"Ann Crispin "Han Solo. Rebel Dawn"" - читать интересную книгу автора

"I shall give Durga time to re'dize just how much he needs Black Sun," Xizor replied. "Guri, have Durga's in-vestigations into Aruk's death closely monitored. I want our operatives to stay ahead of Durga's own knowledge of the forensics team's findings. I wish to know how Aruk died before the Besadii lord does."
She nodded. "As you wish, my prince."
"And if the discoveries of Durga's forensics team provide links back to Aruk's murderer-most likely Jili-ac or Jabba-then I want that link eliminated in the most subtle way. I do not want Durga to realize that he is being deliberately thwarted in his search for his father's killer... is that clear?"
"It is, my prince. It shall be as you wish."
"Good." Xizor looked pleased. "Let Durga play de-tective if he wishes for a few months . . . even a year. Let him chase his own slimy tail. The frustration will build, until he is only too happy to throw in his lot-and a goodly percentage of Ylesia-with Black Sun."
Han Solo arrived back at his shabby flat on Nar Shaddaa in the early hours of the morning to find the assorted denizens of his motley household still fast asleep. That didn't last long, though. "Hey, everyone!" the Corellian bellowed. "Chewie! Jarik! Wake up! I won! Lookit this!" He ran through the apartment, yelling and waving a stack of credit vouchers thick enough to choke a bantha.
Han and Chewie shared their dilapidated fiat with his young friend Jarik and an ancient droid named ZeeZee Han had "won" off Mako Spince in a recent friendly game of sabacc. After spending a month or two in ZeeZee's company, however, Han was pretty sure that Mako, an experienced card sharp, had "cooked" that deck to make sure he lost.
As a house-droid, ZeeZee had proved a twittery, stammering nuisance rather than a help. Hah had got-ten so annoyed with the droid's efforts to clean up the place that several times he'd considered junking the blasted antique, but somehow he'd never gotten around to it. Finally, in disgust, Han had ordered ZeeZee to "leave everything the way it is!"
Jarik "Solo" was a street kid from the depths of Nar Shaddaa. About a year ago he'd introduced himself to Han as a distant relative. He'd obviously been in awe of Han, who was known far and wide as one of the hottest pilots around. Jarik was a brash, good-looking kid, and he reminded Han a little of himself when he'd been in his late teens. The Corellian had had Jarik's claim inves-tigated, and turned up the truth-Jarik had no more right to the name "Solo" than Chewie did. But by the time Han knew for sure they weren't related, that Jarik was lying, he'd gotten kind of attached to the boy. So he'd let him hang around, even fly with them, and Jarik had turned into a pretty fair gunner.
Despite the youth's fears, he'd proven himself at the Battle of Nar Shaddaa, shooting down several TIE fighters, and helping Han, Lando and Salla Zend turn the tide of the engagement. So Han had never told the youth that he knew the truth. It was important for Jarik to have a sense of identity, even if it was a false one. And Han was willing to let the kid "borrow" his last name.
Now, as he raced around his apartment, Han was bouncing off the walls with excitement as his groggy friends gathered around. "C'mon, wake up!" Han shouted. "I won, guys! And I won the Falcon from .Lando!"
Hearing the exciting news, Chewbacca roared, Jarik cheered, and poor ZeeZee was so confused by the ex-citement that the elderly droid short-circuited and had to be reset. After a round of back-slapping and con-gratulations, Han, Chewie and Jarik headed immedi-ately for Lando's used-spaceship lot, with Lando's marker in hand.
After the formalities of ownership exchange had been processed, СHan stood back, just looking at the Millennium Falcon. "Mine..." he said, and grinned un-til his face hurt.
The Corellian's mind filled with plans for fixing up the Falcon. There were so many things he wanted to do, to modify her into being the ship of his dreams. And, thanks to the sabacc tournament... he had the credits to do them!
For one thing, he intended to get Shug and S''sla to help him s',dvage the military armor plating off the Im-perial derelict Liquidator, a bulk cruiser that had be-come a casualty of the Battle of Nar Shaddaa. The airless hulk was still drifting amidst the space junk or-biting the Smuggler's Moon. Better armor plating would be a priority. Han didn't want what had hap-pened to the Bria happening to the Falcon.
Another thing, he wanted a getaway blaster he could lower from the ship's belly. Smuggling could get risky, sometimes, and a quick exit was required. A quick exit with cover fire was even better....
Yes, and he was going to overhaul the Falcon's hyper-drive, and install a light blaster cannon under the nose. Concussion missile launchers, definitely. And maybe he'd move the quad laser turrets so they'd be one on top of the other, instead of on top and on the ship's fight side. Perhaps stronger shielding, too?
Han stood there with his friepds, contemplating his ship, dreaming of what he could do to her and with her... modifying the YT-1300 into the perfect ship. His ultimate smuggling ship.
"Fake compartments," he muttered.
"What?" Jarik turned to him. "What did you say, Han?" "I said I'm gonna build some fake compartments un-der the decking, kid," Han said, throwing an arm around the youth's shoulders. He grinned up at Chew-bacca. "And guess who gets to help me?"
Jarik grinned back at him. "Great! What's your first cargo going to be?"
Hah thought for a moment. "Our first port of call is gonna be Kashyyyk. I'd say a nice load of bowcaster ex-plosive quarrels would probably do well, there, what do you think, Chewie?"
Chewbacca voiced his agreement, long and loud. Now that the Wookiee knew that he'd be going home, he was more excited at the prospect than Han had ever seen him before.
Two days later, with the Falcon's new below-decks compartments crammed with contraband, Hah Solo flew his ship out of Shug Ninx's spacebarn and headed straight up, exulting in the MiUennium Falcon's quick acceleration. Chewie was in the eopilot's seat, and Jarik was riding along as gunner. Han hoped to avoid hnpe-rial patrols, but he intended to be prepared for a fight if one erupted.
Kashyyyk was an Imperial "protectorate" (transla-tion: slave) world. The Imperials had managed to pacify the inhabitants, though they kept their forays into Wookiee cities and homes to a minimum, and they always went heavily armed, and in numbers. Wookiees were known to have quick tempers and to act impulsively.
Han managed to dodge the Imp patrols and to stay out of range of any sensor satellites as he approached the verdant sphere that was Kashyyyk. The Wookiee homeworld was mostly forest, covered with monstrous wroshyr trees, with four continents divided by bands of ocean. Archipelagoes of islands dotted the gleaming coastal seas like emeralds scattered across blue satin. There were only a few desert regions, mostly on the rain-shadow side of the equatorial mountain ranges.
When they were within communication range, Chewbaeea took over the comm station, setting a coded frequency, then speaking into the corem in a series of grunts, growls, hours, barks, and hrnnn's that, to the un-trained human ear, sounded exactly like his usual speech but wasn't.
Han frowned, realizing that, Сalthough many of the words sounded familiar, he basically hadn't understood a word that his friend had said. When Chewie stopped speaking into the comm, a voice came back, giving a se-ries of what were obviously directives.
Han, who had been watching the sensors sharply, made a uick course correction There was an Imperial ship taking off, just past the limb of the planet.
"Jarik, look sharp, kid," he said, keying the ship's in-tercom. "I don't think we've been spotted, but let's be ready."
Several tense seconds later, Han heaved a sigh of re-lief as the instruments indicated that the ImP vessel was proceeding serenely on its way, unaware of them.
When Han turned back to Chewie, the Wookiee launched into a series of directives and coordinates that his contact had given him. Han was to fly low, actually within the boundaries of the tallest wroshyr treetops, and to be prepared to make precise course changes the instant Chewbacca told him to.
"Okay, pal," the Corellian said. "It's your world, and you're the boss. But... what was that lingo you were talkin'? Some kinda Wook code?"
Chewbacca chuckled, then explained to his human friend that the Imperials were so stupid that most of them didn't even realize that all Wookiees were not the same. There were several related, but somewhat dif-ferent, Wookiee sub-species. Han already knew that Chewbacca was a rwook, and bore the typical brown, red and chestnut hair of that people. He also knew that the language that he had learned to understand, but not speak, was called Shyriiwook, which, loosely translated, meant, "tongue of the tree-people."
Chewie went on to explain that the language Han had just heard him speak, xaczik, was a traditional tribal language spoken by the Wookiees indigenous to the Wartaki island and several outlying coastal regions. It was seldom heard, since Shyriiwook was the common language of trade and travel. So, when the Imperials had taken over Kashyyyk, the Wookiee underground had adopted xaczik as their "code" language. They used it whenever they had to give directives or pass along in-formation that they didn't want the Imperials finding out about.
Hah nodded. "Okay, pal. You just tell me how to fly, and where, and I'll take us where your buddies in the underground tell me."
Flying low, skimming barely above, and, at times, be-tween the tip-top branches of the wroshyr trees, Hah sent the Falcon blasting along in the precise course and speed Chewie specified. Every minute or so, the Wook-ice conferred with his underground contact.
Finally, as they neared Chewie's hometown, Rwookr-rorro, a kilometer-wide city set on platforms made by crisscrossing branches of the wroshyrs, Han's copilot made him shear off in a dangerous swoop and take them straight down between the branches for a thirty-second plunge. Han's heart was in his mouth as the Falcon dived like its namesake into the green forest, but Chewie's coordinates were right on the credits.
Even though it looked through the viewport as though they were going to be engulfed and smashed to fiinders, nothing touched the ship. Chewie barked an order, and Han shouted, "Hard to port... now!"
He sent the Falcon into a screaming left turn, then, before him, saw something that the Corellian at first took to be a huge cave, a vast black hole waiting to swal-low them up.
But as he neared it, Han realized that what it was in actuality was a massive wroshyr branch, balanced across other equally huge branches. Either by accident or de-sign, the branch had split off from the main tree, and been hollowed out, to form a "cave" the size of a small Imperial docking bay.
"You want me to land in there?" Hah hollered at the Wookiee. "What if we don't fit?"
Chewie's snarled comment assured Han that of course they would fit.
Hah fired his braking thrusters hard as he neared the "cave" opening. They passed through it, and suddenly the muted sunlight was gone, and the space before them was revealed only by the Falcon's infrared sensors and the beams of the landing lights.
Han killed the last of their forward motion, then low-ered them onto their landing struts, using his repulsors.
Moments after they touched down, Jarik appeared in the doorway of the cockpit. The youth's hair was prac-tically standing on end. "Hah, you're crazier than I thought! That landing--!"
"Shut up, kid," Han snapped. Chewie was howling at him insistently, demanding that Han immediately turn off .all power in the Falcon except for the batteries to power the airlocks, and to do it now!
"Okay, okay," Han muttered, doing as he was told. "Keep your fur on .... "Quickly he killed all the power, save for the batteries. The interior of the ship was now lit only by the weak, red-tinted emergency lights.
"So, want to tell me just what is going on?" the Corellian grumbled. "Fly here, turn there, land here, turn off the power... good thing I'm a sweet-natured guy who learned to take orders while I was in the Navy. So what gives?"
Chewbacca urgently beckoned the humans to follow him. The Wookiee seemed nearly beside himself with excitement. He roared his pleasure and his eagerness to breathe the air of his homeworld.