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

Convarion'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
punish a world for dealing with Antilles?"
"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