The Traveler (53 page)

“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.