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Standing in the fire, burning alive, Boba Fett fired a concussion grenade into the ceiling thirty centimeters above his head, and threw himself down to the surface of the tunnel, into the flaming mixture of acid and fuel—

The explosion tore apart the world. The concussion slammed Fett down into the flames, and his left arm, trapped beneath him at the wrong angle, snapped as he was smashed down atop it. A pain so great it was like a white light surrounded Boba Fett, and he knew that he was dying, that he had failed, like all the others before him, that he had traded a slow death by acid for a fast death by fire—

Sand rained down upon him.

A long time later, Boba Fett became aware that he was still alive. He forced himself up into a sitting position, looking around him. Fires still burned, along the length of the corridor, and in the distance the sound of cracking tentacles was very loud.

It was quiet where he sat.

Fett’s left arm hung useless at his side, and he looked away down the tunnel; it was night, but he knew which direction he needed to go, to get back to the main pit, to the shaft that led back to the surface … to the main pit, where Susejo hung, where the enraged Sarlacc awaited him, tentacles lashing back and forth in anticipation.

Sand trickled down onto Fett’s helmet. He looked up.

Darkness.

Without moving from where he sat, Boba Fett made a long arm, and retrieved the grenade launcher. It carried three grenades; and he’d already fired one of them.

He raised the launcher and fired it a second time, into the darkness above him, and then had to dig his way out of the avalanche of sand that came down upon him. He stood at the edge of a small hill of sand, looking upward into the darkness … and started to undress. The armor was useless at this point—acid-covered and cracked in places, which was an improvement on Fett having cracked in those same places—and his clothing disintegrated as he moved. He almost fainted while removing the upper body armor; his left arm was broken in at least two places, and he was covered with burns that were already starting to form blisters.

It took several minutes, but finally he had worked his way out of the armor, and he fought against his dizziness and weakness and started climbing, halfway up the small hill of sand, and fired his final grenade into the darkness above him. The wave of sand that collapsed on him this time was unbelievable; Fett struggled up through it as it came down upon him, almost swimming upward through the falling sand. The sand covered him, his nude body and the helmet that still protected his head, and he clawed at it frantically, with no air but that trapped in his helmet with him, using both hands, both the broken arm and the good, possessed by a mortal terror that gave him the access to the final strength he would ever be able to call upon—

A hand broke free, he felt it, felt it thrust up into emptiness, and seconds later, Boba Fett dug his way up out of the sand and into the cool nighttime air, in the middle of the Dune Sea, at the edge of the Great Pit of Carkoon, hundreds of kilometers away from anyone or anything.

Alive.

A year later:

Boba Fett returned to Tatooine in the Slave II.

He came down out of orbit and hovered above the Great Pit of Carkoon, in the midst of the Dune Sea. On the night desert, the glow of his thrusters burned like the daytime sun, lit the sand for kilometers in all directions.

The Slave II descended until the flame of its drive played directly down onto the Pit of Carkoon. The wash of pain that rose to greet Boba Fett tasted like wine of an ancient vintage. If he closed his eyes he could see it, the main chamber where Susejo hung, shimmering beneath the superheated air.

You.

“Yes, indeed.”

Inside the creature’s pain, Boba Fett could feel something like relief. You liberate me from the long Cycle.

The Slave II hovered above the pit … and then drifted off to the side, and came to a landing fifty meters from the edge,