The desert night was breaking into cold violet dawn when the first engine rumbles reached the forward listening posts. Nikto spotters stood atop rusted durasteel towers outside the city walls, breath misting in the chill. One raised his macrobinoculars, sweeping the dunes.
"Movement… multiple heavy repulsors…" he murmured, focusing the optics. His scaled fingers tightened on the railing. "Gardulla banners… tanks… transports… footman... dozens… no, hundreds."
His comlink crackled as he keyed it, voice tense. "Forward spotters to command tower: Confirmed massed enemy approach. North sector. Tanks… transports… infantry columns… by the Three Moons, they're coming in force."
Another Nikto stepped forward, spitting into the sand below. "Wake the city. Sound full alert."
City Ramparts – First Impact
Klaxons screamed moments later, echoing through Mos Eisley's tight alleys. Rusted shutters banged open as mercenaries scrambled from makeshift barracks. Slave gangs were driven underground by overseers wielding shock prods. The entire outer wall flickered under emergency floodlights, painting the sand flats in stark white glare broken by scuttling shadows.
From the observation platform, Maul watched as the enemy lights approached in scattered waves. His yellow eyes narrowed. Even from this distance, he saw their columns weaving – individual mercenary groups jostling for position without unified command.
"Pathetic," he hissed under his breath.
Behind him, a Weequay captain adjusted his ill-fitting chestplate, eyes flicking nervously between Maul and the holotable. "Lord Maul… our forward posts report multiple armored spearheads, interspersed infantry. Slave crews on the flak towers are activating targeting protocols now."
Maul said nothing, scanning the tactical glyphs as they flickered under his hand. His gaze was hard and cold.
"Deploy the tanks along the inner barricades. Prepare the flak guns to fire at anything that enters atmosphere range. These fools will soften their own formations in the chaos."
"Yes, my lord."
Beyond the walls, the enemy began their approach. Eight repulsor tanks rolled to a halt in staggered formation, hulls painted in peeling green-black Black Sun markings. Four anti-vehicle speeders hovered alongside, their ventral blasters whirring to life. Behind them trudged infantry columns – Rodian light infantry in mismatched armor plates, Weequay axe-bearers roaring to the sky, Falleen commandos moving in tighter disciplined squads.
Above them, two battered landing barges dropped through the morning haze, engines shrieking as they descended to offload additional infantry. As they reached lower altitude, Mos Eisley's flak towers opened fire.
Twin-linked autocannons stitched glowing tracers into the sky. One barge banked hard to avoid the storm, but a round tore through its port engine cowling with a burst of black smoke and orange flame. It spun sideways, careening into the sand dunes outside the east gate. Its fuselage crumpled, crushing fifty screaming mercenaries under durasteel plates as it exploded in a rising tower of black fire.
The second barge managed to land, disgorging a confused mass of Rodian and Nikto fighters who scattered for cover, ducking instinctively as another flak round blew a nearby dune into shrapnel-like sandstorm.
Maul strode along the inner parapet, robes trailing across the cracked stone. Slave gunners scrambled to arm heavy repeating blasters. One unit struggled with an overheated feed assembly. Their Nikto overseer smashed the nearest slave's head against the gun shield in fury, caving his skull with a wet crunch before kicking his corpse aside to take over the position himself.
Jabba's mercenary defenders manned the walls in loose clusters. Different groups stuck together, each under their own captains shouting conflicting orders:
"Focus fire on the left tank column—"
"No! Hold your shots for the infantry wave—"
"Anyone sees a Falleen, shoot on sight—"
Across the line, a group of human bounty hunters huddled behind sandbag bulwarks, priming thermal detonators with trembling fingers. One dropped his onto the stone floor by accident.
"—Shit! Shit—" was all he managed before the blast turned them into a pulped smear of blood, melted armor, and charred bone fragments that painted the barricade behind them black and red.
Maul leapt down from the ramparts into the forward trench, boots thudding into packed sand. Slave infantry recoiled from him instinctively, eyes wide with fear. His saber remained unlit in his hand, its black-metal hilt streaked with sand grit.
"Hold your lines," he snarled, voice carrying over the screaming and rumble of distant tanks. "If they breach the outer wall, you die here. If you run, I will find you myself."
He activated his comlink. "Deploy the Bantha tanks. Lock coordinates on their leftmost spearhead. Fire on my mark."
Gardulla's tanks fired first. Bright green plasma rounds punched into the outer barricade, blowing sandstone and durasteel plates into showers of molten shrapnel. A Nikto gunner screamed as his legs were severed at the thighs, his upper body thrown backwards into a wall by the concussive blast. Another defender staggered away, hands clamped over his face as blood poured through his fingers where plasma splinters melted through both eyes.
Then Maul spoke.
"Fire."
The Bantha tanks answered with a thunderous roar. Their plasma rounds tore into a cluster of Rodian infantry advancing behind the enemy tanks. Dozens were vaporized instantly in a searing flash of green fire, their bodies blown apart into charred chunks and raining liquefied bone.
Two enemy tanks shifted formation, attempting to angle their shields, but their maneuver caused a nearby Weequay heavy squad to scatter in panic, disrupting the spearhead advance entirely. Mercenary formations bunched and spread erratically, firing wildly into the smoke without coordination. Falleen captains shouted orders ignored by Rodian assault teams eager to loot fallen bodies rather than hold firing lines.
A Gardulla anti-vehicle speeder strafed the outer trench, spraying heavy blaster bolts. One bolt struck a group of slave gunners clustered around a mortar tube, vaporizing the front two instantly in a flash of ionized blood mist. The third was set ablaze, his screams ragged as flames consumed his rag tunic and melted his skin into dripping black sheets.
Maul stepped forward, saber igniting with hiss-crackle. Its crimson glow lit his tattooed face as he advanced under covering fire. A Weequay mercenary from Jabba's side cowered behind a sandbag, wide-eyed as Maul passed.
"Get up," Maul snarled without pausing, voice cutting through the roar of engines and weapons.
The Weequay hesitated, pressed low behind a dented durasteel slab. His eyes darted up at Maul, wide with terror. Before he could speak, Maul flicked his free hand in irritation. The Force seized the mercenary's chestplate, lifting him effortlessly from cover.
His scream barely lasted a second before a plasma bolt from Gardulla's lead tank struck him mid-air. The blast vaporised his torso in a flash of burning green light. Smoking armor fragments clattered down onto the sand below, the smell of charred flesh and scorched durasteel curling through the wind.
Maul didn't even watch him fall. He stepped forward, boots crunching over shattered rockcrete, and leapt onto a broken barricade slab. Dust billowed as he landed, saber igniting with a snarling hiss.
The battlefield before him was a vision of absolute carnage.
Gardulla's repulsor tanks rolled forward in staggered lines, their plasma cannons firing in disciplined, thundering cadence. Each blast punched smoking craters into Mos Eisley's outer barricades, sending up fountains of molten sand and twisted metal. The impact concussion knocked defenders off their feet, blood spraying as they hit jagged rubble.
Overhead, anti-vehicle speeders strafed defensive lines with heavy blaster cannons. Red plasma bolts raked across sandbag bunkers and makeshift flak nests. A salvo struck a barricade near Maul, vaporising two Rodian gunners in a flash of liquefied bone and armor fragments that sprayed nearby mercenaries in sizzling gore. One Nikto screamed, clutching his face as molten shrapnel burned into his eye sockets.
Blaster fire lanced across the entire line in a flickering storm of red and green bolts. Each shot hissed through drifting dust and smoke. Mercenary captains shouted orders over the comm din:
"Concentrate fire on the lead tank! Bring up the PLX launchers!"
"Hold your line, damn you! Hold your—"
The command cut off as a plasma bolt struck nearby, incinerating the speaker mid-sentence. His blackened skull tumbled across the sand, trailing a streamer of burned brain tissue behind it.
Infantry columns advanced under tank cover. Rodian riflemen fired in volleys, green bolts sizzling through smoke as they advanced in tight wedges. Behind them, Weequay axe-bearers roared blood chants, charging between craters to close the distance. Heavy repeating blasters mounted on speeders raked the barricades with screaming plasma streams that burned deep gouges through stone and flesh alike.
Maul moved into their path like a silent specter.
A Rodian lunged up the barricade toward him, screaming as he fired his blaster wildly. The shots went wide, sizzling past Maul's cloak. With a flick of his wrist, Maul's saber cleaved through the Rodian's rifle and torso in the same motion, splitting him from shoulder to hip. Molten ribs and vaporised organs sprayed the rocks below, the corpse crumpling in steaming pieces.
Two Nikto mercenaries charged next, one wielding a vibrospear, the other a slugthrower shotgun. Maul stepped forward, catching the spear under his arm and twisting sharply. Bone cracked as he wrenched it from the Nikto's grip, elbow driving into the alien's throat hard enough to crush his windpipe. He spun, using the spear haft to knock the shotgun aside before driving his saber through the second mercenary's chest, searing a fist-sized hole through armor, bone, and lung.
Around him, the trench line descended into chaos.
A Black Sun tank took a direct hit from a Bantha-class plasma round. Its hull split open like a rotten fruit, crew inside instantly vaporised as molten durasteel sprayed outward in glowing orange arcs. Nearby, three Weequay heavy infantry were torn apart by the blast wave, their limbs flung across the sand like broken dolls.
Mercenaries fired blindly through drifting smoke, plasma bolts striking friend and foe alike. Screams rose from the front ranks as a misplaced heavy repeater burst shredded six Rodians into a mist of blood and smoking viscera. A Nikto captain roared for discipline, only to be silenced when a sniper round punched through his forehead, spraying brain and bone fragments onto the sandbags behind him.
Tank plasma bolts fired in rolling concussions that shook the dunes, their impacts rattling the bones of every soldier on the line. The air filled with ozone, burning flesh, and the acrid stink of melted armor polymer. Blaster bolts crisscrossed in a deadly lattice, leaving glowing scars wherever they struck stone or metal.
A Weequay enforcer stumbled by, clutching his shredded abdomen as pink coils of intestine slipped between his fingers. His legs gave out as he collapsed onto the sand, eyes wide with silent horror before his head lolled forward into the blood pooling around him.
Above, streaking contrails marked missile launches. A Gardulla anti-tank missile struck one of Jabba's Bantha tanks square in its side. The resulting explosion tore open the hull, sending the turret spinning into the sky trailing cables and liquefied metal before crashing down onto a squad of riflemen, crushing them under flaming debris.
Maul stood atop the rubble, cloak rippling in the heated wind, saber held low. His yellow eyes swept the battlefield with silent, predatory focus, taking in the chaos as Gardulla's mercenary tide smashed against Mos Eisley's battered walls:
Tanks advancing side by side, cannons roaring.
Infantry surging forward through rolling black smoke, weapons blazing.
Bodies burned beyond recognition, limbs scattered across trenches and barricades.
The screams of dying men and aliens rising above the thundering artillery and whining repulsorlift engines.
The dawn sky burned red-orange over Mos Eisley as Gardulla's mercenary host pressed forward. Smoke rose in black columns across the outer districts. Burning scrap metal, pulverised sandstone, and charred flesh scented the wind.
The assault spearhead gathered around the shattered northern barricade. Plasma cannons had torn a breach wide enough for two tanks to pass side by side. In its shadow, dozens of Rodian infantry crouched, weapons ready. Their commander stood above them: a tall human in matte grey combat armor, helmet visor reflecting the flames. A black sun tattoo curled down his shaved scalp above the armored neck seal.
His name was Kel Varis, formerly Republic judicial foce special forces, now a contractor for the highest bidder. His voice crackled over encrypted comms, flat and controlled.
"Alpha and Beta units, breach and clear. Gamma, push armor through the gap. Suppress side alleys and sniper roosts. Minimum civ casualties – stay focused."
He raised his fist. Two Weequay assault teams sprinted forward into the breach, boots thudding across rubble-strewn sand. The first squad took position behind a toppled flak gun mount, scanning intersecting streets. Blaster fire snapped back from concealed emplacements – red bolts striking two Weequay in the chest and throat. They crumpled instantly, blood hissing into the hot sand as their squadmates returned fire in disciplined bursts.
"Contact, northwest angle. Suppressing," came a Nikto team leader's voice.
Heavy plasma bolts from their support speeders raked across the storefronts, blasting duracrete walls into molten shards. Screams rose from within as defending mercenaries were shredded by the blasts, their armor plates glowing red-hot before failing completely. One human gunner stumbled out, both legs fused together at the knees by melted plastoid. He collapsed screaming, clawing at his blistered flesh before a Rodian snapped a shot through his temple, ending it.
Kel advanced with Gamma squad. Behind him, two Gardulla repulsor tanks rumbled into the breach. Their engines howled, repulsorlift fields hurling dust and burning debris into the air. They fired into the city interior, each plasma bolt demolishing a defensive barricade or fortified shopfront. One blast struck a half-collapsed cantina, igniting stored fuel cells. The explosion lit the street in orange fire, spraying burning metal and liquefied bodies across nearby alleys.
"Alpha, move!" Kel barked, vaulting a fallen masonry slab. His boots crunched over broken glass and severed fingers as he knelt behind a split durasteel pillar. Blaster bolts cracked overhead, sizzling against the tank hulls.
Two Nikto riflemen crouched beside him, panting with exertion and fear. One fumbled a fresh gas cell into his rifle with shaking hands.
"Hold steady," Kel ordered without looking at them. His HUD flickered with unit glyphs. "Delta, status on the secondary breach?"
Static, then a curt female voice: "Negative, pinned by sniper fire from upper towers. Black Sun heavy squad moving to flank."
Kel shifted position, peering down a narrow side alley. At its far end, a hastily erected defensive nest bristled with heavy repeaters. Four human gunners were dug in behind durasteel plating. He switched comm channels.
"Gamma support – mark alley bravo. Fire for effect."
One of the tanks pivoted its turret, servos whining. Its plasma cannon fired with a thunderous screech. The bolt ripped down the alley, slamming into the barricade in a blast of white-hot force. The entire emplacement vanished in a brief sphere of incandescent plasma. When the steam and smoke cleared, only molten slag and charred bone remained, fused into the shattered ground.
Kel's visor flicked with targeting glyphs. "Clear. Push forward. Alpha, Beta – secure intersections, set AT mines at sector crossways. Gamma armor: hold formation, suppress tower nests."
He stepped into the newly cleared alley, scanning for movement. Smoke drifted past him, carrying the smell of burned hair and scorched metal. He ignored the blackened half-torso of a gunner twitching near his boots, eyes locked on his HUD feed.
Overhead, defensive flak batteries opened fire again, their autocannons pumping rapid tracer streams into the morning sky. A flight of Gardulla's gunships swept low, their armored bellies streaked with black carbon scoring. One gunship erupted in flame as flak rounds shredded its port thrusters. It spiraled down into the eastern shantytown, exploding in a rising column of fire that sent shockwaves through the burning streets.
The other gunships strafed forward, spraying plasma cannon fire down main avenues. Bursts tore through barricades, shredding lines of defending mercenaries. Blood misted in the sunlit smoke, limbs tumbling across cracked stone. Screams rose, thin and hopeless under the roar of engines.
Kel advanced street by street, his men following. At one intersection, they found a collapsed defensive platoon: half a dozen humans and Weequay in mismatched armor, their bodies twisted and burned among spent gas cells. The survivors cowered against the walls, weapons discarded. A Nikto heavy stalked forward, leveling his repeater.
"No prisoners," Kel ordered flatly.
The gunner opened fire. Blaster bolts tore into the huddled mercenaries, their screams cut short as their torsos exploded under the heavy plasma impacts. Blood pooled across the cracked tiles, flowing in thin streams down the sloped street.
Gardulla's columns began fanning out through the outer districts. Tanks rumbled down narrow avenues, smashing through flimsy stone archways and collapsing vendor stalls under their treads. Anti-vehicle speeders hovered overhead, their cannons swiveling to fire down sidestreets at muzzle flashes. Entire alleys vanished in plasma storms that charred walls black and vaporised bodies into scorched residue.
Kel keyed his comm again. "Delta, report."
"Sector nine secured. Heavy resistance neutralised. Minimal losses."
He nodded slightly. "Gamma, advance to junction delta-two. Alpha, Beta, establish defensive lines and prepare for counter-assault."
He stepped into a wide boulevard choked with drifting smoke. Sunlight filtered through, revealing dozens of corpses sprawled across the broken stone. Some burned beyond recognition, others lying in pools of blood spreading from ruptured armor seams. A dying Rodian reached toward him, fingers blackened and curled from plasma burns. Kel didn't slow. He stepped over the twitching corpse and continued forward, scanning his HUD.
Gardulla's banners fluttered behind him as her mercenary army secured their foothold inside Mos Eisley.
Above, the rising sun cast long shadows across the smoldering city, its light glinting off shattered glass, molten metal, and the silent ranks of advancing tanks.
The sun had climbed into a harsh white zenith by the time Gardulla's mercenary host controlled nearly a quarter of Mos Eisley. Smoke drifted thick between sandstone towers, blotting out the sky in drifting black veils. Plasma fire flickered in every direction, echoing between alleys as tank cannons thudded deep concussive pulses through the streets.
Kel Varis moved like a machine through the chaos. His matte grey armor was smeared with soot and sprayed blood, visor flickering tactical glyphs as he led the Black Sun commandos down the main avenue toward the Ubrikkian Trade Tower.
"Bravo team, establish a sniper nest on the east balconies. Delta squad, check those side alleys for ambush positions. Heavy units advance in spear formation. Maintain discipline."
Around him, Falleen commandos in black tactical harnesses cleared building corners with disciplined sweeps. Rodian heavy gunners crouched behind makeshift barricades, feeding coolant cells into portable plasma repeaters as they scanned for counterfire.
Ahead, two repulsor tanks rolled down the boulevard, engines rumbling deep. Their hulls were scored with near-miss plasma impacts. Tank gunners rotated turrets left and right, cannons firing short, disciplined bursts to demolish defensive sandbag nests and rooftop emplacements.
The last defender of a barricade screamed as a plasma bolt struck him square in the chest, his torso exploding into charred, smoking chunks that rained down onto the stone street.
"Alpha, report," Kel ordered calmly over comms.
A Nikto voice crackled back, ragged with exertion. "Sector twelve secured… heavy resistance in adjoining alleys… requesting artillery support—"
His words cut off in a high, wet scream as a blaster bolt tore through his mouth and out the back of his skull, spraying brain tissue onto his squadmate's chestplate.
Kel didn't react. "Bravo, suppress sniper nest southwest, third window down."
Two commandos swung their rifles to bear. Green bolts punched into the cracked stone window ledge. A human sniper crouched within had time for a single wide-eyed gasp before her face vaporised under the barrage, leaving only a blackened stump of neck steaming in the shadows.
But as Gardulla's forces pressed deeper, the city itself seemed to close around them.
Without warning, the main avenue rumbled under a distant, thunderous roar. A Nikto mercenary near Kel turned, mouth opening to speak – when a plasma bolt from a Bantha-class tank struck him square in the chest. His body vaporised instantly, armor melted to slag as the shockwave knocked nearby Rodians off their feet.
Maul's voice cut across open comms, cold and lethal.
"All forward units – target enemy spearhead end positions. Cut them off. Leave no line of retreat."
From hidden alleys and rooftop vantage points, Jabba's tanks advanced in staggered flanking formations. Plasma cannons thundered, tearing into Gardulla's rear formations. A direct hit struck a repulsor tank, the impact splitting its hull in half like a crushed insect. Burning metal and dismembered crew sprayed across fleeing infantry, their screams echoing down the narrow avenues.
Maul moved through the chaos like a wraith. His saber flickered in crimson arcs as he sprinted along a side street, leapt onto a repulsor tank hull, and drove his blade through the driver's viewport. The tank jerked violently before its engine core overloaded, exploding in a blast of molten plasma that engulfed two adjacent anti-vehicle speeders. Screams rose from within as crew burned alive, hammering on sealed hatches with melting fists.
He advanced into a heavy artillery position next. Seven hastily deployed plasma mortars stood between crumbling stone walls, operated by Rodian gunners. Maul landed in their midst, saber flashing in tight, economical slashes. Heads parted from necks in single arcs, cauterised instantly into charred black stumps. One gunner tried to swing his plasma carbine up; Maul punched him in the throat so hard his trachea collapsed into his spine with a wet crunch. The Rodian gurgled once and fell dead.
He stepped back, deflecting a panicked blaster bolt into another gunner's chest. The impact exploded out his back in a spray of liquefied lung tissue and scorched vertebrae fragments.
Maul deactivated his saber and strode onward as the artillery position burned behind him.
Elsewhere in the city, Anakin Skywalker moved with far less discipline but equal lethality.
His tunic clung to his chest in stiff folds, crusted with dried blood from his ribs and face. Each breath felt like swallowing glass. Pain lanced through his chest with every movement.
But pain meant nothing.
He ignited his saber with a harsh hiss. The red blade lit his dirt-smeared face as he advanced down a shadowed alley where Gardulla's Rodian infantry gathered around a knocked-out tank, looting the corpses of dead defenders.
They barely registered his presence before he was among them.
The first Rodian turned, mouth opening to scream. Anakin's blade took him diagonally from collarbone to hip, spilling steaming coils of intestine onto the sand. Another raised his rifle; Anakin's small hand thrust forward, the Force seizing the alien's heart and crushing it into pulp within his chest. The Rodian's eyes bulged, blood spraying from his nose before he collapsed in a boneless heap.
Each strike burned. Each movement tore at his injured ribs.
His vision pulsed black-red-black with pain and exhaustion.
He closed his eyes and reached out into the Force. He felt life flickering all around him – the Rodian dying at his feet, the wounded Nikto crawling away clutching his torn leg, the Falleen sniper above, holding her breath as she lined up her shot.
He clenched his fingers into a fist.
The Force roared into him, pulling their life sparks out in a rush of searing agony. The Rodian convulsed, blood gushing from his mouth as his skin shriveled. The Nikto's screams choked off mid-cry, eyes rolling back into a skull already collapsing inward. Above, the Falleen's breath caught in her chest. She fell sideways from her sniper perch, hitting the sand with a muffled thud, her flesh dry and sunken around protruding bone.
Anakin inhaled deeply as warmth flooded his torn muscles. Broken ribs knitted with painful pops. His blurred vision sharpened. He felt power coiling within him, icy and fierce.
He stalked forward into the city streets, killing with mindless precision. His saber flashed through limbs, necks, torsos. Screams rose from dying mercenaries as their blood sprayed the alley walls in hot mist.
At some point, the faces became meaningless. Rodian, Nikto, Weequay, human – it didn't matter. An allied mercenary stumbled into his path, bloodied and wide-eyed.
"Wait ! You are this kid from Lord Ma-.."
Anakin's saber punched through his throat, searing a cauterised hole that cut off his words in a bubbling hiss. The man fell clutching his smoking neck as blood dripped down Anakin's wrist onto the dusty ground.
He moved on without pause, eyes glazed and distant.
Kel Varis saw the trap forming too late.
Drone footage flickered on his HUD: enemy armor units sealing off the avenues behind them, infantry squads moving to block fallback routes.
"Command to all units: Cut off. I repeat, we are cut off."
He turned to his commando squad, his calm voice edged with iron.
"Barricade positions. Fortify the tower. Prepare for counterassault. We hold or we die."
They moved instantly. Black Sun commandos dragged durasteel plating from shattered tank hulls to block entryways. Anti-vehicle mines were deployed in tight perimeters. Sniper teams moved to upper balconies, their rifles scanning smoke-choked streets.
Kel stalked to the central atrium of the Ubrikkian Trade Tower, scanning weapon readouts. He keyed his comm.
"Command to all. No surrender. Hold fast."
Beyond the barricades, Jabba's forces rallied under Maul's command. Their assault came as the sun dipped into late afternoon, burning red-orange through drifting ash clouds. Tanks advanced behind walking fire, their cannons hammering the tower base in methodical, concussive pulses.
Inside, Black Sun commandos died one by one under pinpoint sniper shots and thermal detonator blasts hurled through shattered windows. Plasma bolts carved glowing scars down hallway walls, filling the interior with the bitter stench of melted durasteel and vaporised flesh.
In the tower's east wing, Maul moved through the defenders like death incarnate. His saber swept out in horizontal arcs, severing heads and arms with each fluid motion. A Falleen commando lunged at him with a vibroblade. Maul caught his wrist, twisted until bone snapped, then drove his saber through the alien's chest, impaling him to the bulkhead with a sizzling screech.
In the western wing, Anakin's rampage continued. A Rodian gunner screamed as the boy's saber punched through his chest. A Nikto heavy tried to tackle him – Anakin turned, seizing the alien's life in the Force and ripping it from his body. The Nikto's flesh collapsed inward, leaving only a shriveled husk that crumbled to dust as it hit the floor.
A wounded human mercenary reached out to him.
"Please… don't—"
Anakin rammed his saber through the man's face, the blade bursting from the back of his skull in a fountain of blood and cauterised brain tissue. His breathing came in ragged snarls. His eyes burned bright with hatred as he staggered on through the screaming halls, killing everything in his path.
When Kel realised the tower was lost, he ordered a last stand in the central concourse. His commandos stacked overturned tables and cargo crates, plasma rifles aimed down the shattered halls. Fallen bodies lay strewn across marble tiles, blood smearing beneath the boots of retreating fighters.
Maul entered in silence, saber deactivated at his side. He surveyed the battered mercenaries with contempt.
Kel stepped forward, rifle held ready. His visor flickered as he spoke in a low voice.
"You must be this Jabba trump card everyone is talking about."
Maul's gaze flicked across the fallen commandos. "You've lost."
Kel raised his rifle. "We will see about that.."
Maul moved before the trigger fully depressed. His saber ignited in a snarling crimson blur, cleaving the rifle in half before continuing through Kel's chestplate. The mercenary's scream cut off instantly as the blade burned through his heart and lungs, cauterising his spine before emerging in a smoking arc out his back. Maul deactivated the saber and let the corpse crumple.
Around him, the remaining commandos broke. Some threw down weapons. Others scrambled for back exits. Maul cut them down as they fled, his blade flashing under flickering emergency lights.
When the last mercenary fell gurgling on the marble, Maul stood silent in the blood-slicked concourse. Outside, the screams of dying men and the thunder of tank cannons faded into crackling silence.
He keyed his commlink.
"Secure the tower. Sweep the city. Hunt down every last pocket of resistance. Leave none alive."
"Yes, Lord Maul," rasped a Nikto captain amid distant screams.
Maul clipped his saber to his belt. A tremor rippled through the Force – cold and vile, tainted with insatiable hunger.
His yellow eyes narrowed as he turned and strode down the ruined hallway. Corpses lay scattered in blackened piles, flesh desiccated and twisted into dry husks.
He found Anakin kneeling amid the corpses in the collapsed corridor. Blood smeared the boy's tunic in dark streaks. His hair clung to sweat-slick skin. Around him, the Force felt wrong – not blazing with hatred or burning with power.
Just empty.
A hollow, gnawing void of mindless hunger.
Maul's stomach twisted with disgust.
"Boy," he growled.
Anakin didn't respond. A Rodian mercenary at his feet whimpered softly, clutching his stomach where plasma burns ate through armor and flesh. Without looking down, Anakin ignited his saber and drove it into the alien's chest. The Rodian shuddered once, then fell silent, smoke curling from the cauterized wound.
Maul's rage ignited like an electric charge under his skin. He flicked his wrist. The Force slammed around Anakin's throat, crushing down with invisible power. The boy's eyes snapped open in shock as his saber fell from trembling fingers, clattering onto blood-slick stone.
Maul lifted him effortlessly off the ground, his boots dangling inches above twisted corpses. Anakin clawed at his neck, choking, feet kicking helplessly as blackness closed around the edges of his vision.
Maul stepped forward, yellow eyes burning with cold fury.
"All this time," he snarled, his voice low and shaking with anger. "All this training. All this pain. And still… you are nothing but an animal."
He squeezed harder. A strangled gasp escaped Anakin's throat as tears welled in his eyes. His vision blurred to a tunnel of shadows and flickering pain.
"I thought you were learning," Maul hissed. "But you remain weak. Mindless. A feeding parasite with no will of its own."
He slammed Anakin sideways into the durasteel bulkhead. The impact echoed down the ruined corridor, followed by the sharp crack of fracturing bone. The boy collapsed in a limp heap, coughing violently as blood dribbled from his mouth onto the dead beneath him.
Maul crouched, grabbing his hair and yanking his head up to force his eyes open. The boy's gaze flickered, unfocused, pupils trembling.
"You disgust me," Maul whispered. His voice was quiet now, but it burned with absolute contempt. "If this is all you are, you deserve every chain ever put on you."
He shoved Anakin's face down into the blood-slick floor, grinding his cheek against burned stone.
"Remember this," he growled. "The next time you feed without focus… I will carve out your worthless eyes myself and leave you blind to the Force you dishonor."
He rose, releasing him with a final shove. Anakin lay trembling, chest heaving in ragged gasps, his tears mixing with blood pooling under his cheek.
Maul deactivated his saber, turning away.
"Get up," he ordered, voice cold and final. "Crawl back to the command post. Clean yourself. If you can't stand before dusk, then I will kill you myself"
He walked away without another word, boots crunching over shattered durasteel and broken bodies.
Behind him, Anakin lay in the silent ruin. The void inside him pulsed weakly, filled now not with rage, nor hunger.
Only humiliation.
But beneath it, something black coiled tighter around his heart – a silent, whispered promise to himself:
'One day.'
Outside, the city burned under the rising twin suns. Black smoke curled into blood-orange skies as the siege raged on.