• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

A grunt filtered down the corridor. J’Quille grabbed the monk’s robes and dragged the body toward the nearest guest room. The monk’s hands fell free of the robes.

His right hand clutched a thermal detonator.

The one the bounty hunter had used to threaten Jabba?

J’Quille snatched it from the stiffening hand. Whatever he had done, here was a chance to redeem himself.

Heavy footsteps accompanied another grunt. J’Quille glanced over his shoulder. No one yet, but the person was definitely headed his way. He looked around wildly. Where could he hide the detonator? His belt pouch seemed too small—

J’Quille crammed the detonator into the pouch anyway, praying he wouldn’t trigger it. The pouch bulged, refusing to close. J’Quille smoothed his fur over the pouch’s gap, his shoulders rising as the approaching stranger called out.

Or rather, squealed out. J’Quille turned slowly, forcing himself not to smirk, and looked up into the face of a squat Gamorrean guard.

Stupidity on the hoof.

The guard carried Phlegmin’s dead body over one shoulder. This must be the same Gamorrean who had been talking to Ree-Yees in the kitchen.

The guard trudged up to him, wheezing and snorting. He uttered a few more incomprehensible grunts, then looked at J’Quille expectantly.

J’Quille’s mind raced frantically. Just how stupid were these guards? If this brute could believe Ree-Yees, he’d believe anything.

The Gamorrean grunted impatiently. One of the squeals sounded like “dead.”

J’Quille stood. “He’s not dead, he’s, uh, meditating. Gone into a deep trance. Pondering the imponderables.”

The guard bent over the monk. He wrinkled his nose at the blood and snuffled a short, bewildered snort.

J’Quille wet his lips. “The blood? He wanted to see if he’d reached the final stage of enlightenment. He decided to do a little testing on his own to see if he was ready before asking his friends to put his brain in ajar.”

The guard’s eyes narrowed. He grunted and pointed first at the monk’s head, then at his chest.

J’Quille shrugged. “That’s where their brains are. In their chests. It makes it easier to remove them.”

The guard’s brow puckered. He snuffled, then grunted something that sounded like, “Can’t meditate here,” then bent down and hefted the body of the monk onto his other shoulder.

J’Quille watched the Gamorrean shamble off, then heaved a sigh of relief. He touched the thermal detonator.

Slipping into the nearest guest room, he walked over to the window. He held up the earring and admired the sunlight shining through the clear stone, then set it on the windowsill. He opened his pouch.

J’Quille cradled the thermal detonator in his claws. He knew just what to do with it. He’d been given a second chance to get rid of Jabba—this time he wouldn’t blow it.

Sleight of Hand: The Tale of Mara Jade

by Timothy Zahn

The dance ended, and the music was silenced. She stood as she had finished: on single tiptoe, her opposite arm upstretched, reaching with silent eloquence for the stars or the Empire or perhaps merely the approval of her master. For a pair of heartbeats she held the pose. Then, with a dramatic flourish, she collapsed again to the floor, arms sweeping around and onto the floor in front of her like the wings of a downed bird, legs shifting to curl half around her, one in front and one behind, torso bent forward over her arms. Grace and beauty and style, transformed in an instant to unworthiness and submission and humility. The precise combination, or so she’d been told, that Jabba the Hutt liked in his dancers.

As did, presumably, the fat, scar-headed man sprawled on the couch in front of her. But the seconds dragged on and he just sat there, not speaking, watching her. She held her pose, breathing quickly and shallowly into cramped lungs and wondering if she should go ahead and get up without waiting for permission. But the fat man had already demonstrated his enjoyment of giving orders, particularly to helpless underlings. If she wanted to become one of those underlings, it would be best to allow him that extra little bit of