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But suddenly the main terminal went dead. Then all the terminals went dead. The lights overhead flickered and went out. Fortuna had light from only the candles and torches in their niches.

He hurried across the throne room—and found the main doorway closed and locked.

It had all happened so quietly.

And he knew at once what had happened.

The monks had betrayed him. Somehow, they had sensed his intentions toward them. He should have realized the monks would not want to replace one set of criminals with another—when they could have the whole palace to themselves. It took no special gift of intuition to realize that. He suddenly wondered what he had learned about intuition from the monks, after all—parlor games, children’s tricks? There were depths here he had not guessed.

But there were many ways out of the throne room and the palace. He could complete his coup from the town house in Mos Eisley—then come back to take the palace from the monks.

He rushed to the first secret exit, but it was blocked. Every exit was blocked. Fortuna ran to Jabba’s dais and hit the button that would drop the grille to the rancor’s pit—there were two secret ways out of the pit—but it would not drop open.

Fortuna was trapped.

The secret caches of arms were all emptied. Fortuna had his blaster, but one blaster could not hold off an army of monks.

A terminal flickered to life. A message was typed across its screen. Fortuna hurried to it and read: You have progressed rapidly on your spiritual path, Brother Fortuna. Your quest is at an end. Prepare yourself for enlightenment.

Fortuna gripped the terminal for a moment, trying to breathe, then he attempted to enter a reply. The terminal would not accept one. He would have liked to bargain with the high monks—honestly this time—but he doubted they would have listened. They were not coming to the throne room, in any case. He knew who would come for him.

Fortuna sat on one end of Jabba’s throne and put his hands in his lap. He knew it would be one of the last times he would feel his hands, and they were suddenly very dear to him. He looked down at his body, and it was very dear to him.

For a time, he wondered about little things he might never have answers to: how many of Jabba’s staff had the cook managed to poison on the barge before he poisoned Jabba himself? How long would it take the monks to sweep up the sand that generations of criminals had tracked into the palace? What would the cooks do with the grease he had had them save?

He heard a sound in the main passageway beyond the throne room. It was unmistakable. He drew his blaster and considered using it against himself, but did not. He set it aside, on the empty throne, and listened to the squeaks of the approaching surgeons’ cart.

The Great God Quay: The Tale of Barada and the Weequays

by George Alec Effinger

Barada came from Klatooine originally, and at night he dreamed that he was still there, feeling the fresh wind of his homeworld on his face. Of course, in his dreams, his face wasn’t yet deformed and scarred, and in his dreams he wasn’t the virtual prisoner and slave of the Hutt. At night, as he slept on his bunk, Barada was still young and hopeful and filled with plans to leave Klatooine behind and find adventure on some more exciting planet in the vast Empire.

Then morning would come, and Barada would awaken. He would blink a few times, the dream memories of his family and childhood home fading slowly from his thoughts. Klatooine, he’d think grimly. Adventure. He’d sit up and rub his face with his large, strong hands. He’d never see his homeworld again, he knew. He’d spend the rest of his life on this desert planet, caring for the Hutt’s repulsor fleet.

Barada shrugged. It was as good a life as any, and better than some. All he really lacked was liberty, and in the Empire that was a fairly common situation. His needs were met, and as for his wants, he was free to dream about them as much as he liked.

This morning, Barada’s only concern was finding six rocker-panel cotter pins for the