Sarah saw the encampment from a mile off and the sight made her freeze. The roc she rode smelled the violence in the air and balked at continuing forward. The five of them watched from the highest hill surrounding the center of the game trail where Jenks and Charlie were waiting for them. The vision that greeted Ryan was chilling as he watched the defensive laser system crisscrossing the cloud and ash-laden sky like bursts of diamonds that streaked to their targets. In the distance they could see the many thousands of animals as the dust cloud they created blotted out the sky, but they could still see the small shapes that ran in and out of the migrating animals. The massive weight of both mammoth and bison herds shook the very earth beneath them.
“Damn it!” Ryan said as he had trouble controlling the roc, which wanted very much to leave the area through its serious sense of smell. It knew what was hunting the bison and mammoth herds. “I figure Charlie and the master chief have about a half hour before they are trampled underfoot or them raptors get to them. The way that laser system is firing off they won’t have much juice left in the batteries before those murderous things are on them.” He looked at his frightened companions. He didn’t need to ask what they should do because as one they kicked the giant rocs into motion. The enormous birds were hesitant at first and then the frightened avians broke cover. It wasn’t long before they found out what changed the rocs’ small minds—the raptors came at them from the rear. They had somehow worked their way around them, or this had been another group that came in from a different direction than the main assault. The first raptor screamed and leaped at the roc that Virginia was astride and missed her by mere inches as Will didn’t hesitate to shoot three times from the Glock into the stumbling raptor. With that fight closely won, they charged down the slope and through the screening trees in front of them.
The five people and birds shot down the hill narrowly missing trees and raptors that sprung from behind cover. They dodged three of these attacks with only Sarah’s roc coming up bloody as a raptor had managed to strike the roc in its hindquarters. The bird was able to keep its feet only after careening Sarah and itself from tree to tree, momentarily threatening to dump the diminutive geologist.
Jason found his path to the valley blocked by three of the hissing reptilian creatures that displayed their plumage as if this alone would dissuade Jason from fleeing. Just before the first of the three bent over to spring, it was stunned and frightened by the incredible roar of Erebus as she blew her caldera. The expanding gas and ash hit and rolled down Erebus and her sisters like a tidal wave of scalding fury. The pyroclastic phenomena had one intention—to kill the continent of Antarctica, the last landmass free of the ice that covered the entire world.
Sarah and Anya flew past Jason as the raptors blocking their path fled before the onslaught of noise and thunder. Jason, Virginia, and Will were not far behind as the choices had become clear to all—face the four giant volcanoes’ wrath, or run the gauntlet of voracious raptors.
Above, the sky filled with black smoke and the rain consisting of fiery coals started to devastate the surrounding landscape.
They charged headlong into the first great battle between Mother Nature and her smartest animal life, and one thing was looking foregone—both man and animal were going to lose this fight.
The coincidence of Erebus erupting at the exact same moment of Everett’s disappearance was not lost on Sarah or Virginia. The wormhole effect had done something to trigger this event but they had precious little time to contemplate as to why. It seems the history of this world had been shaped by beings other than any who ever called this planet home. Human destiny had been in the hands of others all the way from the beginning.
The world of 227,000 years ago was coming to an end with fire, and then miles upon miles of ice.
* * *
Henri could not believe what it was they were attempting. Did these men have a death wish? He saw the excitement in both Everett’s and Collins’s faces. It was as if they actually looked forward to the challenge. The Frenchman, although thoroughly motivated to find that power coupling, was equally anxious not to be knocked off of his giant chicken while riding into the very nest of raptors they normally would have avoided.
“Gentlemen, shall we sally forth?” Jack said. He raised the Glock nine millimeter as his large roc pawed at the earth, irritated by the sulfuric smell emanating from the south. Carl raised his own weapon and then they both looked at Henri, who unenthusiastically raised the M-4 in mock bravado.
“By all means, let’s ride off to our deaths, because by the look of Erebus, we’re out of time.”
“Boy, he’s a real killjoy, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he is that, but he’s French, what can you do?” Jack said as he kicked the roc into action. Everett smiled at Farbeaux and with a return look expressing his incredulity, the former French black operation commando reluctantly followed the two crazed Americans into the valley of the shadow of death—or something akin to it anyway, he thought.
* * *
The batteries were draining so fast that Jenks had to adjust not only the rate of fire from the sixteen weapons, but also the distance to engage the target. He tapped in the new parameters and then placed the laptop down and tossed Ellenshaw another thirty-round magazine for his M-4.
“Okay, Doc, we need to supplement the lasers. Start by firing into the front of that bison herd when they get within two hundred yards. Maybe we can turn this stampede into going another direction.”
“Shoot the buffalo?” Ellenshaw asked, horrified about shooting such a magnificent animal.
Jenks inserted his own magazine into his weapon and then charged it. He finally spared Ellenshaw a look of frustration. “Look, either we turn them now or wait until them hairy-ass elephants are crawling up our butts.”
Ellenshaw finally understood. He turned and aimed, waiting for the bison to come within range.
The attack from behind caught both Jenks and Ellenshaw off guard. As Jenks turned and saw the four raptors jump upon the outer trailers of their defensive line, he quickly fired, hitting one of the brightly plumed animals, dropping him into the empty bed of the trailer. Charlie wasn’t as fast and managed to stitch the sky with tracer rounds as the three remaining raptors jumped from the green-painted trailers into the center of the camp. The first sprinted, feathered arms outstretched for balance as it tried desperately to avoid the bullets striking the ground at its feet. The master chief cursed again when he saw the animal crash into the ceramic and steel doorway. It rebounded with half of its scaled, reptilian head sliced open and dangling. It quickly shook off the blow and started to charge the doorway again.
“Son of a bitch!” Jenks said, and fired ten rounds into the running raptor just as the next two charged the doorway. One had a large rock that it threw, not at the doorway, but at the master chief’s head. It narrowly missed as Jenks fired five more rounds hitting the red- and yellow-colored feathers at the creature’s neck, sending him into a sliding crash next to the doorway.
As Charlie took aim and easily dispatched the last of the intruders, Jenks had time to figure out the horrifying fact that the raptors had somehow found a gap in the laser system’s radar coverage. How they found one was far beyond him.
“Oh, oh,” Ellenshaw said as he saw the blips on his own screen. Five targets were emerging from the forest line to the south and six more not far ahead of them. Two distinct groups were charging the camp simultaneously.
Jenks swallowed and wiped sweat from his face as he studied the radar scope on the laser control panel. He shook his head. “We can’t cover all fronts here,” he said as he hurried away and gathered up his two recharged drones. He yelled something at Charlie that the doctor couldn’t hear, and then the master chief started pulling access panels from the two air force drones. Ellenshaw saw the ordnance box next to Jenks and grimaced, afraid of what the navy man was up to. His attention was taken away by the loud hissing as the five raptors in the first group finally broke cover and charged the camp just as the first set had done. Charlie fired but his aim was off and he knew at that moment that at least four out of the five would make the trek into their camp.
Once again Erebus belched flame and fire. The plume blotted out what was left of the sunlight and a surreal landscape came into view and it had a nightmare quality about it—like the world had turned a sepia color. The ground shook so hard that the front two raptors stumbled and fell as the other three easily hopped over their fallen comrades.
“Look out!” Ellenshaw shouted as three spears—sharpened sticks is a more accurate description—came flying through the air and dug themselves into the ash-covered ground near the doorway. It was almost as if the reptilian beasts were out to destroy it. But Charlie knew this couldn’t be, they were just afraid of it and wanted it gone.
He fired and then his M-4 jammed. The second set of three raptors were on them, but just a second before the first of them could leap the trailers they were using as a camp barricade, several shots brought it down. Then more shots rang out over the roar of the distant mountains.
Both Jenks and Ellenshaw heard the shouting as the giant rocs broke through the cover of the trees. Charlie couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the prehistoric birds had riders perched upon their backs. The rocs screamed and the riders charged through a screen of raptors, the huge taloned feet of the running rocs decimating the aggressive little dinosaurs as they crashed through their ranks.
“It’s Jason!” Charlie shouted as he tried to clear his weapon of the jam. Jenks looked up from his tinkering and saw the commander as he fired point-blank into the back of a raptor’s skull, dropping it like a sack of potatoes. To Jenks and Ellenshaw the point was now moot about the impossibility of anything surviving an age it wasn’t supposed to on this messed-up continent. So, raptors outlived their brethren a mere sixty-five million years, but now they were actually witnessing Jason Ryan of the United States Navy riding a giant feathered roc like a charging cavalryman. “It’s Virginia, Sarah, and Anya!” Ellenshaw screamed, causing Jenks to fumble the C-4 charge he was handling. Cursing, he looked up from his task and saw Virginia as she kicked brutally at the giant bird’s hindquarters to get it to jump the first trailer. Then Jason, Sarah, and Anya broke through the gap in the defensive trailer line and skidded to a stop. Jason immediately ran to Charlie and slapped him on the back.
“What are you guys doing here?” Ellenshaw asked as Ryan fired his smoking nine millimeter into the line of raptors that now threatened to break through the tree line in force. Ellenshaw suspected they awaited the herd of bison and mammoths to crush them first.
“Never mind that, Doc, what’s up with that dust cloud?” Jason asked as Sarah and Anya joined them at the firing line. The rocs had decided that they could be in a far better situation than the one they currently held. As one, their mounts deserted them.
“The raptors are using the bison and mammoth herds to stampede our position. They have been herding them for two days now.”
“Raptors? Mammoths?” Ryan asked, looking from Ellenshaw to Anya and Sarah.
“You know, those lizard-looking chickens you just shot up,” Charlie said as he, Anya, and Sarah turned back to look at the animals they had assumed were just small rocs laying dead and dying in the fallen ash.
“To tell you the truth, I was really hoping that Carl was a bit touched in the head when he told us about them things,” Sarah said as they continued to look at the nightmarish advanced evolutionary form of an extinct Velociraptor.
“What in the hell?” Ryan asked as he stood, because he had to see this.
As the others looked on in amazement, they saw a larger-than-normal raptor stride easily from the trees. It stood directly over the raptor that was wounded and writhing on the ground. Ryan would swear later that the brightly colored feathers of the six-and-a-half-foot reptile plumed out from its long and flightless wings and rose along its spiny back. It seemed to be posing for the humans who watched it. Then to their amazement the sharpened spearlike stick came down into the wounded raptor’s chest. It suddenly stopped moving and lay still. They would swear later that the raptor never looked away from them as the spear came down, its bright yellow eyes challenging the humans.
“Okay, it’s official, I don’t like this place,” Jason said as he lowered himself to a kneeling position.
* * *
Virginia had slid to a stop and jumped from her roc. She saw the wide eyes of the master chief as he realized just what it was she had been riding. The roc screamed and then ran off just as Will Mendenhall made it over to the both of them.
“Glad to see you’re still alive,” Virginia said as she knelt beside Jenks and his dismembered drones. He continued to work as Virginia pecked him on the cheek.
“Nice horsey you had there, Slim,” Jenks commented as he tore a set of wires free from a drone.
“Yeah, a little hard on a woman’s ass, though,” she said as Mendenhall silently agreed.
“What are we doing, Master Chief?” Will asked as he hurriedly tossed his and Jenks’s M-4s to Sarah and Anya before turning back to the frantically working navy master chief.
“Slim, slide the blasting cap into that wad of C-4 in drone number one. Captain, do the same on two. I’ve got to rewire this telephoto lens to send the charge through.”
“What’s the plan here, Harold?” Virginia asked as her slim fingers easily pushed the inch-long cap into the block of C-4.
“In case you failed to notice, Miss Nuclear Sciences, we have a herd of giant bison and even larger Frankenstein elephants charging down to the camp, which so happens to include the doorway. We have to turn them before they get here.”
“Master Chief, the raptors are all out in the open, they’re forcing the bison and mammoths to charge!” Charlie called out as he started to follow Jenks’s last order to him. He emptied the full load of tracer rounds into the fast-moving bison herd.
“Jesus, we may as well be shooting at a brick wall,” Jason said. “Jenks, we’re out of time here!” Ryan also started firing in hopes of scaring the frightened animals even more than the raptors pushing them.
Jason, Anya, Charlie, and Sarah watched the trees come alive as thousands of raptors slowly broke from cover alongside the racing animals, adding to their terrified panic.
“Okay,” Ryan said as he stood up to see the full picture. “That is a lot of raptors.” He watched as the bison were now only a quarter mile away. “I’ll never laugh at another made-for-TV movie again.”
Behind them the first of the two drones flew skyward and quickly vanished in the increasing ashfall.
* * *
The initial shock of Jack’s planned attack went off with spectacular results. The raptors that were caught playing or lounging were taken by surprise, probably for the first time in their lives. They saw the charging rocs and the men who sat upon them. Collins, Everett, and Farbeaux fired into the running raptors, not really caring if they hit anything at all. The object was to scatter the nest, so to speak. They needed the time to search for the coupling. Even the fatter, older raptors thought it better to retreat and reevaluate the strange behavior of the rocs, the raptors’ only natural enemy. It was by sheer luck that the rocs had been chosen to carry the men. But as most professional soldiers will tell you, battles are decided by a healthy dose of that particular charm—luck.
Henri and Carl would stay mounted since Jack was the only one of the three to even know what the coupling looked like. As he ran toward the raptors’ booty pile, a single feathered menace, who had not had a chance at running, turned on Collins and charged. Jack, while looking over the large pile of colorful and shiny detritus, raised his nine millimeter and quickly dispatched the charging raptor as he was far more interested in the impossible task ahead of him: finding the coupling in this mess before the raptors found out they had been had and returned with a little payback.
Carl and Henri rode to the ancient and crumbling frame of the downed saucer and fired blindly into the trees surrounding the nesting area of the raptors.
Jack almost had to turn away from the smell as he kicked at the first pile of treasure. That was when he saw the arm with a bright and shiny wristwatch upon it. It was obviously one of the Russians who had been taken as a spoil of war. He grimaced and started in earnest to pull items from the large stockpile of absconded items. Seeing a colorful stone that had obviously come from Erebus, he also saw there was five MRE packets, their mylar wrap shiny to the raptor eye. He was looking at a near impossible task to accomplish before the nesting raptors found the courage to return. Still, he went crazy looking.
Henri felt the presence of the raptor before his roc recognized the smell of the animal, turned, and was so taken by surprise that rider and bird fell to the floor of the nesting area. The ash plume rose and hid the Frenchman for the briefest of moments, but not before Carl saw what had scared the roc so bad. There, standing inside the damaged frame of the million-year-old saucer, was the largest raptor they had seen. This one was over six feet tall and stared down at the men as if they were intruding on its home. Everett hurriedly tried to correct and fire at the same time but his roc also screamed and fell backward. Carl was able to maintain his precarious hold on the bird but he lost his nine millimeter in the process. As he corrected the fall of the roc his eyes caught on something shiny in the clutched digits of the raptor’s left hand as it surveyed the chaos of his nest. The world shook but the raptor only stared out as if the men and rocs were but a minor inconvenience. This one was not to be intimidated.
“Jack!” Everett shouted as he frantically looked for his lost weapon, but it was now buried so deep in the fallen ash that he gave up. Henri was just getting to his feet when he saw exactly what Everett was yelling about.
Collins kicked at a smelly pile of collected objects when he heard Everett’s shout. He turned and his eyes immediately fell upon what the roosterlike raptor was holding in its tightly clutched right hand—the shiny stainless steel power coupling. Evidently it was his prize and his alone. As he watched, Farbeaux quickly moved toward the saucer. He saw the raptor’s eyes turn his way and knew that he was had before he ever made the twenty feet. The raptor’s eyes went wide and its feathered arms flared outward and its neck’s down feathers went to full attention. It hissed again as the Frenchman came on, firing the M-4 as he did so. The raptor screamed as a round nicked its winglike arm. The creature opened its slim jaws and the teeth were apparent as it leaped from the skeletal remains of the downed saucer. Instead of sizing up the Frenchman it charged him. Suddenly Farbeaux realized that the elongated twenty feet wasn’t that long at all. The rooster was upon him.
Jack moved but he knew it would be far too late. Henri was about to be torn apart right in front of them. Still, he raised the pistol and aimed.
Everett, who was also moving, saw that neither he nor Collins was going to be early enough to save the Frenchman’s life. The raptor screamed in triumph as it leaped into the air, clawed feet coming at Henri like a small set of arrows. With Jack’s and Carl’s bullets striking near it, the raptor had no other route to land except right in Farbeaux’s lap.
The blur of brown and black caught the raptor right before its leap connected with Henri. He was shocked to see the raptor suddenly vanish in a rush of falling feathers. The world turned to a slow-motion movie as the saber-toothed lion tore at the stunned rooster only feet before they both struck the ground and rolled. As Jack looked around he saw other large cats, bears, and prehistoric antelope as they charged away from the burning woods behind them. Erebus was running the population of animals away from its slopes. The frightened lion quickly tore at the soft orange- and red-tinted down of the rooster, who was struggling to free itself from the teeth of the massive cat.
Farbeaux felt his bladder nearly explode as the cat and raptor went flying right over his head, close enough that he actually smelled the musky odor of the saber-tooth as it sped past. He then felt the searing pain as something struck him hard in the area that most men dread. He felt his breath explode outward and immediately felt the bile rising in his throat as he was momentarily incapacitated. He fell backward as the world spun. He didn’t even realize that the pain had caused him so much consternation that he actually rolled right into the biting and scratching cat and raptor.
Both Carl and Jack slid to a stop and almost cringed as Farbeaux wasn’t even aware of his dire situation. It looked as if he were just lying there not caring about much at all. Finally the lion snapped the neck of the raptor and with a giant paw on the lizard’s chest, the great cat roared in triumph. It leaned over, smelled death as it claimed the rooster, and then in one motion the beast bit deeply into the raptor’s neck and leaped into the trees and was gone. Jack and Carl ran to Farbeaux, who was lying there moaning in pain. Next to him was the object that had struck him right dead center of his groin—the power coupling. It was barely visible through the mounting ash deposit covering the ground. Collins reached over and retrieved the vital part of the doorway.
“Now that was impressive,” Jack said as he ruthlessly pulled the Frenchman to his feet where he wobbled and almost fell backward. Carl slapped him on the back and then one of the most ruthless men in the world vomited. He swiped angrily at his mouth and vomited again as the pain slowly started to subside from his groin as it worked its way up and out of his body.
“If you ever”—he spit out some ash-colored bile and then looked at both Americans—“I mean ever, mention this in mixed company, I swear I will track you both down and kill you.” Henri bent at the waist and yelled an obscenity. Jack smiled.
“You see, Frenchmen know what to do with their sex packages. I told you he would come in handy,” Collins said with insulting intent.
Again, Everett slapped his back. “You sure did.”
“Now, before I throw up again, may I suggest we get that part back to camp and get the hell out of here as I don’t relish the thought of fighting all of them off.” Henri was pointing back to the destroyed and ancient saucer.
“Oh, damn,” Collins said as he and Everett slowly pulled the Frenchman backward as they spied the two hundred raptors that studied them from the highest point of the vine- and vegetation-covered ship.
Carl quickly caught the two remaining rocs. They tossed Henri up on one and Jack jumped in the makeshift saddle in front of him. Henri screamed as his crotch settled into the harsh leather saddle.
“You better take it as easy as you—”
Jack spurred the giant roc forward and its bounding gait made Henri scream in pain once again. As he threatened Collins’s life for the hundredth time in his long and illustrious career, Everett joined up with them on the back of Foghorn Leghorn, and the trio sped away before the raptors could regroup.
* * *
Ryan’s eyes were on the center-most part of the bison herd where the charging mammoths crushed the poor buffalo-like animals into the ground. As he watched with trepidation he saw that the thousands of raptors lining the edges of the stampede had actually slowed and then stopped as they looked to be gathering things off the ash-covered ground.
“What are they doing?” Sarah asked, having to scream over the roar of the charging beasts combined with the eruption of Erebus and her sisters.
“I suspect they are gathering missiles for their final assault after the herds are finished with us.” Charlie smiled when he saw the horror on their faces. They hadn’t seen these smart creatures in action before. “They seem to like rocks and sharp sticks as their preferable mode of killing.”
Jason, Anya, and Sarah looked at Charlie as if the old hippie professor had lost his mind. Jason was about to explain to the white-haired professor just how he felt when the zip of the second drone sounded behind them. Virginia and Will soon joined them behind the wall of empty trailers.
“I think you can inform that mean bastard that we can see our deaths coming rather vividly. I don’t think we need the drones to tell us what’s coming.”
“He’s got a little more planned than idly watching, Jason,” Virginia said as she and Will exchanged knowing looks.
They heard the first drone cease its hovering inside the ash cloud. As it was joined by the second drone, they heard the two automated systems scream off toward the charging bison and mammoth herds. They saw the giant animals were now only a hundred yards to their front and were not going to veer away for some small insignificant humans.
“This is going to hurt,” Ryan yelled as he pulled Virginia and Anya down to the ground, hoping for some relative cover of the John Deere trailers, but they all knew the mindless fear of the animals would assist in crushing the trailers like tinfoil. The lasers above them continued to fire. With dawning horror Mendenhall hit the earth beside his friends. At least twelve of the laser pods had ceased shooting. They were out of battery power.
The forward line of bison started to jump over the fallen as they came within a hairbreadth of breaching the camp perimeter.
Suddenly the world exploded in front of them. The earth shaking of the Erebus eruption seemed tame in comparison to the rolling and rocking that Jenks’s little surprise caused. The combined eight pounds of C-4 plastique detonated after the drones it was attached to reached an altitude of five hundred feet. Jenks had nosed the drones over and sent them at 150 miles per hour downward. The first struck the ground only fifty feet in front of the first line of bison, sending at least two hundred of them to their doom. The mammoths were knocked from their feet as the explosion sent an invisible shock wave outward. It struck the trailers they hid behind and they rocked on their wheeled frames. The John Deere tractor lost its hold on the world and went flying, coming dangerously close to striking the doorway. Ryan was struck in the face by a dismembered hoof of one of the bison.
Jenks flinched as he clenched the cigar in his teeth and was pleased to see that the raptors had not been expecting that. The five or six thousand of them toward the front beat a hasty retreat back into the safe cover of the trees.
“Just a tad more advanced than chucking rocks and sticks, huh, you ugly sons of bitches!”
The master chief sent the second drone down into the midst of the animals themselves at the front of the stampede. The detonation rocked the game trail and sent both mammoth and bison skyward.
“Yes!” Charlie screamed in triumph when he saw that although the first detonation did little to sway the frightened but determined beasts, the second convinced them another route was more preferable to the noise and carnage in front of them. The animals turned right and then they turned left. The raptors that had ran before the powerful explosions stared on from the tree line as their well-laid plan of stampede fell apart right before their menacing eyes. Mammoths and bison slammed into the milling thousands of feathered lizards.
The rumbling of the two herds dwindled as the screams of the raptors escaped the trees. Charlie stood and smiled over at a grinning master chief.
“Where in the hell would you people be if I wasn’t here to save your pansy asses?”
Virginia stood and, with a womanly casualness, brushed her clothing as she approached Jenks, who was expecting a big wet one on the lips for his heroics. Instead he saw that her eyebrows were raised as she approached. She was even beautiful with her hair covered in ash and her face in mud.
“Do you think for one damn minute that any one of us couldn’t have thought that little idea up? Do you think we were helpless before you came along … Harold?”
Jenks was taken aback but only momentarily. He dropped the drone remote box, tossed his cigar away, and kissed the assistant director hard on the lips, then released her.
“You’re welcome, Slim,” he said, and then walked away.
“Hey!”
Jenks turned and saw the filthy black face of Will Mendenhall. He raised his chin, wanting to know what the young captain wanted.
“I thought your plan was pretty cool.”
Jenks was about to chew the captain’s ass off when he glanced at the warning Virginia gave him. Instead the master chief just nodded and with one last look at Virginia he walked toward the doorway to inspect it for damage. They all realized at the same exact moment that the two had to be the most bizarre couple imaginable. Jason, Sarah, Anya, Will, and Charlie turned to look at an eye-batting Virginia, who was fawning at the retreating master chief. She then turned and smiled like a high school girl.
“Ain’t he something,”
* * *
The laser system was out of power with the exception of her radar system, which was being heavily scrutinized by Jason and Will. The look that crossed their faces was not one to make an observer comfortable.
“Is it Jack?” Sarah asked as she approached with a bottle of water as she attempted to keep the heavily falling ash out of her eyes as much as possible. She looked around at the dark sky above that was streaked with red light as Erebus ejected five- and ten-ton boulders from her guts.
“Uh, no,” Ryan said as he fixed Sarah with a look. He stepped aside and allowed the lieutenant to scan the radar. She saw the gathering blobs of light as they once more gathered just inside the tree line. Since the detonations of Jenks’s little surprise, the raptors had laid low for forty-five minutes but were now starting to gather their courage once more. Jason had to admit they were a determined bunch even after losing their screen of fifty thousand animals.
“Oh, that isn’t good at all,” Sarah said as she handed the water bottle to Will, who splashed his face with the remains.
“I swear when I get back I will never eat another chicken or turkey again, the scheming bastards,” Mendenhall said in all seriousness as he tossed the empty bottle away. The earth rolled and they heard Master Chief Jenks yell as the doorway rolled with the ground it was anchored to. The master chief was nearly crushed before the doorway stilled and the anchor pins held. He hurriedly went back to work.
“We have movement to our rear,” Charlie said as he grabbed hold of his M-4, which he had become very attached to.
Jenks stuck his head up from where he laid on his back making an adjustment to the particle collider. He looked at Virginia as she was in the process of handing Jenks a torque wrench.
“What is it?” he asked.
“They may be attacking again.”
“Or it’s them damn Russians, don’t forget them.”
As they watched to the south they saw a bright red flare burst from the trees and then quickly vanish as it reached the low-hanging ash cloud. Sarah lowered her head when she realized it wasn’t raptors, but Jack and the others—hopefully.
Ryan’s radio crackled to life.
“Popping color,” came the voice of Jack Collins, which made Sarah go weak in the knees.
Ryan raised the radio to his lips. “I see a red flare, over.”
“Coming in,” came the tired voice.
Sarah ran to the far wall of trailers and was biting her lip as Anya joined her. They both wanted to gasp when the first roc exited the smoldering trees. They saw Henri Farbeaux as he and the roc he sat upon came out of hiding being led on the ground by Jack. They were followed by a second with Carl onboard, and that sight made Anya smile. The matter of the recovery of the power coupling was far from their minds even as they knew it shouldn’t be. They were soon joined by all, including Jenks and Virginia.
“Well, I guess those chicken bastards didn’t get their afternoon snack,” he said without realizing the others weren’t laughing.
Ryan and Will moved one of the wheeled trailers out of the way and Jack led the roc inside as Mendenhall assisted Farbeaux down from the giant bird. Everett was next as he allowed his weary body to slide off the back of Foghorn.
Sarah hugged Jack and Anya repeated the process with Carl.
“Well, the gang’s all here, but did you find the golden egg?” the master chief asked, a little more than curious.
Jack pulled away from Sarah and then reached into his pack and unceremoniously tossed Jenks the power coupling. He caught it and smiled at Virginia.
“How about it, Slim, you want to get the hell out of this screwed-up Disneyland?”
“I was ready about three days ago.”
* * *
With the exception of the master chief and Virginia, who were busy connecting the coupling to the nuclear-powered battery system, the rest were scavenging the radar systems of the laser defense pods to back up the signal enhancer. Only Henri was off by himself recovering. All of the others gathered around the two remaining rocs as Carl slid the old Roman saddles from their backs. He slid a powerful arm around them both and they looked as if they wanted nothing more than the man to stop choking them. He patted each on the enormous beaks and then slapped them both on the tail feathers, sending them through the circled trailers. Then Everett went to the redheaded rooster he called Foghorn. He patted the animal on the neck and Foghorn nuzzled the man’s hand. Carl stepped back and then waved his arms. The giant roc, with one last look at Everett, jumped the trailers and was gone. The three enormous birds trotted easily away without looking back. Carl watched them go with a hint of sadness to his slumping frame. Anya walked up and placed an arm around him as they watched the three remaining rocs vanish into the trees. Everett turned to look at Sarah, who was putting a field dressing on Jack’s arm.
“My birds aren’t going to make it, are they?” Carl asked Sarah, who slowly shook her head.
“Today, tomorrow, or even next month, everything on this continent will be dead and will soon be covered by two miles of ice.”
“Get attached?” Jack asked as he flexed his arm.
Everett looked momentarily embarrassed. But he managed a smile. “Foghorn Leghorn wasn’t the best conversationalist, but him and the others were the only buddies I had in this part of the world.” He lost his smile as he looked over at Ryan and Mendenhall. “At least they never talked back but listened to everything I said without complaint.”
The two men only smiled. They were in the mood to tolerate a lot of guff from the admiral; after all, they each considered it a miracle they were looking at him at all. Everett ceased his joking as he glanced at the doorway as it was about to be powered up. He looked at the faces around him. The kind look even extended to Henri Farbeaux as he joined the group.
“I don’t know what to say,” he said, as he felt he couldn’t face the people who had gambled so much in their attempt to bring him home.
“You’re a navy man—why is that so surprising? You guys never know what to say,” Collins said with his brows raised, meaning for Carl to knock off the thank-yous.
“Regardless”—he looked at his friends and then his eyes settled on the Frenchman—“thank you. All of you.”
Farbeaux noticed most of that was directed at him, but the Frenchman couldn’t bring himself to say anything. He was resentful of the fact that these men and women made him examine his life, and he did not like that at all. He only nodded in response to the debt of gratitude.
“Okay, everyone better cross their friggin’ fingers,” Jenks said as everyone turned and watched as he crawled out from underneath the circular collider after connecting the main power source. Jenks nodded as the others shied away, making the older navy man laugh out loud. “Oh, come on, the least that will happen is that this magical erector set explodes and fries us all just like that volcano will do eventually, so what in the hell are you afraid of? Hell, I would be more afraid if this thing doesn’t work and we are left here with the Colonel Sanders army chasing us until Erebus blows her top.” He looked at his watch as a joke. “Which should be in about thirty minutes by the feel of the ground.” He saw the others relax. Maybe he was gaining some humanity—who knows?
“Uh, would you mind ceasing with the jokes and start that damn thing up?” Ellenshaw said as he turned away from the trailers. “We have a lot of company heading our way.”
The others walked over and saw what Ellenshaw meant. In the veil of falling ash they watched as the raptors came out of the trees by the thousands. They pushed, screamed, hissed, and fought each other as they came. A large rooster was in the front and it held what looked like one of the ancient Roman spears at its side.
“Yes, now would be a good time,” Jack said as he turned to Jenks.
“Okay, Slim, let’s see if we can jump-start this damn thing.”
Virginia mentally crossed her fingers as she reached into the last trailer and raised the clear plastic cover of the world’s most expensive portable power source. She closed her eyes as she flipped the red switch.
They all felt the ozone in the air as the battery generator kicked in. Its small reactor core sent an electrical charge through the very ground as it slowly amped up in power. As Jenks turned to the doorway he cursed as the collider didn’t move. Then he mentally kicked himself and ran to the collider and released the static pins holding it in place. It was only a second longer that the large collider started to slowly rotate on its axis.
“Start with fifty percent power only, Slim, until we get a return lock-on signal from Europa.”
“Right,” Virginia said. She was soon joined by Sarah.
As they watched, the doorway started to spark and hiss as it revolved faster and faster.
Master Chief Jenks sniffed the air and then cursed himself again. He was screwing up in his anxious state to get the hell out of there. He turned to Virginia. “Release the coolant reservoir, slowly. She’s starting to sizzle a little.”
Virginia did as ordered and then crossed her fingers as she watched Jenks go to the main control panel in the trailer. He adjusted the audible signal and turned the knob all the way up. At first they didn’t think it was working, then they all felt the minute irritation of the signal as it penetrated their eardrums.
“Signal is broadcasting,” Virginia said as the others gathered around and watched the sparkling doorway slowly open to another dimension with eye-hurting brilliance.
Virginia wanted to jump when the needle on the return signal pegged out in the red.
“Europa is on the line!”
Before any of them could react to the good news, the world exploded in flame and shrapnel.