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

"And it will make us into ghouls. What about Dlarit's staff and his family? What
do we do if they find us there?"
The muscles at the corners of Elscol's jaw bunched. "Blasters do have stun
settings."
Iella had raised an eyebrow. "You sound as if you would kill his children, too."
"Erisi's his daughter-Huttlings grow up to be Hutts."
"But leaving his minor children alive would show us to be capable of mercy for
those who realize the error of their ways, correct?" Iella had looked hard at
her. "Correct?"
"It'll make the operation more difficult, but it can be done." Elscol had looked
around the briefing room. "Any other philosophical objections, or can we get to
planning?"
There were none, so Elscol immediately moved into plan-ning the assault. And
what a job she did. Her experience in planning and executing operations showed
through in how she broke down the Dlarit estate's security setup. Iella had
attended countless CorSec Special Operations briefings about
raids on criminal strongholds, and Elscol's presentation was
the equal of any of them in detail and foresight.
To everyone's surprise, including her own, Iella agreed to join the group of a
dozen Ashern commandos volunteering for the operation. Elscol, Sixtus, and three
of his Imp Special Naval Operations comrades formed the core of the group.
Iella, two Vratix, and four humans-all four of them Zaltin refugees-filled out
the rest of the team. Each commando was issued a blaster, a blaster carbine,
dark clothing, a comlink, and a light armored vest with armored plates that
covered them from throat to groin, front and back. Iella knew the armor would be
almost useless for stopping a blaster bolt, but even deflecting it from the
body's midline meant the wound might be survivable.
Iella hunkered down behind the bole of a huge akonije tree. The humidity in the
air helped retain the day's heat, and the vest made her none too comfortable.
Even so, the slight whisper of a breeze helped cool her. But it also hides some
noises and creates others, keeping me on edge. She blew a wisp of her light
brown hair back out of her face and peered ahead into the darkness.
Barely visible as hulking shadows, Sixtus and his com-panions worked their way
forward through the rain forest that sheltered the Dlarit estate. The estate
itself was set on a small knoll at the foot of high mountains that had once been
part of an extinct volcano. Holograms of the estate taken in daytime looked
incredibly beautiful, with the natural stone building rising up out of the
surrounding jungle like a small volcano itself. Huge waterfalls cascading down
the mountain-ous backdrop added the last element to transform the estate into a
paradise.
They also provided the means for entering the estate. Most travel to and from
the estate took place by airspeeder. Forty-five kilometers of a twisting,
single-lane track con-.nected the estate to the main throughway to the south,
but several gates interdicted it, and a number of narrow passes between natural
rock outcroppings made for perfect ambush points if an invasion were attempted
along it. Likewise, a ring of well-hidden Comar Tritracker Air Defense batteries
meant approaching the estate in an airspeeder without authorization could be
suicidal. Various sensor arrays positioned around
the estate also monitored likely avenues of approach through the rain forest.
Slicing into the planetary computers and making use of Zaltin surveillance