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The roars of Imperial gunships overhead filled the air as well as the exclamations of TK stormtroopers as they began flooding the bridge and attempted to overwhelm the outnumbered members of The Shadow Collective.
Although being branded as criminals in the eyes of the Galactic Empire, these were not common criminals, far from it. This was a group of some of the fiercest warrior races in the galaxy—Nightbrother Zabraks and Mandalorians. And as this group of fighters now clashed with Imperial stormtroopers, two of the Zabraks, a brother duo—Icarus and Scorn—cut through their enemies as they were separating wheat from chaff.
The twin WESTAR-35 blaster pistols in Icarus's hands barked relentlessly; each shot was a precise burst of amber plasma that dropped stormtroopers in rapid succession. A dozen fell in the first few seconds—headshots, center-mass hits, knee shots that left them screaming on the ground before a follow-up finished them. When his pistols needed a microsecond to vent heat, Icarus drew his throwing knives. He vaulted forward, planting a boot on the chest of a trooper he’d just shot through the visor. As the dying man began to topple, Icarus used the momentum, running up his collapsing body like a ramp. He launched into a mid-air twirl, arms whipping outward. Six knives flew from each hand—twelve blades whistling through the air in perfect arcs. Every single one found its mark: throats, eye lenses, gaps in armor. Six stormtroopers dropped instantly, gurgling or silent, as Icarus landed in a crouch, already drawing his pistols again with a wicked grin and pulling the triggers.
Beside him was his brother, Scorn, who bellowed with laughter that echoed off the canyon like thunder. The hulking warrior unleashed hell from his rotary cannon, the barrels spinning up with a high-pitched whine before erupting in a continuous storm of heavy crimson blaster bolts. Dozens of stormtroopers were shredded in sweeping arcs—armor plating exploding into fragments, bodies jerking and dancing as they were torn apart. Scorn’s deep, boisterous laugh rang out over the carnage.
All the while, Rook Kast, leading the Mandalorians with deadly precision, landed their shots with deadly accuracy as well as dominating the enemy fighters in hand-to-hand combat, proving why they were some of the most feared warriors in the galaxy.
Spybot, meanwhile, provided covering fire, the devious reconnaissance droid scatting and laughing wickedly as he gunned down any stormtrooper in his photoreceptors while also monitoring Imperial comms.
What the Imperial stormtroopers lacked in skill, they certainly made up for it in numbers. Rook, in command of the group in Maul’s absence, knew this. They needed to get to their ship before enemy reinforcements arrived.
But not without Maul.
“Icarus! Scorn!” Rook shouted over the blaster fire, and both Nightbrothers took cover and looked at their companion. “Can you see Lord Maul?”
Scorn looked behind him towards the caverns and waterfalls flowing down the deep chasm below. Narrowing his eyes, the hulking Nightbrother spotted crimson light emitting from a cavern mouth.
“He is still fighting the Inquisitors!” Scorn bellowed out before returning blaster fire at several stormtroopers, his rotary cannon roaring to life as dozens of crimson blaster bolts tore the enemy combatants apart. “Icarus and I will aid our brother.” He said, determined to aid his brother, even if it meant certain death.
“Can you and your men wrap things up here?” Icarus barked over the sound of his blaster pistols firing amber bolts and dropping two stormtroopers.
Quickly taking cover, Rook nodded. “Go!” She gunned down a stormtrooper who had their blaster rifle shot out of their hands and made the foolish attempt of rushing Rook, only for her to gun him down like a rabid animal. “We’ll finish them off and get the ship ready!”
Nudging his brother, Scorn grinned. “Come, brother!” Jerking his head toward the cavern mouth that was illuminated crimson. “Let us aid Lord Maul!”
With a grunt, Scorn jumped off the bridge before sliding down the secondary bridge that was jutting out at an incline. Icarus soon followed his brother, and without even having to say a word, the red-skinned Zabrak holstered one of his blaster pistols before reaching behind his back to brandish one of the combat machetes he had strapped behind his back as he fell to the incline bridge below.
“Brother!”
Icarus hurled the blade to Scorn, who grinned and wrapped his fingers around the blade’s handle. Once both brothers were at each other’s side and armed with a combat machete in each hand, they ran towards the cavern mouth.
Though Icarus and Scorn knew that they weren’t Maul’s flesh and blood, Nightbrothers were loyal to each other, whether they were kin or not. This was set Dathomiri Zabrak many apart from many sentient beings in the galaxy—loyalty. After all, Nightbrothers had been subjugated by the Nightsisters who used them as slaves, mating, or as assassins to dispose of enemies. Whatever the reason, the men of Dathomir committed to each other and wished to see each other thrive and endure, despite the cruel hands that each of them had been dealt.
Icarus, having drawn his second combat machete from his back narrowed his eyes as he tried peering through the rippling waters of the waterfall obscuring the mouth of the cavern where Maul was combating the Inquisitors. The sounds of lightsabers clashing could be heard with each step, and despite the danger of being killed by the Empire’s hunters, both Icarus and Scorn would not let fear keep them from coming to the aid of their fellow Nightbrother.
Brotherhood was sacred to the Nightbrothers, and should one attempt to raise arms against them, then that enemy raises arms against all of them.
“RAAAGHHHHHH!!!”
With a primal roar, Scorn burst through the waterfall first, having strapped his heavy rotary cannon behind his back, the hulking Nightbrother tackled an Inquisitor the visage of a menacing bird of prey. Their chalky white mask and the piercing red eyes would’ve terrified most if they were foolish enough to face an oppononet such as this Inquisitor. But fear was something the Nightbrothers had known all their lives: fear of losing a brother to the cruelty of the Nightsisters for their spells and machinations, losing kin to slavers lest those who were technologically superior should return and destroy them, and most of all, fear of forgetting that all of them are brothers.
Brothers protect each other, even in the face of certain death.
Tackling the hooded Inquisitor with enough force to disarm the enemy combatant, Scorn slammed his enemy against a nearby stalagmite. The force of being slammed against the rocks knocked the breath out of the Inquisitor, and they were too stunned to defend themselves against the fast, brutal blows that Scorn had dealt: a punch in his lower stomach that sent the Eleventh Brother hunching over. The second blow the bird-masked Inquisitor received was a sharp elbow to his face that actually cracked the mask vertically down the right eye. And finally, with bared teeth, Scorn drove the combat machete in his hand into the Inquisitor’s stomach.
“Bleed, Imperial dog,” Scorn grinned wickedly, relishing the sight of his victim squirming and hearing him cry like a feral animal.
Marrok, who was taken aback by the sudden arrival of Scorn, was about to stab the hulking Zabrak in the back, but was instead tackled from behind by another red-skinned Nightbrother. Like his fellow Inquisitor, Marrok’s lightsaber was knocked out of his hand, and Icarus, with both hands, gripped his machete overhead and plunged the blade into Marrok’s back, the blade piercing armor, flesh, and bone.
“AGHHHH!!!”
Marrok’s scream echoed in the cavern as Icarus twisted the blade in his back, the cold steel scraping sharply against sinew and bone. “Touch our brother,” Icarus seethed in a tone cold as ice as he withdrew the bloodied blade, grabbing Marrok by the back of the head and raising his blade against the Inquisitor’s throat, “and you will pay with your life.” He declared as though he were a god, prepared to smite a follower who had blasphemed their name.
Poised to slit First Brother’s throat wide open, Marrok, in a burst of adrenaline, sent Icarus back with a wave of his hand, and the Force slammed into the Nightbrother’s chest like a battering ram. Nearly falling to his death out of the cavern’s mouth, Icarus managed to grab hold of a rutting rock that resembled the lower tooth of a predator.
Scorn, who had been on the cusp of gutting the Eleventh Brother, quickly looked over his shoulder, his face twisted with worry for his brother who nearly fell to his death. The distraction was just enough for the bird-masked Inquisitor to push Scorn away with his once Force push, sending the hulking warrior crashing into a nearby puddle.
Maul, who had suffered a large gash across his right thigh thanks to the Eleventh Brother, watched in astonished amazement. But he quickly shook his head as he embraced the pain he had suffered at the hand of the Inquisitor who had wounded him.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Reciting that line of the Sith Code, Maul allowed his pain, his hatred, and his disgust towards these vermin that his former master had dispatched to kill him to his advantage. He had survived much worse and had faced opponents far more formidable than these slaves of Sidious who deluded themselves into believing they were of relevance.
Maul, with his lightsaber reignited, dipped the blade onto the cavern floor, leaving behind a trail of burning fire beneath him. “You once were part of a family, when you were yet Jedi,” addressing the wounded Inquisitors as they summoned their blades, reigniting both ends of their weapons, and struggling to stay on their feet. “Now, you are nothing but disposable slaves to Sidious. And he will dispose of you. Just as he did to me, so long ago.”
Icarus and Scorn were by Maul’s side, shaking the excess blood they had drawn from the Inquisitors before sheathing each blade and drawing their respective weapons. Maul glared murderously at the two Imperial hunters, his rage rising like a raging inferno as he drew upon the power of the dark side to break apart jutting stalagmites and other sharp rocks throughout the cavern. The cavern shook, as though there were some lumbering giant slumbering deep within the bowels of this place, and it caused the Inquisitors to lose their footing.
“The Emperor took away my blood brother, on Mandalore,” Maul’s teeth were bared, the pain of losing Savage never truly healed, and never would, not while Sidious was still breathing. “You have received a taste of Nightbrother wrath by my fellow brothers.” Applauding Icarus and Scorn, the three Nightbrothers stalked closer towards the Inquisitors, causing them both to activate the spinning mechanism of their lightsabers, in an effort to keep the trio back.
“It doesn’t matter,” Marrok seethes, his modulated voice sounding even more distorted as pain wracked through him. “The Emperor will see to it that you die. You’re only delaying the inevitable.”
At the mention of his former master, Maul snarled as he broke down more rocks, and thick clouds began to fill the cavern, like an ominous fog that could swallow an onlooker whole. But because of the power of the Force, the dust swirled past Maul and his brothers as he replied to Marrok’s words.
“That day has yet to arrive. Now you will die.”
And with a primal roar, Maul extended his hands as he sent tons of rocks and dust flying in the direction of the Inquisitors. Their spinning blades were able to cut apart some of the incoming projectiles, but their bodies were battered and shattered as rock after rock struck their bodies with bone-breaking force. As the Inquisitors were seemingly buried under tons of sharp rocks, Icarus sheathed one of his blaster pistols, pulling out a thermal detonator from the pouch strapped to his right bicep, and hurled it high above the air. The following explosion caused the roof above to collapse and soon enough, more tons of rock rained down on the already impressive pile that both mortally wounded Inquisitors were buried under.
“Good riddance, Imperial trash,” Scorn spat on the ground.
Icarus grunted in agreement with his brother before turning to Maul, noting the wound he had received to his right thigh. “Brother Maul,” he began, concern was evident in his voice as he jerked his head towards the wound. “Can you walk?”
Clipping his now deactivated lightsaber to his waist, Maul clutched the wound and inhaled sharply as the circuitry exposed sparked and crackled with electricity. “I am indifferent to pain, Brother Icarus,” he reassured his fellow Nightbrother, even as Scorn had Maul wrap an arm around his broad shoulder as the trio moved for the cavern mouth. “We must go. More Imperials will come.”
“Yes, my lord,” Scorn said in response before looking over his shoulder where the Inquisitors were buried. “And what about them?”
Maul looked over his shoulder and sneered. “They survived, I can feel it in the Force,” fighting every urge he had to finish them off, Maul chose self-preservation rather than wasting any more time with those two fools. “They mean nothing, Brother Scorn. Like the dogs they are, they will whimper back to their masters. They will suffer the consequences of failure.” A cruel smirk stretched across Maul’s tattooed face at the thought. “And if the wounds both of you inflicted don’t kill them, then Sidious or his latest expendable apprentice will.”
Both Nightbrothers nodded and after contacting Rook that they had dealt with the Inquisitors and that Maul was wounded. After learning that Kebris and two other cowardly commandos attempted to flee, and died in the attempt, got their ship destroyed. Enraged, Maul instead focused on getting himself and his loyalists off of Janix alive, and so they regrouped with the others after being driven back by Imperial reinforcements, now forced to retreat into the underground labyrinth of Janix.
Maul, who had been going in and out of consciousness because of the pain, looked at both Icarus and Scorn, and for the briefest of moments, he saw the yellow tattooed, hulking, armored frame of his dead brother, Savage Opress. The sight of his brother caused tears to sting Maul’s eyes, he knew his brother wasn’t here in the flesh, not anymore.
But Icarus and Scorn, his fellow Nightbrothers were.
They both represented what Maul had for a brief moment during the Clone Wars with Savage—brotherhood. And that was what Sidious ripped him away from when he came to Dathomir so many years ago.
“You must have your revenge, my brother.”
He could hear Savage’s words echo in his mind as Icarus and Scorn had patched his wound and helped him walk for a time through the underground tunnels.
Loyalty.
Brotherhood.
A rare combination for one who walked the path of the dark side, and Maul had been fortunate enough to have both when he had Savage by his side. That was why Maul had recruited Icarus and Scorn to his cause in the first place, because they both embodied these traits. And just as they had protected him from being killed by the Inquisitors, he would protect them to the best of his abilities, as all brothers must.