Star Wars: Tales from Jabba's Palace Read Free

details. You know how difficult these things can be.”
    Jabba leaned forward again to stare at the rancor. He sighed with pleasure. Bib Fortuna explained the workings of the new trapdoor they had installed in front of the dais, anticipating how much amusement Jabba might get from dropping enemies into the rancor pit. Salacious Crumb, the loudmouth Kowakian lizard-monkey, laughed and jabbered at Jabba’s shoulder, sometimes repeating words, other times making his own nonsensical sentences.
    â€œI am most pleased,” Jabba said.
    Malakili pricked up his ears but kept his face impassive. He had learned how to speak the Hutt’s dialect many years before because the most bloodthirsty audiences to which the Circus Horrificus played consisted of coldhearted Hutts watching other creatures in pain.
    â€œI shall reward each of you greatly,” Jabba said.“One of you shall become my new majordomo, my right-hand man to assist me and to run the palace while I’m away. The other … shall have an even greater reward, one that history will remember.”
    Bib Fortuna bowed, and his head-tails lashed. He seemed tense, though Malakili could not understand why. Bidlo Kwerve looked satisfied and unconcerned. “Master,” Fortuna said, “I shall be satisfied with the majordomo position. As Bidlo Kwerve has pointed out, he performed the greatest service to you. Please allow him to have the greater honor.”
    Bidlo Kwerve shot a suspicious glance at him, blinking his ice-green eyes. Jabba nodded. “Good,” the Hutt said.
    Kwerve stepped forward. The Corellian looked again at Bib Fortuna. “What did he say?” Now Malakili understood the twitching expressions on the Corellian’s face. Bidlo Kwerve didn’t understand Huttese!
    Bib Fortuna gestured him forward as he himself stepped back. Kwerve raised his pocked chin in the air and stood in front of Jabba, awaiting his reward.
    â€œYou shall be the first victim I feed to my rancor,” Jabba said. “I will watch your struggles and remember them for all time.”
    Salacious Crumb cackled maniacally. The group of Jabba’s followers in the throne room snickered and watched. Bidlo Kwerve looked to Bib Fortuna, and it was clear he did not know what Jabba had said.
    As the Corellian’s face was turned aside, Jabba punched the button that released the trapdoor. The floor fell out from beneath Bidlo Kwerve.
    In following years, everyone agreed that Bidlo Kwerve put up a spectacular fight. The Corellian had somehow managed to conceal a small holdout blaster in hisbody armor—which was strictly forbidden in Jabba’s presence. But the rancor’s sheer ferocity astonished the spectators even more as it devoured its first live meal since its capture on Tatooine.
    Malakili watched the monster’s victory and felt warm inside, like a proud father.
General Dentistry
    Jabba took exceptional delight in his new pet over the next few months, devising various victims and combat situations for the monster.
    Bib Fortuna rose in prominence in the crimelord’s organization. Malakili, though, kept to the lower levels of the palace, talking with only the few denizens who also preferred the dank coolness and the anonymity of shadows to being in plain sight of Jabba or his minions.
    In his prowls scavenging extra food for his pet, Malakili got to know Jabba’s primary chef, Porcellus, rather well. The man was a talented food preparer who lived in constant fear that he would create something Jabba didn’t like, at which point his life and his culinary skills would be forfeit. Malakili would toss slabs of fresh, dripping meat into the openings for the rancor, and the monster seemed gradually to accept him as its caretaker.
    For those seeking Jabba’s approval, it soon became a game to find new combatants for the rancor. At first Malakili took the challenges with pride and confidence, knowing that the coiled