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

She hesitated for a long second, glanced at each of the men sitting with her, then shrugged fractionally. "Thank you," she said, and stood up. Lando escorted her out to the dance floor. She looked around her and frowned slightly in consternation. "Oh, dear. I'm afraid I don't know how to do this one."
Lando was surprised. The margengai-glide had been popular for at least five years. "It's easy," he said, putting his hand on her shoulder, and interlacing his fingers with hers. "I'll show you."
She missed several steps right off, and brought her heeled evening slipper down on his toes once, but after a couple of minutes, and Lando's experienced coaching, Bria began to catch on. Her sense of timing was good, and so were her reflexes. Once she'd memorized the in-tricate pattern of the steps, she began to enjoy herself, Lando could tell. She was nearly as tall as he was, and as they moved around the dance floor, they began to re-ceive tile admiring glances of the onlookers still seated at the tables.
"Good, you've got it," Lando said. "You're a natural." "I haven't danced in years," she confessed, a little breathless, as the music changed to a fast number. Lando whirled her into a boxnov three-step. She was a little rusty, but it was obvious that the older dance was one she'd done before.
"You're wonderful," he assured her. "I'm the luckiest man on this ship, finding a partner like you."
She gave him a brilliant smile, her cheeks flushed with the exercise and praise. "Flatterer."
Lando put on a mock-hurt expression. "Me? I am under a vow of truth, Lady Bria . . . Bria . . . what a lovely name. You're Corellian, aren't you?"
"Yes," she said, stiffening slightly in his arms, her glance suddenly wary. "Why?"
"I was just thinking that I';ee only heard that name once before. Is it common on your homeworld?"
"No," she said. "My father made it up from the first syllables of my grandmothers' names. Brusela and Iaphagena. He didn't want to saddle me with either of them, but he wanted to honor both of them."
"Clever," Lando said. "Obviously a man of great diplomacy and tact."
She laughed a little, but there was a sad note under-lying her merriment. "That's my father," she agreed. "Lando, I'm surprised to hear you say you've met an-other Bria. I thought I was the only one."
"You probably are," Lando said. "The other Bria I knew was a ship. My friend Han named his Sorosuub Starmite he leased from me the Bria."
She missed a step, recovered quickly. "Han?" she said. "I used to know a Corellian named Han. Is your friend Corellian?"
Lando nodded, and twirled her in a spin. When she was back in his arms again, he said, "Han Solo and I go back a ways. Don't tell me you know him?"
She laughed a little. "I do. It has to be the same guy. Brown hair, brownish eyes with a hint of green, a hair taller than you, has a very charming, lopsided smile?"
"Whoa," Lando said, raising an eyebrow. "You do know him well, don't you? That guy gets around, doesn't he?"
Her face reddened at his knowing look, and she glanced away and concentrated on the intricate steps for a moment. When she looked back up, her eyes were cool, and a little amused. "He's just part of my past, like a lot of other guys," she said. "There must be a few skeletons in your cargo locker, right?"
Lando, realizing he'd touched a nerve, was happy to let the subject go. "You bet," he said.
They danced several more dances, and Lando en-joyed her company tremendously. He looked over at her table, and realized that her companions had left the lounge. "Who are those fellows who were sitting at your table?"
She shrugged. "just business associates," she said. "Feldron is my agent, and Renkov is my business manager."
"I see," Lando said, secretly delighted. It was obvi-ous that she was serious that neither of them was any kind of romantic interest. "So... do you want to have a drink, perhaps? Somewhere a bit more... private?"
She gave him an assessing glance, then nodded and stepped back, out of his arms. "All right. I'd like that. We can talk about... mutual acquaintances."
Lando reached for her hand, then raised it to his lips.
"Mutual acquaintances it is," he said.
"My stateroom, number 112, in, say, thirty minutes?" she said.
"Thirty minutes," Lando said. "I will be counting them, every one."
She smiled at him, a smile that held rueful amuse-ment as well as pleasure, and turned and left Lando standing on the edge of the dance floor. He watched her walk away, a pleasant occupation. She reached the portal of the lounge, brushed past an Anomid who was loitering there, watching the dancing and listening to the music, then disappeared from sight.
Lando smiled. Now to find the best bottle of wine in this ship, and some flowers, he thought, and headed briskly for the bar. Twenty-nine minutes and counting...
Bria told herself to settle down as she hurried down the corridor toward her stateroom. But she was ex-cited, realizing that she was finally going to get news of Hah! Lando Calrissian was obviously more than just a casual friend. Bria was so eager to reach her stateroom that she was almost jogging as she approached the door of 112. At last! Someone who knows him well, who can tell me how he's doing, what he's been cb'sing . . . where he is!
Just as Bria reached the door to her cabin, she had the sudden thought that perhaps Han was on Nar Shad-daa, her ultimate destination. Was it possible that in forty-eight hours or so, she'd actually get to see him? The thought excited her, even as it filled her with trepi-dation. After more than nine years, what would it be like to be close to him?
As she unlocked her stateroom door, her hands were shaking. She was so absorbed in memories of Han that she had no warning, no warning at all. One moment the door was opening before her, and the next a powerful thrust propelled her through the portal and into the liv-ing room of the suite with such force that she didn't even have breath to cry out.
Her high-heeled slippers skidded on the polished floor, and she tripped, trying to catch herself. Just as she started to fall, Bria felt something sharp sting her back.
She had only an instant to realize that she'd been shot with some kind of knockout drug. As she fell, she man-aged with the last of her strength to turn slightly, and saw a strange Anomid standing behind her in the door-way. Bria managed a soft, choked cry of warning to her friends before everything around her faded, faded... Faded...
And went black.
Boba Fett watched the Tharen woman sag to the floor, then lie there, motionless. Quickly he shut the door to the corridor behind him, and started forward- just as the older men Tharen had been traveling with rushed out of the sleeping cabin on the right.
Boba Fett extended his arm, flexed his hand, and a deadly da's (unlike the soporific one that had felled the woman) shot toward the older of the two Resistance of-ricers and embedded itself in his throat. The man had time for one strangled gasp, and was dead before he hit the floor.
The other man did not hesitate, but came straight in. Boba Fett swept aside the Anomid cape and stood poised as the man, with a wordless yell, attacked.
The Rebel leader might have been a decent officer in plafining strategy and attacks, but he was no expert at unarmed combat. Boba Fett blocked his blow with one forearm, then came in with a hard, lethal blow that crushed the Corellian's larynx.
Fett watched dispassionately as the Rebel officer died. It took no more than a minute.
He bent over the dead man, planning to drag him and his fellow off to the corner of the room and throw some sheets over them-more to muffle the stench of voiding from the suddenly deceased bodies than from any sense of decorum.
Boba Fett's peripheral vision was compromised by the mask he was wearing. Without his Mandalorian hel-met with its special sensors, the bounty hunter had only an instant's warning of danger. He dodged just as the Rebel bodyguard struck, silent and with the expertise the two older men had lacked.
The bounty hunter whirled away from the younger man, and as he did so, Fett whipped off the Anomid's heavy cloak and flung it into the bшdyguard's face. With one smooth movement, his opponent disentangled him-self and came in again. He was perhaps in his early thir-ties, and was bare-chested, barefoot, and wearing only shorts. The man had evidently been asleep in the other room when his officers had made their ill-fated attack.
This fellow, Fett knew instantly, was a combat sol-dier, trained to use his hands and feet as weapons-and trained also in using the vibroblade he held in one hand. Behind his two masks, Boba Fett smiled slightly, pleased to be challenged, and by someone who plainly knew what he was doing. He had another lethal dart he could have used, but he decided against it. A little exer-cise would be welcome. It had been a long time since he'd indulged' himself in unarmed combat; few foes were worthy of his time.
The man was already dancing in, balanced, his eyes level, vibroblade ready for a disemboweling slash. Boba Fett let him come, then dodged at the last possible sec-ond, pulling himself into an arc like a null-gee dancer, and then spinning around, out of the way. As he moved, his hand moved out and dealt the soldier a stunning clip behind his right ear.
The soldier managed to dodge at the last moment, though, and the blow that had been meant to render him unconscious only dazed him. He staggered a little, shook his head, then came back for more.
Boba Fett was pleased to oblige. They sidestepped around each other in a grim parody of the way Lando Calrissian and Bria Tharen had danced in the Star Winds Lounge only minutes before.
The guard lunged again, and again Boba Fett waited, then evaded the movement at the last possible second. Another blow made the Corellian gasp-this time Fett's instep impacted with the back of his knee. The guard's leg buckled, and, for the first time, Fett saw fear in his eyes. He now knew he was totally outclassed, and yet he conquered his pain and weakness and moved in again. A man who knows his duty and does not shrink from it, Fett thought. Admirable. His reward for his courage shall be a quick and easy death ....
For the first time, Fett went on the attack. His foot lashed out in a precise blow, and impacted with the man's wrist with stunning force. The vibroblade went flying. Fett spun in for the finish. Another sweep be-hind the other knee, and the man sagged, his legs un-able to hold him. But that did not matter. Fett already had him around the neck in a grip as hard and relentless its durasteel. One quick, sideways jerk, and the guard sagged in his arms, dead.
Boba Fett dragged the man over to the corner, and laid him down, then brought the others over, too. He tossed the covers from one of the beds over the bodies. As he was finishing the task, he saw that the Tharen woman was beginning to stir.