"The Good, the Bad, and the Sleemo"

Chapter the Eleventh (Final Chapter)

When Bane had recovered from the shock, the first thing he said to Embo was,

"I'm never going to understand just how far ahead you plan these things."

Embo, who had originally been looking down at Boba's body, turned to Cad Bane.

"Apparently, you don't know me well. I don't plan any of it, really."

Bane ran to the stone, picked it up, and read the bottom, which was written in Basic. He looked up at Embo with confusion. "Wait a minute, this can't be right. You wrote Unknown."

"That is correct. Bahr Crevil told me the money was buried in a grave marked Unknown, next to the grave of Aren Sacul."

"I get it." With that, Bane tossed the rock over his shoulder and stifled a hearty laugh at the ingenuity of it all. He and Embo walked side by side over to the grave, where, sure enough, the marker read Unknown right next to Aren Sacul. A dead tree stood just above the grave. Bane dusted off his hands and grabbed Boba Fett's shovel. Moments from stabbing the earth with the shovel, Bane checked to see if Embo was doing the same. Oddly, he wasn't. Instead, Embo was pointing the same pistol that killed Boba Fett at Bane's back.

"Oh, no. You dig."

"So that's how it goes, doesn't it?"

"I said, dig." As a warning, Embo shot at the ground an inch from Bane's heel.

Bane jumped back, and had to hold down on his hat to keep it from falling off. Frowning, he grabbed the shovel and dug with much less enthusiasm than he thought he would have been. As he dug, he heard slight movement from the Kyuzo bounty hunter, but decided to focus on the job at hand rather than let Embo distract him.

The sun, wrapping up its grand finale, was at last sinking behind the furthest dunes of Geonosis, leaving the Badlands of N'g'zi to turn the color of blood and fire, as the light slowly drained like water from a drain.

When Bane had finished digging, he kicked off the lid just as Embo had done. His heart swelled in his chest so much he thought it would burst.

"Embo, by the Force. Look at all this cash!"

Ten...ten bags in total, filled up the unknown grave. Bane used the shovel to hack open the bag on the top of the pile. Stainless, clean, shiny gold credits spilled out, and for the first time in a long time, Bane laughed with genuine happiness and delight. He had to resist the temptation to bury his hands in the bag and grab handfuls of it at once. Instead, he wet the roof of his mouth and swallowed.

"It's all here, Embo! We're rich!"

There was no reply.

"...Embo? Come on, get over here or I'm taking it all for myself."

Bane looked up and his stomach turned cold.

"Embo...what are you doing?"

"Well, Bane, you know all those poor fellows back on Tatooine I scammed out of their money? Those fellows who wanted to see you hang? I'm going to even the score."

As Embo spoke, he tightened a knot along a long, thick rope, which formed a hangman's noose. He held up a gadget in one hand, on which he pushed a button that signaled a speeder bike on the other side of the cemetery to approach. Bane could only assume Embo had found the speeder bike and used it to get to the cemetery before. Embo used the bike to stand up and tie the other end of the rope on the branch. A chill ran up Bane's spine as this had been the last thing he expected from his old partner.

"You're not being serious, are you?" Bane asked, but he knew Embo was not one to waste time joking around.

"Listen, Bane. It's been fun, but I have my share of the money now. I'm leaving Geonosis, and I'll never come back."

"But we helped each other get here. You're not going to do this now after all we went through together."

"If things had gone your way, I would be lying next to Fett right now," Embo said coldly. "Now, listen. The Rebel refugees who fled from the village will be coming back to search for supplies and survivors. A few minutes after you left, I saw a band of them less than two miles away. They will be here before the sun has set. The trail your speeder left when it crashed will catch their interest. They will follow it here to the cemetery. When they find you, they will give you a proper burial. Even Rebels know better than to leave a body for the Geonosian's to dispose of."

"You wouldn't do this." Bane wanted to shout, but he discovered he could barely speak through his throat, which startled him. Was he choking up now? Now? When an old friend forced him to stare down the noose? Was this any worse than the firing squad?

"If they weren't coming, I would bury you myself." Embo pointed his blaster at him and gestured to the noose, and the grave marker standing right beneath it. He took off Bane's hat and laid it over five of the ten bags. "Now get up there."

"Damn you, sleemo," Bane spat.

"I'm simply doing what should have been done weeks ago. And I'm giving you a clean death. Who is the real sleemo here?"

Barely able to speak, Bane did as he was told. He stood on top of the grave marker and Embo tightened the noose around his neck. Bane shut his eyes, as he could not stand looking down at all the credits lying only several feet away. As he stood as motionless as possible, he felt Embo bind his hands behind his back with a cord. Then Embo gave the noose a final tug before climbing off the speeder bike.

The sun had begun to set, and cast long death-shaped shadows across all of Sad Hill, sinking behind the towering walls of the canyon. Soon the cemetery would be void of any light, swallowed in the darkness of night.

Cad Bane cracked open one eye, and were he more free to move, he would have kick Embo in the back just out of spite. For Embo was taking half and only half of the money, tying them together with cords, and laying them against the back of the speeder bike. He was actually going to leave the other share lying on the ground beneath Bane's hat.

"You are one fucked up individual. Did anyone ever make that apparent to you?" Cad Bane asked.

"Are those your last words?" Embo retorted.

"No, actually, now that you mention it, I have a hell of a lot more to say to you. And seeing how I'll be dead in a couple minutes, I might as well say them right now just so you're aware of how fucked up you are."

"Goodbye, Bane," Embo said. He climbed onto the speeder bike and drove off away from the cemetery.

Bane watched him go, and felt even worse than before when he realized Embo was not turning around. Getting death over with could not have been worse than being left here to slowly strangle until the Geonosian's found him.

"I'm going to say it!" Bane shouted as loud as he could, just so Embo could hear him. The effort made his feet almost slip off the grave marker, and Bane had to regain his balance quickly. "You're nothing but a dirty, rotten, son of a bitch. I should have killed you when I had the chance. Are you listening to me?"

Who the hell am I kidding? I guess it would have been nice if Embo turned out to be more of a trustworthy fellow than I am. Maybe I was just disappointed that he's the same. Disappointed that we're both dirty, rotten, sons of bitches. Oh well. The nice guys go first, anyway.

Nearly fifty feet off, he saw Embo stop, hop off the speeder bike, and turn around. He was making a motion. Bane recognized the motion immediately as a very similar one. Embo had done the very same thing when they first met, and he decapitated three greens in one sweep. He was raising one hand to grip the edge of his shield-hat. Bane could already see that disk-like weapon burying itself so deep in its chest it cut through his spine, or severing both his legs so that he could drop and hang like the dead man he was about to be. Apprehensive, he tried using his shoulders to loosen the noose so he could slip out, but it was pointless...Embo had foreseen such attempts. If he did anything else to loosen him, Bane risked slipping and breaking his own neck. All he could do was hold still, and pray that whatever form of execution was on Embo's mind would be quick and painless.

Make it fast, old buddy, just make it fast, Bane silently prayed what he believed was his last prayer. I don't want the locals finishing me off the way they do. Don't let it drag out. If there's any part in you that isn't a dirty, rotten, son of a bitch, just let me get it over with and—

He saw the shield-hat coming for him. Being a coward, Bane shut his eyes.

The weight from the rope gave out, and Bane felt himself fall forward into the grave marked Unknown. His face smacked against the remaining bags of credits and his hat, and red dirt filled his mouth. Bane rolled over onto his back. He watched the shield-hat spin around back to Embo, who caught it in his hand. When he had spat out all the dirt that he could, Bane shouted back to him one last time.

"What the fuck were you thinking, you bastard! The next time I see you, you're dead meat. Embo, you bastard!"

Cad Bane struggled at the cords binding his wrists, but like hell they were going to loosen anytime soon. Furious, he kicked and thrashed and tried to get up. Lying in a grave filled with five million credits, the Duros bounty hunter who had survived the Clone Wars could only lie, seethe, and wait for the Rebel refugees who may not even come.

Meanwhile, Embo, the Kyuzo with no past and a strengthening glimpse of a future with great promise, sped off toward the sunset. He left the looming canyons walls behind, the prison walls that surrounded a place marked with death-shaped shadows bearing nothing but names and rotting bones. Instead, he left himself wide open and free to the world beyond those prison walls and rotting bones. A world of danger, and excitement, and promise. A world where he may finally leave the violence behind in favor a place where he belonged, and this would be a place to cultivate rather than consume, a place to love rather than hate, a place to learn to live rather than learn to die. It was this place that the Kyuzo journeyed towards as nightfall rose on the system of Geonosis, and the Kyuzo could only hope that if he traveled far enough, heart open, then just maybe he would find it for himself.

So as he did when he thought he would die lying on the ground in the middle of the Jundland Wastes of Tatooine, the only thing he could take with him was hope. Hope that somewhere out there was the place he would be looking for.

Yes, hope. That was all he could do.

Night was beginning to fall, and the Geonosians were coming out to roam, but the Kyzuo bounty hunter had five million credits, his bowcaster, and eyes steady on the horizon. And that was good enough for him.

End

Author's Note:

I was literally laughing the entire time I wrote this sequence. When I first started writing this story, I was not sure how I wanted to end it...since I knew going with the original ending from the movie would mean Boba Fett has to die and Cad Bane makes a big fool of himself. But in the end I decided, hey, let Embo kill Boba and have some fun with Bane. It was actually very fun and hilarious to do, and I am rather pleased with how this little story turned out. After over two years of self-debating over if, how, and when to write a Star Wars version of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" I am glad to finally see the end result. Once again thank you to everyone who read and reviewed.

If you have read my other Star Wars TCW fics, you might like to know that I have a new chapter fic TBA shortly. In this fic I am going to be taking some of the elements I hinted at in this fic and explaining them in full detail. This includes my idea of how the bounty hunting pool changed following the Clone Wars, the conflict between "new" and "old" hunters, and the public's attitude towards them. I wrote about them here to start getting a feel for what it would be like. So if you liked those things in "The Good, the Bad, and the Sleemo", perhaps you would enjoy reading about them in a much more serious, large-scope setting.

I have said too much already...hope to see you soon!