Star Wars®: The Cestus Deception Read online

  Nate glimpsed himself in mirrored surfaces as he passed. He had no vanity as ordinary men considered such things, but was intimately aware of his body as a machine, always on the alert for signs that something was wrong, out of place, compromised, damaged. Always aware that the slightest imperfection might negatively affect performance, endangering a mission or a brother’s life.

  Nate’s body was a perfect meld of muscle and sinew, balanced ideally along every plane, optimally muscled, with perfect joint stability and an aerobic capacity that would have humbled a champion chin-bretier. His skin sported recently acquired bruises and abrasions, new wounds to be patched or healed, but such trauma was inevitable.

  A-98 entered the refresher station, moving along to the steaming tile-floored confines of the shower room. He leaned against the gushing water, gasping as it struck his new abrasions. After emerging from the ocean onto the bloody beach they had spent another six hours struggling up a hill to capture a stun-gun-protected flag, working against captured or simulated battle droids. A full day of glorious, grueling torture.

  The soap squirted out of one of his brothers’ hands, and Nate caught it. Then, to the amusement of those around him, he tossed the slippery bar from one hand to another like a carnival performer.

  That action triggered a brief wave of spontaneous silliness and dazzling jugglery as the troopers flipped the bars of soap back and forth to each other almost without watching, as if they were linked by a single enormous nervous system.

  It went on for several hilarious minutes, then died down due to shared exhaustion. They soaped themselves, wincing as astringent foam flowed into cuts and bruises.

  This was his life, and Nate could imagine no other.

  Kamino’s master cloners had ensured that the troopers were no mere ordinary rank-and-file infantry. Ordinary sentient soldiers the galaxy over could be trained from ignorance to basic skill in six to twelve weeks. Standard clone troopers went from infant to fully trained trooper in about nine years, but in waves numbering in tens of thousands. Clone Commandos were a specialized breed, trained for special operations, recruitment of indigenous troops, and training. The Advanced Recon Commandos were a level higher still.

  Ablutions completed, Nate left the shower room and returned to his bunk. Troopers were quite economical in terms of space: they slept in pods when there was no room for individual quarters. They were simultaneously a multitude and a singularity, thousands of identical human units cloned from a single physical and mental combat paragon, a bounty hunter whose name had been Jango Fett.

  Their lives were simple. They trained, ate, traveled, fought, and rested. Occasionally they were allowed special stress relief, leading to interaction with ordinary sentient beings, but their training had prepared them for the simplest, most direct experience of life imaginable. They were soldiers. They had known nothing else. They dreamed of nothing else.

  Nate found his bunk capsule, kicked his gear into the slot beneath it, and tumbled in, covering his nakedness with the thermal sheet. It automatically assumed seventeen degrees Celsius, the perfect body temperature to provide comfort and optimal healing: one of a trooper’s few luxuries in life.

  Almost immediately, crushing fatigue bore him down into darkness. As it did, where other men might have released into sleep or tossed and turned, mulling trivial matters, Nate closed his eyes and entered rest mode, rapidly dropping toward dream time. Sleep would come quickly when he decided to let it: another valuable part of his training. No tossing and turning for a trooper. One never knew when an opportunity for sleep would come again. When necessary, Nate could sleep on the march.

  But before slumber he was trained to use the thin edge of consciousness, the place between sleeping and waking, to organize information. His subconscious resurrected the day’s events, everything from his ascent to the Nexu to the initial mission briefing, the drop, and the battle with the selenome, struggling onto the beach, and storming the hill afterward.

  Recalled information flowed into preselected mental patterns for storage, contributing to the overall chances of survival and, even more important, of successfully completing assignments.

  He remained in this state for fifty minutes, as the tug of the day’s fatigue grew more insistent. He could stave off that fatigue for unnaturally long periods of time, but saw no reason to do so. He had performed well, and deserved his rest. And anyway: his dreams would continue to evaluate and organize, even if mostly in symbolic form. That was good enough.

  A-98 surrendered consciousness and allowed his body to heal itself. After all, tomorrow was another day.

  Best be prepared.

  6

  In the Jedi Temple’s Archives, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Kit Fisto studied their assignment, the industrial powerhouse known as Ord Cestus.

  Obi-Wan found Cestus an interesting study, a relatively barren rock rich in certain ores, but miserable for most agricultural farming. Much of its surface was desert. The native life-forms included a hive-based insectile people known as the X’Ting, and a variety of large, deadly, and reputedly nonsentient cave spiders.

  The current population stood in the millions, with several advanced cities unsustainable without imported resources: fertilizers and soil nutrients, medications, and spices used to modify the water supply for non-natives.

  “Dangerous,” Kit said, studying at his side. “A simple rationing drove them into Count Dooku’s arms. That could never have happened to a self-sufficient people.”

  This was simple truth. In war, secure supply lines were as crucial as trained soldiers.

  Three hundred standard years before, the relatively primitive X’Ting—a single colony with multiple hives spread around the planet—had contracted with Coruscant, offering land for a galactic prison facility.

  At some point Cestus Penitentiary began a program designed to train and utilize prisoner skills. This became really interesting when a series of financial scandals and an industrial tragedy on Etti IV sent a dozen minor officers of Cybot Galactica, the Republic’s second largest manufacturer, to prison for twenty standard years. The twelve hadn’t been on Cestus for two years before cutting a deal with prison officials to begin research and fabrication of a line of droid products. Access to vast amounts of raw material and virtually free labor released a flood of wealth.

  The twelve were quickly and quietly work-furloughed into opulent homes. Select guards and officials became wealthier still, and a corrupt dynastic conglomerate was born: Cestus Cybernetics, producing an excellent line of personal security droids. The next events were difficult to sort out. Large tracts of land were purchased from the hive at fire-sale prices. Then, following terrible plagues among the X’Ting, Cestus Cybernetics gained almost complete control of the planet.

  Still, life, even for the average offworlder, had been rough before Cestus Cybernetics subcontracted to the fabulously wealthy and successful Baktoid Armor Workshops. It retooled completely, tapping into an interstellar market in high-end military hardware. The economy expanded, and then crashed when the Trade Federation cut ties after the Naboo fiasco…

  Boom. Then, crash. Cycles of growth and decay followed one another with numbing regularity.

  Obi-Wan scanned the roster of current leaders. Following last century’s plagues, after the near destruction of the entire hive, the office of planetary Regent was still held by one of royal X’Ting lineage, one G’Mai Duris. Was this office elective? Hereditary? Was Duris a figurehead, or a genuine power?

  Another reference an hour later caught Obi-Wan’s eye: mention of a group of guerrilla fighters called Desert Wind. Most of the surface farmers were poor, descended from the rank-and-file prisoners after their parole. Protesting a century of oppression, Desert Wind had sprung up twenty years back and tried to force Cestus’s industrial rulers, a cabal of wealthy industrialists called the Five Families, to the bargaining table.

  Desert Wind had been crushed in the past year, but there were said to be a few left, still mounting raids on co
mpany caravans.

  The more deeply Obi-Wan and Kit peered, the more the truth of power on Cestus, and its delicate relationship with Coruscant, evaded them.

  “It’s like digging through a sponge reef,” the Nautolan snarled after eight hours of study. “We’d need a wizard to sort through this nonsense.”

  “I don’t know many wizards,” Obi-Wan replied, “but I think a good barrister would be invaluable, and I know just the one.”

  “Excellent,” Kit said. “And another concern. If negotiations go poorly, we may wish to…pressure this Duris person.”

  Obi-Wan flinched. The Nautolan was correct, but Obi-Wan preferred caution. “Have you a suggestion?”

  “Yes. You and the barrister deal with the politicians. We have—” He searched his screen for the information. “—two contacts on Cestus, a human female named Sheeka Tull and an X’Ting named Trillot. Between them, we should find the necessary leverage.”

  “If they are trustworthy,” Obi-Wan offered.

  Kit laughed. “Are you suggesting we can’t trust our own people?”

  That question hung in the air, tension increasing every moment. Then Obi-Wan laughed. “Of course not.”

  “Good,” the Nautolan said. “As I was saying, I’ll take an ARC and a few commandos and recruit native troops for emergency use.”

  Obi-Wan grasped the logic instantly. If they brought Desert Wind back to life, the regent and these Five Families would be more nervous, less secure, possibly more receptive to Republic overtures. It wouldn’t do to have a trooper’s body captured: its genetic signature would be evidence of Coruscant’s manipulations.

  For hours the two friends pored over the files, discussing possibilities and strategies, until they were satisfied that every action and counteraction had been considered.

  The rest would have to wait for actual arrival on Cestus.

  7

  Ten hours later A-98 reawakened, his recovery cycle complete. Nate glanced at his sleep capsule’s heads-up screen, which reminded him to report to the op center for orders.

  Thirty seconds was spent in a quick mental survey of his body. Another half minute was invested in his morning mental ritual, completing the shift from deep sleep to full waking. True enough, in an emergency he or any trooper could make that shift in seconds, but he enjoyed more leisurely transitions as well.

  Self-inspection complete, he threw off his blanket and swung his feet down to the floor. After visiting the ’fresher, washing his face and brushing his teeth at the communal sink, he packed his few belongings into a duffel. According to Code an ARC trooper must be ready to go anywhere, do anything, at the beck of the commanding Jedi or Supreme Chancellor. One hundred percent of Nate’s self-image was invested in being that perfect trooper.

  There was no other choice, no other existence. A-98 was ready. He had a few small mementos of previous military actions in his rucksack, his equipment, and three days’ rations of food and water.

  Nate had been raised on Kamino, of course, one of a simultaneously decanted cohort of a thousand clone troopers. A dozen had been designated as Advance Recon Commandos. They had been trained together, taught together, and suffered their first missions together. Half had been chosen for personal training by Jango Fett himself, and had returned to their brothers bruised but steeped in lethal wisdom. ARC clusters were encouraged to develop their own traditions and identity, which was useful during competitions with other cohorts. Although they had initially shipped out together, over time that original cohort had broken, as most ARC troopers worked alone.

  He found himself seeking identification on the troopers he encountered, helmet or neck chips that told the time and place of decanting. A cohort brother could be relied upon to remember certain ceremonies and shared perils, always good for a bit of extra companionship. Family within family, a touch of home on a distant, hostile world.

  He fondly remembered twenty-kilometer training runs with his cohort, tried not to remember how many brothers he had watched die during his two extended campaigns and dozen smaller actions. In most instances ARC tactics were a blend of lightning attacks and applications of overwhelming force, with punishing combinations of aerial bombardment and devastating ground engagement.

  But as satisfying as those victories had been, he longed to take more personal and subtle action as well. He felt that there were aspects of himself yet untapped. He did not fear death, but one thing he did fear was the possibility of ending his life without discovering the depths of his abilities. That, as he understood such things, would be a waste.

  Nate shrugged his rucksack over his brawny shoulder and headed to the op center, wondering what the day’s conversation would bring.

  Ten minutes later he was ushered into a small office tucked away beneath an ammo dump and a people-mover ferrying workers back and forth to the city.

  His commanding officer, a Mon Calamari major named Apted Squelsh, sat hunched over papers when Nate entered, and for a moment seemed not to realize that she had company. Then she looked up. “A-Nine-Eight?”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Take a seat, please.”

  Nate did so, easing into a hard-backed chair of densely veined Corellian hardwood. He ran a thick thumbnail along the arm’s grooved channels as the major finished reading the screen, and then folded her hands to speak to him.

  “You performed admirably during yesterday’s exercise,” she began. “Your unit had a fifty percent reduction in both genuine and sim casualties, with no loss of speed or efficiency. That’s what we like to hear.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “I have a new assignment for you,” Major Squelsh said, blinking her huge dark eyes. “I assume you are prepared?” Not a real question, but a bit of ritual byplay.

  “One hundred percent, ma’am.” The ritual response.

  “Very good. You will accompany and assist two Jedi to a planet called Ord Cestus. Do you know it?”

  “No, ma’am, but I’ll get up to speed immediately. My support?”

  “Four men,” she said.

  At last! Actions like these were the doorway to advancement, sought after by any ARC trooper worth manka spit. “Ma’am?”

  “Yes?”

  “It concerns Admiral Baraka.” He paused. “Is the admiral aware of the fatality statistics?”

  “Of course.” Squelsh’s eyes were level, her plump broad lips pressed together tightly.

  “And did he say anything you might want to share with us?”

  The major paused for an intense moment, then replied, “He said, ‘Well done.’ ”

  Nate held his face steady, unwilling to display his emotions to a commanding officer. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “That is all.”

  Well done. They’d left flesh and blood and brothers all over that beach and in the pitiless depths, and “well done” was the best they could get.

  Typical.

  Nate left and took the beltwalk to the hololibrary to put in a few hours researching the target planet. True, he’d get a briefing packet before he left, but he found it valuable to do his own research as well. Briefing packets were generally quite specific to the mission, and prepared by researchers who had never humped heavy ordnance up a cliff.

  Nate was so immersed in his research that he barely noticed when another trooper began reading over his shoulder.

  “Hmmm,” said the other trooper. “I’m Forry. I was near that sector last month.”

  That perked up his interest. “Nate. Do you know a planet called Ord Cestus?”

  “Heard of it, Nate.” Forry peeled a nervestick and bit off a shallow chaw. “Makes droids? Didn’t they manufacture those MTTs?”

  Multitroop transports. Nearly unstoppable, their armor and twin blaster cannons had cut quite a swath on Naboo. “Maybe so,” he said. “Anything else?”

  “Only know that much because of that demo yesterday. They made the JK model that Seven-Three-Two went against.”

  A trooper had
gone up against a droid of some kind? Not surprising, but the conversation suggested that it had been an exercise, not actual combat. “I hadn’t heard. What happened?”

  Forry shrugged. “He was captured. JKs are some kind of special security model. It only took about twenty seconds, and he’s still in the infirmary.”

  Now his whole attention was riveted. “Do we have vid footage?”

  “Sure,” Forry said. “I’ll call it for you.” He began to brush crystals on the desk in front of them, and holoimages blossomed to misty life.

  “Thanks. Planet’s interesting. Generations ago Cestus was a prison rock.”

  “Truth?”

  “One hundred percent. The descendants of those prisoners eventually settled there and became miners or farmers. They were exploited by the descendants of the prison guards, who owned the company.”

  Forry shrugged again. “It’s the same all over. Ah! Here we go…”

  The footage had been recorded in the T’Chuk arena, no more than forty hours earlier. He watched as the trooper made standard evasive moves, and even a few admirably tricky broken-rhythm maneuvers. Ultimately, none of them worked. Their brother went down, hard, in just a few miserable seconds.

  Disturbing.

  “You go up against, better zap it from a distance.”

  They watched a replay. “Fast,” Nate said. “As a Jedi?”

  “Faster,” Forry said. “But speed isn’t everything. Look at this…” He hit other controls. The footage of a Jedi with protruding head tentacles appeared.

  “From Glee Anselm,” Nate said. “Don’t see many Nautolans around. Jedi, eh?”

  “Who else would use one of those archaic light sticks?”

  They shared a good laugh at that. The Jedi were awesome fighters, but their adherence to illogical quasi-spiritual beliefs was beyond Nate’s comprehension. Why would a fighting man trust anything beyond a steady eye, a strong back, and a fully charged blaster? He examined the Nautolan Jedi’s image again. “So a Jedi actually came down from the Temple and rolled the dice. And?”