by James Kahn
The Rancor pawed at Luke from below, but the Jedi dangled just out of reach. Suddenly Luke released his hold and dropped directly onto the eye of the howling monster; he then tumbled to the floor.
The Rancor screamed in pain and stumbled, swatting its own face to knock away the agony. It ran in circles a few times, then spotted Luke again and came at him. Luke stooped down to pick up the long bone of an earlier victim. He brandished it before him. The gallery above thought this was hilarious and hooted in delight.
The monster grabbed Luke and brought him up to its salivating mouth. At the last moment, though, Luke wedged the bone deep in the Rancor’s mouth and jumped to the floor as the beast began to gag. The Rancor bellowed and flailed about, running headlong into a wall. Several rocks were dislodged, starting an avalanche that nearly buried Luke, as he crouched deep in a crevice near the floor. The crowd clapped in unison.
Luke tried to clear his mind. Fear is a great cloud, Ben used to tell him. It makes the cold colder and the dark darker; but let it rise and it will dissolve. So Luke let it rise past the clamor of the beast above him, and examined ways he might turn the sad creature’s rantings on itself.
It was not an evil beast, that much was clear. Had it been purely malicious, its wickedness could easily have been turned on itself --for pure evil, Ben had said, was always self-destructive in the end. But this monster wasn’t bad—merely dumb and mistreated. Hungry and in pain, it lashed out at whatever came near. For Luke to have looked on that as evil would only have been a projection of Luke’s own darker aspects—it would have been false, and it certainly wouldn’t have helped him out of this situation.
No, he was going to have to keep his mind clear—that was all--and just outwit the savage brute, to put it out of its misery.
Most preferable would have been to set it loose in Jabba’s court, but that seemed unlikely. He considered, next, giving the creature the means to do itself in—to end its own pain. Unfortunately, the creature was far too angered to comprehend the solace of the void. Luke finally began studying the specific contours of the cave, to try to come up with a specific plan.
The Rancor, meanwhile, had knocked the bone from its mouth and, enraged, was scrabbling through the rubble of fallen rocks, searching for Luke. Luke, though his vision was partially obscured by the pile that still sheltered him, could see now past the monster, to a holding cave beyond—and beyond that, to a utility door. If only he could get to it.
The Rancor knocked away a boulder and spotted Luke recoiling in the crevice. Voraciously, it reached in to pluck the boy out. Luke grabbed a large rock and smashed it down on the creature’s finger as hard as he could. As the Rancor jumped, howling in pain once more, Luke ran for the holding cave.
He reached the doorway and ran in. Before him, a heavy barred gate blocked the way. Beyond this gate, the Rancor’s two keepers sat eating dinner. They looked up as Luke entered, then stood and walked toward the gate.
Luke turned around to see the monster coming angrily after him. He turned back to the gate and tried to open it. The keepers poked at him with their two-pronged spears, jabbed at him through the bars, laughing and chewing their food, as the Rancor drew closer to the young Jedi.
Luke backed against the side wall, as the Rancor reached in the room for him. Suddenly he saw the restraining-door control panel halfway up the opposite wall. The Rancor began to enter the holding room, closing for the kill, when all at once Luke picked up a skull off the floor and hurled it at the panel.
The panel exploded in a shower of sparks, and the giant iron overhead restraining door came crashing down on the Rancor’s head, crushing it like an axe smashing through a ripe watermelon.
Those in the audience above gasped as one, then were silent. They were all truly stunned at this bizarre turn of events. They all looked to Jabba, who was apoplectic with rage. Never had he felt such fury. Leia tried to hide her delight, but was unable to keep from smiling, and this increased Jabba’s anger even further. Harshly he snapped at his guards: “Get him out of there. Bring me Solo and the Wookiee. They will all suffer for this outrage.”
In the pit below, Luke stood calmly as several of Jabba’s henchmen ran in, clapped him in bonds, and ushered him out.
The Rancor keeper wept openly and threw himself down on the body of his dead pet. Life would be a lonely proposition for him from that day.
Han and Chewie were led before the steaming Jabba. Han still squinted and stumbled every few feet. Threepio stood behind the Hutt, unbearably apprehensive. Jabba kept Leia on a short tether, stroking her hair to try to calm himself. A constant murmuring filled the room, as the rabble speculated on what was going to happen to whom.
With a flurry, several guards—including Lando Calrissian--dragged Luke in across the room. To give them passage, the courtiers parted like an unruly sea. When Luke, too, was standing before the throne, he nudged Solo with a smile. “Good to see you again, old buddy.”
Solo’s face lit up. There seemed to be no end to the number of friends he kept bumping into. “Luke! Are you in this mess now, too?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Skywalker smiled. For just a moment, he almost felt like a boy again.
“Well, how we doing?” Han raised his eyebrows.
“Same as always,” said Luke.
“Oh-oh,” Solo replied under his breath. He felt one hundred percent relaxed. Just like old times—but a second later, a bleak thought chilled him.
“Where’s Leia? Is sh...”
Her eyes had been fixed on him from the moment he’d entered the room, though—guarding his spirit with her own. When he spoke of her now, she responded instantly, calling from her place on Jabba’s throne. “I’m all right, but I don’t know how much longer I can hold off your slobbering friend, here.” She was intentionally cavalier, to put Solo at ease. Besides, the sight of all of her friends there at once made her feel nearly invincible. Han, Luke, Chewie, Lando—even Threepio was skulking around somewhere, trying to be forgotten. Leia almost laughed out loud, almost punched Jabba in the nose. She could barely restrain herself. She wanted to hug them all.
Suddenly Jabba shouted; the entire room was immediately silent. “Talkdroid!”
Timidly, Threepio stepped forward and with an embarrassed, self-effacing head gesture, addressed the captives. “His High Exaltedness, the great Jabba the Hutt, has decreed that you are to be terminated immediately.”
Solo said loudly, “That’s good, I hate long waits...”
“Your extreme offense against His Majesty,” Threepio went on, ‘demands the most torturous form of death...”
“No sense in doing things halfway,” Solo cracked. Jabba could be so pompous, sometimes, and now with old Goldenrod, there, making his pronouncements...
No matter what else, Threepio simply hated being interrupted. He collected himself, nonetheless, and continued. “You will be taken to the Dune Sea, where you will be thrown into the Great Pit of Carkoon—”
Han shrugged, then turned to Luke. “That doesn’t sound too bad.”
Threepio ignored the interruption.”... the resting place of the all-powerful Sarlacc. In his belly you will find a new definition of pain and suffering, as you slowly digest for a thousand years.”
“On second thought we could pass on that,” Solo reconsidered. A thousand years was a bit much.
Chewie barked his whole-hearted agreement.
Luke only smiled. “You should have bargained, Jabba. This is the last mistake you’ll ever make.” Luke was unable to suppress the satisfaction in his voice. He found Jabba despicable—a leech of the galaxy, sucking the life from whatever he touched. Luke wanted to burn the villain, and so was actually rather glad Jabba had refused to bargain—for now Luke would get his wish precisely. Of course, his primary objective was to free his friends, whom he loved dearly; it was this concern that guided him now, above all else. But in the process, to free the universe of this gangster slug—this was a prospect that tinted Luke’s purpose with an ev
er-so-slightly dark satisfaction.
Jabba chortled evilly. “Take them away.” At last, a bit of pure pleasure on an otherwise dreary day—feeding the Sarlacc was the only thing he enjoyed as much as feeding the Rancor. Poor Rancor.
A loud cheer rose from the crowd as the prisoners were carried off. Leia looked after them with great concern; but when she caught a glimpse of Luke’s face she was stirred to see it still fixed in a broad, genuine smile. She sighed deeply, to expel her doubts.
Jabba’s giant antigravity Sail Barge glided slowly over the endless Dune Sea. Its sand-blasted iron hull creaked in the slight breeze, each puff of wind coughing into the two huge sails as if even nature suffered some terminal malaise wherever it came near Jabba. He was belowdecks, now, with most of his court, hiding the decay of his spirit from the cleansing sun.
Alongside the barge, two small skiffs floated in formation—one an escort craft, bearing six scruffy soldiers; the other, a gun skiff, containing the prisoners: Han, Chewie, Luke. They were all in bonds, and surrounded by armed guards—Barada, two Weequays. And Lando Calrissian.
Barada was the no-nonsense sort, and not likely to let anything get out of hand. He carried a long-gun as if he wanted nothing more than to hear it speak.
The Weequays were an odd sort. They were brothers, leathery and bald save for a tribal top-knot, braided and worn to the side. No one was certain whether Weequay was the name of their tribe, or their species; or whether all in their tribe were brothers, or all were named Weequays. It was known only that these two were called by this name, and that they treated all other creatures indifferently. With each other they were gentle, even tender; but like Barada, they seemed anxious for the prisoners to misbehave.
And Lando, of course, remained silent, ready—waiting for an opportunity. This reminded him of the lithium scam he’d run on Pesmenben IV--they’d salted the dunes there with lithium carbonate, to con the Imperial governor into leasing the planet. Lando, posing as a nonunion mine guard, had made the governor lie face down in the bottom of the boat and throw his bribe overboard when the “union officials” raided them. They’d gotten away scot-free on that one; Lando expected this job would go much the same, except they might have to throw the guards overboard as well.
Han kept his ear tuned, for his eyes were still useless. He spoke with reckless disregard, to put the guards at ease—to get them used to his talking and moving, so when the time came for him really to move, they’d be a critical fraction behind his mark. And, of course—as always—he spoke just to hear himself speak.
“I think my sight is getting better,” he said, squinting over the sand. “Instead of a big dark blur, I see a big bright blur.”
“Believe me, you’re not missing anything.” Luke smiled. “I grew up here.”
Luke thought of his youth on Tatooine, living on his uncle’s farm, cruising in his souped-up landspeeder with his few friends—sons of other settlers, sitting their own lonely outposts. Nothing ever to do here, really, for man or boy, but cruise the monotonous dunes and try to avoid the peevish Tusken Raiders who guarded the sand as if it were gold-dust. Luke knew this place.
He’d met Obi-Wan Kenobi, here—old Ben Kenobi, the hermit who’d lived in the wilderness since nobody knew when. The man who’d first shown Luke the way of the Jedi.
Luke thought of him now with great love, and great sorrow. For Ben was, more than anyone, the agent of Luke’s discoveries and losses—and discoveries of losses.
Ben had taken Luke to Mos Eisley, the pirate city on the western face of Tatooine, to the cantina where they’d first met Han Solo, and Chewbacca the Wookiee. Taken him there after Imperial storm-troopers had murdered Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, searching for the fugitive droids, Artoo and Threepio.
That’s how it had all started for Luke, here on Tatooine. Like a recurring dream he knew this place; and he had sworn then that he would never return.
“I grew up here,” he repeated softly.
“And now we’re going to die here,” Solo replied.
“I wasn’t planning on it,” Luke shook himself out of his reverie.
“If this is your big plan, so far I’m not crazy about it.”
“Jabba’s palace was too well guarded. I had to get you out of there. Just stay close to Chewie and Lando. We’ll take care of everything.”
“I can hardly wait.” Solo had a sinking feeling this grand escape depended on Luke’s thinking he was a Jedi—a questionable premise at best, considering it was an extinct brotherhood that had used a Force he didn’t really believe in anyway. A fast ship and a good blaster are what Han believed in, and he wished he had them now.
Jabba sat in the main cabin of the Sail Barge, surrounded by his entire retinue. The party at the palace was simply continuing, in motion—the result being a slightly wobblier brand of carousing--more in the nature of a prelynching celebration. So blood lust and belligerence were testing new levels.
Threepio was way out of his depth. At the moment, he was being forced to translate an argument between Ephant Mon and Ree-Yees, concerning a point of quark warfare that was marginally beyond him. Ephant Mon, a bulky upright pachydermoid with an ugly, betusked snout, was taking (to Threepio’s way of thinking) an untenable position. However, on his shoulder sat Salacious Crumb, the insane little reptilian monkey who had the habit of repeating verbatim everything Ephant said, thereby effectively doubling the weight of Ephant’s argument.
Ephant concluded the oration with a typically bellicose avowal. “Woossie jawamba boog!”
To which Salacious nodded, then added, “Woossie jawamba boog!”
Threepio didn’t really want to translate this to Ree-Yees, the three-eyed goat-face who was already drunk as a spicer, but he did.
All three eyes dilated in fury. “Backawa! Backawa!” Without further preamble, he punched Ephant Mon in the snout, sending him flying into a school of Squid Heads.
See Threepio felt this response needed no translation, and took the opportunity to slip to the rear—where he promptly bumped into a small droid serving drinks. The drinks spilled everywhere.
The stubby little droid let out a fluent series of irate beeps, toots, and whistles—recognizable to Threepio instantly. He looked down in utter relief. “Artoo! What are you doing here?”
“dooo WEEp chWHRrrrree bedzhng.”
“I can see you’re serving drinks. But this place is dangerous. They’re going to execute Master Luke, and if we’re not careful, us too!”
Artoo whistled—a bit nonchalantly, as far as Threepio was concerned. “I wish I had your confidence,” he replied glumly.
Jabba chuckled to see Ephant Mon go down—he loved a good beating. He especially loved to see strength crumble, to see the proud fall.
He tugged, with his swollen fingers, on the chain attached to Princess Leia’s neck. The more resistance he met with, the more he drooled—until he’d drawn the struggling, scantily-clad princess close to him once more.
“Don’t stray too far, my lovely. Soon you will begin to appreciate me.” He pulled her very near and forced her to drink from his glass.
Leia opened her mouth and she closed her mind. It was disgusting, of course; but there were worse things, and in any case, this wouldn’t last.
The worse things she knew well. Her standard of comparison was the night she’d been tortured by Darth Vader. She had almost broken. The Dark Lord never knew how close he’d come to extracting the information he wanted from her, the location of the Rebel base. He had captured her just after she’d managed to send Artoo and Threepio for help—captured her, taken her to the Death Star, injected her with mind-weakening chemicals... and tortured her.
Tortured her body first, with his efficient pain-droids. Needles, pressure points, fire-knives, electrojabbers. She’d endured these pains, as she now endured Jabba’s loathsome touch—with a natural, inner strength.
She slid a few feet away from Jabba, now, as his attention was distracted—moved to peer out the slats in the
louvered windows, to squint through the dusty sunlight at the skiff on which her rescuers were being carried.
It was stopping.
The whole convoy was stopping, in fact, over a huge sand pit. The Sail Barge moved to one side of the giant depression, with the escort skiff. The prisoners” skiff hovered directly over the pit, though, perhaps twenty feet in the air.
At the bottom of the deep cone of sand, a repulsive, mucus-lined, pink, membranous hole puckered, almost unmoving. The hole was eight feet in diameter, its perimeter clustered with three rows of inwardly-directed needle-sharp teeth. Sand stuck to the mucus that lined the sides of the opening, occasionally sliding into the black cavity at the center.
This was the mouth of the Sarlacc.
An iron plank was extended over the side of the prisoners” skiff. Two guards untied Luke’s bonds and shoved him gruffly out onto the plank, straight above the orifice in the sand, now beginning to undulate in peristaltic movement and salivate with increased mucus secretion as it smelled the meat it was about to receive.
Jabba moved his party up to the observation deck.
Luke rubbed his wrists to restore circulation. The heat shimmering off the desert warmed his soul—for finally, this would always be his home. Born and bred in a Bantha patch. He saw Leia standing at the rail of the big barge, and winked. She winked back.
Jabba motioned Threepio to his side, then mumbled orders to the golden droid. Threepio stepped up to the comlink. Jabba raised his arm, and the whole motley array of intergalactic pirates fell silent. Threepio’s voice arose, amplified by the loudspeaker.
“His Excellency hopes you will die honorably,” Threepio announced. This did not scan at all. Someone had obviously mislaid the correct program. Nonetheless, he was only a droid, his functions well delineated. Translation only, no free will please. He shook his head and continued. “But should any of you wish to beg for mercy, Jabba will now listen to your pleas.”