"Why?" She snarled.
"What?" he said scornfully. "Haven't you learned what you wanted
to learn? Seen what you wanted to see? What is the point in sending
these children to their death? They only die because they trust you. Is
there nothing left inside you? If not goodness, then loyalty?"
Her eyes flickered for a moment, and he knew that something he'd
said had struck a nerve. She nodded. "Tell them to leave," she said,
and the protocol droid spat out its translation.
He covered the distance between them with a single somersaulting
leap. Asajj Ventress was extraordinarily quick, but her very ferocity
gave Obi-Wan a hairline opening, a moment when he had the better
leverage. He blocked Ventress's lightsabers, and managed to pin her
blades down.
Ventress was surprised, but in the next moment disengaged her
right hand blade and slashed at his neck, attempting to behead him.
There was no time for conscious thought, no time for anything but
response as Obi-Wan ducked and spun back. Ventress drew his attention
to the left and leapt into the air in a spinning kick that
slammed Obi-Wan down into the dock. Once down, he never had a
chance to get up again, found himself fighting from his back, wiggling
and edging backwards, movement so limited that he knew the
confrontation might be over within seconds. The first touch of desperation
wormed its way through his emotional shields.
Obi-Wan bared his teeth. As Master Yoda had often said these
days, The dark side has clouded the Galaxy. Difficult to see, the future is.
Floating below the dock, Kit Fisto could still hardly move. He had
barely evaded death from a lightsaber wound to the head, and his
senses still were far away. But some deep instinct had warned him
that his compatriot Obi-Wan was in trouble, fighting to protect both
their lives. He woke up enough to reach for his lightsaber.
He triggered it, and sliced the pilings supporting the dock. Ventress
howled in surprise as she and Obi-Wan tumbled into the water.
Kit wanted desperately to help, but had exhausted his supply of
strength. Surrendering to his wounds, he lost consciousness.
Obi-Wan had but a moment to snatch his rebreather and jam it
into his mouth, and in the next instant realized that Ventress couldn't!
She clutched a lightsaber in each of her lethal hands!
He went at her savagely, never giving her a moment to sheathe one
lightsaber, to slip in her own rebreather.
The Jedi Knight could move in three dimensions, attacking from
under the water and from all angles, and Ventress's desperate defense
forced her to gulp air when her head cleared the water.
Nearing panic, Ventress dropped one of her lightsabers, and lunged
at Obi-Wan, surprising him. She flipped back away, taking that moment
to don her own rebreather.
Then, eyes burning with hatred, she came at him.
The two circled each other like some kind of aquatic predators, but
both were out of their elements. The question was which would
adapt most swiftly.
Lure her. Leave an opening for a stroke in the upper left. I will block
more slowly, as she expects. Then I will flinch, as I did with the X'Ting,
and she will think she's aggravated an injury, and that I will back up. She
saw me do it twice.
The water was murky, and he realized that he was wrong to trust
his eyes. Stop. Defocus. Feel the water pressure as she makes her moves.
Trust the Force.
Obi-Wan felt the water surge at him, and he let that surge carry
him in its natural arc. His lightsaber flashed in, and for the first time,
he cut her.
The wound was low on the ribs on her right side, and her eyes
widened in pain and sudden fear.
Instead of moving back, Obi-Wan moved in. She butted him in
the mouth, ripping out his rebreather. But the movement stunned
her, and he tore hers out in the same instant.
So. There they were, the two of them, beneath the water. The first
to bolt for the surface would be exposed and vulnerable. The first one
to break loses.
Well, then, Ventress. Which of us can hold our breath the longer?
This would be as good a place as any to die. If this was his end,
how better than to take a creature like Ventress with him?
And she saw his face. Yes. Like Duris. I'm ready to die here and now,
and for these reasons. I'm willing to die to kill you. Can you say the same?
In the same instant, Obi-Wan threw caution to the winds, and
went at her. His blade was here, there, at all angles, and her wound
slowed her . . .
She wielded her single remaining blade, eyes wide and staring.
Then something broke inside Ventress. She shrieked a mouthful of
bubbles, and triggered something at her belt. The water around her
churned into an expanding onyx cloud, as if she had emptied an inksack
into it.
And in a flurry of bubbles and blackness, Asajj Ventress was gone. |
78
Dripping and limping, Obi-Wan and Kit helped each other from
the lake.
"Are you all right?" Obi-Wan asked.
"I will be soon enough," the Nautolan replied. "She may have underestimated
me."
Obi-Wan remembered the severing of the dock, and shook his
head in delighted disbelief. "I would say so, my friend. Come."
They followed a stairway cut into the rock, climbing up almost
twenty stories before reaching the hives' surface, some two kilometers
south of ChikatLik. Obi-Wan and Kit watched as, on the southern
horizon, lightning seemed to flash. The distant thunder of massive
bombardment wafted to them.
"The destruction has begun," Obi-Wan said. "We have failed."
"Strange."
"What?"
"I would have expected the attack more to the southwest."
"You're right," Obi-Wan murmured. "It seems to be near Kibo."
He took out a pair of range-finding macrobinoculars and focused
in.
Through the closer view a column of smoke and fire spiraled into
the air. There were dark shapes raining from the clouds, as well as energy
beams. A lethal, blazing conflagration.
"Well?" Kit asked.
Obi-Wans eyes narrowed in confusion. "Strange indeed. Come."
When they finally reached their ship, a blinking control light attracted
their attention.
"A message," Obi-Wan said.
"We should claim it."
"I should get you medical attention."
"I will survive," Kit insisted. "Take the message."
Obi-Wan manipulated the keypad, and the hologram image of an
ARC officer appeared.
"Jangotat," Kit murmured.
The strong brown face had been battered, his left eye closed, but
the trooper was smiling slightly. "Greetings to General Kenobi, General
Fisto. This is A-Nine-Eight, he whom you have been kind
enough to call Jangotat. If you receive this message, then at least one
of you is still alive. In all likelihood, I'm using a stepladder to pick
sunblossoms." Beat. "Contrary to Code, I disobeyed your direct commands,
and take full responsibility for all
that may have happened as
a result. Not my brothers, who did everything they could to stop me.
I went to the Five Families' bunker at Kibo, with the intention of
capturing them. You were limited in your actions, and because of
that, thousands of innocent people were going to die. Things didn't
work out the way I'd hoped, but there was an answer, and as you
probably know by now, the Five Families are dead—"
Kit whispered, "They . .. what?"
"—I used a priority signal to reset the bombardment coordinates
to the Five Families' bomb shelter. Not long now."
So . . . the smoke . . .
"What does this mean?" the Nautolan said.
"That depends on the kind of woman G'Mai Duris is," Obi-Wan
said.
He closed his eyes. "Duris is Regent and head of the hive council.
With the Families in chaos, she is the most powerful woman on the
planet . . . and I believe we can negotiate with her. Call Admiral
Baraka."
"Thousands?" Kit asked in disbelief. "Jangotat saved millions.''
"But he didn't know. He had no idea that Ventress had changed
the targeting codes. He had no idea just how important his choice
was."
Obi-Wan and Kit shared a moment of silence. Then Obi-Wan
reached out and put in the call to the Nexu.
The following day in the Zantay Hills, as Jangotat had requested
in this, his last will and testament, the Jedi showed the message to
Sheeka Tull.
"Don't worry about the JK droids," Jangotat continued. "They'd
never have functioned on a battlefield. Anyone who has ever met a
dashta would know they are healers, not killers. When Thak Val
Zsing died violently in its arms, the dashta inside the JK went insane. I
know, I'm no tech guy. Don't ask me how I know, I just do. Nonlethal
security application? That's one thing. Killing thinking people was
just beyond them. Even a sleeping Guide was driven crazy. The
Guides are simple, good creatures. They brought the X'Ting and the
offworlders together. The X'Ting brought fungi to farmers dying of
poor soil. They brought back some of the old ways.
"I believe the Five Families knew the truth, and lied to Count
Dooku. Perhaps they planned to take the first payment, then disappear
before the Confederacy mounted the JKs in combat, leaving
Cestus to pay the price if the Republic fell."
Obi-Wan and Kit stared at each other, dumbfounded. Had anyone
in this entire matter told the truth? Astounding! Nothing but lies,
top to bottom.
"I will not be returning, which grieves me, because I wished to. For
the first time in my life I actually dreamed of a future." Jangotat
paused, lost for a moment in a private thought. Then he went on.
"This is hard for me. I am not a person of words. Until I met you, I
was not certain I was a man at all. I was the vows, the uniform, the
rank. No. You showed me I was more than that, more than one of a
million soldiers stamped out of a murderer like pieces on an assembly
line. There is value in knowing your place in the universe, but
there is also something else, and you helped me discover that."
The three regarded each other uneasily.
"There is something that you need to know: if I had lived through
this, if I had returned with my duty done, I would still have returned
to the GAR. As hard as it might be for you to understand, it is still a
great and good thing to fight for what you believe is right. Sheeka, if
I were another man, I could think of no greater joy than to stay with
you. If and when my days as a trooper were done, I would have
wanted to come to you, if you would have me. I am sorry I'm not the
man you once knew—"
She had known Jango? Quite a bit made sense now.
"—I'm sorry that you and I had neither past, nor future."
Sheeka made no sound, but her lowered eyes spoke volumes.
"Know that more than anything else in the world, I was a soldier.
And that you, and no one else in all the galaxy, held this soldier's
heart in your hands."
Save for Sheeka's gentle weeping against Obi-Wan's shoulder,
there was no sound in that room for a long, long time.
79
chikatLik swarmed beneath them. It was now easier for Obi-
Wan to detect the original architecture, and see where offworlders
had made their mark. The hive still lived. It could grow and change,
like any living thing. It had been ground almost into the dust, but the
hive lived.
He, Kit, and G'Mai Duris stood on a bridge, peering down as the
city seethed beneath them. Synthetic air currents rippled her gown.
"Strange how they go about their lives as if nothing has happened,"
she said.
"Has it?"
"Debbikin, the Por'Tens, my cousin Quill, half the Llitishi clan.
Wiped out. What remains of the Families is in chaos, fighting over
scraps. As they fight, the hive council has taken power. The surviving
officers of Cestus Cybernetics will have to deal with us fairly now.
The rule of three hundred years just ended," she said, "and no one
seems to know it. No one seems to care, to feel, to grasp that they are
free."
"Are they?" Kit asked.
"Yes, Master Fisto. As free as they have the strength to be."
"A different thing." Obi-Wan paused. "But they have a leader
worthy of admiration. In this whole sordid affair, you are the only
one who told the truth, even to your enemies. You, G'Mai Duris, are
an extraordinary woman."
She lowered her eyes shyly. "You are too kind. Well, Master
Kenobi, I suppose that you win here after all. You are generous to
allow us the Supreme Chancellor's initial terms. I am surprised you
are not harsher. We are hardly in a bargaining position."
"Nor am I a bargainer," Obi-Wan said. "This role is not comfortable
for me, and I will be glad to put it down. Regent, I regret that my
duty bound me to deceive you."
"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."
The Cestus Deception Page 40