Star Wars Missions 006 - The Search for Grubba the Hutt Read online

  “Look, big nose, I hear you know where Grubba the Hutt has been taken, and you’re going to tell me right now, or you’ll be scraping your snout off the ceiling!”

  Han Solo had the Kubaz spy in his grasp, inside a booth at the Mos Eisley cantina. The Kubaz, a gray-skinned alien with a long trunk, was much stronger than Solo had thought he would be. But the alien quit struggling once he had a blaster shoved into his face.

  Solo was shaking with rage, and his partner Chewbacca put a restraining hand on Solo’s shoulder. Solo had saved Jabba’s Ur-Damo, Grubba the Hutt, from kidnappers only days before. He’d hoped that by returning the young Hutt to Jabba, he’d get some kind of reward — enough so that Jabba would take the bounty off Solo’s head. But after he’d landed here on Tatooine, Grubba had been kidnapped again. Solo needed to get Grubba back — fast.

  “I cannot tell you where Grubba has been taken,” the Kubaz said, twisting his gray head to the side. He wore a deep-hooded robe and goggles, and spoke through an electronic translator that made his voice sound tinny and mechanical. “I cannot betray a hive-mate.”

  “I’ll give you to the count of three, and then I pull the trigger,” Solo said. “One… two…”

  “Wait!” the Kubaz pleaded. “Do not kill me. I will not reveal where to find the young Hutt. But killing me will accomplish nothing. Let us both live, and perhaps in time you will become reconciled to your loss.”

  “Wrong answer, bug eater,” Solo said, and began to slowly squeeze the trigger, hoping that the sight would scare the Kubaz into talking.

  There really wasn’t any danger, because the blaster didn’t work. Solo only kept it around as a prop for interrogations.

  The Kubaz shook. Behind his dark lenses, Solo could see his eyes widen. “Wait!” he yelled, “Do not blast my face, human. I desire to continue my existence.”

  “Good,” Solo said. “’Cause I sure didn’t want to have to pay the cleaning bill for making a mess out of you. Now, where can I find Grubba?”

  “My hive-mate has taken the young Hutt to our home world, Kubindi.”

  “Well, that narrows it down,” Solo said. “What am I supposed to do, wander the whole planet? Give me specifics!” He jammed the blaster into the Kubaz’s snout

  “Our hive mother is Queen Zabin. Our nest is near the Silver Forest of Dreams.” The Kubaz crossed his paws before his chest in a protective gesture.

  Behind Solo, Chewbacca growled a warning.

  “Yeah, I know,” Solo said. “We better get out of here.” He looked around the cantina An alien band was starting to play in the comer, and the bar was wreathed in so much smoke that Solo could hardly make out his friend Luke Skywalker, who was keeping watch for stormtroopers over by the door.

  Luke gestured frantically. It had only been a matter of hours since Solo had blasted off from the old monastery outside Jabba’s palace. By now, Jabba knew that Han Solo had lost Grubba. He was sure to be out for Solo’s blood.

  Solo pulled a robe over his head. He didn’t like sneaking around, but his face was well-known in these parts. In minutes, he was out of the cantina, and weaving through the busy streets of Mos Eisley.

  “So you got the information?” Luke asked.

  “Yeah, we’re going to someplace called the Silver Forest of Dreams, on Kubindi.”

  “I’ve heard of that place,” Luke said. “It’s supposed to be strong in the Force.”

  “I’ve heard of Kubindi, too,” Solo countered, “and I hear that they’ve got antz there that are so big, you can ride them like a speeder bike.”

  As they walked through a market filled with Jawa merchants, Luke bent his head in thought. “Something’s wrong,” he said suddenly. “I have a bad feeling about this. Maybe whoever took Grubba doesn’t want the child at all. Maybe they want you! They could be using Grubba as the bait.”

  “Well, it’s nice to be wanted,” Solo joked. “And if Grubba’s the bait, I’m biting. ’Cause when Jabba finds out that I lost his Ur-Damo, he’s going to be one mad Hutt.”

  “We have to be careful,” Luke said.

  Chewie roared agreement.

  “Well, you know me, kid. Careful is my middle name.” With Luke and Chewie following, Solo hurried to the spaceport.

  Someone must have spotted Solo at the cantina, because as he rounded a corner, he saw half a dozen local city militia rushing toward him. Luckily, they were trying to run through a bunch of Jawa traders, who blocked and distracted them.

  “This way!” Luke shouted. He grabbed Solo’s arm and pulled him into an alley, where a pair of banthas were munching leaf pellets. For a moment Solo, Luke, and Chewbacca all stood with their backs to the street, dumping moist pellets into the banthas’ food bin. After the city guards had run past, Luke quickly turned and resumed walking.

  At the spaceport, Princess Leia Organa and the droids See-Threepio and Artoo-Detoo waited inside the Millennium Falcon.

  “We’re going to Kubindi,” Solo said as he entered the ship.

  Leia gave him an odd look. “Not much is known about that planet. Lots of solar flares, and I hear the wildlife can be pretty rough.”

  “Solar flares, oh my!” See-Threepio groaned. The droid held both hands to his head. “I’m sure they’ll wreak havoc on my circuitry.” Artoo-Detoo gave a little electronic squeal of agreement

  “Yeah, the flares might have you bumping into trees and falling into holes all right” Solo said. “But if I were you, I’d worry more about their beetuls. I hear they can dig through solid metal, and they love things that are nice and gold and shiny.”

  “Oh no!” Threepio exclaimed.

  “Solo, don’t tease the droids,” Leia said.

  “Whatever you say, princess. But I’m not teasing.”

  “Princess Leia,” Threepio said, “might I suggest that we fill the cargo hold with some universal insecticides?”

  “Not a bad idea,” Solo said. “I’ll buy us each a giant fliswatter, too.” At that moment, he heard the chug, chug, chug of the Falcon’s auto-cannon begin to fire. “Unfortunately, we don’t have time.”

  A monitor on the forward observation deck showed the door to the docking bay outside. A dozen local militia wearing tan and gray battle armor were sprinting into the docking bay. Chewbacca raced into the cockpit

  “Chewie, lock up the ship!” Solo shouted. “We’re blasting out of here.”

  Solo ran for the pilot’s seat calling orders for the astrogation computer to calculate the jump to Kubindi. Luke and Leia buckled themselves in.

  See-Threepio grabbed onto a table as the ship blasted off, shaking badly as the Falcon shot through the turbulence of the upper atmosphere.

  “Oh I abhor space travel,” he told Artoo. “I hope my innards are welded in tight. We weren’t made for such abuse!”

  Artoo whistled confidently in his mechanical voice.

  “Well, all right. Maybe you were made for such abuse, but I’m sure I can hear my motivator clanging against something in my head.”

  Grubba the Hutt was playing sabacc with three bounty hunters in Dengar’s ship, Punishing One. They sat in chairs bolted around a table.

  “Ha, ha, ha,” Grubba said in a voice that seemed far too deep for such a small creature. “I win again.” He reached out his small paws and pulled the gambling chips toward him.

  “You’re cheating,” Udin the Kubaz said, his voice translator conveying a threat in his tone.

  “Prove it, and maybe I’ll give some of the money back,” Grubba offered. It was dreadfully hard to cheat at sabacc. It was impossible to know what the electronic cards would display until the card’s
button had been punched. It was possible to hot wire some of the circuitry to be given a good hand, but since the cards were shuffled between each turn, it made it almost impossible to hold a card from one hand to the next.

  The three bounty hunters scowled over the table at Grubba. The young Hutt was cleaning them out. Surely, somehow, the child was cheating.

  “I now own three-quarters interest in any reward my dear Ur-Damo Jabba pays for me.” The young Hutt fixed each bounty hunter with a cold glare.

  “I can’t wait to get rid of you, worm-face,” Eron Stonefield said. “You’re more unbearable when you’re winning sabacc than when you’re losing.”

  The young Hutt licked his lips with an ugly purple tongue. “Aw, come on, Eron. Is that any way to talk to a Hutt who loves you? Give me a kiss, and I’ll give your money back.”

  The gorgeous Eron Stonefield swept her red hair back with one hand. “Sorry, I never kiss anyone who leaves a slime trail.”

  “Why, that’s half the men you know!” Grubba said. “Someday when I’m rich, I’m going to buy you and keep you for a slave.”

  “The way you play sabacc, you might own me by the end of the week,” Eron groaned, throwing down her cards.

  “I don’t understand,” Udin the Kubaz said. “You say that you were going to Jabba’s so he could train you in the family business. But you already seem to know much about crime — or at least how to cheat at cards.”

  “My Ur-Damo Jabba is a specialist in the shipping trade,” Grubba explained. “My side of the family specializes in gambling enterprises. I go to learn his trade.”

  “Shipping business?” Eron said. “That’s a mild term. He’s a smuggler.”

  “He is a shipper,” Grubba countered. “He faces all the problems that legitimate shippers face — the need to get goods from the seller to the buyer, equipment malfunctions, the threat of space piracy, and the constant worries about competitors undercutting his price.”

  “But he’s a smuggler,” Eron repeated.

  Dengar knew Hutts better than Eron did. “Hutts don’t think like we do,” he advised. “The Empire’s laws don’t concern Hutts.”

  “Exactly,” Grubba agreed. “In trading unlawful merchandise, Jabba merely increases both his risks and his rewards. He is a well-respected trader by Hutt standards.”

  “But he murders his competitors,” Eron argued.

  “If they stopped competing, he would not be forced to kill them,” Grubba said.

  “So he values money more than life.” Eron shook her head. Decency and morality were concepts that some aliens would never understand. Certain species had evolved to be far more selfish and solitary than humans. Sitting in the same room with Grubba gave Eron the creeps. And the Kubaz was no better. Though Udin seemed to feel some affinity for humans and obeyed human laws, he also loved the taste of insects so much that he did not care whether his source of protein was dead or not Some Kubaz eating habits bordered on cannibalism.

  A proximity indicator began to beep as the ship dropped out of hyperspace. The ship’s viewer showed a rich planet — expansive seas, violet forests, slashes of red desert

  Udin stared at the planet longingly, his gray trunk hanging limp. When he spoke, the translator pinned to his lapel said in reverent tones, “Ah, home on Kubindi, most beautiful of all worlds. I can almost taste its succulent wroches, its tender termytes! Here, my hive grows the plumpest and tastiest spydrs in the galaxy. Soon we will feast on delicacies you have never imagined!”

  As the Punishing One flew low over Kubindi, Dengar marveled. It was a sweet land. Lush jungles, wide rivers, a few vast cities, and expansive farms. Yet only on close examination did one see how odd a world it was.

  The Kubaz lived in cities, all right but they were strange cities — their towers rose high from the ground, but the buildings and roads all looked as if they were a single piece of material, a dull gray in color. There were signs of technology — vehicles in landing bays, communications towers, and sensor dishes. Yet as Dengar flew over the cities, he saw almost no one.

  Suddenly Dengar realized that the Kubaz lived primarily underground. What he had first thought to be towering buildings were actually enormous ventilation shafts. Dengar spotted movement near a shaft, and thought it would be Kubaz workers. Instead, a single Kubaz directed a herd of giant termytes as they built a new dome. The giant termytes were carrying gray pulp, chewing it, and then tamping it into place to form a sort of gray cement

  For as far as Dengar could see, he found fields for the strange crops and herds. In one field was an enormous farm for purple melons. In a field nearby, the melons were fed to iridescent blue beetuls as large as his spaceship. Each beetul had a trio of horns rising from its massive head.

  In another field, a small Kubaz girl herded a flock of enormous green-and-yellow-striped fliis. Their wings were clipped, so they wouldn’t take to the sky. Nearby, giant fire-red millipods wallowed in a bog.

  Dengar had no words for many of the herds of oversized insects — they were so unlike any that he had ever seen. Something huge, with skeletal limbs, had hauled its bloated gray sack of a belly up from a river. When it saw the spaceship flying low, it raced back into the water.

  In other places, flocks of giant wingfliis were making a slow migration overhead, and the sunlight shining through their yellow and orange wings made it look like a ribbon of fire burning in the sky.

  “A pretty enough place,” Eron Stonefield said into Dengar’s ear.

  “But I’ve heard it’s dangerous, once out in the wilds,” Dengar said.

  Soon they swept over the inhabited lands, toward the stark mountains. The prevailing vegetation had been lush, a dark violet in color. Now, ahead in the tall mountains, Dengar could see trees sparkling like cut glass in the sunlight. The Silver Forest of Dreams.

  “Ah,” Udin exulted, “my home lies near. We are a poor hive, as you see, and live far from the city. Our ghost spydrs are too deadly to raise close to town.”

  “What do you mean, deadly?” Grubba the Hutt asked with a smile, slithering close to the monitor.

  “The ghost spydrs carry a deadly poison in their bite,” Udin explained. “In my hive, when we are small, our mothers begin injecting the poison into our veins, so that we soon develop immunities. Still, as my guests, you must beware. The spydrs build enormous webs all through the woods near my hive, and also make trip-wires in the forest. You may go near them only at your peril.”

  From his pilot’s seat, Dengar looked back at Udin with new respect. He had wondered why Udin insisted that the hive on his home world would be a good place to set an ambush. He’d thought only that Udin’s kin would shield him from any reprisals that Solo or the Rebels might offer.

  “So,” Dengar asked, “you expect the spydrs to get Han Solo before we do?”

  Udin nodded wisely. “Humans walking through the Silver Forest of Dreams could not possibly evade the spydrs. Some will surely die. It is a slow death, very painful.”

  “And your hive-mates will help us?” Dengar asked.

  Udin wriggled his trunk, giving a Kubaz nod. “You shall see, soon enough.”

  At dusk the Punishing One entered the Silver Forest of Dreams. The trees rose thousands of yards high, and their upper branches wove together to form an impenetrable canopy.

  Rising mists and vapor were trapped in the air. The ship flew through these mists, through the odd silver wood. Dengar turned on the landing lights, and everything in the wood glittered brilliantly in shades of silver—the silver trees, the silver mists.

  Suddenly, in the fog, Dengar spotted a flock of enormous msqitos, each fully as long as a man, with an enormous wingspan. He banked hard right to avoid them and almost crashed into a tree. Quickly recovering, Dengar found himself weaving through the fog and thick branches.

  He tried to slow down, but his sensors said the huge alien bugs were following him.

  It was dangerous to fly in these swamps.

  Dengar dropped altitude and los
t the insects in the fog. “Down so low,” Udin said, “it is possible that your ship might be ensnared in the webs of ghost spydrs. The webs arc as strong as steel, and very sticky. You would not want to get the ship entangled in one. Please fly higher.”

  Sweat ran from Dengar’s brow. He nodded and nosed the ship higher.

  A voice came over the ship’s communicator. A Kubaz warned, “Pilot, you are in a danger zone. Please reverse course. To approach without assistance is impossible.”

  Udin said, “All hail Queen Zabin, leader of our great hive. It is I, Udin. I have returned!”

  “Udin!” the voice on the communicator said. “Greetings. Have you finished spying on the humans? Have you brought some succulent new species for us to eat?”

  “Uh, not exactly,” Udin confessed. He flipped off his translator and began speaking rapidly in Kubaz.

  Dengar halted the ship and let it hover for a moment. He studied the gray-skinned Udin. The creature, in hood and goggles, looked like a spy. Dengar didn’t mind. Most species, when they first met the Empire, sent out some sort of scout or spy to study alien societies and customs, with the hope of gathering illicit technology. It was part of the process of getting to know your galactic neighbors. But he was worried by the fact that the Kubaz always seemed to be on the prowl for something to eat.

  After awhile, Udin switched his translator back on. “Our gracious queen has agreed to harbor us, and to aid us in capturing the insane Rebels. You may release the controls to your ship. Tractor beams mounted in the trees will navigate us through.”

  Dengar sat back, letting the ship hover. The Punishing One lurched forward with a groan and began its journey toward the hive city of Queen Zabin.

  It was a weird and wondrous journey, through the silver trees and the mists. The ship began to weave, pulled by tractor beams through tunnels. On every side Dengar could see the great sheets of web from ghost spydrs, and sometimes when the ship stirred the air the enormous spydrs would race out to watch.

  The spydrs were as pale as fog and nearly as large as the ship. Their dark faceted eyes gleamed like onyx, and their legs were long and amazingly slender.