The Cestus Deception

by Steven Barnes

  "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."