The laughter grew into a cheer.
Jet was still moving.
She rolled over and over, getting tangled in the chain tying her left ankle to her left wrist. She didn't wait to untangle it but climbed to her feet, backing away from the dinosaur slowly, hoping to keep its attention off her for a little while longer. Only then did she look down, and make sure the chain didn't wrap the wrong way around her calf.
The baby T-Rex was still staring at the wall, its tail in the air behind the thick haunches. Jet couldn't help thinking the thing looked confused, and a little angry. It was as if it was still trying to figure out what had hurt it, and 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 skimming so close to the energy field that the hairs on her arms and the back of the neck rose, standing on their own and 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 that the wall shouldn't be touched. If it knew to avoid the wall, it might make the thing hesitate before it lunged at her again.
On the other hand, if the T-Rex was too dumb to hesitate, the wall might prove to be her best weapon. She might eventually lure it into battering itself to death...or barbecuing itself, whichever came first.
Either way, the wall had obviously hurt it.
Jet watched warily as the baby dino stretched up to its fully height on its hind legs. It brought its face closer to the blue and white sparking field, almost like it was sniffing the current. The baby T-Rex was still making odd, blowing noises, punctuated by lower 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 wall.
Once it was 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 once more, making one of those thick, barking cries.
Jet looked around the space, feeling her heart rate spike again.
The arena inside the containment field was maybe a hundred feet long, in a rough oval that was another seventy or eighty feet wide. The force fields went all the way up to the ceiling from where they emerged from the floor. Other than a segment of the stone table where she'd eaten lunch, all of the furniture had been magically moved out of the contained space as well. The canal in the middle of the room ran through one segment of the arena...seeing it there gave Jet a brief flush of hope. It struck her that the canal itself might be her only real hope of getting out of this alive.
The longer she examined the canal, the more that hope dimmed, though.
For one thing, it was a lot wider than she'd realized while staring at it idly through lunch. The force field left a tiny ledge of floor on the other side, so she could potentially try to avoid the T-Rex there...but being trapped there might also get her killed. She didn't know how T-Rexes felt about water, exactly, but she suspected it wouldn't prove to be an insurmountable barrier. The canal itself was wide enough that the baby T-Rex could follow her in. The water also seemed to be stopped inside the force fields on either side, running in a stagnant pool from one edge of the force-field to the other, so she couldn't even swim to safety.
She really could get trapped in there.
In any case, it didn't feel like a good Plan A.
Her eyes continued to roam the space, looking for something else.
The potted plants, those ornately carved chairs and all of the decorative tables and divan-like couches had all been moved out of harm's way. In fact, they must have marked out the space beforehand pretty specifically, since most of them seemed to be right outside the force field walls. The Nirreth and human servants must have been doing that while the others were bringing the dinosaur out. They'd done it all quietly and efficiently, just like they had when they cuffed her wrist to her ankle with that chain. At the time, Jet had had the fleeting thought that they acted like they were dressing a dog.
All part of the preparation for the big after-dinner show.
Still, Jet knew a little about the Nirreth. Enough to hope that she wasn't out of options yet, at least not totally. There had to be something in here she could use. The Nirreth wouldn't just put her in here with nothing; they liked a good fight, a fight with blood and weapons and uncertainty as to the outcome. They liked to gamble. They liked to match up brawn with brains, agility and speed with size and strength. They liked to wager on qualities as much as individuals...and on physical and mental traits they personally preferred.
It was what made the Rings such a smash hit when the humans first designed them to entertain their Nirreth hosts...basing them on the old bloodsports Earthlings had been inflicting on one another for millennia.
In any case, there had to be something here. Something Jet could use.
The Nirreth would soon get bored if this 'demonstration' consisted of her hugging the wall and running around the baby dinosaur in a giant circle for the next hour. Anyway, if that's all this was, it was only a matter of time before Jet tripped on the chain or made some other fatal mistake. All it would take is once. The T-Rex just needed to knock into her once...smack her with its tail or crush one of her limbs under a clawed toe. If the hit was hard enough and direct enough, it would be all over.
If the Nirreth wanted to kill her that pointlessly, they would have come up with something more creative. They would have given Black back to her so she could carve a few stripes in that lizard flesh...spill some blood before it took her out.
The sea of faces watching through the force-field was distracting. Most of those faces looked excited now. Jet heard the murmurs grow louder when the T-Rex began stalking towards her again, more cautiously that time. Its tail remained out nearly horizontal behind it, and again somehow reminded Jet more of a cat than a lizard. She found herself looking from its head to its tail, almost in reflex, when the creature made a series of long, leaping strides forward...strides that were more like jumps, and that trembled the floor with each impact.
Jet got ready to drop again when it got close enough, to try and run around it, when the T-Rex whipped its tail around unexpectedly, leaping the final distance to where she stood.
Jet moved fast...faster than her brain could follow. She leapt backwards and up to avoid that muscular tail, luckily away from the force field, not into it. She managed to get most of the way out of the tail's range...when the very edge of that hard, leathery muscle caught her in the thighs as it swung around.
Letting out a gasp of surprised pain, Jet found herself flying.
She seemed to travel a long ways.
She landed hard...on her side, the wind knocked out of her. Her leg felt like it was on fire, already swelling under the pain of the smack from that hard edge. Jet looked around, gasping and dazed. She was all the way across the arena from where she'd been standing. She clutched her leg, still fighting for breath, staring around where she was.
The canal was too far away for her to try hiding in there.
Unfortunately, so was the force field wall. The baby dinosaur wasn't as stupid as she'd hoped. It had wanted her away from the wall. It got her there, too. Jet was now sprawled somewhere towards the center of the arena-like space.
She didn't wait, but immediately began to crawl towards the stone table, the only object near enough to afford her some small protection. As she dragged her body forward, she fought to pull herself to her feet, as well. Pain throbbed down the length of her leg and up her back on the first try. It brought a rush of adrenaline, along with the fear that she'd broken something...or maybe cracked something in her spine.
But at the second try she knew she hadn't.
She was moving. Her leg held weight. It hurt...a lot...but it didn
't buckle or crumple when she got to her feet, agonizingly slow. It burned less as she shuffle-limped-walked, fighting to get to that stone table, like somehow once she got there everything would be okay. The table gave her something to aim for, a goal, throwing that part of her into adrenaline-fueled purpose.
Jet could feel the part of her that was in shock, too. That part of her couldn't believe that she'd just been knocked on her face by a dinosaur...but it didn't slow her down. She never stopped moving. In fact, everything happened pretty fast, although that didn't occur to her until later. She'd been laying there. Then she'd been up on one knee, then on her feet...then walking, then nearly jogging. She limped towards the opposite end of the force field wall and dove under the stone table, right as another lunge by the baby T-Rex brought a surge of adrenaline and near-panic. It struck Jet that the baby dino would probably smash the stone table into powder if it hit it at a full run...but it might also throw the thing into the force field.
She barely had time to calculate the odds on that one, when it rushed her again.
That time when it attacked, it ran at her with its head down...fast but blind.
Without thinking, Jet scrambled out from under the table. She ran towards it instead of away, veering off to one side at the last minute. In retrospect, it struck her that this might have been so the T-Rex wouldn't see where she was or what she was doing until it was too late for the thing to slow down. But at the time, she didn't think at all. She just moved.
Jet dove around the massive, bulging leg, then scrambled out of the way and back up to her feet, fleetingly grateful her legs seemed to be working better. She broke into a run without more than a glance backwards at the thing, coordinating her legs and arms so she wouldn't trip over the chain and fall again, thus losing the small advantage she'd gained.
But if the dinosaur saw her at that last moment, it wasn't soon enough to slow down.
Behind her, she heard another howling bark. Then the floor trembled as the animal crashed into the table. The table not only didn't crumble, as Jet had assumed it probably would...the stone structure didn't even tremble. Since the rock didn't move, the dinosaur had to...it knocked over the top of the thick stone and slammed inelegantly into the force field that filled the spaces around the stone about halfway down the flat surface.
Jet watched most of this over her shoulder, still running for the far wall.
That table must be reinforced by some super-strong Nirreth-made material, was all she could think...if it was even stone at all. That baby T-Rex smashed into it like it was hitting a mountain, then rolled over the top of it without leaving so much as a scratch.
Jet heard the howls of the thing as it jerked away from the burning touch of the force field. She didn't stop though, still being mindful of the chain on her wrist and ankle as she continued to limp for the forcefield on the far wall.
As she did, a kind of rage built in her.
Richter had done this to her.
Not the Nirreth...but another human.
In fact, it had been humans who introduced this idea to the Nirreth in the first place, convincing them that their own species could provide generations of entertainment for their Nirreth occupiers. Entertainment that would make human captivity and servitude worth exponentially more than their complete extermination.
Jet understood the logic of that...sort of. She understood the need to make compromises in the face of a stronger enemy at times. She even knew she might have made a similar deal in those early years, if she'd been in a position to negotiate with their invaders.
But it still made her burn with anger.
She glanced back in time to see the dinosaur struggling back to its feet, moving slower than before. She wondered if it was just dazed, like she had been, or if she'd really managed to wound it. It was difficult to tell as it half-fell and half-climbed down the stone slab and the benches to reach the main floor. It occurred to her, looking under the space of the table, that maybe she should have stayed down there after all. It might provide some shelter at that, if the T-Rex couldn't break it. The gaps were too narrow for that craggy head, with or without teeth.
Jet didn't get far in that train of thought, however. She was only just starting to try and puzzle out how she might maneuver her way back towards that rock-like table when she heard another series of yells from outside the force field wall.
Jet turned her head towards the screaming. At the same time, she slowed her run to a walk. She'd reached within a few feet of the crackling energy field across from the dinosaur, and the last thing she needed was to crash into that.
The first thing she noticed was that the baby T-Rex was still half-leaning against the stone table. From the sounds it was making, the creature was obviously still dazed and in pain. It made another of those blowing, lowing sounds while Jet watched.
But that wasn't what drew her eyes next...or, Jet soon realized, what had caused the yell from the watching humans and Nirreth.
She was no longer alone in the arena with the baby T-Rex.
At first Jet thought she must be hallucinating. But when she blinked at the person she'd seen crossing the length of the arena's oval, he was still heading in her direction.
Running towards her at top speed was the young Nirreth Jet had been watching over lunch earlier, playing with the otter and getting yelled at by one of the adults. Ogli, oldest of the offspring of the direct line to the Nirreth's throne and future ruler of Earth, sprinted across the unmarked floor, barefoot, holding something that gleamed in one hand as he made a beeline for Jet. His long, embroidered shirt flapped behind him, his feet making slapping sounds as they hit the floor under his sky-blue leggings.
It took Jet another blink and stare to realize that Ogli held Black in that claw-like fist.
The young Nirreth king to-be had brought Jet her sword.
Jet watched the kid run, her mind totally numb.
How the heck had he gotten past the force field? Even with everything going on with the baby T-Rex, how had she not seen him enter the arena?
And why would he try to help her in the first place?
It wasn't until the baby T-Rex caught sight of the motion of the boy's flashing legs that Jet snapped out of her trance. The craggy head jerked sideways, the dark eyes following the motion of the boy as he streaked across the floor towards Jet.
Then the young dinosaur acted like any predator would when seeing a potential snack running away from it at top speed.
With a barking growl, it leapt to its feet to make chase.
“Here!” Jet yelled, seeing the creature begin running after the boy. She held out her hand, the one that wasn't chained to her ankle. “To me!” she said. “Throw me the sword, kid!”
It didn't occur to her until later that he probably hadn't understood a word she said.
The young Nirreth skidded to a halt in front of her, its more serpentine tail coiling the air behind it. The kid showed her its teeth in a smile, holding out her sword.
Jet didn't have the time or the inclination to smile back. Grabbing the kid's arm, she jerked him behind her, holding Black's hilt in both hands as she stepped forward to meet the T-Rex. She knew the dinosaur’s weight alone could still crush both of them if she let either of them land underfoot, so facing it head-on wasn't much of an option.
“Can you understand English?” she yelled at the kid.
The young king to-be made a number of those odd, lyrical-sounding noises of the Nirreth tongue.
“I'll take that as a no,” Jet said, grimly. Looking back at him, she pointed towards the wall to her left. “Wait until the thing gets close. I'll distract it with the sword, but you'll need to run, okay? Try to get to the stone table...and climb under it.”
The boy looked confused, his dark eyes wide in his elongated face.
Frustrated, Jet grabbed his arm with the hand that had the shackle around her wrist.
She would just have to fight one-handed.
Where were the kid's parents, anyway
? Wasn't this Ogli some big deal future leader of all of Earth? How had he gotten in here? And why hadn't they called a halt to the fight the second he had breached the walls?
Was there some reason why they couldn't? If the kid found a way through, it stood to reason that someone else could, too. Like guards with weapons, who could subdue the T-Rex.
But she didn't have time to think about that, either.
The T-Rex was running at them, making those long, leaping strides that were more like jumps than steps. Jet sensed more caution in the creature again as it approached...it wasn't running full-tilt, like before, and it hadn't lowered its head, leaving itself blind. This time, it would probably try to knock them back into the middle of the ring, like it had with Jet the first time.
Jet had her sword, but she wouldn't be able to evade it, not if she had to move the kid manually with her hand. If he even spoke her language...
But thinking about that wouldn't help her either.
Nirreth or no, Jet couldn't bring herself to just let the kid get slaughtered. He'd brought her Black. Anyway, he was too young to blame for what his people had done to hers.
Without thought, she grabbed the kid's shoulder tighter, and shoved him backwards as hard as she could. Taken completely off guard, he lost his balance, his tail flailing briefly before he landed hard on the floor behind her.
Jet saw the T-Rex's eyes follow his motion to the floor. Jet saw the gleam there, the interest, but moved before it could fully formulate.
“Here!” she shouted, holding up her shackled hand. “It's me you want, you big ugly thing...!”
The dinosaur's head swiveled abruptly back to focus on her. Jet didn't slow, but stepped forward, holding Black out in front of her once more, two-handed. She managed to confuse the dinosaur enough to get it to slow down, nearly skidding on its powerfully-clawed hind feet and the muscular legs they supported. It lowered its head, raising its tail, but Jet didn't wait.
Alien Apocalypse: The Complete Series (Parts I-IV) Page 12
