Description: Dreadnought chapter one The young girl ran through the knee-deep snow, her breath escaping in ragged gasps, leaving a trail of thin white clouds that hung in the air. She could hear the sounds of pursuit all too close behind her, the barks and snarls of dogs and the coarse shouts of the men who followed them. She could hardly feel her bare feet and lower legs anymore as she plunged on through the deep icy powder, the dark ancient trees of the forest surrounding her in all directions. She wore nothing but a tattered dark blue dress made of a rough material that offered little protection from the biting cold. As she ran over the crest of a small hill, the girl tripped on a rock concealed beneath the blanket of snow and fell, tumbling down the slope. Staggering to her feet, she spotted the vague outline of a cottage, its dark walls half buried beneath deep white drifts. She stumbled toward it, desperately rattling the handle of its only door. It was locked. The girl gritted her teeth and kicked the wooden door hard, ignoring the pain in her foot. The door refused to budge. She cursed under her breath and kicked again, harder. The ancient lock gave way and as the door flew inward the girl half staggered, half fell inside. She quickly shut the door behind her and looked around the darkened room. It was obviously a hunting lodge: stuffed animal heads were mounted on the walls and animal skins were scattered on the floor and chairs, but there were no signs of life. Everything was covered by a thick layer of dust which the girl disturbed as she frantically searched the ground floor for anything she could use as a weapon. Outside, several men in heavy cold-weather outfits ran toward the cottage, led by the vicious snarling dogs straining at the leashes they held. "The trail ends here," the first man said in Russian. "She''s inside." "Go get her," said the tall man at the rear of the group. The men on either side of him unslung the rifles that hung across their backs and headed toward the house. They pushed the door open and cautiously entered. Seconds later a single shot rang out from somewhere inside the cottage. Then silence returned to the snowcovered forest. "Vasilly? Gregor?" the tall man called out, but there was no reply. "Send the dogs in," he said with a frown. Two large, heavily muscled dogs sprinted across the snow and into the cottage. There was sudden noisy barking and then a quick panicked whimpering sound before silence descended once again. "What should we do, Mr. Furan?" one of the dog handlers asked, staring at the darkened windows of the cottage. "Wait here," the tall man replied and pulled a handgun from his belt. He walked toward the house and went inside. "How old is she?" the first dog handler asked. "I don''t know," the other man replied. "Ten, eleven years old maybe?" "She''s not going to make it to twelve if Furan has anything to say about it." Suddenly, there was a pained yell from inside the house and one of the windows shattered, exploding outward in a shower of glass as a wooden stool flew through it. The girl dived out through the jagged hole and rolled to her feet, sprinting off through the snow, darting between the trees. Furan staggered out of the cottage, blood streaming from under the hand clutched to his right eye. He raised the pistol and took careful aim at the fleeing girl. He squeezed the trigger, the shot seeming unusually loud in the quiet of the snowy forest. The girl spun, the bullet striking her in the shoulder, and she collapsed onto the snow. She tried to struggle to her feet but Furan was already on her, pistol-whipping her to the ground, knocking her out cold. Furan stared down at the unconscious body of the pale, dark-haired girl with his one good eye. The fresh blood stained the snow crimson beneath her shoulder. Her breathing was labored. He raised the pistol, pointing it at her head. He stood there for a moment, blood dripping from his ruined eye, seemingly unsure whether or not to pull the trigger before he slowly lowered the weapon. "No, Natalya," he said, his voice cold and hard, "that would be too easy. Rest assured though, you won''t escape again. This will be your last flight, my little Raven." twenty years later State trooper Sam Fletcher was having a bad night. He knew he''d drawn the short straw when he''d been dispatched to the old gas station on the desert road. Mrs. Trenton had called to complain, as she did at least three or four times every month, that she was being harassed again by mysterious flying objects and lights in the sky. Sam had known it would be a waste of time, but the Sheriff had insisted that he go and check on the batty old woman. She''d been all alone since her husband had passed away recently and the Sheriff was a friend of the family, which explained why Sam had ended up being sent out there at that time of night. He''d sat in the old woman''s front room while she went on about the strange noises she kept hearing and the lights she kept seeing in the sky. On that particular evening she complained that something had flown low right over the house and scared the living daylights out of her as she''d been feeding her chickens in the backyard. Sam had dutifully listened to her ramble on and had eventually left, promising her that he would look into it and see if the local U.S. Air Force base knew anything about the mysterious aircraft. It would be a futile task; in this part of Nevada they were no strangers to unusual aerial activity, but the kinds of aircraft that were being tested around those parts were not the sort that the air force would be prepared to discuss with someone like Sam. Chances were that some bored fighter jockey had buzzed the Trenton place at a lower altitude than was technically permitted just to liven up a test flight. It wouldn''t be the first time something like that had happened and he was fairly sure that it wouldn''t be the last. With a weary sigh, he reached for the radio on the dashboard and spoke into the handset. "Dispatch, this is Car Four, come in, over," he said. "Hey, Sam, you rounded up those little green men that have been spooking Clara yet?" the voice at the other end asked. "Yeah, got myself three genuine extra-terrestrials cuffed in the back of my car right now, Maggie," he replied. "Matter of fact I--Whoa!" The trooper jerked the steering wheel hard to the left as his headlights suddenly illuminated a disheveled figure running straight down the middle of the road toward him. The car''s tires screeched in protest and he dropped the radio handset, both hands flying to the wheel as he fought to control the wildly fishtailing patrol car. Cursing under his breath, he brought the car to a shuddering halt on the side of the road. He stopped for a moment to gather himself and let out a long, deep breath before grabbing his flashlight and stepping out of the car. The powerful beam of the torch lit up the man who Sam had just narrowly avoided running over as he staggered toward the car. "Sir, please stay right there," Sam shouted, his other hand resting on the holstered pistol on his hip. "You know how close I came to hitting you? Care to explain what you''re doing running down the middle of the road way out here at this time of night?" "Please, you have to help me," the man said. Sam couldn''t quite place his accent but it sounded European. "They''re out there, they''re after me, they could be here any minute." Sam''s first instinct had been that he was dealing with some drunken bum who''d somehow got stranded in the middle of nowhere, but there was something strange about this man. His face was covered in desert dust but he was clean shaven and his hair was neatly trimmed. His clothes were also covered in dirt but the suit he was wearing was well cut and his shoes were expensive. In fact the more that Sam looked at him the less he seemed like someone that you''d expect to find wandering around in the desert twenty miles from the nearest town. "Who''s after you?" Sam asked, walking slowly toward the man. "The Disciples," the man said, his eyes filled with fear. "I know what they''re planning. We have to stop them--the government must be warned." Not a drunk, but a religious nut, Sam thought to himself. "What''s your name, sir?" Sam asked. "Tobias Scheckter," the man replied, looking nervously up at the sky. "Okay, Mr. Scheckter, can you tell me what exactly you''re doing out here on your own at this time of night?" "I''m a geologist," Scheckter replied. "I have been working for some men, doing calculations, just theoretical. Or at least I thought so ... oh God. I have to get to a phone," he continued frantically, "or a radio. Let me use your radio." "Just calm down, sir," Sam replied. "Let''s take you back to town and see if we can''t sort this all out." "You don''t understand. There''s no time!" the man yelled, lunging toward him. Sam stepped to one side and used the man''s own momentum against him, just as he''d been trained to do, forcing the struggling figure to the ground and reaching for the cuffs clipped to the back of his belt. "I''m afraid you just earned yourself a night in one of our holding cells," he said, snapping the cuff

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