Ambush on Tatooine ( Darth Maul ) In 32 BBY , Darth Maul was ambushed by Tusken Raiders on the planet Tatooine . Maul , a Dathomirian Sith Lord , had been tasked by his Master , Darth Sidious , to eliminate Qui - Gon Jinn and Obi - Wan Kenobi , the two Jedi who protected Queen Padmé Amidala , ruler of Naboo . Sidious wanted to capture the Queen and have her sign a treaty allowing the Trade Federation to blockade her homeworld . After following the Jedi ' s trace to Tatooine , Maul was ambushed by a group of thirty Tusken Raiders in a canyon . As he wished to save his strength for the upcoming lightsaber duel with the Jedi , the Sith apprentice decided to run away from the battle . Prelude . Thirty - two years before the Battle of Yavin , the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Sidious planned on capturing Queen Amidala of the planet Naboo . He wished to force the Queen to sign a treaty that would legitimize the occupation of Theed by the droid armies of the Trade Federation . The invasion was part of a grand plot hatched by Sidious , a part of his scheme to establish himself as Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic , beneath his public persona of Senator Palpatine . In his secret lair on Coruscant , the capital world of the Galactic Republic , Sidious tasked his apprentice , a Dathomirian Zabrak known as Darth Maul , with eliminating Qui - Gon Jinn and Obi - Wan Kenobi — the Jedi who were protecting Queen Amidala . According to the trace provided by his Master , Maul knew that the Queen ' s J - type royal starship was on the planet Tatooine . The Sith then set course to the remote and sparsely populated planet aboard his personal stealth ship , the " Scimitar " . After being attacked by Togorian pirates upon exiting hyperspace in the Tatoo system and escaping with a wound to the leg , Maul made a night landing on an isolated mesa close to the spaceport of Mos Espa . The ambush . After sending his probe droids to track down Qui - Gon Jinn , Maul spent the night aboard the " Scimitar " . The next morning , he woke up early to practice his Sith art of battle . After beating two assassin droids he had brought with him that were similar to those he used to fight when he was younger , the Dathomirian noticed bantha tracks circling his ship . Fearing it may have been a spy sent by the Jedi , Maul decided to investigate and followed the prints in the sand . The tracks led him over the dunes and into a canyon . While he was scanning the canyon in search for lifeforms , a riderless bantha lurched into sight around a rocky wall , temporarily breaking the Sith Lord ' s concentration . Suddenly , a lone Sand Person rose from the shadows under the cliff and tried to attack Maul with his gaderffii stick . The Dathomirian activated one end of his saberstaff and cut the Raider ' s weapon in two with one stroke of his bloodshine lightsaber blade . After a brief sparring match , Maul prepared himself to strike his opponent down . However , the desert warrior wasn ' t alone , and Maul had just fallen into a trap . A flock of at least thirty other Sand People appeared , spilling out from behind the cliff where they were hidden . Soon , the Raiders began to surround the Sith . While he thought that he could have easily defeated five of them , Maul understood that it would only infuriate the rest of the group . The Tusken Raiders kept maneuvering Maul closer to the face of the canyon wall . As the only way out was to avoid the fight , Maul quickly enacted a fallback strategy . He ran straight for the canyon wall and managed to scale it . With a burst of dark side strength , Maul performed a Force - enhanced backward flip , flew in the air and landed behind his attackers . The unexpected move left the Sand People temporarily stunned . Maul grasped the opportunity to run , and headed back to his ship through the canyon . The Raiders eventually engaged in chasing the Sith , but they couldn ' t match his speed . Once they were left one hundred meters behind , they finally gave up and walked away , in hopes of finding easier prey . Aftermath . Maul had never run from battle before , but he knew that he would not have easily succeeded in defeating all of the Raiders . Nevertheless , the retreat filled him with rage , and he was willing to tap into his feelings of fury during the upcoming fight . Back at the " Scimitar " , he received a report from one of his Dark Eye probes . The collected coordinates indicated that Jinn was heading out of Mos Espa spaceport , most likely returning to the Queen ' s ship , in the company of a local boy . The tattooed warrior got on the " Bloodfin " , his personal speeder bike , and raced through the sands of the sun - scorched planet . When he finally reached his Jedi prey , Maul engaged in his first duel with Jinn . The outcome of that duel was indecisive , as the Jedi successfully disengaged from the battle and quickly leaped aboard his ship , the boarding ramp of which had been lowered to rescue him . Behind the scenes . The ambush on Tatooine first appeared in the eighth chapter of the March 2000 novel , " " , written by Jude Watson . In November of the same year , a visual interpretation of this event was included in " Darth Maul ' s Revenge " , a young readers book written by Eric Arnold and illustrated by Tommy Lee Edwards .