"Michael Stackpole "Rogue Squadron"" - читать интересную книгу автора

Horn, Iella Wessiri, and her husband will be mine. It is inevitable."
"You're overestimating your abilities, and un-derestimating mine."
"Am I? I think not. I know you well enough to know you'll only break under
extreme pressure. I can and will take you to the edge of your endurance, then
float you in bacta until you are ready to con-tinue interrogation." Kirtan
folded his hands to-gether. "However, you are just one relay in the network that
will bring the others to me. Corran Horn is too volatile to stay confined in any
role you create for him. And I know that role had to be very constricting for
him."
Bastra's chest heaved mightily with a sigh. "And how do you know that?"
Kirtan tapped his temple with a finger. "You think I have forgotten the falling
out the two of you had? You decided to protect him because his father had been
your partner when you started out, but you are a vengeful man, Gil Bastra.
Whatever role you created for Corran would squeeze him every
day, just to remind him he owed his life to a man he hated."
Fat rippled beneath the prisoner's grey jumpsuit as he laughed. "You do know
me."
"I do indeed."
"But not well enough." Bastra gave him a grin that was all teeth and defiance.
"I am vengeful- vengeful enough to engineer things so a disgraced Intelligence
officer would spend the rest of his career dashing around the galaxy trying to
capture three people he once worked with. Three people who es-caped out from
under his hooked beak, and were able to do so because his nose was so up in the
air all the time that he couldn't notice the most obvious of mistakes they
made."
Kirtan used scorn to smother his surprise. "I caught you, didn't I?"
"And it took you the better part of two years to do so. Ever wonder why? Ever
wonder why, when you were about to give up, a new clue would sur-face?" Bastra
surged forward and stood. Though the prisoner was nearly thirty centimeters
shorter, than Kirtan, the Intelligence officer felt somehow dwarfed by him. "I
wanted you following me. Every second you were on my trail, every moment /
looked easier to catch than the others, I knew you'd come after me. And while
you were coming after me, you wouldn't be going after the others."
Kirtan pointed a trembling finger at the old man's face. "That doesn't matter
because you can and will be broken. I will have from you the things I need to
find the others."
"You're wrong, Kirtan. I'm a black hole that's sucking your career down into its
heart." Bastra sagged back down onto the cot. "Remember that when I'm dead,
because I'll be laughing about it for all eternity."
This cannot continue. I will not be humiliated any longer! "I'll remember your
words, Gil Bastra, but your laughter will be a long time coming. The only
eternity you'll know is your interrogation, and I guarantee-personally
guarantee-you'll go to your grave having betrayed those who trusted you the
most."

4


Corran made a vain grab at the hydrospanner with his right hand as the tool
slipped from the X-wing's starboard engine cowling. His fingertips brushed the