He knelt down, placing the palms of his hands flat against the hull, and began taking slow, deep breaths. He could sense the bugs starting to close in on him like prowling lions, but he did not move. Instead, he closed his eyes and focused only on breathing.
Then his whole body tensed.
The entire surface of the Akira flared with blinding blue-white light. Everything except the General was engulfed in lightning, and the bugs burst into brilliant multicolored flames.
The Akira gently rocked from side to side, just enough to allow gravity to pull the burning exoskeletons down into the water.
After a few seconds, the light faded, and the few Herc-Rhinos that remained in the air turned tail and fled.
The Akira ceased its rocking and resumed its journey, no worse for wear in the wake of the attack.
X landed beside the General, who staggered as he stood. Such huge bursts of energy were taxing for him, hence why he only used them as a last resort.
“You all right?” X said, a loud crack emanating from his shoulders as he rolled them. He offered an arm for support.
Tsujimori accepted the offer as he nodded. “I could use some tea.”
They walked back to the elevator which had brought them there.
“I could’ve taken all of those ugly buggers by myself, you know,” X said as the guns folded and retracted back into his sleeves.
Tsujimori shrugged as he smiled wryly at his fighting partner. “I would love to see you try, gaijin. You’d be begging for my help after two minutes.”
CHAPTER 5
“To think,” Ned Topol proclaimed as he stepped off the inflatable raft and onto the sandy shoreline, “we’re the first people in history to set foot on the island of Rabu Nii!”
His companion, Jim Worth, dragged the raft onto the beach. “By which, you naturally mean the first westerners,” he replied. “Don’t forget, the natives on the neighboring islands have tales about this place.”
Ned scoffed. “Myths, you mean.”
The tropical island of Rabu Nii had only recently been discovered among the islands which collectively comprised Oceania. It had been rumored to exist for years, but had never been found on any official maps. Both Ned and Jim were part of an expedition funded by Scientific Britannica to explore it. Theirs was the first raft from the good ship Delta to reach the shore.
Jim took his camera from his knapsack and began snapping pictures of the coast and the dense green jungle, which rose up suddenly some fifty feet from the water. “You don’t believe the stories? I thought folklorist was among the many credentials you like bragging about.”
Ned shrugged. “Do I think some natives wound up here for one reason or another? Sure. Why not?” He checked his compass, more out of habit than for any real practical reason. “Do I think their greatest heroes came here to fight dragons as some coming-of-age ritual? Heck no. Dragons aren’t real.”
“What about the ones on Komodo?” Jim smirked.
“Those aren’t literal dragons, and you know it!” Ned fired back playfully. Jim always nitpicked his words like that. It was a habit which went back to their university days. “Getting back to the battle of semantics, fine, I’ll correct myself. We’re the first westerners to set foot here.” He glanced back in the Delta’s direction. The second inflatable raft, which carried both the interns and the equipment, was still floating about halfway between the ship and the shore. “What do you think the holdup is? I thought they were right behind us.”
Jim smiled. “Probably Barbara getting seasick again. Remember how often she tossed her cookies on the way here?”
The pair shared a laugh at the intern’s misfortune which was interrupted by a thunderous BOOM! from the jungle that shook the ground, knocking them over.
While Jim let out a string of startled exclamations and shocked quandaries as to what had just happened, Ned’s attention was drawn back to the water.
The second raft was gone.
Had it sunk? No, that made no sense. It was an inflatable raft, and it had been intact just a moment ago. He had never heard of an inflatable raft just sinking like a stone, and even if it had, where were the occupants and equipment? They were close enough to shore that the water was not especially deep, so they should have been visible.
Any other thoughts were pushed aside when he saw a massive black hump break the surface where the raft had been, visible only for a moment before vanishing underwater again, causing hardly so much as a ripple as it went.
He rubbed his eyes as confusion set in. He tried to figure out what he had just seen. Was it a dolphin? He dismissed the thought immediately. Too big, wrong color, and no dorsal fin. An orca, perhaps? Again, no fin, not to mention that orcas were not native to these waters.
The hump resurfaced, farther away, moving towards the Delta.
“Jim,” he said, tapping the photographer on the shoulder. “Point that camera of yours at the water. There’s something crazy out there.”
“Can’t be any crazier than what I’m seeing.”
The awestruck quiver in Jim’s brief reply spoke volumes. Ned turned, and was rendered silent by a vision of dinosaurs.
He blinked his eyes, but this changed nothing. The dinosaurs were still there.
Well, they were like dinosaurs, at least. Despite his many credentials, dinosaurs had never been his speciality, but these creatures had the right features for him to identify some of the species before him. Triceratops, Stegosaurus, T-rex, Raptor…and that was as far as his knowledge extended. He did not recognize any of the others from any books or movies he had seen in the past.
Come to think of it, he barely even recognized the ones he could identify. They were bigger than he expected, probably bigger than most scientists would say was accurate, and the details looked all wrong in ways he could not quite put his finger on.
Strangest of all was how the creatures encircled them as they marched from the jungle to the beach. It made no sense. This group before him appeared to be a mix of carnivores and herbivores, which would make them natural enemies. They should have been fighting amongst themselves, but they moved as one collective pack as they stalked from the jungle to the beach.
In fact, their collective attention was focused on Ned and Jim.
Ned gulped nervously. The way the dinosaurs were glaring at him and Jim put him on edge. Their eyes conveyed menace, something far more intense than hunting or territorialism, and the sentiment chilled his heart.
He fought the urge to wipe the sweat from his eyes lest a sudden movement spook the creatures into attacking. “Those are…” Disbelief stopped the words in his throat, but he forced them out. “Those are dinosaurs…”
“No kidding…” Jim said, his voice conveying an equal sense of disbelief.
“What should we do?” Ned whispered as he blinked his eyes dry of sweat.
“What makes you think I know how to act around a bunch of bloody dinosaurs?” Jim snapped back. He was clearly trying not to panic, but he was just barely succeeding in that regard.
Ned tried not to take the sharp reply personally, but terrified urgency colored his tone as well. “They’re animals, right? You’ve photographed dangerous animals before. So what did you do when things got like…well, like this?” He glanced at the camera. “Would a flash from that thing spook them?”
“It might. Or it might just tick them off.”
“Well, give me something to work with!”
Jim tried to think, which proved difficult while staring at animals that should have been extinct. “First of all, no sudden movements.”
“Really? No fooling?” Ned snapped sarcastically in his fear.
Jim sighed furiously, but chose to let it go. “Back slowly towards the raft with me. They might recognize our intent to leave.”
An image of the mysterious black hump flashed through Ned’s mind. “I’m not sure the water is much safer, Jim.”
“That’s where the Delta is.”
“Point taken.”
<
br /> Moving together, Ned and Jim slowly backed towards the raft, but only got two steps before a new creature froze them in place once more.
The latest beast to arrive towered over the trees like a Titan from Greek mythology, standing in a slightly-hunched but still upright stance. In the most general sense, the beast looked like a Tyrannosaurus, or maybe an Allosaurus. It was a theropod dinosaur of some sort, but a hundred times bigger than anything in the museums or on the beach. Its light brown skin was rough like alligator hide. Its arms were long enough to appear useful, but were still small compared to the rest of it, and the hands each had two fingers and an opposable thumb. A shimmering ivory horn jutted from the snout, its ruddy tip indicating it as a weapon that saw a lot of use in battle.
The behemoth scrutinized the humans with intelligent eyes, its low growl vibrating through the air to still the beating of their hearts.
“We’re screwed,” Ned whimpered.
“Maybe not,” replied Jim, although he was not sure he believed it himself. “Animals only attack when threatened. We’ve done nothing to provoke them.”
Ned stared into the towering monster’s eyes, and saw an emotion he had seen before, though mostly in horror movies, and never from a reptile.
It was hatred. Pure, unfettered hatred.
The enormous monster roared. It was a piercing, malevolent sound, and though it might have been his imagination, to Ned’s ears, it held authority, like a wordless command.
The dinosaurs on the beach charged.
No point in being cautious now.
He ran.
A scream drew Ned’s attention, and he turned to see Jim impaled on the tail spikes of a Stegosaurus. He did not see what happened after that. In all certainty, Jim was dead. Ned’s focus was to save himself now.
Getting the raft in the water would slow him down, and his glance back at Jim had revealed a raptor was closing in on him fast. His only hope was something he was not even sure would work. He remembered reading somewhere that most dinosaurs could not swim, and thus avoided entering the water. Of course, it was just a theory. Before today, no scientist had ever seen a living dinosaur or how it reacted to water.
If ever there was a time to test this idea, it was now.
Exerting as much energy as he could, he charged past the raft and continued right into the water, switching clumsily from running to swimming when he stumbled a few feet out.
Ned heard roaring behind him, but it did not sound like it was drawing any closer to him.
Despite the risk, he paused and looked back to the shore.
All of the dinosaurs had stopped at the water’s edge, snarling, roaring, and snapping their jaws at him as if they were scolding him for not playing fair.
Thrilled by both his victory and the adrenaline pumping through his veins, Ned laughed triumphantly. “Suckers!” he shouted. “What’s wrong, you bunch of cowards? Scared of a little water? Too delicate to get your feet wet?” He splashed water at them. “No wonder you sorry geckos went extinct!”
The roaring grew louder and angrier, almost as if the dinosaurs had understood his insult. Part of Ned thought that was impossible, but a few minutes ago, he thought an island where dinosaurs still lived was equally impossible.
So many thoughts were sailing through his mind as he floated in the water. He had survived, but Jim was dead. Nobody would believe him, unless someone on the Delta had seen what had happened. How would he even get back to the Delta? He was not sure he could swim the distance, and he could not use the raft until the beach was clear of danger.
He refocused his attention on the largest of the beasts, whom he now believed was the dinosaurs’ leader. Given how big it was, there was nothing to stop it from wading out and scooping him up in its jaws, yet it had not moved so much as an inch toward him.
He realized the giant’s expression had changed. Ned was not used to seeing emotions on reptilian faces, so it took a moment to figure out what it was.
Smugness?
The creaking of metal drew Ned’s attention to the ship, and his heart sank.
Something that looked like a massive snake was wrapping itself around the Delta, the sinewy coils crushing it the way a python crushes its prey. Behind it, some impossibly large beast covered in smooth silver scales rose from the waves. It might have been a barracuda, based on the head, but it had arms like some kind of dragon.
Then the black hump reappeared in front of him, followed by a spray of water and a flash of white daggers.
CHAPTER 6
“That. Was. AMAZING!!!” Richard shouted when he saw X and the General, unable to contain his stunned excitement. Despite his desire to remain professional, he could not deny the thrill surging through him in the wake of the battle he had just witnessed.
Nancy had led him from the observation deck to the secure elevator to greet the supermen who had defeated the swarm. In the time it had taken to get there, Richard had become more and more amazed by what he had seen. His excitement was surpassed only by that of Chakra, who had immediately clung like a bur to X’s sleeve the moment she saw him, much to his mild embarrassment.
“You two killed those bugs like…well, like bugs!” he continued. “The lightning, and the flying through the air with the guns… I- I’ve never seen any human being do stuff like that before!”
“Then you haven’t been paying very close attention to your surroundings,” General Tsujimori replied, his tone as casual as if he were a white collar man come home from working at the factory.
“I need details!” Richard held out the recording stick like a microphone. “What’s it like to use your powers? How do they work? Is there-?”
“Incoming transmission,” said a mechanical voice on the intercom. “Source: Groom Lake. Message Level: Priority One.”
“Oh, great,” X sighed angrily.
His misery was echoed by the General. In fact, everyone except Richard seemed irritated to hear the announcement.
The super soldiers left for the conference room. Chakra had released X’s arm immediately, knowing better than to cling when such a call came through. She slumped against the wall, grumbling something about the mood being killed before slinking away. Captain Catigiri left in the opposite direction of his superiors.
“Why’s everyone so glum all of a sudden?” Richard asked.
Nancy began walking down the hall, motioning for Richard to follow. “Only one person ever calls from Groom Lake these days, and that’s Michael Sun, our official liaison between the Red Dragons and the US government.”
“What the heck is Groom Lake?”
Nancy’s eyes went wide as she stopped dead in her tracks, like someone who had arrived at a fancy vacation spot only to remember she had left the oven on at home. “Oh shoot!” she quietly exclaimed to herself. It took her a moment to formulate an answer. “Um… I’m afraid that’s one of the few things I can’t tell you, Richard.” She smiled apologetically. “Let’s just say Uncle Sam wants it kept secret. For now, anyway. So please just forget you heard that, all right? Trust me, it’s not a door you want to open.”
Richard’s instincts told him that there was actually one heck of a juicy story connected to this Groom Lake, whatever it was, but Nancy’s tone and expression told him that it would have to wait. He silently filed the name away, and turned his line of questioning back to more immediate subjects. “Okay, how about this, then. You still haven’t told me what this Red Dragon organization is all about, beyond killing giant bugs, that is.”
“I haven’t? Really?” Nancy thought back over what she had told Richard thus far, and realized that, indeed, she had not told him. “Well darn, I guess you’re right. Let’s fix that, then. You change out of your PJs and we’ll get some breakfast-to-go in the cafeteria.”
“To go? Why?”
“Because the archival footage isn’t in the cafeteria.”
“So nobody saw the fight?” Michael Sun asked, his stern glare flickering on one of the many screens within the pr
ivate conference room.
General Tsujimori pinched the bridge of his nose as if he were getting a headache, which, given the conversation, he was on the cusp of. “For the hundredth time, no, Michael-san. We’re the only ship for miles around.”
“You checked?”
“If there were any other ships nearby, the bugs got to them first. We received no distress calls, and got no radar contacts before the bugs showed up. Believe me, no one saw anything they weren’t meant to.”
X crossed his arms over his chest. “There’s something else you’re calling about, isn’t there, Mike?”
“What else could it possibly be?” Michael leaned back in his chair, his unmistakably accusatory gaze unwavering. “We keep secrets from the public, not each other.” His eyebrows arched towards the heavens. “Right?”
A faint red glare shimmered in X’s glowing eyes as they narrowed. “I don’t especially like your tone today, Mike.”
Michael’s voice was very sharp as he responded. “So what? Operation Red Dragon is a secret clandestine organization the public doesn’t know about, and we all want it to stay that way, don’t we?” He tapped his finger on his desk. “You two would never do anything to compromise that secrecy, would you?”
X’s reply was even sharper in tone. “I also don’t appreciate what you’re implying.”
“My job is to make sure this conspiracy stays a conspiracy, X, and I take my job very seriously, unlike you freaks gallivanting around the world playing superhero. Don’t forget, while you’re off globetrotting on that giant cigar case you call a ship, I’m back here on the mainland with politicians breathing down my neck, expecting solid reasons to not step in and run this group the way they want to run it.”
“Is there anything else?” Tsujimori asked, desperate to end the conversation. “Because there had really better be something else.”
Michael shot X a final dirty look before answering. “I need an update on where the big ones are.”
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