Somewhere between Daedalus and Boba Fett

[jack_babalon]

When I was a kid I once tied my Boba Fett action figure to a bundle of bottle rockets and tried launching him at an improvised fortress made of empty bottles and branches in my backyard. The presence of Boba Fett's jet pack was just too much of a temptation for a twelve year old with a secret stash of fireworks to ignore. I had already stolen some Lysol from under the counter and a pack of matches to give him a 'real' flamethrower so I figured this would be more of the same. When I finally got around to launching him (when my parents were off shopping), to my surprise he ended up taking off towards the heavens instead of the fortress I had aimed him at (from the 'safety' of a bottle). It was breathtaking watching him soar up and over the backyard for a few glorious seconds, disappearing momentarily amongst the dappled light seeping through the leaves above, before finally exploding in mid-air and returning to earth as a limbless torso of scorched plastic.

25 years later, after quitting the job to write a novel, I now know how my Boba Fett must've felt during his Daedalus test flight.