Chapter VII

Now, fourteen years after the events of Return of the Jedi…

Boba Fett was almost invisible in the darkness. His menacing presence usually attracted the fearful attention of anyone in the vicinity. A useful weapon, and one that he employed often, his reputation was. Occasionally, however, it was best to pass unnoticed. And Fett had a talent for that as well…

The tattered cloth that was serving as the only disguise over his armor could not hide him from anything but the most preoccupied of glances. But that was not what was keeping him unnoticed. Though he kept to ill-used passageways and dark alleys, Fett was fairly certain that, if the situation arose, he could have snuck across the grand square of Coruscant. He paused at the corner of the street, scanning carefully with the sensors in his battered Mandalorian helmet. This was one of the most dangerous parts of the endeavor. If he was seen now, it would be very bad indeed—but Boba Fett did not allow himself to think of "ifs" except for contingency planning. The "contingency plan" for this situation involved killing every possible witness and disappearing.

It didn't matter. He shuffle/darted across the intersection undetected. Sliding along the side of the building like one of the pieces of semi-sentient refuse that inhabited the city-planet, Fett was all but invisible. He slid into the shadows provided by the scavenged husk of a wrecked speeder—sent to its doom by his machinations earlier that week to provide him the necessary cover—and bent to his task. None of the passerbys noticed as he pried up the slimy grating that covered the drain-hole in this street and, with a quick, surreptitious glance to check for watchers, slipped inside and pulled the grate back into place behind him.

The muck he landed in rose up to his thighs. He ignored it; his armor had handled more toxic substances than Coruscant's refuse with less preparation. The plastic-like coating he spread over the Mandalorian armor served to prevent even the most potent of acids from eating through it, but the slight glint it gave off in light, as well as the almost inaudible crinkle when it was violently crumpled were drawbacks enough to keep it from being used often. It would have been of assistance some years back on Tatooine to protect better from the Sarlacc's digestive juices, but even he couldn't see all the possible outcomes to a situation. And who would have guessed that Solo could be possessed of so much blind luck?

But none of that crossed Fett's mind now. That was the past, and it stayed where it belonged. Learning from the mistakes of the past did not mean dwelling on it. Only fools and scholars, often one and the same, dwelled on the past—unless one was a Hutt, of course. Fett was a bounty hunter; the good ones had no need of regrets and remembrances.

Not unless they concerned business. But if Fett remembered correctly—which he did—something from the past would likely be concerning his business very shortly.

Relying on the infrared and ultraviolet translations of his helmet sensors, Fett make his way quickly and unwaveringly through the sludge and slime. His helmet filtered out the toxins in the air, and most of the smell. He ignored the rest just as he ignored the gunk. He'd walked through worse than this sewage, sometimes without even his armor to insulate him from it.

After a little over a time part, Fett arrived at his destination. He carefully scanned the area with his armor's sensors before walking into it, then again engaged all the sophisticated equipment at his disposal to check the pitted, rusting access hatch. It looked no different from any of the other hatches scattered throughout Coruscant's sewer systems. "Looks" meant absolutely nothing. The very fact that there were no visibly detectable differences between this and any other, neither to his sharp eyesight nor to the advanced macrobinoculars within his helmet's visor, were alarm enough to cause the bounty hunter to patiently scan down to the deepest level of equipment he either wore or carried with him. Fett was worried. The only thing he had detected was a slight current of energy. That meant that either the creature in question didn't want to risk having anything stand out about this hatch and was willing to forgo advanced security systems on the door itself, or that the systems were so advanced that Fett's equipment couldn't detect them. After a moment's debate, Fett reached one muck-covered glove into a sealed pouch on his armor and extracted an extremely delicate sensor tool. The thick, cloying air filled with dampness was enough to ruin the tool, but he could repair it—or replace it—later. For now, it told him all he needed to know. Fett recognized the readout that ran across the tool's display; should he try to open the hatch, he would be flash-fired by a security device that seemed no more than a live current. The tool shorted out in his hand, sensors clogged and infected by the polluted air of the tunnel. He returned it to the pouch as he fed the readout into his helmet's computers. While his memory was nearly as infallible as that of his ship, he would still confirm what he already knew with it.

Fett scanned the area one last time to make certain that he left no signs of his presence, then continued slogging through the tunnels in the same direction. The muck began to get deeper, another sign that he was approaching the drop off; likewise, the low roar that his helmet had been detecting and muffling built to a louder, dull, echoing rumble.

Fett flicked a switch inside his helmet as he slogged through the sewage; it was up to his chest, and steadily rising. He held his arms above it to enable him to move quicker—and to keep some of his weaponry accessible without the minute slowing of swinging it up through the thick semi-liquid. He had left most of his armaments behind; the cleaning and repair that would result from placing many of them in this environment for so long was not worth having them with him now, and some would have been ruined beyond repair by the toxic waste. He didn't bother to worry about being so moderately armed; if he encountered anything now that they would be necessary for, he would likely already be dead. He would have liked to have brought his jetpack along, however; for all the trouble it occasionally caused, it had proven more than helpful in numerous situations. But it was not on his back; the loss of the weight would also make the next part of his treck slightly easier, and the jetpack would have proven finicky with all the clogging mud that would gunk it up in these tunnels. He would simply do without.

Abruptly, the ground beneath his booted feet dropped a quarter of a meter. Fett tilted his helmeted head upwards to keep the front edge of the ominous T-shaped visor just above most of the muck and continued forward, counting silently to himself. He flicked a switch in his helmet—switching his air supply over from the filtered outside air to the oxygen tube he carried with him—precisely one step before the squishy, caked up refuse that lined the floor of the tunnel vanished beneath his feet. Fett ducked his helmeted head down towards his chest and pulled his arms in as he plummeted through the falling sludge. He watched the small readout in the corner of his helmet carefully. Orienting his falling body based on his helmet's directional sensors and his own training, he turned and reached out an arm. He caught the sharp duracrete edge securely; the shock of his sudden halt almost enough to snap his arm. He turned with it, though, and avoided any injuries more serious than a few bruises. The bounty hunter ignored the sludge pouring over his helmeted head, swinging himself up onto the ledge by feel and instinct rather than his useless sight.

He hauled himself into it and stepped back into the alcove, the waterfall of sewage pouring past him with a loud roaring sound that echoed strangely in the enclosed space. Fortunately, his helmet's audio systems had already been muted to protect his ears from the deafening noise—at their normal levels, the cacophony of sound would have deafened him as soon as he set foot within the tunnels if it were not for the automatic compensation units in them.

He wiped some of the slime from his T-shaped visor with an equally muck-covered glove. It swabbed off the thickest of the muck, and his helmet's sensors, clogged as they were, would compensate for much of the remainder of the thick liquid; as well as the faceplate's innate properties and additional coatings that made it resistant to substances attempting to adhere to it. He removed an antiseptic absorbent cloth from a watertight belt pouch and carefully cleaned his boots and legs halfway to his knees. He also gathered the largest globes of slime form his armor everywhere else to avoid drips that would leave a trail. Unless his quarry had found an advanced type of sensor that would work with slime spraying into it from the waterfall a few inches away—which Fett doubted, staying appraised of all such devices—then she would never know that he had been here. He returned the rag to its pouch, closing it tightly, then flipped up a cover and punched a few buttons on the control panel strapped to his forearm. A slight hissing sound told him that the compression door was opening. He bent almost doubly and squeezed through, barely fitting despite having left his bulkier armaments behind him; the jetpack would never have fit through the small opening. He took out a clean cloth and wiped the doorframe clean quickly; leaving any muck along the edges would only make it obvious that there had been a visitor. Unless she entered within the next few standard time parts and detected the antiseptic, or saw a door edge cleaner than it should be, she would never know that anyone had been here, much less who. Fett could have placed some gunk around the door, nearly completely disguising his entry; however, if she knew that someone had entered and yet could barely detect—even with her capabilities—any physical signs of that entry, it would only be all too easy to guess at his identity. And while it was quite possible that she would know about his entry, there was an equal chance that she would not, and precautions were necessary. Crouched down, he half-walked, half-crawled through the small tunnel toward the exit; getting out would only prove difficult if she were entering at the same time as he was leaving; considering his de-armed state and the muck coating and muffling his sensors and slicking his boots and armor, and taking into account her own abilities, he would likely be dead relatively quickly if that happened. Fett wasn't fretting about it.

An LED light blinked, the job he had set his computer readout to analyzing having completed and been double-checked thoroughly, to alert him to it. Fett glanced at the readout in the bottom corner of his visor. It was true; the ship must be inside.

Guri was here.

Sorry this was such a short chapter. It's just taken me so long—I have no time!—to put anything up that I decided to just put this much up and add to it later. I'm still working on it, but I'm really short on time now, so please be patient!