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By Root 1317 0

his plan had worked! The monks were now trained and equipped to take the palace. There were hundreds of monks still in bodies—and hundreds of others in brain jars and walkers: enough to quickly overpower unsuspecting guards. And Fortuna had learned from the monks. He did not have to pretend that. They had much to teach. He learned how to intuitively sense the plots swirling around Jabba, the petty thieveries planned, the twisted physical cravings. They taught him his life’s work had been fated—and he took their teachings even further: he believed the universe had made it possible for him to acquire the power and wealth necessary to conquer Ryloth, his homeworld, to mold his people, the Twi’leks, into the kinds of subjects the Empire valued: bounty hunters, mercenaries, spies—not merely exotic slaves—and save what he could of them. By “chance,” Fortuna controlled Nat Secura, the last descendant of a great Twi’lek house. Nat was vital to his plan: the people would rally to Nat (and Fortuna’s indirect leadership) when it came time to conquer Ryloth. The Twi’leks would remember what Fortuna had done for them forever.

The names of his ancestors would be honored again.

He would be honored.

But there was work ahead, and he must be ready for it. The time for happy imaginings was past. He called up safeguards in his mind that hid his darkest thoughts and hurried on.

Only one monk waited for him in the council chamber, and he was not sitting in meditation. He paced the floor. “Master Fortuna,” he said. “We thought you would not come. Your friend is in great danger.”

“What friend?” Fortuna asked. He had no friends.

“Nat Secura. Jabba is about to feed him to the rancor.”

Fortuna whirled from the room and rushed back down the passageway. Jabba hated Nat because he was ugly: Nat had been horribly burned in fires Jabba’s slavers set in Nat’s city to force its inhabitants out and into their nets. His face and body were scarred. His lekku, the head-tails Twi’leks sign with for much of their communication, were nearly burned off. Nat could only communicate with his voice—a terrible handicap—but he was still who he was. Fortuna had found Nat in the rubble of the city and realized what a prize he was: of greater worth than jewels. Feed him to the rancor, indeed!

After Fortuna stopped running, smoothed out his robes, caught his breath, and walked into the throne room, he found this: Nat, bound, flogged, lying facedown on the grille. The rancor roared below him and held its mouth open for Nat’s dripping blood. The shameful tatters of Nat’s lekku were splayed out above the grate: someone had torn off the head covering Fortuna made Nat wear. Jabba’s crowd of sycophants and puppets jeered and taunted Nat over their dinners. Jabba’s own hand hovered inches from the button that would open the trapdoor, but when Jabba saw Fortuna he rumbled his deep bass laugh and motioned Fortuna to his throne.

“Nat is so ugly,” Jabba said. “I want to see if the rancor will eat him, or if it will throw him back up at us.”

The rancor would do that. It threw those it found unappetizing against the grille again and again till the body became an unrecognizable pulp the keeper dragged out the next day. The grille was dark with the blood of those the rancor had rejected.

“Then you will miss the sport Nat could provide,” Fortuna said.

“What sport?” Jabba rumbled.

Fortuna was thinking fast, trying to find a way to save Nat. “Nat is a runner,” he said, “and a tumbler. He could elude the rancor for a time.”

Jabba loved watching such sport through the grille. Everyone knew it. He moved his hand toward the button.

“But not now,” Fortuna said quickly. “Not after a flogging. Give him two days to recover, then send him to the pit. It will be a great diversion for us all.”

“You betrayed me!” Nat shouted at Fortuna’s back. “I should never have trusted you. I—”

Fortuna raised his hand. Nat fell silent at once. Fortuna had trained him well, and obedience was an early lesson. “Master?” Fortuna asked Jabba. Jabba hesitated, considering. Fortuna could not take his eyes