"Michael Stackpole "The Bacta War"" - читать интересную книгу автора

forward to bring his X-wing up on Tycho's left. Nawara Ven, in Eight, dropped in
back and star-board of Tycho while Ooryl pulled his X-wing into the for-mation
to the port and in back of Corran. As a unit they sped on in at the long string
of tankers and tending vessels. The tenders will be the ones that are armed.
The boxy tenders, which really were just freighters haul-ing food and other
supplies for the convoy, quickly out-stripped the tankers and positioned
themselves to make the fighters shy off their targets. The strategy of forming a
wall in front of the freighters might well have worked had the battle been
taking place on a planet with the Rogues in land-speeders, but in space the
tight grouping of the freighters just made eluding them all that much more easy.
Corran hit a key on his console. "Seven, I show six freighters in that block in
front of us, but there were eight originally. They're screening something."
"I copy, Nine. The two missing ones are the largest of them. Keep your eyes open
for something tricky."
Suddenly the freighter formation opened up like a flower blossoming and eight
snubfighters burst up through the open-ing at full attack speed. Led by four
Z-95 Headhunters with blasters blazing, the Thyferran fighters zeroed in on the
Rogue formation. Corran threw all shield power to the for-ward shields, dropped
his crosshairs on one of the speeding Headhunters and hit his trigger.
The quad burst of laser fire pierced the Headhunter's shields. The red beams
sliced into the joint where the port wing joined the fuselage, sheering it off.
The engine on that wing exploded and the ship itself whirled off in a flat spin.
Corran sideslipped to starboard to cut beneath its flight path,
then hauled back on his stick to loop up and onto the trail of the Thyferran
fighters.
Evening his shields out, he inverted the X-wing and dove onto the tail of the
second set of Thyferran fighters. It was a mixed group consisting of two TIE
fighters and two "Ug-lies"-hybrid ships consisting of a TIE's ball cockpit
married to Y-wing engine nacelles.
"Ten, do you want the Die-wings, or shall I take them?"
"Ooryl would be pleased to take them."
"Ten, I have your wing." Corran smiled as Ooryl cruised up and broke to
starboard as the pair of Uglies veered away to shake them. While affordable and
effective for most con-voy security duty, the Uglies were not well suited to
engage-ments against military-grade snubfighters. The Die-wing variant-often
referred to as TIE-wing among those who flew them-suffered from the deficits of
their component parts. They had a Y-wing's sloth mated with a TIE fighter's lack
of shields. Corran would have preferred to be handed a blaster and allowed to
float his way into a fight than pilot one of those things.
He kept an eye on the location of the TIE fighters as Ooryl went in after the
Uglies. Though the Gand's exoskele-ton made him look blocky and clumsy on the
ground, his handling of an X-wing was nothing short of fluid and even delicate.
Whereas Corran's passing shot on the Headhunter had been lucky, Ooryl had a
facility for doing exactly that sort of damage on purpose. He shoots as if laser
bolts were being rationed.
Ooryl triggered a double burst of laser fire, sending two scarlet bolts lancing
through the lead Die-wing's ball cockpit. Nothing exploded, though leaking
atmosphere did combust and flare for a moment. The Die-wing hurtled on through
space, but began to level out from the looping climb in which it had been
engaged. That move invited a second shot, but the first had clearly killed the