Restraint

Restraint is a short story written by James Luceno. It was published in the second edition of Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter which was published by Del Rey in December 27, 2011. It features Darth Maul, Talzin, Meltch Krakko, Trezza, and Palpatine. It helped connect major changes in Maul's and Asajj Ventress's origins that were introduced in the third season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Plot summary
On the planet Orsis, a young Maul is being trained in the ways of combat via the Orsis Academy. His Master, Darth Sidious, and his Academy overseer, Trezza, force him to rely solely on his own physical abilities rather than in his power in the Force. However, Maul's reluctance gives way to few displays of Force power to his fellow combat students, such as the Mandalorian Meltch Krakko. Krakko, who hates Maul for concealing his abilities and being so deceitful about it, travels to Maul's homeworld of Dathomir to inform Mother Talzin of Maul's whereabouts, as he was a Nightbrother whose own mother, Kycina, gave him away to an unknown but influential man years earlier when Maul was an infant. Talzin travels with a bodyguard escort over to Orsis to abduct Maul and bring him back to Dathomir as a slave. However, at the same time, Krakko had made a deal with a warlord named Osika Kirske, who wants to abduct the Dathomiri women and place them in the Cauldron on Rattatak so they could become part of his army one day.

Just after Talzin and her bodyguards abduct Maul and bring him up to the Orsis Orbital Facility where they can travel the rest of the way back to Dathomir, Osika Kirske's men attack them, killing one of Talzin's three personal bodyguards and injuring Talzin herself. But thanks to Maul, who believes that Talzin and her guards, as well as the mercenaries, are a test conducted by Darth Sidious, they manage to fight past the warlord's mercenaries and make it over to Talzin's ship. With several of the mercenaries dead, and Kirske and his surviving men escaping in the ensuing conflict, Sidious appears before Maul and the Dathomiri women, where Sidious makes it clear that Maul is his and he will not return to Dathomir as a slave. With that, Talzin and her guards leave with nothing gained, and in the aftermath, Sidious informs Maul of the Sith just before he names Maul Darth. His first mission as Darth Maul: kill everyone at the Orsis Academy, since the likes of Krakko, who Sidious informs Maul as being the one who sold him out to Talzin, and Trezza know too much of Maul's nature. After Sidious assures Maul that he will deal with Kirske himself, Darth Maul reluctantly accepts the mission down to the academy.