Chapter 1

Two hundred thousand credits is a lot of money, Boba Fett thought as he silently crouched behind the pillar deep in the heart of the planet Jubilar, watching and waiting. Darkness fell over the alley as the transaction came to an end. He checked his blaster’s power charge and steadied its barrel.

Besides the five guards, there was the target: a well-built, dark haired man was talking to Jonko Marciko. Fett watched as Jonko handed over 50,000 credits and the men concluded their business.

Carefully aiming his rifle, he paused for a moment to allow his helmet’s computer to calculate the possible paths the two guards would take after the shot was fired. In less than a microsecond, the computer told him that the guards, both trained at the Correllian Military Academy, would most likely let their training take over and duck for cover while moving into firing position behind the nearest canisters of spice. Fett watched them more carefully. The one on the left did not hold himself like a soldier. Fett suspected that he had been in training less than a year before leaving and would not present much of a threat to him.

“Computer,” Fett said, “give me a list of possible trajectories. A list scrolled onto his helmet’s viewscreen.

“Calculate possible actions of each bodyguard.” Another list scrolled onto his helmet's viewscreen. Fett had learned long ago that strategic planning was the key to success, giving one a distinct advantage over opponents.

Five seconds had passed. This would give him the perfect chance to test his new accessories. Fett loaded the data from his helmet into four small automated blasters, assigning each one to a different guard. Proceeding to arm them, he took a four small concussion pellets from his rear pocket.

After placing the blasters at four different locations, each about a yard from the other, he quietly drew out his other blaster and aimed the crosshairs at Jonko.

With cold efficiency, he squeezed the trigger and sent a blaster bolt directly into Jonko’s chest. At the same time, activated by Fett’s blaster rifle, the four automated blasters moved into action and fired a deadly bolt with mechanical accuracy into each of the four guards.

Fett's second target proved to be more difficult than the first, considering Jabba the Hutt wanted this one alive. It didn't really matter too much to Fett, though. The dead bounties were quick and easy kills, but the live ones paid more, sometimes twice as much. Target Number Two, an large, bald alien, responded with agility that was surprising for his size, jumping into a defensive crouch and yanking Jonko’s falling body in front of his own. He pulled out his blaster and fired furiously into the general area of the automated targets, hitting nothing but air while Jonko's four bodyguards fell to the floor dead.

Fett stood, waiting behind two large canisters of spice. He decided that the best plan of action was to intimidate his target, whose name he had discovered to be Kraken. As he slowly walked between the canisters he began to speak to Kraken, who was still firing madly into the darkness.

Kraken heard a calm, unemotional voice say, “It’s over. Give up and you will not die. Keep firing and you surely will. ”

Many things passed through Kraken’s mind. What had gone wrong? Everything had been so carefully planned out. He knew he was wanted in at least 10 systems, but so far no one had found his trail. Kraken had thought he was too smart for the bounty hunters and assassins, always one step ahead of them.

“Who are you?” he whispered. Looking around him, Kraken could not see anyone. If the blaster fire had come from the general direction that he was shooting at, he was bound to have hit one of them by now, after all, he had been one of the best marksmen at the Corellian Academy. But something was wrong. Each of the blaster bolts that had killed his bodyguards was in precisely the same place. Worse yet, Kraken observed that the shots were all located in the one weak spot of his guard's armor. There should be at least five of them, and each one must be no ordinary bounty hunter. The Empire must have gotten involved.

“My name is Boba Fett.”

For one of the first times in his life, Kraken was afraid..
[top]


Chapter 2

Fett pulled a small vibro-ax out of his boot and cut the cord that connected the power generator to the street lights. Instantly, darkness settled over the alley. This was how Fett liked it. His helmet instantly adjusted to the darkness so that, to Fett, everything was as bright as day.

Kraken was breathing furiously now, moving his head back and forth in hopes of catching sight of his pursuer. Swinging his gun wildly, he tried to reason with his hunter in the darkness.

“Is it money you want? I’ll pay double whatever Jabba’s paying for me.” He hoped that they would buy the bluff and give him just enough time to use his comm unit to call for help. It should only take a few minutes for his friends to find him.

No answer came from the shadows.

Fett watched as Kraken reached into his glove, still covering his body with his fallen comrade. Kraken pulled out a comm link and began to activate it. Immediately Fett pulled out his rifle, but then waited for a minute. He knew Kraken had friends on Jubilar. Lots of friends. Fett decided that it was best to just let Kraken make his call because, whether they found out five minutes or five hours from now, they would still find out. He would have to face them sooner or later, and he preferred sooner.

Kraken spoke two words into the comm unit and then slowly, quietly, programmed his coordinates into the comm. He breathed a sigh of relief, and began to put the comm back into his pocket.

Maybe this isn’t so bad after all, he thought as he ducked behind a few more canisters, slowly making his way to the door. If Fett hasn’t captured me by now, either it’s not really him or I lost him. Things were beginning to go his way. Just a few more steps out of the alley to freedom. He was so overconfident that he didn’t even notice the dark figure holding a razor-sharp needle behind him. All of a sudden, everything went black.
[top]


Chapter 3

Kraken knew he would live to regret crossing paths with Fett, if he lived. He tried to sit up in his bunk, but found that he couldn’t. Titanium bars restrained his arms, legs, and neck. As he opened his eyes, he began to take in his surroundings. There was no furniture, only solid bars all around him. It didn’t take him long to figure out that he was in a small, enclosed prison cell aboard Slave I, Boba Fett’s ship. He swore in his native tongue under his breath.

Two minutes later, Boba Fett entered the room.

Kraken immediately responded by firing off a barrage of questions. “Where are you taking me? My friends will stop you before you leave this system. They have sentries posted everywhere to make sure people like you never make it off this planet alive. I have no doubt they will find you. And if you think I’m gonna stay alive long enough for you to get paid a bonus for keeping me alive, you’re wrong...” Kraken could not tell if Fett was listening or completely ignoring him. His helmet masked all emotions, if he had any. Fett punched a few keys on his data pad and spoke to Kraken in the most unemotional voice that he had ever heard.

“This is my ship. You will do as you are told. If you try to commit suicide, you will be removed to a more uncomfortable area. If you do not eat, you will be force-fed. Many have tried to kill themselves aboard this ship, but none have succeeded. As to your friends hindering me, they present no serious problem.”

Boba Fett did not mince words.
[top]


Chapter 4

Fett sat back in his chair and began to punch in the coordinates for hyperspace. The onboard scanners began to pick up four unidentified ships heading straight for the Slave I. Fett wondered if these were the friends that his captive had called. It did not matter who they were, though, because they were about to become space rubble.

“Unidentified ship,” a voice spoke over his ship’s comm link, “we have been informed that you have taken possession of a friend of ours. You are outnumbered. Surrender now.”

Fett thought he should set an example with these smugglers so that there would be none to bother him when he reached Jabba. He would leave one alive to tell the others. This is what he always did. Still, he wondered why most of his captive’s friends were the ones who hadn’t heard the stories, or who simply didn’t care. He supposed they would never learn.

Fett took the ship on a hard roll to the left; then he banked right. Fett counted a total of four starfighters and one larger ship, probably a cruiser, which the ship’s computer told him was named the Tempest. He quickly labeled the ships and plotted attack trajectories for each of them. At the same time, he used his other hand to guide the crosshairs directly at the first ship's engines.

“Shields up.”

“Angle rear deflectors.”

“Plot necessary evasive maneuvers,” Fett calmly told the computer. His ship flew far away from the slower cruiser. Slave I’s computer identified the fighters as modified T-38 series X-wings, the kind smugglers often use because of their agility in battle and their spacious hulls which can carry much cargo for such a small ship. The four starfighters opened fire on the hull of his ship. Fett fired the reverse engines which he had just recently placed onto the starboard side of his ship, and all four of the fighters sped past him in a blur. He angled the ship’s targeting computer so that it hovered over one of the modified X-wings…

“Fire starboard and port laser cannons.”

Fett thought himself lucky, for all four of the ships flew in almost perfect military synchronization, no doubt learned at the Correllian Academy, which made them easy targets. All he had to do was order the ship to trace a line across the flight paths of all four ships and take them out one by one in a few seconds. In short, the pilots would not know what hit them. It was simple geometry, really.

Without warning, a fifth X-wing flew from the cruiser and began to close in on Slave I. It fired two proton torpedoes, both making their way toward his ship. Fett swore. He fired three quick bursts of energy at the closest ship in range. It exploded into a roaring fireball.

Fett took the ship into a plunge, rapidly falling back toward Jubilar. As he expected, the fifth ship joined with the pattern of the others, the most foolish mistake that the pilot would ever make. Fett understood the concept of battle formations, but still, this method made the pilots sitting ducks. In an organized army, each ship should not be easily destroyed, yet at least one usually was even if they vastly outnumbered their enemies. He knew it to be a form of discipline, but divide and conquer worked so much more efficiently. He had seen smugglers and organized armies use both tactics hundreds of times, and the latter method was always the most effective. Why many could not see this was beyond him. In this instance, however, it would function to his advantage.

Fett made his ship act as if he was to use the same tactic again on the other ships, but instead he swung Slave I hard to the left, letting the X-wing’s lasers barely chip at his shields. He would make this pass count.

“Computer, calculate point of maximum impact.”

“Fire.”

Two concussion missiles came blazing out of his ship and exploded precisely in the center of the five ships, creating a blinding explosion behind the Slave I. Moments later, all but two of his pursuers were smoldering pieces of debris.

The remaining ships began to make a desperate run toward Jubilar. Before the pilot had time to calculate the minijump, Fett launched a tractor beam and coldly sent a barrage of laser fire into one of the the surviving ships, leaving the other alive.

The cruiser was closing in on him fast. Fett began to analyze the possible ways a ship of this magnitude could be destroyed with minimal damage to himself and estimated that it would simply take too much time. Time. Something that he wished that he had more of. Something that he contemplated in the quiet hours in his ship in the stillness of hyperspace. Something that he had wasted enough already. He set a course into the navicomputer and let the stars fly by him in a dazzling blur of light, leaving the cruiser in his wake.
[top]


Chapter 5

Fett tapped the controls to reveal a small summary ID of his current bounty.

Fett checked all of the galactic holonet frequencies and searched for the current bounties priced over 150,000. The computer quickly scrolled eight results out of a total of approximately 15.3 million bounties, with Kraken at the top of the list currently. Jabba must want him badly, Fett thought. He knew that upsetting one of the greatest crime lords in the entire galaxy was not a good thing, and his prisoner had been stupid enough to make that mistake. Fett had the computer do a priority search on the bounties and set the scanners to HIGH FREQUENCY. Then—and only then—did he relax. He held a general rule to always stay alert with the only exception of hyperspace. In the little time that Fett slept each day, he never slept anywhere but in the Slave I, deep in the tranquility of hyperspace travel. At the moment, Fett sat awake at the cockpit, waiting and thinking...
[top]


Chapter 6

Presently, his ship emerged from hyperspace, and Fett was ready. He knew that it would not be easy to get into Kronos IV without having to fight those few bounty hunters who always seemed to think that they could just steal the bounty from Fett after he had captured it. Even at Fett’s level of expertise, his everyday existence depended on the decisions that he made throughout it. One mistake could cost him his life. That is why he did not make mistakes. Taking advantage of the mistakes of others was the key to success in his business.

“Scanner report,” Fett said.

...................................................................
5 T-32 series Freight Liners
Assorted spare ship parts
Luxury Liner Vigilant
Space taxi 483268B
Ignion Family Space Cruiser
Droid Labor Unit 559302
...................................................................

There was nothing unusual about the millions of ship parts floating just above the atmosphere of Kronos IV. Kronos had been one of the most productive planets in the galaxy before the Rebellion turned the planet into a space dump. In its golden age, it had manufactured almost any starship imaginable. Now the only inhabitants of the planet were the Hutts, who preferred to proceed with their illegal activities in peace, away from the galaxy’s problems and hindrances. From here, the planet looked scorching white, much like the sands of Tatooine. Fett’s onboard scanner continued…

.....................................................
Hutt Transport Unit 204
Luxury Passenger Z-38
>>Two unidentified L-Class ships…
>>Vector: 3245-A7B
.....................................................

As data from the computer still began to stream across the screen, Fett swung the ship around, instinctively taking the Slave I into a defensive roll as laser fire flew from all around him. It had been an ambush, cleverly hidden among the space garbage above the planet. But not clever enough.

.....................................................
>>Initiating Attack Sequence
>>Ships identified as modified L-32 B-wings
>>Probable pilots: bounty hunters, smugglers
.....................................................

Fett watched the data appear on the viewscreen for a few more seconds, and then paused and considered the situation. The present assailant was more of a nuisance than a threat. If he fought, it might give them enough time to call for backup. No, they were not worth it. Some other time, some other day. Just not now.

“Computer. Cut sublight engines and engage hyperdrive at coordinates H74983…”

He paused again and checked his datapad, checking the coordinates once again. If they were not exact, he could end up colliding into the another ship, a black hole, or even the planet itself. If he disappeared before the other ships could track him, he would be able to dock at a landing bay on the far side of the planet. A hyperspace minijump should get him there in a few milliseconds.

“Now.”

Instantly the surrounding stars swirled into a beautiful pattern of light and the two attackers disappeared into the vastness of space. Precisely thirty-two milliseconds later, the other side of the planet was in full view of the Slave I. From this side, Fett could see the dense green forests and flat plains, quite the opposite of the desert he had just seen.
[top]


Chapter 7

Kronos IV had an irregular axis. It never rotated fully, thus keeping one side continually facing the sun, while the other was never close enough to get decent lighting from it. One half was always night, the other always day. This irregularity was used to its full advantage by the Hutts. Since the Hutts liked to keep their business private, Kronos IV provided an ideal place for them to undergo their illegal dealings with impunity.

“I got him,” said Pqar Syos. This time, he was sure of it. There would be no more mistakes.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, its him. I guess that perimeter idea really did pay off.”

“I should just take him out now,” gritted Y’ak Ruon, his copilot, as he gnashed his teeth together.

“Don’t be stupid. We’re have to stick with the plan. If we screw this one up—”

Pqar didn’t even have time to finish his thought. Fett was about to take his ship into the atmosphere. He maneuvered the onboard flight controls so that they could follow the Slave I but still stay out of sight.

“We should tell the others about this.”

“No time. We’re just better off following him until he gets to the surface. Then we’ll tell ‘em.

“But the plan— ”

“Shut up about the plan. Ren and Io will have no problem with him. But I wanna be down there when it happens.” Finally, he thought, after all these years, they had him. Every time they had tried to take down Fett by themselves they were humiliated. Sometimes Pqar wondered why they were still alive. But this time, yes this time, they had backup. And they knew as well as anyone else in the galaxy that Dark Jedi didn’t make mistakes. His hand moved to his face thoughtfully. He rubbed his scar, a gift from Fett during a previous encounter. This time, he thought, this time…

New sneak picture preview of upcoming chapters. Click the picture to view larger version. Do not hesitate to email me if you have questions.

[top]