“Roooo!” Schweighofer cried. “Noooo… they’re eating him…”
“It’s too late, you can’t help him. Get to the starjet.”
“Retreat to the starjet,” Commander Blake thundered. “We’re getting off this rock. Everyone, fall back. They’re gone, we can’t do anything for them, fall back.”
Gouts of flame mushroomed through the forest as the warhorses launched a devastating assault, allowing the team to retreat and huddle beside the bunker. Lightning flashed again and Reece spotted dozens of bear-sized cephalopods scuttling nightmarishly through the forest from every direction, like invading spider crabs. An explosion saw a giant sequoia moan and topple, squashing a few of the approaching monsters and pinning one of the animals which vomited unholy noise, tentacles wildly thrashing the ground.
“Hurry up!” Commander Blake yelled. “Move your asses, people.”
“They’re everywhere! They’re coming from everywhere!”
Reece felt Becca aggressively yank him backwards as a galloping cephalopod charged from their right and launched at Molotov, spinning through the air. The man dropped and fired as the creature sailed overhead, coming apart at its fleshy seams, slime spraying across Hadley and Fang.
“Aauuuch,” Hadley moaned, scraping goo from his face and flicking it to the ground. “Man, it’s all over me…”
“Get to the starjet,” Molotov cried. “Fall back, warhorses last. Don’t wait for me, I’m coming.”
“Nice try, I’m not going anywhere you’re not,” Schweighofer said, covering Molotov as he got to his feet, her javelin setting the world aflame like an aircraft dumping a belly full of napalm.
“Go, go!” Reece said, pushing Becca towards the stairs leading to the landing pad. “Move it.”
Boots hammered against the metal stairwell. A quick glance back revealed everyone was retreating, including the warhorses, backing up whilst pivoting at the waist and raining hellfire on the approaching monster army. The enormous cephalopod was rising up on thick tentacles. A human leg flew out of the darkness and landed below the creature’s beak. Drooling, the monster slurped it down like a strand of ghoulish spaghetti. Becca grabbed Reece and dragged him towards Nori, who was on the landing ramp, ushering everyone in.
“This way, quickly, this way,” he was saying. He turned to Reece. “The engines are warming up. Get to the cockpit. Get us in the air. I’ll join you when everyone’s in.”
“The Gods are alive!” Aleksi cried, shaking his head violently, making his lips and cheeks slap. “The Gods have arisen to slay the godless. It’s too late to repent, the reckoning is here. Oh, mercy… mercy…”
“Everyone in, quickly,” Commander Blake yelled. “Move it, Razak!”
“And low, they came from the depths, an army of dark angels birthed from the underworld’s womb,” Aleksi continued, thunder cracking as he delivered his demented sermon. “This is your judgement, comrades. Tonight, you will be delivered to fires of Hell. You shall be consumed!”
“Would somebody shut him…”
Becca lifted her pistol and shot Aleksi before Scarlet finished the sentence. The man slumped down in his seat, a stupid shocked expression crossing his face.
Reece was already making for the cockpit by the time everyone had boarded. The warhorses defended the closing ramp, beyond which cephalopods were clambering across the facility towards the landing pad. Behind them the giant was glaring, luminous eyes penetrating the darkness. The warhorses shuddered and their spinning guns sputtered out, smoking and whining as they slowed. Fang blasted a cephalopod from the top of the ramp when it was inches from locking shut. A second monster slipped its tentacles through the gap, which were pinched off. They slid down the metal and slopped messily on the floor like fish on the deck of a trawler.
Inside the cockpit Reece span up the engines. Nori joined him and the pair busied themselves making spacecraft flight ready.
“Is everyone in?” Reece yelled over his shoulder through the cockpit door.
“Clear, locked and loaded,” Commander Blake replied. “Good to go.”
The starjet’s framework shuddered as it left the pad, engines growling. Reece swung the craft one-eighty. The giant cephalopod was aggressively climbing the sequoias beyond the viewscreen. He powered the engines to quarter speed and raised the nose to clear the lofted trees. Speed building, trees approaching. The cephalopod suddenly launched. A mass of wheeling tentacles impacted the starjet, tipping it ninety degrees onto its side, but that was all that was needed. They were immediately losing height, falling sideways to the ground.
“Give me full lock on the flaps,” Reece cried to Nori. “I can’t level us, there’s no room, no time. It’s a knife flight to death.”
“That’s not the best choice of words.”
“I’m not trying to compose an nggggg… kinda preoccupied…”
The stall warning on the dash blinked on, then off, then on again.
“Flaps fully locked,” Nori said. “Routing extra power to the port engine. Adjust your pitch five degrees down, you’re gonna stall. You need to build speed. There’s a lot of trees out there. They’re getting bigger.”
“I know, I have eyes…”
“Stall warning again,” Nori said. “Decrease your vertical angle. You can’t go up until we have the speed. Must go faster.”
“I know, I know…”
Gravity pushing him against the side of his seat, the stalling jet unwieldy on its side, Reece throttled up and trees zipped above and below his tilted world. His brain had never been tasked with computing so much visual information whilst also managing a test of hand eye coordination so intense. He could feel the air catching the flaps through the control column, through which he was delivering minute adjustments to maintain the snaking knife flight through the forest, in which trees seemed to be sprouting before his eyes, saplings to maturity in the blink of an eye. The craft’s building velocity meant steering was fast approaching the limit of his reflexes. Any moment now his luck was about to run out. The tree trunks were so many and approaching so fast.
“We’re lifting,” Nori said.
Eyes straining, tears streaming, Reece throttled higher, the engines roaring. Flying on a knife edge, tilted on its side, the jet rose into the forest canopy, tree limbs snapping all around, his stomach muscles tensing painfully as he gripped the controls and steered for what he hoped were the least dense patches of pine heavy branches.
“Come on, come on... please…”
Gloriously, spectacularly, incredibly, the jet punched through the canopy and hit clear air. Reece rolled the spacecraft and levelled out, panting heavily, beads of sweat taking an immediate ninety degree change of direction across his face and neck.
“Woooohoooo! That’s how you do it. D’you see that… holy crap on a stick… did you actually just see that?”
“Hard to miss. That is most definitely how you do it.”
“I’m buzzing, shaking, like actually, see that,” Reece said, holding out a trembling hand. “I don’t even think I can fly right now. Excellent co-piloting old buddy. Dream team. Woooooo! Damn, yeah, holy hell. I am pouring sweat, nasty amounts, you see that. That was crazy. D’you believe that just happened?”
“I never doubted you for a second.”
“Couldn’t have done it without you, Nori,” Reece said, reaching over and slapping Nori’s robotic back. “Dream team, baby.”
“Nori? It’s nice to hear you calling me Nori again.”
“Pffft, yeah, don’t go all gooey on me toaster lips,” Reece said chuckling as the starjet cleared the clouds, the moon filling the viewscreen. “Let’s hit the road. Time to go home… Nori…”
Renegades
A n artificial star rotated in the expansive ring-structure housing the star portal, the entry point to the wormhole that threaded a path through space and time, to the sister portal orbiting modern-day Earth. Waves of tinsel energy radiated on approach. Beyond his beads of sweat floating weightless in the co
ckpit, Reece watched retro thrusters mounted to the portal ignite, angling the structure to align with the starjet’s re-entry corridor. Nori was typing away at his dash, causing one of the monitors between them to fuzz with lines of static that tracked across the screen.
“Anything I should know about?” Reece said. “The ship feels good, solid. The readings from the portal are also well within tolerance. Am I missing something?”
“The ship’s fine,” Nori replied, opening a panel on his chest and plucking out a device which he plugged into the starjet’s mainframe.
The monitor flickered and something that looked like the monster from the film ‘The Creature from the Black Lagoon’ flashed up for a few brief frames. It looked like a newt or a fish headed thing with fanned fins and guppy lips. There was some faint garbled speech coming through also, but it was too full of static to decipher.
“If you’re trying to play one of your pirate movies, I gotta tell ya, you’re a crummy pirate,” Reece joked. “That’s worse than the hooky copy of Ghostbusters Two I had on VHS as a kid.”
“I can’t clean it up anymore, but I’ve managed to trace the source.”
“The source? If it’s coming from somewhere it’s obviously coming from Earth, right, some TV signal, a broadcast we’re picking up through the star portal? That’s why the picture’s such a mess, right?”
Nori reached over and engaged the gravity induction coils. The beads of sweat floating in front of the viewscreen dropped out of the air and Reece’s bodyweight pushed him into his seat cushioning.
“Right, Nori?” Reece repeated, an uncomfortable sensation spreading through his gut. “It’s coming from Earth, yeah?”
“It’s not coming from Earth, at least not our Earth, not from home.” Nori unbuckled himself and stood up. “I need to talk to the team, tell them the plan.”
“No, no, no… no plans… let’s not do plans. The star portal’s right there, we’re ten minutes from… hey, Nori… Nori come ba... goddamnit!”
Reece angled away from the star portal and engaged the autopilot, setting the starjet into orbit around the planet. He followed Nori into the cargo area where Commander Blake was already on his feet.
“Did you manage to decode the signal?” The Commander asked.
“No,” Nori replied, “but I managed to triangulate a position. It’s coming from Gondwana, in the southern hemisphere. It’s a landmass off the southern tip of Pangea, from a spot that will one day form Antarctica. You were right, it’s a distress beacon, alien, definitely not one of ours. It could have been looping for decades, maybe longer.”
“Commander?” Schweighofer said.
“Alien?” Razak added, his eyes eyebrows rising and his eyes widening. “You found… aliens?”
“It seems so,” Commander Blake said. “Okay everyone, this is the deal. Back at starcom we picked up a signal. We thought it might be a transmission coming through the star portal, from home, but as you just heard, it’s not. It’s an alien signal, broadcasting from something crashed on Jurassic Earth.”
“Hey, I’ve seen the film Aliens,” Razak said. “Rule one, stay away from the alien spaceship. That’s all you need to do, it’s real simple.”
“The signal has been broadcasting for a long time,” Nori reassured. “It’s been interfering with the starcom uplink since we built it years back. Whoever’s broadcasting isn’t walking around recording new messages. This is a looping automated beacon. Whoever sent it is long dead.”
“They’re always dead,” Razak replied, looking around, “until they’re not, until you wake them up. Am I the only one here who’s seen Aliens? Don’t get me wrong, it’s great watching it over takeout, eating popcorn with friends, but living it… no thanks… We just did that and it didn’t work out too well.”
“I get it, Razak,” Commander Blake said. “That’s why we’re gonna have a vote. As you know, when we get back to Earth we’re gonna be the most hunted people on the planet. We’re all used to covert ops, so know what it means to live looking over our shoulders, but after breaking into Area 51 things are gonna hit a whole new level of hunted. We’ve got plans in place that mean you’ll be able to blend in and never get caught if you’re sensible, but if we go back with an alien artefact, just one, it buys everyone’s freedom, the kind of freedom you all talk about if you could rewind the clock. This could mean that fresh start you all dream of.”
“It’s all about bureaucracy and politics,” Nori said. “Everything has a price. If we can bring back data and recordings with information on an alien civilization, you’re all free. I know the hurt of losing Fox and Aroon is still fresh. I wish I could change that, I honestly do. We’re all hurting. When we get home we’ll honor their lives with a proper send off, a funeral fit for the heroes they were. None of you need feel pressured or obliged. If it’s too soon that’s fine with me. This is your choice, we just wanted you to have the option. I’m happy to head home right now if that’s what you want.”
“Did they have families?” Becca asked.
“No,” Commander Blake said, a strained look crossing his face, like he was trying his hardest to contain his emotions. His jaw muscles bulged and his brow furrowed. “No one here does, except…” He paused, his voice crackling.
“Except each other,” Molotov finished. “The best family I ever had.”
“True that daddy’o,” Scarlet said, nudging Molotov’s arm. “Best family in the world.”
Molotov unfastened his harness and walked out in front of the team.
“Fox and Roo went out as heroes, and they’ll be in our prayers for always,” he said. “We’re here because they laid down their lives so we could continue ours. We all know what the risks are. We all know when our time comes, it’ll probably be in a blaze of glory, but until then we’re alive, fully awake and living in the moment. Most people are too scared to do that, to truly live. Most people never get to feel their hearts beat the way we do, to feel the raw electric current of life in their veins, with a family of brothers and sisters at their sides, people who will be there for them no matter what. Fox and Roo died hard, but man they lived free. This is about the ride, surrounded by the ones we love. I say we do this. We’re renegades now, fugitives from the law.”
“For the ride,” Schweighofer agreed.
“You poetic fool,” Fang said, sniffing. “You had me at hello.”
Laughter rippled through the team.
“For the ride,” Razak said, nodding. “I’m with you all whatever you decide. I kinda like the sound of being a renegade. That’s pretty cool, renegades… renegades… I like the way it rolls off the tongue. It’s a definite upgrade from slugs.”
“I’m in too,” Hadley said. “You know me, the definition of manly adventurer answering the call.”
“Hadley,” Fang said, smiling over, “the only thing you’re the definition of is the definition of someone who doesn’t understand the definition of definition.”
“Define this, Fang,” Hadley said, flipping the bird.
Fang chuckled and blew a kiss which Hadley caught and stomped on, much to Fang’s amusement.
“Count me in,” Scarlet said. “Do we have a chant now, like do we all get to shout renegades assemble before a mission? It’s so bad we gotta make it a thing.”
“Renegades it is then,” Commander Blake said, nodding with pride, “but there’s one vote more important than all of ours. Becca’s been living down there with a maniac on the edge of survival for months. We came to take her home. The choice is ultimately hers.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Fang said.
“Her choice it is,” Molotov agreed.
“So,” Schweighofer said to Becca, “how about it. D’you feel like one last adventure on Jurassic Earth?”
KEEP READING FOR THE THRILLING CONCLUSION…
JURASSIC
EARTH
EPISODE III
EVILUTION
Logan T Stark
©2020 Logan T Stark
> All rights reserved
THE ADVENTURE CONCLUDES…
Earth’s Most Wanted
T he convoy of helicopters and power boats roared down the Danube River in Vienna, Austria, news crews, police and military warcopters all in pursuit of one target, Aaditya Bashar, who was reportedly being ferried inside the leading Agusta Westland aerial take-off-and-landing heli-plane. No one could be sure the man was on board, but the press release Yamamoto Industries had dispatched twenty-four hours earlier had assured the world there was no trickery at play. The dispatch had urgently requested a meeting with the world’s leaders, citing the need for an unprecedented coalition to combat an imminent threat to peace in our time. The dispatch had suggested that humanity was on the brink of becoming consumed by a terrifying and speedily evolving threat.
From the passenger seat of the GNN news helicopter, Mary Ellis looked towards the Viennese United Nations headquarters, a collection of crescent-moon shaped buildings surrounding a central fountain, encircled by flagpoles on which the flags of the world fluttered in the unseasonably warm April breeze. Inside, Heads of State from across the globe were assembling in the main Congress Hall. The fact they were assembling at all told Mary the powers that be had more information than Yamamoto Industries had revealed publicly, and that the world’s leaders believed the threat to be genuine. It also suggested Yamamoto Industries’ public release was an agitator to force elected officials to take action, a kind of ‘I told you so’ in the event they sat on their hands and did nothing if a forecasted disaster unfolded.
Yamamoto Industries was well known for gameplay and misdirection, so Mary knew it was always wise to take anything they said with a pinch of salt, but her gut told her they weren’t messing about today. If this was a stunt to revive the discredited multinational, the world’s leaders wouldn’t have gathered so quickly. From her lofted vantage, hovering high above the Vienna International Center, Mary could see hundreds of armored police, snipers on the rooftops, and Czech style anti-tank hedgehogs blocking the roads and train tracks leading to the cluster of buildings on the strip of land between the Danube and Alte Donau rivers.
Jurassic Earth Trilogy Box Set Page 41
