Tales From Jabbas Palace (Kevin Anderson) (37 page)

Then he heard the squeaking of the cart’s wheels, and saw the laser scalpels neatly laid out upon it.

Six months later, Tessek leftJabba’s palace for the first time.

He felt rested and secure as his spidery mechanical body climbed up to the highest turrets atop the towers with ease.

There, Tessek sat out on a parapet, looked down at the evening suns setting crimson and purple above the yawning white desert. A gust of wind blew across the desert, raising a cloud of dust. Whether the wind was hot or cool, wet or dry, Tessek no longer cared.

It was the first time in six months that he’d left his brain jar, using his newly developed powers to psychically will one of the mechanical bodies to himself.

There was wealth still heaped below him in the palace, free for the taking, if anyone dared to enter. But after the first few meager attempts by cutthroats and thieves from Mos Eisley, volunteers for the job were somehow lacking.

Tessek set his brains on the ledge of a wall, splayed his spider legs out wide. At one time, he would have been afraid of falling. At one time, he would have felt as if he were perched on the top of the world.

But now, Tessek shut down his eyes and explored the world with his mind.

Below him, in the deepest cells of Jabba’s haunted palace, the newest B’omarr monks practiced their meditations.

In the desert, the predators hunted those things that still had flesh on their bones. Jawas and the Sand People fought their battles and scrambled for water.

In Mos Eisley, the Lady Valarian was bringing new style and class to the underworld. And in the heavens above, the Rebel Alliance still fought for what…?

Freedom.

Tessek let his mind soar, far between the stars, lightly touching the minds of people he had once met and felt some kinship for. Luke, Leia, Han, the Wookiee.

Simultaneously, each of the Alliance heroes suddenly had the same odd, compelling thought: If ever you return to Jabba’s fortress, you will find a free Quarren in the palace.

And one by one, each of the heroes shook their heads to clear the odd thought from their minds.

As the suns dipped below the horizon, Tessek got up and trundled down a dark corridor that led to the lowest levels of Jabba’s palace.

There, among the nutrient-filled brain jars, he would find rest. ˇ ˇ

Tongue-tied: Bubo’s Tale

by Daryl F. MAllett

Thheuwp.

A long, prehensile tongue quietly snaked out from a warty mouth, slurping up forgotten. tidbits and dropped crumbs. But while the tongue was active, so were the bulbous purple eyes atop the green head.

From the shadowy alcove where he crouched beneath the still-warm ovens, Bubo observed the goings-on in the kitchen.

Throughout his long career as a spy and assassin, and in dozens of places not unlike this one, he had seen similar occurrences. Gartogg, one of the huge security guards, was questioning Ree-Yees. A body lay at their feet. A thrill of glee ran through Bubo’s tongue, tickling the roof of his mouth, as he contemplated the Gamorrean guard clubbing the Gran over the head and hauling him off to the dungeons to await the Hutt’s punishment.

Bubo didn’t like working with the Grannish operative.

The three-eyed being was too unprofessional, too unbalanced, too emotional. He relied heavily upon other people rather than on his own abilities. And when he got nervous, he consumed large quantities of inebriants.

And besides that, Ree-Yees just tasted wrong.

Bubo’s tongue curled in disgust as the three-eyed idiot managed to convince the dim-witted guard of his innocence.

Someday, you’ll get yours, he thought as he turned and shambled off into the ventilation shaft behind the ovens.

As he made his way through the stone-and-metal shafts, all the while searching for a delicious Jawa or perhaps catching Salacious Crumb alone, he reflected on the current contract. While only a minor player this time, Bubo was concerned about being exposed by his colleague’s seemingly endless ineptitudes. And the Hutt’s rage was something to be feared.

Bubo knew he was being used by Ree-Yees and several others. They, along with most of the universe, looked upon his kind as nothing more than drooling, mindless, bug-eating frog-dogs… a reputation which the species did nothing to correct. In reality, they were some of the most mentally competent beings in existence. At least Bubo thought so.

Thus, when he had arrived on this sand-and-lizard-infested planet several years ago, Bubo had taken great delight in discovering the B’omarr monks encysted in this very citadel. It was to them he would turn now, as he did always, in his need for enlightenment.

And if that failed, he had one last card to play to insure that Ree-Yees would take the fall.

The air was cooler below ground level, and a hint of moisture tinged the air. Approaching footsteps caused Bubo to withdraw into the shadows and shield his mind. Because everyone thought him a dumb animal, he normally didn’t need to hide; he could merely shamble along with no fear. But he identified the distinctively soft tread as Bib Fortuna’s.

Jabba’s majordomo was always lurking in the lower depths of the palace, mining what information he could from the humanitarian B’omarr.

And the Twi’lek’s mental control was incredible. Not quite the level of the B’omarr or the Jedi, but enough to frighten Bubo into erecting shields. He knew the Twi’lek was up to something. He suspected Fortuna was blackmailing the monks into doing his bidding but, while he respected the monks, Bubo wanted no part of any of it.

When the Hutt’s chief lieutenant had passed, Bubo continued down the corridors, easily avoiding the many mechanical spiders containing the disembodied brains of the monks.

He went directly to a small cavern off the beaten track and entered the darkness, feeling his way to the waiting area. A dim light slowly illuminated him as he sat down. After a few moments of waiting, another shaft showed a large brain encased in a jar of nutrients.

“Welcome, Buboicullaar.” The brain used Bubo’s formal name and spoke directly into his mind without flashing lights or sparkles, as Bubo had seen in several cheap holos. The deep, cheerful voice resonated throughout his body, reassuring and relaxing him.

Greetings, Evilo Nailati, Bubo responded, a bit awed, as always, by the disembodied voice.

What may I tell you, little one? asked the enlightened B’omarr.

Bubo decided on a roundabout approach. How may I control my feelings and accomplish my task?

Killing Jabba, you mean?

Bubo involuntarily let a mental gasp escape. So much for the roundabout approach. The monk’s brain laughed as Bubo asked, You know?

We live within a den of thieves, little one… The voice paused a moment. Why do you want this?

Bubo croaked aloud in his own laughter. “For the money, of course. But what do you really want, Buboicullaar? I seek to learn. Unlike most of my brethren, I do not seek such abstract concepts as “truth” and “enlightenment.” I am looking to amass as much information as I can; something I would be unable to do in my body, for it would die after less than a century. This way, I can remain alive for millennia, learning and growing mentally, and then be returned to a corporeal existence whenever I choose.

Bubo mentally snorted. But you’ve always been a bit… unorthodox, my teacher.

Whatever do you mean, little one? came the laughing response of the monk’s brain.

The dramatic flair and aesthetics of the lights, for one.?the fact that you still speak in sentences and whole thoughts rather than single words and images, Bubo responded earnestly.

It is necessary when dealing with the rest of the world. I do not believe one should learn in a vacuum. And in this pursuit, I am much better served in my enlightenment by conversing with tangible creatures like yourself.

So… the final question, my teacher, is what should I do?

For all my knowledge, little one, I have absolutely no idea…

When word of Jabba’s “accident” at the Great Pit of Carkoon reached the palace, Bubo was somehow not surprised when the monks suddenly appeared from everywhere. Something in his reptilian brain had suspected they would move against the current inhabitants of the palace. He knew what was coming, but unlike Bib Fortuna, whom Bubo could hear mentally screaming from another part of the palace, Bubo didn’t mind.

He was delighted to know that Ree-Yees had been aboard the sail barge when it had exploded over the Sarlaac. Nevertheless, Bubo had seen Ree-Yees shamble aboard the craft, muttering something under his breath about “figuring out what to do” as he went along to witness the execution of the Rebels, irate beyond rationality for what he had done.

Thinking about that, when the monks finally lifted his brain from his cranium, Bubo’s last tangible act was to emit a croaking laugh from his body.

What is so funny, little one? came the deep voice of Nailati in his mind.

He hesitated, knowing most of the monks frowned upon the concept of revenge as a useless act, especially when one could spend eternity contemplating the secrets of the universe. He hoped his mentor would appreciate the joke.

I ate the detonation link, my teacher. The crucial part in Ree-Yees’s plan.

Silence.

Then, You what? Disbelief.

Bubo related the tale of Ree-Yees’s final hours in the palace.

“You loathsome two-eyed toad!” Ree-Yees was losing it again.

Bubo sat crouched in yet another ventilation shaft.

In front of Bubo sat the detonation link, the missing piece of the bomb.

Bubo had placed the object just out of reach of the drunken Ree-Yees’s outstretched hand. “I’m going to feed your miserable hide to the rancor!”

You and what army, you filthy idiot?

Bubo had drawn the Grannish operative slowly from his quarters, dragging the bit of electronic machinery quickly out of reach. After toying with the inebriated Ree-Yees for almost an hour, he had withdrawn to this secure location.

As the Gran reached in with a long kitchen spoon, Bubo flicked his tongue out, picking up the little detonation link with his sticky fluids. Slowly and deliberately, he drew the part into his mouth and swallowed it with great relish.

In the throne room upstairs, Jabba and his court paused in their revelry for just a moment as an anguished howling filled the hallways.

Then laughter and music reigned again.

As his own brain was placed in a nutrient-filled jar, Bubo mentally smiled as he heard the roaring laughter of his B’omarr mentor echoing off the cavern walls.

Yes, eternity with this marvelous intellect as a companion should be fun.

Out of the Closet: The Assassin’s Tale

by Jennifer Roberson

Heat.

And sun.

And sand.

And dead bodies. Or dying.

Bodies with blood yet in them, with none spilled into Tatooine dust, onto sun-flayed Mos Eisley brick, nor staining sweat-wet clothing bought a thousand planets from here. Not so much as a drop glistening upon flaccid lips, pooling from fragile throats, nor even a delicate tracery fathered at their nostrils.

For those of them who have such attributes as nostrils, or blood.

They need not be humanoid, none of them, for me to drink their soup.

They need only have the chemistry to manufacture the substance within the brain beneath the skull, inside the carapace, the gelid, mucoid mass.

- —pain/pleasure–pleasure/pain- - His/hers/its.

Mine also, always.

I take them in the city, in what is Jabba’s domain: this one, that one, another… and leave, as I always leave, no proof in the killing of them. No method, no means, no clues. Merely bodies, unmarked, empty of life, but worse: empty also of soul, of that which, when a brain is drained, leaves the body empty of its essence. Of the means to live.

It isn’t the essence I want, or blood, nor is it flesh, which is, after all, no more than cast-off casing. It is soup I want, I need; soup to save my spirit, to keep alive my casing.

I take them as I choose, with manifest efficiency, commendable in expediency: this one, that one, another; will you dance with me, and die?

But this time I do it for the death, for the cast-off casing; for more than soup this day, this place, this planet, even to save my spirit.

They are beneath me, this dead and dying trio scattered across Mos Eisley spaceport—here, and there, and there—merely minions and not assassins, hollow, servile beings of weak and tasteless soup… but their deaths will serve a purpose if not my preferences. I want them dead of my hands with no mark at all upon them, for my kind leave no visible sign by which an entity might know.

But one entity will know, this time he will know-because I take pains that he must.

My employer, my betrayer.

“Anzati,” they will whisper. “Anzat, of the Anzati.”

- -pain/pleasure–-pleasure/pain-I take them and others, all of them in his service, and leave them, derelicta, to be found. Where they are found, and reported. To Talmont, the Prefect; to Lady Valarian, the queen who wants to be king; to Jabba himself.

Talmont and Valarian rejoice: those I have killed were Jabba’s.

The Hutt himself will be irritated, is irritated—and is turning no doubt already to laying blame on the nearest of enemies; of impossibly innumerable enemies, conspiring against him more often and regularly than a humanoid draws breath.

But no blame on Dannik Jerriko. Not yet. Until I choose.

And I will choose. I must. So he will know.

Jabba.

Know, and be afraid.

By the time the bodies are found, are reported; by the time they are, at last, scanned for the truth, and the truth made into rumor, and rumor into romance, I am inside the palace. Ask not how I arrived, nor how I managed entry; I am what I am, and we are selfish in our secrets.

Comes a body now, though yet living for the moment, approaching from out of the pallor, the dank and splendid squalor of Jabba’s infamous palace.

It is a Weequay, he of pale, leathery flesh, reptilian features, and a warrior’s single tail of hair bound back from shaven skull. I have met his like before in prior dealings with Jabba.