BOBA FETT   AFTER THE BATTLE OF HOTH Despite his failure to capture Solo and the other Rebels, Fett was once again summoned to work with Vader. Darth Vader had called in the help of the best Bounty Hunters in the galaxy to find the Millennium Falcon, which Vader knew would eventually led to Skywalker and the Rebels. Six Bounty Hunters; Bossk, Dengar, Ig-88, 4Lom, Zuckuss, and Boba Fett, met with Vader on the Super Star Destroyer 'The Executor'. Vader told the Hunters he wanted the Rebels brought to him alive. No Disingretions, as he told Fett. Fett having studied Han Solo for years, knew many of Solo's tricks and patterns. When Solo's ship 'floated off with the rest of the garbage' from the Star Destroyer, Boba Fett was waiting among the garbage for him. Fett succeeded in tracking the ship to Cloud City in the Bespin system. There, Fett aided Vader in capturing the Rebel leaders and recieved the bounty from the Empire for Han Solo. Unfortunately for Han, Vader wanted to use him as a test subject for the carbonite-freezing process. So Han was encased in carbonite, alive but in a sort of 'hibertation state'. 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, Fett exchanged shots with Luke Skywalker, who was attempting to save his friends. Fett escaped with Solo to collect the bounty from Jabba. As Boba Fett neared Tatooine in the Slave 1, Fett was angered to find that IG-88 was waiting for him. Fett used evasive maneuvers and his weaponry to blow up the starfighter IG-2000 and its pilot. But Fett discovered it was nothing more than a decoy ship. The real IG-2000 came from hyperspace. The Slave I was hit with heavy blaster fire and Boba Fett was outmaneuvered. But Fett speeded up his ship, going for the Tatooine desert with dazzling speed. With Fett's ship almost falling apart from the great strain, the IG-2000 followed. But suddenly Boba Fett stopped his ship, destroying most parts of the hull and the IG-2000 raced past the Slave I. Now Boba Fett had a perfect target, shooting the Slave I's blasters, he easily destroyed the IG-2000. Fett continued on his way, and delivered Han Solo to Jabba The Hutt. Arguing that the carbonite piece was actually the art of Darth Vader, Fett was able to talk Jabba into raising Solo's bounty from 100,000 credits to 250,000. This was the first know case of a Bounty Hunter getting a 'double Bounty'.  For the following year, Boba Fett was steadily employed by Jabba The Hutt. Fett was a constant presence in Jabba's court and although Jabba would never admit it, Jabba was afraid that the Alliance would retaliate for the capture of Solo, so he gave Fett assignments to keep him around. 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 Skywalker's Jedi powers or initiative, and the Rebels broke free. In the battle that followed, during the escape attempt made by Han and Luke Skywalker, Fett's backpack was hit, accidently by the now unfrozen Han Solo, and he flew out of control, into the mouth of the Sarlacc and seemingly lost his life. After some days of suffering, and a lot of pain, Boba Fett somehow activated his jetpack, but it exploded. This paralyzed the Sarlacc for a while, but burnt Boba Fett severely. But since the Sarlacc had no control on Fett anymore, he shot his rocket launcher into the Sarlacc, after this Fett found himself in the heat of the Tatooine twin suns. Fett's version of his escape, as he reportedly told to Han Solo, was that the Sarlacc simply "found him somewhat indigestible." A short time later the Bounty Hunter Dengar, who had also been in Jabba's employ, set out in search for the Hutt's body. Instead, he found Boba Fett, devoid of armor and covered in scars and fibers from the Sarlacc. Boba Fett was actually first found by Neelah, once known as Kateel of Kuhlvult from Kuat who was kidnaped and memory wiped. But Fett came across her when he went after Ree Duptom for a Bounty. Fett then brought Kateel to Jabba's palace where she worked as a dancer going by the name Neelah. Dengar and Neelah nursed Fett back to health, using Jabba's medical droids. While Fett was being treated, and the rest of the Universe believed the Hunter was dead, Kuat of Kuat did some bombing on the Dune Sea to drive out Fett just in case he was still alive. This made their hideout collapse and they had to run for their lives, but Fett wasn't in the best shape, so he was carried. The group of five ended somewhere in the Sarlacc tunnels. While climbing to the surface, tentacles from the Sarlacc, grabbed Neelah. Dengar tried to shoot the Sarlacc, but his blaster fell. Dengar was then surprised by the sudden action of the severly injured Fett. Probably the extreme hatred Fett carried towards the Sarlacc, made it possible for Fett to dig into his last energy, grabbing Dengar's falling blaster from the air and firing, with no need to aim, at the Sarlacc. It made the Sarlacc cry out in pain and they were able to escape. Boba Fett took them to his hideout, where he healed. During that time he put his armor back together, once again becoming the galaxy most feared Bounty Hunter. A month later, Fett was well enough to travel. Not wanting to use the Slave I, Fett wanted the Universe to believe he really was dead, Fett and Dengar, along with Neelah, needed a ship. It was at this time Bossk had another run-in with Fett. Bossk was forced to abandon The Hound's Tooth in a panic as a bomb calmly counted down the seconds remaining to detonation. Again, Bossk found himself in an escape pod because of Boba Fett and seethed silently to himself. Suddenly, a countdown began echoing in the escape pod. In a frenzy, Bossk tried to find the bomb, and managed to discover it just as the countdown reached zero... and nothing happened. It was then that the Hunter realized that he had been scared off of his own ship, and he now knew that Fett hadn't in fact been killed by the Sarlacc and was now using The Hound's Tooth as his own ship. Dengar, Fett, and Neelah left in Hound's Tooth, while leaving the Slave I floating in space above Tatooine. Details about what happened next are still coming in....stand by. Bossk had landed on the surface of Tatooine, where he was stranded without any source of money. Luckily for him, he had managed to steal an important piece of evidence from the Slave I which led up to another show down with Fett in the Mos Eisley Cantina. Bossk held his ground against the fearsome hunter, refusing to give the location of the evidence without money, even with Fett's blaster trained on his forehead. Boba Fett uttered the unthinkable words "You won" and transferred a large amount of credits into Bossk's account in exchange for the evidence. It is believed that Bossk used this money, not to mention this new respect he earned for defeating Boba Fett, to get back on his feet in the Bounty Hunting world.   NEXT PAGE - AFTER THE BATTLE OF ENDOR     FETT'S EARLY YEARS AFTER THE BATTLE OF YAVIN AFTER THE BATTLE OF HOTH AFTER THE BATTLE OF ENDOR FETT'S ARMOR SLAVE I AND SLAVE II