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

"I'm way ahead of you," his computer and security expert informed him. "Helmets off, no traffic from their control, I'm checking now for their orders and passcards. No passcards. That means a transmitted or spoken password. Let's hope it's transmitted. Hmm..."
Shalla stayed in a crouch behind a self-powered tool cart. Not four steps away was the doorway into the motor-pool office. Two stormtroopers-she suspected they were the ones who'd been in charge of the vehicle she'd ridden in-were within, one seated, both with helmets off. One, tall and fair-skinned, stood by the door, holding a glass with blue liquid on the inside and condensation on the outside. The other, apparently of average height and with skin as dark as Shalla's, was seated at the main terminal, dictating in a bored tone. Shalla could catch most of his words. It sounded like a routine report, which made him the ranking officer. "... without struggle. No charges ex-pended. Net expenditure: skimmer fuel, total of seventy-eight klicks."
The other said something Shalla didn't catch. The seated man nodded, then continued, "On return, about half a klick from base, stopped to offer aid to patrol of Sergeant-what was his name?"
The other one shrugged.
"I'll put a placeholder there for now. Sergeant Placeholder,
whose skimmer had broken down; gave him, his squadron,
and his prisoners, including Lieutenant Cothron, transporta-
tion to base. Additional expenditure: fuel of hauling mass of
five extra prisoners and ten additional stormtroopers-"
"Eleven," said the other man.
"Ten." The seated man thought about it. "Well, you were
paying attention and I wasn't. Eleven additional stormtroop-
ers, distance of two kilometers." He frowned, then shook his
head. "End of report. Let me go through and edit out redun-
dancies and program that placeholder to fetch the name of that
squad leader, and we're done for the night." But he didn't
reach for the keyboard yet. "You're sure about the eleven
thing."

"I'm sure."
Shalla stood and walked, as confidently as though she were the base commander, to the door. She shouldered aside the man standing there and tapped the door switch. The office door dropped into place with the disconcerting suddenness of Imperial engineering.
Both men looked at her. The man she'd shoved aside said, "You know, it's been a long time since I taught a neff-herder like you some manners."
"It's going to be a while longer," she said, and swung the butt of her blaster into his jaw. The man dropped, splashing his glass of blue ale across the floor.
The ranking officer was halfway out of his seat before she
shot him. The blaster shot took him in the chest, burning
through the armor and dropping him to the floor.
She froze. She thought she had set the weapon to stun.
Then she was hit from the side as her first target slammed
into her, barely slowed by the blow she'd dealt him. His rush propelled her and bent her sideways over a desk. If not for her armor, she'd have been impaled on the collection of trays, spikes, and knickknacks littering its surface; instead, the force with which she hit the top of the desk smashed them flat.
Instead of struggling to get free, instead of wrestling with him for control of her blaster, which his big hand now gripped, she braced herself with a free hand on one edge of the desk, ex-tended one leg as far as she could, and then swept with it with all her strength. Her kick caught her assailant behind his knees and knocked his legs out from under him. He crashed to the floor, dragging her on top of him.
With his free hand, he reached for her throat. She aban-doned her grip on her blaster, swept aside his hand, and, her striking hand formed into the flattest, tightest fist she could manage, struck at his throat.
Her blow was hard and true. She felt his windpipe give way under it. Her opponent's eyes grew wide in sudden shock and he, too, released her blaster, clutching at his throat with both hands.
She grabbed her weapon and stood away from him to
watch him die. He made strangling noises as he tried to draw



breath through a channel no longer capable of conveying it. He cast an imploring look her way, but she shook her head; this in-jury was beyond anything she could repair.
A sudden wave of trembling swept her. She knew it wasn't all the aftereffects of adrenaline. Two men dead because she'd fouled up. Killing didn't bother her unduly; it was the act re-quired of a warrior in wartime. But killing l~ecause of a lapse in judgment... well, her father would not be proud of her.
She shook her head, willing away the unwanted vision of the old man's stern features, and tried to force the trembling to stop. She stepped around the dying stormtrooper and hit the light switch on the wall. Now the other hangar residents, if they looked over, would see a dark and presumably unoccu-pied office.
She made a quick checklist of things to do, and found that it had lengthened considerably because of her mistake. Move the two bodies into the bed of the skimmer she'd come in on. Clean up this office so the next person in didn't wonder about the spilled fluid and ravaged desk. File that stormtrooper's re-port. Repair her helmet comm system with components from one of these troopers' helmets. Choose a skimmer, perhaps the one she came in on, mark it out of service if possible, discon-nect its comm system so that it couldn't be used to trace the skimmer or override its controls. And then stand by. All within hearing of the men working, or playing cards, or doing what-ever they were doing at the back of the motor-pool building... unless she chose to assault them, too.
She sighed. It was going to be a long several hours' work... packed neatly into half an hour or less of available time.
It took Castin another agonizing five-minute wait before he cracked the guards' code. One of the two guards had thirty-two classic Quadrant games recorded on his datapad-every move the games' master-level players had made, plus commen-tary by analysts who were far too serious about the game.
Thirty-two was also, Castin pointed out, the number of days in
the local monthly calendar. He transmitted the name of the
match whose number corresponded to the day of the month, and the front personnel door opened right up.
Wraith Squadron marched into the hangar in formation... a formation they lost as soon as they saw the hangar's contents. "Boss," Tainer said, "we have hit the jackpot."
Wedge was, for once, grateful for the stormtrooper hel-met. It concealed his openmouthed surprise.
In the hangar was not a complement of TIE fighters, but eight far more formidable, far faster TIE interceptors.
Wedge took a moment to find his voice. "Even better. It's the pirate's life for us, and these are better pirate vehicles.