by Dan Abnett
“Don’t get in front of it!” Cutter cried, moving forwards. “Koshkin! For God’s sake, don’t get between it and the calf! Don’t get between the adult and its young!”
But the damage had been done.
The adult Torosaurus found itself cut off from its offspring by small but noisy and aggressive creatures. It was already excessively agitated. It could hear the calf lowing. Its instinct for parental protection snapped in, reinforced by panic.
All six tons of it came for them.
“Move!” Cutter yelled.
A fully mature Torosaurus was never likely to break any speed records, but it bore down — huge and inexorable — like an eighteen-wheeler that had lost control and gone into a skid. The horns were thrust forward like the tines of a container-port forklift. The florid crest rose above them like a cliff. The earth wobbled as each cantering footfall landed.
It bellowed again, mingling roar with shriek.
Cutter grabbed Abby’s hand and began to run, pulling her out of the line of the charge. She didn’t hesitate. Light on her feet, she accelerated and began to pull him instead. His boots slithered among the ferns and loose stones. Vols followed them.
The other two troopers ran as well. One slipped over and got back on his feet with almost comical speed.
Koshkin and Umarov faced the Torosaurus down. Cutter really wasn’t sure if the FSB specialists were very brave or exceptionally stupid. It was possible that they were displaying selfless courage by attempting to protect the group. It was equally possible that they had been trained to such a pitch of fearless self-confidence that it simply didn’t occur to them that some risks might be immune to uncompromising nerve and Izhmash-built firepower.
Koshkin blatted away with his AK. Umarov pumped rounds out of his double-action ‘Viking’ combat pistol. Sprays of blood misted the air around the head and crest of the onrushing creature. The membrane of the spectacular display popped and tore on the right-hand lobe like the skin of a burst drum.
The Torosaurus did not halt. An awful, slo-mo moment of recognition arrived as the two men understood they had lost the game of Mesozoic chicken. Koshkin threw himself over in a headlong dive, like a goalkeeper going for a loose ball. Umarov hurled himself the other way, but he wasn’t fast enough. The Torosaurus’s right-hand brow horn, a spear two metres long, caught him and, a second later, so did the thick point of its cheek frill. Umarov flew into the air, slack-limbed and spinning, as if he’d been mown down by a car.
Cutter winced as he heard the unmistakable crack of bone behind him. He looked back in time to see Umarov landing on the leaf-litter of the forest floor.
He and Abby had run away from the parked vehicles and into the treeline, but the soldiers had run for the questionable safety of the convoy, and the Torosaurus was wheeling across the glade after them to press its attack on any creatures that might be threatening its calf. Suvova, Medyevin, Yushenko and the adjutant Zvegin scattered.
With his headphones, and his concentration focused on the ADD, Connor remained oblivious.
“Connor! Connor!” Abby yelled. She and Cutter began to run back towards the 4×4s, following in the trampled wake of the giant Torosaurus.
Vols came after them, shouting, “Be stop! Be stop!”
The Torosaurus was almost galloping. Its head went down like a bull’s. Its frill had coloured to fury-white, pink and patches of loam brown, like the spread wings of a gigantic moth. The seismic impact of its approach shook the ground, and the vibration was transmitted up through the tyres and shocks of the stationary 4×4s.
His ears were full of warbling white noise and static, but Connor felt the vehicle quiver. He looked up, slipped the headphones down around his neck and flinched as he suddenly heard the thunder of hooves, the bellowing, and the desperate warning shouts.
He saw the nightmare horns and crest of the Torosaurus coming straight for him.
His eyes grew very wide.
NINETEEN
Abby screamed Connor’s name.
Connor half-rose in the back of the 4×4 as if trying to decide what to do for the best. The look on his face made it clear how limited the options were. It also protested how astonishingly unfair it was to suddenly find oneself about to be ploughed down by a locomotive in animal form.
He seemed to tense, as if preparing to jump clear, but hesitated too long.
The Torosaurus rammed the lead 4×4 side-on. There was a sound like an anvil being dropped into a skip. The side of the vehicle folded up. Connor disappeared. One of the Torosaurus’s brow horns punched through the passenger side seat like a lance. The other ripped through, collapsing the windscreen assembly, and hooked through the spokes of the plastic steering wheel, which shattered with a bang as the Torosaurus began to worry its head and apply shearing forces.
Abby screamed again, and Cutter grabbed hold of her to stop her from running to the abused vehicle. He held her tightly until she turned away, sobbing into his chest.
The creature drove against the 4×4, shoving it sideways across the soil and undergrowth. The vehicle shuddered. Metal groaned as it deformed. One of the front wheels buckled on its axle head as it was driven sidelong into the ground. It folded up under the vehicle, and the tyre blew with a sound like a gunshot. Earth and scrub began to build up ahead of the 4×4 as it was shovelled sideways.
Then the Torosaurus finally engaged its nose horn under the rim of the bodywork. It snapped its gigantic head up, using its immensely powerful neck muscles, and the vehicle flipped.
It flipped with such force that it went over and over four times, crunching and disintegrating as it rolled. Bodywork splintered. A wheel, part of the exhaust, a jerry can and the shattered windscreen assembly all flew off, along with pieces of broken glass and debris fragments. The Torosaurus came away with the shredded passenger seat still skewered onto the horn that had impaled it.
The 4×4 landed upside down in some bracken. The Torosaurus gored it again, scraping it even further across the soil before flipping it for a second time. Pieces of it flew off. Cutter could smell petrol gushing out of the ruptured tank and fuel line. The creature shook its head fiercely, and the stabbed seat sailed off its horn and into the trees.
Cutter released the weeping Abby and began shouting at the creature and clapping his hands, trying to attract its attention and get it to leave the 4×4 alone.
Shaking her head as though to pull herself together, Abby joined in. Vols ran up beside them and fired a burst from his AK-74 at the Torosaurus. The shots whacked ugly, red dents and punctures into its back and tail. Koshkin, back on his feet, opened fire too.
“Stop — don’t kill it!” Cutter shouted, but if they could hear him over the din, the soldiers were ignoring him.
The Torosaurus bellowed and swung around. Blood streamed from the body wounds the Russian guns had inflicted upon it.
It dropped its horns and began to canter back towards the men who were hurting it. Vols and Koshkin kept firing. The Torosaurus let out a dreadful warbling roar and ran wide, head back, driven off by the pain. It crashed into the treeline, uprooting several small trees, and plunged away into the mist. They could hear its enraged and injured bellowing long after it had vanished.
Zvegin and Suvova ran to Umarov’s side.
He’s not going to get back up, Cutter thought, but the old soldier was sturdier than he suspected.
“Leg and arm broken, I think,” Suvova shouted, “but he’s alive!”
Cutter and Abby were too busy looking for Connor to pay much attention. The lead 4×4 was a chillingly comprehensive wreck. Cutter realised that many of the bits of debris littering the area around the upturned chassis had been part of Connor’s ADD.
“Here! Here!” Abby yelled. Cutter ran over to her, followed by Vols and Medyevin.
Connor was lying on his back in a patch of ferns. He was pale, and perfectly still, and his eyes were closed, but there didn’t appear to be any messy, horn-shaped holes in him.
“Connor? Connor
!”
His eyes fluttered open and he looked up into Abby’s desperately anxious, tear-stained face.
“Morning,” he gasped.
“Are you all right?”
“What happened?”
“A dirty great Triceratops ran you over!” Abby exclaimed.
“Torosaurus,” Cutter corrected automatically, kneeling at her side. He caught himself. “Not that that matters at all just now.”
“Did it miss me?” Connor asked weakly.
“I think you must have been thrown clear,” Cutter said, “but the jeep’s a write-off.”
“Is be good?” Vols asked in concern.
Abby looked up at him.
“He’s okay. I think he’s okay.”
“Can you sit up?” Cutter asked.
Very slowly, with help from Abby and Cutter, Connor sat up. He was still ashen and drawn.
“Little bit of shock, maybe,” Cutter said. “He’ll be okay. Let’s keep him warm and get him back.”
“Ow,” Connor murmured.
“What?” asked Abby.
“My hand hurts,” he said, his voice very small. “I think I was lying on it funny.”
He held his hand up. His wrist was quite clearly broken.
Connor stared at his bent limb and fainted.
“Let’s get him onto a vehicle,” Cutter said. “Mind his arm.”
Yushenko and Zvegin were already trying to make Umarov comfortable in one of the surviving 4×4s. As he helped carry Connor towards the other one, Cutter took a last look around the glade. In all the drama, the wounded calf had disappeared.
After he had deposited Connor gently inside the car, Cutter jogged over to where the calf had been standing. Koshkin followed him.
“What are you looking for?” he asked.
“It can’t have gone far,” Cutter said. “Maybe it followed its parent’s cries.”
There was blood on the ground where the calf had been standing, and spots of blood on some nearby ferns and grass. Cutter followed the trail a little way into the mist. He saw a smear of blood on a tree bole, and some more spots on a stone.
He halted.
A few metres further on, under some birch trees, the ground looked as if someone had emptied a bath tub full of blood onto it. The ground was soaked, and a vast quantity of it had pooled in a deep, muddy slick. The smell was intense, like an abattoir. Blood had splashed up nearby trees and drenched surrounding foliage. The spatter radius was considerable.
“I don’t understand,” Koshkin said.
“While we were occupied with the adult,” Cutter explained, “something else was busy with the calf. It was right here, Koshkin, and we didn’t notice.”
He pointed. Whatever had taken the calf had left a single, clear footprint in the mire created by the excess blood. The track had three main toes and there were the impressions of significant claws on each of the toes. It looked a little bit like the imprint of a chicken’s foot.
But it was well over a metre long.
TWENTY
“Nicky, how is the boy?” Professor Suvova asked.
“He’ll live,” Cutter replied. “Broken wrist, bruised ribs, bumps and knocks. And a little shock, of course.”
“It was unfortunate,” Medyevin said.
“It was a dinosaur,” Cutter snapped back. “This is a high risk environment.”
They were eating supper in the mess tent. It was already dark, and lamps had been hung from the rafters, casting an almost homely yellow glow. Moths were busily assaulting the mesh screens covering the windows. Some of them were breathtakingly large.
It was hot and busy in the mess tent. The air smelled of cabbage and steam and oxtail, and there was a noisy chatter of voices. Abby picked at her food, she still looked shaken up by the events of the day, but Cutter was famished. He hadn’t eaten properly in what felt like days.
“The detector was destroyed,” Medyevin noted, stabbing a chunk of potato with a battered, army-issue fork.
“That was a fool’s errand anyway,” Bulov, his fellow scientist, muttered.
“Oh, shut up, Grisha,” Medyevin retorted.
“We’ll build a new one tomorrow,” Cutter told Koshkin.
“The boy won’t be much use,” Koshkin said, “not with a broken wrist.”
“I’ll build it,” Cutter replied. “Just make sure I’ve got access to the basic components.”
“I could help you,” Medyevin offered, sipping coffee from a tin cup. “I watched Connor build the first one.”
I bet you did, Cutter thought.
“How’s your friend?” Abby asked Koshkin.
Koshkin looked at her across the table and frowned. “Who?”
“What’s his name?” Abby said. “Umarov?”
Koshkin nodded, understanding, as if it had never occurred to him to consider the other FSB specialist a friend. There was clearly no sentiment amongst them at all.
“Smashed up,” he said. “He’ll get a good disability pension, I guess.”
“Shouldn’t you medivac him to a proper hospital?” Cutter asked.
“Umarov can wait,” Koshkin said, and he shrugged dismissively. “He can go out on the next scheduled flight. I’m not laying on an extraction especially for him.”
Suvova glanced at Cutter.
“Markov wouldn’t sign the consent form for it. Unnecessary expenditure of the operational budget.”
Cutter shook his head. He dropped his fork into his empty tin bowl and got up.
“Where are you going?” Koshkin asked.
“To see how Connor’s doing,” Cutter said.
“I’ll go with you,” Abby piped in.
They exited the tent and walked across the yard in the dark. Cutter could hear laughter and conversation from some of the dorm tents. It was crisply cold, and the sky was coruscating with stars.
“The northern lights are back.” Abby pointed towards the sky.
“Yeah, I never did ask about that,” Cutter said. The odd, distorting shimmer of light seemed brighter that night. It shifted above the dense blackness of the treeline like lights moving behind frosted glass.
“You can’t tell me what to do,” Connor protested.
“I believe that’s precisely my role here,” Natacha Antila replied. “Get back into bed.”
“You have no idea,” Connor responded, attempting to button his shirt, “how many scenarios there are in which I’d be keen to hear you say those words, but right now, I’m getting dressed.”
“Do not disobey!” Antila exclaimed.
“Is there some kind of problem?” Cutter asked as he and Abby stepped into the medical tent. Connor was sitting on the edge of one of the ward bunks, half-dressed, with Natacha Antila standing in front of him, her arms folded defiantly. With her pose and her crisp uniform, she looked like a propaganda figure from some Soviet-era poster.
Medical was otherwise empty, except for a male orderly who was cleaning instruments at a scrub sink and Umarov, bandaged and unconscious in another cot. Connor’s right hand and forearm was heavily splinted and wrapped in a field cast.
“I’m getting up,” Connor said.
“He’s not getting up,” Antila contradicted.
“I am,” Connor insisted. He looked at Cutter. “You need my help.”
“He can’t even do his own shirt up,” Antila said.
“It’s this thing.” Connor waved his cast. “I feel like Hellboy. Just give me a hand with my buttons and I’ll be good to go.”
“You should stay in bed,” Abby said.
“Don’t you start,” Connor warned her.
“The bimbo is correct,” Antila said.
“Oi! Who are you calling a bimbo?” Abby demanded.
“It is word meaning ‘fake blonde’, yes?” Antila asked.
“No, it isn’t!” Abby snapped.
“It really isn’t,” Connor said.
Antila shrugged.
“Then my apologies, but you are right. He should be in
bed.”
“Yeah,” Abby told Connor. “You’re suffering from shock.”
“I’m not having you two ganging up on me,” Connor said.
“Oh, be quiet, everyone.” Cutter interrupted the bickering impatiently.
“We need to rebuild the detector,” Connor said.
“We do,” Cutter admitted.
“Then you need me. You can’t do it. You need me to build it.”
“I can’t pretend I couldn’t use your help,” Cutter said, “but you should get some rest. We can do it in the morning.”
“Come on!” Connor’s voice rose in frustration. “I feel fine. It’d be therapeutic doing a bit of work. And it’s hardly, like, strenuous, sitting at a bench.”
“I insist he stays in medical,” Antila said, “and I insist on being able to keep him under observation, at least for a day or so.”
“What if...” Connor began, “what if the bench was in here?” He looked at Cutter and Antila hopefully.
“How about that?” Cutter asked the doctor. “We set him up in here. He can work, you can watch him. How about it?”
Natacha Antila pursed her lips and considered the proposal.
“Very well.”
With help from Vols and some of the soldiers, Cutter and Abby spent about an hour lugging tools and components over to the medical tent and setting them up for Connor. A second field radio set was the heaviest item. Medyevin also brought Umarov’s laptop over from the longhouse.
Antila looked on dubiously as her infirmary was invaded.
“He will need to rest regularly,” she warned.
“Yeah, yeah,” Connor told her with a brush of his left hand.
Once they were done setting up, Cutter, Abby and Medyevin sat in medical and drank coffee while Connor got down to work.
Just before midnight, the sun came out.
TWENTY-ONE
Connor had been chattering away, probing the innards of the replacement radio set with a screwdriver. Abby had been wondering when the manic energy would finally run out of him and allow him to sleep.