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Anakin looked slightly taken aback. But he recovered quickly.

"'Probably'?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "More like definitely."

He looked past Boba to Slave I's starboard wing. "You took quite a hit,"

he said, then added grudgingly, "but you put up a good fight, too. Asajj is a deadly enemy. Not many have survived an encounter with her. You were lucky - Boba Fett."

Now it was Boba's turn to look surprised.

His

body

tensed instinctively, ready to spring into action if he had to.

But Anakin only continued to regard him with the same cool, appraising gaze. "Yes. I know who you are - and have for a long time. My Master, Obi- Wan Kenobi, has spoken of you."

Boba felt his stomach clench. Obi-Wan Kenobi! Boba and his father had escaped from the hated Jedi back on their homeworld, Kamino. Could Kenobi have been the one to order Wat Tambor's assassination?

Boba looked warily at Anakin. He half-expected to hear the young Jedi speak of Boba's failure to capture the Separatist mastermind.

Instead, Anakin was looking at Boba thoughtfully, as though he were a chess piece on a playing board.

"Yes, I have heard of you," Anakin went on at last. "And I have seen you, as well - back there on Xagobah, when you saved Glynn-Beti's apprentice. That was brave. And reckless." The slightest smile tugged at Anakin's mouth, and he released his hold on his lightsaber. "Nice work."

"Thanks." Boba felt himself relax a little. He turned, glancing under Slave I to see what damage there was that he had missed.

"It mostly seems to be the wing," said Anakin. He strode past Boba and crouched to inspect it more closely. "See here? Looks like the struts were weakened to begin with. And this - "

Boba watched, amused, as Anakin crawled under his ship. The Jedi pulled a small toolkit from his tunic.

" - this really should have been taken care of a long time ago. How long has it been since you've had this ship serviced?"

Boba shrugged. He thought of Qinx, his mechanic back on Tatooine, and Boba's longstanding request to have Slave l's shield upgraded and his exterior weapons systems overhauled. "Too long, probably," he answered.

"That's for sure." Anakin shook his head. He ran his hand along one of the ship's thruster nozzles. "You've done a lot of the work on this yourself, haven't you?"

"I've made some improvements."

"Quite a few, it looks like." Anakin flashed Boba a rare look of admiration. "This is good work. It's a good ship. And you're lucky the damage wasn't worse. I can probably get this wing straightened out without too much trouble."

Anakin hesitated. Probably wondering what Obi-Wan would say of this.

A Jedi should never let down his guard, Boba answered in his head.

A Jedi's loyalty is to the Order first, then to the Republic....

Abruptly, Anakin's keen blue gaze fixed on Boba. "Don't try anything, Fett. I've got full backup from Glynn-Beti." Anakin ran a hand along his lightsaber. "Not that I'd need her help."

Boba ignored the implied threat. "I've got work to do myself," he said roughly. Grimacing, he touched his wounded shoulder.

"You better take care of that," said Anakin before turning his attention back to Slave I.

"And my body armor," said Boba, more to himself than the Jedi. He started back up the gangway to his ship. Suddenly he halted, frowning.

"Did you hear that?"

"Huh?" Anakin's muffled voice drifted from behind the starboard wing.

Boba stood on alert, listening. His keen eyes took in the barren moonscape: pale reddish sand carved into funnels and outcroppings like ruined towers or the remains of other, wasted spacecraft. Between large craters, smaller tunnels yawned, black as the star-scattered sky beyond.

But there was no sign of life. No one but Boba Fett and Anakin Skywalker moved in this desolate place.

"Nothing," Boba said. "Must've just been my imagination."

He went back into Slave I. Inside,