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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.
    Mistakes were part of the past—mere lessons like those he had learned on Tatooine—and he knew what had to be done now.
    Maul gazed into the sky, where only a few STAPs remained.