Author's Note:
I've decided I'll be updating this story through completion before adding to my other in-progress story, Daughter of Gallifrey. Sorry to those of you who are waiting for updates on that one, but I think you'll like what's ahead in this one. Enjoy!
Boba and the Doctor sat in the cockpit of Boba's ship, Boba in the pilot's chair. Light from the gunship illuminated the Tatooine desert as it rushed past far below. Boba stared out the viewport, hardly blinking.
"There she is," Boba murmured in a satisfied tone.
About a kilometer away, a large, anvil-shaped outline trundled over the sand.
"What is it?" the Doctor asked.
"Sandcrawler," Boba answered. "Transports the Jawas use to carry their wares across the desert."
He tugged a lever on the ship's controls.
"Hang on," Boba said.
The Doctor gripped his seat as the gunship heaved forward in a burst of speed
Dozens of Jawas, short, vaguely humanoid lifeforms in hooded robes, hustled and bustled around their sandcrawler's main cargo hold. They passed objects of all kinds and varieties to each other, sorting and scrubbing them. Gears, engines, viewport sections, control sticks, antigrav cylinders, even stormtrooper armor fragments. They chittered excitedly in their native language, often shaking their fists at each other while swaying their shadowy faces and glowing eyes.
In the control cabin, the Jawas piloting the crawler broke into a frenzy of activity when a gunship blew past them. The ship swung around and hurtled straight toward the crawler on a collision course.
The Jawa drivers chittered and squawked frantically at each other.
But one of them chirped louder than the others and jabbed a short arm at the viewport.
The gunship had slowed and its lights blinked on and off, on and off, in an irregular sequence.
The mood among the Jawas shifted from panic to excitement. One of them grabbed and tugged on levers jutting from the control board.
The sandcrawler began grinding to a stop.
"We're in," Boba said.
"What do you mean?" asked the Doctor.
"I sent them a message in an old Tatooine blink code," Boba said. "They've agreed to barter."
"Barter?" the Doctor questioned. "We're not going to barter for my own property back!"
"We will if you actually want to get it back," said Boba.
The Doctor folded his arms and frowned.
"Fantastic," he muttered sarcastically.
"What does this trinket look like?" Boba asked, "I need to know what we're after."
The Doctor leaned back in his seat thoughtfully.
"Like a...well, you would probably describe it as a...blue cargo crate."
Boba looked over at him and raised an eyebrow.
"You're living in a blue cargo crate?"
"Yes, that's what I said, isn't it?" grumped the Doctor.
Boba looked back out the viewport and silently shook his head.
Light from the sandcrawler's cargo bay illuminated the group of ten Jawas that scurried down its loading ramp. They guided an antigrav cart loaded with a diverse assortment of items.
From within the cargo bay, a crowd of Jawas jabbed and pointed at the gunship and the two approaching figures.
Boba and the Doctor came to a stop in front of the Jawas surrounding the cart.
The Doctor's eyes widened at the array of parts and gadgets on display.
"My word," he breathed in wonder. "I say, is that a reactant cradle!"
He rushed over and picked up the metal sheath, turning it around and admiring it from every angle.
Several Jawas jittered beside him, gesturing graciously with their stubby arms.
"Oh no, I'm not interested in buying," the Doctor said. Then he gasped. "A moobian torsion valve? I haven't seen one of those in ages!"
He lifted up the multi-stemmed object and caressed it reverently.
More Jawas surrounded him and jabbered at him.
"No, no, I couldn't possibly..." the Doctor said. "Could I?"
"Focus, Doctor," Boba called from behind him. "Remember what we're here for."
"Yes, yes, quite right," the Doctor said.
Boba removed his helmet and kneeled down in front of the cluster of Jawas surrounding the cart.
He began conversing with them in their language, a stream of undulating sounds both fluid and halting at the same time.
The Doctor folded his arms.
"I know over a thousand different languages," he said when there was a pause in Boba's conversation. "It's just my luck that I don't know this one."
Boba talked with the Jawas for a few minutes longer, then stood up and motioned to the Doctor to come closer.
The Doctor walked over to him.
"Well?" the Doctor asked expectantly.
"They no longer have your unit," Boba said. "They sold it. Handed it over to a caravan of local humans before doubling back the way they'd come."
"What?" the Doctor asked, sounding horrified. "Are you absolutely sure?"
"They were very specific," Boba answered. "They remembered your...crate. One of a kind, according to them, and that means a lot coming from people who make a living selling parts from all over the system. They got quite a handsome price for it."
"Well, which way did the caravan go, man?"
Boba looked at the Jawas. They had begun drifting back into the crawler.
He turned to the Doctor.
"This...excursion tonight has been entertaining, Doctor, but I did not agree to a wild bantha chase just for some bauble, even if it is one-of-a-kind."
"Some bauble? That isn't just 'some bauble.' It's...it's..." the Doctor stammered in frustration.
Boba waited for him to continue.
"It's... Bah, you wouldn't understand!" the Doctor said with a dismissive wave of his hand.
"You're right about that," Boba said. "Time to head back. I've got temporary lodging in Mos Eisley, the best accommodations available there, which isn't saying much, but you're welcome to stay with me until you find another place, or move on, whichever suits you."
He turned around and began walking back to his ship.
The Doctor stared after him. His mouth curved down in a tight grimace. Then he folded his arms and sighed.
"Fett!" he called. "Wait!"
Boba stopped and turned around. The Doctor walked slowly over to him.
Behind them, the sandcrawler roared to life and drifted away like a whale on the sea.
"That 'cargo crate,' means more to me than you understand," the Doctor said. "Beyond the items on my person, it is quite literally all I have. I can't...fully explain right now, but haven't you...?"
The Doctor put his fingers to his mouth while his face lowered in a frustration expression.
"Blast it," he said, looking up again, "haven't you ever owned something that felt so much a part of you, you never felt complete without it? Something that, if you ever lost it, would cause you to feel naked, utterly exposed, like half a man?"
Boba stared at him. His hard gaze seemed to soften slightly.
"I have," he said quietly.
He held his arms out at his sides.
"My armor," he said. "Inherited from my father. A piece of him, flesh of my flesh over my flesh. My heritage, my birthright. But then I lost it for a time, and that's when I learned I was more than my armor."
He looked the Doctor up and down.
"Even so, when I got it back, I also learned that without it, for better or for worse, I would never be fully complete."
The Doctor nodded silently.
"You seem a brilliant man, Doctor, but you also seem lost in this galaxy. I can see that. If this trinket of yours means as much to you as my armor, then...I figure I can afford chasing it down for another few hours, at least."
The Doctor gave him a small smile.
"Thank you, Fett."
"Let's go," Boba said. "The Jawas told me where they made the sale."
They walked side by side back through the night, toward the waiting gunship.
Boba kneeled over a mess of footprints in the sand.
"Definitely the handoff site," Boba said.
He pointed to a set of wide tread marks.
"The crawler headed off..."
He stood and walked to the edge of the footprint cluster.
"Then the buyers got back on...speeder bikes, most likely, and probably some sort of antigrav sled to carry your trinket, and headed..."
He pointed into the dark.
"...that way, out into the Western Dune Sea."
The Doctor stepped up beside him and gazed out into the dim dunes of sand.
"On those craft, we won't be able to track them," the Doctor said.
"No, we won't," Boba agreed.
The Doctor glanced over at him.
"Then how do we find them?"
"I don't know where they're headed. There's nothing important out there that I can remember," Boba answered. "But if I was them, I would hug the walls of the Jundland Wastes."
He pointed to the shadowy outlines of mesas in the distance.
"There's a risk of encountering Tuskens, but the terrain provides some cover from sandstorms, and sensors don't work so well, in case they're trying to be discreet. And discretion is often essential on Tatooine."
"I see," said the Doctor.
"Only lead we have," Boba said. "Come on."
A short time later, the twin sunrise began painting the horizon.
In the viewport of the gunship, a towered structure appeared in the distance.
In the ship's cockpit, Boba leaned forward.
"Kriff! Malsutta's Tear. I'd completely forgotten about it."
The structure boasted four imposing stone towers on the corners of a wall lined with parapets. From its center rose a dome made of glass that blazed azure in the sunrise. It nestled between two tall, rocky hills and was ringed by a circular canyon on all sides.
"That place hasn't been in use for hundreds of years," Boba said. "I mean, by anyone other than womp rats. The entire thing was a vanity project for Malsutta, an ancient Hutt. No practical value. It has a glass ceiling in the middle of the desert, for fark's sake."
"Hmm," said the Doctor, also leaning forward. "Intriguing. But you still believe it to be the caravan's destination?"
"Might as well check it out," said Boba.
"They'll see us coming," the Doctor mentioned. "No way to use the element of surprise."
"I don't think it will matter," Boba said.
He pointed to a section of the fortress that grew steadily larger through the viewport.
The massive front door of the fortress had been blasted open and lay in piles of rubble.
"No one's taken time to rebuild that, so either no one is home, or the tenants don't care about security," he added.
"Interesting," mused the Doctor.
The gunship raced toward the towers and the dome.
Boba, wearing his helmet again and now carrying his carbine rifle, emerged from his gunship and walked down the ramp. The Doctor followed him out.
The ship sat on a circular landing pad near the fortress walls. Other landing pads bordered it, creating a flowing design like disc jewelry.
"Stay close, and let me take point," Boba said to the Doctor without turning around.
"Very well," said the Doctor.
They followed a paved road around the edge of the wall.
When Boba stepped around the edge, he saw the damage to the great metallic door up close. Chunks of rubble lay piled and strewn across the entrance.
Boba and the Doctor stopped in front of the debris and stared down at them.
"Someone used a laser cannon, and a powerful one, if I had to guess," Boba said.
Readings scrolled across his helmet's HUD display.
"This isn't old damage. This is recent," he added.
Beyond the destroyed wall, a wide, circular tunnel ran straight ahead for about ten meters before curving out of sight. Glow rods seated in spindly sconces emitted soft light. Smooth, ribbed contours were carved into the stone walls and painted in rich browns and golds.
Boba drew his blaster and held it out to the Doctor.
The Doctor made a disgusted face and raised both hands, palms out.
"No thank you," he said.
"I can show you how to use it," Boba said. "It won't take long."
"Oh, I know how to use it, I simply disapprove of guns," the Doctor said.
Boba stared at him in silence for several seconds.
"Then you should wait out here," Boba said.
"Oh, I don't think so," the Doctor said in a polite but firm tone. "Not when the TAR-, that is, my crate is involved."
Boba swiftly holstered his blaster.
"Suit yourself, Doctor, but if you get a blaster bolt through the skull, don't blame me."
"Wouldn't dream of it," the Doctor replied dryly.
They walked across the rubble and started down the tunnel with Boba in the lead.
As they followed the tunnel, its walls rose higher and higher, until the ceiling shifted from curved stone to the curved top of the glass dome they'd seen from the outside.
The Doctor stared with interest at the gear-operated cooling units lining the topmost edges of the walls. They rattled loudly while tiny, bulbous machines darted between them like pollinating insects.
"Those cooling units look to be fueled by the very heat they're cooling, and fully serviced by robots," the Doctor commented.
Boba looked up briefly.
"Robots? Around here, we call them droids. And keep your eyes down here. Those droids don't have blasters, but whoever's up ahead almost certainly does."
"Yes, yes," the Doctor sighed in an annoyed tone.
The tunnel began looping left and right in graceful arcs,
As Boba rounded one of those arcs, his rifle jumped up.
On the floor in front of him lay the bodies of two Gamorreans. Their thick, muscular bodies were clothed in piecemeal body armor and furs. Their snouted faces stared lifelessly at the glass ceiling.
"Oh dear," murmured the Doctor as he stepped up beside Boba.
Boba stared at the blaster wounds in the bodies as data streamed across his HUD.
"These two were shot recently," Boba said. "Sometime in the early morning hours. Probably about the time we were leaving the cantina, and not long after the main door was destroyed."
Boba raised his rifle again and scanned the tunnel ahead of them.
The Doctor crouched over the bodies.
"Poor chaps," he said.
Boba chuckled in a dark tone.
"Never heard anyone say that about a Gamorrean before. And I employed some."
"Do species like these often serve as security?" the Doctor asked as he stood up.
"You could say that."
"Well then, it seems their current employer moved into this structure at some point, but someone else invaded last night."
"My thoughts too," Boba said. "And the invaders might still be here. Sure you don't want my blaster?"
"Oh, I'm quite sure," said the Doctor.
Boba took the lead again, rifle raised. The Doctor walked warily behind him.
Arches carved with flowing sand-dune pictographs began appearing in the tunnel wall, above entryways into small, circular rooms. Boba carefully checked each room. He kept finding them empty of both furnishings and lifeforms.
They passed three more dead Gamorreans, two lying beside each other like the first pair, and one solitary body further on, slumped against the side of the tunnel.
The tunnel suddenly widened into a high hallway. About twenty meters away stood a pair of metallic doors inlaid with spiral designs.
In the middle of the hallway floor lay another body, but this one was a Nikto. The horned, reptilian face rested on its side with tongue lolling out.
Boba and the Doctor stopped in front the body. The motionless Nikto wore leathery clothes interspersed with some sort of rigid body armor.
"One of the intruders?" the Doctor asked quietly.
"Yes, most likely," Boba replied.
He motioned with his rifle at the pair of doors.
"My instincts tell me that whatever's up ahead will give us some answers."
They moved cautiously forward.
Boba froze directly in front of one of the doors, then shoved it open and charged through with his rifle swinging left and right.
Dawn light from the high, glass ceiling mingled with glow rod light to reveal a Hutt's large, sluggish body seated in a nest of cushions on a stone throne.
"Don't shoot! Please don't shoot!" the Hutt's voice rumbled in Huttese.
The Doctor arrived behind Boba and his eyes widened at the sight of the Hutt.
"One of the Hutt twins?" Boba said. "What are you doing here?"
"Oh Boba Fett," crooned the Hutt in their bubbling language, "bounty hunter of legend, defeater of the Pykes, rider of rancors, please...
"I need your help."