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

"Well, he's an idiot. But sharing some kitchen duty with
you two might smarten you all up. All right, you can get your unauthorized gear. First, let's finish this." The officer turned to look at the bed of his skimmer; he nodded. Two stormtroopers stepped out. They stood before Face and Phanan in the same stance of attention. Face said, "I relieve you of this post."
Face swore to himself. That was a nonstandard phrase.
Tactic: When obliged to participate in a ritual you know noth-ing about, provide a reason and grab all the sympathy you can.
Face said, "I-" And then he coughed, a deep, racking cough
that shook him. The coughs continued and bent him nearly
double. Still, he half straightened several times, saluting all the while, the very picture of a man fighting to do his duty in the face of overwhelming opposition.
If anything, the officer's contempt increased. "What is this man doing on duty? He should be in his deathbed." Face heard Phanan say, "Dedicated." "Oh, very well. Just give me the damned password."
Phanan said, "Amelkin versus Tovath." That was the name of the classic Quadrant game that had given them access to the hangar.
"What? The shift password, you idiot."
Tactic: When no other options present themselves, shoot
everything in sight. Face straightened, grabbed the top edge of the chest armor of the stormtrooper before him to hold him in place, and shot the man in the stomach. Phanan shoved his own stormtrooper back and fired, catching the man in the helmet.
Face dragged his dead or dying target to him, holding him up as a human shield, and, one-handed, swept fire across the occupants of the skimmer. He saw at least two men, including the lieutenant, hit, but there would still be only a split second before the stormtroopers brought their own weapons into line and fired-
To Face's and Phanan's blasts were added lethal cross fire from the door into the hangar. Face hazarded a glance. Two Wraiths stood there in stormtrooper armor-he couldn't tell who-and then advanced, firing as they came.
A bad tactic, Face thought, abandoning the shelter of the doorway, but he understood when their place at the door was taken by more Wraiths.
The pilot of the skimmer banked up and away from the
firing Wraiths, a maneuver sharp enough to shake the surviv-
ing stormtroopers in back but skillful enough to place the
skimmer's bottom between them and the Wraiths for a few
long moments. The skimmer's maneuver carried it across the
wide lane between buildings. It had to level out or smash into
the face of one of the buildings, but when it did so it was far
enough away, and moving fast enough, that the Wraiths' con-
centrated fire was not so lethal. With all the blasts they poured



into the moving target, Face saw only one more strike a storm-trooper, and assumed that the anonymous Wraith who fired it was Donos, their sniper. The skimmer made a corner and was gone.
The stormtrooper at the door was Wedge; his shout was distinctive. "Two, get the hangar doors open and lock them that way; we can't afford for the central computer to lock them closed. Do you have a distraction ready?"
"My number two distraction is ready. My best one will take a couple of minutes more."
"Go with the number two. Then join Six, Eight, Nine, and
Eleven, get out of here on foot-"
Castin's voice rose in something like a whine. "But I was going to fly one of the interceptors!"
"Pipe down. We only have five. Move out in any direction but the one those stormtroopers took, running in Imperial for-mation, and get in contact with Ten for whatever transport she can provide. The rest of you, to your interceptors."
"They have the hangar door open," reported the skimmer pi-
lot, now standing at the corner of a building not far away. "I
can hear ion engines inside firing off. I've got my men scatter-
ing to firing positions. I-"
His next words were lost in the wail that rose all around him. It was the anguished cry of some long-forgotten god, a moan that rattled his bones despite his armor; he saw trans-paristeel viewports on the buildings around him vibrate under the fury of that sound.
It was, in fact, the base's air-raid siren system, an anti-quated measure to inform every person on base and anyone within several klicks that enemies were coming by air. In the days when this base was first built, those enemies were the Em-pire; after the Empire took over, the base operators maintained the system. Just in case.
And now the impossible had happened, someone was at-
tacking the base from the sky. The stormtrooper saw columns
of light crisscross the sky in search of targets, then heard and
saw the base's huge automated turbocannons begin firing at
targets high up in the air. He couldn't see the targets... but if the big guns were firing, they were up there.
Distracted by the aerial show, the stormtrooper did not see the first of the interceptors emerge from the hangar.
Face broke formation to draw abreast of Castin as they trot-ted. He had to shout to be heard over the siren wail. "Two, what did you do?"
Two's body language momentarily suggested an aw-shucks
embarrassment. "I found some of their old wargame projec-
tions about Imperial raids. They weren't under much security;