Fett was nearly upon Hound's Tooth when *IG-2000* had sprung out of hyperspace. Not the real one, of that he was sure, he had that one in his tractor beam, pulling it to its death. Still, a fake one was bad enough. The false *IG-2000* had dropped out right onto the tractor beam, forcing it to lock on to its new target. Because this second ship completely eclipsed the first, there was absolutely no way for Fett to re-establish the original lock without moving around the decoy vessel. And that would take time. Time that he didn't have right now.

The imposter ship slammed into the *Hound's Tooth* with a minimal impact, shattering into fragments of plasteel and metal bolts, the real *IG-2000* maneuvering away with the last burst of thruster fire it could manage.

Small matter.

IG-88 couldn't possibly think that it could actually escape from him that way, did it? It would simply be a matter of swinging around, bringing his blasters to bear and firing. Which was precisely what he intended to do.

Taking *Slave I* in a long curve, careful to avoid running into the path of the droid's guns, Boba Fett brought his ship round to face the two other ships he had just crippled.

That was when disaster struck.

Dropping out of hyperspace behind him was a huge, droid-controlled cargo barge. It was almost the size of a Star Destroyer, and it was bearing down on him at a tremendous speed. Fett was suddenly given over from conscious thought to natural instinct as he brought his shields up to full and tried to maneuver out of its way. Unfortunately, it was just too big, and going too fast, to be avoided. *Slave I* shuddered violently as the two collided, collapsing *Slave I*'s shields and sending it into a mad spiral towards the dark red planet that was Geonosis.

Fett's gloved hands flew over the control panels, trying to level of *Slave I*, move out of the barge's way and bring his weapons to bear. He had barely enough time to engage his engines before the barge rammed his ship again. This time, with no shields to protect it, *Slave I* started to fall apart. The main engines detonated inside the armor shell, the heating coils overloaded and dumped boiling coolant fluid into the weapons arrays, explosions racked the entire rear section and Fett's ION array shot through the hull and out the forward section, barely missing the cockpit and leaving a gaping hole behind.

The barge smashed into the now helpless ship one more time, then turned and jumped back into hyperspace. The third hit crumpled one of the side wings, which spun around behind the *Slave I* and crushed the main sensor and communications dish. Crippled, spewing fire and lightning like some primeval god, the *Slave I* spun helplessly towards the atmosphere of Geonosis. Once inside the planet's gravity well, without engines, *Slave I* would fall like a wounded bird until connecting with the planet itself. That would be the one crash Boba Fett would not walk away from.

"Computer, mute alarms. Transfer indicator lights to helmet array."

The blaring alarms cut out, and the lights on the control board faded. Fett examined the long list of colored lights that had appeared by his left eye. Fett knew what each of them meant by heart. They were listed in order of importance, starting at the top with life support and working its way down.

Things did not look good.

Life support was gone; Fett had about ten minutes of air left, plus his in-helmet supply. That didn't really concern him, he would be in Geonosis' atmosphere before then. What did slightly worry him was that almost everything else was down as well. The only lights that were still on were the systems that were housed in the very tail of *Slave I*, namely the tractor beam array, twin blaster cannons and the concussion missile launcher. Upon further inspection, Fett discovered that the missile launcher arms were jammed: even though the missiles could be fired, they would simply hit the armor casing and detonate, destroying *Slave I*.

It was at times like this that having hidden weapons were not so profitable.

Fett's mind ran through and coldly discarded possibilities like a data-processing module on a droid. It took him a total of three seconds to decide on attempting to lock one of the other bounty hunter's ships in a tractor beam and another one to wait for his ship to spin back around into position. With lightning fast reflexes, honed by a lifetime of use, Boba Fett manually targeted the *Hound's Tooth* and activated the tractor beam just as it shot by on the viewscreen. *Slave I* shuddered as the beam found purchase on Bossk's ship, then lurched violently as the force of the sudden stop wrenched the beam emitter out of the already weak hull plating. Boba Fett watched in dismay as the tractor beam broke free of its holding and shot towards *Hound's Tooth*. It smashed into the ungainly vessel and detonated, breaking off the rear section of the Trandoshan's craft and sending it spinning out into space.

Fett had already turned his attention back to his situation. *Slave I* was now inescapably caught in Geonosis' gravity well and for once, Boba Fett couldn't think of anything to do.

Aurra barely saw it coming. She certainly didn't expect it. She had heard, even seen one on occasion, of the Corellian Jedi's amazing ability to absorb and redirect energy, but had never been aware that any other Force-sensitive could duplicate the effect. She suddenly became painfully aware of the fact that they could when it hit her. A wave of Force more powerful than most she had ever encountered. It picked her up, smashed her into the control panel, then flung her back into the holding bay. In the same burst, Ch'tek lunged up, activated his lightsabers and threw himself onto her. Still, the Force did not fail her, and she had enough of a warning to bring up her legs and plant them square in his chest. Using his momentum against him, Aurra flipped Ch'tek over her, while herself executing a twisted back flip. Drawing her sabers, she lunged at him just as he recovered. He swatted aside her saber and brought his own on top of hers, slicing her lightsaber into two tidy, sparking pieces. Then, he parried her left saber with his own, spinning around to jab her in the stomach with his right. Aurra Sing was, however, no longer there, having flipped over him and landed in a crouch, scything around to try and cut him down at the ankles. Ch'tek jumped, span around and leapt backwards into the cargo bay. The two paused for a minute, caught their breath and gathered their wits. Then Ch'tek struck. Not physically, his lightsabers stayed sticking out at the sides like extensions of his outstretched arms, but mentally. The Force wave hit Aurra, picked her up and flung her against the far wall. She slumped down, but still struck back. Her retaliatory blow was more like a mind probe. It tickled at the alien Jedi's conciseness Ch'tek brushed it aside, but it came back. He brushed it again, but Aurra persevered, this time with two tendrils of Force, then three, then four. Soon, Ch'tek was nearly lost in a wash of probes. Slowly, so as not to distract him, Aurra moved towards him, lightsabers held high.

Then it was all over. Two broken sabers hit the floor, followed by a body, which landed with a dull thud.