"The New Rebellion (Kristine Rusch)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

would go off.
The force of the explosion had affected her balance. She crawled over
bodies, some still moving, as she made her way to the stairs. The slightest
movement made her dizzy and nauseous, but she ignored the feelings. She had
to.
A face loomed before hers. Streaked with dirt and blood, helmet askew,
she recognized him as one of the guards who had been with her since Alderaan.
Your Highness, he mouthed, and she couldn't read the rest. She shook her head
at him, gasping at the increased dizziness, and kept going.
Finally she reached the stairs. She used the remains of a desk to get to
her feet. Her gown was soaked in blood, sticky, and clinging to her legs. She
held the blaster in front of her, wishing that she could hear. If she could
hear, she could defend herself.
A hand reached out of the rubble beside her. She whirled, faced it,
watched as Meido pulled himself out. His slender features were covered with
dirt, but he appeared unharmed. He saw her blaster and cringed. She nodded
once to acknowledge him, and kept moving. The guard was flanking her.
More rubble dropped from the ceiling. She crouched, hands over her head
to protect herself. Small pebbles pelted her, and the floor shivered as large
chunks of tile fell. Dust rose, choking her. She coughed, feeling it, but not
able to hear it. Within an instant, the Hall had gone from a place of
ceremonial comfort to a place of death.
The image of the death's-head mask rose in front of her again, this time
from memory. She had known this was going to happen. Somewhere, from some part
of her Force-sensitive brain, she had seen this. Luke said that Jedi were
sometimes able to see the future. But she had never completed her training.
She wasn't a Jedi.
But she was close enough.
An anger flowed through her, deep and fine. She let her hands drop. The
tiles had stopped falling, at least for the moment. She beckoned Meido and
anyone else who could see her. If she couldn't hear, they couldn't either. And
they all had to get out.
She glanced up once. The blast had made several holes in the ceiling-big,
jagged, gaping holes in the crystal inlay. All of the tile put in by the
Emperor had come loose and was falling like hail across the Hall. Other
senators were standing. A few ancient protocol droids were lifting chunks of
debris and pushing them aside, apparently in an attempt to get someone
underneath free. M'yet Luure's junior senator was already halfway up the
stairs, his six legs and long tail blocking the exit for half a dozen other
senators. Of Luure, she saw no sign.
The guard took her arm and gestured forward. She nodded, shook him free,
and kept moving. She expected more blasts and got nervous each time one failed
to happen. This attack was unlike any she had ever felt. Why hit the Senate
Hall once and then quit?
She slipped on broken tile, almost fell, put out her left hand to brace
herself, and found it in something squishy. She turned, and saw that her hand
rested on one of M'yet Luure's six legs. It had been blown away from his body.
She scrambled toward him, hoping that he was alive, shoving aside rock, tile,
and marble as she searched--and then stopped when she found his face. His eyes
were open and empty, his mouth half-closed over his six rows of teeth. She ran