Authors: James Luceno
“Who?” Maul snapped.
She sat down on the couch. “First things first. Just how much do you know about me—or think you know?”
Maul stood over her. “Your name is Magneta. You were chief of security for the former King.” She forced a short exhale. “I’d ask your name, but I’m sure it wouldn’t mean anything to me.” Maul went on. “Before the election of Queen Amidala, the King was planning to tap additional plasma reservoirs in the Gungan areas. He contracted with an offworld mining company to do the surveys, and was prepared to go to war with the Gungans if they resisted. He abdicated the throne before putting the plan into action.”
“Abdicated,” Magneta said, drawing out the word. “A curious way to put it. Do you know how King Veruna died?”
Maul fought to control his impatience. “I don’t know and I don’t care.” She studied his face. “Odd. When you rode up, I immediately figured you for the assassin we could never locate.”
Maul snorted. “You figured wrong. Who knows the location of the underwater cities?” Magneta sighed. “All right, have it your way. You’ll want to talk to a Bothan named Leika. He’s chief surveyor for the company King Veruna hired. But I’m not sure where he can be found. I’ve tried to keep an ear to the ground, but from here there’s only so much I’m able to learn. Leika was preparing to leave Naboo when the Neimoidians sprang their surprise blockade. He tried to reason with them, but as with many other offworlders, he wasn’t permitted to leave. No ships in or out, no exceptions. He was in Moenia when the invasion occurred, and no doubt he was caught up in it. So the first place I’d look would be in the closest detention camps.” Maul turned and headed for the door. He was about to go through it when Magneta said: “Be sure to give my regards to the Muun.”
Maul stopped and swung slowly around. “What Muun?”
“Hego Damask.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know the name.”
Magneta tipped her head to one side in suspicion. “I find that very unlikely, since I’m certain that Hego Damask and his puppet—Naboo’s illustrious Senator Palpatine—have their arms to the elbows in this invasion and occupation.”
Maul betrayed no surprise, even at the mention of his Master’s alias. “Who is Hego Damask?”
“Who is …?” Magneta ran her eyes over his mask of a face. “You actually don’t know?
Damask is a mobster masquerading as a banker. It was Damask who brokered the original deal to have Naboo’s plasma mined and shipped by the Trade Federation. I suspect he’s also the one behind Palpatine’s campaign for the chancellorship. They’ve been in collusion for over two decades.” Maul was secretly stunned. He knew the names of some of Palpatine’s cohorts—Sate Pestage, Kinman Doriana, and others—but the name Hego Damask was new to him, as was Magneta’s assertion that the Muun was in some way
controlling
Palpatine. Was it possible that Darth Sidious himself had a clandestine Master? The idea was too far-fetched to contemplate, let alone accept.
“Ah, so I
have
touched on something,” Magneta said, watching him closely. “Then you might as well know the rest: There’s good reason to believe that Damask and Palpatine were the ones responsible for King Veruna’s death. They needed to install pretty little Amidala on the throne so they could take full control of the planet, while making it seem as if the Trade Federation were responsible.”
She paused, then added: “Palpatine double-crossed me, even after I allowed his agent, Pestage, to get away with the murder of more than a dozen pro-Gungan Naboo.” She gestured broadly. “Instead of being taken into the fold, I end up here, in humiliated self-exile for failing to save Veruna’s life.”
Maul knew something about humiliation. But Magneta had gone too far in airing her grievances, however justified. Palpatine could not be suspected of being tied to the Neimoidians or to the invasion of Naboo.
Maul heard Magneta’s bodyguard move, and Magneta, too—going for a hold-out blaster concealed beneath her apron. Maul was also aware that several field workers were gathered just outside the door, waiting to spring an ambush.
Snarling, he whirled, moving faster than human eyes could follow, breaking Magneta’s neck with the edge of his hand, then spinning again to send his stiffened right foot into the chest of the bodyguard as he rushed into the room. A hail of blaster bolts came through the front door.
Dodging them, Maul ran across the room and dived headfirst through a window, somersaulting in midair so that he hit the ground on his feet, now centered among his astonished opponents.
Growling, he clenched his bare hands and set on them, killing one after another.
Battle droids stationed at the perimeter of Detention Camp Six, outside Moenia, brandished their blaster rifles as Maul sped into their midst on the speeder bike. He was a split second from cutting them to pieces when their recognition programs kicked in and they assumed postures of salute.
“Welcome, Commander Maul,” their officer intoned. “What are your orders?” Shoving past them, Maul crossed a footbridge that spanned a foul-smelling trench and entered a compound of hastily erected dormitories and flat-roofed dining halls. The area had been recently deforested, and Naboo’s sun beat down on the muddy ground. The relocated population of nearby Moenia was largely made up of artists, merchants, and Gungan sympathizers. Maul supposed that they were more accustomed to simple living than their counterparts in cosmopolitan Theed, who had never known privation, but they were an unhappy lot just the same. A droid administrator found the name Leika among the list of detainees, and a security droid escorted Maul to a dormitory the Bothan surveyor shared with twenty Naboo actors, a Rodian wilderness guide, and two Bith musicians.
A broad-nosed and bearded being of medium height, Leika went rigid with fright on seeing Maul enter the room and made straight for the cot he shared with one of the Naboo.
Maul stood akimbo at the foot of the cot. “Gather your belongings and follow me outside.”
“I—”
“Now!”
Over his hirsute shoulders the Bothan slung two small backpacks and hurried after Maul, who ushered him into an unoccupied storage building and closed the door behind them.
“I didn’t mean to be a bother to the viceroy,” Leika said in apology. “I was merely requesting permission to leave Naboo—”
“That doesn’t concern me.”
The Bothan frowned in confusion. “You are the Neimoidians’ executioner, are you not?”
“That depends on how much information you can provide regarding the location of the Gungan cities,” Maul said.
Leika’s eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed with clear purpose. “If you can get me off Naboo, I’ll provide whatever information you require.”
Maul glanced at the backpacks. “First show me what you have, then I’ll give thought to your predicament.”
The Bothan dug into the smaller of the packs and fished out a projection crystal, which he inserted into a reader and set atop a storage container. Activated, the reader projected a 3-D map of Naboo’s swamplands and lakes.
“It took me more than a year to assemble these data,” Leika said. “I should have abandoned the project when King Veruna died, but I was so obsessed with unraveling the mystery of the Gungan cities, I couldn’t bring myself to stop. I was beginning to make real progress when the Trade Federation announced its blockade, and most of my informants went to ground.”
“Rellias,” Maul said. “Begin with that.”
Leika made adjustments to the crystal reader, and a new 3-D map came into view. He pointed to a data entry that accompanied shifting views of a dense cluster of hydrostatic bubbles that made up the underwater city of Rellias.
“Here are the location coordinates.” His furry hand moved. “The bubbles are permeable at certain points, and emit a natural glow that derives from the interaction between plasma and energy generated electromagnetically.”
“The name of the governor of Rellias,” Maul said.
“Boss,” Leika amended. “Boss Ganne. An Ankura Gungan—the ones with green skin and hooded eyes.”
Maul filed the name away. “How far to the bubble city closest to Rellias?” Leika rocked his head back and forth. “Hard to say. Several of my sources confirmed that there is a fortified underwater plasma channel, somewhere in this area”—his forefinger drew a circle in the air—“that eventually leads to Otoh Gunga, Langua, Jahai, and the rest, which I believe to be in Lake Paonga, close to where it merges with the Lianorm Swamp. Otoh Gunga is the capital, if you will, and home to the Rep Council and the high ruler, Boss Rugor Nass. There is said to be a second approach to Otoh Gunga from the north, from a site called the Sacred Place.” Maul turned away from the projected map to regard Leika. “The Sacred Place?” The Bothan shrugged. “No one I spoke with knew why it’s called that, or precisely where it is.” He paused for a moment. “Are you … planning to attack the cities? I only ask because I feel compelled to warn you that the Gungans are well armed. Their standing army is what kept King Veruna from attacking them, and in part the impetus for his creating the Naboo Royal Space Fighter Corps. That, and to counter the strength of the Trade Federation.”
“And to counter the power of the Muun, Hego Damask,” Maul said, dangling the name.
If Leika was surprised, he kept it to himself. “Well, Magister Damask, of course. He controls all of it. Even the coming election on Coruscant.”
“Damask will put Senator Palpatine in power?” Maul asked carefully.
“Naboo’s favorite son?” Leika laughed shortly. “Hasn’t Damask already done so?” Maul didn’t want to hear any more about it. Snatching the data crystal and reader, he threw open the door and stepped into the light. Glancing at Leika, he said: “The terms will be honored.” As he made his way out of the detention camp he thought about Darth Sidious, and it occurred to him to wonder if the terms of
their
agreement would be honored.
By the time Maul returned to OOM-9’s forward observation base, the dark waters of the marshland were clotted with poisoned gooberfish, and a stench hung in the humid air. The water level was lower, but not nearly as low as Maul had expected.
“As quickly as we drain it, the marsh replenishes itself, Commander,” the droid told him. “The marsh and the lakes beyond appear to be linked to vast reserves of underground water.” Maul handed the data crystal to OOM-9. “The location coordinates for Rellias can be accessed from the menu. Transmit the data to your STAP patrols and order them to saturate the location with depth charges. Then prepare the S-DST for immediate embarkation and meet me on board.” The droid accepted the crystal and hurried off.
Carrying half the company of droid troopers and the full contingent of droidekas, the aquatic destroyer hovered through a maze of channels shaded by thriving forest. By midafternoon it had maneuvered its way into a twisting passage that provided a link between the marsh and an enormous clear-water lake. Far to the west, two fingers of land jutted into the lake, forming a strait. Standing in the destroyer’s curved bow, Maul could see the STAPs buzzing back and forth beyond the narrows, raining explosives on the water. As the muffled reports of the depth charges reached him, he tried to compose himself for battle, but a welter of thoughts kept him from clearing his mind entirely.
Years earlier, on the same day Maul had been ordered to execute everyone at Trezza’s combat training center on Orsis, Darth Sidious had revealed that he was a Sith Lord. Before that, Maul had had no idea why or for what purpose he was being trained in the ways of the Force and in the dark side. Following the massacre, Darth Sidious had revealed more information about the Sith, including the fact that, for a millennium, there had never been more than two true Sith in any one era, a Master and an apprentice.
Allegedly
. Now, in the wake of the revelations about his Master’s possible alliance with Hego Damask, Maul asked himself: Had Sidious ever described himself as the
only
surviving Sith Master? Was it possible that this mysterious Muun, Hego Damask, was also a Sith Lord, and that Maul—while given the title
lord
by Sidious—was in fact something less than a
true
Sith? Was that why, unlike Sidious, he had never been granted a secret identity comparable to his Master’s guise as Palpatine? Was Maul, then, ultimately
expendable
to the Sith Grand Plan—a mere stealth agent and assassin?
Enough thinking!
he told himself.
Simply all the more reason to prove himself to his Master—or possibly Masters. To demonstrate his worthiness so that he might be seen as a
true
Sith.
With the S-DST approaching the straits, Maul saw that stone fortifications had been erected on both fingers of land, and that from behind those bulwarks, spheres of faintly blue energy were being lobbed into the sky, decimating the STAP patrols. As the destroyer drew closer to the sandy shore, hundreds of orange- and purple-skinned Otolla Gungans appeared at the top of the walls, armed with energy lances and so-called plasmic boomers that could be hurled from baskets worn over one hand.
Surfacing from the suddenly turbulent waters came a fleet of organically grown submersibles, whose weapons began to target the destroyer with orbs of destructive power.
The S-DST beached itself so that the droid troopers and droidekas could disembark. Rushing in to meet the hovercraft came a cavalry force made up of Gungans seated on two-legged wingless reptavians adorned with war feathers. Leading the charge were two green-skinned Ankura whom Maul assumed were Boss Ganne and his general. From the rear flew energy orbs launched from catapults strapped to the backs of beasts, whose sonorous calls reverberated across the lake. Battle droids marched out to face them, firing their E-5s continuously, and bolstered by the droidekas that wheeled toward the yelping riders, stopping only to fire from behind their individual deflector shields.
Maul leapt ashore. The horizontal hail of fire from the battle droids and the droidekas heated the air and conjured a breeze. STAPs fell from the sky like stones, and the energy spheres fountained water and dirt high into the air.
In planning his attack on the Orsis training camp, he had initially decided that his first kill should be Trezza. The Falleen had to be taken out while Maul was at the peak of his strength. Then the rest of the trainers and trainees could be seen to. But Maul hadn’t stood by his decision, undermined by reluctance to kill the being who had in many ways been his only flesh-and-blood caregiver. As a consequence, he had come close to losing to Trezza when they had finally joined in hand-to-hand combat. Maul had promised himself that he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.