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

the galaxy would be denied to Thyferra in an attack as destructive as the one
she was mounting.
Rocketing up through the hole in the shield, Erisi rolled out and began a long
elliptical orbit over the breached shield. "Interceptor One reporting. No
hostile antiship fire in evi-dence."
"We copy, One. The Captain congratulates you on your run and requests you join
him for the march through the colony."
"I copy, Control. As ordered." Erisi smiled. We've shown
Convarion that THDC pilots are not the incompetent nerf-brains he thought we
were. Now he will show me how pow-erful stormtroopers are so I won't forget who
is superior to whom. Not that I ever could, but I shall say nothing. Conva-rion
would never believe himself to be my subordinate any-way.
Gavin didn't realize it was an explosion that had awakened him until a second
and third blast sounded. He threw off thick layers of blankets-his Tatooine
upbringing guaranteed that he felt cold even in Halanit's hot baths-and snarled
as he thrust his feet into cold boots. He fastened them, then stood and strapped
on his blaster belt as Farl Cort appeared in the doorway of his room. "What's
happening?"
Before Cort could answer, Gavin's ears popped with the change in the colony's
air pressure. Air began to rush out of the room, tugging at the hem of Cort's
cloak. The little man's face went ashen. "They've breached the shield."
Gavin grabbed him before he could fall. "Who's they?" "Imperials, I guess.
There's a Star Destroyer in orbit." "Sithspawn! You should have gotten me up
when it ar-rived." Gavin wanted to pound his head against the wall. He had been
certain that he'd been careful enough to hide his trail so the Corrupter
couldn't follow him. When it showed up at the convoy hijacking, he'd immediately
broken his flight and dove away from it. The Xucphra Alazhi's bulk shielded him
from the destroyer's turbolasers. He knew he was dead unless he exercised the
only option available to him, a jump to lightspeed, which he did blindly.
He held the jump for fifteen seconds, which were the longest fifteen seconds in
his life. Jumping blind into hyper-space was about as stupid as making fat jokes
around a Hutt, and nearly always as fatal. Coming out of hyperspace, he made a
quick read of the area and had his R2 unit plot an-other short jump. He put his
ship through a series of seven such small jumps, doubling back and forth, then
took a long jump out toward the Rim. He landed on a small planet, got
into and out of some trouble there, and then began his run back to Yag'Dhul.
Because astronavigation had never been his strength, he was limited in his
choices of destinations. To make the trip back as quickly as possible, making a
long run to Halanit was his best route because, from there, the trip to Yag'Dhul
could be accomplished with several short hops. He also thought there might be an
off-chance that Corran and Ooryl wouldn't have left Halanit by the time he got
there. Traveling to Halanit would run him pretty much out of fuel. He hoped the
Halanits would give him some in return for the bacta they'd been given, and with
Corran being there he was certain they would fuel him up.
Despite Corran's absence, the Halanits had been more than happy to give Gavin
fuel, but the problem was that they needed to synthesize it first. The process
of refueling his fighter was to take two days, during which they tried to make
him feel as much at home as possible. On a world sheathed in ice, with abundant
amounts of water and a cuisine based on fish, making a Tatooine native feel at
home was not easy.