What If : The Story Retold

Wild Bantha Chase.

So sorry for not updating in weeks. I have my GCSE exams in a few weeks and I've been busy revising.

So far, everything was playing into Maul's hand just as he predicted. He not only had the clones distracted but now had both the Jedi advancing on him.

To the enemy it would seemed they had him pinned but in truth, Maul had no intentions of pressing forward down the dockyard to the ships. Maul was going to stay at dock 9 as long as need be, keeping the Jedi distracted.

Luke and Leia knew Maul would be a challenge, even for the two of them combined so they decided to strike at the same time, hoping to gain the element of surprise. They couldn't allow Maul to advance and take the war ships.

Their blue and green sabers crackled as they came into contact with Maul's double-bladed red saber. Blaster bolts still streaking past them, they focused all their energy into the coming fight.

Leia pulled her saber away first in order to swing at the Sith while she had the chance, but Maul, ever the more experience, saw what she planned to do and he manuvered his saver to block her blow, whilst the other side of the lightsaber was still locked with Luke's.

Following this, Luke pulled his own green saber away and threw his arm back before swinging it down with such a force, hoping to unbalance Maul's grip on his saber. This worked but not to the extent Luke would have liked. Maul braced for the impact of the lightsaber and adjusted his stance to accommodate for the blow.

Having trained together as a team since they were small, Luke and Leia knew a few tactics which worked in their favour. Leia quickly ducked down and went to swing at Maul's mechanical legs whilst Luke jumped up, swinging his saber at Maul's head. The idea was to catch the Sith between the two, he couldn't jump to avoid Leia's saber without being sliced by Luke's saber.

Unfortunately, Maul saw through this easily. Instead of jumping up and being caught between the two sabers, Maul dived forward through the gap the twins had left.

Now flanking the twins, Maul had the advantage as he whirled around, his roaring red saber bore down on the two from behind. Leia reacted just in time to turn around and raise her lightsaber to block it from slicing right through her like she was butter.

Luke, however, was less than a second behind and the edge of the red blade just nicked his arm, searing through his sleeve and burning a small streak across his arm. Recoiling as he hissed in pain, Luke backed away slightly to give his wound a once over to inspect how bad it was.

With Luke incapacitated momentarily, Leia had to hold her own against the Sith Lord, who acted fast now that one of the Jedi was out of the picture for a time. Leia blocked as many blows as she could but it was mostly blind luck that she wasn't cut down already. After a few near misses, Leia backed away enough to gain herself a few seconds to think of her next move.

By this time, Luke had inspected his wound and once he had determined that it was nothing too serious, he shrugged off the pain and jumped back into the fray. Maul growled viciously as he knew he had lost his advantage.

Manuvering the two Jedi away from the crossfire between the criminals and clones, Maul ducked into an adjacent hall, a docking corridor which lead into an incompleted ship.

Following the Sith Lord, their lightsabers raised and ready, Luke and Leia advanced after him, determined not to loose him or let him get away. With a snarling laugh, Maul sprinted to the door and ran into the incompleted ship. By the time the twins got there, Maul was nowhere to be seen, evidently having ran off into one of the many corridors of the ship.

The whole ship was on half power so the corridors were lit dimly, a few panels flickering now and then.

It seemed odd to them as they had always been told Maul was fearsome and never cowardly. He could have easily have stood his ground and fought against them in the corridor. So why then did was he leading them into some kind of wild bantha chase?