Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter/Labyrinth

Aboard the Saak'ak Rune Haako has news for Nute Gunray. Together with Daultay Dofine, they go to his quarters. According to their consul on Coruscant, one of their people had been killed; although his identity had not been confirmed, they knew it to be Hath Monchar. The body of Mahwi Lihnn had also been discovered. Dofine panics and wonders what they should tell Lord Sidious when he contacts them.

In the Jedi Temple, Yoda meets with Qui-Gon Jinn and Mace Windu to discuss the current situation. Darsha Assant has been away for forty-eight hours, while her mission should only have taken a few hours. Her master, Anoon Bondara, is also missing. They decide they must send someone to investigate, but none of the older members can be sent due to the current situation in the Galactic Senate. Qui-Gon Jinn proposes to send his Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the others agree.

Assant, Pavan, and I-5YQ land in one of the service tunnels of Coruscant but cannot get up again, the stairs collapsed because of the explosion of the airspeeder. They cannot call for help since their comlinks are broken, and so they decide to seek another way out before the traffic going through the tunnel deafens them.

Not much later, they find another exit, I-5YQ uses his finger laser to open the locked door, and they enter a room of stairs&hellip;stairs only going down. Since they have no other choice, they descend into the lower levels. At the bottom, they have to choose from three tunnels, using I-5YQ’s locater they find that the right one goes in the general direction of the Jedi Temple, Pavan wants to take the left tunnel, but Assant manages to convince him asylum in the Jedi Temple might be his only chance of survival against the Sith.

The tunnel they follow is completely dark, only I-5YQ’s photoreceptors give light. They walk on for a while, when Assant suddenly urges them to stop because of a feeling that something is nearing them. Suddenly, something hits Pavan hard on the head and knocks him out. Assant pulls out her lightsaber, but neither I-5YQ nor she can find who hit Pavan with a throwing stick. They cautiously continue, but the attack comes again from the only place they had not checked. From above, an electric shock net is thrown from above, knocking Assant out as well.

Using the Force to evade obstacles and slow his fall, Darth Maul manages to survive his fall from the building after the speeder bike explosion, but still lies hurt and half-conscious atop a pile of rubble. There, he remembers the teachings of his master and his training. After waking up, he scares off a Devaronian trying to steal his lightsaber. After finding no bodies in the exploded airspeeder, he concludes that they still must be alive. The dark side of the Force reveals to Maul their track, but the entrance to the stairways they fled down had collapsed. Despite this, he manages to get through the ventilation shaft next to the stairs. Landing in the tunnel below, he is nearly killed by one of the transports going through, but manages to evade it with the help of the Force, and continues his search.

Lorn Pavan wakes up in a strange room, lying on a cold stone floor, and when he opens his eyes, he sees a very scary face staring at him. When he tries to get away, he gets terrible pains in his head and stops. When he looks around, he sees even more of the ugly creatures in the room. He also spots Darsha Assant lying two meters away from him and I-5YQ on his other side. Assant is unconscious and I-5YQ is shut down. Pavan realizes that they have been captured by Cthons, cannibalistic creatures living in the underground labyrinths of Coruscant.

Obi-Wan Kenobi makes his way to the safe house in the Crimson Corridor. He lands his airspeeder near Assant’s skyhopper, which he investigates and finds completely wrecked. He sees someone moving in the corner of his eye, and using the Force, commands him to come out of the shadows. He asks the human boy where Assant has gone, but he does not know. He does know, however, that the Fondorian man she had been traveling with died. He also tells about another Jedi that had followed an airspeeder on a speeder bike and about a fight between the two that had ended in an explosion. Obi-Wan figures that it must have been Assant and Master Bondara, so he decides to investigate the location of the accident.

After checking out the wreck of the airspeeder and the area near it, he finds nothing of use. The Force tells him Jedi had been here, but he also senses something else, something dark. He goes to find some witnesses, but only a few will talk to him. Their stories are confusing and contradictory, but he hears something about a fight at a nightclub of Yanth the Hutt. Obi-Wan decides to seek him out&mdash;as a Black Sun member, he might have better information.

Assant wakes up to the sound of fighting, recognizing the voice of Lorn Pavan, along with growling and barking sounds. After realizing what has happened, she gets up to her knees, but some of the creatures notice her and start coming toward her. Using the Force, she pushes them away, and in their confusion, she gets to her feet and reaches for her lightsaber. However, it is not on her belt, but she has no time to worry about it, as more Cthons are already coming her way. Using the Force, she manages to keep them at bay, but Pavan only has his fists to defend himself. He calls to her to active I-5YQ, but she cannot reach him. By using the Force, she tries to press the switch, and although she is attacked by a Cthon, manages to succeed. A loud scream fills the room, which drives the Cthons back. I-5YQ, still screaming, makes his way trough the dulled creatures to Pavan and grabs him, then makes his way to an exit, followed by Assant. However, the Cthons start to get up, and already, a big group waits on their escape route. Assant looks for a weapon, and she sees her lightsaber lying on a scrap hill. The combined threat of the lightsaber and I-5YQ’s scream is too much for the Cthons, and they flee. The group continues through the tunnel. After walking for a while, they reach the room where they had been captured, and I-5YQ shuts down the noise; instead, he starts to produce a low vibrating sound that causes Pavan’s and Assant’s headaches to go away. They decide to find a way back to the surface. I-5YQ, wondering why the Cthons had given up the hunt, has two explanations. The first is another trap; the second is that something even worse then the Cthons lies ahead.

Darth Maul quickly continues through the underlevels of Coruscant, following his prey with the Force. Suddenly, he realizes he is being watched and just manages to evade the electroshock net thrown down at him. He is immediately attacked by Cthons, but using the Force along with his lightsaber, he manages to fight them off and send them fleeing.

Pavan considers what they should do once they escape the underlevels. He plans to find a fast ship off-planet for I-5YQ and himself. Tuden Sal still owes him a favor, so he could help them get off Coruscant, even though Assant will probably want to take him to the Jedi Council. Suddenly, I-5YQ stops. He informs the others that they have entered a large cavern and that the floor ends in a very deep chasm. There is however a small bridge across, made of rope with all kinds of objects lying on it. Since the bridge seems stable, they continue across it.

During the crossing, they start to talk about how Pavan obtained I-5YQ. It turns out that he bought the droid from a scrap dealer. After fixing him up, they found that they had similar pasts and became partners. With some hints from I-5YQ, Assant figures out why Pavan dislikes the Jedi so much: they had taken his son away from him. She decides it is time to check if they are still being followed, so she reaches out with the Force and finds that the Sith is still after them. She warns the others, but they are too occupied with the reason why the Cthons are not following them.

Darth Maul enters the large cavern, and with the Force, he finds the group. Unexpectedly, there is something in front of them, something not sensible in the Force. From the light of I-5YQ’s photoreceptors, he catches a glimpse of a large creature that looks almost like smoke. Pavan and the others turn around and come his way. Darth Maul steps on the bridge and walks towards them.

The creature nears the trio, and they are forced to fight it. I-5YQ uses his finger lasers and hits the creature in several of its paws, causing the creature to fall back. Through the shock, they are forced to grab on to the bridge and lay down. The creature spits something at them, but it flies over their heads. Assant realizes that it is the same substance as the ropes; therefore, the creature must have built the bridge. They continue back to the tunnel, and the creature follows. Assant figures a lightsaber might have more chance of hurting the creature then the blaster bolts, so she attacks it. Pavan remembers the name of the creature, a taozin, and calls out to Assant not to attack it, but it is too late, as she already stabbed the taozin in the belly. This serves only to anger the creature more, and they are forced to retreat further. I-5YQ creates a plan and asks them to remove the planks lying on the ropes. Pavan looks back and sees the Sith waiting for them, but I-5YQ urges him to continue removing the planks. Assant still fends off the silk the taozin fires at them, and despite being in terrible danger, she feels calm, at one with the Force. Darth Maul now fully sees the taozin and reaches out to it with the Force, but still senses nothing. The creature however notices him and starts to shoot silk at him instead of Assant. I-5YQ, ready to put the final part of his plan into motion, tells Assant and Pavan to hold on to him. He then jumps of the bridge, grabs one of the ropes, and tells Assant to cut it trough. As they start falling, I-5YQ uses his finger lasers to cut trough other points of the bridge, freeing the cable they are holding as they continue falling toward the other end of the bridge. Assant uses the Force to slow them down, but still they hit the rock wall hard.

Darth Maul is left facing the taozin, but the damaged bridge is starting to give under the wait of the creature. He uses the Force to walk over the remaining cable, but the taozin blocks his way and fires another shot of silk at him, which he easily fends off with his lightsaber. The creature then uses another tactic, using his paws to make the cable bounce and causing Maul to fall. Maul however manages to grab on to the rope and cuts it trough. He and the creature fall in opposite ways, but now he is forced to find another way to reach his prey. He must get back to the surface and find them once more.

Obi-Wan Kenobi enters Yanth the Hutt’s nightclub, the Tusken Oasis. Using the Force, he notices something feels wrong, something had happened here. He walks towards the bar in the back of the room, but notices that he is being watched by several Rodians. When he draws near the bar, he sees the barkeeper put a couple of his six arms beneath the bar. Through the Force, he detects the barkeeper holding a blaster. The two Rodians watching him now stand beside him. Obi-Wan wonders what they are waiting for, and when he sees two little crystals changing from green to red, he quickly drops to the floor and activates his lightsaber. Just in time, a blaster bolt from the barkeeper’s weapon goes over his head and wood splinters from the bar fall down. With his lightsaber, he cuts trough the bar and the barkeeper’s blaster. He pulls a blaster away from one of the Rodians with the Force, and manages to deflect the bolt from the second Rodian and pull his blaster away as well. He turns to the barkeeper again, but the Rodians want to continue the fight. They are stopped by Dal Perhi, who takes Obi-Wan to Yanth the Hutt. Perhi asks Obi-Wan to investigate the wound and see if he can find out who has killed the Hutt. It has been too long for him to find anything, he only senses an aura of evil. Obi-Wan leaves the bar to think about what might have taken place, and makes his way to the residential unit of Hath Monchar.

Assant, Pavan, and I-5YQ reach an exit and are once again in the Crimson Corridor. Assant wants to find a comm station so they can contact the Jedi Temple, but I-5YQ informs her that most comm stations on the lower levels are broken,&mdash;they will have to find a way up to find a working one. Suddenly, I-5YQ notices that they are being watched and informs the others. Assant reaches out with the Force and discovers a group of four Raptors. Before the leader can even threaten them, Pavan threatens them. He tells them to give him all their money. Instead, the Raptors attack, but are easily beaten. Pavan uses one of their blasters to stun two of them, I-5YQ manages to knock one unconscious, and the last one flees. They search the bodies for money. Unknown to Assant, I-5YQ finds a comlink with which he and Pavan can contact Tuden Sal to arrange passage off-planet. Pavan realizes he is starting to like Assant, although he still hates the Jedi. Once the leader of the group wakes up, Pavan forces him to show the trio a way out of the Crimson Corridor.

Darth Maul goes back the way he came, his anger strengthening his connection to the Force. Because of it, he recalls the last time he felt so strongly connected to the Force, when he was building his lightsaber and creating the crystal for it. Maul reaches the exit and jumps out with the Force. Back on the streets, he thinks about what to do next. Using the central computer of the Sith Infiltrator, he accesses the spaceport computer, and with passwords provided by his master, downloads a map of the Crimson Corridor. With it, he finds possible ways the group could have gone. He next accesses the holocam network and security network, but finds nothing of use in either system. As he finishes, he receives a message from his master asking about the status of the mission. Maul informs him that he has the holocron and tells his master that he will kill Lorn Pavan very soon. After the conversation, he once again accesses the security network and adds information about the discovery of a criminal. Not much later, two police speeder bikes arrive, followed by a PCBU. After the PCBU passes him, he jumps on top of it, and using his lightsaber, cuts of the top cannon and trough the cockpit, destroying the droid controlling it. The autopilot automatically takes over and the ship starts to land. The two police agents on the speeder bikes immediately turn around, Darth Maul takes out the first agent by throwing his lightsaber at him like a spear. He jumps on the back of the second speeder bike, pulling his lightsaber towards him and killing the second agent. Maul once more checks the security cam images and notices something strange. Playing it back frame by frame, he finds Lorn Pavan. Immediately, he sets course for Pavan’s location.

The Raptor member leads the group to an alley. Pavan asks Assant to check out the alley with the Force, but she notices there is no longer anger in his voice when he talks to her, and he even smiles to her. She realizes he likes her, and she likes him too. Sensing nothing in the alley, they move on. Suddenly, the Raptor jumps behind some of the garbage in the alley. Pavan jumps after him and manages to grab the arm of the Raptor before he can push an activation switch. He pulls the Raptor back and they tie him up with some of the rope in the garbage. Pavan asks what the switch is for but the Raptor will not answer. I-5YQ soon finds the answer however; its circuit leads to a mounted blaster behind a ventilation roster. Pavan thinks it might be safer to use a mind-trick on the Raptor and asks Assant to do so; he should now lead them further without trouble. Assant cannot believe she did not check for mechanical threats and checks again, finding a camera and shutting it down. The Raptor leads them to a hatch, with a ladder on the inside leading up. Assant asks the Raptor if there are any more traps, and he gives them the code for the door at the top before they let him go.

The ladder leads up ten levels and ends in a large room once used as a central relay center for energy, but now used as a warehouse. On the far side of the room was a door, but before they open it, Assant realizes that someone is on the other side. The door opens, and waiting there is the Sith.

For a moment, Assant is paralyzed with fear, but then she remembers her teachings. She completely submerges in the Force and lets it guide her. Suddenly, she realizes what she needs to do. She pushes Pavan and I-5YQ in one of the storage rooms behind them and closes the door. With her mind, she deforms the lock so that it cannot be opened. Next, she activates her lightsaber. Maul has already activated his and jumps toward her.

Pavan watches trough the little window of the door while Assant and Maul fight. He urges I-5YQ to do something, but the droid does not respond; instead, I-5YQ activates the carbon freezer.

Darth Maul and Assant continue their fight, both knowing that Darth Maul is the stronger of the two and that he will kill her. Using the Force, Maul launches some of the tools lying around at her. She manages to fend most of them off, but some hit her legs and she falls. She gets up and the fight goes one, but Assant feels herself getting tired. She reaches out with the Force and finds her only way to defeat the Sith.

Inside the storage room, I-5YQ explains why he has activated the carbon freezer: to honor Assant’s sacrifice and freeze them in so they might survive. However, Pavan does not want to hear it and points his blaster at the droid, telling him to open the door. Nevertheless, I-5YQ grabs the weapon before Pavan can even pull the trigger and convinces Pavan to give up. He takes him to the freezer, and together they wait for the freezing to begin.

Darth Maul easily evades the containers Assant pushes toward him and lands next to her. She barely manages to deflect his attack. Assant noticed the Sith did not see trough her plan and slowly started falling back toward the explosive containers she had pushed together. Finally, Maul sees trough her strategy, and with the Force, he jumps to one of the windows, just landing on the street outside when the containers explode.

After the explosion, he goes back inside to make sure everyone is dead and his mission is over. He finds no trace of the bodies of Assant and Pavan, concluding that the explosion must have vaporized them. Even through the Force, he can find no trace of life. Once more, he leaves the building to go report to his master.

Obi-Wan is near the crash site of Bondara’s airspeeder again when he notices smoke coming from the streets. He first ignores it, but then he senses the same dark presence he sensed before. He enters the crime scene and is informed by one of the agents there that someone has taken down a PCBU, even though they normally stay at a height of fifteen meters. Obi-Wan suspects this to be the work of Black Sun. He then goes back to the Jedi Temple.

Darth Maul contacts Darth Sidious and informs his master that he has succeeded in the mission. Darth Sidious is glad that his plan is safe again. He gives Maul instructions on where to deliver the holocron.

Obi-Wan is on his way back to the Jedi Temple when he sees a big explosion. He lands his vehicle and walks towards it. With the Force, he senses that a fight took place. He also senses Assant’s presence and the dark presence from before. In a piece of burning rubble, he finds a wrecked lightsaber handle&mdash;Assant’s lightsaber. He realizes that she is dead.

On a roof about fifty meters away from the explosion, Pavan wakes up from the carbon freezing. I-5YQ has already contacted Tuden Sal and is on his way. I-5YQ informs Pavan about what has happened: because of the carbon freezing, he is suffering from short-term memory loss. Tuden Sal arrives and takes them away. I-5YQ notices something outside and shows Pavan&mdash;on one of the walk bridges stands a dark figure&mdash;the Sith. Curious about what the Sith will do, he asks Sal to follow him. Maul calls for an air taxi and gives it the address of where he left his ship. Pavan, I-5YQ, and Sal wait from a distance while Maul gets out of the air taxi and enters a building. Not much later, he is on the roof of the building, then suddenly is gone. I-5YQ realizes that he had entered a camouflaged ship. Pavan wonders what they should do next. They could leave Coruscant and live a quiet life. Alternatively, they could warn the Jedi, but they would probably respond slowly and the Sith would soon escape. He asks Tuden Sal for a spaceship&mdash;he wants to follow the Sith.

Darth Maul activates his ship and takes off, it would take some time to get trough the orbital shields, and after that, he would have to shut down his clocking device because of the other ships, satellites, and space stations. Then, he could deliver the holocron to the coordinates given him by Darth Sidious.

Tuden Sal had arranged for an ARE Thixian 7 for Pavan and I-5YQ. Pavan asks I-5YQ for the blaster he had taken from him earlier and says it might be better if I-5YQ did not come with him. Nevertheless, the droid insists and hands Pavan a limb of the taozin, which could shield him from the Sith. However, when he tries to enter the ship, Pavan pushes I-5YQ’s master switch and shuts him down. He asks Sal to deliver the droid to the Jedi Temple. Pavan takes off, terrified of what is coming. He uses the computer of the ship to track down the Sith’s ship, then follows from a safe distance.

Tuden Sal takes I-5YQ into his airspeeder. He realizes that Pavan will probably die during his mission and decides to keep I-5YQ for himself and reprogram him.

The Infiltrator enters a space station dock, and Darth Maul shuts down the life support and artificial gravity before entering the station. He still has fifteen minutes before his meeting with Sidious in one of the residential units of the station. Pavan likewise docks his ship at the station and enters, walking trough the hallway and going up a shaft into a well-lit tunnel. At the end is the Sith, entering a code on a keypad next to a hatch. The Sith does not notice him, and he readies his weapon, deciding to stun him first and then kill him with his own lightsaber, then take the holocron.

The door opens and Pavan pulls the trigger. The shot hits the Sith right on the back, he falls forward against the wall, and Pavan fires again. Pavan makes his way to the Sith and takes the holocron. He next reaches for the lightsaber, but before he can grab it, he is pushed back against the wall with the Force. Maul grabs and activates his lightsaber and comes toward Pavan, who puts his arms up in defense. Before he knows it, he sees his hand floating away. Maul strikes again, but Pavan manages to get away trough the hatch. Maul starts cutting his way trough the door, and Pavan puts as much distance as he can between the hatch and himself. Maul burns trough the hatch and follows Pavan, who ends up in a solarium. Here, the gravity is back again, and several senators stroll between the plants. He recognizes one of the senators—Senator Palpatine—and approaches him. He could take the holocron to the Jedi Temple. Palpatine accepts the holocron and has Pavan taken to the sickbay.

Obi-Wan enters the Jedi Temple and senses something is wrong. He is approached by a messenger and told to report to his master. Qui-Gon Jinn informs him that he has to pack—they are going on a mission. The Trade Federation has blockaded the planet of Naboo.

Pavan wakes up from a nightmare inside a hotel room. His cut off hand has been treated and Palpatine had promised to get him fitted with a prosthetic hand in the next few days. He had also said that the holocron had been delivered to the Jedi Temple and that the killer had been captured. He now has time to build up a new life.

Lorn Pavan gets out of bed, puts on some clothes, and opens the door. On the other side, the Sith stands waiting. Darth Maul activates his lightsaber and cuts trough Pavan.