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

get a meal before you reported in, Corran."
Sure, and have Booster presume I can think only of my-self when I've been on an
important mission like this? "Not hungry, Wedge. The news kind of killed my
appetite."
Booster arched a white eyebrow above his artificial left eye. "You were able to
confirm the reports from Thyferra, then?"
Corran nodded. "According to communication inter-cepts, approximately two weeks
ago Iceheart initiated a pro-
gram in which she's gathering up a thousand Vratix a day and is planning to
execute them when she has thirty thousand total. At that point, if Ashern
resistance to her regime has not ceased, she'll collect more."
Wedge's voice dropped into a low growl. "She finally thinks she's found a way to
draw us out."
Corran shrugged slowly. "I monitored public announce-ments and privately coded
messages from Iella and Elscol. Everything seems to indicate this program is a
domestic one only. There has been no mention of us or what we've been doing."
Booster barked a harsh laugh. "You think she would say anything directly to
motivate us? That would make us suspi-cious of a trap."
Corran frowned. "So since she said nothing about us, it is a trap designed to
catch us? You must have a conspir-acy theory program working overtime on your
datapad, Booster."
Wedge sat forward and held a hand up to forestall Booster's reply. "Doesn't
matter what Iceheart intended- though I do think Booster is more right than you
are here, Corran-the fact is that we have two weeks to prevent her from
slaughtering thirty thousand Vratix. Conspiracy or no, trap or no, we have to
act."
"I wasn't saying we shouldn't act, Wedge." Corran shook his head to clear his
mind. "I'm just saying it's not an obvious attempt to provoke us."
"CorSec always did miss the obvious." Booster snorted with disgust, then hit a
couple of keys on the datapad cen-tered on his desk. "Do we initiate things?"
"Can we?" Wedge's brown eyes narrowed. "Where do we stand on the refits?"
"The sensor and targeting units are all in place. If we use the crews from the
freighters we have hanging around here, I can have the launchers ready to go
inside a week." Booster looked up. "Karrde even has our last shipment of
concussion missiles and proton torpedoes ready to go. An hour after I send him a
message via the HoloNet, his convoy should be assembled. We can have it here
within a day, with missile
batteries and torpedo magazines fully loaded twelve hours later, if all goes
well."
"What about the gravity well projector."
"Got it, and it's being installed now."
"Good. Let's get things going. Call Karrde and set up a rendezvous for
twenty-four hours from now." Wedge glanced up at Corran. "Will you be ready to
lead a flight out to escort them in by that time?"
Corran hesitated, not certain what he heard was really what Wedge said. "Escort
them in?"
"I'll make it thirty-six hours-let him get some sleep."
"Fine, Booster, that should work."
"Wait, wait, wait." Corran held his hands up. "You really intend for me to lead
Karrde's convoy here? We aren't going to work out some transfer thing?"