"We understand," he said. His voice sounded wistful, but his blue eyes
shone. "We are very proud of you, Boba. Your father would be proud, too."
Gab'borah reached into the pocket of his chef's robe and withdrew a
small packet. "Here. These will last a long time. Wherever you're going,
you'll need food." Boba took the packet. He peeled back a corner to see
what was inside.
"Gleb rations!" He made a face, then said, "I mean, thank you,
Gab'borah." Gleb rations didn't taste very good, but a single small cube
provided enough energy and nutrients for a day's hard work.
"We'd better go," said Ygabba. She gave Boba a wistful smile. "I have
one more thing for you. Not as exciting as gleb rations, but..."
She held out a small object, about the size of Boba's hand.
"What is it?" he asked, taking the object. It was heaver than it
looked, encased in a gray plasteel container.
"A surprise," said Ygabba. "Wait till you get wherever it is you're
going. Then open it."
Boba nodded. "Thanks, Ygabba."
"You're welcome. I hope it helps." She grinned at Boba, pointing at
his helmet. "You take care of that, too. I won't be around to watch it for
you!"
Boba smiled. "Don't worry, " he said, waving good-bye as the two of
them turned and walked back down the hall. "I will."
CHAPTER FIVE
Boba had been off-planet before, of course.
He had been born on rainswept Kamino, and had buried his father on
Geonosis, a desert planet even more desolate than Tatooine. He had been to
Aargau, where he retrieved what remained of his father's fortune and
explored the planet's treacherous, mazelike Undercity. And before that he
had been on a moon of Bogden, and the poisoned world of Raxus Prime. Raxus
Prime was where Boba had met up with the man his father had called "The
Count."
Some people knew the Count as Dooku, a leader of the Separatists.
Others knew him as Tyranus. Darth Tyranus was the agent who had chosen
Jango Fett as the source for the Republic's vast clone army.
Now the Republic and the Separatists were at war. Count Dooku and
Tyranus were on opposing sides of the conflict.
And only Boba Fett knew that Tyranus and Dooku were the same man.
This knowledge had saved Boba's life on Aargau. This knowledge was a
weapon.
Like a weapon, it gave Boba great power.
And like a weapon, it had the power to kill those who used it.
In the cockpit of Slave Boba made a last-minute check that his
firearms were stored and ready for use.
"Jet pack, blaster, jet pack generator, ion stunner, grappling
missile." Boba counted off his deadly array. "Dart shooter, rocket
launchers, whipcord thrower..."
Jabba might be greedy and disgusting and power-hungry. But when it
came to outfitting his favorite bounty hunter, he was as generous as his
Gamorrean guards were stupid.
New weapons gleamed from Slave I's storage bays: blaster, ionizers,
plasma missiles. And, at Boba's request, Jabba had arranged for brand-new
sensor-jammers to be installed on Slave I, as well as a state-of-the-art
interstitial stealth shield. But best of all was the shining set of Westar-
34 blasters on Boba's weapons belt.
"I'll never let you down, Father. Not as long as I have these," Boba
murmured as he checked a blaster's power cell cartridge.
Once the Westar-34s had belonged to Jango Fett. Now they were his
son's. The blasters had been designed by Jango, and specially made for him.
Compact enough to fit in a jet pack, the weapons were cast of a nearly
priceless dallorian alloy, designed to withstand furnace heat.
Boba wasn't sure what was in store for him on Xagobah. But he was
pretty sure things would heat up once he got there.
He settled behind the ship's console and set his course for Xagobah.
He glanced out the viewscreen.
In the docking bay around him, dozens of other ships were getting
ready to depart Tatooine. Astromech droids and Ughnaught mechanics were
everywhere, scrambling to make last-minute adjustments to starships and
speeders. In the hazy, red-tinged air above him Boba could make out more
starships, flashing like falling stars. He pressed Slave I's thruster
igniters.
With a deafening rumble and an explosive burst of flame from its
fusion reactors, Slave I shot from the landing bay.
"Yes!"
Boba's heart pounded with the thrill that accompanied every new
mission. Below him, the Dune Sea spread like flame across the surface of
Tatooine. And like flame the brilliant red-and-orange dunes almost
immediately faded into black, as Slave I pierced the planet's atmosphere
and headed into the vast realm of space.
Boba checked the coordinates for Xagobah. He glanced out the
viewscreen and saw the usual flash and flare of planets and distant stars.
He frowned. "What's that?"
At the bottom of the viewscreen, something glittered and darted like
an asteroid. Something that shouldn't be there.
"There's no asteroids in this sector," said Boba. "No recent planetary
upheavals..."
Boba quickly checked Slave I's flight plan. There was no sign of
meteor activity. The glittering spark grew larger on the viewscreen. Boba
leaned forward.
"That's no meteor!"
Instinctively he reached for the control unit of Slave I's missile
deployer.
"That's a fighter!" he cried. "And it's tailing me!"
His fingers flashed across the console. Immediately the enlarged image
of a Koro-1 exodrive air‑speeder filled the screen. Furiously Boba punched
at the console. He needed that vehicle's registration data...
Silvery letters filled the screen. Andoan registry, licensed to Urzan
Krag of Krag Fanodo.
"The Aqualish," Boba breathed. "He wanted this assignment, too. Well,
he's not going to get it!"
Before him on the viewscreen was a white-hot burst. Slave I shuddered
as though it were starting re-entry.
"He's firing on me!"
Immediately Boba went into attack mode. The Andoan vessel blinked from
sight.
"He has a cloaking device," muttered Boba. "Well, so do I."
Boba deployed Slave l's sensor jammers, then activated the protose
detectors. They indicated that the Andoan ship was somewhere behind him.
"You want to play hide-and-seek?" said Boba. He grasped the controls
of Slave I's laser cannons and fired. "Well, hide from that!"
The energy bolts streaked through the black emptiness outside the
ship. They found their target and seemed to liquefy around it. The Andoan
speeder's outlines appeared, cloaked in a blazing plasma skin.
The Andoan vessel seemed to hover like a teardrop waiting to fall.
An instant later a blinding flare of blue-white plasma engulfed the
Aqualish's ship.
"Gotcha!" exclaimed Boba.
Backlash waves of energy from the blast pulsed around Slave I, then
dispersed. Where the Andoan speeder had been, brilliant specks of debris
floated, l
ike a miniature asteroid field.
"What a great way to start the day!" gloated Boba. His eyes shone as
he activated Slave I's navigation program. He leaned forward, his fingers
automatically programming the coordinates for his destination.
"Next stop - Xagobah!"
CHAPTER SIX
Boba was not surprised that Wat Tambor had chosen Xagobah for his
citadel. This entire sector was known to be a favorite of smugglers making
their way between more habitable regions. Jabba had underworld contacts on
various planets there.
Still, until he had received his assignment, Boba had never heard the
crime lord mention Xagobah.
He had never heard anyone mention it. "But there it is," he murmured.
Dead ahead of Slave I, a planet shimmered into view. Boba blinked,
wondering if his eyes had gone funny.
The planet seemed out of focus. Its outlines were blurred, as though a
vast hand had drawn it with colored ink, then smudged it.
Yet as Slave I drew nearer, Boba saw that the problem was not with his
eyes. The problem was with Xagobah.
The entire planet seethed with colors. Purple, violet, lavender,
maroon, plum: every shade of purple Boba had ever seen, and many he could
not have imagined. The colors shifted and moved above the world's surface
like an immense, restless demonsquid. Tentacles of indigo and violet spiked
thousands of kilometers upward into the atmosphere, then retracted. As
Slave 1 began its descent, Boba glimpsed jagged flashes of lightning below
Xagobah's violet haze.
Atmospheric storms.
"That's not good," he said to himself.
He saw something else, too. It hovered hawklike, safely out of reach
of the lightning storms - one of the largest vehicles he had ever seen.
A Republic assault ship.
"They sure mean business," Boba said grimly. Quickly he checked to
make sure Slave l's cloaking device was still activated. "Now - let's take
a closer look."
He drew Slave I as close as he dared to the troopship. It was an
Acclamator, one of the military transports specially built by the Republic
to carry clone troops across the galaxy. Each ship held up to 16,000 clone
troopers, as well as armored walkers, gunships, speeders, and ammunition
supplies.
And there would be Republic command personnel on board as well - and
Republic military commanders on Xagobah's surface.
"Which is where I'm headed," said Boba. "Better get there, fast!"
He took a final look at the Acclamator. Then he hit the thrusters.
Slave I shot toward Xagobah.
Outside, streamers of purple and lavender whipped past. Boba thought
about the troopship. It certainly looked like the Republic had sent an
entire clone army to lay siege to Wat Tambor.
From what Boba knew about the Separatists, they would have their own
army, geared to fight back.
A droid army. Battle droids, super battle droids, spider droids, the
works.
Boba's grip tightened on Slave I's controls. He had successfully
fought droids back on Tatooine, when he rescued Ygabba and the other kids
from the evil Neimoidian.
But he'd never had to fight an entire army of them! "Good thing I have
my body armor," said Boba. "And my blasters..."
The ship's nav program showed he was fast approaching the surface. He
still wasn't sure what Xagobah looked like, close up.
But he knew what he would find there - Trouble.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Boba locked Slave I into cruising mode. Outside, shreds of dark purple
mist flew by like flocks of winged mynocks. Boba watched the haze grow
thicker - and darker - the closer he came to Xagobah's surface
I still have no idea what kind of life-forms are native to this place,
he thought. He peered through the writhing fog. It was almost impossible to
see anything, which meant it would be difficult for others to see him.
"That's a good thing, too." Boba reached for his jet pack. "The
Republic is after Wat Tambor. And Wat Tambor will be busy defending himself
against the clone troops - and none of them will be happy to see me coming!
"
He turned back to Slave I's console. Outside, the mist no longer
moved. Instead, it hung like a heavy, purplish curtain over everything. As
Slave I cruised a short distance above the surface, Boba got his first
glimpse of Xagobah.
And what he saw there was disgusting! "Mushrooms?" exclaimed Boba.
Only these weren't ordinary mushrooms. They were as tall as trees; as
tall as the rock formations that surrounded Jabba's fortress. He saw orange
fungi shaped like towers, with long rubbery appendages dangling from them
like arms. He saw entire forests of umbrella-shaped mushrooms, yellow,
crimson, poisonous green. In spots the ground was covered with a carpet of
wriggling things like hair or fur. They waved and changed color as the ship
passed overhead, darkening from pink to darkest violet. Some of the tallest
mushrooms sported fungi like ladders crawling up their sides. Really
crawling, like slugs or gigantic swollen caterpillars.
"Gross!" said Boba.
Though it was also sort of cool, in a horrible way. He stared at a
huge fungi that looked like a bloated jellyfish. It pulsed and belched
clouds of purple-black smoke as Boba's ship hovered above it.
Only it wasn't smoke, but spores.
"That's what the fog is," Boba realized in amazement. "Not mist, or
clouds - but billions and billions of mushroom spores! I wonder if it's
safe to breathe?"
Quickly he logged into the ship's medical computer and read the data
there.
It is recommended that you take an antidote before setting foot on
Xagobah, as a precaution. Most of the fungi are harmless, but some have
toxins that can be fatal if swallowed or breathed. Others can cause changes
to non-native biological entities.
"Like me?" asked Boba, as he took a small inhaler out of his med kit.
Boba breathed in the antidote, then tossed the empty inhaler.
"Changes," he mused. "I wonder what kind of changes? Well, I'll have
plenty of time to find out - later. Right now I'm out to find Wat Tambor."
Slave I was cruising well below the mushroom forest's canopy now.
But in the distance, Boba could see something other than rubbery fungi
and coiling tendrils. Laser fire.
He stared out as bolts of bright blue flame erupted through the haze
of purple and black. For a moment the flares illuminated the scene below.
"There it is," breathed Boba.
In the center of a large clearing an immense structure loomed: Wat
Tambor's fortress. It was too dim to see clearly. But Boba could make out
dark slashes about 500 meters from the citadel - a series of trenches
engineered by the Republic's troops. More laser fire rose from here,
streaking toward the fortress walls. Boba could just make out myriad forms
moving through the shadows.
"Clone troopers," he said aloud, preparing to land. "This is where the
action is. Which means - that's exactly where I'm going!"
Back on Tatooine, one of the first things Boba had done was arrange
for his ship to be completely overhauled by Mentis Qinx. At the time, Boba
had no credits to pay for the work. He'd bluffed his way into it,
projecting enough confident authority that he'd fooled Qinx's
administrative droid.
And the bluff had paid off. Qinx had upgraded Slave I's power cells.
He had installed a series of camo covers that concealed new turbolasers and
concussion missile launchers. He had upgraded the engineering console. He
had even replaced the existing hardware grid with a larger one. Someday,
that grid would accommodate more advanced stealth hardware.
Unfortunately, Qinx hadn't installed it yet. "That'll be your next big
project, Qinx," muttered Boba.
He stared up at the vast Republic assault ship hovering just beyond
the planet's atmosphere. Slave l's interstitial shield had worked
beautifully out there, with the Republic's eyes trained on the surface of
Xagobah.
But would it work here on the planet itself?
He activated all the ship's auxiliary cloaking devices and began to