[COPY] RECONNAISSANCE IN FORCE - Containment Protocol, Part 3
Large, aggressive, indigenous fauna. Fiction (1700 words, 9-minute read)
You probably received re-sends of the 1st 2 parts of this story yesterday. Sorry about that. I was re-organizing my Substack page to gather serialized fiction into one section, and didn’t notice that a switch needed to be clicked. ==> Re-sends. In compensation, here’s part 3, a day earlier than normal. I hope you enjoy it as much as I am writing this tale. I mean, tanks & dinosaurs. What’s not to like?
RECONNAISSANCE IN FORCE
Containment protocol, Part 3
by Ray Tabler
This being the first time Booker had traveled to another universe, he wanted to take note of the experience. However, he was too busy trying to keep one eye on the feed from the drone on his tablet, another eye forward to deal with threats as soon as transiting the gate, and another eye on his passengers, Muñoz and Nohfa. Understandably, appreciation of the actual transit suffered.
The business end of Fred’s main gun pierced the plane of the interface as the tank rumbled forward. The rippling vertical, silver gray plane washed along the barrel, the hull of the tank, then the turret, and Booker, exactly as if driving into a sideways swimming pool. A tiny corner of Booker’s mind marveled that the instant of transition passed so quickly it was over in no discernible time. Then he was on the other side.
The sensory inputs of the scene threatened to overwhelmed Booker.
A bright, almost dazzling, sun hung in in a cloudless sky, just above a distant hill. The air was hot, and dry. Dust, kicked up by Fred’s tracks drifted behind and to either side. A carrion stench smacked his nose, and forced a coughing gag from his throat. Movement and caterwauling demanded his attention in a broad semicircle all about the gate.
“Holy shit!” Rusty, the driver, said over the crew channel.
Before he could react, Rusty steered Fred over and through the nasty, bloody, rotting remains of the back half of the dinosaur which the closing gate had truncated. Fortunately, Fred handled the job with no issues. As if the big, steel brute churned through dino blood and guts every day.
“Watch out for bones.” Booker counseled Rusty. “Don’t want ‘em jamming the tracks or road wheels.”
“Roger.” Rusty acknowledged. “Don’t see any bones, though.”
“Me either.” That struck Booker as odd. But he didn’t have time to ponder the mystery of missing bones at the moment. There were other things to deal with.
The scavengers, briefly frightened off by the gate’s opening, were cautiously approaching again. Dozens and dozens of creatures, ranging in size from turkeys to horses, crept back to the irresistible feast. They eyed the platoon of tanks, clearly calculating if this was a new item on the menu.
Bam Bam, last in line, exited the gate and squelched through the untidy pile of dead dino. The gate flickered, and shrank behind the tail end track, disappearing with a faint pop of air rushing to fill the void it left. Bereft of the discouraging portal, hungry wildlife coalesced toward the column of tanks.
Booker swung his 50-caliber machine gun to aim at a likely target. It was a two-legged beast, about eight feet long from nose to the tip of its horizontal tail. Besides an impressive set of carnivore’s teeth, the thing was surprisingly gaudy, sort of a technicolor velociraptor. Not that Booker knew for certain what a velociraptor was supposed to look like, aside from old movies he’d watched as a boy.
The reptilian skin glowed with broad stripes of dull orange and lime green in the morning sun. A frill of shimmering, foot-long feathers trailed from the back of the head, reaching to the shoulders of the forelimbs. The front claws looked like they were quite capable of gripping prey while the jaws performed their grisly work. It was a striking, almost beautiful creature. Booker felt a pang of regret for what he was about to do.
“Don’t want to waste any main gun rounds if we don’t need to.” Booker sent over the platoon channel. “I’m gonna see what the 50 will do.”
Booker pressed the trigger, and fired a burst into the dino in question. A couple of rounds missed, digging furrows into the prairie sod. The rest definitely hit the target. One half-inch-diameter lead bullet creased the dino’s back. Three more thwunked home into the chest cavity and nearest leg with a wet, low-pitched impact.
The dino did not enjoy the experience. It leaped and howled, spraying blood, and clawing at the ground. After a few seconds though, the dino shook its dreadful head and resumed advancing on Fred.
“Shit!” Muñoz breathed behind the 7.62-mm machine gun.
Booker heard the clunk of Rusty slamming the driver’s hatch shut down in the forward part of the hull. Booker didn’t blame him one, damn bit.
“Okay, 50-cal is ineffective. Pebbles and Bam Bam, give the chain guns a try.” Booker ordered over the radio. He sounded a lot calmer than he felt.
The Bradleys swung out of line ahead, each ranging off to opposite sides so their weapons would bear. Their diesel engines roared, accelerating to catch up with the head of the column. Turrets pivoted; Pebbles fired first. She lined up her 25-millimeter auto cannon on a twin of the beast which had shaken off three 50-caliber rounds.
Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. The chain guns fired with the rhythm Booker associated with an old blues song.
The aim was excellent. One-inch-diameter lumps of lead ripped the head off of the eight-foot-long dinosaur. The impressive body stalked on for a few strides, before simply standing there. It evidently didn’t realize it was dead without a brain to tell it to fall over. Nearby animals fell upon the headless horror, ripping off chunks and gulping them down.
“Well, that did the trick.” Booker radioed. “Pebbles and Bam Bam take care of the bigger ones. The rest of you hose the smaller ones with your machine guns. And keep moving.”
The tank platoon opened up on the scavengers, making the rolling grasslands echo with automatic fire. The chain guns concentrated on the velociraptors, disabling more often than killing outright. That immobilized the dangerous predators. Missing a leg or dragging entrails on the grass, the wounded velociraptors lost interest in the tanks. They suddenly were beset with smaller dinos smelling blood and mobbing them for a juicy bite.
Perhaps the smell of all the blood drove the dinos into something of a feeding frenzy. A considerable mass of smaller dinos still clawed their way forward, despite the barrage of machine gun fire from the Abrams. The 7.62-mm and 50-caliber rounds savaged the turkey-sized and dog-sized beasts, often blasting them in two. But still they came.
Booker’s thumbs ached from pressing the trigger, and his shoulders twitched from the effort of horsing the big machine gun to bear on what seemed to be an unending parade small, vicious dinos. Muñoz manned the machine gun above the loader’s hatch. Down in the gunner’s position, Jackson blazed away at any targets which blundered into the sights of the coaxial 7.62-mm machine gun, mounted alongside Fred’s main gun.
The spent brass bag, catching casings from the 50-caliber, was full to bursting. With a spasmodic heave, Booker ripped the hot bag from the gun. Smoking brass cylinders cascaded across the turret top, bouncing, and rolling with a metallic jangle.
How many rounds did he have left in the ammo box hung on the side of the 50-caliber? There were plenty more in Fred’s storage racks. But the extra rounds might as well be on the other side of the gate in the midst of this blood-soaked nightmare. There simply wouldn’t be time to reload.
The terrifying sound of claws scratching on Fred’s rear deck caused Booker to slew the machine gun that way with a panicked jerk. A greenish red dino the size of gray hound clung to the grating above the engine. How did that many sharp teeth fit into its jaw?
The machine gun slammed to a sudden halt, aimed uselessly to the side. Booker spared a shocked glance down at the mechanism. One of the loose spent brass rounds from the ripped bag jammed the gun’s track.
The gray hound dino emitted a stuttering growl, lashed a tapered tail, and gathered itself for a leap at Booker.
With a blinding flash and a savage scream, Nohfa swung her machete. The razor-sharp blade sliced through the dino’s neck with a meaty swish. The severed dino head fell to the grating, staring up at Booker with a hungry look before sliding off to the ground.
The dino’s body carried through on the spring the now absent brain had ordered up. The headless body slammed into Booker, spraying blood all over him and the turret top. Feeling the hot blood on his back, Muñoz risked a look away from the battle. He took in the scene, his eyes widening at the still-twitching dino corpse on the turret top. He nodded thanks at Nohfa, and returned to the task of blasting away at the horde of beasts.
Heart pounding, and gulping air, Booker looked at Nohfa. Their eyes locked for what seemed like an hour, but must’ve only been an instant. Nohfa twirled her gore-caked machete over her head, shouting triumphantly in her own language. Her eyes burned, and a wild grin split her blood-splattered face. Booker didn’t have time to deal with the savage lust welling up within him. He shoved the urge down deep into his psyche, and went back to the fight.
Booker thrust a gloved finger into the brass jamming his gun’s track, and pried it loose with a jerk. The round burned his hand, even though the glove. He flung it away, slewed the big gun to the next target, and pressed the trigger.
The running fight through the pack of scavengers probably took less than five minutes. Time slowed for the men of Bedrock Patrol however. If asked, they would’ve sworn at least half an hour passed before they broke through the mob. Behind them, a third of the dinos were either dead or well on the way. The remaining beasts rapidly lost interest in the tracks. The humans were more dangerous than they first appeared. Besides, there was now an abundance of fresh meat available, in the form of dead and dying scavengers. And a meal was what the dinos were there for in the first place.
The tank platoon rumbled on, an old blues song playing unbidden in the back of Booker’s head.
END
Author’s Note: The song in lieutenant Booker’s head is Boom Boom, by John Lee Hooker,
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A Grand Imperial Heir (sequel to A Grand Imperial War)
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