"Aaron Allston "Iron Fist" (STARWARS. X-Wing #6)" - читать интересную книгу автора

Runt shook his head again. "Zsinj needs such scum only to hear what their prattling mouths have to say. To obtain news, intelligence, that he cannot derive from some more le-gitimate source. The pirates are nothing."
Piggy grunted a laugh. "You'll need plenty of cleanser for that scum when it assembles and comes at you. At all of us."
"A minute of your time, sir?" Castin Donn stood at the door to Wedge's interim office. Rather, he leaned against it, his body language suggesting a man who'd prefer to be elsewhere- definitely anywhere but a military base. He was unshaven, his eyes tired.
Wedge would have accepted this pose and manner from one of the established Wraiths, but not from a newcomer. He merely cleared his throat and looked expectant, as though the pilot hadn't spoken.
Castin apparently got the hint. He straightened, slowly enough to demonstrate reluctance, and threw a salute. "Flight Officer Castin Donn reporting, sir. I was wondering if I might have a moment of your time."
Wedge took a moment before responding with his own salute. "Certainly, Donn. Have a seat."
Donn's posture, once he was seated, reverted to that of a career code-slicer; he slumped into his chair as though he'd left his spine in his locker. "I was wondering if I could get assigned to different quarters."
Wedge brought out his datapad and tapped up the infor-mation on living assignments. It showed that Donn had been put in the same bunkroom as Runt Ekwesh. Runt's former roommate had been Kell Tainer, but that pilot had been as-signed solo quarters ever since his promotion to lieutenant. "Is something wrong with your current assignment?" "Yes, sir. I'm not getting any sleep."
"I don't understand. Does Runt snore?" Kell had never made any such complaint.
"No, sir. It's just not working out."
"Personality conflict."
"No, sir."
"Request denied, Donn. Unless you can come up with something a little more substantial than 'it's just not working OUt.'"
Castin squirmed in his chair. Wedge thought it an unusu-
ally childlike mannerism from a grown man who'd been through
pilot training and scored high enough to be fit for Wraith
Squadron. "Sir, he, uh... he smells."
"I take it you mean he smells bad."




"Yes, sir. It's keeping me up at night."
Wedge kept his face impassive and thought about it. Runt
Ekwesh was a member of the Thakwaash species, humanoids who averaged over three meters in height and were covered with fur; Runt came by his nickname because he was, in fact, very short for his species, the only reason he could fit in stan-dard New Republic cockpits. And his odor was indeed differ-ent from that of humans, though it was very faint, usually undetectable except when he was wet or had been in the cock-pit for several hours.
Wedge kept the pilot waiting, still squirming restlessly, while he brought up Castin's full record. The man, a native of Coruscant, had been a code-slicer since he entered his teens, and had belonged to a rebel group not associated with the Al-liance. Shortly after the Emperor's death, nearly four years ago, he had forged himself a false identit.5; arranged passage offworld, and had ended up in New Republic-controlled space, where his technical skills had served him and the New Republic well. After two years as a coder for the fleet, he'd transferred to Starfighter Command and entered pilot training.
The synopsis said very little about him as a man. Wedge switched to the record of his citations and reprimands. He'd seen all this data before, while reviewing the new pilot candi-dates for approval, but he'd been looking only for specific types of information then.
There were citations for courage and ingenuity under fire, but also many punishments for failure to perform routine du-ties in a reliable fashion. That hadn't bothered Wedge; he knew Castin would either shape up in that regard or be kicked out of Starfighter Command altogether, a motivation that should keep him in line. But in the record was also a chronicle of per-sonality conflicts with fleet bridge crew members, mostly Mon Calamari. Transfer from the fleet accepted after a fistfight... with a Sullustian navigator. Hmm.
"I could put you in with Piggy. Voort saBinring," Wedge said.
Castin's squirming became more acute, and Wedge sus-pected he had the answer.
"I'm not sure that would work either," Castin said.
"Same reason ?"
"Yes, sir."
"Donn, this independent revolutionary faction you be-longed to-were there any nonhumans in it?" "No, sir."
That was interesting. Most such factions on Coruscant had high proportions of nonhuman members. The factions that didn't include nonhumans tended to be just as anti-Imperial... but had still supported Coruscant culture's legendary suspicion and dislike of nonhumans.
"So you've had very little protracted contact with nonhumans."
"Well... that would be correct, sir."
"I'm sorry, Donn, but I'm afraid this is something you're
just going to have to get used to. Whenever it bothers you, you need to ask yourself, 'I wonder what I smell like to them?'"
Castin's voice dropped and came close to but did not quite cross into the realm of surliness. "I don't smell at all, sir. I keep myself very clean."
"But their senses aren't like yours. If you ever get up the nerve, ask them sometime if they can smell you and what it's like. You might be surprised by the answer."
Castin's expression became one of distress. "But, sir, we
have plenty of room here at base-"
"But not everywhere we're going. I'll modify room assign-ments when there's a genuine reason to do so. Not before."
"Sir-"
"That's all, Donn."
It looked just like the bridge of the Iron Fist. It had its own command walkway facing the forward viewports, the ones that stared out into depthless space. It had its crew pit below, with its numerous crew stations.
But it was actually a portion of Warlord Zsinj's private
quarters, a replica of the true bridge, and it had no crew. The
viewports were actually screens receiving holocam views from