“Just when you thought this day could not get any stranger,” Henri said as he leaned on the rickety fence that wouldn’t have kept in a small bunny, much less the five-hundred-pound monstrosities moving toward their handler.
Everett turned and looked at Henri and his smile widened. With the beard it made the brevet admiral look quite insane, especially in the torchlight.
“You haven’t seen strange yet. You still have to saddle your transportation.”
“Transportation?” Jack asked, looking at Sarah, who also had no clue as to what Everett was talking about.
Everett took the grain and tossed it wide in an arc and the giant chickenlike rocs went wild as they started to feed on the sweet grain.
“Yeah, I just fed ’em, but you have to saddle ’em yourselves.”
The old saddles were not saddles at all. In the real sense it was a strap of leather that was butt wide with bridles and harnesses. There were no stirrups to speak of.
“I can only assume they’re Roman. God knows they’re hard to ride on, but it beats the alternative of having those course feathers poking you in your ass.” Everett laughed when he saw his friends’ faces. Farbeaux was in particular despair. “When you get on, be sure to put your feet and legs under its wings. It helps to hang on. Their gait and angle of run can be a little disconcerting from time to time.”
They had watched on in complete and abject horror when Carl placed his hands near each of the roc’s mouths as they pecked at the grain thrown to the ground. Everett easily placed a bridle on each, securing the beak with a leather strap that looked as if it couldn’t control a small donkey, much less a Rodan-sized creature. Each of the eight rocs Carl selected as being the most docile of the group were bridled, saddled, and anxiously awaiting their riders. The yellow eyes flicked back and forth and made them all nervous with the eight sets of predator eyes watching them.
“Okay, you two have your orders. You take one of the M-4s,” Jack said as he unslung his own weapon and handed it to Will Mendenhall, “and one of the Glocks. We’ll take one M-4 and we have Carl’s Glock and extra ammo.” He smiled and looked at an anxious Carl as he looked into Anya’s scared eyes for the briefest of moments. “And of course we have Robin of Locksley’s bow and arrows.”
Carl looked at Jack with raised brows. “I was hoping my archery days were behind me.”
“We can only hope. Okay, let’s get a move on before the sun comes up and the saber-toothed lions, tigers, and cave bears start to awaken.”
“Don’t forget the wooly mammoths and the giant bison,” Virginia joked as if to rid herself of the fear of the great roc she was currently sitting upon with shaking hands holding the leather reins.
Sarah leaned into Collins but Jack refrained from hugging her. Instead Jack just winked. She was relieved that his attitude about their sudden arrival had softened to that of Mount Erebus.
“You kids get straight home, don’t stop for Cokes and a burger anywhere,” Carl said as he assisted Anya up onto her feathered mount. He turned serious as Will and Ryan both fought to climb onto their skittish birds who each turned in a wide circle making the men run alongside until they had enough leverage to jump up and onto their frightened animals. Will went over on his stomach and was bounced roughly until he righted himself. His eyes were wide as he looked at the others like he had meant to do that.
“Find that coupling,” Sarah said to Jack as he climbed onto his own roc while having the same difficulty as Ryan and Mendenhall only with a more dignified ending. Once aboard Jack had to laugh at the Frenchman as he sat astride his roc with his elbows sticking straight out to his sides as he held the reins like a poorly trained cavalryman.
“Stick to the game trail, the rocs will let you know in advance if anything is stalking you. Their sense of smell is like that of a great white shark,” Carl said as he leaned over and kissed Anya. “See ya, Gypsy girl.”
She smiled, even though she really didn’t care for the great white reference, and then she lightly kicked her giant roc into motion. She almost fell off backward as the long-legged animal started to trot toward the far gate of the stockade. Jason, Sarah, Will, and Virginia hurried to follow using their rocs like out-of-control and headless chickens. Will’s mount went in circles before hitting the open gate and then almost threw him from the makeshift saddle until he finally gained control and went after the rest of his team.
Collins turned to a white-faced Henri, who waited patiently and acted as if he rode rocs all the time back in France, even though his stiff frame and wide eyes betrayed the fact of the matter quite differently.
“Ready, Colonel?”
There was silence as Henri found he didn’t want to make any noise and frighten the very large and carnivorous bird he found himself sitting upon.
“Shall we go and try to retrieve the master chief’s little toy?”
“By all means,” Everett said as he kicked his own roc, Foghorn Leghorn, not too gently, making the enormous and already skittish bird elicit a wild, cawing scream as it broke at full speed for the gate. Jack’s roc followed and then Farbeaux’s as he tried desperately to stay in the old saddle of Roman design.
Everett’s exhilarating scream of “Hi-ho Silver” reverberated even over the rumblings of Erebus.
At sunup the first probing attacks began in earnest. An exhausted Charlie Ellenshaw almost didn’t react to the warning tone sounded by the small radar system installed in each of the sixteen lasers pods. Each revolution of the small self-enclosed dish told Ellenshaw that what he was seeing was real. The defensive system went into action without having being told to do so.
The first sizzle and pop of the eastern-most laser pod startled a slumbering Jenks to full wakefulness. He never hesitated in sending up one of the recharged drones to get a bird’s-eye view of what was taking place along the tree line.
Ellenshaw watched as the faster-than-light laser burst into the far-off trees. He didn’t know if the accurate system hit anything other than wood. Then before he could contemplate more, a second and third shot sounded and the bluish-green bolts of laser light shot out, reaching for the unseen raptors as they tested the range of the defensive measures they employed. The thought of how smart these animals were made Jenks’s head hurt.
All sixteen of the lasers went off simultaneously as the raptors made a bold move and actually broke the cover of the trees to expose themselves. They flapped their flightless wings and screamed into the air and then ran back into the cover of the trees.
Jenks got the number one drone remote to the desired altitude and his blood froze as he saw the bison and mammoth herds moving much faster than before. When he examined the edges of the enormous migratory herd he saw the reasons why — a hundred raptors charged and then retreated, making the animals start to flee in panic.
“Crap, it looks like those bastards are making their move.” Jenks reached for the radio.
Charlie Ellenshaw watched as the raptors were no longer interested in hiding and playing games — they were coming on and they meant business.
Above him the lasers started firing off at intervals that told Ellenshaw and Jenks that they now had precious little time remaining.
The lightning in the morning sky overhead lit up like the old footage of London during the blitz. The lasers would fast drain at this rate and they both knew it.
The five miles were covered in bone-jarring speed by the three rocs as they ran free for the first time since Everett had corralled them six weeks before. They were free and the large birds sensed it. Their speed and maneuverability over the uneven jungle floor was amazing. They would smell something that might be a danger to them and automatically shift gears and turn in another direction. Then they would eventually reroute to their original course. Enough so that Jack was beginning to suspect that every animal in this crazed land was intelligent enough to instantly adapt to any quickly changing situation. The men were quite scratched up by the time the three rocs finally broke into the open. Everett was the first to rein Foghorn in, and Jack and Henri were grateful when their rides followed suit.