Tales From Jabbas Palace (Kevin Anderson) by Unknown Read Free Book Online

young man ran in panic like a spooked Jawa, slamming against the open grille of the access door trying to get out. Malakili batted him back, and the others pushed the young man away.
    “Hurry up and get eaten!” he said, glancing yet again at his chronometer. There wasn’t much time.
    Inside the den the young human ran straight between the rancor’s legs, beneath the monster and to the other side.
    Malakili slapped his forehead in dismay. The same silly trick the combat arachnids had used, but the rancor had still not figured out how to defend against it.
    The rancor turned and lumbered toward the human again, arms outstretched. The human ran into a low chamber where the rancor frequently slept, ducking under the heavy jagged door that could be closed off when others needed to clean the cage.
    Malakili felt his heart pounding, and he hissed in a cold breath.
    Above, the others shouted and cheered even louder than before. Even if the rancor ate this human in the next few seconds, the spectators would not settle down for some time yet. He let another moan escape his throat. Now what was he going to do?
    Lady Valarian would not wait.
    The rancor had the human trapped now, and it hunched low to pass into the sleeping den. The human grabbed up a round ivory boulder—no, a skullm and hurled it at the controls just as the rancor leaned under the jagged door.
    The skull triggered the switch, and the massive durasteel door crashed dOWn like a guillotine blade.
    The jagged end slammed into the rancor’s head and spine, hammering the monster down to the floor and smashing open his skull, splitting his hide.
    The rancor snorted and whimpered once in stunned pain, as if calling out for Malakili, and then it died.
    Malakili stood like a statue. His jaw dropped open as his ears filled with a roaring white noise of disbelief and utter anguish.
    “No!” he wailed.
    The rancor was dead! The pet he had tended and cared for… the creature that had rescued him from the Tusken Raiders… who had allowed him to sit on its knobby foot as Malakili ate his lunch.
    Other guards opened the cage as angry shouting came from above.
    They whisked the young struggling human away, but Malakili was too much in shock even to notice.
    Moving like a droid, unable to stop himself, Malakili staggered into the cage where he stood in front of the carcass of the dead monster. Most of the other hopefuls, the ones who had wanted to take care of the rancor, melted away, seeing their chances for advancement erased. Only one man, tall and swarthy with dark hair, followed him in.
    Malakili watched the ichor ooze across the slimy flagstone floor.
    The rancor lay still, as if sleeping. Finally, unable to stand it any longer, Malakili let loose his tears like a flashflood on Tatooine. He wailed in grief, ready to faint, not knowing what he was supposed to do now.
    The man next to himmMalakili could not remember his name, no matter how hard he tried—put a grimy hand on Malakili’s shoulder, patted him and tried to comfort him, but he stumbled away through a blur of tears. All he could see were his own memories of wonderful days with the rancor.
    He heard Jabba’s angry pronouncement echo through the grille, ordering that the human captive be taken out to the Great Pit of Carkoon and fed to the Sarlacc. Jabba didn’t care that the rancor was dead: he was merely disappointed that his anticipated great battle with the krayt dragon could not now take place.
    The tears continued to flow down Malakili’s chubby cheeks, tracing clean rivers across his grimy skin. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, trying to strangle further sobs.
    Malakili thought only of how much he hated Jabba, how the crimelord had ruined everything. Even before the grief began to fade, Malakili found ways to replace it, vowing that he would get even with Jabba the Hutt.
    He would find some way to make the sluglike gangster pay.
    Outside in the blistering heat of afternoon, Lady Valarian’s