Novel References

The Mandalorian Armour

PAGE QUOTATION COMMENTS

1 Chapter 1

1-2
He held his fire, seeing now just what it was that had grabbed on to him. His fall had pulled a hand and arm free from the drifting sands that formed the shallow grave for one of Jabba's personal corps of bodyguards. Some reflex wired into the dead warrior's battle-glove had snapped the dead hand tight as a womp-rat trap.

character: glove in the sand, and an intersting piece of combat technology.

3
Scraps of the canopy that had shaded Jabba' massive bulk from the midday suns now fluttered in the scalding breezes, blaster fire and the impact of the crash having torn the expensive Sorderian weftfabric to rags.
...
Soon after the battle, he'd seen a Huttese transport rumbling into the sky; that'd been what had guided him to this remote spot. The ship undoubtedly had had Jabba's body aboard. Hutts might be greedy, credit-hungry slugs — a trait Dengar actually admired in them — but they did have a certain feeling toward the members of their own species. ... It wasn't sentimentality on the part of the other Hutts, so much as a wound to their notorious megalomania, mixed with a practical self-interest.

Soderican weftfabric;
culture: Huttese transport arrived very soon after Jabba's death, which says something about the quality of communications within Jabba's clan. Commentary on Hutt mentality.

4-5
Dengar picked up an unsmashed foodpot that the tow of his boot had uncovered. The still-living delicacy inside, one of Jabba's favorite trufflites, scrabbled against the ceramic lid emobssed with the distinctive oval seal of Fhnark & Co., Exotic Foodstuffs — we cater to the galaxy's most degenerate appetites. ... His own tastes didn't run to the likes of the pot's spidery, gel-mired contents; he hooked a gloved finger in the lid and pried it open. The nutrient gases hissed out; they had sustained the delicacy's freshness, all the way from whatever distant planet had spawned it. "See how long you can last out there." The trufflite dropped to the sand, scrabbled over Dengar's boot, and vanished over the nearest dune. He imagined some Tusken Raider finding the little appetizer out there and being completely perplexed by it.

creature: trufflite

6
He'd sent his bride-to-be, Manaroo, aloft in his ship, the Punishing One, to do a high-altitude reconaissance of the area. Soon enough she'd be finished with the task, and would come back to fetch him.

character: Manaroo
starship: Punishing One

14 Chapter 2

14
Kuat of Kuat ... had a fine-tuned awareness of machines, from the smallest nanospheroids to constructions capable of annihilating worlds. It was a family trait, something encoded deep within the Kuat blood for generations.
...
Beyond the expanded orbit of the planet that bore the name identical to his, the hazy arm of one of the galaxy's more aesthetically pleasing spiral nebulae was about to rise into sight. He tried not to miss things like that; they served to remind him that the universe and all its interconnected workings was, in its essence, a machine like other machines.

character: Kuat, hereditary ruler of the Kuat system and KDY corporation, receives a messanger pod.
This spiral nebula sounds much like the baffling object seen at the end of The Empire Strikes Back.

15
He stroked the silky fur of the felinx cradled in his arms; the animal made a deep, barely audible sound of contentment as his long, precise fingers found a specific zone behind the triangular ears.
...
Fenald, the security chief, was dressed in the standard Kuat Drive Yards worksuit, devoid of any emblem of rank except for the variable-dispersion blaster slung conspicuously at his hip.

creature: felinx;
character: Fenald, KDY security chief.

15-16
... despite the importance of Kuat Drive Yards as the elite and most powerful contractor of engineering and construction services to the Empire, the formalities of KDY headquarters were minimal, and had been for generations. Pomp and show and courtly flourishes were for those who didn't understand where true power came from. Fenald gestured toward the viewport, its hexagonal structwork curving three times higher than his boss's imposing two-meter height.

Conditions at KDY headquarters.
Kuat is a very tall man.

17
... a trouser leg cut of the same uniforms worn by KDY employees.

KDY uniform.

19
The navigational coordinates were hardwired; a matter of a few days ago it'd left the distant world of Tatooine. It could have reached the Kuat Drive Yards headquarters even sooner if a randomizing sublight process hadn't been programmed, to evade detection.

travel: Tatooine - Kuat trip thorugh hyperspace accomplished in less than a few days. It is unknown whether manned craft is capable of this kind of journey.

20

Jabba's purchases from KDY.

22-23

character: Bib Fortuna

28 Chapter 3

29

character: Neelah

31

scar

29-30

MD3, MD5 medical droids

32

Names of the mecical droids include Greek letters.

42 Chapter 4

43
The urge to reach over and pull the other's head off, air hoses and comlink wires dangling like the tendrils of swamp weed surrounding the birth pits back on Trandosha, was almost irresistible.

location: A few clues about the physical conditions of the Trandosha birthpits.

45
"That wall's monocrystal-chained; we'd have heard any blast powerful enough to get through it. Unless..." A sudden suspicion hit him; he glanced over his shoulder to the opposite wall. A sonic dissipator, the dials on its silvery ovoid surface trembling at the overload point, hung overhead by its automatically extruded gripfeet. The indicators slowly backed away from their red zones as the impact of the wall-breaching explosion was converted into a harmless sibilant whisper.

technology: A sonic dissipator is a device that seems to counteract or dampen sounds, even sounds from a large explosion. Fett used another one of these devices in Rebel Dawn p.204, where it was called a "sound sponge".

47,49

character: Nil Posondum, and the background details of how he found himself in trouble.

49
Worse, the accountant had been keeping the financial records for a chain of illicit skefta dens in the Outer Rim Territories that were controlled by a Huttese syndicate.

The substance skefta is named, but its nature is unknown. It is associated with vice of some kind.

52
"And just where are those credits?"
Posundum drew back from the cage's bars. "They're hidden."
"I could very easily find out the location." Fett kept his voice as level and emotionless as before. "The extracting of useful information is a specialty of mine."
"It's memory-encrypted," said the accountant. "Below the conscious level. And with a trauma sensor implanted." He pointed to a small scar just above his left ear. "You try to dig the info out of me, it'll trip and wipe the cortical segment clean. Then, nobody will ever find where I put those credits."
"There's ways around those things." Boba Fett had seen them before. "Bypasses and shunts- they're not pleasant. But they work." He supposed the Hutts were already preparing a deep neurosurgical dissection room for Posundum upon his return.

technology: This passage demonstrates advanced cybernetic inegration, whereby encrypted data is actually stored in the original organic brain, complete with safeguards against improper removal.

53
"But ... but I've heard of other bounty hunters ... who'll cut a deal. ..."
"Other bounty hunters may conduct their business as they please." Fett barely managed to keep from his voice the contempt with which he held the so-called Bounty Hunters Guild's members. That kind of shortsighted greed was one of the reasons he had no desire to associate himself with the Guild. "They have their standards ... and I have mine."

Fett outlines some of his standards and how they differ from the standards of his competitors.

55 Chapter 5

55,56

character: Kud'ar Mub'at.

57-58

The exterior of Mub'at's web in space.

59
This one must have been just recently extruded by the assembler, the neural silk was still white and unmarked by the web's centuries of accumulated filth.

Indicates that the lifetime of the whole web is measured in terms of centuries at least.

59
.... they could sense the proximity of a spacecraft and, like the tentacles of a Threndrian snareflower, grab hold and bring it in tight and secure to the web's entry port.

creature: Therndrian snareflower, possibly a carnivorous plant from some place called Threndria.

61

Kud'ar Mub'at facial physical description.

63
Everyone in the galaxy knew what Kud'ar Mub'at's business was. There was no other entity among the stars quite like the notorious assembler. If there were other members of its species on some distant planet, covered with skeins and nets of their extruded neural silk, that world hadn't been discovered yet.

Uniqueness and fame of Kud'ar Mub'at.

67
"Open inspection port Gamma Eight." That port allowed visual access to the cages in his ship's cargo hold.

location: Slave I has an inspection port allowing part of the interior to be seen from the outside. Where on the ship is this?

68
Kud'ar Mub'at flexed its main limbs, causing its segmented torso to bob up and down in front of its visitor.

Kud'ar Mub'at: further physical description: the torso is segmented and has flexibility in the vertical direction.

70
"...If any of its members were at all proficient, they wouldn't be in it. An organisation like that is for the weak and harmless, who think that by combining their forces they might become deadly. They're wrong."
"....The GUild has been headed for many years now by the Trandoshan Cradossk; he was a legend among the stars when you were first starting out."
"So he was." Fett nodded once. "And now he is old and feeble, if still cunning. His offsping Bossk was one of those who got in my way as I was capturing Nil Posondum. If the son were one tenth the bounty hunter that the father had been, I might have some competition. But he's not, and I don't. The Bounty Hunters Guild's glory days are long in the past."

Boba Fett's appraisal of the Bounty Hunters Guild, and of Cradossk, the father of Bossk.

72 Chapter 6

72

character: Prince Xizor of the Black Sun organised criminal syndicate.

79
Of all the sensory data he had ever experienced, from the acrid steam of the Andoan swamp islands to the blinding creation-swirl of the Vinnax system's countervacuum, those molecules signalling panic and desperation were what Fett found to be the most alien. Whatever minute subcutaneous organ produced fear sweat, it was missing in him. Not because he had been born without it — no sentient creature ever was — but because he had forced it into nonexistence, excised it from his mind with the razor-sharp scalpel of his will. The ancient Mandalorian warriors, whose lethal battle-gear he wore, had been just as coldly ruthless, according to the legends that were still told and retold in whispers throughout the galaxy. Long ago, when he had first gazed upon one of their empty helmets, a relic of an extinguished terror, he had seen in its narrow, unreadable gaze an image of his own future, of the death-bringing entity he would become.

locations: Andoan swamp islands, possibly on Ando the homeworld of the Aqualish; Vinnax system, the site of what sounds like a remarkable astrophysical object.
Fett contemplates some aspects of his relationship with the Mandalorians. The passage does not reveal whether he actually belonged to one of their warrior groups during the Clone Wars; that may be determined in Episode II or Episode III.

80
An odd notion moved in Boba Fett's thoughts, one that he'd turned over and examined like a precious Gerinian star-stone many times before.

location: implies the existence of a place called Gerinia, whence precious substances of hand-held size can be obtained. "Star stone" suggests that these valuable things are obtained from a star rather than a planet or other normal solid body.

84 Chapter 7

103 Chapter 8

104
He had already killed, as was Trandoshan custom, all of his father Cradossk's younger spawn ....

culture: Bossk's Trandoshan culture required him to kill his paternal siblings. Whether he killed any half-siblings conceived by his mother with other males is not known. Is this part of the essential sociobilogy of Trandoshans, or is it merely a tradition? Does Bossk rationalise tradition in terms of biology, or biology in terms of tradition?

106
"That ship of Fett's had some serious amour on it. It's still holdign together." The glowing triangle had stopped in the middle of the screen, but hadn't disappeared. To have taken that kind of a hit, enough to pucn ha hole through the main deck of an Imperial battle cruiser, and still be in one piece, however badly damaged, was amazing.

starships: Theoretical omparison between weaponry of Bossk's ship and the surability of an Imperial battle cruiser, presumably in an unshielded condition.
starship: Reference to an Imperial battle cruiser, presumably one of several classes of heavily armoured warships that is an intermediate between a star destroyer and something like the Executor in size, armour and firepower.

113 Chapter 9

113
The council's long, crescent-shaped table had been set for a celebratory banquet. One of Cradossk's scurrying servants had set a crystalline goblet, the mingled shades of cobolt and amethyst within revealing the expense of the vintage it contained, in front of Boba Fett. He had touched the dark liquid with a gloved fingertip, just enough to send a few ripples across the surface. Etiquette demanded that much; anything less, and the old reptilian sprawled next to him would have been offended.

location: Bounty Hunters Guild council chamber.
culture: Banquet etiquette for a man unable to drink because of a mask or space suit he wears.

114

character: Cradossk, father of Bossk and leader of the Bounty Hunters Guild.

114-115
Boba Fett had had enough experience with Trandoshans over the years to know what a bad sign it was when their voices went low and ominous like that. When they shouted and snarled, they were ready to kill. When they whispered, they were ready to kill everything. He carefully shifted away from Cradossk's side so as not to be in the way if the old reptilian decided to leap over the table and tear out his only son's throat.

aliens: Signs of impending or possible violence in the voices of Trandoshans, according to the analysis of Boba Fett.

122 Chapter 10

122
Xizor turned toward the hologram of the dark-caped figure — an intimidatingly life-sized image, transmitted from the Devastator, Lord Vader's personal flagship.

chronology: These events take place before the completion of the Executor, but after Lord Vader's acquisition of Devastator from Lord Tion's taskforce [as mentioned in STAR WARS Sourcebook].

124
Xizor had seen others, the highest-ranking officers in the Empire's forces, clutching their throats and gasping for air, writhing like a Dantooinian garfish caught on a barbed trawling line.

creature: garfish from Dantooine. Xizor has come into contact with this animal from a planet that was obscure enough to be the site of a rebel base before A New Hope. Was he directly or indirectly involved in the rebels' decision to abandon the base? If not, then what is the reason for his familiarity with the planet or its garfish?

127
"You should have listened to me," said Vader. The rush of his breath sounded louder and angrier. "The Rebellion was growing even then, and the admirals wasted your time on such folly. I told them that the Death Star, when it was completed, would be a machine and nothing more. Its power would be nothing compared to that which you already possess."

chronology: This conversation takes place after A New Hope.
Lord Vader opposed the Death Star project, against at least one faction of Imperial admirals. For the Emperor to subsequently assign Vader as envoy and observer on the first Death Star is perhaps a vivid illustration of his policy for fostering mutual frustration amongst his civic and military officials.

130

Prince Xizor gives a verbal treatise on the nature of the Emperor's domination of his galaxy.

137
They both collapsed in exhaustion when they had reached the safety of the lower, Sarlacc-dug tunnels. .... Dengar and Neelah sprawled back against the fused-smooth walls curving around them.
"... The part that could be seen in the Great Pit of Carkoon was just its head and mouth; it had tentacles extending all through the rock. Some say as far as the edges of the Dune Sea.`

creature: Sarlacc tunnels; subterraneous extent of the beast.

139
And I know a great deal more about Boba Fett and the others, the ones who belong to the Bounty Hunters Guild. Before you ever came to my court, I was aware of Fett; not everything that you regard as a mystery about him is a secret to me. He wears the armour of the Mandalorian warriors; he's earned the right to that armour, by his own prowess. Lord Vader possesses some of the knowledge that belonged to the Mandalorians; I possess more.

continuity: Palpatine has extensive knowledge of the Mandalorians and Fett. Does this knowledge derive from his experiences and plans during the Clone Wars, or did he gather his information at a later stage?

150 Chapter 11

150
He prevailed upon Cradossk's majordomo, an obsequious Twi'lek like the ones so often encountered in high-level service positions, .... The Twi'lek majordomo's name was Ob Fortuna; his head tails, the bifurcated appendages that curved from his skull and rested on his shoulders like overfed snakes, glistened with a sheen of perspiration. He resembled a distant clan member that Fett had seen in Jabba the Hutt's entourage.

character: Ob Fortuna

151
A native insect, bristling with antennae and eyestalks — a miniature version of the council member that spoke in nothing but questions — had been aroused by the presence of humanoid body heat. It tried to escape as Boba Fett reached over with his armour-gloved hand, but his forefinger cracked the bug's chitinous shell and left the tiny carcass smeared on the damp rock. Fett watched as a swarm of smaller creatures scurried away.

creatures: Insects native to the Bounty Hunters Guild planetoid. If the comparison with the councilor is not just a personal disparagement, then perhaps the councilor's species is native as well. They could even be juvenile and adult forms of the same species, in which case individuals could only achieve sapience after reaching a certain size.

153
".... It's one of the reasons I despise him. The day will come when I sharpen my teeth on the shards of his bones."
"Family matters don't interest me." Boba Fett shrugged. It had been obvious to him for a long time before this why Trandoshans were not a numerous species.

aliens: Trandoshans are not a numerous species, according to Fett's estimation. This is quite interesting considering their presence throughout the classic STAR WARS movie trilogy, which implied that they may be one of the more numerous non-human species. Perhaps Fett means that Trandoshans are not numerous compared to humans.

154
"You're aware of how old Cradossk is. You'd have to know; you had enough encounters with him in the past, before I was even spawned. ..."

characters/chronology: Bossk believes that Fett has been involved with bounty hunting (to the extent of meeting Cradossk) since before Bossk's own conception. Considering Bossk's age, this would mean that Fett has been active for several decades as of A New Hope. How could this be so? Does he possess regenerative medical technologies? Has he spent long periods in stasis, hybernation or under the effects of relativistic time dilation? Or could it be that Bossk is mistaken?

157
"....Even when my father still had sharp fangs, he was never your equal in the bounty-hunter trade. None of those old creatures were. And as they got older all they really managed to do was get in the way of me and the other young hunters —..."

aliens: Trandoshans apparently have sharper teeth when they are young. Cradossk has blunter teeth, and Bossk considers himself young. Compare with his age as given in Galaxy Guide 10, which is middle-aged by human terms. The Trandoshan life cycle may be longer than the human average.

160

character: Cradossk, physical description.

165

location: Cradossk's memory-bone chamber, repository of the remains of his kills from hatching onwards.
characters: Cradossk's brothers, or rather their mortal remains.
aliens: Trandoshans. Interestingly there is no mention of sisters. Does this mean that all Trandoshan hatchlings from a single clutch are of the same sex? Or do the young males decline from killing their sisters?

172 Chapter 12

189 Chapter 13

200
He stood at the great viewport of the Kuat Drive Yards' flagship, watching the mottled sphere of the planet Tatooine dwindle in the distnace.... the military squadron that had pounded the surface of the Dune Sea to dust was already en route, heading back to Kuat by a circuitous route, jumping in and out of hyperspace to foil the just-concluded bombing raid on Tatooine. All insignia and identification beacons had been carefully stripped from the vessels before they had left on their mission.

starship: KDY corporate flagship and attendant fleet. It would be interesting to know what model of vessel KDY uses for its own flagship. Is it comparable to the greatest KDY ships in the Imperial Starfleet, like the Executor and Eclipse?

205 Chapter 14

207-209
"... Seems a certain Lyunesi comm handler named Oph Nar Dinnid managed to work himself up a real case of hyper-eros." ....
Fett knew what the Trandoshan was talking about. The Lyunesi were one of six sentient species on Ryoone, a planet down-spiral from one of the remoter sectors of the Outer Rim Territories. Unusually dismal condiutions had been brought about millennia ago by a seemingly permanent suspension of volcanic ash in the upper atmosphere, resulting in a ruthless competition for survival. The other inhabitants of Ryoone would have wiped out the Lyunedi long ago if the fragile creatures hadn't mastered the arts of interspecies communication. Their skills went far beyond mere translation of words and meaning; surrounded by enemies, with the continuation of their own breed dependent upon every nuance of language and gesture, the Lyunesi bought their lives with interpretive skills far beyodn even the most highly developed protocol droid. .... In the galaxy beyond Ryoone, the Lyunesi were found at every communications nexus, sorting out and fine-tuning the messages and negotiations between one wildly dissimilar sector of the Empire and another.
....
"He was working for one of the major liege-holder clans out in the Narrant system; I won't say which one—"
"You don't have to. They're all alike." boba Fett was well acquainted with those clans; they were really more loose confederations of genetically linked species, with deep layers of ritual obesiance and internal blood oaths patching over their differences. It didn't work; they needed the altradiplomatic Lyunesi around just to keep from killing each other off. A really good gig for the natives of a backwater world like Ryoone — as long as they didn't screw up.

locations: Narrant system; Ryoone
aliens/culture: clans of Ryoone; Lyunesi
character: Oph Nar Dinnid; a hapless Lyunesi.

211-212
Of all the Huttese clans, the Shell Hutts were the least numerous, and the most removed from the various alliances and interconnected dealings that bonded the other Hutts together. The Shell Hutts didn't even look like their distant brethren, except in bulk and physiognomy;....
Identical in physical toughness as well, with thick leathery skins impervious to blaster shots and acids, and vital organs so deeply buried under layers of blubber that they couldn't even be nicked with a vibroblade— the only physical threat that Hutts feared was specific bands of hard unshielded radiation, the kind whose toxic effects built up in their bodies' shielding fat rather than being dissipated through normal excretion processes. That had kept the Hutts from extending their criminal enterprises to certain areas of the galaxy. Until one of the Huttese clans, sometime in the hazy millennia of the past, had given themselves what their own genetics had failed to: protective armoured casings, bolted and welded together from heavy durasteel plates, supported and maneuvered about by built-in repulsor fields. All that showed of hte Shell Hutts' soft, gelatinous flesh were their jowly faces, protruding tortoiselike from iris-collared ports at the front of the floating ovoid cases. Even the Shell Hutts' delicate little hands were hidden inside, manipulating the controls for the externally mounted grasping devices.

aliens: Shell Hutts

215
The glistening, bifurcate head tails of his underling reminded him of both Nirellian ground-slugs and uncooked sausages.

creatures: Nirellian ground-slugs, presumably a two-tailed tubular invertebrate of a size comparable to the head-tails of a Twi'lek.

225 Chapter 15

229
The ovoid could be seen more clearly now as if slid into the the landing dock, thrust engines shut down and repulsors on Its rounded surfaces were pitted and scoured with the impact marks of high-intensity armaments, including one large scorch mark where the metal had actually melted and fused back together. As it hovered above the pad its trailing mesh shifted and drew forward, one part curling above like a scorpion's tail, the other forming a reticulated cradle beneath, onto which the craft slowly sank and was still.

starship: The dangerous and mysterious starship of D'herhan.

231-232
Slowly the laser cannon rose, as though being lifted on some mechanism inside the ovoid-shaped craft. .... The cannon parted the steam as a massive humanoid torso appeared below, its wide shoulders bearing the weapon's crushing weight. From the underside of the barrel, a quarter circle of gear-toothed metal curved down into an anchoring plate set in the creature's chest, with interlocking motors to adjust the muzzle's terminal elevation. Heavy cables, some glistening black, others made of silvery durasteel, looped beneath the arms and around the muscle-sheathed chest and ribs, connecting with the counterbalancing cylinders of power sources flanking the spine. .... black gloved hands and thick soled boots .... indicating the presence of an old-style, liquid-based cooling system, primitive technology dating from the earliest days of the Republic. ....
A tail section, like a primitive saurian's, butmade of segmented black metal and mounted by articulated bolts to the creature's hips, was the last thing to be dragged out of the craft. obscuring for a moment the outlines of the weapon,

character: D'harhan

234
But heading toward the Shell Hutts' home base, a ring-shaped artificial planetoid called Circumtore, aboard the Slave I had proved more unnerving.

location: Circumtore, base of the Shell Hutts.

236
"D'harhan doesn't have a lot of need for communicating." Boba Fett's voice sounded dryly amused. "And before, when there were others like him, they coordinated thei actions with their own internal comm network."

aliens: There were once more cyborg warriors like D'harhan.

243-244
The elongated, tapering cylinder of the Shell Hutt negotiator moved with ponderous grace into the holding area,....
"Ah, Boba Fett!" The casing, studded with rivets and various maintenance ports, swung about in the holding area, past the other bounty hunters and toward the figure standing near the metal ladder. A leering smile formed on the Shell Hutt's face. Tiny mechanical hands dangled beneath the gleaming chromium collar, sealed tight around the wattled gray flesh of its neck; the claws, delicate as a scuttling sea crab's, clicked happily against each other. "How pleasant to see you again."
Fett's response was dry and emotionless. "My feelings, Gheeta, are the same as the last time we met."

character: Gheeta, negotiator for the Shell Hutts.

254
"I know better than anyone that to remove your weapon would be the same as killing you; I haven't forgotten about those things. I was there when you became as you are now. So I also know other things: that you weapon can be rendered nonfunctional, incapable of firing, by a relatively simple procedure. The removal of the light-mass core alone will do it. And then the Shell Hutts will have no basis for refusing you permission to enter their world."

technology: Fett knows how to temporarily disable D'harhan's weapon.
continuity: Fett was present at the creation of D'harhan, so this kind of cyborg must have come into being sometime within a few decades before this novel.

259 Chapter 16

261
"His budget allowed for a nearly unlimited expenditure of capital, including the hiring of one of the top freelance architects in the galaxy. A man named Emd Grahvess—"

character: Emd Grahvess, an accomplished architect who is still alive (as perhaps his greatest accomplishment).

271
With their artificial exoskeletons, the cylinders raised by repulsor beams, the size to which Shell Hutts could aspire was no longer restricted by gravity — only by how much they could grab of the galaxy's wealth and stuff into their lipless mouths. Gheeta was only in the middle range when it came to sheer mass; Boba Fett recognised a few other Shell Hutts in the great reception hall, elders of the clan that were to Gheeta as an Imperial battle cruiser was to a TIE Fighter craft. Those faces protruding from their cylinder's metal collars were so heavily wattled from brow to throat that hooks had been surgically implanted in the blubbery tissue, the sharp metal bits connected to a web of thin, high-tension strands fastened to the top edge of the cylinder. If not for that support, the old Shell Hutts' eyes and nostrils would have been buried beneath avalanches of their own slack flesh.

aliens: The elder Shell Hutts, who have attained leviathan dimensions.

271-272
....
"More complaints." The immense Shell Hutt — his name, Fett remembered, was Nullada — rolled his yellow eyes beneath his brow's folded and sagging pouches.

character: Nullada, a gargantuan elder of the Shell Hutts.

293-294
He found the mercendary's blaster rifle and held it to his chest as he rolled onto his back. Pushing himself up with one hand, Fett saw another cannon bolt, a hundred times wider and more destructive than the other shots cutting across the great reception hall's space, enough to rip a hole through the light armor of an Imperial cruiser. And more than enough to reduce one entire wing of the building to charred splinters. Through the rising dust of fractured stone, Boba Fett could hear the screams and shouts of the Shell Hutts and their hired thugs as one pillar and then another toppled into the center of the hall, bringing down a section of roof and exposing the dark sky of Circumtore.
D'harhan turned where he stood, segmented metal tail bracing himself against the recoil of the laser cannon borne by his shoulders and torso. The cannon's barrel rocked back in its housing as another white-hot bolt coursed across the hall, scattering a knot of mercenaries.

technology:
yet another example of a laser cannon that isn't a laser cannon. The monstrous mercenary known as D'harhan needs to brace himself against the recoil of his laser cannon, Boba Fett can easily see the bolt coming from the weapon, and of course, it blows away half of a building rather than simply melting a hole.

299
... he prodded the side of what had been Gheeta's metal casing. Silently, the cylinder rolled back and forth in the red mire.

aliens: Hutts: This passage seems to imply that Shell Hutts have red blood. This is interesting considering the fact that Hutts had green blood in comics such as The Fall of the Sith Empire.

302 Chapter 17

303
Zuckuss' own ribs twinged in painful sympathy as he recognised what they were.

aliens: Gand: Zuckuss appears to have ribs. Does this mean that his species has an endoskeleton rather than exoskeleton in the thorax region?

323 Chapter 18

325
Redonning his armour, a set that had been kept under a coded autodestruct lock to foil any thieves who might have stumbled upon their hiding place, had transformed him, from a raw-skinned invalid to the imposing specialist in death that he had been before falling down the Sarlacc's throat. Sealing the restored helmet's edge to the uniform's collar had completed the apotheosis: he didn't drink the water, Neelah realised, because he had become a self-contained unit, sealed against the frailties of mortal creatures.

continuity: Boba Fett has at least one spare suit; and one suit was destroyed in the Sarlacc experience.
technology: Fett's armoured spacesuit is airtight and watertight. It is supposed to be able to conserve water well enough that the wearer does not require drink as often as a normally-dressed man, if at all.

330
Dengar uprooted some dead scruff brush and hastily camouflaged the swoop with it. The stripped-down, one-person repulsorlift vehicle belonged to somebody else. Or used to — Big Gizz, the leader of one of Tatooine's toughest swoop gangs, had crashed and burned on this machine. .... Big Gizz had been luckier than most; there had been enough of him left to scrape up and patch back together. Whatever he was up to these days, he had presumably gotten himself some new transportation to do it with.

creature: scruff brush; evidently some of the canyon flora of Tatooine similar to the light vegetation seen during Luke Skywalker's hunt for R2-D2 in A New Hope.
character: Big Gizz, the swoop gangster who was put out of action in Shadows of the Empire, and who was revived by B'omarr monks in The Jabba Tape comic.

334
"I'm looking for Codeq Santhananan. He been in here lately?"
The same ugly bartender, familiar from all of Dengar's other visits, shook his head. "That barve got drilled a coupla months ago. Right outside the door. I had a pair of rehab droids scrubbing the burn mark for two whole standard time periods, and it still didn't come out."

character: Codeq Sanathanan, a shady courier who has worked for Dengar before. He died sometime between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
continuity: Wuher the bartender of the Mos Eisley cantina is still in the same job as in A New Hope.

335
—a hand with bifurcate talons tugged at Dengar's sleeve—
....
Dengar found himself looking into the black bead eyes, no more than a couple of centimetres in diameter, of a Q'nithian aeropteryx. One of the beads swelled larger as the creature's other set of claws held a magnifying lens on a jewelled handle in front of it.
....
The Q'nithian flopped after him on the flattened tips of its shabby grey wings, useless for any kind of flight. It struggled into the seat on the booth's opposite side, then settled down as though wrapped in a feathered cloak.

aliens: Q'nithian aeropteryx.

342
" .... The devices were numbered sequentially, in production runs of a quarter million. All of the ones numbered below the twelve-million mark were reserved for KDY's own use, for designing and testing the munitions storage chambers aboard the heavy cruisers and destroyers that were being built for the Imperial fleet."

technology: Dengar identifies the fuse mechanism of a slightly outdated form of Imperial orbit-ground missile explosive.
starships: Vague reference to heavy cruisers and destroyers produced by KDY, with capacity for physical munitions such as orbit-ground missiles. According to the statistics invented in roleplaying game sources, the common mile-long destroyers of the movies lack this capability; but it is not surprising that other KDY warship designs correct the oversight.

345
Even if he hadn't been in shadow, the Q'nithian's weak eyesight would have ruled out his being spotted as he watched and waited.

aliens: As suggested by this individual's use of a magnifier for gazing upon his surroundings, the Q'nithian aeropteryx species has poor vision, compared to the sight of humans.

348
Vol Hamame ahd once been a member of Big Gizz's swoop gang. They had had a parting of ways, and not an amicable one. Since then, Hamame had found other employment, equally criminal.

character: Vol Hamame, a former swoop rider under Big Gizz.

348-349
Only one of the Q'nithian system's moons had its own atmosphere; it was there, on deeply creviced fault lines, grinding constantly against each other from the tidal pull of the moon's captor planet, that the thick clusters of the mimbrane creatures grew and multiplied like the shelf fungi found on arboreal worlds. They lived on acoustic energy, absorbing sound vibrations and incorporating them layer by layer into their own simple bodies. Millennia of seismic shifts and groans were recorded in the oldest mimbranes, buried beneath the weight of their overlapping offspring and grown into undulating mases big enough to wrap around an Imperial cruiser like a shining blanket.
Small, fresh mimbranes had more practical uses. They wer ethe perfect eavesdropping device, recording into their gelatinous fibres any sounds that struck the tympanic cells in which the creatures were sheathed. Being totally organic, they couldn't be detected by the usual antibugging sweep devices.

creatures: mimbranes, curious but simple life-forms from a moon in the Q'nithian system. Living recorders of sounds.

350 Chapter 19

352
So when the word had reached him that Boba Fett was dead, dissolved in the digestive secretions of the Sarlacc beast, a combination of elation and frustration had welled up inside him. .... But Bossk had set the Hound's Tooth at maximum speed for the too-familiar planet of Tatooine, just to bask in the atmosphere that had been the last to fill his enemy's lungs.

continuity: Bossk was unaware of Fett's fall into the Sarlacc, despite being in Jabba's palace during the arrival of Luke Skywalker. He might even have been aboard the final trip of the sail barge, and the Return of the Jedi footage should be checked carefully for his presence there. If he was there, then it means that he missed the outcome of the battle. It must be unfortunate for him to have learned this important news only barely later than his departure from the planet in Return of the Jedi.

353
A simple hailing call had returned the information that Slave I was empty, but still under the protection of its internal guard circuitry. ....

chronology: At this point in time, Slave I is not in Fett's control but has not yet been appropriated by agents of the Rebel Alliance [as described in The Dark Empire Sourcebook].

362-363
This mere youngster, from an obscure backwater planet, had somehow become overwhelmingly important to Emperor Palpatine and — perhaps even more so — to Lord Vader, the Empire's black-gloved fist. Vader's creatures, his personal legions of spies and informants, were still scouring all the inhabited worlds for leads on Skywalker. Why, though, was still a carefully guarded secret.

Bossk reflects upon the circumstances of Lord Vader's quest, and his seemingly improbably target. If someone such as Bossk is aware of the intensity of Vader's focus, how much of it is public knowledge? A bounty hunter might know the prey, but do many of Vader's peers at Palpatine's court understand the intensity of the situation? How many, like Prince Xizor, could have guessed the motive?

364
After a moment the numbers slowed, then turned to letters, then words. PHEROMONES DETECTED. Another second passed before the rest appeared. SUBTYPE SEXUAL, GENDER MALE. Then at last: SPECIES MATCH—FALLEEN. The words remained until Bossk blanked the screen with a press of his clawed thumb.

Evidence implicating Prince Xizor in the deaths of Luke Skywalker's uncle and aunt.

368 Chapter 20

385 Chapter 21

The Mandalorian Armour
PAGE	QUOTATION	COMMENTS
1	Chapter 1
1-2	He held his fire, seeing now just what it was that had grabbed on to him. His fall had pulled a hand and arm free from the drifting sands that formed the shallow grave for one of Jabba's personal corps of bodyguards. Some reflex wired into the dead warrior's battle-glove had snapped the dead hand tight as a womp-rat trap.	character: glove in the sand, and an intersting piece of combat technology.
3	Scraps of the canopy that had shaded Jabba' massive bulk from the midday suns now fluttered in the scalding breezes, blaster fire and the impact of the crash having torn the expensive Sorderian weftfabric to rags. ... Soon after the battle, he'd seen a Huttese transport rumbling into the sky; that'd been what had guided him to this remote spot. The ship undoubtedly had had Jabba's body aboard. Hutts might be greedy, credit-hungry slugs — a trait Dengar actually admired in them — but they did have a certain feeling toward the members of their own species. ... It wasn't sentimentality on the part of the other Hutts, so much as a wound to their notorious megalomania, mixed with a practical self-interest.	Soderican weftfabric; culture: Huttese transport arrived very soon after Jabba's death, which says something about the quality of communications within Jabba's clan. Commentary on Hutt mentality.
4-5	Dengar picked up an unsmashed foodpot that the tow of his boot had uncovered. The still-living delicacy inside, one of Jabba's favorite trufflites, scrabbled against the ceramic lid emobssed with the distinctive oval seal of Fhnark & Co., Exotic Foodstuffs — `we cater to the galaxy's most degenerate appetites`. ... His own tastes didn't run to the likes of the pot's spidery, gel-mired contents; he hooked a gloved finger in the lid and pried it open. The nutrient gases hissed out; they had sustained the delicacy's freshness, all the way from whatever distant planet had spawned it. "See how long you can last out there." The trufflite dropped to the sand, scrabbled over Dengar's boot, and vanished over the nearest dune. He imagined some Tusken Raider finding the little appetizer out there and being completely perplexed by it.	creature: trufflite
6	He'd sent his bride-to-be, Manaroo, aloft in his ship, the Punishing One, to do a high-altitude reconaissance of the area. Soon enough she'd be finished with the task, and would come back to fetch him.	character: Manaroo starship: Punishing One
14	Chapter 2
14	Kuat of Kuat ... had a fine-tuned awareness of machines, from the smallest nanospheroids to constructions capable of annihilating worlds. It was a family trait, something encoded deep within the Kuat blood for generations. ... Beyond the expanded orbit of the planet that bore the name identical to his, the hazy arm of one of the galaxy's more aesthetically pleasing spiral nebulae was about to rise into sight. He tried not to miss things like that; they served to remind him that the universe and all its interconnected workings was, in its essence, a machine like other machines.	character: Kuat, hereditary ruler of the Kuat system and KDY corporation, receives a messanger pod. This spiral nebula sounds much like the baffling object seen at the end of The Empire Strikes Back.
15	He stroked the silky fur of the felinx cradled in his arms; the animal made a deep, barely audible sound of contentment as his long, precise fingers found a specific zone behind the triangular ears. ... Fenald, the security chief, was dressed in the standard Kuat Drive Yards worksuit, devoid of any emblem of rank except for the variable-dispersion blaster slung conspicuously at his hip.	creature: felinx; character: Fenald, KDY security chief.
15-16	... despite the importance of Kuat Drive Yards as the elite and most powerful contractor of engineering and construction services to the Empire, the formalities of KDY headquarters were minimal, and had been for generations. Pomp and show and courtly flourishes were for those who didn't understand where true power came from. Fenald gestured toward the viewport, its hexagonal structwork curving three times higher than his boss's imposing two-meter height.	Conditions at KDY headquarters. Kuat is a very tall man.
17	... a trouser leg cut of the same uniforms worn by KDY employees.	KDY uniform.
19	The navigational coordinates were hardwired; a matter of a few days ago it'd left the distant world of Tatooine. It could have reached the Kuat Drive Yards headquarters even sooner if a randomizing sublight process hadn't been programmed, to evade detection.	travel: Tatooine - Kuat trip thorugh hyperspace accomplished in less than a few days. It is unknown whether manned craft is capable of this kind of journey.
20		Jabba's purchases from KDY.
22-23		character: Bib Fortuna
28	Chapter 3
29		character: Neelah
31		scar
29-30		MD3, MD5 medical droids
32		Names of the mecical droids include Greek letters.
42	Chapter 4
43	The urge to reach over and pull the other's head off, air hoses and comlink wires dangling like the tendrils of swamp weed surrounding the birth pits back on Trandosha, was almost irresistible.	location: A few clues about the physical conditions of the Trandosha birthpits.
45	"That wall's monocrystal-chained; we'd have heard any blast powerful enough to get through it. Unless..." A sudden suspicion hit him; he glanced over his shoulder to the opposite wall. A sonic dissipator, the dials on its silvery ovoid surface trembling at the overload point, hung overhead by its automatically extruded gripfeet. The indicators slowly backed away from their red zones as the impact of the wall-breaching explosion was converted into a harmless sibilant whisper.	technology: A sonic dissipator is a device that seems to counteract or dampen sounds, even sounds from a large explosion. Fett used another one of these devices in Rebel Dawn p.204, where it was called a "sound sponge".
47,49		character: Nil Posondum, and the background details of how he found himself in trouble.
49	Worse, the accountant had been keeping the financial records for a chain of illicit skefta dens in the Outer Rim Territories that were controlled by a Huttese syndicate.	The substance skefta is named, but its nature is unknown. It is associated with vice of some kind.
52	"And just where are those credits?" Posundum drew back from the cage's bars. "They're hidden." "I could very easily find out the location." Fett kept his voice as level and emotionless as before. "The extracting of useful information is a specialty of mine." "It's memory-encrypted," said the accountant. "Below the conscious level. And with a trauma sensor implanted." He pointed to a small scar just above his left ear. "You try to dig the info out of me, it'll trip and wipe the cortical segment clean. Then, nobody will ever find where I put those credits." "There's ways around those things." Boba Fett had seen them before. "Bypasses and shunts- they're not pleasant. But they work." He supposed the Hutts were already preparing a deep neurosurgical dissection room for Posundum upon his return.	technology: This passage demonstrates advanced cybernetic inegration, whereby encrypted data is actually stored in the original organic brain, complete with safeguards against improper removal.
53	"But ... but I've heard of other bounty hunters ... who'll cut a deal. ..." "Other bounty hunters may conduct their business as they please." Fett barely managed to keep from his voice the contempt with which he held the so-called Bounty Hunters Guild's members. That kind of shortsighted greed was one of the reasons he had no desire to associate himself with the Guild. "They have their standards ... and I have mine."	Fett outlines some of his standards and how they differ from the standards of his competitors.
55	Chapter 5
55,56		character: Kud'ar Mub'at.
57-58		The exterior of Mub'at's web in space.
59	This one must have been just recently extruded by the assembler, the neural silk was still white and unmarked by the web's centuries of accumulated filth.	Indicates that the lifetime of the whole web is measured in terms of centuries at least.
59	.... they could sense the proximity of a spacecraft and, like the tentacles of a Threndrian snareflower, grab hold and bring it in tight and secure to the web's entry port.	creature: Therndrian snareflower, possibly a carnivorous plant from some place called Threndria.
61		Kud'ar Mub'at facial physical description.
63	Everyone in the galaxy knew what Kud'ar Mub'at's business was. There was no other entity among the stars quite like the notorious assembler. If there were other members of its species on some distant planet, covered with skeins and nets of their extruded neural silk, that world hadn't been discovered yet.	Uniqueness and fame of Kud'ar Mub'at.
67	"Open inspection port Gamma Eight." That port allowed visual access to the cages in his ship's cargo hold.	location: Slave I has an inspection port allowing part of the interior to be seen from the outside. Where on the ship is this?
68	Kud'ar Mub'at flexed its main limbs, causing its segmented torso to bob up and down in front of its visitor.	Kud'ar Mub'at: further physical description: the torso is segmented and has flexibility in the vertical direction.
70	"...If any of its members were at all proficient, they wouldn't be in it. An organisation like that is for the weak and harmless, who think that by combining their forces they might become deadly. They're wrong." "....The GUild has been headed for many years now by the Trandoshan Cradossk; he was a legend among the stars when you were first starting out." "So he was." Fett nodded once. "And now he is old and feeble, if still cunning. His offsping Bossk was one of those who got in my way as I was capturing Nil Posondum. If the son were one tenth the bounty hunter that the father had been, I might have some competition. But he's not, and I don't. The Bounty Hunters Guild's glory days are long in the past."	Boba Fett's appraisal of the Bounty Hunters Guild, and of Cradossk, the father of Bossk.
72	Chapter 6
72		character: Prince Xizor of the Black Sun organised criminal syndicate.
79	Of all the sensory data he had ever experienced, from the acrid steam of the Andoan swamp islands to the blinding creation-swirl of the Vinnax system's countervacuum, those molecules signalling panic and desperation were what Fett found to be the most alien. Whatever minute subcutaneous organ produced fear sweat, it was missing in him. Not because he had been born without it — no sentient creature ever was — but because he had forced it into nonexistence, excised it from his mind with the razor-sharp scalpel of his will. The ancient Mandalorian warriors, whose lethal battle-gear he wore, had been just as coldly ruthless, according to the legends that were still told and retold in whispers throughout the galaxy. Long ago, when he had first gazed upon one of their empty helmets, a relic of an extinguished terror, he had seen in its narrow, unreadable gaze an image of his own future, of the death-bringing entity he would become.	locations: Andoan swamp islands, possibly on Ando the homeworld of the Aqualish; Vinnax system, the site of what sounds like a remarkable astrophysical object. Fett contemplates some aspects of his relationship with the Mandalorians. The passage does not reveal whether he actually belonged to one of their warrior groups during the Clone Wars; that may be determined in Episode II or Episode III.
80	An odd notion moved in Boba Fett's thoughts, one that he'd turned over and examined like a precious Gerinian star-stone many times before.	location: implies the existence of a place called Gerinia, whence precious substances of hand-held size can be obtained. "Star stone" suggests that these valuable things are obtained from a star rather than a planet or other normal solid body.
84	Chapter 7
103	Chapter 8
104	He had already killed, as was Trandoshan custom, all of his father Cradossk's younger spawn ....	culture: Bossk's Trandoshan culture required him to kill his paternal siblings. Whether he killed any half-siblings conceived by his mother with other males is not known. Is this part of the essential sociobilogy of Trandoshans, or is it merely a tradition? Does Bossk rationalise tradition in terms of biology, or biology in terms of tradition?
106	"That ship of Fett's had some serious amour on it. It's still holdign together." The glowing triangle had stopped in the middle of the screen, but hadn't disappeared. To have taken that kind of a hit, enough to pucn ha hole through the main deck of an Imperial battle cruiser, and still be in one piece, however badly damaged, was amazing.	starships: Theoretical omparison between weaponry of Bossk's ship and the surability of an Imperial battle cruiser, presumably in an unshielded condition. starship: Reference to an Imperial battle cruiser, presumably one of several classes of heavily armoured warships that is an intermediate between a star destroyer and something like the Executor in size, armour and firepower.
113	Chapter 9
113	The council's long, crescent-shaped table had been set for a celebratory banquet. One of Cradossk's scurrying servants had set a crystalline goblet, the mingled shades of cobolt and amethyst within revealing the expense of the vintage it contained, in front of Boba Fett. He had touched the dark liquid with a gloved fingertip, just enough to send a few ripples across the surface. Etiquette demanded that much; anything less, and the old reptilian sprawled next to him would have been offended.	location: Bounty Hunters Guild council chamber. culture: Banquet etiquette for a man unable to drink because of a mask or space suit he wears.
114		character: Cradossk, father of Bossk and leader of the Bounty Hunters Guild.
114-115	Boba Fett had had enough experience with Trandoshans over the years to know what a bad sign it was when their voices went low and ominous like that. When they shouted and snarled, they were ready to kill. When they whispered, they were ready to kill everything. He carefully shifted away from Cradossk's side so as not to be in the way if the old reptilian decided to leap over the table and tear out his only son's throat.	aliens: Signs of impending or possible violence in the voices of Trandoshans, according to the analysis of Boba Fett.
122	Chapter 10
122	Xizor turned toward the hologram of the dark-caped figure — an intimidatingly life-sized image, transmitted from the Devastator, Lord Vader's personal flagship.	chronology: These events take place before the completion of the Executor, but after Lord Vader's acquisition of Devastator from Lord Tion's taskforce [as mentioned in STAR WARS Sourcebook].
124	Xizor had seen others, the highest-ranking officers in the Empire's forces, clutching their throats and gasping for air, writhing like a Dantooinian garfish caught on a barbed trawling line.	creature: garfish from Dantooine. Xizor has come into contact with this animal from a planet that was obscure enough to be the site of a rebel base before A New Hope. Was he directly or indirectly involved in the rebels' decision to abandon the base? If not, then what is the reason for his familiarity with the planet or its garfish?
127	"You should have listened to me," said Vader. The rush of his breath sounded louder and angrier. "The Rebellion was growing even then, and the admirals wasted your time on such folly. I told them that the Death Star, when it was completed, would be a machine and nothing more. Its power would be nothing compared to that which you already possess."	chronology: This conversation takes place after A New Hope. Lord Vader opposed the Death Star project, against at least one faction of Imperial admirals. For the Emperor to subsequently assign Vader as envoy and observer on the first Death Star is perhaps a vivid illustration of his policy for fostering mutual frustration amongst his civic and military officials.
130		Prince Xizor gives a verbal treatise on the nature of the Emperor's domination of his galaxy.
137	They both collapsed in exhaustion when they had reached the safety of the lower, Sarlacc-dug tunnels. .... Dengar and Neelah sprawled back against the fused-smooth walls curving around them. "... The part that could be seen in the Great Pit of Carkoon was just its head and mouth; it had tentacles extending all through the rock. Some say as far as the edges of the Dune Sea.`	creature: Sarlacc tunnels; subterraneous extent of the beast.
139	And I know a great deal more about Boba Fett and the others, the ones who belong to the Bounty Hunters Guild. Before you ever came to my court, I was aware of Fett; not everything that you regard as a mystery about him is a secret to me. He wears the armour of the Mandalorian warriors; he's earned the right to that armour, by his own prowess. Lord Vader possesses some of the knowledge that belonged to the Mandalorians; I possess more.	continuity: Palpatine has extensive knowledge of the Mandalorians and Fett. Does this knowledge derive from his experiences and plans during the Clone Wars, or did he gather his information at a later stage?
150	Chapter 11
150	He prevailed upon Cradossk's majordomo, an obsequious Twi'lek like the ones so often encountered in high-level service positions, .... The Twi'lek majordomo's name was Ob Fortuna; his head tails, the bifurcated appendages that curved from his skull and rested on his shoulders like overfed snakes, glistened with a sheen of perspiration. He resembled a distant clan member that Fett had seen in Jabba the Hutt's entourage.	character: Ob Fortuna
151	A native insect, bristling with antennae and eyestalks — a miniature version of the council member that spoke in nothing but questions — had been aroused by the presence of humanoid body heat. It tried to escape as Boba Fett reached over with his armour-gloved hand, but his forefinger cracked the bug's chitinous shell and left the tiny carcass smeared on the damp rock. Fett watched as a swarm of smaller creatures scurried away.	creatures: Insects native to the Bounty Hunters Guild planetoid. If the comparison with the councilor is not just a personal disparagement, then perhaps the councilor's species is native as well. They could even be juvenile and adult forms of the same species, in which case individuals could only achieve sapience after reaching a certain size.
153	".... It's one of the reasons I despise him. The day will come when I sharpen my teeth on the shards of his bones." "Family matters don't interest me." Boba Fett shrugged. It had been obvious to him for a long time before this why Trandoshans were not a numerous species.	aliens: Trandoshans are not a numerous species, according to Fett's estimation. This is quite interesting considering their presence throughout the classic STAR WARS movie trilogy, which implied that they may be one of the more numerous non-human species. Perhaps Fett means that Trandoshans are not numerous compared to humans.
154	"You're aware of how old Cradossk is. You'd have to know; you had enough encounters with him in the past, before I was even spawned. ..."	characters/chronology: Bossk believes that Fett has been involved with bounty hunting (to the extent of meeting Cradossk) since before Bossk's own conception. Considering Bossk's age, this would mean that Fett has been active for several decades as of A New Hope. How could this be so? Does he possess regenerative medical technologies? Has he spent long periods in stasis, hybernation or under the effects of relativistic time dilation? Or could it be that Bossk is mistaken?
157	"....Even when my father still had sharp fangs, he was never your equal in the bounty-hunter trade. None of those old creatures were. And as they got older all they really managed to do was get in the way of me and the other young hunters —..."	aliens: Trandoshans apparently have sharper teeth when they are young. Cradossk has blunter teeth, and Bossk considers himself young. Compare with his age as given in Galaxy Guide 10, which is middle-aged by human terms. The Trandoshan life cycle may be longer than the human average.
160		character: Cradossk, physical description.
165		location: Cradossk's memory-bone chamber, repository of the remains of his kills from hatching onwards. characters: Cradossk's brothers, or rather their mortal remains. aliens: Trandoshans. Interestingly there is no mention of sisters. Does this mean that all Trandoshan hatchlings from a single clutch are of the same sex? Or do the young males decline from killing their sisters?
172	Chapter 12
189	Chapter 13
200	He stood at the great viewport of the Kuat Drive Yards' flagship, watching the mottled sphere of the planet Tatooine dwindle in the distnace.... the military squadron that had pounded the surface of the Dune Sea to dust was already en route, heading back to Kuat by a circuitous route, jumping in and out of hyperspace to foil the just-concluded bombing raid on Tatooine. All insignia and identification beacons had been carefully stripped from the vessels before they had left on their mission.	starship: KDY corporate flagship and attendant fleet. It would be interesting to know what model of vessel KDY uses for its own flagship. Is it comparable to the greatest KDY ships in the Imperial Starfleet, like the Executor and Eclipse?
205	Chapter 14
207-209	"... Seems a certain Lyunesi comm handler named Oph Nar Dinnid managed to work himself up a real case of hyper-eros." .... Fett knew what the Trandoshan was talking about. The Lyunesi were one of six sentient species on Ryoone, a planet down-spiral from one of the remoter sectors of the Outer Rim Territories. Unusually dismal condiutions had been brought about millennia ago by a seemingly permanent suspension of volcanic ash in the upper atmosphere, resulting in a ruthless competition for survival. The other inhabitants of Ryoone would have wiped out the Lyunedi long ago if the fragile creatures hadn't mastered the arts of interspecies communication. Their skills went far beyond mere translation of words and meaning; surrounded by enemies, with the continuation of their own breed dependent upon every nuance of language and gesture, the Lyunesi bought their lives with interpretive skills far beyodn even the most highly developed protocol droid. .... In the galaxy beyond Ryoone, the Lyunesi were found at every communications nexus, sorting out and fine-tuning the messages and negotiations between one wildly dissimilar sector of the Empire and another. .... "He was working for one of the major liege-holder clans out in the Narrant system; I won't say which one—" "You don't have to. They're all alike." boba Fett was well acquainted with those clans; they were really more loose confederations of genetically linked species, with deep layers of ritual obesiance and internal blood oaths patching over their differences. It didn't work; they needed the altradiplomatic Lyunesi around just to keep from killing each other off. A really good gig for the natives of a backwater world like Ryoone — as long as they didn't screw up.	locations: Narrant system; Ryoone aliens/culture: clans of Ryoone; Lyunesi character: Oph Nar Dinnid; a hapless Lyunesi.
211-212	Of all the Huttese clans, the Shell Hutts were the least numerous, and the most removed from the various alliances and interconnected dealings that bonded the other Hutts together. The Shell Hutts didn't even look like their distant brethren, except in bulk and physiognomy;.... Identical in physical toughness as well, with thick leathery skins impervious to blaster shots and acids, and vital organs so deeply buried under layers of blubber that they couldn't even be nicked with a vibroblade— the only physical threat that Hutts feared was specific bands of hard unshielded radiation, the kind whose toxic effects built up in their bodies' shielding fat rather than being dissipated through normal excretion processes. That had kept the Hutts from extending their criminal enterprises to certain areas of the galaxy. Until one of the Huttese clans, sometime in the hazy millennia of the past, had given themselves what their own genetics had failed to: protective armoured casings, bolted and welded together from heavy durasteel plates, supported and maneuvered about by built-in repulsor fields. All that showed of hte Shell Hutts' soft, gelatinous flesh were their jowly faces, protruding tortoiselike from iris-collared ports at the front of the floating ovoid cases. Even the Shell Hutts' delicate little hands were hidden inside, manipulating the controls for the externally mounted grasping devices.	aliens: Shell Hutts
215	The glistening, bifurcate head tails of his underling reminded him of both Nirellian ground-slugs and uncooked sausages.	creatures: Nirellian ground-slugs, presumably a two-tailed tubular invertebrate of a size comparable to the head-tails of a Twi'lek.
225	Chapter 15
229	The ovoid could be seen more clearly now as if slid into the the landing dock, thrust engines shut down and repulsors on Its rounded surfaces were pitted and scoured with the impact marks of high-intensity armaments, including one large scorch mark where the metal had actually melted and fused back together. As it hovered above the pad its trailing mesh shifted and drew forward, one part curling above like a scorpion's tail, the other forming a reticulated cradle beneath, onto which the craft slowly sank and was still.	starship: The dangerous and mysterious starship of D'herhan.
231-232	Slowly the laser cannon rose, as though being lifted on some mechanism inside the ovoid-shaped craft. .... The cannon parted the steam as a massive humanoid torso appeared below, its wide shoulders bearing the weapon's crushing weight. From the underside of the barrel, a quarter circle of gear-toothed metal curved down into an anchoring plate set in the creature's chest, with interlocking motors to adjust the muzzle's terminal elevation. Heavy cables, some glistening black, others made of silvery durasteel, looped beneath the arms and around the muscle-sheathed chest and ribs, connecting with the counterbalancing cylinders of power sources flanking the spine. .... black gloved hands and thick soled boots .... indicating the presence of an old-style, liquid-based cooling system, primitive technology dating from the earliest days of the Republic. .... A tail section, like a primitive saurian's, butmade of segmented black metal and mounted by articulated bolts to the creature's hips, was the last thing to be dragged out of the craft. obscuring for a moment the outlines of the weapon,	character: D'harhan
234	But heading toward the Shell Hutts' home base, a ring-shaped artificial planetoid called Circumtore, aboard the Slave I had proved more unnerving.	location: Circumtore, base of the Shell Hutts.
236	"D'harhan doesn't have a lot of need for communicating." Boba Fett's voice sounded dryly amused. "And before, when there were others like him, they coordinated thei actions with their own internal comm network."	aliens: There were once more cyborg warriors like D'harhan.
243-244	The elongated, tapering cylinder of the Shell Hutt negotiator moved with ponderous grace into the holding area,.... "Ah, Boba Fett!" The casing, studded with rivets and various maintenance ports, swung about in the holding area, past the other bounty hunters and toward the figure standing near the metal ladder. A leering smile formed on the Shell Hutt's face. Tiny mechanical hands dangled beneath the gleaming chromium collar, sealed tight around the wattled gray flesh of its neck; the claws, delicate as a scuttling sea crab's, clicked happily against each other. "How pleasant to see you again." Fett's response was dry and emotionless. "My feelings, Gheeta, are the same as the last time we met."	character: Gheeta, negotiator for the Shell Hutts.
254	"I know better than anyone that to remove your weapon would be the same as killing you; I haven't forgotten about those things. I was there when you became as you are now. So I also know other things: that you weapon can be rendered nonfunctional, incapable of firing, by a relatively simple procedure. The removal of the light-mass core alone will do it. And then the Shell Hutts will have no basis for refusing you permission to enter their world."	technology: Fett knows how to temporarily disable D'harhan's weapon. continuity: Fett was present at the creation of D'harhan, so this kind of cyborg must have come into being sometime within a few decades before this novel.
259	Chapter 16
261	"His budget allowed for a nearly unlimited expenditure of capital, including the hiring of one of the top freelance architects in the galaxy. A man named Emd Grahvess—"	character: Emd Grahvess, an accomplished architect who is still alive (as perhaps his greatest accomplishment).
271	With their artificial exoskeletons, the cylinders raised by repulsor beams, the size to which Shell Hutts could aspire was no longer restricted by gravity — only by how much they could grab of the galaxy's wealth and stuff into their lipless mouths. Gheeta was only in the middle range when it came to sheer mass; Boba Fett recognised a few other Shell Hutts in the great reception hall, elders of the clan that were to Gheeta as an Imperial battle cruiser was to a TIE Fighter craft. Those faces protruding from their cylinder's metal collars were so heavily wattled from brow to throat that hooks had been surgically implanted in the blubbery tissue, the sharp metal bits connected to a web of thin, high-tension strands fastened to the top edge of the cylinder. If not for that support, the old Shell Hutts' eyes and nostrils would have been buried beneath avalanches of their own slack flesh.	aliens: The elder Shell Hutts, who have attained leviathan dimensions.
271-272	.... "More complaints." The immense Shell Hutt — his name, Fett remembered, was Nullada — rolled his yellow eyes beneath his brow's folded and sagging pouches.	character: Nullada, a gargantuan elder of the Shell Hutts.
293-294	He found the mercendary's blaster rifle and held it to his chest as he rolled onto his back. Pushing himself up with one hand, Fett saw another cannon bolt, a hundred times wider and more destructive than the other shots cutting across the great reception hall's space, enough to rip a hole through the light armor of an Imperial cruiser. And more than enough to reduce one entire wing of the building to charred splinters. Through the rising dust of fractured stone, Boba Fett could hear the screams and shouts of the Shell Hutts and their hired thugs as one pillar and then another toppled into the center of the hall, bringing down a section of roof and exposing the dark sky of Circumtore. D'harhan turned where he stood, segmented metal tail bracing himself against the recoil of the laser cannon borne by his shoulders and torso. The cannon's barrel rocked back in its housing as another white-hot bolt coursed across the hall, scattering a knot of mercenaries.	technology: yet another example of a laser cannon that isn't a laser cannon. The monstrous mercenary known as D'harhan needs to brace himself against the recoil of his laser cannon, Boba Fett can easily see the bolt coming from the weapon, and of course, it blows away half of a building rather than simply melting a hole.
299	... he prodded the side of what had been Gheeta's metal casing. Silently, the cylinder rolled back and forth in the red mire.	aliens: Hutts: This passage seems to imply that Shell Hutts have red blood. This is interesting considering the fact that Hutts had green blood in comics such as The Fall of the Sith Empire.
302	Chapter 17
303	Zuckuss' own ribs twinged in painful sympathy as he recognised what they were.	aliens: Gand: Zuckuss appears to have ribs. Does this mean that his species has an endoskeleton rather than exoskeleton in the thorax region?
323	Chapter 18
325	Redonning his armour, a set that had been kept under a coded autodestruct lock to foil any thieves who might have stumbled upon their hiding place, had transformed him, from a raw-skinned invalid to the imposing specialist in death that he had been before falling down the Sarlacc's throat. Sealing the restored helmet's edge to the uniform's collar had completed the apotheosis: he didn't drink the water, Neelah realised, because he had become a self-contained unit, sealed against the frailties of mortal creatures.	continuity: Boba Fett has at least one spare suit; and one suit was destroyed in the Sarlacc experience. technology: Fett's armoured spacesuit is airtight and watertight. It is supposed to be able to conserve water well enough that the wearer does not require drink as often as a normally-dressed man, if at all.
330	Dengar uprooted some dead scruff brush and hastily camouflaged the swoop with it. The stripped-down, one-person repulsorlift vehicle belonged to somebody else. Or used to — Big Gizz, the leader of one of Tatooine's toughest swoop gangs, had crashed and burned on this machine. .... Big Gizz had been luckier than most; there had been enough of him left to scrape up and patch back together. Whatever he was up to these days, he had presumably gotten himself some new transportation to do it with.	creature: scruff brush; evidently some of the canyon flora of Tatooine similar to the light vegetation seen during Luke Skywalker's hunt for R2-D2 in A New Hope. character: Big Gizz, the swoop gangster who was put out of action in Shadows of the Empire, and who was revived by B'omarr monks in The Jabba Tape comic.
334	"I'm looking for Codeq Santhananan. He been in here lately?" The same ugly bartender, familiar from all of Dengar's other visits, shook his head. "That barve got drilled a coupla months ago. Right outside the door. I had a pair of rehab droids scrubbing the burn mark for two whole standard time periods, and it still didn't come out."	character: Codeq Sanathanan, a shady courier who has worked for Dengar before. He died sometime between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. continuity: Wuher the bartender of the Mos Eisley cantina is still in the same job as in A New Hope.
335	—a hand with bifurcate talons tugged at Dengar's sleeve— .... Dengar found himself looking into the black bead eyes, no more than a couple of centimetres in diameter, of a Q'nithian aeropteryx. One of the beads swelled larger as the creature's other set of claws held a magnifying lens on a jewelled handle in front of it. .... The Q'nithian flopped after him on the flattened tips of its shabby grey wings, useless for any kind of flight. It struggled into the seat on the booth's opposite side, then settled down as though wrapped in a feathered cloak.	aliens: Q'nithian aeropteryx.
342	" .... The devices were numbered sequentially, in production runs of a quarter million. All of the ones numbered below the twelve-million mark were reserved for KDY's own use, for designing and testing the munitions storage chambers aboard the heavy cruisers and destroyers that were being built for the Imperial fleet."	technology: Dengar identifies the fuse mechanism of a slightly outdated form of Imperial orbit-ground missile explosive. starships: Vague reference to heavy cruisers and destroyers produced by KDY, with capacity for physical munitions such as orbit-ground missiles. According to the statistics invented in roleplaying game sources, the common mile-long destroyers of the movies lack this capability; but it is not surprising that other KDY warship designs correct the oversight.
345	Even if he hadn't been in shadow, the Q'nithian's weak eyesight would have ruled out his being spotted as he watched and waited.	aliens: As suggested by this individual's use of a magnifier for gazing upon his surroundings, the Q'nithian aeropteryx species has poor vision, compared to the sight of humans.
348	Vol Hamame ahd once been a member of Big Gizz's swoop gang. They had had a parting of ways, and not an amicable one. Since then, Hamame had found other employment, equally criminal.	character: Vol Hamame, a former swoop rider under Big Gizz.
348-349	Only one of the Q'nithian system's moons had its own atmosphere; it was there, on deeply creviced fault lines, grinding constantly against each other from the tidal pull of the moon's captor planet, that the thick clusters of the mimbrane creatures grew and multiplied like the shelf fungi found on arboreal worlds. They lived on acoustic energy, absorbing sound vibrations and incorporating them layer by layer into their own simple bodies. Millennia of seismic shifts and groans were recorded in the oldest mimbranes, buried beneath the weight of their overlapping offspring and grown into undulating mases big enough to wrap around an Imperial cruiser like a shining blanket. Small, fresh mimbranes had more practical uses. They wer ethe perfect eavesdropping device, recording into their gelatinous fibres any sounds that struck the tympanic cells in which the creatures were sheathed. Being totally organic, they couldn't be detected by the usual antibugging sweep devices.	creatures: mimbranes, curious but simple life-forms from a moon in the Q'nithian system. Living recorders of sounds.
350	Chapter 19
352	So when the word had reached him that Boba Fett was dead, dissolved in the digestive secretions of the Sarlacc beast, a combination of elation and frustration had welled up inside him. .... But Bossk had set the Hound's Tooth at maximum speed for the too-familiar planet of Tatooine, just to bask in the atmosphere that had been the last to fill his enemy's lungs.	continuity: Bossk was unaware of Fett's fall into the Sarlacc, despite being in Jabba's palace during the arrival of Luke Skywalker. He might even have been aboard the final trip of the sail barge, and the Return of the Jedi footage should be checked carefully for his presence there. If he was there, then it means that he missed the outcome of the battle. It must be unfortunate for him to have learned this important news only barely later than his departure from the planet in Return of the Jedi.
353	A simple hailing call had returned the information that Slave I was empty, but still under the protection of its internal guard circuitry. ....	chronology: At this point in time, Slave I is not in Fett's control but has not yet been appropriated by agents of the Rebel Alliance [as described in The Dark Empire Sourcebook].
362-363	This mere youngster, from an obscure backwater planet, had somehow become overwhelmingly important to Emperor Palpatine and — perhaps even more so — to Lord Vader, the Empire's black-gloved fist. Vader's creatures, his personal legions of spies and informants, were still scouring all the inhabited worlds for leads on Skywalker. Why, though, was still a carefully guarded secret.	Bossk reflects upon the circumstances of Lord Vader's quest, and his seemingly improbably target. If someone such as Bossk is aware of the intensity of Vader's focus, how much of it is public knowledge? A bounty hunter might know the prey, but do many of Vader's peers at Palpatine's court understand the intensity of the situation? How many, like Prince Xizor, could have guessed the motive?
364	After a moment the numbers slowed, then turned to letters, then words. `PHEROMONES DETECTED.` Another second passed before the rest appeared. `SUBTYPE SEXUAL, GENDER MALE.` Then at last: `SPECIES MATCH—FALLEEN`. The words remained until Bossk blanked the screen with a press of his clawed thumb.	Evidence implicating Prince Xizor in the deaths of Luke Skywalker's uncle and aunt.
368	Chapter 20
385	Chapter 21

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