New Threat Read Free Page B

unflinching at Jabba and waited for his reply.
    For a moment Jabba was silent. His yellow eyes blazed.
    “When you return?
When you return?
” he said at last. His body began to shake with laughter. “Hoh hoh! Don’t you mean
if
you return?” Jabba drew
back upon his throne. “Go—now! Ready yourself for your adventure!
If
you return, we will discuss this further!”
    “Yes, Lord Jabba,” Boba replied. With a small bow he turned and very quickly left the throne room.
    That was a close one!
he thought.
    Jabba’s tone and the angry look in his eyes told Boba that he had gone perhaps too far this time!
    Boba went to his quarters, a small set of rooms in the easternmost tower of Jabba’s sprawling palace. When he got there, he hesitated and stood before the door.
    It had been several months since he had been back. He was never here for more than a few days or weeks at a time, between jobs. Still, these rooms were the closest thing he had to a home.
    He knew what he would find inside. His quarters were simple, almost spartan. The rooms of a warrior, with no frills besides a small stack of holobooks at his bedside. Books on strategy,
navigation, Mandalorian weaponry techniques, scouting, and hunting; ancient texts on war.
    Most precious of all was the book left to him by his father. It contained his father’s words and images. Along with his father’s helmet, and the remnants of his father’s armor,
the book was Boba’s most prized possession. He had learned more from that book than he had from any other.
    But he had learned even more from his own experience.
    Thinking about his father still made Boba sad. But he knew his father would be proud of his son. After all, he had just received a prize assignment from Jabba the Hutt!
    Boba opened the door and went inside. His room was exactly as he had left it. Or was it?
    “Hey…” Boba frowned.
    Hadn’t he left his Mandalorian helmet on board
Slave I
?
    Yet here it was, in the middle of his bed. Boba glanced around the room suspiciously.
    But there was no sign of anyone. The door showed no signs of forced entry. His hand hovering above his blaster, he crossed to the bed.
    There was something else there, next to his father’s helmet.
    A set of armor.
    At first he thought it was the body armor that had belonged to Jango—armor that Boba had longed to wear, but which was still too big for him.
    “Huh,” he said. He picked up the chest-piece, molded to fit Jango’s muscular frame. “Wait a minute—something’s different.”
    The body armor was smaller than his father’s. Boba held it up—and yes, it was sized to fit him. Perfectly.
    He examined the armor carefully, still frowning.
    “Wow,” he breathed in amazement.
    There, slightly below the left side of the rib cage, a small indentation showed where long ago Jango had barely survived an assassin’s blast.
    Boba whooped in delight.
    It was Jango’s body armor!
    “This is great!” he exclaimed aloud. Quickly he shut and locked his door. Then he changed from his customary uniform—a young Mandalorian soldier’s pale blue tunic and
trousers, the black knee-high boots that had been too small for him for almost a year. “I hope this fits!”
    It did—as if it had been made just for him. Blue fire-resistant pants with steel-colored armored kneepads and shinpads. An adult’s tunic, much heavier and more durable than a
youth’s, with shoulder and chest armor, heavy weapons belt, wrist holsters, and protective gloves that felt like a second, sleeker skin. Last of all, Boba pulled on the boots—his
father’s boots, but with newly reinforced soles and heels that could withstand temperatures hot enough to melt iron. He had just grabbed his helmet when there was a knock at the door.
    “Boba?” asked a familiar voice. “It’s me, Ygabba—”
    “And me, Gab’borah,” chimed in a second voice. “Can we come in?”
    “Sure!”
    Boba yanked the door open. In the hall stood Ygabba and Gab’borah. Both