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The emperor wants you…dead.
The emperor wants you. Dead.
The emperor wants you —
“Dead! Yes, yes, I know!” Maul seethed into the never-ending torrent of sand. “And I can assure you, the feeling is mutual!”
One hand braced in front of his face. As if it alone could offer some deflection from the onslaught of grit scraping across his skin. It stung his eyes, burned his nostrils, his throat. He turned and spat, but only a pathetic puff of air came out. When was the last time he’d had something to drink? To eat? He couldn’t remember. So many of his days had been spent running and fighting.
The emperor wants —
And that damned voice wasn’t helping!
Maul’s fingers dug into his scalp. If he could just tear the cursed thing out of his head! If he had but a crumb of Mother Talzin’s magick….
One eye squinted ahead. An endless black tunnel stretched onward, filled with nothing but wind and sand and dirt and it had been his only way out after the fall. He had plummeted down, down, like a stone, using his lightsaber to drill through that ancient bridge lest he smash himself against it, causing irreparable damage to his cybernetic legs.
Falling. Always falling.
Far above, far above, we don't know where we'll fall….
“No! Stop that.” Maul shook his head, trying to clear it. But there was nothing, nothing around him save for dust and sand and wind and —
Dark.
So dark his fall had been. He should have felt pain, but instead there was…nothing. A momentary shock, feeling his heart beat — his lungs contract — the most blinding rage he had ever known, and then —
Heat.
Around him. Within him. Air so thick he could hardly breathe. Fire, burning his skin. But there were no flames, only the flash of a —
Kenobi!
Maul’s eyes flew open, teeth bared and ready to strike. But the Jedi was nowhere to be seen. One quick look told him he was no longer on the verdant world of Naboo but rather in some forsaken wasteland. Smoke grey clouds stretched across a noxious yellow sky. The humid air suffocated, coupled with the sickly sweet smell of rot that permeated his every breath. Maul coughed, pushing himself up with one arm. Around him were mounds of garbage. Trash haulers hummed overhead, the mechanical whine of gears the only alert as a bay door would open and more refuse was offloaded onto a pile. He looked at the mound nearest him, the markings in the dirt left by the thick, windless air — the same dirt now covering his torso — and drew his own conclusion. He was nothing but another discarded bit of refuse.
Maul’s breath came in ragged spurts, an animal growl building in his chest as he beheld the ruined sky. “You! You did this to me, Kenobi!”
When he tried to stand, a searing pain lanced up his spine, followed by a flash of memory. One of falling, and heat, as the Jedi’s lightsaber cleaved him in two, cauterizing his flesh. Maul looked down, at the place where his legs should have been.
There was nothing but charred torso.
His own breath choked in his throat. He grabbed his neck, remembering the times his Master would punish him for his failings….
Master? My Master will come. I will have my revenge!
Red burned across Maul’s vision as rage welled up inside. He drew a sharp, gasping breath, filling his lungs with the putrid air. A gust of wind loosened debris from the tops of garbage mounds surrounding him. Metal scrap and old food. Worn clothes and a cracked cup. All things beings in this galaxy told themselves they needed…until they no longer served a purpose. Only to be discarded here.
The worst thing is to be forgotten. It was a lesson his Master taught him over and over again. One he now used to channel his hatred. His Master would not forget him. His Master would come. He would hear his apprentice’s call.
Thunder rumbled overhead. The wind picked up speed, whirling the dust into small funnels. Rain drops splashed down, hissing as they splattered, melting whatever they touched. Maul growled as the acid rain hit his arms, his chest. In a trash pile straight ahead was something rectangular, possibly an old cargo container. Maul dragged himself over, managing to make it inside before the deluge began. He panted, out of breath, as black dots swam across his vision.
“My Master will come,” he said to no one. “My Master will come.”
The dots grew and grew, becoming holes. Large and gaping. Dark. He felt himself falling again. Through that tunnel. Always falling.
Far above, far above, we don't know where we'll fall. Far above, far above, what once was great is rendered small.
Maul’s world went black.
.
o
.
The snake’s tongue tickled his ear. Maul’s fingers locked around its throat in an instant. For a moment, he expected the sting of fangs piercing his flesh. A throbbing, crushing pain would follow, as the venom spread through his body.
One bloodshot eye cracked open, then the other. The snake in his grip was not like the one that droid had brought him, that his Master had sent him, when he was young. It was not thin and yellow and green. This one was large, nearly as thick as his arm, with a wide, V-shaped mouth. Its forward-facing eyes gave it a look of intelligence — a point further driven home when the sound of a strangled plea issued from its throat.
“What are you?” Maul snarled.
“Not what,” the snake croaked. “Who.”
Maul’s eyes narrowed.
“Morley,” it continued. “Begging your pardon, but I thought you were dead. All kinds of things come here. But you’re the biggest I’ve found in awhile.” The snake’s eyes lingered hungrily on Maul. His grip around its throat tightened.
“I’m not a meal — ”
The snake — Morley — nodded his head fervently.
“ — but I just may make you one.”
Morley shook his head. “You don’t want to do that,” he rasped. “I can be of use!”
“How so?”
“I live here! I know things! Can bring you things” — Morley’s eyes flicked to Maul’s ruined form — “s-supplies, food!”
“…And just where is here?”
“L-Lotho Minor.”
Maul was thoughtful a moment, considering the snake’s offer. “Hm. I was wrong about you. You’re no snake, you’re a worm. But even pests have their uses. Find me something to eat, and I’ll let you live.” He flung Morley away, watching the creature slither out of the cargo container.
Maul tried to push himself up, immediately regretting that decision as a white-hot burning pain ripped up his back. An equally uncomfortable cramping echoed on his front. His gut — whatever was left of it — throbbed, the sensation hitting him like waves. Despite his threats to Morley, Maul was not the least bit hungry. He clenched his fists, rolled to one side and vomited twice. This was untenable. His rage would only sustain him for so long. It would not stop his body from shutting down. Thankfully, that droid of his Master’s had taught the young Zabrak all he needed to know about anatomy — both his and other species in the galaxy. Maul knew which areas were the most vulnerable, where to strike first. He also knew how to begin rebuilding his body.
When Morley returned with some grey-furred rodent, Maul sent him out again, this time to scavenge for parts.
.
o
.
Days passed. The ache in his gut finally eased, though Maul could not yet position himself in a way to lessen the rest of his discomfort. He managed to hold down at least one of the rats Morley brought him. It would be enough for now. It would have to be. The rest, he let the snake eat as payment for the tubes and wiring Morley found.
“You know, this box won’t hold much longer. Not against another acid rainstorm,” the creature offered conversationally one day.
Maul looked up at the tiny pinpricks of light piercing through the metal shell. “Then find me a new shelter.”
Morley tapped the tip of his tail against his chin. “Oooh, something like that…it’s not so easily done.”
“Meaning?”
“Well, you’re gonna want to go underground. Deep underground, like the Junkers do. And they don’t look too favorably on things invading their spaces.”
“Junkers?”
Morley nodded, eyes glinting. “Things like you. Organic. Cybernetic. Things from other worlds came to study them, but then they just…became.”
“Speak plainly, worm! What does that mean?”
Morley flicked his tail, gesturing at the cargo container, the debris on the floor, his grin growing wider.
For the first time in countless years, Maul felt a flicker of fear spark in his chest. He would be damned if he let himself become another piece of discarded waste.
“…My Master will come.”
.
o
.
Acid rained down two days later. Though not as heavy as the first storm had been, Maul watched as the holes in his box grew bigger. It was all he could do to protect the tubing and wires Morley had scavenged for him as welts on his arms and chest blistered, erupted, and wept.
The next morning, the snake returned. “I may have found a place. An old Junker den. Abandoned, by the looks of it.”
“Where?”
Morley scratched his chin with the tip of his tail. “About a day’s slither from here.”
“Show me.”
The snake led Maul on a winding path around mountains of garbage, each as indistinct as the rest. The Zabrak dragged himself behind his companion, feeling several times Morley was leading him to a trap to finally make good on his initial instinct of consuming Maul. He found himself wondering just as many times whether that would be preferable.
The worst thing is to be forgotten.
Anger bubbled up in Maul. Why was it taking his Master so long to find him? How far from Naboo were they? How far from Coruscant? He tried to envision the star systems that droid had made him memorize when younger, but could not recall this planet ever being among them. Surely Sidious, as powerful as he was, could sense him. Surely he knew Maul was still alive. Surely his Master had not…abandoned him.
A new rage began to form within. Or perhaps a very old one was resurfacing. One he thought he had overcome during his Master’s final test. When Maul was holed up in that cave, delirious with fever, from a month spent surviving probe droids reprogrammed with only one directive: kill. He wanted nothing in that moment than to turn that directive on his Master after Sidious boasted about training a new apprentice. They had dueled and Sidious would have struck Maul down — had his Master not been using a training saber the whole time. Maul’s addled mind had not been able to tell the difference. The moment Sidious spared him was the moment his fury from years of endless training and torment transformed into absolute, unwavering loyalty to the Sith lord.
Maul swore, as he crawled further into that wasteland, he would have his revenge on his Master, just as he would Kenobi.
Up ahead, Morley stopped. “This one!”
Night had fallen, but the light provided by burning piles of trash showed Maul what looked like a half-buried hollow cylinder. The entrance was covered by a ragged cloth. Maul eyed the snake, then proceeded in. Morley followed, lifting up a metal plate on the floor with his tail. Underneath, an endless tunnel stretched away.
Morley lunged, wrapping his body around Maul as down, down they fell.
Falling. Always falling.
Far above, far above, we don't know where we'll fall. Far above, far above, what once was great is rendered small.
.
o
.
Maul awoke to a sharp, stabbing pain in his head. Like a pick was being driven through it. Something flickered behind his eyelids. Light. Flames. Towering piles of —
Eyes shot open. He was laying on his back in something that could be called a room. Not an incinerator, as he had thought. Beside him, a fire crackled inside a grate. And Morley rested, curled up in a corner, one eye open.
Maul angled himself up, using the wall for support. The throbbing in his head ebbed to a dull ache.
“Where have you brought me?”
Morley picked his head up. “Junker den. Abandoned. Told you.”
“I thought….”
“It was the only way to get you down here.”
Maul considered this. “…And how do I get out?”
The snake’s tongue flicked out. “Climb.”
“With what!?” Maul fumed.
Morley gestured with his tail. “Everything you need. Right here.”
Maul looked around. There were shelves filled with scrap metal, old motors, wiring. Tools. It seemed like a lot to leave just lying around.
“And you’re sure the old occupants will not return?”
Morley nodded.
Another thought occurred to Maul as he looked around the room, eyes landing on the metal grate. “Am I your prisoner?”
The snake gave a hissing laugh. “No. Why would I do that? No, not when we can be of use to each other.”
“And just what is it that you want from me?”
A leering grin spread across Morley’s face. “There is something about you. You are not like the usual trash that falls from the sky. Not like the things that come to look. But you are not complete.” He looked at the wires and tubes fused to bits of metal protruding from Maul’s trunk. “Once you make yourself whole, I can lure the things that come to look to you. You kill them, and we will have a feast!”
“Why not just kill them yourself?”
“Because…they come in numbers, groups, every few rotations. Hard to separate. I tried. But I bring them to you, and….”
“I see.”
.
o
.
In the passing days, Maul began working on cybernetic limbs to allow for better locomotion. He started with two, then added a third for balance, the scrounged metal being of sub-par quality, weakened by the acid rain and heat. He maintained a symbiotic relationship with the snake, benefitting from what Morley found amongst the scrap heaps. But all the while, a singular thought echoed in his head: My Master will come. A belief born of a twisted hope rooted in both his desire for revenge and a relentless ambition to prove himself worthy.
A few times, he climbed out of the hole to visit the surface. The trash barges were endless. A few even came close to his mound, but were still too far for him to jump. If only a ship would land….
My Master will come for me.
Morley said the things that came to look arrived every few rotations. And they would bring a ship.
My Master will come.
Being forgotten is the worst thing one can be.
Far above, far above, we don’t know where —
In the distance, a hauler hovered over another mountain. Maul sat atop his, watching as the discarded, abandoned, broken things of the galaxy fell. Forgotten.
What once was great is rendered small.
.
o
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The droid that had raised him had six legs. The droid had raised him because the man could not be bothered with a child so small. Because he did not yet matter enough.
(Did he ever)
The droid often brought pain. Once, it brought compassion.
(Weakness)
They both were punished for it.
But the droid was also cunning, turning betrayal to advantage. Spinning lies the way spiders spun silk.
The droid had six legs.
He would have six legs.
Something whispered in the tunnel. His senses were heightened, attuned to notice the slightest vibration of air or shift of light. The droid and the man made sure of that.
He waited.
He had four legs now but needed six.
He waited.
Organic. Cybernetic.
A shadow moved in the darkness. It shuffled along the corridor. Shuffled, not slithered. Not the snake.
(Worm)
A glowing eye.
Drawing closer.
He waited.
Waited.
Waited.
He will come.
Two sharp, metal appendages raised up and slashed through the air, stabbing downward into the Junker’s chest.
Organic
Cybernetic
Man
Machine
Thing
A ruined body on a ruined planet.
Discarded.
Forgotten.
Somewhere, he thought he heard another whisper. This one, singing. His own voice, perhaps.
Far above, far above, we don’t know where we’ll fall. Far above, far above, what once was great is rendered small.
It had been six rotations.
.
o
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Falling. Always falling.
Maul coughed, the sound more a wheeze as his lungs expelled dry, sand-filled air. Eyes blinked, struggling to focus, to open. Something pressed into his gut, recalling the painful ache all those years ago, before he became whole again. The sand tunnel’s metal ribs stretched out from under him, away into the distance.
He must have collapsed at some point.
Up ahead, he could make out a light. Maul exhaled in relief. He was nearly out.
He slid his arms down and under him, levering himself up. As he did, he felt something wet run down his cheek. A pool of water rested beneath him. Leftover from the storms that had passed through. The arid air had not yet dried it out. He pursed his lips and drank what remained, throat raw from the grit he’d swallowed.
He then pushed himself up to one knee with a grunt. With another snarl, he brought his other foot under him. His right leg sparked, an electric blue web, but Maul ignored the pain. He’d survived far worse. He was standing, not falling. And he would press on.
.
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