by Isaac Hooke
As the group continued, Rade and the others continually scanned their surroundings on both the LIDAR and visual bands, but spotted no signs of their prey.
“Do you still sense the Phant, Surus?” Rade asked.
“I do,” Surus replied
“It’s at times like these that I really wish you had a directional sense of the prey, Surus my girl,” Bender said.
“My detection ability can be used for directional purposes, in a way,” Surus said.
“Really, how so?” Lui said.
“The fact that I can still sense the prey tells me we are moving in the right direction,” Surus replied.
“Ha!” Bender said. “Good one. Funny girl.”
“I can’t tell if you were sucking up to her or being sarcastic,” Manic said.
“The latter,” Bender told him.
Ten minutes later Rade sighted another pack of dinosaurs through the trees in the distance, but they took off at a run. He could feel the ground vibrate slightly underneath him, as transmitted via the hull to the inner actuators that enveloped his feet.
“Damn, those things are fast,” Lui said.
Rade zoomed in, and with the help of his AI estimated there were roughly a hundred and fifty grazers in that pack, each the size of large wildebeests. His Implant labeled them as Orodromeus specimens—the name meant “Mountain Runner.” Likely the prey for the Deinonychus. They had plumage similar to blue jays, with white on their underbellies, and blue feathers with gray streaks covering the rest of their bodies. They looked a little bit like ostriches with forelimbs and long tails.
“Are you sure these things are dinosaurs?” Bender said. “Feels like I’m surrounded by big, two-legged birds.”
“Get used to it,” Lui said. “You’re going to be seeing a lot more of them. Big, two-legged and four-legged birds of all kinds.”
“Harley boy, if you were a dinosaur, would you have feathers?” Bender asked.
“I don’t know,” Harlequin replied. “But I suppose I would.”
“Ha!” Bender said. “I knew you was gay.”
“Artificial’s don’t have sexual orientation per se,” Harlequin said.
“Yeah sure,” Bender said. “Then how come I always catch you looking at Manic’s ass?”
“I think you’re confused,” Manic said. “It’s your ass he’s looking at.”
Shortly after leaving the herbivore herd behind, Rade felt yet another distinct rumbling underfoot. It was different from the shaking he had felt when the herd fled. Each vibration seemed more pronounced, as if belonging to fewer, larger creatures.
He held up a hand. “You feel that?”
“It’s like the start of an earthquake,” TJ said.
Rade heard a sound in addition to the shaking then. A distant, continual pounding, like several massive objects rolling along the ground. He would have thought it an avalanche or rockslide of some kind, except that the team wasn’t in mountainous terrain.
The din grew in volume.
“Assume defensive positions,” Rade said. “Cigar formation. Deploy shields.”
The team positioned their Hoplites in an ellipsoidal pattern, weapons facing outward. Rade rotated his shield into place, and slid his cobra into the notch on top. He switched his viewpoint to the scope, and scanned the forward area from left to right.
There.
He spotted a massive dinosaur approaching at a run. It was a T-Rex. A huge bull.
Behind it he saw several more of the large bipedal carnivores approaching, their powerful legs smashing the ground at incredible speeds. They were covered in colorful red and orange plumage, like tropical birds. The feathers were almost incongruous, and made the dinosaurs seem almost friendly. But seeing those gaping, powerful jaws, and the rows of deadly-looking teeth harbored within, immediately sobered Rade to that idea.
He counted twenty in total.
Things were about to get interesting.
nine
Men!” Rade said. “Form a defensive line. Interlock shields.”
Rade dropped to one knee to lower his profile, and lessened the zoom magnification, because the creatures had closed significantly since his original sighting.
At his left, Bender moved into place, sliding his shield up against Rade’s. To his right, Tahoe did the same. On either side of them the other Hoplites assumed similar positions.
Rade did a quick calculation of the trajectory of those creatures. According to the estimates provided by his AI, the small herd was headed in the direction of the earlier herbivores, and appeared destined to run right by the Hoplites, passing just forty meters away. A close call, but given that the hulls and shields of the mechs blended in with their surroundings, the team might be able to get through this without killing any dinosaurs.
He considered giving the order to jet into the trees, but he didn’t want to waste any more jumpjet fuel than necessary, considering how much they had already expended while crossing over from the Argonaut to the mercenary vessel. Besides, any motion at this point would only draw the attention of the herd: the carnosaurs might camp out at the base of the trees, forcing Rade and the others to mow them down.
“I knew T-Rexes hunted in packs,” Lui said. “But I never expected those packs to be so large.”
“Feathered T-Rexes,” Bender said. “Hunting in packs. Why does that turn me on? I feel like I should be wearing a feather boa or something.”
“There are only twenty,” Rade said. “Remain calm, and trust in the power of your camouflage. They’ll pass us by.”
“And if we have to attack?” TJ asked.
“Target obvious vulnerabilities, such as the head and heart regions,” Rade said.
“Uh, where are the hearts supposed to be?” Bender asked.
“Crosscheck with your Implant,” Lui said. “Via gene-splicing and genome engineering tools such as CRISPR/Cas9, the Sino-Koreans were able to successfully revert chickens to their ancestral, T-Rex state, as part of their bioweapons program. The dissections were fully recorded. Aim a little to the left of the midpoint of the body.”
“Uh, too complicated,” Bender said. “I’m just going to aim at the heads.”
The herd continued to approach at a rumble.
“Oh I hope they notice us,” Bender said. “I so so hope.”
“Quiet,” Rade said. Though it wasn’t as if the dinosaurs could hear any of them—the team was communicating over a private comm band, after all—Rade wanted to hear himself think.
He tracked the herd with his scope, turning off the zoom because the T-Rexes were so close. He slowly swiveled his shield and upper body, remaining in place. Beside him, the other Hoplites similarly rotated, and the interlocked shields gradually opened up like unfurling blinds as the perpendicular line became a diagonal in relation to the position of the passing enemy.
And then the herd was thundering by. For a moment Rade actually thought the Argonauts were going to get through this without a fight, but then the lead bull came to an abrupt halt, and the rest of the herd followed. The carnivores were about fifty meters away, with about four giant trees scattered randomly between the dinosaurs and the party.
The bull turned toward the Hoplites, its massive nostrils widening to let out a loud huff of air. Rade centered his targeting reticle over the T-Rex’s head, trying to align the crosshairs over one eye.
“Don’t tell me it can smell us,” Fret said.
“Just you,” Bender said.
The massive head huffed again, just as loudly.
“Watch, I bet it’s going to roar,” Lui said.
The bull opened its mouth wide and... squawked.
“The hell?” Bender said. “It sounds like a parakeet. Hey bitch, Poly want a cracker?”
“That was a little disappointing,” Lui said.
“Definitely a case where the bark is much less ferocious than the bite,” TJ said.
Another squawk came from those massive jaws.
“Could it be echolocation
?” TJ said.
Another squawk seemed to come from behind the party, but because of the way sound echoed in the forest, Rade wasn’t entirely sure of the direction. All he knew was that it seemed close. Very close.
“Not echolocation,” Surus said. “Communication.”
Rade quickly checked his rear view cameras and watched as three towering forms emerged from behind one of the nearby trees, where a trio of T-Rexes had quietly outflanked the party.
“Behind us!” Rade said.
“So much for all the wonders of LIDAR!” Lui quipped.
Rade spun around and let loose at the closest T-Rex. The other party members similarly unleashed their cobras, and the three intruders dropped to the ground with resounding thuds. One of them plunged down right in front of Rade, it’s massive head landing only half a meter from him, and the reverberation actually caused Rade’s mech to bounce slightly. That head was so big it reached to the Hoplite’s waist; feathers sizzled near the eye region where the beams had struck.
Rade returned his attention to the herd. The lead bull was staring at him with fire in its eyes. Its jaws fell open, and it released an ear-splitting roar.
“Looks like you got your roar after all, Lui,” Manic said.
The bull came at them with renewed speed, along with the others.
Bender opened fire. “Chicken chips!”
The herd members moved incredibly fast, weaving between the few intervening trees, and were on the party in seconds.
Rade had time only to take down the bull, and was launched into the air when another T-Rex swung its head like a club, batting him aside.
He crashed into a thick trunk nearby and slid to the ground. Other Hoplites had been knocked aside like bowling pins as well. Four T-Rex bodies had plowed into the dirt, falling where they had taken laser blows. The other carnosaurs were battling the mechs at close range. Bender’s Hoplite was pinned down by the crushing maw of one of the Rexes. Another had Fret’s mech restrained underfoot.
Rade lifted his scope, targeting the carnivore that had Bender, but before he could fire, a blur of motion alerted him to another T-Rex rounding the tree beside him. Apparently the creature had hidden there, waiting in ambush.
Rade rolled aside, but the thing managed to bite down on his cobra arm, clamping the limb so that the cobra protruded from the far side of the mouth, and was unable to fire.
The T-Rex lifted Rade into the air and swung him about wildly, as if expecting the arm to break off. If he were another dinosaur, that would have probably happened. Instead, his shoulder servomotors groaned in outrage, but continued to function. At least for the time being.
“Servomotors nearing maximum allowable stress tensors,” Electron said.
Rade folded away the shield in his left arm and deployed the grenade launcher in its place. He rammed the tip of the launcher between those teeth and fired a frag.
The T-Rex must have felt the undetonated grenade striking the back of its throat, because it released Rade in surprise and made a loud gulping sound. A moment later its ventral cavity burst open as the grenade detonated, covering Rade’s mech in blood and guts. The stricken dinosaur collapsed, momentarily pinning another T-Rex that had been gunning for Rade.
The newcomer shook off the corpse, but before it could take another step Rade unleashed a shot squarely in the eye and the carnivore instantly collapsed.
More T-Rexes emerged from behind nearby trees.
“We’re surrounded!” Tahoe said. “Damn things can move real quietly when they want to!”
“Too many to face head on!” Rade said. “Into the trees!”
Rade fired his jumpjets, but had risen only two meters when a T-Rex jumped at him, wrapping its jaws around his cockpit and pulling him out of the air.
“Warning, hull integrity critical,” Electron said.
The metal around him moaned, and Rade knew the T-Rex could very well crush him to death in the next few seconds. He also heard scratching sounds coming from his lower body, as the tiny hands on the forelimbs, tipped in razor sharp talons, tore across his mech’s exposed thighs.
His right arm was pinned to his chest by those jaws, but his left arm was free. He swiveled a cobra into that arm and rammed the muzzle over the upper lip of the dinosaur’s maw, taking his best guess at the eye region, and then squeezed the trigger.
The T-Rex keeled over and struck the ground. The lower jaw slammed into the upper, and Rade found himself even more irrevocably pinned. On the bright side, at least his cockpit hadn’t caved.
He retracted the cobra from his free hand and reached up with metal fingers, attempting to pry himself free. It was useless. Though his servomotors whirred in complaint, he couldn’t budge the weight of the upper jaw and head, not with one arm.
Another T-Rex approached him. It looked at him with blazing eyes and let out an angry puff of air from its nostrils.
Rade attempted to rotate his cobra mount into place, but the T-Rex was the faster. It moved in a blur, obviously intending to pound its hard muzzle into Electron.
But the strike never came. Instead the head swung wide and then the T-Rex collapsed. A small pillar of smoke billowed from the top of its head.
Tahoe’s mech stood on its neck.
Bender landed beside Rade and rammed the metal hands of his Hoplite into those confining jaws. Tahoe joined in.
“I got this!” Bender said.
Tahoe ignored him and together they pried open that mouth.
Rade was only able to partially extricate himself: some of the lower teeth had dug deep into the armor of his Hoplite, and he had trouble sliding out.
Tahoe held the jaw open with one hand and offered Rade his other. Meanwhile Bender covered them, as did the rest of the Hoplites from their positions in the branches of the surrounding trees.
Rade grabbed Tahoe’s hand and pulled. In moments he was free.
The three of them activated their jumpjets as more T-Rexes came in.
Branches and leaves whipped at Rade’s mech, but most were small and easily broke away. He swerved around the bigger branches, passing other members of the team who had taken up residence in that particular giant tree.
He landed on an upper branch that was well out of reach of the dinosaurs, while Bender and Tahoe took nearby boughs. Below, the T-Rexes leaped up in frustration, but didn’t even come close to reaching any of them.
“Well that was fun,” Manic commented.
ten
Rade checked the status of his teammates and confirmed that everyone was in the green, and that all of the Hoplites had made it into the trees.
“I don’t think it’s necessary to kill them all,” Rade said.
“No, but it’s the fastest way,” Surus said. “The other option is to wait them out. Which could take hours, or days.”
“The dinosaurs are going to go extinct anyway,” Bender said. “So it doesn’t really matter.”
“Actually that’s not true anymore,” Lui said. “The dinosaurs didn’t die out in the changed timeline, remember?”
“Very true!” Manic said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “We could be eliminating whole future generations in the dino timeline. Can’t have that!”
“Surus already explained time as a river that will absorb smaller changes,” Fret said.
“I was being sarcastic,” Manic retorted.
Rade stared at the dinosaurs, which had hunkered down around the trees and stared at the Hoplites with their necks craned upward.
“Why do they remind me of obedient little dogs?” Fret said. “Sitting before their master, looking up expectantly, waiting for a treat?”
“That’s because they are dogs, and we are the dog food,” Bender said. “Stored in expensive tin cans, of course.”
Rade sighed. “All right. Take them down.”
He and the others unleashed their cobras on the fifteen carnosaurs that remained. Bender cackled delightedly over the comm, unleashing loud whoops of pleasure whenever he got one.
“You like that, bitch?” Bender said. “Tickle tickle!”
The dinosaur numbers quickly dropped; before the team killed them all, five of the T-Rexes got smart and fled.
“Hold your fire,” Rade said. “Let them go.”
“Aw boss...” Bender said.
“Let them go,” Rade repeated.
The carnosaurs vanished from view, and the sounds of their mad flight faded to nothingness. Birdcalls tentatively began to resume in the jungle.
When Rade was certain that all of the T-Rexes had gone, and no more were coming, he said: “All right, let’s go. Our noise is sure to have drawn attention from other dinosaurs. Likely scavengers. If we want to move, now’s the time.”
The Hoplites used their jumpjets to cushion their fall as they leaped down from the various trees. Manic miscalculated his descent and landed his mech right on top of one of the dead corpses. It had voided its bowels in death, and when Manic’s Hoplite slid off, he landed directly into the fecal pile.
Bender erupted in uproarious laughter. “Someone step in a little doodoo? You moron!”
Manic reached down and scooped up a large handful of the excrement and threw it at Bender’s mech.
“Hey!” Bender said. “Don’t you be throwing no shit at me!”
“No shit?” Manic threw another bolus.
Bender swung his shield into place and angrily deflected the black mass. “That’s it.” He swung his cobra toward Manic.
Rade stepped between them. “Enough. We head east, now! We’ve lost enough time as it is. I want you on drag, Bender. Manic, you’re on point. Go!”
He waited for Manic to emerge from the feces pile and take the lead, and when TJ and Tahoe followed, Rade turned toward Bender.
“On drag,” he reminded his friend.
“Got it, boss,” Bender said.
The group proceeded at a run, heading eastward.
“Well that was fuuuuun,” Bender said, apparently having forgotten the feces incident already. “Killin’ T-Rexes is almost as entertaining as killin’ bugs. Or molesting Manic.”