"Matthew Woodring Stover - Clone Wars - Shatterpoint" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stover Matthew Woodring)

"Enhance these." The Republic Intelligence agent answered without taking his handkerchief away from his
reddened eyes. "Uh, I'm uh-Master Windu, this recording is, er, is quite unsophisticated- almost, uh,
primitive-" His voice vanished into a sneeze that jerked him forward as though he'd been slapped on the
back of the head. "Sorry-sorry, I can't-my system won't tolerate histamine suppressors. Every time I
come to Coruscant-" Mace's hand didn't move. He didn't look up. He waited while the agent's whine
trickled to silence. Nineteen corpses. And this man complained about his allergies.

'Enhance these," Mace repeated.

'I, ah-yes. Sir." The agent manipulated the holoprojector's controls with hands that didn't quite tremble.
Not quite. The jungle flicked out of existence. It reappeared an instant later, spread across ten meters of
the office's floor. The tangled upper branches of the holographic trees had become glimmering scan
patterns on the ceiling; the corpses were now almost half life- sized.

The agent ducked his head, scrubbing furiously at his nose with the handkerchief. "Sorry, Master Windu.
Sorry. But the system- .┬п ┬п its- 'Primitive. Yes." Mace waded through the light-cast images until he
could squat beside the bodies. He rested his elbows on his knees, folding his hands together before his
face.

Yoda walked closer, then crouched as he leaned in for a better view. After a moment, Mace looked up
into his sad green eyes. "See?" 'Yes. yes," Yoda croaked. "But from this, no conclusion can be drawn."
'That's my point." 'For those of us who are not Jedi-" Supreme Chancellor Palpatine's voice had the
warm strength of a career politician's. He rounded his desk, on his face the slightly puzzled smile of a
good man who faced an ugly situation with hope that everything might still turn out all right. "- perhaps
you'll explain?" 'Yes, sir. The other bodies don't tell us much, between decomposition and scavenger
damage. But some of the mutilation on the soft tissue here-" A curve of Mace's hand traced gaping
slashes across a holographic female torso. "-isn't from claws or teeth. And they didn't come from a
powered weapon. See the scoring on her ribs? A lightsaber-even a vibroblade- would have slashed right
through the bone. This was done with a dead blade, sir." Revulsion tightened the Supreme Chancellor's
face. "A-dead blade? You mean just-like a piece of metal? Just a sharp piece of metal?" 'A very sharp
piece of metal, sir." Mace cocked his head a centimeter to the right. "Or ceramic. Transparisteel. Even
carbonite." Palpatine took a deep breath as though suppressing a shudder. "It sounds. dreadfully crude.
And painful." 'Sometimes it is, sir. Not always." He didn't bother to explain how he knew. "But these
slashes are parallel, and all of nearly the same length; it's likely she was dead before the cuts were made.
Or at least unconscious." 'Or-" The agent sniffled, and coughed apologetically. "-just, er, y'know, tied
up." Mace stared at him. Yoda closed his eyes. Palpatine lowered his head as though in pain.

'There is, uh, a history of, uh, I guess you'd say, recreational torture in the Haruun Kal conflict. On both
sides." The agent flushed as though he was ashamed to know such things.

"Sometimes, people-people hate so much, that just killing the enemy isn't enough." A fist clenched in
Mace's chest: that this soft little man-this civilian-could accuse Depa Billaba of such an atrocity, even by
implication, grabbed his heart with sick fury. A long cold stare showed him every place on this soft man's
soft body where one sharp blow would kill; the agent blanched as if he could count them all in Mace's
eyes.

But Mace had been a Jedi far too long for anger to gain an easy grip. A breath or two opened that fist
around his heart, and he stood. "I have seen nothing to indicate Depa was involved." 'Master Windu-"
Palpatine began.