Dark Bounty--A STAR WARS STORY Part 1

Black Droid

Boba left PZ-85, and started down the hangar toward the far end where the main hall to where the main residence was. He knew the facility well, having worked for the Keeper many times in the past, but that was a long time ago. He strode confidently down the center of the hangar while some lingering henchmen emerged and fired random, useless shots at him. Boba handily cut them down with his rifle as if they were innocuous bilge bugs.

He had walked twenty meters when he stopped, a ship catching his eye on the right. He turned as his astonished eyes looked on from behind the helmet. Before him stood a blue Firespray-31-class attack ship, the exact model of his old ship, Slave-1. He reasoned that it had to simply be another ship of the same model, but the intrusive memory of Slave-1 exploding forced its way into his mind.  He thought of Patch's mother, Terrah.   Could it be the same ship?

He heard the whooshing sound of the door at the end of the hangar opening and tried to focus, shaking off the memory. A red blaster shot zipped centimeters past his helmet. He spun and dove behind the Firespray and checked his rifle's charges. Another blaster shot ricocheted off the neighboring Umbaran starfighter. The deflected blast struck just a half a meter from his head. That was no accident, and Boba knew it. There was only one of the Keeper's henchmen that could shoot like that.

"Eighty-eight," Boba said to himself. He could hear the droid's steps fast approaching.

Boba rushed around the back of the Firespray under its protruding stern and listened, but the droid steps were no longer around the ship. Now he could hear the footfalls on the metal hull of the ship above him. He tensed his grip on the rifle and back-stepped out from under the stern, rapidly firing at the top of the Firespray. IG-88 was there, dodging every blast with unnatural and inhuman agility. The droid lept to the forward hull, but Boba's barrage of fire was too quick for IG-88 to return an attack. Boba darted to the front of the ship, not relenting his strafe. However, ultimately, each shot proved ineffective. IG-88 was too fast and could predict each blaster shot, his multiple ancillary eyes calculating their trajectory.

Boba turned to hug the forward hull of the neighboring ship, a Republic gunship. He fired a physical grenade from this rifle's ventral mount grenade launcher. It hit the front of the Firespray just under IG-88. The droid leapt off the ship with ease and landed upright in the center of the hangar bay. Without a moment's pause, IG-88 broke toward Boba Fett--his red eye focusing, his jointed legs pitching back and forth in a sprint, the upper torso remaining still, and a bombardment of rifle fire streaming from his weapon.

Boba zig-zagged to avoid being hit, but the intensity of the blaster storm was too much. A blast cut into the soft mesh of his upper arm, leaving a charred open wound. Boba did not wince, but he instead launched one more grenade before racing for the open door from the hangar. IG-88 easily dodged to the side of the grenade, which detonated harmlessly five meters to his right.

Boba made it through the door, promptly cut to the inside frame where the control panel was and punched the control to shut the door. It began to shut as IG-88 sprinted to the door, his arms down now; and all energy diverted to two dorsal vents on his back, creating a burst that sped him even more quickly toward the descending door--ten meters: the door was a quarter shut. Five meters: the door was half shut. The droid lowered itself to slide under the door. Two meters: the door was almost closed.

Boba could hear the metallic thud of the droid on the other side of the door as the door's air-lock sealed. He stepped back from the control panel and fired one shot, destroying the panel as it erupted in electrical blue flames. "That oughta hold him for a while," Boba said to himself.

Red sparks then began to spray from the blast door, starting at the top and then slowly moving downward. IG-88 was cutting through the door.

"Maybe not," Boba stated before running down the hall.