Free The Cestus Deception by Steven Barnes Page B

into the clouds.
    Obi-Wan winced. His voyage from Forscan VI was gruelingly recent, but that was preferable to flying with a stranger at the controls. Better still was simply staying on the ground.
    Obi-Wan found his way up to the nose of the ship and settled into an acceleration couch as the ship rose. The clouds gave way to clear blue. The blue itself faded and darkened as they entered the blackness of space.
    Around the horizon’s graceful curve hovered twelve giant transport ships, shuttling clone troopers from Coruscant bunkers to Vandor-3, the second most populous planet in Coruscant’s system. He’d heard that Vandor-3’s ocean was a brutal clone-testing ground. Officials had spoken of it as if discussing profit-and-loss balance sheets. Obi-Wan found that obscene, but still, what was the alternative? What was right and wrong in their current situation? The Separatists could turn out endless automata on assembly lines. Should the Republic recruit or conscript comparable living armies? Jango Fett, the GAR’s original genetic model, had gladly placed himself in the most hazardous situations imaginable. A man of war if ever one had lived. Was it wrong to channel his “children” down the same path?
    Kit had appeared behind him. “They do nothing but prepare for war,” he said, again mirroring Obi-Wan’s thoughts.
    Obi-Wan smiled. That Jedi anticipation, manifesting in a different arena. He found himself relaxing, hoping now to be able to take advantage of Kit’s sensitivity in the trying days ahead. “What manner of life is this?”
    “A soldier’s,” Kit replied, as if this was the only possible, or desirable, answer.
    And perhaps it was.
    Of course, he himself had left enough tissue about the galaxy for Kamino’s master cloners to have created quite a different army. And if they had, to what purpose might it have been put?
    He laughed at that thought. And although the Nautolan arched an eyebrow in unasked query, Obi-Wan kept his darkly amused speculations to himself.
    Chapter Eleven
    For two hours Obi-Wan Kenobi and Kit Fisto had practiced with their lightsabers, increasing their pace slowly and steadily as the minutes passed. The cargo bay sizzled with an energized metallic tang as their sabers singed moisture from the air.
    A Jedi’s life was his or her lightsaber. Some criticized the weapon, saying that a blaster or bomb was more efficient, making it easier for a soldier to kill from a distance. To those who reckoned such things statistically, this was an important advantage.
    But a Jedi was not a soldier, not an assassin, not a killer, although upon occasion they had been forced into such roles. For Jedi Knights, the interaction between Jedi and the life-form in question was a vital aspect of the energy field from which they drew their powers. Ship-to-ship combat, sentient versus nonsentient, warrior against warrior: it mattered not. The interaction itself created a web of energy. A Jedi climbed it, surfed it, drew power from it. In standing within arm’s reach of an opponent, a Jedi walked the edge between life and death.
    Obi-Wan and Kit had been engaged for an hour now, each seeking holes in the other’s defense. Obi-Wan swiftly discovered that Kit was the better swordfighter, astonishingly aggressive and intuitive in comparison with Obi-Wan’s more measured style. But the Nautolan gave himself deliberate disadvantages, hampered himself in terms of balance, limited his speed, emphasized his nondominant side to force himself to full attention, the kind of full attention that can be best accessed only when life itself is at risk. To relax and feel the flow of the Force under such stress was the true road to mastery.
    A Master from the Sabilon region of Glee Anselm, Kit was a practitioner of Form I lightsaber combat: it was the most ancient style of fighting, based on ancient sword techniques. Obi-Wan’s own Padawan learner, Anakin, used Form V, which concentrated on strength. The lethal Count