REPUTATION
Tara Sim
There was no threat on Jabba the Hutt’s sail barge other than the live music and the drinks being passed around by the astromech droid, both of which Boba kept his distance from. While Jabba’s cronies reveled, he stood at the windows and watched one of the two skiffs racing beside them that carried Jabba’s prisoners: Skywalker, Solo, and the Wookiee.
The desert suns brightened Han Solo’s dirtied white shirt, the man squinting not from the light but from post-carbonite blindness. Soon Boba would see the last of him. The thought came with equal parts satisfaction and relief: satisfaction in that Boba would witness the completion of a job well done, and relief in that nothing else could go wrong once the captain plummeted into the Sarlacc’s gullet.
I’ve kept you alive this long, Boba thought with a hint of pride. Only fitting I should see the end.
It was Solo’s own fault, really. He had been Jabba’s top smuggler for years only to throw it all away with a cargo of Kessel spice. It didn’t matter how skilled or slippery Solo could be; if you owed Jabba money, you paid him with either credits or your life.
It seemed a bit of a shame to lose a man of his talents, dubious as they were. But that was the difference between them: Han Solo might be good, but at the end of the day, he’d still gotten caught. Boba knew better than to test someone like Jabba in the first place.
The sail barge and the pair of skiffs slowed to a stop once they reached the Great Pit of Carkoon. From here, everyone could enjoy a view of the prisoners’ skiff hovering above the pit, as well as what lurked within. The Sarlacc’s large, fanged mouth undulated around its beaked tongue, making Boba grimace behind his helmet. Jabba did have a knack for collecting unconventional pets. Beyond its massive tongue lay multiple stomachs, and he idly wondered which one Solo would be dissolved in.
Jabba came to the windows, his chuckle low and eager. Boba had heard the crime lord give this exact laugh before feeding someone to his dearly departed rancor. With a tug of the chain in his hand, Jabba forced the collared rebel princess to stand beside him.
“I commend you for your past suggestion of tossing Solo to the Sarlacc,” Jabba said to Boba in his slow, booming Huttese. “But if I had done it earlier, then I would have deprived myself of seeing his face twisted in pain every day.”
Jabba laughed again while Leia Organa’s face hardened. Boba eyed her a moment, hand drifting to his rifle, but she remained silent and focused on the prisoner skiff.
“He’s yours to do with what you will,” Boba answered dispassionately.
“And I have you to thank for that. Truly you live up to your reputation.”
They were words Boba took as fact, words that only strengthened that hint of pride, but they also carried a thread of discomfort. From the moment Darth Vader had handed Solo over to him in Cloud City, Boba had needed to jump through hoops to keep his prize from the thieving hands of those who wanted Solo for themselves.
In the end he was just glad he’d completed the job, as tumultuous as it had been. If he hadn’t, he could have been standing where Solo was now.
The dry heat of Mos Espa’s day cycle had dwindled to a cool desert evening as dusk painted the sandblasted metal of Jabba’s palace in shades of orange. Boba waited before the large, durasteel door with the familiar weight of his EE-3 in his hands and a slab of carbonite at his side.
He glanced down at the contorted face of Captain Solo. It had a metallic sheen, the last of the sun blazing along the tips of Solo’s fingers. He’d been frozen in a position that looked either placating or defensive, as if that would have been enough to stop the onslaught of carbon gas.
Vader’s insistence on freezing the captain had been yet another unnecessary delay in delivering the smuggler to Jabba. Boba supposed he should be thankful Vader hadn’t simply tortured the man to death. Then again, considering what had come after, he wasn’t sure how thankful he should be.
The wide door slowly opened, revealing two Gamorrean guards. They grunted and ushered Boba forward with their axes. Halfway down the stone corridor, Bib Fortuna stood waiting with hands clasped before him. The Twi’lek’s pasty face broke into an oily grin as his gaze traveled between Boba and the slab.
“So you return victorious,” Fortuna drawled. “Despite some delay.”
Boba turned his helmet to glare in Fortuna’s direction. “Bounty hunters keep to a code. I wouldn’t fleece Jabba. And yet you put a price on my head.”
Here was the thing: Boba wasn’t a fool. He knew perfectly well that just because he was considered Jabba’s top bounty hunter, that didn’t make him safe. Their contracts were impassive transactions, not promises built on trust.
“Well, you can’t blame Great Jabba for that. Once he received word that Solo was up for bid on Jekara, what else could he think?”
Boba drew in a long, quiet breath. Keeping someone alive in carbonite was no small feat; if the matrix became unstable, that was that. So when Solo’s began to act up, he’d taken what he thought would be a quick detour to Nar Shaddaa to get it fixed. Little had he known the captain would be stolen from under his nose by Crimson Dawn.
And because their contracts were ironclad, his options were either get Solo back or face whatever retribution Jabba had in store.
“He’s here now,” Boba said. “And my payment wasn’t conditional on whether or not there was a delay.”
“Of course.” Fortuna allowed himself the edge of a sneer and turned to lead him through the rest of the corridor. Boba flexed a hand on his rifle, telling himself Fortuna wasn’t worth the money he’d have to pay for Jabba to take on a new majordomo.
Music was playing in the subterranean chamber Jabba had transformed into his throne room. The air that filtered through his helmet carried the earthy scent of pipe smoke coming from the haze that seemed a permanent fixture of the place. Boba briefly scanned the disparate crowd that made up Jabba’s court before his eyes landed on the middle of the room.
The smugglers and assassins jeered as a green Twi’lek woman danced atop a metal grille, the collar around her neck connecting to a long, rattling chain that snaked toward the dais where the Hutt himself sat.
“Like her?” Fortuna asked, having followed Boba’s line of sight. “She’s a favorite. I brought her in specifically for her hue.”
Of course—the Empire willingly ignored the Twi’lek trade. The rarer and more beautiful they were, the more they were paraded about as a status symbol.
Jabba was watching the display while taking hits on his hookah pipe. He yanked on the chain and the Twi’lek woman fell onto the grille, making the court laugh. Boba lengthened his stride to get into the Hutt’s line of sight sooner.
“Great Jabba, Boba Fett has returned,” Fortuna announced before retreating to the spot reserved for Jabba’s majordomo.
The music tapered off and Jabba hummed, eyes glittering in Boba’s direction. “Come forward and let me see my new prize.”
The slab hovered in front of Boba as the Hutt looked down on it with approval. Jabba took another hit of his pipe while the Twi’lek dancer retreated to her spot below the throne.
“I never doubted you, Boba Fett,” said Jabba. Standing behind him, Fortuna’s eyes twitched. “You always finish the job.”
And yet, Jabba had put out a contract for Boba’s head, which the crime lord insisted wasn’t personal. But Boba was willing to forgo all that if it meant getting back to the business at hand.
“If you want to keep him,” Boba said, indicating Solo with his rifle, “pay me.”
The court at his back murmured at his daring. Who was he, a mere bounty hunter, to give an ultimatum to the Jabba the Hutt?
But they should have known by now: He wasn’t a mere bounty hunter.
Jabba gave a deep laugh and set down his pipe. He nodded at Fortuna, who went to collect something between the throne and the rotisserie cooker behind it. “You will be paid, Boba Fett. You will be paid even more if you decide to stay and take on more work from me.”
Boba glanced at the dancer. Her gaze had settled somewhere around Boba’s chest, as if inspecting his armor. Like she wanted it for herself.
Jabba enjoyed his various contracts, but no doubt the best transactions were the ones that came free of consequences.
“You just want to use me as a buffer between you and Crimson Dawn,” Boba said.
“Is that not what a mercenary does? And after all, you are the best of the best.”
The majordomo returned and handed Boba a large bag. The credits had a good heft to them; Jabba’s words even more so.
“We’ll see,” Boba said.
The music resumed once Jabba ordered Solo to be carted away to his wall of trophies. Boba turned and scanned the alcoves again, ignoring the riffraff who stared at him, and raised his eyebrows at the sight of a familiar face.
“ ‘Best of the best,’ ” Dengar muttered as Boba approached the other bounty hunter. “Would the best of the best have lost Han Solo?”
“The best of the best got him back from both the Empire and the rebels,” Boba shot back. “Seems you’re feeling cold toward me.”
Dengar scowled at the wording. His head wrap had seen better days, dirt-smudged and singed around his face. “Where’s Valance? The two of you were quick to run off together.”
The last Boba had seen of Valance, the cyborg bounty hunter had been facing down the wrong end of a thermal detonator, his purpose served in helping Boba get to Solo faster.
Boba shrugged in answer, and Dengar scoffed. “Should’ve known. You only ever look out for yourself.”
“You say that as if it’s not what we’re supposed to do in our profession,” Boba said. “We may have a code, but that doesn’t make us familiar.”
Boba had a hard rule: He did not work with anyone. First and foremost because no one could keep up with him, and he didn’t need others in his way. If he teamed up with someone, he used them and ditched them. Valance had learned that the hard way.
The green Twi’lek had returned to her dance. Under the grille Boba thought he heard the low growl of the rancor, desperate for a meal. Jabba liked to keep his pets hungry.
“You realize what he’s doing, don’t you?” Dengar muttered.
Boba had said it in his own words: Jabba was using him. It was nothing new to Boba. After all, his own existence as a bounty hunter was the price paid to run the biggest trafficking operation the galaxy had ever seen.
But Boba was getting paid for his use, and that was what mattered.
“I’m telling you, it all goes south eventually,” Dengar went on. “Just look at Solo. Jabba’s number one smuggler, then one job goes bad and bam, wall decoration.”
“Solo knew what would happen if he didn’t pay Jabba back in time. He didn’t play by the rules.”
“Rules?” Dengar snorted. “What rules?”
Jabba yanked on the dancer’s chain again, making her stumble toward him. She clearly fought back the urge to resist before she was pulled close enough for him to stroke her head. Boba frowned and instead watched Solo’s carbonite form displayed between the taxidermized heads of a tauntaun and a jerba.
Boba wasn’t a fool. No amount of credits or praise could cover up that he, too, had become a status symbol. That all the years he’d spent building his reputation now amounted to serving a crime lord he couldn’t afford to cross.
He glanced back at the throne, where thankfully Jabba had released the dancer to take up his pipe again. Wondered what it would be like to sit there, to be the one handing out orders, instead of lurking in the alcoves with the nobodies.
“How ’bout this,” Boba said to Dengar. “We make another bet.”
Dengar side-eyed him, but at least he didn’t reach for the blaster rifle on his back. “On what?”
Boba glanced at the crowd forming before Solo, mocking and laughing at the captain’s fate.
“Twenty more credits if the rebels come for him.”
“Victims of the almighty Sarlacc,” the protocol droid announced, “His Excellency hopes that you will die honorably.”
The prisoners on the skiff were sweating under Tatooine’s double suns. Especially Skywalker, covered in black as he was. Even Boba was getting uncomfortable under his beskar. Part of him wanted to just get this over with and head back to Mos Espa, enjoy a cool drink in the privacy of his room.
Boba smirked, thinking of the twenty credits he had to collect from Dengar. The other bounty hunter had chosen to stay behind at Jabba’s palace rather than join the revelry on the Khetanna. Probably still sore that Boba had managed to fulfill his contract before Dengar could fulfill his.
The protocol droid went on to inform the prisoners that Jabba would listen to their pleas if they had a mind to beg for mercy. Of course Solo had to mouth off, and Boba’s smirk grew. No amount of hibernation sickness or impending death could temper a man like him.
But his smirk fell as Skywalker called up to the sail barge: “Free us or die.”
He was five steps away from tumbling into the mouth of the Sarlacc. He was weaponless. Helpless. Outnumbered. There was no way for him to get out of this alive.
Just like a Jedi, to be so overconfident.
While Jabba and his court laughed at Skywalker’s daring, Boba spared another glance at Leia Organa. He remembered the simple yet cruel way in which Jabba had ordered around that dancing green Twi’lek—Oola, her name had been Oola—and couldn’t help but pity the princess for having to take on the role.
In addition to becoming Jabba’s new plaything, she was about to watch her companions meet a grim fate. Boba had never been a fan of Jabba’s showboating; all of this could have been avoided if they’d simply…Well, it wasn’t his problem.
I’m telling you, it all goes south eventually.
It pained him to admit that Dengar had been right. Just as Jabba collected pets, so too did he collect people—ones to entertain him, please him, do his dirty work for him. At least Solo had attempted to break out of the cycle.
While Skywalker was moved into position, Organa’s eyes tightened and her fingers twitched, as if suppressing the urge to curl her hands into fists. He admired her restraint. But then something in her gaze shifted, a gleam of desert sun. Boba turned in time to see Skywalker give her a two-finger salute.
What is he—?
A hunk of metal glinted as it was flung across the pit and into Skywalker’s hand. A flash of green, and suddenly Skywalker was laying into the guards, flinging them off the skiff with practiced swings of his lightsaber. The guards screamed and tumbled toward the Sarlacc’s eager mouth.
Boba cursed and headed for the stairs while shocked cries rose from Jabba’s court. He’d let down his guard too much. He should have kept a better eye on those droids. He—
No, it didn’t matter. He’d followed the rules, and it hadn’t been enough.
One way or another this was going to end. He would throw them all down into the Sarlacc himself if he had to.
He finally unholstered his rifle as he charged toward the upper deck of the sail barge. The skiff was a flurry of frantic movement and arcs of green light. Without a second thought he activated his jetpack, taking to the air.
He hadn’t been born with his reputation; he had earned it. And he wouldn’t let it be ruined so easily.