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

by Steven Barnes

  “I suppose I should be grateful your lightsaber needed to go there, rather than desired to.”

  Anakin’s grin blossomed into a full-fledged smile. “Last time I checked we were on the same side, Master.”

  “Still, if I’d been a moment slower …”

  Anakin booted the battle droid’s blaster aside. “Your fears are only in your mind.”

  Obi-Wan scowled. “Without a head I wouldn’t have much mind left, now, would I?” He swept his lightsaber in a flourishing pass, nodding up the alley of manax trees. “After you.”

  They resumed their charge, moving with the supernatural speed and grace afforded by the Force, Obi-Wan’s brown cloak swirling behind him. Victims of the initial bombardment, scores of battle droids lay sprawled on the ground. Others dangled like broken marionettes from the branches of the trees into which they had been hurled.

  Areas of the leafy canopy were in flames.

  Two scorched droids little more than arms and torsos lifted their weapons as the Jedi approached, but Anakin only raised his left hand in a Force push that shoved the droids flat onto their backs.

  They jinked right, somersaulting under the wide bodies of two harvester beetles, then hurdling a tangle of barbed underbrush that had managed to anchor itself in the otherwise meticulously tended orchard. They emerged from the tree line at the shore of a broad irrigation canal, fed by a lake that delimited the Neimoidians’ citadel on three sides. In the west a trio of wedge-shaped Venator-class assault cruisers hung in scudding clouds. North and east the sky was in turmoil, crosshatched with ion trails, turbolaser beams, hyphens of scarlet light streaming upward from weapons emplacements outside the citadel’s energy shield. Rising from high ground at the end of the peninsula, the tiered fastness was reminiscent of the command towers of the Trade Federation core ships, and indeed had been the inspiration for them.

  Somewhere inside, trapped by Republic forces, were the Trade Federation elite.

  With his homeworld threatened and the purse worlds of Deko and Koru Neimoidia devastated, Viceroy Gunray would have been wiser to retreat to the Outer Rim, as other members of the Separatist Council were thought to be doing. But rational thinking had never been a Neimoidian strong suit, especially when possessions remained on Cato Neimoidia the viceroy apparently couldn’t live without. Backed by a battle group of Federation warships, he had slipped onto Cato Neimoidia, intent on looting the citadel before it fell. But Republic forces had been lying in wait, eager to capture him alive and bring him to justice—thirteen years late, in the judgment of many.

  Cato Neimoidia was as close to Coruscant as Obi-Wan and Anakin had been in almost four standard months, and with the last remaining Separatist strongholds now cleared from the Core and Colonies, they expected to be back in the Outer Rim by week’s end.

  Obi-Wan heard movement on the far side of the irrigation canal.

  An instant later, four clone troopers crept from the tree line on the opposite bank to take up firing positions amid the water-smoothed rocks that lined the ditch. Far behind them a crashed gunship was burning. Protruding from the canopy, the LAAT’s blunt tail was stenciled with the eight-rayed battle standard of the Galactic Republic.

  A gunboat glided into view from downstream, maneuvering to where the Jedi were waiting. Standing in the bow, a clone commander named Cody waved hand signals to the troopers on shore and to others in the gunboat, who immediately fanned out to create a safe perimeter.

  Troopers could communicate with one another through the comlinks built into their T-visored helmets, but the Advanced Recon Commando teams had created an elaborate system of gestures meant to thwart enemy attempts at eavesdropping.

  A few nimble leaps brought Cody face-to-face with Obi-Wan and Anakin.

  “Sirs, I have the latest from airborne command.”

  “Show us,” Anakin said.

  Cody dropped to one knee, his right hand activating a device built into his left wrist gauntlet. A cone of blue light emanated from the device, and a hologram of task force commander Dodonna resolved.

  “Generals Kenobi and Skywalker, provincial recon unit reports that Viceroy Gunray and his entourage are making their way to the north side of the redoubt. Our forces have been hammering at the shield from above and from points along the shore, but the shield generator is in a hardened site, and difficult to get at. Gunships are taking heavy fire from turbolaser cannons in the lower ramparts. If your team is still committed to taking Gunray alive, you’re going to have to skirt those defenses and find an alternative way into the palace. At this point we cannot reinforce, repeat, cannot reinforce.”

  Obi-Wan looked at Cody when the hologram had faded. “Suggestions, Commander?”

  Cody made an adjustment to the wrist projector, and a 3-D schematic of the redoubt formed in midair. “Assuming that Gunray’s fortress is similar to what we found on Deko and Koru, the underground levels will contain fungus farms and processing and shipment areas. There will be access from the shipping areas into the midlevel grub hatcheries, and from the hatcheries we’ll be able to infiltrate the upper reaches.”

  Cody carried a short-stocked DC-15 blaster rifle and wore the white armor and imaging system helmet that had come to symbolize the Grand Army of the Republic—grown, nurtured, and trained on the remote world of Kamino, three years earlier. Just now, though, areas of white showed only where there were no smears of mud or dried blood, no gouges, abrasions, or charred patches. Cody’s position was designated by orange markings on his helmet crest and shoulder guards. His upper right arm bore stripes signifying campaigns in which he had participated: Aagonar, Praesitlyn, Paracelus Minor, Antar 4, Tibrin, Skor II, and dozens of other worlds from Core to Outer Rim.

  Over the years Obi-Wan had formed battlefield partnerships with several Advanced Recon Commandos—Alpha, with whom he had been imprisoned on Rattatak, and Jangotat, on Ord Cestus. Early-generation ARCs had received training by the Mandalorian clone template, Jango Fett. While the Kaminoans had managed to breed some of Fett out of the regulars, they had been more selective in the case of the ARCs. As a consequence, ARCs displayed more individual initiative and leadership abilities. In short, they were more like the late bounty hunter himself, which was to say, more human. While Cody wasn’t genetically an Advanced Recon Commando, he had ARC training and shared many ARC attributes.

  In the initial stages of the war, clone troopers were treated no differently from the war machines they piloted or the weapons they fired. To many they had more in common with battle droids poured by the tens of thousands from Baktoid Armor Workshops on a host of Separatist-held worlds. But attitudes began to shift as more and more troopers died. The clones’ unfaltering dedication to the Republic, and to the Jedi, showed them to be true comrades in arms, and deserving of all the respect and compassion they were now afforded. It was the Jedi themselves, in addition to other progressive-thinking officials in the Republic, who had urged that second- and third-generation troopers be given names rather than numbers, to foster a growing fellowship.

  “I agree that we can probably reach the upper levels, Commander,” Obi-Wan said at last. “But how do you propose we reach the fungus farms to begin with?”

  Cody stood to his full height and pointed toward the orchards. “We go in with the harvesters.”

  Obi-Wan glanced uncertainly at Anakin and motioned him off to one side.

  “It’s just the two of us. What do you think?”

  “I think you worry too much, Master.”

  Obi-Wan folded his arms across his chest. “And who’ll worry about you if I don’t?”

  Anakin canted his head and grinned. “There are others.”

  “You can only be referring to See-Threepio. And you had to build him.”

  “Think what you will.”

  Obi-Wan narrowed his eyes with purpose. “Oh, I see. But I would have thought Senator Amidala of greater interest to you than Supreme Chancellor Palpatine.” Before Anakin could respond, he added: “Despite that sh
e’s a politician also.”

  “Don’t think I haven’t tried to attract her interest, Master.”

  Obi-Wan regarded Anakin for a moment. “What’s more, if Chancellor Palpatine had genuine concern for your welfare, he would have kept you closer to Coruscant.”

  Anakin placed his artificial hand on Obi-Wan’s left shoulder. “Perhaps, Master. But then, who would look after you?”

  Despite their two pairs of powerful legs and the saw-toothed pincers that extended from their lower mandibles, the broad-bodied harvesters were single-minded creatures, complaisant except when threatened directly. From their flat heads sprouted looping antennae, which served not only as feelers, but also as organs of communication, by means of powerful pheromones. Each beetle was capable of carrying five times its considerable weight in foliage and branches. Similar to the Neimoidians who had domesticated them, their society was hierarchical, and included laborers, harvesters, soldiers, and breeders, all of whom served a distant queen that rewarded effort with food.

  Obi-Wan, Anakin, and the commandos who made up Squad Seven had to run to keep up with the beetles as they hurried their fresh-picked loads from the orchard to the cave-like entrance to a natural mound at the base of the redoubt. The beetles’ carapaces afforded them cover from surveillance sorties by battle droid STAP patrols. More important, the harvesters knew safe routes through mined stretches of cleared ground that separated the trees from the fortress itself.

  The beetles’ frequent habit of lowering their heads to exchange information with hivemates moving in the opposite direction demanded that the Jedi and troopers keep between the harvesters’ rear legs. Hunched over, Obi-Wan ran with his lightsaber in hand but deactivated. As the shielded royal residence came into view, a certain uneasiness seemed to take hold of the creatures, disrupting the ordered nature of their columns. Obi-Wan suspected that outbound beetles were relaying accounts of potential perils to the nest posed by the Republic’s unrelenting barrage. In response to the crisis, soldier beetles were joining the procession, quick to shepherd nervous strays back into line.

  Anakin’s greater height required him to remain farther back, almost directly under the beetle’s pug tail. To Obi-Wan’s right ran Cody, with his teammates trailing behind and flanking him.

  Soldier beetles or no, discipline was breaking down fast.

  A harvester providing cover for one of the commandos veered from the column before it could be guided back into line. Instead of hurrying under another beetle, the commando stuck with the stray, and quickly found himself out in open ground.

  Obi-Wan felt a ripple in the Force an instant before the harvester’s right foreleg tripped a land mine.

  A potent explosion fountained from the rocky ground, blowing away half the creature’s foreleg. The commando threw himself to one side, rolling out from under a trio now of pounding legs, only to have to bob and weave as the harvester began to run in frantic circles, seemingly determined to trample the commando underfoot. A glancing blow from the beetle’s left rear leg tipped the commando off his feet. Confused, the harvester lowered its head and butted at the hard white object in its path, again and again, until there wasn’t a smooth area left in the commando’s armor.

  The harvester’s distress was having an impact on the rest of the beetles, as well.

  While most were pressed tightly together, others were suddenly scurrying away from the main column, sending the soldier beetles to high alert. Tripping two mines in succession, a second harvester was lifted off the ground by the ensuing explosions. With that, the column dissolved into disorder, with harvesters and soldiers running every which way, and commandos and Jedi alike doing their best to protect themselves.

  “Stay close to the ones who are still headed for the nest!” Anakin shouted.

  Obi-Wan was doing just that when he noticed that the trampled commando was back on his feet and staggering toward him, tapping the side of his helmet with the palm of his gloved hand, and obviously indifferent to where he placed his booted feet. Barreling straight for the maw of the mound, a harvester bore down on the commando, clamping its pincers around his waist, then lifting him high into the air. Summoning the last of his reserves, the commando twisted his body back and forth, but was unable to break free.

  All at once Anakin was out from under his protective harvester.

  Lightsaber tight in his gloved hand, he bounded across the denuded landscape toward the captive commando, the Force guiding him to safe landings among the mines. The harvesters might have taken him for a demented turfjumper were they not so fixed on safeguarding their loads and reaching the security of the nest.

  Anakin’s final leap dropped him directly in front of the harvester that had seized the commando. With one upward stroke of his lightsaber he rid the beetle of its pincers, freeing the commando, but also sending the soldier beetles into a frenzy. Obi-Wan could almost smell the pheromone release, and decipher the information being exchanged: The area is rife with predators!

  From the brood rose a shriek so high-pitched as to be barely audible, and a stampede was under way. Mines began to detonate to all sides, and out from billowing smoke above the orchard canopy swarmed more than a hundred STAPs.

  A Neimoidian version of the agile repulsorlift airhook used as an observation vehicle throughout the galaxy, each Single Trooper Aerial Platform was equipped with twin blasters that delivered more firepower than the stubby-barreled models carried by infantry droids.

  From maximum range the swarm rained energy bolts on everything in sight, dropping harvesters in their tracks and turning the rocky ground into a killing field. Explosions erupted in jagged lines as scores of mines were detonated. Supporting the commando trooper with his left arm, Anakin warded off blaster bolts on the run. The rest of Squad Seven supplied cover, blowing STAPs out of the sky with uninterrupted fire.

  Cody motioned everyone into a shallow irrigation trench just short of the mound. By the time Obi-Wan arrived, the troopers were deployed in a circle, and continuing to pour fire into the sky. Anakin slid into the trench a moment later, lowering the commando gently to the muddy slope. Squad Seven’s medical specialist crawled over, removing the commando’s ravaged utility belt and deeply dented helmet.

  Obi-Wan gazed at the face of the injured clone.

  A face he would never forget; now a face he couldn’t forget.

  All these years later, he could still recall his brief conversation with Jango Fett, on Kamino. He glanced at Cody and the rest. An army of one man … But the right man for the job.

  The clones’ rallying cry.

  The injured commando had already prompted his armor to inject him with painkillers, so he remained pliant while his chest plastron was removed and the black bodyglove undergarment knifed open. The harvester’s pincers had crushed the armor into the commando’s abdomen. His skin was intact, but the bruising was severe.

  With only half the original army of 1.2 million in fighting shape, the life of every clone was vital. Blood and replacement organs—what the regular troopers referred to as “spare parts”—were readily available—“easily requisitioned”—but with the war reaching a crescendo, battlefield casualties were on the rise and treated as high priority.

  “Not much I can do for him here,” the medspec told Anakin. “Maybe if we can get an FX-Seven airdropped—”

  “We don’t need a droid,” Anakin interrupted. Kneeling, he placed his hands on the injured commando’s abdomen and used a Jedi healing technique to keep the clone from going into deep shock.

  A sudden noise from above caught everyone’s attention.

  Scores of boulder-sized objects were spewing from openings in the lower ramparts of the fortress. Cody pressed a pair of macrobinoculars to his eyes and gazed upward.

  “That’s no ordinary avalanche,” he said, passing the glasses to Obi-Wan.

  Obi-Wan raised the glasses and waited for the lens to autofocus.

  Rolling toward the trench at better than eighty kilometers per hour we
re some of the most feared of the Separatists’ infantry arsenal.

  Droidekas.

  REBELLION

  (0–5 YEARS AFTER STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE)

  This is the period of the classic Star Wars movie trilogy—A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi—in which a ragtag band of Rebels battles the Empire, and Luke Skywalker learns the ways of the Force and must avoid his father’s fate.

  During this time, the Empire controls nearly the entire settled galaxy. Out in the Rim worlds, Imperial stormtroopers suppress uprisings with brutal efficiency, many alien species have been enslaved, and entire star systems are brutally exploited by the Empire’s war machine. In the central systems, however, most citizens support the Empire, weighing misgivings about its harsh methods against the memories of the horror and chaos of the Clone Wars. Few dare to openly oppose Emperor Palpatine’s rule.

  But the Rebel Alliance is growing. Rebel cells strike in secret from hidden bases scattered among the stars, encouraging some of the braver Senators to speak out against the Empire. When the Rebels learn that the Empire is building the Death Star, a space station with enough firepower to destroy entire planets, Princess Leia Organa, who represents her homeworld, Alderaan, in the Senate and is secretly a high-ranking member of the Rebel Alliance, receives the plans for the battle station and flees in search of the exiled Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi.

  Thus begin the events that lead her to meet the smuggler and soon-to-be hero Han Solo, to discover her long-lost brother, Luke Skywalker, and to help the Rebellion take down the Emperor and restore democracy to the galaxy: the events of the three films A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.

  If you’re a reader looking for places to jump in and explore the Rebellion-era novels, here are five great places to start:

  • Death Star, by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry: The story of the construction of the massive battle station, touching on the lives of the builders, planners, soldiers, and support staff who populate the monstrous vessel, as well as the masterminds behind the design and those who intend to make use of it: the Emperor and Darth Vader.