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

While it certainly was Mirax's fault that she'd not been able to make her report
sooner, the fact was that she didn't really want to make it until her ship was
outbound anyway. Her navicomputer had worked out the time it would take for
Iceheart's taskforce to arrive at Yag'Dhul from Thyferra. Had she sent out the
coordinates when she arrived, she would have been trapped on the station and
killed along with all the others. While Iceheart appreciates my information, I
don't doubt I'm seen as expendable.
Carniss exited the turbolift and cut between two battered freighters on her way
to her ship. The motley collection of freighters and fighters reminded her of
the force Karrde had said had been used to take Coruscant from Isard. Except
this force is lacking Star Destroyers and Mon Calamari cruisers. Most of the
ships looked as if they had been cobbled together from scrap salvaged from Endor
or Alderaan. Isard's Viru-lence could defeat this fleet all by itself.
She walked up the ramp on her modified Corellian YT-1210 light freighter, the
Empress's Diadem, and closed it be-hind her. The disk-shaped ship had a pair of
blaster cannons in a turret mounted above and below a boxy concussion mis-sile
launch tube assembly that fired into the ship's aft arc. What I can't outrun I
can discourage from chasing me.
"Peet," she shouted at her pilot, "get us off this station and bound for
Corellia. We have business on Selonia. Once you compute the route and have the
times, let me know. I'll be in my quarters."
"As ordered, Captain Carniss."
Melina headed back to her quarters and sealed the hatch behind her. Because
space was at a premium on the freighter, her cabin was small, yet not without
luxuries. Included among them was a small refresher station which meant she
did not have to use the facilities shared by the rest of the crew. Since she was
the only woman on board, the concession had a practical side to it, as well as
serving to remind the crew of her superior status.
She opened the central drawer on her datapad desk and pulled it all the way out.
On the back panel she slid aside a finger-length wafer of duraplast, revealing a
small cavity. From it she pulled out a slender, silver capsule approximately the
size of her smallest finger. She put it on the desk, then returned the duraplast
wafer and the drawer to their proper places.
From her personal gear she got two small batteries and a transparisteel flask
with a chrome bottom and capped with a chrome tumbler. She worked two screws
loose on the bottom of the bottle and pulled the base off. Into the hollows in
the base she snapped the batteries and the capsule. She fastened the flask's
base back on the transparisteel bottle, then tossed the whole assembly into the
refresher station's bowl and evac-uated it.
The flush of disinfectant washed the flask down into a holding tank. As the
Diadem came about on its exit vector, the pilot hit a switch that dumped the
holding tank's contents out into space. The fluid immediately froze into a mass
of blue ice that slowly began to drift in toward the system's sun. It would be
months before the debris finally evaporated in the solar engine.
The sudden drop in temperature around the flask imme-diately started the capsule
issuing orders. A tiny port opened in the tip of the flask's cap and a spark
from the batteries ignited enough of the Savareen brandy to burn the flask free
of the ice and jet it away. At the same time, a panel on the bottom of the flask
opened up to expose electromagnetic sen-sors that started feeding system data to
the capsule.