I know. I KNOW! It's been, like, a YEAR?- TWO? Or something along those lines. I am very sorry for it, but I literally lost inspiration for this and gained it for almost everything else. I got a boyfriend (Berto, lawl), started college, am heavily into college and trying to become a nurse, and you know... just the regular "some real crap went down this year" for the past few years. But here I am, trying to redeem myself. I have gained it back and even though I won't be able to get chapters out like I was able to in the past, I will try my hardest to make sure it isn't a freakin' year before I update.
OH! And not to mention the fact I revised it, again. Found out some things about some species and sh*t. Yeah... so I didn't want to look like an uber noob.
I hope you enjoy.
~MN
(I do not own anything from Star Wars.)
Chapter 13: The Line Begins to Blur
"This is quite a ship," Farkas observed as he walked around the passenger seating area within Scimitar.
"I know," Maul replied to Farkas's statement with his typical indifference towards anything.
It had been about five days since Maul, Farkas, and Brann had left Coruscant to go to Alderaan.
The days carried out longer than they normally would for the bothan and the noghri, since they really didn't have anything to do but to play stop-motion chess. Thankfully, there was a washroom available to them.
Farkas didn't understand why it was taking this long to get to Alderaan. With the ship that they were currently in, he figured that it would have gotten them there in less than a day.
It was true that Maul's infiltrator would have gotten there in less time than that, using light speed, but he was given a set date and time by Lord Sidious. He of course did not tell either of the other men that, because of why they left so early in the first place.
Maul didn't fully elaborate on what he was sent there to do. In his opinion, the other two were on a need to know basis. It is easy to assume that Maul would have been able to assassinate Bail Organa on his own, but he was only supposed to kill the senator and no one else.
For this, he needed to be sure that there was enough distraction for him to kill the senator and then to manipulate the scene to make it look like it was the rebellious act of one of the senator's guards.
"We will be landing on Alderaan shortly," Maul announced, as Brann walked up behind Farkas, after having gotten to the upper deck's seating area from the lift.
Brann stood there, looking uninterested as he seemed to always remain.
"You want us to distract security, Lord Maul?" Farkas asked, without showing the concern that he had.
"Yes," Maul answered the bothan. "Take off anything that looks imperial."
Farkas nodded and took off his body armor, leaving only his red undershirt, his metal waist covering, and his black pants. He went and threw it on one of the passenger chairs seated behind the cockpit.
Brann took off his armor as well, which left his dark-blue, skin tight undershirt and a pair of black skin tight pants with the same metal waist coverings that Farkas had.
He didn't like that he was being used as a diversion so that Maul could do his deed. Of course, he would not oppose him, for he didn't want to deal with an irritated Sith Lord.
The ship landed on a hill that rested on a cliff, which overlooked the city. It consisted of patches of white buildings that were lit up in the night.
There was also a group of snow-covered mountains that sat behind the city, from what Maul could see.
As the hanger released the ramp, Maul walked down onto the rocky-ground. He wasn't distracted by this new planet as he released his dark eye droids and sent them out to scout the surrounding area.
Farkas and Brann, on the other hand, made sure to take in the new setting.
"I've been so used to living on a planet that is completely overcome by buildings, that I have let myself forget about what a natural surrounding looks like," Farkas thought out loud, smelling the air.
"Honoghr used to look something like this," Brann said quietly in a whispered tone, standing behind the tall Bothan.
"I don't remember what Bathawui looks like," Farkas commented with lack of nostalgia for his home world.
Maul had been ignoring the two other men while analyzing Alderaan's capital city, Aldera, through his electro-binoculars, and put them down after he found the Royal Palace. He thought about what he would do to get inside.
In his head, he could see the other two making their way into the main entrance of the senator's home, which would grab the attention of the senator's guards. He would leave it up to the two of them to find means of distraction.
Two of his droids floated back immediately with intelligence that included the fact that there were no visible guards in the surrounding area as well as around Organa's home. The last droid came back with information on where Bail Organa's sleeping quarters were located. He sent them back into the ship.
"Follow me," Maul directed to the others as he began walking down the hill.
"Lord Maul, are you going to just leave the ship-" Farkas began, before Maul interrupted.
"I want both of you to gain entry into that building-" Maul ordered, while pointing to the palace. "Make sure that you take your time and that you do not bring any suspicion of the fact that any persons, other than yourselves, are here. Take out the guards, if you must. Take this-"
Maul threw a small box to Farkas. Both the bothan and the noghri took a look at it and noticed that it looked similar to a speaker.
"Commander, with this I will be listening to everything that is going on where you are situated. When it vibrates, return to the ship immediately," Maul continued to instruct the two of them. "Do not board the ship without me."
Both Farkas and Brann had a change in face, as if they were about to ask him 'why'.
"First- you wouldn't be able to find it. Its stealth qualities make it hard to do so. Second- Scimitar has a safety mechanism that will sound if anyone other than me enters. My droid, HK-48 will shoot to kill anyone who tries to enter without me."
Maul turned to look at the two baffled men, who both turned back to look at his infiltrator. He then placed a small headphone in his right ear.
"Let's go."
All three of them made it into the city with little effort. Farkas was concerned by this. A major influence against the Emperor, whose life was threatened even on his home planet, should have more security and people patrolling the outer edges of the city.
Brann seemed to have caught a scent that really grabbed his attention. He took whiffs of the air and with each whiff, a look of concern deepened on his gray face.
Maul held out a hand that signaled for his companions to stop.
They were about nine meters away from Organa's house, which was more like a senatorial building, similar to the one back on Coruscant.
"Go to the entrance," Maul said as he began to walk off in another direction. "Nothing suspicious until the time is right…"
As Farkas turned back around, wanting to ask Maul a question that seemed to be troubling him, he saw that the Sith had already gone.
"Brann," Farkas began, "Don't you think that it is odd that there was no security at the entrance to the city and that there doesn't seem to be any throughout?"
"I've been wondering about that myself," Brann agreed in a whisper, still concentrating on the familiar scent. "Do you think that Lord Maul has thought about this?"
"I am certain that he has," Farkas answered back, not wanting to say anything that would irk Maul.
He had not forgotten about the transmitter. Maul could hear every single word that the two were speaking. He placed the box in one of his pants pockets.
"We should be going now- let's hurry this up."
Maul climbed up the back side of the senator's house and jumped up and grabbed the edges of every window that led to his destination.
He could sense that everything was going ok for the Bothan and the Noghri, but their words did trouble him some.
There is a lack of security…
Certainly a man like Organa would have a heavier defense against a sneak attack than this.
He continued to climb effortlessly, now up to the fifth story. Even with his thick coal-colored robe and his heavy soled boots, it was an easy task. He seemed to know how to climb and jump onto things naturally, like a monkey knows how to swing from branch to branch in a tree.
Finally, he spotted a large terrace just one floor above him that was three times as large as the one in his room back on Coruscant.
He threw himself over the balcony's cemented edge, and landed lightly and quietly on the floor.
He crouched and looked around, in order to get a feel for his surroundings and to sense the unfamiliar silent area that he was about to enter.
Maul straightened himself up and walked towards a rather dense and complicated security screen. He sensed that there was more to this door than appearances allowed.
Indeed, he saw a security lock that was voice activated. He would not be able to open it since he lacked a recording of the senator speaking (let alone the word or phrase that needed to be said).
Too simple.
Maul reached into his robe and pulled out a gun with a square-shaped barrel and a small panel of control functions. He pointed it at the screen and pulled the trigger. Out came a beam of green light, in the form of the barrel's shape.
He then typed in functions and the laser seemed to grow larger in area. As the area of the square, outlined with the green laser, grew larger, the screen itself seemed to spread apart.
Maul called this his energy disrupter gun, which separated the particles of any energy field, like this one, to make it momentarily inactive within the area- of course, that was how the term "disrupted" came about.
He then took out four stabilizers, which he could put at each corner of the opened area itself so that he could walk through without having to worry about it closing on its own. He made sure that this would be the way for him to get out as well as go in.
He put the disrupter gun away in his robe and climbed through.
The room that he climbed into was a tremendous living room, with large ornate pieces of dark-brown furniture that decorated the area, giving it a charming look. One could certainly make out that someone who was wealthy, and most likely important, lived in this section of the building.
Maul looked around, sensing any life forms that were currently in this section, or on this floor. He could feel the presence of two. They weren't very distinguishable, but there was definitely no less and no more than two.
He noticed that there was an entrance into the living room that opened up to a dimly lighted hallway. There were no other exit ways from the room that he was in, so he walked forward towards the hallway.
He could tell that both of the two people that were on this floor were sleeping, for there was no movement that was present to him.
His head turned to the left and to the right as he began making observations of the surrounding area, which was a vast oval shaped standing room that led to three other areas. The two to his right must have been bedrooms while the one straight ahead of where he stood was open, and appeared to have furniture best suited for an office. All the way to the left was a turbolift.
Maul reached into his robe once again and pulled out a blaster. He had never really used a blaster to assassinate someone on a job like this, but he figured that it would be pretty dumb to use his lightsaber because of the extreme difference in wounds that they each made.
The first door on his right must have held a sleeping youngling, because its life force was miniscule.
Just as he was about to approach the large doorway, across the room from the turbolift, of what must have been where his prey currently rested, something that he heard in his left ear stopped him in his tracks.
There seemed to be a lot of commotion going on where Farkas and Brann were. The voice of a man who must have been a royal guard caused a pause in the assassin's plan.
Not here… he's not here…
The only other person that was on that floor must have been the senator's wife. Just to make sure that he was not mistaken, he went down to the last door, in which the last person was.
He could feel the presence of one individual and the smell of a female held strong in his nose.
Maul practically growled out of his silence and almost crushed the blaster with his bare hand. Somehow, he had been deceived.
Master said that he would be here. How in the Hell is he not here?
Maul knew that this was no time to ponder on such thoughts. He activated the speaker on Farkas's end to signal retreat as he himself prepared to leave.
He was just about to walk back into the living room when he heard the light whimpering of what sounded like a baby.
Before he had the chance to ignore the sound and be on his way, he felt something that caught his attention.
He walked back to the room where the baby was sleeping and drew closer to the door, with the want to open it. He did not understand why, but there was something stirring up his senses, and it was in this room.
He resisted the urge to place his hand on the screen to open the door, but then he let curiosity get the best of him.
His leather-covered hand pushed itself on the screen, and the door shot open, with only the quick sound of forced air escaping from it.
The room was dark, cool, and filled with feminine white pieces of furniture, including a rocking chair in a corner next to the window and a small crib that was centered in the middle of the room.
Maul allowed himself into the room as he sensed a disturbance in the Force. He knew exactly where this disturbance was but could not believe it.
He walked over to the crib and stared down at the sleeping baby. The baby was resting on its back with its arms spread out to either side.
A small pink blanket covered the bottom half of the baby's body, to keep warm in the cool room.
This infant wills the Force, Maul thought to himself in an interested fashion.
He put his right hand over the baby to feel the Force surrounding it.
He shut his eyes and the soft embrace of the infantile Force, neither light nor dark, numbed his fingers. It amazed him, how strong the Force was within this little person.
In an instant, he could feel something small grab a hold of his index finger. He broke out of his momentary trance and cocked an eyebrow down at the little hand that had wrapped itself around his finger.
The baby opened her eyes and made a soft gurgle up at Maul.
He didn't know what to do- he couldn't kill it. That's not what he was there to do. If he had killed it, it would be an addition to what had gone wrong with the plan…
The baby then reached for another finger, making gurgling and cooing sounds.
Maul became annoyed and pulled his hand away from the baby, which in turn caused her to make the same light whimpering that he had heard just a little while ago.
He turned his head quickly to the door and saw that he hadn't closed it. The woman down the hall could wake up from the baby's sounds.
He then put his face down into the crib right over the baby's face, glaring his yellow eyes at her small brown ones.
"Shut up," he whispered and pulled his hand over her face. He used means of persuasion to make the baby tired.
The baby made a tiny fuss with faint, incomprehensible murmuring sounds and then made a big yawn.
Maul watched as the baby went right back to sleep and her arms stretched out to where he found them before she woke up.
Maul froze and felt another disturbance in the Force. This time, it was not another Force-wielder, but a terrible omen. He could sense that he had been completely wronged… but he didn't understand why or how… until he came to a realization.
He could sense that a group of people were coming up to that level.
His head turned violently around and he dashed out of the room, slamming his hand on the screen to shut the door.
Just as he turned away from the screen, a cold breeze seemed to hit his core and made him look up in utter disbelief.
A dark figure lunged at him with a blue lightsaber, almost causing him to lose balance on his feet.
The Sith powered his own saber up just in time and blocked the attack, which would have left him headless.
He growled as he pushed the figure away from him, shoving against the blue lightsaber with his own.
Maul could sense the darkness of the Force that this person wielded.
He had no time to think on it as his would-be assassin came again for another attack.
The mysterious man jumped over Maul, hoping to get a good fatal stab from behind.
It was a good thing, for Maul himself, that he was experienced in the art of battle.
As the assailant landed on his two feet in preparation for the attack, Maul threw him back with the Force. The assassin fell backward and rolled violently until he was thrown against the Queen's bedroom door.
The baby in the closed off room began to cry loudly, as it had been woken from its forced slumber.
The woman that was sleeping in the room, where Maul's attacker was currently slumped in front of, woke up in a panic.
It was Maul's turn to attack, and he did it with an extreme want to rid himself of this new annoyance.
He ran fast towards this menacing character, while spinning the blood-red saber at his side, preparing to slaughter him. He was hot with fury and didn't think twice about what he was doing.
The assassin must have been experienced as well, for he leaped to his feet and blocked Maul's hit which prevented the Sith from splitting his head in half. The two moved themselves while shoving one another with their sabers.
Suddenly, the door which was now to Maul's right and the other person's left shot open, and a woman with a small, round face and long black hair stared in horror at the two men, and more pressingly, at the two weapons which lit the darkness of her hallway.
Maul quickly turned his head and saw the blue and red light displayed in her brown-colored eyes, just before his attacker took that instant to momentarily ignore the Sith and to set his attention on Organa's wife.
The blue lightsaber had released the tension from the crimson one and hacked in the direction of the woman's neck, which caused her to scream for her life.
But Maul wouldn't have that. He lit up the second end of his saber and maneuvered it a few inches away from the woman's face, just in time to save her life.
She cowered at the near-death experience that she had just had, and despite the overwhelming fear that had instilled within her, she inched past her savior and her attacker, and stumbled down the hall to make it to the room where her stressed baby was whimpering.
Maul listened to the crying that echoed off of the oval hall's walls as the two sabers grinded against one another, which displayed the soundless fury that resounded within the two men. Sparks of red and blue bounced off of the walls and danced all over the carpeted floor.
Maul tried to make out the other man's face through the glows from both of their sabers and the sparks, but the man had a bounty hunter mask on.
The assassin then took this time to quickly grab into his own robes. He pulled out a small object and Maul felt a slight burst of air hit his face.
Maul did not hesitate before using the Force as well as his own strength to throw the enemy into the wall. His back slammed right outside of the room that Organa should have been sleeping in.
The mysterious man hissed and snapped down his teeth at the red and black man that overpowered him with ease.
"Tell me your name," Maul gnarled in pure animosity.
The man did nothing but continue to struggle against the invisible wall that seemed to press down slowly, forcing him to meet with the wall closer than he wanted.
"Tell me your name, you bastard!"
At this time, Maul had lost control of himself and the fury that had built within him. His hands took hold of the man's saber and ripped it from his grasp.
After tossing it to the ground, he took the man's head and slammed it harshly into the wall.
"Who sent you," he seethed to his now bloodied prey. "Tell me or I'll break you."
The assassin let out a low-gasp that was highlighted with a demeaning laughter.
"If you don't know…" he began through a voice mask, but paused to take in another breath, "who seeks to ruin you…"
Maul took the man up by his neck and lifted him higher on the wall. He continued to slam the back of his head mercilessly against the wall.
"Who means to ruin me?" Maul yelled at the man, his anger rushing through his veins.
"HA!" the man blurted out, "Who doesn't mean to?"
Maul could sense the number of guards that were currently waiting to get to the floor the two of them were on.
"Enough," Maul snapped before he broke the man's face into the wall, one last time.
The man limply fell unto the carpeted floor, not showing any sign of consciousness. Bits of pieces of the mask he was wearing had crumbled down to the ground.
The Sith glanced down at the conscious-less body and saw a small portion of the man's face, but could only see that it was really tan.
Maul knew that there would only be a few seconds for him to get out of there without being seen.
The Sith ran back down the hall and dashed through the living room just as the elevator doors opened. He ripped out the ear piece that had not received any relevant feed for the past few minutes.
He leapt through the opening that his energy disrupter gun had created and used the Force to will the four stabilizers to him. They flew into his right hand and the screen became whole once more.
Just as the lights in the hallway turned on and four security guards with blasters in hand ran into the living room, he had already jumped.
The whole situation he was a part of currently made absolutely no sense.
How did they know he was up there? Why would Sidious tell him to go kill Organa that specific day when he wasn't even in the system? Who was this man that was, apparently, sent to kill him? And especially, who had sent him?
He thought about it and denied the most possible answer to each of the questions. He did not want to admit to actually believing it and he really couldn't believe it, but no matter how hard he tried to deny it, it seemed as though he came back to the same conclusion.
His boots hit the ground and he quickly walked into a shadowed area behind a building across the way from the senator's home.
He looked back up to the balcony and his eyes glowed with rage and bewilderment. He did not see any of this treachery coming. He should have…
He remembered that he had taken his headphone out of his ear and looked down in his left hand. The little earpiece was nothing but little bits of metal now. He had been so adrenaline-filled the past few minutes that he crushed it, not knowing his own strength for that time.
The only thing that he was certain about was the fact that the baby he had encountered had the same amount of Force willed to it as one other person that he had run into a long time ago; a young boy from Tatooine that was now a Sith Lord.
Anakin Skywalker…
Both Farkas and Brann had made their way into the first floor of the Bail's building, but not without having to beat a few guards in the process. They hadn't stepped in to the office for a moment before they were stopped by means of several guns pointed at their faces.
Seven guards, dressed in plum-colored armor and wardrobe, were scattered across the circular entrance way against walls, atop of furniture, and flat on the floor- all with bloodied faces and some with black eyes and broken noses.
"This is getting ridiculous!" Farkas complained, while running towards a door near the opposite end of the entrance. "Where are all of the bloody guards?"
"What, you want to fight some more?" Brann hissed in a whisper-like voice.
The bothan entered through the automatic opening that the door allowed, and found a guard huddled in what looked like a storage room filled with different models of long-rifles as well as containers that housed several cans of repellant foam.
The guard looked a bit young, but since he had one of the long-rifles pointed right at Farkas's brown face, the bothan froze, as well as Brann who had just made it into the room.
"Stand back!" the young man shakily exclaimed.
"Boy, you don't stand a chance," Farkas threatened. "Just tell us which floor Organa is on, and we might spare you."
"You… You're here to kill Queen Organa and the royal Princess!"
"What are you talking about, fool!" Farkas yelled.
"Someone betrayed you! He called us and told us what your plan was!"
"What in the Hell are you talking about?" Brann growled in a vicious whisper.
"We don't want anything to do with her- I am speaking of the First Chairman of Alderaan!" Farkas answered.
"B-b-but, he isn't here…?"
Farkas and Brann faced one another, alarmed with the man's answer.
Then, the sounds of doors opening commenced, and the both of them realized that more guards had entered the building. Not to mention, the speaker in Farkas's pocket had begun to vibrate.
"Farkas!" Brann hissed, as he had heard the vibration as well.
"Right- sorry about this kid," Farkas explained to the guard as he walked towards him, hurriedly.
"Back off, bothan!" he snapped at Farkas out of fear, "Or I'll shoot you!"
Farkas grabbed the guard's blaster out of his hand and slammed it against the wall, smashing it into little white and silvery bits. He then grabbed the overwhelmed guard's head and knocked him out with a swift hit to the neck.
Just as the guard had begun to fall down like a rag doll, three more guards entered the room with their blasters aimed at Farkas. Their blasters were set to kill.
Brann immediately acted in defense of his companion and punched one of them in the face so hard that his nose split open and sprayed blood. As that guard toppled down to his knees, the two other guards didn't even have time to retaliate before Brann grabbed both of their heads and slammed them together.
"You did a number on that kid's nose," Farkas commented while the two of them gathered up some of the blasters to take along with them.
"He was about to shoot you," Brann justified after they sprinted through the buildings to get back to the cliff that the infiltrator was docked on.
The grassy hill leading to the cliff was finally in their sights, but the ship could not be seen; that was not a good sign.
"He isn't here yet," Brann commented with frustration, as they both used all of the strength in their legs to run up the steep hill.
"Then he'll be here soon!" Farkas barked as they made their way to the top, both grunting and growling while they took in breaths of air.
Farkas stopped and slapped his furry hands on his knees. He faced down to the ground panting ferociously.
Brann wiped the sweat off of his gray forehead and underneath his flat nose, and looked back down to the senator's house. He had finally been able to correlate the scent that he had recognized while near the building.
Just as they had gotten their breathing in order and after they had been pacing around for a few moments, Brann watched as a dark figure cloaked by a black robe was running right towards them in an unnatural speed.
"Farkas, that's…" Brann started but couldn't quite finish. He didn't know what to say.
"Yes, that's Lord Maul," Farkas finished for him.
He figured that Brann was stunned by the speed in which this man could run.
"He is one to bring forth surprise from the best of us."
This is what the Force can do to someone… Farkas thought, amazed at the idea of the mystic power that was granted to certain individuals.
He almost knocked them off of their feet as he shoved them aside with the Force. He was so concentrated on typing in the coordinates to open the hatch to the ship that he didn't have time to think about the amount of power to use.
Farkas and Brann watched as a ship appeared out of nothing almost on cue as Maul jumped onto the platform of the opened shaft, greeted by a rifle-toting black droid, who pointed the gun past the other men's heads, firing at something…
They hurried themselves on board the ship, weary of the droid, and Maul quickly shut the platform so that he could put the ship in stealth-mode again.
"HK-48, back down," Maul ordered.
HK-48 did as he was told and went into a small room to the left of where Farkas was standing, at the moment.
Maul went to the upper deck and typed in the coordinates to go back to Coruscant and started the engine, and the ship lifted off of the ground.
The other two ran up behind Maul, who was sitting at the control room and was staring out at what looked like a battalion of security guards for the senator.
They all were running towards what to them looked like nothing, but at the same time, something. They started shooting their blasters off in all directions, until they could find where the beams reflected. When they had finally located the invisible ship, it was too late.
Scimitar launched up into the air like a bullet, blasting its way out of the gravitational pull of Alderaan.
Farkas wanted to ask Maul what had happened and why, but the Sith didn't look like he wanted to be talked to at the moment.
Maul was completely enraged with how the mission ended up playing out. He had felt utterly betrayed by the man who said that Organa would be there for him to kill.
"Lord Maul," Farkas finally had the gall to speak to the angered Sith. "Were you sent here to kill Senator Organa's family?"
Maul turned himself around, and looked at the already nervous bothan like he wanted to rip his heart out.
"No," Maul ground down on his teeth, answering as calmly as he, at that moment, possibly could. "What gave you that assumption?"
"Someone made contact and betrayed the mission," Farkas explained to the heated Sith.
Maul looked back out the windshield of his infiltrator. Once again, he looked at nothing in particular, staring out at the millions of stars and planets that all looked like little speckles of light, dotted all over the dark universe.
"I was set up," Maul explained to himself, aloud as if he didn't care that Farkas and Brann both heard it.
The Sith was totally ashamed of himself for not having seen this coming, and right now, he doubted his master, Lord Sidious, and it seemed to be with good reason.
Maul got up from his seat and began to walk back into the elevator to go down to his room, so that he could think about things and to see through this problem, while leaving both Farkas and Brann with shared looks of confusion and a bit of worry.
Finally, he stood in front of the lift door and placed a limp hand over the down-button. The door opened and he walked in so he could make it to the lowest deck of the ship.
After what felt like minutes compared to seconds, the door re-opened and he walked into his small bedroom, hating the sheer look of it.
Maul paced back and forth, in the darkness, with his arms tightly crossed against his chest. His eyes were wide open, burning like Mustafar on a bad day.
He had become frantically hot and, at the same time, he had become engulfed with anger that he hadn't felt in a long time. The kind that he couldn't form into useful energy, because of the fact that he was stuck in the middle of space in a room that, at that moment, felt like the size of a shoebox.
He threw his robe off of himself and motioned for it to go in any direction with his outstretched right hand. It ended up hitting against the wall in front of him, falling down to the front of the bed, and then he pulled off each of his gloves and threw them down to the floor.
His fingers made their way underneath the up turned collar of his tunic, in an attempt to loosen it from the hot, moist skin around his neck. Every inch of his body itched with rage, which caused him to go into an almost feverish sweat.
All of the thoughts running through his head at that very moment tormented him to the point where he wanted to kill someone. He actually considered taking the lives of the two men who were now situating themselves in the floor right above them, but then thought otherwise.
I have these damn dreams dealing with the surgery and Jinn. I have a female Jedi housed in my room, because I can't deal with her rationally. Then that voice… and now this…
Maul sat himself on his small bed, which was sheet-less, to calm down. He put his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, letting his fingers pass through his off-white horns.
Had his master betrayed him? Could he do such a thing to his first apprentice?
Or maybe it was someone else…
No, it couldn't be. Lord Sidious seemed to be the only other person who knew about this, besides Maul himself.
The assassin… who was the man sent to kill him?
Did Lord Sidious have to do with the arrangement that had been made for the assassin?
Maul let go of his head and fell back against the stiff mattress. Once again, he looked up at the empty ceiling, in the darkness that was his small, cold room. The heat that had screamed at his body had begun to let down, which allowed the tension that he felt all around him to rest.
He didn't want to accept that he was slowly losing control of himself; his actions, his senses, his feelings. For the past few months, he had not acted in the proper manner of a Sith. His thoughts began to wander towards things that he shouldn't have been thinking about. He felt as if he was losing his mind.
Master… would you do such a thing…
He shut his eyes, so that he could enter a new kind of darkness. He wanted to gain control over himself and over his physical and emotional reactions to this situation. He wasn't even properly building on the anger he felt. He wanted to feel… normal.
But instead of thinking of things that would get him to maintain control, he thought about something else that for some reason, relaxed him; that night three days ago when he and the Jedi were riding on his speeder back to his room and when she was wrapped around him tightly with her head rested on his back.
As hard as it was for him to admit, he remembered the strange feeling that had overcome him. He had grown warm where her hands had touched him and where her head lay upon him. She did as well.
At that moment, the both of them felt comfortable with one another. Even if Maul thought he felt uncomfortable at the time, it was only because he actually enjoyed the feeling. She was so comfortable that she didn't realize how tightly she had wrapped around him.
Maul felt as if he was insane as he thought about how much he yearned to feel it once again. He had never felt an embrace like that in all of his life, unintentionally or not. Not once had he received a hug or a kiss on the forehead. Not once in his life had anyone willingly given him any kind of physical affection.
That night, the Jedi apologized to him for that feeling of comfort that she had given him. He did not know what to say to her after that. What should he have said? "Don't be. I rather enjoyed it…"
You fool, Maul said to himself. Allowing your thoughts to wander over your enemy…
He closed his eyes and stopped his wandering thoughts, then fell into a definitely needed rest.
Darkness; it was exactly where he wanted to be. He was calm in this darkness. He was controlled and his fury tamed. It was just him.
There was nothing to think about in this darkness. Nothing to worry about, nothing to provoke him… This was his home. This is where he felt safe.
But, something made it into this darkness. Something invaded his calm, his control, his serenity.
A faint light seemed to tickle at his shut eyelids and a soft whisper beckoned for him to awake.
The whisper sounded like the same voice that had recently been plaguing his thoughts.
"Let me sleep," Maul practically mumbled, in his relaxed state.
"You really should open your eyes now."
"Is it so important?" Maul asked.
"It is very important," the whispering explained. "Wake up, Darth Maul."
Those words seemed to echo silently in his head, over and over again until he finally did open his eyes.