CHAPTER 2

An electric hum, a flash of neon green, a sizzling spark. The bolt harmlessly cratered the floor.

A spent and smoking blaster erupted from the shadows to clatter to the tiles at the wary Jedi's feet. Alan, unfazed, didn't glance down--the whole of his attention, every particle of his being, was focused on that dark alcove.

Then a form emerged, deliberately unhurried. It was a Zabrak--a young one; he couldn't have been more than 20 Standard years--tattooed all over with arcane Sith symbols. His pace was slow but sure, menacingly graceful, like the wild nexus of Cholganna.

Alan took this all in within a flick of the eye, but the Sith didn't grant himself a preliminary scan of his opponent. His yellow eyes bored into Alan's green ones, searching for a crack, a weakness, something to exploit.

Scarlet siamese blades flared into being. Maul held them comfortably but firmly, perfectly balanced, at waist level.

Neither man spoke.

In the anticipative stillness of the ravaged chamber, a tensing of the body, a tightening of the grip, were all the words that were needed.

Maul took the offensive, lunging forward and sweeping his saber in a low, vicious arc. When batted away, he returned the favor with a swift riposte that Alan was hard-pressed to block. The Jedi brought his saber down on his opponent's head with astonishing force, driving Maul to his knees. The Sith apprentice strained against the pillar of green, felt his arms give way a fraction of an inch. Quick as lightning, he slid backwards, leaving the Jedi's saber to rend empty air.

A volley of blows hailed his antagonist's next onslaught. Two weapons, green and red, slashed and parried in a surreal danse macabre.The dust-clouded air crackled explosively with rival energies--the Jedi's focused but calm, the Sith's spiked with blood-lust and a hunter's frustration. Booted feet pounded the floor, sending echoes careening down the hallways.

Maul had never felt so gloriously alive. He brought the full force of his emotions to bear on his quarry, savoring every twist and turn of the battle, every graceful and deadly movement flowing seamlessly into the next. This is what he was born to do, lived to do.

Alan sensed an opening and didn't hesitate to take it. He reached out with the Force and slammed his opponent, sending him on a collision course with the far wall. Maul hit it heavily, crashing to the unforgiving flagstone in a crumpled heap. Something snapped.

There is no pain where strength lies! he sternly reminded himself, balling his hands into fists. Tasting coppery blood, he stood and shot a yellow-eyed glare around the room. The Jedi, like the cowards they were, had disappeared. All was still.

But Maul knew he was still here. He could sense his enemy's presence, and allowed himself the smallest of self-satisfied smiles. This Jedi clearly underestimated Maul's sensory abilities. He could use this to his advantage.

The Sith prowled to the center of the room, standing erect. Choking shadows (night had evidently fallen outside, the back of Maul's mind noted) stretched and widened, threatening to smother the bravely burning scarlet bars.

Where are you?

Maul floated between heaps of flotsam, making not a whisper of noise. Water splished lightly as he tread through dirty, stagnant puddles, distorting his reflection.

He halted. No movement, no signs of life, no Jedi.

A twinge in the Force. A warning, too late.

Maul's head tilted...

Up.

And received 200 pounds of full-grown human male in the face.

Alan grabbed the Sith's lightsaber and immediately jumped away. Deactivating it, he coolly snapped it in two across his knee, loosing a furious shriek from the Sith apprentice's lips. The green blade bolted to a resting place an inch above Maul's head.

"Move and I kill you," the Jedi said quietly.

Maul was motionless. Slowly, the blade traveled down the side of his head until it hovered beneath his chin, and Maul winced at the burning heat of it. The Jedi's face was a mask of stone, but Maul realized he's deciding what to do with me.

"Stand," the Jedi commanded.

Maul did just that, confused.

"Now," the Jedi continued, "You will do precisely as commanded. You will walk where I lead you, making no attempts at violence. Is that clear?"

"You think I'll be your prisoner, scum?" Maul snarled, insides curdling with dread.

His captor smiled, gestured to his saber. "I don't have anything better to do with this. Walk."

So Maul did. Out of the dusty chamber, through putrid pools of water, past the forgotten saints and inebriated piles of rubble. He observed the instinctive workings of his brain, assessing every possible mode of escape, with a kind of detached curiosity. Nothing would work. He couldn't fight; no weapon; he couldn't flee; he'd be sawed in two by a thrown saber; he couldn't bargain; obvious reasons.

But, as the pair emerged from the temple and moonlight glinted off the cold metal of the Jedi's ship, these instincts screamed until they could not be pushed away. It was heresy to simply surrender!He was a Sith!

Maul stopped, about ten meters from the ship, acutely aware of the insistent hum at his ear. "I didn't order you to halt," the Jedi said, a clear warning.

Maul ignored him. He wasn't going to allow himself to be led to his fate like a meek house pet. He was going to fight, and if dying on this godforsaken planet was his fate, then so be it.

Maul bent his knees and jumped straight into the air, twisting so that he would face his opponent when he landed. Thinking fast, Alan reached out with the Force to close his ship's gangway with a hydraulic hiss.

"You won't be coming quietly, I presume?" he asked, always infuriatingly calm.

Maul clenched his fists and charged.

The first of the Jedi's strikes missed him entirely, the second caught him on the leg; but Maul barely took notice. His only thought was kill. Kill him!

Alan staggered back under the sheer, desperate power of the attack. His saber was wrenched away. Throttling hands found his throat, there was an immovable weight pinning him down, he couldn't breathe, his vision spiraled away--

But Alan Beltoola'Raf was not one to go quietly, either. Under an unconscious influence, his free hand crept shakily to the front of his tunic.

Maul felt a blaster barrel shove into his abdomen, heard it discharge. For half a second he thought it had misfired, feeling nothing.

Then the pain hit.

A scream rebounded off the distant hills. Maul was dimly aware of his body rolling off his antagonist's, a shadow towering over him, head-splitting, mind-numbing, soul-robbing pain.

And then nothing.