by Adam Carter
The door of the shuttle opens and the ramp descends. The lieutenant stands at the base of the ramp, shooting anything that comes close as I run towards her, dragging Harper along behind me. There’s a veritable carpet of coelophysis appearing around the shuttle now, and to stay and fight them all would be suicide. Protected by the lieutenant’s cover fire, I reach the base of the ramp and shove Harper forwards.
“Go,” Winter tells me, cracking off shots without pause.
“I’ve got this,” I tell her.
“And I’m still in charge, so go!”
We can’t stand here all day arguing, so I run up the ramp. Harper’s terrified, but has learned to work through her fear and has strapped herself in securely. I rush to the main controls – the shuttle has only the one room aside from the storage area at the back – and fire up the engines.
Suddenly the lieutenant’s beside me. She has a nasty cut to her forehead which drips blood into her eyes, but she grins at me wolfishly: she’s suffered far worse in the past. I look back to see the doors are closed.
“Strap in,” Winter tells me and as I head to a chair I glance out the window to see Spring continuing to fire, doing her best to keep the beasts back. I turn from her and take the seat beside Harper, strapping myself in and pressing my hand upon hers.
“We’re clear,” I tell her. “We’re all right now.”
“What about Spring?”
“I think we left her.”
“Good.”
It’s a turning point for Harper, the first of many these past couple of days. As arrogant as I always took her, I never thought she would have been glad to have seen another human being left to die. I’m not sure I like it all that much.
The shuttle lurches as the landing struts are raised and the craft begins to lift. I look back out the window and see Spring cursing us, although I can’t hear her words. My eyes widen as she tosses one rifle so she can reach into her belt and withdraw something. My years in the military have trained me to recognise the firing pin of a remote detonator when I see one.
“Winter!”
“I see it!” she shouts and slams a button. The shuttle grinds and the lieutenant turns to look directly at me. There’s sorrow to her eyes, pity and more remorse than I could ever mention. “Good luck, Claire.”
And suddenly the floor drops out and Harper and I are falling, our chairs being released from the shuttle. I watch as the shuttle careens above us in the air, looking like it’s shooting away simply because of the speed at which we’re falling from it. And then the entire thing explodes in a tremendous fireball as Spring’s incendiary ignites: her final hateful revenge against those who would leave her to die.
I jar uncomfortably as my seat strikes the ground. The seat is designed to have absorbed the impact, although I’m sure they never work properly. We have no time to dwell on anything that’s just happened, however, for the coelophysis will be nearby: we can’t have gained too much distance from where Spring’s fighting. Pressing the unstrap switch, I clamber out of my chair to help Harper with her own harness. I can see Spring some distance away, perhaps fifty metres, fleeing, her rifle flaming at anything that moves. Tearing Harper from the seat I draw my own pistol and loose a shot at a creature ten metres away. The bullet doesn’t connect, but it gives the thing second thoughts about attacking us.
“Winter,” Harper gasps, and again I’m afraid she’s falling into shock.
“Forget her,” I say, grabbing her face with both my hands and almost shaking her. I force her eyes to find mine and try to instil a little calm into her, even through my own panic. “Mary, focus. I need you, all right? I need you.”
Slowly she nods and I take up my pistol once more. Our gun situation’s not too good, and our ammunition is worse, but so long as the coelophysis don’t flock our way we might be able to make it across the plain without being killed.
Something explodes to the north and I watch as what remains of the shuttle crashes to the ground, sending flames careening across the field, igniting the grass for a quarter mile. The coelophysis look towards it in confusion; it’s just the distraction we need.
“Come on,” I say to Harper, taking her by the hand and leaving the chairs behind. “We need to go.”
I catch sight of Onyx and wave to get his attention. The fire’s spooking him, but he comes at my signal, knowing I’ll be able to lead him from the flames and to safety. A single coelophysis means nothing to him, but a frenzied pack is more than even he can cope with. I clamber onto his back when he reaches us, drawing Harper up alongside me, holding her tightly in front of me for fear of her sliding off if she sat behind. And I’m through leaving people behind.
“Autumn!”
I glance across to where Spring is still firing. She’s using up an enormous amount of bullets, even though she’s scoring a hit every time she fires. She can’t have too many left if her body-count’s anything to go by. And she has no cover, and no shuttle now she’s destroyed it. Nor does she have a dinosaur steed.
“Autumn!”
There’s something else she doesn’t have either. A friend. Which is a shame, because it’s only friends I’m not willing to leave behind.
I crack the reins on Onyx and he breaks into a gallop. Harper feels incredibly small and young curled up before me, but I’ll look after her. I have to. She’s all I have now. She’s my entire world, my hopes. My life.
EPILOGUE
We returned to the wreck a few days ago. There was nothing there, no sign of anything useful. Certainly nothing left of the lieutenant I might be able to bury. Coelophysis corpses littered the field, but they had mainly been picked clean by scavengers. I even caught sight of a circling quetzalcoatlus and bade it a good day. Of Spring, or whatever her real name is, there was no sign either. No shred of cloth, no bloody head. It’s possible she was entirely devoured, possible she survived. But I did find two familiar ski-like marks in the grass. It seems I may have discovered at last what happened to the copter when Spring piloted it away from the daspletosaurus. As with the bomb on our shuttle, it seems Spring had planned a great deal for her future. The marks in the grass aren’t conclusive evidence, but I have to assume she survived simply because I have to prepare for her being a problem come the future.
Still, Ceres is a large place. The chances of her being able to find us are incredibly remote.
“You’re back.”
Mary’s smile is infectious, and how she keeps her chin up under these conditions I’ll never know. We’ve made something of a home for ourselves in the mountains. In a part of the world with fewer trees. There are caves here, and there’s a quick route down to a tarn where we’ve found plenty of fish. We haven’t starved or wanted for water and it seems we might be able to live here indefinitely. We’ve also taken care this time to make our home far, far above the reach of any roving daspletosauri.
“I’m back,” I confirm, “and I brought goodies.”
I unload a bag filled with fruit and Mary sorts through it methodically. Her botany training’s come in very useful. I may know everything there is to know about survival, but I couldn’t tell you which extinct plants are safe to eat. Thankfully Mary’s story about being here to study the plants wasn’t a part of the lie, and she’s been a godsend lately. I wonder how Spring’s managing to work out what to eat, but maybe if we’re lucky her poor choices might well kill her.
Mary has a fire going and is cooking something, another vole it looks like. She’s turned out to be a pretty good cook as well, which is handy since I’m not. She’s also developed a mastery of small-talk, which helps to pass the time. Today however neither of us is feeling too talkative and we eat in silence.
The black box is gone, destroyed by Spring in her anger in blowing up the shuttle. The black box, the one thing Spring wanted; the one thing we need. Without that box we have no proof of anything. Without that box even if we were rescued we wouldn’t be able to show the world what we’ve been through. And the box is gone.
> “If Spring’s dead,” Mary says to break the silence, “and they do send a rescue ship, we could just deny all knowledge of the plans within plans. You’d be debriefed and go back to work. Daddy would do his best for me and hopefully I’d see the outside of a cell one day.”
She’s a sweet girl, but I know what she’s doing. She knows I’m thinking about Davey. She knows he’s all I think about. She knows full well he’s never going to see me again and she’s trying to make me feel better. She’s a sweet kid, but it doesn’t change anything.
“You forget something, Mary. There’s no rescue ship coming. Ceres is forbidden territory. No one ever comes here.”
“Aside from all the people the lieutenant claimed the government sent here. Sometimes twice. We just need to keep an eye out, and make sure we find these people before Spring does.”
She’s trying to cheer me up again. She does this a lot, and I respect her for it. But it’s not helping. We’re not going to be rescued. And I’m never going to see my son again.
But I can’t feel badly for her attempts. At least one of us is managing to say positive.
“Yeah,” I say, forcing a smile as I eat. “Maybe one day they’ll send someone and we can get a lift home. Maybe.”
We continue to eat in silence.
Above us the great face of Jupiter gazes down with satisfaction. There is a reason, it says, why Ceres is forbidden. Religious ground, it agrees. Perhaps Jupiter itself just doesn’t like people walking on its sacred soils. I don’t know any more. I just know I’m never going to see my boy again.
I wish I’d never come to Ceres in the first place.
DINOSAUR
PRISON WORLD
CHAPTER ONE
Sparks flew in her face, searing her skin and almost blinding her in the process. She tasted blood in the back of her throat and there was a stabbing pain in her side. It was possible she had broken a couple of ribs, but it was more likely she was just bruised and a little shaken up. The fingers of her left hand darted across a small panel affixed beside her head, while her right reached up to grip a horizontal lever wrapped fastidiously in strips of leather. It was the one lever which would mean the difference between her life and death and she wasn’t about to let her hand slip from it. She did not tug the lever however, ignored the flashing red light blazing about her face and the written indicator of danger burning into her corneas. Her eyes focused through the visor on the thing slowly approaching, and her right hand tensed.
The beast came to within five metres of her, its great nostrils flaring – either to test the air or merely in indignation she could not say – before it shifted its weight to crane for a better view. The creature was enormous, nine metres long and about half that in height; she didn’t even want to consider how much the thing weighed in at. Its torso was huge and bulky, kept in the air by two thick hind legs whose thigh muscles were easily more powerful than anything mankind had ever been able to build. Its forearms were in contrast relatively weak, although she knew they were still able to deal a lethal slashing blow if she allowed them to come into contact with her. From the rear of its torso there was produced a thick, well-muscled tail which presently swished behind it as though it was debating which way to turn. She knew from experience the creature used the tail for counterbalance and it was often possible to predetermine which way the animal would strike if she kept a close eye upon this weapon – like watching an alpha male wolf and ignoring the rest of the pack.
It was the head of the beast which had caused many to quail, however, and very few who had such a thing so close to them had survived. The head was a powerful skull of serrated teeth, its eyes protected by two bony flat protuberances which many years ago had been termed horns, as though this was the Devil’s own pet. She imagined this thing being Cerberus and did not stop to fear what this beast would have been like with three heads.
The creature leaned in closer, the thick neck, stocky torso and muscular tail all forming one straight horizontal line to keep the body of the creature in an upright position. The terrible head was close to her now, within a metre, and she could see its massive reptilian eye gazing down upon her, the breath steaming from its nostrils fogging up her visor.
Inhaling sharply and wishing her heart would cease pounding so loudly in her ears, Ashley Honeywood yanked down hard on the lever with her right hand, and the monster roared in pain and rage as a spray of light erupted from her.
Honeywood’s fingers darted across panels once more and she shot out a fist, catching the beast on the side of the head. She knew she would have only moments before the thing recovered, and that once it did she would have no chance of surviving, let alone winning. But the creature thrashed too madly in its pain of sudden blindness and the great muscular tail came hurtling round as it spun, and smashed directly into Honeywood’s chest.
She went tumbling, alerts flashing before her eyes, klaxons wailing at her, and she felt the dented metal pressing into her side. She did not know whether it had punctured the skin, but didn’t want to think about such a thing. If she stopped to consider how much damage the creature had done her she would fall into shock, and then she would die.
Her fingers danced again as she attempted to regain control, but the world was literally spinning as she rolled across the dusty ground and she could see nothing of her tormentor. She was leaking fuel somewhere and instantly cut off the feed into any damaged sectors of her suit. Then she did the one thing she entirely dreaded. She took her hands from the controls and tried to assess her situation now that she had stopped tumbling.
Her suit was compromised in several places; a quick diagnostic showed several old wounds had reopened in addition to the rupture in her side. She attempted to raise the limbs of the suit, but they were unresponsive and she knew she was too damaged to deal with the thing outside.
Gorgosaurus. Let’s give things their proper names, she thought to herself. That it had not attacked in the two or three seconds she had been lying helpless on the floor was a good thing, but there was nothing she could do with her systems from here. She had two options, so far as she could see. Her suit was useless to her, so she could abandon it and take her chances with the gorgosaurus without it. Honeywood was five foot eight, the gorgosaurus was over thirty in length; that just wasn’t going to happen.
Taking a deep breath she did the only other thing she could, and hit the kill switch.
Everything went dark. The suit’s power failed entirely, and Honeywood was robbed of both external sight and sound. The only things she could hear were her own laboured breathing and her incessant heart pounding. She couldn’t even see that much.
Metal ground around her and Honeywood felt herself being raised bodily into the air. Shock waves hurtled through her body as she was dropped once more, blind and afraid, and suddenly she could hear something even through the blackness of the suit: she could hear the roar of the beast outside as it struggled in its own blind rage to get to her. Honeywood controlled her breathing, kept her hands to the sides where they wouldn’t slam into anything at its next attack, and would have prayed if she thought it might have done her any good.
She was knocked onto her side and gasped as something pressed into her stomach. Metal from the freshly dented suit, she reasoned, but as the beast retracted she stared in wide-eyed panic as light filtered through. It was light streaming through knife-like gashes made in the suit, and as she glanced down at her body in view of that light she could see where the teeth of the gorgosaurus had torn through her armour and pressed bloodily into her belly.
Then suddenly a red message flashed before her eyes and any prayers she may have inadvertently muttered were answered. The message read: SYSTEMS ONLINE.
Lights came back on in her cockpit and Honeywood wasted no time, her fingers once more flying to life. Her suit’s right fist smashed out once more, catching the monster under the chin in a surprising manoeuvre, its left fist taking it in the side of the face. She struggled to her feet and called up a sch
ematic for a visual, but the feed was down. She could see the gorgosaurus staggering before her, but then the image was gone.
Honeywood was not about to waste the advantage while she had it.
Disengaging the main visual screen, she slammed a naked palm into the faceplate retraction and the entire visor slid inwards. Real air washed into the cockpit of the suit, along with it the roar of the animals outside. She could see her surroundings, could taste everything with her own senses now, and she smiled. It was good to be alive.
The dusty ground was a roughly circular space fifty metres in diameter, about which were concrete walls high enough to contain her suit and the beast she fought. Above the concrete there was enclosed a massive clear area where upwards of five hundred people could gather. They were jeering, primitive brutes, calling for blood and demanding satisfaction. Today there was a turnout of probably somewhere in the region of four hundred, and Honeywood knew this was a main attraction. After all, it was one of the greatest, most ferocious predators of this world in the pit.
And then of course there was also the dinosaur.
Honeywood launched herself at the beast, entirely unmindful that she was exposed to the elements, that if the gorgosaurus could get its head snapping at the right angle its teeth could tear her from her cockpit before she could blink. Ashley Honeywood had never wasted time on worrying about possibilities, especially with an audience.
The crowd exploded with primal, vocalised praise as she landed blows upon the beast. The gorgosaurus backed away, but her attack was too vicious for it to counter. The beast snapped out its head to clamp its teeth about her arm, and the massive teeth shore through her armour. Sparks exploded into the creature’s face and it automatically released its hold, allowing Honeywood to use her free fist to punch it to the floor.