5 Things That Never Happened To Boba Fett
I
"Remember, gently pull; don't squeeze."
"I know what I'm doing, Dad," the child muttered.
A flash of red light shot from the laser rifle, and into the target's 'head'.
"I told you so," the little one said smarmily.
"You learn that tone from your mother?" Boba Fett asked amusedly.
"Well, yeah; not like I learned it from the silent monk," Ailyn Fett shot back at him. "You hardly ever talk."
"Some people talk very much, and say little."
"Monk," the bounty hunter's daughter muttered under her breath.
Then the other woman of the group came up. "Who made that shot, Ailyn? You?"
"Yep," the girl said simply.
"Well, go on; put it in the records. I don't know if your father's even shot that far before," Sintas Vel smiled at the Mandalorian.
"I think you are inflating my daughter's ego."
"I think I'm deflating yours. We seem to be at an impasse," Sintas returned.
"Then I propose a test; see just how far the both of us can shoot," the Mandalorian said, donning his helmet.
As the pair walked off arm in arm, Sintas said, "Y'know, I never thought you'd do it."
"Give up hunting, settle down with my daughter?"
"I thought that, when I told you, at best I could expect maybe a few hundred credits and a warning to leave you alone," she shook her head. "I never expected you to take us in."
"Well, what else was I to do with my family? We Mandalorians take care of our own."
"Yep, that's us," she smiled at the face behind the helmet that she just knew was smiling back, "a family of natural-born killers."
II
Boop.
"Boba." Came a firm voice from under the Slave I's command console.
"Yeah?" Responded an equally gruff thirty-year-old male, wearing worn green-and-grey armour. He looked at the pair of faded blue armoured legs that were protruding from the console as though the ship had decided to take on an active career as a carnivorous beast, and the man in the blue armour was its first, unresisting prey.
From within the console came, "Answer the comm, will you, lad? It's been going off for ever."
Wordlessly obeying as he replaced his helmet onto his head, he keyed the communications console, and the comm sprang to life. It projected before the Mandalorian the image of a monster dressed in darkest night and a nightmarish helmet. It was a very familiar face; one he had in fact, tried to kill on one previous occasion.
"Lord Vader," Fett tilted his helmet the slightest bit, a courtesy he normally did not bestow upon any callers. After all, he considered internally, it could never hurt to be at least slightly gracious to a Sith Lord...especially one that you had tried, and came very close to, killing.
"Fett," the other helmeted man tilted his in return. "Are you near the Anoat system?"
"Perhaps," Boba said tersely. "Why?"
"I am in need of your particular talents for hunting down a certain Rebel ship that is a particularly venomous thorn in my side, and for you locating it, the rewards will be astronomical...even for you," he finished.
Fett tilted his head slightly. His service fees to the Empire were usually rather exorbitant, mostly because he knew he could get it out of them. For the Empire to give him what he considered astronomical amounts of credits...
"The job?"
"Solo," the Sith intoned, "and his ship. They are carrying Organa, and I wish very much for the both of them to be taken care of."
"I'm free to use any methods?"
The fallen Jedi levelled a finger at him. "No disintegrations; I want them alive. Otherwise, do as you will."
"Their location?"
"The Hoth Asteroid Belt. We are currently trying to drive them out, without success. You assistance..." it must pain Vader greatly to have to ask for help, he thought, "would be appreciated."
"We will be on station presently," he said, immediately thereafter disconnecting the line.
The blue-armoured man shot out from the console, as though the carnivorous Firespray decided he wasn't worth eating. "Hoth?"
"Already putting the coordinates in," Fett said.
"Good boy," his father nodded.
"Thanks ever so," Fett said sarcastically. Sometimes I wonder just how different things would be if I had just been smart and let the Jedi kill him.
III
"Boba Fett?!"
Fett ignored Solo as he aimed at Skywalker. He was just...
"Boba Fett?! Where?!" Then he felt a sudden jab in his jetpack, and—
He was flying through the air. Distantly, he cursed Solo, the blind fool, for wrecking his jetpack.
Then he hit the side of Jabba's sail barge.
Under his breath, he muttered something coarse.
Then, he was rolling down the sandy hill before he could stop himself, and he could not find a profanity harsh enough to describe what ran through his head at that moment. Oh... was as close as he came.
Then the beak of the Sarlaac snapped shut around his helmet, and he knew no more.
IV
The door chimed.
Boba Fett opened it to see a familiar face.
"Evening, Taun We," he nodded to the long-necked Kaminoan. As he did so, he took in her companion. He was tall, yet unremarkable, save for the brown robes and obvious lightsaber clinging to his belt.
"Boba," she began, "this is Jedi Knight Sorn. He claims that he can sense some form of disturbance through the Force, and it is emanating from this room." She tilted her head, an odd motion for the cloner mistress. "Does he have reason to suspect so?"
"I don't think so," he shook his head. Disturbance in the Force? What nonsense was...?
"No...It's this boy," Sorn seemed confused. "You say he's..."
"Yes, the same as his father," Taun We nodded.
"Yet..." The Jedi seemed amazed. "It's unheard of for someone of his unique details, but he's Force-sensitive."
V
The blast echoed through his helmet as he heard one of his commandos cry, "Come on!" I'm getting too old for this kind of nonsense, he reflected.
It still confused the hell out of him to this day why he, Boba Fett, the new Mandalore, had approached the Galactic Alliance and offered his assistance with Mandalore behind him. Perhaps it was because they needed the assistance in the war against the Yuuzhan Vong, or perhaps it was because he knew that he would not be able to survive in a galaxy controlled by the sadistic scarheads.
But nonetheless, he and an elite unit of Mandalorians had signed on to the Alliance, becoming Special Forces Unit 1138—or, as Colonel Fett and his men preferred, Mandalore's Fist. Willing to be dropped anywhere, fight on any planet, they were the top notch of the galaxy's best soldiers. The mere 36 of them had been able to completely wipe out the Vong presence on seven different worlds, now, losing only two men in the past eighteen operations.
As the commendations and promotions accumulated, Fett also distantly wondered why he hadn't signed up for this in the first place. Certainly, it was for a ludicrously idealistic cause, but it gave him a lot more firepower, government salary, and a full license to kill. It was, to his calculating mind, a fair trade.
And as he and Mandalore's Fist, along with Wraith Squadron, blasted through each quadrant of Coruscant to force the scarred invaders out the way they came, he smiled behind his mask. While he was getting too old for this nonsense, as he took the top half of a Vong warrior off with his wrist rocket, he thought smarmily, I've still got it.
Author's Notes: Yes, I know turning him into a Jedi is kinda -ish, but how 'bout the Mandalore's Fist bit? Believable? Expandable? Gimme opinions, here, people.
