num_pages: 64
description: WHAT LIES BENEATHDispatched as a Republic envoy to the Outer Rim planet Ord Cestusin a bid to halt the sale of potentially deadly bio-droids to the ConfederacyObi-Wan Kenobi finds himself enlisted in a mission more desperate and dangerous than diplomatic. The once self-contained world has long since been co-opted by unscrupulous offworlders whose plunder of a vital natural resource has enabled the rise of a powerful corporation that controls the economy. Ord Cestuss native population the XTing are now mere second-class citizens in their own society.Enter the Jedi Knight with news that a legal technicality has turned the tablesand the corrupt forces with a stranglehold on Ord Cestus are now at the mercy of the XTing. Circumstances however are more dire than the Republic suspected.In the wake of a devastating plague the XTings benevolent rulers are dead and the once tightly knit race has splintered into battling factions. Reunification can only come with the rise of new royals whom all XTing are bound by blood to serve. But the eggs that will spawn those sovereigns lie out of reach secured in a secret chamber and booby-trapped by those whose knowledge died with them in the plague. Now to salvage a peoples destiny Obi-Wan will risk a veritable descent into braving the unknown horrors in the forgotten depths of an alien world on a perilous quest from which none who went before have ever returned. This short story features an exclusive author interviewplus an excerpt from Steven Barnes Star Wars novel The Cestus Deception.
language: English
title: Star Wars: The Hive
publisher: None