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J’Quille leaned toward the holo. “I need help. I need to find out who killed the scullion. Do you have any idea who killed him or who might be blackmailing me?”

“There’s a B’omarr monk—”

A deep laugh rumbled through the palace walls below, drowning the words.

Jabba.

J’Quille stiffened. The fur on his spine prickled with a rush of fear.

Lady Valarian’s eyes widened. “J’Quille—”

“I won’t fail,” J’Quille said, reaching for the projection tube as another laugh reverberated through the walls. He severed the uplink and slammed the tube into the grip of his vibroblade.

Muscles taut, J’Quille held his vibroblade ready in front of him. He listened for even the slightest sound … the scraping of feet on stone or the rattle of weapons.

Silence.

Were the guards waiting for him in the hall? Better to face death head-on. He opened the door, expecting a blaster shot or the slash of a vibro-ax.

Nothing.

The corridor was empty. J’Quille dashed toward the far stairs. Distant voices, human voices, drifted from Jabba’s audience chamber, punctuated by the unmistakable cackle of Salacious Crumb.

J’Quille took the steps two at a time. Just before he reached the bottom step something caught his eye. He drew back.

The carbonite slab.

Empty.

J’Quille’s tail twitched. The human pleading with Jabba must be Han Solo. But that was impossible. A person stood a better chance stepping out of the heart of a Toolan iceberg than breaking free of carbonite’s freezing grip—

Another round of laughter filled the audience chamber. A cacophony of voices joined Jabba’s bass chuckle. Hugging the wall, J’Quille peeked into the room.

The bounty hunter, a human female, stood helmet-less beside Solo facing Jabba. J’Quille hissed in surprise. A human! That’s what the smell had been!

Solo’s head bobbed and wobbled, his eyes unfocused and not quite fixed on Jabba. “I’ll pay triple,” he said as the Gamorrean guards dragged him off. “You’re throwing away a fortune here. Don’t be a fool!”

Jabba smiled, then turned to leer at the human female with the same cruel lechery he had gazed on the Twi’lek dancer. His slimy lips gleamed with spittle.

J’Quille slid back into the shadows and quietly sheathed his vibroblade. It wouldn’t look good if a guard stumbled across him lurking in the stairwell with his weapon drawn. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

The Crumb’s hysterical screech covered J’Quille’s retreat up the stairs. There was still time. As much time as Jabba remained preoccupied with the human female.

J’Quille trotted down the corridor to the guest room. That would be safer than his own quarters if Jabba suspected him. He closed the door and sat on the floor facing the window slit, his vibroblade lying across his legs. Framed by the slit, the night sky had faded from black to deep blue. It would be dawn soon.

He stared at the stone wall opposite him. Jabba had to know. Why else would Phlegmin be dead? The blackmailer, the monk Lady Valarian warned him about, had told Jabba about the poisoned toads then killed the kitchen boy to prove his loyalty. J’Quille grimaced. Jabba was always demanding proof of loyalty. J’Quille had been forced to hunt and “kill” his own servant in a display of fidelity. Fortunately that great sack of nearsighted slug gel couldn’t tell a Whiphid tusk from a greater Mastmot tooth.

Footsteps tramped heavily down the hall. J’Quille leaped to his feet, drawing his vibroblade. The thick, swinish grunts of several Gamorrean guards echoed in the corridor. Holding his breath, J’Quille stepped behind the door.

The guards lumbered past.

J’Quille listened till their footsteps faded, then sank down onto the floor again. He slid the vibroblade in its sheath. Lady Valarian had given him the weapon.

Lady Valarian. For whom he risked his tusks daily.

And who had a strange male in her chamber. Just a servant? Or a rival? J’Quille’s mane bristled. Perhaps this blackmailer had more to do with Lady Valarian and less