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

Runt sobered and thought about it for a moment, taking
the opportunity to pick up one last piece of wrapping. "We have to remember that there are many paths to every answer. The thought path. The emotion path. The memory path. The biology path-we cannot rule out hormones and natural cy-cles. And every problem might be made up of combinations of those four things."
"Good point." Wedge gave him a nod, his leave to depart.
And Runt might be right. He couldn't think of a logical reason to protest Tyria's show of affection. Nor had witnessing a kiss ever caused him emotional turmoil in the past. He ruled out biology; he was not irritable with fever, had experienced nothing to unsettle him.
That left emotion, and he already knew what emotion he'd felt.
Or did he? He'd recognized irritation. Had it masked something else? He thought back over the incident, Tyria's un-thinking affection .... Jealousy.
He shook his head, trying to dismiss the thought. Non-sense. There was nothing for him to be jealous of.
He'd never entertained any notions about Tyria. She was, to be sure, physically attractive, but she was a very junior offi-cer under his command, and he preferred to steer clear of the extra complications a relationship like that might bring. Too, she was just not the type of woman he was drawn to; she was a little too unsure, too self-critical.
Nor had he felt any jealousy when it became obvious that Kell and Tyria had fallen in love. If any time were the time to be jealous, that would have been it. So it wasn't jealousy.
Except that was what he was feeling. A hard little knot of envy.
Maybe it was just the fact that he had no one of his own.
Every so often, he would indulge himself and wonder
about the man he would have been had his parents not died in
the mishap that had destroyed their refueling station. Who
he'd be had he not turned first to smuggling, then to piloting
fighter craft for the Alliance and discovered a tremendous apti-
tude for it. Had he not dedicated himself to a cause that must
inevitably kill him. This other Wedge Antilles was probably



safe in the Corellian system, owner of a chain of refueling sta-tions, with personal wealth and a waistband measurement that expanded in relationship with one another, with a wife and who knows how many children. A happy man. That was the person Wedge was envious of.
Not that the real Wedge was unhappy. He was content... but alone. Probably best if he kept it that way. He'd beaten the odds for so many years, years in which literally hundreds of pi-lots he'd known had died in battle around him, as though they were living shields for his X-wing. Someday his luck would run out and the deadly statistics would catch up to him.
Yet marriage and family and some sort of normalcy could be his. All he had to do was accept Admiral Ackbar's offer of a generalship and a staff position.
Angrily he pushed the idea away. That was a selfish thought. His life meant more as a pilot and squadron commander than it would as a deskbound planner. More citizens of the New Re-public were alive and more Imperial enemies were dead be-cause he was the master of a pilot's yoke instead of a datapad. So long as that remained the case, he didn't have the right to accommodate himself or pursue his own wishes. "Wraith Three to Wraith One."
Wedge jolted out of his reverie and stared up into the face of Wes Janson. Behind Janson, Dia Passik stood at attention. Wes was grinning, and even Dia's stone face suggested amusement.
There were drinks, still in the bottle, on the table, with con-densation collecting on their surfaces. Wedge hadn't even no-ticed whether it was Janson or Runt who had brought them in.
Wedge cleared his throat to cover his momentary discom-fiture, then asked, "What's the word from Coruscant?"
"Well, they're cracking down hard on officers caught nap-ping on the job." Wes handed over a sealed case. "Orders."
Wedge popped the seal. From within the case he drew a datapad.
Dia asked, "Should I leave, sir?"
"No. Have a seat. You can be the pilots' official spy for the moment. If there's anything sensitive here, I'll discuss it with Lieutenant Janson later."
Janson and Dia made themselves comfortable as Wedge scanned the text on the datapad. "Congratulations on the raid on the base at Halmad. They seem to think that five intercep-tors is a better haul than projections called for. Authorization to fund our continued operations from our pirate activities."
Janson said, "Whoa. You don't see that very often."
Dia's brow furrowed. "If I may ask, why is that so
unusual ?"
"It's the place where a lot of long-term secret operations go off course," Wedge said. "The mission commander sets up a private means of income and funds his operations with it. Then he begins reporting less income than he's actually taking in. He stashes the surplus away somewhere or uses it for missions not authorized by his control. Soon enough, he has some of his subordinates working with these unauthorized activities, and they're coming up with more effective means of generating money-such as spice smuggling-that will never get reported. Left long enough, an operation like this can become a full-fledged criminal syndicate within a few years. That's why the New Republic, particularly Intelligence, doesn't like doing that. They're putting a lot of faith in us."
Janson glanced at Dia. "In us, he says. He actually deludes himself that anyone's reputation but Wedge Antilles's figured into that equation."
She managed another cool little smile.
Wedge returned his attention to the orders. "Authoriza-tion to conceive and execute missions against the Imperial and governmental forces in the Halmad system and other systems.
In addition, we have a couple of missions here to perform as
Wraith Squadron, strikes in collaboration with Rogue Squad-
ron and the Mon Remonda. And no word on replacement
X-wings." He shut down the datapad. "Pretty much as ex-
pected. Passik, questions?"
"No, sir. Thank you for letting me stay, sir."
"I know all about the relative value of fresh news. Dis-
missed."
When she was gone, Janson said, "I've got some of the
mad painters unloading the Narra. We came back with some