Chapter Text
Cad Bane sat sprawled on a narrow bed, boots propped up and wide-brimmed hat tipped forward to shield his face from both light and falling particles of dust and sand. The house hummed around him, the song of systems powering back online, clicking and groaning. Unlike its old owner, this house was still alive.
The only concrete proof of death was the traditional grave marker by the entrance. It was in local fashion and dedicated by a certain Luke Skywalker—the last Jedi himself, slayer of the Empire—in honour of his master, "Ben" Kenobi. The inscription declared the house as free shelter to any who might need it.
Cad didn't need shelter. He needed answers.
After such a long and painstaking search, getting the correct intel half a decade too late rankled.
Of course, Cad was the meticulous sort and there had been the possibility that this was some other Kenobi. Kriff, wherever you found slaves you found Skywalkers. They were a dime a dozen on Tatooine. How many of them were named Luke? So he'd combed the place to make sure, emptying drawers, chests, rattling furniture for hidden compartments, tapping along the walls and kicking floorboards for hollows or camouflaged safes, all the tricks of the trade.
He'd found his proof tucked in the bed's pillowcase: a slim holoprojector, only as large as a knuckle and not half as thick. And if the tattered Jedi robes squirrelled away in a chest had left him any doubts, they were fully dispelled by the image of Anakin Skywalker's laughing face, his Togruta padawan balancing on his shoulders and swinging her two lightsabers around, whatever ardent speech she'd been making now lost to time.
You couldn't fake this. Cad could ID both of them from personal, up close experience. He'd nearly spaced the kid to break her master, early in the Clone Wars, and they'd tussled again during the blasted Hardeen affair.
Yes. This was Obi-Wan Kenobi's home, breathing around him, granting shelter and answers both. Just not the ones he wanted.
He wasn't sure how to feel about the Jedi’s death. The man could only have been in his fifties or sixties, no age to croak at someone else's hands! And for him to train the very lad who would topple the Empire that had destroyed the Jedi Order, getting his own revenge while Cad was denied his! At least Kenobi hadn't lived to see it, if the date on the grave marker was accurate.
Small, bitter mercies.
A rumble of unfamiliar engines growled outside, but Cad didn’t pay it much attention. He expected Meeyan's return. His daughter wouldn’t be pleased about his discovery. After all it was her who had gotten the information that Kenobi was holed up on Tatooine.
Cad rotated the small projector between his fingers, brooding eyes fixed on the ghosts of the young knight and his apprentice, remembering, wondering—
'Dad! What are you doing?'
He looked up to see his Twi'lek terror of a daughter and a silver haired Human man behind her he'd never seen before, stumbling into the room with a half-panicked air about him.
'I'm processing my frustration in non-destructive ways,’ he answered testily. 'Kenobi's dead.'
Meeyan sighed and plopped herself on the bed next to him.
'Dad... Kenobi offended you, what? Twenty six years ago? More?'
'He didn't offend me, he got me imprisoned. You should remember, because you had to fend for yourself with Todo for—'
'Months. I know, I was there. But I survived just fine, and you broke out, and you got your pardon, and we all moved on. Kenobi sure did.'
'He's dead.'
'Precisely.'
Cad squinted at her. After thriving for so many years in their profession, one would have expected her to cultivate a greater sense of her own self-worth and learn to properly hold grudges… But no, she forgave, and he wasn't sure where he'd gone wrong in her education for that character trait to develop. She would rather roll her eyes and shun arguments than pre-emptively solve problems with a blaster bolt the way he does. Did.
Fine—through sheer osmosis of Meeyan’s blasted "shrug and move on" attitude, he had mellowed out some—but this was Kenobi.
He’d picked at the scab for two decades and had been looking forward to a soothing balm of revenge, Kenobi’s blood lathered thick as bacta till the offence scarred over and the sand piled on a shallow grave. Now he would never get that satisfaction.
He turned a baleful glare on the Human shuffling his feet and staring back with the poorly veiled horror of recognition.
'Who's the tag along?' He asked.
'Oh, him? He's called Cobb,' Meeyan said, waving a hand at the man. 'What was your last name again?'
'Erm—Cobb Vanth. I'm the marshal of Mos Pelgo.'
'Mos Pelgo huh? Is that even on the planetary maps?'
'Not currently, no... Which is for the best, I think.'
'So what's the deal?' Cad asked, turning back to Meeyan. 'Isn't he too old for your tastes?'
Meeyan laughed as the man squawked something about only being fifty. She rose and grabbed Vanth by his sleeve, yanking him to the centre of the small room.
'Cobb here actually saw me getting into an argument with a bunch of goons—'
'Crimson Dawn goons,' Vanth supplied with a grimace.
'What's Crimson Dawn doing here?' Cad asked, suspicious. 'Qi'ra's too canny to let her people get in fisticuffs on Tatooine.'
Petty criminals were the backbone of the galaxy and free to move about at will, but big syndicates stuck to their lanes and even with Jabba dead, Tatooine remained Hutt territory. Crimson Dawn was too old an organisation, too well led, to make that kind of mistake.
'That's the thing,' Meeyan said, grinning. 'I wasn't sure I could believe my eyes, seeing a posse of them throwing their weight around in Mos Eisley of all places, so I provoked them'—his darling girl!— 'and Cobb here was a real hero.'
'Only did what was right...' The man grumbled, eyes downcast and clearly plagued with regrets.
Meeyan slapped Vanth on the shoulder, making him wince. 'He took my side and rushed me away on his speeder!'
Cad scoffed. 'Quite the adventure you've been having.'
'That's not half of it. Dad, listen.' Meeyan let go of Vanth and settled herself back down on the bed next to Cad with uncharacteristic restlessness. 'He told me why they're here, on Tatooine.'
Cad frowned and turned a piercing glare on Vanth. 'Why?'
The Human shook his head vehemently, lips pressed into a thin line. Whatever news this was, he would not be the bearer of it.
'Meeyan, what's happening?'
'Bib's dead,' she deadpanned.
'What?! Kriffing son of a kung still owes me half a million credits!' Cad snarled. 'Crimson Dawn took over?'
'No, no,' she said, her lips stretching in a smirk and her eyes sparkling with poorly contained glee. Even her lekku were shivering with it. 'Much less believable, actually. Boba Fett did.'
Cad gaped, baffled. It took a moment to even compute, almost like he couldn’t remember who Boba was supposed to even be. The name belonged to a dead man.
'Boba as in... Jango's kid?' One of millions of clones—just the one lucky enough to inherit his father's ship and armour, and a decent lifespan with which to wrangle the broken legacy that came along with them. 'Worked for Vader and fell into a Sarlacc pit, Boba Fett?'
'The very same!'
'But—'
'Apparently he's holding some sort of crime symposium at—well, I guess it's Boba's palace now.'
'How could he have survived? And not said anything all these years?' Cad's head was spinning. Meeyan’s hands grabbed him by the shoulders, anchoring him. 'That seems...'
'Far fetched, right? We’ve got to get the full story,' she said, pulling him up to his feet. 'So let's go see Boba! Come on. Cobb’s driving.'