STAR WARS: Showdown At Sarlacc #wattys2017

Chapter 1: ENTER THE JEDI

Luke Skywalker walked up to the notorious club The Sarlacc Pit, which his former master the late Obi-Wan Kenobi had once called "a wretched hive of scum & villainy".  The club was owned by notorious gangster Jabba the Hutt. Jabba had put a huge bounty on Luke's friend—and noted smuggler—Han Solo. Solo owed a lot of money to Jabba, and, before he was able to pay him back, he was captured by Boba Fett who was regarded as one of the best—and infamous—bounty hunters in the galaxy. Boba's father was himself the legendary bounty hunter Jango Fett. Luke recalled the time his late master Obi-Wan Kenobi told him of the time he himself fought with Jango and nearly lost. Jango would later be killed during a brutal fight with legendary Jedi master Mace Windu who ended up chopping off his head with his lightsaber while young Boba watched. After that, Boba swore revenge on the Jedi and their allies, which was what led to his obsession with capturing Han Solo who was friends with Luke who was the only Jedi left after the death of Obi-Wan who was killed during a lightsaber duel with his father the Sith Lord Darth Vader as Luke arrived too late to help him.

Luke stepped closer to the club, the dark cloak he was wearing obscuring his face so the guard at the door wouldn't recognize him. He was sure Jabba had warned his men that he would be coming. His sister Princess Leia had snuck into the club with Han's friend Chewbacca—who was the Wookiee co-pilot of Han's beloved starship the Millennium Falcon—to try to rescue him. Luke had leant Leia and Chewie his two loyal droids C-3PO and R2-D2 to help them with the search. He had never heard from them and he was starting to get worried. Han's smuggler friend Lando Calrissian--who had owned the Falcon before Han (and, in typical smuggler fashion, Han had managed to swindle the ship from him)--had went in search of him in the Falcon a couple of months earlier. They lost touch with each other a month ago. Right before they lost touch, he said he found out Han was being kept frozen in the Carbonite had put him in the backroom of Jabba's club. Luke felt sick to his stomach when Lando informed him he used Solo's frozen body as decoration which his goons would merrily deface.

As Luke approached the club, he watched as the door opened and one of Jabba's henchmen threw out this Gungan. He glared angrily at the Gungan and shouted at him, "Don't come back!"

The Gungan stood up and brushed himself off. He looked back at the club and said, "How wude!"

He turned and saw Luke coming towards him. The Gungan's eyes widened as he rushed up to him as if the creature recognized him.

"Ani?" the Gungan said to him.

Luke tried to walk past him but the Gungan was persistent. Annoyingly persistent, he thought.

"Ani, is that you?"

The Gungan kept asking him if he was this "Ani" person. The more the Gungan spoke the higher—and more piercing—his voice got. The club's doorman was starting to pay more attention to them. So Luke turned his head and looked directly at this annoying Gungan. He proceeded to use his Jedi mind trick as he said to him, "You. Will. Go. Away."

The Gungan looked confused for a moment, which Luke surmised was a regular occurrence for this creature, then he said, his eyes glazed over, "I will go away."

He finally turned and walked away from Luke, much to Luke's relief. Luke continued walking towards the club.He attempted to walk past the doorman, but, as even he figured would happen, he was stopped at the door.

"Where do you think you're goin'?"the hulking doorman asked as he glared at him.

Before Luke could answer him, the henchman who threw out the Gungan suddenly opened the door and looked right at the doorman, ignoring him at first.

"Hey, Jabba wanted me to make sure that damn Gungan wasn't still hanging around."

All of a sudden the henchman gazed down at Luke and his eyes widened in recognition.

"Hey," he said, pointing at Luke, "that's that Luke Skywalker Jabba told us to keep an eye out for!"

He started to reach down for his blaster while the doorman still looked stunned. Calmly, Luke raised his hand and began to Force-choke the one going for his blaster and then the other one. Luke didn't like to use the Force in this manner unlike his sadistic father who Force-choked those who dared look at him funny. And, unlike his father who Force-choked others to death, he only Force-choked others until they passed out, like these two men did. After the fell to the ground unconscious, Luke used the Force again to snatch the blaster Jabba's henchman was going to use on him. He hid the blaster inside his cloak and, after taking a deep breath, he entered the club.

Luke stood in the doorway for a moment to survey what was occurring inside the club. The place was packed like it was normally was. The Max Rebo Band were playing on the stage. Everyone was too busy drinking and having a good time to  notice him standing there . . . yet. He looked around to see if maybe he could see Leia or any of the others. He saw his droid R2-D2 going around serving drinks. His other droid C-3PO was standing next to Jabba who was sitting in the far corner of the club in his usual spot where he could watch everything. As he always was, he was flanked by his loyal henchmen. He noticed Boba Fett standing across from Jabba and his men chatting up the dancer girls who were apparently taking a break. He didn't see Leia, Lando or Chewie as he slowly began walking towards where Jabba was sitting. He assumed Han was still in his office still frozen in Carbonite where that bastard Boba put him to take to Jabba.

Luke wasn't ashamed to admit to himself that he felt more than a little apprehension at facing Jabba. He was a big burly fellow. He remembered hearing stories from Obi-Wan how he could hold his own against even a fully-trained Jedi, including his very own father Anakin back when he was Kenobi's padawan before his turning to the Dark Side and his transformation into Darth Vader.

Luke wasn't sure what was going to happen when he confronted Jabba. He knew he wouldn't give up Han and the others without a fight. But he knew Han would do the same for him and had done the same for him. Han always joked how Luke owed him one. The truth of the matter was, he did owe him one. More than one, in fact. As a matter of fact, were it not for Han, Luke would not even be alive. He will never forget how Han swooped in at the last moment in the Millennium Falcon and shot his father's ship out of the sky before he blasted his own ship out of the sky during the battle at the Death Star. Or how Han kept him from freezing to death when he was attacked by an ice beast called a Wampa while they were hiding from his father and his criminal organization the First Order--that was led by a mysterious figure known only the by name Palpatine--on the frozen planet Hoth. Now it was his turn to save Han. He only hoped he was up to the challenge. However, he quickly found that that challenge would be harder than he envisioned as he was suddenly stopped dead in his tracks when he felt a blaster poking him in the back of his head. He slowly turned his head and was surprised when he saw who it was who was aiming that blaster at him.

It was Lando Calrissian.

"Lando," Luke said, "what are you doing?"

"That's far enough, Luke," Lando said to him, his blaster trained right at his head.

Luke looked over and saw Jabba along with everyone else in the place looking right at him.

"I've got a very bad feeling about this," Luke muttered to himself as he stared right into Jabba's rancorous face . . .

I thought about titling this chapter Return Of The Jedi, but I felt that was a little too on the nose. So I named it Enter The Jedi after the film Enter The Dragon starring Bruce Lee instead. Anyway, you know the drill: vote and/or comment on this story thus far and let me know what you think about my "reimagining" of ROTJ. (I'm also curious on how anyone feels about my "casting" of this story. Again, let me know in the comments below!)