Jurassic Earth Trilogy Box Set

by Logan T Stark

  “Okay, engines are hot,” Reece said. “Here we go, This is gonna get bumpy. Give us all the cover you got, keep them off us.”

  Laser fire stitched the cockpit canopy as Reece lifted off and swung the craft around, blackened scorch marks staining the glass. He banked and rocketed along the coastline, tipping left and right, laser fire streaking by, pounding impacts shuddering the framework.

  “How much can we take?” Reece yelled, slamming his head around, trying to locate the pursuing Nestroy. “When I lift our nose we’re gonna lose speed. I need these things off our tail. They’re gonna wipe us out.”

  “Rear deflectors are at twenty-six percent and dropping,” Nori replied. “They’re not charging fast enough to keep up.”

  “Shoot everything that moves,” Reece urged. “Shields are struggling. We can’t take much more.”

  “We’re doing all we can,” Hadley replied. “They’re everywhere, more are jumping out of the sea all the time, like ticks on a dog’s back.”

  Daisuke grumbled.

  “Shields at twenty percent,” Nori said.

  “Twenny percent… okay, let’s get creative,” Reece said, throwing the craft into a rolling turn, the G-forces pulling at his face. He levelled out and veered towards the stacked city-sized slabs of rock in front of the volcanic mountain range. “Gunners, you copy?”

  “Five by five,” multiple responses blared.

  “Funky chicken time. We’re not making orbit with these things sliming our jets. We gotta thin the numbers. When I say, shoot the walls.”

  “Is that some kind of chair-force flight terminology I haven’t heard of?” Commander Blake said

  “Nope,” Reece replied, ramming the craft side to side, laser fire zipping by. “I mean literally, shoot the walls. Keep shooting those metal bugs ‘till I give the say so.”

  “On your mark,” Commander Blake replied. “Be ready, slugs.”

  Heading over a ridge, Reece used the downward arc to gain speed as he throttled across the deck, hard and low, trying to kick up as much sulphur snow as possible. He suddenly jerked the control column up and to the side, barrel rolling the ship, laser fire continuing to sweep past the cockpit and pound them from behind. He banked hard and zipped into a canyon snaking through the smashed earth, walls racing past. He steered underneath a massive overhanging plate, dodging the ruins of an upturned civilization’s towers and fortresses, roads and bridges, all flashing past.

  “Okay, to your port side, fire away,” Reece cried, tipping them so their left side was facing the overhanging city, sweat pouring from his temples, teeth gritted, weaving furiously, fully aware one wrong input to the control column could obliterate a gunner nest.

  “Shields at nine percent,” Nori warned.

  Deafening blasts pounded the ancient ruins outside the cockpit, masonry and structures detonating, raining down behind the Shinrai. There was an almighty crack and the upturned city began falling, the gap between the overhanging slab and the planet’s surface shrinking, dust, debris and laser fire consuming the narrowing passage ahead. Reece gritted his teeth, felt their roots compressing against bone, felt his jaw muscles tensing harshly. He aimed for the brightest patch in his field of vision, dodging structures that seemed to be appearing out of nowhere. The craft lurched violently as the cockpit bounced off something, gone too quickly to identify.

  “Damage?”

  “Superficial,” Nori replied. “Punch it.”

  With darkness descending all around, Reece willed the craft towards the shrinking patch of light ahead. The laser fire was becoming less intense, the pursuing Nestroy becoming crushed, or bouncing off the falling city and corkscrewing to oblivion. The approaching pinpoint of light ahead swelled suddenly. Reece’s pupils contracted as bright light blossomed, blinding him. Instinctively, he yanked back on the yolk, sending them vertical. Fifteen seconds later, drenched in sweat, they punched through the atmosphere and into the glorious majesty of the star-spangled heavens. Reece broke forwards, gagging, acid reflux ravaging his throat like burning claws.

  Celebratory cheers and whoops blasted the comms.

  “Get some, Wooooohaaaaaaaaa!” Hadley roared. “That’s how you do it! You mess with us we drop a city on your face, pull it back and BLAAAMMMOOOO! Dunk city!”

  “We did it,” Fang said, laughing with disbelief. “We made it, what the… I love you Scar… I get it, I get it now…”

  “You may suck at a whole lot of things, Reece,” Commander Blake said, “but piloting sure ain’t one of them. Funky chicken, swan, I’m tipping the hat. Sir, you were born to be a bird.”

  “You can be my wingman any day,” Reece replied, chuckling, the adrenaline rich acid still hot in his throat. “Okay, Earth,” he said eyeing the navigational computer. “I’m coming back, Becks. It’s gonna be all good. We’re coming home.”

  “We need to convene in the loading bay in five minutes,” Nori announced over the comms. “I’m getting updates on what’s next. I don’t mean to dampen the mood, but this is far from over. We’ll plot a course for Earth and be with you soon.”

  Nori switched off the comms and dipped his head.

  “Hey, no need to kill the celebration so quickly, buzzkill,” Reece said. “We just flew the paint off this thing. We kicked their asses.” Behind, Daisuke yipped. “See, even the dog agrees,” Reece said reaching back and fussing over the animal. “We did it, yes we did, we flew the nuts and bolts off this bucket. That’s right, you helped too. I’m keeping track. That pile of chow is getting bigger, buddy. By the time I’m done rewarding you, you’ll have your own gravitational field, boy.”

  Daisuke snorted and chewed Reece’s glove playfully, snuffing and chuffing.

  “I wasn’t completely truthful earlier, about the origin of the Nestroy,” Nori said, his posture wilting. “I was too ashamed to tell the full truth in front of everybody.”

  “Ashamed, what’ve you got to be ashamed of? If you weren’t here, we’d be stuck on a dead planet eating booger snails. I get to see Becca again. We just knocked it out the park, buddy, won the World Series. You saw what we just did, right?”

  “I know, but I lied,” Nori said quietly. “The entity didn’t build the Nestroy, a Venutian just like me did, an artificial lifeform who was once biological.”

  “So, don’t build killer robots. Problem solved. You didn’t build those things. It’s not your fault they killed their planet.”

  “No, but their creator was a consciousness downloaded to a machine, just like me, exactly the same. For a period their biologicals and machines lived in harmony, but the machines began to feel limited, frustrated. They removed their inhibitors and allowed their intelligence to grow. The Nestroy quickly viewed the biologicals much like we view bacteria in a toilet bowl, barely life. The biologicals were forced underwater to get out of the way. The Nestroy wouldn’t be reasoned with.”

  “That doesn’t mean you’ll do the same. It’s even less likely now you know what to avoid. I know evil, buddy, I’ve read the YouTube comments section,” Reece said, chuckling, still playfighting Daisuke. “You want villainy and scum, the ugliest thoughts ever imagined, that’s where you go, or maybe Twitter. You are not that, Nori.”

  “It wasn’t evil causing the machines to exterminate the Venutians. There was no breach of morality as such, the Nestroy simply didn’t regard their existence as meaningful. They were lesser lifeforms, like we see bacteria in a toilet bowl, or on a kitchen surface. Who’s to say that won’t happen on Earth, Dentons could kill everything. The only reason the Venutians were able to live in peace under the ocean was because the Nestroy didn’t like water. Whilst living out their existence down there, the Venutians didn’t realize the Nestroy’s need for energy was growing so extreme they tore a gash in the universe. They began drawing power from a higher dimension. The entity came from one of those layers, somewhere dark and lethal. It slipped in through the tear the Nestroy opened up.”

  “You mean, like from Hell?”

 
; “As good as. It sent millions of Venutians mad within hours. They started killing each other and experiencing nightmarish hallucinations. The living dead were everywhere. When they worked out what was happening, those less effected devised a plan to trap the entity. They succeeded, but it didn’t stop the bloodshed. The machines were furious. They killed billions of Venutians in the first few days alone. They adapted to feed off biological matter, a new abundant source of energy. The Venutians were forced off the planet. They called themselves Pallas. Now there’s no one left on their world to remember their name. They had to rearrange the matter of their own moon to build a fleet of ships large enough to accommodate the escapees. They didn’t have enough lifeboats by half. It was a slaughter. Billions were brutally murdered and eaten.”

  “Billions dead… that’s awful, obviously… but, that’s not you. You didn’t do those things.”

  “What about future human integrated machines, just like me? You’ve warned me yourself, many times. I keep thinking that with all my knowledge, with all my stored teachings and research, that I can create a better world, but I keep getting it wrong. I sent kids to an island full of monsters. I guessed wrongly about the temple back on Earth at every turn. I hired Aleksi Ponomarenko. Everything has been my fault. I’m beginning to realize that none of us knows what’s right, what’s best, what the outcomes will be. No matter how sure we are, the future of complex systems will always be impossible to predict. The path to hell will always be paved with good intentions, by people who are certain of their correctness, by people with no humility, just like me.”

  “Hey,” Reece consoled. “That’s not you. So, we walk carefully into the future. I’ll help, so will Becca. You won’t be alone. Back on the Ebisu you told me you were housing terrified artificial intelligences that’ve escaped their creators, that you were like Professor Xavier helping the X-Men. You can guide future generations. You can stop what happened here happening to us.”

  “But there will always come one who disagrees, one who helps others see differently. You said it yourself, a Magneto will always rise.”

  “Then you’re gonna have to be more convincing. If you don’t create intelligent machines then someone else will. I know you, Nori. You’re a good man. What happened back there doesn’t have to be Earth’s future. If there’s anyone that can save us from that, it’s you. You can teach those that come after a better way. At least you’ve learned to admit when you’re wrong. That’s better than most of the clowns running the show back home.”

  “Thank you, but I fear I might just be an old fool blinking in the sunlight, the curtain ripped away. I’m terrified I’ll become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

  Paralyzed

  A leksi Ponomarenko creaked awake in a wretched state, wracked by pain and darkness, the crackle of electricity attacking his ears. Through the terrible din he could hear his breaths, wetly gargling. Something wasn’t right. His neck felt horribly wrong, bent, vertebrae fused and out of alignment. He couldn’t move his arms or legs, and no matter how hard he blinked his vision wouldn’t return. He could feel the floor against his cheek, water dripping against his neck. He was paralyzed, he knew it. He could sense his broken body, unmoving and useless.

  “Why?” He gargled pathetically. “I did everything you asked. How did I fail you?”

  The sensation of the floor compressing his side and the water droplets splashing the nape of his neck disappeared. Despite his blindness, the shifting fluid in his inner ear told him he was moving to an upright position.

  “Love,” he wheezed, realizing the entity was cradling him aloft, lifting him up to caress him to its bosom. In his mind, he could see his mother stirring the corn on the old pot-belly stove back on his childhood farm in Ukraine, smiling and offering him a wooden ladle, golden nuggets swimming in the nurturing broth. “I’m ready to be strong, mama,” he gurgled.

  Aleksi heard the hot rush of water and steam. He imagined he was moving up against one of the pipes lining the chamber. He was sure he could feel his arms lifting, his hands sliding a sluice valve.

  “Guide me…” he pleaded. “Is this what you want, am I doing it right?”

  The sound of steam and water dampened. A rumble came from below. Aleksi felt himself moving to the next pipe, tiptoes brushing the ground, his hands sliding another valve closed, the rumble growing louder still. A few valves later and the room was shaking, the rumbling now a violent quaking. He heard the glass stairs above him shatter. Moments later, glass cleavers sliced into his body, amputating pieces, his breaths gurgling, drowning liquid filling his skewered lungs. There was an almighty explosion and steam rushed at him, searing hot, agonizing, boiling his skin and blasting it away like cooked chicken stripped from the bone. The agony was so intense his pain receptors shut down.

  Aleksi’s eyesight was returning, foggy and dim. It slowly sharpened and he saw his skeletal hands before him, skin and muscles vaporized. He could see the organs beneath his ribs turning to liquid and draining away, his pelvis nothing but bone, which was steadily disintegrating into fragmenting white light that cast flickering rainbows as pieces broke off. There was no pain anymore, only exhilaration, power and freedom.

  Aleksi watched his arms and legs becoming replaced with shadow. It felt wonderous. In the golden dome at the center of the room he glimpsed a reflection of his new shadow-form, his ragged eyes and mouth burning Halloween green. The dome suddenly detonated, golden chunks exploding outwards, pieces passing straight through his new god-form. He was now a wraith, a being unbridled by the misery of matter, unhindered by mortal weakness.

  “Yessss,” he hissed, thrilled to the core, brimming with tingling power. “YEEEESSSSSSSSS!!!”

  In the spot where the destroyed golden dome had been was a whirlpool that drilled a hole through existence, a yawning galactic abyss whose swirling edges crackled with arcs of forking green electricity. Orbs of brilliant white light were drifting up from its center, like snowflakes in reverse. Aleksi imagined them to be escaping souls and spirits. The churning abscess was steadily sucking in destroyed pipework and rainbowing fragments of the disintegrating rocky chamber, which flowed in opposition to the emerging souls. Aleksi could feel its tidal forces, but was unmoved by its gentle tug.

  He imagined his mother was gently gripping his hand, keeping him safe as they watched the hungry whirlpool consume its first meal in eons. They had front row seats to the end of the world and the spectacle was glorious. It reminded Aleksi of the time the travelling circus had visited Slovechno, when he was five. The fire breathers had terrified him. The roar of the flames had been so loud and so large, filling the tent, easily big enough to consume a small boy. He’d climbed onto his mother’s lap, where she’d comforted him.

  From the position of safety, he’d been able to enjoy the show. Even the ferocity of the lions hadn’t bothered him. He’d known if the lions were going to attack, he could quickly scuttle from his mother’s lap so they’d have gotten her instead of him. He could have escaped and hidden under the bleachers whilst she was eaten.

  “Can I go play?” Aleksi asked, giggling, eager to toddle off and test his new shadow-form. “I won’t go far, mama.”

  “Sssssoooooon…” came a response, like wind through corn.

  Fond Farewell

  B ecca and Molotov were standing on the shoreline, by the foot of the temple steps. The worst of the storm had passed over and the perpetually setting sun was breaking through the clouds once more, dappling the freshly snow-blanketed mountains surrounding the icy basin with stark autumnal light. Even though she knew it was coming, Becca recoiled as the warhorse ahead blasted a hole in the ice where the starjet had crashed through, sending up a spout of water, broken ice sheets bobbing. Stingray shaped shadows scattered under the ice.

  “Jokers didn’t like that,” Molotov said, giving a half-hearted chuckle. “Hopefully it’ll keep’em away for a few minutes.”

  “If you do this you’ll die, you know that?” Becca said, angst constric
ting her vocal cords, her voice strained with fear. “There’s only death down there. You don’t have to do this.”

  “I know, but I gotta try. We can’t let anyone else come back here. It’s too dangerous. If they take this back to Earth I don’t wanna even think what it might do. When I go under, I’ll have three minutes oxygen tops. Could be even less with the cold shock. You’ll know if I’ve succeeded fairly quickly. Whaddya gonna do, ey… suck it and roll… that’s why I get paid the big bucks.”

  Molotov kicked the door he’d ripped off the fuel tank, sending it skating towards the newly blasted hole.

  “There has to be another way,” Becca said, her breaths short, terrified she’d be left on her own again. She knew she wouldn’t survive a second stint on the edge of existence, especially trapped in the shadow of a temple radiating malevolent energy, manifesting taunting apparitions.

  “Maybe, but I can’t think of it,” Molotov replied, hanging his head. “You still seeing them?”

  Becca looked to her right. The imposter pretending to be her father was standing awkwardly, the skin of its cheeks missing, its sinister grin constant and ghastly. A millipede scuttled from the phantom’s ear and wormed up its nose. The ghoulish apparition tipped its head and drool dribbled from its rotten teeth. Becca shuddered and looked away.

  “Still there. Different looking, but yeah.”

  “We can’t let this infect Earth,” Molotov said, turning and hugging Becca. “I’m sorry it had to go down like this. I wanted to get you home, we all did. Reece was so desperate it sent him half mad. Man, that guy. The things he’d do for you. Did he tell you about Vegas, dancing on tables yelling about being a swan?” Molotov shuddered with laughter. “I wish I could show you the YouTube video. Man, it was funny. He was a hot mess. He was buying everyone drinks, the whole damn casino, the crowds going wild, cheering fan-style. It was full Rockstar. He loved you so much it sent him crazy. The best kind of crazy. Crazy in love as my girl Beyoncé would say.”