Crucible of a Species (13 page)

Light suddenly filled the room as two ratings brought up a portable lightbase. Meecham turned off his flashlight and looked around the chamber. “Those aren’t drive failure scars, Captain. Sure as Papa Meecham first showed me years ago, we have blast scars on the floor around the Beta Drive. Their pattern is not quite right though. Anything with enough punch to chew up the base like that shoulda had wider burn marks. I don’t see any scars on the drive itself.”

“That’s because the blast occurred while the drive was under power.” Ensign Middleton commented. “The field contained the blast radius and channeled the explosion. However it couldn’t protect the support base and, as the drive housing fell, it lost field synchronism with the other drive.”

“It’s pretty obvious this was deliberate, sir.” CPO Meecham commented.

“Yes, and for now this is as far as this knowledge goes.” Captain Lee interrupted, “Not a word from any of you leaves this room or there will be hell to pay. I want to be the one to choose how and when we tell the others. Chief, have someone take the names of all those here.

“You people are the full work detail until the debris is cleared and the blast marks are removed. Chief, you are authorized to bring in four others with a lift to reposition the drive during repairs but I want you to instill in them the seriousness of this task. Make sure you add their names to the list. Report your progress only to me.

“After repairs start I want you to assemble a list of everyone servicing … no, make that everyone entering the Capsule since we left the Skyport.

“Ensigns, you come with me.”

The two ensigns followed the Captain down the corridor towards the bridge. Activity in the corridors was considerably lower so the captain felt free to talk, “The Argos is here to stay until that drive is put back up and tested. I don’t want to risk a full ship’s complement when we go to pull her out. We’ll transport all uninjured, nonessential personnel to the landing site along with what supplies we can.

“I want you to retrieve one of the tractors from the plateau and have it begin clearing the sand from around the ship so we can open the bays. After delivery you can begin shuttling people and supplies back to the plateau.

“For now, take back a platoon of marines to the plateau to setup the perimeter. Lieutenant Esperanza should have the teams ready to go when you get down to the ready room. We’ll call in tomorrow morning with instructions for your return.”

*~~*~~*~~*

Lieutenant Braxton Johnson
opened pain-filled eyes. The walls around him shimmered like a backlit curtain of blue silk.
Shit, must have hit my head. Wait, we crashed or somethin’ like …. the Argos! What happened to her? I’d better get up and … oh no.

The room swirled and his back hurt.

Shouldn’t of stood up so quickly. Ah, damn it but that hurts. Powers off, only light is that coming through the windows.
Where …?

“Oh Shit!”

Petrika voice came from across the room, “I can see you’re no better off than I am. Give me a hand will ya?”

“Argh,” Braxton grimaced with the strain, “I think we may really have screwed the pooch this time, Paul. Look outside.”

Paul stumbled over to the port and saw a beautiful coral reef. A riot of colors played across it in shafts of sunlight that danced in the waters while deep-red sea fans swayed in gentle currents.

The animals around the reef were even more exotic. Some of the fauna, like the urchin and crabs, almost looked familiar; others not only looked strange but moved oddly. Groups of stately ammonites used streams of water to propel their massive spiral shells over the reef like a squadron of jet-powered dirigibles. They held their coiled shells upright, squid-like legs and flippers flapping behind in an elegant ballet. The sandy bottom moved with brightly colored creatures and above them swam a school of monstrous sharks lazily gliding through the clear azure waters in smooth powerful flight.

“How much oxygen do we have?” Paul wondered as he moved over to a set of controls on the wall. “The reserve looks good for about twelve hours without power. Hopefully we’ll have power from the Wave Drive before then.”

“I suspect we fried the drive.” Braxton called out from the Drive Capsule near the back, “I had no response from the controls before we hit and it doesn’t look any better from the panel back here. Even the emergency beacon failed.”

“Think we can fix it?”, Petrika returned.

“No, we don’t carry spares for something this bad.”

“Then we have about twelve hours to figure out how to get a distress signal back to the Argos. Maybe …”

“Forget it, they have their own problems.”

Paul walked back over to the port, “What the hell happened? How did we get out here? I thought we’d be crushed under the ship.”

“You can thank physics and some damned lucky timing. Our drive held up just long enough to keep us from being torn apart by the Argos’ field. The two fields must have squirted us out to sea like someone squeezing a grape.

“It’s pretty bright outside.” Braxton moved over to stand beside Paul. “We can’t be more than a few hundred feet underwater. Might not be so bad, our EVA spacesuits will work just fine underwater. We can pass out the airlock with a radio and call the plateau from the surface. If we’re really lucky, maybe they’ll be flying nearby in the Hunter.”

“You think it’s going to be simple, huh?” Paul said as he turned away from the window. “Remember our first trip down here? There are some nasty critters around here that make these sharks look like tidbits. How are we going to avoid becoming somebody’s snack?”

Braxton stared at the controls for a moment before replying, “I have no idea just how far we were thrown but our chances of being found are pretty slim. All we have are the EVA suits if we want to get out of here.”

“What about the bends?” Paul interrupted, “We’ll be in our EVA suits. They’re pressurized but the suits are for operation in vacuum, not high-pressure water. Still, it could work. I guess we could just try and walk back to land following the sea floor.”

“We don’t have weight belts so it’s going to be hard to keep on the bottom.” Braxton countered as he walked back to a locker, “Maybe we could use some of our heavier tools to hold us down.

“Which direction? One of us is going to have to head back up to the surface and look around. With any luck, we’ll be in sight of land. We’ll take one of these lines along and I’ll drop my weights. The suit’s buoyancy should take me right up. I’ll hang onto the line to prevent a sudden rise to the surface and the bends.”

“Yeah, and all this time we’re going to be attracting the attention of all those swimmers around us.” Paul finished. “I don’t see any good alternative though. We’ll take rifles for when we get to shore. I’d love to have a spear gun right now.”

“We’re wasting time. Let’s suit up.” Braxton replied as he headed into the EVA chamber.

The river entered a warm opal sea
after crossing white-sand beaches bordered by high cliffs. It’s turbulent, winding journey to this destination carried it through steep sided, multicolored valleys filled with buttes, spires, mesas and high peninsula-like fingers of land that stretched out from the mainland’s highland plateau.

Sundown came early to the inhabitants of this ancient valley. It was late afternoon and long shadows stretched peacefully across the valley floor while the soft rays of a low sun cast the last of the day’s golden beams across the highlands. At a point near the mouth of this mighty river, a finger of land extended out into the valley. It jointed the mainland near a stream that lazily flowed over the edge of valley’s cliff to tumble noisily to the piles of fallen rocks below. It was here, at its narrowest point, that the green jungle had been pushed back, forming a thin scar of bare ground cutting unnaturally straight and true across the narrow neck.

Four strangers to this world stood near the point where the cleared jungle met the cliff-edge and waterfall. One of them, a young female with hair the color of sunlight, looked towards the gently sloping land of the peninsula. Her name was Dr. Sandra Shieve and she was exhausted. Unfortunately for her and her friends, rest was out of the question.

For a few moments, exhaustion allowed her mind to drift away from the problems. Sandra’s dust-sore eyes gazed across the top of the plateau, entranced by the wild splendor of the scene. The colors of the jungle intensified in this light. The setting sun carried a promise of relief from the heat of the day and the river churned peacefully in the evening shadows of the valley far below.

The steep sides of the plateau cast an even deeper shade over the valley and the apparition it formed reminded her of the prow of some mighty ship plunging into a darkened sea. It was a majestic view of this natural fortress that was to have been the safe-camp for the crew of the Argos. Caprock escarpments on three sides of this high plateau provided a ready-made defensive barrier that would have protected them from the predators roaming the valley. Completing the defenses should have been easy. They only needed to seal off the plateau from the mainland and they could repair the Argos and escape this strange world.

The colonel’s plan was to construct a barrier, or berm, across the narrow neck of land. Atop the simple earthen wall, they erected a fence and along it placed the armed intelligence of their AutoSentinel robotic sentries capable of keeping out or automatically removing threats that might come from the mainland.

A crunch of stones caused Sandra to jump.

“Easy there, Doctor,” The voice of Sgt. Frank Marshall came from behind her. “He’s dead. That’s just nerves. It takes a long time for these big guys to die down. Just keep your eyes on your zone and stay alert.”

Sandra looked down at the monstrous theropod that lay beside her -- one of its massive three-toed feet still twitched against the bottom of the berm. The sergeant was right. Danger lurked just a few yards away in the darkening jungle and, with only a handful of humans here, she needed to keep a close eye on the area assigned to her.

As a geophysicist, Dr. Sandra Shieve specialized in geomagnetism. Her work exposed her to research in many adjacent disciplines including those that studied biosphere evolutionary trends linked to changes in the environment. She recognized these animals, the beast was a Lythronax; an earlier, and slightly smaller, tyrannosaurid than the famous Tyrannosaurus Rex that ruled the late Cretaceous period.

Yeah, she thought, slightly smaller on paper but still larger than an elephant and faster.

The tyrannosaur at her feet had been just two paces away from her when the sergeant downed it with a rapid trio of Pulsar rounds. A crest of two-inch long, blood covered feathers stuck out from its neck where one of the sergeant’s hypersonic rounds emerged leaving a gaping exit hole.

“Feathers!” Sandra mumbled, “That’s what started the whole thing.”

“What’s that, Doctor?” The sergeant turned toward her, his concentration interrupted.

Sandra looked at the sergeant; the hastily bandaged gash in his right leg had stopped bleeding. “Nothing, Sarge. Just talking to myself.”

Since the mid-twentieth century, paleontologists knew that at least one class of dinosaurs, the Aves, survived extinction to evolve into modern birds. A 1996 expedition into the deserts of Mongolia discovered the fossil remains of a three-foot tall theropod called Sinosauropteryx. Environment and luck preserved the specimen so well that an examination of the surrounding rock matrix under ultraviolet light allowed the stunned scientists to see skin and other soft tissue imprints. Even more amazing, they found evidence of a rich coat of feathers covering this non-avian dinosaur. This monumental discovery suggested that several of the major predator classes of dinosaurs, very distantly related to birds, grew bird-like plumage.

Discussions within the scientific community flared into open arguments and careers tottered on the theories evolving from this momentous finding. The debates fueled additional fieldwork and led to discoveries that seemed to rise from the preserving sands of the Gobi Desert on a monthly basis. These findings revolutionized humanity’s view of dinosaurs. In less than a decade, the world of paleontology transformed itself as new feather clumps in amber and skin imprints with feather follicles were unearthed. They soon knew that most of the theropods, including tyrannosaurs and raptors such as the velociraptor, sported feathered bodies along with other bird-like features.

All the artist’s drawings of the last hundred years became outdated. Gone were the dinosaurs of old; the creatures with leather-like reptilian skin. In their place emerged a graceful race of deadly predators.

Dr. Shieve spotted the quick movement out of the corner of her eye and swung her Pulsar up to her shoulder.
Mathew Wedel’s research was right,
she thought as her eye searched for the beast.
Damn but they are fast. It’s gone. I never realized they could be this quick.

In the second decade of the 21
st
century, Mathew Wedel discovered that theropods had a supercharged muscle system; the slow lumbering monsters of the movies were wrong. Theropods and birds share a turbo-charged pneumatic circulatory system. It was bad enough that T-Rex and most of the raptors were feathered but this reassessment of their musculature showed a physiology designed to move gigantic, fierce predators with incredible speed and agility for long periods of sustained activity.

Yeah, I remember that old movie
, Dr. Shieve reminisced.
You wouldn’t get away from one of these guys in an antique jeep.

The tyrannosaur pride attacking them had an unexpected large number of individuals. Fossil evidence found in Alberta Canada established the existence of large packs numbering more than forty tyrannosaurid albertosaurs of all ages and Shieve was now a privileged member of a small group of humans who knew what it was like to have a pack of tyrannosaurs hunting you.

Two shots rang out, she turned, Brittany must have seen something. She’s fast, much faster than I am. God, is it really only two hours since we walked into this mess?

No immediate threat, Sandra returned to the area she was supposed to watch. I need to be realistic. Six marines and me, an amateur, aren’t enough. We aren’t going to make it, especially with evening coming. We’re all hurting, there aren’t enough of us and I’m beyond useless compared to these professionals.

Midshipman Brittany Thornsen and Sandra had just arrived to check on the construction of the defensive berm when the problems started. The marines were using the dozers flown in from the Argos to form the barrier’s ten-foot high walls of stabilized earth. The barrier’s design required the removal of brush on both sides of the mound creating a clear-fire zone for the defensive munitions of the AutoSentinels. A carbide nanofiber intelligence matrix or CNIM fence followed the broad flat top of the berm. The fence’s CNIM matrix augmented the artificial intelligence of the AutoSentinels through image, scent and movement recognition algorithms.

They completed more than two thirds of the seven hundred foot long berm when the pride of tyrannosaurs launched their attack. Since then, the attacks had been near continuous.

Sandra saw a flicker of movement to her left, nothing was there. Her thoughts continued, It was just bad luck to encounter a full pride of tyrannosaurs on the hunt. They’re supposed to be relatively rare. Then again, we’ve encountered so many surprises.

The nearness of the tropical forest saturated her senses with exotic smells and savage calls that deceptively sounded almost like birdsong. Sandra shifted her body to reposition a rock digging into her thigh when a branch snapped on her left. The physicist spun, bringing her Pulsar to bear on the sound. Sandra’s heart beat faster as she spotted the source of the noise. A huge tyrannosaur, one with a long scar on his cheek, moved slowly across the cleared space and in full view. This tyrannosaur’s plumage was subtly different, its body blended into the background so well the geophysicist had to strain to track it. It was a masterpiece of creation and regret filled every fiber of her body as she prepared to end its life.
I’m sorry! I’m so, so sorry.
The words echoed in her mind as her finger squeezed the trigger.

A slight shift of its head and their eyes locked. The beast stared into her soul in that moment before her rifle fired. Sandra looked up; to her surprise, the monster was gone. She searched the area for its body but it wasn’t there. A fearsome thought rang through her mind,
Could they be that fast to …

The crack of a rifle erupted next to her head. A sharp blow spun the geophysicist around slamming her to the ground. Dazed, Sandra struggled to rise. Through blur-filled vision she saw yellow eyes set in a black head of feathers above a muzzle full of sharp teeth. She sensed it was not alive. If only she could move her hand, then she could touch it. She wanted to touch it so badly. Sandra heard a distant, muffled noise; rifles firing. Each blast wracked her skull but her eyes couldn’t leave the distorted grimace of the beast. Stunned and confused, Sandra felt something warm and wet running down the side of her face,
I’m bleeding. I can’t move but it doesn’t hurt. Was I shot?

The disturbingly low whistle was suddenly there. It throbbed in her brain, rising in pitch and volume until the world morphed back into a clarity that immediately focused on the beast. It had come so close.

Cold eyes stared into her. The dinosaur was small, barely larger than a human; its lower body shredded horribly. Sandra’s head throbbed, each pulse punctuated by the almost constant blasts. It was still going on. They needed her. She struggled upright groping for her rifle and raised it with shaking hands. Fear and confusion welled up inside her.
What are they firing at? What …

Something seized her shoulder, roughly pulling her back. Her heart fluttered when a hand reached forward and grabbed her rifle. “Easy there, Doc.” She barely heard the voice of Sgt. Marshall. Shaking, Sandra turned and saw the marine shouting. “Get back down. You’re okay. That’s it, release your weapon. Good. Now sit back, your hearing will return. You got too close to a Pulsar blast’s compression front, you were knocked out.”

It felt safe to have the sergeant hovering over her. Rifle fire, ground vibrations from the running of massive feet and shouting filled her world, each blast painfully rocking her brain. Sgt. Marshall fired at something and then went down on one knee beside her. His eyes scanned the jungle around them like the turret of an automated gun mount before the marine bent down close to her ear.

“They pulled a fast one on us but seem to have let up. The adults distracted our fire while these youngsters crept up along the back edges of the berm. Good strategy. It’s almost as if they understood firearms. They’re sneaky as hell. They work in teams almost as well as we do.”

Sgt. Marshall unshouldered Sandra’s rifle and handed it to Tyree. The jungle around them was suddenly quiet, “Listen, the squad at the end of the berm, their firing stopped.”

Corporal Tyree, a tall, thin sandy haired marine with broad shoulders, turned and tried to look down the berm toward the other team. “Can’t see anything, Sarge. Want me to take one of the guys and see how they’re doing?”

“Good way to get yourself killed, Corporal. We’re going to stick together from now on. Help the doctor move up to the center of the berm and walk with her until her senses return. We’re heading over to the other dozer.” The sergeant scanned the remaining marines in his squad and focused on a short, stocky private. “Saren, you take point but stay close. Move out, eyes peeled and keep it tight.”

The berm stood ten-feet high with a flat top wide enough for four men to walk abreast. They formed into two files moving along the edges, their eyes carefully examining the slopes ahead. The smaller but deadly quick attackers used the boulders and dips in these slopes as cover during their last assault and they were experts at camouflage. The humans moved with caution, their eyes frequently darting out into the broader killing zone recently cleared by pushing back the green walls of the jungle.

A hush settled upon them, that wasn’t good. Sgt. Marshall feared for the worse but he wasn’t about to be caught in another ambush.

The tractor up ahead was still idling but there was no sign of the missing marines. “Here’s one of their rifles, Sarge.” Saren called out, “No blood but look over there.”