Dinosaur Wars: Earthfall by Thomas P Hopp
***
Chase paced nervously in the aisle behind the living room couch where Kit and Dr. Ogilvey sat listening to the distant thuds of shells or vehicles exploding somewhere beyond Sandstone Mountain. The sounds were tapering off as the battle drew to a close. An awful silence hung over General Davis and the handful of soldiers in the dining room. Davis leaned over the radio, his face a study in defeat. An aide entered the living room through the open front door and moved past Chase to address the general. “Sir, I’ve got your transport waiting.”
“Retreat? Is that it?” Davis mumbled. “Yes. I suppose that’s what comes after a lost battle. I hadn’t made plans to—” He covered his eyes with a hand and drew the fingers down slowly over his face to wipe away frustration and pain. Then he came into the living room and addressed Ogilvey with a cloying bitterness in his voice.
“Well, Doctor, I guess you were right. Maybe we should have sued for peace.”
“It’s not too late,” Ogilvey replied.
Davis shook his head. “It’s too damn late, that’s for sure. Now listen. It’s pretty clear the enemy will take this position in a matter of minutes. I’d like the three of you to come to NORAD with us.”
“Wait a minute,” Ogilvey said warily. “There are four of us. You just said three.”
“You sir,” Davis frowned at Ogilvey, “may be of some use to us because you know quite a lot about these things. But him—” He pointed at Gar, still bound on the living room floor. “It’s too risky to bring one of the enemy along on this retreat.”
“But Gar is potentially your best ally, not your enemy,” Ogilvey protested. “What do you propose to do with him?”
“I don’t propose anything,” Davis replied matter-of-factly. “I’m going to shoot him.”
“No,” Ogilvey gasped. “You mustn’t.”
At that moment, the clattering of nearby machine-gun fire erupted. Troops stationed at the ranch’s fortifications had opened up with their light weapons. One of the officers in the kitchen called to Davis. “Two enemy fighting machines coming down the hill.”
“Listen,” Ogilvey pleaded to Davis. “Leave us all here. Don’t harm Gar. If anyone can make peace it will be him.”
Davis stared thoughtfully at Gar who, though still bound hand and foot, looked back at him quietly. Then without a word he drew his pistol from its holster.
Chase knew how this little drama would end unless he could pull off a plan he had been hatching. The officers in the dining room and the guards at the front door were watching the confrontation between Davis and Gar, and that allowed Chase to slip into the kitchen and move out the back door undetected.
Outside, laser flashes and gunfire lit up the night. Chase hurried down the back steps, dashed across the driveway and into the garage. He climbed into the cockpit of the fighting machine and flipped the power switch on.
“Come on baby,” he said, hoping Gar’s interrupted repair job had made the machine functional again. He grinned when its motors whirred and the instrument panel lit up. “That’s what I want to see.” He hit the switch that made the machine stand up.
It didn’t move. The red panel light was flashing again. But the machine had to work, or Gar had only seconds to live.
Noticing the hatch on the right arm open and the kekuah cylinder again out of its place, Chase leaped off the machine to finish the repairs.
“Sir,” Davis’s driver called from the front doorway. “We’re taking laser fire at the front of the house now. We’ve got to go.”
Davis raised his drawn pistol and looked at it thoughtfully. Then he looked at Gar with equal introspection. “I’ve got nothing against the individual enemy soldier,” he muttered. “He might even be the friend you claim he is, Doc. It’s too bad there’s no time to find out.” He glared his frustration at Ogilvey, who had risen from the couch, and then he spun and stalked out the door, keeping the gun handy for self defense. A moment later his Humvee raced off down the driveway.
As the rest of Davis’s staff cleared out aboard a second Humvee, Kit fetched a pair of cable nippers from her father’s office and cut the wires on Gar’s wrists and ankles, allowing him to stand.
Ogilvey pointed a thumb heavenward and said to Gar, “Someone up there likes you, my friend.” Gar bobbed his head in agreement.
An icy voice interrupted from the kitchen. “God and the General might let him get away, but I won’t.” Colonel MacIlvain stepped through the kitchen doorway covering Gar with his pistol. “I’m personally gonna make sure he’s dead.” He muttered vindictively to Kit and Ogilvey, “Say your farewells.”
Instead, Kit stepped between Gar and the pistol and snarled at MacIlvain, “You had better be prepared to kill me too.”
“I am,” Mac replied coolly. “Now, get out of the way.”
His icy eyes put a chill into Kit’s heart but she stood squarely in the pistol’s line of fire. Dr. Ogilvey joined her muttering, “You’ll have to shoot us both.”
The colonel looked from Kit to Ogilvey to Gar as if unsure whom to shoot first. Singling out Ogilvey and leveling the pistol inches from his face, he muttered, “It’ll be a pleasure—”
A tremendous crash shook the house. The boarded window near the fireplace imploded, spraying glass and splintered wood across the room. Kit screamed and MacIlvain’s pistol went off, firing wide of Ogilvey’s head and chipping some stone off the fireplace. Ogilvey dove to the floor as the torn curtains fell away and the cause of the impact appeared. The right arm of a Kra fighting machine jutted through the window frame. It swiveled to aim at MacIlvain. He reacted quickly enough to dodge a laser round that splintered the stairway banister. He fired back at the machine but the bullets ricocheted off its closed canopy. He tumbled to the floor to avoid a second laser blast, giving Gar the opportunity to spring out the front door of the house, chased by several wild pistol shots. The machine fired its laser again, tearing up a slice of carpet near where MacIlvain lay. He got to his feet and dashed through the kitchen to disappear outside.
The canopy of the machine opened. Kit cried in astonishment, “Chase! It’s you! I couldn’t figure out where you went.”
“Now you know,” Chase quipped. “Where’s Gar?”
“I’m not sure,” Ogilvey replied, pointing out the front door. “He went thatta-way.”
“Get in, Kit,” Chase pointed a thumb to the space behind him in the cockpit. “I’m going after him.”
Kit ran to the window, climbed over the sill and got behind Chase in the machine. He snapped the canopy down just as an Army machine-gunner on the perimeter spotted him and clattered a dozen bullets over the canopy glass. He withdrew the fighter-walker’s arm from the window, spun the machine and accelerated across the driveway. A hail of machine gun fire followed the quahka as it sprinted past the garage and reached the cover of darkness.
Ogilvey moved cautiously onto the porch, squinting into the night, looking vainly for his friends as the last transport roared away with troops crowded on top. It raced down the drive with its heavy machine gun pouring a hail of gunfire onto the hillside. Laser shots came back, igniting bushes and trees but failing to hit the Bradley. It turned onto the dark county road and raced away, leaving the ranch eerily quiet.
Ogilvey searched the darkness and spotted Gar and the fighting machine moving together, far beyond the end of the pasture. He dashed off the porch and ran in their direction, but soon realized they were receding too quickly for his old legs to follow. Wheezing from exertion, he stopped to catch his breath. The parasaurolophus family was grunting and honking fearfully in the woods. Otherwise the night was silent. Too silent.
“Come on, Ogilvey,” he mumbled to himself. “You’d better find a place to hide.” He guessed the Kra would sweep past the house in pursuit of the retreating soldiers. If so, his best refuge would be in the house’s cellar. As he approached the front porch, he was surprised to see a Kra fighting machine standing on the far side of the house. Its canopy was closed.
&nbs
The laser arm of the machine rose to point at his belly. The canopy lifted. A Kra warrior leered at him, cackling triumphantly.