DREADNOUGHT 2165 Read Free Page A

a
single round hit a Hardway crewman. It was eerie.
    Holdout and Dirty flew corkscrews and
rolls that almost made it look like they were trying to evade
Paladin, but somehow, no matter where he went, they always ended up
right behind him. It was like they were toying with him – like
they'd thought it all out three steps ahead of him. They just
dodged Gush's fire like he wasn't there while they hunted down
Paladin. Holdout and Dirty could fly, but Jordo had never seen them
fly like that .
    Gush came 'round three times trying to blow
them off Paladin's tail and every time, they broke, evaded the
attack and re-engaged him in seconds. By the time Holdout and Dirty
hosed Paladin down with dummy rounds, it was clear they could have
dusted him a hundred times over.
    Less than five seconds later, they closed on
Gusher from opposite sides, port and starboard, and hammered both
sides of his Bitzer's cockpit with sparking dummies just to piss
him off.
    *****
    As the fighters twisted and turned above
them, spitting shells at each other, Ram Devlin risked looking over
the lip of the bay doors where he and Tse were ducked down under
fire. The last of his crewmen didn't look like they'd hold out more
than a minute longer against Arroyo's advance. Rounds streaked past
his helmet from starboard and when he looked down his rifle, he saw
an entire squad of Lucy Elan's marines charging on his position.
Tse and Sturbin stood up and sprayed left and right and Ram Devlin
stood up with them and panic fired in desperation.
    The Marines charging them lit up
bright and then appeared as nothing but silhouettes against
explosions of sparks and strobing flashes from all the dummy rounds
coming down from above. He caught a glimpse of the first Bitzer as
it turned on its jets and blasted up and away from the hull after
its strafing run. Then, the second fighter poured rounds from its
six auto-cannon into the last of the Marines that had been charging
Ram's position and sent them flying off the hull. Hardway would need to sortie an SAR
junk just to recover them. He caught hold of two Marines before
they were knocked spinning off the ship, but five more got by
him.
    Ram Devlin looked up to see his air
support coming in again over the launch bays, strafing the Marines
bearing down on the last of his crew. They flew in circles only 300
meters overhead and rotated on their jets to keep their guns aimed,
circle-strafing and putting rounds on target without pause until
the Marines were all down and Hardway's blue exosuits were the only ones
standing on the hull.
    *****
    Jordo still wasn't sure exactly what
he'd seen. Holdout and Dirty had never flown like that before.
Hell, he'd never seen anyone fly like that. Even with all the cheering and Lucy Elan's
colorful curses and all the money changing hands, Jordo could only
wonder how the hell those two jokers pulled flying like that out of
their asses. They were okay. On a good day, you could even call
them pilots, but today, they'd flown like they'd been ten steps
ahead. Jordo couldn't figure out how they'd done it. He was
thinking about it so hard that he barely heard Harry Cozen. "My XO,
Mr. Devlin, did us proud, but it was those two Lancers that won the
day."
    "That was Holdout and Dirty," Jordo said.
"If you don't mind I'd like to go congratulate them."
    "I recommend you do. And before Lucy Elan
starts asking questions."
    Jordo made for the hatch, but a message came
down from the bridge before he got off the observation deck, and
Cozen called for him to wait. The Admiral grinned. "Our moment has
arrived. The alien Dreadnought has been sighted again," he said.
"UN spy-birds have imaged it behind the lines at Altair, just two
systems from Sol."
    A new projection of the Squidies' 800-meter
battleship rose from a matchbox computer in the palm of Cozen's
hand. "The microsat got its good side," he said. He meant the port
side, the side with the human skull painted on it. "It's time,
people," Cozen told them. "We're