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

by Steven Barnes

  Of course. That meant nothing. And everything. Her head hurt. “Tell them to pull back. Put a smaller security team into the area.”

  The other dots were moving. Had they reached the capsule and extracted the survivor?

  “They’re leaving!” Shar Shar bubbled. The dots on the map bleeped out. “And they must have reached the mountains. Our drone satellite can’t see anything at all now.”

  Had Snoil been rescued? Kidnapped? Murdered? Tortured for information? Welcomed as a friend? It was impossible to say from this vantage point. But the differences among those possibilities might cost G’Mai Duris her cloak of office.

  More important, they might cost the life of every being on Cestus.

  49

  With anarchists attacking on multiple fronts, there was little time for rest in ChikatLik. The attacks were always carried out with laser precision, and inevitably involved minimal structural damage and no loss of life. Still, with every strike an industrial complex was damaged, production slowed or stopped. Mines were rendered too dangerous for workers to enter, vehicles were sabotaged, and security forces were humiliated and enraged. And behind it all, behind every mark on the map that meant another blown bridge, another crippled skyport, another central processing by-station rendered useless, Duris thought she sensed the mind of Obi-Wan Kenobi: brilliant, ferocious, tactically diverse, and respectful of life in all its forms.

  Could the Jedi still be alive?

  If the majority of production loci were jammed, if those critical production lines were slowed to a crawl, her hands would be tied. She would have to either sue for peace or call in Confederacy forces to protect their interests, throwing Cestus onto the path of destruction. Because if Cestus declared for the Confederacy, then the Republic would consider her an enemy planet producing lethal arms. Cestus had no fleet capable of resisting either juggernaut. Politically, economically, and personally she would be torn to pieces, and Cestus would end as a minor footnote in dull academic histories detailing failed attempts at secession.

  During those days the Regent slept little. It seemed that every five hours or so there was another report, bearing new embedded images of flaming refineries, fleeing security forces, stories of commando teams—perhaps Desert Wind, perhaps something else—striking from silence and shadows, destroying only equipment, and then fading away again. Just dissolving into thin air.

  Then in the middle of a night, Shar Shar’s cries roused her from uneasy dreams. “We’ve trapped Desert Wind!” she called. “Please, come now.”

  G’Mai Duris wrapped a robe around her ample body and hurried to follow her assistant’s spherical blue form as it ricocheted down the hall toward the observation room.

  She recognized the location in the holos: the Kibo geo-thermal station west of the Zantay Hills. Kibo had appeared on a high-priority list of possible targets and thus been allotted additional security teams. Apparently those precautions had borne fruit.

  “What do we have?”

  “A Desert Wind unit. No more than ten. They were sabotaging one of the towers, and a secondary sweep picked them up. We swooped in before they could escape. Seemed to have cut off their retreat.”

  “Good, good,” Duris said. “Then there is a chance for capture, and then interrogation.” Perhaps now they would finally learn a bit of the truth. Perhaps.

  50

  Obi-Wan Kenobi was pinned down in a bunker at the rock-tumbled edge of Kibo Lake, just outside the power station’s white duracrete dome. For the last hour a slow wind had been building. The air was clouded with sand and dust, reducing the accuracy of defensive fire. Their enemies seemed less encumbered: one of his recruits was already wounded by sniper blasts. The surprise and the accurate return fire had dispirited the others.

  The clone troopers were still disguised as Desert Wind fighters. Even though Obi-Wan knew that the incriminating holovid existed, if there were no additional witnesses, and no obvious clone trooper involvement, it would be easier for Coruscant to deny allegations.

  Kibo Lake’s fifty-kilometer-wide volcanic crater was the fourth largest on the planet. Active vents at the bottom transformed this, one of Cestus’s largest bodies of groundwater, into a hypermineralized geothermal soup pot, home to a collection of odd primitive aquatic forms, and a power source for many of the outlying mines.

  The geothermal stations tapped those volcanic vents, concentrating the heat and ultimately powering a series of steam turbines. The power was sold in a dozen forms planetwide.

  Both stealth and courage had been required to move into position for the assault: they’d skimmed silently across Kibo Lake’s simmering alkaline soup and simultaneously crawled over the crater wall from the desert, in a precision pincer operation.

  Explosive charges had been carefully placed, guards neutralized without fatality. If all had gone well they would have faded back into the desert an hour before the first explosion’s false dawn illuminated the night sky.

  It was not to be. The problem had been an accident, really. Thirty hours before their attack, Kibo’s security system had malfunctioned. The entire security network had been quietly taken offline for repair, and it was impossible for Obi-Wan to test their attempts at a bypass. Worse still, there was no way to know when the system might come back online.

  Perfect opportunity? Or perfect trap?

  For half an hour Desert Wind had watched and waited and sweated before deciding to go on with the plan. So half of them entered the refinery while the others remained behind, hoping that when the alarm system switched itself back on it would not reveal their intrusion. Failing that, they hoped to disarm it completely.

  Their plan might have worked, except that the plant security wasn’t testing the old alarm system at all. The power station staff were installing a completely new system, one that did not show up on any of the plans provided by the ever-bribable Trillot.

  Obi-Wan had walked directly into an unintentional trap.

  “We’re surrounded!” Thak Val Zsing hissed.

  “No,” Obi-Wan said calmly. Val Zsing stuck his head up and was immediately driven back by accurate blasterfire.

  “We’re pinned,” Obi-Wan corrected, “but not surrounded. Right over there—” He pointed at a series of ceramic spirals near the main dome. “—heat extraction coils run boiling water to the turbines.” He spoke as calmly as he could, but knew that his companions’ patience would not last indefinitely. “Jangotat?”

  Jangotat had been patiently watching his quadrant since the ambush was discovered, and now responded evenly.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I want you to draw them for me. I’ll provide covering fire—” Jangotat knelt down as Obi-Wan traced in the dust with his fingertip.

  The trooper grasped the implications instantly, but Thak Val Zsing was still uncertain. “I don’t understand,” the old man said.

  “Watch, and learn,” Obi-Wan said. “But now we need covering fire.”

  “A lot of covering fire,” Jangotat added. “Are you Jedi as good with blasters as you arc with lightsabers?”

  “Better,” Obi-Wan joked. “We only use lightsabers to make fights more … equitable.”

  The ARC grinned. “Let’s do it, then.”

  Obi-Wan chuckled to himself. Gaining a new name seemed to have given Jangotat more personality as well.

  Obi-Wan and his forces began a flurry of counterblasting that temporarily tied down the guards crouching just beyond the dome. Taking that opportunity, Jangotat dashed out from the hiding place and, firing by instinct, managed to hit one of the security guards on the fly. A fatality. No way around it, now. Obi-Wan had known that this action might cost lives, but he’d allowed himself to hope—

  His thoughts were interrupted as Jangotat dashed from the side and zigzagged across the wharf, drawing a blistering stream of fire. Blaster bolts ripped around his feet as Jangotat made a high, clean dive into the volcanic pit. Obi-Wan flinched. That water had to be hot!

  As he had suspect
ed, the forces pinning them down changed locations slightly to get a better view of the steaming surface. In that moment, Obi-Wan aimed carefully and blew a hole in the heat condenser coil.

  Live steam billowed from the burst coil and the security men screamed, for a moment forgetting all plans and intentions. A good scalding could do that.

  He glanced behind himself long enough to be certain that a speeder bike swooped in to fish Jangotat out to safety. Then Obi-Wan led the charge toward the disorganized security forces.

  Forty meters separated them. If Obi-Wan could just steal a few seconds, aggression could compensate for superior numbers. One of the blind, scalded men turned his weapon on the charging intruders, too late to keep them from closing the gap.

  One of the Desert Wind recruits went down hard, his chest transformed into a smoking husk. The clash was joined.

  Obi-Wan’s lightsaber flashed, and guards fell. Steam gushed from the damaged coil. While it stung his eyes, he was not nearly so close to it as those first men had been. That must have been brutal.

  The air around Obi-Wan blurred with lightsaber slashes. Speeder bikes screamed in from above now, and Obi-Wan glimpsed Kit Fisto’s speeder streak past as the Nautolan plunged into the fray, lightsaber flashing left and right, deflecting laser blasts and severing blasters at the barrel. Fortunate guards scrambled back to safety. Unfortunate ones fell clutching wounds, and a few would never move again.

  They had been trapped, and tricked; disaster had been averted only because Jangotat had been willing to do exactly as ordered, even though those orders seemed insane. Disaster had been reversed, become a rout that might devolve into a slaughter if he didn’t stop this. He waved the withdrawal signal to the Nautolan, and their troops went into retreat. They had done more damage than their original plan had called for. When the explosives detonated, this entire facility would be a splintered mass of rubble.

  And yet, try as he might, he felt no pride at all.

  Lives had been lost. The door to chaos had just been opened, and it stretched wider by the moment.

  51

  In the days since the Jedi had been expelled from ChikatLik, Desert Wind had destroyed three refineries, an energy facility, and a manufacturing plant.

  And this, Duris knew, was only the beginning.

  She didn’t know where to turn. All she could do was issue security orders. Although they would be carried out without fail, she was no longer certain how much difference it would make.

  Duris no longer knew who to trust. The Five Families constantly lied. It was their nature, fed to them along with their first food. Every few hours the Cestus map sprouted another red blotch. And that meant that time was running out. Already, she knew, the Five Families were making their own plans. Either to find a way to remove her from office, or worse.

  And the devil of it was that what she wanted most of all was to speak with Obi-Wan one more time. To ask him to explain. Perhaps if it had been just the two of them, that might have been possible. But now …

  “Your orders, ma’am?” Shar Shar burbled.

  “Keep gathering information, Shar Shar,” she said. “And hope for a miracle.”

  On the most secretive of occasions, those executives known as the Five Families met in their most private facility, a bunker complex seventy kilometers south of ChikatLik. The bunker was officially called an “entertainment complex,” and was complete with sufficient communications gear to monitor the entire planet, as well as enough food and water to supply ten people for six months. The outer facility was complete with a holoatrium, exercise and dining rooms, luxurious suites, and lounging areas. An inner room was even more secure, with walls thick enough to resist even glazion energy torches for a standard day.

  Despite her relation to the X’Ting clan, Trillot had never before entered the bunker, and doubted she ever would again. At the moment she was hosted by her distant cousin Quill, who owed her favors. Still, nervousness hung in the air like a pall of smoke. The ambience did not improve when, from a darkened corridor, a tall shaven-headed woman entered the room, the pale skin at her temples scribed with tattoos. Ventress wore a skintight suit of black Sullust leather that emphasized the disturbingly boneless quality of her movement.

  Trillot stood to make the introductions. “I present to you Asajj Ventress.”

  Those present stood politely. Then they sat again and awaited her comments.

  “I am Commander Asajj Ventress.” Her tattooed scalp held their eyes as if the static inkings were animated. “I represent Count Dooku. Our new venture, the JK droids, will give you wealth and power beyond limit. But make no mistake: my master has greater concern than profit. If you conduct fair trade, you will be rewarded.” The representatives whispered to each other, nodding enthusiastically, and Ventress had to raise her voice slightly to get their attention again. “Attempt to deal with this as mere commerce,” she warned, “and you will die to regret it.”

  Dame Por’Ten raised a thin, blue-veined hand. “No need for such talk, Commander. There may have been some confusion recently, but with the … departure of Obi-Wan Kenobi, I can assure you we are back on track.”

  Ventress inclined her head. “Well then,” she said, her lips curled in a cold smile. “Let’s discuss particulars.”

  There was a bit of polite agreement before someone had the honesty to actually speak her mind. “What is it you request?”

  Ventress focused her gaze upon the speaker, then dropped her eyes politely. “That you continue to serve your best interests.”

  The answer seemed to please them. “And what might those be?”

  Ventress raised her eyes. They burned like coals. “Survival. And you would not be alive, any of you, if you had yielded to the Jedi. Now then, I know at least one escape capsule survived. I believe both Kenobi and his allies are still alive. I feel it. They will attempt to disrupt our commerce.”

  Lady Por’Ten recoiled before Ventress’s ferocity “Wha-what should we do?”

  The slightest of smiles curled those thin lips. “Obey me,” Ventress said. “And provide me with your data, data you can project on a map.”

  “Why?”

  Her eyes hardened. “Do not ask for answers that you cannot understand,” she said. “Let us merely say I intend to prove Kenobi my inferior. His lies are my reality.”

  All the data had been gathered and then input to the computers. It included every sighting, every act of sabotage, everything that was known, including the escape pod’s disappearance.

  Everything.

  Asajj Ventress walked through the midst of the projection field, eyes closed and fingers outstretched, resembling a blind girl mapping an unfamiliar room.

  Or so it might have seemed to one of mundane mind. To others, she seemed a strange and terrible siren wandering through a sea of living energy, gliding along lines of intention.

  Trillot thought Ventress the most beautiful, frightening sight she had ever beheld.

  Finally, Ventress turned and faced them. Her hand stretched out, one quavering finger touching a point in the midst of all the glowing lines. “Here,” she said. “They are in this place.”

  “Are you certain?” Lady Por’Ten asked. “You can be so sure of their location?”

  The others held their breath, not wishing to contemplate the potential danger of questioning this woman, in any way, shape, or form.

  Her chest heaved slowly as she replied. “You of the Family are dead to the Force. But Obi-Wan. Yes … he is alive with it. He and … yes …” She closed her eyes. “One other.” She inhaled, as if scenting something in the air. “The Nautolan. Yes. He is Jedi, too. I feel it. I can feel their ripples in the Force.”

  She smiled at them. “If you see ripples in water, do you not know where the stone was dropped? If these maps and this information are good, my analysis will be true.”

  As Ventress spoke with the others, Trillot felt the pressure mount. If this operation failed, the gang lady might bear the brunt of anger from both
sides. But if she succeeded …

  Quill leaned close to her. “You have done well. Continue your support, cousin. If the Five Families profit, you will be rewarded beyond your dreams.”

  “My dreams are quite expansive,” Trillot said, turning to look at them. “What is it you offer?”

  “For three hundred years,” Quill said, circling Trillot seductively, “there have been Five Families. Mining, fabrication, sales and distribution, research, and energy. But mining has always understood that labor was an integral part of our process.”

  “So?”

  “So … after Duris is dead, there will be room in the hive council for Trillot.”

  Trillot’s eyes glowed.

  “Think of it. Your grubs would no longer crawl in the shadows.”

  “Invited to the balls?”

  Quill smiled. “Dining at the head table. Trillot, my friend. My sister. It is high time for you and your family to emerge from the darkness and take your rightful place.”

  Quill had found Trillot’s weakness. “What must I do?” she said.

  Ventress watched it all without speaking. Her hands were still outstretched, as if she could feed through her fingertips. Trillot had hoard that Obi-Wan Kenobi had faked a fantastic demonstration only days before. Could Ventress actually do such an incredible thing? And if she could, did that not imply that she was superior to the Jedi …?

  “Remember who is your friend and ally in these matters. Not Duris, certainly.”

  “No.”

  “Nor Kenobi,” he said quietly, glancing to be certain their deadly ally was out of hearing, “who uses our planet as a pawn on the galactic game board.”

  “Yes.” Trillot was shaking.

  “Do you fear Kenobi?”

  Trillot nodded.

  “Do not. Our ally, the great Asajj Ventress, will destroy him. You must supply her with whatever she asks, whenever she asks, without question. Kenobi may still trust you, and come to you for help. If he does, you must act without hesitation. The moment will come, and when it does, you may emerge into the sun.”