Yikes. Sorry it's taken me so long to post this chapter; I lost my internet access through no fault of my own for most of the last two weeks. This chapter is very short, but I do have plans for the future of this 'verse!

Whispers of Menace

A Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace Alternate Universe

Chapter Twenty-one:

A Dire Warning

When the Council got around to releasing the tattooed Zabrak from stasis nearly a week after our return to Coruscant, they requested the presence of the Jedi responsible for his capture. The first thing the Sith tried to do was to lunge at me, hands reaching for my throat, but he didn't even get close. His crushed knee took him straight to the floor.

He ignored the Council members' questions to glare at me, until Master Yoda decided that enough was enough. A sharp motion from one small green hand silenced the others. Then he shuffled across the room, wooden cane tap-tapping, until he stood in the way, where the Dark Sider had to look at him. Even so, it took a jab to the forehead from the gimer stick to get the captive's attention.

"Damned Jedi troll." Red-and-black lips drew back, baring yellowed teeth that had been filed to points, but the diminutive Master didn't even twitch.

"Your name I will have," he stated calmly. When the beast spat at him instead of responding, a flick of one long, pointed ear was the only actual move he made, instead catching the wad of phlegm with the Force and sending it back into the Sith's face. Predictably, the creature roared angrily and struggled forward, only to be flattened by fourteen individual Force-pushes.

"Darth Maul," he finally wheezed, and I, at least, eased up. The yellow-red eyes fixated on me again. I stared back, not allowing him to unsettle me. "My Master will kill you all," the Sith grated after a long minute. Then he spasmed and went completely limp, virtually all the Dark Side miasma around him vanishing like dirty water down a drain. I moved past Master Yoda to lay two fingers against the pulse point on one side of the Zabrak's throat.

Our one lead on the Sith Master was dead.

The healers' autopsy was disturbing: no poisons in his system, no weapons with which to commit suicide. His heart had simply stopped because Maul had willed it to, even without access to the Force. That he would do such a thing to deny us any information about his Master was upsetting.

And now the man who had killed my Master was on the loose, with no way for the Order to detect him. Force only knew who his next apprentice would be: some other undiscovered sensitive? Or one of our own? Now that I knew for sure that the Sith were still out there, danger seemed to lurk around every corner and in every choice.

We needed the Chosen One now more than ever.

And I was going to make damned sure that he had every kriffing advantage possible when the Sith inevitably came after him.