Boba Fett -1- The Fight To Survive

Star Wars
Boba Fett
Book 1
The Fight to Survive
by Terry Bisson

CHAPTER ONE
Rain.
Some hate, it.
Some love it.
Some, like Boba Fett, can hardly, remember a time without it.
Supposedly, free water is rare in the galaxy, but" you would never know it on
his planet. It comes down in sheets, day and night, covering this world, which is
all seas except for a few cities on platforms.
Theworld is called Kamino. The city where Boba and his father live is called
Tipoca City.
Lived, rather. For this is the story of how they left, and why, and what
happened after that.
You may have heard of Boba Fett's father. He was a bounty hunter. The
fiercest, fastest, and most fearless bounty hunter in the galaxy.
both.

Boba Fett was the kid standing in his shadow or by his side. Orusually,

When he was lucky, that is. When his dad took him along. Which was almost
always. Boba was ten, nearly but not quite old enough to be on his own.
Boba liked going with his father. Seeing new worlds, experiencing the cold
thrill of hyperspace, and even getting to try his hand at the controls of his
father's small but deadly starship, Slave I, from time to time.
A bounty hunter is anoutlaw, a tracker - and sometimes a killer - for hire.
He doesn't care who his targets are, or who they're running from, or why. He works
for the highest bidder, which means the richest and the most ruthless beings in the
galaxy. No questions asked.
Being a bounty hunter's son means keeping your mouth shut and your eyes open.
No problem. Boba Fett was proud of his father and proud of what hedid.
"I'm a bounty hunter's son," he would say to himself proudly. The reason he
said it to himself, and to no one else, was that he had no one else to say it to.

He had no friends.
How can you have friends when you live and travel in secret, sneaking on and
off planets, avoiding police and security and the dreaded, nosy, Jedi Knights?
A bounty hunter must always be ready to go anywhere andface any danger. That
was from Jango Fett's code, the rule by which he lived.
Boba Fett had his own, smaller, more personal code: A bounty hunter's kid
must always be ready to go with him.
At age ten, Boba had seen more of the galaxy than most grown-ups. What he
hadn't seen was the inside of a schoolroom (for he'd never been to school). What he
hadn't seen was a mother's smile (for he hadno mother). What he hadn't heard was
the laughter of a friend (for he had no friends).
Just because he hadn't been to school didn't mean Boba was stupid or
ignorant.
There were always books. Books to take on trips; books to read at home on
Kamino. He could get all the books he wanted ("Two at a time, only, please!") from
the little library at the foot of his street in Tipoca City.
Thelibrary was just a slot in a doorway, but when Boba rang the bell the
librarian passed out new books and took back the ones that were due, the ones Boba
had read (or given up on, or decided were boring).
The librarian, Whrr, was almost like a friend. A friend Boba had never
actually seen.
Boba had no idea what Whrr looked like - or even if he was a person. He was
just a voice through a slot in thelibrary door. In fact, Boba figured Whrr could
be a droid, since he could hear him whirring and clicking when he was getting books
or hologames.
Mostly books.
Whrr didn't like hologames. "Use your imagination!" he would say. "Find the
pictures there! Find the music there!"
Boba agreed. He liked books because the pictures they made in his mind were
better than the ones in the hologames.Boba knew about friends from books.
Lots of books are about friends. Friends having adventures, making
discoveries, or just hanging out.
Sometimes Boba pretended to have friends. (Pretending is a form of wishing.)
But his father's voice was always in his head: "Boba, stay unattached.
Remember: No friends, no enemies. Only allies and adversaries."
That saying was from Jango Fett's code....