The Cestus Deception: Star Wars (Clone Wars): A Clone Wars Novel Read online

  But as satisfying as those victories had been, he longed to fake 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?”

  “Watch for yourself.”

  Nate triggered PLAY, and together they watched as the Jedi not only stood his ground against the JK., but actually forced it into retreat. Nate inhaled sharply as the Jedi beat the thing at its own game. In some ways his tactics weren’t that different from those attempted by the trooper, but the results were impressively superior.

  “Beat it.”

  “Umm-hmmm.” Forry clucked admiringly. “Did you see that timing?”

  “Uh-huh. Never seen reflexes like that, either. You’re right: the machine was faster, but it didn’t make any difference.”

  “Jedi.” Forry laughed. It was hard to say whether the laughter was bitter or admiring. Perhaps a touch of both. “So they watched a trooper go down, and just had to get down there and show off.”

  Nate caught the implication: the Jedi might have even programmed the droid. How could the droid move faster and still lose? Unless it was instructed to lose …

  Nonsense. They both knew a Jedi would never do such a thing. This was nothing but lingering unease, a defensive technique to hide the slight feeling of inferiority troopers sometimes felt around Temple dwellers.

  “They beat Jango,” both of them said simultaneously. These three words were almost a litany. Whatever they could say about Jedi being strange, or egotistical, or bizarrely esoteric, in an arena on Geonosis they had slain the clone troopers’ template, and that meant they were worthy of respect.

  “Good hunting,” Forry said to him.

  “Good hunting,” Nate replied. Then he paused. “You been given your next op yet?”

  “Nope,” Forry said. “Dealing me in?”

  “If you want it.”

  “One hundred percent. Let me check in and out, get my sack and tac.”

  “You’ll have orders within the hour.” A crushing handshake, and Forry went his way.

  Brother gone, Nate opened a window. “Request status.” A moment’s pause, and men medical stats blurred past. He nodded in approval. CT-36/732, nicknamed Sirty, had not been wounded by the JK. His nervous system had been momentarily overloaded, and he had consequently suffered a few hours of irregular heart rhythm. N
othing alarming, but of course he had been taken to a med droid for observation.

  Sirty would be in fighting shape soon, and would make a perfect team member: the only trooper who had fought the JK.

  “Special request CT-36/732 be seconded to the Cestus operation.”

  A “Request approved” message bleeped, and then the screen closed.

  For hours he studied, trying to get the kind of random background intel never covered in standard tac briefings. One just never knew which bit of data might save one’s butt once the capacitors started sparking. Nate himself would be dead now, blown to jelly in the battle on Geonosis, if he hadn’t studied power-cell recharge cycles and subsequently recognized when one of the wheel droids was entering a reflux pattern. Its capacitor’s whine was barely audible, but he’d taken a chance, leapt from cover, and blasted it, saving five of his cohort.

  That little maneuver resulted in a week’s free food at the base cantina and a fast track to his captaincy.

  He dictated notes into his personal file for transfer to the Cestus-bound transport ship. For hours he continued, fiercely maintaining focus.

  The lives of his brothers and, more important, the honor of the GAR were his to protect. And even more than that—this was his game, the game he was born and bred to play. In a way that no outsider could ever understand, this was fun.

  8

  Only two hours remained.

  Nate and six of his brothers stood in a bricked, walled-off area outside the ribbed arch of the barracks, beneath Vandor-3’s densely starred night sky, performing a cohort ship-out ceremony. Whenever a trooper headed off on assignment, his cohort wished him not only good luck, but good-bye. In the context of a trooper’s life, this was more practicality than pessimism.

  If he did return, congratulations on a job well done.

  If he did not, well … what needed to be said had been said.

  “It is the proudest duty of a trooper to serve and seek a good death,” said Glorii Profus, their Kaminoan mentor.

  The graceful, silver-skinned Profus was a combination psychiatric and spiritual adviser. Although clones never yielded to their fear, it would be wrong to think that they never experienced it. Emotion was as valuable as blasters and bombs, death an inevitable part of war itself. No trooper could, through any amount of skill or strength, avoid that unpleasant reality. And always, on all planets and through all times, soldiers had asked the same question: What if I die? And for a trooper, the most comforting answer was: You will die. But the GAR goes on forever.

  The Kaminoan gracefully arched his long silver neck and raised his cup, brimming with Tallian wine, the finest in the quadrant. His voice was cultured and comforting. “From water you are born. In fire you die. Your bodies seed the stars,” he said, the ritual words that had comforted a million clones before they marched to their deaths, and might comfort a billion more.

  They raised their cups as one. “We seed the stars!” they said, together.

  And then they drank.

  9

  The Jedi Temple dominated Coruscant’s cityscape for kilometers around, its five towering spires piercing the clouds like a titan’s outstretched fingers. Within the countless hallways and corridors, the lecture halls and exercise yards, libraries and meditation chambers were all designed with an intrinsic grace and flow. Within them, even the least gifted were sensitized to contemplate that Force binding the universe into a single organism.

  The Council itself met in chambers less prepossessing but no less dignified than those of the Chancellor. Its arched walls and hangings had been created by the galaxy’s finest craftspeople. Such richness would cost a fortune to reproduce, but most of the furnishings were gifts from rulers and merchants whose lives, wealth, and honor had been protected by Jedi skills over the millennia.

  Obi-Wan had long since grown accustomed to the opulence, and gave it little notice as he stood at ease before the Council, awaiting their pronouncement.

  Master Yoda’s wizened head tilted slightly sideways as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Kit Fisto consulted with them.

  “These are confusing times,” Obi-Wan said. “In many ways, our former mandate has been suspended, and much of our authority curtailed.”

  “Strife changes many things,” Yoda said. “Unpredictable these Clone Wars prove to be.”

  “But now I am sent on a sensitive diplomatic mission, involving treaties on multiple levels—such complexity that we require a barrister just to sort them out.” Obi-Wan considered his next words carefully. “I have never refused a mission, but must tell you honestly that I feel ill prepared for this … this maze of commerce and politics.”

  Master Yoda frowned. “Worry I do. No longer may Jedi look to the words and actions of Masters past for their guidance. Strange new times are these.” The other Jedi in the room nodded in agreement. This subject had been debated long and hard, but in the end, the Jedi were obliged to fulfill the Senate’s and the Chancellor’s wishes.

  At the moment, Mace Windu’s face resembled a somber mask sculpted of onyx duracrete. Of all the Jedi, it was Master Windu who held status closest to that of Yoda. “I agree, but the Republic has never been tested so severely. If asked to accept new roles, we must respond. If we cannot protect the Republic, to whom should the responsibility fall?”

  “It augurs well that Palpatine still seeks diplomatic solutions,” Kit said.

  “Then why not send diplomats?” Obi-Wan asked, realizing as he did that he already knew the answer: diplomacy was only the first layer of the Chancellor’s response. Palpatine knew that a Jedi’s mere presence was a durasteel fist in a furred glove.

  “The war goes well,” Master Windu said, “but we are forced into too many unfamiliar roles. If we are not careful, we may lose our clarity of purpose and intent. Too often, lightsabers are required where once words alone sufficed.”

  Yoda nodded. “Once, Jedi had only to appear to quiet a crowd. Now common brawlers we become.”

  “It is the matter of Antar Four, and even the Battle of Jabiim,” Windu said. Those grim memories triggered a murmur of regret.

  “There have been more victories than failures,” Obi-Wan reminded them.

  “I agree,” Master Windu said, “but the maintenance of social order requires both myth and reality.” Once upon a time it had been difficult for Obi-Wan to comprehend Windu’s meanings. The Master Jedi’s profound meditations lifted him to a realm few could dream of, let alone experience. But in more recent years Obi-Wan had begun not merely to appreciate these pronouncements but almost to anticipate them, “And the myth has been fractured: only the reality remains. This situation on Cestus is delicate, and involves these Force-sensitive droids. Ultimately, a swift and clear resolution would save many lives.” He leaned forward and fixed Obi-Wan with a gaze that might have cut diamonds. “Whatever misgivings you may have,” Master Windu said, “you are asked to accept this mission with your usual integrity and commitment. Master Kenobi, Master Fisto, for every conceivable reason, you must not fail.”

  Kit Fisto bowed, and his sensory tendrils wavered eagerly, like sea fronds in an invisible current. “I gladly accept.”

  “I also accept,” Obi Wan said, then added, “I will bring Ord Cestus back into the fold. We will end these Jedi Killers.”

  Yoda’s eyes glowed warmly. “With the Force as our guide, into peace war may yet transform.”

  10

  For three hours Obi-Wan lay in his cubicle’s hard bed, slowing and synchronizing his body’s rhythms to maximize the restorative benefits. Where an ordinary mind and body wavered in and out of the mental and physical zones of recuperation, every minute spent in this extreme state was worth three minutes of ordinary slumber. He emerged rested and ready, packing his gear and rendezvousing with Kit for the flight to Cestus.

  In the Temple’s communal dining hall, the two Jedi shared a meal of thrantcill pâté and hawk-bat eggs. While eating they spoke in quiet voices of trivial things, understanding that the days ahead would be in
tense. Memories of such quiet times were sustaining.

  They took an air taxi out to Centralia Memorial Spaceport. The port was one of Coruscant’s oldest, some of its older pads actually preserved as monuments even as the rest of the spaceport expanded out into one of the galaxy’s most modem facilities. There awaited the Jedi a refurbished Republic cruiser, its scarlet skin panels open at the aft wing as technicians made last-minute adjustments to the fuel atomizer cone and radiation dampers.

  They’d half finished supervising their ship’s loading when a military shuttle arrived, its triwing configuration folded for docking. Five troopers in gleaming white armor exited.

  If Obi-Wan was entirely honest with himself, he had to admit that large groups of clone troopers made him slightly uncomfortable. Easy to understand and explain away. One factor was the fact that they were the absolute image of the notorious bounty hunter Jango Fett, who had come within a hair of killing him on three separate occasions. More disturbing still was the fact that, although genetically human, they had not led human lives: clone troopers were born and bred purely for war, without the nurturance of a mother’s embrace, or the safety of a father’s loving discipline.

  They looked human … they laughed and ate and fought and died like men. But if not human, what exactly were they?

  “General Kenobi.” The trooper saluted. “CT-Three-Six/Seven-Three-Two reporting. May we take your gear, sir?” His bearing and attitude were clear and crisp, his eyes guileless. A memory floated to mind. Hadn’t CT-36/732 been the trooper who’d fought the JK? The young man seemed healthy. No slightest gesture betrayed physical or emotional pain of any kind. Remarkable.

  “Yes, please stow it in our cabin.” With admirable ease the trooper slung his gear over his left shoulder, a nod his only response.

  Obi-Wan was surprised by his slight aversion. It mirrored the prejudice he knew some others to feel, people who treated the troopers as if they were little more than droids. This was unworthy of him, of any Jedi. These terribly young men, no matter what their origin, were prepared to die in service to the Republic. What more could anyone ask? If their progenitor had been evil (and Obi-Wan was not entirely certain that that word fit the complex and mysterious Jango Fett), his clones had died already in their thousands. How many deaths would it take to wash away an assassin’s stain?