F rom the control tower Becca watched the stargo-jet rise up between the burning buildings of the Jura basecamp, past the lava flooding down the flanks on the distant volcano, which continued to spew molten rock from a furious bubbling cauldron. She didn’t need to look at her screens to confirm there were only seconds left until the final explosion occurred. When Reece had crashed the starjet jet into the volcano whilst rescuing the children, the countdown to a nuclear explosion had begun, its core was in meltdown. She’d done everything she could to slow the process, providing the rising stargo-jet a few vital extra moments to escape, but there was no stopping what was about to happen. Any moment now, the small volcanic island jutting from the Tethys Ocean on Jurassic Earth, one hundred and forty-eight million years before humans and modern civilization would even begin to flourish, would be blasted into atomic dust.
The stargo-jet banked, its belly reflecting rippling orange light, then zoomed skywards through a blanket of dark ash that stretched to the horizon in all directions. A column of golden sunlight momentarily fell across the Jura base before being swallowed by gloom. Becca realized, were it not for the lava and countless fires devouring the island, there would be no light whatsoever. It would be as though existence had been snuffed out, which was exactly what was about to happen to her. Mounting terror stabbed from all sides. She was completely alone now, the last woman on Earth, for the next few moments anyway.
She crumpled into a chair and stared across the burning island, the fear inside rising like ice water, threatening to overwhelm her, to drown her. She gasped for air, but there was none. She forced her mind to focus on her beloved Reece. She could hear his voice, deep and soothing, telling her he loved her. Her lungs began to ease, to accept steady breaths. Happiness blossomed as she thought of the children, all of whom had survived a nightmarish ordeal with courage and bravery beyond their years. Warmth radiated from her heart at the knowledge they were escaping.
Soon, the stargo-jet would pass through the star portal hanging above the planet, returning everyone to the safety of modern-day Earth, where they would be welcomed as heroes. Those kids, the Jurassic Five, had all achieved astonishing accomplishments to earn a seat on the first tourist trip back to Jurassic Earth, but she fully expected their contributions to the betterment of humankind had only just begun. The knowledge helped her feel peaceful. It made what was to come seem bearable, worthwhile.
There was a sudden bright flash as the volcano’s sides exploded, sending out a pulse of energy that shredded through the trees and tore towards the raised plateau on which the control tower was situated. Becca closed her eyes as a tsunami of fire raced out from the core of the explosion, incinerating everything in its path. She thought of her parents. She thought of Reece. Her heart had never been so full of love.
Abandon all Hope, Ye Who Enter Here
T he control tower’s steel framework groaned abysmally and the windows detonated inwards. A swarm of glass attacked Becca’s face and hands, scratching and biting like a plague of zombie locusts. Her chair barrelled backwards, slamming into something solid, the impact aggressively compressing her ribs and distorting her spine. Air blasted from her lungs as a shrill involuntary cry. Had there been any air left she would have screamed in pain. Ferocious heat instantly seemed to be boiling the moisture and natural oils from her skin, leaving her hands and face leathery tight and stinging raw. She gasped for air, her lungs burning. Her eyelids and cheeks felt so tight she feared any moment now they would flake away as ashes.
“My God…” she managed, clenching her eyes shut, not wanting to see, realizing she was experiencing the cremation of her own body. “Oh, God no…”
She lay gasping at the oxygen depleted air, bracing for the end, waiting for the reaper’s hand to drag her into eternal darkness. Had it already happened? Had she already died? Maybe the intense heat she was still feeling was some kind of residual memory of her final moments. Having not died before, it was hard to know how things worked when transitioning from life to death. She pushed on the floor, trying to sit upright, and a bolt of electric pain shot through her forearm.
“Aaargghhh! Damnit!” She cried, falling back and clutching her wrist to her chest. She was definitely alive. The sudden pain was too intense not to be real. “What happened?” She said, trying to gather her thoughts, which were dancing madly out of control, spinning and twirling out of reach. She gazed up at the scorching wind streaking through the windowless control tower. Cubes of safety glass littered the floor around her. “What happened?” She repeated, understanding something terrible had occurred, but finding her thoughts too jumbled to piece together.
“The volcano… they escaped,” she said as a flood of memories struck, filling her with relief. “They made it. Thank God, they made it.”
She remembered taking the kids, the Jurassic Five, on a tour of the island’s reefs in Big Yellow, an amphibious helicopter. Shortly after a water landing beside Shark Reef, Big Yellow had been attacked by a plesiosaur. They’d barely managed to limp to shore before a tidal wave had struck, caused by the moon orbiting thousands of miles closer than on modern-day Earth, which resulted in a vastly increased gravitational pull on the planet’s oceans.
Towering waves tore inland most days. The influence of the moon also caused volcanoes to erupt across the planet. This happened almost daily to the volcanoes on the satellite islands surrounding the Jura island. Their magma chambers never got dangerously full, so the eruptions were more of a spectacle than anything, an incredible planetary firework show. The marketing videos that had been distributed to tour operators featured impressive footage of the eruptions lighting the night sky.
The towering waves were the Jurassic equivalent of the tides at home. They were just bigger, a whole lot bigger. They were expected and planned for. Geophysical fluid dynamicists had learned to predict the frequency with such accuracy, Becca was wearing a watch that beeped when one was incoming. Everyone on Jurassic Earth was obliged to wear one as they also contained trackers. The one thing no one had planned for was a surprise dinosaur attack that could both overcome and disable Big Yellow’s numerous security systems. Such an event wasn’t supposed to have been possible. She now realized how monumentally stupid that sounded. This planet was a hostile, volcanically active world, teeming with lethal predators and death at every turn. That they’d even harboured the notion they’d tamed it was unforgivably stupid and naïve.
Miraculously, fortunately, the kids had escaped Big Yellow and survived the wave, mainly because they’d been wearing specially manufactured survival suits, designed according to the principles of non-Newtonian fluids, which basically meant they were loose when articulating normally, but turned solid as steel when subjected to impacts. They essentially turned the wearer into a super-human, easily capable of taking a bullet without feeling a thing, maybe a thump, but nothing too painful, nothing that would leave more than a bruise.
Yamamoto Industries had been planning to market the suits as superhero armor to the children of billionaires, the only people who’d initially be able to afford a trip back to Jurassic Earth. Licencing deals had been struck which meant kids could live out their fantasies of being Batman, Supergirl, Iron Man, Thor, Wonder Woman, Hulk, Black Panther, Black Widow or Spiderman, any superhero they desired, almost totally impervious to damage, just like their idols from the silver screen.
Outside the intentionally manipulative marketing angle, designed to encourage entitled rich kids to throw tantrums until their parents booked them a trip to Jurassic Earth, the guiding principle behind the suits was to protect tourists and base-crew from freak dinosaur attacks. People could be chewed fairly severely by an average sized dinosaur before the suits gave out, protecting the wearer long enough that someone could cause a distraction or the dinosaur got bored of grinding its teeth to dust, unless they chomped off the wearer’s hands or head, which were the only areas left unprotected. They’d believed, however, that contact with dinosaurs was practically impossible.
Everything on Jurassic Earth had been designed to give tourists the illusion of danger, whilst keeping them well away from actual harm.
Visitors were only ever meant to observe this world’s creatures and biomes from a safe distance. The suits were a last line of defense, a backup in the extraordinarily unlikely event a long list of safety systems, procedures and protocols failed. Which of course, had happened. Everything they’d believed couldn’t possibly happen, had happened. Everything and then some. An impossible chain of million-to-one events, all caused by one immutable factor, human idiocy.
The reason Becca’s arm was now ringing with pain was because the tidal wave that had almost killed the Jurassic Five had slammed her into a tree, rupturing her suit and snapping the ulna and radius bones in her forearm, which had pierced her skin. Apparently the suits weren’t as strong as she’d been led to believe. After being evacuated, and shortly before she’d raced to the control tower to slow the meltdown of the starjet’s core as it sank into the volcano, a medic had fused the bones in her arm with a stem-cell rich, fast drying organic cement. Her bones were still broken inside the cement, and painful, but they were stuck in place, good and solid.
The medic had then dosed her with antibiotics and sealed the wound with a synthetic skin spray, which her natural skin would mesh with over time. She was essentially good as new. Before she’d raced for the control tower the medic had handed her a pack of Codeine tablets for the pain, but she’d been in such a hurry she’d no idea what had happened to them. They were probably floating weightless through the cargo hold of the stargo-jet as it headed back to modern-day Earth.
The fading pain in her forearm confirmed to Becca that she was most definitely still alive. At least a few seconds had passed since the starjet had gone thermonuclear and the volcano had exploded. If the blast wave was going to kill her, it would have taken her out in under a second. The immediate sensation at the realization she’d survived was one of sickening dread. She’d not wanted to die, obviously, the thought terrified her, but being left alone, stranded on an alien world with no chance of escape and no supplies was even more terrifying. It was still death, just slower, lonelier and more painful than the death she’d bargained on, the death she assured herself would be quick and painless.
She tried to ground herself, to deny her rising panic and focus on the moment. As a young girl, when things had seemed overwhelming, her dad used to say, ‘how d’you eat an elephant, kiddo?’ He’d then told her with a smile, ‘one bite at a time, sweetheart, slow and steady.’ She’d never liked the idea of eating elephants, but had known what he’d meant. She needed the wisdom of those words now more than ever. All she had to do was take things one bite at a time. There was always a way to beat a situation, she just couldn’t see it yet. One bite at a time and eventually the solution would present itself.
The control tower began rattling violently, its steel frame shaking on its foundations, sending fragments of safety glass skipping across the floor by Becca’s hands and thighs. This was coupled with a sound so enormous it brought to mind the jets that used to scream over the Air Force base she’d grown up on, a roar so loud it made the soft tissue of your throat and lungs vibrate. Becca and her brothers had always tried to recite the alphabet when the jets zoomed over, their voices shaking. No one had managed to get all the way through, as the aircraft were always miles away in seconds. The sound outside the control tower was similar, but different. This sound scared her. She’d never been scared of the jets. The sound outside was continuous and swelling ever louder.
Becca found herself reciting the alphabet as she stood up, her voice shaking as it had done when she was a child. Despite being alone in the midst of the tremendous roar, the action helped her feel her brothers were at her side and that her mother was only a short distance away, through the paint flaking door to the sun porch where she’d be conjuring stories of great explorers and lost worlds. The rattling tower groaned and teetered. Becca threw out her arms and froze, balancing as though on a beam. She fell silent, her eyes glued forwards, fixed on an incredible sight she couldn’t explain. All she could decipher was that the thing she was seeing, whatever it was, was fiercely hot, enormous, and savagely violent.
“Huh…”
It took a few moments to realize the colossal ribbons of molten fire arcing through the sky either side of the control tower were streams of lava, being propelled with unnatural velocity by the explosion. She quickly understood the cliff wall of the raised plateau was deflecting the racing lava, left and right in a V formation, exactly like when fast moving flood water strikes something like a building or a tree. Wet sounds pattered across the roof overhead. Outside the windows, across the Jura base, tiny globules of lava were splatting down, flames licking from their speedily blackening crusts. An enormous glob, easily a few hundred tonnes of molten rock, crashed through the dining hall structure which burst into flame, windows exploding outwards.
“This is bad, very very bad…”
Molten metal was beginning to drip from holes in the roof where the lava rain was eating through. A silvery stream dribbled across a shattered monitor which bubbled and shed dark smoke.
“That’s just not fair,” she said, watching new holes forming overhead, drops of glowing metal igniting combustible materials and objects throughout the control room. “Can’t stay here, Becca. Gotta think… think, Becca, think…”
She recoiled as a hulking glob of lava crashed through the hangar complex to her right, engulfing a jeep and a forklift loader in oozing tarry fire.
“Take a bite, Becca, take a damn bite,” she urged. “Get out,” was all she could come up with. “Get out of the tower before you’re crushed. Down is good. Better than here.”
She flew down the stairwell, the structure rattling and shaking. Nearing the bottom there was an almighty crunch from above. The tower concertinaed and lurched sideways. The compressing force caused the exit door directly ahead to ping off its hinges and spin forwards.
“Mother of…” she said, ducking, narrowly avoiding decapitation as the door clanged off the stairwell handrail and whizzed past. “Jeeeeeezus!”
The security door clattered off the wall behind her and began sliding down the stairs. She dodged the buckled metal slab, which scraped to the bottom of the stairs and pulled up beside a tool chest and a row of backpacks on a bench.
“Are they…” she said, panting and dashing down the stairs. “Oh, please be ready bags. Come on, throw me a bone.”
Reece had made a point of leaving ready bags across the base, in every structure, so that in the event of an emergency rescue teams could be on the move in seconds, no prep time. She snatched up one of the rucksacks and pushed her arms through the straps. It felt heavy, which was a good sign. Molten metal was now seeping down the walls around her. Through the open doorway the lava rain showed no signs of slowing. If anything, it was growing into a fiery shower.
“You’re my cover,” she said, reaching for the dislodged security door, gripping the handle and hoisting it over her head. “Nnnggggg. Right, okay, you can do this. It’s just a little lava rain is all, nothing to worry abou…” A huge lava bomb slammed into the trees behind the base, sending up a mushroom of flame, the heat searing her face. “Okay, a little worried. A little worried is good. It’ll keep you alert.”
Becca found she was thinking clearly again now. The dullness that had numbed her brain after the initial blast was fading. The instincts and training she’d relied on for her whole career were kicking in. She’d been given the job as chief tour guide on Jurassic Earth because she’d earned it. She’d fought to the top of an incredibly competitive industry, to become Head Ranger at Kruger National Park by being quick-thinking, alert, inventive and tough. She dug inside herself, tugging at the skillset that had steered her and many others through countless hairy situations.
With her brain firing off ideas, she touched upon a solution to her most urgent problem, finding shelter until the volcano quietened down. The eng
ineering crews that had constructed the Jura resort had built concrete bunkers across the island, which they’d used as bases from which they’d conducted operations. They were essentially bomb proof shelters which served as sleeping quarters and refuges against dinosaur attacks. There was one such shelter on the plateau, by the cooksite clearing a few miles away. If she took one of the quadbikes parked by the living quarters, if she could find one that wasn’t burned up that was, with a bit of luck she’d reach the cooksite in under ten minutes.
“Right, here we go. Three… two… RUN!”
Becca held the security door tightly overhead and sprinted from the control tower. She angled right, towards the living quarters, which bristled with flames. As far as she could see every structure was being devoured by twisting flames and becoming entombed in molten rock. High in the sky, the deflected lava flows appeared to be cooling under jet-black ash clouds, forming incredible arches of dark rock, alive with billions of flickering lights. They looked like alien skyscrapers from a far-flung world in which strange termite beings dwelled. Waterfalls of lava were cascading from the mind-bending structures, cooling into sharpened stalactites, lethal javelins, ready and waiting to skewer anything unfortunate enough to be passing underneath when they fell.
By the time she reached the quadbikes, the soles of her shoes were melting and her shield was becoming unwieldy, partly because it was a heavy security door, but also because it was accumulating endless molten rock. Her right arm was burning with lactic acid as she looked over the first few bikes. Their seats and tires were mostly melted. They were as good as dead. Down the line she found a quad with three tires intact. It appeared serviceable.
“You’ll do, no time to be picky,” she said, hauling the vehicle from the line and mounting up. She was surprised by the lack of pain in her broken arm, which she put down to massive doses of adrenaline surging through her body.
Jurassic Earth Trilogy Box Set Page 22
