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

home, but stopped when Elscol Loro crouched and squeezed through the opening to
the Vratix den they shared. "News?"
The smaller woman nodded. "All leaves have been can-celed for crew from the
Lusankya and the Virulence. Within six hours or so they should be under way."
"No convoy is forming up?"
"Nope, this is clearly a strike mission."
Iella frowned. "You mean the strike mission."
"Isard does appear to be dancing to the tune Wedge has called." Elscol shrugged.
"I just hope Wedge can pay the syn-thesizer jockey when the bill comes due."
"He took Coruscant. Freeing this rock isn't going to be that much tougher."
"Yes, but Isard wanted the New Republic to have Corus-cant. She's being a bit
more possessive about Thyferra."
"True." Iella set her carbine down, then hit several but-tons on her
chronometer. "Well, this news puts us on the clock, then, I guess. Forty-eight
hours after the Lusankya leaves Thyferra, Wedge and the others will be here.
You've already told Sixtus we're on?"
"He and his taskforce are already heading to their stag-ing points and expect to
be in position to liberate the deten-tion center when they get our signal."
Iella caught a funny note in Elscol's voice. "And you'd still like that signal
to be a lift-truck bomb being flown into the Xucphra administrative headquarters
to blow it up, right?"
"Call me silly, but I don't see why risking injury in an assault so you can
capture Isard is preferable to scattering her constituent atoms all over the
place with a bomb. And don't give me the justice line again."
Iella shook her head. "Look, I know how evil Isard is- she turned my husband
into a mockery of himself. I'd like nothing better than to shove a blaster up
her nose and melt her brain. I wouldn't consider it murder-"
"Nor would anyone else."
"-But her death isn't the point. Stopping her is. Even more important than that
is to let her be tried in a court of law for her crimes. It's vital to let
people know that the laws have purpose and that evil people will be held
accountable for what they do."
Elscol frowned. "And a bomb doesn't do that?"
"A bomb is just more anarchy. Killing her that way will allow people to say she
had to be kept quiet or important people would have been revealed to be
collaborators. Blow-ing her up allows people to say she really escaped the
blast. The lack of a trial, because she won't be held accountable for all of her
crimes, means people can begin to think she wasn't so bad. Twenty years from
now, thirty or fifty, there could be a neo-Imperial movement that holds her up
as an example to be emulated. Blowing her up will make her a martyr, but a trial
will show her up as a monster, warts and all."
Elscol chewed her lower lip for a moment, then shook her head. "Well, I hate to
admit it, but you're actually making some sense. I must need a vacation."
"We all need a vacation."
"Okay, we'll find some resort on a world where the Em-pire is just a nasty
rumor, if we survive this assault of yours."
"When we survive it, you mean."
Elscol smiled. "Right, when we survive it. I hope, though, you aren't expecting
me to go in there with my selec-tor lever on stun. Ain't going to happen."
Iella retrieved her carbine and slid a power pack home. "If it shoots back, I'm