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

and despair haunted her. In death, espe-cially violent death, no one ever looks
pretty.
She made it to the door and passed through, then cut to the left and hugged the
wall on the other side of the doorway into the main house, opposite the first
SpecNav trooper. After her, came Elscol; then Sixtus. They both ran through the
doorway, then double-clicked an all clear so Iella and the SpecNav moved up.
Other members of the team fanned out through the mansion's lower floor and
secured it without in-cident.
Elscol and Sixtus moved up the stairway to the main floor. Iella followed them
up and found the main floor dark save for a muted yellow light coming through
one open door-way further along the main hallway. The darkness didn't sur-
prise her terribly much-the raid had been timed to reach the estate halfway
between midnight and dawn to take advantage of the fact that most people would
be asleep. That a light was still on seemed odd, but carelessness couldn't be
ruled out.
Nor can someone's working late. That's supposed to be Dlarit's office. Iella
crept forward cautiously. Though only ten meters separated her from the lit
doorway, she took two minutes to make it that distance. At the edge of the
doorway she tilted her head and got a quick glimpse into the room. What she saw
prompted a smile and made her double-click her comlink and invite the others
forward.
She strode into the office and shook her head. Wearing his finest Thyferran Home
Defense Corps uniform, Aerin Dlarit sat sprawled in a high-backed chair behind
his desk. The holoprojector plate built into the desk displayed a meter-tall
replica of a monument featuring a larger-than-life statue of Dlarit atop a
pedestal. The hologram slowly rotated in the air, complete with a throng of
miniature well-wishers gasping and applauding at its base.
Elscol drew her blaster pistol and dropped her voice to a whisper. "Get the
holocam up here. He dies a monument to his own ego and misplaced trust in the
Empire."
Iella laid a hand on her arm. "Wait, I have another idea. One that may work even
better."
"He has to die."
"With what I have in mind, he will, but a thousand times over." Iella drew her
own pistol and clicked the selector lever over to stun. "We've already killed
two guards, so they know we're serious. Trust me, this will work."
"If I don't like it, he dies anyway."
Iella smiled. "You'll like it. We'll get more play out of it."
Iella explained, and Elscol balked until Sixtus cracked a
smile. That swung Elscol over, so Iella fired one shot into the sleeping
General, then set to work. The party exited the
estate the same way they'd come in, and though burdened as Iella was carrying
away General Aerin Dlarit's dress uniform, the journey seemed not nearly as hard
as before.
19
Commander Erisi Dlarit's TIE Interceptor dropped from the belly of the Corrupter
and let gravity seduce it down into Halanit's atmosphere. The cant-winged craft
bucked a little as it entered the frigid planet's atmosphere, reminding Erisi
that the Interceptor would surrender some of its maneuver-ability to friction
and drag. Maneuvers she could pull in the vacuum of space would get her killed