by Isaac Hooke
“You know they weren’t actually T-Rexes, right?” Lui said. “But distant cousins of the creatures.”
“Yeah they were T-Rexes,” Bender said. “You wouldn’t know a T-Rex if it bit you in the face. Which, coincidentally, actually happened.”
“That wasn’t my face,” Lui said.
“Oh,” Bender said. “Your ass is growing teeth? My bad.”
“I’m still amazed by what we’ve learned,” Lui said. “As I said earlier, I knew they hunted in packs, but I never expected those packs to be so large. Doubly so, when counting the ambushers. It’s just crazy that something so large can move so quietly, with such stealth. I don’t think it’s something they developed naturally. I’m convinced they had to learn it, just as humans have to learn how to pad quietly through a forest. And they can communicate. Communicate! I’m just so damn flabbergasted by all of this. Never expected any of it.”
“No one did,” Harlequin said. “We’re time travelers now. Explorers of the last great unknown frontier.”
“Yes,” Lui said. “And what an amazing experience it is. This is why I’m an Argonaut, right here. New worlds. New aliens. And now time travel.”
“Check that off the bucket list, beyotches!” Bender said. “We’re the Argonauts. Your friendly time travelin’ dinosaur hunters. Wait till I tell your kids about this, boss. They’re never going to believe it.”
“Oh they’ll believe it all right,” Rade said. “They believe anything you tell them.”
“Have I ever done them wrong?” Bender asked innocently.
Before Rade could answer, Lui continued his excited recollection of the incident.
“And man,” Lui said. “Did you see the sheer ruthlessness with which those dinos hunted us, the cunning? It takes a strategic mind to plan an outflanking maneuver like that. They have to be at least as intelligent as dolphins. At least. Especially if they can communicate. Those squawks have to be a rudimentary form of language. They’re obviously apex predators. Those at the top of the food chain in the animal kingdom always end up being the most cunning, the most intelligent, and the most ferocious. Like humans.”
“Okay okay,” Fret said. “We get it. You’re enamored with dinosaurs.”
“I truly am,” Lui said. “These are what Chinese Dragons are based on. But I guess I’m gushing a bit too much, huh?”
“Just a little,” Fret said.
“Still,” Lui continued. “It makes you wonder what would have happened if the dinosaurs had survived their extinction level event.”
“We already know the answer to that,” Tahoe said. “All you have to do is return to our present timeline.”
“True enough,” Lui said. “Still, that would be so great if we could stay here and study these creatures.”
“I’d love to stay,” Rade said. “But we only have four hours left. Maybe we’ll plan a longer mission next time.”
The party proceeded eastward. Rade continually scanned his surroundings, searching for signs of Centurions or hostile dinosaurs. At the periphery of his vision he sometimes caught sight of smaller herds of herbivores, which always ran off.
“I’m still amazed at the raw intelligence,” Lui said. “Chalk it up to brain size, I guess.”
“Enough with the dinosaurs, already!” Fret said.
“Pocky-face, if brain size were the marker of intelligence,” Bender said. “Then whales would be flying in space.”
“Have you guys been seeing those herds in the distance?” Lui said, ignoring the comments. “There are so many different types of prey here. Just a profusion of prey. My guess is that these are the prime hunting grounds of these T-Rex cousins.”
“If it’s their prime hunting ground, then why bother attacking us, when other food is readily available?” Manic said.
“If they’re like certain animals that hunt in packs, then I’m guessing they didn’t take kindly to us invading their turf,” Lui said.
“Or maybe they wanted to hunt us for the novelty of it,” Bender said. “To see how we taste. That’s what I’d do if I were a dinosaur, and I saw something new waltzing into my hunting grounds.”
The party continued through the forest for the next twenty minutes until the trees finally opened up.
Rade stood on a cliff overlooking a vast valley. To the north, the land below formed a short savanna before transforming into a series of tree-covered foothills; Rade spotted a group of herbivores next to the tree line. They were huge quadrupeds whose long necks were able to reach the upper branches of the trees rimming the savanna. His Implant labeled them as Titanosauruses. He saw other herbivorous grazers of all shapes and sizes, some feathered, some not, roaming the grassland.
The view to the south was blocked, as the cliff jutted out past the current edge, forming a jagged ridge line covered in tall, sprawling vegetation.
“So what do we do now?” TJ said.
“How about we follow the big ship?” Manic said.
“What big ship?” Tahoe said.
Rade glanced at the overhead map and realized Manic had stepped through the tall trees that covered the jutting portion of the cliff to the south.
Rade moved past those trees, which soon parted. He found himself overlooking a previously hidden portion of the valley. A long plain stretched before him. In the distance, an immense golden vessel hovered right above the land, so huge that it stretched from horizon to horizon.
Silver, pod-like craft slowly moved through the air in front of it, herding a pack of quadrupeds toward a broad ramp that reached down from the ship to the plains. When the dinosaurs reached the ramp, they stampeded up it and into the ship.
“The hell is this bullshit?” Bender said. “Dinosaurs. And now aliens?”
Surus spoke over the comm. “My friends, meet the creators of the vast network of Slipstreams that worm throughout this region of space.”
eleven
What are you saying?” Rade asked Surus. “These are the Elder?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” she replied.
“You know, the ship vaguely reminds me of a giant Möbius strip,” Fret said.
Rade zoomed in. He realized Fret was right. The gold hull seemed to turn in upon itself, forming a continuous surface that twisted through one hundred and eighty degrees. In places that hull seemed translucent, and he thought he saw buildings inside, hinting at an entire alien city residing within.
“Incredible,” Lui said.
“Why are they capturing dinosaurs?” Harlequin asked.
As Rade watched, those small silver craft herded another group of herbivores from the plains toward the ramp.
“I’m not entirely sure,” Surus said. “Perhaps they are populating some interstellar menagerie? Filling it with strange and exotic beasts from planets across the galaxy?”
“Manic would fit right in,” Bender said.
“As would you,” Manic retorted.
“The Phant obviously came to this time period specifically because of that ship,” Rade said. “My guess is it intends to steal some key technological component. The Elder don’t exist in our present day, at least not in our galaxy, so the only way for the Phant to meet them was to travel back to a time when they were still present.”
“Though how did the Phant know the Elder were here visiting Earth, when even we didn’t know this?” TJ said.
“Perhaps the Phant discovered evidence of the Elder presence while it was on Earth placing the target Acceptor?” Surus said.
“Well, whatever technology the Phant acquired, it caused humanity to be wiped out,” Lui said.
“So what do we do?” Tahoe said. “Approach these Elder and identify ourselves? Or try to sneak inside their ship?”
“You’ll never sneak inside,” Surus said. “Even at this early point in time, the Elder are Tech Class IV, while you humans are Tech Class III.”
“But the Phant obviously did it,” Tahoe said. “Because those Elder down there don’t seem alarmed in any way.”
“Yes,” Surus said. “The Phant could have abandoned its robot host, and proceeded the rest of the way in its natural state, staying just below the surface of the planet until it reached the ramp, and then seeping directly into the metal.”
“The Elder wouldn’t have detected it?” Rade asked.
“No,” Surus said. “They will not develop systems to identify Phant intrusions for many millions of years.”
“Maybe Surus could sneak inside in her natural state?” Fret said.
“To what purpose?” Harlequin asked. “What we really need to do at this point is warn the Elder about the intruder, and work with them to help identify and disable that intruder.”
“I have to agree with Harlequin on this one,” Rade said. “We have to warn them they have an invader aboard who wants their technology. We’ll approach them. Slowly and carefully, with weapons firmly folded away.”
“What if they’re not all that receptive to our visit regardless of what we do with our weapons?” Fret said.
“Then we’ll deal with that when the time comes,” Rade said.
Rade swiveled the cobra mount out of his right arm, and retracted the shield in his left, so that he appeared unarmed. The others did likewise. Then they leaped from the cliff, activating their jumpjets to steer away from the rocky wall, and to cushion their landing on the savanna below.
The team members waded through the tall grass. Duck-billed hadrosaurs lifted their long, slender heads from the ground to eye the party warily. These huge herbivores were scaled, not feathered like the other dinosaurs the party had encountered; as the Hoplites passed, the dinosaurs continued chewing the grass that was in their mouths, and when they were sure the mechs meant no harm, they buried their heads in the vegetation once more.
“Hey Lui, grass buffet!” Bender said.
“Yeah, if I was a cow, I’d be in heaven,” Lui said.
“Kind of makes you wonder, with all these herbivores out here, how come the grass is so tall?” Manic said.
“Obviously, there are a few predators out here that interrupt them from time to time,” Tahoe said.
The party’s advance occasionally startled small herds of the dinosaurs, but most of them simply watched cautiously.
About a kilometer from the massive vessel, the team must have been spotted, because two of the silver pods swerved from their positions near the ship and came racing toward the Hoplites.
Rade halted and slowly raised his hands. “Show them we mean no harm.”
The other Hoplites lifted their arms in surrender as well.
The two pods halted twenty meters in front of the party. The pair hovered four meters above the ground, and had several long metal tentacles hanging down underneath that reached all the way to the ground. Some of those tentacles were so thin that they were mere threads that reflected light, while others were thick as human arms. The front part of the pod was covered in a glass hemisphere, revealing a glowing creature of light inside. Rade tried to autogate the photochromatic filter to better make out the occupant, but he still couldn’t discern any features.
“Glow bugs!” Bender said excitedly.
From the left and right sides of the pods, two menacing looking turrets folded outward.
“These pods are looking more and more like gunships,” Manic said.
“Keep your weapons retracted,” Rade said. “Let’s not give them a reason to fire on us. No one make any sudden movements.”
Tense moments passed. Rade had the impression the occupants of the pods were testing him and his team in some way.
Finally, a silvery tentacle on the leftmost pod floated upward toward the immense mothership behind them. Five diaphanous fingers on the tip spread apart, then four of them folded together, forming a fist of sorts, leaving one of the fingers pointing in the direction of the vessel.
“I think it wants us to proceed toward the ship,” Tahoe said.
“That would be a good assumption,” Harlequin said.
“Back talking AI,” Bender muttered.
“Argonauts, let’s advance,” Rade said. “Slowly. In single file. Manic, lead the way.”
Manic took point and slowly walked between the two pods.
Rade and the others followed in single file, and the two pods escorted them across the grass.
When they were closer to the ship, more pods joined the escort, so that there were a total of six alien craft, three on either side, by the time the team was climbing the ramp.
When they reached the ship, they found themselves inside a cavernous, rectangular-shaped, golden-hued compartment. The latest group of herbivores had arrived only moments before, and Rade saw the tail end vanish through a dark field ahead. It was as if the dinosaurs walked into a liquid wall and were veritably swallowed up.
“Who wants to bet that’s the airlock membrane tech we saw in use aboard the Mahasattva vessel in our last mission?” Manic said. “Stolen from the Elder.”
“An earlier version of it, at least,” Rade said.
The pods directed the party to the right, toward a different dark membrane. Manic approached, and paused about a meter before it. The surface seemed to ripple slightly, like a liquid.
“Boss?” Manic asked.
“Go ahead,” Rade said.
Manic stepped forward, vanishing beyond the membrane.
Rade glanced at his overhead map and saw that Manic’s blue dot remained in existence.
“Boss, do you read?” Manic’s voice came over the line. His words were badly distorted.
“I do,” Rade said.
“It’s safe,” Manic said. “I’m in, well... the best description is a city. I’m in a city. While the atmospheric pressure here is similar to our own, it’s completely unbreathable. We’ll definitely have to stay inside our mechs. Or in our jumpsuits, at minimum.”
“Well duh,” Bender said. “If you thought the possibility of contamination was bad before, it’s through the roof now, because we’re on a goddamn alien ship!”
“There is one little thing, though,” Manic said. “My cobra mounts and grenade launchers have gone offline.”
“What?” Rade said. “How?”
“I don’t know,” Manic said. “According to my AI, the systems failed when I passed through the membrane. But I ran a remote status check on the smaller, backup laser rifle in my storage compartment, and it’s still online.”
“How is that possible?” Rade said. “Given that the Elder have no idea how our weapon systems function.”
“These are some of the things that differentiate a Tech Class IV from a III,” Surus said. “Such as the ability to remotely deactivate weapons. However you are correct in assuming that they should have no knowledge of our weapon systems, considering this is the first time they have ever encountered humans.”
“Well, it’s a bit of a mystery then, isn’t it?” Rade said. He glanced at the waiting pods, which yet kept their gunship-style turrets aimed at the party, and sighed. “All right, let’s go.”
He and the other Argonauts stepped through the membrane.
Rade found himself standing on a street possessing a metallic gray-green hue, surrounded by randomly placed arches of different sizes, most of them massive, made of the same silvery material as the pods, though the surfaces were shot through with glowing white filaments that provided illumination. Black threads interconnected the buildings, like hairy barnacles draped over the rungs on the underside of a sea ship’s hull. Attached below the arches, stretching from the apexes to halfway down either side, sagged gelatinous yellow-orange structures. Rade thought he could see glowing shapes moving within those underlying formations.
“These bugs really need to follow a building code,” Bender said. “Feel like I’m in the Philippines, where the developers build whatever they want wherever they want.”
“I definitely don’t feel like I’m in the Philippines,” Manic said.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Bender said. “We’re missing the tiny version
s of Lui.”
“Racist!” Fret mocked.
“Cobra mounts are offline,” Electron reported. “And the grenade launcher seems to have lost power.”
“As expected, weapons are offline across the party,” Lui said. “But as when Manic passed through, the rifles in our storage compartments are still active, strangely enough.”
“That could be useful in a pinch,” Rade said.
Four more of the pods with the dangling tentacles were waiting inside to escort the party members. As usual, they were piloted by the glowing beings.
The pods led the Argonauts between the haphazardly placed arches, taking care to avoid the black threads that connected the buildings.
Rade occasionally saw silver-hulled machines, roughly the same size as the Hoplites, moving through those streets or resting between the arches. The machines appeared distinctly insect-like, reminding Rade of praying mantises from the way their large spiky forelegs appeared to be folded like hands in prayer. The bodies were divided into head, thorax and abdomen. On the head, long, bifurcated mandibles resided underneath golden, glowing eyes. Horned plates lined the abdomen and thorax, reminiscent of some of the dinosaurs Rade had seen outside. In addition to the forelimbs, the machines possessed four segmented legs, two on either flank, with sharp spikes protruding from the joint regions.
“Robot bugs!” Bender said. “My favorite! I want to squash them so bad...”
“Relax, Bender,” Rade said.
“I am relaxed,” Bender said. “I’m the most relaxed I’ve been in my entire life. Like a wound-up torsion spring waiting to have its release pressed.”
“Doesn’t sound relaxed to me,” Manic said.
“Titty lips, you don’t know the meaning of the word relaxed,” Bender said.
“Titty lips,” Manic said. “That’s a new one.”
The machines seemed to demonstrate a human-like curiosity, pausing to study the newcomers as they passed. The escorting pods paid the smaller robots no heed.
The party reached the far side of the vast compartment that contained the street, where the arches abutted against the towering grayish-green bulkhead. The two lead pods of the escort paused before one of those arches.
