The Cestus Deception by Steven Barnes

organize information. His subconscious resurrected the day’s events, everything from his ascent to the Nexu to the initial mission briefing, the drop, and the battle with the selenome, struggling onto the beach, and storming the hill afterward.
    Recalled information flowed into preselected mental patterns for storage, contributing to the overall chances of survival and, even more important, of successfully completing assignments.
    He remained in this state for fifty minutes, as the tug of the day’s fatigue grew more insistent. He could stave off that fatigue for unnaturally long periods of time, but saw no reason to do so. He had performed well, and deserved his rest. And anyway: his dreams would continue to evaluate and organize, even if mostly in symbolic form. That was good enough.
    A-98 surrendered consciousness and allowed his body to heal itself. After all, tomorrow was another day.
    Best be prepared.
    Chapter Six
    In the Jedi Temple’s Archives, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Kit Fisto studied their assignment, the industrial powerhouse known as Ord Cestus.
    Obi-Wan found Cestus an interesting study, a relatively barren rock rich in certain ores, but miserable for most agricultural farming. Much of its surface was desert. The native life-forms included a hive-based insectile people known as the X’Ting, and a variety of large, deadly, and reputedly nonsentient cave spiders.
    The current population stood in the millions, with several advanced cities unsustainable without imported resources: fertilizers and soil nutrients, medications, and spices used to modify the water supply for non-natives.
    “Dangerous,” Kit said, studying at his side. “A simple rationing drove them into Count Dooku’s arms. That could never have happened to a self-sufficient people.”
    This was simple truth. In war, secure supply lines were as crucial as trained soldiers.
    Three hundred standard years before, the relatively primitive X’Ting—a single colony with multiple hives spread around the planet—had contracted with Coruscant, offering land for a galactic prison facility.
    At some point Cestus Penitentiary began a program designed to train and utilize prisoner skills. This became really interesting when a series of financial scandals and an industrial tragedy on Etti IV sent a dozen minor officers of Cybot Galactica, the Republic’s second largest manufacturer, to prison for twenty standard years. The twelve hadn’t been on Cestus for two years before cutting a deal with prison officials to begin research and fabrication of a line of droid products. Access to vast amounts of raw material and virtually free labor released a flood of wealth.
    The twelve were quickly and quietly work-furloughed into opulent homes. Select guards and officials became wealthier still, and a corrupt dynastic conglomerate was born: Cestus Cybernetics, producing an excellent line of personal security droids. The next events were difficult to sort out. Large tracts of land were purchased from the hive at fire-sale prices. Then, following terrible plagues among the X’Ting, Cestus Cybernetics gained almost complete control of the planet.
    Still, life, even for the average offworlder, had been rough before Cestus Cybernetics subcontracted to the fabulously wealthy and successful Baktoid Armor Workshops. It retooled completely, tapping into an interstellar market in high-end military hardware. The economy expanded, and then crashed when the Trade Federation cut ties after the Naboo fiasco…
    Boom. Then, crash. Cycles of growth and decay followed one another with numbing regularity.
    Obi-Wan scanned the roster of current leaders. Following last century’s plagues, after the near destruction of the entire hive, the office of planetary Regent was still held by one of royal X’Ting lineage, one G’Mai Duris. Was this office elective? Hereditary? Was Duris a figurehead, or a genuine power?
    Another reference an hour later caught Obi-Wan’s eye: mention of a group