We brought our food over to the closest table and sat cross-legged on the floor to eat.
“Your brothers are getting the others down,” Jee said as she poured tea into our China cups.
“The others?” I asked. “The villagers?”
“No,” she replied. “The other aliens. They must need their breakfast also.”
My girls and I exchanged glances, but I was relieved to know my in-laws’ hospitality extended to the new scouts, too.
“That was very thoughtful of you,” I told Jee. “I appreciate it.”
“They might not be sure about the human food,” Adhara added. “But I will tell them how good yours is.”
“Thank you, dear.” Jee smiled, and she patted Adhara on the shoulder and headed off to help the other women.
I wolfed down my food and tried to appreciate the delicious flavors before I focused on the mission ahead, but it was impossible to think of anything other than getting onto that mothership.
“How long will it take for you to set up transport onto the ship?” I asked as I swallowed my last bite of rice.
“Not very long time.” Adhara shrugged. “We have all equipment we need on ship. As long as the machine works, it will be fine.”
I nodded slowly, but I hadn’t even considered the fact that the Hadron Collider might not be working anymore. After all, it was underground, so I figured nothing too awful could have happened to it. Even if the world was crawling with dinosaurs and the people who knew how to make it work were possibly all dead… the machine itself should be okay.
Hopefully.
I shook my head as I took a sip of tea. There was no point thinking like that without knowing anything about the situation. I had to keep my cool if I was going to keep everyone safe, and that meant focusing directly on the next step.
Then louder footsteps rang out from the corridor, and I was dragged from my “next step thinking” to see Hae-won’s brothers entering the dining room.
The two scouts walked behind them, and the stoic aliens didn’t seem particularly impressed. The lilac-skinned men glanced up at the ceiling and all around the large room, and they wrinkled their noses as they got closer to the food at our table.
“Here you are,” Sun-hee announced as he gestured to the buffet. “You can fill up on anything you like. I suppose you will need a lot of energy for your journey today.”
The alien men remained silent as they stared at the food bowls and made no signs of moving.
“I will show you,” Adhara sighed as she got to her feet. “The human food is good, but I will show you the ones not to eat. The green ones are bad.”
Sun-hee slumped down beside me as the aliens headed for the breakfast table.
“Not exactly morning people,” he whispered. “I thought they were going to shoot me when I called out to wake them.”
“I think that’s just the way they are,” I chuckled. “Don’t take it personally.”
Min-jun and Tae sat down to join us, and I was surprised that they didn’t bring any food for themselves over.
“Not hungry?” I asked, and Sun-hee shook his head. “We ate recently. We did not really rest all of the night.”
“Did everyone make it from the village?” Kat asked as she sipped her tea.
“Yes.” Tae stifled a yawn. “There was a run-in with some smaller dinosaurs and one of the trucks, but everyone made it here unharmed.”
“Everyone is frightened,” Sun-hee said. “They think we have more answers than we really do.”
“Being down here is the safest place,” Min-jun said. “This is the best we can do for now.”
Adhara returned with the two scouts, and they slowly sat down with their bowls as they examined the food carefully.
“Eat up,” I said. “We’ll need to get going soon.”
“Are we taking all the ships?” Becka asked as she scraped up the last of her eggs. “Or just all piling into Adhara’s and leaving the rest--”
“I do not leave my ship,” the shorter alien firmly interrupted. “Ship is mine.”
“Yes, we fly our own ship,” the taller alien said as he poked at his food with a chopstick. “Do not touch my ship.”
“Right, sorry,” I muttered through a smirk. “That makes sense.”
“I thought of some names,” Becka said in a cheery tone. “You know, human names that we can call you?”
The male aliens didn’t reply, they were too busy prodding their food and wrinkling their noses as Jee poured them tea. It was weird to remember Adhara acting the same way when she first arrived, and how unsure of everything she had been, but it was cuter with her. These hulking purple guys looked like they could flip the whole damn table over any second, but Adhara didn’t seem too concerned at the moment.
“Sooo,” Becka continued as she smirked at me. “I was thinking spacey names like Adhara, because of you being from space and all.”
“Everyone is from space,” the shorter alien bluntly replied. “Space is everywhere. You are from it, too.”
Kat snorted, and the alien shot her a stern look that she coolly returned.
“Uh-huh,” Becka said. “So. anyway, the first name I thought of was Leo, like the star sign.”
“Leo,” Adhara repeated as she cocked her head. “This is nice, I think?”
“I thought so,” Becka said as she flicked her hair over her shoulder. “And the other one was Orion.”
“Time to fight for which one you prefer,” I said with a grin. “What do you guys think?”
The two men stared at me for a few seconds and then shrugged their massive shoulders.
“I think they are good names,” Sun-hee said helpfully, and he offered the alien men a charming grin for good measure. “Maybe Adhara should choose which is which.”
“You do know them better.” Hae-won nodded.
Adhara chewed her food slowly as she looked at her fellow aliens, and her emerald eyes studied their faces carefully.
“You will be Leo,” she said as she pointed to the shorter one. “And you can be Orion.”
The newly-named Leo nodded as he finally lifted some eggs to his mouth and quickly took a bite. I watched his brow gradually un-furrow as he chewed, and he was soon shoveling more food into his mouth.
Orion followed suit, and the alien men quickly emptied their bowls as they nodded with what I figured was approval for Jee’s cooking.
“Orion,” the tall alien said once he’d finished, and he said it slowly, like he was testing out how the word felt in his mouth. “Orion.”
“You like it?” Becka asked.
“It is fine.” He shrugged. “If it makes easy for humans, then is acceptable.”
“High praise.” Kat grinned as she drained the last of her tea.
I watched a couple of villagers appear in the dining room, and Jee hurried over to speak to them. She pointed to the buffet table and spoke in quick Korean to the new arrivals.
“We better get going,” I sighed as the villagers hurried over for their breakfast. “Operation save the planet is waiting.”
“Do you have enough weaponry?” Min-jun asked. “You may take anything from my father’s armoury if you wish.”
“Thanks,” I said with a grin. “We’re all set with weapons. I’m guessing Leo and Orion still have their full supply?”
“Weapon room fully stocked.” Leo nodded. “More than enough for human mission.”
“I want to say goodbye to Appa,” Hae-won said as she looked over at the doorway. “Is he here?”
“He should be upstairs,” Tae replied. “He was--”
The middle brother was interrupted by the sound of shouts coming from the lobby, and the pounding of racing footsteps came right along with them.
I leapt to my feet as an out of breath man appeared in the doorway, and he yelled something in Korean at Hae-won’s brothers. He was dressed in the all-black clothing that Kwan’s men wore, and there was blood splattered over his gaunt face.
The three b
rothers jumped up, followed by the girls, and the two male scouts watched with raised eyebrows.
“More therizinosauruses,” Hae-won translated. “Trying to get inside the base.”
“Let’s go,” I growled and raced alongside Min-jun to the doorway.
The blood-covered man didn’t appear to be injured, and he started to run back to the lobby with us, and Sun-hee and Tae were just behind me along with my four women.
I heard Adhara shout something in her guttural grunts and hums just before I reached the door, and I looked back in time to see the male scouts had broken into a run behind us.
We had fought the therizinosauruses before, and they seemed to have a massive herd that occupied the dense forest here. Clearly, we hadn’t managed to get all of them during the last battle, and I wondered how many of the long-clawed bastards were out there.
“They’re so creepy,” Becka said as we skidded to a halt at the glass elevator. “I hate that fucking noise they make.”
I nodded as I remembered the eerie clicking that had echoed around the darkened trees on the first night we arrived on the island, and even Kat grimaced a bit at the thought.
Leo and Orion spoke to Adhara in their native tongue as the elevator doors slid open, and they were the only ones who hadn’t swung their weapons to their fronts.
We piled into the elevator in one large group, and I gripped my sharp gun as we started to shoot upward past the gray, concrete walls.
“How many are there?” I asked.
“He says there were many,” Sun-hee replied. “My father is up there with a few other men.”
“I bet they sensed how many people you’ve got down here now,” I muttered. “Attacks are going to be more frequent with the villagers hiding at the base.”
The three brothers exchanged loaded looks, but I could tell they weren’t shying away from the challenge. They only straightened their broad shoulders and checked their weapons, but as the elevator reached the ground level, I could already hear the roars of the dinos before the doors had even opened.
Then I readied myself for combat and took a deep breath as the elevator opened.
I raced out of the glass structure and could hear yells in Korean along with gunshots as we ran out of the black building. The air was warm, and there was an orange glow to the world since the sun hadn’t fully risen. The sky was clear, and in any other circumstance, it would be hard to ignore what a gorgeous morning it was.
But the scene before us was enough to almost bring my breakfast right back up.
There was a mutilated therizinosaurus body right outside the doorway. It had been shot several times, and it looked like it had fallen onto another dino’s claws. It’s belly was ripped open, and a pool of entrails had spilled out onto the grass.
The stench of the dead dino was hard to ignore, but I leapt past the body as I quickly scoped out the situation.
Inside the enclosed area of the tall gate, it looked like there were three live dinos left. The beasts stood on two legs, and their sword-like claws swung around as they snarled. The dinos were at least fifteen feet tall, and their skin was a murky brown color. Their talons were just as thick and sturdy as their bodies, and the weapons stuck out about twenty inches from their knuckles while they snarled with razor-sharp teeth.
Then their dark eyes darted toward us.
Kwan and two other men were shooting at the beasts, and it looked like the dinosaurs were desperately trying to make their way to the entrance of the base.
I immediately started to shoot at the head of the nearest dino, and my bullet hit the creature right in the eyeball before it exploded out the top of its skull. It wasn’t a direct brain hit, but there was a wet, popping sound which was followed by a small explosion of goop, and the dinosaur swayed on the spot as its jaw fell open.
Then I put another sharp bullet into its ear canal, and blood splattered out of its head like a tiny volcano. The therizinosaurus made half a gurgled roar, but it finally toppled over as its long claws flailed out to the side.
There was an unpleasant crunch as the dino hit the ground, and I spun around to see the girls all open fire on a particularly large herd member.
Hae-won’s brothers had teamed up to take down one of the therizinosauruses which had a massive scar over its back, and it swiped a claw dangerously close to Tae’s face as it fell down dead.
At first, Leo and Orion had their mouths hung open as they watched the dinos fall, but then they quickly grabbed their sharp guns to help finish off the final predator which the girls had almost killed.
The victory was short-lived.
A roar bellowed from outside the gateway, and I raced toward the sound to try and stop any more creatures getting inside.
“Jason!” Kwan yelled as he sprinted over to me. “Be careful, I don’t know how many more there are.”
I was ready to shoot as soon as I stepped out of the gateway, and I was met with two therizinosauruses that launched themselves toward us.
“Fuck!” I yelled as their huge talons flew at my face, and I jumped to the side at the same moment I fired my weapon.
The shot wasn’t perfect because I stumbled, but it got one of the dinos in the neck. I quickly steadied myself and pulled the trigger again as I aimed at the injured dino’s skull.
The second bullet lodged right between the dinosaur’s eyes, and dark blood poured from the wound as the creature crashed down.
Kwan had been shooting at the second therizinosaurus, and the dino’s whole skull exploded as several more bullets launched into the brain from the underground king’s assault rifle. The head erupted with shattered bits of bone, and the creature toppled onto its front with a nasty, squishing sound.
I spun around to see the girls rush through the gateway, and it looked like we had managed to kill all of the small herd. Hae-won’s brothers appeared next, and Tae kicked a bit of dino goop from his shoe.
“Everyone okay?” I panted, and Kat nodded.
Then the two male scouts came to join us, and their eyes were wide as they quickly spoke in hums to Adhara.
I listened to their conversation as I surveyed the nearby trees and watched for any hints of movement. There was no breeze, and the forest seemed silent from where we stood. The deep greens were broken up by brightly-colored flowers, and the dark bark of the palm trees seemed to glow orange in the dawn light.
“They tried to get into the elevator,” Kwan growled as he stared into the trees. “They must know we have a whole village of people down there now.”
“I thought the same thing, and they’re just going to keep coming.” I nodded grimly. “Maybe you should have guards stationed up here at all times, as well as downstairs.”
“It looks that way,” Kwan agreed. “Although, it makes me nervous to have only a few men out in the open.”
I glanced at the underground king as he rubbed his scar-covered neck. I had never heard him mention nerves before, or any sign of weakness at all. I felt like it just proved how fucking dangerous the situation had gotten, but I could understand why. He easily had over a hundred people to safeguard out here now, and who knew how many dinosaurs were probably just waiting for their time to strike on a banquet like this.
A clicking sound started up on my right, and all of us swung around in unison with our weapons raised. But as we readied ourselves to shoot, I heard the tiniest crunch behind me, and I spun around in time to see two more therizinosauruses creep out of the trees.
“Watch out!” I yelled, and I wasted no time in firing right at the closest dino’s face.
Tae shot it a couple of times in the jugular a split second later, and the bastard dropped as its buddy hissed and lowered its head in a predatory way.
“Keep an eye out to the right!” I shouted. “These fuckers are trying to sneak up on us.”
Half the group stayed facing the right as the other half joined me in mowing down the dino on the left. Hae-won shot the second dinosaur in the mouth as it tried to roar, and its t
ongue blew up into a mass of shredded tissue.
“Nice,” I said as Kat put her own bullet into its skull, and the dinosaur joined its companion in a dead heap on the forest floor.
Then I heard a rustling noise behind me, and I turned to see another therizinosaurus run out from the trees on the right.
Leo and Orion fired their sharp guns within a millisecond, and the beast had several sharp bullets in its head before it even had a chance to get near the group. The dino was dead before it hit the ground, and we stood in silence as we looked back out into the thick and overgrown trees surrounding us.
The only sound was the chirp of a nearby bird, and the sky still had a warm-colored hue as the sun peeked out over the trees.
I glanced down at the dino corpses at our feet and stepped back from the little river of blood which oozed from them.
“Mother fuckers,” Kat spat after a moment. “That one tried to distract us with his creepy clicks while those two snuck up.”
“It almost worked,” Becka shivered. “If Jason hadn’t heard them, we’d be dead.”
“You have a good ear.” Kwan nodded. “It is a shame you will be leaving us for some time.”
“You’ve got these guys,” I said as I gestured to Kwan’s sons. “Plus your men inside. That’s more than enough manpower.”
“Not if these things keep appearing more frequently,” Sun-hee sighed, and he kicked the tail of one of the dinos.
“We are good, but even we must rest sometime,” Min-jun muttered through clenched teeth.
Tae looked anxious at his older brother’s words, and the muscles in Kwan’s jaw flexed a few times as he looked at his three burly sons.
Hae-won bit her lip at the sight of her family and the dead dino bodies, and my heart clenched as I realized how worried she’d be the entire time we were gone. The fight here in the forest was only going to get worse from here on out, but we couldn’t stay to help.
We had to end the apocalypse once and for all.
I glanced over at the two male aliens as I heard them having a hushed conversation, and the stoic men were gesturing wildly at the dinos in a way that seemed out of character for them.
Dinosaur World 8 Page 5
