"Ann Crispin "Han Solo. Rebel Dawn"" - читать интересную книгу автора

most in the attack on Nar Shaddaa, and they are at-
tempting to sway you into siding with them against Be-
sadii. The truth is, Besadii did nothing wrong! We did
nothing-"
"You did nothing, all right!" the leader of Trinivii ka-jidic shouted, breaking in. "Desilijic offered the strategy that saved us. Besadii grabbed profit at all our expense!"
Zier shook his head. "What we did was-"
"We are Hutts!" another leader shouted. "It is our pride to take from other species! It is our pride to make profit! But we do not seek to destroy our own kind!
Compete, yes... destroy, no/"
Chaos erupted., A cacophony of tail-thumps, shouts, curses, bellows, and raging diatribes filled the air.
Grejic had to tail-thump many times to restore order. "I believe it is time for a vote," he called. "All kajidic representatives in favor of officially censuring and fining Besadii-vote now, yes or no, on the motion."
Each kajidie leader pressed a thumb against the vote tabulator before him.
Moments later, Grejic raised a hand. "The votes are tallied. Forty-seven to one in favor of censuring Besadii."
Cheers rang out.
"Zier of Bes-"
"Wait!" A voice broke in. Jabba recognized that voice, and turned to see Jilia/c undulating across the room. "Wait, I did not vote!"
"Jabba voted for your kajidic, Lady Jiliac. Why this interruption? Do you wish us to re-take the vote?" Gre-jic was respectful, but clearly impatient to get on with the matter at hand.
"Re-take the vote?" Jabbe looked at his aunt and their gazes locked. After a moment, she shook her head. "My nephew is my accepted proxy, Lord Grejic. Please proceed."
Jabba let out his breath very slowly. For a moment he'd thought Jiliac was going to question his judgment and his authority in front of everyone. Many of the other Hutts were giving him curions glances, clearly wondering why Jabbe had been voting if Jiliae was not going to support his position unreservedly.
Jiliac glided over to lie beside her nephew, but Jabba found himself wishing she'd just stayed away: It was em-barrassing to have his judgment questioned in front of his own people. He thought again of what it would be like just to run Desilijic by himself, without interference--- and unthinking interference, at that.
"Zier of Besadii," said Grejic, continuing where he'd left off, "it is the will of this Council that you be ex-cused from our ranks until your clan has paid one rail-lioncredits in damages, to be divided among the other kajidics equally. May I suggest that you endeavor in fu-ture not to regard your own people as you would those of other species-as dupes to be exploited."
The Executive Secretary waved to the guards and their ranking officer, who were standing at the en-trance. "Guardsmaster, you will escort the Besadii dele-gation from this hall."
As Zier and the other Besadii undulated ‘along toward the entrance, Jabba saw that they were ‘all trying to look confident and scornful and failing utterly. The soft mutter of the other Hutts swelled into a tumult of hooting laughter, raucous bellows, and shouted insults, jeers and threats.
Jabba smiled inwardly. Not a bad afiernoon's work, he thought smugly. Not bad at all ....
Bria Tharen walked briskly down the corridor of her command ship, the light cruiser Retribution. She was on her way to review her troops before their planned raid on the slaver vessel Helot's Shackle. Inwardly, Bria was excited and eager, but her features were composed and her blue-green eyes were as cold as deep glacial ice.
Mentally she reviewed her battle plan, analyzing it for weaknesses, making sure she'd covered every possi-ble contingency with a backup option. This operation should go down smoothly, but the Helot's Shackle was, ‘after all, a heavily-armed Corellian corvette, a formida-ble vessel in her own right.
Retribution was ‘almost the same size as the Shackle, so they should be relatively evenly matched. Bria's ves-sel was a Republic Sienar Systems Marauder-class corvette, sleek and streamlined, capable of both space and atmospheric combat. The Marauders were among the most common capital ships in the Corporate Sec-tor's picket fleet. The Corellian underground had pur-chased this Marauder second-hand from the Authority, and given it to Bria for her flagship.
The Corellian commander had an operative working on the space station orbiting Ylesia. The operative had tipped Bria off a few days ago that the Ylesian priests were planning on shipping out nearly two hundred Exultation-addicted and malnourished slaves to the mines of Kessel.
For a moment Bria wished she could give in to her own desires and go out with her people in tile first boarding wave. The troops aboard those three shuttles would see the maximum amount of combat, make the most kills. And Bria had a personal grudge against this particular slaving vessel. Nearly ten years ago, Helot's Shackle had narrowly missed capturing Bria, Han and their two Togorian friends, Muuurgh and Mrrov, as they'd made their escape from Ylesia.
Bria sighed, but she knew that her place during the first wave was aboard her command vessel, coordinat-ing the attack, identifying pockets of heavy resistance in order to best allocate her troops for the second wave.
This was Retributiong fifth mission for the Corellian resistance, and Bria was glad to be back in action. Dur-ing her eight years with the Corellian underground, she'd done whatever she'd been assigned to do, and done it well. But she had hated the undercover spying projects... and hadn't much liked "liaison" work. She'd been glad to leave them behind and get back to real fighting.
It was Mon Mothma who had made it possible for Bria to go back into the real action. The renegade Im-perial senator had both the influence and the' eloquence to convince individual resistance groups that a Rebel Alliance was a necessity. The Senator was better at it than Bria had ever been, and spent ‘all her time travel-ing from world to world, meeting with underground leaders. Just a month ago Bria and the rest of the Corellian resistance had celebrated the signing of the Corellian Treaty.
Publicly, Mon Mothma was credited with engineer-ing the Treaty, and there was no doubt that she had helped. But Bria had heard a rumor that Corellia's own Senator Garm bel Iblis had secretly been one of the main architects of the Treaty. In addition to CoreIlia, the other signatories to the Treaty were Alderaan and Chandrila-Mon Mothma's home planet.
Traveling system to system, world to world, Mon Mothma made contact with resistance groups where they existed, and created new groups where there had been none. The former senator's fame was both help and hindrance; on the one hand it gave her access to important nobles and leade's of industry, but on the other hand, especially in the beginning, some groups had expressed the fear that she might be an Imperial plant, sent by Emperor Palpatine to test their loyalty.
The renegade senator had faced death many times, both from Imperial troops and from suspicions resis-tance leaders. Bria had met Mon Mothma and con-ferred with her soon ‘after the senator had fled the Emperor's charge of treason. She'd been impressed-
‘almost awed-by Mon Mothma's quiet dignity, her unswerving resolution and her formidable intelligence.
It had been one of the high points of Bria's life when
Mon Mothma had shaken her hand and told her that
she, Bria Tharen, had been one of the people who'd
been instrumental in getting Bail Organa to change his ъ mind about Alderaan's pacifism. The Viceroy was now committed to the thought of armed revolution against the Empire. He faced considerable resistance from his government, however, and, so far, Alderaan's efforts at arming itself were small and extremely clandestine.
The Corellian Treaty had inaugurated the Rebel Al-liance Bria and the other Corellians had been working toward. The individual Rebel groups would retain much of their autonomy, but, in theory at least, strategic command of the Alliance was now vested in Mon Mothma. To date, the fledgling Rebel Alliance had not been tested' in battle. Bria was hoping that would soon change.
Bria rounded a corner in Retribution's corridor, and was joined by her medical officer. Daino Hyx would be in charge of handling the slaves once they were res-cued. Hyx was a short, bearded man with the brightest blue eyes Bria had ever seen, and a shy smile that most people found irresistible. Hyx had been a scholar at one of Alderaan's top universities. There he'd studied medi-cine and psychology, and had wound up specializing in the treatment of addictions. Since joining the Corellian resistance six months ago, he'd applied his formidable skills to the problem of the Ylesian Pilgrims.
Bria was convinced that there were many frustrated idealists to be found among the underfed, overworked ranks of the Ylesian Pilgrims. Since her first raid on Yle-sia nearly two years ago, sixteen slaves that she'd res-cued were currently topnotch fighters or operatives for the Corellian resistance. Another ten had been awarded medals for valor... posthumously.
Bria had pointed out to her commanding officers on CoreIlia that Ylesia, with its thousands of slaves, was a potential goldmine of Rebel recruits-if only they could find a way to overcome the addictive effects of the Exultation. True, Bria herself had overcome addic-tion to the Exultation to become a valuable addition to the Corellian underground. But it had taken her nearly three years of unrelenting effort to cure herself. She'd tried everything from meditation to drugs-and had only found the strength she needed when she decided to dedicate her life to the eradication of slavery and the Empire that condoned it.
But they didn't have three years to devote to curing the Pilgrims. They had to find a cure that would work in weeks or months, rather than years.
That was where Daino Hyx came in. By thoroughly analyzing the physical, mental and emotional effects of the Exultation (at one point he'd traveled to Nal Hutta to meet a number of t'landa Til males and studied how they produced the effect) Hyx believed he'd found a cure. Hyx's cure involved a mixture of mental, emotional and physical treatments, ranging from anti-addiction drugs to interactive and group therapy.
Today, if all went well, Hyx would get the chance to begin putting his new treatment to the test.
He glanced up at Bria. "Nervous, Commander?"
She smiled faintly. "Does it show?"
"No. Most people wouldn't notice a thing, I'm sure. But I'm not most people. I got to know you pretty well while we were first working on the new therapy. And as-sessing the mental and emotional states of humanoids is my job, remember."
"That's true," Bria admitted. "Yes, I'm a bit nervous. This is different from capturing a customs patrol ship or raiding some lonely Imp outpost. This time, we're going up against the people who used to own me, body and spirit. I'm always just a bit ‘afraid that when I'm exposed to the Pilgrims' addiction that my own will somehow come back."