The Fight to Survive (7 page)

The Battle Droids ran down the aisles with their lasers flashing, firing at the Jedi and scorching whatever else was in their way.

Lasers flashed overhead, and Boba ducked. The Jedi called Windu had gone from offense to defense in an instant. He was deflecting the droids’ lasers with his lightsaber; it was like
fencing with the air.

That was all Jango Fett needed. He crouched and fired the flamethrower that was built into his battle armor.

WHOOOOOSH!

Windu was engulfed in a torrent of orange flame, and his robe caught fire. It flared behind him like the exhaust of a rocket as the Jedi jumped out of the stands into the ring.

Jango let him go. He turned and went into action with the Battle Droids and the Geonosian troops, toasting the Jedi with vicious laser fire.

The Jedi all began to clump in the center of the arena, back-to-back, around the reek with the apprentice Jedi, Obi-Wan, and the beautiful woman still on its back.

The fight was on!

The reek wanted no part of it. It leaped into the air, throwing the three off its back. Then it ran in wild circles, snarling and snorting, stomping and stamping, crushing
droids, Geonosian troops, Jedi, and bystanders under its hooves.

“Go!” Boba shouted, out loud this time. It didn’t matter which side he was on—it was exciting to watch. Blood and bodies were flying. And the only person down there in
the ring that he liked, the pretty woman, was unhurt, at least so far.

She was standing in the middle of the ring with the Jedi. Somebody had tossed her a blaster rifle. She was pretty good with it, too, blasting droids and Geos on all sides.

Jango was standing right beside Boba, taking a heavy toll from the stands, firing with deadly accuracy into the Jedi. It was the first time Boba had ever been in such a big battle with his
father.

And he loved it!

“Stay down, Boba!” Jango ordered, and Boba knew better than to disobey. But he was able to peek over the railing and see down into the ring.

In the middle of all the confusion, Boba saw the Jedi called Mace Windu, the one his dad had scorched. He was mowing down droids and Geonosian troops with his lightsaber, rallying the Jedi with
his boldness.

The reek saw him, too. The big, horned beast singled him out and started chasing him around the arena. Boba had to laugh. The Jedi had gone from hound to hare in about one second.

Mace Windu tried to make a stand. He skidded to a stop and slashed out at the reek with his lightsaber. But the reek kept coming—and knocked the lightsaber out of his hand.

It went flying, and the Jedi took off running again.

Jango Fett put his big, gloved hand on his son’s head and growled, “Stay here, Boba. I’ll be back!”

That turned out to be the last thing he ever told his only son.

Jango Fett used the jet-pack on his Mandalorian battle armor to rocket down into the arena. He landed right in the middle of the fighting. The runaway reek, which made no
distinction between friend and foe, tried to stomp him.

From the stands, Boba saw his father dodging and rolling, trying to get out of the way. He bit his tongue to keep from screaming out. Those hooves were as sharp as knives.

But Boba needn’t have worried. His dad rolled free, jumped to his feet, and proceeded to kill the beast. A couple of blasts and the reek was no more.

Then Jango Fett and the Jedi Mace Windu faced off, one-on-one, while the fight raged all around them.

Boba stood on tiptoe, trying to see, and at the same time dodging the bolts that were filling the air like angry insects. Super Battle Droids, more powerful than the Battle Droids, were now
dominating the battle.

The dust rose in a cloud. The arena was filled with screams and shouts, the clash of lightsabers and bolts of laser fire. Boba yelled “Dad!” as he tried to see.

And then he saw.

He saw.

He saw the Jedi’s lightsaber swing in a deadly arc. He saw his father’s empty helmet go flying. He saw his father’s body drop to its knees, as if in prayer.

Boba watched in breathless horror as Jango Fett fell lifeless onto the bloody sand.

“No!” Boba cried.
No, it can’t be!

The concussion from a nearby blast of laser fire knocked Boba down. He stumbled to his feet, ears ringing, and saw that the arena below was littered with bodies and pieces of droids and
droidekas.

The acklay and the reek both were dead. The Jedi were outnumbered but still fighting. And the beautiful woman was right in the middle of it all, blasting droids and Geonosians alike.

Boba couldn’t see his father or the Jedi he had been fighting. Had he dreamed it all? The swing of the lightsaber, the helmet flying off; the warrior falling to his knees, then toppling
over, like a tree.

A bad dream, Boba decided.
That was it!
His father was somewhere back up in the stands. Boba knew that he didn’t like to fight alongside droids. Jango Fett scorned the droids
because they had no imagination.
Imagination
, he often said,
is a warrior’s most important weapon
.

A bad dream
, Boba thought, pushing his way down the stairs, toward the arena.

Even without imagination, the Super Battle Droids were winning. They were programmed to win, or at least to never give up. And even with all their losses, they far outnumbered
the Jedi.

The droids in the stands kept firing, and the droids in the arena kept advancing, and soon there were only twenty or so Jedi left.

They stood in a clump in the center of the arena, back-to-back, lightsabers and lasers drawn. Trapped!

The aisles were full, so Boba climbed down from seat to seat, toward the arena. The Geonosians were cheering as the droids moved in for the kill. Then the Count raised his hand.

“Master Windu!”

Silence.

Boba stopped.
What’s this?
He watched as the Jedi his father had been fighting stepped forward, covered with dust and sweat.

“You have fought gallantly,” said the Count. “Worthy of recognition in…”

Boba didn’t wait to hear more. He knew it was all a lie. It had to be.

He continued to jump from seat to seat, down toward the ring, pushing and shoving his way through the crowd.

He couldn’t think. He didn’t
want
to think. He just wanted to get into the ring and find his father, Jango Fett, who would tell him:
Don’t worry, Boba, it was all
a dream. A bad, bad dream
.

“Now it is finished,” said the Count. “Surrender, and your lives will be spared.”

“We will not be hostages for you to barter with, Dooku.”

“Then I’m sorry, old friend,” said the Count. “You will have to be destroyed.”

The Count nodded and the droids were just about to fire into the little clump of Jedi, ending the whole thing, when all of a sudden the woman looked up.

All around the arena, the Geonosians started looking up.

Boba stopped and looked up, too.

Gunships were descending from the sky.

One, two, three gunships…six altogether.

They landed around the Jedi survivors. Doors in the ships opened and troops poured out, running down the ramps, firing at the droids. Boba knew the troops well, although he was surprised to see
them. The Jedi began backing into the ships, still blocking laser blasts with their lightsabers.

The battle was on again, but Boba hardly noticed. He was running again, jumping from seat to seat, down toward the arena, as the gunships took off, with the Jedi still running up the ramps. Some
were barely hanging on by their fingertips as the ships rose.

They were getting away. Not only the beautiful woman, but the Jedi he and his father hated. The Obi-Wan Jedi; the apprentice Jedi; the dark-faced fighter called Mace Windu. They were all
escaping!

Boba didn’t care. All he cared about was finding his father. He ran down the last aisle, pushing his way through the stunned crowd.

He climbed over the wall and jumped into the arena.

“Dad! Dad! Where are you?!”

The dirt and sand under his feet were soaked with blood. Bodies lay in heaps on all sides.

A droid that had been blasted in half was thrashing around in a circle, kicking weapons, droid pieces, and bodies in every direction.

One piece rolled toward Boba, hit his foot, and stopped.

Boba looked down and saw—Jango Fett’s battle helmet.

Dad!
With its narrow eye-slits, it was as familiar as his father’s face. More familiar, in fact.

It was bloody. It was empty. It was as blank and as final as the period at the end of a book.

Over. End of story.

As he fell on his knees and picked up his father’s battle helmet, Boba knew that the nightmare he had seen from the stands had been no dream.

It was real. All of it.

No one notices a ten-year-old kid, especially in the midst of a battle.

Especially when he is wandering in a daze, stepping over bodies and trails of blood, oblivious to the laser bolts whining through the air near his head or spinning into the bloody sand at his
feet.

Especially when he is ignoring the shouts of the living and the screams of the dying; ignoring even his own cries.

Boba was invisible.

He was invisible even to himself. He didn’t know what he was thinking or what he was feeling or what he was doing. He was numb. It was like walking through somebody else’s dream.

He carried his father’s empty battle helmet cradled in both arms, while he stumbled around the arena in the remains of the battle; while the troops were fighting the last of the droids and
the gunships were departing with the rescued Jedi; while the panicked Geonosians were evacuating the arena in a stampede.

He carried the broken piece of his father’s armor through the broken pieces of his world.

Did he think he could put his father back together?

Did he think he could put his life back together?

Boba didn’t think anything. He was numb.

It was all gone, all shattered.

It had all come to pieces. Pieces lay everywhere. Pieces of droids, body parts, the dead and the dying. Those who were still alive, and some of those who weren’t, were firing their
blasters wildly.

Boba walked past a spinning droid, its right leg shot off. It was firing around and around as it spun, spraying the upper tiers of the arena and the panicked crowd of Geonosians.

Laser bolts hit the ground around him, throwing up geysers of sand. Boba didn’t care. Boba walked on.

Crouching troops in battle armor hurried by, firing as they ran. One grabbed Boba’s arm and threw him to the ground. “Get down!”

WHARROOOMM!

An explosion ripped through the air where Boba had been. He hit flat on his belly.

WHARROOOMM!

Another explosion—and Boba felt sand stinging his cheeks. He buried his face in his arms, next to the empty helmet. When he opened his eyes and looked up, he saw—

Dad!
It was his father, Jango Fett, looking down at him! Boba reached up for his father’s hand, and—

Then, suddenly, Boba saw how wrong he was. It was not his father. It was the trooper who had saved his life, or one of the others. For they all looked exactly alike beneath the armor. It was his
twin, only older. It was his father, only younger.

It was one of the clones.

As he stumbled to his feet, Boba realized clearly—and with horror—that the troops that had poured out of the gunships were the clone army that his father had trained on Kamino. Here
they were, in action for the first time, on Geonosis. And unbeatable, just as his father had predicted. But they were fighting on the wrong side. Fighting for the hated Jedi!

No!
Boba thought, clenching his fists. His disappointment was replaced by feelings of betrayal and rage.

“Just a kid!” the trooper said. “Thought you were one of us.” He ran with the other clones toward a departing gunship.

“I’m not one of you!” Boba muttered angrily. “And I never will be. I am Jango Fett’s
real
son.”

The arena was almost empty. The Archduke was nowhere to be seen. The Count was nowhere to be seen. The fighting was almost over. The last gunship was leaving, blasting upward
through the opening over the arena.

Boba hardly noticed. He was looking down, not up. He didn’t care about the clones anymore. He had a job to do. One last job for Jango Fett.

It was getting dark. The rings of Geonosis filled half the sky with an orange glow. With the helmet in his arms, Boba was walking in circles, stumbling through the blood-damp sand. Finally, he
found what he was looking for. Stumbled across it, in fact.

It was his father’s body, still clothed in the remaining pieces of Mandalorian battle armor, scuffed and bloodied.

Boba placed his father’s helmet on his father’s chest, then sat down beside him. He was tired and it was time to rest. He noticed a tear slowly making its way down through the gritty
sand on his cheek. He wiped it away with his fist.

It was too soon to cry. Boba still had a job to do.

It was dark, or as dark as it gets on the ringed planet. The battle had moved out of the arena and had covered a wide part of the land.

The Geonosians—now under the control of the victorious Jedi—sent in squads of drones to pick up the dead. They were tossed on a fire. The smashed and broken droids were luckier. They
were picked up by a scoop to be taken outside to a scrap pile, for recycling.

Boba was sitting by his father’s body when the scoop rolled by, on its second pass through the bloody arena.

Boba knew what he had to do. He was not like the clones. He was Jango Fett’s
real
son. It was his job to take care of his father’s body. And as long as he did his job, he
could put off feeling the feelings that he didn’t want to feel.

The scoop whined and jerked as it moved from place to place, blindly scouring the sand for more parts. Boba dragged his father’s body into the scoop’s path, where it would be picked
up. In his Mandalorian battle armor, Jango Fett felt to the scoop just like a droid. A broken droid.