Tales From Jabba's Palace

by Kevin J. Anderson

  His plans would have to change, and change quickly. Once out of Jabba's

  favor, he would not live long.

  Fortuna quickly analyzed his situation. Perhaps Jabba had been correct

  about his being weak-minded: looking back, Fortuna could believe that

  Skywalker had influenced his mind--but this was no time for self-doubt,

  not if he were to survive. He wondered how much of his plansJabba

  guessed or knew. Much, probably: he would not have reacted violently if

  he still trusted Fortuna and his judgment. Fortuna let his intuition

  touch the minds of his supporters, and he was startled: it took no

  special training in intuition to sense the contempt some now felt for

  him. Three were even inclined to unmask Fortuna's plot.

  Fortuna realized that, under the circumstances, his plans might have to

  become even more abbreviated--before his support eroded further. The

  arrogant "Jedi" was thrown to the rancor, and in the commotion that

  followed, with everyone crowding around to watch the rancor eat

  Skywalker, no one noticed Fortuna steal away for a moment. He soon

  returned. If his plans had to change quickly--from days, to hours, to

  perhaps minutes--he could accommodate that. He now had the stolen

  thermal detonator in his pocket, and he kept a hand on it.

  Things did change quickly: Skywalker managed to kill the rancor--to

  everyone's surprise. Why couldn't he have come earlier?

  Fortuna wondered. Nat would still be in his body, and valuable slaves

  and others--including a talented dancing girl--would still be alive.

  Jabba ordered Skywalker, the Wookiee, and Solo thrown to the Sarlacc and

  began making preparations for everyone of importance to fly out with him

  on his barge to witness the executions: and Fortuna and fourteen sets of

  plotters saw their best chance materialize.

  Jabba would never return alive from that trip.

  Fortuna decided he would set off the thermal detonator just after he

  escaped from the barge: killing Jabba and all thoseJabba had shamed him

  in front of.

  He regretted the probable loss of Solo's body, but would find another

  for Nat. Fortuna methodically completed preparations for his coup. He

  had his private skiff placed on the barge for his escape. He left

  orders for the monks to take over the palace when everyone left with

  Jabba. He sent out codes that froze all of Jabba's accounts.

  His plot was in motion.

  All the plots were in motion. Fortuna sat back and, during the ride

  across the sand, contemplated the many ways Jabba could die on this

  trip. The situation was enormously amusing. R2-D2, one of the

  Rebellion's droids, rolled up and offered him his choice of drinks,

  delicate little sandwiches, pickled effrikim worms (they had finally

  come in) sure to delightJabba --and sure to kill him: the worms were all

  poisoned.

  Half the drinks were poisoned. The poison was a slow one--those who

  ingested it would not notice its effect for quite some time.

  Fortuna could tell which glasses were safe, and he drank freely. He

  watched Jabba eat a handful of effrikim worms and start the process of

  his death. Fortuna quietly set the thermal detonator to make sure of

  it.

  C-3PO approached Fortuna and bowed. "Master Fortuna," he said.

  "May I ask you a question?"

  "Certainly."

  "Has anyone ever been rescued from the Sarlacc?"

  "Not to my knowledge," Fortuna said, and he turned away, not wanting to

  be bothered with a droid's worries. Still, he wondered why the droid

  would ask about rescue from the Sarlacc. Fortuna's intuition could not

  tell him--it was difficult to unravel the motives of mechanical beings.

  But Fortuna guessed at devotion in the droid.

  Perhaps another plot was being born here: one to come out to somehow

  rescue a former master. It touched Fortuna. He thought that, if such

  devotion could be turned to him, he would welcome it. He turned back to

  the droid.

  "See-Threepio," he said quietly. "My private skiff is hidden near the

  aft ventilation grate. Go and wait by it. When you see me running

  toward it, uncover the skiff and climb in."

  But the droid never had a chance to go to the skiff.

  It lingered to witness the executions, and the unexpected took place.

  The Rebels proved harder to execute than Jabba anticipated, and fighting

  broke out.

  In the commotion, Fortuna lost sight of C-3PO. He never knew what

  became of the droid. But Fortuna stayed on the barge just long enough

  to learn what actually killed Jabba. It wasn't the poison. It wasn't

  any of the assassins after their various rewards. It wasn't, in the

  end, the rigged thermal detonator: Leia, the former princess, strangled

  Jabba with her chains. Fortuna watched Jabba die, then hurried to his

  skiff.

  He thought he should have expected the unexpected.

  It was the way of the universe: always to surprise.

  The trip back to the palace was a pleasure to Fortuna.

  The light from the thermal detonation came exactly when he expected it,

  and the shock wave seemed a pleasant wind: a wind of change. He

  encountered no Sand People, no sandstorms, no Jawas, even.

  It was as if, after the explosion, the desert were waiting for something

  more.

  He arrived at the palace in the evening. The gates opened to him at

  once. Monks met him inside: they had taken the palace.

  "Master Fortuna," one of them said. "Did things go as planned on the

  barge?"

  "Jabba is dead. I am in charge now. Call the high monks to the throne

  room: I must speak with them."

  He had been careful not to call it Jabba's throne room. It was his now.

  Fortuna hurried there and began keying important information into the

  palace security systems: code words had to be changed, security

  clearances upgraded or denied, the robotic defense systems put at full

  alert. Attacks could come from many quarters at a time like this.

  But suddenly the main terminal went dead. Then all the terminals went

  dead. The lights overhead flickered and went out. Fortuna had light

  from only the candles and torches in their niches.

  He hurried across the throne roommand found the main doorway closed and

  locked.

  It had all happened so quietly.

  And he knew at once what had happened.

  The monks had betrayed him. Somehow, they had sensed his intentions

  toward them. He should have realized the monks would not want to

  replace one set of criminals with another--when they could have the

  whole palace to themselves. It took no special gift of intuition to

  realize that. He suddenly wondered what he had learned about intuition

  from the monks, after all--parlor games, children's tricks?

  There were depths here he had not guessed.

  But there were many ways out of the throne room and the palace.

  He could complete his coup from the town house in Mos Eisley--then come

  back to take the palace from the monks.

  He rushed to the first secret exit, but it was blocked. Every exit was

  blocked. Fortuna ran to Jabba's dais and hit the button that would drop

  the gri
lle to the rancor's pit--there were two secret ways out of the

  pit

  --but it would not drop open.

  Fortuna was trapped.

  The secret caches of arms were all emptied. Fortuna had his blaster,

  but one blaster could not hold off an army of monks.

  A terminal flickered to life. A message was typed across its screen.

  Fortuna hurried to it and read: You have progressed rapidly on your

  spiritual path, Brother For-tuna.

  Your quest is at an end. Prepare yourself for enlightenment.

  Fortuna gripped the terminal for a moment, trying to breathe, then he

  attempted to enter a reply. The terminal would not accept one. He

  would have liked to bargain with the high monks--honestly this time--but

  he doubted they would have listened. They were not coming to the throne

  room, in any case. He knew who would come. for him.

  Fortuna sat on one end of Jabba's throne and put his hands in his lap.

  He knew it would be one of the last times he would feel his hands, and

  they were suddenly very dear to him. He looked down at his body, and it

  was very dear to him.

  For a time, he wondered about little things he might never have answers

  to: how many of Jabba's staff had the cook managed to poison on the

  barge before he poisoned Jabba himself? How long would it take the

  monks to sweep up the sand that generations of criminals had tracked

  into the palace? What would the cooks do with the grease he had had

  them save?

  He heard a sound in the main passageway beyond the throne room.

  It was unmistakable. He drew his blaster and considered using it

  against himself, but did not. He set it aside, on the empty throne, and

  listened to the squeaks of the approaching surgeons' cart. The Great God

  Quay: The Tale of Barada and the Weequays

  by George Alec Effinger

  Barada came from Klatooine originally, and at night he dreamed that he

  was still there, feeling the fresh wind of his homeworld on his face. Of

  course, in his dreams, his face wasn't yet deformed and scarred, and in

  his dreams he wasn't the virtual prisoner and slave of the Hutt. At

  night, as he slept on his bunk, Barada was still young and hopeful and

  filled with plans to leave Klatooine behind and find adventure on some

  more exciting planet in the vast Empire.

  Then morning would come, and Barada would awaken. He would blink a few

  times, the dream memories of his family and childhood home fading slowly

  from his thoughts. Klatooine, he'd think grimly. Adventure.

  He'd sit up and rub his face with his large, strong hands. He'd never

  see his homeworld again, he knew. He'd spend the rest of his life on

  this desert planet, caring for the Hutt's repulsor fleet.

  Barada shrugged. It was as good a life as any, and better than some.

  All he really lacked was liberty, and in the Empire that was a fairly

  common situation. His needs were met, and as for his wants, he was free

  to dream about them as much as he liked.

  This morning, Barada's only concern was finding six rocker-panel cotter

  pins for the AE-35 unit that helped keep the Hutt's sail barge aloft.

  The shipment of parts that Barada had ordered weeks ago had never

  arrived; if he couldn't find the pins in the scrap heap, he'd have to

  make replacements the hard way, in his shop.

  It was a bright, clear day on the Dune Sea, the kind of weather that the

  Hutt preferred. Barada squinted in the fierce sunshine as he left the

  barracks building.

  He'd walked only a few yards before two armed Wee-quay guards joined

  him, one on either side.

  "I do something?" Barada asked, "What'd I do?"

  The gray-skinned Weequays didn't answer. Barada had never heard them

  speak. They just walked beside him, carrying their force pikes.

  He wasn't happy about their company.

  "The Hutt send you to get me?" he asked. There was only silence from

  the Weequays. He turned in the direction of the scrap heap behind the

  Hutt's palace, and the Weequays followed. They were among the most

  merciless fighters in the Hutt's retinue, but if they'd wanted Barada

  dead, injured, or in irons, it would already have happened. The

  Weequays were as inscrutable as any species in the Empire, so for the

  time being there was nothing for Barada to do but ignore them.

  Finally, he decided to pretend they weren't even there, and to go on

  with what he'd planned for the morning.

  The blazing summer sun and desert climate made the scrap heap an

  unpleasant destination. Barada could smell the stench long before he

  could see his goal. Garbage and trash of every kind had been piled up

  in a gigantic mound. The Klatooinan shook his head and frowned. He

  really didn't want to do it, but he waded hip-deep into the rotting food

  and discarded machinery, searching for a half-dozen small metal parts.

  "You guys want to help me out here?" he said, shading his eyes with one

  hand. The Weequays only stared at him. Barada muttered a curse in his

  native language and went back to work.

  Five minutes later, the mechanic made his discovery.

  It wasn't the rocker-panel cotter pins he had been looking for, or any

  kind of useful machinery. It was just a dead body. "Ak-Buz," Barada

  murmured, recognizing the corpse. Ak-Buz, the captain of the Hutt's

  sail barge.

  The Weequays glanced at each other and stepped closer. They still

  didn't say anything, but at least they had shown some interest.

  Together, they hauled Ak-Buz's body out of the garbage and laid it on

  the ground.

  Barada grunted. "No marks," he said. "Whoever killed the guy didn't

  leave any marks on the body."

  He looked from one Weequay to the other. "Anzat.

  It's an Anzat killed him: Anzat don't leave marks."

  If the Weequays were impressed, they didn't show it.

  They squatted beside Ak-Buz's body and examined it for a few minutes.

  Then they stood up and started to walk away. Barada followed. "There's

  been a lot of dead bodies turning up," he said.

  The Weequays halted and faced him. One reached out and put his hand on

  Barada's chest. The other pointed back to the scrap heap. "Sure," said

  the mechanic, "none of my business. I get it. I guess I'll just go

  look for those pins now. Want me to do anything with our friend

  Ak-Buz?"

  He got no answer, of course.

  The Weequays shouldered their force pikes and marched off in step toward

  their own quarters. They stared straight ahead, not even changing

  expressions, until they'd arrived at the small building that housed the

  Hutt's Weequay contingent. They went inside. There were more Weequays

  in the Hutt's employ, but

  they were away attending to other matters.

  "Alone now," said Weequay. "We can talk," said the other Weequay.

  Weequays have no individual names; it never seems to cause

  them any difficulty, though.

  "Trouble."

  Weequay nodded. He put his force pike down on his bunk. "Too many

  dead."

  "Even stupid Barada knows that."

  The Weequays paused, possibly in thought. "We

  must have a meeting," said one finally.
>
  "Agreed," said the other.

  The Weequays sat down at a plank table, across from each other.

  One put slips of paper and writing styluses between them. This was the

  first activity at any proper Weequay meeting: the election of officers.

  "There are two of us. One will be president, the other

  secretary-treasurer."

  "Agreed."

  Each took a blank piece of paper and a stylus, marked his secret ballot,

  and folded it in half.

  "We will read them together." They unfolded the papers and counted the

  votes. "There are two votes for Weequay for president, and two votes

  for Weequay for secretary-treasurer."

  "It is done," said the other. "I am now president.

  You, secretary, must record these proceedings for future review."

  The Weequay secretary put a small electronic recording device on the

  table between them.

  "Good. Now I ask, will we tell Jabba of this most recent murder?"

  The secretary shook his head. "No, we can't. Not until we find the

  killer."

  More time passed in silence. "We must ask the god," said the Weequay

  president.