by George Lucas
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 stormtroopers 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 were 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! Back-awa!” 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 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 paindroids. Needles, pressure points, fire-knives, elec-trojabbers. 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.”
Han stepped forward to give the bloated slime pot his last thoughts, in case all else failed. “You tell that slimy piece of worm-ridden filth—”
Unfortunately, Han was facing into the desert, away from the Sail Barge. Chewie reached over and turned Solo around, so he was now properly facing the piece of worm-ridden filth he was addressing.
Han nodded, without stopping. “—worm-ridden filth he’ll get no such pleasure from us.”
Chewie made a few growly noises of general agreement.
Luke was ready. “Jabba, this is your last chance,” he shouted. “Free us or die.” He shot a quick look to Lando, who moved unobtrusively toward the back of the skiff. This was it, Lando figured—they’d just toss the guards overboard and take off under everyone’s nose.
The monsters on the barge roared with laughter. Artoo, during this commotion, rolled silently up the ramp to the side of the upper deck.
Jabba raised his hand, and his minions were quiet. “I’m sure you’re right, my young Jedi friend,” he smiled. Then he turned his thumb down. “Put him in.”
The spectators cheered, as Luke was prodded to the edge of the plank by Weequay. Luke looked up at Artoo, standin
g alone by the rail, and flipped the little droid a jaunty salute. At that prearranged signal, a flap slid open in Artoo’s domed head, and a projectile shot high into the air and curved in a gentle arc over the desert.
Luke jumped off the plank; another bloodthirsty cheer went up. In less than a second, though, Luke had spun around in freefall, and caught the end of the plank with his fingertips. The thin metal bent wildly from his weight, paused near to snapping, then catapulted him up. In mid-air he did a complete flip and dropped down in the middle of the plank—the spot he’d just left, only now behind the confused guards. Casually, he extended his arm to his side, palm up—and suddenly, his lightsaber, which Artoo had shot sailing toward him, dropped neatly into his open hand.
With Jedi speed, Luke ignited his sword and attacked the guard at the skiff-edge of the plank, sending him, screaming, overboard into the twitching mouth of the Sarlacc.
The other guards swarmed toward Luke. Grimly he waded into them, lightsaber flashing.
His own lightsaber—not his father’s. He had lost his father’s in the duel with Darth Vader in which he’d lost his hand as well. Darth Vader, who had told Luke he was his father.
But this lightsaber Luke had fashioned himself, in Obi-Wan Kenobi’s abandoned hut on the other side of Tatooine—made with the old Master Jedi’s tools and parts, made with love and craft and dire need. He wielded it now as if it were fused to his hand; as if it were an extension of his own arm. This lightsaber, truly, was Luke’s.
He cut through the onslaught like a light dissolving shadows.
Lando grappled with the helmsman, trying to seize the controls of the skiff. The helmsman’s laser pistol fired, blasting the nearby panel; and the skiff lurched to the side, throwing another guard into the pit, knocking everyone else into a pile on the deck. Luke picked himself up and ran toward the helmsman, lightsaber raised. The creature retreated at the overpowering sight, stumbled … and he, too, went over the edge, into the maw.
The bewildered guard landed in the soft, sandy slope of the pit and began an inexorable slide down toward the toothy, viscous opening. He clawed desperately at the sand, screaming. Suddenly a muscled tentacle oozed out of the Sarlacc’s mouth, slithered up the caked sand, coiled tightly around the helmsman’s ankle, and pulled him into the hole with a grotesque slurp.
All this happened in a matter of seconds. When he saw what was happening, Jabba exploded in a rage, and yelled furious commands at those around him. In a moment, there was general uproar, with creatures running through every door. It was during this directionless confusion that Leia acted.
She jumped onto Jabba’s throne, grabbed the chain which enslaved her, and wrapped it around his bulbous throat. Then she dove off the other side of the support, pulling the chain violently in her grasp. The small metal rings buried themselves in the loose folds of the Hutt’s neck, like a garrote.
With a strength beyond her own strength, she pulled. He bucked with his huge torso, nearly breaking her fingers, nearly yanking her arms from their sockets. He could get no leverage, his bulk was too unwieldy. But just his sheer mass was almost enough to break any mere physical restraint.
Yet Leia’s hold was not merely physical. She closed her eyes, closed out the pain in her hands, focused all of her life-force—and all it was able to channel—into squeezing the breath from the horrid creature.
She pulled, she sweated, she visualized the chain digging millimeter by millimeter deeper into Jabba’s windpipe—as Jabba wildly thrashed, frantically twisted from this least expected of foes.
With a last gasping effort, Jabba tensed every muscle and lurched forward. His reptilian eyes began to bulge from their sockets as the chain tightened; his oily tongue flopped from his mouth. His thick tail twitched in spasms of effort, until he finally lay still—deadweight.
Leia set about trying to free herself from the chain at her neck, while outside, the battle began to rage.
Boba Fett ignited his rocket pack, leaped into the air, and with a single effort flew down from the barge to the skiff just as Luke finished freeing Han and Chewie from their bonds. Boba aimed his laser gun at Luke, but before he could fire, the young Jedi spun around, sweeping his lightsword in an arc that sliced the bounty hunter’s gun in half.
A series of blasts suddenly erupted from the large cannon on the upper deck of the barge, hitting the skiff broadside, and rocking it forty degrees askew. Lando was tossed from the deck, but at the last moment he grabbed a broken strut and dangled desperately above the Sarlacc. This development was definitely not in his game plan, and he vowed to himself never again to get involved in a con that he didn’t run from start to finish.
The skiff took another direct hit from the barge’s deck gun, throwing Chewie and Han against the rail. Wounded, the Wookiee howled in pain. Luke looked over at his hairy friend; whereupon Boba Fett, taking advantage of that moment of distraction, fired a cable from out of his armored sleeve.
The cable wrapped itself several times around Luke, pinning his arms to his sides, his sword arm now free only from the wrist down. He bent his wrist, so the lightsaber pointed straight up … and then spun toward Boba along the cable. In a moment, the lightsaber touched the end of the wire lasso, cutting through it instantly. Luke shrugged the cable away, just as another blast hit the skiff, knocking Boba unconscious to the deck. Unfortunately this explosion also dislodged the strut from which Lando was hanging, sending him careening into the Sarlacc’s pit.
Luke was shaken by the explosion, but unhurt. Lando hit the sandy slope, shouted for help, and tried to scramble out. The loose sand only tumbled him deeper toward the gaping hole. Lando closed his eyes and tried to think of all the ways he might give the Sarlacc a thousand years of indigestion. He bet himself three to two he could outlast anybody else in the creature’s stomach. Maybe if he talked that last guard out of his uniform …
“Don’t move!” Luke screamed, but his attention was immediately diverted by the incoming second skiff, full of guards firing their weapons.
It was a Jedi rule-of-thumb, but it took the soldiers in the second skiff by surprise: when outnumbered, attack. This drives the force of the enemy in toward himself. Luke jumped directly into the center of the skiff and immediately began decimating them in their midst with lightning sweeps of his lightsaber.
Back in the other boat, Chewie tried to untangle himself from the wreckage, as Han struggled blindly to his feet. Chewie barked at him, trying to direct him toward a spear lying loose on the deck.
Lando screamed, starting to slide closer to the glistening jaws. He was a gambling man, but he wouldn’t have taken long odds on his chances of escape right now.
“Don’t move, Lando!” Han called out. “I’m coming!” Then, to Chewie: “Where is it, Chewie?” He swung his hands frantically over the deck as Chewie growled directions, guiding Solo’s movements. At last, Han locked onto the spear.
Boba Fett stumbled up just then, still a little dizzy from the exploding shell. He looked over at the other skiff, where Luke was in a pitched battle with six guards. With one hand Boba steadied himself on the rail; with the other he aimed his weapon at Luke.
Chewie barked at Han.
“Which way?” shouted Solo. Chewie barked.
The blinded space pirate swung his long spear in Boba’s direction. Instinctively, Fett blocked the blow with his forearm; again, he aimed at Luke. “Get out of my way, you blind fool,” he cursed Solo.
Chewie barked frantically. Han swung his spear again, this time in the opposite direction, landing the hit squarely in the middle of Boba’s rocket pack.
The impact caused the rocket to ignite. Boba blasted off unexpectedly, shooting over the second skiff like a missile and ricocheting straight down into the pit. His armored body slid quickly past Lando and rolled without pause into the Sarlacc’s mouth.
“Rrgrrowrrbroo fro bo,” Chewie growled.
“He did?” Solo smiled. “I wish I could have seen that—”
A major hit
from the barge deck gun flipped the skiff on its side, sending Han and almost everything else overboard. His foot caught on the railing, though, leaving him swinging precariously above the Sarlacc. The wounded Wookiee tenaciously held on to the twisted debris astern.
Luke finished going through his adversaries on the second skiff, assessed the problem quickly, and leaped across the chasm of sand to the sheer metal side of the huge barge. Slowly, he began a handover-hand climb up the hull, toward the deck gun.
Meanwhile, on the observation deck, Leia had been intermittently struggling to break the chain which bound her to the dead gangster, and hiding behind his massive carcass whenever some guard ran by. She stretched her full length, now, trying to retrieve a discarded laser pistol—to no avail. Fortunately, Artoo at last came to her rescue, after having first lost his bearings and rolled down the wrong plank.
He zipped up to her finally, extended a cutting appendage from the side of his casing, and sliced through her bonds.
“Thanks, Artoo, good work. Now let’s get out of here.”
They raced for the door. On the way, they passed Threepio, lying on the floor, screaming, as a giant, tuberous hulk named Hermi Odle sat on him. Salacious Crumb, the reptilian monkey-monster, crouched by Threepio’s head, picking out the golden droid’s right eye.
“No! No! Not my eyes!” Threepio screamed.
Artoo sent a bolt of charge into Hermi Odle’s backside, sending him wailing through a window. A similar flash blasted Salacious to the ceiling, from which he didn’t come down. Threepio quickly rose, his eye dangling from a sheaf of wires; then he and Artoo hurriedly followed Leia out the back door.
The deck gun blasted the tilting skiff once more, shaking out virtually everything that remained inside except Chewbacca. Desperately holding on with his injured arm, he was stretching over the rail, grasping the ankle of the dangling Solo, who was, in turn, sightlessly reaching down for the terrified Calrissian. Lando had managed to stop his slippage by lying very still. Now, every time he reached up for Solo’s outstretched arm, the loose sand slid him a fraction closer to the hungry hole. He sure hoped Solo wasn’t still holding that silly business back on Bespin against him.
