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

Two sets of two bolts skewered the squint's ball cockpit. The twin ion engines
exploded, launching debris into space from amid a silvery fireball. Pieces of
the fighter struck sparks from Corran's shields, but he reinforced them quickly
enough. "Scratch one squint."
Whistler keened at him so Corran punched a previously unlit button on his comm
unit. "Hope that wasn't you, Erisi. I'd hate to think your flying skill had
atrophied so much."
"It's my killing skill that should be concerning you, Cor-ran."
"Eight here. I have a pair on my tail."
"Seven on the way, Eight, hold tight."
Corran rolled and came out in a loop with Ooryl in his aft port quarter. Two
TIEs were lining up for a run on
Nawara's X-wing. Tycho pulled a right turn that brought him around quickly, but
he only managed to pick off the trailing TIE. Nawara broke hard to port, then
twisted back again to starboard, but the squint stayed with him throughout his
ma-neuvers.
That's got to be Erisi.
The Interceptor fired four times, the first two pairs of green laser bolts
burning through Nawara's aft shield. The other two blew out the port engines and
hit the fuselage right behind the cockpit. Nawara's astromech exploded, then the
cockpit canopy flew apart. When fire filled the cockpit: Cor-ran feared for the
worst, then he saw the X-wing's command couch jet out from the stricken fighter.
"Eight is extravehicular!" Corran's green eyes narrowed. "Ten, keep them off
him. I'm going after Erisi. Whistler, give me her comm frequency again."
The droid complied with the order silently.
"Always did pick off the easy targets, didn't you, Erisi? Couldn't stand to work
hard, could you?"
"Is that you on my tail, Corran? All alone?" Her laughter filled his cockpit. "I
thought you'd learned from your father that dying alone wasn't something to do."
"That should be your concern, Erisi, because I'm not dy-ing here. Horn out." He
punched the comm unit button that cut frequency off. "Come on. Whistler, it's
time we collect the debt she owes us."
Corran's X-wing streaked in on Erisi's trail, but the squint juked and danced,
making it impossible for him to get a good shot at her. As she broke to port,
Corran rolled out into a long starboard loop and began a head-to-head run with
her. The squint broke to starboard before they could close, forcing him to turn
to port to pursue. Okay, she knew head to head would be suicide.
As her ship began to pull away from his, Corran realized killing her wasn't
going to be as easy as he expected. While she hadn't been a bad pilot in an
X-wing, she wasn't as good as he was. Her Interceptor, on the other hand, has
more speed and maneuverability than my X-wing. That might give
her the edge she lacked before. And she knows very well all the performance
capabilities of my ship.
Corran smiled. You don't fly against a fighter, you fly against the pilot, and
her arrogance is one huge flaw I can exploit. Corran pulled his throttle back to
85 percent of full power, letting her stretch her lead on him. He rolled up on
his port stabilizer and started a long loop that would take him back toward the
main dogfight. He started in on an attack vector for one of the Interceptors.
While flying along it, he watched his main monitor. The rate of change for the
range between his ship and Erisi's Inter-ceptor slowed as the distance