by James Kahn
Where was he now? What had happened? His last image was of Boba Fett watching him turn into carbonite. Was this Fett again now, come to thaw him for more abuse? The air roared in his ears, his breathing felt irregular, unnatural. He batted his hand in front of his face.
Boushh tried to reassure him. “You’re free of the carbonite and have hibernation sickness. Your eyesight will return in time. Come, we must hurry if we’re to leave this place.”
Reflexively Han grabbed the bounty hunter, felt at the grated face-mask, then drew back. “I’m not going anywhere — don’t even know where I am.” He began sweating profusely as his heart once again churned blood, and his mind groped for answers. “Who are you, anyway?” he demanded suspiciously. Perhaps it was Fett after all.
The bounty hunter reached up and pulled the helmet away from his head revealing, underneath, the beautiful face of Princess Leia.
“One who loves you,” she whispered, taking his face tenderly in her still-gloved hands and kissing him long on the lips.
= II =
HAN strained to see her, though he had the eyes of a newborn. “Leia! Where are we?”
“Jabba’s palace. I’ve got to get you out of here quick.”
He sat up shakily. “Everything’s a blur... I’m not going to be much help...”
She looked at him a long moment, her blinded love—she’d traveled light-years to find him, risked her life, lost hard-won time needed sorely by the Rebellion, time she couldn’t really afford to throw away on personal quests and private desires... but she loved him.
Tears filled her eyes. “We’ll make it,” she whispered.
Impulsively, she embraced him and kissed him again. He, too, was flooded with emotion all at once—back from the dead, the beautiful princess filling his arms, snatching him from the teeth of the void. He felt overwhelmed. Unable to move, even to speak, he held her tightly, his blind eyes closed fast against all the sordid realities that would come rushing in soon enough.
Sooner than that, as it happened. A repulsive squishing sound suddenly became all too obvious behind them. Han opened his eyes, but could still see nothing. Leia looked up to the alcove beyond, and her gaze turned to an expression of horror. For the curtain had been drawn away, and the entire area, floor to ceiling, was composed of a gallery of the most disgusting miscreants of Jabba’s court -gawking, salivating, wheezing.
Leia’s hand shot up to her mouth.
“What is it?” Han pressed her. Something obviously was terribly wrong. He stared into his own blackness.
An obscene cackle rose from the other side of the alcove. A Huttese cackle.
Han held his head, closed his eyes again, as if to keep away the inevitable for just one more moment. “I know that laugh.”
The curtain on the far side was suddenly drawn open. There sat Jabba, Ishi Tib, Bib, Boba, and several guards. They all laughed, kept laughing, laughed to punish.
“My, my, what a touching sight,” Jabba purred. “Han, my boy, your taste in companions has improved, even if your luck has not.”
Even blind, Solo could slide into smooth talk easier than a spice-eater. “Listen, Jabba, I was on my way back to pay you when I got a little side-tracked. Now I know we’ve had our differences, but I’m sure we can work this out...”
This time Jabba genuinely chuckled. “It’s too late for that, Solo. You may have been the best smuggler in the business, but now you’re Bantha fodder.” He cut short his smile and gestured to his guards. “Take him.”
Guards grabbed Leia and Han. They dragged the Corellian pirate off, while Leia continued struggling where she was.
“I will decide how to kill him later,” Jabba muttered.
“I’ll pay you triple,” Solo called out. “Jabba, you’re throwing away a fortune. Don’t be a fool.” Then he was gone.
From the rank of guards, Lando quickly moved forward, took hold of Leia, and attempted to lead her away.
Jabba stopped them. “Wait! Bring her to me.”
Lando and Leia halted in mid-stride. Lando looked tense, uncertain what to do. It wasn’t quite time to move yet. The odds still weren’t just right. He knew he was the ace-in-the-hole, and an ace-in-the-hole was something you had to know how to play to win.
“I’ll be all right,” Leia whispered.
“I’m not so sure,” he replied. But the moment was past; there was nothing else to be done now. He and Ishi Tib, the Birdlizard, dragged the young princess to Jabba.
Threepio, who’d been watching everything from his place behind Jabba, could watch no more. He turned away in dread.
Leia, on the other hand, stood tall before the loathsome monarch. Her anger ran high. With all the galaxy at war, for her to be detained on this dustball of a planet by this petty scumdealer was more outrageous than she could tolerate. Still, she kept her voice calm; for she was, in the end, a princess. “We have powerful friends Jabba. You will soon regret this.”
“I’m sure, I’m sure,” the old gangster rumbled with glee, “but in the meantime, I will thoroughly enjoy the pleasure of your company.”
He pulled her eagerly to him until their faces were mere inches apart, her belly pressed to his oily snake skin. She thought about killing him outright, then and there. But she held her ire in check, since the rest of these vermin might have killed her before she could escape with Han. Better odds were sure to come later. So she swallowed hard and, for the time being, put up with this slimepot as best she could.
Threepio peeked out momentarily, then immediately withdrew again. “Oh no, I can’t watch.”
Foul beast that he was, Jabba poked his fat, dripping tongue out to the princess, and slopped a beastly kiss squarely on her mouth.
Han was thrown roughly into the dungeon cell; the door crashed shut behind him. He fell to the floor in the darkness, then picked himself up and sat against the wall. After a few moments of pounding the ground with his fist, he quieted down and tried to organize his thoughts.
Darkness. Well, blast it, blind is blind. No use wishing for moondew on a meteorite. Only it was so frustrating, coming out of deep-freeze like that, saved by the one person who...
Leia! The star captain’s stomach dropped at the thought of what must be happening to her now. If only he knew where he was. Tentatively he knocked on the wall behind him. Solid rock.
What could he do? Bargain, maybe. But what did he have to bargain with? Dumb question, he thought—when did I ever have to have something before I could bargain with it?
What, though? Money? Jabba had more than he could ever count. Pleasures? Nothing could give Jabba more pleasure than to defile the princess and kill Solo. No, things were bad—in fact, it didn’t look like they could get much worse.
Then he heard the growl. A low, formidable snarl from out of the dense blackness at the far corner of the cell, the growl of a large and angry beast.
The hair on Solo’s arms stood on end. Quickly he rose, his back to the wall. “Looks like I’ve got company,” he muttered.
The wild creature bellowed out an insane “Groawwwwr!” and raced straight at Solo, grabbing him ferociously around the chest, lifting him several feet into the air, squeezing off his breathing.
Han was totally motionless for several long seconds—he couldn’t believe his ears. “Chewie, is that you!?”
The giant Wookiee barked with joy.
For the second time in an hour, Solo was overcome with happiness; but this was an entirely different matter. “All right, all right, wait a second, you’re crushing me.”
Chewbacca put his friend down. Han reached up and scratched his partner’s chest; Chewie cooed like a pup.
“Okay, what’s going on around here, anyway?” Han was instantly back on track. Here was unbelievably good fortune—here was someone he could make a plan with. And not only someone, but his most loyal friend in the galaxy.
Chewie filled him in at length. “Arh arhaghh shpahrgh rahr aurowwwrahrah grop rahp rah.”
“Lando’s pl
an? What is he doing here?”
Chewie barked extensively.
Han shook his head. “Is Luke crazy? Why’d you listen to him? That kid can’t even take care of himself, let alone rescue anyone.”
“Rowr ahrgh awf ahraroww rowh rohngr grgrff rf rf.”
“A Jedi Knight? Come on. I’m out of it for a little while and everybody gets delusions.”
Chewbacca growled insistently.
Han nodded dubiously in the blackness. “I’ll believe it when I see it—” he commented, walking stoutly into the wall. “If you’ll excuse the expression.”
The iron main gate of Jabba’s palace scraped open harshly, oiled only with sand and time. Standing outside in the dusty gale, staring into the black cavernous entranceway, was Luke Skywalker.
He was clad in the robe of the Jedi Knight—a cassock, really – but bore neither gun nor lightsaber. He stood loosely, without bravado, taking a measure of the place before entering. He was a man now. Wiser, like a man—older more from loss than from years. Loss of illusions, loss of dependency. Loss of friends, to war. Loss of sleep, to stress. Loss of laughter. Loss of his hand.
But of all his losses, the greatest was that which came from knowledge, and from the deep recognition that he could never unknow what he knew. So many things he wished he’d never learned. He had aged with the weight of this knowledge.
Knowledge brought benefits, of course. He was less impulsive now. Manhood had given him perspective, a framework in which to fit the events of his life—that is, a lattice of spatial and time coordinates spanning his existence, back to earliest memories, ahead to a hundred alternative futures. A lattice of depths, and conundrums, and interstices, through which Luke could peer at any new event in his life, peer at it with perspective. A lattice of shadows and corners, rolling back to the vanishing point on the horizon of Luke’s mind. And all these shadow boxes that lent such perspective to things... well, this lattice gave his life a certain darkness.
Nothing of substance, of course—and in any case, some would have said this shading gave a depth to his personality, where before it had been thin, without dimension—though such a suggestion probably would have come from jaded critics, reflecting a jaded time. Nonetheless, there was a certain darkness, now.
There were other advantages to knowledge: rationality, etiquette, choice. Choice, of them all, was a true double-edged sword; but it did have its advantages.
Furthermore he was skilled in the craft of the Jedi now, where before he’d been merely precocious.
He was more aware now.
These were all desirable attributes, to be sure; and Luke knew as well as anyone that all things alive must grow. Still, it carried a certain sadness, the sum of all this knowledge. A certain sense of regret. But who could afford to be a boy in times such as these?
Resolutely, Luke strode into the arching hallway.
Almost immediately two Gamorreans stepped up, blocking his path. One spoke in a voice that did not invite debate. “No chuba!”
Luke raised his hand and pointed at the guards. Before either could draw a weapon, they were both clutching their own throats, choking, gasping. They fell to their knees.
Luke lowered his hand and walked on. The guards, suddenly able to breathe again, slumped to the sanddrifted steps. They didn’t follow.
Around the next corner Luke was met by Bib Fortuna. Fortuna began speaking as he approached the young Jedi, but Luke never broke stride, so Bib had to reverse his direction in mid-sentence and hurry along with Skywalker in order to carry on a conversation.
“You must be the one called Skywalker. His Excellency will not see you.”
“I will speak to Jabba, now,” Luke spoke evenly, never slowing. They passed several more guards at the next crossing, who fell in behind them.
“The great Jabba is asleep,” Bib explained. “He has instructed me to tell you there will be no bargains—.”
Luke stopped suddenly, and stared at Bib. He locked eyes with the major-domo, raised his hand slightly, took a minutely inward turn. “You will take me to Jabba, now.”
Bib paused, tilted his head a fraction. What were his instructions? Oh, yes, now he remembered. “I will take you to Jabba now.”
He turned and walked down the twisting corridor that led to the throne chamber. Luke followed him into the gloom.
“You serve your master well,” he whispered in Bib’s ear.
“I serve my master well,” Bib nodded with conviction.
“You are sure to be rewarded,” Luke added.
Bib smiled smugly. “I am sure to be rewarded.”
As Luke and Bib entered Jabba’s court, the level of tumult dropped precipitously as if Luke’s presence had a cooling effect. Everyone felt the change.
The lieutenant and the Jedi Knight approached the throne. Luke saw Leia seated there, now, by Jabba’s belly. She was chained at the neck and dressed in the skimpy costume of a dancing girl. He could feel her pain immediately, from across the room—but he said nothing, didn’t even look at her, shut her anguish completely out of his mind. For he needed to focus his attention entirely on Jabba.
Leia, for her part, sensed this at once. She closed her mind to Luke, to keep herself from distracting him; yet at the same time she kept it open, ready to receive any sliver of information she might need to act. She felt charged with possibilities.
Threepio peeked out from behind the throne as Bib walked up. For the first time in many days, he scanned his hope program. “Ah! At last Master Luke’s come to take me away from all this,” he beamed.
Bib stood proudly before Jabba. “Master, I present Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight.”
“I told you not to admit him,” the gangster-slug growled in Huttese.
“I must be allowed to speak,” Luke spoke quietly, though his words were heard throughout the hall.
“He must be allowed to speak,” Bib concurred thoughtfully.
Jabba, furious, bashed Bib across the face and sent him reeling to the floor. “You weak-minded fool! He’s using an old Jedi mind trick!”
Luke let all the rest of the motley horde that surrounded him melt into the recesses of his consciousness, to let Jabba fill his mind totally. “You will bring Captain Solo and the Wookiee to me.”
Jabba smiled grimly. “Your mind powers will not work on me, boy. I am not affected by your human thought pattern.” Then, as an after thought: “I was killing your kind when being a Jedi meant something.”
Luke altered his stance somewhat, internally and externally. “Nevertheless, I am taking Captain Solo and his friends. You can either profit from this... or be destroyed. It’s your choice, but I warn you not to underestimate my powers.” He spoke in his own language, which Jabba well understood.
Jabba laughed the laugh of a lion cautioned by a mouse.
Threepio, who had been observing this interplay intently, leaned forward to whisper to Luke: “Master, you’re standing—” A guard abruptly restrained the concerned droid, though, and pulled him back to his place.
Jabba cut short his laugh with a scowl. “There will be no bargain, young Jedi. I shall enjoy watching you die.”
Luke raised his hand. A pistol jumped out of the holster of a nearby guard and landed snugly in the Jedi’s palm. Luke pointed the weapon at Jabba.
Jabba spat. “Boscka!”
The floor suddenly dropped away, sending Luke and his guard crashing into the pit below. The trap door immediately closed again.
All the beasts of the court rushed to the floor-grating and looked down.
“Luke!” yelled Leia. She felt part of her self torn away, pulled down into the pit with him. She started forward, but was held in check by the manacle around her throat. Raucous laughter crowded in from everywhere at once, set her on edge. She poised to flee.
A human guard touched her shoulder. She looked. It was Lando. Imperceptibly, he shook his head. No. Imperceptibly, her muscles relaxed. This wasn’t the right moment, he knew—but it was the right hand. A
ll the cards were here, now—Luke, Han, Leia, Chewbacca... and old Wild Card Lando. He just didn’t want Leia revealing the hand before all the bets were out. The stakes were just too high.
In the pit below, Luke picked himself up off the floor. He found he was now in a large cavelike dungeon, the walls formed of craggy boulders pocked with lightless crevices. The half-chewed bones of countless animals were strewn over the floor, smelling of decayed flesh and twisted fear.
Twenty-five feet above him, in the ceiling, he saw the iron grating through which Jabba’s repugnant courtiers peered.
The guard beside him suddenly began to scream uncontrollably, as a door in the side of the cave slowly rumbled open. With infinite calm, Luke surveyed his surroundings as he removed his long robe down to his Jedi tunic, to give him more freedom of movement. He backed quickly to the wall and crouched there, watching.
Out of the side passage emerged the giant Rancor. The size of an elephant, it was somehow reptilian, somehow as unformed as a nightmare. Its huge screeching mouth was asymmetrical in its head, its fangs and claws set all out of proportion. It was clearly a mutant, and wild as all unreason.
The guard picked up the pistol from the dirt where it had fallen and began firing laser bursts at the hideous monster. This only made the beast angrier. It lumbered toward the guard.
The guard kept firing. Ignoring the laser blasts, the beast grabbed the hysterical guard, popped him into its slavering jaws, and swallowed him in a gulp. The audience above cheered, laughed, and threw coins.
The monster then turned and started for Luke. But the Jedi Knight leaped eight meters straight up and grabbed onto the overhead grate. The crowd began to boo. Hand over hand, Luke traversed the grating toward the corner of the cave, struggling to maintain his grip as the audience jeered his efforts. One hand slipped on the oily grid, and he dangled precariously over the baying mutant.
Two jawas ran across the top of the grate. They mashed Luke’s fingers with their rifle butts; once again, the crowd roared its approval.