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

"Agreed, Wedge, but if we send people away she'll find out about things all that
much sooner. Because we hit this station not too long ago, and because Warlord
Zsinj evacu-ated his folks, what's left behind is pretty much of a skeleton
crew. If we do get rid of them, we're going to have to use our people to perform
a lot of nonmission-specific duties." Tycho winced. "I seem to recall the meal
you tried to make out of tauntaun meat on Hoth and ..."
"I get the hologram, Tycho." Wedge frowned. "Do they know there's danger here?"
"They seem to think that after Zsinj, Isard might be taken as a change for the
positive. I've spoken with the key employers here, and they know there could be
trouble. They seem to think that with us here it's actually going to be safer
because the scum of the galaxy isn't going to be drifting in every time they
have liberty."
"True, but their revenues are going to be down, and that could make for
trouble."
The turbolift stopped and opened onto the docking facil-ity. Tall transparisteel
walls gave Wedge a spectacular view of Yag'Dhul. Though small and dense, the
world took on a curi-ous appearance because of the three moons orbiting it and
the tidal forces they generated as they orbited in the opposite direction to the
planet's rotation. The atmosphere boiled and swirled, with storms sowing
lightning through the gray clouds and flashes of red stone visible even from the
station.
"Hard to believe life could have arisen in that mael-strom." Wedge folded his
arms across his chest and shivered. "No wonder the Givin have an exoskeleton and
can exist in a vacuum."
"It's a good thing they can. Our attack here apparently opened some of the
station up to the vacuum, so they used Givin to make the repairs. Everything is
fine now, though, with one exception: the old Station Master died while on an
inspection tour of the repair work."
Wedge frowned, recalling an old Twi'lek with a pock-marked face who had been as
oily as Darth Vader had been evil. "His name was Valsil Torr, right?"
"I guess so. Apparently he tried to force a Givin task leader to pay him a
bribe. They agreed to discuss it in Torr's office, and there was a catastrophic
loss of atmosphere." Tycho winced. "The Twi'lek was sucked out of his office
through a hole the size of, say, a blaster bolt. The Givin lived and patched the
hole."
"So now no one is running the station."
"The merchants here have formed an Economic Council and seem to be running
things fairly well as far as they are
concerned. We'll need to put someone in to control them, but I don't have a
candidate in mind yet." Tycho opened his arms. "This is the main docking area,
which contains ten levels all its own. The middle six deal with cargo transfer
and storage. The outer two on each side contain crew housing, some small shops
and two tapcafs-home away from home for freight haulers. The tapcafs serve
exactly what the rest of us eat, but they lower the lights and hike the price."
"You know, with the right ambiance, that tauntaun would have tasted fine."
"Sure, Wedge, believe that if you want." Tycho pointed to the triangular landing
extending out into space. "Ships land here, unload, pick up or exchange cargo,
and head out again. If the crew wants to stop over, its ship is parked in orbit
and the station shuttle service brings them to and from the station. Hangar
space is rare, and what this station has is being reserved for us right now,