Dengar's chop-shop was a sort of combination junkyard plus repair shop plus cantina. It was also about as treacherous as Mos Eisley and as dingy as the lower levels of Coruscant. Syra wrinkled her nose within her helmet as she left the ship and led the Solos to where she suspected either Dengar or Manaroo would be stationed. One of the hazards of being respectable, she thought with amusement, was that you also had to be readily available when the people you had to deal with needed to find you. While Syra's need wasn't exactly a legitimate business need, it was urgent and she knew exactly where and how to track down at least one, if not both of them. Besides, she felt and looked more at ease here than either of the Solos behind her. She smirked inside her helmet as she heard them fidgiting and whispering.
Even better, the person currently behind the relatively unoccupied counter at the junkyard portion was Dengar. He was easily intimidated by the Fett armor, the Fett presence. And more importantly, he was one of her father's friends, which meant he didn't know what she looked like underneath the mask and quite probably had a deep-seated fear of ever finding out.
"Dengar," she said, her voice coming out deeper and distorted through the helmet. The older man looked up and visibly paled.
"B... ah, Syra," he corrected himself, noting the different armor. "It's been a while... either of you need anything?"
He didn't seem to recognize the Solos, or if he did, he wasn't commenting on it. Syra was more than a bit relieved at that; it could cause her some serious trouble if people began to get the idea that she was cashing in on an old Solo bounty. "Of course," she said. It wasn't like this was a social call. "Information."
That got his attention more than it should have. Dengar looked around, waved some obvious non-customers away, and motioned for her and the Solos to come inside the building that served as his offices. "Ah... uh, we'd better not talk about this in the open."
Syra frowned. The Solos gave each other 'what the hell is going on' looks. She could understand and even empathize, but right now she had to be a Fett, silent and impassive and the best at what Fetts did. Wordlessly, she gestured for Dengar to lead the way.
The inside wasn't much less cluttered than the outside. But it was quieter, and Dengar fiddled with what she was fairly sure were bug-detectors, making sure they weren't overheard. Finally he seemed satisfied, and they all sat down.
"Your father came to see me a while ago," Dengar started, and behind the helmet Syra's expression grew posetively incredulous. "He bought a considerable number of weapons and engine parts for what I assume was your ship, and left them for you, along with an encrypted datacard." Syra opened her mouth to ask something, and Dengar held up a hand. "Now, I don't know and I don't want to know what's going on. He left in a big hurry, which always means that someone's going to die very soon. I'd rather it not be me, and to my way of thinking, the best way to ensure that it's not me is not to know anything."
Syra scowled slightly. Dengar always had talked too much. Behind her she could practically hear the Solos giving each other startled looks.
"Here's the datacard, and the key to the weapons locker where the stuff he bought is hidden. I'd like you to get it on your ship and off my station, please." Dengar's manner wasn't even unfriendly, but more pleading and very panicked. What the hell was going on?
"Dengar, what's..."
"There are Imperials looking for... for Him." Dengar interrupted. Syra fell silent immediately. "I don't know what they did to get him to go with them, but they did. And whatever kind of hold they've got on him, they managed to get him to jump through a lot of hoops and make a lot of detours to get to where they wanted him. Rumor has it that Admiral Pellaeon is in on it. At least, that's where the Slave II was last seen before they found it floating adrift..."
"I heard..." Syra took a deep breath and took the datacard and locker key. "Don't tell the Imps anything," she rumbled.
"I wouldn't!" Dengar actually managed to look indignant. Privately, Syra wondered if it was because he knew how young she was, or just if he was afraid of what would happen when Boba Fett found out. And did it really matter anyway? She just nodded and walked out. Behind her, she heard Dengar slump with relief as the Solos followed her through the door.
And then she felt Han Solo's (it had to be him, he was taller) hand on her shoulder. "Okay, now we have to talk."
Ordinarily she would have been happy to talk to him. She was tired, she was heartsick, and she missed her father terribly. But she was also annoyed at being given the runaround, even more annoyed on behalf of her father, and now Han Solo, who thought ... she didn't know what, specifically, he thought, but it was probably bad... Han Solo was putting his hand on her shoulder like he was going to try and boss her around. The hell with that. She grabbed his hand and flipped him over her shoulder, rocketing upwards immediately after and jetting over to drop down neatly in front of both father and son. Han Solo slumped over a little bit, then recovered. Jacen moved up to stand by him with a look of defiant and protective belligerence. The family resemblence was distinct. It struck Syra with a feeling of acute jealousy and sadness. If her father had been here...
He wasn't. There was only her. "We'll talk," she said. "On the ship. Let's go." She wasn't about to tell the crowd of low-lifes that had gathered any more information than Dengar had already blurted. She was sure he hadn't gotten all the bugs.
In a fit of pique, she rocketed upwards and flew back to the ship, leaving the Solos to hoof it through hostile (or at least unfriendly) territory by themselves. Screw them, anyway. She was a Fett, she didn't need the likes of them.
She just needed her father back.
Kamino. He kept saying he'd never come back here, never in a million lifetimes of a million stars. Lately, he kept finding reasons to. It had been many years since the last time, though. The old buildings, he noted with surprise, were still standing. He landed on the old platform, half expecting to see his father's old Firespray there instead.
The doors didn't open nearly as easily as they had the last time; he had to pry them apart, and do a little creative rewiring to get them to open and shut properly again. His feet remembered the way down the halls, to the quarters he had shared with his father all those years ago. He rewired that door too, not really knowing why he was revisiting old ghosts. The doors slid open slowly, and the lights flickered on. The room was even more bare and much smaller than he remembered. Then again, he had been ten years old the last time he'd been here.
Boba Fett took off his helmet and stared into the glass at the stormy seas outside. The rain beat a so-familiar pattern on the glass, the occasional lightning illuminating a reflection that haunted him. The scars were slightly different, but that was all. It really was his father's face that stared back at him from the glass, a haunt that shook him more deeply than he ever wanted to be shaken. It was like coming home again, and it was jarring. He half expected to be staring up at the reflection, from the vantage point of a ten year old boy, to have his reflection in its blue tunic and pale blue vest standing so much shorter in the glass, looking up at his father with that always-serious expression. He almost expected the door to chime, announcing a visit from Taun We or one of the other Kaminoans. He supposed, with the part of his mind that could still think abstractly about things, that this was why he had never brought Cassandra or Kashya or even young Syra down to this planet. He never wanted any of them, no matter how close they were, to see him this young. This vulnerable.
And yet there was still a small part of him that expected to see young Syra pounding down the halls, laughing, being chased by Kashya. Or to see Cassandra doing sword-forms or range practice down in one of the bigger rooms. He expected to see her catching a quick nap on a bench or working on one of her droids. He expected to see Kashya packing a medical kit. He wondered when they had begun to merge their lives with his ghosts.
Probably when he had realized that the responsibilities Jango had accepted when he had requested his 'payment' of the Kaminoans were now his. He had never understood that part about his father, later, after being raised and taught to be a bounty hunter... until coming back to Cenath and seeing Kashya standing there, surrounded by slavers, waiting for her father to rescue her and defending herself so he would be proud when he got there. His daughter. His responsibility.
A responsibility that he had failed. Kashya was dead... and so was Cassandra. Syra was all that he had left. And he felt the emptiness where his daughter and ... he didn't even know how to think of her anymore... he felt the empty space where they had been. And his father.
This wasn't helping. Boba Fett growled, dragged himself out of his introspective grief, and tried to think objectively about what he had seen. These residential quarters looked to be abandoned... in fact, any sections of Tipoca City not directly related to cloning appeared to have been abandoned. There was little enough ship traffic that he had actually managed to land at a point where no one had seen him come in, which meant that the scientists were sequestered here for months on end. Or they had found a way to grow the clones independantly of living contact. That wasn't entirely a pleasant thought. He stepped out into the hallway to investigate further... and froze as he heard a noise. Evidently his arrival hadn't gone as unnoticed as he'd thought.
The blaster fire came ricocheting down the hall, as expected. He ducked and weaved easily in and out of it, with only the slightest creak of aching joints. Maybe, Fett thought ruefully, he was getting to old for this. Fortunately, he seemed to know the passages better than his assailant. What appeared to be a retreat turned into a rout as he grabbed the person by the shoulders, disarmed him, and spun him around to knock him out, hitting him squarely between...
... brown eyes...
...familiar...
... Kashya's.
"Your father?" Han Solo couldn't believe his ears. He'd known that the person in the Mandalorian armor must have had some connection to Fett to possess the armor and weapons, not to mention the kind of reputation that sent Dengar into such a tizzy. But he'd never imagined... Fett? Daughter? Was the man married, too? He tried to picture what a Fett wedding would look like. He could almost feel his brain heating up with the effort. And... just how was this miraculous act accomplished? Han hadn't thought the man would take off his armor for anything, much less... the image sprang into his head of the impossible act of sex while wearing Mandalorian armor. If he'd been inclined to faint, that would have been an ideal time.
"Yes," she said impatiently, "My father." Her back was to both Solos as she programmed in the course on the datacard Dengar had given her, but neither of them thought for a minute that she had let down her guard. Syra thought briefly about adding 'what about it?' but left it at that.
All Jacen could think of was that this must be the week for lost fathers. "Your father..." he blinked slowly.
"Yeah."
"Boba Fett has a kid?" Han Solo repeated, still wanting to make sure that he was getting this right.
"Yes." She sighed, hands slowing on the console. "I am she."
Han couldn't resist. "What, does he have a wife stashed away somewhere too?"
Fire and explosions. A searing vacancy in the Force.
"No."
Jacen frowned. That kind of disturbance in the Force, a sudden flare up of emotions... that was familiar somehow. But he couldn't remember...
"So... what, he found you on some backwater planet and raised you to become the next big bad bounty hunter?" Han continued, trying to make sense of it all. This actually provoked a laugh from the young Fett.
"Something like that."
Jacen and Han looked at each other. The bounty hunter had a daughter. It had never occured to Han, despite marrying Leia, having three wonderful children, and moving on with their lives, that bounty hunters had lives too. That maybe Fett, despite his cold and heartless reputation, despite his relentless pursuits and methodical brutality, had found a place somewhere in his life for a woman, for a child. That he would raise the child to be like him seemed somehow more reasonable than the child's existance in the first place. It was boggling their minds, Han's especially. But at least it explained where she'd gotten the armor.
Syra could feel their confusion roiling in their minds. Inside her helmet, she smiled to herself. They had no idea what they were getting into. Outside the ship, the streaks of light that signified hyperspace settled into a starscape. The watery, storm-wracked planet floated with deceptive serenity before them.
"We're here."
Even better, the person currently behind the relatively unoccupied counter at the junkyard portion was Dengar. He was easily intimidated by the Fett armor, the Fett presence. And more importantly, he was one of her father's friends, which meant he didn't know what she looked like underneath the mask and quite probably had a deep-seated fear of ever finding out.
"Dengar," she said, her voice coming out deeper and distorted through the helmet. The older man looked up and visibly paled.
"B... ah, Syra," he corrected himself, noting the different armor. "It's been a while... either of you need anything?"
He didn't seem to recognize the Solos, or if he did, he wasn't commenting on it. Syra was more than a bit relieved at that; it could cause her some serious trouble if people began to get the idea that she was cashing in on an old Solo bounty. "Of course," she said. It wasn't like this was a social call. "Information."
That got his attention more than it should have. Dengar looked around, waved some obvious non-customers away, and motioned for her and the Solos to come inside the building that served as his offices. "Ah... uh, we'd better not talk about this in the open."
Syra frowned. The Solos gave each other 'what the hell is going on' looks. She could understand and even empathize, but right now she had to be a Fett, silent and impassive and the best at what Fetts did. Wordlessly, she gestured for Dengar to lead the way.
The inside wasn't much less cluttered than the outside. But it was quieter, and Dengar fiddled with what she was fairly sure were bug-detectors, making sure they weren't overheard. Finally he seemed satisfied, and they all sat down.
"Your father came to see me a while ago," Dengar started, and behind the helmet Syra's expression grew posetively incredulous. "He bought a considerable number of weapons and engine parts for what I assume was your ship, and left them for you, along with an encrypted datacard." Syra opened her mouth to ask something, and Dengar held up a hand. "Now, I don't know and I don't want to know what's going on. He left in a big hurry, which always means that someone's going to die very soon. I'd rather it not be me, and to my way of thinking, the best way to ensure that it's not me is not to know anything."
Syra scowled slightly. Dengar always had talked too much. Behind her she could practically hear the Solos giving each other startled looks.
"Here's the datacard, and the key to the weapons locker where the stuff he bought is hidden. I'd like you to get it on your ship and off my station, please." Dengar's manner wasn't even unfriendly, but more pleading and very panicked. What the hell was going on?
"Dengar, what's..."
"There are Imperials looking for... for Him." Dengar interrupted. Syra fell silent immediately. "I don't know what they did to get him to go with them, but they did. And whatever kind of hold they've got on him, they managed to get him to jump through a lot of hoops and make a lot of detours to get to where they wanted him. Rumor has it that Admiral Pellaeon is in on it. At least, that's where the Slave II was last seen before they found it floating adrift..."
"I heard..." Syra took a deep breath and took the datacard and locker key. "Don't tell the Imps anything," she rumbled.
"I wouldn't!" Dengar actually managed to look indignant. Privately, Syra wondered if it was because he knew how young she was, or just if he was afraid of what would happen when Boba Fett found out. And did it really matter anyway? She just nodded and walked out. Behind her, she heard Dengar slump with relief as the Solos followed her through the door.
And then she felt Han Solo's (it had to be him, he was taller) hand on her shoulder. "Okay, now we have to talk."
Ordinarily she would have been happy to talk to him. She was tired, she was heartsick, and she missed her father terribly. But she was also annoyed at being given the runaround, even more annoyed on behalf of her father, and now Han Solo, who thought ... she didn't know what, specifically, he thought, but it was probably bad... Han Solo was putting his hand on her shoulder like he was going to try and boss her around. The hell with that. She grabbed his hand and flipped him over her shoulder, rocketing upwards immediately after and jetting over to drop down neatly in front of both father and son. Han Solo slumped over a little bit, then recovered. Jacen moved up to stand by him with a look of defiant and protective belligerence. The family resemblence was distinct. It struck Syra with a feeling of acute jealousy and sadness. If her father had been here...
He wasn't. There was only her. "We'll talk," she said. "On the ship. Let's go." She wasn't about to tell the crowd of low-lifes that had gathered any more information than Dengar had already blurted. She was sure he hadn't gotten all the bugs.
In a fit of pique, she rocketed upwards and flew back to the ship, leaving the Solos to hoof it through hostile (or at least unfriendly) territory by themselves. Screw them, anyway. She was a Fett, she didn't need the likes of them.
She just needed her father back.
Kamino. He kept saying he'd never come back here, never in a million lifetimes of a million stars. Lately, he kept finding reasons to. It had been many years since the last time, though. The old buildings, he noted with surprise, were still standing. He landed on the old platform, half expecting to see his father's old Firespray there instead.
The doors didn't open nearly as easily as they had the last time; he had to pry them apart, and do a little creative rewiring to get them to open and shut properly again. His feet remembered the way down the halls, to the quarters he had shared with his father all those years ago. He rewired that door too, not really knowing why he was revisiting old ghosts. The doors slid open slowly, and the lights flickered on. The room was even more bare and much smaller than he remembered. Then again, he had been ten years old the last time he'd been here.
Boba Fett took off his helmet and stared into the glass at the stormy seas outside. The rain beat a so-familiar pattern on the glass, the occasional lightning illuminating a reflection that haunted him. The scars were slightly different, but that was all. It really was his father's face that stared back at him from the glass, a haunt that shook him more deeply than he ever wanted to be shaken. It was like coming home again, and it was jarring. He half expected to be staring up at the reflection, from the vantage point of a ten year old boy, to have his reflection in its blue tunic and pale blue vest standing so much shorter in the glass, looking up at his father with that always-serious expression. He almost expected the door to chime, announcing a visit from Taun We or one of the other Kaminoans. He supposed, with the part of his mind that could still think abstractly about things, that this was why he had never brought Cassandra or Kashya or even young Syra down to this planet. He never wanted any of them, no matter how close they were, to see him this young. This vulnerable.
And yet there was still a small part of him that expected to see young Syra pounding down the halls, laughing, being chased by Kashya. Or to see Cassandra doing sword-forms or range practice down in one of the bigger rooms. He expected to see her catching a quick nap on a bench or working on one of her droids. He expected to see Kashya packing a medical kit. He wondered when they had begun to merge their lives with his ghosts.
Probably when he had realized that the responsibilities Jango had accepted when he had requested his 'payment' of the Kaminoans were now his. He had never understood that part about his father, later, after being raised and taught to be a bounty hunter... until coming back to Cenath and seeing Kashya standing there, surrounded by slavers, waiting for her father to rescue her and defending herself so he would be proud when he got there. His daughter. His responsibility.
A responsibility that he had failed. Kashya was dead... and so was Cassandra. Syra was all that he had left. And he felt the emptiness where his daughter and ... he didn't even know how to think of her anymore... he felt the empty space where they had been. And his father.
This wasn't helping. Boba Fett growled, dragged himself out of his introspective grief, and tried to think objectively about what he had seen. These residential quarters looked to be abandoned... in fact, any sections of Tipoca City not directly related to cloning appeared to have been abandoned. There was little enough ship traffic that he had actually managed to land at a point where no one had seen him come in, which meant that the scientists were sequestered here for months on end. Or they had found a way to grow the clones independantly of living contact. That wasn't entirely a pleasant thought. He stepped out into the hallway to investigate further... and froze as he heard a noise. Evidently his arrival hadn't gone as unnoticed as he'd thought.
The blaster fire came ricocheting down the hall, as expected. He ducked and weaved easily in and out of it, with only the slightest creak of aching joints. Maybe, Fett thought ruefully, he was getting to old for this. Fortunately, he seemed to know the passages better than his assailant. What appeared to be a retreat turned into a rout as he grabbed the person by the shoulders, disarmed him, and spun him around to knock him out, hitting him squarely between...
... brown eyes...
...familiar...
... Kashya's.
"Your father?" Han Solo couldn't believe his ears. He'd known that the person in the Mandalorian armor must have had some connection to Fett to possess the armor and weapons, not to mention the kind of reputation that sent Dengar into such a tizzy. But he'd never imagined... Fett? Daughter? Was the man married, too? He tried to picture what a Fett wedding would look like. He could almost feel his brain heating up with the effort. And... just how was this miraculous act accomplished? Han hadn't thought the man would take off his armor for anything, much less... the image sprang into his head of the impossible act of sex while wearing Mandalorian armor. If he'd been inclined to faint, that would have been an ideal time.
"Yes," she said impatiently, "My father." Her back was to both Solos as she programmed in the course on the datacard Dengar had given her, but neither of them thought for a minute that she had let down her guard. Syra thought briefly about adding 'what about it?' but left it at that.
All Jacen could think of was that this must be the week for lost fathers. "Your father..." he blinked slowly.
"Yeah."
"Boba Fett has a kid?" Han Solo repeated, still wanting to make sure that he was getting this right.
"Yes." She sighed, hands slowing on the console. "I am she."
Han couldn't resist. "What, does he have a wife stashed away somewhere too?"
Fire and explosions. A searing vacancy in the Force.
"No."
Jacen frowned. That kind of disturbance in the Force, a sudden flare up of emotions... that was familiar somehow. But he couldn't remember...
"So... what, he found you on some backwater planet and raised you to become the next big bad bounty hunter?" Han continued, trying to make sense of it all. This actually provoked a laugh from the young Fett.
"Something like that."
Jacen and Han looked at each other. The bounty hunter had a daughter. It had never occured to Han, despite marrying Leia, having three wonderful children, and moving on with their lives, that bounty hunters had lives too. That maybe Fett, despite his cold and heartless reputation, despite his relentless pursuits and methodical brutality, had found a place somewhere in his life for a woman, for a child. That he would raise the child to be like him seemed somehow more reasonable than the child's existance in the first place. It was boggling their minds, Han's especially. But at least it explained where she'd gotten the armor.
Syra could feel their confusion roiling in their minds. Inside her helmet, she smiled to herself. They had no idea what they were getting into. Outside the ship, the streaks of light that signified hyperspace settled into a starscape. The watery, storm-wracked planet floated with deceptive serenity before them.
"We're here."