Dead or Alive

by Rust

[Chapter 6] - Nopony Cares If You Upset A Droid

Liliat sector, Tantalus system, aboard the Star Dreadnought Executor...

It was often a subject of mystery among the men, though they dare never breach the details to the source.

What was he?

‘He’ knew how to listen, to more than the hushed whispers he left in his wake, tinged sometimes with awe, sometimes relief, but always with a twinge of fear. They broadcast their emotions across fragile stillness of his mind, much like how a ripple might disturb the perfect surface of a tranquil pool.

‘He’ was a man. Or... what was left of one. Doomed to imprisonment in a suit of life-sustaining armor, he did not know if there were any alive who would recognize the tortured face beneath the iconic black mask. What had been burned away by battle years ago had been replaced with shining metal and sparking circuitry. The only thing that still felt remotely similar to him was the pain the augmentations constantly caused him, in the gaps between flesh and steel. He denied the suit’s administration of numbing medications, however. The dull burn let him know he was still alive, though even his life was no longer his own.

‘He’ was goaded by agony, enhanced by science, and equipped by supernatural rage. The Dark Lord of the Sith was a force of nature that had been put upon a short leash and staked to the ground, a savage dog that needed to be kept away from important guests. Even when his Master let him out to play, there was always a measure of caution in the act of release.

Darth Vader had no intention of biting the hand that fed him.

At least... not yet.

The impressively tall cyborg stood impassively before the holoprojector, arms crossed before his wide, button-encrusted barrel chest. Nobody ever knew what Vader was thinking beneath that legendary visor, and he preferred it that way. Some thoughts were meant to be private.

His subject, the recipient of the holo transmission, was suspended at a crazy angle above the machine, as though the user had to orient himself in a peculiar way as to use it.

Judging by the state of affairs dictated by the flickering phantom, that was exactly the case.

“—chhck. Tatooine... crash landing... damage, but repairable bzzzt...”

“You have nothing to blame but your own incompetence,” he stated bluntly. “Has the target suffered any injury?”

“Frcchht! No, Lord Vader. None that I can tell of.”

“The consider yourself fortunate. If the prize has not been moved to a safe, off-world location, within three days, I will begin moving to secure it myself. You have my warning, bounty hunter. Failure is not a tolerable option.”

He didn’t bother to listen for the reply, instead severing the connection with an irate push of a button. After a moment of simply staring at the empty void where the projection once shimmered, made a stiff about-face and made for the exit of the communications room.

An officer was waiting for him, datapad presented. “Lord Vader. A message, from the Kashyyyk system.”

Vader took the pad without even bothering to acknowledge his presence. Such worms were beneath him, scrabbling and slithering about through the delicate system of commanding Imperial ranks.

Beneath the mask, a scowl formed. The message brought ill tidings. Another prison camp had been overrun, the third one in the span of a week. Unacceptable. The Empire needed those Wookiee slaves badly. The Emperor had his special ‘pet project’ to see completion, after all.

The datapad was crushed to splinters in the grip of a massive, gloved fist. Vader dully realized that the act had punctured the gloves he wore, and noted a speck of black droplet of oil upon the dark glove as he tossed the wrecked device away.

He stared at it for a good while, that little black speck.

“Make ready my personal shuttle,” he finally wheezed to nobody in particular. It didn’t matter who heard him, the message would spread or heads would roll. His word was law, save for the Emperor himself.

Darth Vader stormed off. There was an uprising to crush, and he had some time to waste.

Unknown sector, unknown system, unknown planet...

“Hah... whoo... hah... okay. Spike. Hah... Read me that last passage again.”

“Twilight, I know this is super important to everypony, but you really need to take a break! You’re just going to get hurt if you keep straining yourself like this.”

Atop the tallest tower in Canterlot, Princess Twilight Sparkle determinedly shook her head, her fledgeling wings shifting in agitation. “That’s not an option, Spike. It’s been three days since Princess Celestia and Princess Luna disappeared.” She took a moment to recover her breath, taxed by her previous efforts. A glance was cast outside the window at the night sky, the same one which had hung about heavens for the past seventy-two hours.

“Or, at least it should have been three days,” Twilight sorely added.

By now, the temperature had dropped to an unnaturally low level for this time of the year. So long without the sun had cooled this side of the world. Ponies went about in scarves and winter saddles, at least when they weren’t cowering in their homes. Despite her efforts, there were still persistent rumors that Nightmare Moon had returned once more. Witnessed had claimed seeing her on that fateful night, flying away after the machine that had swallowed up Princess Celestia.

With their absence, the sun and moon had hung in respective paralysis, unconcerned with the affairs of the mortals below suffering the effects of their constant presence. Twilight would almost have welcomed a resurgent Nightmare Moon at this point. At least she knew how to move the feathering moon!

The new Princess shook her head once more. “I’m sorry, Spike, but I can’t rest until we figure out how to change night into day. Ponies are going to start suffering if the temperature gets lower. Farms will die without sunlight. You don’t want to see Applejack out of business, do you?”

Spike, a small purple dragon that served as her assistant and unofficial little brother, gave a little pout as he looked away. “...no. But running yourself ragged isn’t the answer either!”

“I’m sorry, Spike,” Twilight repeated, giving him a comforting nuzzle. “Unless Cadence finds something in the Crystal Library, then this is all we can do. We’ve got to keep trying. I’m sure Starswirl the Bearded wrote something about moving the sun and moon in this book.”

Spike looked down at the ancient tome within his claws, currently open to a page containing a spell that Twilight thought might be the key to their problems. “Fine. But I don’t like it.” He placed a talon upon the arcane inscription and began reading aloud:

“...For a genius, would it have killed him to make a rhyme every once and awhile?” Twilight grumbled as she gritted her teeth, eyes closing with mounting effort. Upon her brow, her horn ignited in a pale violet glow, shining brighter and brighter until with a crackle of sparks...

Boink!

“Boink?” Twilight echoed. “Scientific progress goes ‘boink?’”

“Uh, Twilight?” came Spike’s voice. “You might want to undo that one.”

She looked — and facehooved. Spike was holding up a mirror to her. Looking back from the glass was a moss-coated alicorn with light emerald eyes, a silvery mane, two paler shades of green running through this.

All around, the natural appearance of things seemed to have changed. Spike, scales now a similar shade of green to her, poked one of the dark-purple spines upon his back. “Uh... what did you do, Twilight?”

Twilight took a peek off of the balcony, to find the darkened sky was now a blinding white, studded with black pinpricks. The moon now hung like a massive void. Below, the city of Canterlot seemed to have been affected in a similar manner. It was as if she were looking at a negative photo of the world. “I seem to have reversed the color palate for... um, everything,” she muttered lamely.

“At least it’s not dark out anymore.” Spike said, busy admiring his inverted eyes, which combined with the draconic pupils, gave a very unsettling effect. “You know, I kinda like this look.”

Twilight couldn’t resist a chuckle, despite the circumstances. “Sorry, Spike, but we gotta change this one back.” Another flare of magic erupted from her elongated horn, and the fledgling’s spell was banished. Twilight blinked a few times as she slumped a bit from the strain. When they opened again, her eyes had recovered from the sudden shift of color.

“Alright... Spike, next page.”

Arkanis sector, Tatoo system, on the planet Tatooine...

Sand.

Sand everywhere.

Rolling hills of the stuff, in a vast expanse for every direction. Here and there a lonesome outcropping of wind-blasted rock would puncture the shimmering landscape, lonely epitaphs of a land forever changed. Tatooine’s twin suns beat down relentlessly, blasting the surface a until it bleached. It looked like an ocean, frozen in time and fossilized in perfect relief.

Sweating inside his suit of armor atop one of these many rises, Boba reasoned that the Dune Sea had a rather apt title.

For the moment, he was the only living thing in the area. He cast a glance back to where he had come from, to where the crashed Slave I had been locked up tight, his prisoner left sealed in her cell with a supply of water and food.

Boba Fett grumbled to himself. Even in his armor, which was equipped with moderate climate control features, it was, to put it bluntly, hot as balls. He held up an arm, to find that the metal plates encasing him were giving off heat waves. With a snort, he leaned back into the seat of his speeder bike and gunned the throttle, a hoversled in tow behind. He kept such a vehicle on the Slave I in the event of just such instances, when fast travel was needed without the presence of a starship. His carbine gleamed from where it was slung around his shoulder.

Despite all this preparation and more, he could not shake the feeling of unease. A sixth sense of his, honed by years of experience, was sounding the alarms on all accounts. This place... something about it put him on edge.

It was almost as if the desert was watching him.

He whirled around, to be greeted by nothing but the same monotonous view as everywhere else he looked. The bounty hunter gripped the throttle just a bit tighter.

Three days.

Perhaps it was Vader’s ominous warning that struck a chord of paranoia within the bounty hunter. The deal had changed. But then, so had the circumstances. Boba found himself marooned on a distant world, and forced to conceal his prisoner from all eyes.

It wasn’t the first time the Sith had turned the tables on him. For one reason or another, Fett and Vader seemed to have a long, tumultuous history of bargains. In the dawning days of the Empire, he had often been contracted by the mysterious man to hunt down renegade Jedi, occasionally side by side.

Vader was not known for his patience. Boba now had three days to get his ship off the planet, or the right hand of the Emperor was going to swoop down and complete the job himself.

Boba was not about to lose the prospect of sealing himself into the records of history as the greatest bounty hunter who ever lived. Nor was he willing to face the Dark Lord in a fair fight. Whole worlds had burned in the red glow of that lightsaber.

Boba repressed the urge to shudder, masking his unease behind a stony facade of purpose. He concentrated on driving. As the landscape became a sun-scorched blur around him, he gave a quick check to his helmet’s holonet connection, which was pointing him towards his destination.

There — he could just make it out now, a distant blot on an otherwise uniform horizon, slowly sailing upon an ocean of sand.

A sandcrawler, probably fresh from a swap meet.

People often failed to realize just how hardy life had to be to survive on Tatooine. The Jawas were a prime example of such underestimation. In the harsh desert, one adapted to the conditions, or they died. Utilizing abandoned mining machinery and eeking out a nomadic, scavenging existence out in the desert, where others floundered to live, the Jawas thrived. They were scavengers, with a notorious streak for repairing the items they found just enough to be buyable.

Boba really didn’t care for the quality of their wares. He didn’t plan on using them for long, as it was. His ship had to be repaired somehow, without bringing it into Mos Eisley. He needed skilled, obedient workers who could endure the brutal days and frigid nights of the desert. What he needed were a couple of droids.

As the bounty hunter shot across the wastes towards the distant crawler, a flicker of movement disturbed the otherwise tranquil desert behind him.

A solitary figure crested a dune, watching the receding vehicle.

After a moment, it vanished into the sands.

You could always smell a Jawa long before you saw one. The little monsters secreted pungent aromas, repulsive to a vast majority of life forms. Through these, the Jawa people could tell a great many things about their kind, including moods, identity, even age. It was yet another attribute they had evolved from long millennia scrounging the sands.

At the moment, though, all Boba could smell was a bad deal.

“That’s it!?” he exclaimed. “This is all you have? Just these two?”

The Jawa next to him nodded eagerly, chattering away in his high-pitched language. The language translation software within Boba’s helmet informed him that the wares on display had been acquired quite recently, and were in much better repair than the usual stock. Though the small droid on the right was quite the feisty one, if the Jawa was to be believed. The other, on the other hand, apparently had a nasty habit of running its mouth.

“Hello. My name is C-3PO, human-cyborg relations. This is my companion, R2-D—”

He waved dismissively. “Do you know anything about starship repair.”

The golden protocol droid seemed taken aback, for all the expression the immovable face could give. “How rude! Why, the first being in months to hold an intelligent conversation, and I am cursed to face such terrible manners.”

“Yes or no, droid.”

C-3PO made a sniffing noise. “If you must know, Artoo here is quite capable to perform such a function, and has proven himself on several occasions—”

Boba interrupted it a second time, turning to the Jawa. “Then I’ll take the little one, the mangy astromech.”

“Bee-boop, brrraawwp!” said the small white-and-blue droid.

“R2, such profanity!” chastised his companion.

Boba ignored them. “How much?” he asked the Jawa.

The Jawa informed him that the two were a package deal. They seemed unwilling to function when separated, despite the gratuitous usage of electric shock therapy and restraining bolts.

Boba resisted the urge to groan. “You,” he addressed the gold one. “Do you do anything else besides whine?”

The droid’s optical processors performed a blink, a feature Boba found oddly life-like. “I have served for the past eleven years upon Alderaanian corvette Tantive IV as a translator and foreign etiquette consultant. At the moment, we seem to have been separated due to unforeseen circumstances. I am sure Master Organa will be—”

“Translator?”

“Yes,” the droid replied stiffly. “I am fluent in over six million languages.”

Maybe he could use the droid to decipher the words of his mysterious guest. In the event he ever had to interact with her kind again, having the data might come in handy. Besides, someone had to make sure she didn’t keel over before he delivered her to Imperial hands.

“I’ll take them,” he told the Jawa, handing over a sack of credits.

“Pree-whoooo,” whistled the little one in a mournful tone as the transaction took place.

C-3PO patted the small astromech droid on the top of his dome. “I agree, Artoo. A bed feeling, indeed.”

The Jawa jangled the bag in his hands a couple times, and seemingly satisfied with the sound it produced, tossed him the restraining bolt remote. The deal was done.

“Come with me,” he told his new property, before turning on a foot and sweeping away. Boba’s footsteps echoed loudly on the inside of the sandcrawler, despite the constant whirring and clicking of ancient machinery that the Jawas had patched to it. It was a wonder the monolith even started up, let alone served as a living quarters to a whole tribe of life forms.

Out of the yawning bay and down the ramp he went, almost glad to be back outside in the desert. It positively stank in there. The two droids were not far behind, the gold one tottering along while the astromech followed closely on three motorized wheels.

The sandcrawler had stopped in a small break in the Sea, between two large outcroppings of rock, which formed a natural windbreak and a source for some much-needed shade. For a moment, Boba cast a glance along the cliff edges. He could have sworn he’d just seen a flicker of movement.

Three days.

It was time to go. Now.

His swoop bike was just where he parked it, though a few Jawas were standing nearby, gesturing and pointing to the thing. They scurried off when Boba glared at them, menacingly stroking the butt of his carbine from where it poked up behind his shoulder. They probably wanted to strip the thing down and sell for parts.

He opened up the hoversled, lowering a steep ramp to the ground. “Get in,” he said.

R2-D2 wasted no time, chuffing a constant stream of ill-tempered noises as he rolled aboard. C-3PO, however, seemed somewhat hesitant. “Are you quite certain that will function as an adequate transport? It seems rather decrepit.”

Boba sat down onto the seat of the bike, pressing a few buttons. With a cough and a rattle, the machine started up, powerful engine whining as he revved the throttle a few times. He looked back. “Get in, or I’ll leave a piece of you behind. You get to pick what.”

The protocol droid clammed up at that, swiftly boarding the sled and closing the gate behind it.

As the strange group lifted away and began speeding out into the desert, Boba’s HUD suddenly flashed red. A warning message scrolled across his vision, from the computer aboard his ship.

The Slave I's security systems had been triggered. Somebody was breaking into his ship.

Oh, you have got to be...

Suppressing a surge of anger, Boba gunned the bike’s engine until it screamed.

Amidst the bowels of the downed starship, a solitary being sat in perfect stillness. For nearly an hour, her form had not moved, save the slight expansion of her chest required to breathe. In the darkness, her ivory features might as well have been carved from stone.

Celestia was searching.

Deep within her breast, she felt the roiling energy that had once moved heavenly bodies. She could feel it, pulsing faintly in time with her heart, seeking a way out. And yet... something squeezed it, pressing in from all sides, a choking barrier that ferociously stifled the roaring inferno into the tiniest of embers.

A single bead of sweat trickled across her brow, down over her closed eyelids. She made no move to wipe it away.

As if reaching some pre-determined level of focus, Celestia gathered her strength yet again, this time giving every ounce of her being.

Suddenly, the alicorn hunched over, emitting a faint hiss of effort. her wings trembled at her sides. Within, the fire roared to life, unbelievable power surging out as forcefully as she could muster it. She goaded the tide into the encasing shell, brutally slamming herself against it.

Again...

… and again...

… and again.

It bent, just in the slightest. She diverted all her strength against the bulge, exploiting the weakness for all she was worth. Further, further, further still, the suppression gave.

Atop her spiral horn, the dimmest of golden lights flickered to life.

And promptly sputtered out.

Celestia gasped as the magic was crushed back into place. Her heart skipped a beat, her vision flickering madly. The world began to spin, and suddenly the floor was racing up to greet her. Exhausted, she gladly met its cold embrace.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she awoke. The inside of her cell offered only the same, metallic features as before. She felt weak, weaker than before. She dragged herself across the floor, over to where a trough of water sat fixed on the floor, below a small spout on the wall.

If there was any sensation that her long life had not dulled, it was the simple slaking of thirst. As the cool liquids sloshed down her throat, she felt herself reviving. She eventually surfaced for air, breathing harshly, before plunging back in until the trough was dry.

When she was done, Celestia rolled over onto her back, wings sprawled haphazardly out, her tongue flopping from her mouth as she panted for breath.

Another failure.

Time and time again, she’d strained against the handicap. The mighty Sun Princess, brought so low that even the simple act of igniting her aura was beyond her reach. The irony was not lost to her. Despite everything, a dry chuckle escaped Celestia’s lips.

When her breathing had finally steadied, and the clammy sensation of magical exhaustion began to fade, she noted that she could hear something unusual.

She’d grown used to the faint hum of machinery detectable through the metal walls of her cell. The spout would give a “beep!” every hour on the hour before releasing a small amount of water into the trough. Sometimes an erratic “whirrrrr!” would sound through the door. Every once and awhile, she could hear a tiny “pip-pip-pip!” from the white collar around her neck.

No. This sounded more like...

Her ears swiveled like sonar dishes.

Wait a minute. Where did it go? I could have sworn—

KA-WHOOM!

Her cell rocked with the thunder of a spectacular concussion not far away. Celestia’s teeth rattled in her skull. All traces of fatigue now leaving her, she swiftly rolled over and found her footing, moving to press against the wall to the immediate side of the door.

She pressed an ear to the wall. Something was moving in the hallway outside. No. Somethings. Rough, muffled words could be made out, spoken in a language she did not understand. Occasionally, a shout. Something crashing and breaking.

Celestia began to think.

It would seem that her prison had suddenly grown to accompany an unknown number of guests. Were they invited? Or were they here to free her?

The door abruptly flew open. Celestia flinched, pressing herself against the wall.

It came in slowly; a tall, gaunt figure, built in the same manner as her captor. Celestia could tell in an instant that the filthy creature before her shared little ancestry with her armored Jailor. It hadn’t noticed her, intent on rummaging through the cell. The thing was covered in sandy robes, and sported a frightful mask of wrappings. It smelled absolutely putrid. It held a long, staff-like device in one hand, using it to poke the walls and furnishings of the room.

Apparently satisfied with its findings, it turned to leave — and spotted her.

“UUEEEEEEEYY-HUY-HUY-HUY!”

Celestia had little time to react as the creature suddenly lunged at her, bellowing a garbled way-cry. The end of the staff was swung forth, bristling with a spiked end. She ducked, and it embedded itself into the wall behind her and instant later.

Whomever these things were... they were not interested in rescuing her!

Diplomacy was out of the question, it seemed.

It blocked the only exit, so a timely retreat was also out of the cards.

There was nothing else to it. She would have to fight.

As it struggled to free the weapon, she presented her side, quickly flaring her wing with as much speed as she could. In a blur of white feathers, she slugged the creature right in the gut. It flinched, before savagely kicking at her throat. She gritted her teeth, and responded with another wing-strike, this one to the junction between the creature’s legs.

It let go of the staff, stumbling away as it clutched itself in pain. She didn’t give it a chance to retaliate, leaning up to bite the forgotten weapon still stuck in wall. Her muscles tensed, it was ripped loose with a screech of metal. She gracefully twirled in a circle, the spiked end describing a graceful arc until it slammed into bone and flesh.

The creature was knocked away, landing flat upon its back at her hooves.

Celestia menacingly loomed over it, and hesitated — the spiked staff was now poised for a killing blow.

Her hesitation proved a mistake, as the creature wasn’t done yet. With a hellish roar, it rolled, pulling something from its grimy robes as it rose to stand.

Celestia’s eyes widened. The jailor had threatened her with just such a device. It was obviously some sort of potent weapon. She lunged, swinging the staff from the side as the creature’s grip suddenly tightened on the device.

A hot blast of red passed to her left as the device let out a short scream of noise. Behind her, a hole was scored several inches into steel.

By some miracle, her staff had nudged the weapon to the side at the last possible second, following through to crack the creature right in the chin. The masked head snapped back, and it sank to its knees with a gurgle.

The weapon clattered to the floor. Celestia spat the staff out and dived, picking it up by the stubby handle. She pointed it at the creature and —

— recalled what happened to the cell wall, pulling it to the side at the last second.

It didn’t really matter anyway, seeing as she hadn't even pulled the trigger.

“Hurrrffffgh!”she frustratedly exclaimed through the weapon’s grip. With no other alternative in mind, she swiftly pivoted on her forelegs, hindquarters bunched like powerful springs.

The last thing the creature saw before it was knocked senseless were two gold-shod meteors. Its lifeless body was hurled back across the room and out the door, striking the opposing wall of the hallway with such force that it dented the metal, before sliding down to a motionless heap.

Celestia did a double take.

The door was open.

“Yes!” The alicorn hurled herself out of the cell and into the hallway. She already knew what lay in one direction, the room where the confrontation with her Jailor had taken place. She whirled and bolted down the other way, sharply turning a corner and colliding headfirst with another of the creatures that had been coming to investigate the noise.

They both stumbled away, rubbing sore faces, before remembering what they were supposed to be doing.

“HUY! HUY-HUY!” the creature roared, leveling what seemed to be a much larger version of the device Celestia held in her mouth.

The alicorn backpedaled wildy, using her wings to propel herself back around the corner. In the place she’d occupied a second before, a bolt of red whizzed by, striking the wall and melting metal where it struck.

Celestia fiddled with the one in her mouth — how did they even use these things, anyway? It tasted disgusting, no doubt because of the filthy state of its former owner.

Another bolt ricocheted wildly around the corner. Celestia groaned, giving up on the device and tucking it under a wing. Frantically, she looked around for something — anything! — that she could use.

Her eyes settled on the fallen creature.

A moment later, she charged around the corner a second time, gripping the limp body by the scruff of its neck, the improvised shield shuddering as several more blasts of light slammed into it. Unable to react until it was too late, the other masked beast became the target of a runaway alciorn pain-train as she galloped at full speed, using the body held in her teeth an impromptu battering ram.

She ran through with the blow, carrying it with her as she steamrolled forward, through the entry to another room, down a ramp, and plunging into painful brightness.

Boba Fett peered through the scope from where he was situated on the crest of a dune.

Thk-thk-thook!

His carbine slammed back into his shoulder as a trio of blaster bolts whipped through the air, colliding squarely with the back of one of the figures moving around the half-buried Slave I. The ship had come in from space at a shallow angle, skipping across the tops of the sandy peaks for almost a kilometer, before half-burying itself in the side of a dune, the stern and keel of the ship extending outwards into the air at a crazy tilt.

Behind him, the two droids used the sled for cover.

“Oh, good heavens!” cried C-3PO, as a flurry of retaliatory shots passed by overhead.

“Breeep woo-pweeet!” replied R2-D2.

“Artoo, if not charging a party of Sand People is considered cowardice, then I am most certainly considered a coward!”

“Brrrp-brrrp.”

“What — how dare you!”

Boba tuned out the noises of the bickering droids, absorbing himself in the battle. There were five Tusken Raiders outside the ship. The landing ramp looked blown open through his scope. No doubt there were more inside. A trio of banthas, lumbering, shaggy creatures that the Raiders used as mounts, stampeded here and there as Boba’s potshot sent them into a panic. One of the Raiders was trampled as he tried to calm one of the them down, the beast fleeing over a dune.

Thk-thk-thook!

A trio of bolts in his back made sure he stayed down.

Boba noticed a glint as a Raider pulled something out of its robes. His HUD illuminated the object with a warning glimmer. The small metal sphere arced through the air, thrown from the Raider's hand. It thumped into the sand by Boba’s side, rolling into his body. He glanced at it, then savagely kicked it away. Three seconds later, a mighty explosion sent a plume of dust three stories high.

Boba scowled. “Don’t bring a grenade to a rocket fight,” he barked, before ducking his head down. A streak of metal suddenly screamed into the sky from where it had launched from its housing on Boba’s jetpack. His helmet’s targeting computer guided the missile home to a stunning blow.

KA-WHOOM!

A thunderclap echoed across the desert as the rocket detonated, savagely consuming two more of the Raiders in a ball of fire. The remaining banthas made a run for it, lumbering away from the scene of the crash.

Boba pumped his fist, before ducking back down as a stream of hot plasma arced by. It seemed the last of the Raiders had taken position on top of his ship, and had the fortitude to bring a rickety machine gun with him. From the elevated position, he was able to bring an impressive rain of firepower down on the bounty hunter. Boba wondered what unfortunate corpse they’d pilfered the weapon from.

Boba turned away from the lip as it evaporated in a hail of lasers, scooting down the dune until he could crouch. He glanced back at the droid cowering behind the sled.

...Droid? The smaller one had slipped off.

“Hey!” he called to the gold one over the machine gun. “Where’s the astromech!?”

If droids could cringe, C-3PO did the closest approximation of one Boba had ever seen. “He went to, and I quote, ‘save the day.’”

“What!?”

With a start, he realized that the gunfire had stopped. He scrambled back up to the lip, peering through his scope.

R2-D2 stood on the top of his ship, with what appeared to be a cattle prod extending from his cylindrical body. The body of a Tusken Raider lay in a twitching heap in front of him.

Very, very slowly, Boba Fett lowered the scope and turned back to the droid.

“Are you serious?” he asked, gesturing to the triumphant astromech atop his ship. He could have sworn the droid was striking a heroic pose.

“Quite so. Artoo and I seem to have a nasty habit of getting into these sort of situations all the time,” C-3PO sighed.

Beneath the iconic Mandalorian helmet, Boba’s eye twitched. Outclassed by an bucket of bolts! He’d never hear the end of it.

“Tell no-one of this,” he commanded.

“As you say.”

Boba left him there and hustled over the dune, breaking into a run. The ship soon loomed over him, pitted here there by fresh blasterfire. R2-D2 was rolling down the smooth side of the half-buried craft, chirping merrily as the droid joined him. the bounty hunter stopped at the blown-open gangplank, cautiously peering into the darkness of the ship. What foul traps had already been lain within? Who else had dared to breach the sanctity of the closest thing Boba had to a true home?

Those questions were answered when something charged out of the darkness. He instinctively rolled backwards, snapping his carbine up as he came about, putting the new threat in his crosshairs.

Unbelievably, it was her.

Two more Raiders flew off her quadrupedal form as she skidded to a halt in the sand, blinking in the ferocious light of the twin Tatooine suns. The interlopers collapsed in a heap at Boba’s feet.

For the second time in a day -- a new record -- Boba Fett was flabbergasted. During that long moment, nobody moved an inch, Boba staring at his captive in equal parts surprise and confusion. She stared back at him in a similar mixture of disbelief. So stunned was he that he failed to notice movement at his feet. Something took his footing out from under him.

The white being reared, surging forward as Boba scrambled away. Right then and there, he almost pulled the trigger out of sheer reflex, avoiding what would have been a very messy situation.

Instead, her front limbs slammed downwards on one of the Tusken Raiders, which had been pointing a small blaster up at Boba from where he lay. From that angle, a shot would have gone right under Boba’s helmet and into the underside of his chin.

Beside him, R2-D2 let loose an admiring whistle.

She'd saved his life.

This... complicates things.

Coming to his senses, Boba leveled his carbine at her. She paused, eyeing the stubby rifle, her wings flaring out to her sides in unease. Despite the act she'd just performed, there was still a mammoth bounty on her head. Boba knew in that instant if he let her go, there was no catching her. Not before Vader came down and glassed half the planet to get her first.

Three days.

Failure was not an option.

She moved first. With catlike reflexes, he responded by dropping his carbine, slamming a button on the side of his wrist before a thick cable lasso whipped out at her, passing around her shoulders as she sprang high into the desert air, wings already pumping for height.

Boba hauled back on the lasso, and it tightened, snapping her wings back to her sides. She gave a pained yelp and fell, crashing to an undignified heap in the sand. She was up faster than he expected, anchoring herself against another yank. Boba obliged her, bringing the full brunt of his strength to bear. The cord binding them flexed and rippled with tension. Her stance did not break, but she nonetheless began to slide across the sand.

He saw her eyes widen with panic, then narrow with a very similar frown of determination. He had seen that look before -- it was the mark of a being with exceptional willpower.

Boba’s arms were nearly yanked out of their sockets when she began pulling back, gripping the cable in her mouth. The bounty hunter grunted and tried to dig in, but found himself giving the ground he’d won not seconds ago. He passed the place he'd started as the creature continued dragging him further from his ship.

She was stronger than him, he realized with growing unease.

“I say,” a tinny voice announced. “Is there any way I could be of assistance to resolve this dispute? Negotiation is a core feature of my programming.” It seemed that C-3PO had finally caught up, both droids milling about by the open ship.

He ignored the droid. There was still one trick he had up his sleeve.

Or, rather, attached to his back.

The jetpack burst to life, belching twin jets of fire that abruptly launched Boba high into the air. On the ground the ivory creature fell back from the surprise slack.

Perfect.

Boba angled himself downwards, screamed downwards, rolled, and swept past her, trailing the cable behind him. He banked, hard, and maintained the turn, flying in a rapid circle around his prisoner. By the time she realized what was going on, the bounty hunter had already wrapped the cable around her legs a number of times.

He cut the pack, tumbling down into the sand next to her, and gave the lasso a final, savage heave, sending his immobilized prey down for the final count. She squirmed against the bonds, but with her wings clipped and legs bound together, could do no more than wriggle uselessly in the sand.

Boba lay sprawled out next to her, catching his breath. After a moment, he noticed she was looking at him, sand dusting her white features and sprinkled in her pink hair.

Those eyes... deep and twinkling, as if she were listening to some unknown joke. The color of a brilliant sunset, they were laced with an expression of sadness, confusion, and hurt that Boba didn’t need a translator to understand.

Why? she implored.

Even if he used the right tongue, Boba had no words to answer.

Suddenly feeling quite dirty, he rolled to his feet, stood up, detaching the cable and swiftly knotting it in place. He turned to the droids. “Get her secured inside, on the double. Goldie, find out what language she speaks,” he told the taller one. “Make it quick. The Sand People will be back once they find out what happened here, and in greater numbers.”

With that, the bounty hunter left them, storming into the darkened recesses of the downed starship to see what had become of his home.

C-3PO and R2-D2 watched him go.

“Artoo... do you recognize that man from anywhere? The mask he wears seems familiar somehow,” said C-3PO.

R2-D2 gave a little shake. “Breep-ptew! Poo-ti-wheeet.”

“Boba Fett? The bounty hunter? Oh, Artoo, what have we gotten ourselves into this time..."

Bending themselves to the task, the two droids began dragging the still-struggling alien back into the crashed ship.