The Heist

Starring Jango and Boba Fett

          by J.C. Macek III

            “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Jango Fett said under his breath with more than a little sarcasm.  If Jango had a soul, and he was quite unsure that he in fact, did, it wasn’t being tried in the slightest.

            As a matter of fact he was feeling quite good.  Aside from the vaguely stale air, which told him that his Mandalorian helmet needed cleaning, he had no soul troubles at all.  His quarry on the other hand...

            “You say something, Dad?”  Jango’s son Boba asked innocently.

            “Just musing,” replied Jango, “about something my dad used to tell me.”

            “Oh.” said Boba.   Boba’s father Jango very rarely spoke of their shared lineage, so Boba soaked up as much as he could when something seeped out. 

            Even behind Boba’s mask, a smaller, more scratched and worn version of Jango’s own, he could tell that his son had that all too familiar quizzical look that Jango had seen so many times on his own face.

            Boba was crouched low before the sealed doorway, using the Mandalorian technology within his own helmet to observe the pings and ticks of the computerized lock that Jango had taught him to pick.  It was much the same principle of an ordinary mechanical lock, but in this case the crack would listen for electronic tumblers giving way as the virus being fed into the locking mechanism through Boba’s gauntlet led the way through the kilometers of locking codes.  It took a real master to guide such a process by ear.  The alternative was allowing the programs to fight each other off unaided, which could take hours.  Boba was shaping up to be just such a master.

            Although unable to be seen through the cross that formed the elder Fett’s faceplate, Jango was smiling at his son.  Smiling at himself.

            With a hiss the door gave way and opened.  Dust escaped into the cool night air, signifying that it had been quite some time since anyone had opened this door.  Judging from the color the dust formed into as the rain transformed it into a mud, Jango was grateful for only having to deal with the smells inside his helmet.

            “Wonderful job, Boba!”  Jango said offering encouragement that had not really been offered to Jango himself for various reasons.  “Five minutes.  Less, even.  You’re better than most cracks my age!”

            “By the time I am your age,” Boba’s gleeful voice laughed, “I will be doing it in seconds!”

            “Indeed you will!  I have no doubt that in time your name will far exceed mine as the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy!”

            They entered quietly, not even speaking through their helmeted two-way radios.  Both Jango and his apprentice knew full well that crypts of this type were rarely, if ever, left unguarded.  On one mission on Yavin IV Jango had been surprised that whomever it had been who had inhabited those remarkable temples had left the most incredible guard one could leave.  The floor had actually been cut out to accommodate a Sarlacc!  Young, and small (for a Sarlacc) this one was still large enough to cover an entire antechamber floor.  It was probably only around a thousand years old, and had subsisted meagerly on the vermin and sparse larger predators that had dared enter this Yavin Temple.  Jango Fett had barely made it out alive, at once cursing himself for not having taken every precaution in the bad lighting, and commending the original designers of the famed an feared Mandalorian armor.  It wasn’t easy getting out of that mess, but with the Mandalorian armor (and the more than considerable modifications he had made) it was possible to make it out alive.  Lessons like that one made Boba’s training all the more thorough!  He had no intention of seeing Boba swallowed by a Sarlacc.

            Precautions aside, it was highly unlikely that a Sarlacc (large or small) would fit into a building like this one.  This was a relatively small and remote storage facility on the quieter end of Coruscant.  The sort of place that people kept valuables like their inheritance which was intended to go to some distant relative, or some cargo that you couldn’t afford to be caught with, but could certainly afford to store, given a Hutt sponsorship.

            In this case this particular locker contained the entire estate of one Wyr Sroruj.  He had apparently been a Coruscant-born Aalderanian who had made his fortune in the shipping trade.  Jango didn’t know much more, aside from the fact that there was an incredible bounty on one particular object within these walls.  While no job was “safe” whatever that word meant, this one seemed just about right for Boba to accompany him on and learn a few tricks that he would certainly be needing in the future.

            Jango searched back and forth, less for his prize than for the inevitable guard.  He could see that Boba was doing the same thing, every bit as quietly as Jango was. 

            Naturally there were gammoreans, and other security guards throughout most of the building, but in order to avoid these irritating confrontations, Jango and Boba had chosen the little known escape hatch to enter through from the outside ledge several stories up.  While the lock was much heavier coded, there would be no guards to contend with or any witnesses to who the culprits might have been.  Mandalorian technology combined with Kaminoan know-how was an easy match for any lock encryption system.

            What Jango was looking for was more of a trip wire, or an automatic projectile gun which could only be deactivated by a certain sound-code, or possibly some kind of encapsulation bubble, or maybe even a-

            “Droid!” Boba’s whispered voice came quick and loud though Jango Fett’s amplified head set.

            Before his eyes his sensors began to detect some sort of stealth droid of indiscernible design... possibly of the highly respected, but highly priced, Corellian line from about 40 years back.  It was solid black, and vaguely humanoid, but with a faceplate as devoid of humanity as Jango’s own.

            “It was hiding under some debris, Dad!  It just jumped out at me!” 

            It was understandable that, in fear and surprise, Boba would forget that the com system that they shared was set in these quiet conditions to a higher volume so that they could hear each other whisper what no one else could.  Jango’s ears rang out nonetheless at the sound, however much he might have understood.

            One second of disorientation was all it would take to see his son dead before him, so Jango quickly snapped the COM off and dove forward.

            It was then that Jango got a better look at the mechanical nightmare grabbing for his gene sake.

            This wasn’t Corellian at all, but was actually Geonosian.  One of the original prototype monstrosities the Geonosian Corporations had punched out to show what a Droid Assassin could do.  That was before they had begun mass-producing the less effective nasties they sold as armies to the Trade Federation, and other pusillanimous terrorists.

            These were top of the line, even by today’s standards, and were very hard to “kill.”  Only about nine remained in the entire galaxy at this point, generally and fearfully utilized as bounty hunters.  Sroruj must have been richer than Jango had expected to be able to afford one of these things to guard his estate after death. 

            This was going to be harder than he thought. 

            The droid swung a massive arm down at Boba as a sharp blade slid forth along the length of the droid’s forearm intent on chopping his son in half.  Boba rolled quickly and pulled the blaster Jango had insisted the he holster to his chest. 

            A laser bolt hit the Geonosian droid in the forearm that now supported its weight.  The droid fell to the side, but was up in less than one of Jango’s incredibly rapid heartbeats. 

            Jango finally connected with the droid guard and wrapped both his arms around the mechanical chest, offering up a head-butt with his armored head.  The droid’s head sprung back, but it played out the hit, rolling backwards and allowing Jango to continue in his arc landing squarely in the pile of rubble that had hidden the same droid for who knew how many cycles.

            He quickly righted himself, knowing full well that time spent to lick his wounds translated easily into time left with a dead son.

            As he raised his head he saw Boba leveling the blaster again and firing.  The droid took one square in the chest and spun briefly.  A twinge of pride momentarily reminded Jango of what a wonderful warrior his son really was.  This was no Protocol droid with an impossible-to-rationalize target shaped into its chest, but an amazingly well programmed assassin droid with stealth coating.  Boba was a hell of a quick study!

            He slammed into the still reeling droid, and recognized how hard the droid was to hold on to.   It seemed to have affected some sort of coating over its heavy metal plating, making it even more difficult to get a grip on.  Jango seemed to slide to the floor, but with horror he realized that he was not sinking, the droid was rising.  It was at this point that he realized that the Geonosians, or whoever else had employed this droid over the years, had equipped it with anti-grav clips, one at each hip, which allowed the droid to effectively fly.   Jango hadn’t seen these, as with the dim light, and stealth technology even his helmet’s considerable light amplification capabilities couldn’t make this enemy any more than a vague shadow. 

            The droid bounded about the room raining down light blue laser bolts, which mimicked the shower taking place outside. 

            Jango followed suit attempting to blast the droid from the ground.  He dared not ignite his jetpacks inside due to the rust and rotten dust within the room.  While blaster fire was unlikely to ignite the flammables within the room, and the droid’s anti-grav clips were magnetic in nature, Jango’s own jetpack used flame-based propulsion, which could potentially destroy the prize he intended to leave with.

            Jango motioned silently for Boba to head toward one of the two normally sized other doors within the room.  He’d be much more difficult to hit in a concave cubbyhole like that one. 

            Jango waited for the droid to dive in for the kill and shot forth his towing cable from his gauntlet.  The cable wrapped itself around the droid’s chest and shoulders, allowing Jango to pull the assassin to the floor with a slam.  At that point Jango electrified the cable in an attempt to fry the droid’s circuits. 

            This had been much more trouble than Jango had signed on for.  He wondered what could be so valuable to his associates within the-

            The door Boba was crouched against opened with a brisk sigh, Boba spun around to see what was happening when his faceplate was split open buy a vibro-blade.  The blade’s owner, a tall and immensely powerful looking Gammorean, snorted down at the motionless Boba Fett.  Clearly the blaster fire had alerted this gammorean guard and his back up rodian counterpart.

            “No!” Jango screamed toward the invader.  He prepared to jump forward, to kill the gammorean and hopefully revive his fallen son. 

            Unfortunately, he didn’t quite get that far as his tow cable began to pull back on him.  The black droid was still operational, and was pulling Jango down to his level!  Jango prepared to give another jolt to the droid, more mindful of his fallen son than of the two security guards who were advancing slowly toward Jango and his nearly invisible enemy!  But Jango’s shox-batteries had been used up by the initial zap that it took to down the droid (fat lot of good that seemed to have done now, though).

            The droid lurched forward and slammed an amazingly heavy fist into Jango’s wrist assembly, shattering it, and freeing the remaining feet of the tow cable on its micro-spool.  The droid gave the elder Fett a well-executed kick to the chest (which sent him flying far further back than he would have expected) and turned back to the approaching guards.

            “Boba!”  Jango yelled into the com-link.  “Boba, can you hear me?”  There was no answer.

            The stealth Droid had successfully unwrapped itself from Jango’s lost tow cable and was rewinding some part of it around one of its fists.  Apparently it saw any intruder as a potential thief and offered the guards the same quarter it seemed to be offering the Fetts.  The gammoean guard slashed forward with the vibro-blade.  The droid ducked and parried using the newly acquired tow cable as a whip.  The razor sharp blade Jango had added as a weight to the end of the cable caught the guard’s forearm and severed it at the elbow.  The gammorean let out an absolutely terrifying, pig-like squeal of pain as it cradled what remained of the injured limb.

            The droid was much better programmed than even Jango had realized.  Its ability to adapt and learn was astounding.

            “Boba!”  Jango continued to scream as he gained his feet.  He then remembered in the confusion that he had in fact snapped his com-link off to keep his head clear when the droid had begun its assault.  Stupid.  Must learn better.  Who is the teacher here?

            The com-link returned with a static click.  “Boba?”  He began as he ran past the fray to his fallen son.

            “sshsshshshshsDad?shshshhshshshsda-shshsssshshshhshsh” came the static obliterated reply.

            He’s alive, Jango thought with rare glee as he dove toward Boba.

            Boba’s faceplate was spitting small yellow sparks.  It wasn’t going to be much good to Boba beyond this.  Jango stripped it off, but didn’t take the time to inspect his son’s face.

            “Can you run?” he demanded.

            “Sure I-”

            That was enough for Jango.  He pulled his son to his feet and they bolted toward the second door, at once the door that guarded the prize Jango intended from the beginning to leave with and the door behind which was likely their only salvation.

            As this door was the door to the second part of the storage chamber it was not locked.  The heavy security and the encrypted safe-locks of the only two possible points of entrance or egress made the idea of anyone unauthorized getting this far completely unthinkable.  While it was true that Jango specialized in what most would consider unthinkable, not even he had counted on a Series One Geonosian assassin droid as a last line of defense.

            The droid in question was busying itself with the rodian, trading blaster fire amid an already hazy smoke. 

            The rodian wouldn’t last long against that thing, but Jango had other nerfs to stew.  “Boba,” he began, but Boba seemed to have anticipated his very thought either by design or serendipity.  The door zoomed shut and Boba began to encrypt a locking code, which would keep them secure at least for the time being.  “Good boy!” he said. 

            Outside Waldreeg, the young Rodian guard, rapidly fired shot after shot at the specter that had injured his friend.  But rather than slowing down out of damage or caution, whatever this thing was, droid or something, seemed if anything to be moving more quickly and becoming more deadly.

            His hiding place beside the already denting black durasteel spice crates, much too far from the open hallway entrance to affect an escape, wouldn’t be much cover for long.  Waldreeg’s only hope was to call for backup on Boshiree’s com-link. 

            Unfortunately either stray blaster fire or simple blood loss had taken his mentor’s life and getting to him amongst the torrential fire rain was going to be harder than hell.

            Suddenly the Blaster fire stopped.  This would have been a relief for the guard, except for the fact that he knew he hadn’t connected in anything close to a deathblow.  Perhaps something the armored intruder or the kid had done had...

            No. 

            He heard a stirring.  The droid’s footsteps were approaching to scrape up Waldreeg’s mortal remains.  Metal footsteps moving through the decades old dust, like a lead pipe slapping against a Twilek Madame’s silk pillow coming closer and closer.  Waldreeg bit his lower lip and prepared to kill or die.

            The rodian didn’t move or even breathe.  He waited in the blackness for the spectral adversary to win or lose this shoving match.  What was this really?  A misunderstanding to be sure.  If this thing was what he thought it was, then they both had the same job.  He had noticed when he took the job that one of the storage suites on this story had an expensive assassin droid guarding the merchandise.  If this was it, it was a stupid misunderstanding.  He hadn’t realized this was the case in the initial confusion, but now, in this cold, terrible silence he realized that his must be what it was!  It must be.  He saw the supposedly impenetrable from the outside escape hatch, and felt the cool, damp wind that brought in the night.  The droid must be programmed to stop any looters no matter what direction they came in from. 

            Waldreeg wanted to explain... to plead with it, but he didn’t think this was some etiquette and protocol droid that one could reason with!  Instead, Waldreeg took a long, deep breath, attempting to be as quiet as possible, braced himself against the wall, and pushed with all his might against the spice crates.  Their weight belied the fact that they probably didn’t contain spice at all, which was all the better for Waldreeg, as it effectively removed the threat of the assassin droid!

            Waldreeg jumped forward with blaster raised, only to find the droid pinned down beneath the black durasteel crates.

            He watched the droid for a few seconds before lowering his blaster.  “Good!” he said.  “Now stay that way!”

            He kept his eyes fixed on the black monstrosity as best he could in the sparse light that crept in from the hall floods.  He knelt beside the indeed quite dead Boshiree’s still frame, his pig-like face frozen in a death wail grimace.  He carefully and respectfully placed his firearm on Boshiree’s unmoving chest and began to search his poor corpse.

            At last Waldreeg got his hand on the blood-dampened com-link that his friend had been carrying.  He needed backup badly.  This facility was renowned for its fantastic security; both inside and outside, so only two guards were usually used for the routine walk-throughs.  He hoped like anything that this policy would soon change.

            He brought the com-link to his lips and took a deep breath to speak.  Before a sound could be made the end of his snout where both his nose and mouth resided were slapped over by some sort of odd, viscous putty that hardened almost immediately.

            Waldreeg dropped the com-link with a dull thud into the blood puddle and clawed in vain at his face.  He was suffocating.  The droid had shot some sort of weapon at him to suffocate him.  Not a good death, or a respectable one, but a painful, weak death.

            Rodians being amphibians, Waldreeg could hold his breath much longer than say, a gamorrean or a human, but this was no infinite time.  He would be dead in a very short while if he couldn’t get this terrible goop off his face.  He was going to die.

            The droid regained its feet, scattering the crates as it stood.  It picked up Waldreeg's forgotten blaster from his gamorrean counterpart’s chest and crushed in a mighty claw!

            It then ambled to the door that the kid and the armored thief had escaped into and, finding the door locked began to weld it open.  It seemed completely to have forgotten about Waldreeg, satisfied to allow him to die from lack of air.  No final laser blast to make it quick, no snap of the neck.  Whoever had programmed this beast of a machine had programmed it for cruelty.

            Boba had scrambled the lock codes well.  Either that or the droid and the guards had finished each other off to mercifully save Boba’s old dad the trouble.

            “Let’s have a look at you, Boba!”  Jango said, squatting.  He removed his own helmet and placed it on the floor next to Boba’s shattered one.  His handsome, yet battle scarred face a reassuring image to Boba.  “Well, you’ve got a couple of minor wire burns, and a little blackening of the skin in a couple of places, but aside from that you’re just fine, son!  I suppose if you have to get hit in the face with a vibro-blade you should do it that way.”

            Boba laughed in spite of the situation.  His dad seemed to know pretty well what to say when something needed to be said.  He was a man of few words, so he made them count.

            “Now for some lights.  Never know what might be waiting in here for us, do we?”

            Obediently, Boba found the light button on the control console and the room illuminated from no real apparent source.  Sroruj was rich indeed.

            “What are we looking for, Dad?”  Boba and Jango shared a gift for cool headedness even when under fire.  Once that door was opened they’d have plenty of trouble to deal with, but until then, they had a job to do.

            “Well, if it’s in here, and not out there... which it should be... “

            “If it isn’t I’ll bet it’s been blasted!”

            “... the item we’re looking for is the remains of the guy who rented this place out... Wyr Sroruj.” 

            “A body?”

            “Perhaps... Possibly ashes or...”

            “Dad?”

            “Yes?” Jango followed Boba’s pointed finger to a white slab along the wall.  There he saw what Boba saw.  It was a purple/black sarcophagus with some blinking electronic panels along the side.  “Oh, no.”  Jango said, and walked over to the slab.

            “What is it, dad?”

            Boba followed quietly alternating looks up to his father’s stone face, and forward toward the slab. 

            “Dad?”

            Then Boba realized what Jango already knew.  This was a slab of Carbonite and the ridged top was not an ornate coffin design as he might have originally thought, but rather the frozen image of the last pose Wyr Sroruj ever made. 

            Boba had seen several things frozen in carbonite for shipping on Kamino, but never an actual human... or any other living thing for that matter.  Why would anyone want to have their corpse frozen?

            Jango pulled a small, flat, round item from one of his many pockets, about the size of a large coin and flipped a tiny switch on the side.  A twelve-inch, three-dimensional hologram appeared in hazy blue over the coin and spun slowly.  Jango glanced at the countenance of the hologram and then at the frozen visage of the carbonized man.  “It’s Wyr Sroruj all right. Strange.”  Jango knelt down to inspect the blinking panels that detailed the statistics of this package.

            Boba took a second to take all of this in.  It had been a busy night...  Jango had always taught him to keep his mind on the business at hand, however, so he tried, slowly, to return to business.

            “Well, we can’t take him out like this, can we?  Is Slave I equipped to handle a Frozen body?”

            “It’s going to have to be!” Jango said, looking up from the glow of the panel.  “This man is alive.”

            “Alive?”

            “If I am reading this correctly, yes.  He didn’t die; he just picked a hell of a way to retire.  Carbon-freezing a live man.  Not exactly what I’d recommend to bring in a bounty.  It’s amazing that he survived the process!”

            Boba frowned.  This was not the first mission he had expected.  Nor was it what his father expected either he was willing to bet. 

            As if reading his mind, Jango said, “I didn’t sign on for this.  I’m demanding higher pay.  How in the world are we going to get this thing out of here?  They told us we’d know it when we see it.  They never mentioned this.”

            “Or that droid thing outside!”  Boba reminded him. 

            “Right.  What else could go wrong?”

            On cue, sparks began to fly from the door.  Someone... probably that damned droid... was cutting their way into the room after them. 

            Jango took his own helmet and placed it over Boba’s smaller head. 

            “This isn’t going to be fun.” Jango advised as the white door began to redden and melt.

            Waldreeg’s eyes began to bulge.  He was barely able to think straight.  He was dying quicker and quicker.  He had only taken a short breath to get ready to ask for backup, not a long enough one to stay without oxygen for this long.  His life began to trudge annoyingly before his eyes.

            Rodians, his race, were always getting a terrible reputation among the other races.  Bounty hunters, traitors, corrupt salesmen, gamblers, arms dealers... all of the above.  It wasn’t indicative of their proud history. He hadn’t come to Coruscant to die like this.  He had come to make his family proud of him.  He had come to do something right by his family and by his race.  To take a respectable job, learn a trade, and eventually become somebody... maybe even a lawman of some Coruscant township... something small, something respectable, answering to the Jedi when needed.  He was neither young enough, nor force sensitive enough to become a padawan, so he aimed for the next best thing.  The security job at this respectable Coruscant firm would be a direct lead-in to the Constableship of his future.

            But not now.  No.  Now his future was a corpse-ship in the middle of the dust and blood covered floor of some long deceased client.

            He should have become a bounty hunter... who knew that would be safer?

            Still... the others weren’t going to fare much better... The droid had gained admission into their hiding place.  Who was willing to bet which would die first... Waldreeg or the thieves that had started all this?

            They needed more time to formulate a plan, but the Geonosian Assassin Droid clearly wasn’t in a giving mood. 

            The door had just weakened enough to come open at the droid’s violent behest.

            Jango stood before it holding Boba’s broken helmet in his hands.  Boba lied on his stomach at Jango’s feet.  With a kick Jango ignited the jetpack that Boba now wore to match the helmet he had also borrowed.  The jetpack might have burned Wyr Sroruj had he been a dried mummy, but there was no chance a short flame like that one could ignite a slab of carbonite.

            The jetpack shot Boba forward with a speed that not even the assassin droid could follow.

            As the droid looked back up to accost the father, Jango lifted the all but ruined helmet and said “Vibro-Blade” into it.

            Before the droid could advance on Jango’s now naked head the jetpack rocketed back through the droid’s legs with the gammorean’s vibro-blade strapped to the assembly rather than Boba himself.

            Jango lifted the blade and began the vibration function that gave the blade its most dangerous quality. 

            “You were wise to disarm the gammorean so quickly!”  Jango said, not caring if the droid even could understand him.   “Blade like that will cut through just about anything.  I’m guessing, even you!”

            And he swung the blade hard and connected with the droid.  It sunk in, as predicted.

            The droid raised its blaster hand to end this trouble.

            Jango removed the gun hand cleanly.  He swung and connected numerous times, knocking the droid back with each blow.

            The droid finally was able to dive forward with a bound that knocked the vibro-blade from Jango’s hand.  Exposed wires sparked over most of the droid’s body.  If it was possible for a droid to feel anger, Jango sensed that it must feel that anger now.  Jango crawled backward on his elbows for a little more time.  In the darkness the droid could finally be seen due to its sparking, naked wires.  All those severed cables and it’s still going.

            The droid reached down toward Jango’s exposed neck intent on crushing the life out of him.

            When suddenly another tow cable wrapped itself around the droid.  The cable glowed briefly before the shox-battery expired.  Apparently it was enough to overload whatever was going on inside that thing through those exposed wires.

            The droid froze, and then fell backward to expose Boba using his own gauntlet cable the way Jango had tried unsuccessfully to do just a few minutes before.

            Jango slowly smiled in relief, and although he couldn’t see it, he knew his son was smiling back.  “Electrified tow cable.  Where did you get the idea?”

            Jango Fett righted himself and began to look around.  Sooner or later the rest of security would come looking for their two fallen comrades.  Maybe the local constabulary would show... and some Jedi.  Jango didn’t need this.

            “Boba, let’s go!  Let’s cart out the body and get away from this planet.

            “Dad,” Boba started, and pointed downward.  The Rodian guard was still alive... barely.  He was suffocating beneath some sort of hard putty mask.  It was a somewhat common weapon, or had been when the droid had been built!  The rodian’s bulbous eyes pleaded painfully with Jango to do... something...

            “Boba, we must leave this place, we’re going to have company soon, and you won’t like what they bring.”

            “But, Dad!”

            Boba had compassion that Jango didn’t expect.  Obligingly he walked over to the fallen rodian and pulled a vial from his pouch.  He pulled it open and poured the solvent inside over the rodian’s nose and mouth.

            The putty began to bubble and dissolve, running down the rodian’s cheeks, aided by gasp after gasp forced by the rodian’s diaphragm. 

            “Now, Boba, please, we must go.  We do not have time for this!” He could picture the Jedi on their way presently.

            Boba followed his father past the melted door and into the death room.  Jango attached the two anti-grav clips he had cut from the droid’s hips to the slab of carbonite.  It rose to waist level, and they pushed the prize toward the carefully opened escape door.  Ironically, that was about the only thing that wasn’t ruined in the room.  It was supposed to have been a quick and easy in and out.  Geonosian Droid Bounty Hunters indeed!  He wanted more credits for this. 

            He lifted his gauntlet, the one that hadn’t been destroyed by the droid, and spoke into the secondary com-link that it housed.  “Skiff, now!”  He said. 

            As an afterthought he picked up the droid’s broken body and placed it atop the carbonite coffin.  Perhaps it wouldn’t be a total loss after all. Good against Jango was practically good against everything. 

            On his way back he saw the weakened rodian reaching toward the blaster hanging still from his gammorean partner’s belt. 

            Jango stepped gently on the guard’s hand.  “Don’t even think about it!”

            The rodian guard pulled his hand back and offered no more resistance.  It was the least he owed them, Jango figured. 

            As ordered the skiff appeared outside the escape hatch and sped away as soon as they were aboard, zooming to the secret location of Slave I.

            Boba had put a lot on the line to save that Rodian Guard’s life.  Why?  Where did he get such compassion?  Was it to be commended or condemned?  In this line of work was there room for such sentiment?

            They arrived at Slave I and began to load their twin catches into the small cargo hold along with Boba’s old helmet. 

            Jango was about to tell Boba to seal the hatch, and scramble the lock codes to make it look like there was no cargo hold should something happen to compromise them both.  He was about to but he realized that Boba had already done what he had not yet been ordered to do.  Boba was that good, that quick a study, and that much of a quick thinker.  He thought just like his proud father did.

            And that was when Jango Fett realized that any compassion that Boba had must have come from him.  Either by nature or nurture, Boba must have gotten this from him.

            In effect Jango had thousands upon thousands of “children” waiting to strike on Kamino, but Boba had been the one and only unaltered clone, his one indulgence to his ego.

            Whatever Boba was he was because of Jango. 

            As they rose into the Coruscant sky, Jango looked at Boba and stated plainly, “You’re a good boy!” 

             Maybe it didn’t pay to leave a survivor behind, but Boba did it anyway.  The unthinkable.  Jango’s very specialty.

            Something to be proud of.  Very proud.