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Bib Fortuna leaned close, sniveling, and whispered a few words that would have chilled the blood of any crime lord in the galaxy.
A Jedi Master is here to see you.
But Jabba Desilijic Tiure was no petty crime lord. He had ruled the Outer Rim for centuries and had not remained on his throne by being weak. His power was absolute, his control unrelenting. No Jedi could threaten his empire, especially not the tiny, wrinkled creature who leaned heavily on his cane as he stepped into the mighty Jabba’s presence now.
“Greetings,” the little being croaked. In fluent Huttese, too. “I am Jedi Master Yoda, and before you I must bring a serious issue. Your control over the hyperlanes to the Outer Rim and your pirates have…”
Jabba grunted and waved for the band to continue playing, drowning out Yoda’s words. What did he care of what the Jedi thought about his operations? The Republic had no presence out here.
“The Senate demands a resolution!” Yoda interrupted sharply. “Leave here until we have negotiated, I will not.”
For a moment, the entire throne room fell silent. Then, Jabba rumbled with laughter. Those were the wrong words to say to a Hutt.
He motioned, and burly Gamorrean guards grabbed Yoda, his frail frame no match for their strength. They dragged him forward as a wide smile slowly spread across Jabba’s face. He’d wanted to get another Kowakian monkey lizard for a while, found their stupid antics amusing. This creature, with the same long ears, could be substitute enough.
“You’re mine,” Jabba chuckled.
The endless bacchanal swirled on, slave girls swinging their hips, raucous music blasting. And Yoda sat at the center of it all silently, eyes closed. No matter how much Jabba bellowed orders, tugged on the chain connected to Yoda’s collar, cajoled him to dance, laugh, something, the little green creature was the picture of serenity.
At first, Jabba found it strange. Then he found it annoying. Then, it was consuming. He began to ignore everything else, wave away any stupidity that Bib Fortuna came to him with. What was wrong with this thing? How was he so kriffing unbothered?
One late night, when everyone else had drunk themselves unconscious, Jabba glared at Yoda, still quietly sitting crosslegged, whispering to himself.
“There is no emotion, there is peace,” Yoda murmured. An answer to Jabba’s unspoken question.
“What?” Jabba growled.
“There is no emotion, there is peace,” Yoda repeated. “There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death, there is the Force. The Jedi Code, the words by which we live our lives.”
Jabba snorted. “The nonsense of monks.”
“My guiding light, it is,” Yoda said softly.
“I will never understand why you Jedi prevent yourselves from enjoying your own life,” Jabba said.
Yoda shook his head. “No. Let my appetite control me, I do not. Not as you have. Discipline, control, the true value of life they are.”
Jabba chortled. “For what? Gods do not need to control themselves. What do you gain? Meaningless points with your nonexistent Force?”
Yoda finally opened his eyes. Jabba had never noticed their shade of gold among the forest green. “And what do you gain?” Yoda asked. “At peace, are you?”
A ridiculous question. Jabba was the unchallenged master of the largest region of the galaxy, the wild edges where even the Supreme Chancellor dared not stick his nose. Everyone around him lived to please him, his whole day was spent doing whatever he wanted, he had every luxury he could think of at his fingertips.
“That was not what I asked,” Yoda said, again seeming to be able to know Jabba’s thoughts in an unsettling way. “Asked if you are at peace, I did.”
Peace. What was peace? Jabba was always in pursuit of utter euphoria, was that peace?
Yoda raised one three-clawed hand. A faint hum filled the air, almost inaudible. Something shifted around Jabba, intangible, but he felt it. Something opening inside of him and flowing through him. A different kind of calm, not the numbness of Corellian wine blurring his senses. Something like the bright sky in the eye of the hurricanes that swept across the swamps of Nal Hutta in his childhood, a moment of relief from the seething heat.
“A taste of the Light,” Yoda whispered.
Jabba’s three lungs felt like they had been newly opened. He twisted towards Yoda. “Enough. You say I know nothing of peace, but what do you know of pleasure?”
“I have transcended pleasure,” the Jedi Master said.
“Have you?” Jabba slithered closer. His hot breath swept across Yoda. “Perhaps you have never experienced it.”
Yoda’s eyes widened as Jabba’s tail curled around him.
“Master. Master!”
Jabba roared angrily. Who was waking him so early?
Bib Fortuna wrung his hands. “I apologize, Master, but it is urgent.”
“What?” Jabba growled.
Bib shrank away in fear of the incoming wrath. “Rintel Aren’s fleet, sir. It’s been destroyed. We have lost the Ison Trade Corridor.”
“ What? How?”
“A surprise attack by the Republic’s Judicial Forces, sir. We had some reports, but you were always concerned with other…matters…”
Jabba knocked Bib away in fury. How had this happened? Was he losing his grip? What had been so distracting…
Yoda rose. “My mission is complete, I see.” He made a simple motion, and an invisible force slammed Jabba against the wall. An emerald green lightsaber blazed out of nowhere, slashing through Yoda’s chains as he acrobatically sprang away.
“What was this?” Jabba seethed.
“A distraction,” Yoda said. “Necessary to free a vital hyperspace route from your grasp. Nothing more. The Jedi Code does not allow for attachments.”
“Nothing more?” Jabba laughed bitterly. “Does your Jedi Code allow for lying?”
Yoda’s eyes turned hard. “Goodbye, Jabba. Threaten the vulnerable of this galaxy no longer. It would be best if our paths did not cross again.”
Jabba realized he had been bested. For the first time in his life, he had been made weak, betrayed, defeated. Every cell in his body screamed out for revenge, but he did not stop the little green Jedi as he disappeared into Tatooine’s shimmering dunes.
Many decades later, another Jedi entered Jabba’s presence. A human this time, blond haired and blue eyed. No diplomatic mission, now demanding the freedom of his friend.
Not a chance, even if Jabba didn’t hate Jedi. He ordered them all to be thrown to the Sarlacc, to the sadistic glee of his court.
And it was there, at the banks of the Sarlacc Pit, that Jabba screamed for the Jedi’s death as the Skywalker boy ignited a lightsaber that same, burning emerald color. Jabba screamed for death as the boy flipped through the air in a way he only could have learned from one other person. Jabba screamed as he died himself, his screams strangled by the chains he had used to bind Yoda and countless other slaves.
Jabba screamed in vain because though he could bury every last Jedi in the sand and leave them there to rot, he could not bury the memory of long ears, green-gold eyes, the only peace he had ever felt. As he closed his eyes and everything erupted into an inferno around him, that was the last thing he saw, haunting him until the end.