The most notorious and fearsome bounty hunter in the galaxy is also the most mysterious. Many legends and stories have arisen over the years, but few facts are known of the man called Boba Fett, or of his inextricable link to Han Solo.
Long before Luke Skywalker journeyed off Tatooine to fulfill his destiny as a Jedi, Boba Fett was known as Journeyman Protector Jaster Merell. Years past, the ugly young law enforcement officer on the world of Concord Dawn had killed another protector, and though the dead man had been corrupt, disgracing his office and uniform, Merell was still imprisoned for the murder. Against the wishes of his pleader, the arrogant young man remained unrepentant to the trial court, and Jaster Merell was exiled from Concord Dawn and stripped of all he owned. Mereel's adoption of the name Boba Fett, and the manner in which he acquired his rare battle armor, are tales lost in time, remembered by no living being except for Fett himself. Fett wears the armor of the Mandalorians, a group of evil warriors who were defeated by the Jedi Knights during the Clone Wars. Fett also carries knee-pad rocket dart launchers, spiked boots, a concussion grenade launcher, and a Blas Tech EE-3 rifle. Braided wookie scalps hang over his right shoulder to complete the outfit. Beyond Fett, the only other living person known to wear the Mandalorian armor is Jodo Kast, an ambitious young bounty hunter who patterned his career after that of Boba Fett. Prowling the Outer Rim Territories, Kast wears armor with much of the same external weaponry that Fett utilizes. It is unlikely, however, that he has as much hidden weaponry and modified circuitry in his suit. In the past, Kast has allowed people to believe he was Fett, adding even greater mystery to the legends surrounding the older hunter.
Throughout his life, Fett has worked as a mercenary, a soldier, a personal guard, an assassin, and, most frequently, as a bounty hunter- the most expensive bounty hunter in the known systems. He collected 500,000 credits when he caught the religious Ffib heretic Nivek'Yppiks for the Lohrans, and a record 5,000,000 credits for capturing the Butcher of Montellian Serat. Fett has worked on retainer for Jabba the Hutt and others of the Hutt clan, as well as for the Empire, and has crossed paths with the Rebellion's greatest heroes more than a few times over the years. Fett is slow and methodical and as unpredictable as the shifting sands of Tatooine. He rarely loses his quarry, and has, thus far, shown no remorse for their fate. Fett has been known to work with other bounty hunters, but his motives may have been to show the others up; Fett has always emerged as the one who catches the prize.
Sometime in the year before the Battle of Yavin, Boba Fett had his first meeting with R2-D2 and C-3P0. On the desert Planet of Ingo, the droids had become the property of speeder racer Thall Joben and his friends, Kea Moll and Jord Dusat. Joben had angered the criminal Fromm gang, and Sise Fromm travelled to the Boonta speeder races to find them. There, Sise hired the mysterious, armor-clad bounty hunter to kill the young racing team, a job Fett took on as a favor owed Fromm, even though Fromm himself was wanted by intergalactic crime lord Jabba the Hutt. After the contract to kill Joben was finished, Fett noted that all debts were paid. Fett's robot, BR-17, befriended C-3P0 and turned him against R2-D2 while Fromm's gang put a bomb in Joben's racing ship, the White Witch. Fett chased Thall and Kea, but they escaped, joining in the speeder race. At the same time, C3-P0 learned of the treachery of BR-17 - who was then crushed by falling machinery - and discovered the bomb planted on the White Witch. Unaware of the bomb, Fett followed Joben into the race and attempted to stop him, using every weapon at his disposal. When he tried magnets, Fett accidentally pulled the bomb onto his own speeder and had to escape at the last minute before it blew up. Angry at the loss of his droid and his speeder, Fett took Fromm and his gang hostage, turning them over to Jabba the Hutt. He expected a great reward for the corpulent trio of vilians.
Several years later, shortly after the Battle of Yavin, Luke Skywalker took R2-D2, C-3P0, and a Y-wing fighter to go look for Han Solo. The Corellian was due back from his search for an invisibility talisman, a mystic item the Empire also sought. When Luke crash-landed on a red-water moon in the Panna system, he was rescued by the mysterious Boba Fett. Luke was felled by a strange sleeping virus that had also knocked out Han, so Fett and Chewbacca snuck into the Imperial-guarded city to get an antidote. While there, Boba contacted Darth Vader, who called him the "best bounty hunter in the galaxy." It was at this point that the droids intercepted Fett's message that he planned to capture the Rebels and claim the talisman. Back at the Millenium Falcon, following a harrowing chase by stormtroopers, Boba administered tje antidote to Han and Luke. Still groggy, Han didn't recognize Boba, and didn't object when Luke offered the hunter a place in the Rebellion. C-3P0 and R2-D2 interrupted, telling the Rebels of Fett's transmission to Vader. Fett rocketed away, vowing vengeance.
Fett sometimes used his bounties against each other. Once, for example, Fett found out that the magician, Magwit, was performing at a small frontier settlement in the wastelands. The dwarf had a minor Imperial bounty on his head, but Fett knew Magwit could help him in aquiring another bounty: Gorga the Hutt had hired Fett to bring in the notorious space pirate Bar-Kooda. Fett forced Magwit to buy his freedom by smuggling the hunter in his magic props. Magwit was "captured" and taken aboard Bar-Kooda's massive pirate vessel, Bloodstar, where the savage carnivore demanded the magician's final performance. Magwit's most impressive trick used a hoop to cause objects to appear and disappear. The hoop was connected to a short-range matter transmitter, with Fett waiting on the other side. Working in concert with Magwit, the hunter pulled Bar-Kooda through the hoop and escaped causing carnage along the way. Magwit survived via a speedy exit, and true to his word, Fett gave the magician his freedom.
Shortly before the Battle of Hoth, Jabba the Hutt hired Fett to find Han Solo. Working both sides of the fence, Fett met Darth Vader mask to mask for the first time. For reasons unknown to either of them, a mutual respect was born, and the bounty hunter agreed to work with Dengar, Bossk, and a rookie bounty hunter named Skorr. But on the planet Ord Mantell, the wily Han Solo, Luke, and Chewie escaped Fett's clutches, heading back to the newly established Rebel base at Hoth. Despite his failure to capture Solo and the other Rebels, Fett was once again summoned to work with Vader. One of the six bounty hunters instructed to find the Millenium Falcon, Fett succeeded in tracking the ship to the Bespin system. There, he aided Vader in capturing the Rebel leaders and exacted his price in the capture of Han Solo. Unfortunately for Han, Vader wanted to use him as the test subject for the carbonite freezing process. Solo survived, and Fett took the quick-frozen Corellian to his ship for transport to Jabba the Hutt's Tatooine palace. On the way to board the Slave I, he exchanged shots with the wary Luke Skywalker, who was attempting to save his friends. As he neared Tatooine, Fett was angered to find that IG-88, one of Vader's other bounty hunters, had tracked him. Fett used evasive maneuvers and his weaponry to blow up the starfighter IG-2000 and its pilot. He continued on his way, delivering to Jabba his Han Solo "wall sculpture," and collecting his bounty. Arguing that the carbonite piece was actually a work of art from the hands of Darth Vader himself, Fett was able to talk Jabba into raising Solo's bounty from 100,000 credits to 250,000.
For the following year, Fett was steadily employed, and a constant presence in Jabba's court. Although the Hutt would never admit it, he was afraid that the Alliance would retaliate for the capture of Solo, so he gave Fett assignments to keep him around, knowing how valuable the hunter was. One such job offered a 100,000 credit bounty to capture a live krayt dragon to be placed in battle with the Hutt's monstrous rancor. When Luke, Leia, and Chewie came to Tatooine and were all captured while trying to rescue Han, Jabba sentenced them to death in the Great Pit of Carkoon. But Jabba had not counted on Luke's Jedi powers or initiative, and the Rebels broke free. In the battle that followed, Fett's backpack was hit and he flew, out of control, into the mouth of the Sarlacc. Fett eventually escaped from the Sarlacc, crawling away from the pit and lapsing into painful oblivion. A short time later the bounty hunter Dengar, who had also been in Jabba's employ, set out to search for the Hutt's body. Instead, he found Boba Fett, devoid of armor and covered in scars from the Sarlacc. Dengar nursed Fett back to health, using Jabba's medical droids. A month later, Fett was well enough to travel, and since the Alliance had confiscated the Slave I, the two hunters set off in Dengar's ship for the spaceport moon of Nar Shaddaa, the smuggling center of the galaxy. Boba had a little-used backup ship on Nar Shaddaa: The Slave II. Few sentients in the galaxy even knew that Fett had one. The hunter used this to his advantage, knocking out old enemies who thought him dead, and collecting bounties quickly, sometimes working with the tagalong Dengar. Meanwhile, the Slave I sir on Garkouine, gathering dust. During this time, Boba decided to hunt down the imposter Jodo Kast. After all, the Sarlacc and destroyed his armor, and he needed a new suit. Through the Bounty Hunter Guild, Boba Fett located Kast and requested his services, disgused in bandages. The younger hunter came, only to be killed and have his armor stripped by Fett. Wary of another encounter with Solo and Skywalker, Fett decided to buy his ship back legally. With the help of an old employer, Crystalboy, he used a system of dummy corporations, paper trails, and forged requisition forms, eventually getting the Slave I as part of a "surplus liquidation" deal. Fett repaired the ship and put it into orbit around Nar Shaddaa. He would use it again, but for now, he was profiting more from the anonymity the Slave II and his "death" had given him. It wasn't long before the galaxy realized Fett was alive. When he captured an infamous pirate, Feldrall Okor, Fett took a page from the plan Leia had used when she had infiltrated Jabba's palace. He presented Feldrall to Imperial Governer Isis, but when she balked at his bounty price, he charged a thermal detonator. As tense seconds ticked by. The governor argued, while Fet
t calmly upped his price. Ultimately, the governor trusted her trustees more than Fett's sanity, and she gave the hunter his ransom.
Six years after the death of Jabba the Hutt, Han and Leia went to Nar Shaddaa. There Han was surprised to find that Boba Fett and Dengar were waiting for him in his quarters. Fett told Solo that the Sarlacc had found him "indigestible" adding that the descendents of Jabba the Hutt wanted Han and Leia, dead or alive! In a hail of blaster fire, Leia and Han made it off world, escaping in Salla Zend's Starlight Intruder. Fett and Dengar followed in the Slave II, snatching the Intruder's coordinates and jumping into hyperspace. Although the Slave II arrived at Byss before the Starlight Intruder, only Salla's ship had been cleared to get through the planetary security shields, which closed, locking out Fett's ship and breaking off a control rudder. As they spun away, Dengar angrily informed Fett that this was the last time he'd ever work with him. Although he was grateful to Dengar for saving his life on Tatooine, Fett was glad to be rid of the other hunter.
