No! Boba thought, clenching his fists. His disappointment was replaced by feelings of betrayal and rage.
“Just a kid!” the trooper said. “Thought you were one of us.” He ran with the other clones toward a departing gunship.
“I’m not one of you!” Boba muttered angrily. “And I never will be. I am Jango Fett’s real son.”
The arena was almost empty. The Archduke was nowhere to be seen. The Count was nowhere to be seen. The fighting was almost over. The last gunship was leaving, blasting upward through the opening over the arena.
Boba hardly noticed. He was looking down, not up. He didn’t care about the clones anymore. He had a job to do. One last job for Jango Fett.
It was getting dark. The rings of Geonosis filled half the sky with an orange glow. With the helmet in his arms, Boba was walking in circles, stumbling through the blood-damp sand. Finally, he found what he was looking for. Stumbled across it, in fact.
It was his father’s body, still clothed in the remaining pieces of Mandalorian battle armor, scuffed and bloodied.
Boba placed his father’s helmet on his father’s chest, then sat down beside him. He was tired and it was time to rest. He noticed a tear slowly making its way down through the gritty sand on his cheek. He wiped it away with his fist.
It was too soon to cry. Boba still had a job to do.
It was dark, or as dark as it gets on the ringed planet. The battle had moved out of the arena and had covered a wide part of the land.
The Geonosians - now under the control of the victorious Jedi - sent in squads of drones to pick up the dead. They were tossed on a fire. The smashed and broken droids were luckier. They were picked up by a scoop to be taken outside to a scrap pile, for recycling.
Boba was sitting by his father’s body when the scoop rolled by, on its second pass through the bloody arena.
Boba knew what he had to do. He was not like the clones. He was Jango Fett’s real son. It was his job to take care of his father’s body. And as long as he did his job, he could put off feeling the feelings that he didn’t want to feel.
The scoop whined and jerked as it moved from place to place, blindly scouring the sand for more parts. Boba dragged his father’s body into the scoop’s path, where it would be picked up. In his Mandalorian battle armor, Jango Fett felt to the scoop just like a droid. A broken droid.
Boba got on the scoop and sat beside his father. He held the battle helmet in his arms as the robot scoop headed out of the arena, down a long passage leading out to the desert.
Boba was doing his job. That was all that mattered.
For now.
The droid scrap yard was under the mesa where Boba had spotted the Jedi in his starfighter. It was an immense heap of broken circuits, busted arms and legs, wheels and heads and steel knives and torsos.
The scoop made its dump and headed back into the stalagmite city, through an underground passage. Boba dragged his father’s body off the scrap pile and onto the rocky mesa.
The mesa seemed a better resting place. More peaceful, and certainly more beautiful.
Boba removed his father’s battle armor and set it aside. He took one last look at the strong arms and legs that had protected him. Then, using a broken droid arm for a shovel, Boba buried his father in a sandy grave overlooking the desert.
The broken droid arm made a “J,” and Boba found another that he bent to make an “F.” He arranged them on top of the grave.
Jango Fett. Gone but not forgotten.
Boba suddenly felt very tired. He sat down beside his father’s battle armor. He wished he had something to eat.
He shivered. The wind off the desert was cold.
Boba leaned back against the helmet and looked up at the great orange rings that encircled the planet. It was if they were holding it in their arms. It was a peaceful sight….
Boba slept peacefully all that night. His dreams (and he forgot them) were of the mother he had never had, and the father he had been lucky enough to have. He awoke in the morning, rested and
surprisingly comfortable. Then he saw that a furry sand snake had wrapped itself around him as he slept, keeping him warm.
Startled, Boba jumped to his feet. The sand snake yelped in alarm and slithered away in a panic.
The same one? Boba wondered.
It didn’t matter. What mattered was that his job was done, for now. His father was buried. The little grave with the JF on it was proof of that.
Looking at it, Boba realized how much he was going to miss the father who had protected him, guided him, watched over him - and loved him. Now he was alone, all alone.
And for the first time, and for a long time, he wept.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
It was time to think clearly, time to make plans. Time to swing into action.
First things first, Jango Fett always said.