The pitch black darkness engulfed Boba Fett; his arms were outstretched and grasped his vibroblades that were anchored in a writhing Sarlacc tentacle. The inside of a Sarlacc was as black as the dark side of the Gorse moon. With no light, it was impossible to orient himself, yet Boba held on with a tenacious effort. He attempted to remove his right blade from the tentacle and stab it further up, trying to climb toward the mouth, but it was no use. He had been swallowed, and had it not been for his quick thinking to grab a tentacle of the Sarlacc, he would already be slowly dissolving in the digestive tract of the creature.
The peristaltic movement of the creature's esophagus continued to push down on him making it impossible to stab the blade into the tentacle again. The blade twisted in his hand as another wave of contractions pressed him, wrenching the blade from his hands and causing it to pass into the deep belly of the creature; lost. Boba Fett cursed to himself and then re-gripped with both hands the one vibroblade that was still anchored. If his hold slipped, he would be lost just like his other blade. The contraction squeezed him like a strong band as it moved rhythmically down his core, then legs, then feet. That was the only orientation he could manage; the contractions headed down.
Added to this, Boba knew something else was wrong; he had been drugged. Before his Z-6 jetpack had malfunctioned causing him to fly into this pit, he could feel the disquieting sensation coming on. When it was evident that Jabba's prisoner, Luke Skywalker, was making his attempt to escape, Boba had risen to the challenge, seeing a possible reward for subduing the prisoner. As soon as he had heard the commotion he had rushed up from the lower deck of the sand barge. He had been sharing a drink with another attractive female bounty hunter, but that did not matter to him when the chance for a profit arose. However, as soon as he had flown to the skiff to attack Luke, his vision became blurry and raising his EE-3 carbine rifle was a sluggish endeavor. Seeing Luke slice the front of the rifle off seemed to be in slow-motion to Boba. He threw the rifle away, tried to shake off the vertigo, and then fired his fibrocord from this wrist gauntlet. Having to deal with double vision now and slower reflexes, Boba needed to simply subdue Luke until Jabba's henchmen could handle him. The fibrocord entangled the fighting Jedi, pinning his arms at his sides. Boba again shook his head, trying to free himself from the dizziness, but before he could, Luke had deflected a blast causing the fibrocord to whip back at Boba. The loss of tension on the fibrocord was too much for the tottering Boba, and he fell to the ground at the sudden change.
He cursed to himself as he realized what was happening. He did not spend a moment trying to figure out who had drugged him. There was a long list, and that analysis could wait for later. However, now Boba needed to function as best he could, his world spinning. He stood, ignoring the blind Han Solo and the captured Chewbacca that were on the skiff with him.
Luke had lept to the opposite skiff with effortless celerity and was making quick work of Jabba's henchmen. Boba raised his heavy arm, the armor becoming more cumbersome by the second. His aim wavered as he tried to focus on the two images of Luke. He fired his dart from his wrist; the errant red streak flashing beyond the fighters and into the distance, impacting the sand somewhere on the horizon.
The next moment Boba cursed under his breath again as the blind Han Solo had accidentally rapped his jetpack, causing the pack to malfunction and sending the disoriented Boba Fett into the sail barge, and, finally, into the Pit of Carkoon, the Sarlacc's open beak waiting to swallow him. Boba could not believe his luck; being drugged, an escaping prisoner, an incidental blind man, and a malfunctioning Z-6 jetpack, were enough to annoy, but for Boba, it enraged him. It was that anger that centered him and kept his wits. He had thought about every danger that could happen to him at the pit, and the Sarlacc was a calculated threat, one that he had anticipated. What he had not anticipated was the drug. The world spun as he rolled down the hot sand. He remembered his plan to grab a tentacle and try to climb out of its mouth; but the world was reeling, both in his head and physically as he tumbled to the hungry creature.
The beak opened to swallow him, but no tentacle had grabbed him; his only chance of climbing out was not there. He stretched out his arms and legs to pin himself in the open beak and stop his descent. For a moment his body was stuck in the throat, but the pressure of the closing beak was intense and Boba could not hold it for long. Boba knew he did not need to hold it forever, just long enough for a tentacle to dislodge him, hopefully before another body was swallowed.
Lucky for him, though Boba did not believe it to be luck, a thick tendril reached down to twist around his torso to lift him and redirect him feet down. Boba at first grabbed the snake-like appendage, and soon realized that he could not grip it tightly enough with only his hands. He slipped down it as the tentacle released him. Quickly, he removed one vibroblade from his gauntlet and stabbed the tentacle, twisting the blade to secure it. Then he repeated the action with a second blade, which he later lost.
So, here he was, grasping desperately to one blade in the warm blackness of a Sarlacc's esophagus, fighting the tight muscular contractions, all the while his world spinning. Boba worried further as he knew the drug was still increasing in intensity. Soon he would be unconscious, either by the drug or loss of air. Boba tried to think quickly, but nothing he could do was quick anymore. He let go with his right hand and fumbled his belt to pick off one of his grenades, knowing it to be one of his two anti-armor grenades. His fingers clumsily tried to activate it, but at that moment a body came down on top of him causing the vibroblade to twist and slip. Boba dropped the unactivated grenade and doubled his grip on the blade, twisting it again to reset it. The body pressed down on him, and Boba had to use every bit of effort left in him to redirect the wiggling body to slide down beside him. The swallowed man tried to grapple Boba, but Boba lifted his knee and hooked his foot into the man's belt, kicking the man down the throat toward death. A tight peristaltic band followed and almost overwhelmed the spent Boba; he still held on. Boba knew only a few more of those contractions would finish him.
He again grabbed for an anti-armor grenade, and this time was able to arm it and drop it. Another peristaltic wave passed over him, and he re-gripped the blade. The grenade was carried deep into the Sarlacc's bowels. Boba felt the distant percussion of the explosion, and the muscular contractions of the esophagus quivered, but then resumed. It had not worked. The creature was still alive.
There was only one chance left if his grenades were useless. He reached behind laboriously and released the concussion missile from his pack. Again with one hand he tried to arm it, accomplished the feat, and released it as another wave of contractions pushed down on him. However, without an impact the missile would not detonate, so lastly he grabbed a sonic grenade from his belt, armed it, and dropped it, hoping that this attempt would be successful. His right hand then returned to the blade to wait for the pending explosion.
Another henchman made his way down the gullet. Unfortunately for Boba, his strength gave way under the pressure of the descending body. He disastrously lost his grip on the blade and slid down the tentacle, grabbing wildly to no avail as the peristalsis pushed him toward the stomach. The percussion grenade and missile were waiting for him.
Then the explosion shook the Sarlacc, its esophagus fluttering between flaccid and tense. Ultimately, the esophagus lost tone and Boba was left floating in a large inelastic black void as the creature's muscles all relaxed. He would have breathed a sigh of relief but for the fact that he only had the air contained in his helmet and the fact that with his vertigo, he could not tell which way was out. He began to climb with his spiked-toed boots and fortunately found the dead tentacle for his hands to grip. Boba could feel the unconsciousness coming on him, and his leaden limbs worked sluggishly to climb as if he was in a dream; his mind wanting to move quickly, but his body moving as if through water.
The dead beak of the Sarlacc lay off to the side of the pit, its body destroyed deep under d. Jabba's sail barge lay in flames at the top of the pit, dead bodies and ship fragments scattered across the terrain. Luke Skywalker and the others had escaped while Boba strove within the inner space of the Sarlacc. Many laid dead or injured across the burning sand battlefield.
The Sarlacc's beak was disturbed and opened to reveal a gauntleted hand grasping the gritty and shifting surface, then another hand, then a helmet with a bent antenna, and finally the man. He pulled himself out just enough to get the weight of the beak off of his chest, his heavy legs still in the dead beak. He painfully turned over onto his side and removed his dented helmet. Immediately, he vomited with convulsing effort into the hot sand and wiped his mouth, then pivoting back over onto his back, he laid down and panted heavily as his vision failed.
"Well, that is something," a sharp woman's voice spoke.
Boba squinted his eyes trying to see. He could not move his arms to get up. However, he could barely make out a woman with black hair and olive skin, her eyes a striking green. She was aiming a blaster at his head. He had recognized the woman bounty hunter he had shared a drink within the sail barge. He grunted some unintelligible words in a slurred speech, but managed to speak her name, "Terrah."
"I see the Thanatizine that I slipped into your spice liquor is working well." She kicked his shoulder to check his reflexes. "And even with that you escaped the Sarlacc. Very nice," she said. "But you won't beat me out for that Keeper bounty."
Boba gritted his teeth and tried to raise his arm to shoot his dart launcher, but could not.
Terrah laughed at him and stepped on his arm, then bent over to pick up his helmet. "You know," she commented with a sudden realization. "This armor is worth a pretty penny."
She thought a little more, then she grabbed his arms and dragged him out of the Sarlacc maw, his body almost completely limp now. Terrah started to remove Boba's armor.
"This will slow you down a little, too," she stated. "If you survive the desert, that is."
In a short time, his armor, boots, and gauntlets were removed, leaving him lying in the hot sand with only his linens on.
Once done, Terrah admired her handiwork and gazed on the debilitated Boba Fett, lying helpless in the hot and fuming sand. "It's been a pleasure." She turned and started to work her way up the shifting sand of the pit.
Boba was not able to think much anymore except for two emotions—the first and most dominate, he hated Terrah; the second was a very slight emotion—he admired her. He could not care less that she was beautiful.