- 26 BBY -
- Lotho Minor -
"AAAAAAHH... AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH... ack.kkkk..."
The Kyuzo bounty hunter screams in pain, and his body convulses. A second later, he begins to gag and then falls to the ground.
"Hmm."
Maul looks at the Kyuzo in thought. He looks to the side at the large set of screens and the data being uploaded. His eyes move over the set of lines and different charts. He nods and looks at the bounty hunter again, lifting him using the Force, holding out his hand and touching his head. He forces his will on the man's mind and performs the Force technique Alter Mind.
"..Urgh..."
The Kyuzo falls to the ground again. With weak muscles, he desperately tries to stand up, but stays kneeling in front of Maul.
"W-hat... iiiis... thy ... bidding... my Master?"
After saying that, the bounty hunter loses all his strength and falls on the ground face-first. Maul touches his head again and feels that his mind has shattered. He is mentally dead, and only his flesh is somewhat alive. Maul nods his head again and lifts the man up, floating him to a container next to several others. There, in containers next to his, are previous bounty hunters and even the three Jedi Maul caught on the planet Gree. He has been training ever since he left the Gree Enclave and has been making tremendous progress. The Tedryn Holocron was a treasure trove of information about history, the Force and Force techniques.
The knowledge contained in the holocron could be accessed by anyone to a certain extent, but the greatest portion of the wisdom could be unlocked only by a Jedi. The inner organic crystals were the key to the deeper levels of knowledge. Those teachings and accounts were relayed directly by the Masters, who added them to the holocron. And to ensure that only Jedi would be granted access to those secrets, gatekeepers were installed. Those gatekeepers are a Jedi Master's holographic simulation that works as a search and recovery engine built into every holocron. The fact that one gatekeeper relays certain information is not an indicator that that particular gatekeeper has recorded this information, as the data contained within the holocron can be accessed by all gatekeepers.
The Tedryn Holocron contains thousand-year-old secrets and some of the most secret Jedi history and teachings. It includes information on the origins of the Jedi and the Sith, as well as their earliest conflicts. There is information about the Hundred-Year Darkness, in which a gatekeeper speaks of the Second Great Schism, how the Dark Jedi utilised the dark side to transform animals into warriors, mounts, and Leviathans, and the final confrontation on Corbos. This particular information was very interesting to Maul, and he made a mental note to check out Corbos in the future.
There was more information, including the Great Hyperspace War, the Great Sith War, the Second Sith War, the Mandalorian Wars, and numerous other battles fought throughout the galaxy's history. All that was interesting, but not the true reason why Maul wanted the holocron. He was after the Jedi teachings on different Force techniques and the secrets of the Light Side and Dark Side of the Force. And Maul knew that both of those things could be found inside the holocron.
However, the holocron was 'locked' for 'Sith' as the gatekeepers called him. It didn't matter. Maul solved the situation. He utilised his unmatched expertise in science to create a device that combined the Force and technology, stripping the holocron of all its secrets.
[Picture]
Maul placed the holocron inside and powered the device using his own connection to the Force, thereby flushing the holocron and breaking the gatekeepers' codes with his slicer skills. He basically uploaded the gatekeepers on a separate computer and then wrote a computer virus to destroy their consciousness and overwrite their commands and wills. This way, Maul now has access to the most hidden parts of the Tedryn holocron, and the gatekeepers are his loyal servants.
There were unimaginable treasures to be found after he reached the deepest parts of the holocron.
- Jedi Master Tolaris Shim about the fall of Ulic Qel-Droma and the Four Stages of the Dark Side. Ulic Qel-Droma was, at various points in his life, a Jedi Knight of the Old Republic, a warlord in the Empress Teta star system, and a Dark Lord of the Sith.
- Jedi Master Bodo Baas about the Dark Side in general.
- Jedi Master Bodo Baas speaking about the three areas of the Force and the power of Alter Mind.
- Jedi Master Odan-Urr about the power of Force Sever and Shatterpoints.
- And of course Jedi Master Bodo Baas about the Rakata, Korriban, Revan, Darth Malak, the Star Forge, Bastila Shan, Darth Sion, Darth Kreia, Darth Nihilus, Brianna, Atris, Visas Marr and Darth Ruin.
Maul is skilled in telepathy, specifically the Mind Probe technique, and he has been practising it for the last few months, together with the power of Alter Mind. Alter Mind is a power to shape the minds of others, either directly or by projecting an image into the mind of another being. This image is often an altered perception of reality, but it can also be an illusion that influences the being.
His Essence of the Spark grants Maul supernatural charisma that draws people to him and makes those without extremely strong wills highly susceptible to his influence, to the point that they will sometimes find themselves doing things to further his ends that they usually would not. According to the Essence, those exposed to his charisma for sufficient lengths of time may find themselves becoming his loyal, devoted minions without even realising it. That was something Maul was going to make use of, but he wanted to have the right tools to go along with it.
He had Master Bodo Baas explain to him the power of Alter Mind, and using his genius, he developed several theories and combined them with his knowledge of brain waves. Telepathy is basically picking up those electrical currents and interpreting them correctly. He created a theory on how he could increase his mastery over telepathy, mind probe and Alter Mind. But he needed living subjects.
.
- Kamino -
A Cuy'val Dar observes six young men going through a simulation and firing their weapons at droids programmed to kill them. The young men don't show any change in their expression, and the Cuy'val Dar notes that they have already mastered their emotions. As a team, the group mows down the opposing droids and destroys them all. The man nods his head and looks at the six boys with a fond smile on his face.
"That was marvellously done. I don't think there is anyone who could perform as well as you six could. Ordo, that was good leadership you showed. Mereel, try to keep the mission in mind when you go off to kill enemies like that. As for the rest of you, that was very impressive."
"Yeah!"
"It was easy."
"What now?"
"Yeah, Kal, you said if we performed well, you would finally take us off-world," Mereel says.
Mereel reacts to many situations more calmly than his brother Ordo, who is the designated leader among the brothers, and has a good sense of humour, often joking around or making witty remarks. But he's also a bit of a daredevil, much to the anxiety of his brothers and adoptive father.
"It is true, you did promise to do that, Kal," Ordo agrees.
"I did say that, didn't I?" Kal admits with a smile.
"Haha, it would indeed be fun to get off Kamino finally. Imagine what we would experience?" the jovial brother says.
"Hmm, I agree. I promised, and so I am beholden to honour our agreement. Very well, my sons. It is time for the first 'unofficial' mission of the Nulls. The best and strongest among the Clones."
"YEAH!!"
"Wooohooo!"
Numbering only six, the Null-class Advanced Recon Commandos were the first clones of Jango Fett created by the Kaminoan cloners and the prototypes for the 'secret' Grand Army of the Republic. The Kaminoans deemed them a failure due to their genetic predisposition towards independent thought, a big no-no for the grand plan of Darth Sidious. As a result of this extreme independence, they were not put into mass production but were saved from termination by Mandalorian mercenary Kal Skirata, who later adopted all of them.
The Nulls were trained to be death on two legs.
Kal Skirata personally took charge of the Null-class ARC troopers, raising them apart from the rest of the clone army and forging them into elite black ops commandos. He not only gave them names but also instilled in them the proud traditions of their Mandalorian heritage, ensuring they grew up with a strong sense of identity and purpose, far from the sterile indoctrination of Kaminoan training. Among them was N-5, now called Prudii, N-6 AKA Kom'rk, N-7 AKA Mereel, N-10 AKA Jaing, N-11 AKA Ordo and N-12 AKA A'den.
By the time they were barely two years old, the Nulls had already been subjected to flash-learning programs and live ordnance exercises, where they achieved performance scores that far exceeded expectations. Once their accelerated physical development was complete, they underwent rigorous training in Mandalorian military tactics and survival skills, learning to eliminate threats with lethal precision by any means necessary.
Their preparation was brutal. Kal subjected them to near-death interrogation resistance training, designed to make them immune to psychological and physical coercion. One technique involved mentally dissociating from reality—locking away pain and fear in a "box," focusing intensely on their immediate environment until it lost meaning, imagining themselves elsewhere, or narrowing their thoughts to the next tolerable moment: the next breath, the next second, the next step—repeating this until the torment passed.
Beyond resistance training, Kal provided them with in-depth instruction in the core tenets of unconventional warfare, including assassination, anti-terrorism, covert operations, espionage, sabotage, and even combat medicine. He ensured they became masters of a wide array of weapons, from standard-issue blaster rifles to Verpine sniper systems, and he honed their hand-to-hand combat skills to lethal effectiveness. Later, they added zero-gravity manoeuvring to their repertoire, essential for operations in the vacuum of space.
And now, they are on their way off Kamino.
.
It is not allowed ever to leave Kamino during the training period. The Kaminoans have forbidden it, and several steps have been taken to ensure that doesn't happen. The deep sense of loyalty they instilled through the inhibitor chip was also supposed to make clones obedient, but the Nulls still have their fierce independence.
"Where are we going?" Ordo asks.
"Here," Kal hands his son a tablet with a secret bounty hunter holonet.
"The Phantom? What kind of name is that?" Mereel asks.
"The name of an ugly animal. That's why he's hiding," Kom'rk jokes.
"Hahaha."
"Oh, baby, did you see the bounty?"
"2'000'000 credits? For a phantom? Is this legit, Kal?" Prudii asks.
"It most certainly is. Several of my contacts have confirmed that the job is dangerous, and the one who set it up has proven his worth. The Phantom is real," Kal confirms.
"So we're going to the last location he was seen?"
"Lotho Minor? Oh, balls, why do we have to go to that trash planet?" Jaing complains.
"I suppose it makes sense. He is hiding on a planet about which no one truly knows anything. Keeping track of anything is nigh impossible, and so finding him equally so," Ordo concludes.
"So, how do we find him?" Kal asks, testing his sons.
"Simple, we wait. He has to eat something. Food and water will be of limited supply on that toxic waste, so if we check which ship leaves for the nearest planet, we should find him."
"Not bad, Prudii, but what planets are we going to keep an eye on? What if he's not an imbecile and knows that this would be the method others might be looking for him? He is at least skilled, if he managed to survive until now, so he could leave the system entirely."
"True. So what? Should we start looking for him on Lotho Minor? Hope we find the one we don't know how he looks?"
"No. If he is truly on Lotho Minor, he would have some kind of base where he stays. So we could position ourselves at different places around the planet and check for arriving or leaving starships. We will most definitely find some secret base there," Mereel says.
"Yeah, that could work. What do you think, Kal?" Kom'rk asks.
"I will let you six do your thing. This is your job and also your pay, should you manage to score. So good luck to you all."