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But if Jabba did find the bomb too soon.…

Dengar decided it might be a good time to go into Mos Eisley for the day. If his plan worked, Jabba would die. If it didn’t—Dengar might still escape.

Dengar returned to his cramped quarters and began throwing his clothes and weapons into a bag. Among his effects he found the Attanni. He could not contact Manaroo with it—but Dengar could receive images, sounds, emotions.

And as he looked at the device, he recalled the hunger Manaroo had felt for his presence, her fears for her life. Sometimes he wondered how she could feel anything for him. In his own eyes he was broken, undeserving of her attention. Yet she’d stayed beside him even after he’d rescued her parents. He felt there was nothing left that he could give her, except perhaps a false sense of safety.

And by running out now, he would be denying her even that.

He unwrapped his neck, screwed the Attanni into the socket there.

And what he saw surprised him. Manaroo was dressing for a performance, putting on leggings of some sheer material in softest violet, a top that revealed her ample breasts. She sorted through a bin of musical instruments—tambours, bells, cymbals—looking for something exotic, and decided to take a golden flute. To play it while dancing would be difficult, and to play it poorly would be to tempt fate. But Manaroo would be dancing for her life, and she needed to impress the Hutt.

She’d been commanded to dance before Jabba, and everyone in the room knew that he was in a foul mood because the rancor was dead. The other dancers sat huddled in a far corner and shot Manaroo pitying glances.

What amazed Dengar was her mood. She was almost numb with fear and had no recourse but to put her confidence in her abilities. These feelings lay heavily in the background of her mind.

And in the foreground, Manaroo was concentrating, trying to firm her resolve by playing mental games. Just as Dengar would psyche himself up for an assassination by imagining that he was killing Han Solo, Manaroo was playing similar games in her own mind.

She envisioned Jabba’s throne room, but instead of Jabba on the throne, she imagined Dengar there. He was watching her steadily, calling out “Dance, dance for your life!” as if it were some great jest.

And in her dreams, Manaroo danced lovingly, with her heart. She imagined each move, practiced over the years, and each spin and flourish was dedicated to Dengar. Each of them had been conceived and prepared for the man she loved, the man she hoped someday to meld minds with, so that they became one. And in her imaginings, as she danced gracefully before Dengar, she whispered, “If I please you so much, my lord, my love, then why don’t you please me in return? Why don’t you marry me?”

Dengar pulled off the Attanni in astonishment, and knew that he could not leave now. The powerful feelings that washed through him when he was connected acted as a moral compass, telling him what to do. And like Han Solo, who sometimes seemed to suffer from a death wish, Dengar knew that he would have to turn his face to the storm.

He had to save her, but how?

Dengar was amazed that she would be preparing for a performance now, while the palace was in such disarray, and realized immediately that he would have to plan a diversion. To blindly go into the throne room and try to kill the Hutt would be insane, but over the past few days, there had been two murders in the palace.

Both incidents had been fully investigated and caused a great deal of commotion for several hours. A few hours was all the time that Manaroo needed. A random assassination seemed in order. Among the henchmen in Jabba’s stable, there was no lack of deserving victims.

The problem was solved rather easily. Dengar simply went up to a guard room and tossed in a grenade. In the general cacaphony of the palace, few people even noticed the event, but the ensuing investigation took up a better part of the evening, and the Hutt’s mood brightened considerably after he saw the carnage that Dengar