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

Hyx nodded. "You have an emotional stake in this raid, not just a military goal. It's perfectly understand-able that you'd feel anxiety."
Bria gave him a quick glance. "That won't keep me from doing my job, Hyx."
"I know,'] he said. "Red Hand Squadron is very effi-cient, I hear. From what I've observed about your peo-ple, they'd follow you into a black hole and out the other side."
Bria laughed a little. "I don't know about that. If I were crazy enough to mess with black holes, I hope they'd be sane enough to hold back. But my troops would follow me into Palpatine's Imperial Palace, that I knOW."
"You wouldn't last very longff he said dryly.
She smiled, but no warmth reached her eyes. "But we'd have fun for a while. It would be worth my life to get a shot at Palpatine."
"How soon does the first wave launch?"
She glanced at the tiny chrono-ring she wore. "We're waiting for the signal from my operative on the space station. Then we'll microjump into position. He'll tell us the moment Helot's Shackle undocks from the Ylesian space station. We want to catch the slavers before they can leave the system." "Makes sense."
Bria turned right and entered the turbolift. "I'm go-ing down to do a final check of my troopers who will be going in the boarding shuttles. Want to tag along?" "Sure."
They took the lift down to the shuttle launch bay. When they stepped out, the launch area was a con-trolled frenzy of crews making last minute checks of vessels, equipment and weapons. One of the troops, seeing Bria, put two fingers in his mouth and whistled piercingly. "Commander on deck?
Bria spoke to her lieutenant, Jace Paol, who was overseeing the last pre-battle preparations. "Assemble troops, please."
One quick order later, and the boarding squads were falling in. There would be one squad per shuttle, about ten troops on each. Two waves of three shuttles each, first wave and second wave. First wave would have the respon-sibility for boarding Helot's Shackle and neutralizing the slaver resistance. The second wave would reinforce the first, and help with the mopping up.
Bria walked slowly down the lines of troops, inspect-ing them, checking their uniforms, their weapons, their expressions. At one point she stopped before a young trooper whose eyes glittered with more than eagerness. Studying his flushed cheeks and reddened nose, she frowned. "Corporal Burrid..."
He came to full attention. "Yes, Commander!"
She reached up, touched his cheek, then his fore-head. "Fall out, Burrid. You've got at least a degree of fever."
Sk'kot Burrid sMuted. "Respectfully, Commander, I feel fine!"
"Right," Bria said. "And I'm the Emperor's Wookiee concubine. Hyx?"
The medical officer took a reed-probe out of his belt pouch and touched it to the young man's face. "Two de-grees fever, Commander. White cell counts indicate in-feetion, possibly contagious."
"Report to the reed droid, Corporal," Bria ordered. Crestfallen, the young man opened his mouth to protest, then he thought better of it and obeyed. With-out a word, his backup from the reserves moved into his place in line.
When Bria had finished her inspection, she paused, then addressed her soldiers. "All right, people. We're waiting now for the signal to make our microjump. The Y-wings will go in first, and make their runs to bring their shields down. Then it will be up to you people. You'll be docking with their airlocks where they have them, and fighting your way in. Where there are no air-locks, we're going to make ones. Special engineering teams will accompany two boarding shuttles. Those squads will cut through the hull just in front of the engi-neering sections."
She paused. "Remember, there are going to be slaves underfoot, confused, frightened, and probably begin-ning to suffer from Exultation withdrawal. They may try to attack you. Don't risk yourselves, but make every rea-sonable effort not to harm them seriously. Use stun beams on those slaves, ‘all fight?"
There was a general murmur of agreement. "Are there any questions?"
There weren't. The troops had already been briefed by their squad headers and platoon leaders, and they'd been through repeated drills.
Bria nodded at the troops. "This is Red Hand% most ambitious undertaking yet, people. If we can pull this off, you can bet we'll be seeing more action. So let's im-press the Sector Command... right?" Agreement was unanimous.
As Bria turned to confer with her platoon leaders, suddenly her comlink beeped. She activated it. "Yes?"
"Commander, the signal just came through. Helot's Shackle has just undoeked from the Ylesian station."
Bria nodded, then turued to the platoon leader. "First wave, board your shuttles. Second wave... stand by."
The deck reverberated to the pound of running feet as the thirty troopers scrambled into their respective shuttles. ъ Bria keyed in her personal frequency. "Attention, Crimson Fury, this is Red Hand Leader." "Go ahead, Red Hand."
"Prepare your ships to microjump in three minutes.
Retribution will be right behind you."
"Copy that, Red Hand Leader. Preparing for micro jump."
Quickly Bria and Daino Hyx left the shuttle fighter launch bay, took the turbolift up, then jogged forward until they reached the bridge. The ship% captain looked up as they entered. Bria slipped into a seat behind the tactical schematic. From her station she could also see the viewscreens. "Captain Bjalin," she said. "Ten sec-onds ‘after the last of the Y-wings has jumped, we will jump."
"Yes, Commander," Bjalin said. Tedris Bjalin was a tall young man whose hairline was receding, despite his youth. He'd joined the Corellian resistance just recently, after his entire family had been murdered during the Imperial massacre on Tyshapahl. Before that time, he'd been an Imperial lieutenant. His Imperial training had served him in good stead, earning him a promotion in the Rebel forces. He was an able officer, a decent man, who'd told Bfia that he'd already been thinking of de-serting the Impefi'al Navy when his family had been murdered. That had pushed him over the edge.
Bria watched tensely as the seconds counted down, and, two by two, the six Y-wings jumped into hyper-space. Then the starlines stretched out before them, as Retribution jumped, too.
The moment they arrived back in realspace, Retribu-tion opened her shuttle bays and the first wave of boarding shuttles launched. They approached Helot's Shackle at half speed, behind the Y-wings, which were barreling in at full speed.
Bria watched with satisfaction as the first pair of Y-wings streaked toward the Corellian corvette, firing salvos of two proton torpedoes each, targeting the steru and amidships. Their goal was not to blow a hole in Helot's Shackle, but to take down the shields without harming the vessel unduly. Bria intended to take the Shackle intact and bring it back to be added into the Rebel fleet. One of the shuttles in the second wave would be carrying a prize crew, consisting of computer techs, engineers, a pilot and damage control and repair teams.
Bria would not have minded catching Helot's Shackle unprepared, but she wasn't counting on that, and wasn't surprised to find that the corvette was traveling with its shields up. As the Y-wings hurtled in, the big ship opened fire, but the agile Y-wings easily evaded its blasts. Retri-but/on stayed carefitly out of range of its fire.
As Bria watched, the four proton torpedoes launched by the Y-wings flashed blue-white, impacted against the shields, and splashed over the slaver's hull without penetrating the defenses. The first pair of Y-wings peeled away and went circling back in case they were needed again.
Helot's Shackle blasted away again, and this time one of its shots grazed one of the Y-wings-a minor hit, but enough to put the fighter out of the action.
Bria was figuring it would take four proton torpedoes to bring down the Shackle's shields. The second pair of Y-wings went streaking in, and the first fired.
This time the blue-white burst spread out, then, suddenly, there was a visible impact against the side of the vessel. A blackened streak marred the armor.
"That's it!" Bria said, and keyed the comm unit, ad-dressed her Y-wing team leader. "Crimson Fury, good work! Shields are down! Now let's use those ion can-nons of yours to finish ‘em! Warn your ships to take eva-sive! We don't want any more hits?
"Copy that, Red Hand Leader. Targeting sensor suites and solar fin. Starting our runs now."
The Y-wing pairs began strafing the Helotg Shackle, firing their turreted ion cannons at the preassigned tar-gets. The bursts from the ion cannons were designed not to damage the enemy vessel's hull, but to knock out all electrical activity aboard ship-including, of course, the engines, the targeting computers, and the bridge systems, Every electrical system aboard would need to be re-initialized before the Shackle would be opera-tional again.
Helotg Shackle fired again and again, but the Y-wings were just too quick and agile for the big ship's weapons to target effectively.
Scant minutes later, the Shackle was drifting helpless in space, its electrical systems down. Bria cheeked her chrono as the first wave of boarding shuttles moved in. Good. Right on time. One ship attached itself to the large forward airlock, the one the Shackle used to load her eargoes of slaves. The remaining two shuttles grap-pled against the hull on either side of the slaver's ship and began cutting their way in.
Bria listened as reports flooded in from her squad leaders:
"Red Hand Leader, Squad One reporting from the eargo airlock on the forward hold on Deck 4. We've made it inside, but we're encountering heavy resis-tance. The crew was getting the slax/es out as we came through, but there are still some in here. The Pilgrims have taken shelter, as have we, behind cargo canisters. We've got a brisk firefight ongoing. We're going to push them back, so we can get to the turbolaser access shaft." "Red Hand Leader, Squad Two reporting in. We've breached the hull forward of the engines on Deck 4 and set up a portable airlock. My troops are moving in now ....
"Red Hand Leader, the armor plating on this section of the starboard hull is giving us some trouble... stand by...." And, a minute later, "Red Hand Leader, we are through!"
Bria watched the progress of the squads through the vessel, weighing when to bring in her second wave. The two squads who'd cut their way in had met with mini-mal resistance. But the forward squad who'd entered through the airlock was meeting heavy opposition from the slavers as they battled their way to the turbolifts. It was understandable that the slavers would fight to the last. Red Hand's reputation was beginning to spread, and doubtless the crew of the Shackle had recognized the symbol of a blood-dripping hand painted on the bows of their attackers' ships.