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

them."
Vorru nodded. "There are ways to deal with him. Boba Fett could find and kill
him, I have no doubt."
"His skills will not be necessary." Isard smiled in a way that managed to mix
glee with cruelty. "I had learned from another agent of mine about a secret
witness to be brought forward in the Celchu treason trial. I thought it was
General Evir Derricote and set traps to prevent him from reaching the Imperial
Court. You'll recall I asked you to post a dozen peo-ple at various places in
Imperial Center."
"Yes." And I only sent three to each location, since I needed the rest to
evacuate my bacta storage facility. "None of them found Derricote."
"No, he probably was not there after all. Loor was their witness. I had thought
Derricote had escaped from Lusankya, but he apparently died at the hands of
Corran Horn, during his escape. Horn killed your men in the Galactic Museum, in
fact." Isard pressed her hands together, fingertip to fingertip. "The agent I
set as my failsafe to stop Derricote instead shot and killed Loor and, in turn,
was killed by his own wife. She was one of Loor's escorts-she had known him from
Corel-lia."
"Iella Wessiri." Vorru felt a moment's pang of sympathy for her. She had been an
influential and intelligent member of the cabal that succeeded in stripping away
Coruscant's plane-tary shields and opening it to the Rebel invasion. Though her
background with the Corellian Security Force made him view her as an enemy, he
did admire her skill and dedication. If she had to shoot her husband, it will
tear her up inside. She does not deserve that sort of pain.
Isard smiled. "I find it rather delicious that she was forced to shoot Diric. He
was useful, but really just a pawn. His love for her was enough, apparently, to
get him to rein-terpret some of my orders to him, though, ultimately, he
be-longed to me, not to her. I hope that hurts her more than killing him did."
Vorru frowned. "If Loor was killed, how did Alliance Security sweep up your
agents?"
"Loor apparently encoded a datacard as a safeguard against them just killing
him. It seems the key, which he be-lieved known only to himself, was also known
to Corran Horn."
"Ah, and Loor believed Horn dead." Vorru chuckled lightly. "I find the irony
something that would have tortured Loor."
"Yes, but now his stupidity tortures me. The information coming to me from
Imperial Center is severely limited. The official information service tells me
more than my spies. This Horn has much to answer for."
"I could have told you he would be trouble, but even / believed you'd killed
him. Horn's father and even his grand-father were very driven men. Of course,
you have ample evi-dence of his drive, and now it's focused on us, here."
The color in Isard's red eye seemed to flare for a second. "You refer to the
mass resignations from the squadron and their vow to liberate Thyferra?" Her
laughter, which sounded quite genuine and unforced to Vorru, nonetheless had few
of the pleasing tones usually associated with laughter.
"I appreciate the contempt you might feel for their effort, but it cannot be
discounted. Yes, we have three destroyers, two of the Imperial, one of the
Victory-class, and a Super Star
Destroyer to defend us, but your confidence in them is as misplaced as the
Emperor's misjudgment of the Rebel Alli-ance."