The Cestus Deception (38 page)

The detonation sent a wave of energy through the room, jolting Jangotat’s nervous system. The little blue crackles rippling over his body died out, shaking him out of paralysis. Groggily, he checked his leg: broken, punctuated with shrapnel. A few bits of cloth told him what had happened to his companion.

So. No coward after all, Thak Val Zsing.

The JK was spattered with blood and dust, sooty, but began to right itself, its case undented. The thing was indestructible. A mixed curse: its case had shielded him from the blast.

Jangotat groaned. It was over. There was no hope after all…

But then the JK began to thrash about. As Jangotat watched in stunned amazement, it pushed itself upright, then fell over, then spun in a circle, stood, and shook, making an ear-grating keening sound.

And suddenly Jangotat guessed the truth. What a great joke! The best ever. He could only hope that he could tell it to someone, that his companions might one day laugh at the big freaking joke the whole business on Cestus had become. Jangotat laughed hysterically as he took a painful glance over at the bunker door. Nothing. The Five Family executives were sealed safely inside.

No one is safe,
he snarled.
Time for a little lesson.

Would this be right? Wrong? These people had sentenced an entire planet to death, and there was no one to stop them.

The JK ignored him, running back and forth and then banging itself into a corner, shuddering and bumping back and forth.

Jangotat thought that that was the funniest thing he’d ever seen.

He managed to drag himself over to the shelter door, wedging it shut with the blaster rifle. There. The weapon was good for something after all.

Now he couldn’t get in, but neither could they escape.

Pain fogged his mind. What were the coordinates? He couldn’t remember. What a joke. What an enormous joke. Then he remembered: why, the coordinates were
him. He
was the coordinate.

He fished for his comlink and pulled it out… smashed and useless.

Then he began laughing at himself again. This was a fully stocked shelter, from which the Five Families had evidently thought to ride out any revolt or attack. Their own communications gear would work just fine.

On board the
Nexu,
the communications tech, a veteran named CT-9/85, detected a signal. “Sir,” he said to the officer in charge. “We have an ARC targeting code coming in over the radio, priority frequency.”

Commander Baraka crossed to the comm station, face suddenly intent. “And the message?”

“To change initial bombardment coordinates to… somewhere a little east of Kibo Lake. Then to stand by for further instructions.”

“Does this look legitimate?”

“One hundred percent. Trooper’s calling the load in right on top of himself. Can’t get more serious than that.”

Baraka snorted his discomfort. What kind of brainless machines were these creatures? “What is that location?”

“We show it as a blip on the power grid. Might be some kind of secret base.”

“Then let’s get on with it,” Baraka said, and gave the order.

Jangotat lay half across one of the chairs in the atrium, his shattered leg splaying out to the side. He busied himself with another message for ten minutes, and hit the transmission button just seconds before the bunker began to hum and shake.

The entire time Jangotat waited, he was surprised to find himself humming a tune.

One, one, chitliks basking in the sun.
Two, two, chitlik kista in the stew.
Three, three, leave a little bit for me…

What was the name of that tune? When had he learned it? Oh, yes: he remembered that he had heard Tarl and Mithail and sweet little Tonoté singing it, in the Zantay Hills. He hoped they would be safe.

The next explosion was shattering, and very close.

“From water we’re born, in fire we die,” he whispered. “We seed the stars.”

Moments after the
Nexu
released the full fury of her primary energy weapons, the dome above the mysterious target had become a flame-scarred concavity. The groundquake fault that should have destroyed Clandes instead sent a minor tremor throughout the Kibo Plateau. There were no fatalities and few injuries, although the shock was measured as far south as Barrens. In Clandes a few walls cracked and alarms sounded citywide. To the north, toward ChikatLik, there was another, more immediate effect.

The underground lake’s surface reflected flashes of red and yellow lightning as the energy field confining Obi-Wan and Kit Fisto lessened for an instant. Kit felt pain and fire as he lunged through, his lightsaber absorbing enough of the energy to keep the shield from frying him. It snapped back on swiftly enough to singe Kit’s left heel as the Nautolan jumped free.

The protocol droid barked an order, and all of Ventress’s allies laid their weapons down.

“Surely they’re not surrendering,” Kit said.

Ventress laughed. “By no means. I told them they don’t stand a chance against you with blasters.”

“And…”

“And now,” she said, “defend yourselves, Jedi.”

The young X’Ting thugs moved in. Obi-Wan groaned. He couldn’t simply cut them down. Young and foolish, they believed they were acting for the good of the hive.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Ventress grinned. “You wish you could talk to them. A pity you don’t speak X’Ting.”

“Obi-Wan?” Kit asked.

“Well, we can’t just slaughter them.”

No…?
Kit seemed to want to ask. “They’re hardly innocent.” The Nautolan radiated urgency, the pull of Form I strong as he prepared for battle. Ventress was the key. They had to stop her. And if these idiots put themselves between them and Dooku’s minion, the woman who might be the salvation of millions, that was their misfortune.

But… it would be a massacre. Obi-Wan searched his conscience, and made a hard decision. “We must do this without our lightsabers.”

Kit seemed to struggle with the idea, and then finally sighed. “A bit of exercise, then,” he said, and reluctantly extinguished his blade.

Obi-Wan dampened his as well, and as if on cue, Ventress’s foolish young X’Ting allies attacked from every angle. Obi-Wan leaned away from the swipe of a durasteel crowbar, the edge of his foot cracking the X’Ting’s knee as he did. A second youth jumped on him from behind. Obi-Wan gripped a primary right hand, a secondary left hand, and torqued: The X’Ting corkscrewed through the air and shattered a pile of boxes.

Kit Fisto snarled, surrendering to the pull of Form I’s unarmed techniques. His attack was absolute fluidity, one motion flowing into the next without a wasted effort. Heads cracked, limbs twisted against their joints, and X’Ting flipped howling into the lake.

Ventress stood back, her eyes watching, and Obi-Wan knew she was waiting, learning about her opponents.

The cavern was awash with whirling bodies. These were lackeys, and Ventress would sacrifice every one of them to learn what she wished to know. She knew the Jedi wouldn’t just cut them down. She was watching, and studying, and saving the moment for herself. The Jedi’s unarmed tactics would reveal their lightsaber technique: there was nothing they could do to prevent it.

Obi-Wan’s opponents had enthusiasm, but little technique. The Force blossomed within him, and time perception distended, slowing reality to a crawl. He had all the time he needed to slide out of the way of the blows, retaliating with perfect economy.

From the corner of his eye he saw that Kit had made his way almost to Ventress, and what he saw as the Nautolan increased his efforts almost broke Obi-Wan’s concentration. His companion was a living, martial hurricane, his body moving in two and three directions at once, joints flexing, unlimited by human vertebral restraints.

Who he touched went down. And those who went down, stayed down. Ventress might have gathered a rabble, but the youthful X’Ting were fearless, and fought as if for their lives.

Such an onslaught left no time for thought or planning, no room for pretty moves. There was only attack and defense, and precious little time for defense.

Obi-Wan himself could only attack and attack, taking the battle to them, creating his own timing and distancing, smashing his way toward Ventress.

Stingers bared, the young X’Ting came at them in waves. Obi-Wan calmed himself, using them as shields against each other, moving continuously and ferociously as he went.

Now… a blow from the upper left quadrant. Obi-Wan was just a hair slow defending there, and a wicked knife slit his cloak. Again and again, he narrowly skirted disaster.
She’s watching?
Obi-Wan thought.
Let her.

Obi-Wan missed the moment, but Kit finally won his way through to Ventress. She raised her hand, and the X’Ting who had harried the Nautolan turned to attack Obi-Wan, leaving her to face Kit alone.

Now, finally, Kit drew his lightsaber. Ventress drew a pair of blazing, red blades. She inclined her head, breathing more quickly, lips curling into a smile.

“Finally,” she said.

“Your pleasure,” Kit hissed, and went at her. He was like fire, Ventress like smoke. The dance had substance but not form, a blur of light that seemed impossibly fast, unbelievably deadly. The two leapt and swerved, collided and bounced away. Single against double lightblades. Hands, knees, feet, all in a mind-numbing blur.

Obi-Wan would have given his right hand to join. Or even to watch such a display. But he had his own worries, his own battle to fight.

He struggled with the urge to simply draw his lightsaber and slaughter the X’Ting. His enemies came on and on, struck quickly but clumsily, got in each other’s way. Obi-Wan was direct in attack, and as elusive as a breeze.

He’d missed the engagement, but suddenly—
Kit was down!
Wounded and groggy from a kick in the jaw, for the first time Ventress had pierced his guard. Her left-hand saber sliced his arm but as sparks flew he dove away from her left blade, leaning into a glancing blow from her right.

Obi-Wan heard the scream but couldn’t see the wound’s severity. Kit rolled as Ventress came at him, splashing down into the lake. Ventress stood on the dock smiling hugely, arms and legs spread in triumph, laughing in that arctic voice.

The Jedi tore his way through the X’Ting, breaking arms and legs as he went, then drew his lightsaber.

“This is between me and Ventress,” he screamed. Enough of this play! “Anyone who stands between us, dies. Translate it, Ventress!”

“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 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 ink-sack into it.

And in a flurry of bubbles and blackness, Asajj Ventress was gone.