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I AM TERRIBLY SORRRRRRRYYYY.
Seriously. I got married and started nursing school. The marriage part is amazing and the nursing part very much worthwhile. However... both have taken up a lot of my time... as you can tell -.-
But I have been working on this chapter for a while. It's kind of "meh" (in my opinion, of course). If there are any plot holes, they are intentional. The next couple of chapters should be rather revealing of the situation.
And for the love of Thor, would anyone like to be a beta for this? I can read the chapters over and over again and still miss the smallest crap. (I can understand if no one will want to, because I kind of take a while to finish these bad boys... ugh.)
Enjoy. I've already started the next one.
(I do not own anything from Star Wars.)
Chapter 14: Ripe (With Decay)
The zabrakian male awoke to the sound of beeping coming from the bracelet on his left wrist. He peered down at it, groggy from what felt like an overly long rest.
A transmission out here…
He hastily brought himself to his feet and opened up a closet door. He needed a new tunic and pants to wear, for his current ones had been left stuck to his skin.
After he changed, he entered the turbolift. It shot quickly to the upper deck, in which he saw a red light blinking on the control panel in the cock pit. The message was encoded with a signature which was signed in the Aurebesh alphabet and the location was from Coruscant. The time-stamp said 20:00; the current time was 23:00.
He assumed that the message had been sent from the senate house he so intensely wanted to avoid. The fact that anyone there knew the encoding to his ship's transmission link caused him to become curious and he pressed down on the button which showed a miniature sized hologram of the female zeltron, Volutta.
Before he could think ill thoughts of the woman, she had begun to speak in a worried tone.
"Lord Maul, you are requested with great urgency to return to Coruscant. A Jedi has broken into the building and murdered several of the attendants while you have gone. Many more have been left wounded. We have so far been unable to capture him. Please return as soon as you can."
The hologram faded out at the end of the transmission, yet Maul stared in the direction it had once stood.
A Jedi… several murders… and they weren't able to capture him.
He thought about whether the female Jedi, who was supposed to be held up in his room, had anything to do with this. She didn't seem to want to cause strife, despite her enslavement. She was also at a physical disadvantage due to several health-related injuries.
The sound of the door to the lift opening reached Maul's ears and he turned to see the bothan stepping quietly into the room. He sat down on one of the passenger seats and put his head upon the palms of his hands and his elbows on his stocky, golden colored legs.
Maul made a movement, and Farkas's ears twitched. He looked in the direction of where Maul had begun to walk from and they both watched one another, for a moment. Farkas was not sure if the Sith was more menacing clouded in shadow or when his features were clear.
"Lord Maul… something has happened on Coruscant."
"I know."
"Then you received a message?" Farkas asked, a bit relieved at not having to be the first to tell the Sith. "I had brought one of my comlinks with me, by mistake, and I woke up to a great deal of communication coming from what sounded like the outside. At some point someone must have disrupted the frequency...
Maul turned away, without acknowledging what the bothan had said. Instead, he went straight to the panel and slammed a hand down onto the hyperdrive control.
For a brief moment, every star that could be seen outside of the windshield spread into bright, white lines just before Scimitar blasted through space at its full speed. In a matter of seconds, the white disappeared into a dim, orange lit planet.
Farkas had been pushed into the back of his seat and the lift door opened, once more, to show a startled and very shaken noghri, who most likely had just woken up.
"We'll land in a minute. Ready yourselves and wait at the airlock," Maul ordered.
The both of them stood up straight and bowed their heads towards the Sith. They then both entered the turbolift and shot down to the next level.
Maul then made his way down to his room and picked up his robe. While throwing it over himself, he couldn't help but feel that whatever they found themselves immersed in after landing, it would be a much undesirable predicament.
He boarded the lift, once more, and walked out to see the two other men waiting to exit. They bowed to him and a subtle vibration informed them all that the ship had finally landed.
The airlock opened and the landing ramp extended at a downward angle towards the concrete in the hanger. All three of them, Maul first in line, walked down the ramp. Both Maul and Farkas showed a great deal of interest in the surrounding outer area that Brann felt uncomfortable with.
The hooded man stopped while seemingly fiddling with the metal bracelet he kept beneath his left glove. Having known that the noghri was clear off of the ramp, he pushed in the controls that sent it back up into Scimitar. Brann noticed, but kept quiet.
The hanger as well as the foundation around the building seemed oddly quiet. As he subtly examined the concrete flooring, there was a particular spot that seemed brighter than the rest of the rock.
Just as he was about to walk over to get a closer look at the flooring, the sound of a deep inhale disturbed his concentration.
"What is it, Brann?" Farkas quietly asked the noghri, who began to step towards the direction that Maul had faced.
The gray-skinned man had apparently caught a scent that had interested him. When Maul peered back at him, just as he was about to pass him on his way towards the lighter area on the ground, the Sith saw that the look on his face was grave.
Maul and Farkas looked on as the noghri got down on his hands and knees, to better interpret the smell that had forced itself into his highly perceptive nostrils.
While Farkas was confused at his action as well as slightly embarrassed that Brann had done this in front of the Sith, Darth Maul himself became alert to whether or not the noghri would find anything. The more pressing matter was one of the characteristics of their species- having such an acute sense of smell.
"Brann, what are you do-"
"What do you smell?" Maul cut off Farkas' speech.
Brann's eyes went from inquisitive to somewhere between shock and disbelief. He shook his head slightly as if he were trying to figure an answer to replace the one he had found.
He turned around to meet the gaze of the dark man who waited for an answer. Whether he was patient or irritated, he wasn't sure. At this point, he didn't care.
"Blood."
Farkas joined the two men, concerned by the expression the normally emotionless man gave.
"Whose blood?" Maul pushed.
"There are three blood types…"
Brann stood up, as straight as he was able, with clenched fists on either side of him.
"One is my brother's."
Before any of the men had time to react to the hissed statement, several forms had made their way over to them. All three turned and saw Rokujou, who was closely followed by Volutta and Tanran. The latter's face was turned away from everyone. He seemed to travel with a slight limp. Several clone troopers had remained in the bunker.
"Lord Maul," Volutta began, dressed in a dark nightgown with a matching silk robe, wrapped around her waist. "Did you receive my message?"
Without answering, Maul asked, "Have you identified the person who attacked the residence?"
He noticed a very slight notion between the three, as if they had all wanted to glance at each other for a proper response.
"Not yet, Sir," Rokujou informed.
"What of the victims?"
"My Lord," Volutta started, "it was terrible. He came from nowhere and just… hacked into whoever was in his way."
Volutta took a finger and wiped a stray tear away from her cheek.
"I take that one of those killed was Corporal Himmel," Maul stated quietly and darkly, uncaring of Volutta's display of emotion.
Out of the three, the only one to give any sort of indication as to the question that was asked was Tanran, who slowly nodded his head.
Farkas remained behind the Sith Lord, unbelieving towards what he had just seen the male twi'lek do.
Himmel…
"Lord Maul… how did you…"
Maul inclined his head, without feeling the need to motion towards Brann any further. The now lone noghri postured as if he was trying to contain his fury, but he couldn't hide it from the Sith.
That's when he realized that he could not sense the female Jedi.
Great...
"Take me to the dead," Maul ordered.
Down on what must have been the lowest floor of the building, several people stood in a room that was kept at a low temperature. The walls were bland and white and the wall farthest into the room was covered in metal drawers that were large enough to store adult corpses.
In the middle of the room were six tables, all of which appeared to have a body resting on them. All of the bodies were covered by a white sheet.
The smell of death was heavy and festered its way into the nostrils of the three men who had only returned minutes ago.
Darth Maul waited patiently as a clone-medic began to lift the sheets away from the faces of each corpse. The first to be shown was a bald man whom he recognized as a guard who had been attended to by Volutta before Maul had broken every bone that he could sense in the male twi'lek's wrist.
The next was a noghri with a rather large scar that had gone from his forehead, nose and lip. Maul could tell that Brann had left the room at this instant, intentionally or unintentionally slamming his hand onto the control screen for the door to open. Farkas remained still, shocked by the sight of a man that he had grown somewhat close to.
As Maul expected, the next to be revealed was the youngest noghri, Himmel. Out of the few he had seen thus far, Himmel almost appeared to have a peaceful visage through death.
The next corpses had been two clone troopers, but the last body to be questioned and identified puzzled Maul. The blue skin of the female twi'lek that Maul had entrusted to care for the Jedi was no longer bright and her lekku were flat underneath her.
He noticed, without having to see, that Tanran was not grieving over the woman's death in any way.
He remained still for a few minutes, as everyone else waited for some form of response. Farkas stayed quiet from visionary overload.
"My Lord…," Rokujou started.
After having been given reassurance to continue on with a slight nod from the Sith, he continued, "Though we have been unable to identify the assailant, we believe to know, at least, of an alias that the Jedi had used."
Maul turned his hooded head towards the arkanian. Red and yellow met pure white, and he judged the man's words carefully.
"Go on."
"Our suspicions are pointing us towards one who was known as Shadow during the Clone Wars."
While Maul's eyes narrowed and a single brow lifted in curiosity, the Bothan male who stood behind him tensed up suggestively. Maul would take this into account later.
"You've seen him before?" Maul questioned.
"While Lord Azazul was stationed on Felucia, we had a run in with Shadow."
Once again, the room was filled with nothing but silence and tension. After having made up his mind as to how he was going to go about this, he turned towards the group.
"Leave me with the medic and go about your business."
Tanran moved out of the room quickly, as if he was glad to be gone from the place. Rokujou left as well with Volutta following him closely, before she turned back briefly.
"My Lord, I almost forgot about the woman in your room…"
Maul didn't face her.
"The assailant took her and threw her off of the foundation. We searched for a body, but she must have fallen all the way down to the lower levels…"
Farkas' upper arms began to twitch in frustration. First he saw one of the only people he could confide in dead, as well as his youngest son. Then he saw the corpse of an innocent woman that he had cared for whose only fault was being attractive enough to be put into slavery.
And now, the one out of everyone in that whole damned building that had nearly everything taken from her, both physically and emotionally, had been thrown into the mess as well and might possibly be dead.
What the Hell are they playing at?
Farkas began to turn and leave the room when the door shut on its own accord.
He turned back around, confused, when he saw the Sith's right hand move back down to his side.
"You will stay here with me, and help me figure out what truly took place."
Before Farkas could move to make a bow, all of the sheets moved off of the bodies that they covered, to reveal the wounds that had resulted in their demise.
The clone-medic didn't protest but observed with caution.
Farkas' stomach dropped at the sight of the wounds. Each body had coverings over the genitalia, and in Imara's case, the chest as well.
Maul looked towards the clone and ordered, "I need to know the order of deaths- from first to last."
The tan man with no hair on his head nodded and retrieved a data pad from the other side of the room. He selected and unselected different icons, until six files were listed.
"The first one that was killed was the twi'lek female."
Farkas was unable to look over at the woman, whose pale blue face had made him want to vomit.
Maul, however, walked right over to where she lay and studied her injuries with concentration.
The first thing he noted was that there was bruising on both of her cheeks, but it was so light that one could barely catch it. He then saw that her bottom lip was slightly swollen on the left side and that there was a faint line that went from the middle of her lip to just below the bottom.
He then observed, without having to be thorough, a hole that went through the medial-left side of her chest- precisely where her heart was, now with a gaping hole and no blood flow.
"A lightsaber…" Maul mentioned out loud.
"How did you-"
"I have impaled many with my own," Maul began, almost annoyed with the clone, "The shape of the wound is much cleaner and rounded than that of a blaster or any vibroblade that exists. There is almost perfect cauterization."
Farkas moved towards Maul, but still had a hard time with looking at the still form.
"Where was she killed?"
"On the 23rd floor of this building, in room 2382."
"In my room, then."
The clone nodded his head.
"Time of death?"
"1423 hours."
"Who was next?"
"Commander Lande."
Maul moved past the two clones and the younger noghri to look over Lande's corpse. Once again, Farkas followed, less hesitant than before.
Maul saw that someone attempted to behead the man, but the lightsaber that had struck him hadn't made a straight cut. Maul knelt down and looked into the wound, all the while moving the head slightly enough to be able to see that the spinal column and chord were lucky enough to both be cut clean through.
He died instantly.
"Where?"
"Just outside of the hanger."
"The same side that the balcony attached to my room is on?"
"…Yes."
"Time?"
"1520 hours."
Both Maul and Farkas looked up at the clone. Farkas was confused at the time frame that was beginning to form.
Maul was doubtful.
"You mean to tell me that the intruder took almost an hour from killing one person- who had no obvious ranking or ability to prevent him from going about his intention- to killing the commander?" Maul asked, his eyes beginning to slant.
The clone-medic brought his attention away from the data pad, and tried desperately not to look directly into Maul's eyes.
"Is there something wrong with that timeline?"
Before the clone had finished his response, Maul was already behind him. He placed his gloved hand on top of his right shoulder.
"Leave and go to your quarters. I did not disagree with any of the evidence you showed me."
Farkas watched in surprise when the clone nodded his head, with a face that appeared to not be stressed in any way, and began to walk out of the door. Maul quickly grabbed the data pad that he was holding and the man didn't even flinch.
The bothan heard that certain Force users were able to twist a person's reality and mind to do what they willed. This was his first time actually witnessing it.
"He was weak-willed. The abilities of the person who persuaded him previously were even more so."
Farkas turned back towards Maul, who was searching through the autopsy reports with a sensor stick that moved across the screen. He then set it down on top of the body of the bald guard, and moved towards a computer that was on the same wall as the doorway.
"All of the autopsy reports are null. There are no notes of bruising, or measurements of any wounds, let alone the area where they were struck."
Maul motioned for Farkas to go to the computer.
"Do you know your way through this system?"
Farkas nodded in absolution.
"Would you know how to find files that have recently been tampered with?"
The bothan gave the Sith Lord a smirk.
"Lord Maul, one of the reasons why I was accepted into this outfit was because of my slicing abilities."
Maul took that as a yes and stood back patiently, watching Farkas begin to put in codes into a data pad that he had pulled out of the chest plate of his armor. He then connected it to some wires he had found after having ripped off a metal casing on the side of the computer with his bare hands.
…An abnormally strong hacker.
While Farkas had begun to "slice" into the building's database to find any notes or results that had been edited within the 24 hour period, Maul had tried once again to sense the female Jedi.
He focused all of his energy into revealing the location of the familiar presence that the woman unintentionally exhibited towards him. He found that she was certainly not in the building and that she, if she was even alive, couldn't have been on Coruscant.
Maul wasn't sure what to make of that as well as Volutta's last statement about the woman having been thrown off the building… For if it had been an attack by a Jedi, why would they attack their own?
Farkas was just about done and had retrieved the six files in their original forms. Maul guessed that this particular clone-medic had actually done a proper job, but then had his mind warped by someone who was not well versed in the ways of persuasion.
"Here they are. Let's see… Imara did die first. And… it was at 1423 hours."
He then sneered at the location at which the body was found.
"She was found in her own quarters, which is several levels below your room."
Maul glanced over the information and knew that this would be a lengthy process.
…
After they had gone through all of the files and Maul had personally inspected all of the corpses to be sure that the information was unquestionable, they had found out many things in two hours time.
One, Imara (28-years-old) had several contusions on her face and then on her thighs. After finding a lamp, Maul saw that the bruising on her thighs had been hand prints; as if they had been spread apart, thumbs prints axial on both thighs. Without having to become very in depth in his observations, he could gather that she had been sexually assaulted shortly before death. How she died was quite obvious; she had been stabbed through the heart with a lightsaber.
Two, Commander Lande (47-years-old) had several marks all over his body including bruises, cuts, and scrapes. He looked as if he had fought someone or several people before his left leg had been cut off with a lightsaber, mid-thigh. His beheading happened moments after.
Three, the bald guard (Name: Wylan, 29-years-old) had a more peculiar cause of death; he went into respiratory arrest. It involved the rupture of both of his lungs and to add on to the bizarre "attack", every one of his ribs had been broken.
Four, the clone troopers (both 20-years-old, both listed as privates in the army) had very quick deaths, maybe even completely painless. They both had been stabbed through the back of their necks and had at least been granted with the quick severing of each of their spinal cords; both by a lightsaber. Other than that, there were some cuts around their necks.
The only death that had been problematic for either men to solve, as well as the clone-medic before them, was Brann's younger brother.
He had some fractures in his right ankle as well as the same amount of bruising, cuts, and scrapes as his father, except for one long gash of a cut that they had found right between his shoulders and a puncture in his right wrist. But what he had died of was an immense lack of oxygen in his blood. The circulation of blood and oxygen had been interrupted by a poison that Farkas was still in the process of trying to discern.
Once again, Maul was sure to point out that someone who had literally drowned in their own fluids would not have had such a peaceful expression on their face. It was easy to tell that the others had their eyes forced down and mouths shut, but Himmel's body had become relaxed before his death, as if he had been forced into a deep sleep.
"Lord Maul, it says the same thing as the last couple of times- it doesn't recognize this as anything that occurs naturally in the galaxy and it doesn't recognize it as anything man made, either."
Maul didn't respond while he was forcibly placing each body into a drawer to prevent any further decay from occurring. After he finished he turned a switch and almost felt the cold pushing out of the drawers, which now housed six new bodies.
"Tell me, Commander-" Maul paused to face the bothan, who had now stopped typing, "-what you know of Shadow."
Farkas stilled for a moment.
"Shadow… was known for the ability to kill someone with a lightsaber in such a way that they felt no pain, as well as being able to inflict internal wounds onto a person without the need of a weapon."
"He was one to offer a swift death to every opposing force, as well as the ability to leave those he did not kill incapacitated."
"So you know of the person as well?" Farkas asked.
"I followed him for a few days when I had finished with a mission. He was meticulously difficult to trail."
Farkas frowned at this, while absentmindedly stroking the tuft of golden hair under his chin.
"Lord Maul…"
Farkas took the Sith's silence as approval for him to continue.
"Do you believe Shadow might have been involved in this?"
Maul thought about that for a short while; around three seconds.
"I don't believe that he had anything to do with Imara's death or with the deaths of the noghri."
"But what of Lande's death, Sir?" Farkas asked. "His death was rather swift-"
"Shadow would not have bothered with cutting off his leg. He never appeared the type to take pleasure or interest in cutting off extremities."
"Then what about Wylan's death? He didn't die quickly."
Maul considered this for a moment, before he thought about the injuries sustained to the remaining, living guards compared to the death of the two clones as well as the injuries of the rest.
"I don't believe that he would have bothered to kill the woman, or even consider it. He definitely would not have assaulted her, and according to the blanching of the bruises, that happened right before she was killed. The commander's death was messy and not thought out and Himmel's is nothing but mysterious. The injuries that were inflicted on the clones seemed to immediately stop them. They most likely didn't feel any pain- minimal damage, but effective. The guards…"
Wylan died because his lungs had torn apart in his chest. Those that had been injured included a man who had been left with a malfunctioning stomach due to its lining having been forced out (according to witness statements, it looked as if he had projectile-vomited blood, bile, and tissue); another had a ruptured kidney; three others had multiple organs punctured and left bleeding and nearly useless; and one very unfortunate young guard had been left with the pain of having had almost every single muscle shredded until they could no longer function properly (with the exception of the heart, diaphragm, a certain amount of abdominals and intercostals, and the smooth muscle within his organs).
"The woman, the commander, and his son do not fit Shadow's normal pattern. The wounds inflicted on the other guards are distinguished, but violent. The first two were done in haste and it appears that someone had actually relieved Himmel of having to endure what would have certainly been an uncomfortable death. If Shadow truly had been a part of this incident, I would guess that he had put Himmel into a comatose state."
Maul looked up from his thoughts and saw that Farkas was exhibiting signs of anxiety. Having remembered certain physical responses the bothan had shown earlier before the others left, he decided not to shy from finding an answer.
"Commander, I want to know what it is about the Shadow's possible involvement that brings you anxiety."
Farkas's right foot stopped bouncing and his chin lifted away from his left fist to face the Sith.
"Lord Maul?"
"I know that you are capable enough to realize that any information is valuable in situations such as this-" Maul stated in a stern tone, "-especially the kind that I am unaware of."
Farkas then stood up from the computer after having disconnected his data pad. While typing into it, he said rather bluntly, "Lord Maul, there is no such information that could possibly be of use to this case that I have yet to state. I will continue to research a possible match to the toxin found in Corporal Himmel's blood. Please, Sir- you've had a trying day and deserve some rest."
The bothan walked towards him and stopped by his side.
"I will meet you and explain in a short while, Lord Maul," he whispered.
Maul nodded his head in agreement. He could sense the group that was about to pass the very room they were in, and at least one of the people could certainly not be trusted.
After the murmuring voice of Volutta displayed a distance outside of where they were, Farkas continued, "It would be best to explain in the privacy of your room. I will clean up in here and report to you soon."
Maul had made his steady and slow way up to his room and made it even longer by climbing up the stairs. It was not only so he had a decent amount of time to think to himself but also because the zeltron woman had waited by the lift's opening. Whether she was there waiting for him or someone else was of no consequence.
So far, he had gone up 267 steps and counting, so he gathered that it wouldn't take much longer to make it to his level. Still, he wished there would be even more steps to climb.
He had actually considered walking up and down the entire stair case more than once.
"What troubles you, Darth Maul?"
He paused only for a second and decided that there was no use in fighting it. He was obviously going insane.
"No you aren't," it assured.
"People who are not insane do not hear voices in their heads."
"People who are insane do not believe that they are."
Maul considered the man's reasoning and continued traveling upward. He thought of the voice belonging to a man, for it reminded him of the voice of a man he had once encountered.
"Then tell me what your aim is in harassing me."
"Why I want you to hear me?"
He did not need to respond.
"Tell me what you think my purpose is and I'll point you in the proper direction."
Maul made a light scoff at the response given to him.
"I believe," Maul started as he turned to go up another set of steps, "that you are here to steer me off of my path. You appear as an obstacle around everything that I try to accomplish. You are, therefore, my enemy."
The Sith continued to travel, so close to his destination that he might have gone past it, had he not noticed something slightly splayed across the polished surface of the mauve steps. It almost appeared to be smeared in the fashion of a dainty right foot print.
"I am not an enemy."
Before Maul could kneel down to observe the substance on the floor, right across from the next set of steps that led to the entryway onto his floor, he furrowed his brows in disbelief.
"I do not trust that."
"Coming from a man who does not trust anyone or anything, I'm not surprised."
"Then why must you continue pestering me?"
Though he sounded calm, he was becoming curious as to the sticky, thick fluid still drying on the floor. He touched it with his glove and then brought his left second digit to his nares to smell.
"Can you not sense her, Darth?"
The metallic scent indicated that it was blood.
"Can you not sense that she is still alive?"
His eyes shot forward. If there had been any other commentary after that moment, he wouldn't have heard.
There was someone in his room, but it was not the Jedi.
He forced the door to open into the corridor and ran down the hall. Not wanting to wait until his hand touched the screen for his door to open, he forced that as well. But before that could lift a centimeter off of the floor, his lightsaber had already ignited in his hand.
They're in my closet, he thought to himself as he ran through the opening and then made a hard right into his bedroom, ready to attack any intruder that would so stupidly hide and wait in his closet.
But when the closet door was opened, there was no assassin, let alone a threat.
He found that his red saber was pointed towards a young twi'lek girl, whose rutian skin appeared purple under its light. He also found that she had dried blood on her face, some underneath her nose and some dribbled down her bottom lip. She apparently had just been awakened by the threat.
Maul recognized her as the youngling that followed the adult female twi'lek around. He powered down his weapon and raised an eyebrow at the petrified girl's face.
"Why are you in here?"
"L-l-lord Maul…"
He watched her as she tried to back away farther into the wall and noticed while she bent her knees that her right foot was scathed on its sole.
Her blood…
Her state was disheveled and her clothes, which were a normal set of tan maiden robes without the cloak, were ripped and torn. She appeared to have been attacked.
"I… I was hiding-"
She stopped herself and covered her mouth.
"From who?"
He knelt down and stared directly into her eyes, not allowing her to glance away.
"He…h-he was holding me d-d-down," she replied with a shaky voice.
"Who?"
"He killed her," she had begun to cry.
"Who?" he growled.
"HE KILLED IMARA!"
Maul thought only for a moment before things began to piece together.
"Tanran did this…"
"H-he killed her and then came after m-me!"
Seeing as the youngling was on the verge of having a panic attack, Maul decided to stun her to sleep before his patience was tried any further. Her head fell backward and hit the wall softly.
Maul was not sure what to do with the girl after that. He truly wanted to be alone and without any unnecessary intrusions.
He knew that he had an hour, or less than that, to meditate on the situation with the one identified as Shadow named as the culprit. He also wanted to meditate on more personal matters.
Wait…
He turned towards the sleeping twi'lek and an idea hit him that was most fortunate.
He placed his hand on top of her head and the tips of his fingers brushed against her lekku, which were the very reasons why he decided to see into her mind.
As soon as he found himself in her mindscape, he was bombarded by clear, perfect memories. Visions of a green hued woman were prominent from what must have been the first years of her life. He guessed that her memories spanned all of the way back to the day of her birth.
Maul may not have been a huge admirer of twi'leks, considering how popular the females were to the majority of males of all races, but he was one to give credit where it was due; in this case, the fact that twi'leks had much larger brains and a far grander span for memory than many others.
As impressive as it was to see that she clearly remembered her first steps, he was not interested in any other memory than that of her most recent ones.
He skipped through the collection, not even bothering to take a glance. Her past was not relevant in his current interests.
Here it is.
...
The scene cleared as she had gotten off of one of the lifts at the building. She walked along a passageway while holding onto a small stack of clothes. She trotted along at a fast pace, as if she was in a hurry to get to her destination.
He watched as she made a right hand turn and stopped right in front of a door. Unlike the hallway that his bedroom was located, this hallway was more than just a straight walk through. This one stemmed off into separate hallways.
She pressed her hand firmly onto the security screen and stepped into the room. But after she made it through the door frame, she paused in her movements.
Maul paid close attention to the scene before him. The lights were off and the setting seemed quiet… maybe even a little too quiet and too calm for his taste.
What is this… feeling?
He watched her as she made her way into the room. Her movements seemed odd, as if she was moving with a caution that a youngling would not normally exhibit. She seemed to be searching on the wall for a light switch.
"Imara?" she quietly called.
There was no answer. Maul could sense the youngling's concern with her not answering.
Her hand finally made its way over a light control screen and the room changed from dark to comfortably lit.
The room itself was somewhat small and unoriginal compared to the upper rooms of the building with tan walls and red carpet. There was a door at the other side of the room, which Maul guessed was a lavatory. On his left there was a dresser and a small view screen on the wall above them and to his right was a medium sized bed which was currently being used by the one the young girl had been looking for.
The girl put the stack of clothes on top of the dresser and turned around. She became more lax when having found her guardian resting in their bed, and she began to disrobe and take off her shoes.
"Imara, I got the dirty clothes from Uriael. Should I send an order to have them washed by the laundroids?
When the woman did not respond, the girl sighed and climbed up onto the bed and crawled next to her.
"Imaaaaara," she said playfully.
No response.
"Imara?"
None.
The girl became anxious and touched the woman's shoulder. Almost immediately, she flinched away.
She was already dead, Maul thought to himself.
The girl, trembling from what must have been a rush of adrenaline coursing through her body, shakily moved to touch her again. After pressing her hand firmly against her shoulder, she appeared to be distressed. She threw the sheets off of her companion and screamed.
She appeared almost the same as when Maul saw her last.
The youngling began to cry while cradling the woman's face, which still had a depth of color to it. She stayed like this for mere moments, not having noticed the other person who had begun to lurk towards her.
"Such a pity, for she was such a beautiful schutta."
The girl turned quickly and froze when she saw the tan twi'lek male standing at the end of the bed. His already piercing red eyes were lidded and his speech sounded slower and more emphasized.
The bastard was drunk.
The girl first noticed the lightsaber pinned up on his right hip.
"What did you do to her…?"
"What I wanted to."
"What did you do to her!"
The girl, surprisingly, leapt at the man and went straight for his lekku.
"Unafa ni na yake wewe sheta!"
She began to speak Ryl while punching Tanran at the base of his left lekku, which clearly caused him tremendous pain and discomfort. Maul was fortunate to understand from years of learning the language when he was younger.
["What did you do to her you devil!"]
"Kupata bali ya mi wewe kidogo sherati!"
["Get off of me you little whore!"]
He then grabbed her by her own lekku which caused her to momentarily cease moving before he backhanded her face.
Tanran maintained his hold on her headtail, even after she lost balance from the pain, and then threw her back first onto the floor.
The man shook his head as if to clear his vision, but then an awful grin formed on his face.
"Playing hard to get is not wise to do to your master."
Maul, though submersed in another being's mind, immediately went on edge.
I am going to kill that insolent motherfucker.
The male got down on top of the girl and began to harrass her, but not without a struggle. She kicked and flailed her arms and elbows as much as she could, and continued to scream in Ryl. She may not have had an inkling of an idea as to what his true intentions were, but she was defending herself regardless.
"Get off of me, you ass!"
"Learn your damned place!"
Right at the moment where the man had begun to pull her pants down at the waist, the girl's eyes became wide with fear. Whether it was because her instincts cued her in on the danger of what was to come or because she had finally understood the reasoning of Tanran staying in the room after he had killed her guardian... reality set in.
Within her mind, she could not help but to react in a way that she found to be natural.
Maul watched the scene play out. He did not understand why she placed her hands flat against his chest until he saw Tanran shoved through the air. His back and head made contact with the ceiling.
It perplexed him, not only the fact that the youngling had just displayed a Force push, but that it was as powerful as it was; the ceiling had cracked and small shards of its material littered the red carpet. It was as if this was not the first time she had used the Force.
He watched on with avid interest as she picked herself up and ran for the door, while barefoot and bleeding. She decided against the turbolift immediately, for there was a camera in one of its corners.
Cameras...
Maul then wondered if there were any in his room.
The girl ran up the stairs, not faltering in speed despite her increased respirations. She sped onward and upward, as if the very monster she was running from was not still gathering his drunken self several floors below.
Just as she was coming closer to the floor that she wished to exit upon, her foot had just caught the very edge of the next step. She then seethed.
She stepped down lightly onto that step and hissed in pain again. When she lifted up her foot to inspect, she saw that a small piece of what looked like a rock was lodged into the sole; same as the material from the cealing. She did not notice the bloody, partial imprint she had left on the floor.
She began to continue on upward, not caring for the pain she felt when putting any amount of pressure onto that particular foot. As she made her way to the door that had a lit "23" above it, she paused.
The girl could sense that the predator currently interested in her was making his way into the turbolift downstairs.
She began to run past the door, down the hall, towards what Maul recognized as his quarters. After placing her hand on the screen, the door opened to reveal an on guard noghri and the now long lost Jedi prisoner. The Jedi had already made her way to the door to calm the girl.
"Safi, just breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth," she said in a relaxed tone, despite the sobbing youngling, while knealing to her level.
"He k-killed her!"
Uriael glanced over at Himmel, who remained cautious by the door while readying his blaster.
"Safi, what did he do to you?"
She exhaled.
"He attacked me. H-he was in the room w-waiting."
The Jedi took off a plain white shirt that she had been wearing, leaving only a gray tank with black leggings that hugged her calves. She then began to softly wipe off the still dripping blood on the youngling's face.
"He was probably drunk," the noghri stated through a whispered tone.
The girl nodded her head slowly, doing her best not to allow her emotions to course through again.
"Safi, how were you able to get away?"
She looked up at the Jedi and was surprised to see worry imprinted on her features. But there was also something else there...
The Jedi had felt the surge of the Force while meditating and was able to link it to the girl in front of her.
Maul, while listening and watching the memory play out, had currently become very interested in the Jedi's appearance. For one, the most striking feature was the lack of a certain aspect of her that he had not cared for; Azazul's scars.
She had dealt with them just before I left.
Secondly, she apparently had been treated kindly, for her skin was no longer pale but featured a slight glow. The bags under her eyes were no longer apparent and overall she looked less like a tortured captive.
Through Maul's distracted thoughts, the youngling having thrown her arms around the Jedi's neck and shoulders brought him back to the situation.
"I'm sorry I didn't say anything sooner, Master Lumen!"
Everyone in the room became silent. Himmel turned with a cocked eyebrow and peered over at the two females. Uriael was somewhat stunned and had a delayed reaction towards the twi'lek's embrace.
"Which... which clan were you a part of?"
"Hawkbat," the girl choked out.
Uriael immediately held on tighter to the youngling who was, apparently, a Jedi initiate.
Before Maul could consider that the girl had been a Jedi youngling or even feel an inkling of killing intent towards the embrace of the two, the sound of a drunk man yelling in the hallway for a "schutta" broke the moment.
"Damn it," Himmel cursed.
"Go into the closet in the main room and hide."
The youngling moved away from Uriael and saw how serious her face had become. What she had just told her might as well have been an order.
"Ok."
As she started towards the bedroom, Uriael cautioned, "Do not come out unless either of us comes to get you."
The girl nodded her head and ran, as fast as she could while limping, into the closet. As soon as she sat down, her memories went blank.
Maul sat in the middle of the living room on his knees in meditation. His boots and tunic remained on his person, while his cloak rested on a chair in front of the couch that the female youngling was currently sleeping on. She had yet to awaken from his Force stun performed ten minutes ago.
On the kitchen table was a pile of crushed mechanical devices that were once visual/audio recorders; each the size of a small bean. After observing the young twi'lek's memories, he realized he had made a mistake in not having checked for such things previously. Where they were placed, there was nothing that could be missed.
There were three in the kitchen, five in the living room, four in the restroom, two on the balcony, and a whopping ten in the bedroom. From what he could tell from their placement and from the adhesive used to keep them in place, they must have been inserted just hours before his arrival on Coruscant nearly two weeks prior.
Maul had decided to take the rage that had begun to culminate within him and use it to power his meditation experience while he waited for Farkas. For some reason, the mixture of how much he wanted to kill Tanran and how much he wanted to kill the specific person that had placed one of the cameras in the general direction of the toilet seemed to be doing him just fine for the moment.
He focused upon his feelings and the darkness naturally in his heart and was almost brought out of his attention by a thumping sound.
Maul had noticed that the sound would repeat once per minute. It was not anything in the room, so he guessed that it was his own failing mind playing games with him. It was probably something similar to the voice that continued to manifest.
What was it he said before...
He thought back to the "conversation" they had in the stairwell. There was something the voice had said just before he sensed the presence in his room.
Can you not sense her...
Can you not sense that she is still...
Alive.
The sound danced across his mind and through his ears and held a similar rhythm to a heartbeat.
Farkas was going to have to wait for his audience.
Maul stood up immediately and reached for his cloak. After putting in the proper code in his bracelet, he made his way to the balcony and jumped on his speeder before it even made it to the edge of the balustrade.
After a few hours searching through the depths of Coruscant, Maul had come up with nothing in terms of a direction or a sighting within a 12 hour period. He checked the local bars, gambling houses, and alternative entertainment establishments and still no information had been gathered, even when forced.
While making his way to one of the lowest levels, he did make one important discovery that in his mind proved that the Jedi was alive after her disappearance from the senate apartment building; the missing corpse of Jedi Master Windu.
Maul stood in the same alley in which he had found the Jedi Master previously. It remained warm and still had a lingering smell of death mixed in with rust. The bodies that he had seen before had continued in their process of decomposition and flesh and muscle had begun to fall off of bone.
There was also the smell of iron which had nothing to do with the machinery surrounding him. Droplets of what must have been day old blood surrounded the scene. Maul found a short trail of it heading towards the previous resting place of the Jedi Master.
For a moment, he thought about the distance between where he was currently and where the senate apartment building was. He knew that it was one of the smaller ones and not as close to the senate building, where he was closest to at the present time.
If the blood spattered on the ground was the female Jedi's, that would mean that she had traveled around 350 meters while wounded. Though there was a short trail of blood on the floor, it was heavily concentrated.
Observing the area around him, only lit by the lights in buildings in the level just above, he noted that someone could have easily made their way through the nightclub alleys so as not to travel within the dark.
There may be more of the trail up above.
He made his way to the next level, which left him in front of a building that he was certain was a gentleman's club. Some of the people, made up of a variety of races, quickened their pace as they walked by the hooded figure, while others remained leaned up against the building inhaling their death sticks.
Once again, the smell of blood was apparent. As he made his way to a new trail, he noted that the now smeared droplets were spaced out more, as if the person bleeding had been moving at a faster pace.
The direction it had begun to take him was north of the Senate District. As he looked over in the direction, he began to feel drips of water land on his hood.
The spires of the abandoned Jedi Temple were somehow visible even at the lower level he was on.
...
As he ascended the steps of the large and ancient building, the rain had increased in volume. Fortunately he had been able to follow the blood trail enough to know for certain that this was the destination.
He preferred the weather, since it was harder for outsiders, specifically clones, to get a visual of someone breaking in. Though in all honesty, there was nothing blocking his entry.
He began to walk through the cavernous entryway and there was an intense feeling of betrayal and loss. He could sense the number of beings that had been killed within the very area that he was at.
The floors were covered in dust and debris, and the yellow flooring of the steps he walked on had lost their glossy affect. The air was stale and thick with tension from the Force. He could sense its despair at having lost so many that had its will.
It was as if the building itself had died along with its inhabitants. The feelings were dense, yet Maul ignored them out of apathy. All he was interested in was finding the woman.
He felt himself wandering more than he should have, for he was unable to sense anything alive. For all he knew, if he ended up finding her, she would be nothing more than a dead body.
Sweat had once again collected under his collar, and it had begun to agitate him.
Where the Hell is she?
As he walked through towards the center of the building's entry level, he noticed several turbolifts that must have been out of service since the end of the Clone Wars. Five were arranged in a way that they made a four corner shape with one in the middle.
The spires...
He found several dried drops of blood leading to one particular lift. Only now did he realize that he had not noticed the blood before.
Sure that he would find time to reprimand himself later, he went to the lift and noticed that there was a faint orange light blinking above the doors. Apparently, someone had overrided the power cell that controlled the building to turn that specific lift on.
Maul forced the doors open and stepped in, noticing the otherwise neutral colored floor which was stained in a deep brown.
Before he could press an input for a specific level, the lift began to move on its own, shooting straight up until it opened to a room that was shaped like a circle. The scene that he had come to contact with was interesting to say the least.
In the middle of the room was a pile of mismatched wood pieces with the burning remains of who he guessed was Mace Windu. His arms were folded upward and in the slack grasp of his one, burned hand was a lightsaber. Whether it was the purple lightsaber that was once wielded by the man whose grasp it was in, he wasn't certain.
Surrounding the makeshift cremation in a pattern like the shape of the room itself were twelve seats, some a different style and size than the others. Behind them were windows that showed an almost complete view of the city that the temple was surrounded by.
He walked towards the remains, unsure of what he wanted to do at that point. Embers were all that stayed alive and even they were nearing their end.
His eyes wandered the room for a moment until he found the continued trail of blood that had led him to this point. To his left it ended behind the third seat away from the entrance.
He made his way over to the area behind that chair and saw the still form of the Jedi. Her back rested against the chair with her knees bent and her hands in her lap.
Maul knelt down and examined her. She was clothed in the same attire he had seen in the youngling's memory. She had abrasions on her face, neck, arms, and several on her bare feet which also had many scratches. Other than those, he could not see an area in which she would have bled profusely enough to have left such a long trail.
Her neck was limp and her head faced downward. Maul grabbed her by the chin and could feel the cold of her skin through his gloves. There were two extremely thin, very faint scars in the shape of the markings that Azazul had cut into her. Her face was pale against the purple in her hair which had remained fastened in a tail.
That was when he noticed something just between her shoulder blades which were malicious in appearance.
He pulled her limp body away from the chair and had found his answer to her blood loss.
Both parallel and perpendicular to the spine of her back were several deep gashes that revealed red tissue which glistened from the slight light from the embers. The longest gash he saw started at the bottom of her right shoulder and ended at her left hip.
Maul was able to count nine and wondered what kind of weapon could do this. They were not cleanly cut and showed that there had been instances where whatever it was ripped her skin rather than cut through it. He could see some of the fabric from her shirt embedded within the wounds. The shirt itself still clung to her back by the chance of a few threads still clinging to a spandex strip at the top of it.
There was no question that she must have been in severe pain. Maul supposed that she may have gone into shock after somehow carrying the body of a dead person larger than herself nearly a kilometer, despite the many levels she would have had to travel upward from.
He took his left glove off and placed his index and middle fingers on her neck, just below her jaw line. With his eyes closed, he waited for pulse activity. After several seconds, he was skeptical of any attachment to the Force he still felt from her. Whatever life was there, it was so little that her pulse would not show.
Then, just before he was about to leave her be, he felt it. One pulse within a minute, but it was there. Rather than be slight and weak, it bounced against the pads of his fingers. He waited, and within another minute it appeared again.
He had even begun to notice the slight movements of her chest, as if she was breathing.
As he thought back on the symptoms presented to him, he remembered Tyranus mentioning something to Master Sidious about a Force technique that allowed the person to slow down the biological processes of an enemy. He remembered him saying that a person could even do this to themselves.
Morichro?
He could not fathom that this Jedi had possibly mastered such an ability. This was something that few Jedi Masters had been able to accomplish, let alone a simple Knight.
He decided, however, that he might have underestimated this Jedi's powers. She at least had enough strength and will to travel more than a kilometer's distance on foot while having received such pain inducing wounds, and partly with a dead man in tow. Rather than escaping with her own life and getting care for herself, she decided to pay a last respect towards a superior. Though, she may have believed that she would die anyway.
He gathered her still limp form in his arms and had her positioned so as not to place his hands on opened flesh. As he lifted her up, her head fell backward and her arms and legs hung downward similarly to a wet towel hanging off of a line.
He traversed back down to the entry hall of the Jedi Temple and noticed that the rain continued into the early morning. It was around 0650 hours and the scant amount of light was unable to make its way through the rain clouds; this was perfect for him to leave unnoticed.
Bloodfin parked itself just underneath the entrance of the building after swerving through an area with abundant coverage, where its master had hidden it. The Sith walked past it at first, only to hold the woman out in the rain.
For a moment, he allowed the rain to run down her back to wash out the outer most grime and old blood. The concrete beneath him had then been covered in brown tinged water, occasionally littered with blood clots and the fabric of her shirt. No one would see any proof of them having been there after the evidence washed away.
Maul returned to the dry entrance hall, boarded onto the speeder and sat the Jedi in his lap. He then took off his somewhat dry cloak and placed it over the woman. He made sure her head was covered by the hood. Even though the hours were early, he had a gut feeling that members of the senatorial house would be awake and quite alert after the previous days events.
He took off in the dark and the rain, with one arm wrapped around the Jedi's waist and the other on his bike's control handle. While, racing through the Senate District, he questioned himself.
Why am I doing this...
The zabrak almost wanted the absent bodied voice to challenge him with an answer. He could have left her where she was to eventually die.
His feelings ended up telling him something on the lines of an answer. She may have had many answers available to help explain the events of yesterday. Whether he could or would find any plausible information from the community over at the complex was highly unlikely. What a sad day it was for him to trust a Jedi's word over any others within a vicinity.
He felt one of her abdominal muscles twitch, through the cloak she wore, from his contact. He instinctively tightened his hold against her midriff and glanced down at her face, which was partially covered by his hood.
She looked to be in a peaceful sleep, reminding him of the youngest of the noghri who had died just the afternoon before. How amusing to him, it was, to consider that maybe this Jedi had been the one to put Himmel unconscious.
Her legs hung off of the speeder and he couldn't help but notice how physically pleasing it felt to have a woman in such a position while riding. Also, the pants that she wore were forming enough to show off toned calves, thighs, and a tight rear end.
Memories of her unintentional embrace while last riding with him on the speeder and her touch from the first night they encountered one another swarmed his mind. As the speeder stopped on the landing of his room, he let out a sigh through his nose.
Maul knew that this desire building within him would become problematic if the Jedi was able to survive. He would have to worry with that later, though. An anxious bothan awaited him with what was, hopefully, information on whatever had happened in their absence.