Return of the Jedi (Junior Novelization)

by Ryder Windham

  Obviously, Boba Fett had collected Jabba’s bounty for Han Solo. And Han had been hanging on Jabba’s wall ever since.

  R2-D2 let out a worried beep.

  Jabba instructed the Gamorrean guard to take C-3PO and R2-D2 to the cyborg operations supervisor. Leaving the throne room, the Gamorrean marched the two droids down a shadowy passageway that was lined with holding cells. Cries from imprisoned creatures echoed off the cold stone walls.

  “What could possibly have come over Master Luke?” C-3PO wondered aloud. “Is it something I did? He never expressed any unhappiness with my work.” C-3PO saw a repulsive hand reach out between the bars of a cell door and try to grab him. “Oh! Oh!” the protocol droid exclaimed. “How horrid!” Trying to avoid the hand, he moved to the other side of the passage. A long tentacle snaked out from between the bars of another cell door, and C-3PO felt the tentacle wrap around his neck.

  “Ohh!” he wailed as he pulled himself free.

  R2-D2 beeped pitifully as they moved to a thick metal door at the end of the passage. The door slid up into the ceiling, revealing a boiler room filled with steam and noisy machinery. The guard motioned R2-D2 and C-3PO into the boiler room, where a second guard awaited them.

  Proceeding through the chamber, C-3PO noticed a white-metal 8D8 smelting droid who operated a rotating vise; the vise held a power droid, and the 8D8 rotated the power droid into an inverted position. When the power droid’s two legs were positioned above its upside-down body, the 8D8 lowered red-hot branding irons onto its blocky feet. C-3PO cringed as the power droid let out an agonized electronic screech.

  A few steps beyond the rotating vise, they arrived before Jabba’s cyborg operations supervisor: a tall, skeletal robot named Eve-Ninedenine, who stood before an ancient, rickety computer console. C-3PO was distracted by the horrific sight of a nearby humanoid droid who was stretched out on what appeared to be a vertical torture rack, which was slowly pumping up and down, tugging at the unfortunate victim’s manacled limbs.

  Looking up at C-3PO and R2-D2, Eve-Ninedenine said, “Ah, good. New acquisitions.” The robot’s synthesized female voice sounded as if it had been stolen from an elderly prison matron, and as she spoke, her hinged vocoder flapped up and down beneath her sharp metal chin. Sizing up C-3PO, Eve-Ninedenine said, “You are a protocol droid, are you not?”

  “I am See-Threepio, Human Cy—”

  “Yes or no will do,” Eve-Ninedenine interrupted.

  “Oh,” C-3PO said. “Well, yes.”

  Ninedenine said, “How many languages do you speak?”

  “I am fluent in over six million forms of communication and can readily—”

  “Splendid!” Eve-Ninedenine said, cutting off C-3PO again. “We have been without an interpreter since our master got angry with our last protocol droid and disintegrated him.”

  Hearing this, and remembering the incident, one Gamorrean guard clutched his broad belly and chuckled.

  “Disintegrated?” C-3PO gasped, his voice filled with panic. Then he heard a snapping sound from the torture rack, and turned to see the upper rack had lifted higher than its mechanical victim’s limbs could extend. Sparks exploded from the poor droid’s arm and leg sockets.

  Eve-Ninedenine rotated her head to one of the Gamorreans and said, “Guard! This protocol droid might be useful. Fit him with a restraining bolt and take him back up to His Excellency’s main audience chamber.”

  The Gamorrean shoved C-3PO toward the door. The golden droid yelled, “Artoo, don’t leave me! Ohhh!”

  R2-D2 let out a plaintive cry as the door closed. Then he rotated his dome and beeped angrily at Eve-Ninedenine.

  “You’re a feisty little one,” Eve-Ninedenine said, “but you’ll soon learn some respect. I have need for you on the master’s sail barge. And I think you’ll fill in nicely.”

  The smelting droid lowered the branding irons again on the upside-down power droid’s feet, and again the power droid screeched. R2-D2, who’d visited many inhospitable places in his long lifetime, decided that Jabba’s palace was the absolute worst.

  If any other crime lord had received a slightly threatening holographic message from someone who claimed to be a Jedi Knight, the crime lord might have prepared to negotiate, flee to another planet, or surrender entirely. But Jabba was not just any other crime lord, so he decided to throw a party.

  It was a lewd and noisy affair, with semi-clad alien females gyrating to the rhythms of the Max Rebo band. On the bandstand, Max Rebo—a blue-skinned Ortolan who played a Red Ball Jett organ—performed a relatively slow tune; he was accompanied by a froglike Shawda Ubb named Rapotwanalantonee—everyone called him Rappertunie—who played the growdi, a combination flute and water organ. While the music played, the nubile Twi’lek Oola danced evocatively beside the fleshy rumblings of Yarna d’al Gargan on the floor in front of Jabba’s dais. From his dais, Jabba kept his grip on Oola’s leash as he drooled and watched her green body move.

  Although Jabba may have appeared carefree, he had taken at least two precautions against the possible arrival of Luke Skywalker. First, he had instructed Bib Fortuna to make sure Skywalker didn’t set foot inside the palace. Second, he’d made sure that his party included one particularly well-armed guest: Boba Fett.

  Wearing the helmet he’d inherited from his father, Boba Fett was completely concealed within his weapon-laden suit, which included wrist-rocket gauntlets, kneepad rocket dart launchers, spring-loaded boot spikes, a turbo-projected grappling hook, and a bulky missile-firing jet backpack. His preferred weapon was a BlasTech EE-3 blaster rifle that he’d modified to fire with one hand; it was rarely out of his grip.

  Fett had done various jobs for Jabba over the years, starting when he was a young boy, primarily as an enforcer. To most debtors, the very idea of receiving a visit from the merciless bounty hunter was good enough reason to make sure they paid Jabba on time. Boba Fett stood near the alcove that displayed the carbonite-frozen Han Solo and surveyed the throne room.

  To the bounty hunter, everyone in the palace was a suspicious character, so all he could really do was stand back and watch for Skywalker. But Fett watched the band’s three female alien backup singers, too. One of them, a beautiful red-haired ungulate in a form-fitting body glove, looked down from the stage and winked at him.

  Boba Fett’s presence was also noticed by C-3PO. Having encountered him before, the golden droid kept his distance.

  The music came to a close and Rappertunie bowed his small, chubby head to the audience. Jabba tugged at Oola’s leash and said in Huttese, “Ah! Do that again!”

  One of Max Rebo’s singers, a short, furry alien named Joh Yowza, thought Jabba was demanding another tune. In a deep, raspy voice, Yowza called out, “One, two, three!”

  This prompted Rappertunie to start playing another song, but it wasn’t the one Yowza wanted. Yowza shouted, “No, daddy, no! One, two, three!”

  The entire band kicked in, and the three backup singers slinked onto the stage. The drunken audience hooted and yowled when lead singer Sy Snootles—a spindly-legged temptress with blue-spotted yellow-green skin—strutted out from behind the other singers and seized the microphone. Snootles’ most notable physical feature was her mouth, which was at the end of a thirty-centimeter-long protrusion extending from her brightly mottled head. Her full, luscious lips were painted bright red.

  Although Max Rebo had been leading his ensemble through a variation on a popular jizz-wailer standard, Sy Snootles slyly batted her long eyelashes and began belting out improvised lyrics that would have been officially banned by the Empire. Members of the audience found this amusing, except for the prudish Bib Fortuna, who was mortified. As for C-3PO, the protocol droid was completely bewildered by Sy Snootles’ blatant misuse of several verbs.

  While the music played, Jabba—with a lascivious gleam in his eye—beckoned Oola to come sit with him. The Hutt bellowed, “Da eitha!”

  Oola stopped dancing and backed away,
shaking her head. “Na chuba negatori Na! Na! Natoota…”

  Furious, Jabba pulled hard at the leash, pointed to his dais, and commanded, “Boscka!”

  Oola pulled back on the taut leash and continued to protest.

  Jabba slammed his fist down on a button. Before Oola could step aside, a trapdoor opened beneath her and she plummeted through the floor. The musicians and singers went silent and looked to the spot where Oola had vanished. The trapdoor snapped shut and Jabba’s cretinous friends hurried to peer down through the metal grating to view a deep pit below the floor.

  Oola tumbled out of the hole and onto the dirt floor of the deep, high-walled pit. She rose quickly and stood to face a large iron door that was set into one of the pit’s walls. Oola trembled as the door began to rise, and a muffled growl came from the other side. She knew what was coming, and that she was about to die, but she had already decided that death was preferable to spending one more moment as Jabba’s slave.

  While Jabba’s friends looked down through the grating to watch Oola meet her doom, C-3PO shook his head and turned away. He glanced wistfully at the carbonite form of Han Solo, and wondered if he’d ever leave Jabba’s palace in one piece.

  Suddenly, there was the sound of blasterfire from a nearby stairway. C-3PO and everyone else turned to face the steps that led up to the citadel’s main entrance. One of Jabba’s bolder goons ran up the steps to find the source of the blasterfire, but a moment later he came falling back and landed in an unconscious heap on the floor.

  Fett had heard the blast and seen the goon fall, but that sort of violence wasn’t unusual in the palace. He returned his attention to Rystáll, the alluring singer who’d captured his attention and now stood close beside him, admiring his helmet. Using his helmet’s targeting rangefinder, he kept an eye on the nearby stairway.

  Two figures descended the steps and entered the throne room. The first was a bounty hunter completely clad in leather, including a head-concealing helmet with a metal speech scrambler and head bracket; the bracket was equipped with a vision-plus scanner and built-in targeting laser. In one leather-gloved hand, the hunter carried a long lance tipped with a shock blade. The other hand held a leash that was secured to a collar around the neck of the second figure: a tall, furry Wookiee, who appeared weak and dazed.

  Keeping a firm grip on the leash, the masked hunter bowed to Jabba. Then, in a digitally scrambled male voice that sounded like a scratchy, guttural monotone, the hunter said in Ubese, “I am Boushh. I have come for the bounty on this Wookiee.”

  Hearing this, C-3PO peeked out from behind Jabba’s henchmen and quietly cried, “Oh, no! Chewbacca!”

  Jabba didn’t speak Ubese, but he did recognize the captive Wookiee. From his dais, Jabba grinned and said, “At last we have the mighty Chewbacca.”

  The Hutt summoned C-3PO. Stepping up beside him, the protocol droid said, “Oh, us, yes, uh, I am here, Your Worshipfulness. Uh…yes!”

  Jabba made a statement in Huttese. C-3PO turned to Boushh and translated, “Oh, the illustrious Jabba bids you welcome and will gladly pay you the reward of twenty-five thousand.”

  Boushh answered in Ubese, “I want fifty thousand. No less.”

  Turning to Jabba, C-3PO translated, “Fifty thousand. No less.”

  Aghast, Jabba flew into a rage. One of his thick arms lashed out and pushed the protocol droid, who fell off the dais and clattered to the floor below. Boushh casually transferred the lance from one hand to the other, so both the lance and leash were held in the hunter’s right glove.

  Rising from the floor, C-3PO muttered, “Oh, oh…but what, what did I say?”

  Jabba addressed Boushh. As Jabba spoke, Boba Fett stepped away from Rystáll and moved to stand where he had a clear view of both Boushh and the Wookiee.

  Jabba finished talking and looked at C-3PO. Switching back to Ubese, C-3PO faced Boushh and said, “Uh, the mighty Jabba asks why he must pay fifty thousand.”

  Boushh’s left hand reached into an ammo pocket, removed a metal orb, and thumbed a switch on the orb. As a small light flashed at the switch’s base, Boushh answered.

  Cringing, C-3PO nervously translated, “Because he’s holding a thermal detonator!”

  Max Rebo covered his eyes with his stubby blue fingers, and Salacious Crumb—along with almost everyone else—dived for protective cover.

  But Fett didn’t hesitate, drawing his blaster rifle with incredible speed and aiming its barrel at Boushh. He recognized the thermal detonator as a Class-A type that would yield a blast radius of about twenty meters. He could also determine from the detonator’s activation indicator light that Boushh had the trigger’s control pins programmed to act as a deadman’s switch: if Boushh’s thumb came off the detonator’s trigger, everyone and everything within the throne room—except for maybe a few pieces of Fett’s armor—would be instantly disintegrated. Despite his reflexes, Boba Fett knew he wouldn’t make it out of the room fast enough, but he wasn’t about to die cowering on the floor.

  A tense silence filled the throne room. Then Jabba the Hutt tilted his massive head back and began to laugh. When he caught his breath, he gestured to Boushh and said in Huttese, “This bounty hunter is my kind of scum…fearless and inventive.”

  Seeing that Jabba seemed to be in control of the situation, Fett lowered his blaster rifle slightly. Jabba made an offer to Boushh, which C-3PO translated: “Jabba offers the sum of thirty-five.” Facing Boushh, the golden droid added, “And I do suggest you take it.”

  Boushh deactivated the thermal detonator and said, “Zeebuss.”

  “He agrees!” C-3PO exclaimed with immense relief. The throne room was filled with cheers and applause, and the raucous party resumed.

  A pair of Gamorrean guards grabbed Chewbacca and hauled him out of the room. Boushh spoke briefly to C-3PO, then Bib Fortuna leaned in and muttered something about financial arrangements to Boushh. Bib stepped away, then both Boushh and C-3PO turned to see Boba Fett watching them from across the room. Fett slowly nodded his helmeted head to mutely acknowledge the other hunter.

  Time and again, Fett had proven that he didn’t have any real competition in the bounty hunter trade. However, Boushh had just demonstrated that even he could be caught unprepared.

  Boba Fett was determined it wouldn’t happen again.

  The Gamorrean guards led Chewbacca down a curved stairway to the dungeon. But before the Wookiee left the throne room, he caught sight of an armored man who wielded a large vibro-ax. A bizarre helmet with a fang-adorned strap concealed the man’s features, but Chewbacca saw through Lando Calrissian’s disguise.

  Lando had used an old underworld contact on Tatooine to secure a guard job at Jabba’s palace, where he’d been assigned work—under the name Tamtel Skreej—on one of the Hutt’s sand skiffs. It had pained Lando to watch the Gamorreans shove Chewbacca toward the doorway that led to the dungeon, but he let it happen because he knew the time had not yet come to fight.

  Night fell on Tatooine, and darkness flooded Jabba’s palace. When the drinks had all been poured and the last reveler had either left or passed out, a single figure stepped silently through the throne room. It was Boushh.

  Boushh moved stealthily past a group of snoring, drunken creatures. Arriving before the display alcove, the bounty hunter looked up at the carbonite slab that contained Han Solo’s frozen form. Below the slab, the floor was covered with sand. If there were any concealed security devices, Boushh did not see them.

  Boushh stepped into the alcove and found two illuminated buttons on the wall, just below a curtained lift shaft. A press of the lower button deactivated the force field that held the slab suspended in the air. The slab slowly lowered to the floor—at least until it unexpectedly teetered and fell back, smacking against the wall with a loud thud.

  Boushh glanced around and made sure that the nearby creatures were still sleeping. They were, and Boushh’s attention returned to the slab that now leaned upright against the
wall.

  Control panels were set along the outer side edges of the carbonite frame. Boushh pressed a button beside the carbonite flux monitor, then slid the decarbonization lever and watched a green light flicker on the life system monitor.

  The case began to emit a sound as the hard shell that covered the contours of Han’s face began to melt away. Boushh watched bright energy spill out of the broken carbon shell. Sooner than expected, the metallic coat of carbonite drained off, and Han’s slack body fell forward, away from the slab, collapsing on the sandy floor.

  Boushh knelt beside Han and struggled to raise him. His hair and skin were wet and cold, and he was shaking all over.

  Speaking in Basic, Boushh’s scratchy, digitized voice said, “Just relax for a moment. You’re free of the carbonite.”

  Han opened his eyes and reached for Boushh’s mask.

  “Shhh,” Boushh said. “You have hibernation sickness.”

  “I can’t see,” Han said.

  “Your eyesight will return in time,” Boushh replied, helping him up to a sitting position.

  Han continued to shake. “Where am I?”

  “Jabba’s palace.”

  “Who are you?”

  Boushh reached up to remove the leather and metal helmet, revealing the face of Princess Leia. In her own voice, she said, “Someone who loves you.”

  “Leia!”

  Leia kissed Han. She’d feared she’d never see him again, at least not alive, but here he was in her arms. For all the lost time, and because time was precious, she had to kiss him.

  Then she remembered where they were. Her lips left his and she said, “I gotta get you out of here.” She wrapped her arms around his torso and pulled him up to his feet.

  Then they both heard a sound: a low, rumbling guffaw.

  “What’s that?” Han asked, straining his temporarily blinded eyes to seek out the source of laughter in the darkness. “I know that laugh.”

  Above the alcove, a curtain slid back from the lift shaft, revealing Jabba the Hutt and his chortling minions. Han and Leia slowly turned to face the crime lord. Salacious Crumb sat within the folds of Jabba’s curved, meaty tail. Behind Jabba, C-3PO stood between Bib Fortuna and a three-eyed Gran named Ree-Yees. C-3PO had been unable to caution Leia because Ree-Yees’ right hand was plastered over his vocoder.