Adrift in Space

"He doesn't want to eat anyone, he's here to fuck. Her cubs aren't weaned, but they have to be getting close, letting them go after a duckbill family. She's in heat."

"Not the only one here," Brittany said, "but Iris's is ice. Cold. Not welcoming."

He elbowed Iris to forestall her comment.

"But it's likely he'd still kill the cubs if he can."

The courting couple glanced over at the tri-tops every few minutes. The quadrupeds seemed happy to simply maintain their shield wall so long as the T-Rexes did whatever they were going to do Over There.

The Queen followed the same channel as had the duckbills. That would open their path to the left, down into that valley, it was 250 yards from the mouth to the shuttle.

"What if they run into the shuttle?" It was a good question from Iris.

"Too steep, I think. See? The most direct escape is over that rise but only the turkosaurs seem willing. I don't think the rest of these guys will do slopes like that. At least, not willingly."

"We wait for them, they're going, should we go?" Brittany pointed like he had to the left.

"Perfectly valid plan, but," he paused, "they're way too slow. You saw how fast those youngsters moved the first ones we saw?"

Both females nodded at him.

"They'll run us down before we're halfway to the shuttle if we don't wait until they're all the way the other side. They might ignore us but if we're sprinting full speed? I doubt it. Not to mention these tri-tops. And at this pace, that'll be too late."

Soft recitation of 'shit' from both sides.

"Ah, yeah. Oliver, Julia, come here," they shuffled quickly over, "we're going left. Brittany, see that rock?"

She nodded.

"You stop there. Iris, five yards past. Julia, five more. Oliver, got it?"

He wagged.

"Once we're in place, Brittany starts. Short burst in the buttocks of the tri-top calf furthest right. Then, Iris, next one. Five shots max."

"Wha...," Julia's exclamation, "babies!"

"Don't worry, roomie, these pop guns won't hurt them."

"Not much," Peter said, "but hopefully enough to get them to run. That'll hopefully force the adults forward. I think once they begin they'll go all out. The T-Rexes will have to run or fight. I think they'll run further down the stream, the tri-tops on their heels.

"What if these guys run up that canyon?"

"Fine too, they'll keep running a while. And if they fight it out, five bipeds in green won't interest them. As soon as they're moving we're full speed along this ridge. Don't go down until we have a clear path, too soon on that flat better chance some dino or another will notice us. Now, go!"

He led them, the path was rocky but easy enough to move quickly. He set each member up while the roars, bleats, trills and ground pounding continued. He was the last one along and took a deep breath. Then he signaled Brittany.

She fired five shots. The calf erupted in a scream and reared onto its hind legs. Iris followed suit to a similar reaction. They landed and ran into the adults who turned in confusion. Julia then Oliver fired, he noticed not all of the latter two's bullets hit home but enough did. One of the calves broke past the cordon of flesh and bone to the immediate reaction of the King and Queen.

The nearest tri-top adult made a bleating sound that Peter interpreted as 'oh, fuck,' and charged forward and in two strides was alongside the calf. Its calf?

Decision made, the ground rumbled and rolled as the entire herd charged.

He tried to yell, a conceit of the game was their radios had been destroyed. But he stood and waved and his team scrambled to follow him on the ridge line. He was joined at the edge by his team.

The Queen had held her place for the first twenty yards of the charge before she'd turned and as the duckbills had herded their young she'd done the same, chirps and ear-splitting trills convinced her brood to flee as mud and water flew.

The King didn't pursue his intended mate but didn't flee, he shuffled backward a few steps and braced as if he was going to stand against a quartet of angry, horned battle tanks.

"Run like hell, everyone," Peter waved and led the crew down the fifteen degree slope. It was sandy but covered in grasses and wasn't a hard slog. He stopped them at the mouth of the canyon as the ground rolled.

"Goddamn it," Peter said, the King had shuffled closer to them as the tri-top charge veered exactly where he wanted it, for some reason he looked up. The turkosaurs stood arrayed along the ridge line, their heads bobbed up and down. They expected rich pickings would be coming their way no matter how this came down. He hoped those pickings weren't his team.

"Move it, while he's occupied," he shoved his compatriots in turn and they set off in sprints. More sandy soil with short grasses and fern bushes.

Growing up he'd read there'd been no grasses when dinosaurs had been around but recent research belied that. So it wasn't wrong although they didn't know if it had been HERE. Whatever.

"Peter," Brittany's scream had cut through the thunder and roars. He looked and she pointed.

He stopped, turned.

"Motherfu...," he went still and flicked the safety off.

"Run," he screamed and turned his head back. The King hadn't charged but he saw the nostrils open wide and the head turn. A predator zeroing in on its target. It's attention changed to the running Sylvans. Peter frowned.

He dropped to one knee and sighted the rifle. On its second step Peter fired. The head wasn't the right angle, he hit it between the nostrils. But the bullet caused it to pause. He knew it wouldn't work during a full charge.

He stood and backed up, heard a rapid fire behind him, glanced. Iris and Brittany, he saw the slugs hit. He took advantage of the beast's hesitation to move further up the small slope, he saw Oliver and Julia arrive at the shuttle. He held up his weapon and pointed at it then at Brittany, she nodded and set her semi-auto next to Iris then unslung her own rifle. They'd had only two magazines left, he'd split them evenly.

She imitated her kneel and he veered to try and draw the King to turn slightly. He'd been right, it came at him about half the speed they'd seen the young ones run. Still a good speed.

He heard Brittany's shot and her screamed 'FUCK' when he realized she'd not tracked. He veered to lead the best more straight on. He saw her second shot catch it in the side of the head. It stopped, roared and those massive muscles flexed as it shook its head.

It didn't go down.

"Oh fuck me," Brittany half shouted.

"No one else will," Iris replicated her volume.

It held still and swung its gaze from Peter to Brittany and Iris and back. Iris fired another five rounds that peppered its torso.

It looked down then up. Peter dropped quickly to his knee.

"Iris, DO IT AGAIN." She did. The beast looked down. He fired. He heard Brittany's rifle again. The beast froze, shook. He exhaled slowly and at the end pulled his trigger again. The tyrannosaur wavered. Peter stood and ran.

"GO, GO, GO," he pushed Iris then pulled Brittany, the T-Rex hadn't gone down but it seemed frozen. Oliver and Julia stood in the opened shuttle doorway and waved them on.

"Fuck," Brittany shouted as she tripped, stumbled got her balance, "what the?"

She reached down. It was a male Sylvan's head, neck and bit of a shoulder. It had clouded golden eyes.

"Same one?" She looked at Peter. He shrugged. Iris laughed.

"Burn in hell," she did a shot put throw to send it a few yards, Peter raised an eyebrow. Heaven, hell, gods, devils, none were natural to Sylvans.

They hopped into the shuttle and Oliver slammed the door close button. Without Bernard their pilot was Iris. In his attempts to convince her about 'we're a couple' he'd taken her a few times in a shuttle simulator and once as backseat on a training flight. Peter shrugged off his pack and handed it and his rifle to Julia before he jumped into the co-pilot's seat.

"Pull the magazines and strap it all in the back," he yelled, there was space at the rear for their gear, a heavy steel mesh wall would hold everything, "then strap your asses in, going to be rough!"

Oliver, Julia and Brittany obeyed his instructions in order, Brittany pushed past the couple to take the seat immediately behind Peter. The little four-seater shuttles operated purely by gravity manipulation. This was a larger model like what the fleet had in reality. It also manipulated gravity and it could seat up to twelve or seats could be folded for cargo space, and it added a fusion reactor engine. Iris engaged the auto-pilot and it lifted off the ground using only the anti-gravity. Through the cockpit window he saw the Queen and her two cubs directly in front of them, she and the now stationary tri-tops glared at each other but made no other moves, the latter's calves apparently hooted with their injuries but they seemed okay. The duck bills had joined with others of their kind and all had moved further away. Brontosaurs that he'd mistaken for low hills stood in the far distance.

He had a twinge of pain when he realized every one of the majestic beasts would be dead in a few minutes.

"I've got to see," she said. There were no windows in the rear. She spun the craft as it topped fifty meters.

The male Rex was down. It was covered with turkosaurs who tore at it with talons and teeth, it's head lifted and its jaws moved but with little force.

"Yes," Iris screamed, "better you than us. Except for Brittany. Not that she would have tasted good."

"We could have used you to poison it, Iris."

Every turkosaur head snapped upright and stared behind them. The shuttle shook.

"Slam the gas pedal anytime, Iris, north. Anywhere north," Peter ordered.

"Sit back," she shouted as her hands moved across the controls, "gonna hurt!"

Peter heard 'oofs' and 'ows' as everyone was slammed back in their seats as the fusion engine kicked in and hit its maximum six gees at this altitude. That was more than enough for him. Once again, that one part of his brain wondered 'how the fuck they doing THIS? We're not really accelerating at six gees.'

"Yaa hoo," Iris croaked, she and Peter turned to each other and she somehow slowly flicked the tip of her tongue at him. Brittany was seated just behind him and he saw her two hands lift shakily from the chair and make a throat strangling gesture.

How much shaking was acceleration and how much the shock wave, he didn't care when the craft righted itself and in a few moments its transit was again smooth. The view outside evolved through darker shades of blue until it became black. Iris tapped a button to shut off the fusion drive to allow them to fall into an orbit. Any orbit for now. The radio crackled to life.

"This is Starcrosser calling shuttle, come in. Over." The message repeated.

Peter searched, found the button.

"Starcrosser, this is recovery team. We made it. The Golden Criminals were the last meals of unknown dinosaurs." His team's cheers confirmed that.

"No trials will be necessary. One team fatality. Injuries, need medical staff standing by. Your status? Over."

"Nothing we can't fix over time. Sorry to hear. Will have medical team ready. Sending rendezvous coordinates to your guidance computer now. Bringing you home. Out."

The shuttle went completely dark and almost immediately the sliding door on the shuttle's right side slid open and light streamed in. They heard applause and cheers from a gathered crowd of almost twenty Sylvans.

Peter recognized 'Stuart' at the head of the crowd. He was not quite a decade older and the lead designer on Dinosaur Hunt. He'd come to Peter a couple of years earlier since dinosaurs had become a Sylvan pop culture phenomenon as a critical mass of children like Ralph and Catanie's discovered them. The rage had filtered up to older Sylvans and as the VR tanks advanced in quality the idea had bubbled to the front. Behind him was the rest of his design and programming team.

The team pulled off their VR helmets and looked at each other and the cheering crowd. They undid their safety belts and slowly stood.

"It was all his fault," Brittany shouted and put her arms around his neck over the back of his chair, "he got us through. Hip, hip, HOORAY!"

The others joined but with her back to Stuart's group Iris glared at Brittany and stuck her tongue out before she wiggled the tip of it at Peter. He nudged the blue-eyed alien to not move.

"Iris, out," she gave him one last tongue wiggle before she turned and threw her arms up in triumph as she followed Oliver and Julia out.

"Sorry we had to leave Bernard behind," Peter said to the laughs.

"He didn't like the game," one of the designers said, "told ush all to go fuck ourshelves. He left yeshterday."-

Iris eyed Peter with a 'told you' look and winked as the team accepted hugs and handshakes. A few of the welcoming crew helped them strip off their VR suits and offered them back the 'uniforms' they'd worn down the previous day. Their 'view' the last two days had been these field greens so they accepted them. There was a table of sandwich makings that included a plate of barbecued 'dinosaur' from the labs. Peter slapped some on bread as Stuart brought him a cold can of beer and nudged him slightly away from the crowd.

"You cosht me much money, Paetor," Stuart said, "in fact, all of ush."

"And how'd I do that?" He said between bites. The 'dinosaur' wasn't chicken but it wasn't bad. Well, not that bad. Actually, not good. But at the moment it was awesome.

"Shee that female?" Stuart pointed to a Sylvan with light brown eyes and hair the same color cut very short, Peter had an idea it was called a 'pixie' cut on Earth. But he wasn't sure. He looked back at Stuart and nodded.

"Shee wash the only one who put a bet on five of you surviving. Mosht money, like mine, wash on none of you. Her account ish much thicker now. None of us survived the trial runs, not even closhe on this 'max hard' setting, and we wrote it!"

Peter chewed slowly and swallowed then took a long swig of his beer. It was a ship brew. Tasty.

"Well, Stuart dude, you made the smart bet if you'd sent six Sylvans in. But you fucked up. You let me in there. I've read every sci fi AND science book and seen every movie about dinosaurs there is. And almost as many war movies. And the only useful skills other than pickpocket any relative taught me was how to hunt and shoot every kind of gun. One other thing, did you run away from most dinosaurs?"

Stuart blinked and gave him a confused look.

"You watched it all, I know, so you saw I steered around the herds," Stuart wagged his head at him, "except when we had to fight. Kept our ammunition. You guys mostly ran out of bullets and got eaten, right?"

Stuart's face worked through a few emotions before he shrugged and nodded.

"You will help ush? Tell ush how to improve?"

"Not tonight," Stuart nodded in agreement at that, "and I'm flat out next couple of days. How about you guys bring in some pizzas and beer lunchtime Wednesday? I'll come down, spend the afternoon?"

"Good. We will run the short time travel vershion next couple of daysh. No humansh. Everyone who goesh in will likely die."

"They'll die horribly. What about the other satellites? You combined two VR rooms for this, kept one small room here."

"We are converting on one, on the other we will keep the three. Mosht children are on that satellite, we have already shtarted running the shpecial vershion for them. They join with a young T-Rex and a little triceratops to get home."

"Oh man, send me through THAT one!"

A few minutes later Peter announced he was leaving. Julia and Oliver had already done so, he'd been surprised how emotional she'd been about all of the baby dinosaurs that'd been killed by the asteroid.

Virtual reality dinosaurs. But he'd had to admit, he'd felt a twinge too. The tank was just... so... damned... real! The pains in his feet and legs were proof they'd actually walked forty some miles of rough ground. And although this time it was pretend there really had been families of majestic beasts. And they'd all been wiped out.

He walked out of the room, still covered in sweat and whatever other liquids their suits had conjured. He was undecided if he'd tell Stuart's team they forgot something though. Leeches. For the swamps. THAT would be amazing. So long as he didn't go back in.

Each of his arms were wrapped by other arms.

"Iris just wants to tell you good night, Peter, then she will wander out of an airlock." On his right side.

"Brittany wishes to send her regrets that your impression of our pussies is of her floppy and untalented cunt. She will not make you suffer it again."

Brittany answered that with a challenge growl that was more strident than the one she'd given to Anna Squared six months earlier. Iris's response was as deep and longer. He tried to continue walking but they both pushed against him and turned slightly to stop their joint progress as a variety of challenges he'd never heard live ensued. Brittany pushed her hand down his torso and forced it under his waistband to grip his cock. Iris reached for her arm.

His mind immediately went to Queen Anna's reminder a couple of days ago about THAT video. The young, University student Anna, not yet the Queen, stood with smears of blood across the front of her yellow shirt.

It hadn't been her blood. The pale skin around her grey eye was bruised but she appeared otherwise untouched.

At her feet another female struggled to push herself off of the ground. The first audio had been Anna's voice, rough, deep. A loose circle of onlookers stood.

"Stay down, you stupid cow."

The prone female's head lifted. Both eyes were bruised and battered, one all but shut. Blood flowed from her nose and mouth. She spit blood and pushed her torso off the ground and worked her legs under her.

"Okay, your funeral," Anna bent and put her hands under the female's shoulders and helped her up. The female wavered as Anna pulled her hands away. She took a weak swing with her left that Anna easily dodged. A southpaw, explained the bruise.

Anna put her left hand on the woman's right shoulder to brace her and used a fast underhand to drive her fist into the woman just below her rib cage. Her victim blew out a stream of bloody breath that splashed against Anna's shirt, clots and liquid ran down the fabric. Anna released her grip and the woman dropped. Raspy breath was proof she lived but she made no further move to stand.

Anna stood straight and walked to her right. Ian stood there, his trousers open to allow his fully erect cock to be in full view. She walked over and kissed him hard while she wrapped her hand around his cock. She turned, his shirt and trousers were smeared with the blood Anna wore.

"This is MY cock," she'd announced, "it's the best cock in the world. But. I'm generous. Ask me nicely and I WILL share it. If you're rude about it, you'll get what she got."

She'd glared, dared anyone to object. Her port wine stain had throbbed, waves of deep red crossed it. No one had said a word.

"This amazing cock is going to fuck me senseless now. All you lame asses can go fuck yourselves."

She'd pulled Ian by the cock to the right of the video when it had ended.

Peter felt Iris jerk Brittany's hand out of his pants, he grunted as a fingernail scraped his flesh. Iris blocked an attempted right from Brittany before he pushed between both females and put a hand at each throat. He'd never seen Sylvan eyes go so wide. They really didn't have any white, it was all color.

"This is the way it's going to be," he growled, his voice what it had been early in the game in the ship, "I'm covered in sweat. I'm covered in... whatever shit they put in those suits. I had an hour of sleep. And I am horny as hell."