The Fight to Survive (3 page)

“Dad! Taun We’s here!”

Jango Fett came out of the bedroom. He looked at both of the visitors, and he didn’t seem to like what he saw.

“Welcome back, Jango,” Taun We said, pretending she hadn’t just seen him. “Was your trip productive?”

“Fairly.”

Boba listened carefully. Taun We was sounding friendly, as usual. Meanwhile his father was looking the Jedi up and down. To say that Jango didn’t seem to like what he saw would be obvious,
like saying Kamino is rainy. It was more than that.

Boba wondered if they had met before. He wondered if the Jedi had anything to do with the death of Zam.

“This is Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Taun We said. “He’s come to check on our progress.”

“That right?” Jango said.

The two men stared at each other. It was like a battle fought without words or weapons.

Boba watched, fascinated. It was obvious to him that his father could have whipped the stupid Jedi with one finger. But something was holding him back.

“Your clones are very impressive,” said the Jedi with a slight bow. “You must be very proud.”

“I’m just a simple man,” Jango Fett said, bowing back. “Trying to make my way in the universe.”

“Aren’t we all?” said the Jedi.

It was like a fight to see who could be most polite!

Meanwhile, the Jedi was looking into the bedroom, where the Mandalorian battle helmet and armor were lying on the floor.

Jango moved in front of the door to block the Jedi’s view.

“Ever make your way as far into the interior as Coruscant?” the Jedi asked.

“Once or twice,” Jango answered coolly.

“Recently?”

This is one very nosy Jedi!
Boba thought. He wondered why his father was talking to him at all.

“Possibly,” said Jango, and Boba knew from the tone of the answer that his father
had
been to Coruscant.

And the Jedi knew it, too.

Now Boba knew for sure that the Jedi and Jango had encountered each other before, and that the Jedi had had something to do with Zam’s death. How he hated the Jedi’s smug little
smile!

“Then you must know Master Sifo-Dyas,” the Jedi said.

“Boba, close the door,” said Jango in Huttese, a language they both knew well.

Boba did what his father asked, never taking his eyes off the Jedi. He wanted him to feel his hate.

Meanwhile Jango Fett was fencing. Using words instead of a sword to block the Jedi’s moves. “Master who?” he asked.

“Sifo-Dyas. Isn’t he the Jedi who hired you for this job?”

“Never heard of him,” said Jango.

“Really!?” said the Jedi. For the first time, he looked surprised.

“I was recruited by a man called Tyranus,” said Jango. “On one of the moons of Bogden.”

“No? I thought…”

Taun We stepped in then. “Sifo-Dyas told us to expect him,” she said to the Jedi, pointing to Boba’s father. “And he showed up just when your Jedi Master said he would.
We have kept the Jedi’s involvement a secret until your arrival, just as your Master requested.”

The Jedi seemed surprised by all this. And trying not to show it. “Curious,” he said.

“Do you like your army?” Jango Fett asked. His cold smile seemed to Boba like a sword thrust straight toward the nosy Jedi’s heart.

“I look forward to seeing them in action,” said the Jedi. A pretty good parry, Boba had to admit.

“They’ll do their job well, I’ll guarantee that,” said Jango.

The Jedi gave up. “Thanks for your time, Jango.”

“Always a pleasure to meet a Jedi,” said Boba’s father with a slight, sarcastic smile.

The door slid shut and the locks began to snap closed. Boba was thrilled. After winning an encounter like that, he figured his father would looked pleased, even triumphant. Instead, Jango
Fett’s face was creased with lines of worry, and he seemed deep in thought.

Boba began to wonder if his father had really won the battle. “What is it, Dad?” he asked.

“Pack your things,” Jango said. “We’re getting out of here for a while.”

While Jango Fett put his battle armor on, Boba threw everything the two owned (which wasn’t much) into an expandable flight bag.

“Get a move on, Boba!”

Boba knew his father wasn’t afraid of anything. But after the encounter with the strange Jedi, Jango seemed nervous. Worried. Not 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 good-bye.

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-PLANG!

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!’”

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.