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

bear down in on him while the other tried to force his TIE fighter down into a
dive to spot Corran again.
Corran triggered two quad bursts of fire at the diving TIE. Two of the four
laser bolts in the first shot missed, but the other two seared scars along the
bottom of the starboard hexagonal wing. The second burst struck the bottom of
the ball cockpit, slicing off the bottom third of it and severely warping the
fighter's structural elements. The twin ion en-gines ripped free of their
supports and blew through the cock-pit canopy, then exploded.
Corran rolled away to port to escape the blast, then hit the right rudder pedal
and brought the X-wing's nose around to starboard. The looping TIE came out of
its maneuver and spitted itself on his aiming reticle. It went red, and Corran
triggered a shot at it. All four laser bolts converged on its starboard solar
panel and punched through to the cockpit. Corran saw a brief flash of light,
then the TIE started a cork-screw down toward Thyferra.
"Ten has the next flight, Nine."
Corran tucked his X-wing back in behind and to port of Ooryl's fighter. The Gand
rolled his X-wing up on the port stabilizers, presenting the incoming TIEs with
a very narrow profile to shoot at. Corran aped his maneuver and watched as four
TIEs separated themselves from the rest of the formation to come after Ooryl. He
glanced at his sensors.
"Whistler, why didn't you say we were getting ahead of the rest?"
The droid hooted a quick response.
"I would too have listened to you." Corran keyed his comm unit. "Ten, we're all
alone here for a bit."
"Ooryl understands, Nine." Corran caught an edge to Ooryl's voice he couldn't
recall hearing before. "Ooryl has them."
Ooryl has them? That sounds like something Jace or I would say.
Ahead of him, Ooryl triggered a quick burst of quad fire that hit a TIE in the
cockpit canopy and blew the engines out the back of it. A little etheric rudder
shifted his aim point to port, then a second shot disintegrated another TIE's
port so-lar panel. Ooryl rolled out to port, then dove below the re-maining
TIEs.
Sithspawn, that's great flying! Corran inverted his X-wing and pulled back on
the stick to follow Ooryl's dive, but by then the Gand had started his fighter
around in a grand loop. Corran rolled again to follow, but a sharp bleat from
Whistler made him glance at his aft monitor. "Ten, your playmates are on my
tail."
"Ooryl copies, Nine. Continue on your arc."
"Continue? They're coming up fast."
"No longer."
Up ahead Corran saw Ooryl's X-wing tighten its arc im-possibly quick, swapping
nose for tail in the space of two hundred meters. The ship remained inverted, so
Corran couldn't see the cockpit, but he could imagine the Gand's mouthparts
moving apart in his imitation of a smile. "Ready to break on your mark, Ten."
"Go to port, Nine. Mark."
Corran rolled to port, then, as Ooryl had done, he re-versed his thrust. Instead
of looping the ship, Corran applied rudder until his nose swung back along the
path he had just traveled. He came about just in time to see Ooryl melt the wing
off another TIE.
Its wingman dove abruptly away from the Gand's trap.