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

blanket of oppression and misery from them, and this disaster cannot devalue
what we did. Iceheart made choices that raised our conflict to another level."
"She has to pay." Gavin hammered a fist down onto the
arm of his chair. "Iceheart and Erisi and all of them have to pay."
"And pay they will." The edge sliding into Wedge's voice brought Corran's head
up. "Ysanne Isard has forgotten the lesson she taught the Rebellion by giving us
a sick Coruscant. She's forgotten that our strength is our freedom and her
weakness is her link to the sources of production for bacta. We can go anywhere
and be anywhere, but she's limited. She is limited in how much she can cover, so
we can hit her where she's open and run when she has our targets protected."
Inyri Forge raised a hand. "But we ran this time, and she hit an innocent world.
How do we prevent that from happen-ing again?"
"Two ways. First, with Booster's help, we'll deal the bacta we capture to
traders and let them sell it. The price is high enough for them to accept the
risks. We can have them undercut Isard's prices or we cut them off from future
ship-ments. In return we can get the arms, munitions, and spare parts we need to
continue doing what we're doing. We'll insu-late places by allowing them to deny
knowing where the bacta came from and we'll make traders very happy with us. The
traders become a cutout for us and Isard can't complain too loudly about them
because if she does, she loses access to the supplies she needs to maintain her
forces.
"Second and more important, we have a score to settle with her. Thyferra has
dozens of small bacta-producing colo-nies out there. We're going to pick one and
destroy it. The mission will be dirty and dangerous. What bacta we can't haul
away we'll destroy. And we'll let her know that we'll continue to hit her
colonies every time she takes her war to an innocent party."
He brought his hands together. "There are analogies that can be drawn between
Halanit and Alderaan, and I wish nei-ther incident had happened. What's
important to remember is that both worlds died because evil has been allowed to
run unchecked. In our pleasure at defeating the Empire, it's all too easy to
ignore the nasty bits and pieces of its evil that survived. The New Republic is
out hunting down Warlord Zsinj. I'm sure, out there, somewhere, there are still
people
who will yet come forward to overthrow what we've done and try to reestablish
the Empire. This war is really far from over, but if we don't realize that and
act accordingly, there will be more Alderaans, more Halanits.
"All of us have tried to keep this idea uppermost in our minds, but we saw a
diminished Isard as a diminished threat. I know I was doing that, not
consciously, but I still was doing it. No more." Wedge's hands folded down into
fists and crashed against each other. "Isard is killing innocents, ex-torting
money, enslaving the Vratix, and holding prisoners we want freed. Each and every
single thing we do from this point forward is going to be part of the plan to
bring her down."
"However." Wedge's voice took on a huskiness. "This war isn't going to be over
fast. After this strike at a bacta colony, we'll be moving into a protracted
conflict where we'll be more pirate than we are army. It will be exhausting but,
as long as she doesn't get her hands on an Interdictor Cruiser, we'll be able to
stay ahead of her and wear her down. We'll frustrate her and make her impatient.
Then we'll have her."
Corran found himself smiling. Wedge was correct in that without an Interdictor