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

You've not changed much, Tycho, or you, Mirax." She nodded to the others in the
group, then offered her hand to Corran. "Elscol Loro and Sixtus Quin."
"Elscol joined the squadron just after Bakura and flew a few missions with us."
Wedge jerked a thumb toward her taciturn, dark-skinned companion. "Sixtus Quin
was a Spe-cial Intelligence Operative who was betrayed by his Imperial
commander, so he helped us out in a mission on Tatooine."
Corran nodded. "We can always use more pilots."
"But that's not why we're here, kid." She shot Wedge a sidelong glance. "The
reason we got here so soon was be-cause we were inbound before your summons
reached us. We'd heard of the coup on Thyferra and figured we'd ply our trade
there."
Corran stiffened. "And what would that trade be?"
A lopsided grin contorted the left side of her face. "I do what I was doing at
the time Wedge recruited me-I find worlds with Imperial tyrants, and I liberate
them. Sixtus,
what's left of his squad, and a group of other ne'er-do-wells come with me. We
organize local resistance movements; pro-vide them with expertise, weapons, and
support; and help them get rid of their local Imperial officials."
Wedge smiled. "I think you'll recall that no one at our first meeting had any
good idea about how to go about over-throwing a planetary government. Elscol has
had more prac-tice at it than anyone I know. She's never been much of a joiner,
so she's been working outside the New Republic."
She shrugged. "Haven't formed an opinion about the New Republic yet, though
during Tycho's trial my thoughts were none-too-positive. The Empire, on the
other hand, left me without my family, so I'm doing what I can to strip them of
theirs."
"Have you had a chance to review the material I sent you?"
Elscol nodded. "If the ratio of loyal humans to Vratix is at all accurate, the
actual conquest of the world should be simple. The big problem there is the
presence of those Imp ships. Anything we do can be undone by a planetary
bom-bardment. If those ships can be scattered or neutralized- preferably both-we
can stage an uprising that should topple Ysanne Isard. I'm confident we can do
it, but I'll have a better idea of exactly what we're going to do after I get in
there and take a look."
Mirax raised an eyebrow. "You're talking about going to Thyferra?"
"Yes, the sooner the better." Elscol held up a hand and started ticking points
off on her fingers. "We have to liaise with the Ashern, or we'll fight them as
much as we'll fight the Imps and their Xucphra allies. We have to determine the
na-ture of the targets we'll hit, so we can be properly supplied for the
strikes. We need to gauge the reaction of the populace to a countercoup, and we
have to find a local leader who can handle being put in charge. If this were
just some backwater world that no one cared about, we could be a bit more hasty.
Thyferra, however, is of vital importance, so we have to be careful and surgical
in what we're doing."
"Agreed." Wedge folded his arms across his chest. "We
don't have enough in the way of personnel or equipment to allow us to be
sloppy."
Sixtus rested his fists on his narrow hips. "How long do you anticipate being
able to keep the location of this station a secret from Isard?"
Wedge shrugged. "I have no way of judging that. We'll take all precautions