[Boba Fett] - 2(23)

“Go,” Boba said simply to his friend. He tried to keep his voice cold. That was the only way to get Garr to leave. “I told you, I have no room for friends. You heard what she said. Disappear.”

Garr resisted. When Aurra’s hand moved to her blaster, Garr was convinced.

“Goodbye,” Garr said sadly in farewell.

Boba allowed himself to say a heartfelt goodbye back. Though his heart felt real pain, that was it.

“What is this offer?” Boba turned to Aurra Sing and demanded as soon as Garr was gone. “All I want from you is my ship back.”

“Then we’re in agreement,” said Aurra Sing. “That’s what my offer is - your ship back.”

“Slave I.” Boba’s eyes were wide with hope and excitement. “Where is it?”

“Not here.” Aurra Sing’s eyes scanned the other beings on the terrace. “Too many eyes and ears. There is a city called Tibannapolis, not too far from here. Meet me there at noon tomorrow.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You will, if you want to see Slave I again,” said Aurra Sing. She tossed Boba a coin. “Here - a good faith offering. It will rent you a cloud car, which you will need to find Tibannapolis. Look for me near the ancient refinery known as Revol Leap. If you show up with Jedi or officials, the deal’s off. You’ll never see your precious ship again. Now I have to tend to business.”

Then, with a flip of her topknot, and without a word of farewell, she was gone.





CHAPTER TWENTY


One hundred credits.

Boba checked the prices, and found out that he had barely enough to hire a cloud car, with enough left over for, a meal, as long as it was a, small one. He dragged it out as long as possible, wondering what he was going to do to pass the time until his meeting with Aurra Sing. He knew he’d have to avoid the Jedi who might be looking for him - and he wondered why Sing would want to give him back his ship. She must want something in return, or was it a trap? And What if she were caught by the Jedi? Unfortunately, he couldn’t exactly turn her in himself.

Noon tomorrow - it seemed like a long time away. But it wasn’t. Bespin turned so swiftly on its axis that the days were only twelve hours long. Boba barely had time to grab a nap on a park bench before it was time to go.

*

The cloud car was a neat little item: two open-cockpit cabs, or nacelles, attached by a three meter-long shaft that held the repulsorlift engines. Boba chose to ride in the cockpit with the driver, a short and prickly Ugnaught, a native of Bespin - or so Boba thought.

“You from around here?” he asked, just to make conversation… and maybe learn a thing or two about the planet he was now stuck on.

“We were brought here by Lord Figg,” said the driver. “He gave us our freedom, in return for our labor building Cloud City. We are eternally grateful to him for…”

The Ugnaught driver droned on, but Boba was more interested in studying the cloud car’s simple controls: a ring that was pushed in for down and pulled out for up, or twisted for turns.

I could fly this thing better than him!

As Cloud City dwindled into the distance, and the cloud car darted in and around the multicolored towers of fog and vapor, Boba began to appreciate the exotic beauty and appeal of Bespin. The atmosphere was buoyant and thick, so it required little energy to fly or to float. Things fell slowly, when they fell.

Evolution had produced thousands of forms of small, colorful life, which fed on one another with happy abandon. Boba saw larger creatures, too. Great floating sacks, with amorphous forms and shifting colors. They were herded by men on batlike creatures.

“Wing riders,” said the cloud car driver. “Riding on Thrantas. Not native to Bespin. But then few of us are. We Ugnaughts were actually brought here by…”

“You already told me,” said Boba.

“Sorry,” said the cloud car driver. “It’s just that we have found our freedom here, and we are eternally grateful to the…”

“You already told me,” said Boba. He looked out the window. “There. What’s that?”

The cloud car was spiraling down through a scrim of clouds. Below, Boba saw a huge, round, rusted wreck of metal and plastic, floating at a tilt.

“Tibannapolis,” said the driver. “I’m out here at least once a week.”

It looked to Boba as if the entire abandoned city were scraps on a plate, about to slide off into the garbage can. “Why would anyone come here?” he wondered.

“Souvenir hunters,” said the driver.

“Can you tell me where Revol Leap is?”

“I can do better than that,” said the squat little Ugnaught. “I can take you there.” Instead of weaving in and out of the ruined buildings, he dove under the city. Looking up, Boba could see rusted remains of the Tibanna processing factories and mines. The flat bottom of the floating city was covered with algae, and plants that fed on the algae, and floating beasts that fed on the plants, and plants that fed on the beasts that fed on the plants.