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“I do. Skywalker is a Jedi.”

I noticed the woman’s gaze jerking toward me at that. She listened with interest.

“He is no Jedi,” piped up Bib Fortuna who, as usual, hovered close by. And Salacious Crumb, from a perch on Jabba’s tail, echoed, “No Jedi! No Jedi!” in a shrill, cracked voice.

“This is wrong,” I said, not backing down. “Jabba, you have to let him go. Let them all go.”

“I think Mon is up to something,” Fortuna said, eyeing me suspiciously. “Jabba, he must be in league with them.”

“I am trying to save your life, Jabba!” I argued. “Look, you know no one’s more loyal than I am. You know I’ve always warned you about danger. I can tell you all about another plot right now! But it’s not important. Nothing else is: not Tessek, not Valarian, not even the Empire. Only this is. It’s bigger than us all, Jabba. It’s the Force!”

“That foolish religion means nothing to us!” Fortuna cried indignantly. “The Mighty Jabba can show no fear of anything, including Jedi Knights!”

“He is right, Ephant,” the Hutt agreed. “And Jabba has spoken. They must die.”

“Then … I can’t go with you,” I told him with force. “I can’t be part of this.”

“So you defy me?” he bellowed. “I should kill you for that.”

“I know.” I met his eye without flinching.

“I should,” he growled on, “but our old bond stops me. It buys your life, but that is all it buys. I thought of you as my true friend, Ephant Mon. That friendship is ended.”

“You can’t call it over,” I shot back. “I can. Barada is right. I’ve repaid my debt to you a hundred times over.”

“Repaid?” repeated Jabba, and a tone of regret came into the rumbling voice. I swear it was real, and I swear I’d never heard the like of it before. “Then it was never more than a debt to you. I am sorry for that.”

He turned away from me and glided on toward the sail barge. The rest of his court followed. The captive woman stayed gazing at me in a bemused way until a jerk of her chain forced her to follow her master.

“It was more than a debt,” I said after him, but in a quiet voice that no one heard. “Goodbye, old friend.”

Jabba and the others disappeared into the barge. After them came a pack of Gamorrean guards prodding along Skywalker, Han Solo, and the rest.

As the Jedi went up the gangway, a pang of worry for him shot through me. Did he and his friends really have a chance against the Hutt’s cutthroat crew?

He must have sensed my emotion, because he turned right then and flashed a calm, confident little grin at me. It told me I did not have to fear for him.

I watched the last of them enter the barge. I began to think about what I should do now. There’d still be room in Valarian’s operation for me. But that didn’t seem right anymore.

The sail barge rose on its repulsorlifts in a flurry of dust, turned and sailed away, fading quickly to a dot on the vast horizon of Tatooine’s gray-brown wastes.

Another, greener landscape came into my mind. I knew where I should go now. It had been made clear to me.

I had to go home.

Goatgrass: The Tale of Ree-Yees

by Deborah Wheeler

Slowly the harsh Tatooine day melted into afternoon. Early dusk softened the contours of Jabba’s palace and touched the drifted sand with a muted orange glow. Feathered lizards darted from their lairs to hunt insects in the cooling shadows. From a rocky outcropping, a meewit screeched once, twice, then fell silent.

Ree-Yees struggled up the stairs from the side entrance, lugging a bucket. He halted at the top, his three eyes darting furtively over the eroded hills and the entrance behind him. As he stood there, his bony chest heaving, something of the twilight stillness seeped into him. It soothed the sting of that last bout with Ephant Mon, the one which began with, “You’re such an incompetent snot-brain, Ree-Yees, I can’t see why Jabba keeps you around,” and ended with Tessek, Jabba’s Quarren lieutenant, pulling the two of them apart.

The sand whispered softly as a hot wind, the last exhalation of the day, blew across it. If Ree-Yees squinted his two side eyes, he could