T-minus 8: Boba Fett
"The fight for peace can be a noble one, but as history and legend tell us, the warrior-born should beware the disaster of total victory...
And so should those about him."
Remark attributed to Bounty Hunter Boba Fett
------
The bounty once again tried to run. Boba sighed, but knew it was inevitable. They always ran when they saw him.
Slave 1 flew through the Tython sector, towards the peaceful uneventful planet of Pindar. A perfect place to hide. The prey he was pursuing had a standing bounty upon her for five million credits. All Fett knew was that the target's name was Dusque Mistflier and used to work for the Imperial Corps of Bioengineering. The individual who was paying alot of credits for Dusque was an Imperial Judge Advocate General by the name of Micah. Fett didnt particularly care, but the fact that Micah was willing to pay five million for the girl was proof that Dusque Mistflier had taken something that could either ruin Micah, or destroy him utterly.
Fett was betting on the latter.
Dusque was flying a small heavily modified Porax - 38 starfighter. The Porax-38 had interstellar range and was fitted with a highly effective, long-distance sensor system that provided early warning of enemy activity. Versatile thrusters, dual-reaction systems, and high capacity deflector shields all in all made the Porax - 38 formidable prey. The fact that Dusque Mistflier had personally modified the craft for her own personal use made Fett believe that there was much more to the ship than met the eye.
He approached the Porax at an oblique angle, using the Pindaran star to mask his presence from visual sight. He slapped a few switches to make sure his sensor jamming systems were fully powered. He wanted to take Dusque alive. The bounty was worth nothing dead. What Fett found most interesting was that he would also get nothing for the girl without the stack of data chips she had taken from Micah's personal base on Dubrillion. Fett decided that he had waited long enough. Swinging Slave 1 towards his prey, he pulled the trigger on his quick repeater cannons. Peppering the Porax fighter with thousands of small stinging hits would eventually wear down her shields enough for Fett to hit her with the ion cannons.
Dusque flipped her fighter straight at Fett, much to his surprise, and she unleashed a spread of heavy missiles straight at him! He dove Slave 1 straight down to attempt to avoid the missiles, but they started to track him. He kept a close eye on the sensors. While the missiles pursued him, Dusque was using the distraction to head away from him and Pindar, attempting to get to a distance to jump to lightspeed. Fett flicked a switch on his console, and at the rear of Slave 1 a hatch opened, and a small glowing barrel shaped weapon flew towards the missiles.
The detonation was soundless... it was the explosion of sound that came a split second afterwards that devastated everything around it in a growing ring of destruction that took out every one of the missiles, and sheered one of Dusque's engines off like a lightsaber through durasteel. Fett grinned under his helmet. He flicked his comm channel and spoke softly. "If you value your life, you'll power down. Any further attempt at evasion will... displease me."
Fett watched as the Porax slowly powered down. He approached and used Slave 1's docking claw to attach to the fighter, and unstrapped himself. He grabbed his EE-3 carbine rifle, and headed for the airlock. He hit the switch, prepared for any eventuality, but again, Dusque Mistflier surprised him again.
The front section of the Porax fighter detached itself with explosive bolts as soon as the airlock hatch opened, blowing Fett off of his feet and damaging Slave 1 in the process. Shaking his head clear, Fett scrambled to get back to the cockpit, only to see the smaller Porax escape ship hit hyperspace. Fett had to admit it. Dusque was better than he had thought she would have been. He went back to the airlock to oversee the damage.
Slave 1's airlock and grapple claw was damaged and he could hear the hiss of escaping air. Fortunatly, his Mandalorian armor was self sealing and had a 24 hour air supply. He stepped across into the zero-g of the remaining section of the Porax fighter, and discovered the living quarters that Dusque must have used for long flights. Heavily modified indeed. There was a bed, a small desk, and a computer. Fett started going through several files, and smiled under his helmet. In her rush to escape capture, Dusque had forgotten the data tapes she had taken from Dubrillion.
Curious, Fett started to flip through the tapes, and found one in particular that interested him. It was labeled Alpha Red... which means Eyes Only.. one of the most secretive branches of Imperial Intelligence. Fett's father Jango had always told Boba that knowledge was power, so Fett placed the data tape into a reader, and hit the read button.
After a few moments, the screen lit up with words. Fett started to read the data, and then breathed softly. "What in the Forces name are they creating?"
The information on the tape was from Micah himself, detailing experiments already undertaken upon their first 'prototype'. Fett read every bit, his eyes growing wider with every word.
IMPERIAL GENETICS RESEARCH LABORATORY DUBRILLION PRIORITY TRANSMISSION 09872-H-98
ENCRYPTION CODE: Alpha Red
Public Key: file/excised access Omega/
From: Judge Advocate General Micah
To: Maw Instillation, Supervisor Tol Sivron
Subject: Mitigating factors and pending success of the New Soldier Project.
/start file/
The project is going superb, Tol. You would not believe how successful we have been. If we can replicate this process millions of times, we would have an army that would be unstoppable. As you know, the daughter of Commander Juno Eclipse was very powerful in the Force in the first place. With standard training she could have easily have become one of the Emperor's Dark Jedi... but with our experiments, she has become something far far more valuable. Here are the specifics on what was done to her and the problems you see with replicating the process.
1: CARBIDE CERAMIC OSSIFICATION: Advanced material grafting onto skeletal structures to make the bones virtually unbreakable. Recommended coverage not to exceed 5 percent total bone mass because of significant white blood cell necrosis. Specific risk for replication are for pre-and post pubescant adolescants: skeletal growth spurts may cause irreperable bone pulverization.
2: MUSCULAR ENHANCEMENT INJECTIONS: protein complex is injected intramuscularly to increase tissue density and decrease lactase recovery time. Risk: 5 percent of test subjects experienced a fatal cardiac volume increase.
3: CATALYTIC THYROID IMPLANT: platinum pellet containing specific human growth hormone catalyst is implanted in the thyroid to boost growth of skeletal and muscle tissues only. Risk: Rare instances of elephantiasis.
4: OCCIPITAL CAPILLARY REVERSAL: submergance and boosted blood vessel flow beneath the rods and cones of subjects retina. Produces a marked visual perception increase. Risk: retinal rejection and detachment. Permanant blindness.
5: SUPERCONDUCTING FIBRIFICATION OF NEURAL DENDRITES: alteration of bioelectrical nerve transduction to shielded electronic transduction. Three hundred percent increase in subject reflexes. Anecdotal evidence of marked increase in intelligence, memory, and creativity. Risk: significant instances of Kremai Syndrome.
6: GENETIC SPLICING WITH XENO DNA: combining of human DNA with Talortai (To suppress aging) Kentarian (To increase strength) and Gen'dai (To increase healing factor) DNA to increase survivability rate. Risk: DNA contamination could lead to significant mutations, rendering subject useless.
Thats all that was added to the girl. We've removed her growth hormone to keep her looking like a small child. We need a perfect assasin, and no one is going to suspect a child. We've also removed all of her internal reproduction organs. Its not like shes going to grow up to need them. Field tests were all surprisingly accomplished easily. We've live tested her on a pirates nest on the Thanta Zilbra station in Hutt Territory. Remember hearing about the Zilbra massacre? That was our little Chi. 96 heavily armed pirates, and not one of them survived.
If we can only replicate this process on a wider scale, the Empire would have the ultimate soldier, virtually unstoppable. Read over the attached files, and see what I mean. I look forward to hearing from you again, Tol.
Micah.
Fett stared at the screen for a long time. This Micah was a monster. He used a child? He stood up in disgust and headed back to Slave 1. He carried the data-files with him. He would need to know everything about this project of theirs. He detached Slave 1 from what was left of the Porax-38, and headed outsystem.
Fett was angry. Someone was going to pay.
