"Michael Stackpole "I, Jedi"" - читать интересную книгу автора

I wiped my mouth on the sleeve of my tunic. УUnless you know of another superweapon sitting around that could ex-l;Iode a star.Ф
A smile started to grow on his face and his dark eyes sparked lot a second as a wiseass remark formed itself in his head, but hc never let it out. Instead his grin melted into a more serious expression. УIt has to be the Sun Crusher-that or there is another superweapon out there.Ф
The fleeting image of someone who looked like Kyp surfaced in mv brain. Through his eyes I saw the slender craft, I felt his joy at seeing his brother again, pain from betrayal that stretched into untold agony as his body melted. УKyp had a brother?Ф
Han's eyes focused distantly. УImps took him to the Acad-emy at Carida.Ф
УHe's gone. So's Carida.Ф
УI guess they won't be inviting me back for a class reunion, then.Ф Han glanced down at me. УNew Republic Intelligence will confirm that, but now I know where to start looking.Ф I looked hard at him. УYou're going after Kyp?Ф
УHave to. He'll listen to me.Ф
УYou hope.Ф
УHmmm, your lips move but I hear my wife's voice.Ф Hah sighed. УI have a history with the kid. He's angry and he needs someone to trust. I'm it.Ф
I nodded, then lifted my head. УTake me with you.Ф
УLook, kid, I work best alone.Ф
УSo I've heard.Ф I projected an image of my old self into his brain. УWe've met before, Captain Solo. Wedge Antilles intro-duced us. I'm here incognito at Master SkDvalker's sugges-tion.Ф
УHorn, right,Ф Hah blinked his eyes. УYou're a hot hand in an X-wing, but a Death Star couldn't take out the Sun Crusher. if l needed anyone with me, you'd be the first I'd tap.Ф
УYouTe going after someone with incredible power, and I'm not just talking about that ship. I can't allow you to go alone.Ф
Han's face clouded over. У'Can't allow?' My ship, my rules, and don't try to pull any rank on me. I was a general with the Rebellion before you ever left CoreIlia. I can handle Kyp just fine. And I'm not so sure it's Kyp you're afraid of.Ф
My eyes narrowed. УWhat do you mean?Ф
УYou were CorSec. You just don't like the idea of someone like me with his hands on the Sun Crusher.Ф
That brought me up short. I looked at him, then away at the dark jungle. Was I allowing old prejudices to rear up and influ-ence me? For years I'd looked forward to getting a shot at Han Solo if he ever ventured back into the Corellian system. Even after joining the Rebellion I had severe reservations about him. In meeting him the first time I thought I had laid all that to rest.
I looked back at him. УTime once was when you'd have been right. Not now. If I actually thought that, I'd be down there stealing the Falcon and going after Kyp myself.Ф
Han slowly nodded. УLook, kid, Corran; going after Kyp is the only thing I can do. You're a Jedi. You can be here and help Luke in ways I can't. I've got to do what I can do, and so do you. I'm going to leave you here so you can take care of Luke; so you can help my wife and watch my kids.Ф
УYou'd allow someone from CorSec to watch over your kids?Ф
УGetting soft in my old age, I know, but I understand it's possible to let old opinions die.Ф
УThanks.Ф I narrowed my eyes. УWhat's going to happen if...Ф
УKyp turns on me?Ф Han slowly shook his head. УI think I told you, your father hunted me once. I had to run to Carida to escape having a Horn on my tail. Doing what he's done, Kyp's destroyed even that haven. If it comes to that, good hunting.Ф
That night, as I fell into bed and waited for sleep, I refused to review the dinner conversation, even though I had a nagging sense something of importance had been said during it. I didn't want to get anywhere close to going over again what I'd felt during Carida's death. I had once thought myself so hardened that a distant tragedy like this would tote itself up as just a statistic.
My training in the Force had changed all that. It hadn't made me any softer or weaker, but just more aware. I became cogni-zant of more of the connections between things and people. The pain of those who had died at Carida had echoes in the pain of relatives who would never see kin again, expatriates who could never go home again, people like Han Solo, whose memories of Carida would forever be tarnished because of xvhat Kyp had done. While all of this would have been obvious to someone who sat down to think about it, it had come to me full blown through the Force. It amazed me, and also rein-farced how vast my sphere of responsibility had become.
Sleep, when it finally came, was mercifulIv dreamless. I ztxvoke a bit late and skipped my run, instead helping Han pre-flight the Falcon. He loaned me a couple of hydrospanners so I cauld work on Mara's Headhunter. He then said his farewells t~ this familv and raced off, leaving his children flanking their mother, waving fervently until the Falcon vanished from sight. I spent much of the rest of the day working on the Head-hunter. When Artoo was not busy with babysitting duties, he helped me out. He saved me from a mistake where I crosswired two boards in the navicomp that would have transposed coordi-nates, sending me off in directions I didn't want to go. By early evening I'd fixed most of the things Kyp had broken and figured I would resume where I left off the next morning. I finished the day with an evening run and a long soak in a cool stream, then dropped into bed.
I felt more than heard the children scream. I bolted from bed and ran to the turblolift, but the car was already moving up-ward and away from my level. I ran to the internal stairwell and started sprinting upward as fast as I could. Above me, in the Grand Audience Chamber, I could feel forces gathering, and was surprised that the person sitting with Luke had not raised an alarm. Streen is smart enough to summon help.
The second the old man's image popped into my mind, a
piece of the dinner conversation echoed through my head. УI
can't get away from him,Ф he'd said desperately. УThe dark
man. A dark man, a shadow. He talked to Gantoris. He talked
to Kyp. You shine the light, but the shadow always stays, whis-
pering, talking.Ф My chest tightened. By all ofAlderaan's ghosts,
we ?e doomed Master S19'walker.t
A raging windstorm howled through the Grand Audience Chamber and battered me as I burst through the stairwell door-way. As I entered the room, I saw Leia leap for her brother's legs and get carried upward toward the ceiling by the cyclone. At the heart of the storm, Streen danced around in a circle, his arms spread wide, his eyes open but unseeing. He clearly meant for the storm to blow Luke and Leia out through the skylights and hurl them into the jungle, where the fall would kill them.
And without any telekinesis, I was powerless to halt the
storm. Something urged me to despair over the fact, but I
brushed it aside. I71 just have to make Streen stop it himself
As the turbolift door opened and Kirana Ti boiled into the storm armoring Streen, I set myself and concentrated. Sum-moning the Force, I projected into Streen's brain a vision of the room that did not include me or Kirana or the other appren-tices coming out of the lift. I also showed him that the room was empty save for himself. Those he wished to blow out of here were gone, sent off on the fate he had intended for them. I shoved into him a sense of his mission having been accom-plished fully and totally and I felt an alien wave of satisfaction roll back out from him.
Then Kirana Ti battered her way past his defenses and tack-led him. The wind died, allowing Luke and Leia to plunge toward the ground. Kam Solusar and Tionne rushed forward and used their telekinetic abilities to catch the siblings and lower them to the ground slowly.
Master Skywalker appeared to be unhurt. Streen slowly re-covered himself and explained that in his nightmare, he thought he was fighting the dark man. He had tried to destroy him, thought he had, and then awoke to find he had actually been trying to kill Master Skywalker.
Standing up, Streen put an edge into his voice. УWe must destroy the dark man before he kills all of us!Ф
I retreated back down the stairs, mulling over Streen's words. I'd always known it would come down to that. While I used sociopathic murderers as mental models for Exar Kun, I hadn't located the logical flaw in my thinking. When hunting a socio-pathic killer on CoreIlia, we could still have our blasters set on stun. We could capture him, have him treated for mental ill-ness, have him incarcerated so he would do no more harm or even exile him to Kessel or some other hideous penal colony. We could also kill him, but only after court proceedings and judicial reviews. If we had to, if we were given no choice, we could employ deadly force against him, but few serial murder-ers fought to the bitter end.
Capture and rehabilitation were not options with Exar Kun. Master Skywalker might have been able to redeem his father, but I held out no such hope for the dark man. Luke had a stake in redeeming his father, and his father had a connection to him that invited redemption. Exar Kun had just spent four millennia trapped on this rock-virtually forever to think on what he had done-and if he hadn't decided to mend his ways in that time, it wasn't going to happen when one of us asked nicely. But how does one kill a creature of the dark side? I had no clue as to the answer to that question. We would just have to find a way and then do it.
It really came as no surprise when, as I lay down in my bunk, an oily, glistening black stain seeped into the ceiling above me. It resolved itself into the shadowy image of a tall, slender, sharp-featured man. He wore archaic clothes and long hair. He knitted his long fingers together at his waist.
УYour mind-trick was quite good, Keiran Halcyon.Ф
УHigh praise from a Dark Lord of the Sith.Ф I watched him through half-lidded eyes. УDid it really feel you, Exar Kun, or were you just too trusting in using Streen's senses?Ф
The Dark Lord threw his head back in a silent laugh. УFire and spirit, good. I had misjudged you because Gantoris and Kyp held you in such contempt.Ф
УAnd here I thought a man should be known by his ene-mies.Ф