Star Wars®: The Cestus Deception

by Steven Barnes

  “We were not friends, Master Kenobi. Your actions bore the weight of necessity. In the world of politics, truth is merely another thing to be bartered.”

  “Then I wish to spend the rest of my life among friends.”

  They shared a smile. “I hope you know that I will always think of you as our friend,” she said. “My friend.” A pause. “So, then,” she said, returning them to business. “The Republic guarantees us service droid contracts for its army. This will give Cestus a chance to establish networks of service and instruction on every world in the Republic.” She paused. “But no more JKs. If the Chancellor keeps his word, then we will still be safe.”

  “I think that your current situation might reasonably be described as a running start.”

  “Thank you, Master Kenobi.”

  He had a thought. “I need a favor from you,” Obi-Wan said.

  “Yes?”

  “Many people sacrificed themselves in this fight,” he said. “Many of them died. I wish an amnesty for the survivors, and those you captured. No black marks against them. Let them go back to their lives. Let this be a new beginning. And one more thing…”

  “Yes?”

  “Let the spiders have their caves. They have little enough.”

  “I am sorry for the endless cycles of misery on Cestus. Our hive made many mistakes—but I will do what I can to correct them.”

  80

  The time had come for the Jedi to say their good-byes. The remaining forces of Desert Wind filled the caves a final time. Resta sang them a song of Thak Val Zsing’s courage. They shook hands, saluted, shared hugs and strong, warm words as the surviving troopers packed their equipment on the shuttle dropped down at the personal request of Admiral Baraka.

  “Master Kenobi?” Sheeka Tull said during a quiet moment.

  “Yes?”

  She couldn’t meet his eyes. “Did I do a bad thing,” she said, “an evil, selfish thing?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I wanted to bring back something I thought I missed from my life. Something…someone I knew a long time ago.”

  “You tried to bring him back?”

  She nodded. “For all my talk of living for today, I see now…that I was the worst kind of hypocrite.”

  “How?”

  “I woke him up, Master Kenobi. He could have gone his whole life feeling complete, and finished, and at peace with his path.”

  Obi-Wan folded his fingers together. “He sounded complete to me. He sounded much like a man who has traveled the galaxy’s rim only to find himself at home.”

  “But don’t you see? He knew what to say. He knew I would see that vid, that he wasn’t coming back. And he said that to set my mind at ease.” She wagged her head side to side. “I know, I know, I sound crazy, and maybe I am, just a little, right now.”

  She looked at him with desperation. “Tell me. Tell me, Jedi. Did I wake him up, convince him he had a life that was precious, just in time for him to lose it? And what does that make me?”

  “A woman who once loved a man, and then tried to love him again.”

  Tears streaked her face as she gazed at him.

  “None of us is completely in control of our heart,” Obi-Wan said. “We do what we can, what we will, what we must…guided by our ethics and responsibilities. It can be lonely.”

  “Have you ever…?” she began, unable to finish.

  “Yes,” he said, and offered nothing more.

  For Sheeka Tull, that single word was enough.

  “So,” Obi-Wan said. “You must be strong. For Jangotat, who, I think, would have thanked you for however many days of clarity you were able to afford him. For yourself, whose only sin was love.”

  He came closer. He rested his hand on her flat stomach. “And for the child you carry.”

  She blinked. “You know?”

  Obi-Wan smiled. “A strong one, I think. And he’ll have a name, not a number.”

  “Not a number.”

  “No.”

  They stood in an empty cavern. The eels had gone. What had driven them away? Groundquakes? Rumors of war? No one knew. Perhaps they would return. Perhaps not. But humans had abused their precious gifts, and humans and X’Ting alike could wait for the Guides to make up their own minds. Here, for a hundred years and more, in love they had offered the greatest gift imaginable: their own children, that their new friends might prosper. And that gift had almost killed them all.

  Best they be gone.

  Among the rocks outside their second camp, Obi-Wan and Kit witnessed the death ceremony of an ARC for one of their own. It was as simple as could be imagined.

  The three dug a shallow trench and gently placed Jangotat’s body within. Each added a handful of sand and dirt. Then Forry said, “From water we’re born, in fire we die. We seed the stars.”

  When they were done the Jedi helped the commandos build a rock cairn, taller than it was wide, like a single declamatory finger pointing to the stars. They stood for a time, looking at the cave, the rocks, the sky, absorbing a bit of this place that had cost them so dearly.

  Then they were done, and there was nothing left to do.

  And so they left.

  81

  Trillot tossed and turned in her bed, deep in a recurring vision of blood and destruction. Mountains fell. Planets exploded. The space between the stars ran black with blood.

  She awakened suddenly, relieved. It was only a nightmare. Just another of an endless stream of horrid sleep-fantasies…

  Her vision cleared, and her sense of relief evaporated. More substantial than any nightmare, Asajj Ventress stood over her.

  “You strode my dreams,” Ventress said. “And as you did, I saw you.”

  Her single lightsaber descended.

  At a spot only thirty kilometers from ChikatLik, two guards lay broken in the shadow of Ventress’s ship. She tucked her lightsaber back into her belt, mounted the ramp, and began to check her instruments, preparing for takeoff.

  “Obi-Wan,” she said quietly. She wished to see him dead. But in the water, when she could have followed him down into death, he had remained firm. He was…

  She focused on her hands. Why did they shake? This was not like her. She knew who she was. She had made her bed long ago, and was more than prepared to lie within it.

  Asajj Ventress turned her mind to the hundred small preparations necessary for flight. Halfway through the preparations, she realized that her hands had stopped shaking. Action. That was what was needed. That was what she hungered for. She would accept Count Dooku’s scathing approbation, then volunteer for the most dangerous assignment General Grievous could devise, and on whatever planet that was, in whatever maelstrom of wrack and ruin she could immerse herself, she would find cleansing, and peace.

  Ventress lifted off into the clouds above ChikatLik, and was gone.

  From behind a rock on the slope just beyond Ventress’s landing zone, Fizzik crawled out, trembling uncontrollably. It was time to leave Cestus. This planet had suddenly become an insanely dangerous place. If only he could get back into Trillot’s nest, perhaps he could get his hands on some of his sister’s credits before her corpse was found.

  Of course, if the body was discovered before Fizzik could escape, it might not go well.

  What to do, what to do?

  Lack of courage meant poverty.

  Fizzik decided: he had been poor before, but he had never been dead, and he wished to keep it that way for a very long time.

  82

  Night had come to the Dashta Mountains. Sheeka Tull had waited for the Jedi and the ARCs and everyone else to leave, then knelt at Jangotat’s cairn, saying her own very personal good-bye.

  She looked up, watching twin streaks of light in the sky, where two very different ships headed in very different directions.

  Sheeka touched her belly, still flat but nestling her child. Their child. Hers and Jango’s.

  No, not Jango. Jango would never have died to save strangers. Jang
otat was a different man. A better man.

  Her man.

  A name, not a number, Jangotat. A-Nine-Eight.

  I swear.

  In 1977, when I first saw that Star Destroyer cross the screen, I had never published a single word of fiction, never written an episode of television. To think that thirty years and two million words later I would make my own contribution to the canon would have boggled my young mind.

  Serious thanks to the folks at Lucasfilm with whom I spent two glorious days at Skywalker Ranch hashing out the details. To Sue Rostoni of Lucas Licensing. To Shelly Shapiro of Del Rey, for being the kind of editor who trusts her writers, giving them the space to spin their dreams.

  To Betsy Mitchell, for giving me this opportunity. Appreciations also to my wife, novelist Tananarive Due, for constantly reminding me of my responsibilities, and to my daughter, Nicki, for empowering me to fulfill them.

  To my niece Sharlene Chiyako Higa, for letting Unk borrow her nickname for a certain little blue ball.

  To my new son Jason Kai Due-Barnes: thank you more than you can ever know.

  To all of the Star Wars fans who contacted me over the months, offering encouragement and enthusiasm. Especially Andrew Liptak. You helped remind me what this was all about. And Adam Daggy, for his excellent Jar Jar impression.

  There are other people to acknowledge, and many other pieces of the puzzle called writing a book, but one contributor it would be criminal to forget is Mr. Scott Sonnon, who created the wonderful Body-Flow technique I “borrowed” as a Jedi institution. If there is a Force-sensitive art on this planet, it is this man’s work. His technique can be found at www.rmax.tv.

  In 1983, during the crew party for Return of the Jedi, I briefly met George Lucas. Tongue-tied, I managed to stammer out how much I loved his work. There are so many other things I might have said, and on the chance Mr. Lucas might read these words, I would like to add:

  Thank you, for creating this vast and flexible playground. Thank you for creating one of the twentieth century’s most popular myths, a gift that has brought billions of happy viewing hours at a critical time in world history, a time when, perhaps, we need more than ever to believe in honor, sacrifice, heart, and that special magic called life itself.

  As long as I live, I will never forget The Moment when Luke Skywalker flew so desperately down the Death Star’s trench, John Williams’s score soaring magnificently, and the audience overwhelmed by Industrial Light and Magic’s mind-bending inaugural. At that pulse-pounding moment, a moment when it seemed the individual human being could have no point or purpose, no meaning in a universe so vast and cybernetic, we heard Obi-Wan Kenobi whisper that we should trust our feelings.

  The Force flows through us. It controls us. We control it. Life creates it. It is more powerful than any Death Star.

  Hundreds of millions of people said yes, and sighed, and applauded, and went home or turned off their videos feeling just a little more empowered than they did before the lights went down and the Twentieth Century–Fox fanfare came up.

  No small feat.

  May the Force be with you, Mr. Lucas.

  And with us all. Always.

  Steven Barnes

  Longview, Washington

  www.lifewrite.com

  January 13, 2004

  Other titles by Steven Barnes

  DREAM PARK (with Larry Niven)

  THE DESCENT OF ANANSI (with Larry Niven)

  STREETLETHAL

  THE KUNDALINI EQUATION

  THE LEGACY OF HEOROT POCKET BOOKS (with Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle)

  THE BARSOOM PROJECT

  GORGON CHILD

  ACHILLES’ CHOICE (with Larry Niven)

  THE CALIFORNIA VOODOO GAME (with Larry Niven)

  FIREDANCE

  BEOWULF’S CHILDREN (with Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle)

  BLOOD BROTHERS

  IRON SHADOWS

  FAR BEYOND THE STARS

  SATURN’S RACE

  CHARISMA

  LION’S BLOOD

  ZULU HEART

  FOR NICKI, STEVEN AND SHARLEEN CHIYEKO

  Happy birthday, kids!

  1

  G’Mai Duris, Regent of the planet Ord Cestus, formally folded the fingers of her primary and secondary hands. She was an X’Ting, of segmented, oval, dull gold body and gentle manner, one of the insectoids who had once ruled this planet. Before the coming of Cestus Cybernetics, X’Ting hives had thronged this world, but now the soulless industrial giant not only dominated the planet but also threatened the safety of the Republic itself.

  Obi-Wan Kenobi watched as Duris prepared to address the hive council, the last humble remnant of X’Ting power. Like the offworlder capital of ChikatLik, some hundreds of meters above their heads, the council room was nestled in a natural lava bubble. The walls of the egg-shaped, fifteen-meter-high chamber had been glazed burnt sienna, but most of that original color was covered with handwoven tapestries. Three doorways, each guarded by two members of the X’Ting warrior clans, led out of the room—one to the surface, the others to deeper, less traveled places within the hive.

  The twelve councilors seated at the curved stone table were a mix of relatively youthful X’Ting, their carapaces still brilliant, and elders showing gray and white splotches amid their bristling thoracic hair. Their vestigial wings fluttered in distress. From time to time their primary or secondary hands would smooth their ivory ceremonial robes. Every red or green faceted eye studied her carefully; every auditory antenna was tuned to her words.

  Duris hunched her thorax and cleared her throat, perhaps gathering her thoughts. She was almost as tall as Obi-Wan, and her broad, segmented, pale gold shell and swollen egg sac gave her considerable gravitas.

  At this moment, G’Mai Duris needed every bit of it.

  “My peers and elders,” she said. “My dear friend Master Kenobi has told me an astonishing thing. For centuries we have known that our ancestors were cheated out of their land—land purchased with worthless baubles we believed were legal tender.

  “For years we had no means of redress, save to accept whatever sops Cestus Cybernetics threw our way. But that has changed.” Her eyes gleamed like cut emeralds. “Master Kenobi brought with him one of Coruscant’s finest barristers, a Vippit who knows their laws well. And according to the central authority, if we should choose to press our suit, we can destroy Cestus Cybernetics. If we own the land beneath their factories, we can charge them whatever we wish for land usage, possibly even take the facilities themselves.”

  “What?” exclaimed Kosta, the council’s eldest member. All X’Ting cycled between the male and female genders every three years, and Kosta was currently female. Although too old for egg bearing, her sac was still swollen to impressive size. She looked shocked. “Is this true?”

  “You would do nothing except destroy the planet!” Caiza Quill sputtered. Only minutes earlier Duris had deposed him as head of the council. His rage and surrender pheromones still spiced the air. “Destroy Cestus Cybernetics, and you destroy our economy!”

  Kosta’s expression bristled with naked contempt for Quill’s transparent half-truths. “The hive was here before Cestus Cybernetics. It is not the hive that will suffer if this company changes hands…or even if it dies. It will be those who have sold themselves to offworlders for a promise of power.”

  “But my lords,” Duris said, drawing their attention back to her once again. “I have obligations to the offworlders, people who came to Cestus with skills and heart, wanting only to build a life here. We cannot use this opportunity to destroy. We must use it to build, and heal.”

  The X’Ting hive council members nodded, perhaps pleased by her empathy. Although she was new to their ranks, they seemed satisfied with her grasp of the responsibilities.

  But Quill was in no way mollified by her words. His stubby wings quivered with rage. “You have won nothing, Duris! I will block you, I swear. Regardless of what you think you have, what you think you know…this i
sn’t over yet.” He stormed out, humiliated and enraged.

  Obi-Wan had watched the proceedings, withholding comment, but now he had to speak. “Can he do that?”

  “Perhaps,” Kosta replied. “Any member of the Families can veto any specific business deal.” She was referring to the Five Families, who ran the mines and factories that fed the droid works. Once there had only been four, but Quill had wormed his way into their midst by delivering labor contracts and quelling dissent, selling out his own people in the process. “If he believes it is in his best interest, or just for the sake of hatred, he will try.” An alarming thought seemed to occur to her. “He might try to keep you from sending the Supreme Chancellor this information. Perhaps you should send it immediately.”

  Reluctantly, Obi-Wan shook his head. “The Chancellor will use it as legal pretext to shut down Cestus Cybernetics. In that case, no one wins. Your best bet is to use this information as emergency leverage.”

  Only days before, Obi-Wan had arrived on Cestus to stop the planet from selling its deadly bio-droids to the Confederacy. By means of a unique “living circuit” design, the droid works had created a machine that could actually anticipate an attacker’s moves. Understanding their potential, Count Dooku had ordered thousands of the devices—originally designed for small-scale security work—with every intention of converting them to battle droids.

  The thought of such an army, marching in the thousands, chilled Obi-Wan’s blood. In the face of such a juggernaut, both the Jedi and the Grand Army of the Republic might fall. The spread of such lethal devices must be stopped at all costs!

  The favored means of deterrence was negotiation, but bombardment was not out of the question. Initial contacts had not been promising: Cestus Cybernetics was loath to cease production of such a valuable commodity, and believed Chancellor Palpatine would never order the destruction of a peaceful planet selling a legal product. With the X’Ting as allies, Obi-Wan’s assignment would be far sim