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

the real viewports. The viewscreens at the crew stations showed
the data or visual feeds the crewmen on duty would be accessing



if they were here; commands flickered across the screens and were executed as though the station operators were in place. But sounds from the console speakers-beeps, dialogue, noises indicating errors or computer achievements-were the only ones to be heard. No one spoke.
Warlord Zsinj moved among the ghost stations, peering over the shoulders of imaginary crewmen as if to evaluate their performance. A small man whose waist outperformed his chest in dimension and magnificence, he looked like a holo come-dian pretending to be an officer: His spotless white uniform was that of an Imperial grand admiral, while his bald head, luxuriant mustache, florid complexion, and too-cheerful man-ner suggested a backwater bandit.
He bent over the back of a chair; the screen before him showed a fleeing Y-wing attack craft as if seen through the viewport of a pursuing TIE interceptor. The background was a busy battlefield; Zsinj recognized the chaos of the battle above Endor's sanctuary moon, just under four years ago.
He leaned closer to see the name of the crewman logged onto the computer. "Ah, Ensign Sprettyn," he said. "Running attack simulators again while on duty. Shirking your responsi-bilities again."
"Perhaps he wants to become a pilot."
The voice, smooth and reassuring, came from behind
Zsinj. The warlord straightened and turned. "General Melvar.
What have I told you about creeping up behind me?"
The general, a tall man with features that were elegant when he was paying attention but impossibly bland and un-memorable when he lost concentration, smiled. "Not to."
"And what did you just do?"
"I stomped up to you with all the silent grace of a gut-shot
rancor. You were so intent on your observation of poor Ensign Sprettyn's activities you failed to notice me."
"It's the sign of pure concentration. The ability to shut out all other concerns." "Of course."
"What do you want?"
The general handed him a datapad. Lines of data were al-
ready up on its screen. "A private communication for you.
Through Admiral Trigit's old routing system."
Zsinj gave him a look that was all raised eyebrows and curi-osity, then scanned the text. "Hmm. Lieutenant Gara Petothel. Expects to be a member of one of Antilles's squadrons within a few weeks. 'Would you be interested... ?' I see she has a fine sense of irony. What do you have on her?"
"I've put her file in there with the communiqu& In short, she's an Imperial Intelligence prodigy who was orphaned-she was in deep cover as a Rebel mission coordinator when Ysanne Isard was killed. Her controller was a member of Isard's sup-port staff and also died. Petothel managed to get in touch with Apwar Trigit, offered her continued services to him, and fed him information that led Trigit to some important temporary provisioning centers and allowed him to annihilate an entire Rebel X-wing squadron. She joined his crew and was pre-sumed dead when the Implacable was destroyed."
"Oh, she's that one. So she eluded capture. Or perhaps not. Perhaps she was captured, then turned, and is being used to flush us." Zsinj shrugged. "Where's her holo?"
"We found that holos of her in both Imperial and Rebel records show the wrong woman. She has covered her tracks well. I'm having a simulation assembled from people who were in her Rebel academy class... which will take some time and caution."
"Very well." Zsinj handed the datapad back. "Pursue this. Have an agent or a cell on Coruscant try to do independent verification of what she's saying. Find out what identity she's currently wearing. Once that's determined, we must find out where her loyalties lie before we commit any real resources to her."
"Done. And Ensign Sprettyn?"
"Do you want to handle that? It's a task for his executive officer."
"I'd be happy to."
"Very well. Sprettyn is under direct orders not to waste time
with the simulators, but he just wants to fly too much. So spirit
him off into the night. Tell the rest of the crew he's been executed



for disobeying orders. But tell him that he's being taken aside for pilot evaluation. Put him through the simulators."
"And if he turns out to be a good pilot trainee?"
"Weren't you listening?" Zsinj looked regretful. "I de-plore the waste of good crewmen, I really do. But we can't have pilots who disobey orders. Evaluate his piloting performance, chastise or compliment him as appropriate, then execute him."
"The evaluations of the three Zsinj theories have come back from Admiral Ackbar's office," Wedge said.
They were in the briefing room temporarily assigned to Wraith Squadron. This was an office far enough down in the building that there were no viewports; viewports would only have shown a depressingly bleak vista of dark, grimy duracrete corridor between the lower reaches of skyscrapers. Instead, the orange walls were decorated with large holoscreens that tran-sited between views shot from planetary orbits, vistas of dis-tant and beautiful worlds, and promotional images of hotel resorts belonging to the same chain that had once owned this facility. The Wraiths were all seated near Wedge's lectern, ex-cept for Shalla Nelprin, who paced at the back of the hall- until Wedge caught her eye. She quickly sat in the seat nearest to her.
"Before I get to the admiral's conclusions," Wedge contin-ued, "I think we ought to let the writers of the three reports synopsize their conclusions; not everyone has heard these. Runt?"
The long-faced alien stood up. His body language changed;
his posture became that of a human carrying a fair amount of
extra weight and he folded his hands over his belly in the fash-
ion of a well-fed senator. "In our considered opinion," he said,
once again taking on the mellow voice of the ersatz Zsinj, "the
warlord's overt and covert tactics suggest that he will continue
to add resources, industrial and planetary, with as much cost-
effectiveness as possible. This means continuing the expansion