by Terry Bisson
frightened, but... concerned, at least.
And he was in a BIG hurry.
After he had filled the bag, Boba threw all the dirty dishes into the
cleaning slot. He didn't have to be neat at all. If it hadn't been so
scary, it would have been fun.
"Leave the rest," Jango said. "We don't have time."
Be careful what you wish for! How many times had Boba dreamed of
having time away from stormy Kamino and living somewhere else, with
sunshine - and maybe even friends?
Now it was happening. The having time away part, anyway. Boba was
glad, and yet... There was the bed where he had slept and dreamed. The
windowsill where he had sat and read and watched the endless rain. The box
where he had kept his books, clothes, and old toys, all in one pile.
It's hard to leave the only place you've ever lived, especially when
you don't know when you'll be back. It's like leaving behind little pieces
of yourself. It's like...
Boba caught himself. This was no time to get sentimental. His father
was in a hurry. They had to get going.
And there was one last thing he had to do before leaving Tipoca City.
"Whoa! Where are you going?" Jango asked. His battle armor was on,
helmet and all. He was holding what looked like a whip. "Where are you
taking that stuff?"
"Uh, Dad... library books?"
Boba hoped his father would understand that he had to return them. Who
knew when they were coming back? And Boba didn't want Whrr to be charging
him for overdue books.
"Make it fast, son," Jango said. "And while you're at it - "
He handed Boba the "whip." It was the eel. "Turn him loose in the sea.
Let him try feeding himself for a change."
"Yes, sir!" Boba was out the door before his father could change his
mind. The eel was coiled around one arm, and he carried the books in the
other.
He ran through the rain as fast as he could. He stopped at the edge of
the platform where he had taken the sea-mouse. He leaned over the railing
and dropped the eel into the waves.
Plunk.
Boba saw a dark shape, a flash of teeth. And the eel was gone.
"Good riddance!" he muttered as he ran toward the library. "Life is
hard for the small and the weak. And it's all relative."
Boba hurriedly shoved the books into the slot. One, two, three...
Whrr whirred happily. "How about this batch?" he asked from behind the
door, in his tinny voice. "What did you think? Any good?"
"Not too bad," Boba said. "But I don't have time to talk now."
"No? Why not? Don't you want to check out some more books?"
Usually Boba liked talking about books. But today there was no time.
"Have to go!" he said. "So long!"
"Hurry back, Boba," Whrr said. "But wait, here's.."
"No time to wait!" Boba didn't have the heart to tell his friend that
he didn't know when he would be coming back.
So he just turned and ran.
Jango Fett, fierce looking in his full battle armor, was waiting with
the flight bag in front of the apartment. Boba could tell his father was
mad at him for taking so long. But neither of them said anything.
The two walked quickly to the tiny landing pad where Slave I, the
bounty hunter's small, swift starship, was parked. Jango stowed the bags
while Boba checked out the ship for takeoff.
Boba had just completed the preflight "walk-around" when he heard
footsteps. At first he thought it might be Taun We, coming to say goodbye.
No such luck.
It was the Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi. The one who had been at the apartment
asking all the questions.
And he was running.
"Stop!" he shouted.
Yeah, right! thought Boba.
Jango clearly had the same thought. He drew his blaster and fired,
while ordering, "Boba, get on board!"
Boba didn't have to be told twice. He got into the cockpit and watched
as his father fired up his battle armor's jet-pack and rocketed to the top
of a nearby building. There, Jango Fett knelt and began to fire down at the
Jedi with his blaster rifle.
KA-WHAP!
KA-WHAP!
Though he had never flown Slave I alone, Boba knew all the controls
and weapons systems by heart. Reaching over his head, he switched the main
systems on, so the ship would be ready to go when his father got through
whipping the Jedi.
Then he got an even better idea. He activated the blaster cannon
controls.
Boba had practiced this so many times, he knew just how to do it. He
got the Jedi in the sights and pressed FIRE.
SKA-PLA NG!
A hit! Or almost.
The Jedi was thrown violently to the ground, his lightsaber knocked
out of his hand. Boba was about to fire again and finish him off when his
father got in the way.
Jango rocketed down from the building and stood face-to-face with the
Jedi.
The Jedi charged.
Jango charged back.
Cool! thought Boba. He had never seen his father in hand-to-hand
combat before, and it was awesome.
The Jedi's mysterious Force was no match for Jango Fett's Mandalorian
body armor. The Jedi was losing - badly. He got desperate and made a grab,
but Jango used his jet-pack to blast up and kick him away.
"Go!" shouted Boba, even though he knew no one could hear.
The Jedi fell and slid toward the edge of the landing pad, where it
projected out over the crashing waves. He seemed to be using his so-called
Force to get his lightsaber back, but Jango Fett spoiled that plan. From
his wrist gauntlet, he shot out a restraining wire, which wrapped around
the Jedi's wrists.
Then Jango fired up his jet-pack again, dragging the Jedi toward the
edge of the platform - and the water.
"Go, Dad!" Boba shouted.
But the Jedi was able to catch the wire on a column. It stopped his
slide and pulled him to his feet. Then he yanked on the wire....
SPROINNGG!!
Jango hit the platform, hard. His jet-pack flared, spat... and
exploded.
BARRROOOM!
Oh, no! Boba saw the whole thing. He tried to get a shot with the
laser, but now both men were sliding toward the edge of the platform - and
the huge waves crashing below.
"Dad!" Boba yelled. "Dad!" He banged on the cockpit canopy, as if his
fists and his cries could somehow stop his father's slide toward certain
death
But it wasn't over yet. Jango Fett ejected the wire from his wrist
gauntlet, freeing himself. Then he used the gripping claws built into his
battle armor to stop his slide at the last instant.
Meanwhile, the Jedi slid right over the edge.
Boba fell back in his seat, shaking with relief: His father was safe.
And triumph: The Jedi was gone!
Over the edge. Into the sea.
Good riddance! Boba thought.
The ramp was opening.
Boba scrambled out of the pilot's seat just in time.
His father leaped into the seat. The engines roared to life, and the
starship lifted off into the storm, which was raging all around.
Boba looked down at the waves.
There was no sign of the Jedi, and no
wonder. Who could swim in that stupid robe? It had dragged him under, for
sure.
"Life is hard for the small and the weak!" Boba said under his breath,
and they hurtled upward, into the clouds.
"What, Boba?"
"I said, 'Good going, Dad!'"
CHAPTER SEVEN
Boba had been in space before, traveling with his father. But when you
are real little, you don't notice a lot.
Now that he was ten, he understood what he was seeing. Everything
looked new and exciting.
On Kamino it was almost always cloudy. The clouds were gray on the
bottom, and black as night on the inside. But from above, they were as
white as the snow Boba had seen in vids and read about in books.
The sky above was bright, bright blue.
Then, as Slave I rose higher and higher, the sky grew darker - blue-
black, then inky black. Then Boba saw something even more beautiful than
the clouds.
Stars.
Boba knew what they were, of course. He had read about the stars; he
had seen them in vids and pictures, and observed them personally on trips
with his father to other planets. Yet he had never really paid attention.
Little kids don't notice things that are that far away. And the stars were
almost never visible from cloudy Kamino, even at night. But now he was ten,
and now...
Boba saw a million stars, each light-years away. "Wow," he said.
"What is it, Boba?" his father asked.
Boba didn't know what to say. The galaxy was made of a million suns,
burning fiercely. Around each sun were planets, each made of a million
rocks and stones, and each stone was made of millions of atoms, and...
"It's the galaxy," Boba said. "Why is there...?" "Why is there what,
Boba?"
"Why is there so much of it?"
Jango Fett let his son "fly" Slave I, which meant just sitting in the
pilot's seat while the autopilot flew the ship. He was busy fitting his
battle armor with a new jet-pack to replace the one that had blown up in
the fight with the Jedi.
When he was done, he got into the pilot's seat, and Boba asked, "Are
we moving to another world, Dad?"
"For now."
"Which one?"
"You'll see."
"Why?"
"Why are you asking so many questions?" That was Boba's signal to shut
up. His father had his reasons for everything, but he usually kept them to
himself.
"You don't want to know," Jango Fett said as he hit the button marked
HYPERSPACE.
If space was awesome, hyperspace was double awesome.
Double awesome strange.
As soon as Slave I shifted into lightspeed and slipped into
hyperspace, Boba's head started to spin. The stars were flying past like
raindrops. It was like a dream, with far and near twisted together, time
and space mixed like oil and water, in swirls.
Boba dozed off, because even strange becomes tiring when everything is
strange....
Boba dreamed he was meeting the mother he had never had. He was at a
big reception in a palace, and he was alone. It was like a story in a book.
There was someone coming toward him, making her way through the crowd. She
was beautiful, in a white dress. She was walking toward Boba, faster and
faster, and her smile was as bright as...
"Boba?"
"Yes!?"
"Wake up, son."
Boba opened his eyes and saw his father at the controls of Slave I.
They were out of hyperspace, back in "normal," three-dimensional space.
They were floating. Directly ahead of them was a huge red planet with
orange rings.
It was beautiful, but not as beautiful as the vision Boba had seen in
his dream, coming toward him across the ballroom floor. Not as beautiful
as... Boba felt himself slipping back into his dream.
"Geonosis," said Jango Fett.
"What?" Boba sat up.
"Name of the planet. Geonosis."
As Slave I approached Geonosis, it headed toward the rings. Only from
a distance were they smooth and beautiful. Up close, Boba could see that
the rings were made out of asteroids and meteors, lumps of rock and ice -
space rubble.
Up close they were dangerous and ugly.
Jango's hands were dancing over the star-ship's controls, switching
them from autopilot to manual. Flying under the rings would be tricky. As
he expertly eased the ship into approach orbit, he said, "Next time, when
we get to a planet that's easier to land on, I'll let you fly the approach
on your own, son."
"Really, Dad? Does that mean I'm old enough?" Jango patted his son on
the shoulder. "Just about, Boba. Just about."
Boba leaned back, smiling. Life was better than dreams. Who needed a
mom when you had a dad like Jango Fett?
Suddenly Boba caught a glimpse of something on the rear vid screen. A
blip. "Dad, I think we're being tracked!"
Jango's smile disappeared. The blip was matching their every turn. A
ship on their tail.
"Look at the sensor screen," Boba said excitedly. "Isn't that a
cloaking shadow?"
Jango switched the sensor screen to higher res. It showed a tracker
attached to the hull of Slave I.
Boba couldn't believe it. Hadn't he watched the Jedi slide into the
stormy sea of Kamino? How could the Jedi have survived to follow them?
"He must have put a tracking device on our hull during the fight,"
said Jango, with the steel of determination in his voice. "We'll fix that!"
Boba was just about to ask how, when his dad pushed him back into his
seat.
"Hang on, son. We'll move into the asteroid field. He won't be able to
follow us there. If he does, we'll leave him a couple of surprises."
CHAPTER EIGHT
Into the asteroid field! Boba felt a cold touch of fear as his father
pulled back on the controls and Slave I slid upward, into the ring itself.
Jagged rocks zipped past, on either side. It was like flying through a
forest of stone.
Boba couldn't look. And he couldn't not look, either. He knew that if
they hit one, they were dead. Obliterated.
Erased.
They wouldn't even leave a ripple on the galaxy.
Then Boba told himself: Stop worrying... Look who's at the controls!
Boba kept his eyes on his father. The asteroids were still zipping
past Slave I but they didn't seem quite as scary.
Jango Fett was at the controls.
Boba relaxed and checked the rear view-screen. "He's gone," he told
his father.
"He must have gone on toward the surface," Jango replied.
Suddenly the image on the viewscreen wavered with a rogue signal. In
the static Boba saw a familiar outline.
The Delta-7.
"Look, Dad, he's back!"
Jango calmly hit a button on the weaponry console marked SONIC CHARGE:
RELEASE.
Boba looked back and saw a canister drifting toward the Jedi
starfighter.
He grinned. So long! The Jedi was doomed....
And so was Boba. Because when he turned back around in his seat and
looked forward, he saw nothing but st
one. Slave I was heading straight for
a huge, jagged asteroid!
"Dad! Watch out!"
Jango's voice was quiet and cold as he pulled Slave I into a steep
climb, barely missing the killer rock. "Stay calm, son. We'll be fine. That
Jedi won't be able to follow us through this."
That was the plan, anyway. But the Jedi had other ideas. As his father
deftly guided Slave I through the asteroid field, Boba kept his eyes on the
rear screen.
"There he is!" he cried.
The Jedi starfighter was still there, right on their tail. It was as
if it were tied to Slave I. Jango shook his head grimly. "He doesn't seem