Dinosaur Thunder

by James F. David

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  Looking back through the dedications in my other books, it is easy to see the biggest change that has taken place in my life—my family keeps growing. Gale continues to be my primary reader, although I know I can always call on Abby, who reads at warp speed, or Drew, who devours books just as fast. Now that Katie is back from Arizona, it will be easier to impose on her, and soon Bethany and Mark will have time to read Dad’s stuff. Until my granddaughter, Adelaide, learns to read, or James, my grandson, I’ll have to settle for reading to them.

  This book is dedicated to my constantly growing and changing family, which provides all the characters, relationships, conflicts, dialogue, happiness, frustration, and hope that a writer needs.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Prologue

  1. Moon

  2. Pest Control

  3. To Live and Die in Neverland

  4. Visitors

  5. Office of Security Science

  6. Hatching

  7. Raid

  8. Unlicensed

  9. Brood

  10. Feast

  11. Time Tunnel

  12. Strange Journey

  13. Elizabeth

  14. Family

  15. Strangers

  16. John Roberts

  17. Patrol

  18. The Lost

  19. Gathering Storm

  20. Big Chicks

  21. Confidential

  22. The Big One

  23. Taking Charge

  24. Quasi-Time

  25. Strangers in a Strange Land

  26. Preacher Man

  27. Village of the Damned

  28. Rescue Team

  29. The Reverend

  30. President

  31. New World

  32. Communication

  33. Marines

  34. Delivery

  35. Stranger and Stranger

  36. Unfrozen

  37. Safari

  38. Attack

  39. Pickup

  40. Reunion

  41. In Orbit

  42. Column

  43. Distant Thunder

  44. Siege

  45. Monitoring

  46. Panic

  47. Obstacle

  48. Cousins

  49. The Long Journey

  50. Escape

  51. Closing Time

  52. Exit

  53. Distortion

  54. Bolide

  55. Demolition

  56. Inferno

  57. Report to the President

  58. Love Is Patient

  Dramatis Personae

  Also by James F. David

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Prologue

  It has been eighteen years since the planet was swept by time waves, intermixing the Cretaceous and modern periods. In that disaster, whole cities disappeared, never to be seen again. Millions of people were displaced in time, their homes and businesses gone with them and replaced with dinosaur-infested forests. Some called it God’s punishment, but the investigation of the disaster eventually linked the catastrophe to the testing of nuclear fusion weapons in the fifties and sixties.

  To detonate a fusion bomb, the heat and pressure of a fission explosion is used to fuse hydrogen atoms, to produce helium atoms, resulting in the release of massive amounts of energy. The resulting thermonuclear explosion sends out several destructive waves, including electromagnetic, blast, and thermal. Unknown at the time of fusion testing was the existence of a fourth wave: a ripple in time and space. While a single time wave was insufficient to cause more than localized time effects, the convergence of several time waves accounted for the worldwide disruption of the space–time continuum.

  As civilizations have done for centuries following catastrophe, people adapted to the losses, rebuilding their homes, their highways, and the railroads. Power grids were restored, and holes in the data networks filled. Cities sprouted in and around the chunks of Cretaceous wilderness. Economies boomed as unemployment dropped to record lows and resources poured into urban renewal. As civilization recovered, the most difficult problem was what to do with the dinosaurs.

  Some countries exterminated their dinosaurs. Other dinosaurs died naturally, unable to adapt to the climate they found themselves in. Still other countries, like the United States, rounded up dinosaurs, confining them to preserves. Special rangers were recruited and trained, and given responsibility for dinosaur management. Quickly, the people of the world adjusted to cohabiting with the prehistoric animals, and then became fascinated with them. Dinosaur preserves became popular tourist attractions.

  Then, ten years after the Time Quilt, as the popular press dubbed the disaster, a group of ecoterrorists infiltrated a secret government project hidden in Alaska. Scientists at the Fox Valley site had created a special pyramid to gather orgonic energy, the same energy used by the Egyptians to help preserve their pharaohs. These researchers had discovered that the pyramid form focused orgonic energy, and by lining a pyramid with a high-tech material, the Fox Valley scientists created a highly efficient capacitor capable of storing orgonic energy. Not widely known at the time was that orgonic energy also influenced the time ripples and could be used to manipulate them.

  Taking control of the Fox Valley site, ecoterrorists simultaneously detonated three nuclear weapons, sending the facility back in time ten years, and to the moon. Those three symmetrical and simultaneous explosions also created connections through time and space between the Fox Valley pyramid, the Fox Valley pyramid transported to the moon, and a newly discovered pyramid in the Yucatán. By using the orgonic energy stored in the Fox Valley pyramid, the ecoterrorists were able to manipulate the time waves still rippling across the planet, planning to create a massive new Time Quilt that would shred space–time, jumbling past and present and destroying modern civilization. If successful, the planet would return to a primitive state, where animals would once again thrive. Fortunately, Nick Paulson and his team thwarted their plan, and all three pyramid sites were destroyed.

  The public was told the nuclear explosions were terrorist attacks, the attack on the time line classified. Next to the Time Quilt, the terrorist attack paled in comparison, and gradually the public settled once again into complacency, unaware of the damage done to space–time.

  1

  Moon

  You look at that photo on my website, and then you tell me there wasn’t an explosion on the moon. You’ve got to start listening to me, America! Wake up! The government blew up a secret alien base on the moon, and it’s time we-the-people know why.

  —Cat Bellow, host of Radio Rebel

  Present time

  Flamsteed crater

  The moon

  “We are approaching the debris field now,” Mike Watson said, his message relayed from his PLSS suit to the lunar lander to the orbiting lunar shuttle and then on to Earth.

  As mission commander, Watson led the way, the rest of his crew fanned out behind him. Mission Specialist Sarasa Chandra trailed on his left, Mission Specialist Rick Maven on his right. They used the gentle hopping motion perfected by Apollo crews. In one
-sixth gravity, walking quickly became bounding, so planned bounding was more efficient.

  Watson checked the radiation reading in his heads-up display. He ignored the UV radiation; his suit could handle routine lunar exposure. What concerned Watson was the particle radiation. The team’s specially insulated PLSS suits would protect them for a time, but Watson kept an eye on the rems. He and his wife wanted more children, and wanted them to have all the usual body parts.

  They passed random bits of man-made debris—strips of metal, chunks of rubber, pieces of concrete, the brass knob of a door handle. They came to a larger object—a refrigerator. Dented and half buried, it stuck up out of the regolith like modern art. The door was partially ajar. Watson did not bother to look inside. According to the intelligence briefing, the last residents of the structure ahead had eaten everything. Watson snapped a picture and moved on.

  “Over here, sir,” Chandra said.

  Watson stopped, turning his shoulders to turn his helmet toward Chandra. She was holding up a long bone.

  “It’s a human leg bone,” Chandra said. “It’s been picked clean.”

  “Photograph it and leave it,” Watson said.

  They kept moving toward the deep shadow of the crater wall, where the structure hid.

  “Sir, this might be what we came for,” Maven said.

  Again, Watson stopped, turning his shoulders and head. Maven was holding a jagged piece of black material. Watson walked to Maven, Chandra following. They formed a small circle so they could make eye contact. Maven held what looked like a thin piece of black plastic with a dull surface. About a foot long, and eight inches at the widest point, it resembled a piece of ice broken from the surface of a pond. Maven tapped it, knocking off a bit of dust. Taking the material, Watson turned it on its side, seeing that it was made up of a dozen thin layers.

  “It’s light,” Watson said, passing it to Chandra.

  Chandra held the material close to her faceplate, studying the layers through two sunscreens.

  “This is it,” Chandra announced. “This is what they spent a billion dollars to get.”

  “Well, that was easy,” Maven said. “And we have rems to spare.” Maven tapped his faceplate where the radiation readings would show on his side.

  “That’s half the mission,” Watson said. “Collect more samples as we go.”

  Maven put the sample in a bag, labeled it, and then followed the others. They spread out again with Watson in the lead. The regolith was soft, Watson sinking an inch with each bounce, sending up a small puff of dust. When they came to an edge of the rim shadow, Maven stopped them again.

  “This just gets weirder and weirder,” Maven said.

  Maven had angled away and was now twenty yards to the right. He was standing by a large object, his lunar boot resting on top. With a shove, he tipped the object over.

  “It’s a snowmobile,” Maven said. “I don’t remember this in the mission briefing.”

  “They told us to expect the unexpected,” Chandra said.

  “They tell you that kind of stuff, but you never really believe them,” Maven said. “Until now. A snowmobile on the moon?” Maven mumbled as he resumed hopping.

  Watson checked his display. The rems were increasing, but well within the safe zone.

  Entering the shadow, they took a dozen bounds before one of the sun shields lifted, allowing them to see farther into the shadow. Now Watson could see the objective. What had once been the most famous building on the moon—and the only building—was now nothing more than two vertical walls marking one corner. They moved forward, Watson’s eyes on the radiation meter. Then he found a body.

  “Chandra! Maven!” Watson called, coming to a stop.

  His crew hopped over, closing ranks around the body. Any clothing and hair had been burned away. The genitalia was male, the body mummified through the combination of vacuum and UV radiation. Chandra photographed the body. Maven took samples of the regolith around the corpse, storing them in plastic bags. When they were finished, they continued toward the ruins.

  “We should bury him,” Maven said.

  “And the leg bone we found?” Chandra asked.

  “If there’s time,” Watson said, understanding the feeling. Even on the moon, the cultural need to return humans to the soil was strong.

  Now well into the rim shadow, another sun shield retracted and they could see even more detail. What had once been a large rectangular structure had exploded, leaving two intersecting walls standing, the tops crumbled, bent rebar protruding from broken edges. What surprised Watson was that anything still stood. According to the mission briefing, a twenty-megaton warhead had destroyed the site.

  The rems continued to creep up but nowhere near the level Watson had feared.

  “Sir, there are bones here,” Chandra said.

  “Photograph them,” Watson said, not bothering to turn and look this time. “We’ll bury them if we have time.”

  “They’re not human,” Chandra said.

  Now Watson stopped, turning. Chandra held a long thin bone.

  “Dinosaur,” Chandra said.

  “Snowmobiles and dinosaurs on the moon,” Maven said. “They said expect the unexpected, not expect the weird.”

  Moving on, the texture of the regolith changed. Kneeling in PLSS suits was impossible, so Watson used a long-handled scoop to sample a piece of the surface. The material looked like gray straw. It crumpled when touched.

  “I think it’s organic,” Chandra said. “It may be grass.”

  “Take a look at this,” Maven said.

  Hopping over, they found Maven looking at another chunk of the black material they had collected earlier.

  “I’m having trouble focusing on this piece,” Maven said.

  An eight-inch chunk of the black material lay on the surface, coming in and out of focus.

  “Its refractive properties keep changing,” Chandra said.

  “Mike, this is Mission Control,” a voice cut in. “Do not touch that material. Use tongs and store the material in a lined bag.”

  “Tongs?” Maven said. “Now they tell us.”

  The team carried special sample bags, now understanding what they were for. Using long-handled tongs, Maven picked up the chunk and dropped it in a bag held open by Chandra. Chandra sealed the bag. She put the sample in a pouch on the side of her suit, and they moved on, now picking their way through chunks of concrete, careful to skirt exposed rebar and other jagged material. The debris here was larger, heavier, the smaller pieces having been blown well across the moon’s surface. Finally, they reached the foundation for the original building. Up close, Watson could see that more of the building stood than appeared from a distance. Concrete several feet high still formed a perimeter. There was a gap near the astronauts, and they carefully worked through concrete chunks toward the opening.

  “Sir, look at that,” Chandra said, pointing over the jagged wall.

  They stopped to see where Chandra pointed but saw nothing. Then over the broken wall they saw puffs of dust.

  “Something’s kicking up dust,” Maven said.

  Few things kicked up dust on the moon, Watson knew. Seismic activity could, but they felt none. Meteor impacts also, but the dust they were seeing came regularly, inconsistent with a random micrometeor strike. Rapid heating of the frozen regolith could cause surface fracturing, but the rim shadow prevented rapid solar heating.

  The dust continued to puff.

  “Let’s take bets on what’s causing it,” Maven said. “I’ll take a Russian women’s hockey team.”

  “Residual volcanic activity,” Chandra said. “Left over from the nuclear detonation.”

  “Not weird enough,” Maven said. “Take my word for it, whatever is causing that dust cloud is going to be closer to a Russian women’s hockey team than volcanic activity.”

  Watson stayed out of the betting, but leaned toward Maven’s point of view. The path through to the opening was narrow, so they walked single file n
ow with Watson in the lead. Coming to the opening, Watson stopped, the others coming to stand shoulder to shoulder. What they saw left them speechless.

  “Impossible,” Chandra said.

  “Yeah,” Maven said.

  One end of what had been a building was rubble, but in one corner of the remaining wall was a dinosaur, standing on a flat black surface. Not a dead, mummified dinosaur, but a living, thrashing animal, trying to break free from some invisible restraint.

  “That’s a tyrannosaur,” Chandra said.

  “No, too small,” Watson said. “That’s Deinonychus.”

  “Those are the ones they call ‘dine on us,’” Maven said.

  “The jaws are too big and the arms too short for Deinonychus. It must be a juvenile tyrannosaur,” Chandra insisted, “or something in the tyrannosaur family.”

  “It has to be an illusion,” Maven said. “A projection.”

  “Looks real to me,” Watson said.

  “What’s holding it?” Chandra asked. “It’s like its feet are glued down.”

  Like an animal trapped in quicksand, the tyrannosaur struggled, its tail swinging wide, sending up the occasional cloud of dust.

  “Mission Control, are you seeing this?” Watson said.

  “Affirmative, Mike,” came the reply. “Do not approach until we advise.”

  “No problem,” Watson said.

  “How can it breathe?” Chandra asked. “It can’t,” she said, answering her own question. “It shouldn’t even be alive. Nothing can live in a vacuum.”

  “It’s alive, all right,” Maven said. “Let’s just hope it doesn’t get loose, or we’ll wish there were a Russian women’s hockey team here to protect us.”

  “Look at how hard it’s struggling,” Chandra said. “It should be exhausted.”

  “Commander Watson?” a new voice cut it. “This is Nick Paulson. I am director of the Office of Security Science.”

  “I know who you are,” Watson said. “What can we do for you?”

  Watson knew Paulson through reputation and rumor. By reputation, Paulson was world-renowned for his work on the time quilting that had swept the planet, bringing dinosaurs to the modern world, and was a confidant of presidents. By rumor, Paulson was said to be one of the few people on the planet who knew what was really behind the time distortions.