Star Wars®: The Cestus Deception

by Steven Barnes

  “Have you a carved bantha?” the Glymphid asked. “I long for home.”

  Those were the appointed code words, and after a brisk bit of bargaining, Obi-Wan sold him a carved walking stick. “This is just fine,” the creature from Ploo II said. “I might be willing to have some more of this work. Custom work. Would you be interested?” Obi-Wan nodded.

  The Glymphid turned and led Obi-Wan and Resta toward the duracrete dome marking a city entrance. The guard paid minimal attention, and they descended a turbolift tube into the heart of Clandes.

  Obi-Wan had expected Clandes to resemble the capital. He was both right and wrong. At ChikatLik the hive had made a home in a cavern created by natural water erosion. Here the walls glistened, fused to glass, and he realized that the entire cavern had been formed by some kind of underground volcanic activity: they’d probably moved in a million years after the molten bubble had cooled. Its new offworlder masters had built on top of the X’Ting architecture.

  Resta had not spoken since they entered, but now she whispered under her breath, “See low rocky building behind spire?”

  Obi-Wan nodded.

  “That power station. Cut my farm off, so sell power to some Five Fam’place. See building next to it?” A three-story brownish rectangle. The purification plant.

  “That where you go. Resta no take you farther. Unner-stan’?”

  Obi-Wan nodded again. “I thank you for everything.”

  Resta snorted, anger reddening her face and bristling the slits at the sides of her neck. She gestured at the bustling pedestrians. “Think Resta risk life for you?” She spit on the ground. “Resta no care ’bout her life. Her people almost gone. Just want to take as many wit’Resta as can.” And without shaking hands or giving any other sign, the golden-carapaced woman turned and left.

  The city bustled like a nest of sea-prigs. About a third of the citizens wore uniforms in orange-and-gold cloth. Obi-Wan knew these to be the factory’s corporate colors, and was sobered to realize the extent of the damage he was about to create.

  The streets had been laid out along the original hive structure, with the mathematical precision of a computer-generated maze. Therefore it was easy for Obi-Wan to find his way through the color-coded labyrinth until he found himself three stories deeper down at the outskirts of the three-story brown building.

  He slipped into an alley, examining the building from the side. He had seen the schematic, but given any opportunity preferred to trust his own eyes. Three stories. According to his information the third floor held the most vital controls, so that was where he went.

  Obi-Wan floated from the shadow on the wall, ascending using even the narrowest of handholds, using his sensitivity to balance on footholds where a reptile might have fallen to its death. Once at the window he looked back down at the street. The alley was narrow, so that it wasn’t easy to see him, but if anyone looked directly up, there would be a problem he would rather not deal with. So far, so good. The lock was not as easy. It was complicated and beyond his ability to pick. Security alarm? He felt around the edge, trying to sense the presence of a protective energy field. Yes. He could sense the conduits, but the power wasn’t pulsing with any intensity. So the alarm circuit existed, but wasn’t on during the day, when the purification plant probably swarmed with guards.

  Obi-Wan triggered his lightsaber and burned a hole through the lock and window. When sparks ceased to spit and the window cooled, he reached through and opened it.

  He slid through and was in. The room was empty, but not for long—the door slid open.

  He spun across the room and was in hiding before the door opened. A man walked in, and Obi-Wan rendered him unconscious before he was even aware of a threat. His victim wore an uncoweled uniform, one that would expose Obi-Wan’s face. All he could do was hope that there were enough employees that he wouldn’t be immediately detected.

  Fewer would die that way, and that was to be hoped for. Their original mission had gone awry. Hopefully, things were beginning to get on the right track…

  He stepped out into the control room, scanning swiftly. Smaller than he might have thought, with banks of control computers along the walls. This part of the operation was simple enough to be run by one or two attendants, and perhaps, just perhaps, he’d already taken out his opposition.

  Then optimism died. There, in the middle of the room, squatted the deceptively beautiful golden hourglass of a JK droid.

  Obi-Wan groaned. Any fool could have anticipated that Cestus would continue to make use of its own security droids. Still, hope is a terrible addiction to overcome. No way through it now, though. He had limited time, and it was all too possible that his companions were already selling their lives dearly.

  The glittering, elegant form would seem oh, so innocent to one who had never seen the droid in action. He approached it gingerly. What to do? Once it recognized him as an intruder he would have only moments to act. In all probability it was already too late. Disaster loomed if the JK raised an alarm. Only an idiot would relish the prospect of simultaneous duels with droid and guards.

  What was the JK’s alarm perimeter? He was surprised that it wasn’t the room itself, then realized that it might be possible for maintenance workers to enter a room as long as they kept a certain distance, behaved in a specific way, or carried electronic identification of some kind. Did the JK trigger on sound? Proximity? Was he even now being scanned for security codes embedded in badges or clothing? Were there spoken code words that might disarm the mechanism?

  Two things he was certain of. One, he didn’t have those code words. Two, if he attempted to reach the controls it would attack.

  What to do?

  He had faced the JKs in the caves, and had little taste for another encounter.

  Speed. He needed speed. Gambling everything, Obi-Wan Kenobi drew his lightsaber and triggered it to life. He hurled it at the control panel at the same time that he threw himself directly at the JK.

  Its attention was split between orders to protect the equipment and those to apprehend the attacker. Tentacles extended rapidly from its side, snapping after the tumbling lightsaber, and might have caught it if not for the beam severing two of its arms.

  As the lightsaber hit the panel, the JK hissed as if it were alive. The energy blade sliced through the control paneling. Coils of wire bulged free, and sparks showered from the smoking metal; automatic shutdown went into effect. The JK seemed to realize it had been tricked into splitting attention, and turned itself fully back to Obi-Wan.

  Obi-Wan called to his lightsaber, but he saw at that moment that it was tangled in the panel’s wiring. There was not another full second for thought—the JK was closing fast. Making a snap decision he raced toward the biodroid, pulling the lightwhip at his side as he did. The biodroid was on him, wrapping its arms around his legs.

  Pain. The mechanical arms surged with energy. The hair on Obi-Wan’s head flared away from his scalp and he fought shock as the charge threatened to shut down his nervous system and paralyze his diaphragm. As it pulled him closer, attempting a retinal scan, Obi-Wan triggered the lightwhip, and it spun out at an angle, ensnaring an entire quadrant of arms in a single instant. Sparks sprayed from the torn durasteel. He threw his hands in front of his eyes as the spray splashed across his face. He heard, but did not see, the mechanical arms as they tumbled to the ground, severed by the strands. But now he had lost both tools.

  The droid seemed to realize that it, too, had been wounded, and actually rolled back a step. Obi-Wan made a snap decision and lunged in, deciding that it would be least prepared to deal with an aggressive forward motion. It attempted to respond, but this time with a noticeable time lag in response. Stumps twitched as the JK attempted to strike him with phantom severed limbs, but the remaining arm lashed across his face, tearing skin and shocking with a sizzling jolt of pain—but by then he had moved to close quarters.

  His vision was still blurry, but the Force was strong in Obi-Wan. He could sense the
place where the lightwhip had struck, weakening the JK’s sparkling case. There. Obi-Wan closed his traitorous eyes, inhaled, finding the place within himself where there was no fear or doubt. Dwelling there. Every muscle in his hand was perfectly coordinated as it flashed down, gaining acceleration as it struck, a perfect transference of force to the already damaged surface. He heard the crack! and folded his arm, striking again and again with his elbow at the same spot. The injured droid tumbled over backward, sparks spraying all about them.

  He didn’t know how many times he struck, only that when he was finished, the JK lay thrashing weakly on its side. Obi-Wan stood, feeling similarly weakened. He looked down at the droid with newfound respect. It had required two energy weapons and bruising hand-to-tentacle combat to stop the thing. His heart thundered in his chest, but he focused and continued about the business at hand.

  Obi-Wan had only to plant his explosives, and all was done. If they were disarmed before detonation, then he hoped Desert Wind had done its job, planting beacons to guide a bombardment that would destroy the purification plant.

  Obi-Wan plucked his lightsaber from the ground, and then the lightwhip. He triggered it; the narrow luminescent thread flared for a moment and then died. Its power cell was exhausted, and regretfully he tossed it away. The device had served its master well, but now there were other concerns. No more time for toys.

  64

  Twenty-five kilometers away, Kit Fisto crouched in the shadows of the aquifer station’s bleached white rectangular walls, waiting. The security sweeps revolved once every twenty seconds, invisible, undetectable to anyone without superb apparatus—or profound Force sensitivity. He moved them through the energy maze one level at a time, until they were completely within the shadow of the station’s walls. “I have to leave you now. If you manage to cut the power, make your way inside.”

  “And you?” Thak Val Zsing asked.

  “I’ll meet you there,” he said. Kit peered down into a flat-bottomed duracrete riverbed outside the walls. Without another word he jumped and slid down its rough, slanted side toward the bed. He was able to slow his sliding descent, but knew that he wouldn’t be able to get back out up the wall. If the plan went wrong, there would be trouble indeed.

  According to their information, water from the Dashta dam sluiced through the trench in hourly currents. There was no way around this next part, and he prepared himself. He heard the rumbling before he saw it, a great pounding wave that shook the duracrete and swept around the corner like a raging wall. Kit rolled into a ball as it struck him, allowing it to carry him along with it down the channel and to the mouth of the drop-off. Within moments he was flipping through the current as if he had never left Glee Anselm at all. Bang. The tide slammed Kit into the wall, but he relaxed with the force, riding it, feeling the pressures and intensities of the raging flow. A grid up ahead, metal bars twisted together to make fist-size holes. Kit’s lightsaber flashed, foaming the water with clouds of gas bubbles. A circular swipe, and the bars parted as Kit’s head slammed into the severed section, knocking it ahead of him. He eeled through, kicked himself away from another wall, and found himself in an even narrower channel, water pressure increasing the speed and intensity of the flow.

  Ahead the water was passing through a flash-heating ray, boiling it for a few seconds before passing the heated water on to another system of pipes.

  The ray brushed his skin, and Kit’s nerves screamed with shock. No!

  He swam upcurrent, caught between icy flow and the boiling heat ray. Fire and ice, he thought, suddenly aware that the cold had leached strength from his body.

  The current pushed him back toward the boiling water, and he pulled at the sides of the channel, trying to lift himself out. No purchase.

  The first thread of panic wormed its way into his mind, and Kit Fisto clamped down on it instantly, concentrating on each stroke, centering himself, allowing the Force to find his way between the onrushing currents one meter at a time, until he reached a ladder, only two meters overhead. Kit concentrated, dived down in a fast loop, and burst up out of the water to grab the bottom rung and lift himself out. He shivered: the snow runoff was as cold as the cauldron had been torrid. It took a moment before his body adjusted and the shaking diminished. Here on the far side of the scanners, he could climb the wall safely, make his way to a juncture box on the second level. Clinging to the wall, he waited.

  And waited.

  Something was wrong. Val Zsing and his people should have gotten through by now. He checked his chrono—

  And then suddenly the water flow beneath him died to a trickle. The power had been cut! A backup alarm began to ring. Distant shouts echoed in the corridor. There would be only a few moments before the power would come back on, but his men had heard those shouts or the alarm, and would make their move. It was his job to clear the way.

  Kit crawled along a ledge until he found a barred window, and used his lightsaber to slice through it, letting himself in.

  He heard the sound of racing feet just outside the door. A secondary alarm rang insistently, perhaps announcing the appearance of Desert Wind. He waited until the feet had passed, then made his way along the corridor.

  The pumping station’s ground floor was some ten thousand square meters, with a ceiling that arched four stories overhead. The artificial streambed ran through the center of it, where every bit of water trickled past heat rays and the crackling arc of a flux light, the first line of purification. While not filtering the water as thoroughly as the station in town, it was the first line of defense, killing 80 percent of microorganisms and neutralizing many toxins.

  The floor bucked as an explosion shook the complex. This blast originated near one of the outer doors. Kit Fisto smiled grimly as more guards ran in that direction.

  With the present limited lighting and a distracting attack going on at the front, it would be easier for him to complete his mission. Not easy, perhaps, but easier. Clinging to the underside of the catwalk, breathing into the strain in his fingers and shoulders, Kit hand-walked around the room’s perimeter and dropped fifteen meters down to the deck, landing silently.

  He slipped into the room, and the single guard didn’t even have time to turn around before Kit hurled himself forward. The guard managed to level his sidearm as Kit sliced it from his hand. The Nautolan continued the motion into a kick to the head, disabling the hapless Cestian before he could make a sound.

  He whirled, examining the control panel, shutting down the water flow to Clandes. The next phase was easy: destroying the panel to freeze the setting. Kit’s lightsaber flashed, and within seconds the panel was a smoking ruin.

  He surveyed the damage swiftly: it would take days to get this station working again. The floor beneath his feet shook as an explosion ripped through the building.

  Good. More confusion, more damage. Hopefully, not more loss of life.

  Time to make good his escape.

  Kit Fisto left the room and instantly ran into the returning security team. He was a beat ahead of them, his lightsaber flashing as he was forced to defend himself without restraint. He tried to avoid lethal maneuvers. They are just trying to do their jobs. There came a time when such restraint was of no use at all, and after a whirlwind engagement, two men fell. A third brought his weapon to bear and the Jedi leapt over the railing, falling two stories to land in a crouch.

  More guards. His lightsaber seemed to move of its own accord, before the blasts were launched, and he blocked two, three, four…and then was among them, tight-lipped and narrow-eyed.

  Guards screamed, dying there.

  This Cestus affair grows uglier by the moment, Kit Fisto thought bitterly. Then regrets and second guesses dissolved as a web of lightsaber light filled the air around him, and guards crumpled to the ground. He flirted with battle fever, the howling demon in his mind trapped behind the bars of discipline, but guiding him as he slid down Form I’s razor edge.

  He heard the siren before he stopped, but just
before, making him think that the sound had simply not impressed itself on his consciousness; his focus had been so tight that everything external had simply failed to register.

  Eight guards lay around him, moaning. Kit’s mouth twisted in an oath he would have been ashamed for the Jedi Counsel to hear. This was exactly the sort of carnage he’d hoped to avoid.

  Out.

  On the way a huge technician swung a pry-bar at him. Sick at heart, the Jedi spun to the inside of the aggressive spiral and twisted it out of his hand. He shifted his attacker against the wall as his eyes rolled up, voluntary nervous system paralyzed by a strike to the nerve plexus beneath his arm. “Sleep,” Kit Fisto whispered as the technician slumped. “All life is a dream.”

  Or a nightmare, he thought. One from which more and more Cestians would never awaken.

  65

  Nothing even vaguely resembling good cheer lived in ChikatLik’s halls of power. The word from the Clandes manufacturing facility was that the water flow was reduced by three-quarters, and it would take days if not weeks to get everything back online. In the meantime, if drinking water was not shipped into the city, Clandes risked an unprecedented humanitarian disaster.

  G’Mai Duris’s three stomachs felt variously heavy, sour, and leaden. Who was doing all of this? The Jedi? Might Obi-Wan still live? After his ship had been blown from the sky, they had detected only a single escape capsule, containing the barrister. Who then? And in another sense it hardly mattered. It was obvious to her where all of this would ultimately end. There would be a naval bombardment, and the Republic’s war would leave Cestus a smoking husk.

  And the worst thing of all was that she was about to meet a complication. Oh, yes, Quill had smirked, claiming that the person about to enter the throne room represented an answer to their problems, but Duris had been a political animal long enough to know that most solutions were just future problems in a pretty cocoon.

  Nonetheless she straightened her back, expanding to her full height and breadth in her throne chair, and nodded to her assistant to allow the guest entrance.