Zorba the Hutt's Revenge by Paul Davids, Hollace Davids Page B

Han and Chewie can’t even keep the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon straightened out! If you ask me, a housekeeping droid is the perfect solution."
    "Okay, you’ve convinced me," Luke replied. "But now comes the hard part-choosing the droid."
    Luke activated the star map on their navigation screen. "Artoo, cool the hyperdrive thruster power," Luke said. "We’re going to glide straight into Mos Eisley Spaceport on Tatooine."
    "Why do you want to land on Tatooine?" Ken asked, confused. "Aren’t there droid discount stores near Han over in Cloud City?"
    "I guess you’ve never heard of the Droidfest of Tatooine," Luke said. "That’s the place to go. It’s loaded with JDTs."
    "What does JDT mean?" the boy inquired.
    "Jawa Droid Traders," Luke explained. "The droidfest is the jawas’ annual sale. They have the biggest selection of droids in the galaxy. And the best prices."
    "Come to think of it, I read something about the droidfest once," Ken said, nodding.
    "There was a file on it in the master computer, back in the Jedi Library." Ken had learned many things from the files of the Jedi Library, practical things, such as how to repair a droid that has a glitch in its speech mechanism. And unusual things, such as why mynock bats that live on asteroids sometimes fly upside down. And he’d also discovered some carefully guarded secrets-secrets of the Imperial High Command, secrets that even Trioculus, the evil three-eyed tyrant who now ruled the galactic Empire, would never want anyone else to know.
    Dee-Jay, the droid who was Ken’s teacher in the Lost City, had warned Ken not to reveal those secrets to anyone-including Commander Luke Skywalker, who was Ken’s guardian now that Ken had departed from the Lost City and joined the Rebel Alliance. It wasn’t long before they landed on Tatooine, the planet with the twin suns where Luke had grown up.
    They docked at Mos Eisley Spaceport, at a Y-wing landing bay. Then Luke, Ken, and the droids made their way through the crowd, bumping into aliens of all shapes and sizes in the corridors of the busy terminal.
    At the landspeeder rental booth, Luke got them a vehicle that was large enough for their entire group-and with an empty seat in the back for the housekeeping droid. As Luke steered above the burning sands, they rode along swiftly on a cushion of air. In the distance Ken could see what looked like tall metal buildings.
    "Those are sandcrawlers," Luke explained. "They’re jawa vehicles with tank treads. They’re parked for the droidfest, very close to the palace where Jabba the Hutt used to live."
    "Who lives in Jabba’s palace now?" Ken inquired.
    "It’s vacant," Luke said, "except for the Ranats that scurry around chewing on the furniture and drapes. You see, when Jabba died, they never found his will. So the government of Tatooine took possession of his palace. For awhile they turned it into the Tatooine Retirement Home for Aged Aliens. But there wasn’t enough money in the budget to keep it open."
    "Didn’t Jabba the Hutt also own the Holiday Towers Hotel and Casino in Cloud City?" Ken asked, remembering something he had read in the Jedi Library.
    "For a kid your age, you sure know your history," Luke said. "Jabba did own that casino. But when Jabba died, Holiday Towers was taken over by the government of Cloud City. My old friend, Lando Calrissian, runs it now. He’s the governor of Cloud City." The sandy plain near the vacant palace of Jabba the Hutt seemed to have as many droids as there were stars in the galaxy.
    The JDTs had set up colorful tents in front of their huge sandcrawlers, showing off their droids and displaying their merchandise. Luke, Ken, and the three droids went from one tent to the next. The tents rippled in the breeze, like hundreds of waving flags. They examined HSDs, Housekeeping Specialist Droids, of every size and description. They looked at male droids, female droids, old units, even brand new ones with every possible modern