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

First and foremost among them had been the general who led the defense of Yavin
4 and planned the destruction of the first Death Star, Jan Dodonna. The
documentary said he'd been slain during the evacuation of Yavin 4, but Corran
had no doubt Dodonna had been a prisoner on Lusankya. If I hadn't thought him
dead, I might have recognized him, too. How stupid of me.
Dodonna's celebrity had nothing to do with Corran's de-sire to save him. Jan,
like Urlor Sette and others, had helped him escape. They had risked their lives
to give him a chance to get away. Leaving such brave people captives of someone
like Ysanne Isard not only failed to reward their courage but repaid them by
leaving them in severe jeopardy of death or worse-conversion into a covert
Imperial agent under Isard's direction.
"Couldn't sleep?"
Corran started, then turned and smiled at the black-haired, dark-eyed woman
standing in the bedroom doorway. "I guess not, Mirax. I'm sorry I woke you."
"You didn't wake me. Your absence awakened me." She wore a dark blue robe,
belted at the waist with a pale yellow sash. Mirax raised a hand to hide a yawn
then pointed at the silver cylinder in his right hand. "Regretting your
decision?"
"Which one? Refusing to join the Jedi Knights or"-he smiled-"or hooking up with
you?"
She raised an eyebrow. "I was thinking of the Jedi deci-sion. If you have
reservations about the other decision, I can relearn how to sleep alone."
He laughed, and she joined him. "I regret neither. Your father and my father may
have been mortal enemies, but I can't imagine having a better friend than you."
"Or lover."
"Especially lover."
Mirax shrugged. "All you men who've just gotten out of prison say that."
Corran frowned for a moment. "I imagine you're right, but how you came by that
information, I don't want to know."
Mirax blinked her eyes. "You know, I don't think I want to know that, either."
Corran laughed, then crossed the room and enfolded her in a warm hug. "After my
escape, Tycho expressed his regrets concerning your death to me. He told me how
Warlord Zsinj had ambushed a convoy at Alderaan and destroyed it, includ-ing
your Pulsar Skate. Everything inside of me just collapsed. Losing you just
ripped the emotional skeleton out of me."
"Now you know how I felt when I thought you'd been slain here on Coruscant." She
kissed his left ear, then settled her chin on his shoulder. "I hadn't realized
how much you had become part of my life until you were gone. The hole the
Lusankya created blasting her way out of Coruscant was nothing compared to the
void I had inside. It wasn't a ques-tion of wanting to die, but of knowing my
insides were dead and wondering when the rest of me would catch up."
"I had it luckier than you. When he got the chance, Gen-
eral Cracken pulled me aside and told me how you'd gone on a covert mission to
Borleias to deliver ryll kor, bacta, and a Vratix verachen. Zsinj's ambush
conveniently covered your disappearance so the Thyferrans didn't know what you
were setting up on Borleias with their bacta."
"Yeah, they would not have liked it if it were known we were using the Alderaan
Biotics facility there to make rylca and, eventually, enough bacta to dent their
monopoly." Mirax shivered. "I would have preferred the original plan working,
because as much as I didn't look forward to being reviled and hunted down for