon and watched the Jedi warily. He watched Qui-Gon take a deep breath and close his eyes.

  He’s…meditating?!

  Keeping his eyes on the kneeling Jedi, Maul paced back and forth within his confined area of the hallway. He was baffled by the Jedi’s mentality, the urge to meditate at such a moment, the desire to remain calm. The effort was so pointless. Glancing through the doors behind Qui-Gon, Maul saw that the worried-looking Obi-Wan had deactivated his own lightsaber. With his arms extended at his sides, Obi-Wan looked like a hopeless clod. Maul grinned.

  They don’t know the power of the dark side. But they will…when I slay them.

  Minutes passed. And then the laser doors opened.

  Maul and Qui-Gon activated their lightsabers at the same time. Qui-Gon sprang forward, Maul moved backward, and the fight resumed. Behind Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan raced up through the security hallway, but he had to stop fast when the sixth laser door activated, cutting him off from Qui-Gon.

  Warding off Qui-Gon’s attack with each backward step, Maul maneuvered around the circular mouth of the generator’s core, a virtually fathomless pit. Maul sensed Qui-Gon was fighting without hatred, just as he sensed Obi-Wan’s helplessness from behind the transparent laser door. He spun his lightsaber to deflect a rapid series of strikes from Qui-Gon’s blade, then brought his own lightsaber up fast and slammed the side of its pommel against Qui-Gon’s face, stunning the Jedi. And then, with a flick of his wrist, he drove one of his red blades straight through Qui-Gon’s chest.

  “No!”

  The echoing shout came from Obi-Wan, who was still trapped behind the sixth laser door. Maul yanked the lightsaber free from Qui-Gon’s torso and the Jedi collapsed beside the core.

  Turning his back to Qui-Gon, Maul fixed his gaze on Obi-Wan. He deactivated his lightsaber and began pacing before the laser door, watching Obi-Wan as he waited for the door to open. He bared his teeth hungrily.

  You’re next.

  When the door opened, Obi-Wan’s lightsaber was blazing and so was Maul’s. The young Jedi practically flew toward Maul. Their lightsabers smashed into each other. Maul spun and turned, flipping his lightsaber and forcing Obi-Wan to move that much faster with his inferior single-bladed weapon. Maul noticed that Obi-Wan was fighting more offensively than Qui-Gon, but it didn’t matter. The boy would suffer the same fate as—

  Obi-Wan’s lightsaber came up fast and swept through the pommel of Maul’s weapon. One half of Maul’s lightsaber shattered, leaving his left hand clutching what amounted to a still-functional single blade. Before he could react, Obi-Wan kicked him in the chest and he was sent sprawling onto his back near the edge of the core.

  Obi-Wan leaped over Maul and tried to drive his lightsaber through Maul’s prone body, but Maul blocked the strike and flung himself up from the floor. Obi-Wan landed behind Maul, but Maul turned and blocked another series of strikes before he kicked Obi-Wan in the jaw.

  The Jedi moved with the kick, letting it carry him into a backflip. Landing on his feet, he struck back at Maul, driving them both away from the core. Maul flipped to the side and then used the power of the Force to shove Obi-Wan backward. Obi-Wan lost his grip on his lightsaber as he hit the floor. The lightsaber was still bouncing across the floor as he fell into the core.

  Obi-Wan’s lightsaber came to a stop. Maul grinned as he walked toward the weapon and then kicked it into the core. He leaned over the edge of the core to watch the lightsaber fall down the apparently bottomless hole. The lightsaber fell past Obi-Wan, who had managed to grab hold of a nub that jutted out from the cor
e’s upper wall, about two meters below the floor level.

  Maul glared at Obi-Wan. He wondered how long the Jedi could cling to the nub. He knew Obi-Wan’s hands and arms would get tired eventually. Growing impatient, Maul swung his pared-down lightsaber against the metal edge of the core’s upper rim, sending sparks flying out over Obi-Wan’s head. Maul noted that his blade did not damage the metal and realized it was impervious to energy weapons. He wondered if the metal could be crafted into body armor.

  And then he noticed Obi-Wan was not looking up at him. The Jedi was staring at something along the core’s upper wall. Or was he looking at something beyond the wall? Baffled by what the Jedi might be attempting, Maul scrunched his face angrily.

  Obi-Wan flew up out of the core. Maul had forgotten about Qui-Gon Jinn’s lightsaber, which flew up from the floor near the fallen Jedi’s body and landed in the waiting hand of the still-airborne Obi-Wan.

  Maul rapidly transferred his lightsaber from his right hand to his left. Obi-Wan activated Qui-Gon’s lightsaber as he soared overhead and landed behind Maul. Maul spun fast, but not fast enough to stop Obi-Wan from swinging Qui-Gon’s blade through his midsection.

  Maul grunted involuntarily as every nerve in his body went into shock. His vision blurred and he blinked his eyes, trying to regain his focus. He wanted to fight back. He wanted to slay Obi-Wan, but his body would not obey him. Obi-Wan slid out of his range of vision, and then Maul saw the chamber’s ceiling. He realized he was falling backward into the core.

  No.

  And as he fell, the upper half of his body separated from the lower.

  No.

  As his remains tumbled down the generator shaft, he kept his eyes open and fought to remain conscious. But then his head struck the shaft’s wall, and everything went dark.

  No!

  His mind screamed. Despite everything he had learned about death and duty from his Master, Maul knew he was not yet ready to die. Not after so many years of training, and with so much more to accomplish. Not so long as he still had so much hatred within him.

  Obi-Wan ruined me!

  He willed himself to see. A moment later, his vision returned. The shaft’s walls were a disorienting blur. Across the shaft he sighted his own black-clad legs, scissoring lifelessly at the air as they fell. He struggled to right his torso so he could see downward.

  Can’t die!

  He fell past an oval shadow, and then a similar shadow raced by, along with a whooshing sound.

  Air vents.

  Maul hoped that there was at least one more vent below, that it would be large enough to accommodate his diminished body. He extended his arms, and his left hand’s fingertips suddenly burned with friction as they brushed against the cylindrical wall.

  Must live!

  Hoping, wishing, praying for one more air vent…

  Must kill Obi-Wan!

  …he reached out with the Force.

  “Far above…far above…we don’t know where we’ll fall,” muttered the creature as he used a broken bit of blackened bone to scratch a drawing onto the wall of his cavernous dwelling, his bare back warmed by the small fire he’d built. “Far above…what once was great is rendered small.” The drawing consisted of a pair of small silhouettes, a man’s upper body separated from his lower body, each half apparently descending between two vertical lines that indicated a deep chute.

  The creature sighed. “Nowhere to go but down.”

  More than a decade had passed since the skirmish that had become known as the Battle of Naboo. The creature that had once been Darth Maul moved on his spiderlike droid legs through a tunnel on the planet Lotho Minor. He still didn’t know how long he’d been in the tunnel, or how or when he’d arrived on such a dismal world. He still remembered nothing about his life before, when he lived aboveground. All he had left were his anger and his hunger.

  “Falling, falling, falling.” He looked at his other drawings of small figures on the wall. Some figures were being tortured, others killed. Many were fighting with burning sticks. Some sticks were blue. Some were red. The creature liked the red sticks.

  No, not sticks. Sticks are wrong. Something else that cuts and burns like…

  He heard something move in the upper levels, a slithering sound that he recognized as coming from the one who called himself Morley. Morley was a snakelike scavenger who should have kept his distance. Stupid Morley.

  And then he heard footsteps. Someone was walking with Morley.

  Someone very big. On two legs.

  Lowering the bone he’d been using as a drawing stick, he kept to the shadows as he scurried up a wall, careful not to make a sound. Despite his damaged memories, he knew every crevice and foothold in the tunnels.

  As he shifted his metal legs up toward the ceiling, he looked down and saw Morley’s shadowy form slink into the dark chamber. Near Morley, another dark form shifted, a hulking humanoid. A small point of light radiated and moved across the area of the big man’s chest.

  Something glowing, something burns…

  “He’s going to get you!” Morley cried.

  The big man spun around and moved away from Morley. Morley shouted, “He’s going to eat you alive!”

  The creature clinging to the ceiling did not know whether Morley was threatening him or encouraging him to make a feast of the big man. The creature didn’t care. He descended fast and pounced on Morley.

  “No!” Morley screamed. “Not me! Please, not me!”

  The creature squeezed Morley’s writhing body. He liked the sounds of Morley’s screams and desperate gasps for breath, but not as much as he enjoyed the loud snapping of bones as he broke Morley’s spine.

  Now for the big man.

  The creature spotted something glowing in the darkness, recognized it as the point of light he’d seen on the other intruder’s chest. He lurched forward on his metal legs and was about to spring when the man ignited a long red stick.

  Not a stick.

  A red blade made of pure energy. It was familiar.…

  Mine!

  The creature knew he had once owned the weapon, or one very much like it. He glared at the intruder, saw that the point of light against his chest was a small amulet that hung from a chain around his neck. The man’s head was illuminated by the glowing red blade. His strong face was tattooed with jagged patterns, and horns extended from his skull.

  A reflection?!

  For unknown reasons, the creature thought of a boy floating outside a window.

  Me? No! Not me!

  Confused and outraged, the creature shrieked and launched himself at the intruder, slamming him against the wall. He grabbed for the weapon’s handle but the intruder knocked him back. His six metal legs clattered as he tumbled across the floor, but he rolled up onto his tapered feet and lashed out again, punching and kicking. His fingers struck armor and powerful muscles. He barely noticed that the intruder was only trying to ward him off with the red blade, not strike him down.

  He pried at the central grip, trying to yank the weapon from the intruder’s grasp. He did not assume that the weapon housed separate components for each blade, his shattered mind not even comprehending the incredible technology. He just knew that it was familiar and deadly, and that he wanted it.

  The weapon snapped in two, leaving the intruder holding one red blade and the creature with the other. And then they were fighting, the two blades clashing in the darkness. Their fight carried them through the cave, but then the intruder grunted and fell back.

  “You, Darth Maul,” the intruder said, “are who I’ve been searching for.”

  Darth Maul?

  “I thought you were dead. You are my kin.”

  Memories flickered in the creature’s mind…in Maul’s mind. He growled. “No!”

  “We are brothers.”

  Maul shook his head. “You don’t know,” Maul snapped. “You don’t know anything!”

  The intruder placed his hand over his chest. “I know I am your blood.”
>
  Maul glared at the intruder. I don’t know you! He tried to read the stranger’s expression. Sorry for me? Disgusted? Maul’s blood began to boil. The stranger was nothing to him, not even a threat. Sneering, he cast aside the weapon and retreated into the cave.

  He clambered over junk and shoved aside rotting carcasses, making his way back to the fire he’d built. It was still burning. He crouched on the filthy floor, stared at the drawings on the walls, and began chanting, “Never never never never never…”

  The hulking stranger followed Maul to the fire. Looking around, the stranger said with dismay, “This is where you live?”

  Without looking at the stranger, Maul nodded in response. He picked up a nearby bone and began gnawing on it.

  The stranger noticed the weird and violent drawings that decorated the walls. “How long have you lived here?”

  Maul nipped at the bone, his eyes rolling back and forth madly as he replied, “Years and years and years and years.”

  “You are a powerful Sith,” the stranger said solemnly. “The whole galaxy shook before your power. Do you remember?”

  The whole galaxy?! Maul leered. “Always remember, always remember.”

  The stranger eyed the robotic apparatus beneath Maul’s rib cage and said, “Your legs?”

  “That scum took it,” Maul said.

  The stranger seemed pleased by Maul’s answer. “The Jedi…you remember.” Taking a cautious step toward Maul, the stranger said, “I’ve brought a gift for you.”

  “For me?” Maul said with disbelief. “Food?”

  “No. Something to regain your memory.” He removed the glowing talisman from his neck and handed it to Maul.

  Maul clutched at the talisman. Rocking back and forth on his robot legs, he began chanting.

  The stranger leaned closer to Maul. “Brother, what are you saying?”

  But Maul wasn’t listening. His focus was on the talisman, which glowed increasingly brighter in his hand. And then his mind was flooded by fragmented memories.