Tales From Jabba's Palace Read online

  Star Wars TALES FROM JABBA'S PALACE

  by

  Kevin J. Anderson

  TALES FROM JABBA'S PALACE

  BANTAM New York Toronto London Sydney Auckland

  To SUE ROSTONI who has been more helpful than any of Jabba's minions

  could have ever been, offering suggestions, troubleshooting obstacles,

  and navigating me through a forest of details that would have given even

  a Hutt a headache!

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks go to Lucy Wilson for being so enthusiastic about the idea of

  anthologies in the first place, Tom Dupree for his efforts at Bantam

  Books, and Bill Smith at West End Games for providing the foundations

  for so, many of these stories. And, as always, Rebecca Moesta Anderson,

  for putting up with me at times when she probably should have just fed

  me to the rancor.

  October 1994

  Contents

  Introduction

  A Boy and His Monster:

  The Rancor Keeper's Tale

  Kevin J. Anderson

  Taster's Choice: The Tale of Jabba's Chef

  Barbara Hambly

  That's Entertainment:

  The Tale of Salacious Crumb

  Esther M. Friesner

  A Time to Mourn, a Time to Dance:

  Oola's Tale

  Kathy Tyers

  Let Us Prey: The Whiphid's Tale

  Marina Fitch and Mark Budz

  Sleight of Hand: The Tale of MaraJade

  Timothy Zahn

  And Then There Were Some:

  The Gamorrean Guard's Tale

  William F. Wu

  Old Friends: Ephant Mon's Tale

  Kenneth C. Pint

  Goatgrass: The Tale of Ree-Yees

  Deborah Wheeler

  And the Band Played On: The Band's Tale

  John Gregory Betancourt

  Of the Day's Annoyances: Bib Fortuna's Tale

  M. Shayne Bell

  The Great God Quay:

  The Tale of Barada and the Weequays

  (george ALec Effinger

  A Bad Feeling: The Tale of EV-9D9

  Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens

  A Free Quarren in the Palace: Tessek's Tale

  Dave Wolverton

  Tongue-tied: Bubo's Tale

  Daryl F. Mallett

  Out of the Closet: The Assassin's Tale

  Jennifer Roberson

  Shaara and the Sarlacc: The Skiff Guard's Tale

  Dan'l Danehy-Oakes

  A Barve Like That: The Tale of Boba Fett

  J. D. Montgomery

  Skin Deep: The Fat Dancer's Tale

  A. C. Crispin

  Epilogue: Whatever Became Of . . . ?

  About the Authors "If I told you half the things I've heard about this

  Jabba the Hutt, you'd probably short-circuit!"

  Introduction

  Jabba the Hutt has many enemies.

  Called a "vile gangster" by some, Jabba's criminally gained wealth and

  power has placed him in a dangerous position in his guarded citadel

  under the twin suns of Tatooine. Though few openly covet Jabba's

  wealth, this does not stop them from plotting in secret.

  The Lady Valarian, the female Whiphid owner of the Lucky Despot hotel

  and casino, is Jabba's chief rival. Hairy and tusk-faced, with a

  voracious appetite (some say literally) for males of her species, she

  keeps a low profile, planning in the long term.

  Prefect Eugene Talmont, stationed in Mos Eisley is the Imperial in

  charge of the Tatooine garrison. He hates his backwater assignment and

  hopes that by eliminating Jabba he can find a way out of the arid hole

  where he has landed. Then there is the mysterious order of B'omarr

  monks, who originally built the enormous citadel for their solitude in

  the desert depths. The monks, wrapped in their ethereal concerns, seem

  oblivious to the fact that Jabba--and many other bandits in the decades

  before him--usurped their stone fortress. But no one can know what the

  quiet, uncommunicative monks are really thinking.

  Jabba is always on his guard, but little does he suspect that his

  greatest nemesis will come in the form of a single Jedi Knight, who

  walks in alone from the desert . . .

  Note: For the reader's convenience, all alien languages have been

  translated into Basic. A Boy and His Monster: The Rancor Keeper's Tale

  by Kevin J. Anderson

  Special Cargo The unidentified ship tore through the brittle atmosphere

  of Tatooine with a finger of fire, trailing greasy black smoke. Waves

  of sound, sonic booms from the crashing ship, made an avalanche through

  the air.

  Below, the Jawa sandcrawler continued its endless path across the Dune

  Sea looking for forgotten scraps of abandoned metal, delicious salvage.

  By sheer luck the crawler stood only two dunes away when the plummeting

  ship struck the ocean of blind sand and spewed a funnel of dust that

  glittered like mica chips under the blazing twin suns.

  The pilot of the corroded sandcrawler, Tteel Kkak, stared out the narrow

  window high up on the bridge deck, unable to believe the incredible

  fortune the luck of his ancestors had dropped in his lap.

  His crawler's year-long trek across the wastelands had been practically

  fruitless, and he would have been ashamed to return to his clan's hidden

  fortress beating so little--but now a virgin ship lay within reach,

  unclaimed by other scavenging clans and unsullied by time.

  The ancient reactor engines shoved the immense sandcrawler into motion.

  It ground over the shifting sands seeking purchase with wide treads in a

  straight line for the smoldering wreckage.

  The ship lay in a crater of loose, blasted sands that might have

  cushioned the impact; some of the cargo should still be intact. The

  armored chambers and parts of the computer core might be salvageable.

  Or so Tteel Kkak hoped.

  Jawas swarmed out of the sandcrawler toward the wreckage: the entire

  scavenging arm of the Kkak clan, little hooded creatures surrounded by a

  rank musty scent, chattering as they claimed their prize.

  The front group of Jawas carried chemical fire-suppressant packs, which

  they sprayed on the hissing hot metal to minimize further damage.

  They did not look to see if anyone had survived the crash, because that

  was not their primary concern. In fact, living passengers or crew would

  only complicate the Kkak salvage claim. Those injured in such wrecks

  rarely survived Jawa first aid.

  The Jawas used up two battery packs in the sputtering old laser cutters

  to cut their way through the hull into the armored bridge compartment.

  Dim light from emergency systems and the still-flickering glow from

  internally burning electronics components lit the abandoned stations.

  Harsh chemical fumes and curling gray-blue smoke struck Tteel Kkak's

  sensitive nostrils--but underneath he could detect an undertone of

  metallic fear, the copper smells of blood splashed and burned. He knew

  he would find no one alive in the captain's chair.

  What he was not prepared for, though, was to find no bodies at all--just


  dark, wet arcs of sprayed blood, melted starbursts from blaster fire on

  the walls.

  The other Jawas opened the main bulkhead doors and flowed in,

  chittering. Scout teams poured into the remains of the ship, spraying

  down smoldering sections and squirming through collapsed walls to find

  other treasures in the cargo hold.

  Tteel Kkak directed one of the younger clan members to demonstrate his

  prowess by slicing into the main bridge computer to download the

  registry number and owner of the vessel, just in case there might be

  some large bounty, a reward for simply reporting the whereabouts of the

  hulk--after they had stripped it of all valuables, of course.

  The young clan member Tteel Kkak's third sister's fifth son by her

  primary mate pulled out a scuffed, flatscreen reader with stripped raw

  wires dangling from the end. He used his rodentlike claws to peel back

  the access plate of the bridge panel and squealed as sparks flew when he

  connected the wires. He jammed the leads into other pickups, tapped

  into the dying energy in the ship's backup batteries, and called up the

  information in flickering green phosphor letters across the screen.

  The captain of the ship had been a humanoid named Grizzid, and Tteel

  Kkak's fantasies diminished.

  He had hoped for some well-known dignitary or VIP passenger.

  This Grizzid person had departed from the Tarsunt system, another place

  Tteel Kkak had never heard of.

  Dismissing that, he directed his young assistant to find more important

  information--the cargo manifest.

  When new letters scrolled up on the screen, the device flickered, and

  his young assistant had to slap it several times before it functioned

  again. The flat-screen scrolled up a dismayingly short list of

  contents.

  Tteel Kkak's thumping heart sank. One item, marked only as "special

  cargo," had been placed aboard by a Bothan trader named Grendu, a dealer

  in "rare antiquities," who requested that extreme precautions be taken.

  A heavily reinforced duranium cage filled most of the ship's cargo hold.

  Tteel Kkak let pheromones of disappointment waft into the air, strong

  enough to overcome even the acrid burning smells. Unless that cage had

  been immensely strong indeed, this precious special cargo, whatever it

  was, had certainly been killed in the crash.

  Just as that thought crossed his mind, though, he heard squeals of

  terror and pain--and a rumbling growl from within the wreck, basso and

  bone-jarring, deep enough to make the remnants of the ship vibrate.

  Over half the Jawas wisely bolted through the opening in the hull,

  fleeing back to the safety of the sandcrawler; but Tteel Kkak was pilot

  and clan representative, and he was responsible for salvage. Though it

  seemed the smartest thing to do, he could not simply run from a loud,

  scary sound. He wanted to find out what this thing was. The "special

  cargo" might be valuable, after all.

  He grabbed the arm of his young assistant, who sent up an unpleasant

  aroma of dark, ice-metal terror. As they charged down the sloping

  corridors, they were nearly bowled over by seven shrieking, retreating

  Jawas who squealed an incomprehensible mixture of words and an

  impossible-tread scent that conveyed nothing more than nauseating fear.

  Tteel Kkak saw long streaks of blood along the corridor, huge

  red-smeared footprints. The lights had burned out farther down the

  corridor, and the ship still clicked and settled as the fires cooled and

  the desert sun baked the outside. The loud, reverberating growl came

  again.

  Tteel Kkak's young assistant tore away from his grip and joined the

  others running out of the ship. Alone now, Tteel Kkak proceeded slowly,

  cautiously. Chewed bones lay on the floor, as if something had stripped

  the flesh with scimitar fangs and discarded the leftovers like white

  sticks.

  Ahead, a doorway to the lower cargo hold gaped like a skull's empty

  eyesocket. Outwardly bent bars crisscrossed the opening. The door had

  been ripped from its hinges--but not in the last few moments and not in

  the crash, as far as he could tell. This had happened some time

  earlier.

  Within the shadows, something enormous moved, growled, lashed out.

  As far as Tteel Kkak could tell, the thing had broken out of its cage as

  the ship approached Tatooine and had gone back to its lair to finish

  devouring the rest of the crew. But when the unmanned ship had crashed,

  the thick walls had crumpled inward, trapping the thing in the same cage

  that had protected it from death in the impact.

  Drawn by a deadly curiosity even greater than his fear, Tteel Kkak crept

  closer. He could smell the thing now: a thick, moist scent of violence

  and rotting meat.

  He saw the torn shreds of several Jawa cloaks. He sniffed the air,

  smelled sour Jawa blood.

  He hesitated one step away from the opening, when suddenly a wide,

  many-clawed hand larger than Tteel Kkak's entire body swept out in a

  rapid arc like a branched fork of lightning during sandwhirl season.

  Tteel Kkak stumbled backward and fell flat on his back. The monstrous

  clawed hand, the only part of the creature that could reach through the

  opening, swept across the air, seeming to tear space itself. Claws

  struck the corridor walls, skreeking along the wall plates and leaving

  parallel white gashes.

  Before the monster could slash again, Tteel Kkak leaped to his feet and

  scuttled up the sloping corridor to the opening in the bridge

  compartment. Before he had gotten halfway there, though, his mind began

  to reassess the situation, wondering how he could still get any profit

  from this wreck.

  He knew only one being who might appropriately enjoy this hideous,

  dangerous creature: one who lived on the other side of the Dune Sea, in

  an ancient, brooding citadel that had stood for centuries.

  Tteel Kkak would have to forfeit most of the salvage materials, but he

  did not want to deal with this monster.

  He hoped he could talkJabba the Hutt into paying him a large finder's

  fee, at least.

  The Care and Feeding of a Rancor

  Malakili, professional monster trainer and beast handler, found himself

  unceremoniously transferred from the Circus Horrificus--a traveling show

  of alien monstrosities that wandered from system to system, aweing and

  frightening crowds of spectators. "Transferred" was the word imprinted

  on his contract file, but the truth was that Malakili had been purchased

  outright like a slave and then hustled off to this unpleasant scab of a

  desert planet.

  As the Tatooine suns broiled down, Malakili already missed the dozens of

  bloodthirsty alien creatures he had tended for years. No one else

  understood exactly what he did. No one else knew how to tend the touchy

  and often excitable beasts on display. The circus performances would no

  doubt get very bloody as inexperienced handlers tried to do those things

  for which Malakili had become famous. The Circus Horrificus would fall

  on hard times without his services.

  B
ut as he disembarked from the private land-speeder outside the looming

  spires of a citadel high on the cliffs, Malakili began to grasp the

  importance and the power of this being called Jabba the Hutt.

  The rock walls of the palace thrummed in the baking heat of double suns.

  At the base of one of the spires a spiked portcullis clattered upward,

  and two humanoid creatures stepped out of the shadows. One was clad in

  flowing black robes that accentuated the paleness of his pasty skin,

  bright eyes, and fanged mouth. A pair of long, thick tentacles hung

  from the back of the creature's head, one wrapped around his neck like a

  garrote: a Twi'lek, Malakili noted, one of the heartless creatures from

  the harsh planet Ryloth, who had a reputation for shifting sides as

  rapidly as a breeze shifted in the desert.

  Beside the Twi'lek stood a scarred, grizzle-faced human, a Corellian

  from the looks of him, whose face was puckered with either pockmarks

  from a disease or the long-healed scar from a vicious blaster burn. The

  Corellian's hair was black except for a shock of pure white that