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

Isard didn't anticipate our coming in to this place in such strength and with
the intention of wreaking total havoc. Wedge linked the fire on his lasers,
pairing them, and evened out his shields fore and aft. A pair of missiles from
his port sizzled through the dawning sky and impaled distant specks of black.
Twin stars twinkled for a moment before the sound of the explosion collided with
his fighter, then Wedge was on the TIEs and firing.
Two bursts of laser fire bracketed one of the TIE fighters. The first pair of
bolts liquefied one of the hexagonal solar panels, immediately pitching the
fighter into a decaying flat spin. The second pair lopped off the upper half of
the remain-ing solar panel, adding a loopy, wobbling element to the spin. The
wounded TIE dropped from the sky like the asymmetri-cal rock it resembled and
exploded on impact with the ground.
Pulling back on the stick, Wedge brought the X-wing's nose up until it pointed
away from the planet. He let the climb bleed off just a little of his speed,
trading it for altitude, then he came back over the top and started back down
into the fight. He selected one target and began to close, but it died in a quad
burst of laser fire, so he ruddered the nose to the right and swooped in on a
TIE angling for a deflection shot at Asyr's X-wing.
These pilots know nothing. Coming in from above and in front of the TIE fighter,
Wedge knew he should have been easy to spot. The TIE pilots had clearly focused
in on getting Asyr, to the exclusion of everyone else. While that kind of focus
and concentration might be useful in all sorts of en-deavors, in a fighter pilot
without situational awareness, it was suicide.
Wedge knew, from looking out his canopy and studying his sensors, where his
other fighters were and where the dwin-dling supply of TIEs was. He couldn't
feel their presence in the way Luke described being able to fix people and
machines in relation to himself through the Force, but he did have a
sense of where they were. This situational awareness meant he would know if a
TIE had begun to close on him and would be able to take the appropriate
response, from calling for help to outmaneuvering the other pilot.
Without it I would have died hundreds of times over. Applying a little rudder,
Wedge tracked his crosshairs over to cover the TIE and tightened up on the
trigger. Four red lances of light converged, melding into one, then skewered the
fighter's ball cockpit. The ion engines exploded, spinning the solar panels away
like sabacc cards. Flaming debris sprayed out like sparks in the wake of a
passing meteorite, igniting a fire in the foliage below.
Mynock trumpeted triumphantly.
Wedge glanced at his main sensor screen. "That was the last of them, true." He
activated the comm unit. "Nine, take Ten and swing over the spaceport. Suppress
ground fire if you get any and report all clear."
"As ordered, Lead."
"Chir'daki One to Rogue Leader."
"Go ahead, Tal'dira."
"Chir'daki pass complete. We had secondary explosions in the vehicle sheds and
machining shops."
"Good going, Tal'dira. Stand by for phase two of the operation."
Tycho's voice entered the frequency. "Wedge, I have someone on the deck
complaining. Claims to be the plant manager."
"I copy, Tycho. Tell him to evacuate the whole area and consider a career
change. Resistance means we grid the sur-rounding town and start melting parts