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

ambush him meant they would be leaving another of their convoys open. The
freighters that were com-ing to him were from a small convoy that was being
watched over by the Victory //-class Star Destroyer Corrupter. Though the
smallest of the ships Isard had in her fleet, it carried two TIE squadrons,
equaling his force, and bristled with enough weaponry to be able to lay siege to
whole planets.
Complicating matters, Wedge knew less about its Cap-tain Ait Convarion than he
wished he did. Convarion was supposed to have served both at Derra IV and Hoth
before being given the Corrupter and being sent off on suppression
missions-government-sanctioned campaigns of terror against populated worlds on
the Outer Rim. Convarion was
rumored to be calculating and cruel, with a penchant for quick action that had
won battles despite the odds being against him. That was a combination that
could cause a lot of trouble for the squadron.
If Convarion knows in advance of the defection, we could be in severe trouble.
If he has to deal with having three missing ships from his convoy upon his
arrival at the Rish system, he'll be searching for an atom in a nebula.
Depending on the reluctance of the freighter crews to follow us, well need a
maximum of an hour to move the convoy farther on. If we have been betrayed,
we'll have to jump back out of the system as fast as possible . . .
Wedge glanced at his primary monitor. ". . . and hope against hope that Isard
hasn't convinced any Interdictor cruisers to join her side." He shook his head
and sighed. He knew he was worrying about events that were very low on the scale
of probability, but the chance of a problem still niggled at him. He knew he'd
have felt better if he'd been in on planning the operation from the first, but
he wasn't in a position to refuse the help the Ashern offered.
"I'll just make the best of this situation and hope Captain Convarion isn't as
sharp as rumors make him out to be."
A pinpoint of black expanded up and engulfed the snubfighter as it reverted to
realspace in a system with a red dwarf star surrounded by a dust disk. Three
bacta freighters hung in space just above the plane of the disk. The captains
had oriented the ships so their bellies pointed inward and the two dorsal
turbolasers they sported overlapped their fields of fire.
Wedge opened a comm channel. "One and Two Squad-rons, S-foils in attack
position." Both the X-wings and the Deathseeds responded to his order, causing
their stabilizers to split and lock. The fighters spread out on their previously
assigned approach vectors, but they held back from closing with the freighters.
He shifted the comm unit over to the frequency the Ashern indicated the
Thyferrans used. "This is Wedge Antil-les. I have two squadrons of fighters
here. We intend to have
your cargo. If you cooperate you will be given a course, be able to drop your
cargo, and then go back home unharmed."
Nervous tremors shot back through the voice that an-swered him. "Antilles, we
were told that if we went with you, we'd be destroyed. We have family back on
Thyferra."
That comment sent a chill down Wedge's spine, but he fought against the ideas it
planted in his head. "Your families will not be harmed. Isard can't kill
families of pilots and ex-pect any more shipments of bacta to go out. It's a
bluff that I have to call. If you decide not to go back to Thyferra, I'll help
you get your people to safety. You're going to lose your cargo, you might as