"Michael Stackpole "The Bacta War"" - читать интересную книгу автораConvarion's eyes narrowed. "You sound as if you truly think Antilles and his
rabble can actually topple you." "Nonsense!" Isard dismissed that supposition with a wave of her hand. "There will come a point, however, when the New Republic considers what it is going to do about us and our control of the bacta supply. They have refrained from causing trouble so far because they are reluctant to dab-ble in the internal politics of worlds. To do so would split their Republic, since a number of worlds that declared inde-pendence and have joined them still have their Imperial offi-cials in place running things. Warlord Zsinj has further distracted the New Republic, but once he has been dealt with, they will again consider us." Convarion nodded. "If our client states are afraid of los-ing their bacta supply, they will not press for the Republic to do something about us. And if the Thyferrans back us fully, the New Republic would have to stage an invasion of Thyferra to oust us." "Precisely." Vorru let Isard's comment echo in his ears, but he was not as confident of it as her voice suggested she was. Dis-counting Antilles entirely was a mistake, and one Isard should have known better than to make. While Vorru be-lieved the Antilles threat could be controlled and minimized, the only way it could be eliminated was by killing Antilles and destroying his power base. The network of contacts Vorru had in place to gather information about Antilles was just beginning to report data to him, but so far it had been useless in trying to locate Antilles or figuring out what his long-term intentions were. Vorru opened his hands and smiled at Convarion. "So, will you follow orders and "Shoot me the datafiles on the target worlds and I will get back to you with plans for dealing with them in two days." Convarion stood. "You may select the final target or leave it up to me, at your discretion. I would ask only one thing in return." Isard arched an eyebrow at him. "And that is?" "As you said before, my initiative is limited by my mis-sion parameters." Convarion half-smiled. "If you want the lesson to be learned by the maximum number of people, do me the favor of defining my mission as broadly as possible." 18 In many ways Iella Wessiri could not believe she had decided to come along on the mission after all. She understood how important it was to undertake, and how much good it might do for the Ashern cause, but at the most basic level she op-posed it. It's murder, nothing less. When Elscol had proposed the operation, she'd used the euphemism sanction to describe what they would be doing to one of Xucphra's higher-ups, Aerin Dlarit. Dlarit, an older man, had been appointed a General in the Thyferran Home Defense Corps. In the day-to-day operation of the THDC he deferred to Major Barst Roite, but Dlarit strutted about in his uniform at a host of social functions. Local media had shown him any number of times assuring his fellow Xucphrans that the Ashern were under control and that happy days were on the way. "He's made himself an obvious target." Elscol had opened her arms to emphasize her, point. "If we take him out |
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