Shadow of Maul: 4 : Blood Gamble
What is it ? : Lawson and Two Boots are in their Police Speeder high over the city observing a Pod Race, this race, the Star Gauntlet, happens on Janix because it's outside Imperial control. The Police should clamp down on it, but it generates too much money so they mainly pretend it's not happening. Although the attraction is the danger and the crashes, he notices one pilot acting erratically and contacts Rheena Sul, who as we know from the animated series runs a casino, commenting when Two Boots asks if he wants it done officially or unofficially that he likes that he is corrupting the droid.
Rheena tells him that the pilot, Tor Braxis is driving more dangerously than last year, as if he's got nothing to lose. When Lawson pushes for more information, Rheena asks him if he remembers when they used to work as bounty hunters, and they would work together but pretend to be rivals, winning one contract and losing another to compete for the best price. She mentions that Tor Braxis is being sponsored by Nice Deemis, but Looti Vario has bet 2 million on Braxis not completing the first stage. So Lawson orders Two Boots to get them to the end of the first stage, a tunnel.
He drops from the speeder and tries to disperse the crowd thinking they might be in danger, but the thrill seekers ignore him, so he pulls his blaster firing into the air. But Ruhl and his internal investigations team appear, commenting that it is an unauthorised use of his weapon and arrest him, just as Tor Braxis collides intentionally with another Pod Racer causing their vehicle to tumble towards them. Lawson leaps and pushes Ruhl out of the way saving his life, and then rushes off realising that Tor Braxis Pod Racer has disappeared.
He contacts Rheena asking how things are at the casino, and she tells him it is chaos, fortunes being won, and fortunes being lost. He tells her the chaos is Tor Braxis goal, so no one is paying attention to the real goal, as Tor Braxis has already been paid twice, once by Deemis for winning the race, and once by Vario for losing the race, so in intends to disappear completely which will require a lot of money.
Two Boots and Lawson head into the tunnels beneath the city and track down Tor Braxis speeder which is abandoned next to a tunnel which gives access to the vaults beneath the casino. Vaults which normally contain 20 million, but today with the race and bets being at an all time high contain 100 million or more.
Two Boots and Lawson arrive in the vault at the same time as Rheena and her security team, too late. Tor Braxis is lay dead, and someone else has taken the money and fled in his Pod Racer. Someone else who was making bigger moves than Deemis or Vario, someone who now had tens of millions of credits to fund their next move, and we see Maul in Braxis Pod Racer speeding away from the vaults. . . .
High Points : Now this is definitely the Police Procedural I've been crying out for since the first episode of Maul: Shadow Lord. Lawson investigating why a particular pilot is behaving oddly in a Pod Race. The pilot has already been paid to both win and lose the race, so has little to lose, and we discover it's all a plot to get more money into the vaults of the casino so he can rob them. Lawson uses his underworld contacts and we find a little more about his and Rheena Sul's history, that not only did they work together, but they worked a scam on potential clients to drive the price up by pretending to be rivals (although that seems odd, as competition usually drives the price down rather than up). And the entire thing doesn't seem to be connected to the overarching plot until the final frames where we discover it was all arranged by Maul.
Low Points : So, first of all, the Vaults under the Casino seem surprisingly easy to get into, breaking through a single wall from the tunnels under Janix and potentially you can steal 20 million credits on any day. Not sure if there was normally more security, why Rheena Sul would reduce that security on the day there's 5 times the normal amount in the vault.
And what was Ruhl and his internal investigations team doing standing around on a random street corner, I can only guess they were big race fans. But it all seems very coincidental, Lawson works out that there is likely to be a big distraction happening at the end of the first stage since Braxis has been paid to not reach the end of it, leaps out of his speeder, shoots into the air and Ruhl and his team are there already. They don't have time to have been following Lawson to have gotten there, so must have been in the crowd watching the race, it's just too convenient for the story.
So what do you really think ? : I really enjoyed this one, a proper investigation, with Lawson working his contacts, connecting clues and solving a mystery, even if Maul does snatch victory from him at the last moment as he hadn't worked out who was behind Braxis. There's action, without it being shoot outs, expansion of Lawson's history, some good banter between him and Two Boots, and we see why him and Rheena are such good friends even though they're on opposite sides of the law. A really enjoyable issue, which as always for this series looks great.
Final Words : For all the complements I throw at this one and how well it fleshes out the background for the animated series, rather oddly it's connection to the rest of this comic series are what let it down. Ruhl just appearing, and then getting left behind just seems like a reminder to the overall plot of Lawson being investigated. And then Maul just appears in the final frame fleeing the scene of the crime in Braxis's Pod Racer (in a most I found most amusing that he's Pod Racing like little Anakin did).
And while not a criticism, I found it weird that the Empire has apparently banned Pod Racing for being too dangerous, when that's Vaders first career when he was a child on Tatooine. I wouldn't have thought that it would have been something Vader would have wanted, but I suppose it's too far beneath his notice now for him to even know it has been banned.
Score : 9/10
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