Back at Royce’s apartment, he withdrew a circular shaped object from an envelope, it resembled a primitive form of data storage he had once seen. Royce inserted the disc into a piece of equipment underneath the digital display monitor and fumbled with a few buttons. He also turned on his digital recorder again, the white device Royce referred to as an “iPod.”

“You see, if you are who you say you are, then you’ve been in the minds of our collective consciousness for over 20 years,” Royce said.

“Who’s mind?” Fett demanded.

“Humans, on Earth, this planet. Your likeness has already been depicted in movies, television, comics, you name it.”

“I don’t understand,” Fett replied.

Royce pressed a button on another unfamiliar comm link device, and an image suddenly appeared on the monitor. An image of Darth Vader walking past himself on Bespin, discussing the terms of Han Solo’s expedition to Jabba The Hutt.

“You may take Captain Solo to Jabba the Hutt after I have Skywalker.”
“He’s no good to me dead.”
“He will not be permanently damaged.”

A long moment of silence transpired as Royce hit the pause button on the DVD.

Shocked, Fett let no emotions out. “How could this be,” Fett thought to himself. Attempting to not display a daunting response to the images, he kept his head down and spoke no words.

“See, there you are, talking to Vader on Cloud City,” said Royce. “Now I don’t know how this shit happens, but you’re a character from a human’s imagination, only you’re not really. You’re a real person, stranded in a world that created you out of imagination… This shit is too crazy. I need a smoke,” Royce said. “You smoke weed?” he asked Fett.

“I don’t think so,” Fett replied.

“Good, more for me,” answered Royce. He reached into a wooden box on a table, retrieved a pipe and placed some type of brown, dried matter inside of it. He lit the end, inhaled deeply, held his breath and then exhaled a cloud of smoke that smelled strangely. It appeared to be some type of mind-altering substance.

Royce coughed, and then attempted to speak. “So what are you thinking about any of this,” he asked Fett.

“I don’t know what to think,” Fett answered. “Is it possible that a Jedi Librarian slipped through the same black hole as myself?”

Royce perked up. “Oh, this just gets better all the time, so you think some magical jedi librarian came here from your universe and assembled six movies for humans to watch and enjoy, hoping that no one from your universe would ever find them?” Royce asked.

“I’m speculating,” Fett retorted. “And your sarcasm is not welcome right now,” he continued.

“Fine, let’s just skip the whole existential crisis and figure out a way to get you out of my life already,” Royce replied. “But you should know that these movies are how I initially knew about you in the Sarlaac pit.”

“Well, if you knew that much, then why didn’t you know that I had escaped the Sarlaac?” Fett sternly asked.

“Because I’m only a mild Star Wars fan. I don’t keep up on the expanded universe…” Royce replied. “Maybe that shit happened in some comic book or something, I don’t know. By the time you probably escaped, I was more worried about getting laid and smoking grass…”

Royce took another puff of smoke from the pipe, exhaled and stood up from his chair. He walked over to another monitor, one with a keyboard and ushered Fett over.

“This is the way we can research your power source needs,” Royce said. “Hell, maybe I can find out if George Lucas is a jedi librarian too?”

Fett looked confusingly in Royce’s direction, his interest focused on the name he had just heard. Part of a name he hadn’t heard in many years. Definitely not a jedi, but the name, or the part of the name, sounded vaguely familiar. He feigned interest on the computer tutorial as he desperately tried to remember why the name George Lucas had sounded so familiar.

“So I Googled the word energy, cause I don’t know a damn thing about power sources. I used to have a car, that ran on gasoline and oil. I don’t think space ships from other galaxies depend on fossil fuels, do they?” Royce continued thinking aloud. “Here, we’ve got kinetic, potential, electromagnetic, chemical, nuclear and mass types of energy, does any of that sound familiar?”

“Slave lV is powered by an ion engine. It can be fueled by power cells, liquid chemical reactants, onboard generators, or virtually any other device capable of providing sufficient power. The engine utilizes internal fusion reactions to produce a stream of highly-charged particles that are forced through the engine’s exhaust port at nearly the speed of light,” Fett said matter of factly. “I don’t need a new ion drive, I only need an initial power charge to restore auxiliary power to the ship’s ion engine. Once it gets the initial power surge, it then recycles and alternates energy from the ion engine’s power cell. In a way, Slave lV’s generates power from being powered, but it’s initial engine thrusters are drained beyond the point of powering up fully, so I only need the initial surge of energy,” he continued.

Royce looked up at him, amused. “You mean your ship needs a jump start? I think we can do that….”

This sounded hopeful to Fett. He was unaware of the parameters of a jump start, but a glimpse of hope was better than nothing. And then it hit him from out of nowhere: György Lukács, a Kaminoan he had once encountered while living with his father Jango on Kamino. After cloning himself, calling for an overthrow of Kamino’s government and murdering several citizens, he was exiled from the planet and seemed to disappear from existence altogether. A bounty was placed on his head by the government of Kamino, and given Fett’s loyalty to the Kaminoans, he had always hoped to bring in the bounty. But the bounty for Lucas, after all these years, was still open. The vile creature had seemingly disappeared from the galaxy. Until now.

Royce retired to the other room. “Look man, I’m going to bed. You can crash on the couch if you wanna, or you can do yourself a favor and lock the door behind you if you decide you want out. Just be sure to leave me some money for the bike you made me leave in the middle of the bridge in that event. And don’t rob me,” said Royce.

“One final question,” Fett said.

“What’s that?” answered Royce.

“Who is György Lukács?” asked Fett.

Royce chuckled. “He’s the guy that created you on Earth. The dude that thought you up and put you in the movies I showed you earlier. I think he lives in Nor Cal. He’s way rich from Star Wars and a few other movies. Go ahead and Google him if you feel like it, I’m going to bed,” he finished.

Fett took his helmet off and reclined on the couch. The day was long and his head ached. A day of confusion, unwanted realizations and maybe, just maybe, one final bounty before the end arrived. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep in this strange system.