The arena inside the containment field stretched maybe a hundred feet long, in a rough oval maybe seventy or eighty feet wide.
The force fields went all the way to the high, arched ceiling.
There was no getting out that way.
Other than the lone, stone table that remained inside the arena, all other furniture had magically been removed.
Then Jet noticed something else.
The canal in the middle of the room ran under the force-field. Seeing the lowered river, seeing the fish flash with color as they swam under the field, gave Jet a brief flush of hope.
Was that why Richter asked if Jet could swim?
The longer she examined the flowing water, however, the more that hope dimmed.
The canal was wider than she’d realized while staring at it idly through lunch, but only in the middle part. Footbridges lived on either side of the section inside the arena, seemingly flush with the force-field walls. Under those footbridges, the flow of water narrowed considerably. She couldn’t see the whole area there, it was too dark, but it looked like it might narrow down to a series of pipes––pipes too small for her to squeeze through.
She couldn’t even hide in the water itself. She didn’t know how T-Rexes felt about water, but it might just follow her in.
If those holes ended up being too small for her, she could get trapped in there.
She should have known that was too easy.
Her eyes went back to roaming the space, looking for something else.
The potted plants and trees, those ornately carved chairs, the decorative tables and divan-like couches were all outside the field.
They must have marked out the space beforehand.
All part of the big after-dinner show.
Still, Jet knew a little about the Nirreth. They liked a good fight. They liked challenges, puzzles, obstacle courses, mazes, secret doors. They liked posing problems that forced their warriors to use their minds as much as their bodies.
It was what made the Rings such a smash hit when humans first designed them. While based on the old bloodsports Earthlings had been inflicting on one another for millennia, the Rings aligned with Nirreth instincts, drives, belief-systems, and culture almost perfectly.
There had to be something in here she could use.
The Nirreth would soon get bored if this “demonstration” consisted of her hugging the wall and running around the young dinosaur in a giant circle for the next hour.
Anyway, if that’s all this was, it was only a matter of time before Jet tripped on the chain, and the whole thing was over.
One smack of its tail, one slip or trip by Jet, and it could easily crush one of her limbs under a clawed foot. It could break her back inside its giant, toothless jaws.
Jet would be dead.
If the Nirreth wanted to kill her that pointlessly, they likely would have come up with something more creative. They would have given Black back to her, at least, so she could carve a few stripes in that lizard flesh, spill some blood before the T-Rex took her out.
The sea of faces watching through the force-field was distracting.
Most of those faces looked excited now.
Jet heard the murmurs grow louder when the T-Rex began stalking towards her again. Its tail remained nearly horizontal behind it, and again reminded Jet more of a cat than a lizard. She looked from its head to its tail, waiting for the thing to attack––
When the attack came.
The creature made a series of long, leaping strides in her direction––strides that looked like jumps, trembling the floor with each impact.
Jet got ready to drop a second time, when it got close enough, to try and run around it. Before she could make up her mind to move, the T-Rex whipped its tail around unexpectedly, leaping the final distance to where she stood.
Jet moved fast.
Pure reflex, no thought.
She leapt backwards and up to avoid that muscular tail.
She luckily missed the force field, jumping alongside it, not into it. She thought the animal missed, that she’d managed to get out of way of the tail’s range… when the very edge of that hard, leathery muscle caught her in the thighs.
Letting out a gasp of surprised pain, Jet found herself flying.
She landed hard, on her side.
Gasping, she stared up at the high ceiling, the wind knocked out of her. Her leg felt like it was on fire, already swelling, screaming with pain. Gripping the muscle in both hands, Jet gasped, trying to push back the pain enough to think, even as she looked around, scanning for options. She was all the way across the arena from where she’d been standing. She clutched her leg, groaning as she sucked in air, trying to think, to decide.
The canal was too far away.
So was the force field wall.
The baby dinosaur wasn’t as stupid as she’d hoped.
It wanted her away from the wall. It got what it wanted with that one swipe of its tail. Jet now sprawled somewhere towards the center of the arena-like space.
Still gasping, she began to crawl towards the stone table, the only object near enough to afford her some small protection. As she dragged her body forward, she fought to pull herself to her feet, stumbled, and ended up back on her knees. Pain throbbed down the length of her leg and up her spine.
That pain, coupled with being forced to move slowly, brought a rush of adrenaline, along with the fear that she'd broken something, that her knee was actually damaged.
She yanked herself back to her feet.
In that second try, she knew her limbs worked, even the joints of her knees, despite how loudly they screamed at her.
She was moving. Her leg held weight.
It hurt… a lot… but it didn't buckle that time.
It still felt like she was moving agonizingly slow.
Remembering how fast the dinosaur moved, she forced her limbs faster.
The knee-joint and her back burned less as she shuffle-limped-walked, fighting to get momentum, fighting to reach the stone table. Some part of her focused only on that, on getting underneath the damned thing, as if once she had, everything would be okay.
The table gave her a goal, an adrenaline-fueled purpose.
It gave her the illusion she could still win this.
Jet could feel the part of her that was in shock.
She catalogued it almost clinically, but never stopped moving.
Everything happened pretty fast, although that didn't occur to her until later.
She’d been lying there.
Then she’d been up on one knee, then on her feet… then down… then up again, walking, jogging, half-running, throwing her weight forward as fast as she could. She limped towards the opposite end of the force field wall and dove under the stone table, crying out when her hurt knee smacked against the stone tile.
She barely made it.
The young T-Rex bellowed behind her.
Staring up at it, now from under the table, a surge of adrenaline hit her, making her whimper in sheer panic. Had she just made a huge mistake? It flashed through her mind that the T-Rex could break the table in pieces if it hit the stone at a full run. Or it could throw the table––and Jet––backwards into the force field.
It ran at her with its head down, fast but blind.
Realizing she didn’t like her chances, Jet scrambled out from under the table, groaning at the pain in her knee and back.
She ran towards the Rex instead of away.
At the last second, right before it would have hit her, she veered off to one side.
Jet dove around the massive, bulging leg, then scrambled out of the way and back to her feet, fleetingly grateful her legs seemed to be working better.
She broke into a run. She concentrated on the chain, on every placement of her foot, every movement of her chained wrist. The last thing she needed was to fall on her ass again, or worse, wrench any part of her leg or back.
If the dinosaur saw her at that last moment, it
wasn’t soon enough to slow down.
Behind her, she heard another howling bark.
Then another loud THUD, right before the floor and force-field trembled.
Jet glanced over her shoulder, without slowing her steps.
The animal had crashed headlong into the table, just like she’d thought.
She’d been wrong about the table, though. The table not only didn’t crumble, the stone structure didn’t suffer any damage at all.
Since the rock didn’t move, the dinosaur had to.
It knocked over the top of the stone surface and slammed inelegantly into the force field just behind it, creating another sizzling, crackling CRASH… filling the space with sound.
Jet heard the howls of the thing as it jerked away from the burning touch of the force field a second time. She didn’t stop, or even slow down, still mindful of the chain on her wrist and ankle as she ran for the forcefield on the far wall.
As she did, a kind of rage built in her.
Richter had done this to her.
Not the Nirreth.
Not aliens.
Another human.
It had been humans who introduced this stupid “Rings” idea to the Nirreth in the first place, convincing them that other humans, their own species, could provide generations of entertainment for their Nirreth occupiers. Those same humans made sure the Nirreth viewed human captivity and servitude as more valuable and entertaining than their extermination.
Of course, they probably told themselves they saved humanity.
Like Richter, they probably patted themselves on the back for it, crediting themselves for making sure that living, breathing humans would continue to exist, in some form at least.
Jet even understood the logic of that. Sort of.
She understood the need to make compromises in the face of a stronger enemy. She even knew she might have made a similar deal in those early years.
But it still made her burn with rage.
She glanced back in time to see the dinosaur struggling back to its feet, moving slower than before. She wondered if it was just dazed, like she had been for those few seconds, or if she’d managed to really wound it.
She hadn’t killed it.
She hadn’t even crippled it.
That was all that really mattered.
It was difficult to tell how injured it was, as it half-fell, half-climbed down the stone slab to reach the main floor. It occurred to her, looking under the space of the table, that maybe she should have stayed down there, after all.
The gaps were too narrow for that craggy head, with or without teeth.
If the T-Rex couldn’t break it, the table might have provided real shelter.
She’d just started trying to puzzle out how she might maneuver her way back there, when she heard another series of muffled yells from outside the force field wall.
Jet turned her head.
As she did, she slowed her run to a jog, then a walk.
She’d reached within a few feet of the crackling energy field.
The first thing she noticed was that the baby T-Rex still half-leaned against the stone table. From the sounds it was making, the creature was clearly dazed and in pain. It made another of those blowing, lowing sounds while Jet watched.
She felt a twinge of sadness for the thing.
It didn’t ask to be here, either.
Then movement to her left jerked her eyes that way, and immediately she understood the yells and screams from the watching Nirreth.
Jet thought she must be hallucinating.
She closed her eyes. Opened them again.
He was still there.
She was no longer alone in the arena with the baby T-Rex.
Running towards her at top speed was the young Nirreth Jet had been watching over lunch, the one with a pet otter, who got lectured by that psychotic Ringmaster, Trazen.
Ogli, oldest of the offspring of the direct line to the Nirreth throne, future ruler of Earth, sprinted across the unmarked floor, barefoot.
He held something that gleamed in one hand.
Ignoring the screams from outside the force field, he ran, oblivious, making a beeline for Jet, his dark eyes serious. His long, embroidered shirt flapped behind him, his feet making slapping sounds as they hit the floor under his sky-blue leggings.
It took Jet another blink to realize what Ogli held.
It was Black.
He gripped Black in that claw-like fist.
The young Nirreth king to-be had brought Jet her sword.
14
Baby Kings
Jet watched the kid run, her mind numb.
How the heck had he gotten past the force field?
Even with everything going on with the young, now-wounded T-Rex, how had she not seen him enter the arena?
And why would he try to help her?
It wasn’t until the T-Rex caught sight of the motion of the boy’s flashing legs that Jet snapped out of her trance. The craggy head jerked sideways, the dark eyes following the motion of the Nirreth boy as he streaked across the floor towards Jet.
Then the young dinosaur reacted like any predator would, seeing a potential snack running away from it at top speed.
With a barking growl, it leapt to its feet.
It began to make chase.
“Here!” Jet yelled, seeing the creature aiming its lunge at the boy.
She held out her hand, the one that wasn't chained to her ankle.
“To me!” she said. “Throw me the sword, kid!”
It didn’t occur to her until later that he probably hadn’t understood a word she said.
The young Nirreth skidded to a halt in front of her, its more serpentine tail coiling the air behind it. The kid showed her its teeth in a smile, holding out her sword.
Jet didn’t have the time or inclination to smile back.
Grabbing the kid’s arm, she jerked him behind her.
Releasing the kid, she backed into him, gripping Black’s hilt in both hands, stepping forward to meet the T-Rex. She knew the dinosaur’s weight alone would crush both of them if she let it get too close, so she had to hope she could drive it back.
Still, fighting it head on wasn’t much of an option with the kid standing right there. She’d have to move fast to avoid the tail and legs, and if she left him unprotected, he was bound to get hurt.
“Can you understand English?” she yelled at the kid.
The young king to-be made a number of those odd, lyrical-sounding noises of the Nirreth tongue.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Jet grunted. Looking back at him, she pointed towards the wall to her left. “You need to run, okay?”
She made the motion for running with her fingers.
“Try to get to the stone table…” She pointed at the table, making a wave motion with her hand to mimic diving under it. “Get to the table. Get under it. Any of this make sense?”
The boy looked confused, his dark eyes wide in his elongated face.
Frustrated, Jet grabbed his arm with the hand that had the shackle around her wrist. She stood behind him, and used his own arm to point at the table.
“Run, okay? When I fight this thing… run.”
The kid stared up at her blankly, still not seeming to understand.
Jet frowned at him in exasperation.
Where were the kid’s parents, anyway?
He was the heir to the Nirreth throne. Didn’t he have servants? Guards? Where the hell was that Trazen guy? How did they let the big-deal-future-leader of all Earth into a fighting arena? He hadn’t swum in; Richter said the Nirreth couldn’t swim. He said they sank like stones, and anyway, the kid’s clothes looked dry.
Why hadn't they called a halt to the fight, the second the kid breached the walls?
Was there some reason they couldn’t? If the kid found a way through, it stood to reason someone else could, too.
Like guards. With weapons.
Like the same guards who’d subdued the T-Rex b
efore.
But Jet didn’t have time to puzzle it out.
The T-Rex was running at them.
Jet sensed more caution in the creature as it approached this time. It wasn’t running full-tilt, like before. It also hadn’t lowered its head, leaving itself blind. Based on what it had done before, the animal would probably try to knock them into the middle of the ring, get them away from the force-field wall.
Jet had her sword, but she still didn’t know what to do with the kid.
Damn it. If he even just spoke her language, it would give them half a chance. She could just save her own ass, forget about the kid, but Jet couldn’t do that.
Nirreth or no, she couldn’t bring herself to just let the kid get slaughtered.
He’d brought her Black.
He was too young to blame for what his people had done to hers.
Without thought, she grabbed the kid’s shoulder tighter––
Then shoved him backwards and to the side as hard as she could.
Taken completely off guard, the young Nirreth lost his balance, his tail flailing briefly before he landed hard on the floor, maybe three yards behind her, and closer to the canal.
Jet saw the T-Rex’s eyes follow the kid’s trajectory. She saw the gleam there, the interest. She moved before that gleam could fully manifest.
“Here!” she shouted, holding up her shackled hand. She waved her arm, trying to draw the animal’s eyes. “It’s me you want, you big ugly thing!”
The dinosaur’s head swiveled.
It focused abruptly back on her.
Jet stepped back and sideways, pulling the Rex further away from the kid, holding Black out in front of her, two-handed. She managed to confuse the dinosaur enough to get it to slow down, skidding on its powerfully-clawed hind feet and the muscular legs they supported.
It lowered its head, raising its tail.
Now it was focused solely on her.
Jet didn’t wait.
Leaping forward, she slashed down hard on the dinosaur’s shoulder with the sword.
The creature let out an angry, barking, mournful howl.
Jet hit it again, that time in its softer-looking underbelly, below those strangely useless-looking forelegs. She sawed another cut into the creature’s thigh, hoping to topple it, and was rewarded when the dinosaur stumbled backwards with another howl.
The Complete Alien Apocalypse Series (Parts I-IV Plus Bonus Novella): An Apocalyptic, Romantic, Science Fiction, Alien Invasion Adventure Page 14