Dreadnought by Mark Walden

Author:Mark Walden
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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Chapter Seven

‘Thank you for getting here so quickly, Colonel,’ Nero said as they walked to where Francisco’s squad had assembled in the warehouse.

‘Once we got within range and were able to lock on to the transponder in your Blackbox it didn’t take us long to track you down but judging by the news reports I’ve been following on the way here you could have done with our help a couple of hours ago,’ Francisco replied, raising an eyebrow.

‘It has been rather an eventful day, yes,’ Nero said, smiling weakly. ‘It would have been a lot worse if it had not been for those two though.’ He nodded towards Otto and Wing, who were sat nearby being checked out and patched up by the squad’s field medic.

Suddenly, one of Francisco’s men came running into the warehouse.

‘Sir,’ the man said as he approached Nero and the Colonel, ‘we’ve just received a report from team two. The safe house that Doctor Nero directed us to has been attacked. It looks like they were hit hard and fast. There’s no sign of Raven or the students.’

‘Damn it,’ Nero hissed. He had felt in his gut that something had gone badly wrong but he’d hoped that somehow Natalya would have been able to escape. It was clear now that was not the case. ‘How did Drake find us?’

‘I think I may have the answer to that,’ Professor Pike said, walking towards them.

‘It’s unusual to see you away from the school, Professor,’ Nero said as the old man approached.

‘I was led to believe that it was an emergency,’ the Professor said with a smile. ‘Drop everything, highest priority, all hands on deck, that sort of thing. Besides which, I had some new equipment that I thought might come in useful and there was no way I was letting the Colonel and his men use it until they’d been fully briefed.’

‘Yes, the Professor spent much of the journey here briefing us,’ the Colonel said, rolling his eyes. ‘It was a very long journey.’

‘You have something for us, Professor?’ Nero said, gesturing at the papers that Pike was holding.

‘Yes, I suspect this is how Mr Drake has been tracking you,’ the Professor said, handing Nero one of the sheets. It was a blueprint of what looked like a satellite. ‘Project Overwatch, a military black-budget contract that Drake Industries was working on. I have some old friends in the R&D department at the Pentagon and they were kind enough to furnish me with these drawings. Judging by its specification, it is designed to render the concept of a ground-based manhunt quite redundant. If you can see the sky, then you can be identified and tracked. Quite impressive actually. The physical-profile reconstruction algorithms must be very advanced. I’d love to have a look at them.’

‘Was there anything else that your friend was able to tell you?’ Nero asked, handing the schematic back to the Professor.

‘Apparently it was launched with another satellite that Drake Industries did not work on – a

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