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

likely to be more conserva-tive." Wedge smiled. "The Empire's boldest Admirals
died at Yavin. Regardless, both Avarice and Virulence are the newer-model
Imperial-class Star Destroyers, deuces-so they carry six squadrons of TIEs. No
matter how good or bad their commanders are, they can overwhelm us."
Corran smiled. "With targets."
"Yes, but targets that shoot back." Wedge shook his head. "Impstar deuces have a
crew of nearly forty-six thou-sand people, if you count the troops they carry in
the mix. They have a lot of fire power. Granted that it's not terribly well
suited for use against snubfighter squadrons, but an Imp-star deuce will take a
lot more pounding than a victim like the Corrupter before it goes away."
Tycho nodded. "The one thing we have going for us in this regard is that a big
ship has a lot more things that can go wrong with it than a smaller
ship-maintaining our X-wings is easy compared to maintaining an Impstar deuce.
Isard is going to have to be using them to run with convoys, and if we keep
hitting them, the Impstars are going to have to be on a near constant state of
alert. That will take its toll."
"But will they wear out before you do?" Mirax looked from Wedge to Tycho,
Tal'dira, and finally Corran. "Even before this last operation, you were pushing
yourselves very hard. Tycho's right, repairing an X-wing is easier than
repair-ing a Star Destroyer, and I don't doubt we can do things to spike the
prices on crucial parts for Isard's ships by buying
them up ourselves, but replacing any of you or your people is going to be
impossible."
Corran knew that she was asking the right question, but she was missing clues to
the answer. "One advantage we have, Mirax, is that Isard's forces have to react
to us. They always have to suppose we're out there, whereas we only have to deal
with them when we are out there. It will be rougher on them than it is on us. We
can't keep this up for-ever, but we won't have to." He looked at Wedge. "Right,
Commander?"
"I hope so, Corran." Wedge folded his arms across his chest. "I like the idea of
buying up some critical parts. Turbo-laser focal lenses, power couplers, and the
like. Better yet if we can find junk and get it to the other side, that would
help a lot."
"I'll see what I can do on that count, Wedge."
"Thanks, Booster." Wedge frowned. "I also gather you're going to speak to Karrde
about how the Imps found us at Alderaan?"
A braintail twitched its way toward the center of the table. "How do we know the
information was not transmit-ted from our side to Isard's people?"
Booster looked over at Tal'dira. "Our freighters were slaved for the jumps to
the Skate. I didn't tell my people where we were going. Wedge told you fighter
jocks where we were going in your mission briefing, but that was only
forty-eight hours before the run. The Aggregator was given over to Isard five
days before the strike, and the pilots on it were run through mission-specific
briefings about twelve hours after the ship arrived. Karrde had the information
about our run a good two standard weeks before that, which means the data
squirted from his people to the Imps."
"Besides, if one of Booster's people betrayed us, Isard would have showed up
here with the Lusankya.'" Corran tapped a finger against the tabletop.
"Presumably, that's in-formation Karrde doesn't have."
"Nor information he'll get from me or my people." Booster snarled directly at