Zorba the Hutt's Revenge (2 page)

"Excellent microcircuits," Threepio declared. "Superb mobility, too. It’s rare to find a female droid who’s been manufactured with such quality and-"

"Now, Threepio," Luke interrupted. "I’ve read the manufacturing statistics. There’s absolutely no difference between the quality of materials used to make male and female droids. I’m sorry if that’s a blow to your pride."

"That’s quite all right, Master Luke," said Threepio. "We droids have no pride. Only a sense of honor and duty."

The jawas knew Kate was worth a lot, and they drove a hard bargain for her. Just as Luke finished making the deal, a cloud of swirling sand appeared from behind the old, empty palace of Jabba the Hutt.

But it wasn’t a desert storm. The sand was being kicked up by the hooves of dozens of lumbering four-legged Banthas. The Banthas were beasts of burden, huge elephantlike creatures with big tusks. And on their backs were tall Tusken Raiders hollering war slogans and charging to attack with waving spears!

The regional manager of the JDTs began babbling frantically in the jawan language. "It’s a land dispute," Threepio translated. "The sand people say this is their holy burial ground. But the jawas say this land used to belong to Jabba the Hutt, and so it now belongs to the government. They claim it’s perfectly legal for them to hold their droidfest here." Legal or not, the Tusken Raiders seemed determined to put a stop to the droidfest. Their Banthas trampled the jawas’ tents. They kicked and stomped, knocked over droids, and speared several jawas. And then they went after Luke and Ken.

"Watch out, Ken!" Chip shouted.

Ken dodged a jawa spear, and it just barely missed him.

"Now you can see why none of us wanted you to leave the Lost City!" Chip cried frantically.

"Ken, get all our droids into a sandcrawler!" Luke shouted. Ken quickly led their four panic-stricken droids, including Kate, into the shelter of a big, treaded vehicle.

Meanwhile, Luke fought on, outnumbered and surrounded.

CHAPTER 2

The Return of Zorba

Zorba the Hutt imagined the life of luxury that awaited him in his son Jabba’s mighty palace.

It would be a life of rich, greasy foods, cooked in vats of Bantha fat and served in Jabba’s banquet hall. There would be slaves to bathe him every month, relaxing in the pure, cool water that Jabba stole from the moisture farmers of Tatooine. Zorba’s old spaceship, the Zorba Express, approached the security sector near Jabba’s palace on Tatooine. He activated his communicator, about to make contact with the palace and identify himself.

"Attention, Jabba, come in. It’s your papa, Zorba. Do you read me? Over!" But there was no reply. In the old days, Zorba thought, whenever he had requested permission to land, there had always been an immediate reply from Jabba. What could this silence mean?

Zorba landed not far from the main entrance. He turned off the power in his craft, but the bell-shaped Huttian spaceship kept rumbling and clattering. CHIZOOOOOK! SQUEEEEGE! The ancient spaceship wheezed like a sigh from the chest of a dying Hutt. Zorba squirmed out of the spaceship hatch. Then he began his slow crawl to the huge, thick front door of the palace.

When Zorba announced himself at the palace door, a mechanical eyeball popped out through a small opening.

"Please state the nature of your business," the mechanical eyeball said in a very businesslike tone.

"My business, as you call it, is that I am Jabba the Hutt’s father, and I’ve come to see my son!"

"I’m sorry, Jabba the Hutt no longer lives here." Zorba snorted. Obviously this mechanical eyeball was broken and in need of repair. Everybody knew that Jabba would never move from his palace.

"What do you mean Jabba no longer lives here?!" Zorba stormed.

"The palace is under new management," the mechanical eyeball replied. Then it moved here and there, studying Zorba from several directions. "Are you a Hutt?" it asked. "Indeed, you seem to be a Hutt!"

"Well, of course I’m a Hutt!!" Zorba shouted, his eyes bulging in anger. "How could Jabba’s father be anything but a Hutt?"

"That’s what I thought you said," the eyeball replied. "I’m sorry. No Hutts are allowed here anymore! New policy. No exceptions. Good day, sir!" At that, the eyeball retreated and a metal cover slid into position to hide it. Zorba pounded on the door. No Hutts allowed? Zorba had never heard of such an outrage!

Zorba knew that Hutts were disliked. Imperial officers often snickered whenever they talked about the planet Varl, the pockmarked planet where most Hutts lived. They said no alien creature of good breeding had ever been born on Varl. Once Zorba even heard an Imperial grand moff say that he considered Hutts to be immoral, nasty, domineering, and power hungry.

Zorba shuddered when he heard insults like that, because he considered them lies. Hutts were a proud sluglike species-very generous to their fellow Hutts, even if they were stingy and cruel to everyone else. And above all, they expected everyone-even mechanical eyeballs-to treat them with respect.

Zorba had to get to the bottom of this at once. He boarded the Zorba Express, and flew directly to Mos Eisley Spaceport, figuring that would be the best place to get information on the whereabouts of his son, Jabba.

Arriving at Mos Eisley, Zorba wobbled up to the big round doorway of the crowded cantina. Thanks to Jabba the Hutt, the new door was now big enough for Hutts. Jabba had threatened to shoot down one arriving spaceship each week unless the cantina door was enlarged so that he could fit inside. His request had gotten quick attention from the spaceport authorities.

As Zorba entered he noticed an Imperial grand moff standing by the bar of the cantina, talking to a group of alien bounty hunters. The grand moff was bald, with sharp, pointy teeth. He was pointing to a poster that said: WANTED BY EMPEROR TRIOCULUS! A JEDI PRINCE

NAMED KEN FROM THE LOST CITY OF THE JEDI! GENEROUS REWARD!

"Grand Moff Hissa," said a Twi’lek alien, who had a long tentacle growing out of his head.

"Do you know what this Prince Ken looks like? Or how old he is? Where does he come from? Did he get his name from Kenobi? Perhaps he is a relative of Obi-Wan?"

"I’m sorry, I’m not authorized to release that information," Grand Moff Hissa replied, seeming to cover up for the fact that he didn’t know. "However, I am authorized to reveal that the Empire believes that Ken may have departed from the fourth moon of Yavin with Luke Skywalker. The two of them are almost certainly traveling together!"

"AHEMMMM!"

Zorba cleared his throat. All eyes turned to look at his huge, wrinkled body, with its braided white hair and white beard. They stared at his enormous reptilian eyes, and his lipless mouth that spread from one side of his face to the other.

"I am Zorba the Hutt, father of Jabba! I want someone to tell me where I can find my son!" An awkward hush settled over the noisy cantina.

"I was told that Hutts are no longer permitted in Jabba’s palace!" Zorba exclaimed. "Who owns the palace, if not Jabba?"

A green-skinned bounty hunter named Tibor, a Barabel alien who was wearing a coat of armor over his reptilian skin, took a big gulp of his drink. "If I were you, Zorba," he said,

"I’d calm down. Have yourself a drink of zoochberry juice."

"I will not calm down!" Zorba screamed. "I want information about Jabba! And I’ll pay five gemstones to anyone who talks!"

The offer suddenly turned everyone in the cantina into an authority on Jabba. Dozens of voices began blurting out all sorts of things at once.

But there was one voice that stood out above all the others. "You seem to be about the only creature this side of the Dune Sea who doesn’t know that Jabba the Hutt is dead," Grand Moff Hissa said.

Zorba clutched his chest. "Dead?" Was his heart going to explode? "My son . . . dead?" Zorba let out a wheezing sigh of grief that vibrated the whole room. "How did Jabba die?" he demanded.

"He was murdered by Princess Leia," a Jenet said, scratching the white fuzz that covered his body.

"Yes, it was Leia!" an Aqualish alien agreed.

"She killed him in cold blood!" Tibor shouted, pounding his body armor with a green fist.

"Princess Leia was Jabba’s slave," the Twi’lek alien explained. "She had a chain attached to her. And she took the chain like this . . ." The Twi’lek twisted his own tentacle about his neck, to demonstrate. "And she squeezed the breath out of Jabba. It happened in his sail barge at the Great Pit of Carkoon."

Zorba’s yellow eyes bulged from their sockets. "In the name of the ancient conqueror, Kossak the Hutt, I swear that this Princess Leia shall die!" The bounty hunters murmured and exchanged approving glances. Then Zorba stared at Grand Moff Hissa. "Tell me, Grand Moff. Who is living in my son’s palace?"

"Unfortunately, Jabba didn’t leave a will," Grand Moff Hissa explained, "so naturally the Planetary Government of Tatooine took custody of his property-with the permission of the Empire, of course. At the moment, the palace is in ruins. Only the Ranats live there now."

"Ranats!" Zorba spit on the cantina floor in disgust. "I want ten bounty hunters!" Zorba announced. "Ten strong men or aliens to come with me to Jabba’s palace! I will pay seven gemstones each!"

There were more than ten volunteers. And each of them wanted to be paid before setting foot outside the cantina.

Zorba refused their request. "If any man or alien among you doesn’t trust me to pay up once the job is done," Zorba threatened, "then I don’t need you!" The volunteers decided to take their chances. But all the way from the cantina to Jabba the Hutt’s vacant palace, they argued among themselves about whether they had acted wisely. Most of them thought that they should have at least demanded a deposit of a few gemstones.

After a hot ride across the scalding desert in an old sail barge, they arrived at Jabba’s palace.

Tibor aimed his portable anti-orbital ion cannon at the thick front door.

KABAAAMMMMM!!

The cannon blasted a hole in the door-a hole big enough for Zorba to squirm through. Inside the palace, dozens of hairy Ranats scurried for safety at the sound of the explosion. They hid in the dark stairwells and palace closets, clutching their long rodent tails in terror.

The bounty hunters followed Zorba into the dry and dusty palace, which was in ruins. The Ranats had chewed the splendid Corellian carpets, clawed the expensive wall hangings from Bespin, and torn apart the custom furnishings from Alderaan so they could eat the stuffing. In the palace banquet hall, it was too dark for the bounty hunters to see. And there was no longer any power in the ion surcharge generators.

But Zorba could see. His son had the walls of the palace built with ultraviolet luminous stones. Even though ultraviolet light is invisible to humans and most alien species, Hutts are able to see by ultraviolet light.

And so Zorba made his way to the far end of the banquet hall. There he opened a secret door, and then crawled into a hidden room.

With a gloating smile, Zorba reached out to touch a dusty old barrel-shaped droid that had been there since before Jabba was murdered.

He flipped a switch behind the droid’s domed head.

TZZZZZZT!

With the power turned on, the droid was reactivated.

"Zizeeeeep!" the droid tooted.

"Tell me, CB-99," said. Zorba. "Do you still have all of your memory banks? Including file JTHW?"

"Zizoooop!" the droid beeped.

"Excellent. The fools! They shall learn that Jabba’s will was here in his palace all along-right inside of you!"

Zorba gave a belly laugh-a laugh so deep and loud, one might have thought he was watching a prisoner being dropped into a vat of carbonite.

"A-HAW-HAW-HAWWWW! . . ."

CHAPTER 3

Han Solo’s Housewarming Party

For hours Luke Skywalker and Ken had been listening to the KA-CHANGGGGGING sound of the treads of a hot, grinding sandcrawler.

The Tusken Raiders, whose weapons are quite primitive, were unable to force their way into the jawas’ huge, cumbersome vehicle. When Luke had found himself outnumbered by the attacking sand people, he had taken the wise defensive action of leaping into the sandcrawler and slamming shut the thick, metal door. Ken and the droids, already safe inside, were relieved to see him.

Inside, the sandcrawler was hotter than a nanowave oven. Tatooine’s twin suns nearly cooked Luke, Ken, and the droids.

"All I can say, Master Luke," Threepio commented in a whiny voice, "is that if you hadn’t taken refuge in here with us, I’m afraid I’d be put up for sale to a new master come tomorrow morning."

This particular sandcrawler was one of a fleet of jawa sandcrawlers heading back to Mos Eisley Spaceport the long, slow way. But under the circumstances, it was the most practical way for Luke, Ken, Threepio, Artoo, Chip, and Kate to escape and return to Luke’s Y-wing starfighter, so they could still reach the planet Bespin in time for Han Solo’s housewarming party.

By the time they reached Mos Eisley, it was nighttime. In fact, it was so late that the cantina was closed.

There wasn’t even anyone on duty at the landspeeder rental desk. Luke left a note explaining that, due to a sudden attack by Tusken Raiders, he was forced to leave the landspeeder at the droidfest. He hoped the Tatooine Planetary Insurance Company would cover expenses for getting it back to Mos Eisley. If not, they could bill him on Yavin Four, care of SPIN-the Senate Planetary Intelligence Network. But just as Luke, Ken, and the droids were approaching the docking bay where Luke’s Y-wing was parked, two bounty hunters jumped out from the shadows with blasters drawn. The bounty hunters, one of them a Twi’lek alien and the other an Aqualish, sprayed the area with laserfire. Instantly Luke drew his lightsaber and extended its blazing blade.

"Well, well, Luke Skywalker," said the Twi’lek, "just as expected." He wagged his tentacle with anticipation. "Trioculus has offered a reward for Ken, the Jedi Prince. He said he’d be with you!"

Luke leapt and did a somersault in midair, landing right between the two bounty hunters. They never knew what hit them.