The Cestus Deception

by Steven Barnes

  doffed her helmet. She smoothed her upper thorax's tufts of red wiry

  fur with her primary hands, dismounted from her speeder, and strode

  over to them, throwing a coarse-clothed sack onto the ground. When

  she spoke, the roughness of her words reinforced her lower-caste

  image. "I Resta," she said. "Own farm 'bout hundred klicks south of

  ChikatLik. Resta on same power grid, and they raise juice price so

  high husband have to take job in mines." There was not a shred of

  self-pity in her blazing, faceted green eyes. "Husband die in mines.

  Now Resta losing farm, and all so that power can go to some Five

  Fam' fun-fun place. Resta sick to death of backin' up. Resta not

  backin' up no more." She added, "Gotty problem?" to the miners and

  farmers around her. Challenge rolled off her like heat waves dancing

  above a desert mirage.

  Nate struggled to interpret the words. Apparently, due to the

  opening of some Five Family vacation spa, the price of power had

  soared, driving Resta into poverty.

  "She don't belong here," one of the miners grumbled, triggering a

  wave of muttering.

  Nate approached her and took her red-skinned hands in his, examining

  each of her four palms in turn. Thick calluses over the chitinous

  flesh. Broken nails. This female had struggled with Cestus's

  poor soil for decades. Most of her surviving people had been driven

  into the wastelands, but not this one. She was tough enough, and

  good enough, assuming that she could pass the tests.

  This female would despise soft words. "You'll do" was all he said.

  He turned to the complainer. "One more word and you can pack

  and leave. This fight is for all Cestians with heart. Close yours to this

  one, and you're gone. This is her planet more than yours."

  The man tried to stare Nate down, not realizing that it was impossible.

  Within moments he dropped his eyes, muttering an apology.

  All that morning a steady stream of arrivals heartened them, until

  there were almost two hundred prospects. Fine. Nate knew that General

  Fisto was off slinging more recruitment speeches. It was up to

  the troopers to turn these farmers and miners into fighters, unless

  they wished to leave clone protoplasm scattered incriminatingly

  about.

  Throughout the last days the troopers had labored to build an obstacle

  course. As the morning's shadows shortened they ran the recruits

  through their paces, forming them into lines by height, dividing

  them into four groups so that they could compete against each other.

  Running narrow rails, suspending themselves from overhead bars,

  lugging rocks back and forth across a field until they puked from exhaustion,

  the recruits suffered through standard trooper field training.

  During the sun's waning Forry added calisthenics, and more running,

  jumping, and carrying. Nate was pleased to see that every one

  of the new prospects was game.

  For some reason he was especially pleased to see that Resta was

  keeping up with the offworlders. She might have been a bit slower,

  but she was as strong as a Noghri, and seemed to have an unquenchable

  tolerance for pain.

  By the time they broke for rest and food, only ten of them had

  dropped out, trudging home with heads down. One, Nate noted with

  pleasure, was the miner who had complained about Resta.

  Good. The first day's grueling schedule was designed to make

  about half the group quit. From then on, those who remained could

  consider themselves tough, fire-breathing survivors. It was the kind

  of thing that bred camaraderie, the most important factor in a combat

  unit.

  After the meal break, his brothers began to divide the recruits into

  smaller units, testing them again and again. Not one had picked up a

  weapon of any kind. It was not yet time.

  Spindragon arrived when the day was halfway done, ferrying General

  Fisto back to camp. The Nautolan asked tersely how many recruits

  had come and how many had survived the early training, then

  retreated to the cave for whatever mysterious preparations or planning

  Jedi indulged in.

  Sheeka herself watched the recruits' exertions and frowned. "Why

  all of this?" she asked. "Jango used to say it took months to get someone

  into real shape."

  He smiled and lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Gives us a chance

  to observe them. See who fits in and who doesn't. Who can handle

  physical pain? Fear? Fatigue? We've got no time for dilettantes."

  She nodded, as if she might have already anticipated such a response.

  She seemed an interesting woman: pilot, stepmother, galaxyspanning

  wanderer, and former girlfriend of the immortal Jango

  himself.

  Sheeka interrupted his thoughts. "You told me what the army says

  about Jango. But there is always more than one way to look at a story,

  right?"

  "Yes."

  "So there are other people, who say other things."

  Of course there were. Always. He had heard their snide comments,

  had watched their eyes narrow and the corners of their lips

  turn down when a clone trooper passed. "Yes," he said.

  "And what do they say?"

  "What do they say? That he was a criminal, a bounty hunter, an assassin,

  a traitor to the Republic." The snidely whispered words

  echoed in his ears, and he found himself slightly annoyed just to remember

  them. Had he no original thoughts of his own to offer? "It

  is our duty and honor to erase his stain."

  "Is that how you feel?" she asked. "Is that all there is?" A short,

  hard laugh. "He was a man who walked between the worlds, but

  when I knew him he was honorable, and brave, and a great . . .

  fighter. Bounty hunter." She shrugged. "Whatever. Not too smart to

  learn everything possible about someone from his enemies."

  He thought about this for a few moments before answering. "What

  would I have to do to be more like him?"

  She looked him up and down, from his spit-polished boots to his

  chiseled face. And her smile softened a bit, grew more contemplative.

  "Not be afraid of being human," she said. "Not be so scared

  of feelings. He rarely showed them, but he had them. Not be so

  scared."

  Nate bristled. What in the world was this woman prattling about?

  "I'm not scared of anything."

  She barked laughter. Despite his anger, he admired its clarity and

  timbre. "Bantha spit," she said. "I've been watching you and your

  brothers. You're afraid of everything. Of saying the wrong things.

  Feeling the wrong things. Probably of dying in the wrong position.

  There it was. Thank the cloners that troopers had no such prejudices!

  "You don't know anything about my life, or my death. Of

  course, that never stops civilians from judging, does it?" The last

  emerged as something very close to a snarl.

  Nonetheless, she was completely unshaken. "Who's generalizing

  now?" she asked.

  He glowered at her, but no more words came to mind.

  "No?" she asked. "Then accept a challenge."

  "A challenge?" Despite himself, he was intrigued. Distantly, he

 
heard the shouts and grunts of effort. It was almost time for him to

  go and relieve the others.

  "Yes," she said. "You know how to be a soldier. I've seen that. My

  challenge is for you to react to the world as just a human being.

  When you see a sunset, do you think of anything but night-vision

  lenses? When you see a sunblossom, do you only imagine the poisons

  that might be extracted from it? When you see a baby, do you think

  of anything except what kind of hostage it might make?"

  Nate stiffened. "Advance Recon Commandos don't take hostages,"

  he said.

  Sheeka's lovely face managed to darken even further. "Don't be so

  blasted literal!" she said in frustration. "I'm trying to communicate

  with you, and all I can touch is your shell. Who are you?"

  The sounds of children playing seemed to have receded, grown

  farther away. "I know who I am." He paused. "As much as any of us

  ever do," he said, rising. "These mushrooms taste like dirt," he lied.

  "I'm getting some meat." He tossed his food into a trash container,

  and then rejoined the exhausted recruits.

  For the rest of the day Nate attempted to focus his attention on the

  trainees. He kept a wary eye on how they did on the obstacle course,

  discerning which of them were in the best physical and mental condition,

  which ones had the best emotional control, which might have

  leadership potential.

  But every few minutes he broke concentration and scanned the

  entire craggy area, as protocol directed. And he noticed that no matter

  when he did so, his eyes sought the face and form of the infuriating

  Sheeka Tull. Sometimes he found her beneath a rock overhang,

  sometimes helping with the food. Once he glimpsed her interacting

  with General Fisto, and pointing in the direction of her ship.

  And once, when he didn't see her at all, he felt a strange disappointment.

  That lasted but a moment: Nate wrested his attention back to the

  task at hand.

  As the day rolled on, trainees were presented with an endless series

  of sweaty, torturous obstacles. Invariably the clones negotiated the

  tests first, with a level of agility and effortless ease that made the Cestus

  volunteers shake their heads in disbelief.

  Child's play, for one who spent his childhood in the training rooms

  of the Kamino cloners.

  By the day's end, 40 percent of the volunteers had quit. Those remaining

  were a hard, tough lot who glared at each other and cursed

  under their breaths at the troopers, but they cursed as a group. They

  had survived the best that these armored sadists from Coruscant

  could offer. They were ready for the next level.

  Nate organized his thoughts and made his report to General Fisto.

  As he approached the back of the cave a meter-long thread of light

  blazed briefly, snaked and coiled through the air, then died again.

  The strange phenomenon repeated. His nose itched with the stink of

  burning metal, and the glare of the flexible line hurt his eyes until he

  had to turn his head away.

  When General Fisto heard his approach, the light disappeared,

  and he pivoted with a loose-limbed adroitness so smooth that he

  might almost have turned inside out, seemed to flow through himself.

  "Yes?"

  "We've concluded the day's testing."

  "And?"

  "I believe that we have forty-eight good recruits."

  Something like light glowed in the depths of the general's unblinking

  eyes. "This is good. And tomorrow?"

  "We'll pick up a few more. I can either accompany you in recruitment,

  or stay here and continue training."

  "Continue the training," General Fisto said after a moment's consideration.

  "Divide them into groups according to day and time of

  initial recruitment. Allow those who enlisted first to have the greatest

  status."

  "Yes, sir," Nate said. The general was underestimating ARCs if he

  thought that such a hierarchy was not already part of their command

  structure. On the other hand, it was not his place to educate or correct

  Jedi.

  For some reason, that thought made him think of Sheeka Tull

  again, and her insolent evaluation of him. There was something

  about her he found almost unendurably irritating.

  He wandered back outside the cave, and without telling his feet

  what to do, they headed in the direction of Sheeka Tull's ship. After

  all, the day's work was completed. His three brothers would take care

  of any cleaning of weapons or policing of the obstacle course area. He

  could take a few minutes. Just a stroll, he lied.

  He found Sheeka at a folding table outside her ship, scrubbing at

  the rust on one of Spindragon's Corellian flux converters and enjoying

  the stars. She didn't seem surprised to see him, but didn't hail him

  until he came closer. "Nate," she said.

  "And how do you know that it's me, and not one of the others?" he

  challenged.

  She laughed. "You walk a little differently. By any chance have you

  got a leg wound?"

  He stopped for a minute. A broca, a huge reptilian creature that

  haunted the swamps of a misbegotten black hole called Altair-9, had

  nearly torn his hip away. He had thought the damage healed. Interesting.

  This woman was as observant as a trooper!

  "Yes," he said, but kept the rest of his thoughts to himself.

  She smiled at him, went back to her cleaning. "How did the day

  go?"

  "Some good prospects. We pushed them hard and lost only forty

  percent. Strong stock on Cestus."

  Sheeka smiled again, evidently pleased with his answer. She went

  back to her cleaning, and he just sat, watching the stars. He knew

  that many of those blazing orbs had planets of their own, and wondered

  how many would be embroiled in battle before the Clone Wars

  ended.

  After a time her attention returned to Nate. He felt content merely

  waiting for her to speak. When she did, her question surprised him.

  "What do you see when you look at me?" She chose that moment to

  yawn and stretch a bit, and for the first time he felt the impact of her

  as a woman, and was surprised at the fierceness of his reaction. Nothing

  male and humanoid could fail to notice her mesmerizing meld of

  strength and softness, the long elegant lines of her legs, the delicate

  arch of her neck . . .

  Nate stopped himself, remembering that she had asked him a

  question. He searched, found one answer that bordered on the obscene,

  and subsequently edited himself. Finally he said, "A human female

  whose skin tone matches that of General Windu."

  "Who?" She laughed. It was rich and deep, and he realized that his

  first sense of being mocked was completely wrong. He found that he

  admired her laugh; it was warming to him in a way that let him reduce

  emotional control for a few precious minutes. Interesting.

  He found himself asking a question before he had stopped and

  evaluated it. "And what do you see when you look at me?"

  Almost instantly he regretted saying it, because that smile softened,

  became wistful and a bit sad. "The shadow of the best—" S
he

  paused, as if changing a word in midsentence. "—best fighter I ever

  knew." She reached out and brushed her hand along his jaw, then

  rose as gracefully as a sunblossom spinning in the solar wind and returned

  to her ship.

  21

  After the first few days, the stream of newbies had slowed to a

  trickle. Therefore, Nate was surprised to see a group of lean, dirty

  men and women approach. They arrived in a motley variety of battered

  hovercarts dusty enough to suggest they had hauled far more

  ore than passengers. Their apparent leader was a tall old red-bearded

  human male who looked wide across the shoulders and loose in the

  gut, well weathered and deeply tired. "We want parley with your

  leader," he said.

  Sirty looked him up and down. "And who makes this request?"

  "Name's Thak Val Zsing," the newcomer said.

  "You're looking for me," Nate said, stepping forward.

  Thak Val Zsing looked from Sirty to Nate, and a humorless grin

  split his face. His teeth were broad, cracked, and brownish.

  "Recruits, sir?" Sirty asked.

  Val Zsing s expression soured. "Didn't say that."

  "Well then—?"

  "We're Desert Wind, and if we like what we see, we're here to

  fight."

  So. These were the anarchists who had been so brutally crushed by

  Cestian security forces just months ago. If they were even a quarter

  of their former strength, he was a Jawa. And they were ready to fight

  again? Brave if not smart. "Even Coruscant has heard of your

  courage."

  Thak Val Zsing nodded, satisfied by that answer. "You know who

  we are. We're not so sure about you yet." The men and women

  behind him nodded. Nate scanned their clothing and armaments.

  Old. Badly patched. Their skin was ragged from fatigue and malnutrition.

  It looked as if their weapons were in better shape than they

  were. Still, tired and half broken they may have been, but these were

  people holding a serious grudge.

  "Every one of us is prepared to die to overthrow this decadent system."

  Ah, then. They had every reason to blame the government for their

  problems, but he couldn't use Desert Wind in its present form: they

  were too brittle and angry. This was a delicate situation, and he had

  to play it carefully. "Maybe you've misunderstood our intentions," he

  said. "We're not here to overthrow the legal government. We are here

  to ensure that that government obeys the Republic's rules and regulations.