Scrapyard Ship 4 Realms of Time
Page 22
The teams’ objective was a simple one: get the dinosaur up and away from her nest—allowing Ricket sufficient time to bring in the other probe and pair them up—before any of them become the Spinosaurus’ lunch.
Jason’s plan was to get her to move all the way back to the lake where he and his team waited. Two hundred feet above him he saw the Perilous; her rear hatch was open and the second-to-last probe, although barely visible, was poised and ready to be deployed.
Jason used his NanoCom and hailed Traveler.
“We’re in position, Captain, and waiting for her to move away from the nest.”
Jason had tied his HUD to Billy’s helmet-cam and he could see Traveler and the other two rhinos in the distance, standing to the left of a large tree. The display on Traveler’s phase-shift wrist panel was open and he held a thick finger there, poised to initiate his phase-shift.
The giant dinosaur seemed perfectly content to sit on the eggs in her nest.
Jason hailed Billy.
“Go for Billy, Cap.”
“You’re going to have to motivate her to move off that nest.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“I don’t know … try approaching her. Phase-shift away if she gets too close.”
Billy didn’t respond but Jason saw him on the move through his helmet-cam feed. Billy ran into the clearing, then ran back to his position behind a large boulder. The dinosaur stayed put.
“You’re going to have to get in closer. Don’t be such a baby. Try to act threatening,” Jason suggested.
“You do realize I’m the size of a rodent to that thing, don’t you?” Billy replied, sounding out of breath.
“Do it one more time. This time, try shooting her with a few stun bursts.”
Billy was on the move again. The female Spinosaurus turned her massive head in Billy’s direction. At thirty yards out, Billy moved closer than Jason would have risked, but then again, they needed to get things moving along. Billy brought up his multi-gun and fired off several quick plasma bursts into the beast’s posterior.
Her reaction was near instantaneous and totally unexpected. A ball of fire, the size of a Volkswagen, blew from her gaping mouth and enveloped Billy. By the time the flash of fire cleared from Billy’s video feed, Jason was about to phase-shift over to help him.
“I’m okay,” came back Billy’s startled voice. “Battle suit held up fine.” Billy looked down at the grassy brush smoldering at his feet. When he looked back up, the colossal snout of the Spinosaurus was mere inches away.
He screamed. “Holy mother of—”
The dinosaur ate Billy.
Paralyzed, Jason’s heart stopped. Billy’s video feed showed nothing but blackness. Again, Jason was ready to phase-shift over when there was another flash from Billy’s feed. It was coming from deeper in the trees.
“Billy?” Jason asked tentatively.
“How about next time you shoot that dinosaur in the ass. And by the way, this battle suit is completely shot.”
“I take it you phase-shifted out of her mouth?”
“Oh no, not her mouth. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be swallowed whole by a fucking dinosaur?”
Jason couldn’t help laughing out loud from relief. “Well, at least she’s off her nest.” He opened another channel. “Traveler … time for you and your team to get busy.”
Billy’s video feed was acting flakey, so Jason tied into Rizzo’s helmet-cam. Rizzo’s visual perspective was from the opposite side of the dinosaur’s nest. She was loudly pacing back and forth about seventy-five yards from her nest; her massive head swung up and down, similar to a bird pecking for food. Traveler, Few Words and Born Late flashed into view behind the nest. They wasted no time climbing the ten-foot-tall collection of wood and bones. Traveler lost his footing and fell onto his back on the ground. The noisy impact was enough to catch the dinosaur’s attention. Surprised, or simply stunned, she didn’t move right away. Traveler was back on his feet and quickly climbed the nest wall before she could swing her massive girth around and storm back. Few Words and Born Late disappeared into the nest and then both stood up tall, holding bowling ball-sized eggs high over their heads. Moments later, Traveler stood next to them, holding up a third egg.
Exactly what Jason didn’t want to happen — happened. Its proximity sensors must have triggered and the spherical drone shot up into the air, hovering there twenty feet up. “Stay, stay, stay … no, don’t go …” Jason said aloud, as if the drone could hear him. It hovered like that for a moment before settling back on the ground in a secluded area several hundred feet away between the thick trunks of two large sequoias.
Incensed, the Spinosaurus charged. The rhinos waited, transferring the pilfered eggs to the crooks of their elbows and, at the very last moment, they accessed their phase-shift wrist panels. In a flash, they vanished. The momentum behind the dinosaur’s rush was such that she careened into the nest. Of her three remaining eggs, only one remained unbroken. The roar of anguish and pain that erupted from the dinosaur was mournful and deafening. She pointed her long snout into the air and let loose a fountain of gaseous flames that spread across the sky. Then she noticed the three rhino-warriors standing at the edge of the trees, each holding high one of her beloved eggs.
The chase was on. Never appearing so far ahead of the dinosaur that she would give up pursuit and return back to her nest and the one unbroken egg, the rhinos let her come close—then, at the last moment, phase-shifted another thirty yards farther away.
Jason felt the earth tremble and shake as the chase moved closer. Now was the time for Ricket to deploy the paired drone. As if on cue, he saw it speeding away from the rear of the shuttle above. Between the heavy earth pounding by the approaching dinosaur and the phase-shifting rhinos, Jason had a hard time staying on his feet.
Jason opened a channel to Chang, Goldstein, and Mead. “We need to give them more room. Let’s give them a wider berth.”
As soon as they’d phase-shifted deeper into the forest, the rhinos flashed back into view. Again, they held up the stolen eggs—taunting the frenzied dinosaur. Jason noticed that Few Words was looking a little worse for wear. One arm, and part of his chest, had been scorched and smoke was rising into the air off his hide.
Another fireball-burst preceded her as the dinosaur thundered forward. The rhinos disappeared, with hardly a second to spare, only to reappear another hundred yards away by the edge of the lake. Again, in the distance, more taunting—the dinosaur’s eggs held up high. As soon as the Spinosaurus rushed past their position, Jason and the other combatants fell in behind her.
She abruptly slowed and looked backwards. Jason brought up his multi-gun. It was clear she was weighing what to do: return to the nest and defend a single egg, or continue pursuing the rhinos, who held three of her eggs.
Jason was being hailed.
“Go for Cap. What’s up, Billy?”
“We’ve got a problem here, Cap. Papa Dino is back and he’s not looking too happy about the mess we’ve made.”
Jason heard repeated multi-gun fire in the background. Eyeing his HUD, life icons were spread out and moving here and there erratically.
“Our current attack plan, using stun-level bursts, simply doesn’t work,” Billy reported.
“Well, keep evading him as long as possible. Bring him down only if absolutely necessary. Sorry, but we’ve got our own crazed dinosaur to deal with.” Jason cut the connection as the female Spinosaurus seemed to have come to a decision and was charging back in the direction of her nest. Jason, standing directly in her path, fired his multi-gun, as did Chang, Goldstein, and Mead, at the approaching dinosaur. She stopped and brought her head down low, spitting fire in the process. Jason felt his battle suit’s temperature-control compensators kick into full gear. Everything around him, except for his teammates, had turned into charcoal. Jason hailed Ricket.
“Go for Ricket.”
“What’s going on with the drone pair?”
Jason had to cut the connection short. Again, the female was poising to charge. Jason phase-shifted twenty yards to his right—Chang, the same distance to his left. Both Goldstein and Mead hesitated too long.
“Get the hell out of there!” Jason barked over an open channel.
While Mead miraculously made a successful dash through the dinosaur’s legs, and phase-shifted away once he was clear, Goldstein wasn’t so lucky. First he was sprayed with an up-close fireball, then snatched between the dinosaur’s forward teeth. With an audible crunch, the lower portion of Goldstein’s torso and legs fell to the ground.
The female Spinosaurus rushed toward her nest, and it was apparent nothing was going to stop her. Jason, his two surviving team members, and the three rhino-warriors, followed behind her, phase-shifting in leaps.
“Captain,” Ricket’s voice blared into Jason’s NanoCom. “She’s paired! The male Spinosaurus heard, apparently recognized, the female’s familiar snorts and left the area long enough for our probe to settle close to the other one in the trees. They’ve paired! We’re done here.”
Jason phase-shifted once more, along with the others. The three rhinos, each still holding an egg, phase-shifted somewhat farther back into the trees.
Jason watched as the two goliath dinosaurs frantically paced near the nest and its one lone egg. “Traveler, we need to get those eggs back into their nest.”
Traveler set the phase-shift coordinates on his wrist panel, then took ahold of the other two eggs from the two rhinos. Nearly dropping all three eggs, he precariously cradled them in his arms while carefully extending a thick finger to press the activate key. Without further conversation, Traveler flashed away.
In that very instant, Traveler reappeared, now in the middle of the damaged nest. Still unnoticed by the two pacing dinosaurs, he gingerly placed the eggs down next to the other one. Jason, Billy, Rizzo, and Ricket yelled simultaneously: “Get out of there, Traveler!”
Both dinosaurs emerged from the far side of the clearing. Startled, Traveler looked up. He hesitated momentarily and by the time he opened his wrist panel they were practically upon him. He froze.
As if seeing everything happen in slow motion, Jason was sure his friend had just lived his last few seconds on Earth. Jason was paralyzed by Traveler’s inevitable outcome.
So when four galloping steeds carrying blue-clad, U.S. 7th Cavalry riders broke into the clearing, Jason’s jaw dropped. Behind them, and in close pursuit, were more horses and more riders: Indian warriors. But it was the soldier in the lead who first drew and held Jason’s attention. It was none other than a terrified-looking General George Armstrong Custer—his eyes wide open and long blond hair flowing in the wind behind him. His wide-brimmed hat flew into the air, just as he was snatched up by his head and plopped into the mouth of the closest dinosaur, the mother Spinosaurus.
So stunned was everyone by the sudden co-mingling of the two disparate time realms that no one noticed Traveler. He had completed his phase-shift maneuver and was safely back with the rest of the team.
Chapter 39
Chapter 39
Jason had Grimes take the Perilous above Earth’s atmosphere into low orbit where the drones no longer affected time and, more importantly, their communications. The admiral was on comms within minutes and clearly eager to hear how their progress was coming along.
“Four down, one to go,” Jason explained. “But Ricket tells me the drones are now communicating and trying to sync, so our timeframe has been pushed forward. We need to get the last one paired by this time tomorrow.”
“What happens if you don’t?” the admiral asked.
“They’ll go ahead and sync to some unified time realm. One that would be, in all likelihood, different than our own.”
The admiral grunted, then proceeded to give Jason an update on the repairs being made to Her Majesty and his work with Gaddy—developing a strategy for her to gather information when she entered the Emperor’s Palace.
“I’m just surprised that little bug, Overlord Lom, is her uncle.”
“Interim emperor. He’s about as powerful a Craing dignitary as you can get.”
“And you’re sure he has no idea his niece is associated with the dissident underground?”
“She says she’s been careful. She sees no way he could know. It’s a risk she’s willing to take,” the admiral replied.
“And she realizes that we’ll be using her subterfuge and information-gathering to ultimately hold the advantage when we attack the Craing?”
“Definitely, but she’s made it clear this is not about the Alliance attacking the populace of the Craing worlds. That’s off limits. She’s looking for the overthrow of Craing governmental and political factions. She understands we are confronting the Craing leadership strictly on a military level.”
“So talk to me about Her Majesty.”
“We’re still retrofitting her and making repairs. Her cloaking device is operational and her weaponry formidable. But in the end, she’s still a converted luxury liner. Nothing nimble about that ship,” the admiral added.
“Why did you select Brian to captain her?”
“Your brother knows Craing space better than any human alive. He also is a master at weaseling himself out of tight situations. Her Majesty is not an Allied vessel and has no ties to the Alliance, thus providing us a layer of separation. If you think about it, Brian is the perfect choice to enter Craing space.”
Jason let that comment hang in the air, not needing to ask him the unspoken question.
“Yes, Jason, I do trust him. I’ve seen changes in him over the last few weeks. Everyone deserves a second chance, so I expect you to support your brother on this. Can you do that?”
“Sure. What else do you need from me?”
“We need Ricket back here as soon as you’re done with him. He’ll be instrumental for our plan to come together. He’ll be accompanying Gaddy, posing as a prospective boyfriend she wants to introduce to her uncle.”
“Seriously? Ricket’s over two hundred years old! They’ll recognize him—hell, he was the Craing emperor, for God’s sake!”
“Calm down. We’ll alter his looks. As for his age, he doesn’t look that much older than Gaddy. Have you really looked at him lately?” the admiral asked, defiantly.
Jason let his eyes fall on Ricket seated in the shuttle’s cockpit, next to Grimes. Truth was, since he’d gone through the process of becoming fully organic, he did look much younger. But Gaddy’s boyfriend? And Brian captaining a ship for the Alliance? It seemed to him the admiral’s plan was a deck of precariously stacked cards: one strong jolt and everything would fall apart.
The admiral interrupted Jason’s thoughts. “Boomer’s here; wants to talk to you.”
“Boomer?”
“That’s what Mollie goes by these days. It’s just a phase, I’m sure.”
“Daddy?”
“Hey! I miss you, little one.”
“I miss you, too. When you coming back? I have a lot to show you—you’ve been gone way too long,” she said, sounding as bossy as ever.
“I’m almost done, Mollie. If everything goes well in Asia, I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“I’m called Boomer now, Dad. I’m tiny, sneaky and lethal, like a boomslang.”
“What the heck’s a boomslang?”
“I think it’s a snake. Woodrow says it comes from a place in Africa.”
“Woodrow? You mean Chief Petty Officer Woodrow?” Jason didn’t know the SEAL well, only that he was a hard-ass and carried a reputation for being a man born to kill—lethal in every way possible. “I don’t understand your association with him, Mollie.”
“I told you, it’s Boomer now, Dad. He’s taken over my self-defense classes. He’s teaching me not to be a victim again.”
Jason heard something in her voice he hadn’t h
eard before. Had he been gone that long? Did he not really know her anymore?
“I just should have been consulted on who you work with, that’s all.”
“Well, Dad, you’re never here. There’s things I need to know how to do. Don’t you understand that?”