Boba cried out again, but his father was in complete control. He put the ship down a narrow tunnel creasing one of the larger asteroids. He had to slow a bit to maneuver, and when Slave I came out the other end, Jango and Boba saw the Jedi starfighter stream over and past them. The hunted had suddenly become the hunters.
'Get him, Dad!' Boba cried out. 'Get him! Fire!'
Laser bolts burst out of Slave I, tracing lines all about the starfighter, which cut a snap-roll to the right and down.
Jango stayed with him, trying to line up another shot, but the Jedi was good, snap-rolling one after another, each time coming out near an asteroid and sliding behind it for cover.
Boba continued to urge his father on, but Jango kept his patience, figuring that sooner or later, the Jedi was going to run out of hiding places. A fast dive, then a sudden turn back up, then a sudden roll and bank to the right had the Jedi moving behind yet another asteroid, but this time, instead of following, Jango cut in short of the rock and fired blindly past it.
Out came the Jedi's starfighter, right into the line of fire, and the ship bucked, pieces flying, as a laser bolt clipped it.
'You got him!' Boba yelled in victory.
'And now we just have to finish him,' the ever-cool Jango explained.
'There'll be no more dodging.' He pushed a series of buttons, arming a torpedo and sliding open the tube, then moved to punch the red trigger. He paused, though, and smiled, and nodded for Boba to move closer.
Boba could hardly breathe as his father slid his hand onto the smooth trigger grip, then looked down at him and nodded. The boy punched the trigger and Slave I jolted as the torpedo slid away, diving at the Jedi starfighter and taking up the chase as the starfighter bolted and tried to evade.
A few brief moments later, Slave Fs viewscreen lit up in the light of a tremendous explosion, forcing Boba and Jango to shield their eyes with their arms. When they recovered and looked back, they were greeted by pieces of wreckage and torn chunks of metal. The scan screen was clear.
'Got him!' Boba shouted. 'Yeahhhh!' 'Nice shot, kid,' Jango said, and he tousled Boba's hair again. 'You earned that one. We won't see him again.'
A few deft turns had Slave I out of the asteroids and speeding down toward Geonosis, and despite his earlier reasoning, Jango Fett allowed Boba to guide the craft down. Truly, this was no flight for a boy to pilot, but Boba Fett was so far above any ordinary boy.
Anakin traveled through great canyons of multicolored stone, across dunes of blowing and shifting sand, and along an ancient, long-dry riverbed. His only guide was the sensation of Shmi, of her pain. But it was not a definitive homing beacon, and though he suspected he was moving in the general direction, the landscape of Tatooine was vast and empty, and none knew how to hide among the sand and stones better than the Tusken Raiders. On a high bluff, Anakin paused and scanned the horizon.
Off to the south, he noted a huge vehicle, resembling a gigantic tilting box, plodding along on a single huge track. Nodding with recognition of the Jawas, and well aware that no one knew the movements of all creatures among the desert better than they, he kicked his speeder bike away. He caught up to them soon after, riding into a group of the brown- and black-robed creatures, their inquisitive red eyes poking out at him from the shadows of huge cowls, their ceaseless chatter humming like strange music all about him.
It took him a long time to convince the Jawas that he wasn't interested in purchasing any droids, and a longer time to get them to understand that he was merely looking for information about any Tusken Raiders.
The Jawas talked excitedly among themselves, pointing this way and that, hopping all about. Jawas were no friends of Tuskens, who preyed on them as they preyed on anyone else they found vulnerable. Even worse to the Jawa salesman mentality, Tuskens never purchased any droids!
The group eventually came to agreement, and pointed as one to the east. With a nod, Anakin sped away. The lack of monetary compensation seemed to aggravate the Jawas, but Anakin had no time to care.
The asteroids rolled along their silent way, undisturbed, seemingly unshaken from the explosions and zigzagging vessels.
In a deep depression on the back side of one such rock huddled a small starfighter, its definitive outline and consistent colors showing stark contrast to the rough-edged and bleeding, broken mineral streaks of the asteroid.
'Blast. This is why I hate flying,' Obi-Wan said to R4, and the droid's responding beeps showed that he was in complete agreement. Few things could rattle the Jedi Knight, but engaging in a space battle with a pilot as obviously skilled as Jango Fett was surely one of them. Unlike many of his Jedi associates, Obi-Wan Kenobi had never much enjoyed space travel, let alone piloting.
He winced as his asteroid came over and around, showing him again a glowing piece of torn metal that had taken up orbit within the belt. His ship was wounded from the laser blast- nothing substantial, just a thruster- angler- and he had understood that he could not hope to outmaneuver the clever torpedo. So he had ordered R4 to eject all the spare parts canisters, and fortunately, that had been enough to detonate the missile. Despite the success, between the shock of that blast and landing hard and fast on the asteroid to complete the ruse, Obi-Wan was relieved to see that his ship had remained intact.
He wanted no further space fights with Jango and his strange, and supremely efficient, ship, though, and so he had sat here as the minutes slipped past.
'Have you got their last trajectory logged?' he asked the droid, then nodded as R4 assured him that he did. 'Well, I think we've waited long enough. Let's go.' Obi-Wan paused for a moment, trying to digest all the amazing things he had seen on the trail of Jango Fett. 'This mystery gets more wound up all the time, Arfour. Think maybe we'll finally get some answers?' R4 gave a sound that Obi-Wan could only think of as a verbal shrug.
Following the path taken by Slave /, Obi-Wan was not surprised that it led straight for the red planet, Geonosis. What did surprise him, though, was that they were not alone up there.
A series of beeps and whistles from R4 alerted him, and Obi-Wan adjusted his scan screen accordingly, locking on to a huge fleet of vessels, settled on the other side of the asteroid belt.
'Trade Federation ships,' he mused aloud as he angled to get a better view.
