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

Avarice's Captain Sair Yonka is very smart and calculating-the antithesis of us
Corellians because he does care what the odds are and does everything he can to
maxi-mize his chances of survival. He's spent much of his career on ships in the
Outer Rim chasing down pirates and protecting convoys, so he understands very
well what Isard has him do-ing.
"The Virulence's Joak Drysso is a stalwart Imperial. I think he's working with
Isard as much to strike back at the Rebellion as he is for any other reason. I
was talking with my father, and it's his guess that Drysso will move over to
take command of the Lusanka-assuming, of course, Isard was in command of it to
this point. Drysso's Executive Officer is Captain Lakwii Varrscha, so she'll be
moved up in his place. I had to outrun her when she was commanding a Customs
corvette. Tactics weren't innovative-standard Imp, utterly by the book-but
tactics for an Imperial Star Destroyer have never really been subtle anyway."
Corran nodded as the serving droid put tumblers of Corellian whisky in front of
them, then accompanied it with a steaming, tentacled mass of noodles and
thin-sliced vegetables drenched in a green sauce. "Thanks, I think." He glanced
at Mirax as the droid retreated. "Is this what we ordered?"
"I think so." She stabbed a fork into it, twirled it and lifted a dripping
noodle coil to her mouth. She chewed for a
moment, then swallowed. "Unrecognizable, but not inedi-
"Your enthusiasm is underwhelming." Corran poked around the food with his fork,
speared something crunchy and popped it into his mouth. The sauce seemed a bit
hot, but
it was flavorful and cleared his sinuses, so he decided against complaining.
"Not bad. I also think you're right on in point-ing out that we have been
underestimating Isard and her peo-ple Part of it is because Erisi joined them-I
think we have a vested interest in seeing her in a negative light. That could
easily be a fatal mistake. We need our edge back, and I think Wedge is going to
beat that idea into our brains from this point forward."
Corran looked up as Ooryl entered the tapcaf and waved him over. The Gand
hesitated for a moment, looked back out into the concourse, then nodded. As he
made his way through the jumble of tables, Corran saw three other Gands trailing
in his wake, like mynock splitlings drafting off their parent. Only one of them
equaled Ooryl's size-the other two proba-bly massed as much as Ooryl but wore
most of it around their middles. / wonder how that works with an exoskeleton?
Ooryl stopped at the edge of the table. "Greetings Cor-ran and Mirax. It is
Qrygg's honor to present to you three Gands from Qrygg's homeworld of Gand. They
are Ussar Vice, Syron Aalun, and Vviir Wiamdi."
The larger of the three bowed his head. "I speak for all three of us when I say
we are most pleased to make your acquaintance."
Though the Gand's speech had the guttural tones and clicks of Ooryl's normal
voice, Corran found himself having a hard time comprehending what was said. He
knew he should have understood it easily-it was only a greeting-but the use of
personal pronouns surprised him. Ooryl explained long ago that Gands considered
it the height of presumption to use personal pronouns to refer to themselves,
because it arrogantly assumes the listeners know who the speaker is. Only after
having done something so memorable that such an assumption can be made can a
Gand refer to himself as "I."
Mirax covered for Corran. "We're very pleased to meet you as well. Ooryl is a
good friend, so we are honored to meet his friends."