Free War of Alien Aggression 4 Taipan by A.D. Bloom Page B

shoot you in the head," Pooch said. "And then, she's going to have them shoot me because I was dumbass enough to follow you in and lead the Hellcats with me."
    "Just let me take the fall for it. I outrank you. Say I ordered you."
    Her face twisted up. "I make my own goddamn mistakes. I don't need you or anyone els-" Pooch's words caught in her throat like the muscles in her larynx had spasmed out of control. Seconds later, she got her voice back and became a fountain of expletives of such volume, color, and caliber as Jordo had only ever heard from senior redsuits and company marines.
    "I'm trying to help you," he said. "What the hell is it with you? Ever since you got here, you've had a hardon for me and the 133rd. You've picked a fight or escalated the situation every bloody chance you got. What is it? Is it because we're convicts? Are you a pissed-off victim of crime, Pooch?"
    "No."
    "Is it me? You got something against 1st Lt. J. 'Jordo' Colt?" Her eyes narrowed when he said that like he'd gone somewhere he didn't have the right to go. "That's it, isn't it," he said. "It's me. Who the... What the... Where do you even get off ju-"
    She said, "You don't even remember me."
    The violence in her stare made the spot between Jordo's eyes itch like mad while his mind ran through every woman he could remember ever meeting. There had been a lot of them before he'd crashed and gone to Bailey – a lot of women before Bailey Prison."
    "Don't you look at me like that," she said.
    "Like what?"
    "Like I'm some forgotten piece of ass from your past. I'm not some shore-leave hussy you popped on Sagan Station."
    When he finally did remember, a wave of inexplicable fear flashed through him. "Tranquility 5," Jordo said.
    Pooch confirmed it with a mirthless grin. "Tranq 5."
    It was an H3 dome town on the moon. Tranquility 5. Jordo and Burn flew there in their Bitzers. It was the first stop on their recruiting tour. Hardway was under repair and he'd gone out with Burn alone. They ignored the lanes and skimmed over the silver surface of the moon leaving momentary plumes of glittering dust in their wake. With no atmo, they were gone almost instantly. Jordo remembered zooming next to Burn, just meters above the surface, silent on comms, watching her through the cockpit.
    When they rolled up and over the last ridge, Tranq 5 came into view. Burn told him it was a rake and bake town and he remembered hating that – hating them for a half-second. Raking out crushed rock and baking it to extract the Helium3 was what they'd done back at Bailey Prison. Jordo didn't know which pissed him off more – the fact that things were rough enough on the outside that people had to do the same thing for a living that he did in prison or the fact that they did it of their own free will. Jordo remembered thinking how if he had his freedom, then he wouldn't waste it in a place like that.
    Tranq 5 was the first, big, lunar dust bowl town they visited and it was the first place Burn and Jordo did a little airshow over the dome – just some fancy flying up close so the yokels could gawk at the 151s. Burn took the recruiting seriously. "Fighters are sexy," she said. "So we're gonna show 'em off." And they did. It was fun chasing Burn through maneuvers as she tried to throw him off her tail. They even blazed the guns a few times while flying low over the dome. The rounds all went out into the black, but the tracers streaked over the town like a meteor swarm and the range det shells went off like fireworks.
    Hundreds of dust-bowlers pressed up against the edge of the dome, looking out at the pads where Jordo and Burn set their fighters down, all of them gawking. Burn told him to wave from the ladder before he climbed down from his cockpit. The figures he saw inside the dome were a hundred yards away and silhouetted, but when he waved, they waved back, and Jordo felt like a hero. He knew it was stupid. It was exactly as stupid as those yokels were for cheering. Instead of