Maul got back to his cell with seconds to spare.
The hatch slammed shut behind him, its magbolts clamping tight with a vacuum-sealed thump. The panel of yellow lights had begun blinking red. All around him, the cell had already begun changing shape, the floor bowing below his feet, wall plates sliding together with a now familiar grinding of alloy against alloy, constricting upward to merge with the ceiling.
He breathed slowly, in and out, and took a moment to review what had just happened. None of it made sense. Not that he’d expected it to.
The ventilation duct ambush had worked as he’d expected—up to a point. He’d gone in fully anticipating a setup, and in this the guard had not disappointed him. A man like Iram Radique hadn’t survived this long without amassing an army of foot soldiers and lookouts, both inmates and guards, to mislead those who came looking for him. Was Zero working for Radique? Could it be that simple?
And there was the more immediate question of why he hadn’t been killed when the guard had activated the implanted charges in his heart. Had the dark side itself somehow intervened at the last second to save him?
The implications of this possibility made Maul catch his breath. For all Darth Sidious’s talk of his role as his apprentice and eventual successor, Maul still felt precious little connection to the Sith grand plan for the galaxy and his place within it. At the Dark Lord’s command, he’d spent years training on Orsis and then on Coruscant in the LiMerge Building, enduring years of privation and the harshest imaginable discipline while awaiting his Master’s visits. And it was true—Sidious had spoken at length, intoxicatingly, about the dark side and its power, and more vaguely about the role Maul would play as he continued in his study of the Sith arts. In his most solitary moments, Maul had dared allow himself to hope for that moment when the Force would announce itself within him fully, intervening in a way that could not be mistaken for anything but sheer destiny.
Could this be that moment?
If that’s true—
There was a sudden lurch and everything jerked forward on its axis. Maul seized the handgrips on either side of the bench, wedging himself in place, feeling hydrostatic pressure building in his face and neck as the entire chamber turned upside down, then tumbled sideways, pitching first to the left, then to the right. The cell spun, jerked left, barreled forward, jerked right again. Equilibrium abandoned him momentarily and he tightened his grip.
There was a sharp clank and the chamber jerked to a halt. Something hissed, a hydraulic hatchway on the other side of one of the walls, but the hatch in front of him remained sealed.
Then, through the wall, he heard it.
A low, bronchial growl.
Maul closed his eyes and listened. Whatever was on the other side of that hatch sounded bigger and hungrier than the creature he’d fought earlier. The growl had a sonorous, barrel-chested timbre that shook the air itself. He caught himself stretching out with his feelings and forced himself to withdraw, his Master’s voice burning in his ears from their final meeting on Coruscant.
If at any point you reveal your true identity as a Sith Lord, Sidious had told him, the entire mission will be worthless, do you understand? You must not ever use the Force, no matter what the circumstances, or all will be lost. Do you grasp the magnitude of responsibility with which you are being trusted?
Maul did. All too well.
He continued to hold absolutely still, listening, attuned to this moment. When the growl came again, it had risen in volume and intensity and was now a thick snarl of fury. Metal chains clanked, rattling audibly, and something slammed against the wall with a sudden, deafening crash that shook the very bulkhead in front of him. There was another bellow, even louder than before, that he could feel in the hollow of his chest. The thing on the other side of the wall could smell him now, he was sure of it. It wouldn’t be long now.
The blinking lights went solid red.
And the hatch opened.
Maul remained motionless for a long moment, looking at it.
The wampa was in chains, bolted to the floor of its cell with heavy Nylasteel manacles around its legs, wrists, and throat. It stood almost three meters tall, its thick fur matted with filth, grease, and blood. One of its horns had snapped off midshaft, creating a jagged ocher-colored dagger that curled only halfway around the right side of its head. Across its chest and abdomen, great swaths and patches of its white pelt had been ripped away to expose a puckered landscape of scar tissue—no doubt the results of previous battles. Its lips wrinkled back to reveal rows of razor-sharp teeth, and spittle flew as it unleashed a bellow of hungry, frustrated rage and jerked at its restraints.
Maul stood his ground. He gave himself a few seconds to evaluate the space where they would be fighting—the height of the ceiling, the diameter of the chamber—before turning back to stare the thing straight in its yellow, semi-sentient eyes.
Come, then.
As if hearing his thoughts, the wampa leaned down, gathering its strength, and at that moment the manacles fell away. Maul never heard them hit the floor.
The thing came at him.
Maul leapt upward, dodging the initial attack—but the creature’s massive arm swung around as it passed, its claws raking his back, ripping through flesh to gouge deep into the muscle along his spine. Maul felt his breath sucked from his lungs. A cruel, hot spike—even now he refused to think of it as pain—took hold of that entire side of his body, settling deep inside his nerve endings. The sudden smell of his own blood, sharp and coppery, filled the cell.
Ducking low and then jumping for the ceiling, he felt hot liquid splashing down his leg, streaking the floor beneath his feet. He skidded, colliding with the wall in front of him. Was the cell actually smaller than it had been a moment ago? Had they already changed the shape of it around him?
Maul took a breath and centered himself. Things were happening too quickly. He needed to slow it down. But the wampa was already lunging again, its long, apelike arms swinging, claws carving shadow, smashing him back into the curved steel wall as its jaws snapped inches away from his face. Maul slid down through the pool of his own blood, rolled free, and sprang up behind the thing faster that it could turn. Cocking back one arm, he tensed his shoulder and snapped his elbow into the base of the creature’s skull, putting every ounce of upper body strength into a blow that should have shattered its neck.
Nothing. It was like launching an elbow strike against solid stone covered with a layer of thick fur. Now the creature rounded on him again, arms upraised, towering to fill what felt like the entire cell. This time when it roared, the noise was more like a scream—a broken, phlegmy, bronchial shriek—as if the beast itself were somehow being tortured into attacking him. A flicker of realization passed through Maul’s mind.
Something’s wrong with it. It’s not—
The wampa’s claw shot forward, slashing diagonally across Maul’s face.
The moment of clarity vanished in the hot rush of his own anger. Maul lowered his head, tightening up his core, hearing a new growl rising up—his own growl this time, emanating from the most deep and primal pit of his being. He opened himself to it, the deep venom of wrath taking control, fast and sleek and powerful. It would not be long now. Dismissing the bright slash of heat across his cheek and the bridge of his nose as he had dismissed the odd shimmer of insight that had immediately preceded it, he fell into a low crouch, letting the wampa come at him again.
Its next move would be its last.
Maul sprang straight upward into it, driving his horned head into the thing’s lower jaw, pulverizing its mandible and slamming needle-sharp bone fragments into its cranial vault. Maul could actually feel the joints and fissures shattering inside the wampa’s skull and knew intuitively that he’d dealt it a killing blow.
But when he looked up again, the thing was on its feet and advancing toward him, howling and keening, a blind colossus. The head-butt had left its face a caved-in mass of blood and exposed bone. Somewhere within the cauldron of his anger, Maul felt a wave of disbelief.
How was it still fighting?
In defiance of all logic, it launched itself at him, all claws and teeth, a mass of unwavering death. Planting his feet against the wall behind him, Maul grabbed the thing by its remaining horn and put every ounce of his strength into twisting its head to the side. He wrenched the thing’s head away from him, and realized at the last second that he couldn’t hold it back. Whatever was inside the wampa was far more durable than he’d initially expected.
The thing lunged again, sinking its teeth into Maul’s shoulder, hitting crucial nerve bundles. All the strength disappeared from his hand and wrist, his body turning traitor at the worst possible moment. His arms fell slack and he stumbled backward, staring up at his adversary. Darkness like he’d never known before was swarming through his peripheral vision, thick and pulsating, tightening with every second. For the first time the impossible occurred to him—the prospect that he might actually lose.
He lifted his head, wiped the blood from his eyes.
Look at it, a voice spoke from deep inside him—not the voice of Sidious but an instinct of self-preservation that far predated his service to his Master. Do you not see?
Maul looked. Something was wrong with the wampa—something deeply, profoundly wrong that went beyond genetically predisposed violence and a history of predatory killing. And just that quickly, he knew how to end it.
Summoning whatever remained of his strength, Maul fired himself at the beast. Hooking his hands into claws, he plunged them through its fur, ripping into the soft tissue of its torso. The wampa screeched and wailed. Maul barely heard it. Shoving his hands deeper, he sank both arms in up to the elbow, beneath its rib cage and into its thoracic cavity, groping until he found what he was looking for—the slick, pulsating mass of its heart.
Maul grabbed it, laced his fingers together, and squeezed.
The wampa’s heart burst between his fingers like a dense and fibrous flower. At once the thing tumbled backward with a kind of graceless, shambling sprawl, slumping against the wall with a low moan, as if released from bondage beyond any chains or shackles. It gave a final braying cough, shuddered once, and fell still.
Maul licked the blood from his teeth and spat. He stumbled back, tried to catch himself, and failed. Fatigue was already taking hold, a dense and miserable web that made the simplest motions difficult. The blood he’d lost was not so easily countered. The darkness was coming again, and this time he knew that he wouldn’t be able to hold it off.
The last thing he saw was the cell around him shifting and beginning to rise.
Then blackness.