Crucible of a Species (28 page)

Thompson sat forward on his chair, “I don’t understand how you can be so confident in the accuracy of your timeframe calculations. We’ve had no chance to experiment with the physics that brought us here. Up until now, all of our work has been pure theory.”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen please,” Colonel Drake interrupted. “This is getting us nowhere. I suggest for now we leave all of our options open and wait for a full engineering update on the Argos repair status from Lieutenant Anderson. He should be able to estimate the ability of the Argos to handle the stresses of a return through the time portal or a continuance of our mission.”

“Colonel,” Captain Lee interjected. “We were able to bring the Argos in this far. If you decide our best course is to transverse the time portal again then she will make it.”

“I meant no disrespect for the Argos, Adrian. However, at this point in time we have too many variables and unsolved problems on the table. Do I need to remind you of the sabotage we’ve suffered. We must resolve this issue before our departure to any destination. Agreed?”

“Agreed.” Adrian responded.

Doctors Nolen and Thompson reluctantly nodded their heads but Drake could see the determination in Phillip Nolen’s eyes. Perhaps it was simply a desire on the doctor’s part to return to the spotlight of a public career. Then again, maybe the good doctor knew something he simply wasn’t willing to share with them.

*~~*~~*~~*

These were the familiar hunting grounds
of the dromo but tonight they smelled different and different meant danger. The land itself had changed. Perhaps this lone predator wouldn’t have reacted this way if the dromo had been with the rest of the flock but that was not possible. The predator was an outcast, a deformed creature that had lost the large, five-inch sickle claw characteristic of a raptor from its foot during that nearly forgotten hunt. It halted briefly, smelling the air while lightly tapping its one remaining claw on the ground. The scent was there, more of these new creatures were ahead on the trail.

The strange musky scent-trail led it down along a heavily travelled path. Like everything else tonight, the path was new and it moved with caution until it came to a point where it stopped in amazement. The ground ahead was not as it should be. The trail should have led off onto the mainland, instead the land here had changed into a long, steep-sided hill that now lay across land where trees, plants and animals used to be. The hill, of course, was the defensive berm recently created by the humans.

Then the predator noticed that the top of the hill glowed with the same light it had seen at the wall. The lights played across and up along its unnaturally barren top. Occasional thick beams of electric brilliance struck out into the jungle but they always travelled to the other side of the hill so the small dinosaur felt no fear.

A wisp of air and the dromo sensed the nearing approach of several of these new creatures so it silently moved and molded itself into the safety of the bushes. A few moments and they appeared. They looked and smelled like the same prey it had seen before. No, not quite the same for these moved properly, watching and wary as they passed down the path, ever conscious of their surroundings.

It wouldn’t matter how cautious the prey was. The predator would take the last one in line and the others would scatter in fear. As prey approached, the predator stood motionless to the point of holding its breath while waiting for the proper moment.

*~~*~~*~~*

Pfc. Ed Saren was supposed to be watching
the AutoSentinel emplacements on top of the berm as they passed by. He was looking for breaches in the fence or any debris that might block the defensive firing capability of the security stations. This was not an easy task in the dark of night and to make the job just a bit harder, he was the last marine of the four-man foot patrol.

It was a gorgeous, moonless evening with the stars so bright he could see across the cleared areas of the berm without his helmet’s nightvision. The air was cool and the dinos that he had to worry about were out there on the other side of the fence. Some nights you didn’t mind being out on patrol and this was one of them.

On the other hand, this was a different way of walking patrol and Saren didn’t like it. It felt wrong to be travelling so close together. They drummed it into your head in basic, “keep your spacing, pull back …” Nope, he didn’t like it one bit but then, these were Lieutenant Esperanza’s orders. Saren quickly scanned the surrounding scrub brush before instinctively risking a glance down to where his foot would place its next step. Automatically he shifted slightly so that his boot would avoid breaking a dry, small branch in his path.

Guess the lieutenant felt we’re safer if we stick close together
, his thoughts wandered.
Makes sense in a way. After all, nobody’s gonna be shooting at us. Still …

The blow came from behind, whiplashing his head, knocking the breath from his lungs and throwing him into the back of Pfc. John Estes. Flat on his belly and mad as hell, he turned his head in time to see a brown mouth filled with white, shiny and very sharp looking teeth heading his way. Reflexively, he swung at it just as a black blur ripped across his field of vision and rolled him over with a painful kick to the side of his hip. Whatever had been on his back was off him now and he rolled to his other side. Somehow, through it all, he hadn’t lost his rifle and he pushed to swing it around as fast as he could. Something behind him grabbed and twisted his rifle, pulling the barrel to the side. Blind anger fired inside him until he saw Pfc. Sara Hsu. She was standing above him with a wide grin, calmly holding back his rifle. “Easy there Saren. Some devil dog you are, you let something hit us from our backside.”

Saren looked behind Hsu. A small dinosaur lay sprawled on the ground between them. Tom Simpson smiled over at him, “It may be more than six feet long but it don’t weigh much more than the retriever I had when I was a kid. I managed to lay it out flat with the butt of my rifle. What-do-ya think Saren, supper tomorrow?”

“Well, it caught me off guard.” Saren grumbled as he used his rifle to brace himself and climb back onto his feet. None of the others offered him a hand. “Guess I was thinkin’ of other things. Sorry guys.”

Pfc. Sara Hsu used one hand to drag the dromo over towards Saren, “It seemed to like you so you get to carry it. Grab your dino and string it up for portage back to camp. Estes, give him a hand getting it on his back. Simpson, see if you can do a little better in the tail-end Charlie position.”

A few moments later and they were ready to continue when Hsu looked across her team one last time and stopped, “Wait a sec, Estes and Saren get over here. Just take a look at yourself Saren. You want to be the laughing stock of the platoon? Pull off the feathers from that damn tail that’s hangin’ out like that. You look ridiculous and what’s worse, I guarantee they’re gonna trip you up at the worst time.

“Come on you guys and move it. The lieutenant will have our hides if she thinks we’re dawdling around.”

They returned to camp after checking the perimeter. Hsu reported to Lieutenant Esperanza, “All is intact along the berm. Seems to be properly sealed from the big ones but we’re running into a lot of those little dinosaurs.”

“Little yeah, but when they run in packs they can be nasty.” The lieutenant observed.

“Actually, ma’am, we were just attacked by an individual. Come over here Saren and show her what you caught. Two things saved Saren, he had his body armor on and, see this? The dino has one of the big claws missing from this foot.”

“I haven’t seen that type of dino before but I’ll eat anything if it means I don’t have to draw ship’s rations. Good work, Hsu.”

“Always glad to help, Lieutenant. We’re going to turn in now unless you’ve got more for us.”

“Nope, that’s it. By the way, Saren, you caught it so you get to gut and dress it out. Aw, cut the sour look. Tomorrow you get first choice in selecting the chunk of meat you want.”

“I’ll get right to it after I grab a quick bite to eat, if that’s okay Lieutenant?”

A half hour later, four very tired marines picked up their rifles and crawled into their fart-sacks, turned on the odorless bug repellant and fell asleep. Private Saren had forgotten about gutting the dinosaur still lying beneath his field jacket.

Saren woke in the middle of the night. It was black outside and he could hear cloth tearing and something scratching.

Where did that sound come from?
Saren slowly opened his eyes. Nothing was in front of him.
There it is again. Doesn’t sound too close, maybe I can get my rifle.

  Slowly he slid his arm out of the sack. His rifle was where he had left it at the top of his roll. With one hand on the grip, he slowly turned onto his back while trying not to draw attention with any sudden movement. As he watched, the marine saw a dark figure rise up from the ground on the other side of the camp. Pale moonlight reflected off the shadowy figure as it rose almost to the height of a man but it didn’t look like any human he had ever seen. The apparition wobbled around uncertainly and then slowly ambled off towards the forest.

Saren sat up and flipped on his LED
light. Two glowing eyes turned to gaze back at him. They stared into the light, mesmerized by its brilliance for just a moment and then, with a shrill screech, took off at a run. In the light of the newly risen moon, Saren saw the bare, featherless tail brightly reflecting the moonlight as it flitted back and forth between the sleeping marines. “Hey you, stay right where you are,” he shouted as he slid out of his bag and sprinted after it.

The dromaeosaur bolted for the woods, slipping and sliding with each tight turn because of the loss of balance caused by the missing tail feathers. Saren dove grabbing its ankle and the dinosaur bounced hard, flat on its face. The dromo instantly twisted, raking its claws down his arm with a foot that should have had a five-inch killing claw on it. It twisted back to bite the hand holding its ankle and left out an anguished screech as Saren managed to grab it by the neck.

The marine looked up to see the lieutenant standing over him, “Guess you didn’t finish the job, Saren. This guy seems pretty spry for someone who was supposed to be gutted and ready for cooking.”

The dromo stopped resisting and the marine saw resignation and fear fill its eyes, “Thank God I grabbed the foot with the claw on it. If the other leg had a claw like that then my arm would have been shredded.”

“Okay, so finish gutting it like you were supposed to.”

Saren broke in, “Ah, what the heck. Look at its eyes, Lieutenant. The poor little guy’s scared and he’s had a rough night.”

“I think you just don’t wanna have ta gut it.”

“Look at it. I can’t do it in after all it’s been through. Have a heart.”

“Oh, all right but it probably means stasis rations for supper tomorrow. Let it go but do it carefully. It may be missing one claw but its teeth are nothing to fool with either.”

Saren set the dromo down on the ground. It didn’t move for a moment. “Go on, get outta here.” He nudged it with his foot. The small dinosaur stood and bolted six feet down the trail before turning to look back at them for a moment and then took off across the camp. Its flight was clumsy and it slipped several times, unbalanced by the loss of tail feathers. The marines watched the dromo disappear into the forest, its white, bare tail tip flinging through the air as it scrambled into the woods as quickly as it could.

Sara Hsu was the first one to break out laughing. Saren looked at her for a second before all of the marines were also laughing at the sight and then he began laughing so hard he had to gulp air between the words “That poor thing, I hope it can grow those tail feathers back real fast.”

The entire platoon was now up. A red horizon glowed over the still dark inland sea foretelling the imminent start of another day as they began to setup morning breakfast.

Pfc. Sara Hsu walked over to the squad, “Saren and Estes, you guys follow that dino’s trail. I want to see how it got in here through the sentinels. Go on, I’ll square it with the lieutenant.”

“Look behind you Sara. Over there, by that short palm across the clearing.”

Sara turned around. Through the long shadows of the sun just peeping over the horizon, she saw the figure, “Well I’ll be darned. It’s our little bare assed, one clawed friend and it seems very interested in our breakfast. It don’t seem particularly scared after what just happened to it.”

“Nope, but it did learn something. It’s not charging in, trying to grab one of us for breakfast.”

As they watched, John Estes lifted an armful of MREs from the storage bin labeled, “Meal, Ready to Eat” and turning, noticed the dromo watching from the bushes not fifteen feet from him. He set the boxes back into the bin and walked over to the stasis box, opened it and pulled out a flank of meat left over from last night’s dinner. He held the meaty leg up while softly calling over to the dromo, “Here you go fella. Come on, I can see you’re hungry. Come on over and get it.”

Cautiously, the dromaeosaur stepped out of the bushes nervously staring at the other marines moving about the camp. It took another step out towards Estes and hesitated. “I ain’t chucken it over. You’ve gotta come and get it.” Estes softly cooed as he waved the leg back and forth so the smell drifted across the open space.

Quick as a serpent, the dromo lunged forward, grabbed the leg and ran off into the woods.