"Michael Stackpole "The Bacta War"" - читать интересную книгу автораsatellites, the Ashern team had pulled down realtime holograms of the estate and
the thermal im-ages of the guards on their rounds. They also found the place-ment of the sensor devices in the rain forest and noted the human patrols tended to concentrate on the side of the estate facing the mountains and the waterfalls. After studying the specifications for the sensors in use around the estate, they realized that the sensors on the mountain side of the estate had been muted so the movement of water and the sound from the falls wouldn't constantly be triggering alarms. Entering the estate, they made their approach from the far side of the mountain and ascended to the summit by dusk. Once darkness fell, they descended, keeping as close to the waterfalls as they could. They sped their descent by rappel-ling down beneath one of the longer falls, letting the curtain of water hide them from the estate's sensors. Once at the base of the mountains, they moved in along the fringes of the sen-sors' range, cutting a labyrinthine path through the jungle. The SpecNav troops led the way. Though they were as big as stormtroopers, Sixtus's men were deceptively swift and deathly quiet. Iella was more than happy they were on her side. As scary as facing stormtroopers might have been, fight-ing against these men would have been worse. At one point they had been selected to join the Imperial Navy's most elite fighting unit, and the product of their skills proved that choice had been a wise one. Iella heard a single click over her comlink, so she hurried forward, remaining low. She reached Elscol's side and looked off in the direction where the smaller woman pointed. Silhou-etted against the lights from the house she saw two Thyferran against her comlink and huge shadows rose up to eclipse the guards. Iella heard no screams or shots being fired. but another double-click played over the comlink, indicating the guards had been neutralized. The rest of the group moved up to the edge of the clear- ing around the estate. Barely twenty-five meters separated them from the mansion solarium. Iella dropped to one knee next to one of the guards and felt for a pulse in his neck, but her hand encountered a sticky wetness that told her all she needed to know. The sound of a stun shot being fired or the light from the blue burst could have been seen. These men had to die. Elscol tapped two of the SpecNav soldiers on the shoul-ders and they sprinted forward across the lawn to the shad-ows beside the solarium. Iella found herself holding her breath, waiting for a reaction from the house. A single click from the comlink told her the SpecNavs felt safe. Elscol sent them a double-click, and Iella prepared herself to run. The SpecNavs pulled an electronic device from an equip-ment satchel and slapped it over the solarium's door lock. Iella saw lights on the device flicker and shift color, then five of them all burned green at the same time. They went out after three seconds at which point one of the SpecNavs pushed the door open. Another double-click came through the comlink, and Iella was up and running. With each step she braced herself for a shot from the darkness, a burning red bolt that would hit her, lift her up and send her flying across the yard. She'd seen it happen to others before, more times than she could remember. The look of surprise on the victim's face as confident immortality dis-solved into dismay |
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