Read Online The Cestus Deception by Steven Barnes - Free Book Online

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’