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

human population and lock up all of the New Republic's
resources when we occupy Coruscant. But she actually stays on Coruscant for quite some time after she pretended to flee. Eventually she really does leave, goes to Thyferra, takes over there, and is finally wiped out by the Rogues.
"Except-she was never seen climbing into the shuttle she was supposed to be using for escape. Except-it was not par-ticularly intelligent for her to run off in a vehicle slower than the X-wings she had to have suspected would follow her.
Except-she'd already shown a tendency to hide out with her
head down when she was supposed to have fled. It raises the



question: What if she actually wasn't on that shuttle, and was communicating with the Rogues 'chasing' her through a remote-control link ?"
Wedge said, "You've got to be wrong. There was no lag time in her transmissions, nothing to suggest she wasn't there."
"A shuttle she'd personally fitted as an Emperor's escape vehicle might have a miniaturized hypercomm system. With instantaneous transmission and reception, there wouldn't be any lag time."
"Face, do you believe she's alive?"
Face shook his head. "Sometimes I hope she is. I'd still like
to kill her myself. But I believe Captain Celchu actually killed her. Still..." He shrugged and resumed his seat.
Wedge gave him an exasperated stare. "Well, here's your punishment for nearly giving me a heart attack. Write this theory up and I'll route it on to the new Thyferran government and to General Cracken at Intelligence. Between them, they should be able to sniff out any other evidence for Iceheart's survival... if there is any."
His expression cleared. "All right. As I said, Admiral Ack-bar has evaluated these theories and made a decision. He's ask-ing Intelligence to step up any operations involving Kuat Drive Yards to find out if, in fact, they are building a new Super Star Destroyer. But that's low priority and not our concern. For us, he wants to combine both Runt's and Piggy's ideas. We'll be founding our own pirate band, Wraiths, and then assaulting a planetary system that Zsinj is courting-or should be, if he isn't. Officially, we'll be assigned to the Mon Remonda with Rogue Squadron; funny, though, the other pilots will never see us in the ship's corridors.
"We have a little reorganization to do to accommodate our new pilots. Flight Officer Donn, you're now Wraith Two, and my wingman."
The pilot with the unruly blond hair smiled. He couldn't have known that the position of Wraith Two, by Wedge's policy, usually went to a raw pilot, one in need of additional in-struction or protection.
"Wes, you're now Wraith Three, with Dia Passik, Wraith
Four, your wing." Janson waved at the Twi'lek female, who gave him a grave nod.
"Kell, Runt, you're still Five and Six. Runt, incidentally, is in training to be our new communications specialist. Phanan, Face, still Seven and Eight. I'd hate to break up the best comedy team this side of the janitor's closet."
"I love an understanding commander," Phanan said.
"Know where I can get one?"
"Myn Donos, still Nine. Flight Officer Nelprin-can you still hear me back there?-- you're his wing, Wraith Ten. Piggy, you're still Wraith Twelve, and Tyria, you're now on his wing as Wraith Eleven. I lead Group One, Face leads Group Two, and Donos leads Group Three. Questions?"
Wedge waited for the inevitable reaction from Kell. Previ-
ously, Kell had led Group Two and had been very twitchy
whenever Face received recognition that might affect his
own-Kell's-position, and now Face had replaced him as
group leader.
But Kell looked easy with the new arrangement, which surprised Wedge considerably.
It meant-Wedge wasn't sure. Either Kell was content to let Face have a go at command, or Kell's goals had changed and command was not so high on the list.
Wedge would wait. The truth would come out eventually. "Intelligence gives us a good candidate for our new piratical occupation. The world is called Halmad. It's an Outer Rim world not far from the loose border to what we consider Zsinj-controlled space. It's also a trade center at the hub of several well-traveled trade routes. A century or so back, their mining industry-ground, lunar, and asteroid belt-failed, leaving a number of facilities abandoned there. New Republic Intelli-gence has a team already in-system to check them out for us; if they haven't found us a base by the time we arrive, they will at least have found us a place from which to stage."
Kell asked, "Do we get the Night Caller back? Since we'll be pirating in 'FIE fighters, I assume we'll have to have some-thing to haul us around when we hit sites out of our home system."



Wedge shook his head. "Not the Night Caller. Think about it. Admiral Trigit is destroyed by a covert fighter squadron supported by a Corellian corvette, and then a pirate squadron pops up supported by a Corellian corvette? That would probably set off at least one alarm bell in Zsinj's mind." He gave Kell a grim smile. "No, we'll receive hyperspace trans-port from an old Xiytiar-class transport. Unarmed. Slow.
Creaky. Leaky. And instead of having a cargo bay full of your sophisticated metal brackets to hold our fighter craft, we'll be using a few crossbeams and netting-so we can quickly switch out X-wings for TIE fighters without having to reconfigure our brackets every time."
Kell sat back, his expression suggesting he'd just swal-lowed a mouthful of hydraulic fluid.
Phanan's hand shot up. "Do we get new snubfighters?"
Wedge shook his head. "No. No new X-wings for the foreseeable future. We got lucky when we were putting the squadron together; when Rogue Squadron captured Ysanne Isard's facilities on Thyferra, we also seized a number of X-wings she'd been accumulating for various Intelligence mis-sions. That's where four of our snubfighters came from. But the New Republic hasn't had another windfall like that, and Incom is producing new X-wings as slowly and meticulously as ever. So we're stuck with what we have... and what we can seize. Dia Passik was transferred with her snubfighter, but we're still four short to make up a full squadron. However, the two TIE fighters we have remaining from the Implacable at-tack, the ones Wes and Piggy were flying, are assigned to us. And part of our assignment involves acquiring new fighter craft for our pirate identities... and that means stealing what-ever we can get our hands on. From the Imps and from the warlords, that is. Do any of you new pilots have TIE-fighter ex-perience? Simulated or real?"
Both the women raised their hands. Castin Donn looked unhappy that he couldn't follow suit.
"Excellent. Castin, Kell, Phanan, since you three lack X-wings and TIE experience, I recommend you spend time in the TIE-fighter simulators and checking out our small comple-ment of TIE fighters. Once we're at our new station, that is.
For now, you have only a little while to pack and settle your af-
fairs; the transport Borleias takes off for Halmad in three
hours." He ignored the chorus of groans and cheers. "Dis-
missed. Phanan, Face, can I see you for a minute?"
As the others trickled out, he asked, "What is the news from what's-her-name, Notsil?"
The two pilots exchanged glances. "Well," said Face, "Lara seemed reassured by what you offered. We helped her put together her application for fighter-pilot training, and both of us and Kell wrote recommendations for her. Face set up an account for her so she could afford some limited HoloNet ac-cess to us; we'll leave a router so she can reach us through Sivantlie Base. Things are in motion."
"This had better work . . . or had better produce ab-solutely no results," Wedge said. "Because if there are any foul-ups, General Cracken will personally feed you, and me, into a food reprocessor."