User:Lord Hydronium/Fett

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Boba Fett was the unaltered clone and adopted son of Jango Fett who would grow to become one of the most notorious bounty hunters in the galaxy. Raised on Kamino until he was orphaned at the age of 10, Fett turned to bounty hunting after his father's death. During the Clone Wars and beyond, into the era of the early Empire, Fett would use the skills learned from his father and the armor of his father's mentor Jaster Mereel to cement his position among the bounty hunting elite. Fett spent a brief stint as a Journeyman Protector on Concord Dawn under Mereel's name, during which time he was married to Sintas Vel and fathered a daughter, Ailyn. He was later exiled after killing a fellow Journeyman Protector.

Fett would go on to take several jobs for the Empire and Darth Vader in particular, many of them involving Luke Skywalker and one of Fett's chief enemies, Han Solo. He also spent time in the employ of Jabba the Hutt, to whom he delivered the carbon-frozen body of Solo after helping to apprehend the smuggler on Bespin. During the course of a Rebel rescue mission, Fett was knocked into the mouth of the sarlacc of the Pit of Carkoon.

Fett managed to escape the sarlacc, and spent the next several years rebuilding his finances and reputation. After multiple unsuccessful attempts to capture Han Solo, Fett fought his last battle with his old enemy on Jubilar, where the two men at last agreed to a truce. Not long after this, Fett received the title of Mandalore, leader of the Mandalorians, from Fenn Shysa. He would lead the Mandalorians to fight in the Yuuzhan Vong War, first as double agents working with the Yuuzhan Vong, later for the Galactic Alliance. In 40 ABY, Fett met his granddaughter Mirta Gev and with her returned to Mandalore, where he helped rebuild the Mandalorians into a galactic power and brought them into the Confederation-Galactic Alliance War.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Childhood (32 BBY—22 BBY) 1.1.1 Creation 1.1.2 Raised by Jango 1.1.3 Encounter with Kenobi 1.1.4 The Battle of Geonosis 1.2 Clone Wars (22 BBY—19 BBY) 1.3 Bounty hunter (19 BBY—1 BBY) 1.3.1 Life as a hunter 1.3.2 Life on Concord Dawn 1.3.3 The Boonta race 1.3.4 Exile 1.3.5 Encounter on Jubilar 1.3.6 The Mingula 1.3.7 The hologram 1.3.8 Solo's bounty 1.3.9 The hunt for Han Solo 1.4 Working with the Empire (1 BBY—4 ABY) 1.4.1 The casket of Abal Karda 1.4.2 The High Priest 1.4.3 The Yavin Vassilika 1.4.4 Encounter on Dargulli 1.4.5 In Jabba's employ 1.4.6 Bounty on Solem 1.4.7 The Bounty Hunters' Guild plot 1.4.8 The holocron of Bail Organa 1.4.9 The Arrandas 1.4.10 The Anya Karu 1.4.11 Mission to Troska 1.4.12 The Panna encounter 1.4.13 Mission to Ota 1.4.14 Hunt for Katarn 1.4.15 The Vryssa garrison 1.4.16 The hunter of Tansarii Station 1.4.17 The capture of Ackbar 1.4.18 Encounter on Ord Mantell 1.4.19 The capture of Captain Solo 1.4.20 Escaping with Solo 1.4.21 The search for Fett 1.4.22 Battle with the bounty hunters 1.4.23 The demolition games 1.4.24 Skirmish at Carkoon 1.5 After the sarlacc (4 ABY—19 ABY) 1.5.1 Escape from the sarlacc 1.5.2 Dengar's rescue 1.5.3 Kuat of Kuat 1.5.4 The second escape 1.5.5 Life in secrecy 1.5.6 The impersonator Kast 1.5.7 Bounty on Han Solo 1.5.8 The Bar-Kooda bounty 1.5.9 The kidnapping of Anachro 1.5.10 The murder of Orko 1.5.11 Solo, again 1.5.12 The Azgoghk mission 1.5.13 The Jaden Korr incident 1.5.14 The Butcher of Montellian Serat 1.5.15 Return to Jubilar 1.6 Mandalore (19 ABY—) 1.6.1 The death of Fenn Shysa 1.6.2 A new employer 1.6.3 Double agent 1.6.4 The end of the war 1.6.5 A changing galaxy 1.6.6 Mirta Gev and Taun We 1.6.7 Business on Corellia 1.6.8 The clone hunt 1.7 Additional activities 1.7.1 Stolen armor 1.7.2 Drex's bounty 1.7.3 Bendu Fry and the "Jedi" 2 Mistaken identity 3 Personality and traits 3.1 Physical appearance 4 Personal relationships 4.1 Jango Fett 4.2 Taun We 4.3 Han Solo 4.4 Sintas and Ailyn Vel 4.5 Mirta Gev 5 Equipment and gear 5.1 Armor 5.1.1 Helmet 5.2 Weapons 5.3 Devices 5.4 Starships and vehicles 6 Non-canon biographies 6.1 Star Wars: Masters of Teräs Käsi 6.2 Star Wars: Yoda Stories 6.3 Star Wars: Demolition 6.3.1 Boba Fett, losing scenario 6.3.2 Otto, losing scenario 7 Behind the scenes 7.1 Character history 7.2 Reaction 7.3 Continuity 7.4 Portrayal 8 Appearances 8.1 Non-canon appearances 9 Sources 10 Notes and references 11 See also

Biography

Childhood (32 BBY—22 BBY)

Creation

When the bounty hunter Jango Fett agreed to be the prime clone of the Kaminoan clone army being built for the Galactic Republic, he requested an unaltered clone in addition to his payment. Unlike Fett's other clones, this one—whom Fett named Boba—had no genetic alterations, such as those that increased docility and growth rate.^[1] Fett intended him to be an apprentice, the legacy of his mentor and father figure Jaster Mereel, and eventual successor to the position of Mandalore, leader of the Mandalorians.^[4] Boba was born in a clone incubator on Kamino^[1] in 31.5 BBY.^[2]

Raised by Jango

Jango raised Boba on Kamino as his own son. He kept a sparse apartment in Tipoca City where he could raise Boba safely, far from the dangers of his professional life.^[6] Jango would carry young Boba around to settle him down and on one such occasion, when Boba was two, took him to see Kal Skirata.^[7] Fett was not raised speaking Basic,^[8] but neither did he know the Mandalorian language Mando'a, and on one occasion narrowly avoided being forced to learn it from Skirata's Null-class Advanced Recon Commandos.^[4] In later years, he would compare his childhood to living in a religious autarchy.^[8] When Jango went offplanet to hunt his bounties, Boba was taken care of by Kaminoan aide Taun We^[1] or the droid MU-12. Fett often missed his father in these times, asking MU-12 when he would return. When Jango did come home, Boba would beg him not to leave again. Jango would remind Boba that he loved him and, when he got the opportunity, made time to spend with his son.^[9]

Fett enjoyed playing with action figures, with which he pretended to stage battles between his father and the Trade Federation, or perform mock fights between starships. When his father was home, the two of them would often play starships with each other^[9] or play ball outside. It was on one such occasion that Zam Wesell arrived on Kamino to speak with Jango and met Boba. After Boba introduced himself, Jango ushered his son back inside so he and Wesell could discuss business.^[10]

Fett was routinely trained by his father in the use of bounty hunting equipment, including armor and starship systems, and he was well-versed in fighting stances. Jango taught his son by example, training him to understand the value of training, weapons, and good judgment. Jango also taught Boba self-reliance and confidence in his own skills. He trusted his son to be discrete and allowed him to be present for important meetings.^[6]

Boba would sometimes go into combat with Jango, learning from Jango's actions.^[6] His first mission took place in 23 BBY, when Jango took him on an assignment to Kuat to eliminate a group of anarchists who posed a thread to Kuat's ruling families. Fett was sent into the anarchists' camp ahead of his father; he ran in, pretending to be a stray child, and was taken before their leader Larbo. Fett surprised them by announcing that his father was coming, and with that threw a thermal detonator into their midst. In the confusion, Fett escaped into a tent, and as Jango appeared on the edge of the camp and began shooting, Larbo followed Boba in and held him at gunpoint. When Boba announced that his father was Jango Fett, Larbo became terrified and began pleading with Boba, telling him of his people's plight and begging to be let go. As Jango appeared outside their tent, Larbo took Boba hostage. Boba was able to escape the man's grip, and Jango grabbed him as he threw another thermal detonator into the tent and rocketed away. Later, once again aboard the Slave I, Jango informed his benefactor Count Dooku of his success, emphasizing Boba's skills during the mission. Boba had doubts about the rightness of their mission, but Jango assured him that their loyalty to their client was paramount above all else. Boba realized at that point that he truly wanted to follow in Jango's footsteps.^[11]

Encounter with Kenobi

Ten years after Fett's birth, Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi came to Kamino. Fett immediately knew Kenobi was trouble. After a fight with Kenobi, Jango and Boba fled to Geonosis, where they escaped the Jedi in that world's asteroid ring.^[1]

The Battle of Geonosis

Other Jedi soon came to Geonosis, and Jango Fett was killed by Jedi Master Mace Windu in the petranaki arena. Boba left the planet in Jango's ship Slave I.^[1]

Clone Wars (22 BBY—19 BBY)

Bounty hunter (19 BBY—1 BBY)

Fett, with his father's natural abilities and ship, and the armor of his Jango's mentor Jaster Mereel, was prepared to become the galaxy's greatest bounty hunter.^[1] His history was unknown to the galaxy at large, and rumors sprang up about him. Some said he was a famous warrior who had been thought killed in the Clone Wars, but had instead gone into disguise.^[12]

Life as a hunter

On several of Fett's early missions, he teamed up with D'harhan, a cyborg with a laser cannon in place of a head.^[1]

Fett became aware that there were others with Mandalorian armor in the galaxy. Supercommandos Tobbi Dala and Fenn Shysa remained in the vicinity of the planet Mandalore and did not interfere with Fett's work.^[1]

Fett took on a number of bounties in his rising career. On Rivvidu, he chased down an Iotran female, a hunt made difficult by her powerfully fast speeder. Fett kept the Silver Speeder for himself when he apprehended her.^[13] A contract on the pirate Feldrall Okor netted him a hundred and fifty thousand credits. Another bounty, this one on Nivek'Yppiks, a heretic to the Ffib religious autarchy that ruled his world of Lorahns, earned Fett half a million credits.^[8] Fett tracked down Grubbat Fhilch, wanted for theft from Jabba's podracing books, to his warren, where he was found with his family. Fett took Fhilch back to Jabba, who had him fed to a sarlacc; as Fhilch was thrown in, he swore that he would have vengeance on Fett some day.^[14] The Annoo-dat crime lord Sise Fromm hired Fett to kill a rival of his, Klin Kartoosh; for this Fromm earned the enmity of Jabba the Hutt, whose clan had long been associated with Kartoosh. Fett, however, became indebted to Fromm.^[13]

Life on Concord Dawn

For a time, Fett lived on Concord Dawn under the name of Jaster Mereel, serving as a Journeyman Protector.^[15] In 16 BBY, in an attempt to have a normal life he married Sintas Vel, a Kiffar woman two years older than him. In a Kiffar tradition, Fett gave her a gemstone known as a Heart of Fire from Kiffu, and at their wedding they exchanged Mandalorian marriage vows. However, as his marriage progressed he found himself unsuited to family life.^[4] In 14 ABY, Fett fathered a daughter, Ailyn.^[16]

The Boonta race

In 15 BBY, Sise Fromm's operation was crippled by a pair of speeder racers, Thall Joben and Jord Dusat, their friend Kea Moll, and two droids, C-3PO and R2-D2.^[13] Fromm sought to avenge himself upon them, and he called upon the favor Fett owed him, summoning him to the world Boonta, where Joben and Dusat planned to race in their speeder White Witch in the famed Boonta Speeder Race. Fromm told Fett to bring the racers to him, then tried to ask for further help against other gang leaders, but Fett informed him that Jabba had a bounty on Fromm's head. Fett assured him he would not reveal Fromm's location, but reminded him that this would settle the debt between them. Fromm's son Tig, meanwhile, sought to prove himself to his father by beating Fett in taking out the racers, and he convinced Fromm's bodyguard Vlix Oncard to help him.^[17]

Fett infiltrated his droid BL-17 into the group. Befriending C-3PO to get close to them, BL-17 offered the crew a garage to store the White Witch while they worked on it. As Moll and R2-D2 went to work, BL-17 sabotaged a welding tank, flooding the room with gas, and the doors, trapping them within. R2-D2 saved Moll from asphyxiation by breaking the main door down. With R2-D2 now on watch, BL-17 took the opportunity to convince C-3PO to move the White Witch to another location, a processing plant he claimed to own, for security. C-3PO's signal drew R2-D2, Joben, and Moll to the plant, where Fett lay in wait. At the plant, another droid, Proto One, called out BL-17 on its shady reputation, and BL-17 revealed its true colors and attempted to deactivate C-3PO. R2-D2 arrived in the nick of time, and BL-17 fell under a collapsed pile of junk.^[17]

But Boba Fett had now appeared, and he ambushed the arriving Joben and Moll. Tig Fromm and Oncard meanwhile planted a thermal detonator in the engines of the White Witch, and an unknowing Joben and R2-D2 leapt into the speeder moments later, rushing off to the race that was about to start. Fett followed in the Silver Speeder, and as the two zoomed onto the track, he was registered as a late entry into the race. Fett tried to ram the Witch, and when that failed, he fired a pair of grappling wires onto it to make the speeder crash, which R2-D2 cut. Fett opened fire on the engine that held the thermal detonator, and R2-D2 put out the fire with an adhesive suppressant. Finally, as the race neared its end, Fett activated a magnetic beam that snared the Witch. It also, however, dislodged the detonator, and the weapon in a glob of suppressant hurtled back to adhere to Fett's windshield. The bounty hunter rocketed out of the speeder as it hurtled past the finish line and the detonator exploded. Fett caught up with the Fromms, and for their interference—which had cost him his droid, speeder, and almost his life—he brought them in to Jabba for the bounty.^[17]

Exile

In 13 BBY, Fett killed a superior officer of the Journeyman Protectors, a former friend and mentor^[4] who had disgraced his uniform, a crime for which Fett was imprisoned. The morning of his trial, Fett was visited by the famous Pleader Iving Creel, who was to represent him. Though Creel tried to impress on Fett the seriousness of the crime and the possibility that he could be imprisoned, exiled, or even executed for the murder, Fett was unrepentant. Creel accepted the plea, though he urged the younger man to reconsider. Fett was ultimately exiled from Concord Dawn, and again took up his original name.^[15]

Fett had mentioned to Creel the possibility of joining the Empire as a stormtrooper, and at some point after leaving Concord Dawn he did just that,^[15] serving until he murdered his superior officer.^[18] Not long after leaving them, he took a bounty on a fourteen-year-old boy who had dishonored the daughter of a wealthy businessman. Fett delivered the boy to him to be executed.^[15]

Encounter on Jubilar

A year after his exile, Fett took a job for Jabba that took him to the town of Dying Slowly, on Jubilar. His target, Hallolar Voors, was running his own spice trade in a region where that market was controlled by the Hutts; the man was watching the Regional Sector Number Four's All-Human Free-For-All extravaganza in Dying Slowly's Victory Forum, and so Fett attended the event to keep watch on him. While in the stands, Fett noticed a young man watching him—his name, as he would later learn, Han Solo. Fett watched in excitement as Solo defeated three men much larger than himself, winning the match in what Fett considered one of the bravest things he had seen.^[15]

After the match, Fett met with Voors, pretending to be a buyer of spice. The man and his two bodyguards took Fett to a warehouse on Executioner's Row, where eighteen canisters of spice waited for Fett's perusal. Fett asked to examine the spice to determine its legitimacy, and as he moved to do so he triggered a switch that began releasing a neural toxin into the air around him. Fett then asked Voors whether his conscience was bothered by the trafficking of spice, and as the man answered, the toxin took effect. Voors and the nearest bodyguard collapsed, while Fett shot the other one. He used the pickups in his helmets to get good images of the dead men for Jabba, then set his flamethrower to the spice canisters and left. Before leaving he left contact information and an encryption key with a woman named Incavi Larado.^[15]

The Mingula

At some point after the Empire was declared, Fett was en route to Coruscant with two prisoners, Tsumo and Chung, when he detected a distress signal. He diverted course and found the freighter Mingula, with no life signs detectable aboard and no one responding to his transmissions. Fett realized the ship alone would be worth millions of credits, and decided to attempt a salvage operation.^[19]

Fett needed a prisoner to go ahead of him in case any danger was still present on the ship, and as Tsumo's bounty paid either alive or dead, Fett selected him. Slave I docked with the Mingula's airlock, and Tsumo, Fett's blaster to his back, preceded the bounty hunter into the freighter. Tsumo resented Fett's use of him in this manner, but Fett was unmoved. When they reached the main cargo hold Fett ushered Tsumo into it, then entered himself. Fett noticed a pile of insect wings on the ground, near a rodomium death casket with holes bored through its lid, as if something had burned through it. Fett blasted the casket open and inspected its contents: a corpse bearing an expensive amulet, which a file attached to the casket proclaimed to be Volpau, the third cousin of Emperor Palpatine, dead of "unknown causes".^[19]

Fett took the amulet and the two pressed onto the command deck, where at last they found the crew: four Zylurian bodies, covered in boils, with more insect wings littering the floor. While Tsumo wanted to go back to Slave I, Fett realized that with the crew dead the freighter was his. Upon closer inspection, the crew's boils were moving, as if something had been awakened by the presence of the two beings. Tsumo retrieved a blaster from the crew and attempted to shoot Fett, but the bounty hunter rounded on him and shot him. As Tsumo fell, he landed on one of the crewmembers, causing its boils to burst open and a torrent of winged insects to come pouring out. The quickly burrowed into and killed Tsumo, and as they attempted to do the same to Fett the bounty hunter realized that they were capable of corroding through his armor. He ran from the bridge, covered in a swarm of insects, ordering Slave I to disengage from the airlock as the creatures attempted to burn their way into it.^[19]

His ship safe, Fett turned his attentions to himself and fired his flamethrower directly into his face and body. Protected by his armor, Fett was able to douse the flames on himself as Slave I identified his attackers as Ubuugan fleshborers. Another problem now loomed: the fire Fett had started was spreading, threatening to overheat the freighter's power cells. With no time to reach the airlock, Fett loaded himself into a waste cannister and ordered his ship to stand by to catch it. The freighter ejected the cannister, and moments later exploded. Slave I retrieved Fett. He rushed from the cannister, knowing that the fleshborers who had made their way into the ship would go directly for Chung, still in his cell. He found the Ubuugan, the corpses of fleshborers littering his cell, having been poisoned by the being's natural toxins. Having lost the ship and Tsumo, Fett nonetheless had kept the amulet, which he intended to break up and sell for a goodly sum.^[19]

The hologram

At a point before 2 ABY,^[20] Fett received a hologram from the merchant Pizztov—whom Fett had had previous encounters with—informing Fett that he, Pizztov, had an object of value to the bounty hunter. Fett set off in pursuit of him, killing a few individuals until he eventually reached one of Pizztov's employees, who was reluctant to part with any information on the merchant. Fett dragged him behind his speeder bike until the being capitulated, then parking him in front of the cave of a carnivorous globblin, ordered the alien to speak fast before the globblin reached him. The being gave Fett a hologram that Pizztov had given to him, and Fett in turn left him to take his chances escaping the globblin. The alien was not successful.^[21]

Later, Fett reviewed Pizztov's hologram, which elaborated on his earlier message. Pizztov informed him that the object he possessed would cast light on Fett's past, and therefore he intended to auction it off on the planet Eport. Pizztov ordered Fett to bring 6.3 million credits to the city of Bidamount on Eport and to stop interfering with his own dealings. He gave Fett two days to do so.^[21]

Pizztov had in fact stolen his prize from Sintas Vel, who had also come to Bidamount to take it back. She eliminated Pizztov's guards as the merchant took one of his slave girls hostage; as the last guard came up behind her to finish her off, Fett arrived and shot him. Both parties now trained their guns on Pizztov and his hostage. The merchant tried to make a deal, suggesting he leave with the canister that held his prize in exchange for not killing the girl; as neither Vel nor Fett cared about her life, this did not suit them. Fett wanted the canister destroyed, Vel wanted to get it back. Pizztov pushed the girl into Vel, fired at Fett, and ran, and the two bounty hunters pursued him. Vel reached him first, but as she prepared to open the canister, Fett shot it out of her hand. Pizztov then grabbed one of her blasters, fired a wild shot near Fett, and received a blast in the chest from the bounty hunter in return.^[21]

Fett grabbed the canister and informed Vel that it had been rigged to kill anyone who opened it without Pizztov's eye pattern. He passed it before the dead man's eyes and opened it to reveal its contents—a hologram of himself, Vel, and Ailyn as a baby. Fett closed it and returned it to Vel, telling her not to lose it again. He then took Pizztov's body, hoping he could auction it off, and left Vel behind.^[21] In 2 ABY Vel disappeared, believed dead; Ailyn, 16 by then, blamed her father.^[4]

Solo's bounty

When Han Solo left the service of the Empire in 5 BBY, Wilhuff Tarkin hired Fett to apprehend him, believing that Fett's reputation would make an impression on Imperial troops of the lengths the Empire would go to bring one of their own to justice. Fett met with Tarkin aboard the incomplete Death Star, then set off in pursuit of Solo. After Fett had left, Darth Vader expressed his disagreement with Tarkin, stating that the matter should be handled internally. Tarkin suggested Vader go after Solo himself, and the Sith Lord left, hoping to beat Fett.^[22]

Fett first went to a mining colony in the Hoth system. There he learned that Solo had crashed on the world a month before, then after recovering boarded a transport for Tatooine. After getting the information he needed, Fett burned the colony to the ground. Arriving on Tatooine, Fett was directed to a cantina. After dropping a number of stasis field generators around a back entrance, Fett entered the cantina through the front and spotted Solo. He sat down in an opposite booth and waited. Vader burst into the cantina before long, and Fett rose to his feet firing. Vader deflected the shots back at Fett, who dodged them; as the two confronted each other over who would take Solo, Solo ran for the back exit, only to run into Fett's stasis field and fall over paralyzed. Vader knocked Fett aside and prepared to cleave him with his lightsaber, but Fett drew a lightsaber of his own, retrieved from a Jedi he had killed, and blocked it. Fett dodged and parried Vader as the two moved out through the back exit to where Solo lay. Vader at last pinned Fett up against a wall and disarmed him, sending the lightsaber flying directly into the stasis field generators. Free at last, Solo ran, and with his prey gone Vader let Fett be.^[22]

The hunt for Han Solo

Around 4 BBY, the high priest of Ylesia, Teroenza, hired Fett to capture Solo in revenge for a humiliation that had been inflicted on him. Fett captured Solo on Nar Shaddaa. Lando Calrissian, however, arrived just in time to find Solo under gunpoint. Calrissian was able to free Solo, place Fett under the influence of obedience drugs, and send him away in Slave I. Jabba eventually convinced Fett to drop the Solo bounty, though the bounty hunter retained a hatred for Calrissian.^[1]

Fett later went on a hunt for Bria Tharen, who he eventually tracked to a passenger liner. This hunt, however, was also foiled by Calrissian. Only a large payment convinced Fett to leave without retribution.^[1]

Working with the Empire (1 BBY—4 ABY)

The casket of Abal Karda

In 1 BBY, Vader summoned Fett to his Star Destroyer for an assignment. Colonel Abal Karda of Lightning Battalion had been in charge of a campaign against the Icarii of Vestar until he shot his commanding officer and four bodyguards and deserted; for twelve thousand credits, Fett agreed to track him down. Vader informed him that Karda carried with him a casket, which he told Fett to bring back to him after he killed the deserter. Vader claimed that it held military papers only of interest to the Empire, and ordered Fett not to open it.^[23]

As Fett left the Star Destroyer, Slave I detected that a tracer beacon had been planted. Fett scanned the shipping records of Port-Esta, the city where Karda had last been seen. Of the ships leaving Vestar in the right timeframe, one, the Port-Esta Queen, was the most likely; it was already en route back to Vestar, so Fett set a course for that world. Vader, meanwhile, had his own plans for the bounty hunter. He assigned four assassins—Nevo, Fraal, Gann, and Lumus—to trail Fett using the planted tracking beacon, and once he had retrieved the casket, to kill him and bring it back to Vader.^[23]

Arriving in Port-Esta, Fett found members of Lightning Battalion being assaulted in a cantina by a Wookiee. He knocked the Wookiee unconscious, then sat the men down to hear what they had to say about Karda. They told him of the Icarii Campaign and the Icarii themselves, a species who, even when torn to pieces, could still survive. Karda had captured an Icarii soothsayer named Selestrine, and after wiping out the rest of the Icarii with a bio-agent, had decapitated her. The men knew nothing about the casket that Karda had had, nor did they know what had become of the jewels Selestrine had braided into her hair. When the Wookiee tried to attack Fett again, the bounty hunter shot him and left.^[23]

Fett spoke with the captain of the Port-Esta Queen, who claimed to know nothing of Karda. As Fett walked away, his audio sensors picked up the captain talking with a crew member about Karda; Fett returned and confronted the man. The crewman tried to drop a crate of kneebs on Fett, but the bounty hunter dove out of the way, shot him, and interrogated the captain, who told him that he had let Karda off at Starstation 12. Fett left Vestar, and as he arrived at the station, Slave I detected the assassins' ship following. Fett asked around at the station's trading post, learning that an Icarii braid had recently been sold there by the tattooist Bojam Rees. He went to see Rees, who told him that Karda had come to get tattooed, and showed him the pattern, which Fett recognized as the tribal patterns of the Duhma. Fett left Rees, and the assassins sent Gann to follow him while they interrogated the tattooist themselves. Fett knew he was being followed, though, and as Gann passed by a photo booth Fett dragged him inside. After learning that Vader had hired him to kill Fett, and that he was not alone, Fett killed Gann and left the body for his partners to find.^[23]

A Dhuman had traveled from Starstation 12 on the Orramas, bound for Coruscant, so Fett headed there next. The captain of the Orramas told Fett that Karda had disembarked at Maryx Minor, and at last Fett had the man's location. He set a course for the planet, still being trailed by Vader's assassins. Fett found the being whom Karda had rented a landspeeder from and questioned him, then set off in pursuit of the man. He found the wreckage of Karda's speeder and located the only refuge nearby: the hermitage of the Ancient Order of Pessimists.^[23]

Meanwhile, Vader, no longer confident in the skills of his assassins, head to Maryx Minor himself. He was correct in his assumption, as Fett had finally decided to deal with those following him. When the assassins came upon Fett's abandoned speeder, the bounty hunter ambushed and killed them. He then set off for the hermitage, Vader now close behind. The Pessimists initially denied him entry, claiming that no one fitting Karda's description could be found there. Fett burst through the gate, and Karda began firing on him from the tower where he had been hiding. As Fett launched himself up to the tower, Karda barricaded himself inside. Fett spoke to him through the door, suggesting that he could be persuaded to "forget" he found Karda if he was given some of the Icarii jewels. When Karda refused, Fett threw the door open and fired his grappling hook into Karda's chest, sending the deserter out the window to tumble into a lava pit.^[23]

At last Fett had the casket, and he opened it to find what he had expected: the decapitated, yet still surviving head of Selestrine, the Icarii soothsayer. As Fett pondered what her precognitive abilities could bring him, Vader arrived at the hermitage. Vader called to Fett to bring him the head, but the bounty hunter fired at him. Vader deflected the blasts. Fett then dropped a grenade down on Vader, buying him time as he escaped out the window. Vader, however, drew his lightsaber and cut Fett's speeder in two, preventing a quick escape by the bounty hunter. Fett launched a good deal of his arsenal at Vader, who easily deflected it all. Vader then began to attack Fett with his lightsaber, driving him back to the edge of the lava pit. He attempted to control Fett's mind to force him to give up the casket, but as Fett resisted the cliff gave way beneath him, sending him tumbling off. Vader rushed forward to save the casket, but it was a trick by Fett; the bounty hunter activated his jetpack, shot Vader in the face, and flew back onto the cliff. As he gloated over his seeming victory, Vader called upon the Force to strip Fett of his weapons, then began to crush him. In a last-ditch maneuver, Fett kicked out at the casket, sending it off into the cliff down towards the lava. Vader released the bounty hunter and raced forward to catch it with the Force. With Vader distracted, Fett had an opportunity to shoot the Dark Lord, but instead ran. Fett took Vader's landspeeder and fled the hermitage, escaped to Slave I, and left the planet, expecting Vader's anger at him to abate in time, and comforting himself with the fact that he had obtained some of Selestrine's jewels in compensation.^[23]

The High Priest

In the weeks before the Battle of Yavin, Fett took on a bounty for Teroenza, the Ylesian High Priest he had worked for before. Fett killed the priest in his sanctuary on Ylesia moments before the man was to kill Han Solo and Bria Tharen. Fett, however, pointed out that the rescue meant nothing and was only business.^[1]

The Yavin Vassilika

Shortly after the events on Ylesia, Fett was hired by Jabba to protect Han Solo in his search for the treasure known as the Yavin Vassilika. As part of a competition between Jabba and two other Hutts, Embra and Malta, to find the Vassilika, each Hutt hired three contractors to search for the Vassilika on their behalf. Jabba's were Solo, Fett, and Lando Calrissian; Malta's Dengar, IG-88, and Bossk; and Embra's Zuckuss, 4-LOM, and Sardu Sallowe. All, however, were unaware of Fett's role in the competition. Illyan Webble, the last known person to have seen the Vassilika, had last been spotted in Crevasse City on Kalkovak, and it was there that all hunters first traveled to. Calrissian spotted Fett as the bounty hunter landed, but ducked into hiding, and Fett moved on.^[24]

Solo, his partner Chewbacca, and Greedo, who had tagged along with the others, ran into Malta's hunters, and the two groups exchanged a heated firefight in the streets of Crevasse City. When Fett suddenly appeared, Solo assumed he was Fett's target, as did Malta's group, who began firing on Fett as Dengar wanted to kill Solo himself. A missile from IG-88 blew a pile of rubble onto Fett, creating a distraction that allowed Solo's group to escape. Solo, Chewbacca, and Greedo joined up with Calrissian and free agent Jozzel Moffet, also looking for the Vassilika, and they escaped in Solo's Millennium Falcon. Fett followed in Slave I and figured from their trajectory that they were going to Mon Calamari.^[24]

All twelve individuals reached Mon Calamari, where they landed at one of that world's above-water cities, without incident. One of Sallowe's Jawa agents attempted to spy on Fett, but the bounty hunter spotted and grabbed him, surreptitiously planting a tracking device on the Jawa. Sallowe's Jawas later spotted Solo's party heading off in a boat to the Knowledge Bank, and when they reported this back to Sallowe, Fett overheard and set off in that direction himself. A charge planted on Solo's boat by Sallowe's Jawa disabled the vehicle, and allowed Dengar, Bossk, and IG-88 to catch them. Fett, however, rocketed out of the water and exchanged fire with them. In the distraction, Solo's group commandeered Dengar's vessel. Moffet, believing Fett to be a threat to them, shot the bounty hunter, sending him plummeting back into the sea. They left, and soon after Fett boarded his own speeder and headed back to the port.^[24]

With the knowledge gained from the Knowledge Bank, all parties now set their sights on the unknown world in Wild Space where the Yavin Vassilika resided, Fett using the tracking beacon on the Jawa to follow them. When 4-LOM was captured by the native Barundi attempting to steal the Vassilika, Zuckuss and Sallowe returned to the ships, where they were ambushed by Fett. Fett used a spray canister to non-lethally subdue Sallowe and his Jawas, then demanded that Zuckuss help him get to Solo. Solo, Calrissian, Chewbacca, and Greedo had been captured alongside 4-LOM, but Fett used a large sword to cut into the hut where they were being held. Though Solo initially believed that Fett had come to kill him, Fett said that Jabba had hired him to protect the smuggler, and cut the prisoners' bonds loose. Fett told them to wait for a diversion, which happened momentarily as Moffet, Dengar, IG-88, and Bossk stumbled back into the village followed by a pair of voracious wild animals. With the Barundi distracted, Calrissian grabbed the Vassilika, only for one of Sallowe's Jawas to grab it from him, only for Moffet to grab it herself. Fett fired a rocket at her, sending it flying from her hands, but in the chaos that followed she was able to recover it and ran. Meanwhile, Fett, Zuckuss, and Sallowe found themselves in a standoff with Dengar, IG-88, and Bossk, which was only broken when all parties involved realized that the Vassilika was gone. According to one of Sallowe's Jawas, Moffet had said she was going to Yavin 4, and so everyone set off on the final leg of the trip.^[24]

On Yavin 4, another standoff ensued as all parties closed in on Moffet and her contact, five members of the Rebel Alliance, as she was taking payment from them for delivery of the Vassilika. Fett managed to get the drop on Dengar and Bossk from behind, though, and when IG-88 learned that Zuckuss had placed a bounty on them, another firefight ensued. Fett ordered Solo and Calrissian back to the ship while he dealt with the situation, but Calrissian pursued the Rebel Alliance members, who had escaped in the chaos. He intended to get back the money that one of them, Bria Tharen, had taken in an earlier dealing—money that would have gone to Jabba otherwise, and some of which had been used to pay off Moffet. Fett informed them that he could only protect them so long as they were after the Vassilika, and when Solo said that he was free once they caught up with the Rebels, Fett fired a rocket at the retreating group, bringing them to a halt. Fett left them to deal with their business.^[24]

Farquil Ban'n, an employee of Embra, ultimately absconded with the Rebels' payment to Moffett. Not long after, Fett tracked her down and cornered her, telling her that the money belonged to Jabba.^[24]

Encounter on Dargulli

Shortly before the Battle of Yavin, Fett visited the world of Dargulli. In one of the local cantinas, Fett joined a card game with other bounty hunters, joining a discussion on whether they would take a bounty for the Rebellion. They were interrupted when a man burst in, shouting that Darth Vader was on Dargulli alone, and several other freelancers were trying to kill him. Fett joined the crowd rushing out of the cantina.^[25]

As Fett arrived, he drew on the Dark Lord, but when he saw Vader slice down several other hunters with his lightsaber, he changed sides. A man near Fett had a bead on Vader, and Fett turned and shot him, then joined Vader at his side, shooting down the other assailants. The two of them eliminated the group, only to be joined by another party: a young woman with a lightsaber who wanted to join the Sith, and was in fact the reason Vader had come to Dargulli. Fett kept his gun trained on her as Vader spoke with her. When she was done making her offer to be Vader's apprentice, Fett suggested they leave before more arrived to take down Vader. Vader agreed and killed the woman. Fett reminded Vader that he had covered his back, Vader suggested that he had simply read the odds correctly, and the two parted ways.^[25]

In Jabba's employ

After the search for the Vassilika, Fett remained working for Jabba.^[1] He was present when Jabba declared an open bounty on Han Solo, but did not attempt to take it.^[26] When Jabba visited Docking Bay 94 in Mos Eisley, Fett and several other bounty hunters went with him. They provided a silent threat as the crimelord threatened Solo and his partner Chewbacca. Jabba soon posted a large bounty on Solo, but Fett had other business to worry about.^[1] As Jabba's bounty grew, however, Fett's interest was drawn to it.^[12]

Intent on capturing Solo, Jabba kept Fett employed to bring him in, requiring him to also keep an eye on other bounty hunters like Bossk.^[12] At some point over the next three years Fett got an opportunity to take Solo—a deadly combat tournament organized by the Emperor's Hand Arden Lyn. Though Fett participated in it, he was unable to catch Solo at the time.^[27]

Bounty on Solem

Days after encountering Solo on Tatooine, Fett was hired by Governor Malvander of Solem to hunt down the leader of the local resistance, Malvander's brother Yolan Bren. Fett showed a hologram of Bren around Solem until he encountered a wounded soldier who knew the resistance leader. The soldier initially refused to tell Fett anything, but after Fett stomped down on the stump of his leg he relented, telling the bounty hunter that Bren had been held in a nearby schoolhouse but had already been taken away. In the schoolhouse, Fett found a paper with an encrypted message, which he sent to his ship's computer. As Fett returned to his speeder bike, the injured soldier attempted to shoot him, but Fett disarmed and killed the man.^[28]

Not long after, Fett's ship replied to him with the translation of the paper. One of the names on it pointed him to Rabutz, a shoemaker in the city of G'ai Solem. When Fett began showing Bren's hologram around, a resistance member made contact with Rabutz to warn him. Fett, who had been watching Rabutz's shop, trailed the man as he went to Bren's hiding place to warn him. Fett burst through the doors and began taking down the resistance members as others herded Bren through the back tunnels, away from him. Those who had stayed then fired on the supports above Fett's head, and the roof collapsed on him. With this moment's pause, they followed Bren and the others out. Fett escaped the rubble, then followed the rebels, who had already fled on speeder bikes. Fett's own bike was equipped with rockets, however, with which he shot down the escaping rebels. Rather than allow the fighting to continue and more of his men to die, Bren turned himself over to Fett.^[28]

As the remaining resistance members began storming Malvander's keep, Fett took Bren to the governor. Malvander did not have enough to pay Fett, though; he gave him a fraction of the agreed price and promised to pay him the rest later. Fett refused to leave. Malvander prepared to have his guards shoot the bounty hunter, but Fett disarmed them all with shots from his own blaster. The bounty hunter then took his own payment, pulling off the governor's valuable neckpiece. At that moment, the resistance charged into Malvander's room. Malvander asked Fett to kill them, but Fett simply turned and left. Bren let him pass, knowing that as he had been paid, he was not their enemy anymore. Fett left Malvander in the hands of the resistance and left Solem behind in the Slave I.^[28]

The Bounty Hunters' Guild plot

Months after the Battle of Yavin, Fett took a job for Kud'ar Mub'at, a middleman, to join the Bounty Hunters' Guild and destroy it from the inside. When Guild members Zuckuss and Bossk went after Nil Posondum, Fett outwitted and embarrassed the two, then said he wished to join the Guild. Bossk was hostile to Fett, but Guild leader Cradossk accepted him.^[1]

Fett, Zuckuss, Bossk, Cradossk, and IG-88 launched a mission against the Shell Hutts of Circumtore, during which Fett's former companion D'harhan and Cradossk were killed. With Cradossk's death, the guild divided along age lines and began warring amongst itself. Zuckuss and Bossk teamed up with Fett shortly thereafter to capture Imperial defector Trhin Voss'on't, but Fett again outsmarted them to take the bounty.^[1]

Fett later learned that the plan to destroy the Guild had been masterminded by Prince Xizor of Black Sun, with the backing of Emperor Palpatine.^[1]

The holocron of Bail Organa

Immediately after the evacuation of Yavin Base by the Rebellion, the Rebels learned of the existence of a data holocron once owned by Bail Organa that held a number of locations suitable for a new base. Encased in the durable compound phrik, it had survived the destruction of Alderaan, or so the Rebellion believed. A Rebel task force went to the Graveyard, the remains of Alderaan, to locate it.^[29]

The Empire and Fett had learned of it too, though. Imperial forces attacked the Rebels as they arrived in-system, and shortly after the Rebels located the holocron, Fett appeared in Slave I, demanding it. Han Solo and Renegade Squadron attacked the bounty hunter, and after a skirmish against them Fett was forced to retreat.^[29]

The Arrandas

Six months after Yavin, Fett killed Cornelius Evazan on Necropolis, where the doctor had been experimenting in reanimating the dead. On that world he encountered the siblings Zak and Tash Arranda, and their Shi'ido guardian.^[1]

Only months later, he was sent after the trio by Darth Vader. Fett followed them as far as Dagobah, but upon encountering a group of shipwrecked cannibals, he was forced to leave without his bounty.^[1]

The Anya Karu

Seven months after Yavin, Fett took a mission for Imperial Captain Aron Harcourt. The Anya Karu, Harcourt's old command, had been destroyed by Rebel saboteurs, and was now scheduled for destruction by the Star Destroyer Adjudicator. Harcourt wanted something retrieved from the wreckage of the ship: a hologram of his late wife Janelle. He hired Fett to bring it to him.^[30]

Fett, in the Slave I, destroyed the TIE fighters guarding the Anya Karu as they awaited the Adjudicator, then landed and made his way into the ship, with thirty minutes left before the Star Destroyer arrived. He passed through the ruined halls of the ship, still filled with corpses, and was attacked by a herd of mynocks. After fighting them off, Fett broke his way through a door, only to run into a hunter trainer droid, one of Harcourt's former bodyguards. Fett destroyed it, though no before taking several hits from the droid. He eventually reached where the hologram was being stored and retrieved it with five minutes to spare. Fett rushed out of the Anya Karu as the Adjudicator arrived and settled into position over the vessel, and took off in the Slave I as the ruined ship exploded under the Adjudicator's bombardment.^[30]

Fett returned to Coruscant to give Harcourt the hologram and collect his payment. Harcourt was relieved to see his late wife, but informed Fett that he had no money and was unable to pay him. He offered to keep silent about the matter if Fett let him go without paying, but did not expect the bounty hunter to take him up on his offer; he was correct. As Harcourt continued to watch the hologram of his wife, Fett shot him in the back of the head.^[30]

Mission to Troska

Two months later, Fett was hired by Imperial Lieutenant Manech on Troska to aid in a plan that would bring the world under control of the Empire and remove the garrison leader Commander Buzk from his position. The Empire worked with the Kyber Royal Family to refine fuel, but the Kybers often found themselves at odds with the Empire, resulting in a series of deadlocks and embargoes. During one of these incidents, Manech took one of his fellow Imperials, Kelmont into the woods outside the Imperial outpost to meet with Fett. There, over Kelmont's protests, Manech told Fett that the Kybers needed to be taught not to resist the Empire and paid him, and with that Fett rode off on his speeder bike.^[31]

Though Manech expected Fett to deal with the situation relatively bloodlessly, Fett was much less subtle. He leveled the refinery that the most recent incident had centered on, then executed Torino Kyber, son of the king, leaving a message behind that he was acting on behalf of Buzk. After reporting back to Manech, Fett made his way to the Palace to kill King Natas. Kelmont, fearing the consequences of that assassination, reported on Manech's doings to Buzk, who promptly mobilized his forces to stop Fett before he reached the Palace. They did not; Fett stormed the Palace and killed Natas' guards. Before Fett could kill him, the King made him an offer: since the Empire would kill both of them to spare itself the incrimination, he would pay double the Imperials' offer to deal with the forces on their way. Fett agreed and left.^[31]

Natas turned the palace defense on the Imperials, not caring if Fett were caught in the crossfire. Fett found Manech in the wreckage of the Imperial forces, and as they talked Kelmont realized this had all been part of Manech and Fett's plan. Reinforcements from the Empire arrived shortly thereafter to destroy the Palace, take Buzk into custody for his extortion of the locals, and promote Manech, who would now have full control of the sector after the planet was conquered. Before Fett left, Manech made an offer to him to stay and help the Empire tame the world, but Fett informed him that he couldn't afford the bounty hunter's services. He then asked Manech why the Imperial hadn't left the operation as it was, taken it over, and become wealthy. Manech said he wanted power, but Fett informed him that people like himself removed those in power in service of those with wealth. On that note, he left.^[31]

The Panna encounter

During this year, Fett joined with Vader in a plot to locate one of the Rebellion's hidden bases. The mission took him to a mud-covered moon in the Panna system, where he acquired a Paar's ichthyodont to serve as transportation. The Rebellion, meanwhile, had acquired a special talisman, which, unbeknownst to them, was infected with an Imperial sleeping virus that affected Humans. The Millennium Falcon, carrying Chewbacca and Han Solo, was transporting the talisman when Solo was infected. The Falcon landed on the moon, and Luke Skywalker, along with the droids R2-D2 and C-3PO, followed in a Y-wing starfighter.^[32]

When Skywalker landed his Y-wing in the muddy ocean of the moon to search for the Falcon, a massive native creature surfaced and began eating away at it. Fett arrived on his ichthyodont and saved Skywalker and the droids by hitting the creature with an Amban phase-pulse blaster, driving it away. Fett introduced himself to Skywalker and offered to help him, claiming that he had no love for the Empire. Fett stated that he had seen the Falcon land not far off and would lead them to it.^[32]

They reached the ship and boarded it. Chewbacca, upon seeing Skywalker, immediately dropped the talisman into a chute, but it was too late; Skywalker collapsed unconscious. Fett appeared behind him, and over the protests of C-3PO, fired a cable to ensnare the Wookiee. He released it, though, when C-3PO informed him that Chewbacca had not been responsible for Skywalker's collapse, but rather, that it had been the fault of the sleeping virus. Fett told them that he knew of the virus, and that an antidote could be found in the city. Fett wanted to go alone, but Chewbacca, who did not like the way Fett smelled, insisted that he come too.^[32]

The pair arrived at the base of the city on Fett's ichythyodont, then scaled its cliffs, entering through a sewage pipe. Telling Chewbacca to wait, Fett left the Wookiee behind and soon obtained the serum. He then located a communications terminal and made contact with Darth Vader, informing him that everything was going according to plan. Vader told him that having gained the Rebels' trust, he might soon be taken to their base. Unfortunately for Fett, R2-D2, attempting to locate Chewbacca and Fett through the computer, happened upon his conversation with Vader.^[32]

Fett at last returned to Chewbacca with the serum, and the two made their escape from the city. They were pursued by an Imperial Speeder full of stormtroopers. Fett fired several wide shots around them, but Chewbacca pulled the gun from his hand and blew the speeder apart. At last they returned to the ship and administered the serum to Skywalker and Solo. Solo did not recognize Fett, and when Skywalker invited him back to the Rebel base, R2-D2 became alarmed. As C-3PO explained what they had discovered, Fett inched his way over to the dorsal hatch, opened it, and launched himself away.^[32]

Mission to Ota

When Vader placed a bounty to capture Mole, a traitor to the Empire, alive, Fett determined to collect on it. Fett tracked Mole to the planet of Ota. When he flew down to the planet in a TIE fighter, however, he was attacked by Luke Skywalker, who disabled Fett's craft with his own X-wing. Fett, attempting to lose Skywalker, dove towards Ota's polar ice cap and flew into its narrow canyons. However, he collided with an overhang, unleashing an avalanche of snow and ice that crashed both starfighters. Fett escaped his own fighter, and as Skywalker approached it, he leaped out and began firing. Skywalker, who did not recognize him, shot back. The two were soon interrupted by the arrival of the native Snogars, who quickly captured the two men with electro stun nets.^[33]

The Snogars took the pair to their ice city, where they told Fett and Skywalker why they had been abducted. The Snogars kept themselves warm using a system of machines that had been built in ancient times. No Snogar knew how to work it anymore, though, and with the machinery failing, they needed to capture off-worlders who knew how to fix it. Fett immediately spotted the problem—an overloaded circuit breaker that had been triggered by a fault within the power generator—and realized how he could make an escape, while Skywalker convinced the Snogars to untie their hands. When Fett started the generator up again, it began screeching loudly; with that distraction, the two men bolted for the city entrance, where they absconded with a pair of power-sliders to make their escape.^[33]

They soon spotted Han Solo, who had come to rescue Skywalker, being ambushed by more Snogars. Fett realized he could cash in on Solo's bounty as well. He pretended to side with Skywalker to rescue Solo, claiming that he only wanted a way off the planet. Solo was taken to the ice city, and Fett and Skywalker followed him. While Han was being ordered to fix the power systems, Fett told Skywalker to stay put and watch his back as he brought Solo out. As Skywalker called out a warning, a group of Snogars jumped Fett, who used his flamethrower to take them down. Fett revealed his identity during the fighting, and Skywalker realized he was going after Solo. Fett beat Skywalker to Solo, though, and prepared to take the smuggler into custody. Solo, however, picked up a Snogar and threw him into Fett, knocking the bounty hunter to the ground. Fett prepared to fire his flamethrower, but at that moment Skywalker swung in on a cable and knocked Fett off balance. Solo then grabbed him and held him fast.^[33]

Skywalker and Solo intended to give Fett over to the mob of angry Snogars, who wanted revenge for those of their people who had been killed during the fighting. Fett, however, let loose a jet of liquid at Skywalker from a cannon on his knee and, in the confusion, broke free from Solo's clutches. He then cut a deal with the two Rebels; he would hold the mob at bay with his arsenal for all three of them while he searched for his target, Mole. The Snogars were no longer perturbed by his flamethrower, though, so Fett turned his weapons on something they did care about: the city's power systems. With the source of their heat and light destroyed, the Snogars turned and fled the city. Solo, however, spotted a part of the city still under power, and Fett realized that Mole would be hiding there. He blew open a locked door and ushered Solo and Skywalker in, where they encountered Mole and Chewbacca, whom Mole had found unconscious in Ota's barren snows. Fett placed all four others—Mole, Chewbacca, Skywalker, and Solo—under gunpoint and herded them out of the city, intending to take the Millennium Falcon offplanet and turn Mole and Solo over to Vader and Jabba, respectively. Mole managed to surreptitiously activate a console, releasing a cloud of gas that knocked the other four briefly unconscious. Fett recovered and attempted to capture Mole again, but Solo and Skywalker had also regained consciousness and began fighting him. Mole then activated the magnets used by the city's power system, pinning Fett against the wall. Fett ineffectually threatened the group of Rebels, but was unable to free himself from the magnets before they left.^[33]

Hunt for Katarn

When Rebel agent Kyle Katarn began his campaign against General Rom Mohc and his Dark Trooper Project, Mohc hired Fett to protect the project by killing Katarn. While Katarn was on Coruscant searching for the location of Mohc's Arc Hammer, Fett caught up with him. Katarn's partner Jan Ors spotted Fett while waiting in the Moldy Crow for Katarn to return, but she was driven away by Imperial forces. When Katarn returned to the landing pad, Fett attacked, but Katarn defeated him and escaped.^[34]

The Vryssa garrison

After failing to kill Katarn, Fett determined to reclaim his reputation. On Vryssa, he eliminated an entire Imperial garrison with no backup to claim a bounty hiding within it. This was considered to be Fett's most incredible feat.^[1]

The hunter of Tansarii Station

Around one and a half years after the Battle of Yavin, Fett was present on the Tansarii Point Station orbiting Ord Mantell, where he was attempting to track down several bounties. There he was contacted by an aspiring bounty hunter, looking for work, who had been sent by Inaldra's lieutenant. Rather than turn away this otherwise unheard-of hunter, Fett tasked them with tracking down the bounties he had come to the station for. The first target on this list was a Devaronian by the name of Fidaval, but Fett, not knowing where Fidaval was located, instead sent the hunter to speak with Fidaval's brother Ratheb. After the hunter killed both Fidaval and his bodyguard, who had been in the atrium of the station, Fett rewarded them with 500 credits and complimented them on doing better than he had expected. The next job saw the aspiring hunter fetch a datapad from Arslynd. Arslynd, however, was reluctant to give up the datapad and so was killed by the new hunter, who once again returned to Fett and was awarded with a further 500 credits, along with a ring and a standard issue bounty hunter uniform package. Not long after, the hunter-in-training wished to leave the station and was once again sent to Fett by Inaldra's lieutenant. During the interim period, Fett had discovered that a shipment he was looking for had been sent to Mos Eisley on Tatooine and so offered to take his charge there free of charge, despite the fact that he had another mark on the station. The hunter gladly accepted the lift, though Fett informed them that it would be a one-way trip, before being left on Tatooine as Fett returned to Tansarii to find his mark. Fett later contacted the hunter to point them to other jobs, putting them in touch with individuals like Faeto and Nalskel.^[35]

Soon afterward, Fett traveled to Jabba's Palace, where he was spotted by a spacer who approached him looking for work. Fett hesitated at first, but eventually informed the spacer of a bounty on the head of a Sanyassan named Uff Wogo; Fett told the spacer that they should go to Restuss on the world Rori to find out more information. After learning that Wogo was already dead, the spacer returned to Fett, who rewarded them with 30,000 credits and let them keep Wogo's Alliance Needler, which they had obtained. Seeking more jobs from Fett, the spacer started asking questions about Durge, a bounty hunter they had encountered in the mission to capture Wogo, but Fett told them to head to The Warren on Dantooine and gave them instructions on what information they needed to gather. After acquiring it, the spacer returned to Fett, who rewarded them with their choice between a DC15 rifle and a DC15 carbine, then informed them to rest well for the next assignment. Fett sent them next to a hotel in Dearic on Talus to track down Durge. After catching up with the other bounty hunter, the spacer killed Durge and returned to Fett, who rewarded them with a KYD21 pistol. Fett also informed them of a Death Watch Bunker on the forest moon of Endor, letting them know that Jabba wanted this splinter group dealt with before they could cut into his business, as they were already known to be making deals with Black Sun. When the spacer asked if he would be rewarded for heading there, Fett informed them that the experience would be reward enough.^[35]

The capture of Ackbar

Fett later decided to take on the Empire's bounty on captured Rebels. When Commander Ackbar of the Rebellion took a team to Saleucami to investigate it as a possible Rebel base site, Fett intercepted him. After attacking and boarding the ship, Fett turned Ackbar over to the Empire, but took the crew and droids for himself. The bounty hunter took them to the Hutt slaver markets on Tatooine to sell, the crew as slaves and the droids as scrap. The Rebels soon came and rescued their people, but Fett was prepared for this. He had secreted a tracking device inside one of the R2 units, and as the Rebels took the people and droids off Tatooine, Fett followed them back to their new base on Boz Pity. He reported their location to the Empire, who within hours launched an attack on the world.^[29]

Encounter on Ord Mantell

Shortly before the Battle of Hoth, Fett and several other hunters caught Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, and imprisoned them on Ord Mantell. Fett attempted to get two bounties from the capture, one from Jabba and one from Vader, but his quarry escaped.^[1]

The capture of Captain Solo

In the days before the Battle of Hoth, Fett received a message from the Empire that an assault on a Rebel base was imminent, and a fifteen thousand credit bounty would be given to any hunter who caught Rebels fleeing in the aftermath. Fett was given a location in interstellar space to rendezvous, but realizing that Hoth was the only world in the area suitable for their base, took Slave I to the Hoth system and waited high above its ecliptic. Fett knew that where the Rebels were, Han Solo could be found, and he still sought to collect Jabba's hefty bounty.^[15]

Fett set his ship's computer to warn him if it detected the Millennium Falcon and fell asleep, only to wake up to alarms signaling the arrival of Darth Vader's Death Squadron. Fett watched the ensuing battle and Rebel evacuation from his vantage point, until at least he detected the Falcon leaving. Fett immediately gave chase, plotting an intercept course along the Falcon's flight vector. He was surprised when the ship did not leap into hyperspace, and when it dove into the Hoth asteroid belt, he chose to give up the pursuit rather than risk being killed. He hailed Vader's Super Star Destroyer Executor and set a course for the vessel.^[15]

Fett met with Vader on the bridge of the Executor, who asked how he had known the location of the base. Fett explained, then waited for the rest of the bounty hunters to arrive. Vader reminded him that there would be "no disintegrations", a warning he had given every time he hired Fett after an incident early on.^[15] Once the other bounty hunters—Bossk, Zuckuss, 4-LOM, Dengar, and IG-88B—arrived, they and Fett received their briefing from Vader on the bridge; Admiral Firmus Piett found himself filled with revulsion at Fett, even questioning whether "scum" like him were needed.^[36] In his briefing, Vader promised a reward for finding the Millennium Falcon and capturing its crew—Han Solo, Leia Organa, Chewbacca, and C-3PO—alive, warning Fett again that there would be "no disintegrations". Only moments later, Piett reported to Vader that the Star Destroyer Avenger had located the Falcon.^[5] The Dark Lord guaranteed Fett that once the bounty hunter captured Solo, Fett could take him to Jabba.^[12]

After the briefing, Fett and the other hunters were separated and escorted back to their ships; Fett's escort made conversation with him about Vader, the Rebels, and Fett's encounter with Solo on Jubilar years earlier.^[15] The Falcon meanwhile escaped the Avenger by hiding on the back of its command tower; Solo intended to detach when the Star Destroyer released its garbage before leaping to hyperspace.^[5] Fett had experienced the same trick once before, though, and waited in Slave I for them; as the Falcon broke from the cloud of Imperial garbage and headed towards Bespin, he left his own hiding spot within it and followed.^[15] Once he realized that Bespin was the only place they could go with a damaged hyperdrive, Fett informed Vader, and he and the Executor jumped to the Bespin system.^[12] Fett suggested to Vader that they use the friendship of Solo and Lando Calrissian, now Baron-Administrator of Cloud City, to capture Solo, and Vader added the touch of forcing Calrissian to betray his friend. Vader and Fett met Calrissian upon their arrival. At Calrissian's request, Vader took his leave of Fett, and the Dark Lord pressured Calrissian into a deal to turn over Solo in exchange for protection.^[12] Meanwhile, the droid IG-88B had used a tracking device to follow Fett to Cloud City. Fett ambushed IG-88 in one of the city's lower smelting chambers, shooting and paralyzing him with a heavy ion cannon, then blasting him apart with grenades. Fett left the scraps of the droid for the Ugnaughts.^[1]

Fett was with Vader in Cloud City when the Falcon arrived. He suggested to the Dark Lord that the bait of Solo and his friends would draw Skywalker out faster if word was leaked, but Vader informed him that Skywalker already knew. The two were interrupted by one of Vader's officers bringing him the broken body of C-3PO, accidentally shot by a stormtrooper. Vader dismissed the man and ordered the droid melted down, then headed off with Fett to discuss the ensuing meeting with Calrissian. The next day,^[37] Fett accompanied Vader as the Dark Lord arrested Solo and his friends, and stayed for the meal that followed. As Vader later tortured Solo, Fett waited outside listening to the smuggler's screams. When he had finished, Vader told Fett that he could take Solo to Jabba once the Dark Lord had Luke Skywalker, placating the bounty hunter's concern that Solo might be killed. Vader intended to carbon freeze Solo to test whether the process would be safe enough to imprison Skywalker with, and Fett led the prisoners to Cloud City's carbon-freezing chamber. Vader assured Fett that the Empire would compensate him if Solo died, and with that Vader ordered the smuggler to be placed into the freezing apparatus. Chewbacca burst into a rage and began attacking the stormtroopers around him; Fett drew his blaster on the Wookiee, but Vader forced the gun down. After Chewbacca was subdued, Solo was placed into the chamber, which encased him in a block of carbonite. Calrissian checked to see that he had survived the freezing process, and upon being assured that he had, Vader turned Solo over to Fett, who nodded appreciatively.^[5]

Fett led Solo to the East Platform, where Slave I waited, accompanied by a pair of members of the Bespin Wing Guard and two stormtroopers. Luke Skywalker, arriving at Cloud City himself, spotted the bounty hunter and hid as Fett passed. After Fett and his entourage had seemingly left, R2-D2 began making noise. When Skywalker stuck his head out of the hallway, Fett shot at him until he ducked back, then ran. At last reaching Slave I, Fett had Solo loaded into the vessel's cargo hold.^[5]

Calrissian meanwhile freed Solo's friends and alerted them to where Fett was docked. The party rushed to the East Platform, only to arrive as Fett was taking off.^[5] As he left Bespin, Fett felt something of a fondness for Solo, or at least for the bounties he had and would receive on him. He fell asleep en route to Tatooine, musing on his upcoming payment.^[8]

Escaping with Solo

IG-88C and IG-88D, each in their own copy of the starship IG-2000, hurried to Cloud City, only to find Fett had left. They decided to set their own ambush for him.^[1]

Fett awoke before arriving at Tatooine^[8] and began speaking with Solo about the impending bounty. As Slave I dropped out of hyperspace into the Tatooine system, he was interrupted by a security alert from the ship, informing him that a homing beacon had just activated in the lower hold. Fett realized that it had been planted while he was on Cloud City, and with little time to spare, neutralized the entire hold with a burst from his flamethrower. The beacon stopped transmitting, and Fett hastened to the cockpit while ordering the ship to extinguish the flaming hold.^[38]

The bounty hunter immediately demanded a trajectory back into hyperspace from his ship's computer, then scanned for, and finally detected his enemy—the IG-2000, coming over the horizon in front of him. He opened fire and the ship was destroyed in moments, but realizing that the victory had been too easy, Fett knew that it had been a decoy. At that moment, the second IG-2000 dropped out of hyperspace behind him and, trapping him between itself and the planet, opened fire, damaging Slave I. Fett dove for Tatooine's atmosphere as IG-88 ordered a surrender from him; however, Fett realized that if the droid destroyed his ship, it would lose Solo too. As the IG-2000 closed behind him, Fett engaged the inertial damper and decelerated hard, bringing the droid's vessel into his sights. He fired his ion cannon to take out the IG-2000's deflectors, locked the ship into place with his tractor beam, then fired a missile directly at the IG-2000 and ended its existence.^[8][38]

With Slave I heavily damaged and many systems in need of repair, Fett knew he would be vulnerable to any other bounty hunters if he attempted to land at Tatooine. He determined instead to head to the Imperial enclave at Gall, where he could make the necessary repairs.^[38]

The search for Fett

The Rebellion, particularly Solo's friends, determined to track down Fett and retrieve Solo. Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker, Lando Calrissian, and Chewbacca, with the permission of Admiral Ackbar and Mon Mothma, formed a small group and took their leave of the Rebel fleet.^[39]

Word of Fett's battle with IG-88 escaped and eventually reached the Rebellion, who realized that Gall would be the closest safe place for him to go to.^[38] Months after the events on Cloud City, contacts of Calrissian—including Dash Rendar—confirmed that Fett was on Gall. Prince Xizor, who believed that Fett was the perfect bait to capture Luke Skywalker, meanwhile began his own search for the bounty hunter, advising anyone seeking to claim the bounty on Skywalker to find Fett first.^[40] Not long after, sightings of Fett's ship on Gall reached Xizor as well.^[38]

Battle with the bounty hunters

While Fett was on Gall, several bounty hunters, including Zuckuss and Bossk, contacted him. He met them in a cantina, where they made an offer—they and Fett would all work together to get Solo to Jabba, and in return split the bounty. It was a subterfuge, though; as Zuckuss and Bossk spoke to Fett, another bounty hunter in the cantina took aim at him with a blaster, while others including 4-LOM infiltrated Slave I at the spaceport to take Solo. Fett, alert to the danger, suddenly shot the man targeting him; upon picking up the alert from his security systems, he overturned Zuckuss and Bossk's table and raced from the bar towards his ship. At that moment, the Rebellion, intent on taking back Solo from Fett, began their attack on the Imperial forces around the planet while the Millennium Falcon and Outrider approached the spaceport where Slave I was berthed.^[38]

Fett arrived back at his ship in time to catch the intruders in the act, whereupon he killed the organics and disabled 4-LOM. His ship then picked up the approaching Rebel vessels, and so Fett cursed Solo and prepared to leave. By the time he lifted off, the Falcon was too damaged to follow and the Outrider had left, and so Fett escaped Gall without pursuit. With both the Rebellion and his fellow bounty hunters after him, Fett was forced to hide out in an asteroid field. 4-LOM, however, had managed to reactivate and repair himself, and triggered a beacon that Bossk and his peers on the Hound's Tooth soon detected. Fett's own ship detected it, interrupting his rant at Solo for the bad luck that had befallen him, and the bounty hunter headed down to the mid-level hold to find the now-active 4-LOM. He shot the droid repeatedly, blowing off its arm and driving it into the lower levels of the ship. Before Fett could finish it off, though, 4-LOM tore out one of the ship's power units, disabling Slave I's weapons and leaving Fett a target. Fett blasted his way into the hold where 4-LOM was hiding, but even as he shot the droid it gloated at his apparent defeat.^[38]

It was too late for Fett to fix it, though, as the Hound's Tooth arrived and fired a warning shot at him. Bossk told him to prepare for boarding, and the other bounty hunters took a shuttle over to dock with Slave I. They found Fett with Solo and demanded his surrender, but Fett turned his gun on Zuckuss, declaring that now he had hostages to negotiate with Bossk. Bossk, growing tired at the delay and believing that they all might be plotting against him, fired another shot at the Slave I. Seeing that Bossk was willing to destroy the ship and everyone on it to get at Solo, Fett dropped his weapons and allowed himself to be led into a cell by the bat-like Furlag. He turned the tables on his captor, though, activating a trap door that dropped Furlag into the cell below. Fett grabbed the being's weapon and set off to free his ship and reclaim his cargo.^[38]

As the bounty hunters carted Solo to their shuttle, Fett dropped from the roof and shot everyone but Zuckuss. Holding the Gand hostage, he forced Zuckuss to speak over the comm with Bossk as if everything were going as planned. Fett then loaded up the corpses of the bounty hunters he had killed into the shuttle, along with a thermal detonator. As Bossk suggested to Zuckuss that he might kill Fett anyway, the shuttle docked with the Hound's Tooth, and Bossk's men moved onboard. Fett at last made himself known to Bossk, just as his package detonated and crippled Bossk's ship. Fett stated his regret that he could not have set one powerful enough to kill Bossk and, as the Trandoshan swore vengeance against him, made the leap to hyperspace.^[38]

Fett at last repaired his weapons systems and set a course for Tatooine. He had grown to despise the inanimate Solo, ranting at him about the trouble he had brought. The bounty hunter meanwhile placed the captive Zuckuss in a cell, and while the Gand warned him that he would never make it to Jabba's palace with all the bounty hunters in the way, Fett informed him that he, Zuckuss, would play a role in helping Fett reach his goal.^[38]

As it turned out, the role was as a decoy. Fett dressed Zuckuss in a spare set of his armor and chained him to a swoop bike, then attached a repulsor cart behind it, upon which he placed the covered remains of 4-LOM. As he approached Tatooine and requested landing clearance at the spaceport, Jabba realized that he could avoid paying the bounty hunter's fee if he offered a lesser reward to whichever one of his own men could bring Solo to him. A crowd of hunters and swoop gang members arrived at the spaceport as Fett made the final approach and touched down. Immediately the disguised Zuckuss rocketed out of Slave I, and the hunters set off in pursuit of it.^[38] A squad of stormtroopers approached Fett as he disembarked his ship, warning him that he had entered a restricted area. Fett promptly killed them all and headed towards the palace, where Bib Fortuna greeted him and directed him towards the palace's side entrance. As Fett approached the entrance, Fortuna set a krayt dragon to attack him. Fett shot the beast, then found Fortuna and held him at gunpoint, demanding that he be taken to Jabba.^[41]

By the time the hunters discovered the duplicity, it was too late; Fett had reached Jabba's throne room with Solo. Fett gladly handed the carbonite slab over to the Hutt, stating that he would not have delivered Solo for ten times the amount had he known the trouble that would ensue, and demanded his payment in currency.^[38] The crimelord initially intended to pay him seventy-five thousand credits; Fett, however, convinced him that he was not merely obtaining Solo, but a work of art in its own right, with Solo as the medium and Darth Vader as the artist. Jabba ultimately agreed to pay Fett a quarter million credits for the "art", and then made another offer to Fett: that he stay on to defend against any Rebel attempts to rescue Solo. His first mission was to capture a krayt dragon to do battle with Jabba's rancor. The bounty hunter accepted.^[8]

The demolition games

When Jabba proposed an underground demolition derby, Fett gladly signed on, and after Fett returned to the palace in Slave I, the games began. In the first match of the games the bounty hunter became Jabba's reigning champion, and from then on continued to hold that top spot. With only his armor and jetpack, Fett competed against a number of entrants in their own vehicles,^[42] holding his own against them with his special disintegrator rocket.^[43] His matches became popular gambling events; Jabba's henchmen often threatened new bettors into betting against the bounty hunter, raking in thousands of credits for Fett and Jabba as long as he continued to win.^[42]

Skirmish at Carkoon

Fett was present at Jabba's Palace when the droids C-3PO and R2-D2 arrived with a message from Luke Skywalker, bargaining for Solo's freedom. Shortly after watching a performance of "Jedi Rocks" by the Max Rebo Band, Fett witnessed the arrival of the bounty hunter Boushh—actually Princess Leia Organa in disguise—with Chewbacca as "his" prisoner. As the conversation between Boushh and Jabba began to turn violent, Fett stopped flirting with the dancers Rystáll Sant and Lyn Me and approached the confrontation. When Boushh drew and armed a thermal detonator to back up his demand for payment, Fett drew his blaster on the bounty hunter, but soon relaxed as Jabba negotiated a compromise.^[44] As the deal was settled and the inhabitants of the throne room resumed their normal business, Fett kept his eye on Boushh, aiming a sneering nod at the bounty hunter.^[44][45] That night, when Organa discarded her disguise and attempted to rescue Solo, Fett waited with Jabba's other cohorts in ambush and caught her in the act.^[44]

Jabba later sent Organa to Fett for the bounty hunter's "enjoyment". Fett, however, told her that he would not touch her, as he considered both premarital sex and rape immoral, and allowed her to cover herself up. As sending her back to Jabba would anger the crime lord and result in Organa's own execution, Fett allowed her to stay, offering her the bed. They talked about the Rebellion, Fett explaining how he saw it as the wrong side and an illegitimate challenge to authority and civilization. When Organa compared Fett with Solo, the bounty hunter grew angry, insisting that Solo was only a mercenary and condemning him for trafficking in spice. He explained that his own alliance with Jabba was merely temporary and out of necessity. Tired of speaking, Fett went to sleep.^[15]

The next day, Luke Skywalker arrived to rescue Solo. Fett stood by Jabba's side as Skywalker made his demands. When the crime lord dropped Skywalker into the lair of his pet rancor, Fett impassively watched the fight and Skywalker's victory along with the rest of the throne room. He stood by Bib Fortuna as Skywalker, Solo, and Chewbacca were sentenced to death by sarlacc in the Pit of Carkoon.^[44] Fett tried to persuade Jabba not to kill Skywalker, but to turn him over to the Empire for an extremely large bounty. Jabba refused to listen, angry over the death of his rancor and unwilling to share the bounty or pay Fett for retrieving it. Fett briefly considered kidnapping Skywalker himself, but gave up the idea as too risky. The next morning, Fett boarded Jabba's sail barge Khetanna en route to the Pit. On the way there, the bounty hunter paced the upper deck nervously, but retired to the interior to watch the spectacle.^[15] The execution did not go as planned, though; Skywalker reclaimed his lightsaber, which had been secreted by R2-D2, and began killing the guards on his skiff.^[44] Fett led a charge of Jabba's troops to the upper deck and launched himself across to the skiff to come face-to-face with Skywalker.^[44][46]

Skywalker slashed his lightsaber across Fett's blaster, cutting it in two, as a blast from the sail barge shook the skiff and knocked Solo and Chewbacca to the ground. Fett then fired a wire from his gauntlets, ensnaring Skywalker. Another blast knocked Fett down as Skywalker cut his way loose and leapt over to a neighboring skiff. Fett stood and took aim at Skywalker. But before he could fire, Solo blindly turned and accidentally slammed the pole he was holding into Fett's jetpack, triggering it. The bounty hunter, screaming, flew across the gap, slammed into the side of the sail barge, and rolled directly into the open mouth of the sarlacc, which swallowed him alive.^[44]

After the sarlacc (4 ABY—19 ABY)

Escape from the sarlacc

When Fett came to, he found himself in the depths of the sarlacc, restrained against the walls of its internal passages, his feet off the ground and all but his head confined in movement. Fett, confused by his surroundings, realized initially that he was on a planet of some sort. A voice then came out of the darkness around him, telling him "You are Boba Fett." After turning on the macrobinoculars in his helmet, he got a view of his surroundings in the non-visible spectrum—a tunnel of organic material, its far end invisible, yet with the cracking of sarlacc tentacles and the screams of Jabba's men in the distance. It was at that point that the rest of his memories came flooding back, reminding him of the battle at Carkoon and its end for him—and making him realize that he was inside the sarlacc, being digested.^[8]

As Fett took stock of his situation, the owner of the voice that had first spoken to him pulled his memories of delivering Solo to Jabba to the surface of his mind. The voice at last introduced itself as Susejo, the "Will" of the sarlacc. It had taken a special interest in Fett and his mind, desiring the bounty hunter alive to keep it amused. Fett now belonged to Susejo, it said, and it imparted its philosophy upon Fett: neither of them were real, simply collections of thoughts that believed themselves to be real. Fett, he explained, was too special a mind to kill and eat at once.^[8]

At dawn, Fett got a better survey of his surroundings. He was being held in place against the internal walls of the sarlacc, the main cavern some ways away, and hundreds of tentacles and tendrils covering all surfaces, the ones on the wall behind him holding him in place. As he thought about escaping, he felt the mind of another former victim of the sarlacc, a Corellian gambler named Kess who had fallen in with his companion Mica centuries ago. He heard Kess explain that the memories of all the victims were floating around in the sarlacc, and that Susejo was probably its oldest victim. As Fett felt the long-past death of Kess, he found himself filled with rage, propelling him to declare to the sarlacc that he would kill it slowly and driving him to find a means of escape.^[8]

Fett's weapons were all on him had he had use of his hands, and he could feel the tentacles of the sarlacc and its digestive acids attempting to penetrate his armor. The creature now began to pull at his left leg, and after a hard jerk caused him to slip and brought his right foot in contact with the floor of the tunnel. He reviewed his helmet holocam recordings of the Carkoon fight, realizing how Solo had accidentally defeated him by slamming the pole into his jetpack's emergency access panel. Fett then used his helmet's sonar and radar capabilities to map out the sarlacc's tunnels.^[8]

At this point, another victim's memory, this time of a Jedi pulled in millennia ago, came flooding into Fett's mind. Fett released all his hatred and rage into his mind and voice, and started cursing Susejo. Startled by Fett's hate, the sarlacc's tentacles pulled him tighter against the wall. Fett continued to pour invective at him, and at last, with his back and the emergency access panel of his jetpack pressed into the wall, Fett pushed up with his foot and activated the jetpack. The explosion knocked Fett unconscious for a moment, the burning fuel charring away the tunnel of the sarlacc and Fett's armor. Fett then fired a concussion grenade directly into the roof of the tunnel and threw himself to the ground; the blast tore apart the inside of the sarlacc and rained sand down into the tunnel. When Fett recovered from that blast, he fired a second one, and, climbing the growing hill of sand and discarding his armor, fired his last grenade into the sands above. With only his helmet providing him a small bit of trapped air, Fett clawed his way up through the sand and at last broke free, emerging into the night air of the Dune Sea.^[8]

After days of agony, Fett was barely alive. His right leg would be permanently weakened by his time spent within the sarlacc,^[1] flame and acid burns covered and blistered his body, and his left arm was broken, yet he had survived.^[8]

Dengar's rescue

The bounty hunter Dengar found him lying in the sand and saved his life. Dengar brought Fett back to health, and in turn Fett agreed to join in a partnership with him.^[1]

Kuat of Kuat

In return for saving his life, Fett let Dengar accompany him in a mission to unearth a conspiracy masterminded by Kuat of Kuat. After his fellow bounty hunter Bossk, thinking Fett to be dead, attempted to take Slave I, Fett stole Bossk's vessel Hound's Tooth and left Slave I on Tatooine. Slave I was eventually taken by the Rebellion and brought to an impound lot on Grakouine, where it remained rusting.^[1]

Fett later returned and offered Bossk a substantial amount of money for evidence held within the data banks of a droid, which he needed to unravel the Kuat conspiracy.^[1]

The second escape

Not long after Endor, Fett fell into the sarlacc once again. It did not find him digestible, though. Disliking his taste, it regurgitated him back into the Dune Sea. There he lay, buried under the sand, until a sandcrawler of Jawas arrived at the site to claim the wreckage of the battle. Digging the unconscious Fett out of the sand, they believed him to be an unintelligent droid or cyborg and took him back to the sandcrawler to clean, fit with a restraining bolt, and then sell or break down for parts as they felt necessary.^[47]

The same Jawas later seized R2-D2, who had come to the planet with Han Solo and Leia Organa. R2 found Fett, still unconscious and now propped up in the sandcrawler's hold, and recognized him from Bespin. Meanwhile, Solo and Organa had begun attacking the sandcrawler, attempting to retrieve their droid. Fett at last regained consciousness, though confused and with no memories. When Solo boarded the sandcrawler and climbed down into the cargo hold, one of the Jawas' droids ordered Fett to keep him at gunpoint and protect the cargo of their Jawa masters. Solo recognized Fett, though he was surprised that the bounty hunter did not attempt to shoot him. When the sandcrawler came under attack by a group of sand people, Solo suggested to Fett that they put aside their differences and work together to escape. It was at this point, when Fett asked if he knew him, that Solo realized that the bounty hunter had lost his memory.^[47]

With the Jawas abandoning the sandcrawler in the wake of the Tusken attack, it was was hurtling now back towards the Pit of Carkoon, and so Solo worked quickly to get everyone out. Fett first gave Solo a boost up to the hatch on his back, then handed up R2-D2. As Solo reached down to get Fett a hand up, Organa came running up and shouting his name. Fett, recognizing the name "Han", found his memories suddenly returning and pulled his gun on Solo. With the sandcrawler on the verge of falling into the Pit, Solo attempted to help Fett out, but the bounty hunter fired at him. At the last minute he leaped from the sandcrawler as it tumbled into the sarlacc, carrying Fett with it.^[47]

Life in secrecy

Fett somehow escaped, but was believed by most to have died on Tatooine, and the bounty hunter used this to his advantage. He took to traveling in Slave II, a less recognizable ship, and only took jobs from very particular clients. Dengar stayed on with Fett, serving as the hunter's public face. Though those who had business with Fett could contact him, many, including Han Solo, remained unaware of his survival.^[1] Kirtan Loor, Fliry Vorru, and the de facto Empress Ysanne Isard were amongst those aware of Fett's survival,^[48][49] and even members of the criminal underworld were unwilling to discount Fett as dead without a body.^[50] Fett eventually obtained Slave I again and kept it in orbit above Nar Shaddaa.^[1]

In 5 ABY, a year after escaping the sarlacc, Fett returned in Slave II. He positioned his ship over the pit and blasted its engines directly into the creature's mouth. He soon stopped, though, and when the mind of Susejo questioned him as to why, Fett informed him that he would not kill it all at once. He would return and hurt it again and again.^[8]

That same year, while in the Rimmer's Rest cantina on Nar Shaddaa, Fett was approached by the information broker droid 8t88. Fett had never worked for a droid before, but was interested in hearing 8t88 out. The droid said he intended to meet Kyle Katarn in the very same cantina in an hour to discuss a transaction of information, and he needed Fett as muscle. Fett, who knew of Katarn's connections to both the Empire and Rebel Alliance, did not want to antagonize either faction at the time, and so declined 8t88's offer.^[51]

The impersonator Kast

Fett's secret threatened to be blown when the bounty hunter Jodo Kast, who had his own set of Mandalorian armor, began encouraging others to believe he was Fett.^[1] Fett had known about Kast for years, having been both credited and blamed for the other bounty hunter's endeavors.^[15] By 5 ABY Kast had learned that posing as Fett got him higher bounties, and he was capitalizing on this fact. Dengar encountered him on Fluwhaka while chasing a bounty, and after Kast pulled a gun on him, Dengar developed a grudge against the man. He advised Kast that pretending to be Fett was unwise, then sent a message back to Fett to inform him that the impostor had been spotted again and recommend that they eliminate the man.^[52]

Fett, meanwhile, was on his way to N'ildwab, where the local warlord Nobam Nol was ruling over the populace by pretending to be a Sith Lord. Fett quickly broke the man's neck, killing him. After accepting a reward from the people of N'ildwab, he moved on to Paquallis III to use those same credits for his next mission: hiring Kast. Calling himself "Sava Brec Madak" and disguising himself by wrapping his body and face in bandages, Fett went to the House of Benelex to speak with representative Cas Ennyl Yllek. "Madak" claimed that another man, Satnik Hiicrop, had been using his name and business, and in doing so had ruined his reputation. He told Yllek that he knew where the man could be found—an abandoned keep on Nal Hutta—and wanted Kast to bring Hiicrop to him. After leaving Yllek, Fett met with Dengar, and the two returned to Slave I to prepare to move out. They arrived on Nal Hutta six days before Kast was scheduled to show up and began laying out the traps Fett would use to catch his impersonator.^[52]

As soon as Kast entered the keep, the trap was set. The doors slammed behind him, and soon Kast found himself up against laser webs and quamillas, a type of local wildlife that Dengar had rounded up. He eventually made his way to a stairwell where Fett waited in ambush. Kast saw a running figure that he assumed was Hiicrop, but when he approached it, it proved to be merely a hologram. Fett then appeared behind Kast, pressed a blaster to his head, and pronounced him dead. Kast pleaded for his life, appealing to the Code, but Fett reminded him that Kast had broken it first. Fett then demanded Kast remove his helmet. As Kast did, though, he angled his jetpack boosters directly towards Fett and ignited them, driving Fett backwards and himself forward in a burst of flame.^[52]

As Kast began shooting back at Fett, Fett dove for cover behind a pillar. Kast attempted to use his jetpack to flee, but Fett roped his leg with his grappling hook, then rocketed himself up to Kast's level. Fett pummeled the other man, damaged his jetpack, then as Kast fell, fired a paralyzing nerve toxin into his neck. Kast crashed to the floor. Fett approached him and removed his helmet, yelling at Kast that he was nobody—not Tobbi Dala or Fenn Shysa, and unworthy of the armor or reputation he had gained. Fett left behind three vials, one of which held the antidote to the nerve toxin, available to Kast if he could reach them before his rocket pack blew up. Fett knew he would not be able to, however, and as he returned to Dengar in the Slave I, the pack detonated, killing Kast. Fett and Dengar left Nal Hutta.^[52]

Bounty on Han Solo

Some time after 7 ABY,^[53] Fett obtained the schematics for the centuries-old and deadly Wing-Blast rocket pack, a heavily-weaponed piece of technology shelved due to technological limitations at the time. Fett revised it and with the pack, he assaulted the Tulvarees guarding Fortress Baarlos, stronghold of the warlord Faarl the Conqueror, and collected the bounty on the warlord.^[54]

When the reborn Emperor Palpatine began his public campaign against the New Republic in 10 ABY, Fett decided to take up a new bounty by the Hutts on Han Solo and his wife, Leia Organa Solo. Solo's friend Mako Spince informed Fett where to find them on Nar Shaddaa, and Fett and Dengar went to Solo's old apartment to lie in wait. When the Solos arrived, they were greeted by Han's droid ZZ-4Z, who informed them that "a Mr. Fett" was there to see them. Fett revealed himself, and explained to Solo that he had escaped the sarlacc and was now hunting him.^[55] Solo suggested to the malfunctioning droid that he serve Fett some tea, and the droid stepped into Fett's line of fire and crashed into the bounty hunter.^[56] Solo opened fire and he and his wife fled, with Fett and Dengar in pursuit. The chase carried the four through the city, with other bounty hunters joining Fett and Dengar along the way.^[55] As the Solos took cover, Fett ordered the other hunters out of his way and attempted to hit them with a rocket, only to have it miss and kill the Hutt occupant of a floater. The Solos were able to commandeer it and escape.^[56]

As Fett and Dengar reached the nearby Slave II, the Solos reached Salla Zend's vessel Starlight Intruder and left Nar Shaddaa. Fett followed and was able to trace their heading into the Deep Core. Slave II was faster, and Fett arrived at their destination of Byss first. When the Starlight Intruder emerged from hyperspace, Fett dropped in behind them. Though Dengar warned Fett that they would not make it past the security shield around Byss, Fett believed he could follow. He was not quick enough; the shields closed as soon as Starlight Intruder was through, and Slave II collided with them. The ship was wrecked and Solo was lost.^[55] Dengar declared that he would never work with Fett again, and so the two men's partnership ended.^[1]

The Bar-Kooda bounty

Alone again, Fett soon took on a new job for Gorga the Hutt. Gorga wished to marry Anachro the H'uun, but to get her father Orko's permission he needed to provide the Hutt with a gift. This, he decided, would be the pirate Bar-Kooda, who had been preying on Orko's trading ships. Gorga hired Fett to bring the pirate in.^[57]

Some time later, Fett was pursuing four bounties on a pair of speeder bikes through Scrapyard City. With his wrist rockets he eliminated one of the bikes, then stunned its passengers as he flew by them. The two riders of the second bike attempted to deceive him by sending their own bike ahead as a decoy while they hid in the wreckage, but Fett's audio sensors picked up their whispers, and the bounty hunter got the drop on them. Fett blew one of them apart, while the other raced for sanctuary in a nearby cantina. Fett was right behind him, and quickly assured that no one in the bar had provided aid to the bounty. The man attempted to kill Fett, proclaiming that he would never be taken alive, and Fett obliged by shooting him. That business now done, he turned to the matter of Bar-Kooda and asked the bartender for the location of the magician Wim Magwit.^[57]

Magwit was meanwhile performing a magic show in a distant frontier settlement. In the middle of a trick wherein birds flew into his mouth, a man arrived warning him that Fett was after him. One of the birds become stuck in Magwit's mouth, and as he seemingly choked to death, his audience was astounded by Fett's ability to kill a man without even being nearby. Fett appeared at Magwit's funeral, where he checked to make sure the man was dead as the onlookers mocked that he would never get the bounty on the magician. Later that night, Fett returned to the graveyard with his prisoner from the speeder bike chase to dig up the coffin. Fett had realized that Magwit had actually taken a drug to mimic death, and with his own concoction revived the man, who was surprised to find himself in Fett's clutches, not safe after the bounty hunter had gone.^[57]

On his way to rendezvous with Bar-Kooda, Fett spoke with Gorga to settle his payment, demanding two hundred thousand credits. Gorga reluctantly acquiesced. Fett then brought Magwit forth to discuss the matter of Bar-Kooda. Magwit had been in Bar-Kooda's service ever since he had ridden a spaceliner that had been captured by the pirate. Magwit had been forced into performing magic for Bar-Kooda, keeping himself alive only because he did not reveal the secrets of his tricks to Bar-Kooda, and had eventually escaped. Fett offered him a chance to earn his freedom by returning to the pirate, informing him that the price of refusal was death.^[57]

Magwit and Fett boarded an escape pod, intending for it to be picked up by Bar-Kooda's vessel Bloodstar. When the pirate gang retrieved it, all they found within were Magwit and his magic equipment, Fett having concealed himself inside a box where, even when it was inspected and opened by Bar-Kooda's crew, he could not be seen. Bar-Kooda ordered Magwit to put on one final show before he was killed, where he would reveal the secret of his famous hoop trick—a short-range matter transmitter that allowed the magician to "vanish" objects and people by moving them through a hoop, at which point they would materialize at the other end of the hoop backstage. As a pair of Bar-Kooda's crew inspected the backstage end of the transmitter, Fett emerged from his box, shot one of them, and beat the other unconscious. Bar-Kooda, meanwhile, grew tired of Magwit's show and demanded he get to the hoop trick.^[57]

Magwit told Bar-Kooda that all its secrets would be revealed if he stepped through it. Not trusting him, the pirate first stuck a hand through to test the device. He was prepared to put his head into the hoop next when Fett grabbed his arm and pulled him all the way through, flinging him into a bulkhead. Fett gave Bar-Kooda a chance to come to his ship voluntarily, but the pirate did not concede. Fett then shot him with a rocket, only for Bar-Kooda to fire several bolts at him, which could not penetrate Fett's armor. The pirate drew a massive axe and charged at Fett, only to have Fett blast him in the face with his flamethrower. The bounty hunter picked up the unconscious body of Bar-Kooda, planted a bomb, and began making his escape. Magwit, now surrounded by angry crewmembers demanding the location of their captain, made his own escape through the hoop and followed Fett. Many of the crew following him were caught in the bomb's blast, and the bounty hunter and magician were able to slide down a pole into the hangar and reach their ship.^[57]

The airlock doors stood between them and open space, but a missile from the vessel blew them open, exposing the hangar and its pirate inhabitants to vacuum. As they left the Bloodstar behind them, Magwit accused Fett of leaving him to die. Fett replied that he had not promised where the magician would be freed. The bounty hunter at last brought Bar-Kooda to Gorga, who had him cooked and served to Orko.^[57]

The kidnapping of Anachro

Some time later, Fett took a bounty on Toxus Li, and found himself in pursuit of the target's ship in Slave I. Though Li attempted to escape from Fett by releasing proximity charges, Slave I's shields withstood the assault, and Fett was able to disable the fleeing ship's engines. Fett docked with the vessel and one by one eliminated the crew until he reached Li. The price of Li's bounty was on his head alone, and so Fett decapitated him and took the prize back to Slave I, where he found a message from Gorga. The Hutt was on Skeebo, and informed Fett that his new wife Anachro had been kidnapped. During their honeymoon on the world, a band of criminals known as skavers had taken her, and they now demanded a million credits in ransom.^[58]

Fett arrived on Skeebo to speak with Grappa. After getting the particulars of the case from the Skeebo City Konstabulary, Kaptain Voor, Fett was advised by the man to leave it to local law enforcement. Grappa was less than impressed with the Kaptain, and after Voor left, asked Fett for his own suggestion. Fett told him to pay the ransom. When Gorga contacted the skavers, they instructed him to send one man, alone and unarmed, with the money to a rendezvous point. Fett prepared a bag for the ransom with a tracer hidden inside—the same bag, in fact, that had once held the head of Toxus Li, and now reeked.^[58]

At the appointed time and place, a group of skavers on swoop bikes appeared to take the money from Gorga's man. Fett, on a bike of his own, set off in pursuit of them by keeping track of the planted tracer. He quickly gained on them, and coming in sight of the rearmost bike, blew it and its rider up. As the rider with the money raced ahead, the last one doubled back into the shadow of an archway, where he prepared to ambush Fett. As Fett approached the archway, he sprang to its top and shot the skaver from above, then leapt back onto his still-moving bike and continued in pursuit of the tracer, which had stopped moving. When Fett arrived at its location, he found the bag empty and the last skaver nowhere near. His olfactory sensors could still pick up the odor of the money, though, and he was able to follow it to its destination: Kaptain Voor. Fett shot the last skaver and took Voor prisoner, forcing him to lead Fett to where Anachro was being held.^[58]

Voor led Fett towards the secret canyon of Skeendu, hidden in the crags of Skeebo, as Fett grew suspicious of the Kaptain's sudden helpfulness. Voor's deception was laid bare by a coincidental appearance of two spaceships—that of Orko, who suspected Gorga being involved in the kidnapping of his daughter, and that of Ry-Kooda, Bar-Kooda's brother who had learned of Fett and Orko's complicity in his brother's death and now sought revenge. As the two vessels, locked in combat, hurtled across the desert sky, a group of skavers directly in Fett's route opened fire at the ships. They blew Ry-Kooda's vessel out of the air, then set off to collect what they could from the wreck, but as they passed near Fett and Voor, Voor attempted to call for help. Fett grabbed the Kaptain off his bike and held him in front as a shield while shooting down the approaching skavers. As Ry-Kooda burst from the wreckage he saw Fett. Though the bounty hunter was soon gone, Ry-Kooda and his crew captured a skaver mining truck and set off in pursuit.^[58]

Fett meanwhile arrived at a cliff overlooking Skeendu. Voor was still beside him, but not for long; Fett knocked the man unconscious and informed him that he would be reporting on his actions to his superiors. Fett rappelled down into the skaver hideout, taking out the men guarding Anachro in silence. He then took Anachro out of the hideout the only way he could figure: by using the robe originally intended to hang her to hoist her from the underside of his speeder bike. Guards attempted to stop him, but Fett quickly dispatched them, only to realize there was a problem. Anachro's weight was slowing his bike's ascent, and what was more, the robe was now threatening to strangle her. He maneuvered her down into the back of a mining truck, then dropped into its driver's seat and ordered his bike to go to a higher altitude and await his orders. As Fett drove the truck down the tracks of an old mining tunnel, more guards attempted to stop him only to get shot. Ry-Kooda's gang, meanwhile, was arriving at the other end of the tunnel. They chased off the skavers at the bottom of the tunnel, who soon found themselves in the way of Fett's truck. Ry-Kooda, meanwhile, stepped into the truck's path, screaming Fett's name. As the truck collided with Ry-Kooda, Anachro went flying off the back and landed safely on Ry-Kooda's gang.^[58]

Boz, Ry-Kooda's diminutive sidekick, stepped up to Fett, threatening him and informing him that he was facing Bar-Kooda's brother. Fett cuffed Boz aside as Ry-Kooda charged, then fired several shots into the gangster that knocked him back. Ry-Kooda grabbed a chunk of support beam and hurled it into another, causing part of the mine's ceiling to collapse on Fett. Ry-Kooda hit Fett hard with another piece of beam, then grabbed and prepared to eat him. As the gangster opened his mouth, Fett fired his flamethrower directly into it, then launched a concussion grenade at the already weak ceiling. It came crashing down, burying Ry-Kooda, as Fett raced from the tunnel to safety. Once outside, he now had to find a way to carry Anachro back. He called his speeder bike back to him, and placing her in the bed of Ry-Kooda's captured mining truck, hauled it behind him to Orko's landing site, where Gorga had already arrived. Orko and Gorga's argument, threatening to become violent, was interrupted by Fett and Anachro's arrival. Fett returned Gorga's ransom money, minus his payment, then informed Gorga that he was available if the Hutt needed him. Gorga hinted that he would.^[58]

The murder of Orko

Gorga did, in fact, summon Fett later. The Hutt met him in secret at a settlement on Tatooine, where he asked the bounty hunter to assassinate Orko. Fett warned him that killing one as prominent as Orko could arouse the ire of the Empire, and demanded half a million credits in payment, or ten percent of that to merely look into the possibility. Gorga informed him that he had an agent on Orko's staff, Hirsoot, who had been unsuccessful in removing him; he eventually agreed to pay Fett the fifty thousand. After Fett had left, Gorga learned that Anachro was pregnant, and was informed by her doctor that any disturbance could result in the loss of the Huttlet. He immediately sent his servant Ding to recall Fett from his task.^[59]

Fett, however, had decided to turn the situation to his advantage. Arriving in Orkana, Orko's domain filled with scrap and toxic waste, he was mugged by two of the land's destitute inhabitants. Fett quickly dispatched them and was on his way. Using a flash grenade to distract Orko's guards, Fett flew up to an upper window on his jetpack and entered the Hutt's tower. Removing several interior guards with a tripline and stunning the rest, Fett at last burst into Orko's chambers, accidentally knocking aside Hirsoot, who was just about to murder the Hutt. With a blaster to Orko's head, Fett informed him that he had not come to kill him, but to demonstrate how easy it was to penetrate his defenses. Fett told Orko that a bounty hunter he knew had been hired by an unknown part to murder the Hutt, but could be bought off for six hundred thousand credits. Orko immediately conceded, promising to have the money by morning if Fett would intercede with the other bounty hunter on his behalf. Fett agreed, then went to a local cantina to await the morning.^[59]

Orko would have another visitor that night, though. Ry-Kooda had survived his defeat on Skeebo and come to take his vengeance on the Hutt. He climbed the tower to Orko's chambers and ripped the Hutt to shreds. Fett was still in the cantina when the news came in, and he learned that it was assumed he had done the deed. As the patrons of the bar cheered him, Fett left for Orko's tower. The guards, too frightened of Fett to stop him, let him pass as he went to the Hutt's chamber. There he examined the corpse, saw that bites had been taken out of it, and realized that Ry-Kooda had lived. He contacted Gorga, who assumed like the others that Fett had killed Orko; Fett, however, set him straight, and warned Gorga that Ry-Kooda could be coming for him next. Gorga offered Fett all the money of the original Orko contract, and Fett left the tower by the window, avoiding the guards amassed outside the room.^[59]

Anachro, meanwhile, upset at the death of her father and believing that Gorga had been responsible, left Gorga's palace in a speeder. Gorga, realizing she was in danger, followed. Ry-Kooda was waiting, though, and disabled Anachro's speeder with a rocket before attempting to tear her from the vehicle. When Gorga arrived, his own guards were killed off one by one. Ry-Kooda at last dragged Anachro from the speeder and was preparing to eat her when Fett arrived and fired two rockets into the gangster's mouth, knocking him to the ground. He then shot the last of Ry-Kooda's gang members. Ry-Kooda stood up and charged at Fett, who launched himself up, causing the gangster to plow into a pile of scrap. Ry-Kooda recovered and began flinging pieces of scrap at Fett, knocking him down. As he stepped up with a large club and swung it down to crush Fett, the bounty hunter fired a dart into his eye, dodged the descending club, and shot Ry-Kooda in the chest. Ry-Kooda lurched back, directly into a pile of toxic waste. The gangster burst into flames before being dissolved by the toxins.^[59]

Now Boz approached him, threatening that he would have his revenge on Fett and punching him in the knee. Fett punted the tiny creature away. He then approached Gorga, who told Fett that he had been worried the bounty hunter had abandoned him. Fett told him that he had, and the only reason he had returned was to deal with the threat of Ry-Kooda. Telling the Hutt that he could help himself now, Fett drove away from Gorga, Anachro, and their newborn Huttlet as Boz once again shouted his vow of vengeance.^[59]

Solo, again

With the money he received from the Gorga jobs, Fett was able to turn towards the Solo bounty once more and returned to Nar Shaddaa.^[1] There he was accosted by two of the Empire's dark side warriors, Zasm Katth and Baddon Fass, who demanded that he work for the Empire in capturing Solo, with no payment in return. They threatened him with knowledge of his stormtrooper past and the murder of his superior officer, but Fett drew his blaster and ordered them to back off. In response, they began to choke Fett with the Force, bringing him to his knees. Katth ordered one of his shadow stormtroopers to remove Fett's helmet. Fett blew the trooper apart with a wrist rocket, and breaking free of the Force grip ran to Slave I and made his escape. The dark siders promised he would die for it, but upon receiving reports that the Millennium Falcon had arrived on the moon, realized that Fett's services were no longer needed and decided to deal with him later.^[18]

Fett realized that he could find the Falcon in the garage of Shug Ninx, and took Slave I into a secret entrance of the garage. The Solos had avoided the Empire and were at this moment taking the Falcon out the very same entrance. In the narrow tunnel, the two ships could not avoid each other without one pilot changing course, and in the resulting collision the Falcon clipped off one of Slave I's stabilizers. As Fett collided into the walls of the tunnel, his shields limited the damage, but the Falcon was able to make its escape into the lower levels of the city.^[18]

Fett was on their tail, though, and caught the Solos while they were separated from Chewbacca. He pinned them down with a barrage of blaster fire, advising them to turn themselves in alive and still have a chance to escape, even offering to give them part of the Hutt bounty on themselves. He was unaware of Chewbacca approaching behind him, though. As the Wookiee leapt on Fett and pinned him to the ground, Fett fired a shot that hit Chewbacca in the side and forced him to let go. Fett began to exchange further shots with the Solos, thinking that the Wookiee was dying and not realizing that Chewbacca was coming behind him again. Chewbacca ripped Fett's helmet off his head, then activated Fett's jetpack, sending the bounty hunter slamming headfirst into a girder.^[18]

Fett recovered and returned to Slave I, where he kept a spare helmet, then took the ship up to hide among the scrap orbiting Nar Shaddaa. As the Falcon left the moon, Fett fired upon it, damaging the freighter. Solo was forced to take the Falcon into a nearby gas cloud, and Fett, his scanners unable to penetrate it, prepared to wait outside until Solo emerged. In the days that followed, Fett patrolled the gas cloud's edge, looking for an opening or a way to scan its interior. Several days after the Falcon vanished into the cloud, it returned. Fett, believing Solo was at last his, began making his attack on the ship, but the Falcon returned fire with its newly installed lightning gun—given to him by the Ganathan inhabitants of the cloud. Slave I's systems shorted out and its reactor went critical as Fett hurtled into the radioactive cloud. Though Solo believed him to have been killed,^[18] Fett survived and was forced to get a new ship, the Slave III.^[1]

The Azgoghk mission

Fett's recent failures had taken a toll on his reputation. With his fall into the sarlacc and repeated failures to catch Han Solo, people were questioning the skills of the bounty hunter. After Fett's latest embarrassment at the hands of Solo, the Gulmarid Slique Brighteyes came to him with a story and an offer. Brighteyes and his people had been captured by the Imperial dungeon ship Azgoghk, captained by Mir Tork. Tork and his chief scientist Leonis Murthé were dedicated to the philosophy of Human High Culture and did their part to torture and exterminate non-Human species. While the dying Gulmarid had been rescued from the Azgoghk after a Rebel attack, Tork had reclaimed the vessel and fled. Brighteyes wanted justice for his people by the death of the two Imperials, and he had come to Fett.^[60]

When Brighteyes announced the price of one hundred credits, Fett felt that he was being mocked, and threatened the Gulmarid with his blaster. However, Brighteyes pointed out to him that his reputation was even more important; taking down Tork and Murthé was said to be impossible, except for Fett. Brighteyes informed him that if he took the job, it would not be for money, but to prove he was still the same Boba Fett. Fett accepted, and Brighteyes provided him with the location of the Azgoghk and information on its weaknesses.^[60]

When the Azgoghk landed on Malicar 3, Fett was waiting with a large ion cannon emplacement. He opened fire on a weak point in the dungeon ship, burning out its engines and knocking the ship over. Fett then opened up communications with the vessel, announcing that Tork and Murthé were his targets, and all others were free to leave or die. He then launched a grenade into the ship's hull, breaching it near the holding pens. Fett quickly killed the guards there, and Tork ordered more to that level to fend him off. Fett then shot open one of the holding cells, freeing the prisoners; he told them to save themselves, as they outnumbered the ship's crew, and suggested they take the guns of the fallen guards.^[60]

Fett finally reached Murthé, who wielded a lightsaber. Fett, unimpressed, dodged Murthé's blows with the weapon, then set the man on fire with his flamethrower. Ignoring the scientist's pleas to kill him, Fett then made his way to where Tork waited. The captain sat with his finger on the self-destruct button of the vessel and informed Fett that if he was shot, he would set it off. Fett turned to leave, promising to find the man later and kill him then. Not wanting to live in fear, Tork stood and began firing at Fett, so Fett shot him. Murthé, still on fire, then charged at the bounty hunter; Fett shot him as well.^[60]

With the prisoners freed from the Azgoghk, Fett left their next step in their hands, asking only that they remember his name. On Basteel, Fett again met with Brighteyes. He offered the now-dying Gulmarid a bag with proof of his kills, but Brighteyes elected to take him at his word. He gave Fett his payment and the bounty hunter left, satisfied that his name was established once again.^[60]

The Jaden Korr incident

In 14 ABY, information surfaced about a cache of old weapons on Ord Mantell. The Jedi Knight Jaden Korr was dispatched by the Jedi Order to the world to destroy them. At the same time as Korr was investigating, Fett also came to the cache sites. He warned Korr to leave the site, but the Jedi persisted in attempting to destroy all the weapons. Fett harassed Korr as the Jedi ran about his mission, using his jetpack to drop down on Korr and attack him. However, he was unsuccessful; Korr eliminated all the caches, then defeated Fett in single combat. The bounty hunter, regretting that there were no bounties on Korr, departed.^[61]

The Butcher of Montellian Serat

Fett eventually needed thousands of credits, having replaced Slave III with Slave IV and gotten surgery to obtain a prosthetic replacement for his right leg, which had been damaged by the sarlacc years earlier.^[1] Fett's cell structure had also degraded from his experience within the sarlacc, and the only thing that prevented him from getting cancer was a constant supply of medication that kept him near bankruptcy. In 17 BBY, four mercenaries on Tatooine spotted Kardue'sai'Malloc, the Devaronian war criminal known as the "Butcher of Montellian Serat". Malloc killed them, then disappeared. Two years later, following the sales of Merenzane Gold, an alcoholic drink Malloc had been fond of on Tatooine, Fett tracked him to the world of Peppel, intending to collect the five million credit bounty on the Devaronian for retirement money.^[15]

Fett studied Devaronian anatomy to learn where best to hit Malloc to take him down alive. On Peppel, he kept watch on Malloc for a day, learning his habits. When he set out to take down the Devaronian, Fett did not risk using his armor or modern weapons, not knowing what kind of security system Malloc had in place. Stripping himself down to only a pair of shorts and arming himself with a bow-and-arrow and a knife, he slipped past tripwires, motion sensors, and a bevy of other traps until he was outside Malloc's hut, then waited for the Devaronian to turn off his lights and come outside to relieve himself, a routine Fett had observed the prior night. When Malloc finished, Fett shot him in the back, rushed the Devaronian, and hamstrung him with the knife. With his knife to Malloc's throat, he escorted the Devaronian into the hut, where he removed the arrow and bound Malloc's hands. When he was assured that none of the Devaronian's security systems would shoot down his ship, he summoned Slave IV to land in a clearing a few kilometers away.^[15]

Fett prepared to march Malloc to the ship, but the Devaronian refused. Fett threatened to remove his limbs and drag him to the ship, which failed to make Malloc compliant, but when the bounty hunter revealed his name the Devaronian grew fearful. Malloc attempted to bargain for his life, offering his collection of rare music from now-dead musicians, but Fett did not take his deal. Malloc at last gave in, first asking Fett to dig up the music chips he had stashed under the ground and, after delivering him to Devaron, to sell it to a special buyer Malloc had in mind. His second request was to bring his Merenzane Gold along. Fett was prepared to deny him these, but Malloc threatened to die on him, robbing him of the bounty, and Fett at last gave in. They dug up the music and set off for Devaron. During the long trip there, Fett contacted the Bounty Hunter's Guild and arranged for a Guild representative to meet him at Devaron.^[15]

Fett stashed Malloc in the ship's holding room en route to Devaron. As they neared that world, Fett put on his armor, brought the Devaronian up to the cockpit, and gave him the last of the alcohol to pacify him. Malloc attempted to plead for his life, but Fett was unmoved; the Devaronian tried to injure Fett by throwing the bottle at him, but the ship's security system destroyed it. Upon dropping out of hyperspace, Fett docked with a shuttle carrying representatives of the Devaronian government and the Guild representative, Bilman Dowd. Dowd came across first to verify that Malloc was aboard, then ushered over the Devaronians. Fett kept them covered with his rifle as Malloc's daughter verified his identity. The payment was transferred to Fett and Malloc was turned over to the Devaronians for execution. Before leaving, Dowd left with Fett an encrypted message for the bounty hunter, sent via the Guild headquarters. It was from Incavi Larado, mayor of the town of Death—formerly Dying Slowly—on Jubilar, telling Fett that Han Solo was there.^[15]

Return to Jubilar

With his finances secure, Fett felt he needed to regain his pride,^[1] and he set off for Jubilar, intending to kill Solo and collect whatever bounties were on his head. On the way there he listened to Malloc's music. Larado, along with her four bodyguards, was meeting Solo in a hydroponics warehouse on the outskirts of Death, at night. While they discussed business, Fett approached and waited in the darkness outside, his rifle trained on the warehouse, waiting for Solo to come out.^[15]

Solo, however, recognized from Larado's demeanor that he was walking into a trap. As he neared the entrance he shot the warehouse's power cable, plunging it into darkness and rolling aside just as Fett fired a shot where he had been standing. Fett's shot accidentally hit Larado, and the bounty hunter charged for the entrance, taking out three of the bodyguards reflexively. Solo fired at him for a moment before running away from Fett's barrage of blaster bolts, meanwhile incapacitating the last bodyguard. As he entered the warehouse, Fett paused for a moment by the dying Larado, shocked that he had killed the wrong target. When she died, he set off after Solo, who had fled to the back of the warehouse; Fett fired a flare into the ceiling, casting light throughout the building. When he heard the sound of glass shattering, he realized Solo was attempting to break a window to escape and charged to catch him, only to find Solo waiting for him. The smuggler shot Fett, knocking him back, and burst through the window, heading for his speeder.^[15]

Fett moved out of the warehouse, only to have Solo charge around a corner, gun raised. Fett raised his own gun in time, locking the two men into a standoff. Neither would fire first, knowing he would be killed in turn—Fett found he did not hate Solo enough that he was willing to die to kill the smuggler—and neither trusted the other enough to lower his own gun.^[15] Fett saw himself in his prey, how constant a part of his life Solo had been,^[54] and the two men agreed to end their decades-long feud and part ways.^[1]

Mandalore (19 ABY—)

The death of Fenn Shysa

Fett intended to retire and give up the hunt, and he went back to Taun We to get a replacement for his leg. However, We asked him to do one last job: decades earlier, in the Clone Wars, the Mandalorian Supercommando Fenn Shysa—now Mandalore, leader of the Mandalorians—had been involved in a devastating attack on Kamino, and We wanted him hunted down. Fett pursued Shysa to the planet Shogun, where the man gave his life saving Fett.^[54] With his dying words, Shysa told Fett to assume the title of Mandalore. Fett rejoined the Mandalorian Protectors as their leader.^[62]

A new employer

In 24 ABY, Fett took on a job for Gebbu the Hutt, hunting down a Rodian counterfeiter named Wac Bur for selling fake art. Fett pursued Bur into the depths of Coruscant, and finally into a dead-end alley. Bur hid behind a pile of crates, but Fett soon located him. After a futile attempt at convincing Bur to turn himself in alive, Fett shot the Rodian.^[3]

Fett was later contacted by fellow Mandalorian Goran Beviin. Beviin had been hired by a man calling himself Udelen—actually the Yuuzhan Vong agent Nom Anor—to assassinate a politician on Ter Abbes, and wanted to run the job by Fett before he took it. Fett dismissed Beviin's concerns, telling him that he needed the credits.^[3]

"Udelen" eventually contacted Fett, who to Anor's surprise did not question the man about his motives. A year after Anor first recruited the Mandalorians, he and Fett arranged to meet in Keldabe, on Mandalore. Fett took Slave I to the city, arriving right behind Anor. Activating Slave I's weapons and aiming them at Anor's vessel, Fett went to meet him. After questioning Fett on Mandalore's government and infrastructure, Anor got to the business at hand; a war, he told Fett, was coming to the galaxy, and he hinted that Mandalore could be spared from its effects. Anor wished to hire the Mandalorians for mercenary work, and told Fett to gather soldiers of his choosing and prepare them to meet at a rendezvous point to be determined. Two weeks later, Fett received his instructions; the Mandalorians would rendezvous with "Udelen's" forces at a location in deep space, and unknown to Fett, directly in the path of the ensuing Yuuzhan Vong invasion forces.^[3]

Fett and his Mandalorian troops, he in Slave I and they in Aggressor and Gladiator assault fighters, were at the designated spot at the appointed hour, but after a while it seemed as if Udelen would not show. At last something appeared—a large, organic object resembling an asteroid but behaving like a ship. The Mandalorians recognized it as a warship, and soon it became apparent that there was a whole fleet of them on approach. The Mandalorians moved their Gladiators into formation around Fett, who locked all his weapons onto the lead ship. Fett hailed the fleet and demanded it identify itself. Nom Anor replied, revealing his true identity and announcing the arrival of the Yuuzhan Vong to the galaxy, and the invasion they would commence to transform it. Anor gave Fett coordinates to dock with his ship; there, he said, they would discuss Fett's and the Mandalorians' role in the coming war.^[3]

Though surprised and nervous, Fett agreed. Goran Beviin, one of Fett's chosen soldiers, followed behind the Mandalore in his own fighter. After they landed, Anor lead them from the docking bay. Though he sensed trouble, Fett's interest lay in whether the coming events would be beneficial for the Mandalorians. He studied all aspects of the ship as he passed through it, scanning it with his suit's sensors and pocketing any samples he could—and ordering Beviin to do the same. He conversed with Anor as they walked, learning of the Vong's organic technology and weaponry and gathering intelligence all the while. He finally stopped Anor and demanded to know what the goal of the Vong was. Anor answered that they intended to purge the galaxy of its technology and force its inhabitants into obedience; the Mandalorians, he said, were needed to gather intelligence and perform subtle work. To demonstrate their abilities, he showed Fett a captured slave, made obedient by yorik coral implants, and informed them that the galaxy would become Vong or die.^[3]

Fett at last saw Anor as a bigger threat than he could handle. He demanded that the Mandalore Sector be left alone. Anor was resistant to negotiating, but Fett impressed upon him the necessity of working with himself and the Mandalorians, if only to deal with the Jedi. A new prisoner was brought in, and Anor had him implanted with the yorik coral in front of Fett; this demonstration of the price of non-compliance done, he at last agreed to Fett's request. Fett in turn agreed to the deal. Already, though, he meant to thwart the plans of the Vong even as he worked for them.^[3]

Double agent

Anor immediately gave Fett a mission: to secure a landing zone for the Vong on Birgis in five days. After he gave Fett their reconnaissance data on the site, Fett and Beviin returned to their ships and left the Vong vessel. Beviin at first disagreed with Fett making the deal, but Fett told him of his plan to fight the Vong from within, gathering intelligence and pretending to be on the side of the Vong until they were exposed or forced to fight in the open to protect Mandalore. They discussed working with the New Republic, but knowing that the Vong could impersonate humans and unsure who to trust, Fett decided to test the waters first by slipping the information they had.^[3]

One week after the Vong established their base at Helska 4, the attack on Birgis began. Fett had data on the next two missions assigned to him, and between that and the information gathered on the Vong vessel he intended to deliver it to New Republic forces during the attack. The Mandalorians' assignment was to hit the spaceport and create a distraction; Fett's orders were to attack hard enough to look convincing, but to leave at least one survivor. At the designated time, one of the Mandalorians began firing missiles at the spaceport to wreak damage, then Fett and his troops stormed the port. Beviin blew the doors into the main complex, and he, Fett, and two others made their way into it. When they were pinned down in a corridor by blaster fire, Fett decided it was time to inform their aggressors that they were on the same side. Beviin convinced Fett to let him subdue their attacker and charged, knocking the pilot who had been shooting at them to the ground.^[3]

Though she was reluctant to trust the Mandalorians, Fett told her they they had information they needed to get to the New Republic, gave her the datachip it was on, and sent one of his soldiers to get her to her fighter. He and the rest of the Mandalorians then made their own exit; as they left the main compound, they saw the arriving Vong ground forces. Fett and the Mandalorians left the New Republic defenders to their own means and made their escape.^[3]

Three months later, Fett led the attack on New Holgha, about which his warning to the New Republic had gone unheeded. Fett determined to get the Republic to pay more attention to his intelligence. He was in luck; a Vong subaltern, Bur'lorr, contacted him on his comlink and informed him that they were pursuing a Jedi through the city. Fett, realizing that a Jedi could not only take their intelligence back but detect that they were not lying about it, told them to leave the Jedi to him, and the subaltern informed Fett that his warriors would drive the Jedi towards his position. Fett and his troops moved to the coordinates Bur'lorr gave, and upon arriving was able to sense the Jedi's thermal signature. He ordered Beviin to stall Bur'lorr and split the rest of his troops up to take the Jedi. When the Jedi stopped moving, the Mandalorians spotted him slumped against a wall, injured. Fett loaded a stun dart into his wrist launcher and soared over the wall; the Jedi ignited his lightsaber quickly, but Fett's dart slipped past it and incapacitated him.^[3]

Fett summoned his troops over to give first aid to the Jedi, then squatted down to speak with him. The Jedi accused him of delivering misinformation to the New Republic, but Fett told him to read his intentions and take the new information he had brought back. Fett explained that he was trying to save Mandalore and had to make the Vong believe he was on their side, and the Jedi—who introduced himself as Kubariet—believed him. Fett sent one of his soldiers to escort Kubariet to his vessel, and moments after the Jedi had left Bur'lorr arrived. He had spotted Kubariet moving into the alley and demanded to know where he had gone. Fett knew he had to be silenced, and without giving a signal, Bevin killed the subaltern's villip then buried his beskad sword into Bur'lorr's jaw. Fett killed the Yuuzhan Vong's amphistaff as it came free, then Beviin finished off the warrior. One of Fett's Mandalorians had been injured in the fight, and he and Beviin carried her off by jetpack as another burned Bur'lorr's body. Fett took her to Slave I and activated the ship's medical droid, but it was unable to save her.^[3]

Two weeks passed, in which the Mandalorians engaged the New Republic in combat twice, both times enough to keep up appearances, and began developing anti-Vong weapons in preparation of the Yuuzhan Vong turning on Mandalore. Fett remained a bounty hunter, putting it ahead of his role as Mandalore. While flying Slave I in the Mandalore Sector, Fett detected a New Republic X-wing; it was Kubariet, and the two agreed to rendezvous on the world of Vorpa'ya. There, the Jedi informed Fett that the New Republic had accepted his intelligence. Fett refused a fee, insisting only that the New Republic continue to fight the Vong, and reminding Kubariet that the Mandalorians would appear to be the allies of the Vong and the enemies of the New Republic in any combat situations as well. Kubariet suggested to Fett that he contribute commandos to aid in the training of planetary militias. Fett liked the idea and promised to look into it. The two men arranged a secure comlink connection; Kubariet was to be Fett's link to the New Republic intelligence community. Fett offered a bag of Vong samples that he had collected; Kubariet then asked if there was anything the Republic could do to help Fett's people, and Fett's only request was that they remember the Mandalorian who had been killed saving Kubariet.^[3]

Fett established a Mandalorian training ground on Raxus Prime, building a private army of recruits. A few months into the war, Han Solo came to Raxus Prime to investigate a rumor, and was shot down by one of the Mandalorians. Fett sent his new recruits—pretending to be him—after Solo to test them, leaving Solo to weed out the weaker ones. Eventually Solo and Fett came face to face again. Fett told Solo to return to Coruscant and tell his wife that the Mandalorians had returned and were working for the highest bidder—and that at this point, that was the Yuuzhan Vong. He and his Mandalorians then left the world.^[63]

The end of the war

When the Vong discovered that the Mandalorians had been betraying them, they took their vengeance, ravaging Mandalore: bombarding the planet, flattening its woods, poisoning its soil, and killing a third of its population. Many Mandalorians took to the underground tunnels of the world's countryside, allowing them to survive the Vong attack and eventually fight off the invaders.^[62]

In 29 ABY, the Vong began a campaign against the world of Caluula, which held strategic value due to its location in the Tion Hegemony and would serve as a source of captives. A number of mercenaries and soldiers came to the world's aid, amongst them Fett and his Mandalorians, who stationed themselves in the orbiting Caluula Station. After a month of Vong attacks, during which no help came from the new galactic government, the Galactic Alliance, due to the collapse of the HoloNet, the Millennium Falcon arrived from Selvaris. It carried Han Solo and Leia Organa Solo, transporting a number of freed prisoners of war from Selvaris. With their arrival, the Vong interest in the world renewed, and a major assault became imminent.^[64]

As Garray, the base commander of the station, showed the Solos around, Han encountered an unmasked Fett. Though he recognized the bounty hunter's voice, he could not place it, and Fett did not reveal his identity, calling himself "Hurn." Immediately thereafter the Vong launched their attack on the station. Fett and his Mandalorians suited up in armor and helmets and joined in the defense, even rescuing the Solos from a squad of Vong soldiers. Fett saluted Han and the Mandalorians moved off down a corridor into a hold, more Vong following them and the Solos and Caluula soldiers bringing up the rear.^[64]

As they went, the Mandalorians scalped the Vong they killed. The Vong, meanwhile, sent out alerts that the Mandalorians were warriors worthy of captivity, and they strengthened their focus on Fett and his soldiers. Two Mandalorians fell as the rest were backed into a corner of the hold, and Fett shot up on his jetpack toward the ceiling, firing on the Vong below, before an amphistaff knocked him down and against a bulkhead. Soldiers eagerly closed in on him, but Fett was in turn saved by Han. Fett grappled his way onto a girder in the ceiling, then fired his jetpack-mounted rocket down into the crowd of Vong below. With more reinforcements on the way, the Mandalorians blew a hole in a bulkhead and retreated through it, with the Solos and Caluula's soldiers following. The group split at an intersection, the Solos going back to the Falcon and Fett and the Mandalorians going the other way.^[64]

Fett eventually reached Slave I, and along with four Mandalorians in Gladiators, he once again came to the rescue of the Solos, blowing apart a coralskipper pursuing the Falcon. As he began laying mines to clear a path for the Falcon to escape to hyperspace, Fett contacted the Solos. Fett and Han exchanged jibes, then the two men saluted each other and parted ways. Though the Yuuzhan Vong ultimately won at Caluula, Fett and his Mandalorians went on to aid in the recapture of the galaxy from them, liberating Ord Mantell, Tholatin, and Gyndine. In the end the Galactic Alliance, Mandalorians, and other allies proved victorious.^[64]

A changing galaxy

Fett returned to bounty hunting after the war, going into a state of semi-retirement. He remained Mandalore, with a hundred commandos to call on at any time, but many of the Mandalorians remained in diaspora, scattered throughout the Mandalore sector and across the galaxy. The Mandalore himself did not visit the sector for several years, and when not fighting with the Mandalorians he remained largely a figurehead. Fett spent much of his time on Taris, where he once pursued a bounty through the Undercity. Though he worked alone, Fett hired the services of a number of individuals, amongst them his armorer, his accountant, Puth, and his doctor, Beluine. The latter was particularly useful, as Fett had also become ill and believed himself to be dying.^[4]

By 40 ABY, the state of the galaxy was changing. War was brewing between the Galactic Alliance and the Five Worlds government of the Corellian system, led by Thrackan Sal-Solo, a cousin of Han Solo. That same year, Fett took a contract against H'buk, an Atzerri glitterstim dealer who owned the Traders' Coalition money. H'buk attempted to flee in a Z-95 Headhunter, but as it did not have hyperdrive, Slave I easily closed in on him. H'buk offered to double the Coalition's fee; Fett refused, and H'buk pointing out that he was armed did not dissuade him either. H'buk tried to evade, but Fett locked onto the Headhunter with his tractor beam and dragged him in. H'buk continued to plead, but when he offered his daughter, Fett became angry and decided he was getting what he deserved. Returning to Atzerri, he landed in front of the Coalition's delegation, dragged H'buk out, and turned him over for his fee. After that was negotiated, he set off for Kamino to see Beluine, finding himself thinking about his estranged daughter, Ailyn Vel.^[4]

In Tipoca City, Beluine confirmed Fett's belief that he was dying. Beluine gave him one to two years left to live and said that it was incurable. Fett's tissues—including the ones in his cloned leg—were degenerating at an increasing rate, he was developing tumors, he was prone to autoimmune diseases, and his liver no longer responded to medication; Beluine hypothesized that it was due to Fett being a clone. The laboratory data Beluine would need to study it further was gone, Fett learned from the administrator Koa Ne, taken by Taun We three weeks before when she left Kamino for employment elsewhere. Fett had no desire to go after We, though, believing that she could not be of help; he regretted that Ko Sai, chief scientist on the Jango cloning project and possessor of a good deal of data on it, had vanished. However, he soon realized that We might be able to lead him to Sai, and he attempted to negotiate a three million credit contract out of Ne to retrieve her and the data. Ne could only provide two million, and Fett promised that he would bring back We, but auction off the data. Knowing that We would be trying to sell her data, he set his comm scanner to search for any suspicious share trading in bioengineering companies, then set a course for Taris to meet up with some of his contacts.^[4]

Fett met Goran Beviin in the bar of the Horizon Hotel, in the Upper City. Beviin told him that he had been approached by Thrackan Sal-Solo, offering a contract on the entire Solo family after Han's son Jacen had led an attack on the Corellian system's Centerpoint Station. Beviin had not taken it, but he knew others had, amongst them Ailyn Vel. Fett was shocked to hear that she was alive, and though she was going under the name "Ailyn Habuur," enough personal details matched up that he knew it was her. Fett then asked about Ko Sai and learned that parts of her had been sent back to Kamino. Having learned what he needed to, Fett dismissed Beviin. Fett soon left the hotel to head back to Slave I, stopping by a share-trading shop connected to the Interstellar Stock Exchange on the way. There he searched a number of biotech companies to see where the most trading had occurred in the previous month. AruMed, on Roonadan, was the most promising lead, with a large number of shares bought recently for no visible reason; Fett suspected it could have been connected to the hiring of Taun We. Before leaving, he bought stock in SteriPac, a producer of battlefield dressings, in anticipation of the coming war.^[4]

Mirta Gev and Taun We

On the way back to Slave I, Fett realized he was being followed by a young woman in Mandalorian armor. As Fett wondered why the Kaminoans had not tracked down the killers of Ko Sai and where her data had gone, she caught up with him. Fett finally turned to face her, and the woman said she needed to talk to him, showing him a heart of fire that he recognized as the one he had long ago given to Sintas Vel. She told him that she had gotten it from the man who had killed Sintas, and that Ailyn owed her a bounty; furthermore, she knew where to find Ailyn. She then identified herself as Mirta Gev and told Fett that Ailyn had hired her to retrieve the heart of fire. After proving to Fett that she did, in fact, know Ailyn by reciting personal details of the woman's life, Gev briefed Fett on how his daughter was. She picked up that Fett wanted to see Ailyn and offered to do so for five thousand credits; Fett realized he could find Ailyn on his own by locating her new target, Han Solo, but wanted to keep Gev around anyway due to Sintas' heart of fire. Fett offered Gev transport on Slave I, and she accepted.^[4]

Fett had Gev stay in the cargo bay, locking her inside and keeping watch over her on the ship's internal camera system as he fired up Slave I and took off from Taris, heading for Roonadan. He slept on the way there, awaking as the vessel alerted him to his reversion from hyperspace. Masking his ship's weapons with a sensor shield, Fett brought Slave I in for a landing at Varlo, the capital city. After setting the ship's defenses, Fett headed off into the city, leaving Gev locked up. He passed through passport control under the pseudonym "Vhett," the Mando'a equivalent of "Fett". Though his armor attracted little attention in the spaceport, Fett decided he needed to be more inconspicuous; taking a monorail into the city, he went into a clothing store and bought a generic cloak and tunic. Fett retired into a refresher stall and put on the tunic, then took off his helmet and walked out into public unmasked.^[4]

The bounty hunter took a taxi from there, learning from the driver that scientists would be living in the Upper Parkway district and that he had only seen Humans in the area. Though Fett was beginning to doubt that Taun We was there, he nonetheless got out in Upper Parkway and went into a bistro to make inquiries. Small talk with the bartender revealed that AruMed's share sales were due to the scientists it had recently acquired from SanTech. When Fett asked about Kaminoans, another patron of the bar joined the conversation; Fett learned from him and the bartender that a Kaminoan had been hired by Arkanian Micro on Vohai. With this Fett left. On the way back he purchased six homes in Upper Parkway as an investment, then took a taxi back to the spaceport. Putting on his helmet before entering the ship, Fett invited Gev up to the cockpit to keep an eye on her. He removed his helmet again as they cleared the planet on the way to Vohai. Gev noticed he was a clone, then mentioned another clone that she had met, who had claimed to be a veteran of the Battle of Geonosis. Fett knew that due to the accelerated aging of the clones, this was highly unlikely, but when he learned that the clone went by the name Skirata—which Fett recognized as the surname of Jango Fett's Mandalorian friend Kal Skirata—and that this clone had deserted after Palpatine came into power, Fett realized that he must have had obtained Ko Sai's data on aging. Lying that his interest in the clone was because they were brothers, Fett learned from Gev that the clone called Skirata had a pair of unusual gray gloves, which Fett realized might be made of Kaminoan skin. Fett suspected she still might be playing him, and he locked her back in the cargo compartment before falling asleep.^[4]

When they arrived on Vohai, Fett used Slave I to scan the Arkanian Micro campus from above before landing. He left Gev confined to the crew section of the ship, with the drive controls locked out but comlink channels left open, in order to bait her if she meant to double cross him. However, Gev only used them to call Fett and insist that she could be useful, while the bounty hunter waited outside the perimeter fence of Arkanian Micro, watching employees enter and leave a security gate. Knowing that Kaminoans liked gloom, Fett called up his scans of the campus and searched for places where an office could be put to get no natural light. Once he found a likely spot, he moved to a neighboring lot, jetpacking across to the roof of one of its buildings, and through his helmet got a magnified view of the security systems at the gate. Fett then used his datapad to access the comlink directory of the laboratories to get a better idea of how its employees were arranged; he finally placed We in "Developmental Sciences and Education".^[4]

Using a disrupter to bypass the fence's security, Fett jetted over the perimeter, then onto the facility's roof. With his scanning radar and a sound sensor active, he moved over it surreptitiously, looking and listening for We. After three hours, he at last heard her voice, and with the coordinates stored, he moved down one of the roof air vents into the corridor below. Fett waited for one of We's coworkers to leave, then slipped into We's office and locked it behind him. We was surprised to see him. Fett told her he was dying, and while We told him that she did not have the data to help him, Fett copied what she had onto a data breaker, then made her a deal: he would not sell it to the highest bidder if she gave him information on Ko Sai. We told him that Sai had discovered the secrets to stop aging, but had been caught by Kal Skirata and his associates and sent back to Kamino in pieces. Fett realized that the clone Gev had met had been one of Skirata's people and held the secret to saving him. Fett told We he would let her know if he found Sai's research and if it helped him, and with that he left the building, jetted back over the fence, and returned to Slave I. Learning from Gev that she had seen the clone on Coruscant, Fett began to set a course there, but he was interrupted by an incoming message, out of Corellia, from Thrackan Sal-Solo. Sal-Solo offered Fett a contract to fight on his side of the war, defending Centerpoint Station from the Galactic Alliance. After hearing Sal-Solo's offer, Fett set a course for the Corellian system.^[4]

Business on Corellia

On the way to Corellia, Gev attempted to contact Vel, but got no response; Fett surreptitiously kept watch, but Gev told him of her concerns before long. Believing that Vel was keeping silence as she hunted the Solos, Fett instead contact Goran Beviin to have him gather what Mandalorian commandos he could and meet him in Zerria's Bar on Drall. When Beviin told him that he could only expect about six commandos, as the rest had returned to their farms on Mandalore, Fett was shocked. After he hung up, Gev confronted him on his disconnect from Mandalorian culture. Fett's thoughts turned once again to his daughter, who he realized he wanted to apologize to. Arriving on Drall, Fett rendezvoused with the other Mandalorians, Beviin and five others he had never met: Ram Zerimar, Briike, Ghes Orade, Novoc Vevut, and Isko Talgal. Fett asked them for their opinions on taking Sal-Solo's job, and like himself, they were doubtful. Fett decided that he would at least go to Corellia to hear Sal-Solo out. As the Mandalorians got acquainted with Gev, Fett pulled Beviin aside to talk to him about the girl and Vel and learned that the Solos were on Corellia. Beviin, too, was critical of Fett's job as Mandalore; he suggested that Fett consider pulling the Mandalorians back together as a nation on Mandalore, and he mentioned a demagogue who went by the name "Kad'ika" preaching a message of rebuilding Mandalore into something new. Fett had enough and decided he was going to go to Corellia, breaking the Galactic Alliance blockade around it, and ordered the Mandalorians to form up on Slave I in their Gladiators.^[4]

Fett, with Gev again at his side, took Slave I just outside the exclusion zone of the blockade, modifying its scanner profile so it was undetectable. As Beviin contacted the Alliance warship Ocean, offering the Mandalorians' services, Fett took advantage of the distraction. Activating the ship's hyperdrive, and disengaging it only a fraction of a second later, Fett leapt past the blockade. Slave I's excess speed carried it into Corellia's atmosphere, and Fett regained control over the vessel and decelerated. Coronet City Air Traffic Control contacted him and gave him landing instructions, informing him that Sal-Solo was sending a speeder to meet him. Taking Gev with him, Fett was met outside his ship by three officials of the Corellian Assembly, among them Dur Gejjen, who Fett sensed trouble from. Fett and Gev were brought to the Corellian Assembly Building to meet with Sal-Solo. The President made his offer to Fett, guarding the repair teams Sal-Solo was planning to send to Centerpoint to reactivate the station. The price Fett named was too steep for Sal-Solo, though, and he sent the bounty hunter on his way with a promise to keep in touch. Fett asked for a tour of the grounds, and Gejjen volunteered to escort him; all the while, the bounty hunter kept a recording of sensor and radar data on the building's layout. Once outside, Gejjen made an offer of his own: one million credits from Corellia's opposition parties to kill Sal-Solo. Fett took the deal, and after leaving the grounds he admitted to Gev his true purpose for coming to Corellia: knowing Vel was after the Solos, he had come to find Han Solo.^[4]

The bounty hunter found Solo in Keben Park, in Coronet. Landing behind him, Fett waited for Solo to turn around; when he did and lunged for his blaster, Fett hit him under the chin and stuck his own gun in Solo's face. When Solo realized Fett was not there to kill him, the bounty hunter moved him to a nearby office to talk. Fett told him about his daughter and his intention to use Solo as bait. Gev came in moments later. Solo wanted something in return, though, that Fett help him kill Sal-Solo; Gejjen had approached him as well about doing the job. When Solo asked if his daughter was named "Mirta Gev" and Gev said that she was, Solo charged at her and was brought down by the butt of Fett's blaster. Fett told him to explain, and Solo informed him that his son Jacen had captured "Ailyn Habuur," who he knew was working with someone named "Mirta Gev"; Solo believed Gev was hunting him as well until Gev told him otherwise. Fett threatened to kill Solo if Vel came to any harm, startling Gev for a reason he could not determine. The two men came to an agreement: Solo would get Vel released if Fett helped him kill Sal-Solo. Fett had Solo contact his wife to allay her suspicion, and the three moved to Slave I to prepare for the assassination. Solo geared up in one of Fett's spare suits of armor, and with Fett's scans of the building as reference, they decided to bluff their way into Sal-Solo's presence, kill him, and make their escape through a secret tunnel.^[4]

Under the pretense of further discussing the Corellian President's offer, Fett, Gev, and Solo—helmeted so Sal-Solo would not recognize him—met with Sal-Solo in his office. After making sure the room was soundproof, Fett asked Sal-Solo to dismiss his staff and secure the doors to discuss matters more privately, and the President complied. Fett begin meaninglessly negotiations with Sal-Solo, waiting for Solo to make his move. Solo leapt across Sal-Solo's desk, grabbed the President by his throat, removed his helmet, and prepared to kill him. Sal-Solo told Solo other bounty hunters would be after him, and he had set Vel up to be caught; when Fett heard this, he prepared to shoot Sal-Solo himself, but Gev beat him to it, firing three shots into his head. Fett followed up with a pair of shots to make sure, and after giving Solo a moment to shoot the body himself for satisfaction, he hurried them into the access tunnel and jammed the transmissions of the arriving guards. For over a kilometer they ran down the tunnel, their pursuit close behind, until they reached a bunker entrance. Fett fired his flamethrower back into the tunnel as they picked a door, and startling the one occupant of the room they burst into, the trio ran to the emergency exit and into another corridor. Near the top, Fett turned back and fired his jetpack missile down the tunnel, bringing the roof down. The three at last emerged on a hillside in Keben Park, and they took cover in some bushes near the highway as Solo called his wife to pick them up.^[4]

Fett and the others returned to the Solo apartment as the Corellian Security Force responded to the assassination. Fett made sure Gejjen had paid, and as Leia tried to reach Jacen Solo through the Force, the others watched the news report that Gejjen and other party leaders were already forming a new government; as they had anticipated, the blame for the assassination was placed on agents of the Galactic Alliance. Leia at last reached Jacen by comlink. She asked him about Vel, then upon hearing his answer reported to the gathered audience that Fett's daughter had died under interrogation. Fett was shocked, and when Gev turned her blaster on him and fired, it was only Leia's use of the Force that saved him. While Gev was pinned down with the Force and Fett kept his gun trained on her, Leia ordered Gev to explain. She told them that she had intended to lure Fett to Vel so his daughter could kill him, and she was, in fact, Ailyn Vel's daughter—Fett's granddaughter. Leia let Gev go, and the girl ineffectually punched at Fett in anger. Fett asked that he get his daughter's body back, then told Gev to pick up her blaster. He then removed his helmet—allowing Solo to knowingly look upon his face for the first time—and told Gev to shoot him. She could not, and Leia went to arrange for Jacen to deliver the body while Fett returned to Slave I.^[4]

As he tried to cope with the revelations of the past day, Fett contacted Beviin, who had learned via contacts in the Coruscant Security Force that Jacen Solo had been the one interrogating Vel when she died. He had killed her with the Force, and many were noting the similarities between him and his grandfather Darth Vader. Fett ordered Beviin to not go after Solo, nor would he do so himself—instead, he would let Solo become a Sith, if that was what he intended to do, and gain his revenge upon the Solos that way. Jacen Solo meanwhile brought Vel's body to Corellia in the Millennium Falcon, and after handing the ship off to his parents, they brought it the rest of the way to where Fett was docked. Fett emerged from Slave I to find Gev waiting for him, and in a heated exchange Fett explained why he had stayed away from Sintas and Ailyn. Fett tried to give her the payment for killing Sal-Solo, but Gev refused, and the two waited for the Falcon to arrive. Fett surprised the Solos with information on their son's controversial activities that they had not known, then boarded the Falcon to see his daughter's body. Leia attempted to stop Fett from looking at the body itself, but he dismissed the Solos and opened the body bag anyway, seeing the damage inflicted on her during interrogation. Fett thought about losing his father as he stared at Vel, then took the heart of fire and broke it in half. One half he tied around Vel's neck, then he and Gev took her body back to Slave I's cargo hold. Fett decided to take the body back to Mandalore, where he would take up a more permanent residence. The bounty hunter realized that he and Gev were now family, through their shared tragedy, and he allowed himself to cry for his daughter. As they left Corellia, Fett revealed to Gev that he was dying, and he told her of his search for the clone with the gray gloves. They then set a course for Geonosis, where Fett collected his father's remains to be reburied on Mandalore with Vel.^[4]

The clone hunt

In the next few months, the war escalated. Fett was unable to learn more about what had happened to Sintas Vel, as he discovered Gev had found the heart of fire in a dealer's shop; as for the clone with gray gloves, Fett checked the name "Skirata" amongst lists of active bounty hunters and turned up nothing. The Mandalorian known as Kad'ika meanwhile continued his nationalistic movement. A meeting of the clans, presided over by Fett, was called in the capital of Keldabe, and approximately one hundred individuals came to MandalMotors Hall to attend. Some clan chieftains wanted to join the war, but Fett insisted that they would stay out of it and deal with Mandalore's own problems. Some wanted to join the war so as to ensure a flow of credits to Mandalore, while others sided with Fett in wanting to conserve what people they had left after the Yuuzhan Vong War. Debate broke out, with many expressing concerns about finances, and Fett at last ruled that while Mandalore would stay out of the war, any Mandalorian who wanted to individually join a side could do so. A supporter of Kad'ika named Graad disapproved of this, wanting to call the diaspora back to Mandalore and strengthen the planet. Fett concurred, promising to call for two million individuals to return to Mandalore. MandalMotors, meanwhile, offered to contribute half its profits to Mandalore, garnered from selling materiel to both sides, and Fett offered to give a contribution of his own. Since Fett planned to leave Mandalore in search of the clone named Skirata, he put Beviin in charge. Gev joined him on his way to Slave I, and Fett told her of his plan to find Skirata by hiring him. On the way to Bador, a moon of Kuat where Gev had once seen the clone, Fett let her in the fact that she would be the one posing as the potential client.^[62]

Fett and Gev discussed her father, Makin Marec, his marriage to Ailyn Vel, and Gev's own developing relationship with Ghes Orade. The conversation then turned to the heart of fire, and Gev reminded Fett that only a Kiffar or Jedi would be able to read the memories in it, those of Sintas and him. They soon arrived in the Kuat system and landed in the city of Bunar. The two boarded Fett's speeder bike, and Gev directed them to the Paradise Cantina, where she had encountered the clone Skirata. When the entered and the bartender saw Fett, he dove under the counter for a disruptor; Fett and Gev drew on him as he surfaced, and Fett hit him, making him drop the weapon. The bartender recognized Fett as a Mandalorian like another that had come in some time ago, who Gev realized was Skirata and told the bartender they were looking for. Fett muscled him into telling him that after Skirata had met Gev in the bar, he had gone on to kill a local gang boss named Cherit. The bartender gave him a name—L. Fraig, who had taken over Cherit's gang since his death—and a location to find him, the Tekshar Falls Casino. Fett told the bartender to let Skirata know Fett was looking for him if he ever reappeared. Gev and Fett left the cantina and headed to the casino.^[62]

Additional activities

In the course of Fett's life, the bounty hunter had several adventures for which the timing is unknown.

Stolen armor

For a long time, Fett had regularly traveled to Ma'ar Shaddam for the services of one of that world's master weaponsmiths, turning over all his armor and weapons for a brief time. The bounty hunter Risso Nu, second best hunter in the Core Worlds, learned of this and decided to take action. Gathering a number of other hunters, many with grievances towards Fett, Nu aimed to ambush Fett, kill him, and take his reputation as the best bounty hunter in the galaxy.^[65]

After leaving his armor with the weaponsmith, Fett took a bath, with a Twi'lek attendant nearby. When he heard a noise on the roof—Nu's men landing—Fett ordered the Twi'lek to give him her robe, then hid himself in the light fixture over the bath. The hunters charged in, demanding the attendant reveal where Fett had gone, and the bounty hunter obliged them by swinging from his hiding place and killing them one-by-one. He picked up a dropped comlink and contacted Nu, who ordered two of his men—a Rodian and the Sullustan Mudmub—to the bath to stop Fett. Fett took a sword and bandolier of ammunition from one of the hunters and waited.^[65]

Nu broke his way into the weaponsmith's shop and absconded with Fett's armor. Meanwhile, Mudmub and the Rodian arrived at the bath. As the Rodian looked over the carnage Fett had wreaked, Fett grabbed Mudmub, strapped him to the Rodian's back with the bandolier and an explosive, and detonated it. Nu arrived in Slave I and fired a missile into the bath hut. Assuming Fett was dead, he went to a local cantina to pose as the bounty hunter. Fett had survived, though, and found the weaponsmith, who insisted he had had nothing to do with the attack. Fett took the man's blaster and shot Nu's Kowakian monkey-lizard, then learned from the smith that his armor and weapons were gone, and the only armor that remained was Jango Fett's old suit.^[65]

As Nu relaxed in the cantina, Fett came up behind him in his other armor. He punched the other bounty hunter's helmet off, then stripped him of the rest of the armor, leaving Nu alive to remind everyone who was number one in the galaxy.^[65]

Drex's bounty

Fett took a job for the crime lord Drex of the Gallapraxis system, who claimed that Feleen Bantillian had killed his son. Fett tracked the being to world of Vornax and entered Bantillian's keep there. When Fett found Bantillian he offered him a chance to surrender, but Bantillian told him that he was Drex's son; what was more, Fett had once killed his brother Gavron Sil, and the bounty had been a trap for Bantillian and Drex to get revenge.^[66]

Bantillian triggered the roof to close in over Fett, trapping him. A swarm of droids then descended on Fett. At first the bounty hunter maneuvered out of the way with his jetpack, but a blast from a war droid knocked him to the ground and damaged it. Fett destroyed the droid with a wrist rocket, but on Bantillian's urging the other droids closed over him. Fett fired his grappling hook and escaped onto a roof beam; spotting Bantillian, he fired at a tank of flammable machine oil above the being. Bursting into flames as the oil poured over him, Bantillian rushed into a nearby pool of water, but unable to swim, drowned. As his droid controller fell into the water, the droids, too, stopped.^[66]

Fett returned to Drex and demanded his payment. In return, he gave the crime lord a bag with Bantillian's head in it, a thermal detonator in its mouth. As Fett rocketed out of Drex's lair, it exploded.^[66]

Bendu Fry and the "Jedi"

Looking for his next bounty, Fett passed over listings for escaped Wookiee slaves and Imperial defectors for a Devaronian named Bendu Fry, wanted by Black Sun. Fett tracked down Fry, who attempted to escape; before Fett could bring him in, though, Fry told him that a Jedi could be found on that same world. Fett found the Jedi, a Twi'lek, who was practicing with his lightsaber, and attacked him. The Twi'lek grabbed his speeder bike and took off, but Fett, in pursuit, shot another rider off their bike, and took off after him. Fett shot the Jedi's bike down, and the Twi'lek crashed from the sky into the walls of his home. As Fett cornered the Twi'lek and prepared to shoot, he learned that he was not, in fact a Jedi, but as the Twi'lek explained, someone who had learned only years ago that his father been a Jedi killed on Geonosis. As the Twi'lek's own son came running out of the house to his father, Fett sympathized and spared him. He returned to where Fry still waited and shot the Devaronian.^[67]

Mistaken identity

In the course of Fett's life, a number of individuals were accidentally mistaken for him or intentionally pretended to be him.

Personality and traits

As a child, Boba Fett was well-behaved.^[9] He was intelligent and observant, having learned to thoroughly apprise situations he found himself in.^[6] Fett gained his father's natural instincts for detecting trouble, as well as Jango's reflexes;^[1] his father shaped him into a survivor.^[4] Fett's youth gave him a distaste for religious autarchy, though he later learned to overcome it in service of payment.^[8] As a child, Fett defined himself by his love of Jango.^[4] Jango's death stayed with Fett, and even decades later, the memory of it could still return to him. Fett felt no one could ever replace his father,^[3] and he held up Jango as an ideal of fatherhood. It was for this reason that Fett was angered by those who offered up their own children to save themselves. Fett's homeworld of Kamino remained a haven for him in his later life, and at times he greatly missed the world. Though ambivalent towards Kaminoans in his earlier life, as he aged he developed a level of resentment for them for the dispassionate way they had viewed Jango. Feeling a slight kinship with Jango's other clones, Fett also did not approve the purposes to which they had been put, such as in the rebellion against the Empire. Fett often wondered when meeting stormtroopers whether they were clones of his father. He was glad to hear when clones fathered children, as it assured that their bloodline would not die out.^[4]

When young, Fett learned to listen more than he spoke.^[6] He retained these lessons in later years, never socializing and rarely speaking.^[1] Dengar often chided Fett on his laconism; Fett countered that thinking was more important than speaking.^[52] Fett only asked questions when he had a reason to do so.^[62] In combat, too, Fett believed that silence was essential,^[58] and he used silence as well to unnerve bounties.^[4] Fett had a way of making the world outside himself vanish when he went into his silent mode.^[62] Shortly after the Battle of Hoth, Fett had a conversation with an Imperial officer on the first time he had seen Han Solo; it was the longest conversation he had had about anything other than business in a long time. He only spoke to himself on very rare occasions, sometimes out of sheer surprise.^[15] While transporting the carbon-frozen Han Solo, Fett talked to himself a great deal, even giving monologues to the inanimate Solo.^[38]

Boba Fett was a practical man. He was a realist, making his decisions based on pragmatism and not bothering to try to change those aspects of life and the galaxy that he felt could not be changed. Fett accepted changes in the ruling structure of galactic government, as they little affected the smaller lives that he normally dealt with. When hired by the Yuuzhan Vong, it was only the threat they posed to Fett's adopted world of Mandalore and his people that convinced him to side against them. He was willing for himself and his people to be considered traitors as long as the practical concern, and his own code of honor, was met.^[3] He allied himself with Jabba the Hutt, despite hating the gangster's trade, out of a sense of necessity; Jabba, he felt, was less of a threat than the Rebellion, and he would work with the Hutt until he no longer had to, at which point the Empire would deal with Jabba.^[15]

Fett was ruthless and calculating,^[36] but considered himself to be a fair and just man. He would easily, for example, remove a bounty's limbs if it made it easier to transport them.^[15] After the death of Jango, Fett became a man of cold analysis and raw hatred, and his life became one of miming emotions he did not have.^[4] With little in the way of love ever shown to him, Fett threw up emotional barriers and developed an attitude of disdain for the universe.^[62] He learned to trust no one, and thought little of others who put their trust in friends.^[12] Of what little feeling remained, almost all was rage. He could empower and channel this rage and hatred to give himself strength, as he did during his ordeal in the sarlacc.^[8] The relief Fett felt upon being paid for the capture of Kardue'sai'Malloc was the strongest emotion he had in decades other than anger.^[15] Optimism was a feeling Fett experienced little after childhood, though it could return at times when things were going particularly well. He also showed little in the way of emotion, even when he felt it; his voice betrayed little feeling, and even such small gestures as an intake of breath or a swallowing noise indicated a good deal of surprise or anxiety.^[3] Grief was a feeling virtually unknown to Fett in his later years, until he was confronted with the heart of fire that had once belonged to Sintas Vel, and later saw his daughter dead—at which point the bounty hunter wept.^[4]

Fett used his armor and helmet to put bounties off their guard, sometimes looking in an entirely different direction while keeping an eye on them through his helmet's systems. He enjoyed the discomfort he instilled in those around him, sometimes staring them into intimidation. Fett also found that any implication he might remove his helmet became an act of theater, drawing the target's interest, and he used this to his advantage, too;^[15] Fett enjoyed using the power of good presentation to make his points, and he appreciated a measure of theatricality in others as well. This also isolated Fett, though; when he went about unhelmeted in 40 ABY, Fett marveled at the novelty of being able to eat or order a drink in public. While the helmet had an distancing effect on most, this did not seem to work with other Mandalorians.^[4] The bounty hunter also made a concerted to keep his past secret, going to great lengths to remove information on it, as well as those who would use such information against him.^[21]

Fett placed great stock in how his name was viewed. Even money could be put aside in the interests of regaining reputation.^[60] Reputation allowed Fett even greater success, doing much of his work for him, as bounties would often surrender rather than run.^[4] The bounty hunter considered his reputation and armor to have been earned by his skills. When Jodo Kast attempted to impersonate him, Fett lectured the man in his last moments that he should have learned from Fett rather than take what he had, unearned.^[52] He appreciated skill in others as well, and while he liked few people, he felt warmer towards those with appreciable skills. Fett cared little for cowards.^[4]

To Fett, escaping the sarlacc where none had before was a source of pride,^[4] but he never entirely shook off the effects of being in it. Even twenty-one years later, the right environment could still trigger memories of being trapped inside it.^[3] Fett's memories were not always his own, though, as the memories of the sarlacc and its victims remained with him. The sarlacc changed him physically, too, altering his metabolism and changing his genetic structure. Fett needed constant medication to prevent cancer, and the genetic damage made him no longer able to have children.^[15] The nature of his cloning caused even further health complications as he aged, pushing him near death, putting him in chronic pain, and forcing the bounty hunter to confront his mortality.^[4]

Fett was not uncharitable, and after receiving a bounty on Nobam Nol, considered leaving some of it for the local orphanage, only not doing so because he needed the money for another mission.^[52] He would sometimes make overtures of generosity towards family members.^[62] In later life, Fett would give up bounties for the sake of fellow Mandalorians who had fewer to choose from.^[3] During the Azgoghk mission, as well, Fett freed the prisoners being held in that ship, though it was not part of his contract. He did not, however, profess any interest in what they did after escaping.^[60] Fett took a similar attitude with the magician Wim Magwit, to whom he gave freedom, then immediately forced to fend for himself while escaping the crew of the Bloodstar.^[57] The bounty hunter respected individuals who could sort out their own affairs. Goran Beviin believed that when Fett was charitable, it was because he felt something was truly the right action; though he also noted that the bounty hunter was equally liable to kill an individual solely for business.^[3] Fett had no problem with killing if he was paid to do so or had to do so, or removing parts of a target if it had to be done, but he balked at unnecessary cruelty, finding it too brutal a method.^[4]

Fett did not believe kindness was warranted towards animals or other "lower lifeforms".^[32]

Fett believed that there was no wrong done by a soldier following orders,^[60] but if paid he would hunt those who committed crimes while doing so.^[15] He would also turn in corrupt law enforcement officers to their superiors for a bounty.^[58] Fett firmly believed in the hunt as the act of bringing evil to justice.^[8] Whether the client or bounty had the moral high ground was irrelevant to him, though; the act of being hired was enough for him to devote himself to the hunt.^[3] The age of the subject did not matter; the bounty hunter had no problem collecting bounties on children, something many other hunters would balk at.^[15] Fett could even put aside personal vendettas in service of a contract, as he did when protecting Han Solo during the hunt for the Yavin Vassilika;^[24] however, if he was under no other obligation he could take bounties solely because he had a vendetta against them.^[17] Fett would not violate his own sense of morality for money, though. Until accidentally killing Incavi Larado, Fett had never killed the wrong target, and though he felt she was guilty of plenty, it left him conflicted.^[15] Fett did not like collateral damage and did not kill bystanders to a bounty if he could avoid it.^[4]

Justice was a matter that greatly concerned Fett. He considered it to be the greatest good there was, necessary for civilization to exist. Evil, which Fett defined as "intelligence in the service of entropy," was something only satisfied by justice, and Fett believed death to be the final and most lasting form of it. Laws were only good to Fett if they were just, and while law changed, Fett kept his morality constant. It was this philosophy that led Fett to commit the murder that got him exiled from Concord Dawn; even as he faced the possibility of execution, he was unrepentant.^[15]

Fett despised the use and trafficking of spice, especially as it led to harder drugs and those who would be willing to smuggle spice would be willing to smuggle anything. He would destroy caches of spice if he could and he was not told otherwise, and he did not himself use any drugs or drink, as he considered them an insult to the flesh. Fett also considered premarital sex and rape to be immoral, and he allowed Leia Organa to cover herself and sleep undisturbed when she was presented to him by Jabba. Though he appreciated the female form, he approved of modesty and kept himself chaste.^[15]

Fett believed that anything was possible to one who wanted it badly enough and pushed himself hard to achieve it.^[4] He had never settled for adequacy, instead expecting to excel, and it was this that he believed made him the best bounty hunter in the galaxy.^[62] When in pursuit of a bounty, Fett sometimes took great risks at the expense of caution. This could cost him, as it did when he collided with the planetary shield of Byss while chasing Han Solo^[55] or when he was knocked into the Pit of Carkoon while attempting to engage Luke Skywalker in close quarters.^[44] He would not always, however, rush into a fight when he expected the prey to come to him; Fett felt that patience paid, and he kept in mind the basic of bounty hunting that no bounty was worth dying for.^[15] Indeed, Fett felt that he would die only when he was ready.^[4]

He was, however, not concerned whether a bounty was troublesome; according to him, trouble was the point of a bounty, and only a bounty hunter who accepted that could get the higher-paying jobs.^[25] Fett felt much more at home in action than while performing mundane tasks; the act of the hunt revitalized him, giving him a target to focus on and achieve. However, it was not sport, and he knew taking a personal interest in kills could make things sloppy. Death was only a risk, never a certainty; Fett even included his own natural death in this category, focusing instead on how much time he had left to accomplish things.^[4] However, even Fett had his limits; at the end of the mission to bring Solo to Jabba the Hutt, Fett stated that he had he known the trouble that it would bring, he would not have taken the bounty for even ten times the cost.^[38] And though Fett often skirted the law, he knew that some aspects of Imperial law even he could not flout, such as the murder of a high-profile individual. When the possibility presented itself of earning a reward without risk, Fett was also not adverse to taking the opportunity. It was important to him, though, that in doing so he did not break any promises he had made with a client.^[59] If he said he would do something, Fett would keep his word.^[15] Indeed, Fett often carefully worded his promises so as to make sure he kept his word and lived up to his sense of honor.^[3] Fett paid favors he owed as well, though when they were repaid he felt himself under no obligation and would do as he pleased, even turn on the one he had been indebted to.^[17]

After their fight on Dargulli, in which Fett sided with Vader against a mob of bounty hunters attacking him, Vader complimented Fett on his ability to read the odds of the situation.^[25] Fett made it his business never to underestimate a foe.^[46] Fett hated working with unknowns;^[62] caution was deeply ingrained into his psyche, and he picked up the ability to sense trouble from Jango.^[3] As Mandalore, Fett could stay—and keep his people—out of a fight if he felt it was more important to focus on business nearer to home.^[62] Fett did not like to side with losers of a conflict, as they were less likely to pay,^[4] and he was known to hedge his bets at times; as the Galactic Civil War became less one-sided and the Rebel Alliance gained traction against the Empire, he began to avoid picking sides in case either faction was victorious.^[51] To Fett, what was important in a conflict was what was in it for him.^[62] However, Fett considered the Rebellion to be morally wrong. He considered the Empire the legitimate force of justice in the galaxy, necessary to uphold civilization, and though he regretted the loss of innocent life that ensued, he acknowledged that it was an inevitable facet of war. He believed the Rebellion to be doomed and would have been pleased if it failed, but he did not care enough about its fate to concern himself with how it passed. Fett was Darth Vader's favorite bounty hunter, and for his part he grudgingly admired Vader's leadership and the discipline it instilled in his men.^[15] Vader additionally paid well and on time, and Fett missed him in his way.^[4] The bounty hunter regretted when the Empire fell, enjoying his work less afterwards.^[15]

Yolan Bren, one of Fett's targets, did not believe the bounty hunter to be evil, but rather heartless and emotionless, with nothing to live or die for save payment. Bren found Fett to be a pitiable man.^[28] Indeed, money was Fett's only true allegiance.^[12] He was known to kill those who could not make their payments to him,^[30] or at the least leave them to the mercy of their enemies.^[28] People that caused Fett a great deal of trouble he would also leave to help themselves.^[59] Even Fett's own Mandalorians were trained by weeding out the weaker ones.^[63]

Even if a mission would benefit him personally—indeed, even as he approached death, rendering credits useless—Fett still drove hard to be paid well. His goal was simply to succeed, to show how good he was. He sometimes could not help but wonder at the purpose of this, questioning whether a family would be a better legacy of his life; though he thought himself a failure at family life after leaving his wife and daughter, Ailyn Vel's death and the discovery of his granddaughter would at last convince Fett to rebuild a family of his own.^[4] When a client suggested they would not pay Fett for a job, or would pay him a paltry sum, he could take violent offense.^[18][60] Fett would not be cheated when it came to matters of payment; he would always check his account to see that the money for a bounty was transfered in before taking the word of the one who was paying him.^[15] Fett believed in honoring debts, and he would not betray a contract for money.^[4] Power was of less interest to Fett than wealth, as those with power could always be removed by those with wealth, through the services of people like himself.^[31]

Even being Mandalore, leader of the Mandalorians, was not something Fett relished. Responsibility for others was something virtually unknown to Fett.^[62] He had little knowledge of Mandalorian customs and rarely fulfilled more than a figurehead role with his people. Fett was criticized for this by his fellow Mandalorians, who saw him as disconnected and grew discontent with his lack of governance. Though he eventually came to accept his role—believing it was what his father had wanted for him—and took his place on Mandalore at the head of the clans,^[4] he remained filled with doubt, seeing himself as outside the Mandalorian culture, and was disturbed to realize that he was not the best Mandalore he could be.^[62]

Fett could negotiate a good deal for himself as well, playing to the tastes and whims of his clients.^[8] He had a good deal of experience at breaking through stubborn negotiators to get the prices he demanded, though he was not always successful at this. Fett was also adept at reading galactic trends and investing his money accordingly. He believed in speculation and investment over gambling, and by 40 ABY, he was one of the wealthiest men in the galaxy. Despite his personal value, Fett still felt more comfortable in seedy and dangerous environs than in upscale surroundings,^[4] just as governing in wartime suited him better than peace.^[62]

Even fellow bounty hunters praised Fett's skill and intelligence.^[38] He learned new skills through rote, repeating them until they became second nature.^[62] He was a skilled gunman^[21] and knew the best locations on a thousand species to shoot at for maximum stopping power.^[4] Fett was alert, and had learned useful skills over the years—detecting whether he was in an artificial gravity field or on a planet^[8], distinguishing between an induced death-like state and true death of a body.^[57] When Vader summoned a number of bounty hunters to meet him before the Battle of Hoth, Fett deduced where the Empire would be striking, and after the battle he was the only bounty hunter able to follow Han Solo, anticipating the smuggler's own tricks. Fett learned from the ploys and tricks pulled by his quarry, making sure he did not fall into the same one more than once. He was good at tracking prey too, such as when he used Kardue'sai'Malloc's drinking habits to locate the Devaronian,^[15] or when he followed a trail of investments to find Taun We.^[4] His experience gave him an advantage in many areas of hunting, such as learning to attack a bounty after they had relieved themselves so as not to have to clean up after them. He sometimes did research before going after a target, such as studying the anatomy of a non-Human species so as to know where to strike non-lethally.^[15] He took advantage of the times he was invited into government or other sensitive areas, recording information on them for future use.^[4]

Kardue'sai'Malloc believed Fett to be uncultured, unable to appreciate fine music or alcohol. However, Fett came to appreciate the music that the Devaronian had kept.^[15]

When Fett was cornered, he would fight all the harder where others might give up.^[4]

Fett disliked Jedi, an attitude picked up after Jango's death at their hands.^[3] He believed their Force powers made them a genetic elite and felt it lacked merit. Upon Ailyn Vel's death at the hands of the Jedi Jacen Solo, Fett's dislike of them grew, and he saw Solo's fall to the dark side as a chance for revenge on them. Fett thought of most major galactic wars as affairs between Jedi and Sith, and he cared little of the difference between the governments of either, as he got paid by both. To Fett, the Yuuzhan Vong War an almost welcome exception to wars of this nature.^[4]

Physical appearance

Fett, as a clone of his father Jango, looked like the elder bounty hunter.^[4] In his later years, Fett's face was heavily scarred.^[64] Though he considered himself to be disfigured, by 40 ABY the scars from his time in the sarlacc had faded to the extent that he could pass for any normal individual of his age. Though his hair had grayed, his face, kept shielded from the sun by his helmet, had few lines.^[4]

Few of Fett's bounties saw his face, an aspect he used to encourage speculation about his past.^[1] An exception to this occurred during his hunt of Kardue'sai'Malloc, when he went unarmored and unmasked to avoid the Devaronian's security systems; Fett ultimate had to identify himself to Malloc to instill the appropriate level of fear.^[15] After his incident in the sarlacc, Fett rarely showed his face to anyone, thinking of his armor as his true face.^[52] Besides being a vital tool, it was a barrier for Fett between himself and a world where he felt he did not belong, a psychological aid that helped him keep his distance.^[4] By 29 ABY, however, he was sometimes willing to go unmasked in public at times, as he did at Caluula Station.^[64] He still kept his helmet on most of the time, taking it off for the rare individual like his doctor. By 40 ABY few knew what the bounty hunter looked like underneath the helmet, and even his own men did not see him without it. When going incognito during his search for Taun We, Fett went unmasked into public for the first time—other than at Caluula Station—in his adult life. The experience made him feel naked; even a moment as simple as another person's eyes meeting his gaze made an impression on Fett, and as soon as he could, Fett replaced his helmet with great relief. He later revealed his face to his granddaughter Mirta Gev and nemesis Han Solo.^[4]

Personal relationships

Jango Fett

Fett saw his father as above the avarice and treachery that characterized the underworld. He considered Jango to be honorable and truthful, an ideal to be looked up to, and a personal hero. Jango, in Fett's eyes, was the greatest Mandalorian and the one he would model his own life after.^[6] Fett saw himself as a second chance for Jango to live up to the ideal of Jaster Mereel. In his own mind, Fett lived in the shadow of his father, and it was in his father's memory that he returned to Mandalore to be Mandalore and have a family of his own.^[4]

Jango Fett taught his son many lessons on the proper conduct of a warrior. He emphasized being free of fear, being ready for anything, and committing oneself entirely to an attack. Jango taught Boba that loyalty and honor were more important than anything, and once one's word was given, that mattered over all other things. Mercy, according to Jango, had no place in battle.^[11]

In childhood, Fett had always been glad to see his fathers' face, but as he aged and his own face came to resemble his father's more, it turned into a perpetual reminder of Jango. Fett hated the Jedi for taking his father from him, and even in adult life took mercy on those whose deaths would leave orphans like himself—or who themselves were orphans.^[67]

As a child, Boba was always glad when Jango came home from his hunts and missed him while he was gone. Jango loved his son and wished he could spend more time with Boba,^[9] knowing that his son needed him to be there.^[10] Jango was the only person Boba ever trusted or cared about. He put Boba first, and Boba would later believe that all fathers should do the same. By his later life Fett felt as if he had spent every day missing his father.^[4]

Taun We

When Fett was a child, Taun We was the one who raised him while Jango was away on hunts.^[1] Fett considered her the nearest thing he had to a mother, and as a child he cared about her. Even as he developed an antipathy for Kaminoans in later age, Taun We was one of those he continued to like.^[4]

Yet Fett did not trust We. He considered her semblances of emotions to be mimed rather than real; thinking of her as cold and focused first on her science, Fett did not believe she ever cared personally for him, seeing him only as an experiment. He felt no compassion towards her in return, but would not ruin her life without reason.^[4]

Han Solo

Fett first saw Han Solo at the Jubilar All-Human Free-For-All. Though Fett believed Solo would die fighting three larger men, and considered it a shame as the young man had promise, Solo instead won. Fett considered it one of the bravest things he had scene, and in later years it would give him great enjoyment to hunt the smuggler. But though he considered Solo brave, Fett was greatly offended by the man. He considered Solo a mercenary who had never done anything good or difficult in his life, and he hated the man for his smuggling of spice. Fett despised any comparison between himself and the smuggler.^[15]

When Fett was hired to protect Solo in the search for the Yavin Vassilika, he fulfilled his duty in spite of his rivalry with the other man.^[24]

Fett took great pleasure in forcing Lando Calrissian to betray Solo's trust, finding satisfaction in revenge for the humiliation Solo had inflicted on him at Ord Mantell.^[12] When Solo was frozen in carbonite, Fett developed a certain fondness for the smuggler, due to the two bounties he would receive on him.^[8] As the transportation of Solo grew longer and more difficult, though, Fett grew an intense animosity for the inanimate body, addressing Solo as if in person and accusing him of bringing only trouble.^[38] He nonetheless hoped Solo would die well, when it seemed as if the smuggler would be fed into the sarlacc by Jabba the Hutt.^[15]

Fett would not accept Solo's help after escaping the sarlacc for the second time, an attitude that doomed him to be trapped within it again.^[47]

By the time of Fett's hunt for the Solos on Nar Shaddaa, it had become personal for the bounty hunter.^[56]

As the galaxy changed around him, Solo's presence became a comforting certainty to Fett. In time he had difficulty picturing a world without the smuggler, but after so many chases of the man, he was perfectly willing to kill Solo to put an end to it. On Jubilar, though, he found that he did not hate the man enough to die for it. Yet Fett and Solo both realized that even as they each faced their death, trust still did not come easily. Fett thought that they might continue to battle,^[15] but in the end the two men agreed to end their feud and part ways.^[1]

When they met again near the end of the Yuuzhan Vong War, Fett came repeatedly to Solo's aid, and though Solo initially distrusted him, believing that Fett might still be trying to kill him, he went on to save Fett in return. As they parted, Fett told Solo that the smuggler had just been cargo, and his real grudge had been with the Jedi; Solo in turn downplayed Fett's own importance in his life, and the two parted on amicable terms.^[64] A decade later, Fett had come to believe that his conflict with Solo had never been personal, and when a new bounty on the smuggler and his family was placed by Thrackan Sal-Solo, Fett did not even consider taking it, though Solo believed him capable of it. When the two next met, neither was shy in using violence on the other, though they were nonetheless able to work together in a mutually beneficial arrangement to kill Thrackan Sal-Solo. In the events after the assassination, Fett intentionally revealed his face to Solo for the first time, and the other man was surprised how cold and unfeeling it was. Fett took no physical revenge on the Solos for the loss of his daughter, but considered Jacen Solo's fall to the dark side to be their punishment.^[4]

Sintas and Ailyn Vel

Fett married Sintas Vel at the age of sixteen, in what he later felt was an attempt to regain the family he had lost when his father died. He believed in these later years that though he loved her, he had never understood his marriage vows or how to be part of a family; the two split apart three years later, before their daughter Ailyn had turned two.^[4] Sintas knew Fett as "Bo", a pet name she used even after their marriage ended. After their separation, Fett almost exclusively worked alone. Though he continued to feel a detached sense of protectiveness for her, in person he demonstrated little sympathy towards Sintas. The two were still willing to work with each other in situations that were in both their interests, such as the theft of their family hologram by Pizztov.^[21][68] Leaving Sintas made Fett realize that he could not be a family man, and though he had loved her the bounty hunter felt that he would make her and their daughter more unhappy with them than away.^[4]

When Sintas disappeared, Ailyn became consumed with hatred for Fett. She became a hunt-saboteur, hoping to run against Fett, and later killed someone she believed to be him, but was in fact the insane clone Alpha-Ø2. Ailyn at last believed her father dead when she found Fenn Shysa's body on Shogun.^[54] Fett heard nothing of her after the Yuuzhan Vong War began. Fifty years after he had last seen her, when he realized he was dying, Fett once again began to think of her; he regretted that he had not taken better care of her or or mother, and he compared his own failings to the good job he believed his father had done. When he learned that she was alive, Fett realized she was the only legacy he would leave behind and sought to find her again. Further confrontation with his past, in the form of the heart of fire that he had given to Sintas, made Fett realize how he had abandoned his daughter and wife and brought in him a desire to know what had come of them. Fett began to miss his wife, feeling he had no right to, and decided if he saw his daughter again he would apologize to her. The bounty hunter, believing his daughter had inherited his skills, had great confidence in her abilities, and he believed his own track record of accomplishments meant he could heal the divide between them. He thought of her still as his little girl, though when he later saw her body Fett could not recognize the child he had once had. When he learned she had been captured, Fett was willing to avenge any harm inflicted upon Vel, and his reaction to Thrackan Sal-Solo's confession of setting her up was homicidal. When Fett thought that he would at last meet her, he prepared to make things right between them, wondering how his daughter's life had progressed since he had left her. Despite her attempt to kill him, the fact that Vel was his daughter was enough to make Fett want to see he. Her death was a great blow to him, and though publicly he claimed that she had known the risks, he secretly wanted the Solo clan to destroy itself. Fett did not truly realize that he had lost his only child until he touched her face with his bare hands, and he anticipated that the pain of losing her would never die.^[4] Ailyn Vel's death eventually led Fett to question his own abilities at being Mandalore, but he continued to be driven in his quest to learn what had happened to Sintas.^[62]

Mirta Gev

Fett found Mirta Gev unusual when he first met her, as she made eye contact through his helmet, a rare feat. Though he did not initially trust the woman, Fett grew impressed by her drive and her discipline, as well her care of her weapons. As Fett spent more time with her, Gev made him drop his guard as he began volunteering information to her about his plans and making conversation with her. He even took the risk of removing his helmet in her presence, though he did not trust her enough to let her listen in on calls with clients or go about his ship unmonitored. He kept her in the dark, as well, about the fact that he knew how to find Vel without her help, though he kept her around due to his promise to pay and the knowledge she held on his wife. Fett worked alone, and his partnership with Gev was one of practicality. He was surprised by Gev's willingness to defy him, something he encountered little in his adult life. Gev, in turn, was startled to learn that Fett cared about his daughter to the extent that he would avenge her death. When, upon Ailyn's death, Fett learned that Gev was his granddaughter, he gave her the opportunity to kill him in vengeance. He felt that the hatred Gev carried was only an expression of his own that he had passed down. For a moment, Fett wondered if she was really related to him or Ailyn at all, but upon seeing the body of Ailyn the two of them came to accept that they were family.^[4]

After Ailyn's death, Gev was a reminder to Fett of how he had failed his daughter. He vowed to himself to excel at being a grandfather, by acting like it until he internalized it, but nonetheless kept her at arm's distance. Gev, for her part, had to undo the view of Fett painted by her mother.^[62]

Equipment and gear

Armor

Fett's original armor had once belonged to Jaster Mereel, his father's mentor,^[1] though after losing it in the Pit of Carkoon he replaced it with a spare set.^[15] After this, Fett kept a spare set in Slave I.^[4] Its chestplate was durable enough to repel fast-moving projectiles^[57] and could withstand the forces of the sarlacc's tentacles, though it was vulnerable to the creature's digestive acid and to burning jetpack fuel.^[8] Though it could take a blaster shot at a distance, it was vulnerable to point-blank fire.^[15] The armor enabled him to operate underwater to some extent as well.^[24]

The armor was equipped with a jetpack, flamethrower, and nerve toxin darts,^[52] while his wrists were equipped with attachments that could fire explosive rockets,^[57] a weapon that Fett was deadly accurate with.^[56] From the underside of the gauntlets Fett could fire a cable to ensnare targets.^[44] His wrists were also equipped with lasers,^[8] and his right gauntlet could fire a hooked grappling cable.^[23] His gauntlet was equipped with sensors as well, for recording information on his surroundings.^[4] The bounty hunter's suit was additionally equipped with a set of spurs.^[12] Fett had a cannon built into his knee pads that could fire a stream of liquid, dangerous to the target in frozen environments. He prided himself on the extent of the weaponry he carried.^[33]

A stud on Fett's belt, when activated, released a deadly nerve toxin into the air.^[15] Wookiee scalps, a testament to Fett's abilities at hunting, hung from the belt.^[12]

Fett's jetpack was not connected to his suit's onboard computer. It could be triggered by an exterior emergency access panel, which in one instance, when accidentally triggered, sent Fett into the Pit of Carkoon.^[8] The jetpack was also outfitted with an explosive rocket. ^[64] Its size made negotiating through vents difficult, so Fett avoided them.^[4]

At the end of the Yuuzhan Vong War, on Caluula Station, Fett and his Mandalorians wore gray flight suits, though in battle they decked these out with their armor. This included blast dissipation vests, gauntlets, kneepads, armor-mesh gloves, and alloy boots with zero-g gripsoles.^[64]

Helmet

Fett's helmet was equipped with audio sensors that could pick up very quiet sounds, such as distant whispering.^[57] It also had olfactory sensors that could detect pungent scent at a good distance.^[58]

The helmet was equipped with macrobinoculars that could view into the infrared and ultraviolet. Fett could activate these by a switch flipped with his tongue.^[8] The gain on them automatically adjusted when lighting conditions varied, keeping Fett's view at a constant level of brightness.^[15] The helmet view had a range of magnifications.^[4] Fett's helmet had a terahertz radar and sonar sensors that he could use to map out his surroundings, and additionally identify certain species from their radar profile.^[4][8] It also had comlink with a ninety kilometer range, capable of scanning through many frequencies^[8] and communicating with Slave I too. Thermal sensors, which could spot targets through walls, and motion detectors provided Fett with further means of tracking targets.^[3] Pickups in the helmet made a visual record of all that Fett saw.^[15]

Fett's helmet heads-up display (HUD) had a number of features. A chrono displayed the time for him, while icons what his compatriots nearby, with similar helmets, were looking at,^[3] the state of his weapons, or the status of his ship, represented in an array of text and icons along the HUD's margin. Streams of data flashed continuously across the HUD. It could tap in remotely to Slave I's security cameras, displaying their feeds as well, and could display images transmitted from his ship. A tactical display showed Fett a 360-degree view of his surroundings. Fett could capture frames of the HUD, like when it displayed coordinates he needed to remember, for later use. The HUD was operated by blinking, though Fett preferred to access his suit's functions with a control panel on his left forearm.^[4]

A tube in the helmet provided water to the bounty hunter.^[8] The rim was padded, giving him enough comfort to sleep while wearing it, but not enough to sleep particularly well. Upon waking, Fett often found the helmet disorienting, reminding him of the cloning tank that birthed him.^[4]

Weapons

Fett's arsenal outside his armor included an EE-3 carbine rifle with a magnifying scope^[4] and a concussion grenade launcher.^[8] Fett liked to carry the rifle in his hands rather than on his back.^[4] He owned a flare gun as well, which could be used to illuminate a room.^[15] During the Yuuzhan Vong War he was outfitted with an antipersonnel missile launcher and combat knife.^[64]

For situations where modern weapons were unusable, such as when Fett hunted Kardue'sai'Malloc, the bounty hunter was known to use a compound bow and, for close combat, a crystal knife.^[15]

Fett recovered the schematics for the Wing-Blast rocket pack, an experimental system that allowed its user to fly in deep space or atmosphere and was armed with mini-concussion missiles, heavy rotating blasters, and a proton torpedo cannon. The original design was flawed by the inclusion of an untested photonic beam, and when Fett built the pack, he replaced this with a proton torpedo.^[54] During Jabba's demolition games, Fett used another unusual technology when he equipped himself with disintegrator rockets, designed to drain power from and weaken the molecular structure of the enemy vehicles he faced in the match.^[43]

Fett possessed a non-lethal spray that he could use to incapacitate targets when he did not want to kill them.^[24]

Fett had a collection of lightsabers he had collected from Jedi bounties.^[4]

He also possessed a number of stasis field generators, which could be laid as a trap to catch bounties expected to go by them.^[22]

Devices

For external gadgets, Fett had remotes he could use to scout out locations, a datapad with a comlink connection, a data breaker for circumventing security codes and copying data, and a medical sound sensor he could use to pick up sounds through walls. For breaching secure areas he had a disrupter, which, when attached to two wires that were then connected to a security fence with gription clips, would bypass the security measures in that area and allow him to pass through it. Fett kept a set of security blades that could jam comlink signals in a local area.^[4]

Around 15 BBY, Fett owned a droid, BL-17, which he used on bounty hunting missions. Fett lost BL-17 that year on a mission from Sise Fromm.^[17]

Starships and vehicles

Fett owned four starships: Slave I through Slave IV.^[1] His first, Slave I, he inherited from his father, and Fett held onto it as a symbol of his childhood and father.^[4] The bounty hunter did not keep the ships's inertial compensators on full, allowing him to feel the vessel's acceleration and deceleration to a great degree.^[62] Fett modified the sublight engines for extra speed at the expense of maneuverability, and boosted the speed of the ship's hyperdrive to aid in a tactic he commonly used, heading off a target by beating them to their destination. Homing beacons and S-thread trackers, which could attach to a quarry's ship, allowed Fett to track prey throughout the galaxy using a HoloNet receiver. To make his own ship stealthier, Fett dampened the particle vapor trail it left behind.^[12]

Slave I became as infamous as the man who flew it.^[12] The ship was disabled by the Millennium Falcon's lightning gun in 10 ABY.^[18] Fett made a large number of upgrades to the vessel over the years, to the point that in 40 ABY, the only original part of it was the pilot's seat. It was more of a home to him than any permanent structure, and Fett considered, before dying, setting a course out of the galaxy and letting it carry his body into the void forever.^[4]

Fett's Silver Speeder was obtained from a bounty; the power that it demonstrated in fleeing him convinced Fett to keep it, and he repainted it in more muted colors. It was powerful enough to come in second in the Boonta Speeder Race of 15 BBY, but like BL-17, Fett lost it at that time.^[13][17] He later kept a speeder bike in Slave I.^[62]

On one occasion Fett used a large escape pod specially outfitted with missiles to infiltrate, and later escape from, a bounty's vessel.^[57]

Non-canon biographies

Star Wars: Masters of Teräs Käsi

After participating in Arden Lyn's tournament, Fett took a bounty on Darth Vader himself. He captured the Sith Lord and imprisoned him in carbonite, then set out to collect his fee.^[27][69]

Star Wars: Yoda Stories

In 3 ABY, while Luke Skywalker was training with Jedi Master Yoda, Fett came to Dagobah and kidnapped Yoda from the Jedi Master's hut while Skywalker was away. Though Skywalker encountered Fett when he returned, he was unable to stop the bounty hunter from fleeing with his prize in Slave I. Fett took Yoda to an Imperial base on Lokondo, where the Jedi Master was to be interrogated by Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader. However, Skywalker was able to rescue him before they arrived.^[70]

Star Wars: Demolition

Boba Fett, losing scenario

When Fett lost the demolition games, Jabba opened the trap door beneath the bounty hunter to drop him into the rancor pit. However, Fett rocketed out of the pit and escaped the palace.^[42]

Otto, losing scenario

Fett captured the Imperial defector General Otto and turned him in to the Empire, where he met his fate at the hands of Darth Vader.^[42]

Behind the scenes

Character history

Reaction

Continuity

Portrayal

Appearances

• Star Wars: Bounty Hunter (Indirect mention only)
• Jango Fett: Open Seasons (Indirect mention only)
• Star Wars: Jango Fett
• Star Wars: Zam Wesell
• "The Way of the Warrior" - Star Wars Tales 18 (Ambiguously canonical source)
• Republic Commando: Triple Zero (Appears in flashback(s))
• Republic Commando: True Colors (Mentioned only)
• "Fortune, Fate, and the Natural History of the Sarlacc" - Star Wars Tales 6
• Star Wars: Droids - "A Race to the Finish"
• The Last One Standing: The Tale of Boba Fett
• Boba Fett ½: Salvage
• "Outbid But Never Outgunned" - Star Wars Tales 7
• "Number Two in the Galaxy" - Star Wars Tales 18 (Ambiguously canonical source)
• "Payback" - Star Wars Tales 18 (Ambiguously canonical source)
• "Being Boba Fett" - Star Wars Tales 18 (Ambiguously canonical source)
• "Prey" - Star Wars Tales 3 (Ambiguously canonical source)
• Boba Fett: Enemy of the Empire
• Underworld: The Yavin Vassilika
• Star Wars Empire: Betrayal
• A Hunter's Fate: Greedo's Tale webstrip
• Star Wars: Rebellion
• Star Wars: Masters of Teräs Käsi
• Star Wars Empire 7: Sacrifice
• The Rebel Thief
• Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron
• Star Wars Empire 28: Wreckage
• Boba Fett: Overkill
• The Star Wars Holiday Special
  • The Story of the Faithful Wookiee (First appearance)
• The Frozen World of Ota
• Star Wars: Dark Forces
• Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided
• Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back / novel / comic / manga
• "Thank the Maker!" - Star Wars Tales 6
• Shadows of the Empire comic
• Shadows of the Empire novel (In Slave I)
• Battle of the Bounty Hunters
• The Bounty Hunters: Scoundrel's Wages (Mentioned only)
• Star Wars: Demolition
• Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi / novel / comic / manga
• A Barve Like That: The Tale of Boba Fett
• Star Wars 81: Jawas of Doom
• A Credit For Your Thoughts (Mentioned only)
• "Three Against the Galaxy" - Star Wars Tales 3 (Appears in flashback(s))
• Dark Forces: Rebel Agent
• Boba Fett: Twin Engines of Destruction
• X-wing: The Krytos Trap (Mentioned only)
• X-wing: The Bacta War (Mentioned only)
• Tatooine Ghost (Mentioned only)
• Heir to the Empire (Mentioned only)
• Dark Empire
• Star Wars: Dark Empire audio drama
• Boba Fett: Bounty on Bar-Kooda
• Boba Fett: When the Fat Lady Swings
• Boba Fett: Murder Most Foul
• Dark Empire II
• Boba Fett: Agent of Doom
• Empire's End (Mentioned only)
• Jedi Search (Mentioned only)
• I, Jedi (Mentioned only)
• The Crystal Star (Appears in a dream)
• Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
• Star Wars: Union (Appears in a dream)
• Boba Fett: A Practical Man
• Revenants
• The Unifying Force
• "The Lost Lightsaber" - Star Wars Tales 19 (Appears in flashback(s)) (Ambiguously canonical source)
• Bloodlines

Non-canon appearances

• Star Wars: Yoda Stories

Sources

• Galaxy Guide 3: The Empire Strikes Back
• Domain of Evil (Vision)
• Shadows of the Empire Sourcebook
• Masters of Teräs Käsi: Prima's Official Hints and Tips
• Demolition: Prima's Official Strategy Guide
•  "Unusual Suspects" - Star Wars Gamer 6
• Attack of the Clones: The Visual Dictionary
• The New Essential Guide to Characters
• "Star Wars Droids: The Adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO" - Polyhedron 170
• "The History of the Mandalorians" - Star Wars Insider 80

Notes and references

See also

• Clan Fett