Dropship One

by L. D. P. Samways

“What the hell are they doing? How is climbing on its tail going to work?” I asked, then noticing what they all had in their hands.

  The Marines that were scaling the dinosaur had sticky grenades in their mitts, and if I had to take a guess, they were planning on sticking those grenades onto the T-Rex. But the problem was, the dino was far too strong for them, and every time somebody tried to climb on to its tail, it would simply swipe them off it and crush them with its giant talon-like feet.

  “Jesus, that guy mushed-up pretty badly!” Pea Shooter said, pointing at the bloody mess left behind on the concrete a hundred meters from us.

  “Instead of watching these men die, perhaps we should join in and help?” I said, aiming my railgun at the beast and opening fire. Peters must have agreed with my suggestion and started to fire his weapon at the T-Rex who now stood less than a hundred meters from us.

  All of the Marines that were still alive were now circling the T-Rex, making it hard for the creature to focus on any of us. What made it worse for the dino was the fact that we were all firing at him. So he didn’t know who to attack. He was confused. And any Marine knows that the first rule of combat is diversion. If you can create enough of a diversion and get the enemy’s attention focused on something else other than you, then you will stand more of a chance in the heat of battle.

  “He’s confused!” I said, shaking Pea Shooters arm.

  He turned toward me, a frown on his face, his eyes squinting as if it would help him understand me better. “What do you mean?” he said, cocking his head slightly to the left like a puppy.

  “I mean that if we are going to get this thing, we’re going to need to get it confused. Then, one of us needs to get in near its mouth,” I said.

  Pea Shooter looked at me shocked. His eyes were wide and nearly bulging out of his skull.

  “Get close to his mouth, are you fucking serious?” he snapped.

  I nodded, and without hesitating, I dropped my railgun and un-holstered my rifle.

  “What the heck are you doing?” he asked.

  I smiled.

  “Getting this dino confused,” I replied, aiming my weapon at the huge dinosaur who was still busy chomping on the charging Marines.

  The number of men we had was beginning to dwindle. The dino was overpowering us quicker than we were able to get a bead on it. For some reason, the brass had thought that throwing all of us at the T-Rex would end in our victory, but I had my doubts. This thing was impervious to our rounds, and no matter how many times we shot at it, its thick skin stopped the bullets from penetrating.

  “We need to find its weak spot,” I said, more to myself than Pea Shooter, who’d now joined me on the floor. We’d both gone prone as other Marines swarmed around us toward the hulking beast. But I had a different approach in mind.

  “I don’t think this thing has a weak spot,” Pea Shooter said, looking a little nervous.

  “Everything has a weak spot. Apply enough pressure and something gives. It just has to!” I said, trying to focus my reticule on the dinosaur which was now a mere sixty feet away from us. It was moving around fast, swiping and biting at its adversaries. The fact that me and Peters were on the floor didn’t help matters. Some of the Marines hadn’t seen us and were tripping over us. One of them fell right in front of me and stared daggers at me as he got back up to join his brothers in the fight.

  “What the fuck are you doing, man? Get up and fight!” the guy said, gesturing at me and then turning back around to continue his death march. But as I said, I had other plans.

  “Whatever you’re thinking, think faster, because that son-of-a-bitch is getting really close,” Pea Shooter said while I steadied my aim.

  “Just a little more,” I said, holding my breath. And then I took the shot.

  “Jesus!” Pea Shooter said, gasping for breath as the dino let out a massive roar.

  “And another one!” I said, pressing the trigger down hard, waiting for the bullet to connect, and after what seemed like an eternity, I heard the thing roar once again.

  “You took out his eyes!” Pea Shooter said, laughing hysterically, which was a strange thing to do when we were so close to being crushed underfoot by the raging T-Rex who was now swaying from side to side, trying to keep its balance.

  The dinos small arms were pointing upwards, as if it was trying to wipe the gunk coming out of its now hollow sockets. I couldn’t see the extent of the damage, because the beast didn’t stop thrashing, but I did see that it was more than dazed enough, plus it had stopped attacking our men, which meant that a lot of them could get a clear shot now. And that’s exactly what they did. Shot after shot connected, ripping and tearing at the creature’s skin, but no matter how many shots were fired, the beast wouldn’t hit the floor. All it did was sway from left to right, roaring in pain.

  “Hand me a sticky,” I yelled, trying to grab at Peters’ utility belt. He didn’t put up a fight, he unclipped an explosive grenade and handed it to me.

  “What the heck are you doing?” he asked. But I didn’t respond. I got up and started running toward the swaying dinosaur who was now so close, I could smell its breath as it roared. The ground beneath me shook as it stomped its feet in pain. And I didn’t think twice about what I did next.

  “Open wide, motherfucker!” I yelled, grabbing my side arm with my left hand, aiming it right below its chin and firing two shots, whilst still holding the sticky in my right hand. The dino roared once again, opening its huge mouth to reveal what I could only imagine to be a shitload of teeth. I cocked my arm back, armed the sticky and chucked it right into the dinos open mouth. Pivoting as fast as I could, I turned around and ran for my life, as did many of the nearby Marines who’d seen what I’d just did.

  “RUN!” I yelled into my headset.

  Seconds later, I heard a massive explosion. Everything slowed down to a fraction of a second. Men screamed in terror as the dirt around us hovered off the ground and hung in the air for what seemed like forever. A visible shockwave rippled below my feet making me slowly but surely fall to the ground for cover. As I lay there, clutching the floor, breathing heavily, my visor steaming up, I saw Pea Shooter holding his hand out, standing around ten meters from me. I could see his lips frantically moving. I heard him say GET UP, GET UP, but for some reason, all the energy in my body had been sapped. My head felt like it was weighing me down like a boulder. And then everything returned to normal speed. The explosion rattled in my ears. A sea of blood sprayed up my back. Marines fell beside me. The dirt pattered back to the ground and then everything went dark.

  The last thing I heard was “Get up Jensen! You have to get….”

  Then nothing.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Commiserations in victory

  “Wake up. Jensen, wake up!” I heard a foggy voice say. I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids seemed to be glued shut.

  “Is he moving?” another voice said. I didn’t recognize that voice. It belonged to a woman.

  “Open your eyes man, you can do it!” I recognized that voice. It was Pea Shooter.

  “Where am I?” I said, my mouth the driest it had ever been.

  Suddenly, I could see light. A bright light. My eyelids were like slits, or goggles. I was overly aware of them as I stared at the light. Then the brightness fizzled out slightly and an overhead lamp came into focus. The bulb in the middle of the lamp was a bright orange, the filament gleaming violently as a torrent of electricity ran through it. The sound of beeping buzzed in my ear. I craned my neck and saw a heart monitor next to me. It was displaying my vital signs. They dipped up and down on the screen, in sync with the continuous beeping.

  “Am I in a hospital?” I said, trying to sit up, but a hand planted me back down onto what felt like a bed. Somebody was gently stopping me from sitting up. I looked at the hand, and followed the width of it, up to an arm and then to a face. Standing over me was Spooks. But he looked different. He had a massive scar on his face. But he also had a smile on his lips
.

  “Hey, welcome back,” he said, slowly taking his hand off my chest and stepping back. Suddenly, everything came into focus and standing beside me was Peters, a female I didn’t recognize holding a clipboard. Peters looked as pale as a ghost. He seemed happy to see me, and I swear it looked as if his eyes were moist.

  “Have you been crying?” I asked, Spooks laughing at my comment.

  “Peters thought you were going to die. To be honest, we all did. Not many people survive a dinosaur falling on them,” Spooks said.

  “What?” I said, sitting up immediately, and ripping the covers off me. I was shocked to see that my legs were missing and had been replaced with robotic limbs. I started to breathe heavily and sweat began to drip down my face. I was panicking. How did this happen? And then as if instantly, everything came rushing back to me. My mind replayed the moment I’d thrown a grenade into the mouth of the T-Rex, the moment I’d began to run and the last memory I had of that day, me falling on my face and everything going black.

  “My legs, they’re gone!” I cried, nearly actually crying, but Spooks rested his heavy hand on my shoulder. But it wasn’t a normal hand. It was robotic. I nearly recoiled in fear, but froze on the spot.

  “We all paid a price today. Some paid with their lives, while others with their limbs. But the good news is, we won,” Spooks said, taking his robot hand away from me. I noticed that his other hand was fine. The hand that he’d placed on my chest earlier, but it still didn’t make sense. How the heck did he lose his hand?

  “What do you mean we won? Is it over?” I asked.

  Spooks smiled.

  “It ain’t ever over, Jensen. But this campaign is. The reptiles aborted their pillaging and got off the planet as fast as their pre-historic legs could carry them. The nail in the coffin for them was when we took out their T-Rex. Command are saying that the dino was the reptiles’ last ditch effort at trying to defeat us. Apparently, the technicians examined what’s left of the T-Rex, which isn’t much thanks to your well-placed grenade – kudos on that by the way – and they found out that the dino was genetically engineered. It was a carbon copy of a fossil that went missing from the Great Museum of History a few decades ago. Apparently, they managed to extract the DNA from the fossil and build a genetically superior T-Rex. This particular model was able to withstand a lot of punishment, but nothing can withstand a grenade exploding inside its mouth.”

  I sat there, stunned, the covers still off me, my robotic legs shining in the light.

  “Everything has a weak spot,” I muttered under my breath. Pea Shooter smiled.

  “It sure does pal. You’re a fucking hero!” he said.

  I looked up at him, tears forming in my eyes.

  “A crippled hero. I guess this is it for me then,” I said, trying not to cry.

  “Nonsense. Those new legs of yours are top-grade tech my boy. You’re a changed man. Out with the old, and in with the new. At least with these legs you’ll be able to outrun a falling dinosaur if you so choose to replicate your act of heroism ever again,” Spooks said, still smiling.

  “So the Marines still want me?’ I asked.

  Spooks moved closer to me and leaned over my bed, still smiling.

  “Son, we wouldn’t be shit without people like you. It’s people like you that make our species as strong as it is. We need people like you. Plus, I’m afraid I have some bad news,” Spooks said.

  “Bad news?”

  “The only way you’re getting out of the Marines, recruit, is in a body bag. Sound good to you?”

  Suddenly, the tears in my eyes dried up some and the pounding in my chest eased. I could think clearly now. And now I knew the true meaning of survival. For I had survived. Sure, I’d lost my legs, but that didn’t mean that I’d never walk again. And it sure as hell didn’t mean that I’d never fight again. All I could do was fight. It was all I knew. And to deprive myself of it meant that in turn, I’d end up knowing nothing.

  “Sounds good to me,” I said.

  The fight would go on. And I’d be damned if I wasn’t on the battlefield fighting alongside my brothers.

  Men I’d die for. Men I’d avenge. Men I’d protect. Men I’d lose my legs for. Men I’d wage war for.

  This was the Earth Marine Core and I was a Space Recruit till I took my very last breath, that was for damn sure.

  The second Space Recruits book will be out later this year. Keep an eye out for the pre-order in the next couple of months.

  If you enjoyed this book, please leave a review on Amazon. Your feedback helps my books reach like-minded readers! I love hearing what readers think! Thanks for reading my book. I hope to see you here soon!

  Carry on reading for a three-chapter sample of Stasis!

  Chapter One

  My eyes opened wide as the sound of gushing oxygen woke me. At first, I couldn’t see all that well. After a few seconds, they focused and the gushing sound stopped suddenly. An LED board flashed in front of my face. A heads up panel stated that the pod I was in was leaking air. Only twenty percent remained in the cabin. If I didn’t open the door to the pod soon, I’d run out of air. And once the air ran out, then I’d be a goner. But you didn’t need me to tell you that. And I didn’t need to think twice about what I did next.

  The pod was a tight fit, not leaving much wriggle room inside. After all, it was designed to house one man or woman for stasis hyper sleep. You didn’t need much room when you were away with the cosmic fairies. There was no tossing and turning in hyper sleep, so the pods weren’t designed with movement being a priority. As far as priorities go, movement was on the lowest end of the scale. That, and durability, which would make what I did next possible. I balled both my fists up, raised them over the LED board in front of me and pushed all my weight into the pod door, double punching my way out of the pod. After three attempts, I actually managed to smash my way out of the capsule, tumbling onto the floor. I landed hard on the metal grating. The diagonal slats scored uncomfortable marks on my face. As I lay there shivering and naked, I heard the sound of more pod doors being smashed open.

  I tried to see what was happening, but I just couldn’t manage to open my eyes again. After a few more seconds of hugging the metal floor, I heard a thud. I opened my eyes and saw Second Commander Jess lying on the grates next to me. She was also cold. And naked. But I guess she looked better for it. Especially given the fact that she was probably the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. But that was beside the point. I wasn’t there to look or touch. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what I was there for. I didn’t have any recollection of where I was, what I was supposed to be doing or why I’d just woken up from stasis.

  “Darn it’s cold,” I heard a voice say.

  Slowly getting up, I steadied myself against one of the hyper cylinders. The things that were supposed to supply us with oxygen whilst in Stasis. But seeing that I saw my entire crew sprawled out on the floor, naked as the day they came into existence, with their pod doors smashed open, I thought that the hyper cylinders must have failed on the journey we were taking. But where we were going or why we were going there was a mystery. It seemed as if I was suffering from some minor amnesia.

  “Darn!” I heard somebody say again. It was a familiar voice. A voice that belonged to my gunner Dale Dykstra. A big brutish man that had more muscles than I had brain cells. And I consider myself a smart person, so all in all, he’s a pretty big dude.

  “What in the stars is going on?” I heard another voice say. That voice belonged to my medic, Raj Habish. He was the resident doctor. He had more brain cells than I had…brain cells. You get the picture. Smart guy. Really smart guy.

  “I don’t know…Where are we?” Second Commander Jess asked as she got herself off the floor and stood with the rest of us. We were all naked, but none of the others seemed to notice or care. Maybe I was the only one that had noticed we were all in the buff. Maybe they were only focusing on my nakedness, but either way, I didn’t like the fact that I was naked. Don�
�t know if you can tell, but nakedness for me is a big no no. Probably has something to do with my small….

  “What the hell is this, Captain Flynn?” Dale Dykstra asked as he looked around in confusion. I could see that he was just as lost as I was. But being the Captain, I wasn’t about to tell my crew that I had no idea what was going on.

  “How the heck did we get here? Last thing I remember, I was sitting down at my bunk back at Sector Omega, and the next thing I’m here. Something doesn’t make sense,” Second Commander Jess said as she looked me up and down. I returned the favor. She didn’t appreciate it. But hell, if I was going to be embarrassed in front of my crew, then why the hell not spread it around?

  “Look, we all need to relax. Everything is going to be just fine,” I said, momentarily looking around at our surroundings. The hyper sleep room, or dream room as it was affectionately known to my crew, was dark and dingy. It didn’t hold much of anything other than the pods. The room was oval and the sleep chambers were built into the perimeter. They too were oval. Huge cylinders that stood at seven and a half feet tall. The pods were made out of a plastic/glass substance that was easy to smash, yet hard enough to withstand any bumpy flying conditions during hyper sleep. The dream room was more or less empty, except for the pods and the generators that stood next to each of them. The generators would feed us air, food and water during sleep. An IV drip hung inside each of the chambers and must have detached from me and my crew when we broke out of the chambers. But the question still remained, why on Earth had we broken out of stasis and why were we in it in the first place?

  “There must be some sort of explanation,” Dale Dykstra said as he started to pace a little, from left to right. As he did so, his rather large muscles bounced a little. The sound of his flesh bobbing as he paced made me feel a little uncomfortable.

  “We need to put some clothes on,” I said, walking past my startled crew. I could tell that they were in no way enjoying themselves. And that was a bad thing. You see, the Alpha Ship One crew, as we are known, is also known for being a rag-tag group of misfits. And when you have a ship worth a billion dollars, manned by a band of misfits, bad things tend to happen. Luckily for Pilgrim Tech, the company that finances us, they usually pay us well enough that bad things are far from the hearts and minds of the Alpha Ship One crew. That being said, I couldn’t really guarantee a melt-down-free zone on the ship at that very moment in time. Not when my crew of explosive personalities had no idea how they got back on the ship, or where the hell they were or why they were no longer back at base. It was then that I realized that I had my work cut out for me.