Star Wars: Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina

"Mos Eisley space port. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy."

- Obi-Wan Kenobi

Star Wars: Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina is a paperback collection of sixteen stories by various authors, all of which involve the setting of Chalmun's Cantina in Mos Eisley on the planet Tatooine. The events from each story take place in Year 0 BBY and coincide with events from the original Star Wars film. This book is the first in a three-part series of "Tales of..." novels, all of which involve characters and settings from the original Star Wars trilogy. The second book in the series is Tales from Jabba's Palace and Tales of the Bounty Hunters.

A Hunter's Fate: Greedo's Tale
By Tom Veitch and Martha Veitch

4 BBY A teenage Greedo and his younger brother, Pqweeduk explore the various caves inside the jungles of their adopted home world. They discover the remains of three old Rodian starships inside one of the caves. Greedo returns to his hut and asks his mother, Neela, about the ships. Neela explains that many Rodians made a pilgrimage to this planet to escape the clan wars that had taken Greedo's father away from them.

Shortly after this event, a Rodian warlord of the Chattza clan named Navik the Red finds the jungle colony and begins slaughtering as many of the pacifist Rodians as he can. Neela takes her children and along with her brothers, Nok and Teeku, they board one of the starships and escape. Nok pilots them to a heavily populated area in the hopes that they can start a new life for themselves. He takes them to the smugglers' moon – Nar Shaddaa.

Four years later

Greedo has been living the past four years on Level 88 in the Corellian Sector of Nar Shaddaa. In that time, he has befriended a Sionian Skup named Anky Fremp and has eked out a small living as a thief.

One day, Greedo notices the droid bounty hunter known as Gorm the Dissolver, preparing to kill two other hunters named, Spurch Goa and Dyyz Nataz. Greedo, hoping to establish some connections within the bounty hunting community, shoots Gorm in the back, disabling him. Spurch is grateful for the assistance and decides to take Greedo under his wing. What Greedo doesn’t know however, is that Spurch despises Rodians, and merely lets the young thief tag along so long as he is of use to him.

Greedo decides that he now wants to become the most famous bounty hunter in the galaxy. He learns that the Rebel Alliance maintains a secret munitions warehouse on Level 88. He sells the information to Spurch, who in turn sells it to the Empire. With the money he receives, Greedo prepares to acquire his own starship. He goes to Shug Ninx’s repair shop where he finds an Incom corsair that would be perfect for him. He even has a name for it – the Manka Hunter. The ship needs a couple of power couplings however so he tries to steal some from a YT-1300 freighter stored at the garage. The freighter’s owners, Han Solo and Chewbacca, catch him in the act and interrogate him. Han decides to let Greedo keep the couplings in exchange for his Rancor-skin coat.

Before long, Darth Vader uses the information he has received and sends two Gamma-class Assault Shuttles to Nar Shaddaa to destroy the Rebel storage facilities. Greedo becomes concerned as he learns that his family’s housing development is very near where the siege is taking place.

Shortly thereafter, Greedo decides to leave Nar Shaddaa and begin his bounty hunting career in earnest. He travels to the Outer Rim world, Tatooine along with Spurch and Dyyz. Spurch manages to gain Greedo an audience with the notorious gangster, Jabba the Hutt. Jabba decides to put the young Rodian’s enthusiasm to the test and offers him exclusive bounty rights to capture Han Solo.

Greedo encounters Han twice in the port city of Mos Eisley and tries to force him into paying off a debt owed to Jabba. Han tells Greedo to return the next day and he’ll have Jabba’s money ready for him. Greedo acquiesces and meets Han the following afternoon at Chalmun's Cantina. The two get into a small argument which ends with Han pulling his blaster out and shooting Greedo in the chest, killing him.

From the sidelines, Spurch Goa snickers at the fact that he was able to manipulate Greedo into gunning for Han, safe in the knowledge that the Corellian would outshoot him. Spurch had accepted a retainer by two Rodians named Thuku and Neesh to have Greedo killed.

Notes & Trivia

 * Includes excerpts from other Star Wars novels including The Truce at Bakura, The Courtship of Princess Leia, Heir to the Empire, Jedi Search, Children of the Jedi, The Crystal Star and Ambush at Corellia.