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

But we have a standoff here, because you only have fighters-you can't board us.
If you shoot us up, you or we will destroy the ship and you lose
the cargo. You got some of what you want. Go away. Leave us alone."
He has a point-we can't board the ship. I hadn't ex-pected Isard's threat to the
crew's families. I'd thought, given that we harmed no one last time, that we
would have cooper-ative crews. Wedge thought for a moment, then forced an edge
into his voice.
"Be advised, Alazhi, that the same software that allowed us to bring you here
will, when the correct signal is sent, purge your ship of atmosphere and slave
itself to our navicomp data. Your choice is not whether you come with us or not,
but whether you do so alive or dead."
He let that sink in for a moment or two. If they call my bluff, I let them off
so they can tell others that we didn't kill them. It'll win us some goodwill,
perhaps. "Your decision, Alazhi?"
Fear had returned to the captain's voice. "You'd kill us just to get this
bacta?"
"I'd kill you to get the bacta to those who need it. Isard unleashed a disease
on Coruscant that kills ninety-five percent of the victims who go untreated.
Which should I count as more valuable: the lives of a dozen freighter crewmen or
the lives of billions?"
"You'll help our families?"
"You have my word on it."
Silence fell for several heartbeats, then the Alazhi's cap-tain spoke in a
distant whisper. "I hope you know what you're doing. Alazhi is yours."
Wedge went back to the tactical frequency. "Gavin, Alazhi is yours to shepherd
on her rounds."
"I copy, Wedge. Transmitting data to Alazhi now. See you later." Gavin's X-wing
swung out and around to head toward the exit vector. The two Twi'leks swooped
in, taking up positions on either of the Alazhi's flanks while the Shis-tavanen
curled around and came up in the freighter's wake.
As the Alazhi came about to starboard and began its run up to lightspeed, a
vastly huge white dagger thrust itself through the fabric of space on a course
that cut in at the freighter's line of flight. Dread bubbled acid into Wedge's
throat as the Corrupter reverted to realspace and opened up with its weaponry.
Waves of green turbolaser energy washed down from the Star Destroyer's port
batteries. While not made for engaging snubfighters, firing at point-blank range
the gunners could hardly miss. The flank Deathseeds evapo-rated in a cloud of
green plasma. The turbolaser fire eroded all the sharp lines from Shiel's
X-wing, reducing it from a sleek fighter to a fluid blob that slammed into the
aft end of the Alazhi.
A second volley of fire from the Star Destroyer focused itself on the bacta
tanker. In an instant the entire ship glowed orange, then the bacta storage
tanks exploded one after an-other. The superheated bacta sprayed out and
instantly con-gealed into delicate sheets of ice that mocked the violence of
their birth. Similarly the transparisteel and quadanium-titanium alloy plates
used in the freighter's manufacture twisted and flowed, tearing away and
exploding outward, be-fore they congealed into a warped mockery of what the
freighter had once been.
Of Gavin, Wedge saw nothing.
"Condition Critical. Exit the system now on Critical vec-tors. Go! Go!"