"Truce At Bakura (Kathy Tyers)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tyers Kathy)

room. A minute later, he was hopping back and pulling up one leg of an orange
pressure suit.
Crewers scattered. He sprang up the ladder and into his inclined, padded
seat, yanked on his helmet, then touched on the ship's fusion generator. A
familiar high-energy whine built around him.
The man who'd spoken climbed up behind him. "But, sir, I think Admiral
Ackbar wanted to debrief you."
"I'll be right back." Luke closed his cockpit canopy and ran an Alliance-
record speed check of his systems and instruments. Nothing flagged his
attention.
He switched on his comlink. "Rogue Leader, ready for takeoff."
"Opening hatch, sir."
He punched in the drive. An instant later, the dull ache in his body
turned to ferocious pain. All the stars in his field of vision split into
binaries and spun around each other. Crewers' voices babbled in his ears.
Dizzily, he reached down inside himself for the quiet center Master Yoda had
taught him to touch...
To touch...
There.
Exhaling one trembling breath, he measured his mastery of the pain. Stars
shrank into singular gleams again. Whatever had caused that, he'd deal with it
later. Through the Force, he quested outward and found Wedge's presence. His
hands moved on the X-wing's controls almost effortlessly as he steered toward
that end of the Fleet.
On his way, he got his first good look at the battle damage, the swarming
repair droids and tow vessels. Mon Calamari Star Cruisers were plated and
shielded to withstand multiple direct hits, but he thought he remembered
several more of the huge, lumpy crafts. Fighting for his life, his father, and
his integrity in the Emperor's throne room, he hadn't even felt the gut-
wrenching Force disturbances from all those deaths. He hoped he wasn't getting
used to them.
"Wedge, do you copy?" Luke asked over the subspace radio. He vectored out
among the big ships of the Fleet. Scanners indicated that the nearest heavy
transport was cautiously moving away from something much smaller. Four A-wings
swooped along behind Luke. "Wedge, are you out there?"
"Sorry," he heard faintly. "Almost out of range of my ship's pickup. You
see, I've got to..." Wedge trailed off, grunting. "I've got to keep these two
crystals apart. It's a self-destruct of some sort."
"Crystals?" Luke asked, to keep Wedge talking. There was pain under that
voice.
"Electrite crystal leads. Leftovers from the old "elegance"' days. The
mechanism's trying to push them together. Let 'em touch... poof. The whole
fusion engine."
Tumbling slowly above the blue glimmer of Endor, Luke spotted Wedge's X-
wing. Alongside it drifted a nine-meter-long cylinder bearing Imperial
markings, fully as long as the X-wing and almost all engine, a type of drone
ship the Alliance still couldn't afford. For some reason, the drone gave him
an eerie foreboding. The Empire never used such antiques any more. Why hadn't
the sender been able to use standard Imperial channels?
Luke whistled. "No, we don't want to blow that big of an engine." No