Back to Power - Chapter 1

He woke up suddenly - then groaned and shut his eyes for the stabbing pain in his middle. He slowly reached a hand to touch the area where he was wounded.

A perfectly round hole in his middle, going through and bleeding sluggishly. What had happened? He wondered as he traced the wound in his chest.

He struck the Jedi Master down with his saberstaff and phased again in front of the gates that separated him from his intended target.

They opened and the Jedi flew from in and viciously tried to cut him down. They spun and danced in the deadly mach. Suddenly the boy jumped over his head and Maul force pushed him into the shaft.

The boy took a hold of the riff in the shaft and hang there.. Play, So he played with the boy and made himself ready for the success of the kill. Next step would be the queen. He felt the desperation in the boy and to mock him, kicked his lightsaber down to the shaft as well.

The boy saw it go down and despair was heavy in him. Then suddenly the force rose in the boy, like a beacon of blinding light and the boy jumped suddenly over him and rammed the light saber that he had called from the fallen one into his hand and stabbed vigorously trough his chest.

He saw himself fall with his saberstaff and then.. Darkness.

But he had not died. He lay in the shaft in a pile of trashes and tried to access to the Force. He needed the Force so that he could heal himself even a little. He had been injured before - but had not had the time to fix himself up.

His ship had the necessary equipment to treat even serious injuries. But no healer there to use it. He could patch himself up in there for now without the assistance of the medical droid that was in there. Now the only question was, how could he get there. He slowly tried to stand up, but the pain in his chest flared so strongly that he had to hold a desperate scream back in his throat.

Slowly he got to his knees and accessed the force again, he drew more and more upon it so that it would numb the pain and allow him to finally get to his feet so that he wouldn´t have to crawl to his ship.

Finally when the pain was numbed to a level he could stand to walk in, he called his light staff into his hand and placed it to it´s place on his belt. Then he started the hard walk to his ship using walls to support himself.

On the way he mentally assessed the wounds in his body. His two hearts were fine, but the blood vessels around had suffered some damage, his lung had a burn in it and his ribcage was damaged. Those were the injuries from his most recent fight.

There was a gash on his side from the previous fight with the Jedi he had killed. Also there was a blaster wound on his shoulder from an earlier encounter with a bounty hunter. That bounty hunter hand´t known what had hit him, but eventually he had killed him - on his master's orders.

He trekked slowly towards his ship, he was on the hangar and slowly used the force to open the ship door so that he could climb in. His assassin droid was there, waiting loyally like always - it's orders were the standard ones - Kill any and everyone that tried to access the ship without him.

"How can I serve - Lord Maul?" THe droid said. It's optical ship had recognized him.

"Alert the medical droids and close the ship and take it out of here."

"Yes, master"

As he laid on the sickbed - the droid tending to him, a sudden thought hit him - Everyone thought him dead.

It would be beneficial to wait everything out. Wait until the Jedis and Siths finished each other.. Then he would become the Master Sith and could take his own apprentice. Then he would be on the top. But there was the rule of two, which would mean that eventually his apprentice would kill him. Maybe - if his apprentice was better than him. But if not - He could kill the apprentice.

Now there was just too much competition and if he returned to his master (Former Master) Lord Sidious would not hesitate to kill him. He had failed. For the first time in his life he had failed a mission. Every other mission was successful and been done with care.

The siths left were few - because of the two only rule. There was Sidious, Tyrannus and then General Grievous. Although the last was not a sith - not really. He was just humanoid robot - uncabable to even feel the force, much less to use it. Even though they had used Sifo-Dyas's blood in transfusion - and that blood was full of midichlorians. But somehow Grievous was incapable of feeling the force.

There had been a few dark Jedi around - like Xanatos. But then again - they were all dead. Killed by him and Sidious to ensure that no competition was possible. Also the Jedi had taken care few of them.

"Sir - I recommend that you go into bacta tank." The medical droid said to him. He only nodded and stopped painfully of his robes and uniform. Letting them fall to the floor. Then placed the breathing mask onto his face and went to the bacta tank. The bacta slowly filled the tank and his nose hated the smell of it. It left this sweet taste and smell to linger into your nose and mouth and you could´t get rid of it. No matter what.

Finally he was fully immersed and opted to go into a healing trance. The force and bacta would heal him enough so that he could fly the ship himself in a week.

A week later

His eyes snapped open in the bacta. The medical droid lifted him out of the tank and he slowly sank to the medical bed that laid there as the droid prodded his injuries that were mostly healed so that he could function in some level.

The droid applied bacta patches to the wounds and then gave him a painkiller so that he could fly the magnificent ship himself. The assassination droid really wasn´t made for flying the ship, although it could. He had made the droid himself, using the mechanical skill that was natural to him and the dark side of the force.

His speeder bike Bloodfin was still in the hangar of his ship. The ship itself wasn´t too big, but big enough that it could be conveniently used over longer distances. It had three sleeping chambers, three cleaning units, a medical unit and a droid, A small kitchenette, a living space/conference room and hangar which housed the bike and other supplies. Scimitar was a very very useful ship - modeled from a star Courier it was spacious (up to 6 passengers) and the most important feature of it was it's cloaking device.

A stealth ship - heavy on the force. Sometimes Maul thought the ship had a mind of it´s own. Sometimes he used to talk to it. Talking about his missions and like he - the ship seemed to love the tales of bloodshed and stealthy assassinations. It practically purred.

He was at the cockpit - ready to fly again. Now he needed to find a place to go. He had a small mansion in Mustafar, but his former master knew of it´s location, and Maul couldn´t compromise his freedom and ability live.

He knew that he needed a lot of healing done. He needed a healer to heal him. But where could he find a healer.. Then he thought about it - the Jedi temple was full of healers. But Coruscant would be forbidden for him for a long time - as that was where his former master ruled and knew everything that happened. No - He could´t risk it.

Bandomeer was a possibility, as was Tatooine. But the again Alderaan was a possibility and Hoth had some medical faculties left. He was sure. But were there any medics to patch him up? Hoth was an ice planet. In there it snowed almost constantly and once in time it had been a very important planet. But not anymore.

He also needed to make his tattoos again.. And to do that he needed the pincers and someone who could use them. Those tattoos were very important. Many Jedi were fool when they didn´t tattoo themselves. But to do that he needed someone who was at least force sensitive.

These force tattoos gave him strength, agility and more importantly more focus and connection to the force. If the sequence was corrupted it hindered. Not much but it still did. Also the tattoos gave him better ability heal.

His race was naturally good at withstanding pain and injury and was good in healing. They healed fast. Maul, because of his connection to the force healed even faster and without the tattoos he could heal small wounds 2 to 3 times faster than average human. Also his race was hard to kill. As they had two hearts and their skin was tuff, also in their blood was something that neutralized poisons and most medical stuff.. Force inhibitors were´t a problem to their blood.

He flew manual for a while - while thinking about where to go. There were so many possibilities.

AN: I think that Maul should have survived really. If you have read the Maul comics then you know that years before he could fight that well (Black Sun). So I think that he should have beaten the hell out of both - Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon.

Also the fact stands that he really was a master of the arts that to many were lost. He was trained by Darth Sidious in Juyo, Form VII . Also he had training in Niman lightsaber combat and the Jar'Kai dual-saber technique as well as mastery of the fighting style of Teräs Käsi. Besides as seen in the comics - Maul combined his swordsmanship with martial arts and hand-to-hand combat skills - and whenever Maul encountered a foe he could not best though his martial prowess, he would fall back on his tactical know-how, outmaneuvering such enemies.

Also he was good in Telekinesis, utilizing Force Grip and Force Choke, Force push and Force lightning. Also he was talented in combining Force talents with mechanics. He had constructed Bloodfin himself and the dark eye seeker droids as well using the force mechanical skill Mechu-deru, Maul modified the protocol droid C-3PX into an assassin droid to guard his ship.

Also Maul had mastered the use of Sith lanvarok.

So here you go, there´s my excuse why Maul survived. Although he didn´t kick those two´s asses his time will come :D