TVMCAB: Boondoggle

In the spirit of the day where people everywhere blow stuff up: I present to you a post involving one of my characters blowing stuff up. This is a bit of a side story post to Through Victory, taking place in that galaxy far, far away. I'll just say that it features a couple of fan favorites, and leave it at that. :D

Enjoy.

- - ----====| | |====---- - -

“So, this is the target?”

“It is.”

In the back corner of a dimly lit bar on a seedy backwater world, two people held a quiet conversation. To anyone more than a couple of tables away, they were inaudible. To anyone that would have had the misfortune of being closer though, the topic was bounty hunting. And the bounty…

“Her name is Silba,” the first, a bounty agent, said to the second, before pushing a tiny, flickering holo-emitter across the table. “She’s an Imperial agent, although you won’t find her in any employee database. The client’s already checked apparently.”

The second scrutinized the hologram. “No face?”

“She never shows it,” the first answered. “And no, she ain’t no Mando like you either. Client checked that too, else I wouldn’t be giving this to you.”

“Mask is too old,” the second noted. “Way too old. Looks like it came out of a museum.” The second didn’t feel any different, knowing his target was wearing something she had probably stolen from a worthy warrior. Most Mandalorians would have been disgusted by her sacrilege, but not him, not really. To him, she was just another mark.

“Yeah. Also, the client is willing to front an advance for this job,” the first said, pushing a cred-chip across the table.

“An advance?” the second asked, eyeing the chip. “Why?”

“Because she’s a Force user,” the first said. “Her and her companion.”

“I see. How much is the advance?”

“One quarter upfront, with the rest on delivery.”

“One quarter?” The second looked at the chip again, and understood the implications. The client really wanted this one brought in. “You’re putting a lot of trust in me,” he told the bounty agent.

“The advance is first come, first serve,” the agent explained. “And you’re the best, so you get first serve.”

The second grunted. “High praise coming from you. So, a location?”

“She and her partner move around a lot,” the agent explained. “Kinda like you, come to think of it. But they might be on their way to Corellia in a few days. The client won’t say how they know that, only that that’s where they’re going to be.”

“Good to know.” The second took the cred-chip, pocketing it in his armor. Advances were rare in his line of work - after all, payment normally came after the job. But one hundred and twenty five thousand credits up front, with a further three seventy-five on completion? Bringing in a bounty like that would put anyone’s name on the map, and every two-bit bounty hunter in the galaxy was going to be chomping at the bit for this one. Whoever this Silba was, she had seriously pissed off the wrong person, and now they wanted her brought in no matter the cost.

Corellia, two days. It would give Boba Fett time to prepare, to maybe bribe a few of the right people in the right places to be eyes and ears. The bounty would be coming to him for a change, and Fett was looking forward to it.

- - ----====| | |====---- - -

“Well, this was a colossal waste of time.”

Silba wanted to argue with the Seventh Sister, but in truth she agreed. It had been a waste of time for them.

When the ISD had gotten wind of rumors of a Jedi potentially hiding out on the core world of Corellia, word had of course gotten back to Lord Vader. He had been busy at the moment, so he had delegated the task to the two of them, to root out this Jedi in hiding. They had traveled to Coronet City, one of the largest cities on the planet, and began their search there. Fortunately, they didn’t have to search for long as they had quickly tracked the alleged Jedi down. Except…

The man had been no Jedi, just an impersonator and nobody. He had been some scavenger apparently, that had somehow gotten his hands on a lightsaber and some ratty robes. Said lightsaber Silba now held, the corroded weapon heavy in her own hands. It was an ancient, barely functional relic, the green beam dim and flickering from a lack of maintenance and age. Whoever had once carried it had been dead for eons if not longer, if the Crusader-era crossguard exhaust vents were anything to go off of.

“So, what do we do now?” Silba asked her companion, tucking away the relic. She decided to hold onto it, on the chance Lord Vader would be interested in it.

“Our ships are still being inspected and serviced,” the Seventh Sister replied. “They won’t be finished for at least a couple more hours, so… Whatever?”

Silba didn't reply. Their fighters had become ensnared, metaphorically, in the labyrinthian Imperial bureaucracy. Some weird bylaw of Corellia stated that all arriving ships apparently required an inspection upon arrival, ‘to judge them for space-worthiness and reliability’ as the spaceport functionary had put it. Initially, Silba had considered a mind trick to bypass the paperwork, but the Sister waved her off. A brief talk later and she had somehow persuaded the man to refuel and rearm their starfighters free of charge. And the Sister didn’t have to use any mind tricks to do it either, impressively.

Which left them standing at the exit of the central spaceport, alone in the crowd flowing in and out of it. “Frustrating,” Silba eventually replied.

“We should look around the markets for the time being,” the Sister suggested. “Perhaps find a bite to eat too.”

Silba shrugged. They were going to be here for a while. Perhaps she would find something interesting herself.

- - ----====| | |====---- - -

Unfortunately, very little actually interested Silba there. While yes, the bazaars offered a wide variety of wares from all corners of known space, Silba actually had very little use for any of it. Not exotic carpets, nor baubles or trinkets. She had little interest in the food stalls, or the countless little restaurants that lined the side streets off of the main market areas. She was definitely not interested in the sprawling brothels scattered here and there, advertised with glowing and garishly pink signs. Frustrated and bored, Silba dipped into the Force, to see if perhaps she could root out something of interest to her.

Nothing. No Force presences, save hers and her distant partner’s. But, she felt a tug. A pull, almost imperceptible, leading her down a side street and towards some hidden shop. Before she realized it Silba was following it, weaving through the crowds and down a series of narrow steps. There were fewer people there, and it was clear that this narrow street was infrequently traveled despite its close proximity to the nearby markets. There were still a few shops between residential flats though, and one proved to be the destination she felt she was being led to.

The sign simply said ‘Munition Nation’ in Aurebesh, the lettering faded from time and the corrosive rain typical of a heavily-industrialized world. Silba opened the door and stepped inside, a chime announcing her entry. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but it hadn’t been… whatever this place was. The small shop was absolutely stuffed with all sorts of surplus military-grade gear, and used or obsolete clothing and body armor. Storage packs and miscellaneous objects lined one wall, and a complete set of old Clone Trooper armor was on display in a corner. The back wall of the room was covered in an assortment of firearms, both new and old. They ranged from old Clone War-era blasters, to what looked suspiciously like the Imperial-grade blaster rifles.

“Exclamation: Welcome!” came a voice from her right. Silba hadn’t sensed anyone, because the staff consisted of a single burnished protocol droid of indeterminate make and model.

“Presumption: You are here to buy something, correct? And not window shop like a fleshy meatbag tourist like so many of my customers tend to… be…”

“What?” Silba asked. She felt… something from the droid. Something odd, although she wasn’t sure what.

“Question: Are you… No, that would be impossible. Unless…”

“Do I know you?”

“Retort: That is my line,” The strange droid said. “Do you know the name ‘Revan,’ by any chance?”

Silba did. She had heard that name several years ago, and she never expected to ever hear it again, and not from a random droid in a back alley blaster shop.

“Warning: A simple nod or shake of the head will suffice,” the droid spoke. “And no sudden moves toward those lightsabers you have my dear, or it will not end well for either of us.”

The droid’s tone put Silba on edge. “What are you?” She demanded.

“Amused reply: Oh, me? I am a droid of many talents,” the droid spoke. “And you have yet to answer my question.”

“I do,” Silba answered it. Her instincts told her that whatever this droid was, whatever it may be masquerading as now, it was dangerous. Extremely dangerous. What had Silba just met? She decided to play by feel, and answer truthfully yet carefully. “That was the name of this mask’s previous owner, or so I was told.”

“Question: Oh? By who?”

“The Emperor, Palpatine.” When Silba had been given her new face, Lord Vader had only known about the mask being a belonging of a long dead Sith Master. He hadn’t known his name, or any details. The object’s dark presence in the force had been proof enough of its authenticity. It had been the Emperor, Vader’s Master, who had filled her in on the mask’s origins and former owner. Revan, Dark Master of the Sith, and one of the greatest to have ever lived.

“Statement: Interesting.”

A moment passed in silence, as Silba sized up the droid. She probably could take it in a fight. Strangely, the Force seemed to wash over its chassis, preventing Silba from scrutinizing it with too much detail.

“Question: What else did he know of the late Revan?”

“That Revan was a powerful Sith Lord,” Silba answered truthfully.

“Question: And how did you obtain that mask?”

“Lord Vader gave it to me,” she answered. Silba decided, based on work she’d seen of the Seventh Sister, that the droid’s arms contained concealed blasters at the very least, if not something more esoteric. She also decided that it was extremely skilled in their use. And there was other stuff in the droid’s chassis, things somehow occluded to her Force sight, that she had absolutely no clue about. If someone told her one of those modules let the droid somehow use the Force, she wouldn’t have been surprised.

“Question: Does this Vader also go by ‘Darth,’ perchance?”

“He does, yes.”

“Humorous Statement: Well, it is good to know the Sith yet persist,” the protocol droid declared. “Mind you, bad for everyone else, but good for some and excellent for others. Further question: Are you his Apprentice?”

Silba didn’t answer.

“Obvious statement: It is probably for the best that you not answer that. Anyways,” the droid turned, walking back toward the rear counter, “Welcome to my shop.”

Silba breathed a sigh of relief. “What do you sell?”

“General answer: A little bit of everything. Primarily the means for fleshbags to maim and murder each other with, occasionally for my amusement.”

“I am not in the market for a blaster, but…” Silba trailed off, her eyes scanning over the merchandise. Something caught her eye, a short stack of long and narrow crates painted dull gray. The topmost one’s lid was open, allowing her to peer inside. The foam-lined box contained a long, narrow tube with a pair of hand grips sticking out of its side. The rear grip contained an integral trigger, and Silba clearly recognized the missile launcher for what it was.

“Observation: An odd choice of weapon for an aspiring Sith Apprentice,” the droid said to her. There was an obvious hint of mirth in its tone.

Silba didn’t reply to that. Something strange was tickling the back of her mind, some strange sense of precognition. For a moment, Silba felt the sensation of annoyance, at someone pursuing her. That strange thread had seemingly been what had pulled her here, to a back alley shop staffed by a droid that knew far too much. Was it some form of a Force premonition, perhaps?

“I will buy this,” Silba decided on the spur of the moment, looking at the launcher.

“Commentary: A most interesting choice of weapon. Not my preferred method of dealing with an aggressor. But if they are protected inside of a hover-tank, such armament will more than suffice.”

Silba nodded. “What was Revan like?”

“Fond recollection: Darth Revan was the best Sith Lord to have ever lived. All that followed were pale imitations that dared to call themselves Sith.”

Silba didn’t need to ask the droid to elaborate. She didn’t need to.

It wasn’t until long after she had paid for the box and its weapon, and was walking back toward the spaceport, that she realized she had neglected to ask the droid its name.

- - ----====| | |====---- - -

The necessary prep work had proven even easier than Fett had expected.

First, he bribed the Spaceport sub-administrator. Middle managers like him always had vices, or debts that needed to be paid off. Fortunately for Fett, the man had drinking and gambling debts galore, and with the promise of a couple thousand credits to make it all go away, he was willing to do anything for the bounty hunter. All Fett wanted was for him to make sure they landed at a specific pad, and right where he wanted them.

Next, he bribed one of the droid overseers. His task was just as simple, to have his worker droids disable their fighters’ main systems, engines, weapons, shields and the like, and do it discreetly.

The last people he paid off were a pair of street kids. Corellia, like all the core worlds, was absolutely crawling with the dregs of society. Druggies, the homeless, and sadly their children too. He found the pair in a market, begging for credits and scraps of food. He gave them ration bars to eat, and a few credits to get off of the street for a few nights. As well, he gave them each a picture of a person and a small disposable communicator. Their job was the easiest of all: follow the women in the pictures from a distance when he sent word to them, and to tell him what they were doing. The kids were a weak link in his plan, but a link he could account for. Force users or no, all they’d know was that someone on Corellia was keeping an eye on them. As a precaution, he made sure they were recruited through an intermediary.

All that had taken most of two days, and just like the client had said, they had arrived. He didn’t know what their business was, nor did he care. When they came back, they would fall right into their trap and he’d be a very wealthy man.

He set his people into motion, told them their jobs. From the cockpit of his Slave I, he watched the mechanic’s team get to work on the two fighters. Fett scrutinized the unusual craft. Their original design was unmistakable, some sort of fighter craft based on the common Imperial TIE, but the only thing similar that they seemed to share with the mass produced craft were their bubble canopies. Both of the craft had non-standard wings and radiator fins, and no doubt other concealed and dangerous weaponry. Considering the lack of support ship, they also likely had dedicated hyperdrives, another non-standard feature.

Fortunately for him and not them, none of it was going to be of any use to either of them.

- - ----====| | |====---- - -

“What.”

“What?”

“Just, what.” The Seventh Sister’s gaze was fixed on the box that Silba held, or more specifically the markings on the side that indicated the contents.

“Why did you buy an,” she read the stenciled Aurebesh again, “An RPS-8 rocket launcher?”

“I met a very persuasive arms dealer,” Silba answered, “And I gave him my patronage.”

“Again, what.”

Silba shrugged. “The droid salesman had an excellent sales pitch.”

“Silba, we use the Force. we don’t need to… To shoot missiles at things.” The Sister looked at the crate again. “Does it even function? You didn’t get duped into buying some sort of display prop, did you?”

“He said it was real, and I believed him.” Silba ignored and brushed past her, her new purchase cradled in her arms. “Regardless, I think I will find an opportunity to use it soon.”

“Here?”

Silba paused, thinking. “Perhaps. Or perhaps elsewhere.”

The Sister said nothing at that. She just shook her head before catching up to walk alongside her. “Did you have anything to eat at least?”

“No. But I purchased some ration bars though.”

“We are on one of the most populated planets in the galaxy, you can find literally anything to eat here, and you just buy ration bars?”

“Yes, my favorite ones.”

“The ones that can make it through orbital bombardment? The ones that taste like cello-plast and leather because that’s what they’re made of?”

Silba looked over her shoulder at the Sister. “You just want to see me take my mask off.”

A moment of silence from the Sister. “Maybe.”

“Our ships should be ready,” Silba changed the subject. Lord Vader is expecting us back.”

The Sister sighed. “Don’t mention it.” They left the market plaza, back toward the space port.

- - ----====| | |====---- - -

Fett watched from his cockpit as the duo returned.

The mechanic had finished, and he assured him that they weren’t going anywhere any time soon. It had been easy too, apparently. As non-standard as the two TIEs might have been, there was still enough that the mechanic droids were familiar with to reconfigure. A few loosened power cables here and tweaked coolant flows there, and their ships’ power plants would scram the moment they tried to power up.

The bounty giver had been right about one other thing, in that Silba never removed her helmet. Allegedly she was a standard human, but this Silba could have been anything under all of that. Even in relative privacy, she kept the mask on and her face hidden. Was it some sort of life support getup, perhaps? He wondered if the ion cannon wouldn’t interfere with it, if that were the case. A dead bounty was a worthless bounty, after all. Unless you wanted them dead, but in that case you sent an assassin. The other was a Miralian, or so the street kid he had following her had told him. “Pretty, like my mom used to be” had been the kid’s flowery description of the woman.

Not for the first time, he thought about his target’s apparent nature. Force users were always nasty to deal with, and they always had a trick up their sleeve. But an important caveat was that they were only nasty when conscious, hence the stockpile of sedatives he’d brought with him to be administered by the medical droid he’d obtained just for this job. He’d knock her out with the ion cannon and keep her under until brought to the client. And if the droid did a good job, he might keep it around.

All in all, it was a good plan, on paper. And Fett was about to find out if it was good in practice.

- - ----====| | |====---- - -

Her recently obtained prize stowed away, Silba allowed herself a brief moment to relax.

Just a brief moment. She seethed at her time being wasted. She seethed at a lot of things, failures past and present. She wasn’t sure what she was angry at right at that moment, maybe something that weird droid said to her. Or maybe the fact that she was reasonably sure it could have killed her with ease. No, she was absolutely certain of that.

“Silba?”

“Sister.”

“Are you okay over there?” She asked. “I’m sensing that you're… angrier than usual.”

“Yes.”

“As in angry, or okay?”

Silba strapped herself in as she started powering up her fighter. “We need to go back to Mustafar.” She wanted to find a quiet, semi-molten place on that rock and meditate. Maybe her Master would let her use his private chamber beneath the castle if she asked nicely.

“Yeah, but I for one am not in a rush.”

“Your death.”

A nervous laugh came back to Silba’s ears. Her fingers danced across the front console, following the steps she had memorized to bring the fighter fully online. She heard the familiar whine of power as the main reactor came on, as subsystems powered up and primed-

A loud, screech, and then everything flickered and died. What?

Silba’s first thought was one of hatred, aimed at whatever miserable cretins dared to break something and defile her precious fighter. Her next thought was about which way she was going to kill them, and how painful it was going to be for them. The third was an observation about the faded green and red Firespray-class interceptor that abruptly lifted off of the pad to her right, now turning to bring its blasters and ion cannons to bear on her and her partner’s starships.

Time slowed for her as she analyzed her situation. Not a mechanical mishap or a mistake then, deliberate sabotage. The pilot of that ship is responsible, the locals are likely accomplices. She glanced to her left, glimpsed the Seventh Sister no doubt coming to the same conclusions she was.

Reaction. A flex of her power, and the interceptor was sent careening into a bulk freighter behind it. The action threw off the pilot’s aim, and the about-to-discharge blasters fired, the shots careening into a far wall of the landing bay area and not her. Through the Force, Silba looked at her fighter, searching for problems she knew were there. She found each of them in an instant. Several power feeds had been disconnected, and a coolant intake had been manually shut to her ship’s power reactor. A gesture, and she reconnected and reopened them before attempting again to restart her ship.

“Silba!” The sister shouted into their shared comm.

“We’re under attack,” she responded. “Green ship, pad next to mine. Get clear of yours, find their accomplices on the ground. I’ll deal with this one.”

“Are you sure?”

“They have help, and I want to kill them all when I get back.” Her fighter screamed to life, and the vehicle took to the air. “Go!”

Silba didn’t wait for a reply. She swung her own fighter toward the Firespray, training her banks of laser cannons and hardpoint-mounted ion torpedoes on the other vessel before depressing her flight stick’s triggers.

Nothing. No flash, no recoil, nothing.

Sensing with the Force, she found the problem a millisecond later. The power couplings that fed to the laser cannons and release clamps on the torpedoes were gone. Not disconnected, simply gone.

She was defenseless.

Unfortunate.

Another gesture, and the green ship was again slammed forcefully into the parked freighter. Said freighter’s landing gear buckled, and it collapsed onto the bay floor in a shower of sparks. Silba considered hopping out, to try and lash out at the ship with the Force, but the would-be assassin’s ship was far sturdier than it looked, as its shielding and internal reinforcement was handling her telekinetic blows with ease. She also didn’t have the time to try and focus on finer components on their ship to damage, especially not one she was wholly unfamiliar with. Silba needed a new plan, and time to think of one.

She pulled back on her stick, and accelerated upward into the sky.

- - ----====| | |====---- - -

Boba Fett laughed as he got his bearings and stabilized his ship, he hadn’t given the target enough credit. In the time it would take most other people to string together a cohesive thought, she had reacted and counteracted, before narrowly escaping.

Somehow, she managed to get airborne. Somehow. Fett was going to have to have a chat with the idiot and his team of droids. Presumably, Silba had managed to get her fighter operational with the strange sorcery that let Force users do what they did. At least he decided to go with that, because the alternative was that the work crew managed to botch their one and only job. At least the man had disabled her weapon systems, that would make it easier to salvage this.

So, a new plan. Chase her down, hit her ship with an ion cannon. Lower it safely to the ground with a tractor beam, and then pull her unconscious out of her ship and into his. Then, take off before her friend caught up to them. Simple enough.

Fett revved his engines to the max, maneuvering the Slave I out of the landing area and after her.

- - ----====| | |====---- - -

My would-be assassin is proving to be tenacious, Silba decided.

She weaved and jinked through the low-hanging clouds of Corellia, trying her best to evade the attacks from the Firespray chasing her. Normally, she should have been able to outrun and evade the other ship thanks to the Defender’s superior flight profile, but it was rapidly becoming clear that this was no normal Firespray. It was someone’s personal and massively customized starship, with better engines, better maneuverability-

She narrowly dodged a mixed fusilade of laser and ion bolts. Better armaments.

There were no dense clusters of towering skyscrapers with which to lose him, nor did the planet’s security forces seem too keen to become interested in their battle. Silba thought about gunning it to space, to try and escape via hyperdrive. She doubted she would get the chance to make it that far, now with her assailant hot on her tail. And while that system showed green on her display and she didn’t sense anything wrong with it, she did not want to take the chance either. Although…

Silba glanced over at the case, the weapon still inside of it. She had an idea. A stupid, reckless and suicidal idea, but it was an idea all the same and she didn’t have any others. A particularly dense cloud loomed ahead of her, and Silba took that as her chance.

She disappeared into the cloud layer, pitched her Defender straight up and accelerated.

- - ----====| | |====---- - -

Boba Fett stuck to his quarry. He was not about to let her get away. Although, she was definitely testing his skill as a pilot.

Fett had never dealt with TIE fighters like the ones the duo piloted, let alone fought against them. The one he now chased looked like the Advanced TIEs he had heard about, but more customized. Three of those dagger-like radiator wings instead of the standard two, each dagger tipped with a pair of laser cannons. Between the menacing array of cannons and the twin ion missiles, she’d normally be too dangerous of a foe for even someone like him to tangle with.

But her weapons were offline, and no use to her. She still had shields it seemed, but all Fett needed was a single clean shot from his ion cannons to knock both them and the ship they shielded out. She couldn’t flee into space, not with him hot on her tail. All he needed to wait for was a window of opportunity and he’d have her.

That opportunity came. She bolted, shooting straight into the sky and no doubt intent on making a break for it. Fett grinned, gunning his engines in turn to pursue her skyward. She disappeared into the clouds, and he followed right after her. As he tracked her thermal signature, he was surprised when it remained level and straight. He had expected her to try and lose her, to do some weird super-maneuverable stunt to try and shake him off. She hadn’t even tried.

Her mistake.

Boba lined up his ion cannons, ready to let loose a volley the moment he had a clear shot. It came as he broke through the cloud layer, his focus zeroing in on her holding something while floating next to her fighter-

Wait.

“What?”

He said that out loud, out of sheer confusion at what he was seeing.

He reacted far too late, and his world was fire and pain.

- - ----====| | |====---- - -

Back in that shop, the droid had shown her how to operate the launcher. The version of the launcher he was selling was the civilian grade version, insomuch as much a missile launcher could be called civilian.

No, a rocket launcher. The droid had insisted on the proper terminology. ‘Missiles’ were guided, whereas ‘rockets’ were ‘as dumb as a counterfeit gonk droid.’ The droid’s descriptive language, not hers. And while the rocket was unguided, the droid had insisted that it was no less effective ‘at disposing of meatbags.’ He described the rocket as a ‘tandem’ warhead, an ion charge paired with a high explosive penetrator. The ion charge allowed the warhead to pierce shields, and the high explosive penetrator was self-explanatory.

Silba flicked the switch on the side of the weapon to arm it. A flick of her wrist extended the rear exhaust tube, and it was ready. She now had a rocket launcher, inside of a cramped metal sphere screaming skyward at near supersonic velocity. Well, for the moment anyway.

Silba mashed a button on her side console, and the hatch above her head swung up and open. The fighter jerked at the sudden drag, but Silba ignored it, because it was now or never. Clutching the tube, she leapt from her seat, launching herself up and out of her fighter and into the frigid air of Corellia’s atmosphere.

For a brief moment, time slowed to a crawl. Below and behind her was her own fighter, now moving away from her. In front of her, the Firespray. She could almost glimpse the pilot, and part of her recognized the Mandalorian-styled armor he wore.

Silba brought the launcher to her shoulder, aimed it and fired. A blast of light and heat as the rocket took off, spearing downward toward the pursuing Firespray. The droid had stated the rocket lacked guidance, but had suggested that Silba could use the Force to guide it instead. And with a careful nudge, she aimed the rocket directly into the path of her pursuer.

The rocket worked exactly as advertised. It sliced right through the Firespray’s shield, impacting against the Firespray’s canopy before detonating. The interior was filled with light and a section of the Interceptor’s rear blew apart in an explosion of fire and smoke.

And Silba lauged, as best she could in her situation.

- - ----====| | |====---- - -

On the ground below, the Seventh Sister took a moment to look up from her task, just in time to see her partner do something utterly impossible.

“Bantha-shit,” she declared as she flung aside the man she had been Force-Choking, the mechanic she had unfortunately let damage her ship.

- - ----====| | |====---- - -

Behind her mask, Silba’s grin was savage. She let go of the launcher, focusing back on her now empty fighter. While it was starting to slow down, the autopilot was still engaged, and Silba had to reach out through the Force to pull the craft toward her. A moment later, she climbed back aboard and strapped herself in. “Sister, report.”

“Almost done here,” she answered. “You were right, it seems like the local work crew was in someone’s back pocket.”

“A Mandalorian,” Silba recalled.

“A Mando is after us? Really?”

“I think so. Whoever he is, he’s not having a good day.” Her scanners indicated the Firespray was still airborne, for however long gravity decided. It had reached the peak of its arc through the sky and was now falling back toward the ground below, trailing a huge plume of smoke.

Silba heard a bark of laughter. “Did… did you really just do that?”

“Do what?”

“Shoot a kriffing starship down with a portable missile?”

“A rocket, but yes.”

“I- Just- That’s insane.”

“No, it was necessary.”

More laughter from the Sister.

“I’m coming back, meet me at the landing pads. This time, I am supervising the repairs to my craft personally.”

“Same here Silba, see you soon.”

The connection went dead, and Silba breathed a sigh of relief. It was then she noted that the now-spent launcher tube was attached to her. Tugging at it, she realized the shoulder strap had gotten caught fast on her chestplate. Then and there, she decided she wanted to hold onto it as a souvenir. She had used it to fight and defeat a powerful opponent, after all.

Lord Vader was also going to want to know about this, including the strange droid she met. It had known things nobody should have known, not even herself. It knew about the Sith, about Vader and the Emperor. Part of her wanted to go seek out the droid as soon as she returned, just to get to the bottom of that mystery.

But no, she had a job to do. She could wait for a while. She doubted it was going anywhere.

- - ----====| | |====---- - -

“What do you mean, ‘it blew up?’”

“The shop you told us to check? It blew up ma’am.”

“And the shopkeeper?”

“No sign of any droids in the debris.”

Silba sighed. She had a feeling she would never see that droid again.

- - ----====| | |====---- - -

“Did you get her?”

“No,” Boba Fett said to the man sitting across the table from him. “I got a hole all the way through my ship and a gouge in my helmet.”

“Ouch,” the bounty giver said. “Last guy that dented your helmet died, didn’t he?”

“He did.” A long narrow rent had been carved into the left side of Fett’s helmet by a jet of superheated blast plasma that had narrowly missed his skull. It had bored through his ship and into the auxiliary power core, destroying it entirely and taking out an engine too. Somehow he’d managed to regain level flight at the last second, escaping from Corellia to hyperspace before the local authorities could muster a force to stop him. He had to make emergency repairs mid jump, and it had been touch and go for a little while. But he was back there in that dingy bar, with about two thirds of a ship and a new respect for Force users. But alive, and that was what counted at the moment.

“I’m returning the advance,” Fett said, pushing the cred-chip back to the other guy. “Also passing on a warning to the next guy that tries to take this bounty.”

“Which is?”

“Don’t.” Boba Fett got up, put on his helmet, and left.

- - ----====| | |====---- - -

For those of you here for my other work, I've got another installment of With Friends Like These and His Will Be Done coming up very soon.