"Michael Stackpole "The Bacta War"" - читать интересную книгу автора

obvious enough that a blind Givin frozen in carbonite could have seen it. She
was lucky to have her father, and he was equally lucky to have her. As much as
Corran wanted Mirax to be happy, what she shared with her father reminded him of
what he had lost. / thought the void inside me had been filled, but it bad just
scabbed over and is now plenty open.
On top of that, the next step in the evolution of the Bacta War was pushing him
to the limit. Wedge had teams, from full squadrons down to single two-ship
flights out harassing the Bacta Cartel. The whole strategy was to hit and run,
which worked exceedingly well. Because the Thyferrans scheduled their bacta
shipments it was possible for the Rogues to show up, force the Star Destroyers
to scramble their fighters, pop off some proton torpedoes to take out a few
TIEs, then scatter. He knew the strategy had to be frus-trating for Iceheart's
people, since they were taking losses here and there without killing any of the
Rogues; but it wasn't much better for Corran or the rest of Wedge's people.
Engaging in a straight-up fight with even a Victory-class Star Destroyer like
the Corrupter would be suicide for a squadron of X-wings. It was true that the
large Star Destroy-ers were not particularly good at defending themselves
against snubfighters-hence the development of the Lancer-
class frigates-but even accidentally shooting down one or two X-wings would hurt
the Rogues significantly. Con-versely, aside from repeated proton torpedo
salvos, there was no way snubfighters could cripple or destroy a Star
De-stroyer. If the whole squadron fired a salvo of torpedoes at the same time,
they could certainly bring the Star Destroyer's shields down, but any captain
worth his rank cylinders would roll the ship to present undamaged shields and
keep shooting. If all his shields were stripped away he could still go to
light-speed before another torpedo could hit.
Corran had no wish to commit suicide in an attack on a Star Destroyer, but
cutting and running made him feel . . . criminal. He knew that was stupid, but
he figured the judg-ment was based in the fact that Wedge hadn't given anyone a
clear timetable concerning when they would move into the war's final phase-the
phase where Iceheart left Thyferra and the Bacta Cartel would be broken. If I
knew how long we were going to run, I could see it as a tactical advantage.
Right now it seems as if we're doing something so we won't be doing nothing.
Realizing he had no desire to be alone, he headed for the tapcaf known as
Flarestar. He hoped other members of the squadron would be there, though the
chances of that were sum. Ooryl seemed to spend most of his time with the
ruet-savii. Nawara Ven and Rhysati as well as Gavin and Asyr Sei'lar spent most
of their time being couples. Tycho and Wedge were either on missions or planning
yet other mis-sions. Bror Jace and Corran had never been close, while Inyri
Forge and the Sullustan Captain Aril Nunb had discovered they shared a passion
for obscure games of chance like con-tract sabacc and double-draw fendoc. As
stunning as they were as pilots, their ability to separate other gamblers from
their credits was so remarkable that two of the ships in the Rogues' growing
collection of freighters had joined the fleet to pay off bad debts.
Corran smiled to himself as he entered the Flarestar's darkened interior.
Inyri's sister Lujayne would fust tell me I was holding myself back from getting
to know the others, but I'm not sure it's that simple. I'm just without my close
friends-Mirax, Iella, Ooryl-and not really of a mood to make new friends.
"Corran! Corran Horn, come on over here."
Corran's smile grew at the sound of the man's voice. "Pash? What are you doing