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battle droids, spider droids, the works.
    Boba’s grip tightened on
Slave I
’s controls. He had successfully fought droids back on Tatooine, when he rescued Ygabba and the other kids from the evil Neimoidian.
    But he’d never had to fight an entire army of them!
    “Good thing I have my body armor,” said Boba.
    “And my blasters…”
    The ship’s nav program showed he was fast approaching the surface. He still wasn’t sure what Xagobah looked like, close up.
    But he knew what he would find there—
    Trouble.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Boba locked
Slave I
into cruising mode. Outside, shreds of dark purple mist flew by like flocks of winged mynocks. Boba watched the haze grow thicker—and
darker—the closer he came to Xagobah’s surface
    I still have no idea what kind of life-forms are native to this place
, he thought. He peered through the writhing fog. It was almost impossible to see anything, which meant it would be
difficult for others to see him.
    “That’s a good thing, too.” Boba reached for his jet pack. “The Republic is after Wat Tambor. And Wat Tambor will be busy defending himself against the clone troops—and none of them will be happy to see me coming!”
    He turned back to
Slave I
’s console. Outside, the mist no longer moved. Instead, it hung like a heavy, purplish curtain over everything. As
Slave I
cruised a short
distance above the surface, Boba got his first glimpse of Xagobah.
    And what he saw there was disgusting!
    “Mushrooms?” exclaimed Boba.
    Only these weren’t ordinary mushrooms. They were as tall as trees; as tall as the rock formations that surrounded Jabba’s fortress. He saw orange fungi shaped like towers, with long
rubbery appendages dangling from them like arms. He saw entire forests of umbrella-shaped mushrooms, yellow, crimson, poisonous green. In spots the ground was covered with a carpet of wriggling
things like hair or fur. They waved and changed color as the ship passed overhead, darkening from pink to darkest violet. Some of the tallest mushrooms sported fungi like ladders crawling up their
sides. Really crawling, like slugs or gigantic swollen caterpillars.
    “Gross!” said Boba.
    Though it was also sort of cool, in a horrible way. He stared at a huge fungi that looked like a bloated jellyfish. It pulsed and belched clouds of purple-black smoke as Boba’s ship
hovered above it.
    Only it wasn’t smoke, but spores.
    “That’s what the fog is,” Boba realized in amazement. “Not mist, or clouds—but billions and billions of mushroom spores! I wonder if it’s safe to
breathe?”
    Quickly he logged into the ship’s medical computer and read the data there.
    It is recommended that you take an antidote before setting foot on Xagobah, as a precaution. Most of the fungi are harmless, but some have toxins that can be fatal if swallowed or breathed.
Others can cause changes to non-native biological entities.
    “Like me?” asked Boba, as he took a small inhaler out of his med kit.
    Boba breathed in the antidote, then tossed the empty inhaler.
    “Changes,” he mused. “I wonder what kind of changes? Well, I’ll have plenty of time to find out—later. Right now I’m out to find Wat Tambor.”
    Slave I
was cruising well below the mushroom forest’s canopy now.
    But in the distance, Boba could see something other than rubbery fungi and coiling tendrils.
    Laser fire.
    He stared out as bolts of bright blue flame erupted through the haze of purple and black. For a moment the flares illuminated the scene below.
    “There it is,” breathed Boba.
    In the center of a large clearing an immense structure loomed: Wat Tambor’s fortress. It was too dim to see clearly. But Boba could make out dark slashes about 500 meters from the citadel—a series of trenches engineered by the Republic’s troops. More laser fire rose from here, streaking toward the fortress walls. Boba could just make out myriad forms moving through the
shadows.
    “Clone troopers,” he said