Tales From Jabba's Palace Page 2

  streaked through it like a distress flare.

  "You are Malakili," the Twi'lek said. It was not a question. "I am Bib

  Fortuna, and this is my associate, Bidlo KwerVe."

  Kwerve nodded his head, but his emerald eyes remained fixed on Malakili

  as if nailed in place. Malakili flinched under his stare.

  Given other training, he thought, this Corellian could have become a

  good beast handler.

  Malakili was muscular from a life of lifting heavy objects and wrestling

  strong creatures. His paunch had grown large from the good eating he

  enjoyed as the star of Circus Horrificus, his face was stretched and

  ugly, his eyes wide and round like full moons. But Malakili cared

  little for his personal appearance. He was out to impress no one. As

  long as the monsters held him in respect, he asked for nothing else.

  "We are Jabba's lieutenants. We have summoned you," Bib Fortuna said.

  "Why?" Malakili asked, his voice gruff, his fists planted squarely on

  his ample hips.

  "We have a gift for Jabba," Fortuna continued. "A ship crashed in the

  desert carrying a special cargo, a creature that no one seems able to

  identify. Bidlo Kwerve here used eight gas grenades to stun the monster

  enough that we could transport it into one of the dungeons beneath the

  palace." The Twi'lek rubbed his clawed hands together.

  "It is our master's birthday tomorrow. He has been away on business,

  having recently purchased a cantina in Mos Eisley. But he will be back

  tomorrow, and we want to surprise him. Of course with a creature of

  this, er, bulk and temperament, we wanted it to come with its own

  keeper."

  "But why me?" Malakili said. His words came out as displeased grunts.

  He was not accustomed to extended conversations. "I was happy with my

  old job."

  "Yes," Bib Fortuna said, flashing a mouthful of needle-sharp teeth. "You

  spent seven seasons with the Circus Horrificus, training their specimens

  without being eaten. That's a record for them, you know."

  "I know," Malakili said. "I liked the monsters."

  Bib Fortuna clacked his claws together. "Then you'll love this one."

  Bib Fortuna and Bidlo Kwerve stepped back into the dripping shadows of

  the lower dungeons as Malakili stared through the barred peephole into

  the pit. He was enthralled, enraptured by the mammoth beast.

  It growled as it breathed. Its beady eyes flashed even in the darkness.

  It moved with a quick, liquid grace that many agile creatures half its

  size could not manage.

  "Magnificent," Malakili said through puffy lips. He felt cool tears

  like lines of ice down his cheeks. He had never seen anything so

  beautiful in his life.

  "Did I not tell you?" Bib Fortuna said.

  "I think---" Malakili drew a deep breath, still awed and afraid to voice

  his suspicions. "I think this is a rancor. I have heard of them, but

  never dreamed that I would be lucky enough to see one in my lifetime."

  "You're not just seeing this one," Bib Fortuna said.

  "He is yours. You must take care of him."

  Malakili felt his heart swell with pride, and he beamed at Jabba's two

  lieutenants. "That I will do to the best of my ability," he said.

  The bloated crimelord Jabba the Hutt knew everything, so it was

  impossible to keep a secret from him--even a supposedly secret birthday

  gift. Still, his two lieutenants--with Malakili standing behind

  them--acted as if they' were presenting Jabba with a great honor as they

  congratulated him on his birthday.

  "As our gift to you, great Jabba," Bib Fortuna said, "we have found a

  magnificent and exotic new pet for you--a vicious monster called a

  rancor. This is its keeper." He gestured behind him, extending

  wicked-looking claws toward Malakili, who still wore only a loincloth

  and draped black headdress. He had washed his bare chest and polished

  his paunch to be presentable for the first time he met his new master.

  Jabba leaned forward, his large eyes blinking. A tongue as thick as a

  wet human thigh stroked a new layer of slime along his swollen lips. His

  dais slid forward, closer to the grilled opening.

  Below, the rancor paced in its dank confinement, making sounds like

  tearing wet paper. Jabba's body rumbled with pleasure. Malakili saw

  both Bib Fortuna and Bidlo Kwerve visibly relax their tense shoulders as

  they saw that Jabba was pleased. Taking heart from this, Bidlo Kwerve

  stepped forward and spoke, the first time Malakili had heard words come

  from the scarred Corellian.

  "I performed the actual capture, Master Jabba."

  His voice was high and raspy--rather whiny, Malakili thought. No wonder

  Bidlo Kwerve kept his mouth shut most of the time.

  Jabba sat up quickly, a startled reaction. Bib Fortuna waved his hands

  frantically to exercise damage control.

  "Yes, Master, what Bidlo Kwerve says is true, but I performed all of the

  . . . administrative details. You know how difficult these things can

  be."

  Jabba leaned forward again to stare at the rancor.

  He sighed with pleasure. Bib Fortuna explained the workings of the new

  trapdoor they had installed in front of the dais, anticipating how much

  amusement Jabba might get from dropping enemies into the rancor pit.

  Salacious Crumb, the loudmouth Kowakian lizard-monkey, laughed

  andjabbered atJabba's shoulder, sometimes repeating words, other times

  making his own nonsensical sentences.

  "I am most pleased," Jabba said.

  Malakili pricked up his ears but kept his face impassive.

  He had learned how to speak the Hutt's dialect many years before because

  the most bloodthirsty audiences to which the Circus Horrificus played

  consisted of coldhearted Hutts watching other creatures in pain.

  "I shall reward each of you greatly," Jabba said.

  "One of you shall become my new majordomo, my right-hand man to assist

  me and to run the palace while I'm away. The other . . . shall have an

  even greater reward, one that history will remember."

  Bib Fortuna bowed, and his head-tails lashed. He seemed tense, though

  Malakili could not understand why. Bidlo Kwerve looked satisfied and

  unconcerned.

  "Master," Fortuna said, "I shall be satisfied with the majordomo

  position. As Bidlo Kwerve has pointed out, he performed the greatest

  service to you. Please allow him to have the greater honor."

  Bidlo Kwerve shot a suspicious glance at him, blinking his ice-green

  eyes. Jabba nodded. "Good," the Hutt said.

  Kwerve stepped forward. The Corellian looked again at Bib Fortuna.

  "What did he say?" Now Malakili understood the twitching expressions on

  the Corellian's face. Bidlo Kwerve didn't understand Huttese !

  Bib Fortuna gestured him forward as he himself stepped back.

  Kwerve raised his pocked chin in the air and stood in front of Jabba,

  awaiting his reward.

  "You shall be the first victim I feed to my rancor," Jabba said.

  "I will watch your struggles and remember them for all time."

  Salacious Crumb cackled maniacally. The group of Jabba's followers in

  the throne room snickered and watched. Bidlo Kwerve looked to Bib

 
Fortuna, and it was clear he did not know what Jabba had said.

  As the Corellian's face was turned aside, Jabba punched the button that

  released the trapdoor. The floor fell out from beneath Bidlo Kwerve.

  In following years, everyone agreed that Bidlo Kwerve put up a

  spectacular fight. The Corellian had somehow managed to conceal a small

  holdout blaster in his body armor-which was strictly forbidden in

  Jabba's presence. But the rancor's sheer ferocity astonished the

  spectators even more as it devoured its first live meal since its

  capture on Tatooine.

  Malakili watched the monster's victory and felt warm inside, like a

  proud father.

  General Dentistry

  Jabba tOOk exceptional delight in his new pet over the next few months,

  devising various victims and combat situations for the monster.

  Bib Fortuna rose in prominence in the crimelord's organization.

  Malakili, though, kept to the lower levels of the palace, talking with

  only the few denizens who also preferred the dank coolness and the

  anonymity of shadows to being in plain sight of Jabba or his minions.

  In his prowls scavenging extra food for his pet, Malakili got to know

  Jabba's primary chef, Porcellus, rather well. The man was a talented

  food preparer who lived in constant fear that he would create something

  Jabba didn't like, at which point his life and his culinary skills would

  be forfeit. Malakili would toss slabs of fresh, dripping meat into the

  openings for the rancor, and the monster seemed gradually to accept him

  as its caretaker.

  For those seeking Jabba's approval, it soon became a game to find new

  combatants for the rancor. At first Malakili took the challenges with

  pride and confidence, knowing that the coiled killing machine would snap

  up any prey--but gradually he became aware that Jabba did not esteem the

  rancor as Malakili did.

  The Hutt saw it as merely a diversion, and if some monster were found

  that could defeat the rancor, then Jabba would be just as pleased to

  have a new toy.

  The Hutt had no compassion for the beautiful beast.

  He wanted only to test it and test it until it failed.

  The rancor became injured for the first time when Jabba released three

  Caridan combat arachnids into the pit. The combat arachnids had twelve

  legs each and crimson body armor splotched with maroon, as tough as a

  thin layer of diamond sheeting. Their bodies were so covered with

  needle-sharp spines that it was difficult to tell where the spines ended

  and the sharp legs began. But the jaws were very obvious, jagged

  pistons three times the size of the bullet-shaped heads and driven with

  enough power to shear open the hull of an armored transport.

  As the gates in the secondary cells were opened and the three angry

  combat arachnids rushed out with a thunder caused by three dozen legs,

  Malakili and the rancor--as if psychically connected--both reared back

  in surprise. Up above, Jabba's booming laugh, "Hoo-hoo-hoo,"

  reverberated through the observation grille along with the cheers and

  catcalls from the simpering minions who crowded around to show their

  loyalty.

  The rancor bent over and splayed its hands, blinked its small dark eyes,

  and let out a bellow of challenge. It waited for the attack.

  The three combat arachnids surged forward seemingly in silence, but

  Malakili's ears hurt from a painful high-pitched throbbing, as if the

  arachnids communicated on some hypersonic level.

  One arachnid ran directly beneath the rancor's legs. Moving too slowly

  to react to this unexpected tactic, the rancor swept the ground with its

  fistful of claws, but the combat arachnid escaped to the other side.

  While the rancor was distracted, the other two arachnids lunged at its

  leathery legs, slashing with spines. The rancor batted one creature

  away, knocking it against the wall with a crunch that split its armor

  plating open and speared the soft inner organs with broken shards.

  But the rancor howled in pain and held up its hand.

  Malakili could see dark dribbling spots where two of the arachnid's long

  spines had thrust all the way through.

  The second combat arachnid latched onto the back of the rancor's leg,

  where the taut muscles pulled like durasteel cables. The huge mandibles

  clamped down and ground together, chewing with all the mindless

  mechanical force the combat arachnid could apply.

  Snarling, the rancor bent over and tried to use its shovellike hands to

  rip the mandibles free; when it could not break their grip, it pried at

  the head of the arachnid instead.

  Finally, the third combat arachnid leaped onto the rancor's lumpy back

  from behind as the monster bent over. The third creature slashed with

  its sharp legs, stabbing with spines, tearing open a butcher's pattern

  in the rancor's hide.

  With a squeal of confusion and betrayed pain, the rancor reared up,

  stumbled backward, and slammed itself into the stone blocks of the wall.

  The rancor rammed backward again and again, shattering the hard plating

  of the arachnid clinging to its back until the thing lay in a jumble of

  twitching sharp legs on the debris-strewn flagstone floor.

  The last surviving arachnid continued to chew on the sinewy leg.

  Finally, as if numb with pain and unable to think clearly, the rancor

  grabbed the powerful mandibles and tore the monster's head completely

  off, ripping the body away and lifting it up so that it dangled a few

  strings of bright red ganglia out of its neck socket. The head remained

  clamped to the rancor's leg, still chewing in a reflex action.

  With no other outlet for his rage, the rancor hefted the spiny, armored

  body of the combat arachnid into his sword-filled mouth and bit down,

  crushing through the spiny pincushion of the arachnid's carcass.

  Bright vermilion ooze spurted out of the rancor's mouth from the

  ruptured, bloated abdomen--but it was mixed with another color of ichor

  as well, the blood of the rancor. Its mouth had been flayed, tipped to

  shreds by chomping down on the dead carcass of its last enemy.

  Malakili began to mumble in dismay. The rancor was hurt; it bled from

  many different wounds. As it continued to gnash reflexively on the

  brittle, spiked arachnid in its mouth, the rancor tore free the

  still-fastened head on its leg, yanking away a bloody gobbet of its own

  flesh as it did so.

  Malakili wanted to react, wanted to rush in and help the rancor in its

  pain--but he didn't dare. The monster was in such a blind frenzy that

  it would not know the difference between friend and enemy.

  Malakili bit down on his knuckle, trying to decide what to do as the

  rancor stood bleeding and thrashing.

  Suddenly, with a hollow thumping sound, four grenade canisters dropped

  down into the pit, spewing heavily drugged gas into the chamber.

  Impenetrable metal sheets dropped over the windows, sealing the

  ventilation shafts to keep the knockout gas inside until the rancor

  could be sufficiently stunned.

  He heard a step behind him and turned to see Gonar, one of the other

  skulking humans wh
o seemed at a loss whether to spend more time hanging

  around Malakili and watching the rancor or remaining upstairs in the

  throne room so he could earn points with Jabba.

  "Jabba wants to get the shells of those combat arachnids," Gonar said,

  nodding like a marionette.

  His nose was turned up and flat, like a Gamorrean's, and his hair hung

  in greasy reddish curls as if he styled it with fresh blood.

  Dazed, Malakili held a hand to his paunch, about to be sick.

  "What?"

  "The carapaces," Gonar said. "Very hard and jewel-like.

  Combat arachnids are raised for their chitin as well as their fighting

  abilities. Didn't you know?"

  Finally, after the rancor had slumped into unconsciousness, the sleeping

  gas was pumped out and the large access doors raised up, their bottoms

  jagged like teeth, as Jabba's crew of Gamorrean guards stumped in to

  haul away the broken remains of the arachnids.

  Malakili pushed past them and rushed forward to the grunting, snoring

  hulk of his pet monster. The Gamorrean guards used a hydraulic winch.

  to open the rancor's gigantic jaws, prying the fang-filled maw apart so

  they could remove the armored carcass of the combat arachnid.

  The guards were not terribly bright, in Malakili's opinion, and they did