Ez

Boba wasn’t sure what possessed him to take such a stupid job. He technically didn’t know who the client was, but it was pretty damn obvious that it was the Empire. If you’d asked him a tenday ago, he would’ve said that knew better than to tangle with anything Jedi related. And yet, here he was, landing on some random ass backwater moon to find some kriff-off “artefact” that was probably just a pile of kark.

The pay was good, at least.

Cautiously, he activated the scanners, his extended eyes looking for life, sentience, and threats.

Nothing.

The planet was as quiet as a bar after a stormtrooper entered, and about as colourful as their armour.

It was a sea of grey, rocks that looked as if they’d stopped mid tumble, and footprints without a start or end. Boba could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, as he switched the scanner to “Alarm”, and slipped out of his ship, one hand resting on his pistol. Slowly, he paced across the surface, avoiding the footprints as best he could, boots harsh against the stone.

His armour acted as his shield, filtering the sound of the whipping wind and giving him eyes on every side.

According to his source, there was a temple on this planet, one that was abandoned generations before the rise of the galactic republic. Boba hadn’t exactly been paying attention to the scughole historian, but he’d said something about ancient Sith and Jedi wars, and temples left in their aftermath.

The footprints faded, each one facing a different way, as if one man had split into many, each facet of him desperate to escape.

His heart tugged him back to Slave-1. Shaking his head, Boba crunched pebbles beneath his boots, pressing across the desolate surface. Whatever sorcery bantha crap happened here, it better not interfere with his payday.

Ignoring his misgivings, Boba took another step forward, before dropping to the floor.

A boulder whistled over his head, narrowly avoiding denting his helmet, and slamming into the rocky ground beside him.

He got to his feet, snarling at the wind, and turned to the boulder.

His HUD was screaming, an alert showing a pulsating signal echoing from the rock.

Kriff.

That’d better not be his karking bounty.

A growl rumbling in his throat, Boba stared down at the stone, the grey rock keeping its every secret.

Checking the wind, Boba pulled the rocket launcher off his back, glad that he hadn’t swapped it out for the rifle that called for him earlier.

He couldn’t risk disintegrating his target, after all.

Bracing himself, Boba took several steps back, and fired the shot.

The sound shattered the deafening silence of the rocky landscape, overwhelming the whistle of wind Boba had long since tuned out. His dampeners kicked in, and the rubble swirled before him, pebbles, rocks, and all sorts of shit, dust billowing across the flattened surface.

A small glowing orb sat in the midst of the storm he created, a pale blue that shone like the sun on the desolate moon.

Smiling, he bent down to pick it up, tossing the ball in between his hands. “Easy,” Boba smirked, prowling back to his ship.

Once he made it back to the Slave-1, he plopped it onto the dash, slipping it into a little divot, before spinning a dial and letting the system fully activate.

The trade would be in Nar Shaddaa, in one of the less crappy bars. He flicked open his comm, and sent the message. Simple enough, just that he’d be there tomorrow.

They could kriffing wait for him.

With the ease of a well oiled machine, he pulled the ship away from the husk of a moon, into the open skies of the galaxy.

Keying in the autopilot, Boba slipped the chair back to recline, and laid back to go to sleep, keeping his armour on. Could never be too careful, after all.

Besides, it almost fitted him, now.

***

He awoke with a start, the blare of the alarm echoing around the cockpit.

“Warning!” Bright red text flashed on the screen, “Autopilot error”

Blearily, Boba blinked the sleep from his eyes, and seized the controls, switching off the autopilot without a second thought.

He flicked his eyes to the console, long used to flying by touch, and blinked again, slower.

“Mandalore?” He breathed, incredulously. He’d never visited Mandalore, but last he’d heard it was under the imperials. Some viceroy was in charge.

But Mandalore wasn’t anywhere near Nar Shaddaa, or that karkass moon.

Scowling at the display, he flipped to the calendar, halting Slave-1 just beyond Mandalore’s orbit. “Kriff,” Boba snarled, the calendar flickering in and out, years and days blurring together.

He hissed a breath, and opened his comm again, to reschedule. It crackled as he clicked to his client, and fizzed out.

Resisting the urge to slam his gloved fist through the screen, he tried the Guild. Static. His Hutt contact? Same result.

Slowly, he went through the whole list, annoyance flaring as each connection failed.

With a huff, he ducked underneath the console, tugging at wires, helmet lamp on. Nothing looked out of place? Boba grimaced, and shuffled out again.

“A broken ship is like a broken leg, can’t do anything with it,” he quoted, the bounty hunters proverb familiar on his tongue.

Admitting defeat, he returned to his chair, and prepared to land.

***

The lack of security was kriffing weird, especially for the Empire but Boba didn’t really have the time to care about shit like that. He needed a decently priced mechanic and to get to Nar Shaddaa. Quickly.

All the ships were karking old too, like he was in a weirdly pristine junkyard, not a populated port. It was the capital- he was pretty sure of that.

The signs were weird. They were all in the local language- Mandalorian or Mando’a or some shit.

His ancestors were probably turning in his grave.

Boba smirked, and left the shipyard.

You never want to shop for a mechanic at a port. That’s how some scughole rips you off and you wind up back at the same shop after only one job.

Most of the signs had basic, the ones for tourists. It was smaller, and underneath. Boba was really regretting that he never installed a Mando’a translator module into his helmet. Admittedly, he never expected to wind up in Mandalorian space, let alone kriffing Mandalore itself!

Still it was weird. The Empire was usually much stricter about changing signs to basic. Maybe that Viceroy was kinda shit. He chuckled to himself. Wouldn’t really be surprising. If the Empire had competent employees, they wouldn’t need to hire a kriffing bounty hunter to do their jobs.

He found a shop. Eventually.

Although, the money on the display were strange. Mandalorian credit, Wupiupi, the karking Calamari Flan, and, strangest of all, the Republic Credit.

It had the worst conversion rate of the lot, and was clearly tacked on for tourists, but still. Surely the Empire didn’t have that shitty of a hold over their plants? Even those that weren’t Republic. Although something weird had happened to Mandalore, so maybe they had been.

Still, he had more than enough Wupiupi, and it wasn’t like he was strapped for cash.

Eying up the displays- mostly severely outdated, but so was every other shop he’d gone past. Mandalore wasn’t exactly the home of military might these days. Still, you’d think they’d have some attempt at a Hyperdrive that wasn’t 40 years past its best, even if it looked good as new.

Kriffing imperial supply lines.

As he looked at a speeder engine he didn’t recognise, the door chimed, and he heard a group of teenagers tromp in. Great.

Boba rolled his eyes under his helmet, and straightened, ready to get out of there before someone tried to speak to him about anything that wasn’t business.

He froze, eyes catching on the people who’d just entered. They were all wearing vambraces, durasteel, not beskar, but the rest of their clothes were casual. That wasn’t what Boba noticed, though. No, that would be the kriffing clone trooper. The clone trooper who looked just younger than Boba, maybe equivalent to 14 standard years?

He felt nausea rise into his throat, and took a breath. The Empire was phasing out the clones, replacing them with those hacks they called “Stormtroopers”. Couldn’t even shoot straight. Maybe they should’ve hired some bounty hunters, or at least tried to make a half-decent sim.

Someone had a clone. Boba shook his head. That didn’t matter. Empire could track them down and kill them, for all he cared. Boba hated seeing his face.

As he stepped to the till, a word broke over the sea of Mando’a, “Jangooooo!”

The pantoran had spoken, tugging on the clone’s arm, while the other human’s face turned a bright red.

Boba felt his joints locked up, and he dropped his gaze to the screws just at the desk. The teenagers, and the clone, continued to chatter away, an annoying babble that Boba wanted nothing more than to shut up. Ideally with his fist, or a bullet.

Instead, he waited. He was a hunter, after all.

They stayed in the shop, yammering amongst themselves by the engine display. He was pretty sure that they sounded excited, although it was weird to hear a clone express so much emotion.

Although, if they wanted to be creeps and raise a fake Jango, then they’d probably teach the clone all sorts of things. Eventually, after what felt like kriffing forever, the human one of them spoke into his vambrace and the three of them died down a bit, shuffling out of the shop.

Snarling to himself, Boba waited, before he slipped out of the shop after them, hissing with frustration.

The part of him that wanted to get off this scughole was fuming. Unfortunately, he couldn’t let some asshole pretending to be Jango Fett just flaunt around the galaxy, especially not after he just built his own reputation.

They weren’t too hard to follow, although Boba would miss the ease of stalking in armour when almost everyone else was also wearing it. Usually a guy dressed like him stood out from a whole-ass parsec away.

Blending in was nice. Especially when you had the most recognisable face in the galaxy.

Actually. Why was no one commenting on that? Any time he so much as heard of a clone wandering the streets it seemed like everyone on the entire backwater had to stop and stare. No one seemed to even care about the blatant one right in front of them. Maybe they were all pretending he was Jango? The clone and his friends weren’t exactly stopping to chat, but they weren’t being unfriendly to anyone.

They got into a speeder, after a point. Someone was in the drivers seat, a man wearing ornate armour who grinned like he’d just won the biggest bet in the galaxy. It reminded him of Jango, almost.

Gritting his teeth, Boba fired a tracker into the base of the vehicle as it pulled away, an inconspicuous device that gave him a little red dot of vision.