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

"What's that?"
"You're going to be there burning with me."
Phanan grimaced. "You're such a good friend."
Flight Officer Shalla Nelprin dove toward the ground-as far as the narrowing gaps between Coruscant's endless sea of buildings would allow her to descend. She could see blurs in the viewports, blurs that had to be startled faces.
The pair of TIE fighters on her tail pursued her with agility,
matching her maneuver with little effort, still firing their linked
lasers at her tail. She leveled off, juking left and right as much
as the narrow confines would let her, and green laser blasts
slammed into buildings on either side of her and into her rein-forced rear shields.
"I can't shake them, Control," she said. "They're good."
The voice of Runt Ekwesh came back. "Shalla, why do
you think Warlord Zsinj employs so many former Intelligence
officers? Implacable, Night Caller, and more ships and officers
we're learning of-"
Shalla's snubfighter shuddered as another laser blast slammed into her stern shields and penetrated to reach her hull. She glanced at her diagnostics board. Minimal damage to hull, no indication of other problems. Yet. "Control, do you mind? I'm flying for my life here."
"It is only a simulator run. Your scores are not being recorded."
"Treat every simulator run like the real thing and stay alive longer. That's what my daddy says." She dropped down another ten meters to fly under, rather than through, a walk-way connecting two skyscrapers. One TIE fighter mimicked her, the other rose and flew over the obstruction. "All right. First, they were available. Ysanne Isard, head of Intelligence, is killed a few months ago by Rogue Squadron. This gives every one of her subordinates a choice. Work for this council now running what's left of the Empire, work for one of the war-lords, go pirate, or go hide. Wait a second."
Below and ahead was another enclosed crosswalk; beyond it, immediately below the crosswalk's level, two buildings widened so that there was scarcely any room between them. Shalla dove again, came up immediately beneath the walkway, and rotated ninety degrees, her wings now pointing skyward and groundward, to fit in the narrowing gap between buildings.
As before, one TIE fighter went high and the other fol-lowed her closely. But the TIE-fighter profile was not as vari-able as that of an X-wing; because of its solar array wings, no matter how it was turned, the TIE fighter needed more than six meters of clearance in any direction.
In this narrow gap, her pursuer didn't have them. It hit the
four-meter opening between buildings and the buildings sheared
both wings off, top and bottom. The TIE fighter dropped, its



ball-shaped cockpit bouncing between buildings on its way down until it detonated.
A new voice-Shalla thought it was Kell Tainer's-came across next. "Good flying, Nelprin. One to go."
"Thank you." The gap between buildings widened. She rotated until she was horizontal again. "So, all of a sudden there are lots of Intelligence operatives and ships available. That's the supply.
"Demand is trickier. Zsinj's records say he's sort of a com-pulsive liar. So why hire people who are trained to see through those lies? My guess is that he doesn't mind. He doesn't lie to fool people-except his enemies, of course. He does it to enter-tain. To impress people with his brilliance."
The remaining TIE fighter resumed firing on her; lasers flashed past her strike foils to blow through building walls below, and her stern shields took more hits.
Ahead and above was a crowd of high-altitude skimmers- aerial traffic following one of the posted routes. But these skim-mers were all decorated with the colors of Coruscant police.
"Hey, fair game." Shalla rose into the cloud of skimmers, flashing just below most of them, using them as a screen.
Her pursuer's lasers hit skimmers all around her. Several detonated, raining shrapnel upon her.
When a skimmer ahead of her blew up, she decelerated as hard as she could and was vibrated by her snubfighter's shud-der. Half on main engines and half on repulsorlift landing en-gines, she rose through the cloud of flame and debris-
And as she cleared it she saw the other TIE fighter racing along ahead, not having anticipated her sudden deceleration. It was slowing now, preparing for one of the impossibly tight turns TIE fighters could manage.
She bracketed the TIE fighter with her heads-up display. The brackets went almost instantly from yellow to red and she fired, sending a proton torpedo straight into the Imperial vehi-cle's cockpit. It detonated, a brilliant flash of light and debris.
Then Shalla's view spun as she was hurled out of control. She saw a building side rushing toward her, frightened faces in the viewports-and then everything went black.
The canopy opened over her, admitting light. Runt, Kell,
and Tyria stood nearby, all of them wearing headsets. "What happened?" Shalla asked, complaint in her voice.
Kell smiled. "You were hit by a skimmer. It was flying blind through that first explosion and slammed into you from the side."
Shalla hissed in vexation and climbed out. "They say the city is a dangerous place."
"Otherwise an excellent run," Kell continued.
"So," Runt said, "the Intelligence operatives are available,
and Zsinj doesn't mind that they can see through some of his deceptions. What else?"
Shalla gave the others a look. "Runt is pretty single-minded, isn't he?"
They laughed. Kell said, "No, more like multiple-minded.
But any one of his minds might get very focused."
"I see." She didn't, but she figured she would eventually. She turned back to Runt. "Maybe it's more than that Zsinj just doesn't mind. Maybe he likes having an appreciative audience. Someone knowledgeable enough to understand what he's do-ing and be impressed by it. He has to have a tremendous ego."
Runt frowned. It wasn't a proper human frown, but his very mobile eyebrows came down over his large, expressive eyes to suggest concentration. "He likes to be appreciated."
"I think so."