Fighter
by Aggy
Fighter
by Aggy
"After all of the fights and the lies
Yes you wanted to harm me but that won't work anymore
Uh, no more, oh no, it's over
'Cause if it wasn't for all of your torture
I wouldn't know how to be this way now, and never back
down
So I wanna say thank you."
"Fighter", Christina Aguilera
"Sis, I have something to tell you. And you’re not going to like it." Rish was nervous. Not a good sign. She was fidgeting, turning the data card in her hand end over end so quickly, that if I watched it for too long, I’d get dizzy.
"What’s wrong, Risha?" My voice hit an uncomfortable note, making us both wince. "Er... sorry. But what’s going on?"
"I got some information from Intel," she gave me a woebegone look. "You’re not going to like it."
"You already said that," I snapped, trying to hide fear with impatience. "What’s wrong!"
She handed me the data card then sidestepped towards the door. "Watch the vid on that, if you haven’t gone to the Dark Side afterward, I’ll explain."
I was going to kill him... no, killing was too good for that worthless...
"Sis?" Risha peeked around my doorway, looking like she was going to bolt if I so much as looked at her cross-eyed.
"Yes..." I hissed, hands clenching and unclenching on the top of my desk.
Risha bounced on the balls of her feet, ready to flee. "You ok?"
"Nope," I answered, resisting the urge to throw the data pad across the room. "But I will be."
Sis came into the room, gingerly easing herself down onto my bed, a safe distance in case I decided to get violent. But I didn’t feel violent, I felt...
A feral grin crept across my face. Risha looked decidedly uncomfortable. "So the bastard set up the whole thing with the blonde? What’s her name..."
"Nikka," Risha added slowly, uncertain of my mood. Hell, I was uncertain of my mood. This was the type of madness that rarely gripped me, but when it did...
"I trusted that bastard. And he..."
"He set you up," Risha said simply, though the sorrow in her eyes made the words kilometers deep.
"I guess I’ve finally learned my lesson," I chuckled coldly. "There is a reason why he’s the best bounty hunter in the whole damn Galaxy."
"Um... Sis?"
"Yes?" My voice was honey-sweet.
She tentatively reached out and brushed her hand against my arm. "You’re starting to scare me."
"You don’t have to be afraid," I growled, suddenly standing. I began to pace, needing to burn some of the energy before I did something violent to someone who hadn’t hurt me. "So if I understand things correctly, Fett set up the whole situation."
The vid had been painfully clear. Mandalorian armor in blazing if battered color, the mechanized voice... the handful of credits he threw at the bitch, offering to pay more if Nikka would try again and, this time, succeed. If she could seduce Wes away from me."
Fett was going to pay... and pay dearly...
I just had to figure out the perfect currency for my vengeance...
The Slave I, the most beautiful, deadly spaceship to fly though the emptiness of vacuum. It had been his father’s ship. It and the battered armor that he wore were the only relics he had of the loving parent that he had lost to the self-righteous cruelty of the Jedi.
He had kept the ship carefully maintained over the years, ignoring the temptations of more luxurious or more heavily armored ships. No, this was perfection. This was a father’s legacy to his son.
The ship was his family but sometimes, sometimes, he wished he had someone to share it with. No, not someone... Selina. She made life complete, her vulnerability, her need... it had been wonderful when they had been together. To be wanted and needed with such an intensity...
But somehow, she had been beguiled away from him by a Rebel pilot...
But that could be easily fixed. The cracks in their relation had been made. He knew Selina so well, knew that she would not tolerate a man who was unfaithful. So if he could find a way to lead her... love... into temptation, then he could play the hero and ease her wounded heart. The plan was already working; he has spent the night in her arms. If he kept chipping away at her relations with the Rebel...
An insistent beeping cut through his thoughts. A message. He flicked one of the Slave’s many switches, tracing the message to an unknown source. Curious... usually the ship’s systems wouldn’t let such communications through. If the exact source could not be found, then the message was blocked.
But this one hadn’t been blocked. The sender must be a damn good slicer or damned lucky.
He accepted the communications and let the speaker’s image fill the tiny screen built into the Slave’s console. Not a slicer, just damned lucky. "Hello, Selina." Suddenly he wished he had removed his helmet. He knew the armor bothered her. Which was NOT what he needed if he was going to win her back.
"Hello, Fett," she smiled sweetly.
Fett, not Jaster? Was something wrong?
"Yes, my dear?"
She smiled thinly and tossed her auburn hair over one shoulder. She looked like a haughty aristocrat. Lovely, but nothing more than ornamental. But then, shouldn’t a man surround himself with beauty? "I found out what you did, Fett."
"What did I do?" he rasped, deciding to humor her.
"You hired that blonde bimbo to try to fuck Wes." The smile and honey-sweet voice never wavered despite the fire raging in her gray eyes.
Panic, steel-edged and diamond hard slide through his chest. "Selina, dearheart... I..."
"You worthless bastard, you tried to destroy my happiness. You manipulate me. You tried to destroy my life with Wes! I trusted you. I thought you were my friend. Hell, I even loved you a tiny bit. But now..." Her voice hitched for a moment, then steadied. "I should hate you, but I don’t."
Redemption glimmered brightly. There was a chance...
"You can’t hurt me anymore, Fett. I won’t let you."
He couldn’t help chuckling. This CHILD thought she could hurt HIM? "Oh really?" His amusement somehow managed to be communicated by the voice synthesizer. "Yes, ‘really.’" She looked bored with the conversation, bored with him. "Your problem, Jaster, is that you never saw how strong I could be. You only saw a scared little girl who needed a savior. But I’m stronger than that. And I’m going to make you pay."
Selina raised her right hand and snapped her fingers.
Her holo transmission died, leaving the ship in darkness. The Slave I let out a wave of shrieking warning sirens before surging into hyperspace. As he desperately tried to regain control of the ship, the Slave shuddered, then returned to real space. Selina’s grinning image appeared on its screen. "Worried, Jas?"
He growled but she only laughed. "You tried to take what I love away from me so I’ve taken away what you love most. The Slave I is mine."
An awful stillness crept through Jaster Mereel’s body. "What do you mean?"
"I sliced all the Slave’s codes. The ship is mine; you’re only borrowing her. If you EVER, EVER go near my family or anyone I love, I will hit the self-destruct. Whether your in the Slave or not! If you try to undo my coding, the ship will self-destruct. Even if you rip out every computer system on that hunk of junk, my coding will still be there. It’s imbedded so deep, you’ll have to melt her down to scrap metal to get rid of it."
"But you can’t," he stuttered. "You’re not..."
"Good enough? Strong enough?" That sweet, serene smile returned. "You always underestimated me, Jaster. You always thought that I managed my thefts through sheer audacity and luck. But you were wrong. I’m the best damned thief in the Galaxy. Your defenses are NOTHING compared to the systems I can slice. You thought I was weak but you were wrong. You never saw the true Selina Moonfire."
Her laughter echoed through the intercoms of the Slave I, making it seem like Selina was surrounding him, smothering him...The lights flickered and Jaster Mereel, the most terrifying bounty hunter in the Galaxy suddenly understood fear.
"If you hurt me or mine, I will hunt you down. I will steal away everything you love. I will drive you to madness. I will torture you until you wish to die..." Her intensity faded, leaving Selina Moonfire, the woman that he thought he knew inside and out. But there was more to her than he ever dreamed...
"After all you put me through, you’d think I’d despise you, but in the end I want to thank you. Cause you made me that much stronger."
The lights flickered once more, Selina’s image fading into nothingness, leaving Boba Fett alone with his memories and the knowledge that someone else owned the one thing he truly, completely loved... Her voice whispered over the intercom, another warning of her true potential...
"So thank you for making me a fighter..."
Finis
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