“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 to be able to take a hint. Well, if we can’t lose him, we’ll have to finish him.”
Hitting a button, he turned the starship and headed straight toward another asteroid, even bigger than the last one.
Only this time, he didn’t pull up. Instead, he flew straight toward the jagged surface.
Boba couldn’t believe it. Was his own father trying to kill them both? “Watch out!” he cried.
He closed his eyes, waiting for the explosion. So this is what it’s like to die, he thought. He felt amazingly calm. He wondered how badly it would hurt when they hit. Or would it just be like a flash of light? Or..
Or nothing.
With Jango Fett at the controls, Slave I never slowed, never hesitated.
It looked like certain death.
The ship dove straight down into a narrow canyon on the asteroid’s surface.
At the bottom was a cave, with an opening just big enough for a small starship turned on its side.
Just barely big enough…
Something was wrong.
Nothing had happened. Boba was still alive. He opened his eyes.
He saw rock everywhere. His dad had flown full speed into a hole in the asteroid, and now Slave I was speeding through a narrow, winding tunnel.
But going slower and slower.
At least we’re still alive, thought Boba. But if the Jedi is chasing us, why are we slowing down?
He soon found out. The tunnel went all the way through the asteroid. When Slave I emerged from the stone passage, it was right behind the Jedi starfighter.
The hunted had become the hunter. Slave I was on the Jedi’s tail.
It was the coolest maneuver Boba had ever imagined. He could hardly control his excitement. “Get him, Dad! Get him! Fire!”
Boba didn’t have to tell his father. Jango Fett was already blasting away. On every side of the Jedi starfighter deadly lasers were stitching streaks of light through the blackness of space.
“You got him!” Boba cried, when he saw the Jedi starfighter rocked by an explosion.
A near-miss, but not a kill.
Not yet.
“We’ll just have to finish him!” said Jango. He reached up to the weaponry console and, with two quick flicks of his wrist, hit two switches:
TORPEDO: ARM and then
TORPEDO: RELEASE
It was Slave I’s turn to rock as the torpedo kicked out of the hull and locked onto the Jedi starfighter.
Boba watched, fascinated. The Jedi was good, he had to admit. He zigged, he zagged, he tried every kind of evasive maneuver.
But the torpedo was locked on, and closing. Then the Jedi starfighter flew straight into the path of a huge, tumbling asteroid
And it was all over.
There was no way to avoid the collision. Caught between the torpedo’s blast and the unforgiving stone, the Jedi starfighter disappeared. Only a trail of debris remained.
“Got him…” Boba breathed. “Yeaaaah!”
Jango’s reaction was more subdued. “We won’t see him again,” he said quietly as he guided the ship out of the asteroids and put it into a descent pattern, down toward the giant red planet.
CHAPTER NINE
Boba had thought Geonosis might be different from Kamino with schools, other kids, and lots to do.
It was different, all right, but that was all.
On Kamino it rained all the time; on Geonosis it hardly ever rained. Kamino was all sea; Geonosis, was a sea of red sand, with big rock towers called stalagmites sticking up like spikes, here and there, from the sandy desert.
In fact, the planet looked deserted. At least that’s what Boba thought when he first arrived.
Jango Fett landed Slave I on a ledge on the side of one of the stalagmites, or rock towers.
Are we going to camp here on this rock? wondered Boba as the ship settled on its landing struts and the engines died.
Then a door in the stone slid open, and Maintenance Droids appeared to service the ship.
Boba was wide-eyed as he followed his father through the doorway, which turned out to be the entrance to a vast underground city, with long corridors and huge rooms, all connected and lighted with glow tubes, echoing with footsteps and shouts.
Yet it still seemed empty. The only inhabitants were hurrying, distant shadows. No one greeted them; no one even noticed a ten-year-old tagging along after his father.