The Cestus Deception (16 page)

Asajj Ventress hurried down the tunnel toward her waiting hovercar, discarding her X’Ting mask as she went. Fizzik awaited her there, in a chauffeur’s coat, and none of the guests trickling out of the ball paid them any attention.

“Did you see him?” Fizzik asked.

She laughed mirthlessly. “Of course,” she said. “He almost sensed me.” For months Count Dooku had taught her the Quy’Tek meditations. It was good to see the result. Her grin was as feral as a kraken’s fixed and meaningless smile. “Obi-Wan Kenobi.” She settled back into her seat and closed her eyes. “The game is mine.”

“Wasn’t that very risky?” Fizzik said.

She opened her eyes and gazed at him, perhaps wondering whether her pleasures would be best served by killing him here and now.

“Life is risk,” she said, and then turned to watch the buildings flow past. For a moment her face assumed an unaccustomed softness as her thoughts deepened. “Perhaps death, as well.”

At that, Fizzik fell silent.

Ventress closed her eyes, laying plans.

Jedi. She’d killed many Jedi, and yet did not hate them. Rather, she hated the fact that they had lost their way, that they had forgotten their true purpose in the world, becoming pawns of a corrupt and decadent Republic.

While most Jedi were discovered in early infancy and raised in the Jedi Temple, Asajj Ventress had been discovered by Master Ky Narec on the desolate planet of Rattatak. An orphaned child starving in the wreckage of a war-torn city, Ventress had clung to anyone offering her hope, and over the next years came to worship the formidable Narec as a father figure. He had groomed the Force-strong child, uncovered and developed her potential. At that time she imagined that one day she might travel to Coruscant and stand before the Council, become part of the ancient Order.

Then her Master was murdered. The Jedi Council, who had abandoned Ky Narec to his fate, now became the object of her blind rage. Consumed with vengeance, she became a destructive force beyond anything her Jedi Master could have dreamed.

It was Count Dooku who discovered her on the Outer Rim. She had attacked him, been defeated and disarmed, but rather than slaying her he took her as an accomplice, completed her training, and set her feet on the proper path. It was Dooku to whom she owed total allegiance, as she owed nothing save death to the ruthless, corrupt Jedi.

Yes. She had clashed with Jedi. Killed many. Faced Master Windu and come within a hairbreadth of defeating him. Faced Skywalker in battles they would both remember. Obi-Wan had escaped her hand twice, but would not again. This she swore by her allegiance to Dooku. This she swore by her dead Master Ky Narec.

This she promised herself, purely for her own pleasure.

Asajj Ventress’s closed eyelids fluttered, and her pink mouth curved upward in a smile.

The Jedi and his Vippit companion had retired to their shared quarters, but G’Mai Duris was still attending to her ball guests as the music slowed and the lights came up, signaling the evening’s end.

She stood at the door, bidding farewell to her guests, when Caiza Quill and his partner Sabit appeared. A few months before, it had been Quill who had been the green-eyed female, Sabit the male, but even then Quill had been intimidating. At his weakest, he was more intimidating than Duris was at her strongest. Now, at his most aggressive, the weight of his pheromones was almost overwhelming.

He leaned over her, exuding his scent. “Don’t think that I don’t know you’re trying to cultivate the Jedi as an ally,” he said. “Don’t think for a moment that I will tolerate that. Remember what happened to Filian.”

She stiffened. How could she forget? Not five years before, Quill and her mate Filian had engaged in a formal combat, what the X’Ting called “going to the sand.” And there, before the council, the lethal Quill had slain her love. If she lived to a thousand, she would never forget the sight.

“Do not weaken,” he said. “Do not waver. Or you will suffer.”

And then he was gone.

G’Mai Duris bid the rest of her guests farewell and took her shuttle back to her apartment. She had loved Filian completely. As they had spiraled through the eternal dance of male and female, each moment and way of being had been, in its turn, exquisite.

But he had died before the fertilization dance could begin. So childless, alone with her empty egg sac, she rocked in the darkness, tears of terror and loneliness slicking her faceted emerald eyes.

As the new recruits practiced their maneuvers, Nate watched, noted, and made adjustments in
this
obstacle course or
that
targeting range. Forry approached him at an easy trot, the sort of pace that a common man would find exhausting in ten minutes, and a trooper could continue all day long.

“Sir!” the commando said, saluting smartly. “More recruits arrive.”

“How many?”

Forry smiled with satisfaction. “Two dozen, sir!”

Nate felt a warm flush. This was exactly the kind of news he had hoped for. “We’ll make a fight of this yet,” he said.

Nate was well satisfied with what he saw, and was moving the intensity up a notch when Sheeka approached behind him.

“So?” she asked. “What do you think?”

He was pleased to realize that he felt confident to intuit her meaning.

“Not too bad,” he said. “Farm boys and deep miners, but they can take orders.”

“They’re tough folk,” Sheeka said. “A lot of them think it’s time to fight.”

“And you?”

“I just fly,” she said.

“You might do just fine,” he said. “Strong legs and back, good reflexes. You might think about signing up.”

She laughed. “No experience. And experience counts.” Then she glanced at him. “On the other hand, you weren’t always the old battle-scarred veteran, were you?”

Nate shook his head. Then with a slight smile, he added, “True. But our simulations are… quite stimulating.” He moved his shoulders a bit, rolling out the stiffness and remembering Vondar-3.

“I’m sure they are,” she said.

He watched as the training droid’s arms flexed in multiple directions, giving each recruit the motivation he or she needed to excel. “They are eager enough—but they’d have their heads handed to them by experienced troops, or battle droids.”

“I’ve watched you with them,” she said. “I think the four of you are just the man for the job.”

For a moment he thought that she had misspoken herself, then realized that her straight face was only being maintained with effort. She laughed out loud.

Nate felt his own lips twitching, understanding her joke, and that even though it was at his expense, he appreciated it.

“Yes, we are,” he said.

With that, he left her and went down to take a more personal hand in the training. It was not entirely lost on him that he squared his shoulders just a little more rigidly, that he moved a bit faster in demonstrating unarmed combat moves, that he was a hair more alert, because he knew Sheeka was watching. And although he felt a bit absurd for it, at the same time he enjoyed her attention, and hoped that she would be there when the day was done.

In ChikatLik, diplomatic operations proceeded at a glacial pace. Snoil spent the mornings and much of the afternoons poring over contracts, and finally twined his eye stalks in frustration. “Ah! I’ve lost ten years’ growth on my shell,” he whined. “Have you seen these?”

“What?” asked Obi-Wan, who was working to establish secure communications with Coruscant. This necessitated linking through Xutoo at their docked ship. So far, a solar storm seemed to have distorted the link.

“The little cracks and fissures here where the new chitin is forming.” Snoil craned his long neck to look back at his flat shell’s attractive curls and swoops. In truth, he was accurate: there were new cracks where the thinnest, newest shell segments should have been forming.

“Ah, yes, I see,” Obi-Wan said, distracted. “What does it mean?”

Snoil’s eye stalks coiled in distress. “Stress! Stress, I tell you.”

“Well, I don’t want to add to your burden…”

“Oh, please…”

The hololink suddenly cleared, and Supreme Chancellor Palpatine floated in the air before him. Snoil immediately quieted.

“Chancellor,” Obi-Wan said.

“My Jedi friend. What news have you?”

“I believe that the Regent is of good heart, but fears for her life if she acts her conscience.”

“And what do you think her conscience would dictate?”

“That which is best for all Cestus: suspension of manufacture.”

“Then what is the problem?”

“I believe the real power is in a group called the Five Families, owners of Cestus Cybernetics. And they think of little save profit.”

“Then you may need to take matters to the next level. I believe you were given reliable contacts. Have you used them?”

“I believe Master Fisto has met with one. I meet with the other tonight.”

“I wish you fortune, Master Kenobi. Remember: little time remains, if we would avert disaster.”

“Yes, sir,” Obi-Wan said, but before he could speak further the Chancellor was gone.

He sighed, turning to Snoil. “Barrister,” he said. “If you had a wish list of… secure documents, what would be at the top?”

Doolb moaned. “Oh, what shall I do? What shall I say?”

“The truth.”

His eye stalks twined around each other. “I think I would ask for the original papers of incorporation and land purchase. And, oh—the purchase orders themselves between Cestus Cybernetics and Count Dooku or his intermediaries.”

“Will do.” He slapped Snoil’s shell with the flat of his hand. “If anyone asks, just tell them I’m sampling the native cuisine,” he said. “Take care.”

And with that, Obi-Wan left their suite.

Obi-Wan was able to slip into an empty room down the hall, and from there to exit through a window unmonitored by the security forces which doubtless kept a long-distance view of all his activities.

He climbed up to the roof and rode a service chute down to the street, landing in an alleyway with his knees slightly bent, cushioning the shock. Three steps and he blended with the crowd, none of whom took the slightest notice of him.

Obi-Wan had heard of other planets that had begun as prison colonies, but never actually visited one. He was heartened by the overwhelming sense of energy and
aliveness.
Everywhere he looked the streets were filled with milling, thronging offworlders. Although there were only a smattering of X’Ting citizens to be seen, the city did remind him of a hive colony. Commerce was conducted every minute of the day, and every being he passed was trading in one way or another. One out of ten shops was boarded up, but the others buzzed with a frantic sense of activity, as if dancing on the edge of a precipice. How many Cestians understood the game her masters were playing? Even if without conscious awareness, these people seemed a little too bright and aware. This was nervousness, not exuberance.

He hailed one of the cheaper, older air taxis, figuring that they were less likely to be tied into the surveillance grid. Even if they were, technically speaking he was doing nothing illegal or that would overtly damage his mission. The driver’s taxi holocard read
GRITT CHIPPLE
. Gritt was X’Ting, with the red thoracic fur indicating descent from a lower hive clan. “Your destination?” Gritt inquired.

“The Night Shade.” Gritt Chipple flinched. Clearly, he knew the Night Shade, and was not entirely happy to travel there.

“Hard credits,” Obi-Wan added, and offered the little X’Ting some Cestian chits. The driver’s red eyes lit up. The chits were onplanet and therefore easier to change, and not tied into the galactic credit grid like the Republic chits. Untraceable. Avarice overwhelmed fear. “Aye,” he said, and they zipped away.

“You Jedi?”

Obi-Wan nodded. He was not disguised, but had hoped that he might avoid notice.

“Then I heard of you. You wan’ ride back from Night Shade?”

“That might be good, yes.”

The little one made a spitting sound that Obi-Wan interpreted as pleasure. “Then I wait for you. You be careful. Sometimes offworlders not safe.” Another spitting sound. “Sir.”

The car had been riding along the side of the vast cave, but then leapt into the maelstrom of ChikatLik. The complex was dizzying even to one who lived in the fabled Jedi Temple. The driver floated through the maze as only one born to a planet could do, and Obi-Wan thought that Anakin might well have appreciated the little X’Ting’s facility.

Five minutes’ travel brought them to a darker, grimmer section, one set off from the main business districts. This was a place where reputable citizens strayed on only the most disreputable of business. Where in other parts of the city he saw only a few X’Ting per hundred citizens, here, finally, the insectile beings were plentiful.

The driver handed him a triangular holochip. “Trigger this when you want ride,” he said, and the door opened. Obi-Wan tipped Gritt handsomely and exited. The tattered little taxi cruised off, leaving Obi-Wan alone.

Following memorized instructions, Obi-Wan approached the door guarded by the two massive X’Ting guards. Females, no doubt. The males were smaller and more lethal, but the females were more intimidating to offworlders, who often failed to realize that much of the bulky body was mere egg sac.

“You wish—?” the larger of them asked in a surprisingly cultured voice.

He spoke a code word, then said, “I have an appointment with Trillot.” Not exactly the truth, but he knew that their contacts had warned the X’Ting gang lord to expect him.

“A minute,” the smaller said, and slipped back through the entrance, emerging a moment later to hold the door open. “Enter.”

Eyes measured him, not all of them respectful. A few were curious, wondering if he was typical of his kind, wondering if the Jedi were as strong as their supporters said, or as weak as the Separatists claimed.

The den was dark, and alien eyes glimmered at him from the darkness. No one guided him, as if they expected him to find his own way.

He could tell by the body language of the beings he encountered, their posture and expressions, which way through the maze Trillot lay. If this was some kind of a test, he intended to pass it with flying colors.

On every side of him wafted the smells and sounds and sights of an utterly corrupt habitat. Clearly, these were social dregs, yet… to be so close to the inner circle of the powerful Trillot, they had to have resources, if nothing other than Trillot’s trust. So Obi-Wan might as well consider this the gangster’s hive, a place the X’Ting kept for his own comfort, something that reminded him of his own grubhood, even if it demanded the destruction of other beings.

He recoiled at the thought, but kept his thoughts and feelings to himself.

At the end of the corridor was another door, and before this one stood a second pair of X’Ting bodyguards braced at attention. Males this time, and genuinely lethal. They opened the door as he approached.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the interior. Trillot sat perched on a tall cushion, puffing contentedly on a pipe of some kind, long thin vapor curls spiraling from slits in the side of her neck. The swollen thorax, ready to be filled with fertilized eggs, told Obi-Wan that Trillot had completed the swing from male to female.

“Jedi,” Trillot said, her faceted eyes fixed on Obi-Wan. “Welcome to my abode.”

“Mistress Trillot,” Obi-Wan said, and then bowed slightly, reciting a complex series of sounds in X’Ting.

Trillot’s eyes glittered. “You are very cultured for a human. Please. Come sit by my side.”

Obi-Wan did so as Trillot took several more puffs. “I would not insult a Jedi,” she said, “by publicly offering the fruit of fantazi.” The implication was obvious.

Kenobi smiled. “We have business,” he said. “Fantazi clouds the mind.”

Trillot nodded. “But also sharpens the senses.”

“We both know why I am here,” Obi-Wan said. “War sweeps across the galaxy. Cestus is not immune to its touch.”

“War… or peace,” Trillot said with a deep and evidently satisfying puff. “Either way, I make my profit.”

Bluff.

“Not if that war destroys Cestus’s industrial capacity. Then there are no workers to exploit. Then you suffer as well.”

Trillot nodded slowly, as if Obi-Wan had indeed made an important point. “I wish to avoid travail if that is at all possible.”

“I believe it is.”

“Then I will listen. What is it that I can do for you?”

Good. Avarice was a useful lever. “My friends on Coruscant say you have a finger on everything that happens here,” he said.

Trillot tittered. “How perceptive.”

Obi-Wan lowered his voice slightly. “I wish to know the secret codicils between the Families and the Confederacy.”

At that, Trillot seemed to be taken a bit aback. “Indeed? Such information would be hard-won.”

“I have resources.”

“Do you? I have resources as well. I would be loath to endanger them on such a mission.”

“I was told that if anyone could reveal the industrial system’s weakness, it would be you.”

Trillot inhaled deeply. A long, thin stream of smoke escaped her shallow throat-slits. “And if—that is to say
if
I was to share that knowledge, how might it benefit me and mine?”

“In order to keep the peace and keep these devices off the market, the Republic is prepared to offer a generous contract for droids. Your information is valuable in… favorably resolving my negotiations. I will give you advance notice of the order’s size and specifications.”

“And why would that interest me?”

Obi-Wan knew that they were equally aware of the stakes involved. “Because it would give you time to buy and hoard certain components, equipment, raw materials. I’m certain an enterprising lady such as yourself can see the potential.”

Trillot exhaled, and her face took on an arrangement that Obi-Wan believed was a smile. “You think like a criminal,” she said.

“One of my many failings.”

“I like that in a man,” Trillot said, leaning close enough for Obi-Wan to catch a whiff of pheromones. Possibly a seductive move among the X’Ting, but to Obi-Wan, Trillot smelled like a tannery.

“So?”

Trillot sighed. “So. Well, then. Yes, it is true. There is a weakness in the system, but only because it would kill those who tried to exploit it.”

Interesting.
“Explain.”

“Radiation,” Trillot said. “It is said that beneath the industrial city of Clandes lies a juncture box where the landlines cross. Not all communications are wireless—not since the uprisings a century ago. These landlines can directly access the main terminal, with only minor safeguards. After reconfiguration, that entire area was designated unfit for habitation, and the workers moved out. With the safety regulations no longer so… stringent, they saved money on shielding. It would kill you in a few minutes… unless you had a class six Baktoid radiation suit.”

“Which I assume you have?”

“Let’s just say that a lady of my peculiar resources knows how to acquire such things.”

“And what might the price of such a wonder be?”

“Such suits are rare, now that the Baktoid factories are shut down,” Trillot said mildly. “What you wish done is singular. If and when you commit such an act, any who know of the suit’s sale would know to come looking for Trillot.”

“What price?”

“It will never happen… but let’s say half a million credits.”

Half a million. More than he planned to pay, but possible. Still, if he gave in too quickly, this gangster would lose respect for him. Future negotiations would be strained. “Absurd.”

Trillot might have been reading his mind. “Yes. Isn’t it?”

The two bantered and sparred for a few more minutes, and then Obi-Wan softened his stance. “So… through this terminal, assuming that the agent did not die of radiation poisoning, the production line could be shut down… or crashed?”

“It could happen, yes.” Trillot seemed delighted with herself.

“Even if I had half a million credits, I am not yet prepared to engage in sabotage against the Clandes factory,” he said. “Let us discuss other alternatives.”

“A question,” Trillot asked. “If that central computer were shut down, the entire economy goes…
pfft.
Not good for business, eh?”

“No,” Obi-Wan said, certain of his ground. “The luxury droids would stop. Low-end droids could continue manufacture under license.”

“Ah. Then Cestus would fall neatly into the Republic’s arms, and business can continue as before.”

“So,” Obi-Wan said, extending both hands palm forward in the manner of agreeable X’Tings. “We have a deal?”

“Details on the trade agreement?”

“That’s all for now. And inquiries concerning that suit.”

“It will be done.”

He touched palms with Trillot, and then, bowing, he turned and left.