Letting Go
Boba Fett sat motionless in the cockpit of Slave II and watched the Millennium Falcon disappear into the darkness of space once more. As he watched his mortal enemy escape he meditated on how much the chase meant to him all of these years. It was a means of defining himself and a way to see himself as having a purpose. The chase was life and without it he could not go on. The chase was indeed the meaning of life.
It was not easy being a clone of the perfect soldier. All of his life he was forced to face, not the least each time he looked into a mirror, a nearly impossible ideal to live up to. It was no secret that his father had quite literally been an army of one. Enough time, even after the destruction of the Empire, had not passed for everyone to forget and old men still cast wary glances in his direction anytime he tried to abandon his tell tale helmet. He had been forced to live his life behind a mask and done so not because of a debilitating injury or deformity, but because of the very nature of his birth, which had robbed him of his individuality. Ironically, the well known Mandalorian armor wrapped him up in a shell of a well known stereotype. Without the helmet he was nothing, but a carbon copy of a fallen soldier from a war long since over. With the helmet he was a cheap imitation of the man he could never live up to—another long lost soldier from a forgotten war. To say that he was caught between a rock and a hard place was an understatement. Philosophically, the best he could explain it, he was both the rock and the hard place.
Boba Fett's life had always been one of being someone he wasn't and trying to be someone he couldn't be—a bounty hunter with a perpetual identity crisis. Despite his preference for self loathing, the tabloid style description of his problem made him smile. What would the housewives of Coruscant think if he showed up on an afternoon self help show to cry about his father and lament the cruel card fate played him? Did anyone really care about the man who looked like a million others? Did he really care about himself or did he really just want to be someone else?
It was best not to dwell on such introspections, as thoughts about identity, individuality and a lost childhood tended to take the edge off his professional pursuits. He could do nothing about it and he hated himself for how much time he devoted to his obsessions. If anyone knew what really went on in the head of the Galaxy's most feared bounty hunter, sentient species would laugh themselves silly. It was best to put away his obsessions, to lock them up inside and forget about them.
Save one.
There was one obsession that he clung to and it was the obsession that he allowed to slip through his fingers into the blackness of space. Han Solo, the fast talking Corellian with a streak of luck as wide and deep as the Galaxy itself. The Imperial officer who turned criminal; the criminal who became a hero; and the hero who married a princess—his was the type life people would talk about long after he was dead.
For much of his life Solo was a scoundrel, a liar, a thief and a coward, yet in the end the Galaxy bent over backwards and blessed him with luck, wit, a handsome smile and an incredible cadre of friends ranging from Wookiee ex-patriots to the leaders to the New Republic. He deserved a prison cell, but he got the limelight. He deserved death, but he was rescued. Most of all he deserved obscurity, but he was given fame.
He deserved anonymity and yet was a living legend.
The injustice of it all ate away at the bounty hunter's soul and Boba Fett bided his time with fantasies of the day that he would rectify the situation. His fate and that of the smiling scoundrel was bound up as one. They were two sides of the same coin. They needed each other to survive. Boba Fett used his hatred and what could only be described as lust for the Corellian's life to push him to the top of his own game. Everything that Solo was, he was not.
Solo was wreckless, while Fett was cautious. Solo was personable and Fett antisocial. Solo spoke without thinking. Fett held his tongue. The dashing Corellian was known for his devotion to friendship and irrational loyalty, while Fett was a loner whose loyalty could easily be explained by economic law. Han Solo was the protagonist and Boba Fett the antagonist.
It was a strange truth to understand, but he saw it clearly and found purpose in his duty as antithesis. For he knew that to destroy the great Han Solo, he would have to be greatest bounty hunter in the Galaxy. Great heroes die at the hands of formidable enemies—it was unwritten law of nature.
And so Fett let Solo escape, because he knew that when the day came he would not only be destroying Solo, but also himself and today he wasn't quite ready to let go.