Tales From Jabba's Palace

by Kevin J. Anderson

  "I don't know," Mara said, frowning at the image.

  She'd read all that the Emperor had on Skywalker: his background, his

  upbringing right here on Tatooine, his brief training under Obi-Wan

  Kenobi, the immense trouble he'd been so far to the Empire. But this

  was not the tentative, callow kid she'd seen in those records. The Luke

  Skywalker she was seeing and hearing now was poised, self-assured,

  confident of his power.

  And with a lightsaber prominently displayed at his belt too. A

  replacement, probably constructed himself, for the one he'd lost at

  Bespin.

  The Emperor had been right. Skywalker was indeed more dangerous than

  Mara had given him credit for.

  The message finished, and the droids were hustled away, the 3PO wailing

  the whole way. "Okay," Melina said, taking Mara's arm. "Chin up,

  Arica. Let's go meet the Hutt."

  By the time the protocol droid was brought back, the throne room had

  become crowded, thick with humans and aliens and smoke and noise.

  In the background a third-rate band was playing; in the center, in front

  of Jabba's throne, a young Twi'lek woman was dancing.

  Her name was Oola, and she was pretty good.

  Standing by the archway leading back to the Dancers' Pit, staying to the

  background, Mara kept half an eye on Oola's performance as she studied

  the room and its occupants. A decidedly motley crowd, no doubt about

  it, ranging from obviously hungry nobodies trying to impress Jabba with

  their toughness right up to some of the nastiest names on the Imperial

  locate-and-detain list. If Skywalker got this far, he was going to have

  his hands full.

  She stiffened. In the back of her mind, her danger sense had just gone

  off.

  Deliberately, she took a slow breath, calming her mind and preparing her

  body for action. Her eyes and mind swept back across the room, seeking

  the source of the danger-Just in time to see Jabba hit a button on his

  throne, opening a section of the floor directly beneath Oola.

  The dancer's scream was piercing, fading off into the distance.

  Jabba's throne slid forward over the trap-door toward a large grating

  that had opened up in the floor, a grating the rest of the company was

  already scrambling to get a place at. Mara spotted Melina Carniss

  crouching at one edge, peering eagerly at whatever was happening down

  there. There was another, more distant scream And then, suddenly, the

  show was forgotten. From the archway on the far side of the throne room

  came the sound of blaster fire. There was a brief commotion; and then,

  pushing haughtily past the guards, an armed and armored figure appeared,

  leading a Wookiee in chains.

  Not just any Wookiee. Chewbacca, companion and copilot to Han Solo.

  "Boushh," someone beside her muttered. "Well, so much for the bounty on

  Chewbacca."

  Mara smiled tightly. So simple, so classic, so unimaginative.

  The best way to infiltrate an enemy's stronghold, they always thought,

  was to come in disguise, bringing something or someone the enemy wanted.

  But this time it wasn't going to work. Frowning slightly with

  concentration, trying to ignore the noisy clutter of all the other minds

  in the room, she drew on the Emperor's power within her and focused on

  the figure in the armored suit. She touched the mind . . .

  And blinked in surprise. It wasn't Skywalker at all. It was a woman.

  A woman?

  There was some byplay: Jabba offering too low a price, the figure

  arguing the point with a thermal detonator.

  Mara waited until it was over and the Wookiee had been dragged away.

  Then, she made her way through the reinvigorated party atmosphere to

  where the bounty hunter Boba Fett stood silent guard.

  "Excuse me, sir," she said timidly, reaching a hand almost to his

  shoulder and then stopping, as if she'd been planning to tap him there

  and had suddenly thought better of it. "My name's Arica. I just came

  in today.

  That thing with the bounty hunters that was pretty scary. Does that

  sort of thing happen often?"

  For a long moment he just stared at her, and for that same long moment

  Mara thought the game was up. Boba Fett had done a fair amount of quiet

  work for the Empire over the years, and it was entirely possible that he

  had spotted her at some point in the Emperor's entourage. She reached

  out with the Force, trying to touch his mind.

  But his control was excellent, and nothing she could read gave her any

  clues.

  "Nice to meet you, Arica," he said at last, in that flat voice that so

  terrified his victims and impressed his employers. "Don't worry about

  Boushh--he might have looked crazy right then, but he's not. And don't

  worry about anyone else. Jabba knows who can be trusted. No one else

  gets in." He tapped the blaster rifle at his side. "And I stay around

  here a lot between jobs."

  "I'm glad," Mara breathed. "Thank you--I feel much better."

  "My pleasure."

  She smiled at him and moved away. So Boushh was indeed a man. Or at

  least, the real Boushh was.

  So who was this woman? One of Skywalker's allies?

  Or someone from the Fringe trying to make a name for herself, and the

  Wookiee had just gotten careless?

  It almost didn't matter. Mara was here to get Skywalker, and Skywalker

  alone. Anyone else was just clutter; and Jabba's people ought to be

  capable of handling clutter. A quiet word about this Boushh impostor in

  the Hutt's ear should do the trick.

  Eventually, when he ran out of allies and droids, Skywalker would have

  to come himself.

  He came a day later in the morning, at the break of dawn, as Jabba and

  his entourage were still snoring away the aftereffects of their

  late-night celebration over the unmasking and capture of Princess Leia

  Or-gana.

  Mara's danger sense gave her advance warning. To her surprise, it was

  all the warning anyone got. Without a whisper of noise or trouble from

  the supposedly alert guards outside, Skywalker was suddenly there in the

  throne room, Jabba's Twi'lek majordomo docilely leading him in.

  Skywalker's holo had prepared Mara for an achievement of this caliber.

  Even so, she was impressed.

  Some of the guards were beginning to move into positions around

  Skywalker as the Twi'lek stepped to his master's side and murmured in

  his ear. Jabba came awake with a jerk, his huge bleary eyes blinking as

  he took stock of the situation. He looked at the Twi'lek and at

  Skywalker.

  And then he laughed.

  The deep rumbling echoed through the throne room, rousing the rest of

  the company into a sleep-fogged scramble for consciousness and their

  feet. A few blasters appeared, but most weapons stayed in their

  holsters as brain-fuzzed courtiers tried to figure out whether this

  silent figure in hooded cloak was a friend or some unlikely foe.

  It was the moment Mara had been waiting for: quiet confusion, no one

  quite sure what was happening, no one quite sure where anyone else was.

  The moment to strike. Danger sense still tingling, she took a silent


  step to her right, to where one of Jabba's younger human guards was

  gripping his force pike and trying mightily to make sense of the

  situation. His. blaster rested ignored in its holster. Reaching

  smoothly around behind him, Mara got a grip on it-And froze as a hard

  object jabbed firmly into the small' of her back.

  She'd been wrong. That tingle of danger hadn't been coming from

  Skywalker.

  "Nice and easy," Melina Carniss murmured in her ear. "Let's just ease

  our way back down the tunnel.

  Unless you'd rather die right here."

  Silently, furious with herself, Mara let Melina guide her backward out

  of the throne room. A quiet security guard. One of many, probably,

  forming an extra barrier between Jabba and his enemies. She should have

  known such a layer would exist in a place like this, and been watching

  for it. Concentrating exclusively on Skywalker and his friends instead,

  she'd been sloppy.

  From the throne came a sudden commotion, and a single blaster shot. Mara

  craned her neck, but they were too far away for her to see what was

  happening.

  "Curious, huh?" Melina commented. "Was he one of yours? Turn

  here--very carefully."

  Mara did as ordered, studying Melina out of the corner of her eye as she

  turned and stared down the indicated tunnel. Melina had the blaster;

  but she, Mara, had the training, with the Emperor's strength and will to

  drive it. If she reached out through the Force right now and snatched

  the blaster away . . .

  She glanced down at Melina's hand. No. Not from a grip that tight. Not

  without the other getting at least one shot off first.

  Mind tricks, then? There were several ways to soothe or confuse or just

  plain incapacitate an enemy by jabbing with the Force directly into the

  victim's mind.

  But all the techniques required at least a little time to take effect,

  and in Melina's alert state of mind there was a good chance she'd again

  get off that one shot.

  "You're being awfully quiet," Melina commented as they walked.

  "That's because I don't have any idea what's going on," Mara told her.

  "I haven't done anything."

  "Sure you haven't," Melina said grimly. "You haven't infiltrated here

  under false pretenses. Or lied about who and what you are. Or

  conspired with the Lady Valarian to assassinate Jabba." She jabbed the

  blaster muzzle again into Mara's back. "Have you?"

  Mara blinked. An assassination plot? Here? And without her even

  noticing? That wasn't just sloppy, that was embarrassing. "I don't

  know what you're talking about," she protested, trying one last time.

  "I have nothing against Jabba. Really."

  "Sure you haven't. You just wanted that guard's blaster as a souvenir."

  Melina jabbed again. "In here."

  It was another tunnel, this one slanting sharply downward before

  leveling out and bending away out of sight. Loitering just inside the

  tunnel entrance were a pair of Gamorrean guards, leaning casually on

  their force pikes and grunting quietly to each other. "What in blazes

  are you two doing here?" Melina snarled at them. "Straighten up.

  Now."

  Slowly, obviously bewildered as to why a lowly dance designer should be

  giving them orders, they pulled themselves a little more upright.

  "That's better," Melina growled. "But just marginally. Who do you

  think you are anyway, the Imperial Royal Guard? Get off your rears and

  take this woman down to the dungeons for me."

  She gave Mara a shove toward them. "Get going. Be a good girl and

  maybe I'll ask Jabba to let you die quickly."

  "I appreciate it," Mara said, looking back over her shoulder. She still

  couldn't safely snatch the blaster from Melina's grip. But what she

  could do . . .

  Reaching out with the Force, she gave the muzzle a sharp twist to the

  right. There was a flash as Melina reflexively fired, the blast

  sounding twice as loud as usual in the confines of the tunnel.

  It was followed by a grunt of pain and rage from the Gamorrean Melina

  had just shot. The other Gamorrean grunted, too, and the two of them

  lowered their force pikes and lumbered toward this human who had

  unreasonably attacked them.

  Melina's expression at what she'd just done was priceless, but Mara

  didn't have time to enjoy it. With her captor's attention distracted,

  now was the time to act. Ducking between the Gamorreans, she sprinted

  down the tunnel.

  "Stop her!" Melina shouted. But the guards paid no attention. A pair

  of quick shots lit up the tunnel, scattering rock chips and spurts of

  dust.

  And then it was just the grunts of the slug-brained Gamorreans and

  Melina's angry and increasingly frantic shouts. Mara kept running,

  hoping she could get out of the line of fire before they got things

  straightened out up there. Near the bottom of the tunnel came her first

  opportunity: a curved and highly odoriferous cross tunnel that branched

  off to the left.

  Throwing a last glance back at the noisy confrontation, she ducked down

  it.

  It was short--no more than twenty meters--and was almost a dead end.

  Almost. At the end was a rock wall with a half-meter-square ventilation

  grating cut into it, a grating that was literally shaking with the

  growls of something behind it. Cautiously, she stepped up to it and

  looked in.

  The roaring was coming from probably the largest and ugliest biped

  creature she'd ever seen. A creature which, judging from the number of

  bones lying around the stinking filth of the pit, was both carnivorous

  and ravenous.

  And which at the moment seemed intent on making a snack out of Luke

  Skywalker.

  Pressing her face against the grating, the stench forgotten, Mara

  watched as Skywalker scrambled out from beneath a small ledge and dashed

  between the creature's legs toward a tunnel-shaped area of the pit she

  couldn't see into from her angle. This was perfect.

  The creature would make short work of Skywalker, in front of the dozens

  of witnesses she could hear cheering it on, and without a single link

  Vader could backtrack to either her or the Emperor. And if for some

  reason the creature needed help, well, she was right here to give it.

  The creature had turned around now and was thudding its way in pursuit.

  Skywalker himself was out of sight, but from the noise coming from that

  direction she could tell that Jabba's people were blocking his escape.

  It should be over quickly.

  And then, without warning, something small came flying through the air

  right at the edge of her vision, slamming into a control panel set into

  the stone wall.

  There was a flash of sparks--the creak of released machineryAnd a heavy,

  serrated-bottom door dropped out of the ceiling, catching the creature

  across the back of its massive neck and driving it to the floor. It

  growled one last whimper and lay still.

  Mara stared at the hulk, not believing it. Skywalker had killed it.

  Alone, unarmed, he'd actually killed it.

  And judging from the tone of the Huttese wo
rds rumbling down through the

  stunned silence from above, Jabba wasn't at all happy about it.

  Mara took a deep breath of the fetid air. All right.

  Fine. So the creature hadn't killed Skywalker; but now Jabba would.

  Probably viciously too, if even half the stories about the Hutt were

  true. Served Skywalker right. He had to have been grossly stupid and

  grossly overconfident both to have come here alone and unarmed this

  way-The stinking air seemed to freeze in her throat, two mental images

  abruptly superimposing themselves on the scene in front of her.

  Skywalker running away from the creature; Skywalker delivering his holo

  message to Jabba.

  His new lightsaber. He hadn't brought it with him.

  Or rather, he hadn't brought it himself.

  The Wookiee didn't have it--he would have nowhere to hide it. The

  protocol droid didn't have it.

  Leia Organa certainly didn't have it.

  The astromech droid.

  She cursed under her breath. No, it wasn't Skywalker who was being

  overconfident. It was Jabba.

  And suddenly this whole thing was up to her again.

  Stepping back from the grating, she looked for some kind of opening

  mechanism-Her danger sense triggered a split second before she heard the