[Boba Fett] - 1(8)

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?”