The Cestus Deception Read online

  "Fair enough."

  "After you're finished here, you never heard of me." She stood with

  her small fists balled against her waist.

  "Fair enough."

  She nodded, and drew a little circle in the dust with the point of

  her toe. "All right, then," she said. "Time for you to meet Spindragon."

  16

  T,he insectile Cestian's name was Fizzik, and at the moment he was

  at his most aggressively ambitious, in the peak of his species' threeyear

  cycle between male and female genders. In his current state, the

  coursing of masculine hormones was a nerve-dulling intoxicant, and

  made him willing to take almost any risk to obtain the medicine that

  would balance the hormones more smoothly. The plant capable of

  easing, or even accelerating, the transition was called viptiel, native to

  a world called Nal Hutta. Far too expensive for a mere hotel attendant.

  And that was why Fizzik decided to sell his soul to his distant

  brother Trillot. He waddled his bright gold oval through the crowd

  until he found a certain alley, disguised as a minor lava tube. Everywhere,

  the walls were slathered with promotions for various exhibits

  and attractions, and both flat and holographic commercials attempted

  to lure stray credits from unwary pockets.

  Fizzik had not been here for a year and a half. If there were a few

  who might have recognized him, they probably failed due to the fact

  that he had been female the last time he had passed this way.

  Once, hundreds of standard years ago, the planet had belonged

  to the X'Ting, who had driven their only rivals, the spider clans,

  into the distant mountains. But the coming of the Republic had

  changed everything. At first hailed as a triumph for the hive, in

  time the offworlders controlled everything. Regardless of what anyone

  said, the last century's plagues had been no more or less than

  attempted genocide: the hives had all but collapsed, and Cestus

  Cybernetics became the planet's de facto ruler. Most surviving

  X'Ting were relegated to cesspools such as this wretched slum.

  Some, of course (for instance, that worthless drone Duris, or Quill,

  the current head of the hive council), had sold their people out in exchange

  for power. Those traitors were the pampered pets of the Five

  Families.

  In his female persona, Fizzik often secured domestic work amid

  the offworlder upper classes. When he cycled back to male, most offworlder

  employers found his powerful pheromones sufficiently unpleasant

  to terminate his employment. So . . . down to the gutter

  again, scraping for a living until his emerging feminine persona

  earned him a better berth. Moving between social tissues over the

  years had earned him a wide network of contacts—a net wide

  enough, in fact, to have snared a valuable bit of information: that the

  Grand ChikatLik's newest arrivals were critically important visitors

  from Coruscant. There was every chance he might be able to sell

  such information to one of the most powerful X'Ting in the capital,

  the being who held the threads connecting the criminal underworld

  to the labor organizers to the true masters of Old Cestus: Fizzik's

  brother Trillot.

  In a few minutes he arrived at a heavy, oval iron door set in a shadowed

  corridor off bustling Ore Boulevard. In one sense, it was important

  to know the code words. In another, those who came to this

  door and sought entrance without having funds to spend or something

  to sell would find themselves on the wrong end of a flameknife.

  The guards, one blue-skinned humanoid Wroonian and a gigantic

  furred Wookiee, glared down on Fizzik with no discernible shift in

  their facial expressions.

  "Need to see my brother," Fizzik said, and added a code word

  known only to hive siblings.

  The guards nodded blandly and opened the door. One walked

  ahead of him, although he looked around as they moved down the

  shadowed corridor.

  The hallway was lined with small alcoves, in which various galactic

  life-forms reclined in shadow, alone or in pairs, staring out at him

  with vast, glassy eyes before sinking back into whatever thoughts or

  dreams had occupied them.

  "What you need Trillot for?" the Wroonian asked.

  "Got information. His ears only."

  The guard grunted. "What you say? You want to eat diamonds?"

  Fizzik despaired. One would think that a being of Trillot's wealth

  and power would employ the very best help, but that rarely seemed to

  be the case. "Just take me there."

  "His brood-mother what}" the guard said, turning. His face now

  betrayed a trace of emotion, and it was not at all pleasant.

  Fizzik realized the trap he had entered. The alcoves around him

  rustled with curious eyes. This was nothing less than a shakedown.

  He thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out a handful of credits.

  His last. Oh, well, life was a gamble. If this one paid off, in a few

  minutes he would be flush. If not . . . well, the dead had no use for

  money.

  As soon as the credits touched the thug's hands, the Wroonian

  smiled broadly. "Oh!" he said. "Oh! You want to see Trillot." He

  made the credits disappear, and then swept a curtain aside.

  At first Fizzik could see only a broad couch, but as his eyes adjusted

  to the darkness, he was able to make out his brother.

  Trillot was three broods senior to Fizzik. Like Fizzik, he was a

  minor child of a noble but impoverished brood-mother, his only inheritance

  a yearning for the wealth and power of ages past. Unlike

  Fizzik, however, Trillot had talent and a willingness to take risks.

  After a false start working in communications for Cestus Cybernetics,

  he found his niche in labor relations. Trillot's three-year cycle between

  male and female personae tended to keep his immigrant

  opponents and rivals slightly off-guard. Fizzik knew that, unlike

  most X'Ting, Trillot used an imported cocktail of viptiel and other

  exotic herbs to collapse the month-long breeding period at either end

  of the gender cycle into mere hours of numbed transformation. No

  incapacity, no fertility. No mewling grubs for one as ambitious as

  Trillot.

  Five years later Trillot had proven his worth to a local Tenloss syndicate,

  and two years after that he resigned from Cestus Cybernetics

  to work directly for the overboss himself.

  A mysterious series of tragic accidents had cleared the way for Trillot's

  ascension. Well, unexplained as long as Trillot himself chose not

  to comment.

  Everything that followed was almost preordained. Seeing Trillot's

  utter ruthlessness and perhaps sensing the inevitability of his ascension,

  the overboss fled Cestus, leaving the power in Trillot's capable

  hands.

  It was too little, too late. The overboss met with an accident, almost

  as if someone wished to ensure he would never return to attempt

  to claim what had once been his.

  Trillot's power in ChikatLik had never really been challenged.

  Were he not cautious, such a challenge have might come in the

  lethargic m
onthlong transition between genders suffered by most of

  his kind. Another motivation to use the illegal viptiel cocktail that allowed

  him to make this transition in a single painful night. Trillot

  was aggressive at all times.

  In the twilight zone between labor and management, between

  white and black market, between upper and lower class, between offworlder

  and X'Ting hive council, there was no fixer like Trillot, and

  everyone knew it.

  Like most male X'Ting he was a deceptively delicate, insectile

  creature. His every motion seemed as carefully cultivated and pondered

  as a master's game of dejarik. A high, crystalline brow over

  faceted eyes and an elongated oval for a body gave the impression of

  vast intelligence and great gentility. Fizzik know that only the former

  impression was correct.

  But Trillot's thorax was red and swelling, a clear sign of feminization.

  Such a rapid shift had to be agonizing, and Fizzik wondered

  what herbs and drugs Trillot used to control the pain. And then more

  to clarify his mind from all the others. And then more to protect

  himself from the toxic effects of the previous dosages. And then

  more . . .

  Fizzik was dizzy just thinking about it.

  Trillot spoke to the guard in a clicking, popping language that

  seemed odd emerging from his strangely prim mouth. The guard answered

  in the same indecipherable tongue. Then his head pivoted to

  face his guest. "Ah. Fizzik," he said. Fizzik had heard more warmth

  and welcome in the voice of an execution droid. "It seems you have

  information for me. Ah, come along. No, no. Of course, if your information

  is sound, there will be compensation."

  "I wish only to serve my elder brother." Fizzik lowered his eyes respectfully.

  "Ah." Trillot s body seemed to move one section at a time, so that

  one part of it always remained still while the rest was in motion. It

  was unnerving to watch. Although of the same species, Fizzik had

  never possessed such plasticity. Trillot walked a bit awkwardly, his

  swelling egg sac unbalancing his stride. They traversed a dark corridor

  lined with alcoves, from which the glittering eyes of a dozen

  species watched them pass. Trillot seemed to have attracted Cestus's

  entire underclass. Fizzik knew that the offworlder majority on the

  planet had dominated many of the other species to the point that less

  than 3 percent were native Cestians.

  The passage through the corridor was punctuated with low, respectful

  bows from Trillot's coterie of hideous bodyguards. Suddenly

  Trillot stopped and sniffed the air. Now for the first time, Fizzik saw

  something like emotion cross the golden face. If he had to make a

  guess, he would have said that his elder sibling was unhappy. This

  would not be pretty.

  "I smell Xyathone," Trillot said. He looked at the guard. "Do you

  smell it?"

  "No, sir," the guard replied in a Bothan dialect that Fizzik actually

  understood. Trillot was rumored to speak more than a hundred languages,

  and Fizzik was inclined to believe.

  "I do." He moved closer to one of the alcoves. A thin tendril of

  steam wound its way from beyond, and Fizzik pulled the curtain

  aside.

  Two Chadra-Fan were curled into the darkness, inhaling vapor

  from a boiling flask. Trillot sniffed again, deeply. He spoke to them

  in their own language, and then turned. "Guntar!" he called.

  The guards hustled, and for that moment Fizzik thought Trillot

  had forgotten him completely. They returned shortly, dragging a fat

  little gray ball of a Zeetsa behind them. Trillot looked down on the

  sphere as it prostrated itself. "Did you sell my guests the mushroom?"

  Lips appeared on the sphere's surface. "Yes," Guntar babbled. "Of

  course. Nothing but the best—"

  "And why then has it been cut with Xyathone?"

  The little Zeetsa was the very picture of outraged innocence.

  "What? I did not know, I swear—"

  "Do you indeed? Then perhaps your senses are insufficiently acute.

  You should have smelled it. Tasted it in the mixing. Do you say that

  that insignificant nose and tongue of yours aren't up to the task?"

  There was a pause, and Fizzik tensed. There would be no happy

  resolution to this matter.

  "I . . . I suppose . . ."

  "You know how I loathe inefficiency." To his guards: "See that the

  offending organs are removed."

  The ball screamed as the guards dragged him away. Trillot turned

  back to the Chadra-Fan. He spoke to them in their chittering

  tongue. They replied, and he drew the curtains shut. To the guards:

  "See that they get the best. From my personal stock."

  "Yes, sir."

  Trillot pulled the corners of his mouth into something approximating

  a smile. "Come with me now, Fizzik. It will take a few minutes

  to reach my sanctum. I suggest that you use them composing

  your report. After all—" From somewhere in the darkness behind

  them echoed a stomach-curdling scream. "—you know how I loathe

  inefficiency."

  17

  For hours the clone troopers had busied themselves in the cool,

  deep shadows of the Dashta Mountains. They glued, fitted, and

  welded, joining together hundreds of preformed durasteel sections,

  melding them with native materials to create the nucleus of a fine

  command center.

  "So where's our first strike?" Forry asked Nate as they worked.

  He shrugged in response. "Give me a spot-weld, right here." Their

  astromech unit extended a soldering probe. "First of all," he said,

  shielding his eyes against a bright, sharp shower of sparks, "there's

  reason to think we might not get used at all. General Kenobi s supposed

  to protect the entrenched political and economic forces."

  "Yeah, right," Sirty said.

  "But if it does go down?"

  Nate grunted. "Then I'd guess we'll hit Cestus Cybernetics."

  "Sounds like a plan."

  Their comlink bleeped; a tone said that they'd be expecting

  friendly visitors in a little under a minute, and they were not to respond

  with force. That beacon triggered long before they heard the

  distant but distinct swoosh of air. A few seconds later General Fisto's

  speeder bike appeared.

  Nate wandered out to the pad, feeling loose, dangerous, and satisfied.

  In a matter of hours they had turned this mountain hole into a

  reasonable headquarters.

  He watched the Nautolan's speeder glide over the smooth and

  jagged rock surfaces, heading north. Nate followed on foot, arriving

  in time to watch a cargo ship arrive on the open spot they'd chosen as

  their secondary landing zone.

  The door opened, and the walkway extended. A dark-skinned

  human female exited, following Kit back up toward the cave. Nate

  saluted as Kit passed. The woman glanced at him with little curiosity

  as she and Kit entered the cave. The Jedi received salutations from

  the other clones. He briefly evaluated the work that they had already

  performed, then took the woman to a scanner and showed her some

  material. They conferred briefly, and Kit said: "Capt
ain, Forry, I wish

  you to accompany us."

  "Yes, sir," they said simultaneously.

  Spindragon was a suborbital YT-1200 medium freighter. She was

  old, melded with parts from other similar models, with a rounded

  hull and an elongated, tubular cockpit. Nate spent a few minutes examining

  the welds. Although it was obvious that a dozen different

  soldering mixtures had been used, as well as a bit of Corellian epoxy,

  they seemed strong enough to stand up to high-g turns, and he gave

  his approval.

  The interior was barely more than functional: little bits of decoration

  suggested an attempt at aesthetics, but nothing frilly enough to

  decrease utility.

  The woman cocked her head sideways at the ARC trooper, trying

  to peer through his helmet. "I didn't catch your name," she said.

  "Trooper A-Nine-Eight."

  She snorted. "Is there a short version of that?"

  "Call me Nate," he said. Curiosity flickered in her dark eyes, and

  her lips pursed as if Sheeka Tull was tempted to ask a question. She

  didn't surrender to temptation, but he guessed that she hadn't shuffled

  him into the nonbeing category to which most citizens automatically

  relegated clones.

  Within minutes they were all strapped in and ready to go. She rose

  from their landing pad and spiraled up into the sky, flying southeast

  for about fifteen minutes, then north for another ten.

  A small manufacturing complex lay before them. Nate made a

  quick tactical assessment: several mine dropshaft shacks, living quarters,

  a small refinery, some shipping docks, landing docks, water filtration

  equipment, and communications towers. Next to a series of

  condensation coils nestled a blue bubble that he figured was a polarizing

  hothouse, using shielded plastics to change their sun's spectral

  range so that a wider variety of plants could be grown. Typical settlement.

  Fragile. Easy to destroy.

  But he remained silent. A major part of his job was just being

  visually impressive. Most citizens had never seen clone troopers, although

  they had doubtless heard tales.

  He and Forry were first down the ramp when it extended, followed

  by Sheeka Tull and the Jedi.

  The community seemed to have turned out for them, but he noticed

  that there were precious few X'Ting in the crowd. Most were humans,

  a few were Wookiees, and there was a smattering of other species. No