Star Wars_ Tales From Jabba's Palace - Kevin J. Anderson [62]
“Point?”
“Who killed these people you’re carrying?”
“This one meditating, not dead.” Gartogg jiggled the monk again. “Testing himself, before friends remove his brain from his chest.”
“What?” Ortugg screamed in frustration.
“What, what? What’s wrong?” Gartogg searched Ortugg’s face in puzzlement.
“Who’s behind this conspiracy?”
“Oh—process of elimination. All dead killed by snot vampire!” Gartogg smiled triumphantly.
“Who?”
“Snot vampire!” Gartogg shouted.
Ortugg’s voice dropped to a cautious whisper. “Dannik Jerriko?”
“Aha!” Gartogg yelled again. “Um, go sail barge now?”
Ortugg glared in mystified silence at Gartogg. “Go sail barge?”
Gartogg repeated hopefully.
“And why do you think Dannik Jerriko killed this kitchen boy?”
“No evidence!”
“There is no evidence?”
“And snot vampire never leaves evidence—so he must be guilty!”
Ortugg’s shoulders sagged. “Gartogg, get out of here before I cut your head off for the sand inside it!”
“Snot vampire not guilty?” Gartogg whimpered.
“No! And when I come back—you’ll be ground up and sent to Porcellus to cook for Jabba’s dinner!” Ortugg shoved him out of the way and stomped angrily to the sail barge, leaving Gartogg alone with his companions.
“No sail barge?” Gartogg snuffled sadly. “Ground pork?”
From the dungeon, the roar of the Wookiee and the rattling of chains reached him distantly. The other guards would drag the prisoners onto the sail barge and go out for a trip. As usual, Gartogg would be left behind.
On the other hand, he was no longer alone. Now he had friends, even if they weren’t exactly talkative. He squatted down facing the two seated figures.
Gartogg looked from the kitchen boy to the monk and back, making sure he spoke in a complete sentence. “What do you guys want to do now?”
Old Friends: Ephant Mon’s Tale
by Kenneth C. Flint
I saw Skywalker the first time right after he came into Jabba’s palace.
He was just a black figure then, wrapped in a big cloak, face hidden by a cowl. Still, there was something about him that raised the hackles on me.
That old merc instinct made me duck into the cover of a pile of crates—not so easy for a guy over two meters tall—to scan the stranger like a scared range dog. At the moment he was being confronted by Jabba’s head boy Bib Fortuna while a couple of drooling Gamorrean guards stood by.
I stared at him real hard. There was something about him that made a funny ripple run through me. All kinds of things were stirring, and I couldn’t peg ’em down. Fear? Naw, not for me. But confusion and wonder? Yeah, them for sure.
Anyway, the little discussion between him and Fortuna lasted only a few seconds. Then Jabba’s majordomo turned and led him right on in like he’d bought the place. They headed along the corridor toward Jabba’s throne room, the guards falling in behind.
I ducked back further behind the crates, some impulse still wanting to keep me well hidden. It worked, but only for Fortuna and the trailing guards. None of them noticed me as they went past. But that one in black, he turned his head as he walked by to flash me a straight look.
When his gaze met mine, I felt some kind of … of … Well … a power hit me like a gaffi-stick butt right between the eyes. I felt an explosion of white energy shoot through me, lighting my insides right to the very core.
It riled up things way deep down in my skull. They rose from the black depths like a ripe corpse from a swamp. There was some ugly stuff there, memories of some things better left submerged. But one bright vision gleamed amongst the slime: the green-gold recollection of a land of trees and sun.
And that gave me a pang for something lost I suddenly knew I’d loved.
I shook my head to clear it of the crazy feeling and blinked a few times. When I looked again, they’d all disappeared around the corridor’s bend.
It was too many late nights carousing with Jabba, I told myself. Nothing more. And, even though I had a nagging urge to go after them and see if there was more, I shoved it away. I had an appointment, and I was already late.