Chapter 9
The young man who would one day be called Darth Maul looked out over a landscape of black mountains. This was his home. His kinsmen had evolved here. It had taken his master sixteen years to allow him to set foot on Iridonia, and as he did the ground in front of him fell apart. Canine creatures with horns curving over their backs like shells, in body shaped not unlike the tuk'ata of Korriban, stood up. They had been camouflaged by the ground around the ship; their long horns connected like puzzle pieces so that when the pack lay down, it was with a bone floor over their bodies and heads. Darth Sidious stood behind his apprentice on the ramp of the small starship. At sixteen standard years of age Maul's skin was still its natural bright red. His eyes burned orange, but without most of the intensity and draw they would later gain. When his teacher placed his gnarled hand on his back and pushed, the Zabrak stumbled down the ramp.
The creatures on the ground—merks—charged as Maul's booted feet touched the ground. He jumped and somersaulted over the pack of merks which had moments before looked like a cobbled floor. It gave him a few more of their movements to watch.
When they came closer, nostrils expanding to pull the newcomer's scent and warmth out of the chill air, Maul used the Force for attack. With close-handed gestures he flung the creatures away, against the rocks, the ground, or the hot exhaust of the rising starship. Some to either side of him stood their ground. One charged, fangs agape; Maul pivoted and kicked it under the jaw so hard that the horns behind its neck splintered. He turned and backfisted another, then stepped away as the animals surged forward. Again he Force-pushed.
The merks flew back. Many of their bodies hit the sharp rocks; the others fled, silent but for their footsteps.
Maul turned away from the landing side and ascended the jumbled hill of rocks behind him, and came to a path. He walked along it. He could have been any young Zabrak wearing a black flightsuit and heavy gloves, with an alert or quizzical expression. The sun set in a pool of yellow on the jagged horizon.
Darth Maul was like this planet. Many times had he been reforged in fire: every obsidian edge sharpened, the emotions—the lives—that remained used for survival. He was a colony too, an outpost of the dark side, left over from that chaotic accretion disk, the armies of the Sith, thousands of years ago.
But as he walked he critiqued himself, and found himself critiquing his master. He had dreams, Darth Maul did—to be a Sith Lord, to build a lightsaber perfect for himself, to spill Jedi blood on the floor of their temple. And Darth Sidious had not even given his apprentice a Sith name yet. He knew that most beings were born with names, but he as a Sith had to deserve and earn one. He was growing impatient.
A nearby presence spiked into the Force. Jedi! Maul clamped down on his own Force presence, hiding it, although inside he was raging and anticipating. He climbed the black, rocky ground to his right and crouched behind a spire of volcanic rock. Jedi! Darth Sidious had set Maul the task of remaining on Iridonia until he was picked up again, but the apprentice was used to twists to his missions. It would be easy to survive on this planet; it was inhabited. Perhaps the Jedi were a test, an added bonus!
They walked into view below. The two male humans wearing brown cloaks talked calmly to one another. One was bearded, the other clean-shaven and wearing a Padawan braid in his hair.
The older one was saying, "Don't worry, Obi-Wan. Watchman Leemic Bindo doesn't carry a commlink, but we will find her."
So they were here to pick up a child. Then their heads turned as a third presence made itself known, as if the Jedi Watchman were crying out. Obi-Wan and his master began to jump off the path and through the field of rocks, away from Maul's hiding place.
The pair inspired foreign feelings in the Sith. Even this Jedi Master seemed more dedicated to his Padawan than Darth Sidious was to his apprentice. The Jedi reassured instead of abandoned. Could that be a sign that Sidious was not as loyal to Maul as he should be? What other comparison did the Zabrak have?
Maul was unarmed and young—and easily forgot those things as his enemies turned their backs to him. He started after them, banishing his traitorous thoughts for more familiar ones of determination and anger. He could not, though, shake the question that had arisen outside his hatred of the Jedi. They had nearly destroyed the Sith-- therefore Maul had sworn revenge. But what if his hated enemy were more loyal to their own than Sidious was to him? What did that mean about which was the more worthwhile faction?
Nevertheless, these particular Jedi were in his sights as targets.
The next rock he placed his foot on moved, but not as if his step had caused it to slide down the hillside. It rose up, revealing the pebble-strewn head of a merk. Maul stepped off of it and down the slope. To his right, though, farther out of the sight of the Jedi, he saw a foreboding smoothly paved-looking surface; a pack of the hunkered down, camouflaged merks.
The SIth and the predators met each other's eyes.
With the Force Maul tore rocks from the ground and threw them at the merks. He aimed for their white eyes and heard some satisfying yelps. He moved twice as fast as the two-footed prey they were used to. As they ran forward he jumped over them, but this pack was wide; he landed on more flat horns. They tipped, revealing snapping teeth and claws that ripped into his boots. He lost balance for a moment and spread his arms. Another one of the creatures rammed against his back. He fell forward, cutting his gloved hand open on a sharp rock but succeeding in throwing the merk over his head onto a group of its pack-mates. Maul felt himself floundering in the creatures now. He tried to Force-jump away, but was seized around the wrist by a mouth full of fangs which cut into his wrist—he kicked the creature, and a bluish stain blossomed inside its chest. It went limp. He disengaged his wrist and hand from its teeth while gesturing with the other arm, a sweeping motion that cleared the area behind him of merks. He stepped into the empty area, breathing hard.
There were so many of the creatures in this area that he sensed the ground as alive. This was a nest of them; he had probably been set down near it purposefully. He did not lament. He channeled his rage to keep himself alive. Nor would he run; that would not satisfy the bloodlust he felt. Another merk charged him. He lifted it with the Force, and slammed it into two more creatures with enough force to kill the three of them; he could see that some had hunkered down again, unwilling to face him. However, more were slinking around behind him. As soon as he concentrated to move the group of them with the Force, another approached from another side. His skin chafed on the merk's scales as he flipped one over with his hands and punched its fragile underbelly; again internal bleeding spread a purple haze across its gray skin. He flung some of them behind him away. The way looked clear. More were retreating than circling now.
Then he sensed their minds shift. In what little intelligence they had, all of it focused toward the hunt and the dynamics of the pack, excitement blared. The alpha male was coming.
Maul franticly looked around for another wave of merks. The ones around him, though, stayed still. They did not hunker down, but stood and watched him with their calm, white eyes. He stared back.
He continued to glare unblinkingly as the spire he had hid behind just moments before shuddered and shook, spraying rock which had accumulated around it into the sky. Maul stepped back. The entire small mountain shivered too, and then in a gigantic upheaval revealed its true identity. A fleshy merk stood there, a barely recognizable one at least three times as tall as the Zabrak. Its dark gray skin was inset with rocks and boulder-sized scales. Its horns had grown tall and fused, leaving it with an unprotected back, but with a solid, fifteen-meter long spire on its head.
It looked down at Darth Maul.
He thought about tearing the mountain from beneath it, about stabbing its viewport-sized eye with the Force, and about gracefully retreating—
Then he sensed the incoming ship. He moved fluidly into a martial arts stance and glared even more fiercely at the alpha merk. He ingratiated himself into its primitive thoughts—its admirable rage at the invasion of its pack's territory, its sluggishness offsetting hunger—and attempted to calm them. It was like batting at a rancor with a fly swatter, but for the essential moments, it worked. Maul almost felt the thoughts of the animal as his own.
He did not choose to feel the turbolaser bolts as they speared through the merk's side. He came completely back to himself in time to see Sidious' ship curve around the alpha merk's pillarous legs and land precariously on the hillside. The smaller merks growled and hissed.
Fast enough that Maul could not be sure how he had gotten there Darth Sidious was out of the ship, his elegant, blood-red lightsaber live in his hands. The elderly human—the Sith Lord—stood in the shadow of the alpha merk. It barely noticed him, and lifted a thick leg to move toward Maul. But Sidious lifted the lightsaber over his head. Although the underside of the monster's neck was meters above him, he waved the laser sword in a slashing motion.
Purple blood dripped around Sidious as the creature's neck began to tear.
Maul turned away from the stench and the ground-shaking thud when the merk fell. He and Sidious were left standing on a paved square of merks hidden under their carapaces, with the shape of the land forever altered and the corpse beside them releasing clouds of steam into the cold air.
Maul walked over to his master and went down on one knee, head bowed. He had seen the wide smile on Sidious' face, and it frightened him slightly. He did not often see Sidious in action like this—nor feel his Force presence as volatile coils of disapproval, violence, and satisfaction. Maul knew that he had failed.
Sidious looked at Maul and said nothing. Then he quickly hit the Zabrak across the face with the hand that held the lightsaber. Pain flared across Maul's cheek, dangerously close to his eye. He did not flinch or otherwise respond.
"Come," Sidious spoke in his quiet, croaking voice.
Maul followed him onto the ship. They did not speak for some time, and Maul was sure that the silence was supposed to be one in which he felt shame at having to be rescued.
He had lost the fight, lost track of the Jedi—he was ashamed indeed, and would be more so in the future. But the unsettling question was answered.
His master did watch over him.
--/--
Here is a timeline for the reader's benefit and mine which places the chapters of this fanfic in context with each other and with published material. All canon info is from Wookieepedia.
54 BBY-Darth Maul's birth
Chapter 12
Chapter 5
Chapter 10
Chapter 9
The Tattooing (Chapter 13)
Chapter 7
Chapter 1
Chapter 2; Maul is given his name.
Chapter 3
Chapter 14
Black Sun mission (Darth Maul; comic book), chapter 6 and chapter 4
Lommite Limited mission (Saboteur; e-book)
Maul vs. Lorn Pavan, Darsha Assant and I-5 (Shadowhunter; novel)
Chapter 8
32BBY-Battle at Naboo (The Phantom Menace) (Chapter 11)
