Star Wars®: The Cestus Deception

by Steven Barnes

  Once, hundreds of standard years ago, the planet had belonged to the X’Ting, who had driven their only rivals, the spider clans, into the distant mountains. But the coming of the Republic had changed everything. At first hailed as a triumph for the hive, in time the offworlders controlled everything. Regardless of what anyone said, the last century’s plagues had been no more or less than attempted genocide: the hives had all but collapsed, and Cestus Cybernetics became the planet’s de facto ruler. Most surviving X’Ting were relegated to cesspools such as this wretched slum. Some, of course (for instance, that worthless drone Duris, or Quill, the current head of the hive council), had sold their people out in exchange for power. Those traitors were the pampered pets of the Five Families.

  In his female persona, Fizzik often secured domestic work amid the offworlder upper classes. When he cycled back to male, most offworlder employers found his powerful pheromones sufficiently unpleasant to terminate his employment. So…down to the gutter again, scraping for a living until his emerging feminine persona earned him a better berth. Moving between social tissues over the years had earned him a wide network of contacts—a net wide enough, in fact, to have snared a valuable bit of information: that the Grand ChikatLik’s newest arrivals were critically important visitors from Coruscant. There was every chance he might be able to sell such information to one of the most powerful X’Ting in the capital, the being who held the threads connecting the criminal underworld to the labor organizers to the true masters of Old Cestus: Fizzik’s brother Trillot.

  In a few minutes he arrived at a heavy, oval iron door set in a shadowed corridor off bustling Ore Boulevard. In one sense, it was important to know the code words. In another, those who came to this door and sought entrance without having funds to spend or something to sell would find themselves on the wrong end of a flame-knife.

  The guards, one blue-skinned humanoid Wroonian and a gigantic furred Wookiee, glared down on Fizzik with no discernible shift in their facial expressions.

  “Need to see my brother,” Fizzik said, and added a code word known only to hive siblings.

  The guards nodded blandly and opened the door. One walked ahead of him, although he looked around as they moved down the shadowed corridor.

  The hallway was lined with small alcoves, in which various galactic life-forms reclined in shadow, alone or in pairs, staring out at him with vast, glassy eyes before sinking back into whatever thoughts or dreams had occupied them.

  “What you need Trillot for?” the Wroonian asked.

  “Got information. His ears only.”

  The guard grunted. “What you say? You want to eat diamonds?”

  Fizzik despaired. One would think that a being of Trillot’s wealth and power would employ the very best help, but that rarely seemed to be the case. “Just take me there.”

  “His brood-mother what?” the guard said, turning. His face now betrayed a trace of emotion, and it was not at all pleasant.

  Fizzik realized the trap he had entered. The alcoves around him rustled with curious eyes. This was nothing less than a shakedown. He thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out a handful of credits. His last. Oh, well, life was a gamble. If this one paid off, in a few minutes he would be flush. If not…well, the dead had no use for money.

  As soon as the credits touched the thug’s hands, the Wroonian smiled broadly. “Oh!” he said. “Oh! You want to see Trillot.” He made the credits disappear, and then swept a curtain aside.

  At first Fizzik could see only a broad couch, but as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he was able to make out his brother.

  Trillot was three broods senior to Fizzik. Like Fizzik, he was a minor child of a noble but impoverished brood-mother, his only inheritance a yearning for the wealth and power of ages past. Unlike Fizzik, however, Trillot had talent and a willingness to take risks. After a false start working in communications for Cestus Cybernetics, he found his niche in labor relations. Trillot’s three-year cycle between male and female personae tended to keep his immigrant opponents and rivals slightly off-guard. Fizzik knew that, unlike most X’Ting, Trillot used an imported cocktail of viptiel and other exotic herbs to collapse the monthlong breeding period at either end of the gender cycle into mere hours of numbed transformation. No incapacity, no fertility. No mewling grubs for one as ambitious as Trillot.

  Five years later Trillot had proven his worth to a local Ten-loss syndicate, and two years after that he resigned from Cestus Cybernetics to work directly for the overboss himself.

  A mysterious series of tragic accidents had cleared the way for Trillot’s ascension. Well, unexplained as long as Trillot himself chose not to comment.

  Everything that followed was almost preordained. Seeing Trillot’s utter ruthlessness and perhaps sensing the inevitability of his ascension, the overboss fled Cestus, leaving the power in Trillot’s capable hands.

  It was too little, too late. The overboss met with an accident, almost as if someone wished to ensure he would never return to attempt to claim what had once been his.

  Trillot’s power in ChikatLik had never really been challenged. Were he not cautious, such a challenge have might come in the lethargic monthlong transition between genders suffered by most of his kind. Another motivation to use the illegal viptiel cocktail that allowed him to make this transition in a single painful night. Trillot was aggressive at all times.

  In the twilight zone between labor and management, between white and black market, between upper and lower class, between offworlder and X’Ting hive council, there was no fixer like Trillot, and everyone knew it.

  Like most male X’Ting he was a deceptively delicate, insectile creature. His every motion seemed as carefully cultivated and pondered as a master’s game of dejarik. A high, crystalline brow over faceted eyes and an elongated oval for a body gave the impression of vast intelligence and great gentility. Fizzik knew that only the former impression was correct.

  But Trillot’s thorax was red and swelling, a clear sign of feminization. Such a rapid shift had to be agonizing, and Fizzik wondered what herbs and drugs Trillot used to control the pain. And then more to clarify his mind from all the others. And then more to protect himself from the toxic effects of the previous dosages. And then more…

  Fizzik was dizzy just thinking about it.

  Trillot spoke to the guard in a clicking, popping language that seemed odd emerging from his strangely prim mouth. The guard answered in the same indecipherable tongue. Then his head pivoted to face his guest. “Ah. Fizzik,” he said. Fizzik had heard more warmth and welcome in the voice of an execution droid. “It seems you have information for me. Ah, come along. No, no. Of course, if your information is sound, there will be compensation.”

  “I wish only to serve my elder brother.” Fizzik lowered his eyes respectfully.

  “Ah.” Trillot’s body seemed to move one section at a time, so that one part of it always remained still while the rest was in motion. It was unnerving to watch. Although of the same species, Fizzik had never possessed such plasticity. Trillot walked a bit awkwardly, his swelling egg sac unbalancing his stride. They traversed a dark corridor lined with alcoves, from which the glittering eyes of a dozen species watched them pass. Trillot seemed to have attracted Cestus’s entire underclass. Fizzik knew that the offworlder majority on the planet had dominated many of the other species to the point that less than 3 percent were native Cestians.

  The passage through the corridor was punctuated with low, respectful bows from Trillot’s coterie of hideous bodyguards. Suddenly Trillot stopped and sniffed the air. Now for the first time, Fizzik saw something like emotion cross the golden face. If he had to make a guess, he would have said that his elder sibling was unhappy. This would not be pretty.

  “I smell Xyathone,” Trillot said. He looked at the guard. “Do you smell it?”

  “No, sir,” the guard replied in a Bothan dialect that Fizzik actually understood. Trillot was rumored to speak more than a hundred languages, and Fiz
zik was inclined to believe it.

  “I do.” He moved closer to one of the alcoves. A thin tendril of steam wound its way from beyond, and Fizzik pulled the curtain aside.

  Two Chadra-Fan were curled into the darkness, inhaling vapor from a boiling flask. Trillot sniffed again, deeply. He spoke to them in their own language, and then turned. “Guntar!” he called.

  The guards hustled, and for that moment Fizzik thought Trillot had forgotten him completely. They returned shortly, dragging a fat little gray ball of a Zeetsa behind them. Trillot looked down on the sphere as it prostrated itself. “Did you sell my guests the mushroom?”

  Lips appeared on the sphere’s surface. “Yes,” Guntar babbled. “Of course. Nothing but the best—”

  “And why then has it been cut with Xyathone?”

  The little Zeetsa was the very picture of outraged innocence. “What? I did not know, I swear—”

  “Do you indeed? Then perhaps your senses are insufficiently acute. You should have smelled it. Tasted it in the mixing. Do you say that that insignificant nose and tongue of yours aren’t up to the task?”

  There was a pause, and Fizzik tensed. There would be no happy resolution to this matter.

  “I…I suppose…”

  “You know how I loathe inefficiency.” To his guards: “See that the offending organs are removed.”

  The ball screamed as the guards dragged him away. Trillot turned back to the Chadra-Fan. He spoke to them in their chittering tongue. They replied, and he drew the curtains shut. To the guards: “See that they get the best. From my personal stock.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Trillot pulled the corners of his mouth into something approximating a smile. “Come with me now, Fizzik. It will take a few minutes to reach my sanctum. I suggest that you use them composing your report. After all—” From somewhere in the darkness behind them echoed a stomach-curdling scream. “—you know how I loathe inefficiency.”

  17

  For hours the clone troopers had busied themselves in the cool, deep shadows of the Dashta Mountains. They glued, fitted, and welded, joining together hundreds of preformed durasteel sections, melding them with native materials to create the nucleus of a fine command center.

  “So where’s our first strike?” Forry asked Nate as they worked.

  He shrugged in response. “Give me a spot-weld, right here.” Their astromech unit extended a soldering probe. “First of all,” he said, shielding his eyes against a bright, sharp shower of sparks, “there’s reason to think we might not get used at all. General Kenobi’s supposed to protect the entrenched political and economic forces.”

  “Yeah, right,” Sirty said.

  “But if it does go down?”

  Nate grunted. “Then I’d guess we’ll hit Cestus Cybernetics.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  Their comlink bleeped; a tone said that they’d be expecting friendly visitors in a little under a minute, and they were not to respond with force. That beacon triggered long before they heard the distant but distinct swoosh of air. A few seconds later General Fisto’s speeder bike appeared.

  Nate wandered out to the pad, feeling loose, dangerous, and satisfied. In a matter of hours they had turned this mountain hole into a reasonable headquarters.

  He watched the Nautolan’s speeder glide over the smooth and jagged rock surfaces, heading north. Nate followed on foot, arriving in time to watch a cargo ship arrive on the open spot they’d chosen as their secondary landing zone.

  The door opened, and the walkway extended. A dark-skinned human female exited, following Kit back up toward the cave. Nate saluted as Kit passed. The woman glanced at him with little curiosity as she and Kit entered the cave. The Jedi received salutations from the other clones. He briefly evaluated the work that they had already performed, then took the woman to a scanner and showed her some material. They conferred briefly, and Kit said: “Captain, Forry, I wish you to accompany us.”

  “Yes, sir,” they said simultaneously.

  Spindragon was a suborbital YT-1200 medium freighter. She was old, melded with parts from other similar models, with a rounded hull and an elongated, tubular cockpit. Nate spent a few minutes examining the welds. Although it was obvious that a dozen different soldering mixtures had been used, as well as a bit of Corellian epoxy, they seemed strong enough to stand up to high-g turns, and he gave his approval.

  The interior was barely more than functional: little bits of decoration suggested an attempt at aesthetics, but nothing frilly enough to decrease utility.

  The woman cocked her head sideways at the ARC trooper, trying to peer through his helmet. “I didn’t catch your name,” she said.

  “Trooper A-Nine-Eight.”

  She snorted. “Is there a short version of that?”

  “Call me Nate,” he said. Curiosity flickered in her dark eyes, and her lips pursed as if Sheeka Tull was tempted to ask a question. She didn’t surrender to temptation, but he guessed that she hadn’t shuffled him into the nonbeing category to which most citizens automatically relegated clones.

  Within minutes they were all strapped in and ready to go. She rose from their landing pad and spiraled up into the sky, flying southeast for about fifteen minutes, then north for another ten.

  A small manufacturing complex lay before them. Nate made a quick tactical assessment: several mine dropshaft shacks, living quarters, a small refinery, some shipping docks, landing docks, water filtration equipment, and communications towers. Next to a series of condensation coils nestled a blue bubble that he figured was a polarizing hothouse, using shielded plastics to change their sun’s spectral range so that a wider variety of plants could be grown. Typical settlement. Fragile. Easy to destroy.

  But he remained silent. A major part of his job was just being visually impressive. Most citizens had never seen clone troopers, although they had doubtless heard tales.

  He and Forry were first down the ramp when it extended, followed by Sheeka Tull and the Jedi.

  The community seemed to have turned out for them, but he noticed that there were precious few X’Ting in the crowd. Most were humans, a few were Wookiees, and there was a smattering of other species. No doubt many of them were descendants of the original prisoners.

  The farmers and miners relaxed noticeably when Sheeka appeared, and she waved to them. She was known here. Good. That would make things far simpler than if they had to establish either trust or dominance.

  “Greetings to all of you,” she said to them. “I’m glad you showed up, though I can’t say I’m sure what this is about. But these are the people I told you to expect. I won’t vouch for them. Keep your ears and eyes open, and make up your own minds.”

  They nodded, and Nate had to respect her speech: Tull might be willing to bring them here, but even whatever leverage the Republic had upon her could not force her to sell her honor by pretending friendship. Good. He liked her more all the time.

  General Fisto stood at the bottom of the ramp and raised his hands. His tentacles curled and coiled hypnotically.

  “Miners!” he called. “You harvest ore from the soil. You transport, refine, and manufacture. You are this world’s heart.”

  The faces were doubtful, but intrigued. Nate noted that several of the younger ones looked at him as well, studying him as if wishing his helmet were transparent.

  “You stir the tides of commerce,” the general went on. “It is your hands that hold the materials, skills, equipment, and raw material to build their luxuries.”

  When several of them nodded, he knew General Fisto was speaking their language. The only question was whether or not they truly cared to hear his words.

  “But despite this fact, how often have you been included in their decisions?”

  “Never,” someone muttered.

  “How often have you shared in their harvest? Do you grasp that their droids are among the galaxy’s most prized possessions? There is nothing wrong with growing wealthy, but the wealth should be
shared with those who do the dirtiest, most dangerous work.” As he proceeded, the emotion in his voice grew more and more pronounced. “Your ancestors came here in chains. For all the power you wield, you may as well wear them still.”

  He had their interest now, but he would need far more to make this gambit successful.

  “Even now, your masters court war with the Republic.”

  This triggered a series of gasps and ugly murmurs. A few of them might have had no love for the Republic—the kind who might automatically side with Cestus against the strength of a thousand-ship fleet. Others felt no such bravado, and shifted nervously from foot to foot, as if fearing they stood in a bantha trap with closing jaws.

  “Why are they doin’ that?” an older woman asked. The wind stirred the tips of her gray-streaked hair.

  “They sell these deadly droids to the Confederacy. They will be modified and used against the Republic.” At this, Nate stood just a hair taller, and noticed that his brother Forry did as well. Eyes focused upon them. What thoughts flitted through their minds? Did they regard the troopers as potential enemies? Imagine them dying? Or killing? Studying them as potential allies? Wondering what it might be like to fight at the side of an ARC trooper? Certainly, some here had blood hot enough to crave such an adventure, such a test.

  “In fact, we have information suggesting that they plan to mass-market these droids offplanet, once the secret is secured.”

  “What? It couldn’t happen. The Guides—” a female miner began, but then the farmer to Nate’s right gave her ribs a painful elbow thump, and she fell silent.

  Interesting.

  “Yes,” Kit continued, as if he could read both Nate’s mind and that of the woman who had just spoken. “You have been told that it is impossible for more than a few hundred of them to be produced, because of the dashta eels.”

  The group was even more uncomfortable now, but Nate intuited that the problem was multifaceted. Some were afraid, a few outraged, and in one…two pairs of eyes he saw a skepticism so deep that he knew automatically: These know something.