The Cestus Deception (Clone Wars Series, 3) by Steven Barnes

Author:Steven Barnes [Barnes, Steven]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, Star Wars
ISBN: 9780345458988
Publisher: Del Rey
Published: 2004-03-02T08:00:00+00:00

37

By the time Obi-Wan arrived at the palace, the halls were in an uproar. He was hustled into G’Mai Duris’s presence to see the regal X’Ting hunched in her seat listening to the words of a round, short-legged Zeetsa with a very worried expression.

“—Regent Duris,” the leathery blue creature said in conclusion. Her stubby arms pointed at a glowing map hovering in the air. Her eyes traced the map with concern.

“Excuse me, Shar Shar,” Obi-Wan said as softly as he could. “If there are concerns with the transportation grid that necessitate the postponement of the day’s negotiations, perhaps I should return at another—”

Duris glanced up, an expression of surprise and then tears of gratitude overflowing her faceted eyes. “Master Jedi!” she said. “Obi-Wan. I am afraid we have an emergency. Thank goodness you are here!”

“Indeed?” he asked. “How can I be of assistance?”

“The Five Families should have been here an hour ago. Their private car seems to have disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” Obi-Wan managed to conceal the pleasure in his voice. “How is that possible?”

“The entire planet is honeycombed with tunnels. Many of them are unmapped. We can only assume that someone, for their own purposes, shunted the car off its route into one of these secondary pathways.”

“And as yet you have received no communication?”

“None,” she said.

Obi-Wan studied the entire map, his face set sternly. “May I assume that the other cars traveling along the map have sensors to avoid collision?”

“My engineer can answer that question,” Duris said.

The engineer was a small, graying human who looked as if the current stress might cost him his few remaining sprigs of hair. “Yes, the sensors are excellent.”

“Tell me,” Obi-Wan asked Duris, “what is known of the situation at this time?”

“A group of Five Family executives were kidnapped.”

“This Desert Wind group we’ve heard of?”

“We do not know,” she replied. “We’ve heard little from them in the past year, and considered their threat broken. Frankly, it doesn’t seem like their style.”

Obi-Wan closed his eyes and counted to five, and then opened them again, retaining his most serious expression. “Can you holomap the entire system?”

The engineer nodded. “Well, of course, but why?”

“In order to do something like this, to make the car disappear, they have to have removed it from the grid. The individual magcars should react to the absence of a moving object, slowing and speeding themselves in compensation. The degree of disruption will increase the closer we get to the point of departure.”

“But they have clearly affected our computers. They left no trace—”

“They left no direct data trace. But can the phantom car influence proximity sensors on other system vehicles?”

“Well…,” the engineer’s mouth suddenly widened as he grasped Obi-Wan’s implication. “No. The safety system is off the main grid, a backup system to prevent a single mistake in central command from causing a systemwide catastrophe.”

“Good,” Obi-Wan said, as the complete system sprang to life in a floating web of glowing silver threads. “Now I want you to filter for proximity feedback from the cars themselves, showing their actual positions and their projected positions according to schedule.

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