"Michael Stackpole "I, Jedi"" - читать интересную книгу автора

I pulled back on the throttle and let him gain some distance. His juking antics continued, but with range the movements that had ripped him out of my sights in close barely broke the edges of my targeting box. I hit the firing button and sent two paired bursts at him. One pair lanced through the aft shield and man-gled one of the landing tines. The other two energy darts clipped the thrust vector vents on the port side, limiting his maneuverability.
Whistler displayed a comm frequency being used by the clutch and I punched it up on my comm unit. “This is Captain Corran Horn of the New Republic Armed Forces. I will accept your surrender.”
A woman answered me. “Don't you know, Invids never sur-render?”
“Not true of the BooO' Ftdl.”
“Riizolo is a fool, but he doesn't have a capital warrant out on his head. I do.” She laughed. “I have nothing to live for, except my honor. One pass, Horn, you and me.”
“You'll die.” A single pass would negate the clutch's agility advantage. She had to know that.
“But perhaps not alone.” Her ship stopped jinking and headed out on a long loop. “Allow me this honor.” The clutch turned and began its run at me.
I wanted to do as she asked, and would have, except for one thing: the Invids had proved over and over again that they had no honor.
I switched to proton torpedoes, got a quick tone-lock from Whistler and pulled the trigger. The missile shot from my X-wing and sprinted straight for her ship. As good as she was, the clutch pilot knew there was no dodging it. She fired with both lasers, but they missed. Then, at the last moment, she shot an ion blast that hit the missile. Blue lightning played over it, burning out every circuit that allowed the torpedo to track and close on her ship.
I'm fairly certain, just for a second, she thought she had won. The problem with a projectile is that even if its sophisticated circuitry fails, it still has a lot of kinetic energy built up. Even if it never senses the proximity of its target and detonates, that much mass moving that fast treats a clutch cockpit much the way a needle treats a bubble. The torpedo drove the ion en-gines out the back of the clutch, where they exploded. The fighter's hollow remains slowly spun off through space and would eventually burn through the atmosphere and give resort guests a thrill.
Whistler made my threat screen all green indicating no more active hostiles in the area. Three flight reported in and Ooryl was back up and running. His forward shield had collapsed and refused to come back up, but otherwise he was fine. Vurrulf and Ghufran reported no trouble with their X-wings. As it turned out only Reme Pollar in two flight had been hit hard enough to be forced extra-vehicular, but she reported she would be fine until the Skipray blast boat from the Glitterstar picked her up.
I switched the comm over to the command channel. “All green here, Rogue Leader.”
“I copy, Nine. Looks like this wasn't the trap we feared it would be.”
“No, sir, it doesn't.”
“Have your people prepare to rejoin the fleet.”
“As ordered, Colonel.”
I relayed the order to my people, but before we could reach my designated rendezvous point, the fleet made a microjump in from the edge of the system. A Mon Calamari Cruiser and two Victoo,-class Star Destroyers formed a triangle in the space above Alakatha. We'd come to the system aboard Horne One and used microjumps to get in as close as we did. Because the information about the Booty Full had been unusual, we ex-pected it might be an ambush, so the fleet had waited to see if the Invids would pounce on the Rogues.
If they had, we would have gotten a chance to finish them once and for all.
I keyed my comm. “Colonel, if we were expecting the pirates to jump us, and they did not, was this mission a success?”
“Good question, Nine. This is one of these missions where only Intelligence will be able to tell us how we did.” Tycho hesitated for a moment. “Then again, we lost only machines, not people. It's a victory anytime that happens.”
Two
Te K'vath system was far enough from Coruscant to be trendy and desirable for seclu-sion-though the price of a mug of lum there would have been enough to discourage most folks from enjoying their holiday. Mirax and I never would have gone there three years ago, but Wedge Antilles had recommended it, and someone in manage-ment had been convinced that our participation in the libera-tion of Coruscant made Mirax and me just the sort of glare couple to attract the notice of the New Republic's fashionable elite. As a result we didn't pay for anything while we were there, and stopping the Boot), Full over A]akatha helped me feel a bit better about having enjoyed the world's hospitality.
The Glimmerstar requested an escort all the way to Corus-cant, which Home One agreed to supply. This meant our return trip would be at the leisurely pace dictated by the liner instead of the faster speed of which the Mon Calamari Cruiser was capable. The Rogues could have taken our X-wings home, but the trip would have locked us in the cockpit for a full twenty-four hours, which I looked forward to with the same enthusi-asm I had for discussing old times with Mirax's father. It would have been nice if the Glimmerstar had allowed us to spend the extra day of travel time on the liner, but their gratitude ex-tended only as far as letting us study the ship's beautiful lines from afar.
We had duties enough to keep us busy anyway, and despite the oppressive humidity, the Mon Cal Cruiser's accommoda-tions were not that bad. After landing my X-wing and getting Whistler set up for recharging, I caught a quick meal in the galley, then joined the rest of the squadron in a briefing room for our debriefing. We all rode Reme for going EV, but we were glad to have her back and enjoyed her descriptions of the Glimmerstar's blast boat. After that I grabbed some rack time, slept for eight hours, worked out a bit and headed for the galley for some breakfast.
Ooryl raised a three-fingered hand and waved me over to the table he occupied all by himself. I smiled and nodded to him, then grabbed some breakfast cakes and an artificial nerfmilk protein beverage. I almost balked at it, because consuming any-thing that doesn't sit well on the stomach can be a mistake when eating with a Gand, but I was very thirsty.
I dropped into the chair opposite Ooryl and did my best not to glance down into the bowl from which he was feeding. “Any-thing interesting happen while I've been down?”
Ooryl's mouth parts moved apart in his approximation of a smile and his compound eyes glittered brightly. His grey-green flesh was of a hue slightly darker than the sauce on the tenta-cles he was fishing out of the bowl, and contrasted sharply with the bright orange of his flight suit. Knobby bits of his exoskele-ton poked at odd angles from within the fabric, as if his flesh were having an allergic reaction to the color.
“Nothing Ooryl considers out of the ordinary.”
I frowned. The Gands had a tradition of speaking of them-selves in the third person and not using the pronoun “I” be-cause they thought it was the height of arrogance to do so. Only those Gands who had committed acts so great that all Gands would know of them were allowed to speak of themselves as “I.” The whole of Rogue Squadron had even gone to Gand and been part of Ooryl'sjanwuine-jika, the ceremony that conferred that right upon him. For him to have reverted to third person meant something was bothering him.
“What is the matter?” I narrowed my green eyes and stared into his black faceted orbs. “You can't be embarrassed about getting shot by that Invid.”
Ooryl slowly and deliberately shook his head. “Ooryl is ashamed that he has not been able to help you with your prob-lem.”
“My' problem?”
“You have been distracted, Corran.” Ooryl perched his hands on the tabletop like two armored spiders. “You and Mirax desire offspring. If Ooryl was on Gand, Ooryl could help solve this problem.”
I stuffed a crumb from one of the cakes into my mouth, chewed quickly and swallowed. “Back up here. How do you know about the child thing?”
The Gand remained rock-still for a moment, then lowered his head. “Qrygg was told by Mirax that you and she would have children, therefore Qrygg had to do Qrygg's best to make certain you were not killed in combat.”
I gave him a hard stare. “Mirax talked to you about our discussion on children?”
“Mirax wished to know if you had spoken with Qrygg about the discussion. When Qrygg said you had not, she asked Qrygg to encourage the discussion if you did.” Ooryl's head came back up. “You should not have been ashamed to speak to Ooryl of it. Ooryl would have been worthy of your trust.”
I gave Ooryl the biggest smile I could muster. I overexagger-ated it because he wasn't so good at reading subtlety. “Ooryl, if i was talking to anybody about our wanting kids, it would have been you. I trust you with my life every day and have never had any cause to regret it.” I saw his mouth parts open, aping my smile and I realized right then and there I'd been fairly stupid in keeping the whole discussion to myself. “And I really should have spoken with you about it. Your advice has always been welcomed and wise. I just didn't think, which is a bad habit I had hoped to abandon.”
“If Ooryl was truly wise, Ooryl would have advised you to abandon it.”
“You have, in very many ways.” I sighed slowly. “And, as Mirax told you, we have been talking about having kids. She went to you to learn what I was thinking. I'm sure any help you offered her was appreciated.”
“Ooryl would like to think so. You will recall that during Ooryl's janwuine-jika, Ooryl was also initiated into the ways of being a Findsman. On Gand, the Findsman performs many use-ful tasks. He locates lost slaves, reads the mists for omens and hunts criminals. There is one more duty he performs for people like you and Mirax. He can wander into the mists and find the child they desire. These mistborn children are a gift and raised by the people as their own. I would be honored to do this for you, my friend.”
I smiled. “Thanks, but I think I can handle the child produc-tion part on my own.”
Ooryl's mandibles sprang open. “Then you are capa-ble .... “
“Yes, very much so.” I raised my chin. “Voy much so. No problems here.”
A membrane nictitated up over Ooryl's eyes for a moment.
“Then why would you not have a child already?” “Huh?”
“This is the purpose of life, is it not? To create life is the greatest act a living creature can commit.”
The solemnity and truth in his words hit me hard. “That's true, but . . .”
“Is this a time Ooryl should remind you that you are trying to abandon being thoughtless?”
I snapped my jaw shut and narrowed my eyes. “If having kids is so important, why don't you have any?”