Author's Note: first of all, friends, if you've come this far I hope, as Stephen King once said in a story you'd do awesome to read, you're willing to go a bit further. I've been mulling a Fett story for years, being one of Those Fanboys as I am. It began life as a lame attempt to put Fett and Thrawn in the same room together, with a bunch of other nerdy favorites (Soontir Fel, maybe even Darth Vader) and see what stuck. But I never settled on a satisfactory narrative device, one I felt could speak to disparate parts of the character and yet attempt a unification of what I see as his big three parts. Somewhere under the helmet lies the real Boba Fett: we'll get to that soon. Somewhere between Daniel Keys Moran's martial puritan (cf., 'The Last One Standing: The Tale of Boba Fett' in the excellent Tales of the Bounty Hunters), Robot Chicken's smugly self-promoter, and the quiet gun-ready paranoiac of the films. Somewhere in there. Structurally, we also borrowed from the great weblog series 'The Darth Side: Memoirs of a Monster' from 2005-6, which covered episodes 4-6 from Vader's point of view, hilariously, sadly, and dryly. So too have we taken Fett's life in a similar way, although from the beginning of his story in Episode II, and giving it kind of a LiveJournal feel. Which almost gets back to the overconfident idiot version of Robot Chicken's doing. This is on purpose, because somewhere under that bluster and superiority is the kid holding his dead dad's helmet, the kid who wants a simpler, past life that doesn't exist anymore. So much for that. As for the title, well, it comes from Donald Rumsfeld, more particularly from a speech he made in 2002, the year Episode II released to theatres. It addresses the theme (if there is one) of what we're trying to accomplish here: a grown-up Star Wars story. Big idea, that. A story that covers life and death and longing and loss and sex and violence and drama and humor and explosions and stupidity. All the gravy of life. And that theme? Well. Sometimes, a lot of times, there are things we know and things we don't know. Figuring out which is which - the daily battles you pick for yourself and how you get on with living - is the great mystery: your own life, and what you make of it. I hope you enjoy this one, friends.
Dramatis Personae
Jango Fett – Mand'alor, Human male
Boba Fett – Clone, Human male
Dooku – Idealist, Human male
Nute Gunray – Opportunist, Neimoidian male
Poggle the Lesser – Weaponer, Geonosian male
Sintas Vel - Hunter, Kiffar female
Darth Vader – Dark Lord of the Sith, Human male
Natasi Daala – Admiral, Human female
Jodo Kast – Pretender, Human male
Dengar — Hunter, Human male
Bossk – Savage, Trandoshan male
Luke Skywalker – Rebel, Human male
Han Solo – Smuggler, Human male
Chewbacca – Smuggler, Wookiee male
Leia Organa – Diplomat, Human female
Bria Tharen – Rebel, Human female
Busy day. More rain. There's always rain. Not that I mind or even care. Something about rainstorms allows clarity. How if you stand in the storm, rain lashing you all around and soaking into your bones and clearing your mind and your breath. You feel it on you. Alive. The wind going across your face, howling around you. Gives you focus.
Lessons from Dad.
Focus, Boba. Always focus.
So you do. You focus on the basics because that's your training, because that's what you're told. Because if you don't do it, then you're dead, and live training is better than corpse training.
And you do it because he says to. Because Dad says so.
And if Dad says so, then it must be true.
Right?
So if you forget what you're supposed to do, if you forge the basics?
You deserve what happens to you.
Mood: taciturn. And for the record, I'm aware that I'm the only ten year old on this planet keeping a journal. It was Taun We's idea. Naturally. You need an outlet, Boba, she says, a place only you can go. Where your father and his army can't follow. Where you'll be free.
So yeah. Taciturn. As good a word as any to describe it.
My name is Boba Fett. Boba was the name I was given. Old school Mando'a. Means 'Endurance'.
I am ten years old. The most erudite ten-year-old on Kamino or anywhere else for that matter. My father taught me everything he knows.
My father's name is Jango Fett.
I'm his son.
I'm also his clone.
He told me once why it was the way it was. More precisely, why it had to be this way. Son, he says one day out in the rainstorm, it has to be this way because I won't live forever. But I want to pass on what I've learned. The point of knowledge is to pass it on. Very wise man once told me to do what was right for Manda'yaim, well this is it. Boba, I have money. A solid life. But you are all I have left. Does this make sense? You are the most important thing in my life. The only thing I've ever done worth doing. And I want to give you every chance. The ones I never had.
Buckled myself and said okay. What else could I say?
Because that's what you do. You stand up, you man up, and take what the universe gives you.
So that when a Jedi in a fake brown robe lands in your city and wants to talk to your Dad, about things you know—or maybe you don't, depends on how the Jedi's manners are—when that happens…
You'll be ready.
Writing on the go.
An aside: the journal is Taun We's idea. Growing up with two female presences, one an alien shapeshifter, the other, well, Taun We—it's a lonely thing. Her advice was to take a journal. Write your thoughts out, Boba and in so doing gain understanding. After all, you need guards, Boba. You need guards against the dark. When the nights surround you and terrible thoughts creep in to that gifted mind, Boba: your thoughts will be out of your head. Safe in a flimsi. Safe somewhere else.
Because, she says, you can't take the whole world on your shoulders. Remember lessons from your father. The only person you can control is you, Boba. Better then to ensure you're doing all you can to help yourself?
I ask Dad about it later that day, he says she's right. Help yourself, Boba. No one else will.
"And the understanding?"
Right about that, too, Boba. Find out about yourself Boba. Learn things even I can't teach you. Learn about Boba. Who he is. Who he wants to be.
"I want to be like you, Dad."
He smiles and then he says, I know.
And then the Jedi comes.
And we're gone.
Writing on the go. In hyperspace, on the run from the Jedi who's decided to brand Dad a very vague criminal for something.
Something I know full well about. Because Dad keeps nothing from me. Men, he says, have no secrets, and we are men, Boba, yes?
Yes. Yes we are.
Outrunning is a better term. Outrunning. Outgunning. Barrelling down toward Geonosis, Slave I maxed out, the Jedi running in circles ahead of us. And you know something?
Dad at the helm. The best there is. Geonosis lies ahead of us, the Jedi behind, cosmic dust by now.
The old ways, the way it used to be—behind us, too. Dad's gunning for Geonosis with all he's got. His agreement with Dooku is about to come full circle.
A new future. It's worth thinking about. Away from the rain and the sterility and Taun We and legions of guys who look just like Dad. Life is about to change. For the better.
And because Dad says it.
I believe it.
Busy day.
Squeaked past the Jedi in the asteroid field, Dad manoeuvring as clever as ever. It's a funny thing. Now that we're here, time has cleared up.
"Welcome to Geonosis, Master Fett." Count Dooku says, "You will remain with us for some time, yes? Until matters are as they should be."
And what's Dad to say to that? No? Sorry, Count, but we won't be advising your hospitality?
No. No way. There are reasons we are here and reasons we have to do well by the Count. "It's what men do, Boba," Dad says later when we're eating dinner alongside Archduke Poggle and the Count. "Men honour their debts, son. Remember that."
At that the Count raised his glass and toasted. A tableful of the richest, most powerful beings in the universe—the Count and the Archduke, San Hill and Argente, Po Nudo and Shu Mai, Wat Tambor and Viceroy Gunray, slinking there in the corner—they raised their drinks and toasted my father.
The Count's face darkened when an OOM-series Command Droid strolled in. "My Lord," it says, "There's been a disturbance in the Partition Assembly Line. Our surveillance suggests a Jedi Knight."
The room stirs.
"…And a Republic Senator."
The room stirs some more. Gunray fires out of his chair and storms out, mumbling a woman's name to his aide.
Dooku looked at Dad. And Dad was gone without a word, helmet on, blaster drawn. The table, full of the richest, most powerful beings in the universe, emptied.
Dooku stayed. So did I.
"Gentle Fett," he says. "Let us speak as colleagues, yes?"
Noon of a spring day.
At least I think it's Spring. Hard to tell on Geonosis where the sun beats down endlessly and all the landscape is wind-blasted oxidation against a sulphate sky.
So I feel good. As good as can be expected. Yesterday, Dad and some droidekas caught a Jedi and a Senator on the Assembly Line. Skywalker and Amidala, the one Gunray won't shut up about. Now they're prisoners of Archduke Poggle and the Count.
Last night the Count saw his way to speaking to me like a man. Like the man I could be.
"Your father," says the Count. "He is wise."
"Yes, Count."
"And that is precisely why I chose him to be the face and force of our enterprise. Why he remains as my attaché."
"Your Excellency, I was wondering. About the Army."
"You needn't fear, Gentle Fett." The Count smiles. "Those who know anything of our business have either been silenced or bought. Or brought in as glad believers. Men like the Viceroy and your father, yes?"
I wondered just how different Dad is from the Viceroy—let me count the ways—but aloud I say, "Yes, Count."
And then: "Why remain here, Count? Why not kill the Jedi and move on?"
The Count thought about it for a moment. Then he said, "The Archduke requires a sacrifice. Two Jedi and a Republic Senator will do nicely. To prove the might of our cause, Boba, the Jedi and their conspirator will die tomorrow. And the Republic will know our strength. Has this been made clear, Master Fett?"
I nod and I say yes. Because Dooku is like Dad in a lot of ways. He doesn't enter a room, he becomes the room. And anyone else in the room stops what they're doing and pays attention.
Giants walk among us.
Continued...
