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

Mirax smiled.
The bartender nodded as he pulled their drinks from the bar. "Now you're
thinking. She's his daughter. Now's the part where you apologize to her or the
Jawas continue mea-suring you for luggage for your final jump." He glared at the
little knot of Jawas jabbering to each other. "Dibs on the Rodian."
The Devaronian bowed deeply to Mirax. "I. ah, we, beg your pardon for disturbing
you. I am, well, that's not impor-
tant, but if I can be of service to you, please, don't hesitate to ask." His
apology came accompanied by Rodian buzz-squeak, which Corran took to be a
simultaneous translation.
Mirax raised her chin and gave them a chillingly Imperial stare. "You're
blocking our light."
The two of them backed away bowing profusely. Laugh-ter ran through the cantina,
bold in some spots and hushed in others, but amusement at their predicament
united the can-tina for a moment or two.
Corran licked his lips and realized his throat was abso-lutely parched. "Ah,
Mirax, what possessed you to do that?"
"As I said before, keeping up appearances." She smiled broadly at him. "You've
really only seen the kind, sensitive side of me."
"I seem to recall you burning down a stormtrooper on a speeder bike on
Coruscant."
"Oh, yes, I guess there was that, wasn't there?"
"Yeah, there was, but even so there's no reason for pro-voking a fight like
that."
She shrugged. "I wasn't worried. You could have taken them."
/ could have taken them? Corran stared at her for a mo-ment. "Thanks for the
vote of confidence, but . . ."
Mirax reached across the table with her left hand and gave his right hand a
squeeze. "I knew Wuher would inter-vene-this is an old game we've played from
time to time." Her right hand, the one that had been hidden from the open edge
of the table, came up and she deposited a small hold-out blaster on the table.
"I had things covered; but the moment Wuher mentioned who I was, I knew we'd not
have any more trouble."
Corran frowned. "Does everyone but me have relatives here? We land at Docking
Bay Eighty-Six because some cousin or something of Gavin's owns it, then he
takes off to set up a meet with his uncle Huff. Your father's got enough pull
here so that two guys who'd suck the eyes out of a dead bantha's head run like
droids being pursued by Jawas."
Mirax shrugged. "Tatooine is really a fairly small com-munity. The Darklighters
are a well-known and powerful
family here. That estate we flew over on our way in here was Huff's place. And
as for my father, well, he had quite the reputation before your father tossed
him into the mines on Kessel, and his surviving his time there didn't hurt his
rep at all. I'm sure that in some CorSec bar back on Corellia your name would be
taken as being just as impressive."
"Maybe, but let's not test the reaction to it right now, okay?"
"I don't think even invoking my father's name would save you if you ran into an
old enemy here."
"And invoking my name would doom me if we ran into your father here." Corran
shot Mirax a sidelong glance. "Have you sent your father a message letting him