“Yeah, I’m beginning to believe you are,” Reece said, chuckling to himself.
The starjet broke through the clouds and flew out across a pristine snowscape, lit by an explosion of crimson light radiating from a fiery sun hugging the horizon. Brilliant rays of gold and amber set the underside of the cloud layer ablaze. Mountain peaks, dark and jagged, thrust upwards, gusting winds buffeting their flanks, scattering rainbowing ice crystals to the eternal sunset. Here and there, Reece saw small dinosaurs scurrying from the roar of the jet’s engines. In the middle distance, volcanic geysers blasted high, trumpeting voluminous water spouts that fell back on themselves, collapsing like melting towers of silver, copper and gold.
“Woaaar, that’s a sight to drink in…” Reece breathed. “Sure don’t get to see that every day.”
“A whole new world,” Nori said. “There are no fossil records of this biome. Back at home, this is all buried under miles of glaciers and ice sheets, too deep to excavate. Even the bits we can access are encased in permafrost as hard as concrete, almost impossible to dig. Those dinosaurs down there are almost certainly new to science, a genuine undiscovered country.”
“Then we need to be extra vigilant,” Reece said. “Just because it’s pretty doesn’t mean it won’t try and kill us. On Jurassic Earth you can have the best time of your life or the last time of your life. You know the rules.”
“Agreed. Let’s circle the target zone and take some… wait… bank right… is that... NO! Look, over there!” Nori said, eagerly jabbing towards a clutch of mountains poking through the marbled blue-white ice. “That can’t be natural. You see that?”
“Definitely not natural,” Reece said, swinging them round to face the shining artificial anomaly, his blood pumping hot, his brain struggling to make sense of what he was seeing. “Nori, I think things just got real. Holy hot sauce, definitely ain’t natural.”
“I think it’s fair to say we’ve found the source of our transmission. There’s a clearing out to the east,” Nori said, gesturing to a patch of snow-covered ground dotted with pines across the ice from the target. “Set us down over there.”
“That’s miles away. Let’s just land right next to the thing. Let’s make a note of the coordinates, take some pictures, footage, whatever, grab something for show and tell and jump for orbit. Less time on the ground the better, right? You said it yourself.”
“Yes, but we can’t land on the ice, we don’t know how thick it is. The starjet’s almost definitely too heavy. It’s too dangerous. Trees mean solid ground, a safe landing zone. I don’t want to become stranded any more than you. We need to play this safe, by the book. Understand, Reece, this changes everything we thought we understood about life on Earth. This could be the most important discovery ever made.”
Inhuman
A leksi Ponomarenko, the man who’d tried to abduct and sacrifice Becca in a demented ritual only he understood, was restrained with cable ties in a seat on the port side of the starjet. His eyes opened occasionally and he bared his teeth, saliva dribbling down his chin, frothy and glistening like slug trails. He was clearly still experiencing the effects of the paralysing toxin Becca had delivered when she’d shot him with a javelin pistol just over an hour ago. His fingers were beginning to twitch, which was a sure indicator the toxin was wearing off and he was slowly regaining control of his motor functions. No doubt, soon he’d be delivering further demented insights into the Gods’ desire to annihilate Becca and the small band of Renegades.
When Becca had pulled the pistol’s trigger, she hadn’t been sure the weapon was set to its stun setting. It could have been set to kill or even its most dangerous explosive setting. The only thing she’d been aware of was a desperate desire to shut Aleksi up, to stop him talking, to stop him contributing to her consciousness in any way shape or form. She’d needed to stop hearing his inhuman voice, his sick ramblings.
She’d acted in a moment of primal fury, informed only by a rage-filled upwelling from somewhere savage inside, from an unknown place she never realized existed. The impulse had come like a creature in the night, wet, cold and ugly. After it had performed its dark duty, it had slunk back into the depths where she hoped it would remain for the rest of her days. She never wanted to see it again. The thought terrified her.
“I’m not like you,” she said softly, massaging the splinted finger Aleksi had broken whilst marching her to the cave on the Jura island, where he’d tried to sacrifice her to his Gods. “I’ll never be like you, never.”
When she’d discovered Aleksi at the starcom facility all those weeks ago, she’d found a dishevelled man made of rags and bones. She’d felt such sorrow for his suffering. The left frontal region of the man’s skull had been ripped off in a cephalopod attack, along with his right eye and socket. He’d somehow managed to limp to the starcom bunker where he’d applied a seal of synthetic skin spray over the horrific wound. On discovering him, it had been clear he was dying. He had a fever, was largely incoherent, malnourished and was slipping between unconsciousness and delirium.
With limited medical supplies at her disposal, Becca had done the only thing she could think of to save his life. She’d introduced maggots to his wound to eat any necrotic or gangrenous flesh. It was an ancient remedy still used in hospitals today, but only on limbs, never on the face and certainly nowhere near the brain. Aleksi had been stuck in a hellish state, with live maggots squirming against his frontal cortex, triggering involuntary spasms, making him tick, babble, and generally delve into madness.
Now, as he sat drooling and twitching, lumpy maggots writhing across his brainpan beneath a thin waxy membrane of artificial skin, across which natural scar-tissue was growing like fungus, Becca wondered whether she shouldn’t have simply nursed Aleksi to a peaceful death. She was questioning whether her desire to save him, to not be alone in this world of monsters, had been an act of gross cruelty. Maybe the man’s actions hadn’t been his own. Maybe they’d been a result of her decisions. She didn’t have maggots triggering involuntary impulses in her brain. When she’d fired upon Aleksi, the action had been hers and hers alone.
Conflicted, Becca dropped her gaze, which meandered towards Commander Blake, Schweighofer, Hadley and Fang, who were standing at the top of the jet’s loading ramp, dispatching a swarm of wasp drones to the frozen icescape, their breaths clouding as the frigid air tumbled in. A dozen or so remaining drones arranged themselves in the cargo hold and projected a bank of screens, displaying video from the perspective of the exploratory wasps racing towards a clutch of mountains poking through the sea ice a few miles away. Nori stood by the screens, observing closely.
Outside, shortly beyond the loading ramp, three of the four robotic warhorses that had survived the Area 51 incursion were standing guard in their bipedal sentry positions. Gadgetry inside their clear domed heads spin and bobbed as they scanned the treeline and out across the ice, their shadows long across the snow, which burned in the glow of a perpetually setting sun.
Razak, Molotov and Scarlet were further into the cargo hold, working on the fourth surviving warhorse, whose metallic hide was spattered in gouges and dents from its recent tour of duty. The machine stood on all fours, its side panelling open, revealing bundles of fibre optic cables, pistons and servos. The group surrounding the warhorse appeared to be engaged in a heated debate.
“Let him have it,” Molotov said to Scarlet, stepping back and holding up his hands. “Program it to Razak’s nanos. He’s better at piloting these things than me, always was. I never really mastered this warhorse stuff. I’m much better with a gun, something I can feel in my hands. You know I’m right.”
“Would you two quit it,” Scarlet said, looking up from her datapad connected to a cable disappearing into fibrous guts of the machine. “I know neither of you want this, I know it feels wrong, but we need to reassign a primary operator. One of you has to take it. The Commander’s given orders. Like it or not, one of you is getting it. It’s happening. Deal with it and ma
ke a decision. One of you step up. Come on.”
“Molo should have it,” Razak said, casting a hand towards Molotov. “He’s got a damaged suit, his helmet’s half missing, it’s screwed. He needs it more than I do. Safety and mission success, that’s our priority.”
“Don’t do that. All of our suits are screwed,” Molotov said, poking a finger through a hole on the arm of Razak’s survival suit and tugging at the bullet proof non-Newtonian fabric. “See, screwed. Look around, man. A room full of people with screwed suits. Any of you get hit in the right spot and you’re as dead as I am.”
“I think I can take a shot in the arm,” Razak said. “You only get one chance at being shot in the face. Besides, I’ve played this game too long to get taken out by a stray bullet. You, on the other hand…”
“Amateurs play the game,” Molotov said, squaring up to Razak, muscles swelling inside his suit across his hulking frame. “Experts play the players.”
“You’re just putting words together you think sound impressive. Pfft… experts play the players. What does that even mean? Anyway, it’s dinosaurs not bullets…”
“C’mere, C’MERE!” Commander Blake snarled, appearing out of nowhere, grabbing the two men by the ears and hauling them towards the loading ramp. “If I have to listen to this crap much longer heads are gonna roll. My patience has run dry. Look,” he growled, stopping at the top of the ramp and angling the protesting men’s faces outwards. “Look out there, what do you see, what, tell me?”
“The inside of Molo’s head,” Razak quipped, “big, empty and full of mostly nothing.”
“Do I look like I’m in the mood for funny?” Commander Blake growled, squeezing Razak’s ear so tightly the man dropped to one knee.
“No, no, you don’t, okay, okay, you don’t!” Razak squealed, getting swiftly to his feet the moment Commander Blake loosened his pinch. “Owch, Commander. Is it bleeding? It feels like its bleeding?”
“This is nothing compared to the pain of me jamming my foot up your ass, son, which will happen if you two carry on like this. I ask again, what do you see?”
“Snow, ice, some trees over there, I guess,” Razak offered. “It looks like there’s some animals grazing on the slopes of that mountain, dinosaurs I guess. It’s too far to tell. I don’t know. Please, Commander, I’m not sure what you want me to see.”
“Exactly,” Commander Blake said, releasing the pair, who rubbed their ears and glared resentfully at one another. “That’s exactly right. We don’t know what’s out there. This is completely uncharted territory. We have no idea about the possible threats. There are no records of this place. At this precise moment we are not in control. I’ve already lost Aroon and Fox and I don’t want anyone else on the wrong side of the grass. You hear? That means working together, controlling the things we can. Do you understand?” Commander Blake said, staring aggressively between the pair, who nodded. “Now, think quickly, who is going to accept the great honor of taking custodianship of our dearly deceased brother, Aroon’s warhorse?”
Both men straightened and accepted in unison, a twinge of shame marking their features.
“Good, very good,” Commander Blake said, a wry smile lighting his face, his eyes twinkling. “That’s wonderful to hear. You know how I love a team player. Since you’re both so enthusiastic, you can run laps around the starjet to determine a winner. Why not raise the stakes, ey, make things extra spicy? First to run out of go-juice earns camp cleaning duties for the duration of our stay, and yes, that includes emptying the bilge.”
“But, sir?” Molotov began.
“I’m sorry, Molotov,” Commander Blake said, his face stern to the point of comical exaggeration. “Do I look like I care about what you have to say? Did I ask you for your opinion?”
“But…”
“Do you really want to go down this path?” Commander Blake said, smiling, his eyes dangerously eager. “I dare you to carry on, heck, I double dare you.”
“No,” Molov grumbled sulkily, his shoulders slumping.
“Then what are you waiting for? Get out there,” Commander Blake roared, clapping his hands and chasing the men down the loading ramp. “Let’s see some hustle. Move it, move it, move it! If we don’t have a winner by the time the sun sets, we’ll find another task befitting this auspicious contest. Consider this your very own Olympics gentlemen, a Jurassic Olympics. I don’t know about you two, but I am very excited to have front row tickets to the planet’s first ever Olympic games. What an honor.”
“Sir…” Molotov appealed, pulling up as Razak ran on ahead, his tone suggesting an appeal for reconsideration.
Commander Blake pointed to his face, as though asking if he looked bothered. Molotov swore under his breath and set off after Razak. The pair began squabbling the moment they were side by side.
“How long are you going to keep them running?” Nori asked, walking over. “You do know the sun will only begin dipping below the horizon in roughly three hundred and fifty hours?”
“Oh, yes,” Commander Blake said, beaming a delighted smile. “I’m fully aware. Hopefully they’ll have learned their lesson by then. Until then, how are our drones coming?”
“They’ll reach the mountains in just over fourteen minutes. The target is around an outcrop roughly a mile after that. I’d say twenty minutes, so long as the wind stays down.”
“Very good, give me a five-minute warning so I can assemble this band of reprobates, make sure they’ve all got mittens and hats on before I let them go play in the snow.”
Still bickering, Razak and Molotov completed their first lap of the starjet. Chuckling, Becca made for the cockpit, where Reece was siphoning water from the main fuel tank to the ancillary holding tanks. The main fuel tank performed two functions. Firstly, it was a fresh water store from which the starjet harvested hydrogen propellant and oxygen. Secondly, it was a detachable scouting vehicle. The scout vehicle had four drainable compartments behind the driver’s cab, each designed to hold water or facilitate transport for up to two persons. Commander Blake had instructed Reece free up two compartments so they could be manned for the upcoming expedition.
“How’s it looking?” Becca asked, entering the cockpit.
“Huh?” Reece said, looking up from his console, drawing in his tongue. “Uh, we used just over a cell getting here. I’ve topped up drinking water and sewage systems, put some in cooling, not that it’s needed, but there’s still half a cell surplus. I don’t wanna dump it. Even if we can melt it, that’s all salt water out there. It’s no good. Rather than waste what’s left, I’m thinking maybe use it for some kind of water party or something before we head out.”
“A water party?” Becca said, spluttering laughter and raising a hand to her mouth. “Are you sure we should be that reckless? Things might get out of control? You know how I get with gallons of water in me? I might try and take advantage of you.”
“Yeah, okay, I know how it sounds. Funny, ha, but we can hydrate to the max, wash, I dunno. I’m not sure what else to do with it, besides flushing it, wasting it. That just feels wrong.”
“Will there be a disco at your party? Would you ask me for a slow dance?”
“Yeah, laugh it up. I’m serious, we shouldn’t waste fresh water. That’s fuel. I came back here to take you home. I wanna be able to wake up in the morning, every morning and kiss you, my wife, before breakfast. That only happens if we get home. That’s all I care about, getting home.”
“Look at you being all protective and romantic,” Becca said, gliding her fingers through Reece’s hair and leaning close, her voice dropping to a sultry whisper. “If there’s gonna be a party, can I be your date? We can slow dance, up close all night long.”
“All night?” Reece said, grinning dopily.
“All night,” she whispered, running her fingernails across his scalp, making his eyes drift. “I can’t wait for the morning. We could do some more dancing before breakfast.”
“Just to check, when you say dancing,
you do mean…”
“Oi, you two, snap out of it and wipe those stupid looks off your faces,” Commander Blake barked, briefly ducking into the cockpit. “Asses in the cargo hold, now! The drones are approaching the target.”
“Thank you,” Reece yelled after the Commander. “Perfect timing. I swear he hates me.”
“I think you’d be surprised,” Becca said, chuckling. “The tougher you men act, the softer you seem to be on the inside. I think deep down he might even be soppier than you are.”
“Yeah, I very much doubt... I mean… uh… I mean, you know what I mean.”
“Oh, I think I do.”
The pair followed the Commander, who instructed Hadley to call in Molotov and Razak. On entering the hold, Becca noticed Aleksi was shivering, his lips blueish white. She retrieved a blanket from one of the storage lockers in the galley between the cockpit and the cargo hold.
“Here,” she said, laying the blanket across the man and tucking in the sides. “I may not like you, but that doesn’t mean I want you to suffer.”
Aleksi mumbled something incoherent and a tear rolled down his cheek.
Den of Vipers
A nticipation building, Becca’s heart fluttered as she gazed up at the screens displaying images out in front of the wasp drones. They were approaching a rocky ridge that disappeared beneath the sea ice, like a great anchor mooring the snow-clad mountains in place. Images of great abandoned ships entered her mind. Isolated, desolate, frozen in some far-off place, a nautical graveyard left for the elements to slowly nibble until all evidence of their existence was completely erased.
“It should be just round that ridge,” Reece said, pointing at the screens.
“Can’t you just tell us what it is?” Fang said, nervously clicking her thumb nail down by her side. “An alien ship, is it a crashed alien ship?”
“This is the kind of thing you gotta see for yourself,” Reece replied. “If I say it out loud it’ll just sound insane. Heck, I saw it with my own eyes and I’m still struggling. The more I think about it… you know what, I’m not even sure what I saw. I gotta see this again myself.”
Jurassic Earth Trilogy Box Set Page 43