"Michael Stackpole "The Bacta War"" - читать интересную книгу автораheritage?
The droid chirped out a question. "No, Whistler, save the message. Now's not the time to look at it." "Why not, Corran? We've got time to kill." "Because, Mirax, I don't have time to consider all of the questions it might raise." "Such as?" "Such as making me reconsider my answer to Luke Skywalker. Perhaps what my father has to tell me in this message will make me realize I should be learning to become a Jedi Knight. That decision would force other decisions, and some of them I don't want to make-primary among them a decision to leave you to go off and study the ways of the Force. My other responsibilities-to the squadron and the prisoners we're going to free-likewise make such a decision difficult. Right now I need to be able to focus on what I'm doing." "So you won't play the message?" Corran shook his head. "Not right now, certainly not until the Thyferran situation is over." "What I hear in your voice, Corran, is that you might not ever play it." "You know me very well, love." Corran closed his eyes for a moment and swallowed against the lump in his throat. He reached up with a hand and pressed the gold Jedi Credit against the flesh of his breastbone. "This hologram is the last thing my father has left me, but he never would have done it if he thought it would completely disrupt my life." "Can you be sure of that?" "Yeah. If it was something I had to hear, for my own good, Whistler would never eased the tight-ness, in his throat. "My father trusted me to make my own decisions and deal with the consequences." "That trust, Corran, is the last thing your father left you. It's a most precious gift indeed, and one well suited to you." "Thanks, Mirax." Whistler shrilled a warning, prompt-ing Corran to look at his monitor. A dozen ships popped in from hyperspace in an arrow formation and headed straight for the Rogue escort. "Whistler, pull manifests from each of the ships, then see if stated mass and performance profiles match." He hit a switch on his comm unit, bringing him on-line with the Rogue's tactical frequency. "Three, Five, and Six, fan out and pull life scans on the ships. If any of those ships are packed with more crew than we expect, I want to know about it." Corran waited five minutes for the other X-wings to gather the data and for Whistler to crunch it all down. The various freighters appeared to be massing about as much as they should for their stated cargoes, and none of them was loaded down with troops, so Corran assumed the convoy was legitimate. "The convoy is secure from my standpoint, Mirax." "I copy, Nine. This is Pulsar Skate to Empress's Diadem. You've been cleared for continuation of the journey." "I copy, Skate. Feed us the coordinates and we can get this thing moving." "Coordinates for exit vector, jump duration, and speed on their way." Corran watched the data stream flow across the bottom of his monitor and wondered what Melina Carniss was mak-ing of it. He imagined she'd be disappointed because the first jump was just a short hop to a dead system. From |
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