DS02 Night of the Dragonstar (23 page)

“Drop her down,” Murphy yelled. “Get me a good angle and I’ll blow him away.”

Closing the distance between the aircraft and the dinosaur, Ian brought the ’thopter in at treetop level, parallel to the Barrier. Directly in front of him, through the cockpit glass, the flat eye of the creature glared at him. Murphy let loose a volley of hollow-point, high-velocity slugs that ripped into its skull.

At the last instant, Ian pulled up the controls and the ’thopter leaped upward. Over the whine of the engines, he could hear the wailing of the beast as it collapsed at the base of the fracture.

“Nice shooting, Murphy!” he cried.

“Gee, Captain, how could I miss? Another couple of meters and we’d have been down his throat.”

Ian wheeled back past the still heaving form of the beast to see ranks of Saurians
—
warriors and agrarians alike
—
cheering the ’thopter as it passed over their position. Already he could see the first shadowy, kitelike figures of the scavenging Pteranodons gathering above the bleeding form of the felled beast. They would be getting ready to swoop down and steal a few pieces of hot meat, thought Ian with an ironic grin. You had to act fast in a place like this.

“Captain! We’ve got another one down there!” Murphy yelled.

At the same time, Ian heard Becky’s voice cutting through the din. “Ian! Ian! For God’s sake, what’re you doing?”

Leaning out of his seat, Ian looked back for an instant to the underside of the ’thopter. The equipment bay hatch was open, and Becky was hanging out of the hatch yelling up at him.

Instead of trying to scream over the noise, he pointed downward to the scene on the ground and hoped she’d understand where they were and what was happening. Then, following the pointing arm of Murphy, he saw that a very large Tyrannosaurus had crashed out of the trees to the east of the break in the wall. Although it was some distance away from the break, it wouldn’t take the beast very long to get there.

Becky was still screaming at him, and he was certain that it was no fun to be tossed around it: the equipment bay while he played tactical fighter pilot with these monsters. There was only one thing to do, and he had to do it fast.

“Hey! What’re you doing?” Murphy yelled.

Leaning on the controls, Ian brought the ’thopter in low over the Barrier and searched for a good place to land. There was a flat area, an entrance to a park, beyond the ramparts and the assembled fighting platoons. Lower and lower he eased the craft, not looking at Murphy until the ship was idling on the turf.

“Got to get them out of the belly,” he said. “Go on, Murph, give them a hand.”

Becky was already scrambling out of the tight quarters as Murphy jumped down and ran around to help. A crowd of Saurians slowly was closing in on them, looking very wary and apprehensive. It could be a very touchy situation, and he wondered if it was a good idea to leave Becky on the ground with little protection.

“Ian, what do you think you’re doing?” she screamed. “Were you trying to kill us in there?”

“Of course not, my dear,” he said with an impish grin. “Now come on and get out of there, both of you. I’ve got some business to take care of.”

“Ian, please be careful,” Becky said.

“Captain Coopersmith. Ian. My God, Ian, what’re you doing here?”

Turning away from Becky for an instant, Ian looked up to see Phineas Kemp running toward him. Trailing behind were three others
—
a commando, that journalist, and ... good grief! it looked like Thesaurus.

“Greetings, Colonel. Nice to see you again,” Ian said, reaching out to shake Kemp’s hand. “I’ve decided to give you guys a hand. You look like you could use it.”

“C’mon, Captain,” Murphy said as he climbed into the cabin.

Waving him to silence, Ian looked at the hobbling figure of the Saurian being escorted over to the aircraft. It
was
Thesaurus.

The crowd of Saurian warriors drew closer to the aircraft; several had raised their weapons. They stopped, however, when they saw Thesaurus approaching the humans with no fear or trepidation. Turning to confront the warriors, Thesaurus held out his arms in a cruciform position, barking out a series of commands that the translator announced as simple orders to leave the humans alone, telling the slow-thinking warriors that the humans were indeed friends. The lemon-robed Saurian then turned back to regard his first human friend.

“You are a brave human, Ian Coopersmith,” Thesaurus said as he approached the open cabin of the ornithopter.

“It’s good to see you again,” Ian said. “I’ve come back to help my friends.”

“Captain,” Murphy said again.

“I know, I know,” Ian said, then turned back to Becky, Phineas, and the old high priest who had become his friend. “It looks like I’ve got to go.”

With a smile at everyone, and a wink at Becky, he closed the hatch and lifted off. The ’thopter responded nicely, as he was now growing more accustomed to the controls. The machine practically grabbed the air with its airfoils, moving like a swimmer pushing the water past his body.

“All right,” Ian said with a smile. “Let’s go get that big boy.”

Reaching a cruising altitude just above the ramparts, Ian was shocked to see what had happened in the short time he had squandered by dropping off his passengers. The Tyrannosaurus, which had presumably been attracted to the scene by all the noise and the smell of blood, had closed the distance between the forest’s edge and the gap in the Barrier.

It was an abnormally large animal
—
larger than any predator Ian had ever seen in the preserve. It was a light tan color with some minimal striping, and it stood out against the lush greens of the forest behind it. Taller than any other theropod, the creature leaned forward, balancing its weight with a thick, heavy, but extremely fluid tail. As it approached the rift in the wall, a small squad of warrior-class Saurians ran out through the rubble to meet its charge.

Like a chicken hunting and pecking in a barnyard, the beast opened its jaws and plucked the Saurians from the ground, tossing them up into its cavernous maw. It moved with surprising quickness, and the storm of spears and arrows that rained down from the ramparts seemed to have no effect on it.

Its pillbox head seemed too large for the neck that supported it like a gun turret on a swivel mount. As the ’thopter approached it for the first time, the beast’s attention was diverted from the opening in the wall for an instant and it turned a glistening yellow eye up to assay them.

Murphy fired his automatic into the thing’s head as they passed, but the weapon sputtered into silence after a terribly short burst.

“Need another clip,” he yelled in frustration, digging into the utility pouch on his belt. “Get me around for another pass.”

Ian nodded and pulled up on the controls as the Tyrannosaurus looked away from them and again strode forward toward the piled-up debris. Methodically, it began to sweep the area with its tail, pushing aside the smaller pieces of the broken wall. It pushed away the larger fragments with its powerful hind legs. The beast appeared determined to stride right into the Saurian preserve.

Whipping the ’thopter out of a tight turn, Ian brought the craft up for some additional power in its attacking dive. He had been keeping his attention mainly on the position of the beast below them. And that would prove to be his only mistake.

He had forgotten about the flock of Pteranodons that had gathered above the sight of the bloodbath. They were carrion eaters, the vultures of the Mesozoic. Their circling, gliding patterns above an open clearing in the Mesozoic preserve served as a clear marker that death was down below.

It happened so fast that Ian had no time to react. In one instant the airspace was clear; in the next, a swarm of the reddish, leathery-winged, pencil-headed reptiles filled the window with their furious flapping.

“Watch it, Captain!”

Murphy’s warning came too late. Yanking the controls hard to the left, Ian tried to avoid the flying reptiles on instinct alone. The ornithopter careened into the center of the flock, and with the force of a concussive shell, one of the creatures exploded through the window. Like crystalline snow, the fragments peppered Ian, momentarily blinding him. The ’thopter rocked dangerously as another of the Pteranodons impacted on the rotors of the engine. There was a sickening crunch and a quick series of crowlike caws, screeches of death closing in on the beast.

It was that fast, and the aircraft had cleared the flight of reptiles, but the damage had been done. The once steady whine of the engines had been reduced to a ratcheting, knocking sound; the airfoils moved with a twisted, battered slowness which Ian knew would not keep them aloft for very long. He yanked up on the controls and threw the craft into a stall, then tried to fall out of the maneuver to increase his glide factor.

“We’ve had it!” he yelled to Murphy. “She’s not going to stay up.”

Murphy only stared at him with a sick expression on his face. It was a look of fear mixed with a touch of disbelief. Ian was certain he wore a similar expression. Is this it? Is this how it’s going to end? he wondered.

The ’thopter tilted dangerously to one side as the left airfoil collapsed in upon itself, no longer able to handle the stress factors and support the weight of the fuselage. Ian scanned the scene on the ground below and knew what he had to do. The Tyrannosaurus had cleared the majority of the debris from the rift in the Barrier and was fighting its way toward the opening despite the valiant but futile efforts of the Saurian warriors.

“I’m taking it in!” he yelled to Murphy. “Get ready to jump!”

“Jump? Are you crazy?”

“Jumping is safer than riding it home,” Ian cried. The controls were stiffening up as the engine knocked and coughed out its last few bursts of power.

The flight path of the ’thopter tightened into more of a dive than a glide, and Ian knew it was going to be a rough landing. He looked over at Murphy, who was hanging on to the frame of the cabin with a white-knuckled grip.

“Get ready to jump,” Ian cried. “Screw you!”

“Now! Get out of here
now!”
Ian said.

Murphy ignored him, and Ian did the only thing possible in the situation. Grabbing a handle above his head, Ian vaulted up out of his seat with a gymnastic move and kicked Murphy across the chest with both feet. It was a quick maneuver which sent the trooper sprawling back and out of the ship less than twenty meters from impact.

The move gave Ian just enough time to get back into his seat and wrestle with the controls for one last course change
—
the last one he would ever need.

* * *

Becky may have screamed when she saw the body falling from the diving ’thopter. She couldn’t remember. The helmeted figure plunged spread-eagled into a copse of ferns and cycads just within the Barrier and disappeared from view. In the next instant, the ornithopter, tilting crazily, flapping limply at the air like a wounded bird, wheeled downward and cut a sharp angle away from the trees, heading straight for the rift in the Barrier wall and the nightmare creature that now approached it.

Becky held her breath as she watched the ornithopter rush headlong into the Tyrannosaurus. The impact of the crash shattered the command cabin like an exploding eggshell, flinging Ian through the air like a rag doll. The force of the crash against the great beast’s body slammed it backward with incredible force. And the whirling, twisted airfoils sliced through its neck as cleanly as the blade of a guillotine.

For a single, frozen moment, the head of the Rex remained stable. Then a fountain of bright blood erupted from the incision in its neck. It tottered backward, a dying scream gurgling weakly in its throat as the great head slid slowly from the neck. It dangled by a few untouched cords of sinew and shredded flesh as the beast collapsed to the earth.

For an instant the scene remained deathly quiet, before the assembly of Saurian warriors and agrarians erupted into a chorus of barks and hisses and tail thumping. The scene had been so spectacular, so unbelievable, that it seemed fixed in time like a photograph in Becky’s mind. She had been stunned by the visual impact of the event, and the full realization of what she had seen was only now beginning to sink in.

“My God,” someone said in a soft whisper.

Ian, thought Becky, Ian had been thrown clear!

Suddenly she was running toward the crash, and it was as though her movement was a signal for everyone else. Phineas and the others moved quickly behind her, and the hordes of Saurians
—
warriors, agrarians, even the philosopher-priests
—
closed ranks and ran toward the site of the crash. Becky ran ahead of the pack, and she could see that the felled Tyrannosaurus, wrapped in the twisted wreckage of the ornithopter, formed an effective barricade against the break in the Barrier. Nothing else would be able to get through
—
at least for quite some time.

Passing the crash site, she looked toward the area where Ian had been thrown
—
a slapdash of crude scaffolding which the Saurians had been using to repair the Barrier. Part of the primitive latticework of planks and supports had collapsed, and it was in the midst of this debris that she saw him.

Lying on his back, with his head twisted at a terrible angle, Ian Coopersmith stared up past the ramparts, beyond the edge of the Barrier. Thick rivulets of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth, his nose, and ears. He did not move; his eyes did not blink.

She rushed to his side, crying out his name over and over, trying to fight back the tears, trying to ignore the frantic pounding in her breast. Easing herself down next to him, careful not to collapse any more of the scaffolding, Becky reached out and took his hand in hers. The color was fading from his face; his eyes were glazing over.