Tag, You’re It! – Containment Protocol-Part 36 (of 38)
Dodging Godzilla. Fiction. 2300 words, 12-minute read.
Pedal to the metal, and don’t look back!
The rest of the Containment Protocol saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/containment-protocol-serial
Part 1 (the beginning), ... Part 35 (previous episode), Part 37 (coming soon)
Tag, You’re It! – Containment Protocol-Part 36 (of 38)
By Ray Tabler
The closer Fred approached the enormous dinos apparently guarding the gate site, the more details of the beasts came into focus. And the more doubts crowed into the back of Booker’s mind as to the wisdom of this plan. It wasn’t simply the size of the monsters. That much was abundantly clear from the moment Jackson sighted them. What unsettled Booker, and his crew, was how little the guardians resembled the other dinosaurs encountered.
“Those things are like brontosauruses.” Pinsky rode next to Booker, his torso poking up out of the loader’s hatch.
“Are you an expert on dinosaurs, now?” Jackson sounded skeptical.
“Well, no. I mean they look as big brontos on TV.”
“Did brontos even exists? I remember some scientist screwed up, and put the wrong skull on a skeleton.”
“Uh, yeah. I think that did happen. Well, whatever the big skeleton was, that’s what those look like. Hey, if this is a new one, maybe we get to name it.” Light kindled in Pinsky’s eyes. “How about, the pinskysaurus?”
“The Army is not going to let you name a dino after youself.” Jackson scoffed.
“How do you know? It could happen.”
“The only way these things get named after you is because they look so goofy.” Jackson deflated Pinsky’s dream of scientific celebrity. “I’m zoomed in in on ‘em. And it looks like they got extra legs. More than a bronto, anyway.”
“What?” Booker checked the repeater screen to see for himself what Jackson was talking about. Still a bit fuzzy with distance, the two monstrous dinos shambled across the screen. Indeed, they each had more than the normal four legs. “They’ve got eight legs!”
“Get outta here!” Pinsky tried to peer around Jackson at the screen. “What, like spiders?”
“They’re not spiders.” Booker decided. “They’re dinos. Really big dinos... with eight legs.”
“Thank God for that.” Rusty put his two cents worth in. Spiders creeped him out.
“Mulroney to Booker... Mulroney to Booker.” The platoon channel crackled with static.
“Booker here.”
“Coming up on your six, sir.”
“What?” Booker twisted around. Barney approached from behind, kicking up a plume on dust on the dry prairie. “Sergeant, what the hell are you doing here?”
“Providing backup, el-tee. I figure you two Godzillas, you’ll need two tanks to keep ‘em busy.”
Booker sputtered. “You are disobeying an order, sergeant.”
“I choose to view it as interpreting your instructions in a way to enhance the chances of a successful mission... sir.”
“And what about those memory sticks you’re supposed to deliver to colonel Shaylton at all costs?”
“I delegated that task to sergeant Fessler, sir. He strikes me as a competent individual, and highly motivated to get his ass back home, sir.”
It occurred to Booker that he could order Mulroney back. But there was no doubt the wily noncom would find a way to wriggle out of that, if not simply ignore direct orders. Again. And, truth be told, two tanks had a better chance to distract the monster dinos long enough to let the rest of the platoon to escape. So, as long as Barney was here, Booker was going to use the tank.
“Alright, sergeant. You seem highly motivated. How about you take the one on the right, and I’ll handle the one on the left?”
“Yes sir. Any suggestions?”
“Charge right in. Get its attention. Then run like hall and don’t get stomped.”
As it turned out, the big dinos noticed the tanks at about five hundred yards distance. Mulroney’s beast swung its massive head to focus on Barney. A jaw big enough to swallow the Abrams whole dropped open, and an ear-splitting roar rolled out to echo across the landscape. Giant, clawed feet shuffled to line the body up, and set the stadium-sized animal into motion.
“Alright, Minelli.” Mulroney called to Barney’s driver. “We got him interested. Let’s see if that big lizard’ll chase us.”
Minelli had his own views on the advisability of this whole enterprise. But he wisely kept those opinions to himself. Instead, he spun Barney into as tight a turn as he could manage. The Abrams plowed a deep, curving set of tread marks into the dry sod, send a plume of dust into the air. The short-lived, sandy rooster tail seemed to irritate the giant dino. It quickened its pace, accelerating the juggernaut of its bulk after Barney.
“Holy shit!” Mulroney was unpleasantly surprise at how much the thing gain on them after just a few strides of colossal legs. He slapped the turret top in front of his hatch repeatedly. “Whatever you do, don’t slow down!”
The other guardian only hesitated a few seconds. Fortunately for Barney, this dino locked onto Fred, and marked Booker’s tank for special attention. It somehow leaped into action with more speed than its companion. As a result, Fred was still closing with the second monster, when Booker realized there wasn’t time to turn around before the damned thing would be on them.
“Oh my God!” Pinsky figured this out as well.
“Rusty!” Booker screamed into his mic. “No time to turn. Drive between its legs!”
The dino’s relatively small brain was used to chasing prey. The complex neural clockwork to keep its eight legs properly sequenced to maximize speed was more-or-less hardwired in. When Barney charged directly ahead instead of fleeing, there was a noticeable delay before the signal to react transmitted to the body. And, the momentum of that huge body didn’t stop on a dime either.
Rusty was a good tank driver. In fact, he was probably one of the best. That was fortunate, because he reacted instinctively. Without conscious thought, he accelerated Fred, and steered directly for the nearest dino leg. At the speed Fred and the dino were closing, hit gut told him the leg, the dimeter of a grain silo, would already be lifted out of the way by the time the tank got there.
That turned out to be a correct estimate. The monstrous dino leg rose and passed over Fred. Booker and Pinsky, sticking out of their hatches on the turret top, watched the sharp claws clear their helmet tops by no more than a couple of feet. Clods of dirt rained down from the giant feet of the beast, bouncing off of Fred like hailstones. Pinsky screamed in terror, and dropped own into the turret. Booker would’ve screamed as well, if he wasn’t concentrating on not pissing himself.
A gigantic leg planted itself ten yards in front of Fred, with the suddenness of a thunderbolt. Fortunately, Rusty had reflexes fast enough to twist the steering hard to the left. Fred’s armored front corner gouge dino the dino’s leg, tearing a length of track cover off and drawing a line of viscous, green blood from the collision. Fred rocked to one side, stressing the big tank’s suspension to nearly the breaking point. The monster bellowed in rage and pain. Rusty gunned the engine, and Fred shot past the leg green blood fountaining out to coat the back deck. The tank accelerated away from the encounter.
Booker and his crew clutched seats and any convenient handholds, rocked by the glancing blow with the dino. “Floor it, Rusty!”
“No shit!” Some of the hot blood has splashed the driver, and he sure didn’t want to get that close again. He wiped as much of the nasty green stuff from his goggles as he could manage, and kept rolling.
The monster skidded to a stop, plowing deep furrows into the prairie sod. Fred raced away at a right angle to the big dino’s previous movement. Focused upon the elusive prey, the skyscraper-sized beast resembled a hunting cat, chasing a nimble mouse. Not that Booker would’ve appreciated the comparison in the heat of the moment.
“Keep running this way, Rusty.” Booker looked back at the dino gaining its feet faster than he’d hoped it would, and shaking the earth with renewed pursuit. “We’re leading it away from the gate site.”
As much as he wanted the rest of the platoon to get home, Rusty couldn’t help wondering about the wisdom of this plan, now that Godzilla started chasing them.
Booker oriented himself, heart hammering in his chest. Barney scooted off to his left, dutifully distracting his dino. Who was slowly gaining on Mulroney, but didn’t look to be an imminent threat. If one was generous with the definition of imminent. His own murderous pursuer had put on a burst of speed, and seemed frighteningly close behind. Fred and Barney certainly had the beasts’ attention. Now or never, he decided.
“Booker to Fessler... Booker to Fessler.”
“Fessler here, sir.”
“You got that quantum signaling device, Mulroney gave you?”
“Yes sir, right here.”
“Okay, best tell base to open the door with it. Emergency priority.”
“Yes sir!” Fessler sounded pretty happy to receive this particular order. There was a slight, static-filled delay. “Shit! Where is it on the menu?”
Booker stared at his radio in instant panic. Hadn’t Mulroney told Fessler how to use that damned thing?
“Oh, there it is. Why’d they put the emergency option down at the bottom of the list?” Fessler’s anxiety was evident over the radio. “Signal sent.”
“Good job, Fessler.”
“How long before the gate’s open, sir?”
“All depends on how ready they are to throw the switch—”
Booker felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. A low-pitched ringing filled the air. The sky above the nondescript patch of dry prairie where the y expected the gate to be crackled with lightning, radiating out from a central point in a dazzling display. Thunder washed over the plain, felt in the gut as much as the air. The portal appeared, a rippling silver mirror, reflecting nothing but chaos.
“Guess they’re on a hair trigger back at base.” Pinsky commented on the rapid response, peering between the churning legs of the giant dino chasing them.
“Fessler, get your asses through that portal. Now!”
“Yes sir!”
Booker was rewarded by the sight of a tiny line of vehicles and swahldets, breaking cover from the gully and sprinting for the gate. A plume of dust drifted into the air, marking their progress to safety. Booker began to relax a tiny bit, and allow himself to think that this crazy plan might work after all.
Unfortunately, Booker wasn’t the only one to notice the inter-dimensional portal form. Both giant dinos began to slow, then stop. Whatever arcane conditioning or instinct controlled the beasts triggered a response. The sudden appearance of another group trying to escape this world, who were actually closer to succeeding than the two irritants they’d been focused on, took priority in some unknown logic or algorithm. Ponderously, both giant dinos began to turn around.
As fast as these things could move, that would be a big problem. “Mulroney.” Booker barked into his mic. “We’ve got to keep them away from the portal. I’m turning around, and will attack. Use your judgment, but keep them busy until the platoon’s through the gate.”
“Yes sir. I’ll do my best.”
“Rusty, after that damned dino. Pinsky, load penetrator.”
“Up!” Pinsky clanged the breech shut.
“Send him a message, Jackson.”
“On the way!”
CRACK.
The penetrator rod blasted from Fred’s muzzle and zipped across the distance almost faster than the eye could follow. The rod buried itself in the big dino’s hind quarters. Beyond a momentary shimmy, the beast ignored the hit as if it nothing more than a pin prick. It shambled on, picking up speed and closing on the platoon. The line of tiny vehicles seemed to crawl for the rippling plane of the portal.
Chasing his dino, in Barney, Mulroney figured it was time to get creative. “Load dubya-pee!”
Yoder, the loader, opened the proper door and snatched a WP munition from ammo storage. He shoved the round into Barney’s one-hundred-twenty-millimeter gun breech, and slammed the hut shut. “Up!”
Mulroney shook his fist. “How ‘bout a Willie Pete suppository? You big, eight-legged, lizardy son of a bitch!”
Yoder took his aiming point from Mulroney’s suggestion, centering his cross-hairs on what must be the monster dino’s monster anus. “On the way!” He pulled the trigger.
CRACK.
The round impacted and appeared to penetrate the dino’s backside, before exploding. White smoke erupted from the monster’s backside, spewing out like a flame thrower. White phosphorus incendiary rounds were used to start unquenchable fires in building, and vehicles, on people, and now, in dinosaurs.
“We give ‘em a white phosphorus enema!” Mulroney cackled over the radio. “Load dubya-pee!”
Desperate to distract the big dinos, Booker repeated the order to Pinsky.
“On the way!” Jackson fired a WP shell at the monster Fred chased.
CRACK.
Fred’s dino dodged at the last moment. The WP round struck the meaty flesh of a hind leg instead of scoring a bull’s eye, as way Barney’s beast suffered. Sticky incendiary sprayed over a broad patch of scaley skin. The phosphorus ignited, reacting with ambient oxygen at well over a thousand degrees centigrade.
A considerable area of skin on Fred’s dino blackened and charred from close contact with the incendiary material. It bellowed in pain. Barney’s beast was even more afflicted, since the white phosphorus burned within its colo-rectal tract. But neither was mortally wounded, or even appreciably disabled. They were, however, extremely pissed off, having experienced the searing pain of the combusting white phosphorus.
Slowly, as if in slow motion, each dino reversed course. The escaping platoon was forgotten. Instead, the beasts concentrated on retaliation against the tanks which had caused them pain.
Mission accomplished, Booker sighed in relief, for an instant. Then he realized the dinos were after Fred and Barney again. “About face. Get us outta here, Rusty!”
Mulroney was issuing similar orders in Barney, only with enough profanity to blister the paint on the tank’s hull. The tanks spun and fled. The dinos thundered after.
END.
Tune in next Tuesday for the 2nd-to-last episode, Exfil
The rest of the Containment Protocol saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/containment-protocol-serial
Part 1 (the beginning), ... Part 35 (previous episode), Part 37 (coming soon)
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Nothing like a thoroughly pissed monstrous dinosaur to motivate a tactical egress!
Great fun. Looking forward to how you wrap up this crazy tale.