"Take us back." Jack demanded after we finished a thorough exploration of her incredible acreage.
"Can't. No ryncol." I told her as I donned a robe that was once a silk tapestry.
"Then make some." She insisted.
"Don't know how." I admitted.
"You can make power armor that magically increases the muzzle velocity of your guns, but can't brew ryncol?" Jack inquired in an accusational tone.
"Both of these things can be true at the same time." I answered, "I was made to drink ryncol, not brew it."
"So now what?" Jack sought direction.
"Now we crack down on Jabba's lieutenants and ensure the credits keep flowing in the right direction."
"I am down with the gambling, the drugs, the bounty hunting, the piracy, and the racketeering, but in case you have forgotten… a fat chunk of the revenue stream is Jabba's slavery operation!" Jack yelled, "We are not going to become the batarians of this galaxy. I fucking outright refuse to be that scummy."
"I feel you. I hear you. And I understand." I put my hands together like I was praying then opened them up like a slippery used car salesman, "But I raise you the point that some people deserve slavery."
"Bullshit." Jack denied.
"Tusken Raiders." I countered.
"Ah shit." Jack muttered, "Fuck those dudes. 'The water is ours given to us by our gods. Now die.' I can't believe you just convinced me to become a slaver so easily."
"It helps when you have a whole species full of assholes to deal with and a constant demand for slaves." I told her, "It will be way more work than the lazy bastards are used to, and we'll take a hit to the profit margin because of it, but it both makes us money and gets rid of a huge problem for us. Win win winning."
Bib Fortuna was a real treasure. The guy had everything we needed to take Jabba's place as a crime lord already planned out. Almost like the guy hoped Jabba would one day die and he could rise up. He knew everyone to lean on and who to make examples of and by the end of the week everyone on Tatooine knew that I was Jabba's son by a lesser krayt dragon. He died when his sexual appetite turned to greater krayt dragons. So tragic.
It was raw bullshit and the only people who actually believed it were the people who saw me in person. I really did look like a hutt fucked a krayt dragon. All krogan do.
To get everyone on board I broke the bank and invited the who's who of my new subordinates and the big wigs of the Grand Hutt Council to Jabba's lavish funeral. I ordered forty days of world wide morning for my 'father' with a week of feasting following Jabba's closed casket ceremony.
Really it was just a rouse while Jack and I armed up and an opportunity to get the sand people right where I wanted them. They laughed the envoy I sent all the way back to my palace, giving great offense to the revered memory of Jabba the Hutt and providing me an emotional reason for why we would be waging war on the dusty fucks. The banta jockeys have insulted the mighty hutt race for the last time.
I think I have developed a love of roleplaying.
I hunted down the greater krayt dragon that killed my father and what a fight that was. Bastard was big as a thresher maw and spat acid too. I killed it using vibro bladed throwing spears. It sounds simple and it is. Despite its size, despite its strength, despite its scales physics is a mean bitch.
I can throw a spear really hard. Class 5 strength chucks a 6 kilo javelin at ridiculous acceleration. Pack all that force into the point of a spear and make that spear vibrate furiously and you arrive at the reason I put a duplex nail head on the end of all my javelins. Killing the legendary beast was as simple as sinking a basket full of javelins into its neck and waiting. The hardest part was pulling all my spears out.
At a later date the pearls of the krayt dragon that killed Jabba would net me a hefty sum in an anonymous auction.
Though I invited the other four members of the Grand Hutt Council to attend, the only hutt that came was my great uncle Ziro Desilijic Tiure. Though born of the prior generation, the purple slug controlled far less of hutt space than Jabba. His lack of success is likely what drove the man to gather dirt on all the various hutt operations, what he lacked in business sense he made up for in intrigue to a certain extent.
Ziro was either here to snatch up a chunk of my inheritance or to evaluate me for the council.
"Little Nephew Grunt." he greeted with false cheer in his high pitched voice as he joined me at the head table of the feast, "Such a shame, Jabba's passing, but not nearly as big a shame as him denying me time with my Little Nephew."
I get it bro. You are a 4 meter long big ass slug man. But do you even care that I am the one who has to look down at you cause half your length is dragging ass.
"Meeting the rest of the family was always something father held over me." I spoke to my 'great uncle' in Huttese, copying Jabba's drawl like I have six hundred years of experience talking like this, "It was always just out of reach. Prove you are smart as a hutt and we will go to Grandma's house. Prove you're strong as a hutt. Tough as a hutt. Live as long as a hutt. Always another condition beyond."
"It is quite rare for a hutt hybrid to come to term." Ziro soothed my fake frustration, "But it sounds like you passed Jabba's tests. Very good little nephew. Did Jabba teach you how to run his empire? There is quite a bit to running such a vast expanse of space."
"I know how what needs to be done and how to meet Jabba's commitments and who those commitments are to." I assured the slick and sleazy slug, "The credits won't slow down too much."
"But you still expect the credits to slow down?" Ziro inquired about one of the only subjects that mattered to the hutts any more.
"An opportunity has arisen to mix business and pleasure." I told him, "An investment in Tatooine and a trimming of an over bloated roster."
"You have my full attention." He said as he sipped a glowing green martini.
"I commanded the sand people to weep for my father's passing and they had the audacity to laugh." really had his ear hole now, "So for the next few years I will focus my full slaver fleet right here at home. They were to weep for 40 days, and now they will weep for a thousand years as they toil away under our yoke, the entire species."
"Quite ambitious." Ziro stroked my ego, "But the sand people have always been more trouble than they are worth."
"True, in pure credits it will be a loss." I told him, "But as I said, the roster is getting a bit too bloated for my liking and the ones who make it through this trying time will be harder for it. I'd rather have 10,000 hard veterans than 20,000 limp wristed sissies."
"So true." Ziro agreed, "Good help is so hard to find these days. I can see the wisdom in raising them in house."
Ziro and I went back and forth over the course of his stay in my palace and I couldn't help but like the guy. Cowardly, petty, and weak, but a terrific conversationalist. I'd find out later that despite his act like an uncle trying to weasel his way into a position of influence he was actually evaluating the truth of my claims and competence. He admitted that he believed me to really be Jabba's son due to my consistent speech patterns and intimate knowledge of Jabba and his businesses. He also failed to find anyone who countered my claim, everyone too scared of me to blab. That earned me big respect as credits are silver, but silence is golden.
With the hutts backed off for now I was able to launch my war against the banta jockeys. Leading my men in raids daily, I tempered my forces in violence, proved myself as a warrior and a leader, gained a tremendous amount of low investment high yield cattle in the form of the bantas they used for transport, replaced my varren packs with their domesticated massiffs, stockpiled slug throwers and other various weapons, lowered the planet's water consumption, and solidified the loyalty of everyone on Tatooine who suffered at the hands of the Tusken Raiders… so everyone.
Obviously the violence went both ways as the sand people upped their attacks on the civilized people of this desert world, but my absolute control of the sky and their complete inability to hide from sensors made any attempt by them to build up sufficient manpower to threaten a major settlement an open invitation for me to lead a devastating strike against them.
It took us years to hunt down all the Tusken Raiders, years in which Jack and I gained a reputation as bloodthirsty and capable warriors, even more so with the limited hunting of krayt dragons. Jabba knew just how many he could kill without cutting off his supply in the future, a practice I kept up as the pearls commanded a hefty market price.
The banta jockeys actually started turning us a nice profit as well once we perfected breaking them into obedient slaves. They required very little sustenance and could survive very harsh conditions making them perfect for the various agrarian colonies in the outer rim. By the start of the Clone Wars I'd sold the lot of them.
Just after the second anniversary of Jabba's funeral, (A holiday in the territory I commanded) the Grand Hutt Council asked me to take up my father's seat. I liked Marlo and Arok and their traditional Italian gangster schtick. Gorga was to much an accountant for me to and him to click and Oruba saw the grossest hutt I'd ever seen.
When not conspiring to commit crimes or destroying the sand people, I was busy mining phrik. It was a bitch and a half to mine the nearly indestructible material, but a few kidnappings from Shu-Torum got us the information we needed. I always laughed with my brother about how lightsaber resistant materials were always super rare and unobtainable unless you were the bad guys fighting against the Jedi, then the stuff is low hanging fruit.
Well now I am a Star Wars bad guy and I have one of the only two known phrik deposits in my backyard.
I think I will take an order of indestructible sword and shield with my invulnerable armor. You know what, make that two orders. Can't have the wife left out.