Star Wars_ Tales From Jabba's Palace - Kevin J. Anderson [75]
Now Ree-Yees felt the hard metal device in his own body and the compulsion implanted just as deeply in his mind. He remembered Jabba’s med-techs bending over him, cutting him open, repeating the code phrase over and over again, ordering him to forget …
Now he knew the words Jabba was struggling so furiously to pronounce—the command to wrap his arms around the target, the thought-trigger which would detonate the ultrashort-range bomb in his belly.
Ree-Yees’s feet moved silently toward the human. In her struggle, she did not notice him. His arms lifted, reached out—
For an instant, the visions of the brain chamber swept over him. He’d had it all wrong, curse those B’omarr monks! The fire wasn’t Jabba’s sail barge blowing up, it was the bomb in his own belly. Ree-Yees bleated and squirmed, but his body was no longer his to command as it moved inexorably closer. He couldn’t bargain his way out of this one. He could almost feel the explosion ripping through him, the fiery blast—
The compulsion died, even as the light faded from the Hutt’s bulging eyes. Stinking black fluid gushed from the corners of his mouth. His tail shuddered once, reflexively, and then lay still.
Relief swept through Ree-Yees like a summer’s breeze through the grassy fields. He fell back against the nearest wall. His legs felt like glass. He couldn’t believe it was over—Jabba was finished. His name would be dust, his empire ashes scattered on the hot Tatooine winds. And he, Ree-Yees, would gloat all the way back to Kinyen.
“Ma-a-a-a-ah!” Ree-Yees lashed out at the Hutt’s inert body with one boot. “Who’s laughing now, you perverted two-eyed worm slime! Chuff-sucking leech!”
The human female raked Ree-Yees with an enigmatic stare. The next moment the R2 unit cut through her chains. She leaped nimbly to the floor and darted away in the direction of the deck-mounted gun.
Ree-Yees drew a deep breath and collected his wits. As soon as the prisoners were subdued and dumped into the pit, Jabba’s body would be discovered, and Ree-Yees had better not be here. Whoever took over, Bib Fortuna or Tessek perhaps, might well go through the motions of executing Jabba’s killer in order to consolidate his position. No, the safest thing would be to disappear until he could get to Mos Eisley. He’d find a med-tech there to remove the bomb.
Beneath Ree-Yees’s feet, the sail barge shuddered. His eyestalks swiveled and a terrified bleat escaped his lips as he remembered the monk’s vision of fire. Had the premonition been false? In the back of his mind, he heard a rumble like Jabba’s laughter, low-pitched and evil.
A percussive blast rocked the deck. As Ree-Yees watched, a wall of flame surged toward him. Greasy smoke shot upward from the lower levels. The shock wave catapulted his body into the air. Fragments of unrecognizable metal were hurled in all directions.
The edge of the inferno enveloped him. Pain seared his lungs. The moment before everything went dark, he caught a scent, sweet and familiar, and the fading glimpse of fields silvery and shimmering, as nubile triple-breasted females came leaping to meet him.
And the Band Played On: The Band’s Tale
by John Gregory Betancourt
1. How the Band Came to Tatooine
Evar Orbus set down his microphone case, stretched his eight tentacles to their utmost, and flapped dust from the air-gills beneath all four eyes in his egglike head.
Finally, he thought, I’ve reached the big time.
He turned slowly, drinking in the sights of the Mos Eisley spaceport. Despite the late hour, the place bustled with activity as humans, Imperial stormtroopers, droids, and beings from a hundred different worlds moved among the landing pads. Overhead, the primary sun descended toward a hazy horizon, trailed by its smaller counterpart. He felt a rush of excitement starting to build inside. This planet resembled his homeworld more than any other he had yet seen in his travels. He could