Chapter Text

Boba Fett: Legacy

The blazing twin suns of Tatooine were marveled by many across the galaxy as a beautiful sight, gracing the sky of an otherwise ugly and unsavory world.

To Boba Fett, however, they were a glaring inconvenience.

Especially now.

As the young man leapt from sandy rooftop to rooftop, the dual orbs of fire overhead shone directly into the T-shaped visor of his Mandalorian helmet, obscuring the bounty hunter's view. Perfect timing, Fett thought. Not in relation to himself, of course, but rather the target of his frustratingly long pursuit across the sprawling hovels of Mos Espa, a lanky Pyke gangster by the name of Nab "Lucky" Lohk.

The emerald-skinned drug pusher in question spared a glance behind him, as he sprang across the three-meter gap between the ledge he pushed off from, and the adjacent hovel's rooftop. Had his mildly-intoxicated mind not currently been amidst the throes of panic and desperation, the low-ranking cartel member may have let out a cry of relief, as he watched Fett's booted foot catch the lip of the hovel's ledge, sending the armor-clad boy tumbling head-over-foot across the filthy rooftop, kicking up an excessive cloud of dust in his wake.

The Pyke's respite from pursuit was short-lived. As the long-limbed criminal turned back to gauge the distance between the next pair of hovels, a cold metallic limb crossed the criminal's drug-fueled vision. Unable to stop himself short, Nab ran into the outstretched arm headfirst. Having effectively been clotheslined by this unseen interloper, Nab's legendary luck appeared to have disappeared as suddenly as his high.

Nab's scrawny frame was pulled off the roof feet first, as the dealer's forward momentum willed his body away from the rooftop, leading him to an unceremonious fall into the brief chasm below.

The Pyke's oblong head struck a crudely carved-out windowsill on the way down, sending a small blast of plaster scattering into the desert winds. Struggling to retain consciousness, Nab's battle was abruptly lost as his body crashed into a pile of scattered droid parts in the alleyway below.

Staring up into the cloudless blue sky overhead, Nab's violet eyes met those of his unseen foe, who peered down at him from the third-story ledge the Pyke had fallen from. The unblinking red eyes of the droid offered no comfort, as the Pyke's mind was forced into a cold, unwanted slumber.

"Did you get him?"

The droid, C-21, better known by his associates as Highsinger, offered his usual series of low, baritone sounds from his centuries-old vocabulator, which served to answer Fett's anxious question in the affirmative. Brushing a thick layer of sand from his armor, Boba Fett pushed the question of how long it would take to shake the sands from his underlaid blue-gray jumpsuit aside, as he caught up to his fellow bounty hunter at the roof's edge.

Peering down to confirm the droid's affirmation, Fett spared no time to celebrate, as he dropped from the ledge, landing in the alleyway besides Nab's crumbled form with a graceful crouch.

As fluidly as any activity one performed on a daily basis, Fett carefully rolled the bounty at his feet onto its stomach. Retrieving a pair of binders from a pouch in his worn leather belt, Fett clasped the cuffs around the bony wrists of his target. Once he was certain the binders had properly locked, Fett spared a glance back up to the rooftop, where Highsinger continued his silent observation.

"Let's go, Highsinger! What are you waiting for?" Fett called impatiently. The droid, almost appearing to daydream by Fett's estimation, finally willed itself into motion, opting to climb from the rooftop, creating small indentations in the hovel's gritty exterior as the towering droid began its descent. On the way down, a female Twi'lek, evidently an inhabitant of the hovel, cautiously approached the window in response to the commotion outside.

As she cautiously poked her twin-tailed head from the opening, her eyes met those of Highsinger mid-descent. The two shared a moment of tension, before the droid unlatched one chrome-plated hand from the wall, offering a small wave in an attempt to assuage the woman's fear.

She recoiled in terror. The droid's outward appearance was already unsettling enough, without the added detail of seeing his visage clinging to your bedroom window. As the woman retreated from the room, Highsinger continued his descent in silence.

Upon reaching the filth-ridden alleyway, Fett hoisted the unconscious Pyke's surprisingly heavy frame into the droid's waiting arms. Highsinger made no sounds of exertion as he slung Nab's unconscious body over his wide-plated shoulder, and the pair of hunters began the long trek back to the hangar in the center of town, where Slave 1, Fett's starship, awaited them.

As Slave 1 rose from the sands of Mos Espa, making its unique style of rotation into flight-mode, Fett performed a mental recollection of the hunt's events, as he did religiously at the end of every completed hunt, successful or otherwise. It was a habit drilled into him by his father, Jango, during Fett's formative years of tutelage in the ways of bounty hunting. As the mental images of the last hour projected themselves through Boba's mind, he found himself unable to censor the harsh commentary that accompanied them, as he subconsciously created scathing remarks from Jango, espousing how Boba thought his father would react, had he bore witness to the day's events.

Had he, of course, still been alive to see them...

Boba tried to shake the intrusive thought away, unwilling to relive the same moment of horror, the final few seconds of his father's life, which had buried itself in Boba's mind like a parasite.

In spite of his best efforts, the sands of Tatooine offered him no shelter, as his memoires of one sand-covered planet shifted into those of another, one less than a parsec's distance from Boba's current location.

The sands of Geonosis...

The arena....

The sights and sounds of two-hundred Jedi, accursed lightsabers blazing their bold hues of emerald and sapphire, as they made short work of both native geonosians and manufactured battle-droids alike. Amidst the chaotic memory, now vividly swirling through Boba's mind like a storm, one blade stood out, calling his attention towards it, as though intentional, as though it didn't want Boba's watering eyes to miss its bold dance through the thick clouds of dust it swirled through.

A violet blade, shining in stark contrast to the rest. Boba could never forget; the purple hue bathed its wielder in a sickly glow, his dark-skinned face twisted with rage as he whirled the blade in grand, sweeping arcs, warding off his opponent, a man dressed from head-to-toe in sleek, pristine Mandalorian armor, its chrome finish accented by the thick blue lines which surrounded its T-shaped visor. It was the very same armor which Boba himself was wearing now.

As the two sand swept figures circled each other like caged animals, their visage was obscured by sudden uproars of coarse, grainy sand, and suddenly the vision shifted as smoothly as the sands it contained, until Boba found himself back on the rooftops of Mos Espa.

Before he could gain his baring's, the accursed twin suns once again blinded him. Once again, his booted foot brushed the lip of the rooftop's edge, and, once again, Boba Fett found himself tumbling forward, kicking up sand and dust alike, the fine grains even managing to sneak into the thin seal which was meant to shield Boba's face from the harsh terrain.

Struggling to his feet, Boba looked ahead, expecting to find the replayed image of Nab Lohk, as his smug face smashed into the waiting arm of Highsinger.

But his visions were not so merciful, not this time. Instead, standing just a few meters away, the figures of Jango Fett, and the man who wielded the purple blade with such self-assured righteousness, Mace Windu, continued their battle from the geonosian arena. Somehow, in Fett's weary mind, the two memories had merged into an unholy nightmare.
Boba forced his legs forward, only to tumble yet again, exactly as he had before, rolling head-over-feet across the barren rooftop's surface. Tantalizingly close by, the imaginary visage of Jango Fett and Windu continued their battle, their movements identical to how Fett remembered them, despite the new location.

Undeterred, Fett forced himself upright yet again, and, as he had before, he found himself tripping over an invisible barrier, tumbling forward, his outstretched limbs flailing out in the precise way they had in reality, moving against Boba's will as he realized he was no longer in control of his actions. This time, as he stood, he saw the image of his father's jetpack, as flames sputtered and died in a vain attempt to propel him upwards. Boba didn't want to look, he knew exactly how this battle would end, the same way it had the thousands of times he'd replayed it before.
"Dad!" The words escaped Fett's throat, yet they were not his own. They belonged to someone else. A desperate, terrified child, cowering in fear somewhere unseen, as Windu, and his damned violet blade, swiftly closed the distance between himself and Jango's waiting, unarmored neck.

Boba commanded his numb legs forward, his efforts earning him another pitiful fall, as his limbs sprawled out again in perfect unison with every previous attempt on Boba's behalf to move.
This time, as he pushed his arms into the sand, as he began to rise, Boba heard the unmistakable sound of a lightsaber's impossibly hot blade cutting through soft, yielding flesh. He didn't have to look. That much of himself, he could control. But he had to. He had to see it again. Before Boba was upright enough to witness his father's headless corpse crumble into the sand, something round and heavy rolled into his path, stopping as it tapped Boba's foot.

Boba didn't have to look down. He could keep his eyes closed, choosing to remain oblivious to whatever had rolled itself to his feet. He could wake up; he knows he could. He could escape the nightmare now, escape the taunting laughter of Windu, escape the feeling of shock as his blood turned to ice, and avoid the reoccurring image, the way this nightmare always ended, every time he made a mistake, every time he disgraced the name of his father.

But if he awoke now, if he didn't look, he'd admit to his own fear. He'd break a sacred vow he'd made to his father, all those years ago.
Fetts have no fear. His father had told him many times. Not when we're alone, not in front of others, and especially not in the face of an enemy. Am I clear?

Boba's eyes shot open, in staunch defiance of every instinct his body had.

He looked down, and the wild eyes of Jango's severed head bore into his own. To Boba's horror, it spoke:

Am I clear, Boba?

Highsinger had poor social skills, to put it mildly. It simply wasn't part of his programming. Social conventions were unnecessary to perform his intended purpose, his designers had concluded, and thus what little Highsinger understood of organic being's behavior was inferred from centuries of continuous contact with them. Even then, after a lifespan longer than almost any other in the galaxy, Highsinger's social skills left much to be desired, from most who encountered him.

However, the ancient droid was not without at least some of these rarified faculties. For example, in the seven years since he had become the on-and-off again partner of Boba Fett, Highsinger had observed some repeated behaviors enough times that even his cybernetic mesh of wires and code most would crudely refer to as his "brain", was able to formulate an appropriate response.
One of these behaviors occurred frequently during the downtime between hunting bounties, when Boba would allow himself to rest after plotting the coordinates of their next destination into Slave 1's navicomputer. On occasion, shortly after falling unconscious, Boba Fett would awake with a startled jump, looking around anxiously as though reaffirming he was truly conscious.
Highsinger was fascinated by how his young companion's initial reaction upon waking had evolved since the early days of their partnership. Back then, Boba was barely of age to be considered a human adolescent, and, despite the misgivings of many, was adamant to pursue a career most fully matured organics would undoubtedly shy away from.

As a result, Boba would often awaken in those early days with a yelp of shock, followed by the poorly-hidden formation of tears welling up in his then-innocent eyes. To Highsinger, it was as obvious a sign as any that age eleven was far too young to begin internship at the bounty hunter's guild.

However, the boy was well-connected to many high-ranking guild members, thanks in no small part to the legendary reputation of the boy's father, who was widely considered the best bounty hunter in the galaxy at the time of his death. The combination of this, added to the boy's unyielding ambition, led to the guild making an exception for Boba to begin prospective training as a guild member early.

One of the caveats of such early acceptance was the assignment of a guild-approved supervisor. This role was created with the express purpose of observing the results of possible recruits, and reporting that information back to the guild's higher-ups. Of course, this also included maintaining near-constant contact with the recruit at all times, a task few organics, even those as hardened and experienced as most of the guild, would willingly endure. Thus, the candidate who ultimately fulfilled this role for Boba Fett, of course, was Highsinger.
Over time, Boba's reactions to waking after what Highsinger concluded were trauma-induced nightmares, became more and more subdued. The boy had somehow trained himself not to yelp in shock when waking, even though Highsinger was certain the reaction was involuntary, and theoretically could not be controlled. Soon afterwards, the tears stopped rolling from the boy's face, and became small pools allocated in his eyes. Soon enough, the tears stopped altogether.

It had become progressively more difficult for Highsinger to determine when Boba had these reoccurring nightmares, but after studying him for so long, the droid still knew the tell-tale signs. Hands shaking, tight twists and turns in his sleep, and almost always some unconscious muttering about his father, the most obvious sign of all.
Despite Boba Fett's ever-changing behaviors, both when asleep and awake, Highsinger's reaction had almost always been the same. After Boba realized where he was, he'd almost always find Highsinger sitting in an auxiliary seat in the cockpit. When Highsinger had first noticed this pattern of Boba's sleep, he had watched the boy with foremost curiosity, and second-most with a feeling the droid could reasonably compare to organic empathy, were he a living being. Of course, Highsinger was certain the latter was no more than additional programming from his superiors at the guild. After all, ensuring Boba's wellbeing had been his primary objective, so it would only make sense the guild would upgrade the droid's sensors with some capacity for empathy.
Even so, whenever Boba awoke to find his droid counterpart watching him, his reaction had always been one of frustration. The boy would ask what Highsinger was doing, and the droid's default answer had always been keeping watch on the navicomputer. Not technically a lie, but also not the entire truth. The answer did little to put Boba's self-consciousness at rest.

So, in modern times, as soon as Boba showed signs of waking, as he did now, Highsinger would initiate a full-system shut-down, effectively deceiving Fett into believing the droid hadn't borne witness to any unusual events. The droid had little to worry about, well-aware that Boba would reactivate him as soon as he was needed.

For the time being, Highsinger could have his own rest, or at the very least, as close to such a thing as a droid could achieve.