DREADNOUGHT 2165 by A.D. Bloom Read Free Book Online Page B

lit their hulls and asymmetric towers
so that you could see their main guns and the vectoring rings of
their particle cannon outlined in silver.
    Dana said, "They'll be in effective range in
four minutes unless we evade them." She didn't expect to hear an
order to run.
    Cozen squinted like he was
boring into the alien hulls with his eyes. "With most of our
carriers moving to cover losses at Sirius," he said, "there's
enough firepower massed here to overwhelm the defenses in the next system. The
Squidies could easily break through to Sol with more ships than we
could repel. This alien task force is a rapier pointed at
Humanity's heart and both the Privateer and UN fleets are out of
position to parry."
    Already, more contacts
blinked on the NAV and the AT controller's display. "Three more alien destroyers
coming around the limb of the planet behind us and pushing into
higher orbit."
    "If they're trying to
surround us," Dana said, "they're going to have to do better
than those puny
ships."
    Harry Cozen ground the
truth out for her with the gravel of his voice. "They don't
actually have to surround us, you see, because we can't run.
If Hardway runs,
then the Squidies will follow us into the hypermass transit and
simply push forward with their offensive before Earth can react to
any warning we bring. Our only hope is to delay these ships and
send warning ahead. We're not going anywhere. I think the Squidies
already know that. Those three destroyers aren't maneuvering to
stop Hardway from
leaving. They're scrambling to stop our breaching ship, Tipperary . She's the one that's
running. Tipperary is going to run and warn the fleet while Hardway delays the alien
battlegroup. Mr. Bolo," Cozen said, "form up a fighter and junk
escort for Tipperary ."
    "How many fighters?"
    "All of them."
    Dana thumped the side of the NAV console
before she knew she'd done it. "What about the boarding parties on
the Dreadnought? Ram Devlin and Lucy Elan are expecting close air
support from those fighters. The junks can't do it. They can't
dodge the Dreadnought's guns. Without that air support the boarding
parties can't hold out!"
    " More new contacts," Bolo said. "Near
the first moon..." He pointed to a lump on the display shaped like
a rocky bean orbiting fast around the ringed planet. A handful of
new contacts flashed over it like fireflies and disappeared. "Might
be a reflection of some kind... LiDAR glitch."
    "And it might not be,"
Cozen said. "The Squidies wouldn't assemble a battle group without
some fighters and if there's any chance of alien fighters lurking
out there, then the Lancers are staying with Tipperary until she breaches space
and transits out of the system."
    "What about all of our
people on the Dreadnought? We can't just abandon them!" Dana wanted
Harry Cozen to run his hands over his face or to knot his brow or
sigh or somehow express this was a difficult decision for him, but
he didn't. It wasn't a difficult decision – not for him it wasn't. Her face
flushed with frustration. Her ears burned. "At least send Ram a
single flight of Lancers. We can spare four Bitzers, can't
we?"
    "Two," Cozen said. "We can spare him two.
Our XO and Lucy Elan will have to make due with limited cover for
now. I have every confidence in the men and women on the hull of
that ship."
    "This wasn't the plan," Dana said. "They
need that support!" Bolo shot her a glance then. She knew he was
trying to shut her up for her own good, but just like Bolo, she
wasn't comfortable with an order like that and she didn't want to
pretend to be.
    Harry Cozen's eyes focused
on the empty air in front of him, but when he spoke, his voice went
to every corner of Hardway and into the helmet of every man and woman in
every junk and fighter and turret. He said, "Now hear
this... Hardway has discovered an alien spearhead being assembled in secrecy.
It is a dagger pointed at humanity's heart. We will not abandon our
forces fighting on the hull of the Dreadnought. But... Fortune