By Catelina Cia
copyright 1998, Catelina Cia
Catelina Cia sat in the corner of a remote room of an Imperial building on Tiseo. She was cross-armed; her bad attitude was peaked. She had just been caught trying to break into the Bounty Hunters Guild computers, luckily, by possibly the best person to be caught by.
Boba Fett appeared to look down on her, through the dark glass of his helmet. She had already explained to him that she wanted to be a bounty hunter, but he didn't believe that. "Can you prove to me you want to be a bounty hunter?" He thought it was a sure bet and he had just caught her but he was wrong.
"Yeah!" Catelina answered snottily.
"Well, prove it."
"Fine, come on." She stood up quickly and headed to the door, but not fast enough, because Fett grabbed her arm before she reached the door.
"Where are we going?"
"To my ship, the Dumar." Catelina said that as if he should have already known.
He jabbed his blaster into her back and led her out of the building. When they reached the outside they took the back alleys of the city to a docking bay, where inside Fett saw a huge green ship that resembled an Imperial TIE fighter, and Fett made to point that out.
"That is your ship?" he asked.
"Yes!" She answered as though she was glad to see it.
"It looks like an Imperial prototype of a TIE fighter," he commented.
Her shoulders slumped. "Well give the nice man a prize, he just got the whole story right. All he's missing is that the owner made a few of her own modifications to it."
Boba Fett was peevish towards her sarcastic comment. Still, he followed her into the ship. When inside, she motioned for him to sit on a chair in the middle of a rather bare room, but he didn't take the chance and stood. When she noticed he wasn't going to sit down she shrugged and accepted she was wrong in thinking he would sit down.
She almost disappeared into another room, but, again, he stopped her before she could get out the door. "Where are you going?" Catelina was impressed by his carefulness.
"To prove to you I want to be a bounty hunter. If you're worried I'm going to try and kill you why don't you get out your gun and be ready to shoot?" And she left.
Fett stood there, blaster ready, for around ten minutes. Finally, Catelina, or who he thought was Catelina, emerged. She was wearing a white armored suit, completed with a helmet. And the helmet, its glass was an elaborate design, streaked and scrawled onto the helmet. Which was what could be intimidating certain people. As he would have expected from her, the armor was fitted to her, so anyone could tell she was a woman.
"I'm guessing this is supposed to be your hunting armor," he implied.
"Heck yeah." When she said that he could tell she also had a voice scrambler.
Boba Fett was now convinced that she was telling the truth about wanting to be a bounty hunter. He was stumped, why was she trying to break into the Guild's computer? He dismissed that. He was curious how she planned to get into the business. "Do you really expect that an impressive suit and a good ship will make you a bounty hunter?"
"No."
"Then how do you expect to?" he asked.
She took off her helmet and sat down. "Well I was going to break into the Guild's computers and put my name in there but that's out." He just stood there and didn't say anything. "Well, um, you think you can help me?" She gave him a sweet smile.
Inside his helmet he was rolling his eyes at the brown nosing she was giving him. Fett thought about the possibility of teaching her his methods of bounty hunting. He had to find out if she would even be any good at it. Perhaps he could test her by putting her on a simple job, something easy, like just a man who had betrayed someone and was not too dangerous. The thought of having an aide at his disposal intrigued him, but then, for the protection of his reputation, he'd have to keep her concealed from being recognized as a friend or a long term partner.
"Very well. How good are you at fighting?"
"I took hand to hand combat classes in school, and my brothers made me take stormtrooper classes where I learned everything there is to know about weapons."
"Good, at least I don't have to teach you to fight." She looked at him as if the comment he made was sexist.
He looked around. "Do you have access to the Holonet from here?"
"Do you think I'd be using an Imperial faculty if I did?"
She had a point. Fortunately, Fett had access on his ship. Even more fortunate, Slave 1 was docked in the same station. "Come, we can access the net in my ship."
Catelina replaced her helmet and accompanied him to the Slave 1. Soon they were in front of a computer screen looking at the Bounty Hunter's Guild's list of bounty hunters. All Fett had to do was enter Catelina's name and where she could be contacted, and she'd be in business. "What is your name?" he asked.
She hadn't told him her real name yet, or any other name for that matter. "Nevi Dele," she replied.
"Why do I doubt that is not your real name?" he asked as he typed in the name.
"Probably for the same reason I don't think Boba Fett is your real name."
She is very smart, Fett made himself realize. You had better be careful around her.
He finished messing with the Guild's files and shut off the Holonet. "There, you're a bounty hunter."
"Yippee," she replied, not so enthused about it. "Now what?"
"You wait to be hired."
"Oh, and until then?"
"Well I usually go and stay at Jabba the Hutt's Palace, I don't know what you are going to do."
She thought for a split second. "Do you thing ol' Jabba'll care if I hang around at his place?"
"Not if I say you can be trusted he won't," Fett informed her.
"Will you vouch for me?" she queried.
He thought for a moment, making sure he would trust her.
"Sure."
"Okay, great." She bounced.
"I am going there then, you should leave your ship somewhere safe, so you come in with me."
Catelina didn't like that idea, the Slave 1 had little space and was made for bounties, not passengers. "On this thing? No way! There's only one seat in the cockpit! Where am I gonna sit?"
"In one of the seats down below the cockpit. Calm down, Dele, you sound like a teenager."
Her jaw set. Then he realized she was much younger than he thought, but no matter, he could deal with that. And she should be smart enough to realize I won't tolerate childishness, he thought.
Catelina was in a chair some ten or so feet below the cockpit of the Slave 1. Even though Boba Fett hadn't bothered to tell her, she knew very well the name of his ship, and most of his employers. Those things were easy to come by when she went to Coruscant with her friends for a year. Catelina was not too fond of the Empire; they came and took the people of a neighboring planet prisoner, for slaves. When she was little she couldn't understand why the Empire took the Rim from their home planet. Oh, but now she knew. The Empire was racist against beings that weren't human, and Catelina thought that was wrong.
She felt awkward, the way the ship moved. The looming thing was in hyperspace; she guessed they'd be out in a while. She was right, the Slave 1 dropped out of hyperspace and landed five minutes later. Boba Fett came down and passed her to open the ramp. Disappointed he didn't tell her what to do, she got out of her seat and followed him out into Jabba the Hutt's docking bay.
Catelina fiddled with her helmet to be sure it was in perfect place, then ran up beside him. "So what's the story? I don't wanna be caught by surprise to some wild idea you have."
"I will not have any wild ideas, Dele. I will introduce you to Jabba, and decare that I trust you and Jabba should be able to also. And that if you do anything wrong I will take the blame for it, keeping you under control."
Through the depiction of her helmet's dark visor she gave him a nasty look for thinking he would be her father figure for when they were at Jabba's palace. Of course, he couldn't see it, and that was exactly how she meant it to be.
Bib Fortuna announced them to Jabba and they stood before him. Fett motioned for Catelina to stand off from the grates, even though she had no idea why, but that lesson would come far later.
"Ho ho ho ho," the great being bellowed. "Boba Fett, you come at a most favorable time."
"Great Jabba, has the Lady Valarian been rumored to be sending out assassins to kill you again?"
The giant slug laughed again. "Yes, Boba Fett, I will need you to keep me safe at night, and stand guard."
Fett acknowledged that he would be happy to guard 'his highness.' Then Jabba turned his attention to Catelina. "And who have you brought with you, Boba Fett?"
Before Fett could, Catelina beat him to the punch. "I am the bounty hunter Nevi Dele, at your service, my lord." She gave a little bow and then added, "I hope to become one of your favorite bounty hunters." The truth behind that comment she herself couldn't be sure. How would she know she wanted to be Jabba's favorite, it had to have bad traits.
Jabba laughed at her eagerness. Boba Fett was now able to tell Jabba he trusted her. As soon as he did so Jabba expressed his happiness in having one more person to kill his enemies and he would find a suitable job for 'Nevi Dele' as soon as it came around. Jabba also told them that he had nowhere for her to stay at the moment, and she could stay with Fett or in the room where they now were until a room could be found, which all could see was a lie, a lie, which was meant so Jabba himself could see that she could be trusted.
Later that night Catelina sat on Boba Fett's cot in his room. He was out discussing the situation with Jabba about Lady Valarian. He came in, finally surprised to see her there. He thought she would sleep in the main chamber.
"You're sleeping in here?" he asked, just to be sure.
"I don't know." She shrugged.
"If you do then I could sleep in the main chamber."
Catelina wondered why he acted this way to her. She thought he'd be pushier, and a little crueler. Must be that distinguished charm the Valdri used to tell me I have, she thought.
"I'll sleep on the floor," she said.
He shrugged and prepared to go to sleep. Catelina put down a mat she had in her back pack, and laid down, helmet off. She slept face down on her mat with her arms over her head.
When Fett was certain she was sleeping, he took off his helmet to get a breath of fresh air, and then took a cloth to wipe all of the oils and other grime off. Then he lay down and put his helmet back on.
He wasn't observant enough though, Catelina saw
his face through the cracks between her arms.
Back to Jedi Diana's SW and Fett site