Jet craned her neck and head, tried to see past the legs and bodies.
She couldn’t see much.
She heard another growl.
After that, what sounded like high-pitched barks.
She saw Nirreth heads turn, necks craning to watch something approach. She heard excited Nirreth laugh in that sharp, deep way of theirs, and make approving sounds as they watched whatever it was get closer.
Some held up fingers, as if indicating numbers.
Jet also heard shocked gasps of delight, and more intense conversations in their lyrical tongue, especially from those closest to the sounds of the larger animal.
Another low growl erupted from behind the crowd.
It was followed immediately by an angry hiss.
Jet didn’t recognize either sound. She couldn’t picture the animal that might be making those noises, but felt her pulse rise regardless.
“Give me my sword,” she said, turning to Richter. “I need my sword!”
Richter chuckled. “You won’t need it for this, little girl.”
She wished she had that woman’s bell-shaped glass, if only so she could throw it at his head. She hated the smirk on his face even more than the condescension in his voice.
“I can’t fight like this!” Jet said angrily, shaking the hand and wrist with the chain.
Richter only smiled, glancing at Laksri next to him.
Laksri was staring directly at her face, his dark eyes concentrated.
He seemed to be studying her every move, but Jet couldn’t tell if it was because he thought she was in danger, or if he just found her fear fascinating for some reason. Either way, he didn’t attempt another of those imitation smiles that contorted his face.
“My sword!” she demanded, looking at Laksri and holding out her hand. “Give me my sword!”
The blue-skinned giant’s expression didn’t move.
“You’ll fight,” Richter told her. “Never fear.”
“I won’t––” Jet began.
But Richter went on, his voice just as smug, as if she hadn’t said anything at all.
“You’ll fight, or we’ll skin your little boyfriend alive. When he’s good and bloodied, we’ll feed him to one of their bigger pets… something that really likes to take its time. Something that might keep him alive for a while, just for fun.”
“You wouldn’t kill him!” Jet growled, glaring at him. “Once he’s dead, you have nothing on me.”
“After you’re sold, I don’t need anything on you,” Richter retorted. “Are you really this dense, Jet? You’re a slave now. You have no power here. And they’ll never run out of pets, or human boys to skin, or ways to make your life a living hell. There’s no way to fight them and win. There’s nothing to rebel against, not anymore. That time is over.”
Frowning at her, he added darkly,
“I’d try to make a good impression, if I were you. It’s not me I say that for, love. You’re only going to make your life miserable if you fight this now. You’ve been culled. You belong to the Nirreth now. It’s too late.”
Jet felt her stomach sink.
Everything in his words felt true.
Funny that he decided to say them now.
He motioned towards the aisle, his mouth lifting in another half-smile.
“…It’s sweet you care about the boy. But you got your own skin to worry about now. Just do what comes natural. Like you did with Laksri here,” he added, clapping the tall Nirreth on the shoulder.
Jet felt her jaw slowly clench as he spoke.
Her teeth ground down hard enough, she couldn't answer.
Then the animal she’d heard from behind the crowd let out another series of high-pitched, harsh barks.
Her eyes followed the sound.
Once she saw it, she couldn’t look away.
It was an animal.
Some kind of animal.
Four Nirreth controlled it, containing the tall, bipedal creature with a number of thick poles and chains. Whatever the thing was, Jet had never seen anything like it––not in the books, vids, posters, or any of the models depicting Earth animals back at the settlement.
The closest might have been dragons.
She’d seen dragons in old paintings on fantasy books, but she always thought they weren’t real, that they were just a story.
The animal in front of her now stretched almost twice the height of a full-grown Nirreth. Rather than midnight blue, it shone a paler, greenish-gray color with thick skin, decorated with violent streaks of red and yellow. The Nirreth had the creature chained at the neck, and also one of its massive hind legs, forcing it to shuffle as it walked.
It screamed as she stared at it, whipping its head back and forth, wrenching its neck and head against the chain. Its tail whipped back and forth as it yanked its leg against the second restraint, and it let out more of those growling barks, opening its long mouth.
No, she definitely hadn’t seen a picture of one of those in any of the nature books strewn around the settlement or tacked on the walls. She couldn't recall ever having heard of one like it, either, described by any of the old-timers or rebels. Rebels who claimed to have knowledge of the Green Zones, or who claimed to have seen intel or images depicting the Nirreth’s home world, had never mentioned a creature like this.
Still, there was something strangely familiar about the thing that made her doubt that perception, too.
It really did look like an ugly kind of dragon.
The thing hissed, letting out another of those strange, barking cries. It lunged against the chains, and one of the Nirreth lost its balance, nearly going down on one knee before another Nirreth pulled him back, helping him to control the animal with the pole and chain.
Jet could have sworn the thing lunged at her, pretty much the second she lowered her hand. It seemed to know, somehow, she was its final destination.
Perhaps because it had eaten slaves like her before.
“What is it?” Jet shouted, aiming the question at Richter.
She didn’t look away from the creature as she said it, or tear her eyes off its muscular tail, or the large, craggy head. Its boulder-like skull swiveled on a muscular neck, oversized and seeming to nearly throw the beast off balance.
Jet had no illusions about how strong the thing was. She watched muscles glide and writhe under its thick skin as it balanced on clawed feet and bulging hind legs.
Once more straining against the chains, it gave another of those barking cries, turning its head to stare at her directly with one eye.
“What is it?” she said again, louder.
Her voice trembled.
Even though she didn’t look at him, or at anything but the creature’s rock-like head, Richter seemed to know her words were meant for him.
“Same thing you ate for lunch, sweetness,” he said, his voice a smile.
He laughed when she turned, winking when she gave him a brief stare.
“You should feel lucky, sweetheart. They obviously think a lot of you. That's a bona fide T-Rex you're looking at. A baby, of course… but still. Nothing to sneeze at. That was the king of the jungle long before humans made their appearance on this world. Seems kind of fitting now, don’t it?”
Jet only stared at him, unable to find a context for his words.
If he noticed her puzzlement, he didn’t bother to comment on it.
“They figured out how to clone extinct species from our stored bio-samples and fossils a few years back,” he explained, as if that was the relevant point right then. “They’ve got all kinds of extinct animals running around their sanctuaries these days, love. They raise the ones they like to eat to be butchered. Others, they use for sport.”
Grinning, he inclined his head towards the tall, lizard-like animal.
“Turns out, Rex-y here is good for both.”
Jet stared at the thing, which stood at least three times taller than she did.
“What is a…”
“T-Rex,
” Richter supplied unhelpfully, smiling.
“But what is it?” she said, ignoring his smirking humor. “Where does it come from? Are you seriously saying this is an Earth animal?”
“Stands for Tyrannosaurus Rex, darling. It’s a dinosaur. You heard of dinosaurs, right? This one is a baby, like I said. Well… adolescent, I suppose. They get bigger, is my point. Quite a bit bigger, as I recall.”
When Jet stared at him incredulously, Richter motioned up at the animal.
“They knocked all its bigger teeth out so it can’t hurt you too bad that way. But I’d still avoid getting bit… that jaw is even stronger than it looks. I’d also keep an eye out for that tail, if I were you. Oh… and it likes to head-butt people, if I recall. That might be a quirk of this particular animal. But it got a bit ugly, the last time they used this guy for a demo. So you might want to watch out for that, too––”
“It's a… a… dinosaur?” Jet mouthed the unfamiliar word, still staring up at the bipedal, lizard-looking thing. She felt faint-headed. “Like in story books?”
“Story books?” Richter snorted, his voice turning disgusted. “Jesus. What the hell kind of education have you had, girl? They have witch doctors teaching school in that skag pit where you were born?”
Jet didn’t waste the mental power trying to answer that.
Her eyes were back on the T-Rex.
She watched its tail whip around, nearly catching another of its handlers by surprise. The Nirreth leapt out of the way, just in time, even as the Nirreth holding the chain on the other side yanked on the young T-Rex to throw it off balance.
The creature turned, hissing at the one who pulled it back, as if angry the Nirreth spoiled its fun. It swiveled its head back around to hiss at another Nirreth when the third one handling its chains yanked hard on its head.
Between the four of them, they got it under control again.
They walked it deeper into the room, controlling its head with the use of those long, metal rods.
They led it to the center of the clearing by the canal.
The same clearing where Jet stood.
Without being told, the ring of humans and Nirreth widened, giving the baby T-Rex and its handlers plenty of space.
The high-ceilinged room had abruptly transformed into a coliseum.
Jet was about to ask Richter something else, when the four Nirreth guards stopped.
They began stepping back, nearly in unison, pulling the chains and metal poles taut. They adjusted their positions meticulously, until they all seemed to stand in formation, all equidistant from the young dinosaur, with the one closest to its head pushing forward so the top-heavy creature was forced to aim its massive jaws slightly up, towards the ceiling.
The unnatural position seemed to throw the creature off balance, and make it hard for the T-Rex to follow its handlers with its eyes.
At some kind of signal, they each released their end of their pole and leapt back, rejoining the ring of Nirreth and humans around Jet and the dinosaur.
The instant they reached safe distance, the poles and chains abruptly came undone.
They fell to ground beside the dinosaur’s muscular hind legs.
Jet watched a blue, sparking light rise up from the floor. It glided up like water, letting off a charge of current that raised the hair on Jet's arms, reaching the ceiling in seconds.
She looked at Richter a last time, but he only shrugged.
Lifting his glass in a toast, he quirked an eyebrow, pointing meaningfully at the dinosaur with the same hand holding the glass.
“Go get ‘em, tiger,” he smiled.
The dinosaur picked that moment to let out a honest-to-goodness roar.
Maybe because Jet was now trapped with it, inside what looked like a high-voltage security cage, that roar sounded a lot more menacing than the barks and growls she’d heard before.
Her eyes slid up to take in the size of the thing.
It looked a hell of a lot bigger now.
The T-Rex didn’t appear to have many teeth in its mouth, as Richter said, but she could see the weight of that skull clearly enough. Strange, useless-looking hands hung in front of its body, like a birth defect, or like they’d shriveled from some disease.
Those hands had ugly, swollen fingers with claws at the end.
On the even-less-encouraging side, the claws on its hind feet looked functional enough.
Jet was a lot more worried about those. The powerful muscles of its haunches and lower legs, and even the fingers of its lower claws, combined with the graceful slide of joints, struck her as both menacing and mechanically precise.
That didn’t even get into the thick, snake-like tail.
Despite the lack of teeth, and those weird, useless-looking hands, the thing’s size alone was enough to give Jet pause.
It was… impressively large.
Jet tried to guess its weight and had to guess at maybe eight hundred pounds. At that weight, it could simply step on her and kill her. It could break her back, her neck, a leg. One of those massive feet could crush her bones to powder.
One whack of that long tail could easily snap her spine.
Jet took a last glance around at her audience.
She saw them all watching her, a great deal of interest on their faces.
Jet noticed Richter talking to one of the Nirreth, seemingly arguing with the tall male through Laksri. It took her a second to recognize the angular face, the gold-flecked eyes. It was Trazen, the one Richter called “Ringmaster.”
She couldn't hear any of their words––not like it would have mattered.
The force field let out a crackling hum, muddying the sound inside and outside the arena, pushing her captive audience further away. Jet could still hear some things––the canal, the dinosaur itself, her own panting breaths, the force-field, even snatches of Nirreth laughter and voices, but it all sounded muffled, far away.
The T-Rex took a step towards her.
When Jet turned, the creature was lowering its head. It angled that massive, boulder-like skull downwards, so that its body formed a nearly horizontal line, its tail making low, slow sweeps, possibly for balance, or possibly because, like a cat, it just liked to do that before it killed something.
Jet wondered if the Nirreth bred the T-Rexes because they had tails.
Maybe they got off on seeing something that could have been one of their ancestors beating up on the ancestor of a tree monkey?
Otherwise, why resurrect something from so long ago? Why not just use one of the big cats from old Earth? Or a bear? A pack of wolves?
Whatever their exact reasoning, it didn't matter.
Nothing mattered, not anymore.
When Jet took a step backwards, it leapt.
13
Baby Dragon
Jet reacted without thought, throwing herself down on her back and rolling.
She moved so fast she didn’t have time to feel relieved when the T-Rex hurtled overhead.
She heard muffled cries, shouts, and hisses through the force-field walls.
She heard laughter when the T-Rex crashed into the force-field wall behind her.
The creature collided with the blue and white energy with a LOUD cracking, sizzling crash that briefly deafened her. The sheer volume disoriented her enough that she craned her head backwards, looking to see what happened.
The creature pulled itself off the force-field, roaring in pain.
Jet imagined she smelled the faint odor of burnt dinosaur.
It really did smell like her lunch.
The young dinosaur continued to back off the wall, letting out angry, fearful, barking cries, interspersed with growls. From the sounds it made, the animal sounded hurt and indignant, as if it viewed crashing into the wall as deeply unfair.
The laughter grew into a cheer.
Jet was still moving.
She rolled over, forgetting the chains and getting briefly tangled in the metal links tying her ankle to her left wrist. She di
dn’t wait to untangle it but scrambled to her feet, her eyes still on the giant lizard. She began moving away slowly, hoping to keep its attention off her for a little while longer.
Only then did she look down, uncoiling the chain from around her ankle, making sure it didn’t wrap the wrong way around her calf.
If she tripped on the damned thing at the wrong time, she was dead.
The young T-Rex was still staring at the wall, its tail in the air behind its thick haunches. Jet couldn’t help thinking the thing still looked confused, and now, even more angry. It still seemed to be trying to figure out what hurt it, how it might punish the offending party.
In any case, it seemed to have lost interest in her, temporarily at least.
Jet stayed by the wall, as close as she dared as she backed away.
The bare skin of her arms skimmed so close to the field, the hairs on her arms and the back of the neck rose, tingling her skin.
She could only hope the dinosaur was either too stupid to know the wall might kill it, or smart enough to figure out the wall shouldn’t be touched. If it knew to avoid the blue-white light, the creature might hesitate before it lunged at her again.
On the other hand, the wall might prove to be her best weapon.
She might even be able to lure it into battering itself to death.
Or barbecuing itself.
Jet watched warily as the young T-Rex stretched up to its full height.
It brought its face closer to the blue and white sparking field, almost like it was sniffing the current. It was still making odd, blowing noises, punctuated by lower growls and lowing sounds. Jet might have thought it was whimpering, but the sounds were too deep and off-key. It paused to stare at the wall a last time with one dark eye, then stepped deeper into the arena and away from that sizzling light.
Once it reached a body length from the offending current, the T-Rex whipped its tail back around behind its diagonal body, shaking its large, craggy head like an oversized dog on its hind legs. When it focused on Jet that time, it lowered its head aggressively, making one of those thick, barking cries.
Jet looked around the space, feeling her heart rate spike.
The Complete Alien Apocalypse Series (Parts I-IV Plus Bonus Novella): An Apocalyptic, Romantic, Science Fiction, Alien Invasion Adventure Page 13
