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Once again, a Noghri makes an appearance, though this time he is dead at Boba's hand. As Boba returns to Jabba, he is sent on a mission to assassinate the head of the Techno Guild in his well-protected fortress on the planet Xagobah, which is under siege by Republic forces. It's been quite a time jump since the last book. I do wish we got to see some of Boba's development as a bounty hunter, instead of his last hunt before becoming a freelancer. It's been two and a half years since he entered Jabba's service, and he is already well known as the best bounty hunter in the galaxy. That would put him at about 13 or 14 years old!

After being eaten by a native plant and escaping on the planet where his bounty resides, which is a cute precursor to being eaten and escaping from the Sarlacc during and after Return of the Jedi, Boba meets a native of the planet. The alien somehow decides that Boba is neither a Republic troop, nor from the Separatist forces, though I couldn't tell how. It offers him some unique abilities in the form of spores that will allow him to see through the thick spore cloud that covers the area, and others to camouflage him.

The advice he got was to approach the citadel from the North. In the North, Boba finds an old swoop bike, which he uses to circle south again, for some unknown reason. Once again, Boba saves a Jedi Padawan's life, the same Padawan he met in Crossfire. He gets to see Anakin Skywalker do some powerful flying, which allows the enemy to open fire upon its own ramship, which was headed for the Republic cruiser in orbit. As the rampship was destroyed, it sent off an electromagnetic pulse, which disrupted the droid army's circuits. This allowed Boba to get into the citadel.

Boba meets and possibly kills the clawdite who stole his money in Maze of Deception, before going after Wat Tambor. In a surprising twist to the story, Boba does not get to assassinate the leader of the Techno Union. Boba is quite overconfident, not realizing how strong the personal defenses of this techno whiz are. Even the citadel is alive and is able to attack the bounty hunter.

So when General Grievous shows up, Boba is already outmatched. He uses the holoshroud that Ygabba gave him, which has an image of Durge, to no real effect, and is actually taken down by Grievous. Facing death by lightsaber, Boba takes an inovative way out: he touches the toxic plant that the native of the planet warned him about, knowing that the effects are instant, but temporary. Grievous and Tambor think he is dead, but don't take the time to be sure about it by lopping off his head. With the citadel falling apart around them, and the Republic forces taking control, they only have escape on their minds, fortunately for Boba.

The book ends as a cliffhanger right at this point. Presumably, Boba will finish his mission in the next, last book of the series. As it stands, although this book was really well written and had a good flow to it, I felt that it didn't accomplish anything. Boba arrived on the planet and circled around the citadel until he recognized the ramship hidden among the spores. His plan to destroy it amounted to nothing, but Anakin took care of that. He didn't find his own way into the citadel, but took advantage of an opportunity provided by somebody else. When he did find his target, he failed to complete his mission. It might have been a good idea to have him kill Wat Tambor in this book, and he could still be defeated by Grievous. It would have left the readers with some sense of satisfaction. Instead, I feel frustrated that nothing Boba did was of his own skill. Maybe this is a precursor to the Fett we see in Return of the Jedi.

It would be nice to see Boba actually take down a target on his own at one point. Hopefully that will come in the next book.