The Cestus Deception: Star Wars (Clone Wars): A Clone Wars Novel

by Steven Barnes

  She took his hand. “Come,” she said. “I’d like to show you something.” Confusion darkened his face.

  “I have to be available—”

  “You said you were off-duty. Are you confined to base?”

  “No—” He stopped. “If I’m called, I would need to be back within twenty minutes. Can you guarantee that?”

  She calculated distances and velocities in her head. “Yes.”

  Five minutes of scrambling over broken rock took them to Spindragon. As he strapped in, Sheeka swiftly completed her predeparture checklist and lifted off. With a practiced touch she rocketed almost a hundred kilometers to the southeast in about twelve minutes. At first she skirted the ground to elude scanning. Then, when they were a sufficient distance away, she rose up into a standard transport lane, filled with commuter pods and double-length cargo ships transporting goods among clients reluctant to pay the orbital tax.

  Nate watched the ground whirl beneath them, enjoying the ease and command with which Sheeka piloted the craft. Competence was something he could always appreciate. This woman was different from others he had known, and that difference disoriented him slightly. Curiously enough, he enjoyed me sensation. So Nate relaxed as she took him into a saw-toothed stretch of hills, and then set them down again gently, not eighteen minutes after they left the camp.

  The camp was built into the hillsides, several different mine openings suggesting both natural and artificial breaches in the surface. As she landed, a dozen offworlders and two X’Ting emerged to meet them. All grinned, nodded, or waved at them in greeting.

  “What is this place?”

  “They are my extended family,” she said. “Not by birth. By choice.”

  “Is this where you live?”

  She smiled. “No. We don’t know each other that well yet. But … my home is a lot like this.”

  Now he was able to make out more dwellings. They appeared to be camouflaged, the coloration perhaps designed to make them more difficult to see from the air. From the ground, though, they still tended to melt into the shadows and rock formations.

  “Why do they hide?”

  She laughed. “They don’t. We just love the mountains, and enjoy blending with them as much as possible.”

  Again, the danger of seeing everything through a soldier’s eyes.

  High, sweet voices rang down from the slope. Nate turned to see several young human boys and girls up there playing some game of laughter and discovery. They dashed about calling names, squealing, enjoying the long shadows.

  Down around the rock-colored dwellings swarmed older children. Some of them were graceful X’Ting, slender and huge-eyed, reminding him a bit of Kaminoans. Adolescents, he supposed, working with adults. Building, repairing tools perhaps.

  He watched them, thinking, feeling. He found the environment a bit confusing. Or could it be Sheeka herself who troubled him? Whichever, he found himself remembering his own accelerated childhood, the learning games he had played …

  Once again, Sheeka Tull seemed to have read his mind. “What were you like as a child?” Clever. Had she brought him here to see children, hoping that it would spark his own memories?

  He shrugged. “Learning, growing, striving. Like all the others.”

  “I’ve visited a lot of planets. Most children’s games help kids discover their individual strengths. How can you do this? Aren’t you all supposed to be the same?”

  Teasing him again? He realized, to his pleasure, that he hoped so. “Not really. There was a core curriculum that we all mastered, but after that we specialized, learned different things, prepared for different functions, went on different training exercises, fought in different wars. No two of us have ever had the same environment, and because of that we are stronger. In the aggregate, we have lived a million lives. All of that experience grows within us. We are the GAR, and it is alive.”

  “Loosen up, will you?” she clucked, and stretched out her hand to him. He hesitated, and then after checking his com-link to make certain that he could be reached in case of any emergency, he followed her.

  41

  A southern wind nipping at their backs, Sheeka led Nate up a worn, dusty hillside trail into the mouth of one of the tunnels. The mouth was about four by six meters, and once inside, the trooper saw that the shielded buildings outside were not the living spaces he had supposed them to be. Toolsheds, perhaps. Within was a large communal area lit by glowing fungi arrayed along the walls, nurtured with liquid nutrients trickling from a pipe rigging. The fungi rippled in a luminescent rainbow. When he brought his hand close to a bank of it, his skin tingled.

  “Most places on Cestus, the offworlders pretty much dominate the X’Ting. Consider them primitive even though they give lip service to respect. But there are a few little enclaves like this one, where we actually try to learn from them. They have a lot to offer, really, if we’d just give them a chance.”

  A variety of human and other offworlder children ran hither and thither with their little X’Ting friends, burning energy like exploding stars, flooding the entire cave with their exuberance. The day’s major work had ended, but some of the adults were still fixing tools, laughing and joking in easy camaraderie.

  They greeted Sheeka warmly as she approached, glancing at Nate with tentative acceptance. After all, their attitude seemed to say, he’s with Sheeka. The air churned with luscious smells. In several nooks meals were being concocted from a variety of tangy and exotic ingredients. He found the jovial messiness oddly appealing.

  But as soon as that thought sank in, conditioning rushed forward to yank it back out.

  “What do you think?” Sheeka asked.

  He strove to compose a answer both accurate and in alignment with his values and feelings. “This seems … a good life. An easy life. Not a soldier’s life. It is not for me.”

  Nate had assumed that she would accept such an answer at face value, but instead Sheeka bristled. “You think this is easier? Raising children, loving, hoping. You?” A sharp, hard bark of laughter. “You’re surrounded by the replaceable. Ships, equipment, people. A modular world. A piece breaks? Replace it.” Her small strong hands had folded into fists. “You never leave home without expecting to die. What do you think it’s like to actually care if your children survive? To care? What do you think the universe looks like to someone who cares? How strong would someone have to be just to preserve hope?”

  Her outburst knocked him back on his emotional heels. “Perhaps … I see what you are saying.”

  She continued on as if she had prepared this speech for days. “And how much strength do you think it requires to keep your spirits high when everything you’ve spent a lifetime building … that your parents and grandparents spent a lifetime building … can be destroyed by the decision of someone too far away to touch?” She paused a moment. “And men like you.”

  It was his turn to bristle. “Men like me protect you.”

  “From other men like you.”

  He might have taken offense at that, but instead he felt a bit sad, realizing that Sheeka was not as different as he had thought. She was just another outsider after all. “No. Men like me don’t start the wars. We just die in them. We’ve always died in them, and we always will. We don’t expect any praise for it, no parades. No one knows our names. In fact, by your standards we have no names at all.”

  Something in his face, his voice, or his carriage reached through her anger, because suddenly she softened. “Nate …”

  Sheeka reached out as if to take his hand, but he drew it away. “No. Is that what you wanted to hear? Well it’s true. We don’t have names. And no one will ever know who we are. But we do. We always do.” He felt his shoulders square as he said that simple truth. The troopers knew who they were, always. And always would. “We’re the Grand Army of the Republic.”

  Sheeka shook her head. “Nate, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to judge you.”

  His stance did not soften. She had dropped her guard. It wa
s unfair to attack now, but he could not stop the training that was, in the final analysis, all he knew. “I haven’t had your choices. Every step of my life I’ve been told what to do.”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice small now.

  He took a step closer, looking down on her dark, lovely face. “And what do you know? We both ended up in the same place.”

  He paused. She had nothing to say.

  “So what difference did all those decisions make?”

  Sheeka looked up at him, their eyes meeting for a moment that was too intense. Then a child running between them broke the moment. She managed a rueful smile, said, “Come on,” and led him back out of the cave.

  The two of them sat on a hillside, watching the moons and listening to the happy sounds. Sheeka had spoken a bit of her life here on Cestus, of small pleasures and trials.

  “So,” she concluded, “sometimes all we could do was wait, and hope. Don’t you think that requires endurance?”

  “Is that what it was like?”

  She gave no answer, just twisted a stalk of grass up and knotted it into a ball, throwing it downslope.

  “I am sorry,” Nate said. “I live only to defend the Republic. I regret if that defense brings misery to some, but I won’t apologize for who and what I am.”

  Without saying a word, Sheeka slid closer to him. When she started speaking again, his own thoughts ended, and he found himself losing interest in anything save the sound and cadence of her voice. “All you have to lose is your life, and you hold that cheaply enough. Are you so strong, Nate? Are you really as strong as the least fungus farmer?”

  Their eyes locked again, and he felt the beginnings of an emotion he had never before experienced: despair. She would never understand him.

  Then Sheeka, swollen with anger, seemed to deflate a bit. “No,” she said. “That’s wrong of me. I know one of the problems—it’s the whole name thing. I’m sorry. I’m used to calling droids by numbers and letters. People have names. You guys just have shorthand for your numbers.”

  “I’m sorry—” he began, but she held up her hand.

  “Do troopers ever have real names?” she asked.

  “Rarely.”

  “Would you mind if I gave you one?”

  She was staring at him with such sincere intensity that he almost laughed. But couldn’t. The whole thing was amusing, really.

  “What name did you have in mind?”

  “I was thinking Jangotat,” she said quietly. “Mandalorian for ‘Jango’s brother.’ ”

  He laughed, but found his voice catching a bit in mid-chuckle. Jangotat. “Sure,” he said. “If that makes it easier. Fine.”

  Her answering smile burst with relief. “Thanks. Thanks, Jangotat. That’s a good name, you know,” she said, thumping him with her elbow. They both chuckled about that, until the mirth died away to a companionable silence.

  Jangotat, he thought.

  Jango’s brother.

  A smile.

  That I am.

  42

  The armored cargo transport lay broken, flames gushing from its shattered innards, its treads curled back from their axles like shreds of skin from peeled fruit. The cargo itself was scavenged or burned, its load of credit chits looted: the cash would be useful for purchasing goods, buying silence, and providing for the widows and orphans of any Desert Wind fatalities.

  Black oily smoke curled from the transport’s ruptured belly and boiled to the clouds. Hands bound behind their backs, its crew had begun their twenty-kilometer trek back to ChikatLik. The message they carried would be heard loud and clear: Chaos is coming.

  And as lovers of comfort and order, the Five Families would seek out a source of security. The Separatists had been shown to be too risky and dangerous, and possibly in collaboration with the forces of Desert Wind. The only option? A closer bond to the Republic.

  “It goes well?” asked the newly christened “Jangotat.”

  “Well enough,” Kit Fisto said, gazing through his electrobinoculars. “We strike, they grab at shadows, and we sever their limbs. Soon the Five Families will pray for order and safety.” The words were confident, but something more unsure lurked behind them.

  “You don’t sound totally pleased, sir.”

  “I am not comfortable with such deception, even though I admit its value.”

  Jangotat concealed his pleasure. His perceptions were sharpening, something that kept soldiers alive. Maybe the whole “Jangotat” thing wasn’t so bad. Don’t be afraid to take chances. Think odd thoughts. All right, then. Here’s one this Jedi would never expect. “May I say, sir, that such nonconventional warfare saves lives.”

  To his surprise, General Fisto’s mouth twisted in a rare display of mirth. “Does it indeed?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The general put the electrobinoculars away. “Well. If a soldier of the Republic can find such a goal admirable, can a Jedi do less?”

  He realized that this was, for the Nautolan, a joke, and smiled in return. The moment of shared levity gave Jangotat the courage to ask something that had been on his mind for two days now. “Sir?”

  “Yes?”

  “What you did with Master Kenobi … could an ordinary man learn that?”

  General Fisto stared at him with those vast, unblinking eyes. “No.”

  “Some? Even a little?”

  There was a long pause, and then the general nodded. “Well, perhaps. Yes. Some.”

  “Would you teach me?”

  “Nate …”

  “Sir …” Jangotat looked to either side swiftly, saw that they were alone and lowered his voice. “Please don’t laugh at me …”

  The Nautolan shook his head gravely. “Never.”

  “I’m thinking of taking a name.”

  General Fisto’s teeth gleamed. “I’ve heard that some do. What name are you thinking? Be careful,” he warned. “Names can be powerful.”

  The trooper nodded. “So … a friend suggested: Jangotat. Brother of Jango.” He narrowed his eyes as if expecting rebuke. “Would that be … a good thing?”

  Kit Fisto did him the respect of genuinely pondering the question. Then, after almost a minute, he answered, “Jango was a man of great strengths. A worthy foe. I would be proud to have his namesake at my side.” He slapped the trooper’s shoulder. “Jangotat.”

  “Would you inform General Kenobi? I’ve already told my brothers.”

  The Nautolan’s eyebrow arched. “And what did they say?”

  Jangotat laughed. “They wished they’d thought of it first.”

  Kit Fisto seemed to look at him a bit differently. “Among my people, the taking of a name is a serious thing,” he said. “An occasion for gift giving.”

  “That isn’t why I—”

  The general held his hand up. “You asked what it might be possible for you to learn. I have a small thing you may … enjoy. I can teach you and your brothers some of the most basic exercises taught Force-sensitive children in the Jedi Temple.”

  “But I will never be as good as a Jedi, will I?” This was said without despair or resentment. Merely a question.

  “No,” the Jedi said. “You will not. But you will know yourself, and the universe, better than you ever have.”

  The two of them shared a smile. It was a moment of genuine openness between these two unlikely comrades, a precious thing between them.

  “Then let’s get started,” Jangotat said.

  The four troopers squatted in a circle outside their cave, crouching around Kit as he began his lesson. “There is a thing I can teach you,” the Nautolan said, “a game taught to the very youngest Padawan learners. It is a thing called Jedi Flow.” He paused. “Do all of you wish this?”

  They were so attentive and open that Kit couldn’t resist a smile.

  “All right,” he said, then paused, considering. “Jedi feel the Force as an ocean of energy in which they immerse themselves, floating with its currents, or directing its waves. For the average
person, the subtle sensations of life are no ocean—but can still be a stream or river. Can you understand this?”

  They nodded slowly.

  “Your body holds memories of pain, anger, fear. It holds them in your tissues, conditioned responses that attempt to protect you from future injury.”

  “Like scar tissue?” Forry asked.

  “Exactly like it,” he said, approving. “Tight like a fist. It warps and twists you. When you collect enough of them, they are like armor. But Jedi wear no armor. Armor both protects and numbs. Jedi must expose themselves fully to the currents of the universe. I can teach you how to remove some of these wounds. Think of them as boulders, obstacles on the river of energy. Learn to flow around your fears and angers instead of crashing against them. Learn to do this well enough, and you can even direct the river to move the boulders for you, widening the riverbed, increasing the flow of energy.”

  “But how?”

  He searched for some simple way to express his thoughts. “Physical action is the unity of breathing, motion, and alignment. In other words, breath is created by the motion of your diaphragm, and the movement of your spine. Motion is created by breathing and proper posture. And alignment is created by a unity of breath and motion. To keep this triplet in mind as you practice your combat arts is to take a martial technique or physical challenge and transform it into something more.” Kit grinned his predatory, Nautolan smile. “Enough theory,” he said. “It is time for practice.”

  For the next two hours Kit taught them exercises to refine their breathing, concentrating on exhalations only, allowing air pressure to fill their lungs passively as the rib cage expanded. He was gratified to see how rapidly they absorbed the lessons, and gave them more.

  The Nautolan showed them how to turn two-dimensional calisthenics into three-dimensional gymnastics, moving static exercise positions through additional ranges of motion, turning poses into dynamic waveforms, and melding all with the triumverate of breathing, motion, and alignment. He also demonstrated how to take those exercises and combine them, flow in and out of them, creating their own combinations to address any specific fitness needs.