"Cloak Of Deception (James Luceno)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Luceno James)

STAR WARS

CLOAK OF DECEPTION

by JAMES LUCENO



For KarenAnn, one of the few people I know who has made a true difference
in the world--most assuredly in mine



Luxuriating in the unfailing light of countless stars, the Trade
Federation freighter Revenue lazed at the edge of Dorvalla's veil of alabaster
clouds.
Indistinguishable from its myriad brethren, the freighter resembled a
saucer, whose center had been pared away to create two massive hangar arms and
a stalked centersphere that housed the great ship's hyperdrive reactors.
Forward, the curving arms fell short of each other, as if in a failed attempt
to close the circle. But, in fact, the gap was there by design, with each arm
terminating in colossal docking claws and gaping hangar portals.
Like some gluttonous beast, a Trade Federation vessel didn't so much load
as gobble cargo, and for close to three standard days, the Revenue had been
feeding at Dorvalla.
The outlying planet's principal commodity was lommite ore, a major
component in the production of transparisteel viewports and starfighter
canopies. Ungainly transports ferried the strip - mined ore into high orbit,
where the payloads were transferred to a fleet of self-propelled barges,
tenders, and cargo pods, many of them as large as shuttles, and all bearing
the Spherical Flame sigil of the Trade Federation.
By the hundreds the unpiloted crafts streamed between the Dorvallan
transports and the ring-shaped freighter, lured to the breach in the curving
arms by powerful tractor beams. There the docking claws nudged the crafts
through the magnetic containment fields that sealed the rectangular maws of
the hangars.
Safeguarding the herd from attacks by pirates or other raiders flew
patrols of bullet-nosed, quad-thruster starfighters, wanting shields but armed
with rapid-fire laser cannons. The droids that piloted the ships answered to a
central control computer located in the freighter's centersphere.
At the aft curve of the centersphere stood a command and control tower.
The ship's bridge occupied the summit, where a robed figure paced nervously
before an array of inwardly inclined viewports. The interrupted view
encompassed the distal ends of the hangar arms and the seemingly ceaseless
flow of pods, their dorsal surfaces aglow with sunlight. Beyond the arms and
the rust-brown pods spun translucent-white Dorvalla.
"Status," the robed figure hissed.
The Revenue's Neimoidian navigator responded from a throne-like chair set
below the burnished floor of the bridge walkway.
"The last of the cargo pods is being taken aboard, Commander Dofine."