Dedicated to: Star Wars fans and my fellow fanfiction writers everywhere

Character: Boba Fett,and a cameo by Han Solo

Summary: Where did the galaxy's most notorious bounty hunter disappear to before he came back in the NJO novel "The Unifying Force"?

Disclaimer: Lucas owns the movie and characters,we just make them better

Warning: Sorry,if some of the content upsets anyone,it's not my intent...and I actually went through some of it myself.

Special Note: The end scene is taken and modified from the novel"The Unifying Force",chapter twelve.

"You've got cancer".

The doctor didn't sugar coat it,she knew after spending long hours of curt conversation,that I perferred things straight and to the point.

There were no cries of denial,exclamations of unfairness,cursing the fates or claiming that the woman was a liar,a sham,and that her degree came from a candy machine...none of the usual results to such a statement.

Just a silent scowl...before I asked the obvious.

"How bad is it?"

The medical officer is forthright and told me flat out,a brave woman when one considered the line of work that I'm in.

The kind of reputation that I hold.One that is told in frightened whispers in the furthest reaches of the galaxy...if you believed all the rumors.

And the fact that as I sat in the examination room with her in close range,I was armed...to the teeth,and then some.Even if I was bare to the skin,she knew I could snap her neck without much effort,and even less thought.

The tumor has been growing for years,five...maybe six,foolishly I had been ignoring the signs.No one gets swallowed by a Sarlacc and comes out unscathed.Scars run deep on both the inside,as well as,the out...

But the tumor wasn't the real problem.It put out cancer cells,metastasized them...It had most likely spread throughout my system.

The doctor wanted to schedule me for surgery within twenty-four hours,or less.There was nothing I could do but give a solemn nod of my head.

Normally I would not trust a surgeon enough to allow them to put me under for any reason,but this medical officer and I have an arrangement...a history,if you will...

Simply put...I'm no good to her,dead.

The doctor asks if there is anyone I want contacted...family,in case things should go...awry.

"No...no one".

Surgery went as planned that very evening,with the very same doctor,I could trust no other to keep the secret of my identity.

I said goodbye to the tumor,lymph nodes,and twelve inches of my large intestine,and hello to a secondary infection of the surgical wound.Three damnable weeks in that medical facility with a hose jammed down my nose was the result...

Unfortunately my freedom was short lived,once I was released.Millions of cancer cells were loose in my body,and I needed treatment to bring them under control.

Control,it was something that seemed to be slipping from my gloved hands.Once I held to it,cooly,calmly,I was its master...now,it was like the sands of Tatooine running through my fingers.

How ironic in a galaxy where one is capable of destroying entire planets,one disease still remains virtually unstoppable.

The doctor gave me four weeks before I was suppose to return.Get my life in order,my affairs,just in case...And what did I do?

I hunted,of course.

The treatment was long,and every bit as dangerous and painful as the disease it was suppose to cure.The drugs that came with it,were even worse...

I had always prided myself not only on my fighting abilities,but my quick thinking.I was a cunning warrior,not just a hired gun.

Skin lesions,chronic nausea,fatigue,ulcerating mouth sores,you name it...I could deal with all the physical discomforts,they were nothing compared to the belly of the Sarlacc...

But mental confusion?That was a side effect of the treatment I had not planned for...nor would I wish it on my worst enemy.Suddenly,I had trouble remembering the simplest of things...I was easily confused.

And I thought I might be losing my mind.

Six months,there were times when I thought the treatments were only killing me at a slightly slower rate than it killed the cancer.That perhaps the doctor had planned out a slow torturous end to my existence afterall.

The holonet showed frequent updates on an invasion from the outer regions...the Vong,they were called.

At first it hardly interested my drug clouded brain,it seems to me that they olny wanted to eliminate the galaxy of the ever growing resurgence of Jedi.

Good.

But soon even my confused brain could see that they were on a ruthless quest for domination of the galaxy at large.That they would destroy anything that resisted them...in the long run...that included myself,and the few things that I attached myself to during my life.

I watched the holonet on a daily basis,until I couldn't anymore...mostly because my eyes had virtually swollen shut.

I had strange dreams...were my spirit left my body and stared for hours at the bloated shell it had become.

Sometimes I would see my father...at least I thought it was my father...it could be a passing memory.We're so much alike,even I have difficulty telling us apart anymore.

It was just the drugs addling my mind.

Madness,fear,regret...they all came crashing down on me.

And only my father's voice,or perhaps it was my own...comforted me in those long days,and even longer nights.

My father used to say a survivor was a victim with an attitude.I am well now,and getting better.I refused to believe,and still refuse to believe, after all I have been through...that cancer is the thing that will kill me.

So here I am docked at Caluula,waiting for Slave 1 to be fueled as she sits below in a bay,surrounded by a handful of sentients that I myself have gathered in the past two months.We're not much to look at in our faded flightsuits...

Some were mercenaries I had worked with,others were hunters that I had not known except by reputation.All warriors,all a new generation of Mandalorians...in spirit,if not by blood.We worked to push back the Vong in our own manner,and to raise the Mandalores back up from the shadows...

...I think Jango would have liked that.

Han Solo is sauntering up to our group with a perplexed look on his face.I had heard that his ship landed here,part of me wanted to seek him out...go back to the way things were...simple.

I got paid,I hunted,I killed.No regrets,no thoughts of repercussions,no compassion.Brutal,ruthless,and utterly simple.

But my father was wrong,I...we...are not simple men trying to make our way through the galaxy.I am complex,and one could not simply plow through life without looking at the path they were taking...

"I'm Han Solo.Am I right that we've met?"

I tilt my head slightly,displaying jagged scars left behind from the Sarlacc and a hundred hunts.The hint of a smirk curled the corner of my mouth...

"Not in the flesh,Captain,though we have come close.I guess that means that we're not entirely strangers".

Half truth,but certainly not a lie.I heard that he had married Leia Organa,and here I thought she had better tastes.They had children,Han Solo a parent,who would have thought?

...I could have been like that,married,children,perhaps there is a chance that I may still be...one day.

I find that I can relate to this old space pirate on some level,we are both survivors.I extend a hand toward the captain,and tell him a lie for both our sakes.

"Hurn".

I can see him testing the name out in his mind,as he shakes my hand in return."Doesn't ring a bell.Are you sure we never served together?During the rebellion,maybe?"

I wanted to laugh,that dry unsavory chuckle that would give me away at a moment's notice.I shrugged a shoulder instead,"I've one of those faces that used to appear familiar to everyone",I mused.

We went our seperate paths until the station came under attack.Solo's look of absolute bewilderment was priceless,as I salute him in the midst of battle,now fully armoured in that all too familiar helmet.

I am Boba Fett.

I will not be the victim of anything.I am a fighter.