Star Wars Infinities: The Master

Chapter 6

By: Christopher W. Blaine

e-mail: darth_yoshi@yahoo.com

DISCLAIMER: All of the characters and situations contained in this story are ©2003 by LucasFilm Ltd. They are used here without permission for fan-related entertainment purposes only. This original story is ©2003 by Christopher W. Blaine.

Jango Fett felt as if he were getting far too old to be dealing with idiots.

At over sixty standard years of age, he should have been enjoying retirement, taking up loftier pursuits. His intent had been to hand over his Mandalorian armor to his son, Boba, by now and to be living it up on some Corporate Sector world. Since the start of the Galactic Civil War, the CSA had been grabbing Outer Rim worlds so quick that Jango himself had no idea just how large it had gotten.

Surely, somewhere within the protected territories of the Corporate Sector Authority there was a world where an old bounty hunter could just live out his remaining days in peace.

It was merely a dream, he decided. He had lived most of his life in his armor and he would most likely die in it, the way of the warrior. Besides, he thought, sixty wasn't too old in Wookie years.

As if he had read his partner's thoughts, Chewbacca gave a small roar and tightened his grip on his bowcaster. The Wookie was over two hundred years old and he still had a couple of centuries left in him, so long as he stuck to Jango's plan.

In front of them, with weapons drawn, were Bossk and IG-88, the current top hunters in the Bounty Hunters Guild, an organization outlawed under most governments but allowed to operate under the New Order and New Republic. When Jango had returned from his self-imposed exile a year before, he had been approached about joining the Guild. The addition of the infamous Jango Fett would be a great political boost for the Guild, which had suffered greatly when Prince Xizor disbanded Black Sun.

Jango had refused. He wasn't back to take up his old trade again. Instead, he was violating his first rule: he was here on a personal matter. Revenge was all that occupied Jango Fett's thoughts now; his days as a bounty hunter were far from over. Instead, he was simply a hunter now.

"You ssssshould have joined the Guild when assssked," Bossk said, drool running down his reptilian chin as he eyed Chewbacca. Bossk came from a world in the same system as Chewbacca's own. They were mortal enemies, their races doomed to continue the cycle of useless violence until one was wiped out. "Refussssal issss not an option."

Jango winced behind his helmet, trying to decide if this was the thousandth or ten thousandth time he had heard such a threat. Bossk was trying to up his considerable reputation by taking down Jango, who was considered a renegade operative by the Guild. Unlike other business ventures where competition elicited price warfare, in the bounty hunter trade there was only warfare.

Chewbacca roared again and hesitated from shooting Bossk down right there. IG-88, an assassin droid with sentient programming, had its own blaster pointed at the Wookie. Jango's helmet had already scanned the droid. IG-88 used the blaster for intimidation only; it was already loaded to the joints with its own weaponry.

"Refusal is always an option for me, lizard-breath," Jango said as his thumb upped the setting on his own weapon. He had thought to take Bossk down and later interrogate him, but he sensed that the Transdoshan had nothing of value to give him anyway.

A false lead had led them to Dantooine, a remote and utterly useless planet that the Corporate Sector had ceded to the New Republic six months before. Except for a few mining operations and a single military installation, the world was nothing but wildlife. Jango had caught a rumor that a one-armed Jedi was encamped on the world and of course he had come to investigate.

Jango Fett was hunting Malakie, a possible Sith Lord that was involved in the death of Jango's son, Boba, at the hands of Exar Kunn. Jango had rescued Chewbacca from certain death after the Wookie had faced Malakie and torn his arm off. Malakie returned the favor by cutting off both of Chewbacca's.

Not that you could tell now; the bionic replacements that Fett had ordered were perfect, giving Chewbacca not only a natural look and real feeling again, but also gave him the strength of ten Wookies. He was the perfect partner and enforcer for the game of revenge.

It was no secret in the underworld that Jango was paying top-credit for information surrounding the mysterious Malakie and it looked like Bossk had used that to his advantage to set the trap Jango was now in. By himself, Bossk was no threat, even with Jango's advanced years. The Mandalorian warrior held no doubts about his ability to end the reign of stupidity perpetuated by Bossk.

The problem was the assassin droid. It wasn't just fast, it was tough as well and Jango had no heavy weapons except for the rocket in his signature jetpack. Fett hated droids, especially since he had had to deal with the protocol droid he had found on Yavin 4. The droid, See-Threepio, had once belonged to Malakie's lover, Mara Mothma, but she had left the mechanical being to die on the jungle moon. When Jango and Chewbacca had returned after a year recuperating in the Corporate Sector, they had found him and Chewbacca had claimed him for his own.

The rumor, according to Chewbacca, was that Darth Vader himself had built Threepio. Jango didn't care; he hated the prissy droid. "Master Fett," Threepio's voice called, breaking the relative silence inside the helmet.

"What is it?" Jango whispered.

"I'm afraid that the scans you ordered from Slave I of IG-88 have produced no significant design flaws. A most masterful creation if I do say so myself," the droid replied. High above them in orbit over Dantooine, the protocol droid was sitting inside Fett's ship. The bounty hunter had programmed the droid brain of the vessel to run a scan on anything they encountered.

"Are we going to continue to stand here and watch each other or are you going to make a move?" Jango finally asked. Bossk started to say something but Jango had enough of the waiting. He had been on the hunt for months and was now fairly upset that he had been distracted. Especially since it was for nothing more than a territorial pissing match.

Jango brought the blaster rifle up and fired. A beam of red coherent light instantly crossed the distance between him and the alien. Bossk's head exploded in a shower of superheated bone and burnt flesh. IG-88 was already moving, his speed impressing Jango. The assassin droid was big and heavy but was agile as Chewbacca.

Of course, Jango thought to himself as he jumped for cover behind a rock, so was the Wookie.

Chewbacca moved quickly, his mechanical claws extended. He moved past IG-88 but not quite quick enough to keep from getting winged in the remaining meat of his left shoulder. The force of the shot spun him and he only got a glancing blow against the assassin droid.

The big Wookie saw the blaster rifle coming towards his face and he roared a challenge. IG-88 did not respond and wasn't fast enough to keep Chewbacca from knocking the rifle away. Two blaster ports opened on the droid's chest and Chewbacca ducked.

The small repeating blasters continued to fire even as Chewbacca slipped and slid to get out of the way. He had hoped to just yank the droid apart; he had taken down many such constructs during his long life. IG-88 was turning out to be a tougher opponent than he had originally thought, but that was to be expected.

The honorably Wookie had his life-debt with Jango Fett and he would follow the Mandalorian into any hell he wanted to travel to. That, however, did not make Chewbacca a bounty hunter. All of the intrigue that came with the job was beyond him. He was a simple warrior, willing to fight and die for a cause. He even understood the allure of the hunt.

Hunting for simple profit was somehow wrong to him. Seeing a droid do it, a machine that should not have had any material desires, was frightening.

Jango fired off a few shots at IG-88 and then tossed in a couple of choice curse words as the shots simply bounced off the armored body of the assassin droid. Chewbacca managed to get far enough away to pull the bowcaster off of his shoulder. He never got to pull the trigger as IG-88's accurate fire destroyed the weapon, but failed to get to Chewbacca's body.

The Wookie was now very angry. The bowcaster was the fifth one he had lost since he started working with Fett. One thing was for sure, bounty hunters could shoot! Chewbacca started in another run, waiting for IG-88 to start firing again. He had noted that the assassin droid took a few moments to get a firm lock on a target and as soon as the blasters started firing, Chewbacca leapt into the air straight at his attacker.

IG-88 had not expected such a move. His tactical and prediction circuits had estimated that there was a 97.643% chance that Chewbacca would have broke to the left and that was where he had been firing when the Wookie had jumped. The droid called up his data files, trying to seek some sort of answer in them as to why his predictive model had failed.

Chewbacca was on him immediately and IG-88 received a second surprise. Chewbacca's claws, forged of space-hull grade alloy, cut deep into the armor plating that made up the droid's body. Under normal circumstances, Wookie claws simply could not do such a thing, but Chewbacca was far from a normal member of his species.

Five years before, while working directly for Mon Mothma, Chewbacca had been assigned as the personal bodyguard for the mysterious Mara Mothma. Mara specialized in supplying the Rebellion with whatever they needed and she had been teamed with Talon Karrde, an honorable man that had become infatuated the beautiful human.

On Yavin 4, Talon and Chewbacca had suspected that the strange alien Malakie was up to no good. Chewbacca had sensed the evil about the man; Talon had been jealous of the rapport that Malakie seemed to have with Mara. They tracked Malakie to the ancient Massassi ruins on the jungle moon and there Chewbacca had been defeated by the man he soon came to realize was a Sith.

Unlike most Wookies, Chewbacca kept himself appraised of the galaxy and the Sith were no secret to him. He had wondered why the Jedi had not sensed the man, but after everything that Chewbacca had learned about that failed order; he held no illusions about their deductive or perceptive powers.

The new arms that Jango had provided Chewbacca was perfect, nearly identical to the ones he had been born with except that they were now much more powerful. His natural instinct had him digging into the droid's chest, in search of a heart common sense told him was not there.

His strike was well placed enough that the data cables that fed commands to the repeating blasters were severed and IG-88 had to reroute his signal input through his speech module. Because of this, he was unable to register his disapproval when Chewbacca stepped back and Jango fired his blaster into the hole the Wookie had left.

The assassin droid feel to the ground with a shudder as its main processing module was turned to slag.

Jango holstered his weapon and called Threepio to bring Slave I down. "And then I want you over on Bossk's ship talking to his computers," he ordered, a grim look on his face as he kicked IG-88. Chewbacca gave a slight growl of approval. Jango nodded. "Yep, they most likely have nothing about Malakie, but you never know. That ugly bastard has been trolling the Outer Rim for Jedi babies, only nobody is putting it all together. Too wrapped up in their damned civil war to realize someone is trying to remake the Sith empire."

Chewbacca let loose with some hoots and growls. Even after all of the years between them, Jango still had trouble understanding Chewbacca's language. The main problem was the Wookie had a slight Chandrillan draw to his speech after having spent so many years there. "No, the New Order is not a Sith empire. It's something perverse, but not as. My people dealt with Jedi and Sith alike over the centuries; the tales of the Sith are not pretty. The Empire is cruel, but a Sith empire is just plain hell."

The Wookie responded with another question. "I'm not interested in saving the galaxy. Just revenge. Once I have that, the entire universe can go to hell for all I care. I'm just pointing out how dim-witted everyone has become." He pulled off his helmet and took a deep, unfiltered breath. His hair, now mostly white, was cut short to the skin and was shiny with sweat. "Got ten million little governments popping up everywhere. Every nerf herder with a cause wants to rule. It's worse now then under the Old Republic."

Laughing, Chewbacca began collecting the dropped weapons. "You go ahead and laugh, but mark my words: this galaxy can't handle all of the chaos. It's the reason why people like Palpatine and Ravage eventually gain power."

Chewbacca told him that they always lose it as well. "That's your rebel sympathies talking."

"Bones of a Coruscant whore," Jango said as he read over the information scrolling across the screen. "This is interesting." He sat back and let Chewbacca have a look and the Wookie nodded.

"I'm sorry, Master Fett, but I fail to see the significance of this," Threepio said from the back of the cargo hold. He had all of the data banks from the Hound's Tooth, Bossk's ship, transferred over to Slave I. Jango was reviewing the information as the ship hurtled through hyperspace.

"You wouldn't see the significance, goldy," Jango said. "Booster Terrik…you know of him, Chewie?"

Chewbacca gave a long and drawn out explanation and Jango waited for Threepio to translate. "Master Chewbacca says that Terrik is a privateer with a personal vendetta against the New Republic. This information is being broadcast to attract any and all bounty hunters to the Bespin System to collect the bounty offered by Lord Ravage on the head of the Jedi Knights."

"Leia Organa is Mara's sister," Jango said out loud but to himself. Several times in the past he had considered pursuing the Jedi from Alderaan to use as bait to draw Mara out. From Mara, Jango was sure he would get the information he wanted concerning Malakie.

Chewbacca had told him on several occasions that Leia and Mara had never gotten along and he doubted that they were even remotely related. "Pardon me, Master Fett, but would it be possible to enlist the aid of the Jedi in pursuing your quarry?"

Jango's jaw dropped. "What?"

"I merely assumed that since you were pursuing Sith…"

"Work with the Jedi? Me? A Mandalorian warrior?" Jango started to laugh until he saw Chewbacca nodding his head. He told the Wookie he was insane. "Mandalorians do not work with Jedi."

A growl accompanied the lengthy rebuttal. "If I may paraphrase, sir," Threepio started. "Master Chewbacca does point out that you have been employed by the Sith in the past."

"I was younger then, not as wise as I am now," Jango replied, heading for the ladder up to the cockpit. Once he was in the pilot's seat, he allowed himself the luxury of pondering what his companions had offered.

There was an old Mandalorian saying that translated roughly "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". Could he, no, would he ally himself with the hated Jedi to pursue a Sith? Always the Sith had been the better to deal with, but only because they had been few in number and had very few ambitions.

That was different now. The Jedi were few and it appeared the Sith weren't just multiplying, but they were getting ready to plunge the galaxy into a war that threatened to consume it. Jango knew that it was Exar Kunn that had been there and Exar Kunn was going to die. So was Malakie.

His hunter's instinct told him that Mara Mothma was just as guilty, but he could see himself letting her go in exchange for getting the other two. Jango rubbed the silver stubble on his chin and glanced down at the navicomputer. His fingers moved to the keys and he held them in place.

The Jedi! He could not believe he was even thinking of going to them for help. His entire early life had been filled with nothing but hatred for the Jedi and their ways. They had been the mortal enemies of the Mandalorians.

But it was the Sith that had murdered his son, stripping his soul out of his body and tossed it into the wind. His legacy was gone. He was the last Mandalorian warrior so far as he knew and with him they would die. Boba was supposed to carry on but that would not happen now.

The least Jango could do is leave behind his vengeance.

Quickly he typed in the commands that would pull them out of hyperspace after a few more parsecs and then entered in the coordinates for Bespin. Bespin was now part of the Corporate Sector and Jango had full permission to travel through their space. It seemed as if the fates were telling him to go.

Chewbacca popped his head into the cockpit and chuckled. Jango allowed himself a small smile. The Wookie had turned out to be a good companion over the years. Certainly he wasn't a replacement for Boba, but he was a good friend nonetheless. "What's so funny, furball?"

Chewbacca pointed to the navicomputer and started explaining. Jango picked up enough of it to understand that the Wookie was gloating. "Don't you have some Force cages to clean?" the bounty hunter asked.

"It has been over five days," Leia started again for the tenth time. Corran winced and Kyp turned around to head back into the sleeping chamber he was using. "Five days! The Force only knows what they are doing to the Falcon!"

Corran sighed and pretended to be fiddling with his lightsaber. "Dear, I'm sure that there is a good reason they have us isolated. After all, we did enter Corporate Sector space without permission in a battered ship. Not to mention Jedi have never been welcome anywhere there are merchants, unless thieves are about as well."

Leia continued to pace like a cat, unable to reconcile herself to relaxing as they waited for Lando Calrissian, the administrator of Cloud City. They had been given permission to land by someone named Lobot, but had been immediately escorted to the rooms they now occupied. Though no threats had been made against them, they did realize they were de facto prisoners.

She was using all of her Force ability to keep her thoughts to herself because she didn't want to upset Corran. Secretly, she was upset because a small part of he had been disappointed that Dash Rendar had not been waiting on the landing platform when they had touched down. In some small romantic section of her mind, she had truly expected it.

That made her even more upset because she didn't know what that actually said about her. She looked to her fiancé and inwardly shuddered at her own self-centeredness. Even their lovemaking the night before had been a lie, her mind far, far away from the act itself.

But more than Corran, she was afraid of Kyp. Their master was very powerful in the Force and he would not be fooled very long by her attempts to hide her thoughts and feelings. What would he say about her betrayal of Corran's feelings, especially after all of the years Kyp had spent pining for her?

But, she reminded herself; it wasn't that she was in love with Dash Rendar…she was in love with Corran. It was just that the thought of a rogue, a scoundrel taking her up in his arms and ravaging her with kisses made her feel so…alive! She prayed silently to the gods of Alderaan, hoping for a cool, calming wind to blow by and remove the heat of passion from her.

She was acting like a schoolgirl and she knew it. "Are you okay, dear?" Corran asked.

Before she could answer, Kyp strolled out, his lightsaber on his belt. "Someone is coming," he said.

The door to the suite opened and two blue-uniformed guards stepped in, their weapons holstered. Behind them, a dark-skinned man in expensive clothing and a million credit smile entered. "Princess Leia, you shine brighter than the sun here in the clouds," Lando Calrissian said, taking her hand and kissing it.

Corran coughed and Lando gave him a huge grin. "Corran! You old son of a gun!" The two exchanged handshakes and warm feelings flowed from both of them. "You've put some muscle on!" Lando commented.

Leia introduced Kyp to Lando. The Baron Administrator shook his head. "You're a lot smaller than I imagined. They say there are whole religions springing up around you because of what you did on Tatooine." Kyp blushed at the news, which was entirely new to them. It was something the young Jedi was not proud of.

"Hell, no," came another voice from the doorway. All looked to see a red-haired man in need of shave leaning in the doorway, one hand on a low-slung blaster. "There is no way that princess could have gotten prettier," Dash said with a wicked grin.

Corran, oblivious to the red hue enveloping Leia's face, ran over to his friend and embraced him. Kyp sensed the change in Leia immediately and looked over at her. She felt his presence in the Force and pushed back with a strength that he had never seen from her.

Kyp watched as she went over to exchange greetings with the mercenary and slowly began to wonder exactly what was going on.