Free The Fight to Survive by Terry Bisson

tried to shake it off.
    He had other things to worry about.
    Like the blip in his rear viewscreen.
    It was a Jedi starfighter, on his tail.
    The Jedi must have left him behind to watch for stragglers
, Boba thought.
Is he here to follow me, to force me down, or to blast me out of the sky?
    Boba wasn’t about to find out.
    He knew he couldn’t outrun the starfighter. And since he barely knew
Slave I
’s weaponry, he couldn’t outfight him. That left only one option.
    He had to outsmart him.
    Instead of heading for space, Boba dove into the canyons and mesas that surrounded the stalagmite city. Using all the maneuverability of the craft, he sliced through the narrow canyons, turning
right, then left, as fast as he could.
    The starfighter was gaining. But that was okay. That was part of Boba’s plan.
    He remembered a trick his dad had told him about. A trick that had been used on Jango Fett once, and once only. (No trick ever worked on Jango Fett twice.)
    Boba slowed where the canyon forked, left and right. He fired a missile at the canyon wall on the right, then turned left and landed on a narrow ledge under the shelter of a cliff.
    Boba shut off his engines and waited. And waited.
    If the trick worked the Jedi starfighter would see the marks of the explosion of the wall, and turn back. If it didn’t…
    If it didn’t, the starfighter would appear around the corner, lasers blazing. Or call for backup, and the sky would fill with starfighters. Or…
    Finally, Boba quit waiting and restarted his engines. The trick had worked. The Jedi starfighter had seen the explosion and turned back.
    Boba grinned with satisfaction as he took off again.
He thought I hit the wall!
    Boba pushed
Slave I
up into the rings and beyond. He had never been alone in space before.
    He had felt alone on the planet after his father’s death, and particularly after burying him. But this was different. There is alone and there is
alone
.
    There is no place more lonely than the vacuum of space. Because space is No Place.
    In space, there is only Not. Zero. Absence. And the absence of absence…
    Welcome to The Big Isn’t.
    Boba shivered at the thought of the emptiness around him—then pushed the thought aside. He had no time for The Big Isn’t. He thought of his father and his code:
A bounty hunter
never gets distracted by the big picture. He knows it’s the little things that count.
    Boba had a job to do. He had to find the black book.
    Boba slipped into high orbit, above the rings.
    Geonosis below looked almost peaceful. It was hard to believe it had just seen the fierce fighting that had killed his father—and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of others.
    It was a beautiful sight, but Boba didn’t intend to spend time enjoying the view. He was already preparing the ship for a hyperspace jump.
    For a return, this was a simple process. Since Kamino was the last place
Slave I
had been, all Boba had to do was reverse the coordinates on the navcomputer.
    The ship would take care of the rest.
    So he did.
    And so did it.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
    In hyperspace, all sectors of the galaxy are connected. Near is far and far is near.
    The ship was falling into a hole. No, out of a hole.
    Boba was back in “normal” space.
    He was floating in orbit around what looked like a ball of clouds stitched together with lightning.
    Stormy Kamino!
    Home. Or as much of a home as Boba Fett had ever known.
    Boba rubbed his eyes, stretched, and put
Slave I
into descent trajectory. Gray clouds whipped past like torn flags. Lightning flashed on all sides; thunder boomed. As
the little starship slowed below supersonic speed, rain splattered the cockpit’s transparisteel.
    Boba adjusted his speed and circled down slowly toward the lights of Tipoca City. He had watched his father do it several times, but this was his first time at the controls.
    The funny thing was, he didn’t feel alone. It was almost as if Jango Fett were right there behind him. Boba could almost feel the big