And revealed two gleaming boots, blocking his way. Above them were two shapely legs. And above them
It was a woman, holding a vicious-looking blaster. She grabbed Boba’s arm with one hand. She raised the other hand and fired.
ZZZ-AAA-PPP!
The bartender howled with pain and sat down on the floor in the middle of the broken glass.
“It’s set on stun,” she said. “But one false move and it goes to kill. “
“Cool,” said Boba, looking up at his rescuer. She looked dangerous. That made her even more beautiful to him. “Who are you?” he asked.
“Aurra Sing,” she said. “But never mind that. Let’s get out of here.”
Boba didn’t have to be asked twice. He grabbed his flight bag and followed her out onto the street, toward a parked hovercraft that was idling quietly on the narrow street.
“Bounty hunters,” he explained breathlessly. “They betrayed me. I never should have trusted them!”
“Bounty hunters can always be trusted,” Aurra Sing said. “Trusted to do what they are paid to do.” She opened the door of the hovercraft. “I know, because I am a bounty hunter myself. Get in, young Boba Fett.”
“You know my name?”
“Of course. The bounty hunter always knows the bounty’s name.”
Boba backed up, ready to run.
“Get in!” Aurra Sing patted the blaster in the gleaming holster that matched her boots. “It’s very painful, even set on stun. Don’t make me try it on you.”
Boba gave up and got in. He groaned as the hovercraft lifted off. He’d thought he had been rescued. Instead, he had been captured again!
As the hovercraft rose higher and higher, winding through the towers and hanging gardens of Coruscant, Boba sat back in his seat and sulked, disgusted with himself.
“Watch out when things go too well.” I should have known better, he thought. I will never trust anybody ever again!
He was surprised when Aurra Sing landed the hovercraft at the spaceport, right next to Slave I.
“Aren’t you taking me to the Jedi?” he asked. “I thought you were a bounty hunter.”
“I am,” she said. “But I would never work for the Jedi. My client lives on another planet altogether. That’s why we are taking your ship. You can fly it, can’t you?”
“What if I say no?”
She patted her blaster again.
Boba opened the ramp and checked out Slave ‘s systems. To his surprise, Aurra Sing paid off the landing fees, and even tipped the droid.p>
“Low orbit first,” she said. “Then hyperspace. And no funny business. I’m not known for my sense of humor.”
“No kidding,” Boba said under his breath. Then he asked, “Do you mind telling me who put out a bounty on me, and where we’re going?”
“You’ll find out the who soon enough,” she said. “The where is an outer rim world called Raxus Prime.”
“Excuse me? I must have heard you wrong, I thought you said Raxus Prime.”
“You heard right.”
“But - that’s a seriously uninhabitable planet.” “I know. And we’re late. So drop us into hyperspace, and let’s go.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Boba had read about Raxus Prime, but he had never seen it, not even in pictures. Few had. Who would want to?
Raxus Prime was the most toxic planet in the galaxy. It was the dump for all the debris and detritus of a thousand civilizations.
It didn’t look so bad from a distance. Sort of like Kamino, Boba thought, as he dropped out of hyperspace, into orbit. It was all clouds. Beautiful, swirling clouds, all tinged with scarlet, green, and yellow.
But as Slave I descended through the clouds, Boba saw that they were actually made of smoke and steam and toxic gas. The smell was so bad that it even penetrated the ship’s systems. The stink was terrible but the colors were beautiful as Slave I crossed the line from the dark side of the planet into the light
Pollution makes for great sunrises.
The, smell didn’t seem to bother Aurra Sing. Nothing seemed to bother her. “Fly slow and low,” she said. It was the first thing she had said in hours. The entire trip from Coruscant had been silent.
That suited Boba fine. He had nothing to say to her, either. She was not his ally but his adversary.
As Slave I dropped lower, Boba saw the surface of Raxus Prime for the first time. It was covered with rubble, trash, junk, and garbage, piled in huge twisted heaps and rows like grotesque mountain ranges. Rusted, busted starships, scorched weaponry, mangled machinery, gobs and stacks of glass and steel lay half buried under heaps of slag. And all of it oozed and steamed and smoked, fouling the air above and the water below.