The Great Battle: “Part 3”

Mara hung at the edge of the cliff,hands on the ledge, all chances of surviving lost. Her feet dangled uselessly below her, no ground to set them on. Boba fett advanced toward her, mask staring intensely at her face. She didn't seem afraid. She was strong enough with the force to know that sometimes, things happened to turn out all right in the end. But Fett knew that he had one this round. Or, should he say, the whole battle.

Mara looked up at Fett hard. She stared at him with a great sense of power. Something had to be done. And quick.

Boba Fett swung his lightsaber down toward the rock where Mara was hanging on. With extremely advanced Jedi thoughts, Mara came up with the best plan for the moment. All chances of jumping up were gone, Boba Fett could easily knock her down again easily. As his lightsaber came, full of ionic charge, she clashed hers against his. Her lightsaber flew away, but while Fett raised his lightsaber to try again, Mara flung herself in a very straight, vertical line upward, kicking Boba Fett's chest. He stumbled back, but regained his position quickly. As Mara fell back down, she pushed herself forward and landed on the solid rock. She caught her breath. That had been close. Too close.

Boba Fett looked at Mara, and shut off his lightsaber. " You have no weapon, Jedi. get up and search for it. This battle must be done properly." Mara looked upward, and the woman of the light force dropped her lightsaber down. Mara grasped it in her right hand, and immediately ignited it. For a few seconds, Boba Fett was gone. Then he reappeared after coming out from behind a rock. He raised his lightsaber, then swung it down upon her head. Mara barely stopped the attack, rolling across the ground. She knew she couldn't repel his ion-charged lightsaber without being crushed. So she had to use whatever she could work with. Her skills. Her life. Her instinct.

Fett swung his lightsaber in a sudden motion, but surprised Mara by kicking her in the face when she prepared to duck down and roll. The dirt of Boba Fett's boot stained Mara's face, and her nose started to bleed. A deep scratch had been made in her face. But she didn't care. Those were all pains in her flesh. This was a battle of life and death. And those little things didn't matter.

Mara climbed back up into her standing position, and put her lightsaber in a traditional Jedi pose. When Boba Fett came upon her, she kicked a rock up into her hand and threw it at his chest. The rock was fairly heavy, and knocked him back for a few seconds. This gave Mara time to come down on Fett with her lightsaber. He rolled out of the way quickly, causing Mara's lightsaber to crash down harshly into the rock. While she was pulling it out of the rock, Boba Fett swung his lightsaber at her. She ducked, and it just missed her by - not even a millimeter. She felt the force emanating from his lightsaber. Fett pulled out a blaster. He charged it with a laser pack, and started firing at Mara. She deflected every shot, but whenever she did so, he reflected them back at her with even more strength. The laser fire started moving at incredible speeds, which no usual human eye could see. Mara was now only barely blocking the laser shots, while Fett seemed as though he was almost at ease while he was deflecting them. Must be easy for a rogue and a scoundrel. thought Mara. She knew Boba Fett's reputation as the best bounty hunter in the galaxy. She also knew that he prided himself highly on that. Soon, the laser shot died down, and its power was gone. The extreme ping-pong game may have been over, but why hadn't Boba Fett moved out of his deflecting position? He wasn't even breathing under that helmet, it seemed.

After a few minutes, Mara cautiously walked up to Boba Fett. She looked at him for a minute, then poked at his armor. It was like tar. It changed to the color of the portal, and when she brought back her finger, the tar-like armor stuck to her finger and stretched, but still stayed attached to the suit. Just like tar. A decoy! Mara ran quickly backwards as the image of Boba Fett stayed in place and exploded into a million pools of what seemed like the portal. It was smart of Fett... but how did he switch? When did he ever have t! ime to- Mara froze, then smiled. Typical She thought. When Boba Fett had come back out from behind the rock, it had probably been a fake one of him. The real one still remained..... behind the rock.

Mara ran for quite awhile before she came to the very spot where the rock was. Where the rock used to be, there was now a pile of rubble. On the pile, there was a note. On paper? Who used paper nowadays? Strange.

Mara:

I don't believe I've ever been the type for making speeches, but I think that you are as familiar with this phrase as I am: Catch me if you can. But if you can't, well..... think of it this way: you can't catch me even if you try, but I'm giving you the satisfaction of knowing where I am. Look up.


Mara did as the letter instructed and looked upward. And there he was. His blaster was pointed at her head, his lightsaber ready in his other hand. Apparently, he had found a ledge right by the rock and climbed onto it. A very well hidden ledge indeed, it was. There were rocks piled all around it, and no sign of knowing that there was an entrance. Fett probably blew a hole in the wall, clearing a perfect path.

" As it says on there, I've never been one for speeches. But it seems as though this hasn't exactly been your lucky round. So I guess that I win this time. You're dead, and I'm alive. That's all that matters. Bounty hunters are good for this sort of thing you know: search and destroy. I'm used to it. I get payed millions of credits every day for doing the hardest, most dangerous jobs in the galaxy. I demand highest prices, and I always get the job done. Always. That's all that I'm doing right now. Getting the job done."

Mara looked up into the face of the blaster, and then stared at Boba Fett. He had pulled a smart stunt. But something even bigger was coming up. Boba Fett's finger started to tighten around the trigger of the blaster.

The image of Mara Jade appeared behind Boba Fett, and before he pulled the trigger, she kneeled down and stuck her blaster to his head. " Stay where you are." she said, tightening her grip on her trigger.

Another hologram. Mara had used a hologram to record everything that it saw so that Mara could see where Fett was hiding and come up to him without being hurt. Another tactic of knowledge.

"Using the enemy's own tricks against him isn't exactly a good idea." Fett mused. " Because they always know how to use it against you again."

" Shut up" Mara said, nodding her head upward. " Get up and grab your lightsaber. Now. This battle has to continue as planned. No matter if I pull this trigger or not, you know as well as I do that it won't hit you. The force wills the battle to end with a lightsaber. Therefore, the battle will end with a lightsaber."

Boba Fett did know that, and wondered why he had been so foolish as to have followed Mara's trick. But know wasn't the time for those thoughts. Fett pretended to reach for his lightsaber, but when he swung around his arm to get it, he swung it all the way around. He struck Mara across the face, and she turned away for a moment. Fett jumped up and stretched out his hand downward, pointing it toward the lightsaber. It shot off of the ground and into his hand. It was a handy trick, used by many people of the force.


Suddenly, the ground all around Mara and Boba Fett bean to change. Everything became hotter and the ground became sand. There were huts all around them, but also swoop vehicles. Tatooine. They had somehow been transported to Tatooine. As Mara noticed the changes coming about her, she also noticed that Boba Fett was distracted by them. She took the chance and lunged at him. He moved out of the way, and she fell to the ground. A pit lay before her. It was large and the smell from it was enormous. It had teeth all around the pit, and tentacles were roaming around as well as a beak-like mouth with no eyes. All the tentacles were the same color as the sand. A boring desert yellowish golden. But even duller. One of the tentacles shot out and grabbed Mara's ankle. Boba Fett watched Mara get pulled in. She was almost about to scream in pain. Bobafett knew how it felt to be squeezed in the tentacles of a Sarlacc. He had once been nearly digested in one somewhere. ( Read "Great Battle: Part I" )

But Mara wasn't stupid. She knew how all sentient creatures acted toward blaster fire. She took out her blaster as the tentacle pulled her toward the beak-like mouth, which was also on the end of a tentacle. Pressing the trigger wildly, Mara screamed as the tentacle tightened its grip. She could feel her ankle bones crushing together inside of her delicate skin. It hurt. A lot. But the grip of the Sarlacc tentacle gave away after Mara continued firing at it. She was thankful to get her ankle out of its grip, and she quickly scrambled away.

Boba Fett raised his lightsaber, and came down on Mara. It hurt to put weight on her ankle, but Mara jumped extremely high with all the pressure of her feet and kicked Boba Fett square in the face when she came back down. He fell down silently, and wrestled to get back up. But he couldn't. A sarlacc tentacle had grabbed him around his chest, and his blaster had slipped out of his holster. He took his lightsaber and tried to reach backward far enough to cut the tentacle, but he couldn't. Mara knew that she had to act again.

Quick as ever, Mara jumped up to the tentacle and slashed down upon it with all of her might. The tentacle still left retreated back into the sarlacc, and the dead sarlacc part of the tentacle hung over Fett. Mara took it off of him. She had to save him. The battle had to end traditionally. The right way.

Fett looked up at Mara, but Mara wasted no time. She came slashing downward on his helmet. He dodged the slash, and jumped backward, then used his lightsaber to jab forward at Mara. She blocked it, and rushed forward, putting all her strength into her attacks. The lightsabers glowed brightly, and the clashing sounds came to the ears like thunder. They locked gazes, and stared each other down. Their lightsabers were in a tight lock, not moving. The sound of the two lightsabers together became almost deafening. They stared harder at each other, still not moving. The room around them began to change.

On Boba Fett's side, a great fire leapt up from the ground and shone evilly. Fett's helmet reflected the red light, and his face looked even more evil now. His gaze, although unseen under his helmet, was hard. He was looking straight at Mara, and he could feel the fire. It gave him strength. He used the extra strength to push his lightsaber forward, but Mara still kept her position. The lightsabers were being pushed together so hard now, that the glow of them combined and the light in between the lightsabers became an overwhelming glow of deep purple, which emanated from a pure white.

Thunder clashed in the air, and clouds started to roll overhead. The sky seemed to split, and a great light came down, followed by a raging fire. The fire swept behind Fett, and he gained even more strength.

The light shone greatly and as it shot behind Mara, she too gained strength. The side that she was on began to turn into a great light, and she could feel surges of strength going through her. She pushed her lightsaber even harder.

The two of them closed their eyes tightly. The light from the lightsabers and from the force created a blinding light, shining without weakening. The earth below them started to tremble, and finally it split open in small chasms of red molten lava. The clouds above were now swirling madly.


Suddenly, out of nowhere, an electrical bolt came rushing downward, charging at Mara Jade and Boba Fett. It cracked and made an immensely overwhelming sound as it struck Boba Fett. He fell to the ground, and lay there....motionless.

Mara looked down at him. He seemed to be finished. That was it. The dark force had been defeated. Mara turned off her lightsaber, and the earth around her stayed the same, and continued to shake. She ran far off, into the caves where she knew she would find the woman of the light force. She had won. No.... the light force had won.


When Mara was gone, Boba Fett looked up. The dark force had apparently left his body. He was completely in control. The ground below him started to open up, as though it wanted to swallow him whole. As he started to fall, he just barely grasped the side of the crevice that had now opened up. He flung himself back up.

Turning off his lightsaber, Fett walked back through the portal that now awaited him. It was not quite what he had expected to see when he walked through the portal. There was no skull, burning deeply. No cave, dark from evil. In fact, it was quite better. Or at least, it was better to Boba Fett .

Before him were the controls to a ship, a ship that he knew very well. He looked up at the screen, and got into the pilot's seat. He was back in Slave-1. He was doing the thing he was meant to do. The thing for which he had no choice but do do. He had become the best at this forever. He had been one forever, as long as he could remember. He always had been, and always would be. As it was meant to be.... a bounty hunter.


What happens to Boba Fett? Well, the battles of the force are over. No other great power overwhelmes him. But I'll tell you one thing. There sure as ever is gonna be another story to follow after this one. But it won't be about this stuff. No way. IT'll be about the personthat Fett was meant to be. It'll be about his bounty hunting. So if you want, you should probably read my next story, "The Bounty of Katara."