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

reality.
She smiled as the Corrupter came into view around the curve of the moon. "I know
where the true power in the gal-axy is, and I know that if you keep trying to
defy the impossi-ble, eventually you fail. This is your time to fail."
20
The feeling in Corran's gut was as cold as Wedge's narration of the holographic
imaging from Gavin's X-wing. At various points in the presentation Winter hit
keys on the datapad connected to the holoprojector. The image froze, then the
computer enlarged and enhanced an image from the back-ground. They're all of
dead bodies-dead civilian bodies.
Corran shivered and felt Mirax gently rub her hand along his spine. / was there
not a week before this happened. I probably talked to some of those people, ate
with them, joked with them. Corran realized that, as he had with his comrades in
CorSec, he had mentally prepared himself for losing friends who were in the
squadron. AH of them accepted the risks of warfare and all of them had the same
things at stake. Riv Shiel's death had surprised him, but he was able to tell
himself that Shiel had died well, in combat, just as he would have wanted to go.
The people of Halanit however . . . He shook his head. "They were never meant to
find themselves in that situation."
Mirax leaned heavily against him. "I know, but Isard put them there, you
didn't."
The glow panels in the small briefing room came up, in
no way easing the severe expression on Wedge's face. "First I want to state
publicly that, in my opinion, Gavin could have done nothing more than he did at
Halanit. While he has felt he somehow led the Corrupter to Halanit, we know that
isn't true. Halanit stopped asking anyone but us for bacta after our first run,
and the tanker pilots knew where they had dropped off a supply. It was easy for
Iceheart to tag them as a target-I'm fairly certain she would have found out who
we had supplied no matter how we got the bacta to the worlds, but we could have
made it tougher for her. The fact is that Iceheart has publicized what happened
at Halanit to frighten others into paying Thyferra for the gift of bacta we made
to them."
Wedge's brown eyes narrowed. "Since Gavin's departure, there has been no direct
communication from Halanit. Ac-cording to the messages Iceheart has sent out,
the Corrupter initiated a planetary barrage that expanded upon the damage the
bombers and stormtroopers had inflicted. It is my as-sumption that no one was
left living in the colony. I'm fairly certain that after all was said and done,
the place was sown with mines and other boobytraps to kill survivors or
rescu-ers."
Nawara Yen's braintails twitched. "So you're saying we're not going to try to
save any of the people there."
Wedge shook his head, his reluctance to forgo such a mission thick in his voice.
"We do not have the ships we need to help them. If even one-tenth of the
individuals there sur-vived, that would dwarf our transport capabilities. I do
know the New Republic is sending some ships to Halanit, but they don't expect to
find survivors either."
He opened his hands. "I know that's not easy for any of you to hear. Innocent
individuals have suffered because of something we did, but what we did meant
they lived just that much longer. Had we not acted, that colony would have been
dead weeks ago. We kept it going that much longer. We were able to lift a