Zak and Tash had been here before, but that didn’t make them feel any safer. The fortress pulsed with danger. Jabba was as unpredictable as he was powerful. The fact that they had left Jabba’s palace unharmed last time meant nothing. Many beings passed through his doors-never to be seen again.
They were admitted by the sentry droids, and then were stopped briefly by two Gamorrean guards-piglike creatures armed with huge axes. As they went on, a Twi’lek appeared out of the darkness. Two wormy tentacles grew out of the back of his head. The Twi’lek had draped the tentacles over his shoulders, and he stroked them thoughtfully as he studied the newcomers.
“Bib Fortuna,” Hoole said, addressing the creature by its name. “I seek a meeting with Jabba.”
“You return,” Bib Fortuna whispered in a heavy accent. Tash noticed that his teeth were as sharp as fangs. “Perhaps Jabba not so generous with you this time, eh?”
“I’ll take that chance,” Hoole replied.
Fortuna let out a hiss from between his sharp teeth. Zak and Tash realized he was laughing. “Follow.” Then he turned and walked down the corridor as silently as a wraith.
They hurried after Fortuna, who vanished through a round portal. Hoole, Zak, and Tash sped after him. Zak sprinted a little ahead of the others and was about to reach the portal when something scuttled out of the shadows.
Zak glanced over to see a giant spider ready to attack!
CHAPTER 4
“Help!” he shouted, leaping backward.
But the spider reversed course on spindly legs that made metallic clicks against the stone floor.
“Relax, Zak,” Tash teased. “It’s only a spider-shaped droid.”
“Yeah,” he replied. “But look what it’s carrying.” Attached to the spider droid’s small body was a glass jar filled with yellow-green liquid. Floating in the liquid was a solid mass of grooved gray matter. A brain.
“It’s a brain spider,” Tash said. “Remember? We saw one the last time we were here.”
“Yeah, but what are they for?” Zak asked Hoole.
“We can discuss them later,” Hoole replied. “We are at the throne room.”
They stepped through the portal and looked down on a scene of utter chaos.
Jabba’s audience chamber was just as Tash remembered it-crowded with aliens from a dozen worlds. There were gangsters, smugglers, thieves, and bounty hunters, all of whom lived in the shadows of the Empire. They hovered around Jabba’s throne like dark moons orbiting a massive planet. Whenever anything illegal happened in the galaxy, Jabba the Hutt was sure to be at the center.
Something moved in the shadows nearby, and Zak jumped out of the way, thinking another brain spider had approached. Instead, something far more dangerous stepped into the light.
The bounty hunter Boba Fett.
Zak stared at the killer’s helmet, which hid his face. Their paths had crossed once before, on a planet called Necropolis.
“Boba Fett!” Zak gasped. “I-I’m Zak Arranda. Remember me?”
The bounty hunter adjusted the blaster cradled in the crook of his arm.
Zak stammered, “Y-You saved me from being buried alive.”
The man behind the mask said nothing. Zak saw his own reflection, twisted and warped, in the face of Boba Fett’s helmet.
If Fett remembered him, he gave no sign. Without a word, the killer turned and stalked away.
Zak turned back to the center of the audience chamber. There, Jabba was talking to the local symbol of Imperial order and authority, Commander Fuzzel.
“He must have left for Jabba’s palace right after we did,” Tash whispered to Zak.
“Silence,” Bib Fortuna warned.
In the audience chamber, Commander Fuzzel stood before Jabba’s throne.
“Excellent work, Jabba,” Commander Fuzzel was saying. “That’s the third criminal you’ve turned in this month. The Empire thanks you.”
From his platform, Jabba the Hutt rumbled a satisfied laugh. Tash noticed that the sluglike gangster looked bigger than the last time she’d seen him. He was growing fat on bowlfuls of live eels. “I’ll take your thanks,” the Hutt replied, “but I’d rather have the reward money. That criminal had a huge bounty on his head.”
“You’ll get the reward,” Commander Fuzzel said. “All three criminals were wanted dead or alive, and I notice you turned them all in dead.”
The Hutt grinned. “They’re less trouble that way. I’ll expect the credits to be in my account by morning. Goodbye, Commander.”
Zak turned to Hoole and whispered, “What’s a gangster like Jabba doing turning criminals over to the Empire?”