Shinen no Hikari: Totally cool! I had no idea Maul survived! And that story really makes sense when you think of how Owen obviously feels about Obi in ANH. Thanks for that.
Boba was feeling euphoric. He had helped Ben create just the right amount of chaos to cover both their escapes and now all he had to do was wait it out for them to arrive back at the hangar. He, Jango and Ben would head out while the Jedi Masters Ben had contacted could stay and sort out the whole mess. They would be free and clear.
He approached the hangar after taking a long sweep through the valley and dunes that stretched out between the arena and the hangar. Ben had advised him to fly high and away from the turbulent sands to avoid leaving too much of a trail and to check that he wasn't being followed. Boba had impressed himself with his piloting skills as he had made his way back and couldn't wait to recount his little adventure to Jango and Ben when they got back.
He swung up to the platform and his heart skipped a beat as the figure of Maul was slowly revealed to him standing on its edge. He pulled back on the control and the craft lurched to the side to head up and away from the platform, but it didn't get very far as the ship seemed to be held in place suddenly and Boba was thrust over the controls due to the sudden stop. The craft was being pulled down, back to the hangar and, recovering, Boba could see out of the view screen that Maul had his left arm extended, the hand balled into a tight fist as if gripping something. The arm was slowly lowering as the craft too began descending.
Boba climbed painfully back into the pilots seat. Ben had warned him about Maul and Ventress, but neither of them had suspected they would know about the hangar. Boba found he had some control of the ship and spun it around to point directly at Maul, whose face was frozen in concentration. Boba slammed the control forward and the ship shot down towards Maul's position. All Boba hoped to do was break Maul's concentration enough for him to fly back up, out and away from the valley. It worked for a moment and Maul jumped out of the way of the ship, but that leap was the last thing Boba remembered before an image of Ventress filled his mind and she uttered one word that sent him into a deep sleep. His last conscious thought was, that was an odd choice of word, I must now forget I ever heard it.
He sprang back to consciousness in what seemed like seconds later, but he found himself in a corner of the hangar, Dooku's ship across the way, appearing completely undamaged. He shook his head, trying desperately to remember how he ended up outside the ship and what had caused him to black out in the first place. One second he was staring down at an escaping Sith, the next he was on the cold floor of the hangar deck.
Ventress stalked over to him from her position at the hangar entrance. He backed away from her and she smiled coldly at him.
"Is that any way to react to an old friend?" she cooed and knelt down by him. Her eyes were glistening, in anticipation of facing off against Jedi, the child was a bonus handed to her by her master. She had always liked the young clones to toy with, they could so easily be manipulated and created the most interesting noises when tormented. She reached out to him and he backed up some more. She merely moved closer to him, getting down to his level and locking eyes with him. Such dark, almost black irises, the boy had, which on any other man could lead to a dull expression, but the mix of fear, excitement, anticipation that rolled off Boba had the effect of creating a sheen to the iris that reflected more light, giving the eyes an inner halo that intrigued the Sith hopeful. Now backed up completely to the wall, Boba had nowhere to go when she reached up her hand and gently caressed his cheek and jaw. She leaned in closer to him and he felt sure she was about to tell him something when her eyes lit up with exhileration and she released his face and turned to the hangar entrance. There stood Maul again, his back to the boy, hands clasped behind him in a way that reminded Boba, unnervingly, of Ben for some reason.
Recovering from his encounter with Ventress, Boba quickly did a scan of his surroundings and found nothing new since he and Ben had first gone there, so where was Maul and Ventress' ship? He moved forward to get a better look at what they were up to. Maul spun round, his yellow eyes fixed on Boba and the boy suddenly felt his body lifted off the ground and slammed through the open door to Dooku's ship where he hit the side wall and slumped to the floor. He tried to get to his feet, but it was obvious one of his legs was broken and before he could pull himself to the door, it was slammed shut and the metal twisted and buckled under the pressure exerted on it through the force. Boba was trapped inside the ship, he'd have to be cut out of the thing.
"Oh, well," he said quietly to himself and thinking of how Ben would cope in a situation like this, "at least I'll have the chance to use the fresher!"
He tried to get into a more comfortable position as the rumbling, burning pain from his leg began to rise. His breathing was becoming shallow, hitching in his lungs, but his current position, sitting up with the leg stretched out in front of him was certainly an improvement. He looked up out of the enormous view window and gasped down a gulp of air as Maul was right there in front of him, those piercing eyes penetrating his soul. The Zabrak was in his head, peeling through his recent memories, trying to gather all the information the child had locked inside his mind on Obi-Wan and Dooku. It was a very unpleasant experience, the memories being pulled to his mind's eye and then shoved out of the way for new ones to be pulled forward and examined. "Why didn't he do this while I was asleep?" thought Boba as the pain suddenly soared.
"You wouldn't have been able to see this," came Maul's voice through the rolling memories, and suddenly Boba realized he was being fed a memory directly from Maul's mind. Boba screamed as the secret his father had been trying to hide from him for the last year was finally revealed. He was not the first Boba.