Dino Tribe

A Prehistoric Build and Survive Harem Adventure

Marcus Sloss

Copyright © 2024 by Marcus Sloss

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Contents

Prologue

1.  Assimilation!

2.  Adoption!

3.  Alien Advantages

4.  From the Safe Zone to the Starter Zone

5.  Dinosaurs!

6.  Beacon of Gondor

7.  An Age of Giants

8.  Steamy Heat

9.  Jungle Sweat

10.  Milestones

11.  Spicy Sweat

12.  Life and Death

13.  Tribe Reset

14.  Land Before Time

15.  A Tale as old as Time

16.  The Double Pump Fake

17.  Dinosaur Christmas

18.  King of the Mountain

19.  A Clue, a Sleuth, and a Murderer

20.  Homestead

21.  Survey

22.  Foundations

23.  Dino Discovery

24.  Dino Blessing

25.  Dino Betrayal

26.  Dino Dinner

27.  Wish Upon the Stars!

28.  Never Enough!

29.  With Great Risk!

30.  A Dino Dilemma!

31.  When Titans Clash

32.  When Ashes Burn!

33.  When Dinos Fly!

34.  Oh Really!

35.  Delicacy!

36.  Pre-War Rituals!

37.  To War!

38.  Call in the Cavalry!

39.  Fear the Reaper!

40.  Homecoming Queen!

41.  A Dash of Flavor!

42.  A Nasty Taste!

43.  Tribe Summoning!

44.  Getting in Trouble!

45.  To War!

46.  Bang the Nail with the Hammer!

47.  Work Work!

48.  Dealings!

49.  Opportunity Knocks!

50.  Soviet Trickery!

51.  Soviet Showdown!

52.  Hometown Hero!

53.  Tomorrow's War!

54.  Fancy That!

55.  Aww Hell No!

56.  War in the Sky!

57.  Death From Above!

58.  A Leaf in the Wind!

59.  A Hurricane’s Roar!

60.  Warlord Jasper

61.  A Calm Breeze!

Afterword

Prologue

StarCarrier Caoo

THE MASSIVE VESSEL shuddered as it blasted out of wormhole space with a splashy spray of cosmic energy. They arrived deep within the star system that the locals called Sol, well out of range of any instant sensors the inferiors might possess. Their ship wouldn’t go unnoticed for long though, mostly because the round sphere was bigger than most moons, powered by a small sun in its center.

On a massive bridge with dozens of comfy stations, the crew of StarCarrier Caoo monitored their arrival. It’d taken the immense crew decades to transition to this sector of space that once held meaning. Among them, and most important of them all was Administrator Ochevsko who watched the screen with a bored yawn, stroking his beard as was apt for his kin.

His gray skin was smooth with a bald head, a bushy beard filled with invaluable adornments hung down his face, and no eyebrows protected his eyes from sunlight. As the leader of the mission, he sat behind the ship’s captain, not commanding the movement of the vessel, but its purpose. The ancient being conquered immortality, fought countless wars, and helped steer the Empire’s future. A future that returned to a place from the Empire’s past that spawned… humans.

“They sure are ugly,” Administrator Ochevsko said, watching a video of the gangly species. The humans broadcast a message their ship instantly translated. The welcome greeting seemed hostile, and the translator said the language was German. “And they’re loud, so loud.”

“A byproduct of our laziness,” Adjunct Capsor grumbled.

Administrator Ochevsko snorted at his second in command. His comment insinuated the downfall of this region was the Empire’s fault. “War is not laziness.” He flicked through a few more images until he came to a conclusion he’d mostly arrived at during transit. “We ignored this region for too long. It’s time to put these… humans to work. Assuming they can be salvaged.”

“Your orders?” Adjunct Caspor asked with a grim tone.

The captain gently nudged his moon-sized ship toward the system’s inner planets, already concluding what was about to happen—Earth would be reclaimed to serve the Empire in one form or another. Their speed would give the humans only a few minutes to react, not nearly enough time to do much, if anything, in response. Even if the StarCarrier crawled into the system, giving them years to prepare, they could never match the technological superiority they faced.

Administrator Ochevsko rose with a bored stretch. “We return it to the way it was. Dinosaurs are a wonderful source of protein, and it has been too long since we planted new farms in this region. Since we’re on a rotational mission, we need to come back through this sector of space in a few decades, so maybe something more devious than just a wipe and plant.”

These words revealed a lot. To the Empire, a planet filled with dinosaurs was a great use of a farm world. However, this was a double-edged sword since dinosaurs were a favored zoo creature for the wealthy class among the Empire.

Many ships—the Starcarrier Caoo included—held dinosaur exhibits to help ease the tensions of space. Of course, it didn’t hurt that the ugly ones could be turned into meat for the servant species and the fancy rare versions sold at high premiums.

“You just want to deposit basic variations in the hope they breed some collectors. Not the worst idea,” Adjunct Caspor commented to the point it was almost a compliment. “Too bad we no longer have defensive patrols out this far to keep it secure for the millions of rotations it’ll need.”

This sector of space was not safe, under constant threat and at one point had been reset to destroy the Empire’s use of their farm.

“Yes, well, the Dasku were punished for sending meteors into a lot of our farm planets.” The words were a stain on the Empire’s history. Attacks against its sovereignty were rarely spoken, especially successful ones. “Before you say it, I agree. They’ll be too scared to do so again.” The Administrator huffed, dancing his fingertips on the arm of his ship. After a few seconds of musing, he said, “How many outdated battlecruisers are on the ship, the Carboi models?”

The Empire custom built ships for subservient species to fight on, saving the massive structures like StarCarriers for themselves. He knew the humans might fit in some of the functional ships in storage. Such vessels were of little use currently since dedicated help waned over time.

“Carboi, no, the last Administrator sold them for a single Spinosaurus we can barely house. One hell of a mean bitch who never created anything special in her children. However… Yes, in Storage Bay C we have the Lixo variants. You think those will work?” Captain Abrtu asked. Administrator Ochevsko nodded in answer. “There are thirty, maybe forty. Wait, you want to give these humans starships under a ruse!” The Captain unleashed a mirthy chortle. “How diabolical.”

“Yes, and yes, with a catch.” Administrator Ochevsko's words came out with a bit of hostility. “The Dasku, those nasty lizardkin, may come through here once we leave. Even a small force would send them into a retreat through a wormhole. So we create a force to defend our farms without letting them know they’re working for us. We incentivize, televise, and hope to bring interest to this region of space again, all while giving these humans a mission to serve us unknowingly.”

“And if they learn the truth?” Adjunct Caspor asked rhetorically.

“Oh! Then we have to send a ship back out here to crush them. Which is good for everyone if the Empire ventures to this region more frequently. We need to expand again, this region of space has promise, and maybe, if we push the humans hard enough into a hunter-gather warrior race, they’ll have promise too. I’ve drafted a few plans,” Administrator Ochevsko said, pacing the bridge. “I shall decide and have one of them delivered for execution well before we arrive over this… Earth.”

“You’ll make lifelong enemies with this species, assuming your ruse fails,” Captain Abrtu said, overstepping his position. “We could always kill them all instead of modifying or saving some of them. Even though the Lixo were expunged from the empire, we have other subservient species who can protect your investment.”

“Ah, but then it becomes my investment instead of the Empire’s. No, I can wrap this up nicely to my superiors. We entertain, entice, and maybe enough of our people in the core galaxies will notice. I’m well within my authority with any of my plans, as it should be. May the Empire shine bright forever,” Administrator Ochevsko said.

The crew echoed his words even if they were unhappy with his plans regarding the blue and green planet they neared. For the humans, they were about to experience a very rude reality that many would not survive.

Those who did, well, they might be worthy of the Empire.

Chapter 1

Assimilation!

Watertown NY

JUNE 2029

I stood in the line for the Walmart self-checkout, wondering how the hell I got here. My dreams of doing something meaningful with my life went to shit the moment I took the army’s money. Yeah, they promised free college for a six-year contract, and yes, I needed help with finances, but military life blew—and not in a good way.

As a lowly captain, who wasn’t in charge of anything besides his studies, I spent most of my time staring at slideshows, learning about Cyber and Electronic Warfare to the point it felt like endless schooling without any actual doing. After a grueling ten-hour day, my mind tingled with numbness. My body wanted to run or do something active, but it got dark a few hours ago, leaving me deflated.

In my head, I thought I’d be padding my resume while doing awesome stuff, like being a spy in a movie. In reality, that recruiter whispered sweet words of bullshit into my ear, and I’d been too trusting. It wasn’t God awful, but yeah, I wished I’d taken the debt instead.

And yes, the age-old advice to sleep on big decisions went ignored in my haste for easy money. To compensate for my lackluster day, I figured I’d try to unwind with a nice dinner in my new air fryer, drink a beer or two, walk to the local dive bar, and finally shoot some pool before doing it all over again after six hours of sleep.

The line slowly shifted while I found myself still in uniform, waiting to scan my beer. Of course, five of the eight overhead lights swirled red, causing a backup. Only one worker managed the section, and she seemed both miserable and unable to keep up. Worse, she’d need to see me since I’d have to show my ID.

For my sanity, I set the beer on top of a mini fridge packed with overpriced soda. When a lane opened up, I hurried towards it. My phone buzzed in my pocket, demanding attention. It went ignored while I finished checking out.

While I walked to the exit, I noticed a lot of people staring at their phone screens. Three different people I passed repeated the word hello into their phones, a telltale sign. I snorted, thinking about the astronomical odds that something in my area of expertise might be happening.

The better safe than sorry mentality stirred within me. I jogged to my Camry, hopped in the car, and yanked out my phone. I only missed one call from… Aubrey. My high school sweetheart had slipped off my radar seeing as how we split before college. I’d kept her number just in case, a fact that later girlfriends always asked about.

If she was calling, it was worth answering. When I tried to immediately call her back, the connection hard-failed.

“Huh,” I grumbled.

Even though cell service was down, the emergency alert worked, evident when my phone blared, demanding attention.

Seek Immediate Shelter.

“From what?” I blurted to myself, hating how little the message contained. “Bunch a bullshit.”

Since I was only a few miles from Fort Drum’s gates, I peeled out of the Walmart. For the most part, cars simply pulled over in confusion as they fiddled with their phones. A few others worried enough to speed, weaving through traffic like me. I only made it through two stop signs when a blue aura coated my car.

“What the fuck?” I whispered, considering jumping out of the vehicle.

When I saw people floating higher in the sky, wrapped in the same blue glow, well, I sorta understood there’d be no escaping. The glow condensed around me, and I passed through the car as I was pulled into the air. Within moments, I’d reached the point I’d splatter anyway if the car fell to the ground. Some sort of magic or technology I couldn’t fathom lifted humans off the surface of Earth, and I was among them.

While I probably should be screaming or freaking out in some way, I stayed extremely calm. As gravity decreased, the rate of ascension accelerated at an uncomfortable rate.

I watched a whole lot of people converging towards a new moon in the sky that had to be an alien vessel. It was black with electric blue runes segmenting the surface. The sheer size of the ship and how fast it moved toward the surface baffled my mind.

Not only that, it also inexplicably sucked in every human from the planet’s surface into its hull without any notion of how it did so. At this point, the air thinned, and I struggled to stay conscious. My vision swam, and my vision darkened. The final thought before I passed out was: what the hell are they going to do with us?

Chapter 2

Adoption!

A STRONG GUST of air swooshed into a tiny pod I awoke in. An obscenely loud ventilator hissed. I groaned, finding myself suspended in some sort of harness, confined in a tube among a sea of tubes in some sort of holding bay.

“Ughhhh,” I groaned, forcing my neck to move so I could scan my surroundings.

I found myself in a vertical pod with a screen in front of me. An image of my nude body appeared on the display, providing basic information about me.

Name: Alan Winchester: Age: 26.8 Rotations

Weight: 18.3 Zexa

Rarity Value: 7.334

Efficiency Value: 97.49% of Species

I frowned, still a bit groggy. The data didn’t break down into strength or agility, so it wasn’t a character sheet, but I did see that it thought I was in the top three percent of my species. While I mulled over the data, the slightest prick behind my ear sent me into a panic.

A cool liquid slid into my body, calming my worry when it helped me shake off the grogginess. A progress bar tracked my revival process, sliding right until it pinged green. Not even a second later, a green-skinned lizard-humanoid with big black eyes materialized, pushing his face through the screen in some advanced type of hologram.

My peripheral caught this happening in every pod around me, syncing us to some sort of orientation video. His scales were tight to his flesh, his nostrils flared with anger, and his teeth glistened with some sort of slime. I knew there’d be some smug assholes watching his face with glee, knowing the lizard overlords weren’t just a wild fucking conspiracy.

“You’re useless, pathetic, and inferior in so many ways. I voted against even sparing some of you, and for good reason. Your indulgence in self-harm would only corrode the galaxy’s greater purpose, and then the universe’s if your species ever expanded. However, even a nugget of cadmium can be saved if given the right care.

“The mass of your species will remain in cold storage for three decades, just as you were, so we could return Earth to the way it was while we tended to the systems of this region. And just as you were returned, they can be too. Call their storage… motivation.” The bastard sneered in the most smug way possible. “We need your species to return to its baser nature because the animalistic survivalists will perform better in close combat against our foes. Dominate your surroundings, thrive on a dangerous Earth, and increase your tribe’s power.

“For thirty lucky tribes who handle the new world the best, you’ll launch off the surface in ships provided by us. If you take the fight to the enemy, for every kill earned, we’ll release a human of your choosing. Enticing, I know, and far too generous. Fight for a decade to get your tribe’s power up to a high enough place to earn a ship.

“While the top thirty automatically get a ship out of pity, survival will be near impossible since Earth is teeming with dinosaurs hopped up on breeding modifications. Your tribe leader will use the obelisk on their necklace to interact with the world with limited help, the only tech tool your kind will have unless earned.

“And before you think you can just raid an old human armory, well, I have bad news. Your civilization has been flattened by temporarily increasing gravity after we mercifully saved you. The land quickly recovered, and now, after some careful cultivation and planning, dinosaurs roam the Earth with the traces of your existence grown over.

“You’ll be deposited into safe zones, close to, or at your place of birth with an age bracket of our choosing. For some of you, your city dwellings created a space too dense, so you will be deposited wherever you fit in. We thought about just leaving the most fit, the most capable, but not only was that more work, it was too nice.

“Support the weak, improve them as your fodder, and raise your tribe’s power. To create a tribe, a chieftain must have at least one follower kneel before them and swear fealty. Once formed, tame the land, defeat the threats, grow in size, and avoid deaths.” A screen showing a man chopping a tree included a point being added. “Everything is worth something toward your point totals, and no, we don’t show them in great detail for you to rig the system. After a decade, the winners will be selected to serve us, giving you the chance to rescue those you miss the most. Your biggest threat will be—”

He grinned with a smugness that made his face super punchable. The alien reveled in the fact he teased us with the promise of helping our loved ones through a decade of torture, then servitude. The lizard’s face slithered back into the hologram, vanishing before I could even utter a word in response.

“What the fuck! Hey, get back here. Hey! Hey, I need to know what—” A slight shudder in my pod increased until I clutched the harness with concern.

Without any warning or countdown, the floor below my container vanished. The blue sky of Earth transitioned into the rich green of thick vegetation coating the land. My pod shot out of the ship, rocketing toward the ground.

A grand view from high in the sky revealed unknown trees scattered across what looked like America. When I glanced out my left and right, a beautiful sunny day revealed tens of thousands of similar capsules dropping down. The number only increased as the ship slid over the terrain, depositing its contents in a pattern I failed to understand.

Even though I dropped quickly, I found myself studying the terrain contours. I saw the east coast of the United States, recognizing Virginia and a wave of relief flooded through me. The juxtaposed difference between the land and sea was almost as evident as the beech trees clashing against the intense prehistoric jungle and high grass plains in the distance.

During the descent, I tried to intake everything I could regarding my landing area while reflecting on the place I once called home. I was born in Marlinton, West Virginia, a town with only a thousand people who mostly lived off the land.

Sure, there was a snow resort in Snowshoe that brought in some decent revenue and jobs, and yes, the hospital wasn’t fancy, but stayed busy. Honestly, the town was almost as old as the country, and it also snowed five months out of the year, making it a pretty boring place to live, but it sure was a lovely area during summer.

My dad worked as a mechanic, my mom as a general staff employee at the hospital, which was a fancy term for janitor. I grew up with hand-me-downs, but never letting money woes drag me down.

The pod homed in on a circle of familiar terrain filled with beech trees. Outside of that circle, the tall hills and jagged Appalachian Mountains were covered in a thick conifer jungle. A massive herd of brontosaurus curiously stared up at the humans falling from the sky, completing the moment’s surrealness.

Any admiration I might have shown for the big dinosaurs faded once I came zooming down at breakneck speeds. Right when I figured I’d die in a crumpled crash, the pod slowed over a section of tall grass jutting from rubble. The alien vessel continued to decelerate until it gently landed.

Numerous snaps dismantled my harness, dropping me onto the uneven grass before hovering a few feet above me. A storage compartment above my head popped open. A sack fell out of the roof, and I barely reached up in time to catch it.

I grunted, bear hugging the hefty bag, still very disoriented from the series of events.

The pod hummed intensely, building up power until it soared high into the sky without any warning or instruction. All around me, a collection of fit, average, and fat people endured the same experience. Slowly but surely, additional pods landed until a few hundred of us arrived, mostly nude with only a bag of kit to survive off of. The instant the final pod blasted back to the mothership, a green dome shimmered in a big circle around us.

That same lizard face materialized, but this time, it didn’t poke forward and instead hugged the curved surface.

“As you can clearly see, Earth is no longer stained with the filth of your species. Except for these few remnants of the previous flora, we’ve stripped the surface of the planet of your vegetation, transposing one that is better at supporting dinosaurs. Besides these few starter areas, the world will quickly transform into a dense jungle where your outfits make far more sense for the season. The protections safeguarding the area you are in have just vanished, to allow in the overcrowded dinosaurs.

“There are carnivores on the roam, eager for an easy meal—you. But we do have some pity for the lesser races. You’re safe for five hours in order to organize, which you’d be wise to do. However, it is for five hours only, then this shield will vanish. You can leave sooner if you have formed a tribe and are ready to go. There was a key phrase there, in a tribe. You’ll want to be in a tribe because your leader’s necklace may very well save your life.

“Your mission is clear. Unify as a tribe that can manage a starship against the horrors of intergalactic warfare. Do this by surviving a decade on this hostile planet while excelling, then fight for us to free your loved ones. Many of you will die, a risk we are willing to take. The timer for your doom starts now,” the lizard said.

The instant he finished, his face faded, and the dome vanished. I returned to scanning the survivors. While our sizes were diverse, our outfits were not. All the men wore leather kilts while the women wore leather diapers without tops. Now, I always liked seeing a nice pair of tits, and fully supported the ‘free the nipple’ movement, but the bare-chested adjustment was a lot to take in for the ladies.

I didn’t gawk, mostly trying to find Darnel, knowing he was born just a few hours after I was in the exact same maternity room. He was one of the very few black people from Marlinton who also happened to be my best friend since I was five. Of course, I spotted him well before he ever saw me.

“Darnel!” I bellowed.

“Alan! Bro!” Darnel shouted in response.

He smiled at my sight while I energetically waved him over. All the others seemed incredibly confused, muttering to each other as if they didn’t all receive the same brief. A few of them simply lay down, unable to cope with the harsh transition.

While Darnel carried his bag over, I tried to get a rough headcount. If I had to guess, there were two hundred of us standing on the rubble of the hospital.

“What… the… fuck…?” Darnel grumbled, tossing his bag beside mine. He stood a few inches taller than me, with sharp features and short, well-kept hair. Over the years, Darnel matured into a friendly bear type. At the moment, he kicked at the grass in frustration. “Decades of growth over this rubble and we…” His arms shot into the air in frustration. “Slept through it.”

I quickly undid the bag’s flap to inspect my items. “If they can rapidly steal us, destroy our buildings, then they can probably infuse the vegetation to support dinosaurs in short order. Look, this is real.”

He sputtered his lips. “This is bad.”

I snorted with an agreeing bob of my head while fishing into the bag. “Real bad. We need to stay calm and do an inventory because where there’s big herbivores…”

“Bro, you can’t be serious right now,” Darnel said, glancing around. “What the fuck! How did this happen?”

I reached up and slugged his thigh, not hard enough to hurt him, but I earned his fiery attention. “Darr, calm down.”

He reasonably replied, “No.”

My friend did stop his tirade and pacing though.

“Use humor if you have to, but we need to keep our head in the game. You love joking when you're stressed, and we’ve been through worse. Remember that time we fished on Old Man Jerry’s stocked lake?” I said, laying out a blanket.

Darnel folded his arms. “He shot at us!”

“Yeah, he did,” I replied with a snicker. “Mostly into the air, but damn… that was a while ago.”

While I pulled out the items in the bag to lay them out neatly for an inventory, my words brought Darnel out of his spiral to the point he opened his bag, too.

“Alright, I suppose I can freak out if we survive long enough to find somewhere safe,” he said. “But what about them?”

All around us, people panicked. Most shouted for people who they’d never find. Some cried when they realized the truth, some screamed in sheer frustration, and a few checked their supplies. Humanity, well, it wasn’t exactly at peak optimal performance at a general level.

The Digital Age of humanity was supposed to lead us to great prosperity and an Immortality Age through technology unlocks. To the aliens, and our modern military, it’d let the population grow soft and cozy in their contentment.

I assumed that cyborg enhancements would create a far greater human, but we never made it that far, though. Yea, a lot of these young adults probably still lived with their parents.

“They’re going to adapt or die,” I replied.

I found a three-part spear of sturdy metal, quickly assembling it. My fingers wrapped around the hilt, checking the weight and balance. The smooth steel with rugged grip portions felt… right. The weapon smoothly rolled on my wrist, letting me pop it up for a catch.

I cocked the weapon back, confident in its durability and said, “Aliens suck, but I’m not a meek man who is going to lay down and die.”

“Yeah, yeah, yer a hero. Hey, where’s Kali?” Darnel asked, scanning the crowd. “She shouldn’t be hard to find.”

His older sister used to babysit me, seeing as how she was almost six years older than her brother. I set the weapon down, helping sort through the crowd, looking for someone else who’d also stick out—Daniel Sosa, the bully I hated with a passion should be easy to see. Instead, the almost seven feet tall idiot was missing.

“Sosa’s missing. Yup. Well, shit. We’re the oldest in the group. Maybe they landed somewhere else, or maybe they’re the ones we free after going to war for the aliens,” I said with a sigh.

“We both know that kill for freedom stuff is fucking bullshit. For real, they’ll just pull us into a room, tell us our family is coming, then gas us to never pay the debt. It’s all a trap, and I swear with my core, I ain’t ever stepping on some alien ship willingly,” Darnel said, dusting his palms before raising one to the heavens.

I shrugged. “Look, I got a bit of survival training and—”

“Alan!” Aubrey slammed into my side, trying to tackle me, but failing.

She clung to me, and I suddenly found myself holding a woman I thought I’d never see again. The odd thing was, she fit perfectly, as if a day had never passed.

Darnel snickered. “Not a lot of training, for sure. You just let her sneak up on you.”

“Cassie is missing her baby; we need to help her,” Aubrey pleaded, her eyes darting around with concern.

I stroked her cheek lovingly, internally angry to see her so distraught. We went way back, having dated for over four years, lost our virginity to each other, celebrated holidays at each other’s homes, and so much more.

Since she seemed inconsolable, I used extreme measures. I grabbed her brunette hair and yanked it hard, earning one hell of a fierce scowl. Her blue eyes stared at me with pure venom until I kissed her forehead.

“Aubrey, we’re screwed, but we’re in this together,” I said, not getting through to her. “Aubrey… I’m sorry, but we have five hours to get it together before we venture into a jungle where the next step might be into a T-Rex nest.”

“Don’t be heartless, Alan. They wouldn’t have taken a mother’s newborn,” Aubrey said, rising to stand, placing her hands on her hips. “He was like a son to me.”

When I tried to hold her hands, she pulled them away. I sighed, not finding the situation working in my favor.

Darnel stepped in and said, “Until we can free him, the baby is lost, our parents are lost, our siblings are lost.”

I slowly added, “And we’re never going to save them if we don’t stay in control. Anyone who’s not here, that should be, is lost at best, and at worst, never coming back.”

“No!” Aubrey whimpered in the middle of the words, letting me at least finish.

She became lost in misery, unable to help herself. Every second counted, so I let her weep to perform an inventory check. My gaze shifted over to Darnel’s items. While I had a hatchet, a cooking tripod, sewing kit, some bandages, and canteen, he had a cooking pot, a small saw, a carving knife, a skinning knife, and a firestarter. We both had a few days’ worth of rations, a blanket, secondary kilts, and a bunch of thin—but strong—rope.

“Oh, we’re meant to team up,” Darnel said, assembling his spear. He shook his head angrily. “There’s nothing fun in this, Alan. I just want to get revenge, but I’ll admit, it’s good to see you. Been too long.”

I bobbed my head in agreement before I shook Aubrey until she glanced into my eyes. Before I could try to calm her, an ear-piercing roar blasted out of the forest to the distant north. Whatever it was, it probably could eat me and the spear whole.

This challenging shriek had the result I expected amongst the others. Hell, even I joined most of the others in crouching instinctively to lower my profile. A few people tried to flee, forgetting their vital bag during their mad dash for any sort of safety away from what was likely some sort of massive predator.

A fairly obese young woman lost all her common sense, fleeing from something so far away. She smacked into the green shield, pinging off it with a violent thud.

“Oof,” Darnel grunted.

She didn’t get up right away, clearly unwell.

I sighed, realizing the lizard alien wasn’t playing games with his rules. Form a tribe or stay in the prison while predators neared. Aubrey seemed to have regained her composure at this point, especially when she saw us tucking our items back into our bags. When she noticed my eyes fondly glance at her voluptuous chest in remembrance, she frowned, pointing at my second kilt.

If there was ever a woman’s mind I could read, it was hers. “Good. Good, sure you can have mine, but you probably have realized you have a second outfit in your bag. I always loved how you were just as smart as you were beautiful.” She surprisingly blushed. “Get your things. Wrap your breasts if you must, but boobs are hardly our biggest issues. Then come back here so I can keep you alive,” I ordered.

“You’re not in charge of me,” she lied with an upturned nose.

While I knew this was an old game of ours, and it was her way of submitting to me, my best friend missed the inside joke.

Darnel snickered. “He’s a captain in the army, Aubrey. You’re an accountant.”

“A good one,” Aubrey said, rolling her eyes. “I still love Alan, even if we’re just friends. There’s no man besides my father who I'd rather have bulldogging to protect me.”

I smacked her ass, earning a yelp. “Get your bag before someone steals it and—”

A golden hue shot down from the heavens, coating Carl Winslow. Thirty paces away from us was his younger brother, who was kneeling next to Carl, likely swearing to his tribe. At this point, it clicked for me—I’d need to form a tribe or be defiant.

“We’re in a starter zone with protection that will run out and the only way to get away before the… distraught people who are about to get eaten is to form a tribe.” I stared into Darnel’s brown eyes. “I trust you with my life and you’re a good man, the best chef I know, who runs a tight kitchen. I’d be—”

Darnel caught on right away. He folded his arms, shaking his head slowly. “Ha! Bro, no. I don’t want to have everyone coming to me to bitch. It fucking sucks. If there was ever a man to bend a knee to out of choice, it’d be my dad. Then you… Okay, maybe Lebron second, dude is a legit king. Alright, yeah, you’re my third,” Darnel said with a snicker, taking a knee. “And so I pledge my loyalty.”

A blue hue of magical energy coated me, flaring around my body. When the blinding alien spell ended, a small necklace gently rested around my neck. On the tip, an odd sort of amulet rested. The outer structure reminded me of the alien’s ship with its black hue and blue seams. The grooves ran like a river, exuding a magical hue of wonder.

“What do you do?” I asked with a whispered voice filled with excitement.

Chapter 3

Alien Advantages

WHEN I TOUCHED the black obelisk, a small projection appeared for everyone to inspect.

Tribe Points: 1: Tribe Chieftain, Alan Winchester.

Tribe Name: Unassigned

Tribe Size: 2.

Tribe Ranking: Undetermined at this time.

Once a Day Beacon Activation: 1/1

Once a Day Topography Scan: 1/1: Once a Week Dinosaur Domestication: 1/1

Darnel rose to stand again, pointing at the information graphic. “Simple. That’s good because none of that matters to me.”

“Yet,” I said, holding up my hands defensively. Even I was filled with excessive amounts of anger at the moment. “I want Kali, Pops, Pa, and our mothers freed. I get it if you think it's a con.”

He snickered, eyed the data with a healthy heaping of disapproval. “Not going to matter, Bro. A decade on a planet filled with dinosaurs is an eternity.”

I didn’t want to argue with him about what-ifs. Instead of quibbling, I closed the display, happy with what I saw. If anyone got lost, I could fire off a beacon since it was a daily use. If we ran into a cliff, I could find another path by cheating. Most importantly, we could turn dinosaurs into domesticated pets. How that worked, I hadn’t a clue, but it sure as shit was better than not having the option.

Since it was a problem for a later ‘me’, I tried to see who else we could add to the team. I noticed a few friends from before, but none of them were as tight as Darnel and I. Honestly, I wanted to keep our group small with only fit people, for obvious survival reasons, but I quickly realized that wasn’t in the cards.

“What I want and what I get…” I muttered when Aubrey brought others.

Aubrey returned with a young woman who was likely Cassie. The shorter, black-haired, pale-skinned woman had eyes stained red from crying, a belly on display with signs of recent stretching, and a ‘chin held high’ attitude I respected.

Behind her, a young man and a girl I didn’t know decided to join us. The younger man was fairly fit, with dark hair and a genuine smile while the woman clung to him with a shy nod of her head. He thrust a hand out in greeting, and when we shook, I noticed the callouses.

“Carl,” he said.

“Alan.”

Carl smirked, wagging a finger after we stopped our shake. “Alan Grant, a fabled dino hunter in the flesh, how fitting.”

“Bah, it’s Winchester. That’ll probably get old quickly. I love dinosaurs, or I used to, but no, I’m no paleontologist,” I admitted.

“A captain in the army certainly doesn’t hurt, or so Aubrey said. Yup, it doesn't hurt a bit. Hence why we want to team up with you. Uh, yeah, uh, I’m a roofer, so… not much survival expertise and where are my manners?” He slung an arm around the mousy brunette. “This is my high school sweetheart and wife, Poppy. She’s good friends with Cassie,” Carl said with a smile. “She’s a daycare worker who is obviously unemployed at the moment.”

We shared a tense chuckle. The duo were hardly important, but they placed themselves between Aubrey and I. Honestly, I just wanted to figure out how we were going to survive the jungle laden with dinosaurs, but now I found myself as a guide to lost souls.

I plastered a fake smile on my face, trying my best to give a calm appearance. Sparse clouds drifted overhead while the early spring March weather coated my exposed skin with a gentle warmth.

“Nice to meet you, and I can’t promise much, but if you join, the goal is to live.” We shook hands before I shifted to place a hand on Aubrey’s shoulder. “You good?”

“No, but I understand I need to be,” Aubrey replied, letting her blue eyes drift over to Cassie. Aubrey added, “I told her you were a soldier who’d get her son back one day, but little Anthony clearly was taken for now.”

“I absolutely will try,” I said in a sweet voice. Cassie mouthed thank you, folding her hands in front of her hips. I could see her pain and strength to hold it back. “Cassie,” I quietly said to the clearly distraught young woman. By this point, the ladies created breast wraps, and shouldered their bags as if ready to move. “We need to go. There are going to be some hostile people sticking around who have no intention of survival, only reprisal, and we want to avoid them just in case they do lash out. And after we leave the dome, we’ll eventually reach the jungle. It won’t be easy, but I need to know. Are you… still recovering?”

“Yes, my bed rest is long over, and I’ve become determined. My way back to Anthony is through a whole bunch of dead dinos, so bring it on. I think. I’ve never killed much before, but I can keep up, I promise,” Cassie said, folding her arms with discomfort. If I had to guess, she had a baby only a month or two ago. She’d slow us down, but even Darnel put on post high school weight. “So, what’s the plan, Captain?”

“Alan. Just Alan, please. As to the plan….” I scanned around, seeing a few more people create tribes. An argument broke out amongst a group of people in the center of the dome that I wanted no part in. “Well, it’s adapting every second.”

“Aren’t you scared?” Aubrey asked.

I chuckled. “Good, my poker face is working, darling. But fear not, there’s hope,” I said with my most charming grin. “We can domesticate a dinosaur every week. Which to me means that we need to get one today to start the cycle. If we can get a gatherer who can also carry weight, fantastic. If not, well, I’ll take whatever.”

Carl rocked on his feet uncomfortably. “No base at Kissing Falls? It’s only an hour up the mountain.”

The Kissing Falls were on the east side of town, and without a doubt, more than a few people would be going there. A waterfall spilled into a big pool with a constant roar. A small cave rested behind the water, but it was well known and would only house two or three people.

“Uh, no. There are too many of us. It’ll be hard as shit to defend, and when winter comes, the splash will literally freeze you to death,” I said with a grunt. “There’s a ton of waterfalls in these hills. I want clean water, yeah, but in six, maybe seven months, it’s going to get rough. Building will need to happen quickly.”

Carl folded his arms but nodded in agreement. “Right, I can do more than roofing. I personally want to ensure Poppy is safe behind a wall.”

Darnel added, “Oh, right. I like safety.”

Poppy quietly said, “A base probably adds points.”

“Admirable about a wall and you're right, a base probably does help. I’m not worried about the competition because thirty is a tiny number compared to what the human population was. I’m worried about survival year round. Moving in winter with bare feet is impossible. I… I don’t even know how to make shoes,” I admitted.

Darnel snickered. “Boots, Bro. But yeah. The more people, the more problems.”

“Right. The larger the tribe, the less dinos, too. I bet there’s some mechanic to keep people from making ten tribes but moving together as one,” I said.

The amulet on the necklace shimmered, stirring with a rising heat. A second later, it projected a message.

If two or more necklaces are in the same region, the tribe with the most points will still have access to their perks while the other tribe’s will turn gray with inactivity.

“Damn, well, that’s the answer. Right now, I’m thinking about spears and tools. There’s a lot for me to digest, but more people makes sense to me instead of less. The thing is, West Virginia is vast with minimal people, even less when you only have our age around. I may have to push us long and hard to reach a proper population density. Sorry in advance,” I warned.

Again, the necklace flared to life.

The entire land mass, from the frozen north to the frigid south is being repopulated evenly and at our behest. Heavily populated areas are going to be sprinkled in with rural zones. We also are not sure how many of you will survive, so adjustments may be made.

We mulled over the words, not saying much in response.

Eventually, I started to make some sort of plan. “Okay, I really don’t want to take those who aren’t coping well. I care less about physical and more about mental stability right now, so kneel, and we’ll be the first team to start heading southwest in the hopes of getting a bit lower in altitude. I figured the plains will be great for seeing predators, far better than jungle mountains. Assuming we can make it that far.”

The others hesitated, understanding the gravity of the situation.

“Before you make some snarky comment about kneeling before a man in a kilt, I already did it,” Darnel said with a grunt.

Cassie went first, then Aubrey. Poppy dropped to a knee and Carl hesitantly gave up authority. I glanced around, seeing a few curious stares that only increased as I walked my small team toward the edge of the dome.

I sucked in a bunch of air, then shouted, “We’re going west toward Summersville, then maybe Charleston. It’s a big maybe. There should be a lot of good terrain with minimal jungle and while I don’t know the locals, or some of you, numbers matter. My tribe is only open to those with the conviction to fight together, suffer together, and survive until we find some sort of sanctuary.”

“Fuck off pawn of the aliens!” a Karen in full rage mode shouted.

“By the angels, Captain Winchester in the flesh!” a bubbly young woman screamed in excitement. “I’m saved!”

Aubrey grumbled, shifting to gaze upon a cheerleader type. “Who’s this, Alan?”

I shrugged, watching the bare-chested beauty come bounding over without her bag. My mind tried to figure out who she was, noticing a young man following behind her with her gear. Once I locked onto his face, my eyes widened in understanding. I’d spent a lot of time getting to know the young man with blond hair and blue eyes.

“Missy?” I asked, figuring it out. The blonde-haired woman nodded emphatically. I shook her brother’s hand, knowing he was considered handsome by guy standards. “Damn, Jarod, you grew into a man!”

“What about me?” Missy asked.

I faked a smile. “Eh, Jarod is cuter,” I teased, earning a chuckle from most, and a frown from Missy.

Years ago, I used to tutor Jarod, who struggled with math. Since his parents liked me, and I needed the money, I sometimes babysat for him after the lessons, even if he was technically old enough to watch his sister on his own. Ergo, Missandra, his little sister who followed me around like a shadow. She apparently turned into a very voluptuous, yet fit, young woman with sparkling hazel eyes and braided blonde hair.

Since I knew them, they didn’t seem like dead weight, and I needed people, so I asked, “You guys wanna join?”

“Hell yeah,” Jarod said, with an empathic nod of his head. “Assuming you’ll deal with Missy. There’s a half-dozen guys wanting to recruit her to their tribes and -” Missy kneeled before me without any hesitation. “They lost. Cool. You were always fair, and the military stuff is neat.”

I shrugged. “I wasn’t infantry, called a POG. Not pog, POG, like a poggie. It stands for Person Other than Grunt and basically means I sat at a desk. Which… yeah, I didn’t kill anyone, didn’t deploy, and was a low-ranking officer with no seniority. I say this so no one here expects me to perform miracles, even if I have leadership training.”

Aubrey slipped an arm around mine somewhat possessively when Missy rose to hug me. The eighteen-year-old woman ignored my ex-girlfriend, not helping the situation. Things became worse when a few hesitant onlookers decided to become a mob of people seeking a tribe while realizing we were somewhat organized and about to leave.

Some I sorta recognized, most, I had no clue who they were.

“See, glad I made you the boss,” Darnel said, snickering at their approach.

“Missy, grab your bag. Your brother is not your pack mule.” This earned me a wicked grin from her. She loved it, and before Missy could make some cute comment, I addressed the growing stragglers with a raised voice. “Alright, listen up. I suppose someone needs to step up, and I definitely have some solid friends who I can lean on to help keep us alive.

“So if you join us, well, it won’t be easy. We’re going to make rules that are akin to laws to help keep each other alive. Notice a theme yet?” I earned a few nods of approval. “We move as a group of no less than five for anything. If you got to pee, it comes out of a penis or a vagina, get over it, and no, I’m not playing gender games. I'm telling you to rise above seeing nipples or your neighbor squatting to pee. We all poop out of a butthole, and it stinks. Get over it.

“No one goes anywhere alone without four others. I mean it with all my heart. No exceptions. If you wanna sneak away to fuck, do it with your buddies nearby. They’ll only judge sometimes, but I’m serious about this. If you go alone or in just two, how the fuck do you fend off a big dino. Four or five spears will always be better than one or none. Speaking of which, while I talk, put down your bags, assemble your spears, and get them ready.”

I waited while the rustling increased from the gathered crowd. Since it made sense, a lot of folks began assembling weapons and conducting inventory, snapping out of their daze. A few more hesitant people wandered over while I was giving clear and conscious instructions. While I didn’t want to be leading a big group of people, someone needed to step up and it’d probably help us stay alive, or so I hoped.

“Okay, this is the perfect time to form your mini-groups. Since we have the safety of the dome, say hello until you have a group to unite around. If you lack courage to say hi to strangers, which I get, I’m very approachable and will help you find a team. More than five is fine, no more than ten please. Once you find your group within this tribe, stick to them. This is new for everyone, and we’re not going to be moving at breakneck speeds unless I can help it. Go find your team and elect someone to be the team leader or ask me to,” I commanded, smacking my hands together with a loud clap.

A half-hour flew by while teams mostly grouped based on sexes. For me, it was Jarod, Darnel, Carl, Private Peter, who was in the nasty guard (National Guard), and one of Jarod’s friends named Vinny.

Aubrey, Poppy, Cassie, Missy, Jennifer (red hair), and Jennifer (black hair) created our closest other team amongst the others. In the end, my tribe grew to over fifty people, and that was with a few of the listeners leaving to go higher into the mountains with a different team. The leader knew of a nice spot underground that was limited in size.

Most people figured a cave base would be a solid bet. I figured it wasn’t a bad idea, but I really wanted to get out of the mountains. Walking that far at a slow pace would take months; months that may leave us desperate to get out of the snow, wishing we had a cave.

Forcing my way into his idea wouldn’t work, and I wasn’t ready to fight over the spot. I also knew that the best way to beat the cold was with heat, and one thing the jungle provided in abundance was fire fuel.

The gaggle of people finally somewhat calmed once the groups felt comfortable enough. I raised my spear, letting the din of chatter die down. Once I had their attention, I lowered the spear, watching more and more small groups depart the dome in odd directions. We were by far the largest group, and unfortunately, I decided to take them all on; or maybe it was fortunate.

I hadn’t really made up my mind.

“Alright, this next bit will take more time, but should be done before we leave this dome,” I said, shouting out to the group. I then asked for the youngest and oldest aged survivor. A few days before twenty-seven was the oldest from someone outside our group. Just over eighteen was Missy. “We record all those we want to save, who are younger than eighteen, older than twenty-seven. Should we ever get fortunate enough to revive people, I want some names from the fallen along with those who made it.

“You, or I, or the person beside you, may die within minutes of leaving this dome. We’re a team, and that team doesn’t forget those who were a part of it. Darnel has a carving knife that can mark my bag. One name for now but we will add more later, their estimated birth date, and no second name yet! Yet is the keyword. If we survive a while, I will consider trying to make paper or something better than carvings in leather. If you can’t add them now, add them later,” I said.

Another hour zoomed by with someone having an actual pen and journal in their kit, making the process far easier. Putting pen to paper was tough and many broke the one name rule while grieving. I shifted my policy since we had the pen, stepping away to let them have their time.

In the field within the dome, the two hundred rapidly shifted to a few large groups with most of the small ones already gone. Twenty or so people who refused to accept this reality stood in the middle.

When I walked over and asked who didn’t want their kits, it went pretty poorly but I didn’t back down. After a tense back and forth, five handed me their bags in disgust while their buddies threw slurs as if they’d hurt me. I retreated, not saying anything in return against their shouts of anger since their buddies gave up the bags freely.

A few of my group judged me negatively, but since they didn’t ask for it back, I handed the bags off to other strong men. Everyone seemed to understand—this was about survival; we wanted to live. They didn’t give a fuck and so life went on.

“Alright, we start walking and talking. I know some of you are going to worry that my voice is a big beacon to the dinosaurs, and it is. I’ll explain another rule as we mingle with the dinosaurs. Follow me and let’s hope we avoid conflict for a bit,” I said loudly as I passed through the barrier.

Chapter 4

From the Safe Zone to the Starter Zone

THE NEW WOODS of West Virginia greeted me with their welcoming embrace. Based on these trees where homes or farms should have stood, three decades passed, but to us, it felt like only a day had passed. Advanced aliens were beyond my comprehension for the near term and our revenge would come if the time ever arrived.

I glanced over my shoulder as Darnel stepped through and asked, “You want us to get eaten?”

“Hell no. No. Not all, but smell your armpit?” I said, knowing we’d been standing in the sun for almost three hours.

Darnel took the bait, wrinkling his nose after a sniff. “Fair, I stink.” We chuckled and he called me a dick under his breath.

I laughed further, keeping my voice just loud enough everyone could hear. “See! We stink. I just silently farted too,” I said, earning a light giggle even if it was a fib. “How about a test? A simple one my instructors played on me during my first road march. A moment of silence as we set off in remembrance of everyone we bring back when we can.”

A good five minutes passed where we found a trail and somewhat consolidated into a two wide marching formation. I slowed, keeping my pace simple. In a few weeks, I may be able to push them, but for now, we were barefoot, half naked, and mostly out of shape. Even worse, the moment of silence just meant no talking, while in reality we were loud as fuck.

People groaned, someone swore from stepping on a rock, twigs snapped, birds fluttered from our approach, and we were anything but stealthy. Once I was fairly certain they understood, I cleared my throat.

“We should be called Tribe Ninja,” I teased, not earning a laugh. “So ask yourself, why does a dinosaur roar?”

“Dominance,” a nerdy-looking man blurted.

“I certainly think so too, and for warnings, and for intimidation. It’s much easier to stab someone in the back, who is fleeing, than the front, who is fighting. I won’t shout so loud to purposely attract attention, but I want people to be able to communicate without some brooding tension or scornful stares due to a wrong step. As a group, we will never be silent besides when we hunt and properly prepare for silence.

“Which let me cover a few things. Your feet are going to hurt, and I promise to take frequent breaks, but the longer we survive, the harder I’ll push. The entire process will likely be hard on us, but hopefully we can kill a few dinos for some solid protein and some skin to turn to hide. For now, we will cut up the spare bags to make the simplest of covers for the bottom of our feet,” I said.

“Thank…” Aubrey paused her words, avoiding saying God.

“God is not gone, merely working in unique ways,” Carl said, earning a few side glances, but no challenge.

“Thank you, Alan. Many of us are not ready to be one with the wilds, and my feet already hurt,” Aubrey said. “I may have sat a lot at work.”

I continued with covering the basics. “Believe it or not, dinosaurs are not our main worry. Water. Water is going to be our primary problem once we leave the hills. There should be one canteen for every two people and the average soldier needs about three a day. Where do we get three canteens of water from?” I asked.

“Depends on how long the creeks have been running without us polluting them,” black-haired Jennifer said.

“Fair. I remember having to scoop trash out of the creek as a school science project. Look, we’ll have to stop by water a lot. Water that dinosaurs use. Then we’ll have to drink a lot whenever we are there since we don’t have spare canteens. We don’t rest our feet when we find water. Then we follow the water until evening.

“We camp not far from it, repeat the water intake in the morning, then hope to find water again at some point during the next day. And yes, we boil all water, adding more time, more fire and smoke, and more attention. Thankfully, these hills are loaded with clean streams, or should be, so our travels should be easier,” I said, encountering my first signs of a dinosaur.

I didn’t need to call out the giant hip-high pile of stinky shit. Everyone could see it, and based on the green coloration, it was mostly recycled shrubs. By the size of it, I figured it was a pretty big herbivore, maybe one of those brontosaurus.

“Dr. Grant, ya gonna stick your hand in it?” Darnel teased.

I snorted, keeping my voice low. “Nope, but we just hit another level of realism. I’m still shocked we’ve been in cryo.”

“So, they scooped up humanity, then kept us in storage, zoomed about and came back to deposit us?” Darnel asked.

I shrugged, noticing a few others getting closer to get within hearing range. I raised my voice instead, just loud enough to be heard, “I’m no expert on what that shit came from, or on aliens. But… We know they’re hyper-advanced. So, maybe they view time differently. Or maybe they can pass time to avoid aging in wormholes. Regardless, it feels like I just left Walmart to sit in my room alone.”

“No girlfriend?” Jarod asked after Missy whispered in his ear.

I shook my head. “Nope. Probably for the best. Not many couples are born at the same hospital.”

Jarod sighed. “My girlfriend was from some small town in Nebraska, going to UCF and now I’m in West Virginia. Doubt it will take long for her to forget about me.”

“Yeah, kinda my point. How about you Darnel?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I had a friend of sorts. I was more into her than she was into me, but we were good together. Real good. She started calling me more, asking me to stay over more. Honestly, it was a nice buildup. She’s… she’s gone. She was older with a son. Nice kid.” He sighed unhappily. “Nice kid.”

“Ah, shit, uh, sorry,” I said, tucking my head down a bit.

The somber moment faded when a shrieking caw erupted from above the trees. As one, our group ducked, raising weapons into the air as if some flying dinosaur would impale itself. If anything, we startled it, and I saw how unprepared we were.

I raised my voice so all could hear, “Next thing to cover. Spear formation. It wasn’t lost on me that most of our self-formed groups became single gender. That’s fine, and I’m not trying to be sexist, but I want staggered genders when walking. Start with a pair and we walk in columns of two. In front of you and to your right should be opposite at birth and same with corners. Let’s adjust now.”

Before Aubrey or Missy could jostle for my side, a very determined Cassie stepped up. She wasn’t exactly pretty or homey, plain to the point her face was rather forgettable if it wasn’t so damned determined. And yes, her steeled resolve lit a fire in me I could respect. Darnel stood behind her with Jennifer L (black hair) behind me.

We spent the next few minutes organizing until Aubrey arrived back at the front. “Three extra women.”

“Hmm… Okay, we’ll march three wide at the front since I expect to stumble into trouble,” I said, continuing our walk. I glanced over my shoulder at Darnel. “I trust you the most. Go lead the back.”

“Fine, but I’m running if others run.” Darnel added with a smug look, “And faster than them. Big time lover, not a fighter, I’m warning you.”

“Well, let's hope this is one dinosaur adventure without any actual dinosaurs.” No one caught onto my joke besides Aubrey, who rolled her eyes. “Let me know if you can hear me in the back when you get there,” I said.

Sure enough, he hollered, I found a good volume, and I continued with my guidance, “Okay, if dinosaurs attack, we stand a better job pushing our backs into each other. As we form a ball and stop condensing, your spear will get heavy with time. Use leverage to your advantage by propping it up with a foot or use the person’s shoulder beside you to help if needed.

“Don’t be shy about asking for help. Let the ground brace for you and carry some of the weight. Not every spear needs to be pointed at the throat. So try to make the spears as menacing and blocking as possible. Okay, let’s start a drill. Back up in three, two, one,

“Steady back. Good. Good. Condense.” The press of bodies increased with only a single person falling. “Pause, help her up. Good. Continue, condense. No one rush. Pretend a dinosaur is coming, and you want to keep it from eating your friend's face. Excellent. Alright, we’re bumping, were squishing, but we’re keeping each other safe without anyone getting stabbed. Wonderful. And back to walking.”

We actually didn’t do too bad, considering there were only two soldiers in the entire group. I think everyone firmly understood just how bad things would get if we panicked and fled as one. I doubted we’d be nearly so calm when the real threat came, but I didn’t have to wait long because a chirp from a predator sent the hairs on my arm rising.

Chapter 5

Dinosaurs!

THIS WAS IT, my fated test as a tribe leader. Maybe those out-of-shape, alien-hating, dejected survivors had a point. Maybe I should be fighting the system instead of capitulating to their demands. Technically, they killed us, and this was our second opportunity to die.

When I glanced over my shoulder, I saw so many worried faces looking to me for strength. To be honest, my stomach twisted, my palms grew sweaty, and I wanted to be back behind a desk learning about hidden frequency jamming techniques.

Instead, I confidently flashed a warm smile. Every leader needed a plan, and while it didn’t have to be a great plan, it needed to be easy to understand, follow, and adapt to a developing situation. I waved them closer with a finger to my lips.

“Five wide, drop bags quietly.” I slid my bag off my back, letting the group create a formation of sorts. “Pump your legs and rotate your arms while you listen, but stay quiet. There is a threat in front of us and our potential first meal. I understood people viewed West Virginians as hillbilly savages without teeth.

“Uh, in this case, I need you to fake the funk on the savage part. Well, besides you, Jarod, just be yourself.” This earned a light laughter which elicited a curious chirp from what was probably a raptor. “Shit, well, if we lose the opportunity, it’s fine. This is the fallback point. Quickly assemble the spare spears and stick them in the ground to make it easier to find.”

While that happened, I adjusted the front rank to be all men, then shifted the first two rows deep on the outside to be men. While a bit different from our marching formation, I didn’t care about anything besides raw power. One by one, the spears sunk into the ground to identify our fallback spot.

“We transition as a unit and whenever we make a move like this for dinner, we do it as assholes. This is about survival, this is our Earth, and it doesn't matter how many teeth or claws we see, we are fifty spears. If you twist an ankle or get hurt, move to the center of the formation for help keeping up. If you break both legs, sit up with your spear at the ready, stabbing any dinosaur that tries to eat you. We’re not weak, we’re not meek, we’re the apex predator on this planet,” I growled, putting myself into the front rank of the formation to make it six wide.

I picked up a slight jog, aiming the tribe directly toward the sounds of chirping mixed with light snarls. The terrain consisted of minimal shrubs between trees covered in white bark with minimal lower limbs. A fading sun cast an angled glow on our pack of hunters who managed to hold the pace I set.

I cradled the spear instead of hefting it for a throw, not wanting to lose my only weapon. Only thirty seconds into our trot, I saw something I never expected. Four knee high mini-raptors with a dozen babies at their feet tore at the carcass of a duck-billed dino.

These weren’t the fearsome Jurassic Park kind of raptors. They had outstretched wings loaded with colorful feathers of brown, green, and tan. Their feet held one longer claw, and each of them had a mouthful filled with jagged teeth, but they were hardly some massive predator I’d worried about.

Mixed among them, and faster to skitter back into the bushes, was a small pack of compsognathus. The smooth-skinned compy was far less eager to get in a fight over an easy meal than the snarling raptors. Compies were not something I expected to see so soon, but both of these predators seemed opportunistic.

The biggest of the micro-raptors noticed us right away, flaring its small arms wide with ruffling feathers in an attempt to startle us. Since I knew our enemy wasn’t a full pack of allosaurus or whatever, I felt a lot of my worry fade.

“Slow,” I bellowed, watching the small raptors backup with lots of bared teeth and hiss. The pack of compies darted into the nearby bushes, noping out of the situation. “Steady. We’re stealing the kill.”

Sure enough, the smaller predators retreated as we advanced, eventually taking flight to a safer distance, much like a turkey would. I didn’t slow our advance, stepping over the dead duck-bill with hundreds of bite and scratch marks. Based on a cursory inspection, the corpse died recently with blood seeping from torn out chunks of flesh.

“Hold! Defensive,” I commanded in a smooth and steady tone once the dead creature was in the middle of our formation. “A few volunteers to hack off the parts we can use to take back to the rally point. In case their saliva is venomous, only take parts not bitten from or carve clean sections.”

A young woman vomited when a few people quickly butchered the kill. The wet smack of metal against flesh definitely was an unwelcome sound combined with the iron rich smell of the blood. She regained her composure, and the group stayed tense.

“They’re just watching us,” Darnel said.

Aubrey snorted. “It’s like in that second movie, they have no reason to truly fear us.”

“Yeah, well, they’ll have plenty to eat based on what we spare,” I said.

“Uh, Boss Alan guy?” one of the butchers said. “There’s not much they didn’t get to besides a few slabs of heavily blooded meat, but we’re done.”

“Perfect. It could be the difference between life and death,” I said, happy to move on. “We’re going to wheel, retreat to the bags, reorganize a bit, then scan the topography for water.”

“I can’t believe they killed it,” Missy said with a grunt. I led the formation into a brisk walk, swinging around to the bags. The smaller raptors, whatever variant they were, returned to the kill once we faded into the distance. “Now I understand why we go nowhere alone. That pack could eat me alive even if I defended myself. If one dies, the pack keeps on living.”

In the background, the small dinos chittered at our departure.

“Yup, and those were the small ones,” I said, marching over the bags. I found the guy holding the best slabs of hastily cut meat and introduced myself. We jammed the steaks onto the tip of one of the spears. “If I tell you to throw this, toss it. Thanks, Peter.” I raised my voice. “Okay, we're back to twos, to narrow our footprint. I’m taking us to water, a nice fire, and maybe a meal. If we’re lucky, maybe some fried parasaur eggs.”

“That’s their slang name,” Jennifer with the black hair said. “They come from the family of hadrosaurids. It’s just that famous dino game that incorrectly called them parasaurs and also had them as weak-willed cowards. Highly unlikely. I happened to date a gamer and also studied biology, so it was a good way to combine interests with a former lover. Hadrosaurs, not parasaurs.”

I snickered. “Yes, the Elvis-looking dinos shall be known as hadrosaurs. Naming aside, that was a baby. Those micro-raptors had a bunch of babies. What did the evil lizard overlord say?”

“Something about breeding enhanced dinos,” Jarod said.

“Right. Well, none of us are quite hungry yet, but we will be. And we need to think about the future. I don’t know about you guys, but my bag is heavy, and I’d rather have a dinosaur carry it for me,” I said with a smirk. “And if I had to guess, getting a small one is easier than a big one.”

Missy muttered, “No fucking way.” I raised an eyebrow at Missy’s comment. “Wait, you’re serious. You really want to tame a dinosaur?” Missy exclaimed. “And you pretend not to be Alan Grant.”

I fake rolled my eyes. “I forgot to cover that part, and this isn’t a video game. Besides this necklace telling me we can add a dinosaur to our tribe, I’m learning as we go. We don’t even know how a domestication works. I saw no option to knock out and stick meat in those micro-raptors' mouths to make them obedient.

“However, humans tamed cows, wolves, and more naturally. It may not happen today, or tomorrow, but yes, I want to think about years from today on our first day.” The words encouraged me. “Hell yeah, I do. Plus, unless I’m crazy, this time of year has limited delicious forage in these hills, but that jungle is going to be packed with potential tames.”

“Yeah, these hills aren’t great. Mostly weeds that taste like ass, but steak and eggs sounds delightful,” Carl said, shouldering his bag, then helping Poppy with hers.

“Right. Okay, everyone get their bags on, then I’m going to trigger this device for our daily use,” I said, glancing around. A few of the overweight ladies were getting help from men who strapped secondary bags to their front. I didn’t say anything, only caring if anything was left behind. “Here we go.”

My fingers tucked the tiny obelisk into my palm. “I want to use my daily topography scan and how does a domestication work?” My words sent heat through the amulet, triggered the device, and a second later, we earned a pop-up menu.

A stream of words projected out of the obelisk, shooting high enough everyone could read.

To use any of your tools, simply talk to the obelisk.

The topography scan will create a scaled down overlay of the terrain within ten of your miles. It is exactly to scale and easy to read.

The alert beacon fires a very large flare high into the sky. The flare lasts five minutes and is hard to miss. Yes, dinosaurs will be drawn to it.

The dinosaur domestication ability has a few rules. If a creature is at ease around you, simply touch them, then say you wish to consume your weekly domestication. If the creature is savage, scared, or confused, they must be trapped in some form without a means of escape. In a cage, natural confined space, knocked out, or tied up all work. You must still touch the creature and the obelisk to claim it.

To unclaim a dinosaur, simply lay a hand on the dinosaur and say that you wish to transfer or release it. We want to encourage trading for mating purposes. If unclaimed, a new charge does not appear.

Consuming your topography scan: Once a Day Topography Scan: 0/1 - recharge available in 23:59:59

A massive blue charge of magical energy washed outwards in a wave. A second later, a map appeared directly around the obelisk. When I turned, the map stayed steady, letting me view the area. Those closest to me stepped back so I could see where the nearest waterway was located. Sadly, it didn’t reveal any dinosaurs around us, which meant we’d still have to be cautious.

What it did show was how limited, yet big, the starter zone was. Once the beech trees hit the thick conifer jungle, it truly became a tangled mess of tall trunks and bushes that made me look small. I found a nice stream right on the trail we were walking on a few miles away.

“Perfect, this isn’t too far. Careful with your steps to avoid twisting an ankle or hurting your feet. I know some of you are getting tired, but once we’re at the water source, I’m making camp for the rest of the day and into the night so we can process this craziness. Oh, and I’m proud of you. They may have been small dinos, but they were dinosaurs nonetheless. We won the day, no one got hurt, and we learned a lot.”

This earned more smiles than I expected, figuring people would be upset we made so little progress. In reality, I think we were all stressed and drained. I deviated our path around where we carved up the hadrosaur, listening to the chirps of the happy raptors and compies who ate with abandon.

It didn’t take long to find the trail the dying creature left in its panicked flight for survival. I led the group deeper into the woods, hoping whatever we ran into next wouldn’t kill us.

Chapter 6

Beacon of Gondor

TWO HOURS LATER, we arrived at a gurgling brook with some pristine mountain water. I immediately ordered everyone to relax, start a fire, and even sleep if they felt they needed it. Only a few minutes after the fire was set, I triggered the daily beacon use in case anyone from the starter point needed a tribe still.

The baby hadrosaur’s tracks led to this point, vanishing once they entered the shallows. It must have run upstream from the jungle below. And yes, with the brook breaking the land, I saw the start of the jungle not even ten minutes downstream. We were rapidly running out of room until we merged with the prehistoric giants.

Another hour passed with us organizing and planning on how to sleep off the ground. I mostly went from group to group, shaking hands, looking at cuts on feet, and making myself known. The meet and greet ended when someone not in our group shouted, “Friendly!”

I frowned, glancing at each group one at a time.

“Headcount,” I ordered.

Sure enough, each team reported everyone present. Fifty-four souls, including mine, were resting from a half a day of walking. The sun was just starting to dip on the horizon, meaning we’d need to hurry to build more fires around our impromptu base. It also meant whoever called out wasn’t a member of my tribe.

“Come on in,” I said, seeing a young man laden down with three packs. “Who’re you and where’d you get those?”

Darnel and Carl helped him offload the weight. He quickly kneeled, causing the necklace around my neck to flare. “I’m Eric. I was following your trail when I saw the beacon. As for the packs, their owners planned to kill each other in a suicide pact. While I’m pissed my wife is in Oregon and my kids are gone, I’m not ready to die, so I asked for their bags and hauled ass after you.”

A few people gasped, while most shook their heads in disbelief. I rose to my feet, inspected the bags, then him, and saw no signs of blood. It was possible he slit their throats to earn their bags, but I didn’t think he did, so I let the doubt slip away.

“Can’t say I’m shocked some people caved.” I thumbed over my shoulder. “Find a group, dump the spare bags, and relax for a bit. The limited food is already being eaten, but someone may share since they saw the kill and not many folks are used to seeing the dead be turned into a meal.”

“Ah, I saw the small winged dino things, but they were busy.” Eric glanced around.

I shook my head. “You got lucky, but yeah, make yourself at home.”

“What about Matty?” Cassie asked. “I saw her huddled and angry. She was the other woman with…” Cassie used her hands to simulate a large chest and Eric nodded with a sad yes. “She gave birth the same day I did. It… It’s not easy to be without him.”

“She said a decade was too long with too little hope. Someone started doing the math and things spiraled from there. I’m sorry,” Eric said, checking out our tribe. “Uh, you have people sleeping?”

“Yup, it’s perfectly fine to nap whenever. Just be ready to defend yourself. Hand your gear off to Peter over there. The army taught us how to sew, and we intend to make basic foot coverings before setting off into the jungle. I may go hunting as a team of five outside the jungle, or may wait for the morning. I—”

“I’ll go now if you want,” Aubrey said, earning a curious glance from Darnel and Cassie.

I sputtered my lips, not really having an argument against the idea. “Alright, well, settle in, help how you can, find a group, and realize this is about as good as it gets. Peter is the only other military guy in our camp. Even if he wasn’t an officer or NCO, he has decent training—so bug him if I’m not around. Darnel, Jarod, and Vinny, we’re heading on a short hunting trip.”

“I can come,” Carl said.

I shook my head. “If I can avoid splitting couples, I will. Either you both come, or neither, and Poppy’s snoring.”

He sighed, guiltily tossing his hands in the air. “She does that. You’re a good man, Dr. Grant.”

I rolled my eyes. “Winchester! I’m a Winchester sent to slay the blights of humanity, not a dinosaur hunter!”

Darnel smacked my shoulder so hard I staggered. “Let’s go dino huntin’, Alan the Dinosaur Hunter.”

“Har har.” My stomach turned with an audible groan. “Fuck, I’m starving,” I said, setting off downstream before anyone else could try to tag along.

I’d already drank a day's worth of water, letting the liquid slosh about as I followed the brook’s edge. I’d grown so used to having food on demand the first time I just put water only in it, it complained endlessly. Darnel, Aubrey, Jarod, and Vinny set off behind me, bringing two extra spears with no gear.

“We stick to the brook, then come back.”

“What’s that?” Jarod asked, pointing to a dark shadow further down the water.

I shrugged, feeling a bit remiss that we didn't have assigned scouts or foragers yet. Sure enough, a big prehistoric looking fish swam gently into the current. While big, it was intently focused on a tan rock, only a foot in front of its face. Its size was reminiscent of a saltwater kingfish with a humped spine, which was way too big for these waters, probably swimming out of the jungle.

“Uh, well, shit. It seems pretty oblivious. Fan out to get behind it, then we push it upstream,” I ordered.

“How’d it get so big?” Aubrey asked my question aloud. “This stream is tiny…”

We shifted to stare into the ominous jungle that loomed down the stream. It definitely wasn’t an amazon jungle with a sweltering heat or large fronds. It was more or less northern forest mixed with intense vegetation to create a matted mess on the lower level. Some of the trees had to be over a hundred feet tall, with others probably reaching close to two hundred.

“That jungle will take us back in time to a place where size mattered, no matter what the ladies say. The past… It was dark, filled with super-sized creatures, and we’re going to struggle in some ways, thrive in others. Alright this is far enough,” I said with a pause, shuddering when my bare feet plunged into the cool brook.

Aubrey gazed into the thick bushes, nervous from the sound of little dinos. “You think those are the compies chasing bugs?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Bugs are probably the bottom of the food chain. For our time, it went bunnies on grass and chickens on anything, bugs included. Now… Well, there seems to be a bunch of life in there and it wouldn’t shock me if this fish chased something upstream. Okay, let me try to spear it, stay a pace or two behind me. If it gets past me and then you guys, well, we failed. Don’t run after it into the jungle, please.”

“Understood,” Darnel said, grumbling when his feet touched the water.

“Hey, do you think there are any pets left, like my tabby?” Aubrey asked, letting her curiosity get the best of her. “I loved Marco.”

“Your cat was still alive?” I asked, walking up the stream.

Aubrey smiled with a fondness I missed. “Cats get super old.”

The big fish didn’t react from my voice or approach through the water. I cocked back the spear, lined up the tip, and chucked it with all my power. The weapon dove into the water with a big splash, landing squarely in the fish’s back. The prehistoric fish flopped about, trying to sink massive teeth into my foot.

I hopped out of the brook, leaned in from the bank, and dragged the fish out of the water with the spear. The weight shocked me, because yeah, this was just a freshwater variant, and I definitely didn’t expect it to be so nimble.

“Jesus,” I exclaimed, clearly in awe of its ferocity and size.

Carl hurried down the hundred or so paces with his spear to help while most of the others around me continued to gawk in shock. He shoved his weapon into the eye while I pulled mine out. “I heard that.”

“I’m not overly religious and meant no offense.” I glanced at the fish one last time.

Carl replied. “All good. This beast is worthy of a course or three.”

I snorted in agreement. “Alright, get that cooking while we go get more or whatever. And Carl, next time, even a short distance is done as a group. Actually, let’s escort him back.”

“Not gonna lie,” Vinny prefaced with a grunt. “I kinda wanna eat first and not hunt in the dark. That jungle is creeping me out.”

“We got an hour or two of sunlight left, but no worries, thanks for helping on this catch,” I said, glancing at the other, who seemed content to keep going.

We walked Carl and the fish back to camp, where people created group beds. Since the blankets were oversized, some became mats on the ground, others became pillows and then two would cover numerous bodies.

“Thanks for the help, Vinny. We’re going on another exploration trip without going into the jungle. Hey Cassie, come join us, please.” I waved Cassie over to help keep the group at five after we dropped off the fish.

Missy messed with her hair to join us, but Jarod waved her off, earning a frown. We headed back down the stream, getting closer to the jungle at a very slow rate. Once we were out of earshot of the camp, Cassie snorted.

“I don’t get it,” Cassie said as we set off into the unknown once again. “I heard Missy was homecoming queen, can pick any guy, and is so absolutely smitten by Alan that it kinda scares me.”

Jarod chuckled, tilting his head back with a sigh. “Well, we have to go back almost seven, maybe eight, years ago. Missy is a spoiled pain in the ass, but I love her, just as Pa did. Mom never really was big on raising her kids, so maybe that’s a factor. She wanted to shoo us out of the house to have more time with her soulmate, Pa. Who knows the exact cause, though?”

“You used to tutor Jarod, right?” Aubrey asked, using the spear like a walking stick.

“Yup. Missandra would be there, all wide-eyed and eager for my arrival with her hair done up and makeup on. Pretty sure she had a crush on me, not sure why. There are better looking men than me at just about every age and place,” I said, reaching the point where I killed the fish.

The brook gurgled with the sun casting an orange glow for a coming night. The remnants of winter blew through with a chilly breeze. Jarod overturned a rock in front of where the fish had fixated, grunting from the weight.

“Oh shit!” Jarod exclaimed.

Darnel belted out a shriek, hiding behind me when a foot long centipede jetted downstream, zooming toward the jungle. I let out a low whistle with a shake of my head.

Darnel dusted his hands off, regained his composure, and straightened his back. The man hated spiders, snakes, and scary movies, so I didn’t blame him for his reaction when the horrifying bug snaked downstream.

My friend cleared his throat, then cupped his hands and shouted. “Toss the fish guts far away from the camp. Overturn the big rocks before it gets dark and have a spear ready. Trust us, we don’t want what’s lurking there attacking us at night. Apparently, the jungle is creeping closer.”

“Everything feels so normal until I look into that jungle,” I mentioned, unable to help myself since a tension brewed in the air.

“Maybe they’re going to claim this starter zone given time,” Aubrey suggested, keeping an eye on the woods. “But finish this story about Missandra, or Missy. I definitely want to know, since Alan means a lot to me.”

“Ah, right, right,” Jarod said, flipping over another rock only for it to come up empty. “So Alan here comes in, helps me with algebra since my parents are clueless, and after a few weeks, they went on a date during our tutor lesson. Up to that point, Missy never had someone be stern to her, always being pampered.”

“I just made her follow some simple rules,” I said with a shrug, disliking how fast the sun dipped on the horizon. “I didn’t even touch her once.”

“You put her in time out for a whole ten minutes when she intentionally poured out milk in the kitchen for attention. Hey, that rhymed. But yeah, I remember it and so does she. You waved a ladle at her threateningly, and she cried so hard to Mom, who rolled her eyes. Pa told her to behave when you were in charge. After that, she fell in love with you.

“You took none of her shit, never believed her lies, and she stopped using them. That was it. That was the point where she didn’t have to be different or perfect or whatever. Anyway, she clearly shifted from being the little girl into a woman my friends were interested in.

“She had some executive guy who flew in to see her after a modeling show not even a week ago. Clearly he was forgotten the second she saw you, always asking your mom over the years about you, or so she said recently,” Jarod said, finishing his story.

“Pretty girl finds a man who can put her in timeout when she thinks she can abuse him. I get it,” Cassie said with a shrug. “There’s something romantic about being gently manhandled when I get out of line, not that I’d know what that’s like.”

I raised an eyebrow and Jarod snickered. The younger man said, “He doesn’t know your story.”

“Our little town’s drama escapes most,” Aubrey said, rubbing Cassie’s back. “Our dear friend returned home after her nursing degree. Before she started working at the hospital, she went on a foray to—”

“Ireland,” Cassie said with a blush, taking over the story. “I may have gotten sick, taken antibiotics, got to feeling better, met a cute guy, thought the pink pills were bulletproof, and came home with a bun in the oven. Who Anthony’s dad is, well, it’s a mystery outside of foggy, intoxicated memories. Anthony is only a month old, and I fucking need him so bad it hurts.”

“We’re here for you,” I said supportively. “What comes next won’t be -”

Rustling from the woods on my left halted my words mid-sentence. We tensed, hearing it approach at a steady pace without any care regarding the noise it made.

“Get back across the brook, because whatever’s coming is big,” I warned, worried we might finally meet the monster that roared at the start of the day.

Chapter 7

An Age of Giants

WE SLOWLY BACKPEDALED with each step crunching the river rocks underfoot. Our noise didn’t slow whatever goliath neared. We continued to gain additional distance from the jungle with spears at the ready and stern faces filled with worry.

At the jungle’s edge, trees swayed, bushes crackled, and with each passing second, the ground lightly vibrated. My palms sweat and that cool breeze did little to temper my heated worry.

“What is it?” Cassie blurted.

Before we could say a word, a sharp gray spike jutted from a conifer. The bushes parted, slowly revealing a small head in front of a shelled dinosaur. Step by step, more spikes atop a domed shell came into view. When the clubbed tail swung back and forth, no doubt remained as to what we faced—an anky.

“Ankylosaurus,” Darnel said with a snicker. “You had a toy of one in your room.”

The crown of the shell almost stood as tall as Cassie and, without a doubt, it weighed a ton because each time a foot touched the ground, it trembled. The dinosaur was tan with gray spikes on its shell, however, the skin oozed a dark green. The club on the tail swung gracefully, never smacking into the trees it passed, merely touching them with the slightest of taps.

I watched in awe until the anky grunted in agitation, but not at us. The slightest of glances over its shoulder gave me just enough of a hint. At almost twice our height, a set of yellow eyes peered out from the vegetation.

“Carno,” I whispered. “Tighten formation.” Darnel trembled when his eyes followed mine to see the predator. “Now!”

My friend shifted, and we condensed. A part of me wanted to appear more aggressive than just aiming our spears at the encroaching threat. The carno slowly jutted its head out ever so slightly, peeling back massive teeth.

It had twin horns of cartilage, scaly gray skin, and stank from a covering of filthy grime. The eyes shone with frightening intelligence. Unfortunately, we never got the chance to take the initiative, being caught off guard by the predator.

The carno bellowed out a roar, stalking out of the jungle with a smooth gait to its long legs. Sure, the tiny arms were somewhat comical, but no one laughed in the slightest. Jarod jolted, Aubrey dropped her spear, rapidly bending down to pick it up with trembling hands, and Darnel glanced over his shoulder to run.

I held my ground, content to have a standoff while hoping the anky would help. My hopes were dashed when Cassie shrieked out a battle cry the second the Carno finished its roar.

When she charged, I ran with her, knowing I’d rather die on my feet in a fight than running scared. The carno bounded forward with the anky completely ignoring the brewing fight.

Our height put our heads at perfect biting height, but the Carno reared back at the last second when our spears neared. Cassie and I raised our weapons, shoving them right into the dinosaur’s face, not liking the sharp spikes nearing its eyes.

“Bro! What are you doing?” Darnel shouted, clearly worried.

Before it could strike, the long legs pivoted like a linebacker dodging a tackle. It swerved, picking up speed. The dinosaur burst around Cassie and I, barreling toward Darnel who stood flatfooted. Jarod and Aubrey arrived at our position just in time to have to turn around to help our friend.

“Wake up!” I shouted, not sure if Darnel heard me over the carno’s second roar.

My friend raised his spear, backpedaled, and… fell on his ass when his heel smacked into a rock. The carno didn’t slow a bit, arching its head up before preparing to strike down. Maybe it had a bad angle to see the spear, but the dinosaur impaled itself by running Darnel’s spear right into the middle of its chest.

A pained shriek erupted from the gray-skinned beast. As the weapon buried deeper, Darnel snapped out of his daze, scrambling out of the carno’s path with a roll to the right.

The carno shrieked out in pain, using its small arms to deftly rip the spear out. The weapon clattered against the creek stones. I leaped over Danel, shoving my spear towards an eye with a fierce grunt.

My aggression sent it back a step, giving my team vital seconds.

The entirety of the camp methodically moved with their spears aimed high, shouting in unison. Cassie, Jarod, and Aubrey arrived to put themselves in front of Darnel as well.

The sudden attack faltered, with no easy target for the carno to exploit. As quick as it burst toward us, it retreated back to the safety of the jungle. Each step further away left my heart pounding loudly in my ears. Spurts of blood soaked the stones, leaving a trail all the way into the jungle.

“Did I kill it?” Darnel asked, shakingly rising to his feet.

I shifted to keep him behind me, still feeling the adrenaline rush through my veins. An odd silence settled over the area besides the sound of the ankylosaurus slurping water. While our tribe hurried over, I finally gave my back to the jungle, intending to scold Darnel.

My friend held a very broken pinky finger in front of his face in shock. Darnel was many things. A fearsome badass was not one of them. When he swooned, I caught him. Between nearly being eaten and breaking his finger, he’d simply had enough.

“There’s always room for growth, Bro,” I said, gently setting him down.

I held out a hand out when the ankylosaurus started to become uncomfortable by the unified might of fifty humans approaching. Before the situation could change, I set my spear down, approaching the dinosaur.

“Hey buddy, how’re you doing? I’m friendly, and we scared away the ugly dino for you,” I said.

The anky blinked with a stare that said, ‘No shit.’

My eyes stayed on his, approaching calmly and slowly. Everyone watched me crazily near a dinosaur that could bat me for a home-run if I pissed it off. It remained unbothered by me, just as it had by the carno. When I reached only a pace away, it grunted a warning.

I placed a hand on a spike before I could chicken out and said, “I wish to use my weekly dino domestication.”

Tribe Unnamed has consumed its once a Week Dinosaur Domestication: 0/1

Time until next charge: 6.99 daily rotations.

A blue wave of magic coated the dinosaur for about ten seconds, and when it finished, it was as if nothing changed.

Congratulations. You have domesticated an adult male Ankylosaurus.

Species: Ankylosaurus: Sex: Male

Age: 4.34 sun rotations.

Weight: 79.9 Zexa

Rarity Value: 0.334

Efficiency Value: 33.79% of species

Traits: Cranky, Easily Irritated, Loner

Known for: Smashing things and defensive abilities

You have 1 hour to name your new dinosaur. If a name is unassigned, one will be given to it that must be used to garner the dinosaur’s attention.

“Well, you may have a shit rarity value, but you’re special to me,” I said, finding gaps in his spikes until I audaciously stood on his back. He grunted but allowed it. “The tribe has its first dinosaur on day one!”

“Whoa! What can he do?” Missy asked as the main group arrived.

Cassie already led Darnel back toward the camp to set his finger, if I had to guess. I stared down at the ankylosaurus with an amused grin. Aubrey came over to pet his head, talking to him like he was a baby.

“You’re hereby named Anakin!” I used a boorish British accent, dropping it quickly. “Hurrah.” I shook my fists in the air approvingly before hopping off Anakin’s back. When I looked at the dinosaur, I pulled up his data for everyone to see again.

“Oh, this is great. We can find traits we like and breed them out,” Jennifer said.

Missy said, “You know, she has a point. I think we’re in this for the long-term.”

I shrugged, unable to argue with their logic. “Yup. But tonight is my focus at the moment. Anakin, walk to camp, sleep on the outside, and if any predators come near, make a bunch of noise while defending us,” I commanded.

Anakin leapt into action without any hesitation, swinging his club tail to smash a rock. A massive splash soaked most of our tribe. The herbivore dug his face into the water, ripping out some kind of long worm with a backpedaled pull. Anakin shook his head, stuck in a tug of war until the worm ripped in half with the bigger portion shooting back into the riverbed.

To my dismay, Anakin ate the part he tore off. Before he could attack the worm again, I altered my orders.

“Attack anything trying to kill the tribe only!” I shouted quickly.

Since I altered the orders, Anakin forgot about the worm, trotting happily toward our base with a turtle-like gait. Most of the tribe swiped the splashed water off their skin in disbelief.

“Damn, this is intense,” Jarod said, staring at the jungle. “That worm could strangle me.”

I snorted. “It’s only just begun. Come, let’s eat some fish, and let our hearts calm a bit.”

“You saved his life,” Aubrey noted. She slung an arm around my waist with a sly smile. “I’m proud of you. Sorry I was a bit too slow to react.”

I walked us into the formation. I replied, “You did great. It’s about facing our fears and overcoming them to stay alive.”

“Right,” Peter said with a light laugh. “Uh, Sir, maybe more than five on hunts.”

“Yeah, and we’re going to learn real quick who should and shouldn’t go,” I said, a bit upset by Darnel’s performance. “That Carno will probably be back, too. All it takes is for one of us to get separated, and it's a free meal. Without a doubt, it can carry a human deep into the forest, likely while they’re still alive.”

“Live and learn, live and learn,” Peter repeated. “Pretty wild.”

That seemed to be the sentiment amongst the survivors—this new world was mind-blowing.

“Definitely violent and so rapid,” Aubrey said, squeezing me with a side hug. “What’s next?”

“I want to pull the second duty of night guard, so I’m going to rack out if I can. Hopefully that heart racing action will help me get some sleep and not keep me up,” I said.

“We’re still conducting a full inventory since some folks used their bags as pillows, tools included. However, there are four basic kits with a special kit for administrator types that have books and pens. None of them will help us create electricity or do advanced tasks. We can mine, saw, chop, cut, sew, bandage and more,” Peter said.

I nodded, watching how people fawned over Anakin. Meanwhile, Darnel sulked with Cassie already bandaging his finger back at base. The last bit of daylight faded right as I stepped into base.

Anakin went to drink more water, ignoring his followers. Most of the others settled into their groups, their chatter becoming a bit loud. No one slept, but a few instantly went back down. I headed over to the fire, seeing the five small helpings of fish waiting for the hunting team.

I scooped mine up and devoured it quickly. “Any soap?”

“Tiffany, that woman with the birthmark on her shoulder, she used to make soap. She’s something of a hippie,” Peter said with a shrug. “She can make some if we let her boil fat with wood ashes. I could be wrong, but she is the one to talk to.”

“Okay, I bet she knows about vinegar, too. Hmm… I’m not going to lie, I’m a bit scared to go into the jungle,” I admitted.

“The snow scares me as much as a brutal summer does. If we get extra heat, we drink more water and hopefully build some shade. During winter, if we get double the snow or run out of wood, it doesn’t end well. Snow is infinitely more dangerous,” Peter said.

“I’m not disagreeing, but I want to have the debate. Our ancestors stocked up. There’s a lot of wood here that we can split and use to build walls. Under the grass where the hospital once stood, there are almost unlimited chunks of concrete,” I said.

Aubrey cut in. “I love the idea of not walking endlessly, but no foundation will be solid in the rubble. Nearby, sure. The thing that worries me the most, why not tell us to build in the starter zones? Why give us a topography and beacon function which are meant for moving if we were never meant to move?”

“That’s a very good point, and I don’t have all the answers. My primary worry is becoming food to dinosaurs. Some predators pounce, some ambush, some chase, and vision is almost always key,” I said with a sigh. I walked over to a nearby tree not far from the camp, putting my palm on it. “These will drop easily. Those won’t.” I pointed into the jungle at a massive tree.

“Hey,” Jarod said, joining the conversation late. When I caught him and his sister up, he added, “People are scared.”

“And they should be,” Missy said, somewhat flustered for the first time. “Progress on foot coverings is going slowly. No way we all have them by tomorrow.”

“How many hatchets?” I asked Peter.

He waved over Carl, who had a notebook and paper. Carl flipped a page and then said, “Fourteen.”

“Are the saws big enough to knock over trees?” I asked.

“Yes, but not those,” Carl replied, pointing at the ominous jungle again.

I walked back to the brook, inspecting the high and low points. It did fluctuate, but it always had water. I folded my arms, seeing Darnel waving me over.

“We were never breaking camp in the morning. We still may leave tomorrow, we may not, but I’m not going to cower in one spot because of fear. If we stay, it is to help acclimate our people to living off the land, toughening them up. And yeah, we may wait until next spring to find greener pastures. I don’t know. I need to sleep on it, and I need to explore the jungle to learn more.”

“Idle hands,” Carl said, leaving the saying unfinished.

“Chop trees, make sleds, create firewood. When people are tired enough, they’ll sleep. Burning calories is risky, but we’ve done alright so far. If this holds up, we should slim down, get fit, and be ready for anything in a few weeks. We will also start doing drills, pushups, curls and other exercises to make sure our arms are just as fit as our legs,” I said, mostly thinking out loud. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a friend to see.”

Darnel stood, walking slightly further down creek for some privacy while staying well within sprinting range of the others. He hugged me when I drew close enough, something I welcomed.

“Thanks, Bro,” Darnel said.

I snickered. “You saved yourself.”

“We both know it had me dead to rights after my stab,” Darnel said, shaking his head. “I… I’m not a fighter, I’m a cook.”

“The fish tasted decent. Maybe you can make it taste delicious,” I said positively, walking closer to the group. “As for you not fighting, I don’t want to be seen as a rule breaker. Everyone fights, everyone helps. But you have a point. We may need to loosen it to more designated roles.”

“Fair, very fair.” He huffed, flustered. “I just… I feel terrible.”

Unable to help myself, I shrugged. “You should, and I only say that because I want you to live. Learn from it. Many people say courageous idiots are fools waiting to die for their country. I just think cowardly or courageous, both require you to react in a way that saves your life. We almost lost you today because you froze. I don’t want to hear it won’t happen again, because we both know if it does, your luck will run out at some point.”

“Fair, maybe I'll stick in the middle until I’m tested again,” Darnel suggested.

I snickered with a long headshake. “That won’t take long. Pull first shift. Thanks for being tough about the finger.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” Darnel said with a terrible salute. “Uh, where are you going?”

“To sleep. Look, Aubrey is already getting a spot ready for me.”

Darnel sighed. “Finger fucking hurts.”

“It should,” I replied with a shudder. “Glad that was it.”

“About how I feel, minus the pain. Hey, Alan, thanks Bro. No homo, I love you.”

I chuckled, hugging him again. “Feeling is mutual, feeling is mutual. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to pee on a tree that is about to get chopped down and then snuggle with a woman I never should have left.”

“You’re sailing into a hurricane while on a canoe,” Darnel said, and I raised a curious eyebrow.

Cassie walked over, not far away to begin with. “Sorry to intrude and always be around.” I raised an eyebrow. “Alan, I know you and Aubrey are close. She spoke highly of you.”

“I bet. We were super compatible, just going different directions in life,” I admitted. “You’re important to her, therefore me. Hope I’m not too bossy for you.”

“Heavens no. I think you’re charming and comforting, Alan. Aubrey is not the only one who is smitten, and for good reason. Which means you’re probably going to be facing some tough choices of the heart here soon,” Cassie said, letting her eyes drift over Aubrey to Missy.

I peed on the tree with her only a few feet behind me. “I’ve been just fine alone, but I’m listening.”

“It’s clear as day. Missy thinks you're her savior who returned at the perfect time, a fact that won’t change in a day or two. Aubrey, well, her too. Did you know she was watching the news with me when the alien ship was mentioned? The first person she called was you, Alan. That speaks volumes.”

“We… We had a clean break, a good split. So good that I struggled after, even if I had to move on,” I admitted.

“And he misses your blunt comment,” Darnel said, wincing when Cassie looked at his hand. “She is interested too, Alan. She is just subtle in comparison.”

The nurse grinned. “I have a big heart that’s empty. There was no tragic breakup for me. Or Aubrey, for that matter. Guys stopped coming over once I hit the third trimester, and we sorta nested as roommates. It… It’s a girl nesting thing? Maybe? Anyway, Darnel needs to avoid using that finger for eight weeks.”

While I may have missed her insinuations, her outright statement said a lot.

“You both nested?” I asked.

Cassie raised her eyebrows and replied, “Yup. No boys came over once that started.”

“Oh,” I said.

Darnell frowned. “Okay, now I’m confused.”

“It means that Aubrey and Cassie became partners. Maybe not romantically, but definitely habitually. It explains why Aubrey was so stressed when we awoke, it’s because she is in mourning too.” I wagged a finger as I connected some dots. “I thought her boobs looked big. Was she nursing?” I asked.

“No, but she kept complaining that Anthony would try, and she couldn’t. Part of wet nursing is… It’s complicated and something you should ask her. I probably said too much as is. Basically, Aubrey has no partner, was acting as a mother, and then boom, her life is upside down, but the one rock of a boyfriend is front and center in her life. She’ll toss Missy off a cliff for you if I had to guess.”

“Ah,” Darnel said, carrying out the ‘h’. “That was the hurricane part I mentioned.”

“Wait!” I blurted. “What about you being so forward with me, then saying this? You barely know me.”

“Very true, but I’m very tied to Aubrey, and my words are to let you know I’m committed to this tribe. I’m also Aubrey’s best and closest friend at the moment. That means something. No matter what happens, as long as we survive, and you don’t push out Aubrey, I’ll be a positive influence on your life,” Cassie said, giving me a hug when I turned around. “I’m team Alan.”

Darnel snickered. “And if Aubrey wasn’t around?”

“Alan is my type, not Jarod. Too cute, even if he isn’t overly smug or an asshole. Plus, there’s more girls than guys. Get in where you fit in, and right now, there’s a spot for us to sleep so we can do a second shift,” Cassie said, pointing her head toward where Aubrey tried to get comfy.

In the background, right in the middle of the camp, Missy sat down beside Aubrey, earning a scowl from the older woman. Eventually she softened, but Missy departed with a sly grin after a tense exchange.

I sighed. “Canoe in a hurricane. I like that one. Maybe I should turn this canoe into a yacht before we test the jungle.”

“I’m still scared, Bro. I… Sorry,” Darnel said, leaving to visit Anakin.

Cassie wrapped an arm around my elbow and gently pulled me toward Aubrey. “She won’t bite, I swear.”

“Oh, I know, but I used to…” I almost mentioned how Aubrey liked her ear to be bitten. “You know what, that’s a story for another time,” I said with a chuckle, knowing sleep would be tough, but the coming days would be far tougher.

Chapter 8

Steamy Heat

I DRIFTED off even with the others knocking down trees with repeated smacks in the background. Someone built a rope harness for Anakin, having him drag the timber into piles. I didn’t give orders on what to do with the trees, only content to know work progressed.

Since Aubrey became my little spoon, quickly falling asleep, I followed right behind as if all those years had never passed. When I woke up in the middle of the night, I did so with a raging boner. A few bodies away, Jarod lay on top of Jennifer with black hair, rhythmically fucking her in the missionary position.

I snorted with a smirk, figuring they probably knew each other from some past. Aubrey moaned softly in my little spoon. I worried she might be having a nightmare until I realized her hand lay between her thighs.

“Aubrey,” I whispered.

Sure enough, she froze, glancing up at me. “I’m so horny and everyone is screwing all around us.”

I propped myself up, noticing most of the work had stopped. Peter bent over a random woman I didn’t know, railing her from behind. Carl mounted Poppy. Darnel laid on his back while a short, big-boned woman rode him.

A yearning in me to mount Aubrey surged through my veins, even if I was telling myself to show restraint. I saw a young, nerdy-looking man standing by the fire, aghast at the odd sort of orgy. When I pointed at him, he pointed at his chest with worry. He didn’t have a boner or a partner, telling me a lot.

“Did you already have sex?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No, Sir. I… What’s happening?”

“Did you eat the fish or meat?” I asked.

He instantly shook his head. A chunky woman found the courage to sneak out of a sleeping sandwich, hurrying to the fire.

“I didn’t either, but, damn, it’s steamy,” she said, coming over to hold the nerdy guy’s hand. “We can get through this together.”

I chuckled. “Apparently, eating the local wildlife triggers hormones.”

Jarod rolled off Jennifer and said, “Well, that just happened. Whatever it is, it doesn’t last long, and it seems to trigger right around the same time. We will need to plan meals.”

Hot kisses landed on my left arm from Cassie while Aubrey pushed me from sitting up to lying down. My hips thrust with yearning, and I almost gave in.

“Ladies, this is the lust winning,” I said.

Cassie giggled. “He’s talking too much.”

“We’re just horny, Alan, not out of our minds. We could pounce on anyone, but we’re only attracted to you,” Aubrey said. I raised an eyebrow. “Cassie will watch this time.”

“I’d rather wait until you’re not -” Aubrey straddled me, landing a hot kiss on my lips. She wasted zero time, positing herself firmly atop me with her big breasts in my face. She shifted her hips to line up her slit to my boner.

From her earlier finger play, her sex dripped with desire.

We gasped in unison when she plunged my cock into her tight pussy. Her hips thrusted down and back, hilting my shaft until I couldn’t go deeper. Aubrey leaned down, pressing her supple tits against my bare chest. She tucked her head down, nibbling on my ear while her hips thrust with a twirl.

The motion became rhythmic with a pulsing grip from her pussy squeezing on my cock. We shared a passionate kiss, staring into each other’s eyes.

She broke the kiss, returning to my ear with faster snaps of her hips. “I forgot how fucking big your cock was,” Aubrey whispered. “Fuck me, Alan. Yes, deeper. Put that big dick in deeper.”

My left hand clumped her hair, yanking back. My right squeezed her breast, teasing her nipple. We’d fucked just like this a few hundred times as horny teenagers, knowing exactly what each other needed. It never got old, and this was the wettest she’d ever been.

“Damn, Aubrey, it’s so tight!” I grunted, kissing her neck.

Aubrey giggled. “You like that squeeze, don’t you? That big cock of yours makes it easy. Twist that nipple harder. Harder. Harder!” She gasped in approval.

Any urge to slow things down vanished when I surrendered to the moment. Her hips smacked down with her ass clapping from the impact. We kissed fiercely, ignoring Cassie, who watched with a bitten lip and a hand between her thighs. For the next ten minutes, we coupled, both in the moment, and for the future.

She increased the pace, grinding her clit into my groin with increased moans. Her pussy dripped down my shaft, soaking my balls with sweat, sliding up and down my cock. I could barely hold it in even though we’d worked up a sweat. Aubrey bit my shoulder when Cassie started to climax from her strummings beside us.

I gasped out a moan, spurting into her with a euphoric release. Aubrey palmed my pecs with stiff arms, arched her back and increased her grinding until she matched my climax. A minute later, I lay in a daze, little more than a panting mess.

Aubrey rolled off, landing in Cassie’s shoulder nook with a very content sigh. Now that we finished, two different people waited to talk to us. The first was Missy, and behind her was a grinning Peter.

The gorgeous blonde thumbed me to vacate the bed. “I promised to leave you alone, but if she slipped, I’d be waiting. This changes things because I avoided the fish and missed out on the hadrosaur, eating only rations.”

“Changes what?” I asked, running a hand through my short hair.

“There literally was an orgy I didn’t partake in, but you did in an odd sort of threesome. I’m a very, very stubborn woman. If Aubrey is willing to share, and the next meal I eat is going to make me super horny, I want to bind myself to you, Alan. End of story,” Missy said softly, but filled with a stubborn tone.

Aubrey tussled her hair. “Missy has a point, Dear. Looks like Peter needs you. Give us a bit to talk, and we’ll join you in a bit.”

I glanced around, realizing this was the hurricane, and I was best to avoid it while still on my euphoric high. My kilt rested under my pillow, so I fished it out while handing the ladies their garments. I kissed Aubrey's forehead and retreated to join my second in command.

“Well, that was unexpected,” Peter said, leading me toward a secondary fire in what used to be a section of beech trees.

A large number of fallen trees lay in a pyramid type of stack. I’d slept through at least twenty trees falling down. Now that most of the sex finished, the first crew went to sleep while the second rose.

“I should have seen it coming, but it doesn’t matter,” I said with a sigh. “At least I can ignore it enough to fight or run if I have to, and the effects will likely wane from use over time.”

Peter snorted. “It’s definitely going to create a tighter knit unit. I’m exhausted. Most of this was me.” He eyed the trees. “If you kneel while you chop on one knee, it saves your back. It’s more about precision than strength.”

“Did you create a plan with them?” I asked.

He grinned. “You’re in charge. However, even if we just stay here for a week or two, this is enough to start a basic foundation. The way Carl explained it, we just build a square box three high to get the wood off the ground. Notched more and lay on top of the box. Almost all of these trees are the same size, so it helps.”

“Then use mud. Hmm… Even if we get pushed off this area, it is a nice base for any human. Okay, we don’t rush it, and we give ourselves options. What about Anakin? He looks… depressed,” I said.

“He’s probably hungry and tired, not used to dragging trees,” Peter said with a sleepy stretch.

I nodded, walking over to the ankylosaurus. “Forage, fill up on water, then sleep with the tribe. When you wake up, help the workers.”

Anakin grunted, almost as if to say ‘whatever’ and headed directly toward the jungle. I patted Peter on the shoulder. “You did great. Get some sleep.”

“Sure thing, boss. And uh, before you go too far, there are better streams with the same trees, further from the jungle,” Peter said.

I bent down, grabbing a hatchet. “Sure, but the jungle will sustain us. This isn’t about the dinosaurs changing our world, it’s about us changing theirs.”

“And so the commander awakes, choosing violence,” Carl said, arriving with a pep in his step. “Talk about a wake-up party.”

“Goodnight,” Peter said, excusing himself.

Once he retreated into the main throng of people, I pointed to the fallen trees. “You can make a log house with these?”

“Absolutely. It won’t be flat or perfect. It won’t last nearly as long as stone, but it’ll assemble quickly. I just need a few people to help me move, mark, and notch. Rinse and repeat,” Carl said with a chipper tone.

Poppy arrived, bringing an eight-inch saw. “I can notch or delimb.”

“Perfect. Uh, I will let those who want to work figure out how to help based on what Carl needs, since I’m making him the builder,” I said.

“Can we talk about how there may be twenty plus pregnant women from eating the local food?” Poppy asked, glancing back at some nervous women who I wasn’t that familiar with.

Apparently, they sent Poppy to check on what I planned to do to keep from having a nightly orgy.

“Well, we gotta eat, and the dinos poop, which in turn, feeds fruit trees or vegetables. So if I had to guess, the instant the ration bars are gone, people will either starve or eat with side effects. The best I can do is only have one meal a day, near sunset,” I said with a shrug.

Poppy dipped her head in understanding. “You can see why some ladies, and even gentlemen, are worried. They let the alterations…” She paused to find the right word. “Override their common sense. Married people became adulterers, their spouses in other places or on the alien ship still.”

I grabbed the nearby tree, hanging my head. “The best I can do is keep us stationary to let them cope a bit, but make no mistake, I won’t coddle people forever, even if they’re going through a lot.”

“Oh, so we’re not marching to our doom today?” Poppy said, earning a side glance from her husband. “What! There are some obviously scared people. Some of them aren’t exactly unhappy at the moment but many need time to adjust. The more stability, the more loyalty you’ll earn.”

“This takes promiscuous to a whole new level,” Carl said with a snort. “I get it.”

“I get it too. Yeah, go spread the word. We are building a temporary fallback base while exploring the jungle slowly. I figure it’ll take a lot of chopping to make one longhouse. I’d rather we all slept under the same roof for both security and ease of building. And yes, I know that means less privacy, but we’re tribal now,” I said.

“Thanks, Alan. I think everyone was nervous that once the sun rose and we drank our daily water, you’d march us to our deaths,” Poppy said.

I twirled the hatchet in my palm. “Oh, I’m doing that, just with half the people. We need fronds, fruit, vines, and more. Everything is about collecting. Come sunup, everyone will also have a work detail, even the injured will build traps or sew or whatever.”

“Fair,” Carl said.

“I only was pestered by a few ladies, but that part has already been discussed. It’s just,” Poppy paused with a sigh, grabbing a chunk of her belly fat. “Some of us tire easier than others.”

I decided to take my time to reply, glancing at the tribe.

“I know, I’ll make it fair. Anything extra will be voluntary. Now go see who is just sitting around and ask if they can help. If they blow you off, let me know,” I ordered, heading to the first tree.

“Thanks,” Carl said.

I raised an eyebrow. “For?”

“Not being a dick. Most people think soldiers are dicks.”

The hatchet smacked into the tree, digging into a mark Peter left behind. “I’m just another person, trying to live. Let’s hope the jungle doesn’t swallow us when we go exploring into its depths, because I fear it may.”

Chapter 9

Jungle Sweat

“ALAN, GOT A MINUTE?” Aubrey said, right as the sun illuminated the day.

Her timing was likely intentional, waiting until I knocked over my sixth tree of the night. Carl and his team of builders already managed to stack a single box frame two high. The fires dimmed from the lack of new firewood, with no food cooking over them.

My stomach grumbled, hating the idea of one meal a day. All around people removed branches, dragged trees, chopped notches, or felled the gentle giants. Only a few people sat around and talked without working, with most of them simply on a break.

I dusted my sore hands off on the backside of my kilt, flashing Aubrey a smile. “For you, forever,” I replied, earning a blush.

“I want to, and I don’t want to apologize. I’m conflicted, confused, and awash with emotions,” Aubrey said, tucking her arm into mine while I walked to one of the cooking pots with cool—post boiled—water. “It’s been a while since I had to have a meaningful and important conversation like this. Almost as long as great sex.”

“Ha! You seemed to have not forgotten a thing,” I teased.

She rolled her eyes. “If I were in a different mood, I might consider that an insult. And if it were a different man. But not you. No. Honestly, and I doubt you’ll believe this, but I was working up the courage to call you before the aliens came.”

Marsha poured me a tin of water, handing it off. “Thanks!” I plopped down on a rock by the stream. “Can’t say I miss phones, but your call would have been answered or returned.”

“Why didn’t you answer, by the way?”

Aubrey sat beside me, snuggling into my side when I flung an arm over her shoulder. “I wanted to get the fuck out of Walmart. The lines were a bitch, the people grumpy, and I was exhausted.”

“Right. Odd enough, the awakening from cryo was the most refreshed I felt in… a long time. This morning was no different. I slept like a tired puppy, and yes, I changed the saying since I know damn well babies sleep poorly.”

“I think it's super cool you and Cassie were roommates, co-raising a baby,” I admitted, sounding my age by using the word cool.

“Eh, I barely helped. Okay, I did a lot, and I bonded with Anthony. I was drowning though, we both were. I needed help. I needed someone to get my oil changed, put gas in the car, fix a busted ceiling fan, and maybe take the baby for a walk so we could both get a chance to get caught up. She only had me, and I realized I had no support network. Dad and Mom went on one of those worldwide cruises and Cassie’s parents moved to Florida almost a decade ago,” Aubrey said, grumbling a bit at the end.

I felt honored by her insinuation. “You wanted to call me?”

Aubrey nodded. “We started thinking about who could help. Garret, the boyfriend before all this, well, he was a Grade-A douche. Dumped me via text after growing distant. I brought you up because your mom may have come over to help a few times.”

“Mom? As in Mom, Mom?”

“Yeah, your dad came in for a checkup, and she visited my office, finding me half asleep. One thing led to another, and she gave me your number again,” Aubrey said.

I snickered. “I never deleted yours.”

Aubrey giggled. “You also didn’t drop your phone in the ocean while whale watching.”

“Fair,” I replied with a grunt. “You did call.”

“Only when it was too late. I left a voicemail, confessing how I missed you, how I needed you, and how I hoped you were safe. I may have already spied on your Facebook with Cassie watching.” Aubrey guiltily shrugged.

Unable to help myself, I belted out a laugh. The midday breeze and cool water helped me adjust from the arduous work earlier. A few clouds drifted high with a single pterodactyl high in the air. When I stopped my chuckle, I added, “Stalker.”

She pinched her index and thumb together to show a little bit. “Cassie was encouraging me even though we’d been sharing a bed. And no, not sexually, we just had a two bedroom and Anthony slept better in a different space. We did grow close, about as close as sister-wives could.”

“Oh,” I whispered.

“We were working up the courage to see if you could help,” Aubrey said with a distant and vulnerable gaze.

I shifted, taking my time to answer. “I probably would have come home, spent two weeks there, then, if things went well, convinced you to relocate to me. And I know you well enough to know your next question. Yes, I would have let Anthony come too. To be honest, no other woman ever was as good as you.”

Aubrey’s eyes drifted to Missy. “There are prettier.”

“There are handsomererer or whatever,” I teased, pulling her in tighter. “I missed you.”

“Yeah, I cried, drinking a glass of wine, saying the exact same thing not even four or five nights ago,” Aubrey admitted.

“We were kids. While you lived at my place pretty much, we didn’t do the whole adulting thing, but yeah, I never removed your number. Sorry I missed your call,” I said.

Aubrey kissed my cheek. “I’ll forgive you, this time. With my gushy story out of the way, I need to be honest. I come as a package. Anthony one day, and today, with Cassie.”

“Her son relies on so many variables, but… if this tribe trades favors with some super mega tribe or whatever, I’ll happily put his name in front of my mom’s. She got a life. He never did. Also, that’s assuming the trade is just my personal cash in check sorta deal,” I offered.

“You’re a good man, Alan. All we want is for you to try,” Aubrey said.

I grabbed a stick, tossing it onto the languishing fire. “Is that it?”

“Well, Missy wasn’t wrong. Before we went to bed, well…” Aubrey fidgeted uncomfortably. “I had zero problem watching Cassie kiss your arm. It was… hot.”

“Uh,” I rubbed the back of my neck to buy time, “does this count as a threesome? Never been in one.”

“I suppose,” Aubrey replied with tense shoulders.

“Sweet. I get to brag about it then,” I teased.

She rolled her eyes. “Look, this conversation is me saying that even in the real world, I planned to pitch you for a throuple. We could be a family there, and most certainly can here.” Aubrey grew serious, snuggling into my side. “Missy said she’d tease you going forward, but not make a pass until I screwed up. Her patience would pay off, and I sadly believed her. The next few months are going to be filled with stress that can’t be good for a relationship. I honestly considered stepping back to let her fuck up first.”

I smirked. “Smart.”

“Yeah, well, the sex changed that, and our conversation suddenly held a different meaning.” Aubrey waved to a lady I didn’t know who sat across from us at the fire.

I said, “Explains the sly smile she had before we went to bed. You’re bound to upset me, just as I am you.”

“Or die. I’d rather not be running from a T-Rex and have the fit cheerleader trip me up. Not that I think she’d do it, just…” Aubrey huffed, consolidating her thoughts. “Alan, will you date Cassie and I?”

“And what if Cassie ends up not connecting with me and she becomes interested in Carl?” I said.

“She loves me, Alan. I… You… It’s hard being a woman who’s alone. I was there for her more than anyone else. If I had a penis, or was more than bi for fun, we’d be married. We settled on it a while ago, we’re sister-wives…” Aubrey held a finger up. “In theory. Missy wants in too. Which I assume you caught onto.”

“I got a big heart, Aubrey. If this is what you ladies want, piling on me during the night, then twist my arm. However,” I warned.

“Uh, oh,” Aubrey tensely said.

“I’m focusing on survival above love. I may never love Cassie or Missy. I may never have time for you, let alone all three of you. But should we find some sort of happy medium, then sure, three beautiful women in my bed is hardly a problem. With that said, tell them I’m a maybe and will need time. We should form relationships on our own. Right now, I’m open to getting to know them better, but I love you, Aubrey,” I said, kissing her hair before spitting the salt out.

“We got sweaty earlier. I tried to find the heated shower and failed,” Aubrey joked since there were only wet rags from buckets at the moment. “Alright, this went better than expected. Cassie was so fucking nervous.”

“I’m heading into the jungle with ten of the best now that everyone’s awake. I want you to come because…” I stopped, rising to my feet because I knew this was better said to everyone, so I raised my voice. “Alright, listen up.”

A few people who still laid down perked up on an elbow to listen. Those who were working took a break and a final tree teetered over to land with a thud. I smiled at Missy and Cassie, earning smiles back when they stopped collecting rocks to deepen the stream.

“I’ve had some time to think about it. I fear for all of us if split apart. So we’re going into the jungle as a team. Everyone means everyone, even the chef with a broken finger. But!” I shot a calming palm into the air. “Not far. We’re going to collect bark, fronds, vines, stab fish, collect sticks, rip out bushes, pick berries, and haul it all back here. We won’t be going very deep, or outstay our welcome, and Anakin will join us to help with defenses.”

“Can we eat rations first? I’m starving,” Taylor, a bigger guy asked. “And not just because I’m chunky. None of us eat once a day and the others are scared to complain.”

I mulled over his words. “We’re different. As a species, that is. We’re not the same is such an understatement, it’s so sad all you can do is laugh. The rations are emergency food bars. Do you really think any of us should be eating them today when we can eat fresh fish, or roots, or berries, or fruit, or meat?

“Obviously, for those who didn’t partake in the sexcapades, well, they’ll fear the food. But you’re going to eat local or starve. Rations are for emergencies. While I could gather yours and hoard them, then hand them out, I won’t.

“Eat them, but when the time comes and you want them desperately, I’m not sharing mine. With that said. I’m very open to two meals a day and a nap at lunch. I’m not like your old boss in your former corporate world. Who gives a fuck if you nap for an hour during the day then sleep six at night? Hell, eight or ten.”

“Some of us regret our… decisions, and want to avoid the food,” Poppy said, earning a confused stare from her husband. “What! It’s good for people to have their voices heard, even if they’re not wanting to admit it.”

I held up my hands, walking over to where I leaned my spear against a tree. “There’s nothing to be done for the most part, but I’ll address that while we walk. Grab your spears, only a few of you grab empty bags, and I need someone to guide Anakin.”

Thankfully, no one decided to be a stubborn asshole by refusing to come. I led the group toward the jungle at a slow pace, letting the stragglers catch. And yes, I worried I might have to eject people from the tribe, and I would, which sorta helped me frame this next part.

“Since we’ve survived a day, we should feel joyful. I certainly do, and not because I dodged remorseful sex. No, I’m thankful for a lot, and with it comes some closure towards how we progress forward. Rule one, everyone pitches in. This is a generic rule. Again, I happen to be the boss, and yeah, I’ve been a boss, so here it goes. A few hours of work in the morning, then again in the evening or afternoon. Minimum of four to five a day, but this is survival, not banking, weekends don’t exist. Is anyone shocked by this rule?”

The midday sun baked my skin, but the fact we moved again helped cool off the spring day.

“And exceptions count?” Peter asked.

“Within reason and you feel a leader is being unfair, we group vote for the exemption. I can’t avoid it. This is a team effort, chip in somehow. Moving onto rule two. Never go anywhere alone. We covered this in depth. Rule three. Mind your own business. If you think someone is not working right or doing something you disapprove of, bring it to Peter or I, or privately tell Poppy. We’re going to be living in one house! One flipping house!”

“You can say fuck, Alan Grant,” Jarod teased.

“Winchester!” Aubrey joked back. We slowed to a tepid walk about a hundred meters short of the jungle. “But he has a point. Things are going to get personal quick, and there will be zero escaping drama.”

“Not exactly, but yes, I mostly agree. If you struggle with rule three, go back to rule two and find a new team. Now, we shouldn't need a rule for this, but rule four builds on three. Respect each other and if someone wants to be left alone, leave them the fuck alone. No means no always. To repeat, in sexual situations, no or stop will never mean keep going.

“Rule five builds on four. There are no shackles on any of us. I’m a fairly chill boss, and I want to keep us all alive, but… the door to leave is always open. Just take the stuff you joined the tribe with. Anything beyond that point stays with the tribe.

“Rule six… You guess it builds on all the others. If your peers vote you out, you go out. It takes eighty percent to eject, since it’s pretty much a death sentence. However, if you’re vile, a murderer, or a rapist, don’t expect your peers to want a rapist around.

“With that harshest point made, with no tact to it, you should never be alone, anyway. Ask someone beside you for help if a situation goes poorly. You’re not going to get along with everyone. You simply won’t. No one will be friends with everyone always. That is human nature. We must rise above the violence and disdain for each other and remember our nearest threat lies there.”

I leveled the spear at the jungle, stopping just shy of the foliage. The fronds swayed, the brook gurgled from big rocks with a steeper drop, and a distant roar from a dinosaur arrived as if I planned it. I shifted the spear to point it up top.

“And our greatest threat is up there. They took our families. Everyone lost someone, but everyone gained a family with each other. You may not have to love each person in your tribe, but it is the family trying to help you live another day,” I said proudly.

“Can we call it Tribe Grant!” Jarod teased, earning a lot of laughter.

I nodded with a smirking head shake. “Yeah. Yeah, we can do that. Tribe Grant, where everyone works, and you keep your inner asshole to a minimum. Now, who’s ready to fight some dinosaurs?”

Chapter 10

Milestones

THE INSTANT I stepped foot into the jungle, the obelisk flared to life. Out of an abundance of caution, I pushed the group back to safety. Blue magic—advanced tech that might as well have been magic—exploded outward, creating a dome of protection.

I grumbled when the lizard man materialized on the surface, peering down at us.

“Congratulations! You’ve departed the starter area within the first five days. We reward courage and have hope for Tribe Grant,” it said in a male voice.

“Wait, is this not automated?” I blurted.

The alien replied, “In a way yes, in a way no. I’m real. Most of this is scripted though, or it was until you asked that. My attention is limited, and this is a rare iteration where you can ask a question or two.”

My jaw dropped, not expecting this. A flood of questions ran through my mind, trying to pick the right one. I should have known this wouldn’t go well with the entire group present, and it only took a second for a mourning mother to step in.

“Where is my baby?” Cassie shouted.

To my dismay, the lizard face disappeared, quickly being replaced by a small cryopod with a baby inside. The camera zoomed out, showing a rectangular ship drifting in orbit.

“There are only thirty ships for the best tribes, a number that is miniscule to your population. We have determined there are plenty who will never do anything amazing besides to act as incentives. Your primary goal is to earn points by survival, exploration, building, and more. Right now, it is being discussed among us about returning some of the others to you for point exchange.

“We vastly underestimated how many of your species would find a decade far too long to invest in. Only seven percent of all tribes globally have left the starter zones. Most are content to eat rations and build shelters. Incentivizing activity seems prudent, and it is apparent there will be more deaths than predicted. Maybe a thousand points for this child, only earned in the jungle.”

Cassie instantly shouted, “Yes! He’s only a month old! He’s my everything! He—”

Aubrey wrapped her up, letting her scream into her chest instead of at the alien holding her baby hostage. I held up my hands to calm the group. Thankfully, they let me speak without infinite chattering.

“We would love to bring those we hold dear to us. At the same time, we would struggle to protect babies, elderly, and wild children in this environment. However, if you want me and mine to go into that jungle and start slaying dinosaurs, giving us incentive through family certainly is a good idea,” I said calmly.

“You may ask one more question before I cover what happens next,” the lizard said, his face returning to the dome.

I waved everyone around, discussing what we wanted to ask. We fielded ideas, debated, fielded more potential questions, debated a second round, then mostly agreed on our question.

“During our orientation, you mentioned you disliked humans due to our wasteful nature. We cannot argue the merits of your assessment even if it is hypocritical. With that said, we know there are many fit, capable people older than us who aren’t liabilities. More importantly, we’ve noticed a few people missing who fit within our age bracket and region. Where are the others who should be here, and why not expand the age groups?” I asked.

“Interesting question. I shall answer, mostly since I foolishly agreed to grant you a question without saying it must be a one part question. Not all of your species is in cryo storage. Some are working at undisclosed locations with incentives not too different from yours. You think we’re wasteful, but your species is finite in its usefulness. And we may change what we find as useful given time, just as we do plan to alter your integration as we see fit.

“You’re the breeding bracket, not the working bracket,” the lizardman said, removing his face from the dome. His voice continued though, “Those missing within your age range were infertile or carried genetic traits so severe, they were not worth continuing. Those individuals were exterminated from the species pool.”

It hit home like a truck at that point. The hormones in the food, the youthful bodies, and the lack of anyone with severe disabilities. I gulped, feeling a bit awash in reality, even if it made logical sense.

Words scrolled across the dome, replacing the lizard’s voice.

Congratulations for reaching the jungle as a tribe. You’ve been rewarded for your bravery.

Tribe Rewards based on population:: 3 long saws.

3 tarps.

3 scissors.

3 shaving knives.

6 bows, 60 arrows.

3 machetes.

5 crude fishing poles.

20 hooks.

2 extra Dinosaur Domestication activations (1 month expiry)

54 pairs of basic shoes: 1 tome of knowledge. (An encyclopedia of Current Earth)

1 daily scan to determine toxicity of subject to human ingestion or touch.

The next milestones for rewards are:

1000 square miles explored: No deaths in a hundred days.

A baby is born. (All expecting mothers are in cryo storage)

Maintain 50 domesticated dinosaurs at a healthy status.

Kill 100 predators capable of reducing the human population. (Fish are predators, but do not count toward the total for example. To compensate, here is this disclosure: Bathing should never be done in deep water.)

A flare of magic back at the base camp deposited all the rewards. The items came on a pallet with that same blue glow as normal. Stacks of boxes were quickly opened to start an inventory. I ran a hand through my hair while standing there in shock.

“Awe, fuck, we cut up those bags,” Carl groaned.

Peter added, “Only a few of the extras, and that leather can be repurposed.”

“Can we talk about these milestones?” Missy asked.

“Later,” I answered.

Jarod sighed. “There are zero rewards for settling. Why do they want us to be nomadic?”

I grumbled, “I’m not sure, but I agree, they clearly do.”

The side chatter grew louder and louder until something roared from within the jungle. With a silence settling over the area, I grabbed the initiative.

“Peter, go grab the fishing stuff, shoes, and machetes. The rest of us, we’re not canceling the mission. Into the jungle we go. Start stripping everything and once we finish our work for the day, we’ll retreat back and discuss these revelations after having some time to process them,” I commanded, stepping back into the jungle.

Without a doubt, the humidity rose and with it, the temperature. An ambience of insects slowly returned to life, eager to return to normal. I grabbed a fern, bent down, chopped the base free of the ground, and tossed the results out of the jungle and into the West Virginia woods. This continued for a bit until we exposed a ring around the first jungle tree.

Peter arrived with bags stuffed full of shoes and some new tools. I called a short break and sat down not far from the jungle. Aubrey came over, measuring a pair of shoes to the bottoms of my feet. They lined up well enough that I happily placed them on.

“What’s the plan?” Peter asked once I stood to guard others getting shoes.

“No heavy walking for a day or two to break these moccasins in.” I pointed with my head toward the tree. “We want to collect rainwater and all these beech trees are great for building with but shit for making bowls. This…”

“This is a young conifer, probably forty, maybe fifty feet tall,” black-haired Jennifer said.

Since people grew confused, red-haired Jennifer swapped to Kaity. Black-haired Jennifer was a biologist with an expertise in coral. While that didn’t exactly translate to this, she seemed very knowledgeable and contained a depth of information that few could dispute.

“Yeah, and thick. We can saw it down, then carve it into chunks and roll it into the base. Once there, we turn them into big bowls that collect rainwater. Maybe even build some water ducts to focus more rain into them,” I suggested. “Or firewood.”

“Eh, the beech makes great firewood and the thin diameter makes it easy to move. This…” Carl said, pointing to the tree. “This is a mountain of work to bring down and process.”

“I don’t know if I want to live in snow!” I said unhappily. “Actually, I know that I don’t. Upon further thought, we’re not cutting down this tree.”

“People want a home, Alan,” Poppy said.

I replied, “I don’t disagree. The Appalachians fall off pretty steeply. We get a bit lower, find a clean water source, and live in the jungle. Or maybe the two degrees below freezing is no difference and a waste of time. We’re not in a rush to make a decision right this second. A base is not the point of today or tomorrow, understanding our environment is.”

This caused a stir of chatter where everyone talked at once about what to do next.

“Hey! Hey! We’ll figure this out together. We have time, and thankfully, we have shoes, which was my biggest reason for not moving the group early. Even if we drop a thousand feet in elevation, we add two degrees, which is nothing when it's minus twenty. Let’s focus. We need protein and samples for today.”

“This jungle is dense, almost a mix of ours and the past. If I had to guess, the aliens found some happy medium creation of their own making to help accelerate life,” Jennifer said. “I say that, because I fear any progress into these trees will be arduous at best.”

Once everyone finished placing their shoes on, I stepped back into the forest. “Take bark samples and some for kindling testing. See if it drops sap. Our goal here is experimentation and general knowledge. After we have a big pile of jungle samples, I will scan it to see what can kill us.”

“What about Anakin?” Darnel said, standing by the ankylosaurus.

I folded my arms. “Anakin, we need fish. Can you tear out a bush for bait, then lead us to where the fish gather from the brook?”

The ankylosaurus grunted in reply, grabbing a bush not even ten feet away. When he ripped it out, Darnel had a shovel ready in his good hand. A flurry of insects sought refuge, dying when my friend flattened them with the shovel. Anakin hauled the bush out to the pile while Carl prepared a fishing pole.

A few of the men stood guard while most of our group began chopping, pulling, and slowly exploring. I followed Anakin deeper into the jungle with a group of ten. The anky found the brook, using the gap in growth to head downstream quicker. The wobble walking tank of a dinosaur was put on alert to warn us if he sensed danger.

The brook hit a downslope that bordered on a small waterfall. A pond rested at the bottom with heavy mud around the edges. From this point, the pond led to a decent sized creek with some significant depth to it. A dinosaur hooted from not too far down the banks, and I saw just the tip of a duckbill's crown.

“Well, there should be more herbivores than predators,” Jarod said, assuming that was how the food chain worked here.

“I want to use our domestications now instead of later. A pair of duckbills will be a great pick up for warning or hauling or whatever. We fish, eat, then go right into the jungle as a full tribe. It’ll be worth the risk,” I said, staring at the deep water below.

“Did you see the hooks?” Darnel asked.

I glanced at the curved metal with a snicker. “Holy fuck, are we catching sharks?”

“Yeah, I think we are,” Darnel said with a chuckle. “This is literally rope on a meat hook. The rod is just to show the nibble if I had to guess. And damn, even the alien warned us to not go in deep water.”

“Maybe duckbills tomorrow,” I said with a snort.

Darnel slotted three bugs on the hook and tossed the line into the depths. Jarod chummed the water with most of the backup bait. Even though I wanted to go crashing through the jungle, I knew the group would be coping with the recent revelations. While we tried to figure out what came next, I could plot a plan for growing our dinosaur population.

I also needed to dive into that tome the aliens provided. Hopefully, the book would tell me how long it takes for breeding and maturation rates. I needed to understand if I should focus on -

A violent tug almost sent the rod out of Darnel’s hands. His arms bulged, his heels dug in, and he leaned back. Even with his busted finger, he fought hard to maintain his grip.

“Help,” he grunted.

Since this was the perfect time for a predator to attack, I let Aubrey help while I scanned the jungle. “Stay vigilant.”

“Holy fuck, it’s strong,” Aubery said, trying to fight the fish with Darnel.

“Walk backwards, that hook is on literal rope, it won’t break. Get in there Jarod. Carl, watch the right flank,” I ordered.

Darnel handed off his portion of the pole, swapping to stand guard. Aubrey and Jarod slowly walked the fish backwards with the rod flexing at a crazy rate. A big splash sent a geyser of water high into the air, revealing just the tail.

“Fuck, did we hook the biggest fish in North America?” Jarod complained.

The commotion bothered every person in our group. Even the duckbills heard the noise, trumpeting unhappily from further in the jungle. While the massive fish fought for its life, Aubrey slipped with a shriek. I dropped my spear, grabbed the rod facing away from the fish, and hunkered down to march upstream. While the rod may break, the rope’s knot was at the bottom, securely in my hands.

I cheated by using the brook's rocks, pushing off hard to gain distance. Sure enough, once I started to haul the fish out of water to be dead weight, the rod snapped. I didn’t care since it did very little, dragging the fish onto the shore. Jarod caught on and we played a game of drag the flopping catch closer to base.

The hook held and a few minutes later, we hauled out a massive fish; it probably weighed over a hundred pounds. Once I had it out of the jungle, I fell onto my ass, exhausted from the fight.

“Hell yeah,” Peter said, coming over to inspect the still flopping fish. “I… I think we may need to head back to camp before it spoils. Maybe set up some shade for the short term.”

“Late breakfast, nap, then dinos this afternoon. I really feel like the quicker we add to our dino pool, the better our odds of survival,” I said, accepting my spear from Darnel. I brained the fish, earning a final flop. “Score one for humanity. Alright, let's see what you guys pulled out of the jungle.”

I dragged the dead fish over to the pile of bushes, berries, vines, and fronds. When I triggered the obelisk, it shot the items with a blue magical scan. Almost all of the shrubs and bushes flared red. However, both the fish and berries were edible, setting up for a meal.

Since it was time to head back, I slid my spear through the fish’s eye so it could be carried in the middle of the weapon. Jarod and I did a count, then heaved the catch off the ground. Each of us laid one end of the spear on our shoulders, carrying the fish toward the base.

Aubrey hurried to my side and said, “Alan, before we go tromping through the woods… Maybe we could set a trap and catch something that will hunt for us. Thoughts?”

“I have too many. Do we stay or do we go? Do we bait or do we hunt? Do we try to earn points and milestones, or do we focus on buildings? Can we build pens or craft saddles? How do we progress so that we may get people out of storage quicker? What gets points? Who gets what job and what happens when the work for that runs out?” I said, going over just some of the issues.

Jarod chuckled. “What comes next won’t be easy.”

“I promise to have a nice conversation here soon about all these revelations. We'll set up a tarp shade and enjoy a nice meal. I’ve been working since before the sun rose, so I need a rag bath after some food, then a long nap sounds great.”

“And maybe some fun after,” Aubrey said, smacking my butt before hurrying forward to help build up the fire.

The tribe arrived in camp, eager to be away from the jungle. While they saw a bountiful jungle, I saw something we’d strip of life, forcing us further afield anyway. One thing was certain, deep in those trees was our future, one way or another.

Chapter 11

Spicy Sweat

I GRABBED Missy by the hips, pressing my thumbs into the dimples in her lower back. She pushed back with a mix of pleasure and pain. While I knew my cock was pretty big, it wasn’t some porn star monster size. Apparently, either Missy pretended to be the slutty cheerleader and didn’t fuck often, or she avoided big dicks because she was super tight.

My final thrust slammed into her deep with a moaning grunt. The gorgeous blonde flicked her hair to eye me with a bitten lip. Her vagina pumped with fierce squeezes and her hazel eyes sparkled with happiness. For the last ten minutes, she’d repeated the words, ‘so big’ and ‘cum for me’, and now that I’d dumped a huge load into her, she beamed with joy.

I truly was a lucky man.

Ironically, I told myself I wouldn’t take things to the next level with Cassie or Missy right away. Then we ate a pound of fish, napped, and woke up super horny. Cassie couldn’t have any penetration since she was only on week five of her recovery. I dove down on her while Missy went down on me with Aubrey completing the chain.

After a round with Aubrey in which she dripped down my balls without me cumming, I finished in Missy while an orgy happened in the background. To help people have relief without guilt, we set up a no-commitment zone where impromptu masks were used. Basically, anyone in the tribe who just wanted some fun without strings could find a partner or two. And yeah, it turned out to be a success.

It was funny because some of the girls were all for it, while others wanted just the handsome men who didn’t wear masks. In the end, no one was left wanting, but some girls would be shrugging as to who the father was if they ballooned later. And yeah, more than a few my little grouping earned stares. Missy was the hottest and perkiest woman in the tribe by a long shot, but she was mine.

I wasn’t into swinging and some of those masks did little to hide who did, but who was I to judge since I had my own harem. My ladies seemed content. We all got a victory, and once a climax was achieved, the alien drug seemed to fade, something I experienced with glee.

A content gasp escaped my lips with my final shudder. After a final few pulses of softening cock, Missy cooed with mischief in her eyes.

“Damn, that was… a lot sexier than I thought. If anything, we need to do it more to help with you being so big,” Missy said, falling forward before flipping over.

I zoned out on the swaying of her plump tits. When she opened her legs, wiggled her hips, and waved for me to get on top of her, I couldn’t resist.

“I want to cum on that big cock from on my back.” She reached down, spread her luscious pink lips, and flexed her entry. “I think I can handle your size better from this position, Captain.”

Her heels dug into the back of my thighs, pulling me forward. As if I needed more encouragement. She wiggled her chest, so her boobs playfully threatened to smack her chin. My little brain earned a surge of blood, filling with excitement. I hopped on top, smashing my pecs to her heavy breasts.

When my tip lined up with her slick entry, she shimmied down instead of letting me tease her. Missy wanted an orgasm, and I was more than willing to bury my cock deep and let her grind out a climax or four.

Time blurred during the ecstasy, allowing me to become one with her. I let her lead, playing off her motions until I earned a loud orgasm from her. We slowed, shared a giggle for her to recover, then went right back at it.

A few minutes later, a stagger in my thrusts told me I was about to reach a second ending. On the matted bed beside me, I noticed an exhausted Aubrey snuggled with Cassie, both of them lightly sleeping with smiles.

I chuckled, very content to be on top of Missy. The beautiful blonde-haired, hazel-eyed woman stared into my soul, whispering how much she needed me while I thrust into her with a smooth rhythm. She pleaded for me to finish in her, clinging to me tightly.

Her passion, combined with her squeezing just right, left me unable to hold back. I grunted, landing my lips to hers while we orgasmed together. I collapsed after, smacking my lips with a parched mouth and a sheen of sweat.

I rolled onto my back, pulling her into my right nook. Cassie spooned Aubrey, both of them using my left arm as a pillow. I landed a kiss on each forehead before shimming for maximum comfort. One thing was certain, this life came with perks. I peeled an eye open and saw an alert Anakin with a few guards, allowing myself to get comfortable.

A few seconds later, I drifted off to sleep again.

Chapter 12

Life and Death

NOT EVERYTHING in life revolved around orgasms, victories, and getting sponge baths from lovely ladies. I squatted over a bucket with a blanket, creating some privacy around four trees on the edge of our camp. After I cleaned up my bum, I headed over to a pit not far away. I dumped my business, buried it with a bit of soil, and proceeded to clean the bucket.

An odd stench was the only real warning I got, and honestly, it stank almost as bad as the pooping pit, but this smell was different. Maybe it was my sixth sense, maybe it was pure luck, but my eyes drifted to the slightest of movements not even a dozen feet away.

Crouched down low—like a cat ready to pounce—rested a dinosaur I didn’t recognize. It had floppy ears, nasty elongated tusks, and a long torpedo-like body covered in short, dark hair. If I had to guess, it was a mix between a pig and a panther. While the body and snout were definitely pig-like, the stealth was all panther.

My spear only rested ten feet away, but this wasn’t about me. The tribe needed me to not be selfish, no matter how much I wanted to retreat before giving away I’d seen the stalking predator.

“To arms,” I bellowed, dashing for my spear.

Six of these large prehistoric creatures burst from their ambush points around the tribe, instantly charging into our camp. My long stride tore up the distance, but I wasn’t fast enough. I never reached my spear in time. Being hit in the ass hard enough it might as well have been a pickup truck.

“Oh, fuck!” I went flying with flailing arms.

Out of sheer luck, or deft skill, I wrapped an arm around a tree, swinging my momentum away from a crash. The inside of my arm ripped, peeling back skin from the friction, but I managed to roll off the rest of the blow, arriving right by my spear.

The pig-panther skidded to a stop, a bit confused by my course change. It snorted a challenge while adjusting in a turn so it could charge me again. Whatever I did to earn its wrath, well, I was okay with the focus being on me.

I snatched the spear from the resting point on the tree, leveled it like a lance, and bellowed out a war cry.

Across the camp, the others fared better than I did. Even though they only had a few seconds of warning, we’d all been awake and readying to depart on a hunting mission. They had their weapons nearby, and it showed. One of the beasts snarled with whimpers as a dozen humans pinned it to the ground with violent stabs.

The other four struggled to make it beyond walls of spears from defenders who worked together. Each second that passed helped our odds with more people hurrying to isolate the remaining attackers.

Then there was me and my foe.

We barreled toward each other with zero fear in our eyes. I shifted the tip of the spear from crashing against the pig-panther’s skull at the last second, aiming down ever so slightly. The spear’s tip scraped along the jawline before plunging into the neck with a jarring thud.

An ear-piercing squeal erupted from the beast’s mouth.

I held on for dear life as the panther-pig lifted me off the ground effortlessly when it reared back. Big nasty buck teeth tried to chomp into my leg. The jaws snapped shut, coming so close to my leg, spittle soaked the hairs.

Darnel arrived, coming hot on the heels of the odd dinosaur with his spear leveled. Now that the creature knew what the spear was—a dangerous and painful weapon, it sprinted away.

My foe carried me away from camp, spurting blood with each step. Not only was it limping, but carrying my six foot two frame that weighed two hundred pounds eventually caused it to face plant in a crash.

When we stopped moving, I yanked my spear to free it. The weapon slurped out of the neck, unleashing intense spurts of blood.

It tried to rise three times as a pool of blood formed under its chin. Like a badass who ran away mid-explosion, I raced back to base, knowing it’d die soon without needing me to do anything else.

The sight of the base brought a grin to my face. Anakin trampled by the fire, knocking over the cooking pot and spilling boiling water onto gear and blankets. One of the panther-pigs was certainly dead with the other four consolidating. Our numbers started to circle them, spears guiding them further from the camp and closer together.

“Don’t circle them. They’re not something I want to trap,” I said loudly, approaching the team.

To my surprise, they never turned and fled. Anakin jostled through the crowd, lined up a very obvious blow, and caved in the biggest creature’s face with a single swing of his club. At this point the final three went savage, trying to break spears to kill Anakin.

They never reached him, dying as numerous people jumped high, using their weight to drive their spears deep into the attackers. The entire battle only lasted a few minutes, but by the end of it, six dead panther-pigs lay on the forest floor, spilling their lifeblood into the soil.

“Anyone hurt,” I barked.

Alfred said, “Got a cut on my leg.”

“Uh, Alan, baby, you’re bleeding,” Aubrey said, rushing around me to get bandages.

Cassie hurried over, rapidly inspecting my arm. “Boil more water, get the fire bigger. Everyone who was injured by the fire so I can assess and treat.”

“Everyone else, get this cleaned up, and start butchering.” I lowered my voice for Cassie. “I’m fine.” I wanted to be part of the cleanup. When Cassie dug out a splinter from my scraped flesh, I stopped fighting her. “Okay, okay. You got this?”

“I didn’t kill one solo?” Peter said with a grin. “What the fuck are they?”

Jennifer arrived with the Tome of Earth the aliens gave us for testing the jungle. She flicked through the pages while standing next to a dead creature. Aubrey arrived, bringing a bunch of simple bandages. She shifted, lifted up the back of the kilt, and gasped. I sorta worried.

When my lovely lover muttered a long string of curses, well, I worried a lot more.

“You got gored. For fuck’s sake, Alan, do you not feel pain?” Aubrey asked rhetorically.

I shrugged. “Maybe it's the hormones or because I’m the tribe leader or some such.”

Cassie giggled. “Or, just maybe, it’s called shock. Alright, this’ll be different. Hmm. Lay down on your stomach with your arm up. I have good news and I have bad news. Which do you want?”

“Uh, both,” I said, laying down on my stomach.

“Found it!” Jennifer said, hesitating. “I think. I think it's not a dinosaur which is why I haven’t seen it before. Obviously I find this kind of stuff fascinating, so I—”

“Is it Venomous?” Cassie asked. Jennifer shook her head. “Great. The good news is, your wounds are clean and in a few weeks will heal fine. The bad news is the specialty registrar or doctor our age who was waiting for more training. He left the group to form his own. He should be the one treating these.”

“Eh, you got this,” I said confidently.

“I want to cauterize them both and here’s why.” Cassie held up the bandages. “We’re limited on these and your bleeding is going to use half of our entire inventory. Or… I cauterize, wash, cauterize, and then use a tiny bit to keep the site sanitary, securing it with boiled twine.”

“Oh,” I hesitated, then got to the point. “You want to stick a knife in my ass?”

“To put not too fine of a point to it, yes, yes, I do,” Cassie said, grinning when she accepted a carving knife from Darnel. “It’s going to hurt, it’s going to suck, but… we’ll clean the wound, properly close it, and since we’re not in a rush to save your life, this is the way.”

“Eh, cheesy, but I hear you. Save the bandages for emergencies. You can patch me up with clean water and scalding heat to create scabs or whatever,” I said, tucking my head down. “And yeah, I’m starting to feel the pain.”

“Missy, can you grab our man a bite stick, please? Aubrey, focus on the water while I clean out the sites,” Cassie said. Alfred hesitantly neared, having a decent gash on his shin. “Have a seat. You’re going first since it’s a clean rip.”

“Hey, before the screaming starts, what the fuck were those?” I asked Jennifer.

Jennifer raised her nose from the book, frowning. “They’re some jungle variant of the daeodon. I… I feel bad for indulging and oversleeping during the middle of the day now, but we would have learned a lot by opening and studying this book more than giving it a cursory glance. As you can imagine, the aliens have access to a lot of stuff that wasn’t on Earth and some of it is in this book.

“It is safe to assume, if it is in the book, then it is there for a reason. Not everything is going to be some huge dinosaur. A variant of these creatures was on Earth twenty million years ago. This one is called a zarodon, and is not from Earth. They’re listed as… well, you’re not going to believe this.”

“I’m all ears,” I teased with a grimacing grunt.

“They’re not inhabitants of the planet. They’re not even tamable. They’re not supposed to be on the surface. It says here, they’re only deposited to root out infestations and fertilize the soil for forest expansions…” Jennifer said with a dropped jaw.

The implications were clear on the wall. The lizard aliens send them to help convert our starter zone into a prehistoric jungle. They failed here, but…

I shrugged, wincing from the pain. “They were suicidal. Maybe they’re attacking every tribe right now at ratios of one to ten. It wouldn’t shock me.” I held up a finger. “Actually.”

Cassie approached Alfred, who pointed to me. The young man who used to sell pokemon cards said, “Please, he’s actually bleeding quite a bit.”

My hand clasped the obelisk around my neck, and I said, “Trigger the daily beacon, please, let others know where they can run to for safety.”

A message flared a few inches off the ground in front of my face.

Beacon Activated: Once a Day Beacon Activation: 0/1

A flare shot into the air with a dazzling light. My admiration for the magic faded when a scalding hot knife seared a section of very sensitive flesh. Without shame, I screamed in pain until a stick was shoved in my mouth for me to bite down on. Before I could flop around, Darnel shifted to firmly lay on my back.

And so, I learned a valuable lesson, one I wouldn’t forget anytime soon. The aliens wanted us to die and by the grace of my rules, we managed to mostly prevent any deaths. While I killed one solo, I walked too far from my spear, something I’d never do again.

As I screamed, wishing for pain relief, I couldn’t help but wonder if the aliens would send suicide attacks against us often or if this was just a warning to get us to leave the starter zone. Regardless, I heard their message loud and clear—we needed to mingle with the dinos.

Chapter 13

Tribe Reset

FIVE DAYS FLEW by in a flash for me, mostly because of the light fever I endured. I wasn’t completely laid out, managing to work on building traps or crude spears while I healed. However, not very many exciting things happened for me.

From a macro perspective, a lot changed. Once my wound treatment finished on the day we killed the zarodon, I flat out asked the obelisk if we were being forced out of the starting zone. The answer was a simple yes, with increasing wave difficulty coming as time passed.

I didn’t need to be in my prime to see the writing on the wall. We held a tribe meeting, people bitched and moaned about traveling, but the alien overlords gave us a week to vacate.

Instead of diving into the jungle, we sent half the tribe on missions to find other survivors within the starter zone and warn them, save them or cremate them. Each day that passed brought a mixed bag of news.

Some small groups were wiped, some suffered losses, and others handled the zarodons with ease. We collected fourteen bags' worth of gear from the dead, which was very sad since the bodies were hastily burned instead of buried. Dinos could and would dig, so we wanted to give them a fitting end.

As for the survivors, a few listened to our warnings, merging tribes or preparing to leave. We only added nine people, with three leaving to join the next largest group. I asked why they were leaving and it came down to differences within the tribe, which translated to scorned lovers. After their departure, we hit exactly sixty souls in the tribe with three injuries.

Carl found a domesticated micro-raptor that someone claimed, but the tribe didn’t survive, so it joined us without penalty. So yeah, we lost a few people, gained more, and added a bunch of gear along with an annoying murder turkey type dino.

The ladies babied me and by the fifth day, my dick was as sore as my buttcheek was, but my fever broke, my gait was half decent, and it was time to go. I double checked the straps on Anakin’s back. Instead of loading him down with excessive weight, we gave him all the bulky items, like the tarps, extra rope, and spare blankets.

The tribe lined up in rows of five, with quite a few of the warrior types carrying an extra spear. At this point, we could afford to throw a few before close combat, a tactic I wanted to use going forward.

“They’re ready,” Peter reported proudly.

I nodded with a smile. “Thanks.” I smacked my hands together, raising my voice so all could hear me. “We’ve been through a lot over this last week. I want to be in my apartment with a warm coffee, good people, and cool air conditioning.”

“Comfy beds!” Eric shouted from the back.

“Right. We’re adapting, though, and unfortunately, more change will come. Those bastards in the sky want us on the move, probably so they can erase all history of the starter zones. My job is to keep you alive, a feat not everyone has been so lucky to manage. Together, we’re heading towards civilization. I figure a nice big dinosaur commune farm will appease them, keep you guys alive, and maybe we can even watch our grandbabies grow up with those they took from us. I could go on and on, instead I’ll smile, grimace because I have a second butthole, and say… Tally Ho!”

“And away we go!” Peter bellowed. Almost no one joined in and when he finished, he added, “Uh, Sir, we gotta do it again.”

“Apparently. When I say Tally Ho, you say…” I let the sentence hang.

“I don’t get it,” Poppy said.

I snickered while Peter rolled his eyes. “Tally Ho!” I barked as if I were a drill sergeant.

“And away we go!” half of the group replied in unison.

Without making it any more awkward, I led us into the jungle, taking a route to the left of the creek. My spear laid in my left palm while a machete rested in my right. I kept the pace slow, mostly because I still limped a bit.

The cool morning breeze mixed with the warming air of a sunny day. Seeing as how the last two days had been rainy, it definitely helped us want to be in a more permanent area while making the morning stroll enjoyable.

On my right, Missy replaced Darnel, who wanted to talk to Penelope. The two of them found a groove, becoming bunk mates. Hell, even though we had an orgy pit of sorts, and yes, the zarodon meat kept us mating often, most people settled on a partner… even if they had a partner in cryo or in a different city.

Sure, bringing an older husband back might happen in a decade, maybe less if the aliens allowed it, but… that was a long time and primal urges were rampant. Worse, some people had their spouse in the right age group, going through the exact same thing they were on the other side of the country.

They knew. They understood. And for most, but not all, life must go on.

“Do you think I’m crazy?” Missy asked as I cleared a frond from the main path.

I snorted, tossing the leaf down to be trampled. Every bit helped with the light mud. I kept my eyes on the jungle, methodically moving deeper into the jungle. The other machete wielders helped clear the route on my left and right, with most of the tribe chatting in a quiet roar.

“Uh, no. I think you’re stubborn, but not crazy. Why, what’s up?” I asked with worry.

Missy used her free hand to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Remember when I bumped into you two Christmas’ ago?”

“Of course. I was fresh from OCS and you were… oh,” I said, snickering when it dawned on me. “You… That’s why you convinced me to share a coffee. I figured it was innocent, even when you asked if I watched that shark movie. You… you were propositioning me?”

“Maybe. Well, yes! But it all happened in a few minutes and then boom, my biggest crush fled again,” Missy said with a guilty blush.

“I missed the signs, but if I had, I’d have said no, mostly because I don’t like prison,” I joked, somewhat. She was sixteen at the time. “That hardly makes you crazy for trying, though. What’s this about?”

“I’m happy, Alan. Very happy. Cassie is super sweet and supportive. Aubrey treats me like a sister I never had, and you’re just about as amazing as I dreamed you’d be,” Missy said.

I chuckled. “Not seeing a problem here. If others are, who cares?”

“It’s not like that. Plenty of our tribe are promiscuous, sharing multiple partners, sometimes in the same setting. No, people aren’t shaming me. They’re asking me how I make it work as the tag on,” Missy said with a hint of shame.

When a big bush blocked our path, I bent down, hacking at the base. A few chops later, it lay on the jungle floor to mat the thin layer of mud. Since we backed up a bit anyway, I spared a caring smile at Missy.

“Not a tag on. Understand?” I asked and she nodded. I kept walking. “You’re into cheerleading, math, and psychology. You like soccer, you hate barbies but love cosplay and anime. You’re smart, stubborn, extremely stubborn, and so pretty it hurts your self-esteem. I never over-compliment you, I treat you firmly, but fairly, and always have interesting conversations that seem to never end.”

Since we weren’t on a game trail, I continued to create one, knowing a lot of people slowly slogged downhill with me.

“Careful, Alan, I may pounce on you,” Missy said.

Aubrey wasn’t far, listening as well. She eventually cleared her throat to join in on the conversation. “You make it work by being happy. If you try to let negativity, worry, judgment, jealousy, or doubt creep in, they’ll win. Cassie gets them a lot. Whenever she does, I tell her to see our rock and chat with him. She talks to Alan, she comes back happy. Imagine that. In a perfect world, on a super religious planet, there’d be three Alans, one for each of us. I’ll settle for this.”

“Preach, actually, probably bad word choice. I… I just know how much he loves you. It seems Alan has figured me out too, something I probably never saw until he wooed me with his words,” Missy said, partially with a somber tone, the other part a bit of a tease.

“I think Aubrey nailed it, pun intended. Be happy, even if it takes work to get there,” I said. “That was a motto of my parents. Work through the pain to revel in the joy.”

“Speaking of which, how long do you intend to walk today?” Missy asked with a pensive voice.

I knew what she was worried about: that I’d push myself too hard as the leader, but also the most injured. The reality was, I had no idea where we were going and how far we were going to make it before I called a break. A gentle decline in terrain definitely didn’t hurt, so I pressed on with the sixty of us making a bunch of noise.

“An hour or so downhill to the south, then I trigger the topography for the day,” I said, swapping the conversation to a military bullshit story; the kind where I mentioned hurry up and wait a few times only for there to be a giant waste of time. We swapped stories, only stopping to pick berries for a short five-minute break. Eventually, about an hour of gentle walking later, I came to a stop. “It’s time. Obelisk, show me the topography, please.”

A ping of blue magic washed outwards in a sudden blast. I leaned on the spear, feeling a burn in my muscles from the exercise and the residual pain. The sweat was bugging my arm where the scabs crusted heavily to build new skin. I waited patiently, impressed by what I saw when the data finished.

“Huh, I wonder what valley that is?” Peter said after arriving at the front.

I shrugged. “It’s not home, but it is a great place to investigate. We take five, but I need you to send a scouting team ahead. While not ideal, if there are good tame options, then I definitely want to get in the thick of it without beating the drums.”

“Dino Domestication has a ring to it,” Carl said, patting Peter on the shoulder. “How about we go with six more? Eight solid.”

“Sure, just shout bloody murder if you’re in trouble, and I’ll signal for Gondor,” I partially teased.

“If I’m shrieking, well, let’s hope I don’t have to and that this valley is packed with good dinos to add,” Peter said, hurrying off to assemble his team.

A part of me wanted to go dashing off with them, and not just because I enjoyed adventure, but because I was really fucking excited. For most of my first week, I’d been recovering after fighting almost nonstop. While I knew I should have welcomed the peace and quiet more, I couldn’t help but want to get into all sorts of new trouble.

Chapter 14

Land Before Time

I STARED INTO THE VALLEY, nestled in a crag that covered my silhouette. We lacked binoculars, so everything we viewed was a bit of a generalization. Even at this distance, a few irrefutable realities struck me as both validating and confusing. It also left me conflicted with how to proceed.

“Damn, it reminds me of that movie with those talkin dinos. Petti, or something,” Darnel said.

“Petrie?” Aubrey asked.

“That’s the one.” Darnel bobbed his head in agreement. “It’s packed and so… congested.”

“Hell yeah it is,” I agreed, pointing to one part of the valley.

The sun reached its zenith, baking off the recent rains. A thick mugginess hung unnaturally in the air, and I hoped it’d be gone by tomorrow. The jungle rolled down the hillside at a very gradual pace, but at this distance, the valley had to be a hundred, if not a hundred and fifty feet lower.

Clouds zipped overhead with their thin gray coloration. A few dinosaur fliers whirled endlessly, floating on the strong winds. A dozen of us crammed onto the vantage point, with most watching for potential predators.

Hundreds, if not thousands of dinosaurs rested in four main pods within a treeless valley with trampled grass. Not far from the herds, a fifth pack of raptors congregated. The sheer volume sent excited goosebumps on my arms and chills down my spine.

The biggest revelation had to be how darn impressive the herbivores were. Humans weren’t an apex predator here through their size, not by a long shot, and my mind tried to figure out creative ways to kill the herds, but I struggled. Instead of thinking of the big plant eaters as cows, I started to look at the compies and micro-raptors.

The bottom of the ecosystem was fueled by insects, small lizards, and various bugs. Above that were the micro-raptors and the compies who were prolific. I heard and saw them or traces of them just about every step of the way down the hillside. And yeah, everything bigger than them could kill us, including the hadrosaurs. I could be wrong though, so I decided to theory craft with the others.

I said, “So the raptors are clumped up, wanting to pick off the old, weak or sick. There are just so many, maybe two hundred. I don’t think they survive off the herds, but instead off the creatures that survive off the dung.”

“Hard to count any exact number,” Jarod said, moving a finger as if he was trying to track the madness. “But it is hard to tell from here how they live.”

“Right.” I sighed. “The lake is teeming with violent fish who eat other fish, those massive bugs, and whatever else. The shores and shallows aren’t species herds, they’re combined groups to shore up defenses. I never imagined a world in which a stegosaur teamed up with a triceratops to fend off attackers.”

“Looks like one bronto per herd,” Aubrey said. “I… think.” She huffed, clearly conflicted. “We walked three hours total to get here, not seeing a single big dino, but this… this is the Lost Valley.”

“Way too crowded to live in,” Peter said, nodding in agreement with himself.

It was hard to argue his logic. The sheer volume of dinosaurs crushed most of the vegetation in the area, only allowing bushes, grass, and shrubs to grow between the mushy lands the dinosaurs used. Not only would traversing through that valley be tough, but finding non-meat food would be a challenge too since it seemed like the dinos ate so much they were forced to roam to forage.

“We won’t be seen as friendly. Maybe Anakin can lure some out to say hi,” I said.

Aubrey added, “I have no idea what the plan is, but honestly, we may want to go around the valley and come up from the lower elevation since the upper is so trampled.”

“That’d put us right in the raptor nest,” Darnel said.

I shook my head with a flustered sigh. “We can fight the raptors the best. A bronto will just laugh at us, whip a tail, and all of us who get struck will suffer internal hemorrhaging. Assuming we survive the blow. No. Screw these intense pods and the massive pack of raptors. We want the rejects.”

My words earned me extra curious stares.

“What do you mean?” Peter asked.

I pointed to the crests on the edges that semi-enclosed the valley. While this wasn’t some canyon cut out, it certainly was a big water point for the wildlife. However, a few rivers flowed in, one flowed out, meaning dinos didn’t have to be part of the valley dwellers, capable of surviving outside the mighty herds.

Even more important, the raptors lived in the valley with the herbivores, not because they were some fearsome beasts from the movies. Sure, they were scary, but the herds nested with them nearby, ignoring the scavengers because they weren’t feared.

Something had to give amongst the herds, too. While it was hard to see the eggs at this distance, little babies waddled amongst the adults, struggling to survive. At some point, these herds had to eject some of their adolescents or elderly to make room for the young. Those were what I wanted—the rejected who needed a home.

“There’s a bronto forming a fifth herd on that ridge. There’s a sixth who seems to be alone. If I’m a T-Rex, I still want to attack that isolated duckbill or raptor. It just makes sense. I want that bronto,” I said.

“Wait, what!” Aubrey exclaimed.

Before I could answer, a trio of T-Rexes surged in from the south. The raptors didn’t valiantly defend themselves by hopping on their attacker’s back. They didn’t rally their numbers. They didn’t flare and dance with aggression. No, they fled, leaving behind the slowest members. Most of the little ones scurried into bushes. The biggest rex of the three chomped down, grabbing a raptor by the tail.

One of the other T-Rexes snipped the body in half, sharing the kill. The final T-Rex ate a juvenile parasaur who ran the completely wrong way when the herbivore herd spooked, dying to Darwinism. It was only after the killing was over that the apex predators roared out in victory.

As rapidly as they arrived, the trio faded back into the conifer jungle to the south. The trees swayed, the herds returned to being vigilant, and life went on.

Peter bobbed his head. “Yup, yup. I am on board. We go around the valley, try to add some rejects and avoid the spot where everything can kill us.”

“Everyone is healthy besides me, so this may be the right time to push hard. More importantly, those Rexes are going to nap, then fuck,” I guessed, not earning a refusal regarding my logic. “I’m going to lay on Anakin’s back if I feel bad enough, because we’re pushing hard in that direction. We probably will camp without water too, so it's best to tell the others the hard truth.”

My friend folded his arms. “And that is?” Darnel asked.

“For whatever reason, we’ve been lucky. Going forward, there’s going to be nonstop threats. We found dinosaurs, and they’re far more equipped for survival than we are at the moment. We literally can only hunt the fearsome raptors if I had to guess, which is insane.” I shook my head with a sigh. “No, our only chance of survival is to form our own herd. Herd Grant? No, Tribe Grant still sounds the best. Anyway, let’s hurry before that bronto wanders away,” I said, pointing to the one looping to the east of Great Valley.

“Wait, how do you plan to get it to not, you know, turn you to mush?” Aubrey asked.

I chuckled. “I’ve got this great plan. The best. I promise you’ll love it.”

“Oh… one of those. I already hate it,” Aubrey teased.

“Yee of little faith,” I said, hobbling down the vantage point with a singular focus—spend my three domestication charges.

Chapter 15

A Tale as old as Time

“I THINK you’re still mad at me,” Darnel guessed, giving a healthy dose of side eye.

His apprehension came from the heart, and for good reason. Not even an hour later, we broke the rules I set by attempting a suicidal run. So, yeah, he had a point, and to make matters worse, the humidity never whooshed away, causing me and my friend to glisten in the forest, soaked in sweat.

Not only did we need to get this part over with quickly, the entire tribe would be marching hard for water soon, with or without us. Darnel carried a big branch of luscious greens, aiming it somewhat up like a lance tucked under his shoulder.

I carried a bucket of fruit, limping toward the towering bronto we stole glimpses of between the trees. The forest was somewhat thick this far from the valley, to the point it was hard as shit to see anything. We could be trampled, ambushed, tail whipped or worse with any step closer. Of course, even though he froze in our first life or death situation, Darnel walked with a steady confidence, crushing fallen leaves with each step.

“Bro, I’ve never been mad at you, disappointed at times, yes,” I admitted. “Same as you with me. I’m hardly perfect.”

He snorted, lowering his voice as we entered the bronto’s shadow. “Is there a difference between disappointed and mad? Because you got me doing some crazy hero type shit right now and I don’t need to!”

“I guess not if you see it that way. I care, I really do,” I admitted. “And for this one time only, if we get in danger, it’s more than okay if you freeze, especially right now.”

“Wait,” he paused, casting a whole lot of judgment, “you brought me so your limping ass can get away.”

“That and if you get the courage, at least you saw your friend die, so you could get tribe leader,” I said, not slowing our approach.

“Aw hell—” Darnel froze.

I glanced over to see a raptor head poking out of a bush. The tip of the snout was only a foot away from his chest, watching him with curious tilts of its head. The raptor seemed to be nearly adult, sniffing Darnel with uncertainty. After a few extra sniffs, it headed back toward the bronto.

The encounter lasted ten seconds and then, poof, life moved on. The bronto munched on vegetation with a few other dinos making noises nearby. After a few deep breaths, we recovered our composure.

“What… the… fuck, bro!” Darnel hissed. “Am I a dino magnet?”

“Probably a black thing,” I teased, knowing he’d allow it.

“You gotta be kidding. Do I taste better or something?” Darnel asked, earning a snicker.

“To some ladies, yes,” I joked.

He rolled his eyes. “Not the time, and what the fuck are you saying about tribe leader?”

“Oh, while I was sick, I asked the aliens how succession works. Whoever has the necklace is the tribe leader, but don’t tell anyone else that,” I said, pausing at a final tree before a small clearing.

Darnel frowned. “So if you get eaten, we have to fish your obelisk out of rex shit to get our magic?”

“Pretty much. I should send someone else to do this part, but, you know,” I said, gesturing toward the bronto. “You ready.”

“Fuck no, I’m—”

I stepped out from behind the tree, carrying my bucket. I only knew two things before I finally saw the bronto—it was big and a raptor was friends with it. That was only the icing on the cake. Huddled under the bronto were a dozen dinosaurs of various species, none of them an adult yet. The raptor nestled in with the others as if he belonged, and maybe as a scavenger who came back and helped defend the herd.

Without any fear or aggression, I casually strode toward the dinos. Based on the soft chewing, the bronto relaxed on his feet. The big protector was ashen brown, with dark green stripes covering a thick hide. And yeah, it was truly frightening how big it was this close.

I glanced at the dinosaurs under her one at a time: 1 raptor, three triceratops, 2 stegosaurus, four hadrosaur, 2 gallimimus, and two moschops.

Of course, I could only claim three, but none of these were adults. Hell, the more I glanced at the brontosaurus, the more I felt like she was a teenager. The raptor called out, signaling enough to startle the bronto. The long neck angled down to inspect us. I tensed, offering the bucket.

My offering went ignored.

“Darnel, please, come out and give her your branch,” I said.

He grumbled, slowly walked into the clearing and raised his offering. She chomped onto the bit of tree top we scavenged for the big girl. Darnel eeked, running for cover when she started to lift him off the ground. While she munched, I brazenly walked directly up to her left front leg and placed a hand on her skin. The other dinos watched, not sure what to think of me.

Before anything changed, I whispered, “I wish to domesticate this dinosaur.”

“Are you sure?” a voice whispered in my ear.

“Why would I not be?”

The voice never answered. Instead, a blue hue enveloped me, connecting me to the brontosaurus. With a crackling flash, the domestication zipped across her skin, coating her in a glowing aura that quickly abated.

Tribe Grant has consumed its once a Week Dinosaur Domestication: 0/1

Time until next charge: 6.99 daily rotations: Tribe Grant has 3/3 Special Dinosaur Domestications remaining

Congratulations. You have domesticated an adolescent female Brontosaurus.

Species: Brontosaurus

Sex: Female

Age: 18.29 sun rotations: Weight: 4570.4 Zexa

Rarity Value: 0.834

Efficiency Value: 69.09% of species

Traits: Princess, Pampered, Stubborn

Known for: Being so big, she scares away predators because her tail whip can kill just about everything.

You have 1 hour to name your new dinosaur. If a name is unassigned, one will be given to it that must be used to garner the dinosaur’s attention.

The instant it finished, I realized what I’d done. I’d been in such a hurry to see if I could domesticate the dinosaur, I’d never stopped to think if I should. All the juveniles and adolescents under the brontosaurus stared at me with concern. In a way, they weren’t wrong. I’d just killed their protector’s free will.

“You shall be named Bertha. Come, Bertha, and tell your followers everything is fine and to keep up. We will help them get fed and watered each night. Can you tell them that for me?” I asked.

She trumpeted out with a long and happy call. The dinos under her frame reduced their snorting, but were still agitated. A second call, that almost sounded like she said, peace, or maybe peaceful, rang out. I frowned, curious as to why I could understand the mood of her call.

“Alan,” Darnel hissed from behind a tree. “Are you alive?”

“Huh?” I blurted, walking back towards the tribe. “What do you mean?”

“Bro, the bronto almost ate me!” he said, staying in his hiding spot. The ground shook violently when Bertha followed. “Oh fuck, it’s coming for me!”

Darnel bolted, fleeing for the tribe without ever looking back. I loved my friend, but it became very, very clear. Darnel didn’t want to be put in a fight-or-flight situation, and going forward, I wouldn’t stress him to the point he spiraled. It was my fault, and he was courageous to face his fears for me, earning Bertha to our side by testing fate.

And yes, while he didn’t conquer them, it was a valuable learning lesson. The raptor broke my thoughts, pacing by my side. The brown leather skin wrapped the frame tightly, and based on the lean ribs, he wasn’t eating a lot. While I considered domesticating the raptor, for both safety and scouting reasons, I wanted to see how this played out.

The predator was definitely more menacing and big in the movies. While they probably upped the size to help sell ferocious by portraying a larger species, they absolutely nailed the intelligence factor. The purple eyes shone with a cunning that bordered on frightening. I noticed a big scar along the underbelly, and by the cut size, it was probably a raptor claw during a dominance fight.

“Surprised you’re alive,” I said.

It chirped back, asking something I couldn’t understand. I grabbed the obelisk on a whim. “Can you translate?”

“Of course, but will I? absolutely not,” the device said. A dozen paces later, the alien added, “You’re going to make it back to your tribe. Every dinosaur that enters your protection will be added as points while still having free will. Understand that wild domesticated creatures and obelisk domesticated creatures are vastly different and yet very similar. Tread with caution, but risking your life to foolishly tame a dinosaur that attracts the most attention should be rewarded.”

I bit my tongue, wanting to say an injured and bleating dinosaur was the biggest risk, but I failed to see the wisdom in being a smartass. Instead, I kindly said, “All rewards are appreciated.”

“Stop,” the voice whispered. I did as commanded, even if it ate me alive to do so. “I could offer to bring someone out of cryo for you, but my species is learning your species will betray those they love in just a week. It ruined a tribe who earned the reward, and most of them died from their fractured nature.

“While entertaining to watch at times, many viewed our reward as a punishment. A husband’s wrath can be a bit much even for us, and humans killing humans is something we don’t want when you do well. What would you prefer: more domestication or more random humans in your age group who speak English?”

“I personally want more dinos, but it is not always about me. The tribe will likely want more people, but let the group pick via a vote. Set up eight names, give a bio on each, then let the tribe vote on the four. You give them hope, you give them a smidge of freedom, and we feel rewarded for taking risks,” I said, not sure if I was being tested or if the alien was sincere. “Hey, while I have your attention, there are cycles of generation in that valley. Old brontos live to be a hundred and there’s something missing here.”

“Just as your species was numerous, so are dinosaurs. Your next logical question involves storage space. You’re just a DNA ingram matched to stored memories in databanks. Yes… I understand this is hard to grasp, but storage when we only need a drop of blood, and a brain scan, is insanely simple.

“Returning dinosaurs to life is far more complex. There is no clone of you, we forbid it, and you are the original, stored as a whole being. These dinos, they’re generated through a replicator. That is enough to explain their vast numbers and age variance. Rapid breeding will help create balance as time goes, same with you humans,” the voice said, vanishing from the conversation.

Cassie appeared, peeking out from behind a tree. “Is the brontosaurus scary?” She paused, eyeing my newfound friend. “Oh, is that a raptor?”

“Yeah, this is Aragorn. Aragorn, that is Lady Cassie. Could you get some of the burned pig for him that we still have left?” I asked nicely.

The tribe must have been close by because they slowly approached through the trees with spears at the ready. I held up my palms defensively, earning confused stares from the others that shifted toward Darnel.

“Darnel was overly worried, and for good reason. This is a wild fucking raptor. Yup, it is not domesticated, and it’s just chirping to me. Apparently, it can talk, and the aliens can translate but don’t want to,” I said.

“Uh, what is domesticated then?” Peter asked.

I thumbed the big brontosaurus. “That’s Bertha. She’s a mother hen of sorts. That’s her flock, and now we are her flock, too. Someone grab these berries and feed the dinos. We’re going to rest here for a half-hour or so because the aliens are preparing a reward for me taming a super dino, if I had to guess.”

“She’s gorgeous,” Aubrey said. “She just let you tame her without a fight?”

“Told you my plan was great. Darnel heroically hand fed her and that was it,” I said.

Darnel sheepishly said, “Her lips gummed my hand, and it lifted me off the ground. I freaked out… again, sorry.”

“You did great, and I’m excited for some dino egg soup one day,” I said.

“What reward?” Peter asked.

“Well, I’ll let them say because it was a bit confusing, but I do have two domestications left,” I said, watching Cassie draw near.

She tossed the meat at my feet, surprisingly understanding a bit about creature dominance. I grabbed the burned bit, chomped a single bite, then offered it to the raptor. He rudely snatched it out of my hand, not behaving how I liked, even if he didn’t hurt me.

“I want the raptor, please,” Jarod said, earning nods from the group. “Look, it’s like a dog on steroids, but smarter. More importantly, domesticate it please, so we can guarantee our safety.”

“For that reason alone, yes.” I placed a hand on the raptor and asked to use one of our two remaining anytime domestications.

Tribe Grant has consumed its once a Week Dinosaur Domestication: 0/1

Time until next charge: 6.99 daily rotations: Tribe Grant has 2/3 Special Dinosaur Domestications remaining

Congratulations. You have domesticated an adolescent male Velociraptor.

Species: Velociraptor

Sex: Male

Age: 3.07 sun rotations: Weight: 11.3 Zexa

Rarity Value: 0.130

Efficiency Value: 22.07% of species

Traits: Intrigue, Curious, Hungry

Known for: Scouting.

You have 1 hour to name your new dinosaur. If a name is unassigned, one will be given to it that must be used to garner the dinosaur’s attention.

The blue magic coated the dinosaur, and he seemed no different until I commanded, “Sit.” He plopped on his butt. “Speak.” He chirped. “Great, hmm… Aragorn doesn’t suit you. From now on, you’re one of us and your name is Sleuth. That’s your name. You will understand when people say Sleuth. It means you. Patrol the perimeter. Cry out if anything dangerous is nearby.”

“Don’t you want to tell him to retreat if he senses danger?” Poppy asked.

Thankfully, Carl answered, “No, my dear. We want the dinosaur to become T-Rex food instead of you. That dinosaur is replaceable, you are not. Or so I—”

A blue dome coated the entire tribe with the lizard alien’s smug face appearing. The alien grinned and said, “About that….”

Chapter 16

The Double Pump Fake

FOR WHATEVER REASON, the alien overlord encased our tribe in a blue dome, sealing us off from outside interference. I was exhausted, shocked I didn’t die or get trampled during my bronto capture, and ready to take a rest, so I found a nice spot to lay down on my stomach. Cassie helped me down, going back to back to support me while Missy and Aubrey snuggled nearby, with Aubrey offering her thigh for me to rest my head on.

Most of the others, including Bertha, found a comfy spot to lay down. The dinosaurs who normally huddled under her mass glanced around in confusion until a few excited people brought them berries and bushes we’d gathered. This provided a lot of joy for the dinos who suddenly seemed less apprehensive.

While I wanted to talk about how we may want to limit how many dinosaurs we had to manage and care for, the alien rubbed clawed hands with glee. The beady black eyes glanced over each of us, keen to be seen.

“You are a small town population of rural humans with ample space. You were all able to gather in your starter zone, experience a bit of this world, and then you pushed off your origin point. By this time tomorrow, no one will be living inside the starter zone you once knew, and for good reason.

“While we could have explained everything to you, we enjoy rewarding initiative. It shows promise, and in many ways, when you do well, it shows value in our efforts. There always was a major issue with your species transitioning to this new world: urbanization.”

I frowned at first, not exactly catching on until I thought of New York City and how this had been mentioned before. All the humans between 18 and 26 had to be a million or more. Their starter zone would be so chaotic and crammed, they'd probably have no space for dinosaurs. The tribes would become something so large, it’d take a stampede of dinosaurs to harm them. To be honest, I sorta only worried about us, not giving them a second thought….

Until now.

“We’ve learned a lot about your species. Jennifer is married with a three-year-old and a one-year-old. The former yoga enthusiast, botanist, marine biologist, and outstanding all around scientist is already snuggling with Jarod as if he was her husband,” the overlord said.

Jennifer hung her head and said, “He’s in Canada somewhere and you killed our son and daughter. So go fuck yourself.”

“Not true. He’s in cryostorage, because of density issues. For him, he was bringing home groceries when we repurposed your species.” His dry and condescending tone grated on my nerves. “If I could bring him here, would you demand him as a priority over everyone else's loved ones?”

“I wrote Carla’s name on the bag, you ugly bug,” Jennifer fired back. “But yes, I would bring Adam here if he truly is in storage, even if he never forgave me for the alterations your nasty aliens placed on me. We were growing apart, but I’ll admit, he was a good man.”

I snickered. “What are you even doing?” My scoff earned a raised eyebrow. “Don’t pick on my tribe. It helps no one.”

“Yes, yes, and we’re to blame for all your problems. Some species mate for life. Yours clearly is not one of them, especially when dosed with breeding hormones. Don’t die, Alan Grant.”

The alien roared out a staggering laugh that was part cackle. Worse, some of the others found humor within the ongoing joke. I rolled my eyes.

“If I die, I want my lovely ladies to live a full life, because I nurture it, instead of violating it.” My words earned a frown. “Why are we in your dome this time?”

“This continent is vast, and we wanted to keep your species near localized terrain. However… things change, and we’re going to adapt to an evolving situation. It turns out, your species fighting the dinosaurs is not as exhilarating as anticipated. You either slaughter or are slaughtered. Rarely is there a good exchange that sends a heart racing.

“So, we have a plan to change that. You have regional conflicts that interest us. Going forward, there will be drops from the sky and strategically placed segments of a thousand or less survivors. This will be done by adding new starting points and waves of conflicting human groups next to each other. Most of what you’re doing right now will not change. You’ll need to survive through hunting, gathering, and avoiding the multitude of potential demises.

“However, this continent’s resources will no longer be so easily accessible to such a small population. A group of Russians, Chinese, Nords, Mexicans, Brazilians, Europeans, Japanese, Koreans, mixed groups, and more will be placed not too far from here. They’ll be told they're a week behind, but that is it. After they get far enough from the starter zone, they’ll learn that killing other humans from another region is rewarded.”

“You want us to fight each other!” I groaned with a shake of my head. “Unfucking real.”

“You want to keep living?” he asked in a snobby tone.

I grumbled, rising to my feet. “Yeah, I do. I also want to make it clear. Dinosaurs rule this world, not humans. Even if we avoid them, survival will be tough. However, I know my kind, and I know some groups are not as fortunate as ours in the sense of having rules, decency, and good people looking out for each other.”

“Exactly. Alan Winchester, you are the type of person we want defending your species, not a drug lord who is only in it for himself. If said drug lord wants your women for sex slaves, watching you stop him will be delightfully fun,” the alien said.

Peter rose and said, “Unless they replace and regrew the trees in the starter zone after they left, we’re on the first wave. We should have a head start, minus a very fractured sixty of two hundred.”

“While it is easy to reset the drop points, we did not. Your head start will be allowed since you never banded together as a regional group versus others. Doctor Isbert has swallowed the rest of the survivors from your starting area, having only forty-two survivors going higher into the mountains by the greatest brontosaurus herds in the entire state,” the alien said as if I should clue in. “Four more waves of two hundred each will be dropped over and over. We want to see conflict, assimilation, domination, trade, and settlement variance. This will do that for our viewers.”

I snorted, shifting my weight without the normal pain I’d grown accustomed to. My anger rose from his words. “Why make us fight each other? Some, like the Japanese, will die before dishonor,” I growled.

“But the Russians already kill each other for spare tools or childhood rivalries, so it adds excitement. I highly doubt the Japanese will let the Chinese slaughter them based on morals, and if they do… wonderful!”

Obviously, this supreme being was toying with our lives to the point I wanted to vomit. If I had to guess, this was a different alien, one more powerful than the lizard I’d talked to earlier who seemed to want to help. “Okay, you plan to insert a lot of tribes while giving them more information to make informed decisions where consolidating makes sense.

“Outside of those waves, consolidation will make far less sense due to cultural differences. Then you take limited resources and force us into conflict. However, we can build roads instead of war, share instead of fight, but we will, and you know this, and you want us to think this is good for us.”

The alien didn’t hesitate in the slightest. “Absolutely. I’m ancient, from the inner core of the universe, not this galaxy. Let that sink in. Your species is but one of trillions trying to find a foothold in the long lineage of this universe. To you, there is no precedent. To us, this is a huge favor to your kind, and if you do well, you can protect your species and maybe even help get them into the greater universe.”

At this point, I think I understood. While I didn’t let go of my hate, or my brooding resentment, I did shift. The universe, as far as we knew it, was created billions of years before our galaxy. The being I was talking to could very well be billions of years old with technology I barely could fathom. We were the proverbial ant, dancing on strings to a puppet master that could set his toy down at any time.

All we had to do was to stay alive until we could expand off Earth. As a species, I think I came to a new reality, and while not all the problems of humanity rested on my shoulders, only those who bore some of it might save us.

With that rationale in mind, I kept my vitriol to a minimum and switched to honey. “One of your kind mentioned a reward for brazenly domesticating a creature so big as our brontosaurus.”

“Yes, yes, you’re the first on the planet to tame a brontosaurus. You got lucky, seeing as how they are ruthlessly violent to all outsiders unless they’re tricked. The fact the raptor didn’t sense you as a threat and you brought a treat was surprisingly brilliant. It is quite a feat and something others will be lucky to achieve without stealing an egg,” the alien said in a boorish tone.

“Well, we fed her first,” Darnel said.

“Yes, your bravery earned many onlookers. It was part of our decision to continue the experiment. We used certain methods to alter our forecasts and apply changes. In addition to creating regional strife, we decided to change a few other things because we want humans to venture afield in smaller numbers. It pains me to admit, when groups of your species have spears, they can be rather effective at surviving.

“We also may have been somewhat remiss in studying your history because it is beneath us; me most importantly. After a cursory glance, we feel these changes to resources, strategic drops, and population density will be popular.

“In other news, our somewhat bloody civil war with the Haluth Faction is increasing in intensity. We have decided to invest in this region again, and so far, our efforts are being viewed positively back home. However, the opposition is eager to destroy this station with all your loved ones stored on it and take this world from us.

“The same deal and terms are intact, but we have been mining your belt to create additional resources to stop the Haluth. Long term, that may mean more than thirty tribes leave the jungles of Earth to defend the Solar System. Short term, it means we will be adding rewards to achievements and will be considering less strict rules on releasing people in cryo storage. At some point, once everyone has been established, obelisks will drop from the heavens, carrying key supplies and items.

“Whoever gets to them first, gets the prizes. We want to tease these drops by having them happen in the first three days in the starter zones for the new groups, with a few advanced trinkets that will significantly improve your quality of life. For example… look up.”

The dome vanished, instantly removing the alien from our presence. Somehow, the jungle around us drastically shifted. The trees were taller, the shrubs trampled with heavier game trails, and it was suddenly the middle of the night.

I think a lot of us instantly understood, while some missed the massive reveal. The dinosaurs seemed scared, eager to snuggle under Bertha. Well, all except Anakin, because the ankylosaurus had the personality of a grumpy old man who had stopped giving a fuck. He strutted over to a full bush to eat.

Jennifer was the one who finally said something. “They froze us in time to change their plans.”

Before we could debate what the hell happened, a beam in the sky glowed orange, connecting to a spot not even a few feet away. The bright aura of magic whooshed, growing in intensity, with frequent waves of energy.

“Step back, ready spears,” I commanded, quickly giving the landing spot plenty of space. “While I think this is a gift, there may be a defender to beat.”

Chapter 17

Dinosaur Christmas

WE TENSED, readying for a fight both inside and outside the radius’ glow. No one spoke, the dinosaurs didn’t spook, and Sleuth poked at the light with a lot of sniffing. While I waited for the supplies to land, I couldn’t help but mull over just how bad things were going to get.

If these drops significantly improved our lives, then they’d have immense value. I had no doubt other tribes would at least posture to dominate them. While I wouldn’t kill someone just because they spoke another language, I’d defend my tribe and my family.

The other big reveals were actually a huge relief. We needed to settle down; sooner than later because if we went too far, we’d just run into another starter zone in another region, overpopulating an already stretched resource pool. I wanted to have a base. Even a few hours of walking into the odd jungle left me yearning to not drag all our people further afield.

A big issue would be farming, something I could figure out later since the best land nearby was trampled and ruined by thousands of dinos. As I pondered the tribe’s future, Cassie came over, raising my kilt from the back side.

She whispered, “You’re healed. I thought I saw you moving better.”

“Uh, thanks. Hmm….” My line of questions to explain the repair abruptly ended when a bus-sized pallet landed on the ground. Once the aura faded and Peter dragged a hastily lit torch over the contents, I gasped and whispered, “Holy fuck.”

The assortment of items were compiled into staggered groupings. On the right, eight cryopods stood empty, with touch screens ready for us to select names from a menu list. Eight was a lot, and the fact they arrived empty left me conflicted, even if this was something I asked for.

Beside the pods, crates of supplies were stacked in easy to carry wooden boxes with rope handles on the side. A quick count showed the containers were stacked six wide, two tall, and six deep, for seventy-two crates. If I had to guess, this was going to be some sort of kit to add on to our current gear.

To the left of the crates, a random Spartan-type helmet sat on a mishmash of armor and weapons. None of the weapons were advanced, but the swords and war hammers definitely varied things up. The concept of being Tarzan forever seemed silly, especially when we could attain or craft armor to help our warriors and scouts survive.

Finally, beside the gear you’d normally find on soldiers during Roman times, rested a series of saddles, some sized for dinosaurs we didn’t have. A raptor saddle stuck out with Aubrey instantly figuring out what it was for. While she hurried over to grab it and equip it to Slueth, I stared at the front of the delivery where pedestals propped up glowing spheres.

I folded my arms, confused by the odd pokeyball type things that completed the offering. Before I could inspect them, people began investigating the items.

“Whoa,” Darnel said, opening a crate.

Cassie dragged me towards the cryopods with an excited tug so I could start to do inventory. “Calm. Calm!” I bellowed to the whole group. “This is exciting and a great way to be ambushed at night while caught unaware. This isn’t Christmas, it’s supplies for war. Light fires, beat back the dark, prepare for an attack and understand nowhere is safe until we make it so.”

Peter patted Jarod on the shoulder and said, “We’re going to grab a hunting group and do a loop.”

“My wound’s healed, so I’ll join you. Let the camp organizers manage the inventory while we make sure no one attacks. Carl, Ethan, Victor, and Missy, you’re with me,” I said, heading to the other side of the drop. “We need corner fires going. No one unpack anything yet until we have our site secured.”

For the next hour, a lot happened to change this random spot into something we could sleep in. Darnel handed out a few plates of berries, while most went hungry. Beds were made, extra spears created walls or simple barricades, and one side of the supplies became a barrier to attackers and a vantage point for scouts.

We ended up making eight fires, burning shrubs to illuminate the night. Bertha seemed very content while the fire and sudden activity spooked the two moschops into fleeing our tribe. I considered killing them, but let it pass, knowing we’d be hunting soon enough and chasing dinos into a dark jungle wasn’t smart.

Once we were somewhat secure, I swapped out my position with another fighter to go over the inventory. Aubrey and Poppy both jotted notes into thicker journals, standing in front of the opened crates. The ladies wrote meticulously, oblivious to my approach.

“Alright, what’s the situation?” I asked.

“The crates are mostly winter gear: thicker cloaks, special boots, pajama type bottoms, and some are very compacted down feathers for us to use. Then there’s more tools: drills, hammers, chisels, and planers. There are also more books with pens so we can doodle, journal or conduct inventory,” Poppy said.

I grunted. “I bet these kits are standard for this region and not special going forward.” I stepped over to the cryopods where Cassie stood with slumped shoulders. When I wrapped her in a hug, she folded into me. “No Anthony?”

She shook her head, giving me the answer I assumed based on her dejected demeanor. I kept her in my arms while tapping on the screen. Three options generated.

Random person 30 to 50 from NYC: Daniel Zabry, NYC, Male, 35, Yoga Instructor.

Hariet Smith, NYC, Female, 42, Data Manager.

Sometimes, being the boss comes with perks. In this case, I didn’t need a male yoga instructor or a data manager. While there might be a fight over who to pick if this was a council, I selected random.

The pod glowed blue, generating a middle-aged woman inside. The instant she finished materializing and her eyes fluttered open, a lizard face began telling her the bad news. I shifted to the next pod, finding pairs from cities.

It was very telling about the country. The two from Birmingham Alabama were a construction worker and a hostess. I obviously picked Fred, the forty-year-old construction worker. For the next pod it was Los Angeles, and yeah, struggling artist and homeless advocate earned a random selection. Each pod only gave the three options, and out of the eight, I selected six randoms.

For the first time, we were going to have people who were older than me. That didn’t change my rank or my grip on power, but it might cause friction. While we had a few injuries, Tribe Grant was kicking ass, leaving me feeling secure in my position.

A team of greeters stood ready to welcome the newcomers into the tribe. I strode over to the armor, catching a helmet Carl tossed. It was thick, with a padded interior, and when I knocked on it, it seemed very solid. If I had to guess, it’d stop most teeth trying to deal a scraping blow. I doubted it’d stop the hard compress of a big dino, though.

“Not much of it is metal, but some is. Most of it is thick leather or this… shell material built like chain link armor. The weapons are nice for variety, but honestly, the spears are still the best in my opinion. Some are bigger, sturdier spears, but definitely heavier,” Carl said.

“And those?” I pointed to the blue and white spheres that continued to glow.

“Probably best to pick one up,” Carl suggested.

I counted four, bending down to snatch one off the forest floor. “Fuck, it feels nice to not hurt anymore.”

“Wait, what?” Carl replied with a furrowed brow.

“We lost more than half a day. How long, we’ll likely never know,” I admitted, watching the ball give a pop-up menu for everyone to read. I snickered. “It’s a brontosaurus saddle. Fuck yes.”

“It gets better, or weirder,” Carl said with an amused grunt.

I picked up the next ball, reading the screen with a mix of confusion and interest. “A crafting bench.” The next orb left me snickering. “A shed. Awesome. That’ll be our poop house. Until we can build a proper bath house. Too bad it says once spawned the structure placement is permanent. Alright and you….” I set the shed sphere down. “What are you?”

Once I hefted the final ball, I grinned at the words: Stone Longhouse Foundation.

“Damn, this was a great haul. It may seem like everything is on easy mode right now, but I have a feeling the danger has only started,” I said.

Aubrey stopped looking at the inventory to say, “Ominous. And don’t jinx us, handsome.” Her chipper mood was infectious, earning a kiss on the cheek from me. “What comes next?”

Before I answered, I grabbed the necklace as a test. Everything had reset, so I immediately walked over to the largest stegosaurus, laid a hand on it, and said, “Use weekly domestication, not our surplus, and let’s call him Maximus.”

Tribe Grant has consumed its once a Week Dinosaur Domestication: 0/1

Time until next charge: 6.99 daily rotations: Tribe Grant has 2/3 Special Dinosaur Domestications remaining

Congratulations. You have domesticated an adult male stegosaurus.

Species: Stegosaurus

Sex: Male

Age: 2.18 sun rotations.

Weight: 31.3 Zexa: Rarity Value: 19.130

Efficiency Value: 62.07% of species

Traits: Courageous, Stalwart, Dependable

Known for: A great all around dinosaur with offensive and defensive capabilities, good hauling, and they are great at intimidating predators.

Dinosaur Named: Maximus Grant

“Excellent. You’re young, but still count as an adult. That’s good. Hmm, let’s see about the triceratops,” I said, mostly talking to myself.

We still had two spares, so I picked the biggest triceratops, walked over and laid a hand on the body. I repeated the saying, watching the blue energy coat the dinosaur.

Tribe Grant has consumed its once a Week Dinosaur Domestication: 0/1

Time until next charge: 6.99 daily rotations: Tribe Grant has 1/3 Special Dinosaur Domestications remaining

Congratulations. You have domesticated an adolescent female triceratops.

Species: Triceratops

Sex: Female

Age: 1.58 sun rotations: Weight: 27.7 Zexa

Rarity Value: 22.83

Efficiency Value: 41.8% of species

Traits: Lazy, Depressed, Uncaring (These will change if a second triceratops is added through an obelisk domestication.)

Known for: A finicky dinosaur with offensive and defensive capabilities.

Dinosaur Named: Cali Grant

“Well, force my hand, why don’t you? At least we’ll have a breeding pair,” I grumbled, walking over to a nearby male triceratops.

I repeated the process, earned a blue glow, and inspected the notification.

Tribe Grant has consumed its once a Week Dinosaur Domestication: 0/1

Time until next charge: 6.99 daily rotations: Tribe Grant has 0/3 Special Dinosaur Domestications remaining.

Congratulations. You have domesticated an adolescent male triceratops.

Species: Triceratops

Sex: Male

Age: 1.44 sun rotations: Weight: 23.5 Zexa

Rarity Value: 52.57

Efficiency Value: 63.8% of species

Traits: Chipper, Inquisitive, Emotionally Needy.

Known for: A finicky dinosaur with offensive and defensive capabilities.

Dinosaur Named: Jim Grant

I went back and checked Cali’s traits, seeing they turned positive. “Alright, we now have an anky, a micro-raptor, two trikes, a bronto, and a stego. Looking good.”

“Why not just let them naturally domesticate?” Poppy asked. “You know, like how wolves were converted?”

“Safety, security, and peace of mind. I’m about to add a saddle to Bertha and have a feeling the more calm dinosaurs, the better. Once I have the saddle on, I’m going up top to survey the land,” I said.

Peter arrived wearing chitin armor. “And then?”

“Once we have these supplies loaded up on the dinosaurs, we set out to find our forever home,” I said with longing. “It won’t be easy. It’ll be a mountain of work, but this tribe will be a power that is best left alone. The best way to show others we’re strong is to build a base that leaves them in awe.”

“And the rewards for killing?” Peter asked.

I stared into a nearby fire, letting my gaze linger. “If anyone attacks, we’ll kill them. If we go to war, they’ll wish they never messed with us. For now, we have to survive the dinosaurs.”

Chapter 18

King of the Mountain

THE SADDLE TURNED out to be something far grander than imaginable, and I suppose it started with Bertha herself. I could reach her belly on my tippy toes. She also was a bit skinny at the moment, probably from struggling to find somewhere safe. On the bottom, a sagging net created a lower section for storage.

While it was just a big droopy net, it stretched for a very long distance. It was a bit loose on Bertha’s growing frame, but it proved to be amazing for stuffing all our oversized, yet light items. After a decent nap session, the sun started to rise, so we set about filling the netting. We added all the blankets, fur cloaks, spare boots, and other lighter items.

While I wanted to maybe laden her with the spare saddles and extra metal, I felt it might be too much. In addition to the bottom net, a regular saddle for riding Bertha lay atop her back. I knew she could carry more weight, but we added a lot when multiple people were brought up to the top. Besides two lever arms with pulleys on them, the upper portion of the saddle was just a bench.

To keep weight on the bronto down, all the extra weapons and tools were shouldered by us humans or the smaller dinos. We didn’t have an ankylosaurus or stego saddle, but we did have a triceratops saddle.

The triceratop’s saddle was little more than a big leather blanket with side pouches. You could stand on it while holding the back of the dinosaur’s crown or nestle under it to hide from the sun or rain. It was super adorable to watch people take turns riding the trikes around the camp at a slow pace. For Maximus the stego and Anakin the anky, we set the new weapons between spikes. All the armor was worn, distributed to individuals who wanted to fight.

The newcomers who arrived in the chambers, staggered through arrival shock, being swept up in our camp dismemberment, so we could get on the move. I didn’t rush, but I didn’t let anyone dally either, setting tasks to get idle hands busy. The cryopods turned to ash once the people stepped out of them, and the crates, since they were bulky and heavy, were abandoned for a possible later retrieval.

We did strip the hinges and clasps off of the frames, though, not wanting the key metal pieces to go to waste. While the buzz of activity surged around our dinos, I ascended a rope ladder that stretched almost twenty-five feet high to ride Bertha. At the top, I landed on the big curved leather platform with a feeling of grandeur.

I doubted many people would ever get to ingest a conifer jungle view from a bronto’s back. The alien magic automatically attached Bertha’s harness while forcing us to manually do it for the smaller dinos.

While the logic was sound, I definitely didn’t complain that we skipped a realism factor or three. Also missing were mouth bits since they weren’t needed due to the dinosaur’s ability to clearly follow instructions.

On top of the brontosaurus, well, it wasn’t fancy. No reins needed to be pulled, no cover protected riders from the elements and a simple seat could hold ten across if you squeezed together, more if you crammed into the netting or laid on the floor of the upper saddle. The sheer width was probably the most surprising and impressive factor of the bronto’s frame.

I found Peter, Carl, Poppy, Aubrey, Jennifer, Jarod, and Fred at the top. The small team was here to decide the future home of the tribe. With the morning sun casting a wonderful glow on the amazing view, I couldn’t help but soak everything in.

The breeze carried the scent of spring growth while compies chased bugs and insects into nearby bushes. Micro-raptors scaled trees, hunting for smaller critters. A distant dinosaur unleashed a warning call that was answered by a defiant roar.

Around the bronto, the tribe postured for a hard march while in decent spirits. If winter came, it’d be much easier to survive now, and the thought of trudging through dangerous lands until we reached the plains vanished. This week, if not today, would result in a base of some sort, a thought that definitely was welcomed.

“All that’s missing is coffee,” I said with a snicker.

The group joined my chuckle, all smiles at the moment. “Right,” Aubrey said, waving me over to the main seating area on her back. “The view… It takes your breath away.”

“Can you imagine two of these working together to defend us?” Peter said with a low whistle.

“She’ll come into heat at some point, attracting a male. Might be smart to try to get a second one then,” Carl said.

I grinned, rubbing my hands together. “And that is the crux of this world. Do things with cunning if you can, brute force when you must. How do you trap a brontosaurus?”

“Probably from a distance,” Carl said, folding his arms with a grin.

“Right,” I agreed. “We’re not going to be alone for very long, especially if the age restrictions are being lifted and densely packed cities are being dumped onto the countryside. Maybe we let her mate then wait. The natural order will prevail.”

“Even we’re fucking like rabbits,” Poppy said with a snort. “But hey, the big book said we can craft baby dino pens and baby cribs from the crafting bench if we get one from a drop.”

“Awesome. Well, awesome given the circumstances. I… I have to admit, I’m not exactly as angry as I once was,” I said in a somber tone, enjoying the view. “It could be the healing. Oh, Fred, right?” I asked and the new guy nodded. He had a bald crown, crooked nose, and genuine smile. The man didn’t seem soft, and I was glad to have another hard worker type on the team. “Welcome to the tribe. How’s the transition going?”

Fred, by far the oldest man among us, folded his arms. “I was divorced and struggling for work. So… I wasn’t exactly in a great place to begin with. The main thing that bugs me is that I got two smart teenagers I want here.”

I opened my mouth to say something about sexual activity starting in my teenage years, then closed my mouth. He’d learn on his own, and soon enough. I had to remember the sexual age of consent was sixteen in many countries too, so his older teenagers might be seen differently than from American standards.

After a quick pause, I replied, “We have never shied away from putting a priority on those we love coming back. I’m not going to ruthlessly take a life to get them back, unless it’s an alien, but yeah. Glad you’re here, Fred, even if this is not ideal.”

He shrugged with a manly grunt. “Life’s never been kind to me. But maybe I can find happiness here. Doesn’t hurt that a few ladies are showing interest in my beard. Or the boobs everywhere.”

“Right,” Peter said with a snicker.

Aubrey folded her arms under her plump breasts that she wrapped. “Yes, yes. We had a chat at the start. Our best bet is to normalize our chests or else we start right back over with that nonsense. They’re milk sacks for babies, and yes, they’re nice to look at.”

“I try to cover whenever I am on the move, because of bugs and scrapes,” Poppy said.

Aubrey went to reply, continuing the boob conversation. Peter interjected and said, “And Alan here, he’s a good leader. Hopefully, we can keep winning against whatever jam we face.”

“Big of him to let everyone decide on our home, instead of stomping like a youngin, but you’re not young, and an officer is an officer. They’re lucky to have you,” Fred said, gesturing toward the endless horizon you could only see down the game trail I intended to take.

I grabbed the obelisk and triggered the daily topography scan. The magic washed out over the area, amplified by our height. The detailed map rested at chest height, spanning the whole saddle for us to inspect.

“Damn, this is just an upper valley to another larger valley. I bet it’s teeming with dinos. Even if we’ve gotten lucky so far, I know damn well a T-Rex will ignore a few spears. So… Where are they avoiding on their hunting paths so we can travel quietly?” I asked, studying the hilly terrain.

“Uh, not far back up the hill, just to the east, is this,” Aubrey said, shifting the map to zoom in on the target area she selected. A craggy basin contained a waterfall with minimal vegetation due to all the edges. “It’s not ideal.”

“Ideal is where the enemy lives,” I said, bobbing my head with approval. “We can stage the dinos in the bottom basin and live up top. The water runs fast based on the height of this fall, so maybe watermills at some point.”

“Or showers!” Aubrey said, hugging herself with the thought. “But there is hardly a ledge and not much space to work with.”

“Which makes it that much better,” Carl said, latching onto the idea of this spot with a positive tone. “We all know the saying the key to a good defense is a good offense, but think about this. Where do you attack us from? The upper cliff face is a few hundred feet of treacherous terrain, protecting our backs. From the front, we can make ladders up from the bottom, or a pulley system elevator. It’s not as cool as a tree house, but yeah.”

“No real room for expansion,” Peter said.

I snickered. “That’d be a ‘future us’ problem, but technically, we can just build to the left and right at elevated points. Hell, we will probably have to spend weeks just to level the platform. But yeah, once we have the basics built, we can carve out more mountain or use this spot as a backup while we find something better for expansion.”

“The bottom will be tough to secure the dinos in, unless we can make a big gate.” He shifted to stare at the dinos below. “They’ll likely get water rot standing in the basin,” Fred said.

“They may have different aversions than cows. Who knows?” I sighed, seeing how scaly the stego’s legs were. “None of it is perfect, but because of that, it is special to us. No one, dinosaur or human, will want this random ledge with a twenty-foot waterfall and a natural curve. It’ll have a view, and enough space for the non-fighters to be productive behind a wall,” I said.

“Okay, I like it, too,” Carl admitted with his palms up. “Playing devil’s advocate. What about this valley further down from this one? Why not build right in the middle of the chaos and let the other dinos know we're the alpha herd and to leave us alone?”

“Not the worst idea. It gives you constant food, dirty water, but water, and a good way to grow our herd. It really isn’t bad. The massive issue is proving we are alpha and then staying alpha when challenged. Also, I’m not big on angst. This is it. We’re going to live on a craggy mountainside. If we march hard, we can make it there before sundown,” I said.

“I think a lot of people are going to be underwhelmed once they see it,” Poppy said.

“Sure, and rightfully so. But I’ll spawn the shed building at the bottom for people to pee and poop in. Instant love. The rest, well, assuming we survive the journey, it’ll be backbreaking work with little downtime,” I said.

“Speaking of which,” Peter said, shifting the map to show a few points of interest along the way, like a small pond, a deep creek, and a large clearing. “If I’m prey, I need to go to these points, which means there will be predators who may impede our journey. We need to face a tough choice. Do we start killing to eat instead of domesticating and living off eggs?”

“You mean leading the other stego out of sight, then coming back with processed parts like nothing nefarious happened?” Jarod joked, earning Jennifer’s rolled eyes.

If I had to guess, Jennifer had come clean about her children before the alien tossed her under the proverbial bus. The duo seemed content, as if nothing ever happened.

Aubrey held a finger up. “We’ve been making good progress on our foraging. We’ve located a few berry bush seeds that are like a plum that grow on vines. Delicious, super edible, and this is us just scratching the surface—pun intended.”

“Starting a berry farm will take time, but you have a point. We should be saving seeds and germinating even today. In the meantime, we hunt, fish, and forage,” I said.

“Farming will be tough,” Peter said with a grunt. “Even if we get the dinos to work for us. I’d rather not grow our dinosaur mass to the point we’re working hard only to keep them.”

“The tome has answers, like, what is the best cow replacement?” Jennifer said positively.

Peter raised an eyebrow. “And for the hunting?”

“We’ll advance ahead of the others to see if we can’t secure some food for dinner. But… before we convene this meeting, I need to talk about one more thing. The aliens….” I struggled with how to properly frame it. “They’re mighty suspicious at face value until you consider two things. Their idea of time is vastly different. To them, if I had to guess, a day is akin to one of our decades. They’re also snobs who are too engrossed in their own problems to study ours.”

“You think we were in that bubble for a decade?” Aubrey asked.

I shrugged. “In the end, it doesn’t matter. But one day it will. Why a decade instead of a year? I think that key part is some epic foreshadowing. As to what? I don’t know yet. And yes, time passed, clearly, and I think it was longer than a few hours. I say this to keep the aliens in mind and because we could now be behind the other humans who were deposited before we were released. I don’t know about you guys, but if we’re fighting for resources and drops, I want to have our home set, solidified, and ready to repel attackers. Alright, let’s get off her back in case she needs us off to walk.”

“Hunting today, building tomorrow, sounds like a plan, Boss,” Fred said, heading toward the rope ladder.

Aubrey held me back as the others slowly filtered off the brontosaurus. Poppy paused with a raised eyebrow. I sat down, keeping my mouth shut because I knew what Aubrey was doing.

Carl snickered. “We’ll be back up after.”

“Deal,” Poppy said.

Two things happened once they reached the bottom. I ordered Bertha to slowly start walking toward our new home. The other was Aubrey lifted my kilt and got on her knees before me. Her lovely blue eyes stared into mine with a lustful intensity.

Aubrey batted her eyelashes and said, “I have my own deal, Alan. I will suck this big cock of yours as long as you finish in me. I had baby fever before all this craziness happened, and we don’t know when our last day may be.”

“Sorry, your boobs are sorta flopping out at this angle, so all I heard was blowjob, then sex. Sold. Yup. I’m in,” I said. She grabbed my growing cock, tugged a few times, and stopped. “Uh, what’s up?”

“You—you spoil me, Alan.” And that was the last thing she said before we fucked on a brontosaurus’ back. The blowjob turned into her straddling my lap and I won before her. The thing was, when I finished, she didn’t care that she lost, clinging tightly to me.

I worried, but I also knew she was a very strong woman who just needed a tender moment. So I held her with love and affection. Not even an hour later, a whistle below told me someone needed my attention, so I slowed Bertha to see what the issue was.

Chapter 19

A Clue, a Sleuth, and a Murderer

I CROUCHED DOWN, gripping the improved spear in my left hand while my right uncovered tracks. Sleuth sniffed the ground, chirping ever so quietly that he smelled something, too. Or at least that is what I figured he said. It was sorta hard to tell, but he acted cautiously while speaking his chirps and chitters in a quiet tone.

Based on the imprint, it was incredibly heavy, which wasn’t a surprise based on the fact I could sit in the track. I didn’t want to fight something bigger than us for a few reasons, but there may be eggs or juveniles to pick off if the opportunity arose.

Twenty of us crouched, stalking through the thick shrubs at a snail’s pace. The bushes here were thicker with extra loud cracks and snaps if broken. The vegetation at our level remained largely ignored, and yes, I found all sorts of small dino prints to prove the compies, micro-raptors, and something slightly bigger scurried under the bushes during their hunts.

We crept toward the small pond along our route, figuring there’d be something worth checking out. Sleuth brought us down a large game trail, helping bring us closer to our prey until I deviated to help hide our upwind approach. While I really wanted him to stay, he was our guard dog, too.

“Check our flanks,” I whispered.

Sleuth shook his head with worry, clearly concerned about something I missed.

I sighed and whispered, “I understand. I do. Go find what is bothering you.”

He glanced in the direction of the pond, giving another worried chirp.

It seemed like we were at an impasse. I wanted to scout. He wanted us to head back. “At least I came with something for bigger dinos,” I muttered under my breath.

The new spear was twice as thick, constructed of a much heavier metal, and it didn’t disassemble. Leather wraps provided solid grip points to manage the weapon from. While I liked the smaller spears and carried a disassembled one on my hip, this big beauty would inflict far more damage if some dumb dino impaled itself.

Peter crab walked over to the imprint, glancing at it with interest. “It’s big.”

“Yeah, but look, there’s only one who crashes a lazy path from the main trail. Maybe a father or mother taking care of a clutch,” I said, with a shrug. “I… I just have a bad feeling.”

“Why?” Peter whispered.

“It’s big, and while yeah, a lot of dinos are big, we haven’t killed anything large yet,” I said.

“We gotta eat, Alan. That means risks,” Peter said with a firm and confident tone.

I didn’t answer, merely bobbing my head and moving forward. The group tried to be silent, rustling through the tall jungle. A few steps in, I noticed that most of the bushes nearby were recently pruned by something in neat lines eating the tops only.

Each step forward increased the adrenaline, sending my heart racing. I wore a light leather jerkin, pushing aside the bushes with my free hand while keeping the long spear’s tip right above my head. This caused it to drag a bit, but I wanted a trail for my allies to follow.

Over the next three, maybe four minutes, the sweltering humidity layered a sheen of sweat onto my body. I yearned for a breeze, or even a fast walk to reduce the sauna sensation. Worse, the bushes were so thick, I struggled to see more than a dozen feet. Behind any tree, or crouched in any bush could be some new horror waiting to eat me.

Eventually, the foliage thinned, and I spied something I never expected to see. Standing at the edge of a large pond was a monster-sized chicken of sorts that was as big as a T-Rex. Three elongated claws dangled from its hands, perfectly sized to impale a man or three through and through. It was covered in dirt-colored feathers with browns and tans, and based on the spring weather, it was in the process of a partial molt. The sheer size really scared the shit out of me.

Worse, I saw more of them as I parted the leaves. However… the two adults watched over a group of five juveniles. These dinos had underdeveloped claws, only stood as tall as me, and really just looked like a monstrous chicken. Those parents though, they really were something I considered too fierce to attack.

I headed back to the main group of hunters, bringing us in for a huddle. The leaders turned in while the others provided security.

“Look, not every hunt has to be successful. Those are very powerful parents. Maybe if I had a rocket launcher, or an Apache Helicopter, we’d kill the adults. These pointy sticks just aren't enough without having some injuries. Sorry, we didn’t lose, but we’re going to have to stop at the next spot and try to find some food there,” I said, throwing in the proverbial towel.

Carl said, “Yeah, I saw them. Therizinos or some such. In a game I used to play they hit like a truck, but I looked it up and paleontologists say their claws probably weren’t used as weapons. Now that I’ve seen them, they were dead wrong.”

Peter snorted. “Let’s not test that theory. They looked lethal as fuck.”

We slipped away from the family of prehistoric murder chickens, heading back down the trail I’d dragged my spear down. A bit of despair seeped into me. I loved winning, and so far,we’d been successful, even if I got hurt once.

After only a minute or so during our retreat, Peter raised a hand, sensing something. He paused, shifting the bush in front of him with his spear. We patiently waited, crouched down. I listened intently, not hearing anything.

The instant, and I mean the instant, I smelt the foul odor I recognized, Peter turned around with a shrug. Everything changed in that split second.

An all too familiar carnotaurus lunged forward as soon as Peter took his eyes off the bushes to glance back at us. The open jaws shot down until his head and shoulders vanished from sight. The predator chomped down, sinking his teeth into Peter’s chest.

He spasmed, kicking and flailing as the carnotaurus yanked him off the jungle floor. I hurled the heavy spear, sinking it into the left. Peter stopped flailing, going limp as the carno shrugged off my damage to burst into a run.

In a flash, the dinosaur carried him into the jungle while his intense muscles popped out the spear strike. The retreating dino fled at speeds we could never match, vanishing as quickly as it appeared.

“Fuck!” I shouted in primal rage, dashing forward to recover my weapon while I tried to figure out where he went.

The only positive from the situation was that Peter died instantly, never even realizing he’d been right to stop, wrong to assume his instincts fooled him, and he was safe to keep going. The group erupted into action, eager to avenge their friend.

“No!” I bellowed to the others, who started to sprint after him. “Stop. It’s faster than us and for all we know, they hunt in packs. No one else dies! Consolidate, stab the bush in front of you and hurry back to the group. March.”

Every last one of the people who wanted to save Peter stopped, understanding both my intent and my reminder. We somberly crashed through the jungle at full aggression. On a scale of one to ten, my pissed off meter hit a thousand.

We pretty much ran all the way back to our tribe, passing a few scouts we left behind. I unleashed a primal scream the instant I reached the herd, something the dinosaurs matched with heads tilted up.

Our mourning ended almost as quickly as it began, because danger potentially lurked behind every bush. I’d cope once everyone was safe, so I pointed Bertha toward our future home.

She didn’t need a verbal command, shoving over a tree to keep the tribe moving.

Carl grabbed my shoulder. “Alan, you can’t be serious! We have to get him.”

“We don’t and you know it,” I whispered.

“We can’t leave him,” Jarod muttered half-heartedly.

“What the fuck do you want me to do?” I shouted with pure rage. “He sensed the carno, then he died when he turned his back to it. Did you hear him screaming as he was dragged away?” My eyes shot between the others who started walking the tribe. Everyone shook their heads. “We saw him go limp.”

“Who?” Missy asked, her eyes darting through the survivors until she found her brother.

I seethed, not letting my rage unleash on my family. “Peter died for us. It was instant and without warning. I’m almost certain it was the carno who hit us in the beech trees, likely following us for some time until we doubled back.”

“Oh fuck, Peter died?” Poppy gasped.

“We found dozens of dead during our small tribe investigations from the panther-pigs. More will die even when we consolidate in a base. It’s why they are giving us people as a reward. We can’t birth how many they expect us to lose,” I said with pure venom, but much calmer. “And this is why I’m taking us to an isolated platform with minimal space that’s hard to reach. It won’t be some cozy ranch on a farm to start. It’s going to be a fortress, because we’re at war, and Peter just happened to be the first casualty. When we stop, we’ll have a vigil and know that the name he chose rests in our notes. Let’s hope we can bring them back for him.”

Aubrey and Missy watched me with a yearning to wrap me in support. Cassie seemed numb and even more determined. One thing was certain, we all felt the pain of his loss. Our revenge would be sweet, but at our choosing, and I was fiercely determined to serve it cold.

Chapter 20

Homestead

I SAT on Bertha’s back, scanning the small clump of raptors who dominated the basin at the waterfall’s bottom. Before I gave them a further inspection, I needed to be sure this was worth a brewing fight. We needed a home, and this one was taken, even if we felt it wasn’t that great of a spot.

The thing was, a topography scan told a story while my eyes painted a picture of what I saw today and what I could build tomorrow. To start, the waterfall itself hinted at something different from what I expected, and it was the most vital and key component. No massive hole showed where the water came from, and no above-ground river fed its flow.

It was as if the cliff face grew a mouth to spit mountain water out of. And the second most important factor was the backdrop. The rising terrain scaled maybe three or four hundred feet, but a gradual incline filled with jagged nooks, crags, and sheer drops.

At the bottom, the terrain formed steep walls off the sides from where the waterfall carved out the basin. No cave rested behind the flow, but the small plateau near the drop point would be more than enough to work from. If I had to guess, adventurous lovers would scale down or up the cliffs to have a picnic on the lip near the water’s exit. The drop was a good twenty-five feet, with a fairly violent splash at the bottom.

The interior of the basin was littered with stones, clean from splashing. Based on some water marks, the basin flooded during heavy rains. Water glistened against dark gray bedrock on an otherwise sunny day.

The waterfall shone with a turquoise hue, giving the space a mix of alien spartan terrain and wondrous beauty. Dung beetles, lizards, compies, and other small critters scurried into the basin via a ten foot wide opening. At the heart of the basin, it stretched at least thirty feet wide, giving me hope we could raise the floor level and convert the space into something awesome.

While Bertha would need to stay outside the pit, the other dinos could find dry nooks to huddle in while she clogged the entrance. All in all, I not only saw a place for us to call home, I envisioned a series of homes tucked into the cliff, and a cleared jungle converted into farms and massive walls, creating a big square to protect it all.

There was one problem with this fantasy—a small pack of raptors.

Honestly, this wasn’t the worst scenario. Instead of hunting again on our trip, I pushed the group hard, earning zero complaints about reaching our destination before the sun started to dip below the horizon.

A whole bunch of raptors could really help boost our food supply, and the dinosaurs in our group greatly out massed the chest high dinos in the basin. These raptors were a mix of gray and black, with a healthy population of young. We not only needed to secure this area, we needed protein and hide. Either I could leave the opening and let the raptors back up, or I could engage in a winner take all fight while clogging their escape.

I’m sure larger predators picked on this pack, but they probably gave them ample room to dash out of the basin’s opening to recover. After a tense standoff, this was the moment of truth, and after Peter’s death, none of us were in the mood for mercy.

On the eve of the fight, I stood alone on Bertha’s back with a spear in one hand and a shield in the other. I inhaled a deep breath and bellowed, “Three ranks, get ready to clog the basin. Spears at knee high, waist high, and chest high. Front ranks, let the babies run through. Back ranks, toss blankets on them. We want the infants to raise or cage for future use. Don’t trample the eggs. Once the dinos go in, form the wall and hold. If we lose dinosaurs, so be it.”

My words boomed through the basin, drowned out further in from the roaring waterfall. Sixty-plus humans condensed on Bertha's sides, waiting for us to jump into the wet basin first. I nudged her forward, not sure how this would play out, but certain I was ready for a victory.

“Triceratops, stegosaurus, advance with horns and tail swipes until the fighting adults are no longer left,” I shouted.

Bertha decided my plan was lacking in utilizing our biggest dino. She surged into the basin, hopping over the choke point until she dominated the basin. Each of her massive pads sent torrents of water gushing out the sides when they landed in the shallows.

The immense brontosaurus trumpeted out a battle cry against the puny raptors, forcing the two-toned dinos back into their corner. I hung on for dear life during the jump, only barely staying in the saddle.

A large female raptor hissed with its small arms flayed in an effort to appear big and scary. Bertha lanced her front left paw forward, punting the raptor with a sickening crack. The raptor died well before it crumpled against the jagged wall.

Another large female bunched her legs, snarled out a shriek, and lunged at her stationary leg.

I never got to see the end result because of my angle, but I sure as fuck felt it. Bertha deftly raised and lowered her right paw, squishing the beta female. The raptors squawked in unison, backing even further into a corner.

They cawed pathetically in surrender, trying to appear as small and as unthreatening as possible. While I wished I could turn off the waterfall to direct the next step of the battle, it turned out to not be needed.

Sleuth approached the pack confidently, barking a series of commands I could barely hear. A second later, the pack of raptors rushed into the shallows to join the slowing triceratops and stegosaurus.

“Out of the basin, Bertha,” I commanded, eager to get away from the water’s roar.

We’d avoided getting too wet, but the pool at the waterfall’s entry point likely contained dino fish I wanted to avoid. My tribe glanced up at Bertha and I. Carl gestured with his spear, wondering if he should stab the raptors Bertha led out.

I shook my head no, willing to risk what came next. Carl led the left flank while Jarod commanded the right. The two halves split, opening up a path for us to pass out of the basin.

Once the raptors were out, they’d either fled or stayed. So far, almost all of Bertha’s original herd stayed besides the moschops. I had a feeling we’d witnessed a dominance fight, albeit an unusual one. Bertha killed the pack's leadership with Sleuth and herself taking over.

The other dinosaurs who waited outside the basin—since I couldn’t force them into battle—seemed very happy their protector returned victorious. They hastily hurried to get under her saddle area once she stepped out of the basin awkwardly. The raptors who remained listened to Sleuth, blending into the group.

A single adult male tried to flee. Bertha loaded up a tail whip, but Cassie chucked a spear into its side before it even made it four paces. The blow wasn’t instantly fatal, but knocked the raptor down, creating enough time for Sleuth to pounce.

In another life, the shrill screams of a raptor having its throat ripped out might haunt me. In this one, well, I watched with a bored stare of indifference. I didn’t suddenly become hardened because of Peter’s death.

No.

Not in the slightest.

I’d readied for this moment the instant I joined the army. I’d hit the reality that I was at war the second I arrived on a modified Earth. That war escalated, and the strong preyed on the meek. Today, we came in and asserted dominance over this little slice of West Virginia—a place I needed to see if I could convert into a home.

Chapter 21

Survey

I STRODE THROUGH THE RAPTORS, treating them no differently than I would if they were a pet dog. While I could have growled and strolled through them like an alpha, I shifted through their ranks as another member for now. Part of our integration into animal ownership meant care, and mostly meant basic inspections to find problem scales or ticks.

A few of the braver people came through with scrub brushes, knocking off grime. Ticks required knife removal, something only done on fully domesticated dinosaurs so far.

The raptors watched me with curious head tilts. Their eye colors varied widely, most with darker colorations. The more I stood in their midst, the more I understood their… language. A younger male chirped a hello.

Seeing as how they had just engorged themselves on fresh fish, it didn’t surprise me that they were pleasant. We hauled out two big monsters from the depths of the waterfall pool, chopping them up and tossing them to the pack. Not far away, we cooked their fallen with the setting sun casting a fading glow.

My stroll through the raptors was a test, one that they passed. The smaller animals didn’t snarl, flay their claws or tap their big, hooked claws, and instead watched me with curiosity since I was the first human to test my fate amongst them so brazenly.

“They seem… happy,” Cassie said, daring death by walking into the pack. She even petted an adolescent, cooing along with it. “You did great, Alan.”

“Never expected you to be the battle warrior,” I commented, grabbing a flecked scale from battle damage on Sleuth’s snout. “How’re ya holding up?”

“Fine, I guess. Not exactly in a very good mood, but I persist. As for the battle warrior, I’m more than happy to be useful since I’m not very pretty,” Cassie said.

I flashed a smile. “Aww, come on. You’re a very pretty woman.” A baby raptor tugged on a bootlace, no different than a puppy would. “Plus, I’m about more than just looks.”

“Probably why Missy is so drawn to you, and in turn, she’s so kind to me. I validate her inner beauty,” Cassie said. I pinched her ass, earning a yelp. “Too hard. That’ll bruise.”

“Ha! When are you going to be healed enough?” I asked.

Cassie smirked. “I adore your forward banter, Sir Alan. Please continue?”

“Not used to being hounded?” I asked, bouncing my eyebrows. We headed away from the pack of smaller dinos, entering the basin where Bertha lifted Carl onto the upper ledge.

“Nope, not at all, unless they were drunk.” Cassie snickered with a painful sigh at the end.

I chuckled. “You’re pretty, and that’s not just me being sweet. Actually, you know what?” I asked, pausing to earn her apt attention. My hand reached up, clasping the obelisk. “Dear alien overlords. I know we failed the hundred days with no deaths, but I would say we should be rewarded for domesticating a pack of raptors.”

An omnipresent voice said, “Debatable. You’re the fourteenth group to realize that if you knock out alphas and care for the packs, most dinos will follow. You’re also the fourteenth group to misunderstand what it means to domesticate dinosaurs.”

“Oh?” I said, baiting for more information.

“Not saying more, because we want you to experience some things on your own, but you’ll learn or adapt. Regardless, you’re doing very well. You’re in the top one percent of tribes and have more followers than average. What is it you want?” the alien asked.

If I had to guess, this was the nicer one. Even though they sounded the same, their words and attitudes were definitely different.

“My tribe is small, and if I were given the opportunity to recruit the full crowd at the start, I would have, but I was missing information. I want more people, and more important than anything else, I want Anthony and any other baby a mother is willing to bring into this world willingly. It will help motivate us to not only survive, but to excel,” I said.

“And what leverage do we retain?” the alien asked. Before I could answer, the voice huffed and continued, “I’ll make a deal. Build a foundation with four walls and a roof. Then add a crib to commit to your decision. One crafted by hand. Once you reach that point, we will grant as many mini-monkeys as you want in those cribs as long as they’re related. Your nursery cannot be the shed we gifted, and we will send no children over four. Since you will ask why—it’s because limitations create leverage for future negotiations. This is my best and final offer. Do you accept?”

“Yes,” I replied without hesitation.

The obelisk went stone cold in my grip, telling me the conversation was over. When I released the obelisk, Cassie crushed my side with a hug, forcing me to drag her toward the spot where Carl descended from a ladder.

Cassie cried hysterically and understandably so. When she saw me wanting to talk, she merely trembled with tear-filled joy.

“Everything okay?” Carl asked.

“There may be changes coming.” I craned my neck and asked, “How’d the inspection go?”

Carl had ascended to inspect the landing platform while I went to test the raptors. Since my mission went so well and we conquered the spot, I hoped the site was good to go. When he shook his head, my heart sank a bit.

“The terrain isn’t flat, meaning a ton of work. And it’s small, like half the size of what we use for a camp right now,” Carl said unhappily. I nodded, not telling him what the alien said just yet. Once he stepped down, he did so in ankle deep water. “I’m almost certain the dinos will have long-term issues in this standing water too.”

“It’s high from the rain, but we can move rocks in here or lay down a floor of fallen trees. Something should work,” I said, mulling over the water problem. I pulled Cassie to my side. “I need to get to work to complete the checklist.”

“Yeah… yeah.” She shook her head, in a bit of a daze. “Absolutely. And Alan, you’re amazing. I’mma run and tell Aubrey.”

Cassie splashed through the shallows toward the fire where Aubrey worked on tallying the raptors in her journal.

“She’s excited,” I said, ascending the rope ladder.

Only a few rungs up, I swayed uncomfortably. I used the wall to stabilize, finishing my climb slowly. When I reached the top, it wasn’t exactly an easy lip to get over. We’d need to chip away at the edge and add leather to help keep the rope from fraying or create an overhang with stairs.

At the back of the clearing, a massive rock proved to be the ladder’s anchor point. A twenty foot wide river spilled out of a small cave before it dropped off the ledge. Carl wasn’t wrong; the spot was far smaller than I imagined. However, as the terrain rose, transitioning into craggy edges without any upper platform area, it widened and stretched back.

If we built up, the higher floors would have more space, and in theory we could build a bit over the edges if we had to. A few balconies would work just fine. Plus, Carl was looking at the open space the river didn’t occupy where we could bridge over it to create more square footage.

He arrived as I pried the bag off my back. “Maybe a small outpost or something,” Carl said.

I grabbed the pokeyball with the stone longhouse foundation and aimed it at the back side of the ledge. “Show outline.”

A green outline stretched over the river, sticking out the front of the ledge and both sides, but it showed how the structure would work. The big rock flared red. When I shifted my aim too far left, right or back, the entire foundation outline flared red. That part made sense. The rock didn’t, though.

My hand clasped around the obelisk. “What happens to the rock?” I asked.

The device heated and the alien’s disembodied voice said, “It will be destroyed, partially consumed to help build the foundation.” I nodded in approval. “I can embed the rope ladder for you, though. Simply jump and say ‘approve’ to make it a reality.”

Carl took one glance at my resolve and meekly smiled, descending the ladder. Once he was safely at the bottom, I walked to the edge of the ledge.

“Today was a big day for Tribe Grant. We lost a friend, we gained new ones, and I struck a fair bargain with our overlords. If we build a home and add cribs, any child under four can be reunited with their parents,” I said, pausing to let my words sink in.

A few parents, mostly mothers, whimpered in shock, their eyes gazing up at me with hope. I jumped straight up and whispered, “Approve.”

Blue magic flooded the early night sky, coating a good three feet of space under my jump. I gently landed on the swirling blue that shifted from intense energy to stone gray bedrock with a smooth, leveled surface. In a matter of seconds, the transition completed, giving us far more space than we ever expected, and more importantly to me, hope.

A small set of stairs with handrails led down to the rope ladder.

The river was now covered, with the structure spanning off the ledge by enough to help place the longhouse, but not too much to feel like it lost structural integrity. From my vantage point, I saw a wondrous space to improve upon. How we added walls and a ceiling, well, I wasn’t quite sure, but we had a spot only flying dinosaurs could reach.

“And OUR children will be brought back to us for those who wish it. No parent should have to endure the loss of their child, nor should a child have their parents' age to the point they no longer recognize them. Look around you. Try to see more than a single foundation and an overflowing pit because this is it, this is our future. It’s not ideal, but it is a stepping stone in the right direction. We will persist, we will prevail,” I bellowed, raising a fist into the air.

I waited a few seconds for my booming words to finish, and then I pointed to one of the older women who had her hand up.

“Cassie said it’s gotta be a home. How do we make that happen?” Tiffany asked.

I waved her up. “We need walls and a roof—they never specified what kind, so I think we should do something hasty to start. I’ll let the builders come up with something. For the basin, we need to add stones until we get above the rainy season, which can be seen by water marks. Then we add a gate and set up some sort of fish and egg farm or housing or whatever, but definitely offset some of the waterfall for showering. For now, we move up here. Bertha, start picking up packs and dropping them on the stone.”

“And that shed?” Jarod asked.

I pointed toward the basin’s entrance. “After we raise the elevation, it’ll go right there, the furthest from our home as possible. Once we know what it is good for, then we adjust.”

“Can we add some logs over the falls so we can walk under the splash for a shower?” Missy asked.

“Yes! We’re going to change everything. This is our home. The view is amazing, the footprint is small, but it oozes safety. We improve this space, bond with our animals, and fight the wilds so that our children may know peace until they can continue the battle for us,” I said, again waving people up.

Carl nodded, heading up the ladder with a string of people lining up behind him. Bertha shifted bags one at a time, happy to help. Jarod ushered the rest of the dinos into the basin. They’d have wet feet and bellies if they laid down, but they’d be safe.

It wasn’t the fabled Lost Valley, but it was a decent little fortress in the making. I just had to hope we could improve it enough to withstand what came next.

Chapter 22

Foundations

THE KEY to base-building was materials, materials, and yes, more materials. For the next five days, I managed to have a solid sleep schedule with arduous work under the sun. Moving rocks couldn’t have been more pleasant. We fattened up with the raptor dead, then shifted to berries and eggs.

Since we killed the alpha and beta, Sleuth stepped in and crushed all the eggs in the nest to restart the pack cycle with his brood. Of course, we stole the fresh eggs as soon as they were laid, but he didn’t care beyond fertilizing them. Since we fed the raptors plenty of fish, they laid once a day with swollen bellies and content smiles.

Meanwhile, Bertha pushed over all the closest trees to the basin’s entry to give herself a nesting space. Her power was legendary, ripping up roots and all when she stood tall on the trunks with mighty pushes. Once the trees toppled, she gorged herself. The other dinos roamed the local vegetation, eating with abandon since the area was fairly out of the way with humans adding to the safety net.

The stinky carno never showed up again, at least not yet, no matter how many times I expected to have to deal with him. We saw a few pterosaurs soaring overhead, mostly fishing out of rivers or trying to dive bomb stray babies. A massive flying dino, far larger than I ever expected was possible for the ancient creatures, snatched a pteranodon right out of the sky while it was hunting in a hover.

Jennifer said it was a quetzal-something. We just called it a quetz or quetzal, shortening most of the dinos' names. The thing with these giant birds was that they could snatch a human from anywhere in our base and carry them away with ease. If I had to guess, they went for known and isolated prey for now. I worried they might test how easy it was to kill a human.

Jennifer did warn us about another large bird with a denser bone structure. She called it an argentavis, or argent, which would be able to carry us away with ease from its increased talon strength where the pteranodon would struggle unless we were on its back.

As the days passed, and the tribe settled, a lot happened without anything major transpiring. We collected bushes, sticks, shrubs, and fallen branches, dragging them closer to the base. Most of us worked on simply moving rocks from outside the basin to the edges of the interior, slowly building up the base level.

Walkways were established to help with the jagged edges, which we did by doing a run to grab all the boxes we left behind. The planks from the boxes were great for so many things right away that we instantly transformed some quality of life issues. We created better storage, a stable ladder climb, a small pen for babies, framed nests for dinos, and more.

And yeah, we focused on getting the raptor nesting out of the water in boxes where we could easily steal the eggs out the back. Of course, the dinos didn’t shit in buckets while cleaning up their mess after, so we had designated animal handlers to keep the bugs down. While most people worried the raptors would lash out, they never did, becoming moderately-sized guard dogs in a sense. The big difference being if a T-Rex came, I doubted they’d die for us before running.

Even though we lost Peter, morale was high because stability crept in. I personally worked on the top floor the most, swinging a war hammer into a chisel to clear more space against the back wall. From sunrise to sunset, I stayed focused on my one task that served a dual purpose. I opened up more space to live in, and I tossed the rocks below to raise the floor.

Aubrey, who managed the inventory with Missy, approached close to the evening of the fifth day. The frown on her face spoke volumes while the underboob enticed in a different way. I set the war hammer head down, leaning into the weapon’s shaft as I watched the ladies approach.

“Is it shower time?” I asked with a grin.

“Uh, no, but it can be,” Missy said, rising to her tippy toes to kiss my sweaty cheek.

Aubrey gently laid her lips to the other side. “There is no one on the bridge at the moment, Darling.”

The bridge was not an actual bridge at all; it just happened to be a nickname for the longhouse foundation since it ran over the river’s waterfall. We did end up quieting some of the roar by boxing in some of the splash, but it still was an annoying sound.

“Well, when it’s two of you, it means business. What’s up?” I asked.

“We need to go hunting, and not just for meat and berries. Here is the list,” Aubrey said, handing over her notebook.

I glanced at the page. “Sand, vines, those big ass water lilies….” I snorted because it was literally written that way, and yes, I didn’t need a further explanation. After a short laugh, I decided to keep going. “Smaller whole trees. Clay. Square stones. Iron ore. Charcoal. Holy shit, this keeps going. Where am I supposed to get ammonia nitrates?”

“There is a second page, but it is a great start. Alan, a lot of this is going to require exploring, digging, and adventuring,” Missy said. I bit my tongue to keep from saying, ‘obviously.’ “And when we conducted a primary job sample to best utilize people, only six people said they wanted to be a gatherer or hunter now that we have stability.”

I twirled the war hammer around to give her words time to process. They came because no one wanted to risk dying if they didn’t have to. It was hard to argue that staying in a defensible area was smarter than going into the jungle. I figured incentivizing may not work either and then may fall off. No, I knew an occupation assignment would likely be my best option.

“That’s fine and understandable. I feel like there are two ways to handle this. Easy and hard,” I mentioned.

“Oh?” Aubrey said, sliding a finger down my arm. Even though it’d only been two weeks, with some downtime, I’d bulked up while slimming at the waist. “Do share.”

“I’m shifting how we work, anyway.” I playfully tugged on her hair, earning a grin. “It’s the year of the dinosaur. Best to start acting like it. With that said, I think easing into the transition is the right way. If I do things right, we shouldn’t have problems,” I said.

Missy giggled, neared, rose on her tippy toes and whispered, “I like things hard.”

“Ha! Don’t I know it. But yeah, for now I’ll take Bertha and the other dinos on a simple mission. That way, they can forage as we go, and the gathering team stays on Bertha’s back. Pretty safe there with the cover we built as a roof. We do a few dry runs to help show it's not that bad when done right,” I said, making the most of the situation.

“I think a few runs will really help people feel more comfortable about the greater world,” Aubrey said.

Missy nodded with a cute smile. “Boring is great, and that list is long.”

When I palmed for the list again, Aubrey handed it over. I shook my head. “Some of this list won’t happen unless the aliens put metal rocks on the surface because we don’t exactly have the means to go digging deep without it taking lots of effort. I’d need to literally put my base on a mineral deposit, and I’m almost certain they collapsed all the old caves. Hmm….” I wiggled the war hammer around while I mulled over something. “It wouldn’t shock me if they haven’t thought about this, but will soon, if not already. Basically, I can find a lot of this, but some of it goes beyond shallow digging.”

“Well, here is the priority list to get the building finished,” Aubrey said, showing me a different page.

“Yup, framing, framing, framing. We need to drag back smaller trees. I’ll do it in the morning. For now… I missed my afternoon sex and both you ladies look ravishing. Shower?” I asked.

My lovely ladies snapped their books closed at the same time, setting their satchels down. “We had something else planned for a special treat,” Aubrey said, kneeling on her leather binder to avoid hurting her knees.

Missy tied her long, blonde hair into a ponytail. “Because you rarely make it about you. Let us spoil you.”

At first, my mind started to drift toward thoughts of someone coming up the rope ladder until Missy undid her breast wrap. Once her ladies bounced free, she used her arms to squeeze them together.

While Missy had tried a bit of the bisexual stuff early on, she’d decided it wasn’t for her, something no one minded. Aubrey traced a finger up my thigh, ever so slightly lifting my leather kilt.

“Not that I hate your cum in my mouth,” Aubrey said, removing her top as well. “I want it in me. Understand?”

I chuckled. “Sorry, hearing you talk dirty with two pairs of tits jiggling about is distracting. What did you say?”

“Enjoy this blowjob, Alan. If you fail to leave a mess in her little, tight pussy, this may happen less,” Missy teased, having no problem getting into the sultry talk. “This is going to be fun!”

Aubrey grabbed my asscheek and shoved me forward. Missy undid my kilt with a giggle, letting it drop to the floor dramatically. They both raised their eyebrows when my penis sprung free.

“You want to go first or me?” Aubrey asked, somewhat blushing. “I’m—”

Missy pushed her head toward my cock until Aubrey had to fight it or accept it. Her blue eyes shifted up, staring at my abs as her mouth enveloped my tip.

“That’s so fucking hot,” Missy said, with a lust-filled voice.

Aubrey popped my cock out, shifted the shaft, and Missy took over. And yeah, the dual blowjob was amazing to the point I gave into the pleasure and leaned into the war hammer as my knees grew weak. This was my first double blowjob, and the girls went at it with a passion that surprised me.

It took about three minutes to figure it out, but they were having a competition. Every thirty seconds, they swapped mouths, using both on the third rotation.

I always need five to ten minutes, but this time, I decided to play along and see how long I could last while still enjoying the pleasure. Probably close to ten minutes later, I couldn’t hold it any longer. Missy found a tug I liked, and Aubrey flicked her tongue on the bottom of my head in a perfect manner.

“I’m cumming,” I grunted in a whisper.

Even though Missy was the cheerleader, Aubrey shifted away with a deft twirl of her body. She did that great pose where the ass up super high from tippy toes, and the head squished into the stone floor. I plunged my cock into her welcoming slit, driving it deep until I ran into a wall.

Her vagina squeezed with a fierce clamp and Aubrey said, “Fill me up, Alan. Please, baby.”

Missy spanked her ass, hazel eyes fixated on my pleasure filled face. “Harder Alan. Make her scream.”

My hands tightened on her hips, and I entered her farther with a powerful thrust.

Aubrey couldn’t help it. She unleashed pleasured grunt and squeaks. “Oh fuck, oh fuck. So deep! Oh yes, oh yes, make me your—”

Whatever she intended to say remained unsaid because I exploded into her. She squeezed hard, letting me eject without any hurry. Eventually, when I finished, I slowly pulled out. Missy watched, biting her lip with wide eyes.

“Fuck me!” She squeezed her big tits for me. “Watching you pull out with your cum dripping down her thigh… I’m so wet.” She sexily slid a finger to her slit before showcasing a supple amount of slippery sex. “Shit. I can’t stop watching either. I hate porn, but the real-life version is next level. I’m so getting shower sex,” Missy said, hurrying to raise my kilt above my ankles. I went to hand Aubrey her wrap, but Missy waved at me to stop. “Oh, she’s going to use our satchels to elevate her hips.”

“Yup, go have a fun round two,” Aubrey said, grinning from ear to ear.

I raised an eyebrow. “You had this all planned to the very end, didn’t you?”

“Aubrey knows you well, but you lasted about five minutes longer than expected,” Missy said, attaching her wrap on again. “Come, handsome. I want to straddle you under the waterfall. That way, when I scream out in orgasm, I don’t have to worry about being loud.”

“We still hear you,” Carmila joked, arriving on the platform at some point to build a small dino trap. “And we don’t care. I do the same thing.”

“No! That is just the water splashing differently,” Missy teased. Carmila shook her head with a giggle before Missy continued, “Are you coming, my love?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” I said, kneeling to plant a kiss on Aubrey’s lips. “I’ll be back soon to check on you.”

“I’m fine. Have fun and be careful. The real danger is outside these walls,” Aubrey said with a long sigh and a big smile. “Thanks for giving us hope, Alan.”

“I’m happy you’re happy,” I said, knowing she was right about the danger.

Tomorrow, I’d flee our mini-fortress to test fate yet again. While the dangers were only going to get greater since we’d be competing for resources, I wouldn’t be going alone. I just had to hope things went smoothly, because the longer I stayed in Fortress Grant, the more I liked it here.

Chapter 23

Dino Discovery

A WARM BREEZE swept over a dim morning. Heavy clouds hung low, unwilling to dump their rain quite yet. The space between the ground and the shifting gray giants turned into a dew-covered sauna of sorts. I wanted it to be a bright and sunny day, knowing this would be the best we got with the coming rain.

I stared up at the small roof over the saddle, snickering at how it didn’t do a damn thing to keep me from getting soggy. Berta seemed indifferent, enjoying the leisurely pace we set. While we needed more food for us, hunting wasn’t my goal.

The stegos dropped their first egg, and it was big. Darnel used his chef wizardry to cook up one hell of an egg stew this morning that fed all sixty-plus of us. I ate it with my legs dangling over the longhouse’s edge, watching the sunrise turn the night from black to gray. The ability to sit in peace without some great fear of ambush attack, well, it continued to go a long way.

No one openly praised the two thousand square foot home, but they kept whatever inside complaints they had from spewing out. And yeah, a lot of us were used to living in something far grander than sixty people to one home. For me, I’d gone through communal living on field trips and military training, becoming somewhat accustomed to showers with no privacy and beds without walls.

Some of the drama spilled over from couples fighting, bringing their problems into the general populace. While people stayed horny, they didn’t lose their minds like those first few nights. Couples formed, singles mingled, and at times, the proximity bled over. But just like the small living space, we made do, not having to kick anyone out.

And after those good, but hard days, it came time to take greater risks again. Cassie watched the passing trees, lost in thought. The pale-skinned nurse caused a delay in our departure because a few patients came to her with minor issues at the last moment. I sat down beside her and rubbed her back.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. Darnel’s finger is fine even though he complains of residual pain, a few ladies think we’re cycling together because no one has had a period yet, and I’m asking people to wear gloves while using the rope ladder due to blisters,” Cassie replied. I snickered, showing my raw palms. “If we hadn’t had sex this morning, I might have thought you were self-indulging….”

A deep, but quiet laugh escaped my lips. Cassie normally wasn’t the joking type. I kissed her forehead, earning a snuggle from the side. Six of us rode on Bertha’s back with most of our buckets, rope, and spare blankets stored on the saddle’s underside.

“Bertha, that one,” Carl said, pointing to a tree off to the left. I raised an eyebrow. Bertha snaked her long neck back to make sure I wanted to deviate. “See the difference in the bark? I need these for framing the walls. About thirty of them.”

“Understood.” I turned to Bertha, a bit perturbed by how easily she could turn her head to face backwards. “Please and thank you, Bertha. Oh, and go ahead and start pushing over all the trees like this.” I grabbed the rope that was anchored to the back of the saddle so I could lean over the edge of the bronto. “Sleuth, Anakin, Maximus, Cali, take the herd foraging.”

Maximus, the stegosaurus, reminded me of a bull while Cali the triceratops had the personality of a horse. While not exactly that way, they were pretty darn close, and it brought joy to see them being somewhat normalized in this otherwise wild reality. Without a doubt, each of the animals had oodles of personality, and it was getting easier to tell about their moods. Right now, the entire herd was hungry, even if they’d fattened up a bit.

“Should we get down?” Jennifer asked.

I shook my head. “You’re all attached, right?”

Instead of relying on their answers, I verified we were all properly tethered to the saddle. Not even a minute later, Bertha reared back, gently pushing over a tree. She weaved between the giants, knocking the small hardwoods down with ease.

For us mere humans, we jostled in the saddle, not getting off while she worked to stand, then push over the smaller trees. No dinosaurs roared in the distance, and Bertha seemed completely at ease. Since there was nothing of importance in this region of the jungle, it remained unpopulated, but with rich growth.

Every time a tree toppled with roots shooting high into the air, the pack of raptors voraciously attacked the grubs and bugs. A sparrow-sized glider fled from our approach with some of their infants falling to the jungle floor. The raptors spared nothing, devouring anything and everything they could catch.

By the seventh or eighth tree, they slowed down, popped a squat, and fertilized the forest almost in unison. The pack really was something different, and even though most of them were wild, the dark-colored raptors definitely reminded me of dogs on a hunt with their master.

The herbivores calmly munched to their hearts' content, having their pick of any bush they wanted. Spring not only brought warmer weather, it brought an explosion of growth with lots of bright green shoots sprouting. An hour passed with us mostly conversing about what the alien said the other day. It struck a chord in my mind, repeating itself quite often.

You’re also the fourteenth group to misunderstand what it means to domesticate dinosaurs.

“I agree,” I said, bobbing my head. The sun peeked through just enough to burn off some of the dew, turning the drab morning into something brighter. “We’re not a farm. To feed the raptors we need to feed the fish. To feed the fish, we need to feed the worms. To make the worms we need to collect herbivore poop. Which means Bertha has to either roam, or we garden for her.”

“There is zero fucking chance we can grow enough food for her. I’m shocked there is enough vegetation to even keep five of them alive,” Alex—one of Jarod’s friends—said.

I put both Jarod and Fred in charge while we went on our mission, mostly because everyone loved Jarod, and Fred had manager experience in his past. No one complained about staying back and Aubrey and Missy were right. Only a few people were willing to brave the wilds with me.

“Right,” I snorted. “It really did get me thinking, though. I know that the big trees Bertha tipped gave us a healthy worm population to work with, and we’ve been planting seeds. We definitely need to start thinking about our winter stores of food today.”

“I’ve carried poop into crags for the last two days,” Jennifer said with a sigh. “I figure if we’re going to bring babies into our measly home, we’ll need all sorts of berries to turn into paste. I expected no one to be willing to shovel shit into a bucket and haul it around our base, but it seems that the tribe gets it, because only a few people turned up their noses at the task.”

“We’re farmers in addition to survivors,” Cassie said.

Carl rubbed his hands together. “And builders. I think this is enough. I’m ready to descend and start dragging trees back home.”

“Hmm….” I mused over how to make it happen. “The raptors are the only ones ready to go home, and they’re too small to drag a tree.”

“Sure, but they can protect me while I rope a few. It’s a short drag for Bertha and the rest of the herd can chill,” Carl said. He caught on to my worry about Bertha and added, “She’ll have plenty of time to eat while I attach lines.”

“Yup, I suppose it is time to get to work. Bertha, let the local area know you’re angry with a trumpet,” I commanded.

The big brontosaurus reared up, bellowed out a long ear-ringing challenge, and slammed her front pads into the jungle floor, sending intense vibrations outward. We paused, waited, and heard no cry in return. A few seconds later, she ripped a branch of her favorite ferns from a tree, loudly munching on the vegetation.

“Slow is smooth, smooth is fast, and boring is the only excitement we desire. Send Maximus or Cali ahead of you on any path you make. Never walk in front of them into a new area. Let them find the lurking carnos, if there are any. The dinos are our friends, our family, and there to take a bite for us. The harder we make it for the carnivores, the more of us live,” I said, detaching my tether to Bertha’s saddle. “Any questions?”

The others shook their heads, preparing to descend to the jungle floor by double checking their gear. If this went well, we’d have a lot of the wood needed to turn our foundation into a home. We’d need to make multiple trips, but the start seemed promising and with that thought in mind, I went to work with a smile on my face and hope in my heart.

Chapter 24

Dino Blessing

“HEY, BOSS!” Victor shouted. He grabbed my attention before I could load up on Bertha for the next mission. The last three days and been nothing besides knocking over trees and dragging them home. We absolutely succeeded in our mission, having a huge pile of trees for whatever construction Carl cooked up. “Got a second?”

Victor turned out to be one of the people willing to hand feed the dinos, regardless of tamed or untamed. He approached with a bandaged hand, visibly shaken from something. I let go of the rope ladder, earning a scornful gaze from Bertha who proverbially chomped at the bit to get deeper into the jungle so she could have breakfast.

“Whoa, what happened?” I asked, clearly concerned.

His shoulders slumped. “Tarla!”

“Maximus’ wife?” I said, pointing to the female stego. The gray scaled female stared at Victor, her primary handler, with anger. “Huh?”

“I took her egg. Look, I only ever raised ducks, volunteering because everyone else looked so damned lost,” he said defensively. “However, one time I got sick and missed picking eggs for almost two weeks. Momma ducks kicked my ass when I tried to go in there. Maybe it was a fluke or something, I don’t know, but Tarla has that same anger.”

“Oh, uh, I guess that makes sense,” I replied.

Victor raised his bandaged hand. “She bit me, Alan. Not hard, but hard enough to break skin and get me to drop her egg. It’ll heal fast if I had to guess, but if we want to eat stego eggs, you need to do your magic domestication thingy on her.”

“Ahhhhhhhhh,” I groaned out, finally understanding the situation. “Hold on.”

I confidently walked over to Tarla while snapping my fingers at Maximus. When I had his attention, I ordered him from the front of the basin to the back, where the nesting happened on top of trampled shrubs. We’d raised that area well out of the water with all sorts of debris to turn the flooring into something manageable.

The large stego, who still wasn’t full grown, lumbered over to his mate. They nuzzled into each other, exchanging rubs of affection with soft coos. “Maximus, does Tarla want to raise her egg now?”

Maximus unleashed a long call. It definitely seemed positive in nature.

“Tell her to nest and we will leave her eggs alone, but if she bites Victor again, I’ll show no mercy,” I told the dinosaur.

He unleashed a series of grunts, squawks and dino calls. Tarla replied by talking back to him before she laid down in a protective posture around her egg. Of course, the instant this happened, the raptors unleashed a flurry of chirps and squawks to have their eggs no longer stolen.

I spent the next half-hour talking to Sleuth and his pack to hash out a compromise. In the end, they gave up a section for us to take their eggs while having a section of nesting for their youth. The trikes were indifferent to the egg issue, since I already allowed Cali to nest on hers.

The hadrosaurs laid eggs at a very high rate, completely uncaring if their eggs vanished or were crushed. The species was firmly about numbers over attentive care. We’d been short on meat recently, but heavy on eggs and it wasn’t the worst. This completed the herd problems, since the gallimimus spooked two days ago, vanishing to never return.

For the majority of the survivors, they were starting to get tired of eggs and berries, gently asking about potentially hunting again instead of just gathering. If we supplemented meat for eggs, letting the dinos have a cycle of life would be just fine for everyone. It also didn’t hurt that a lot of the tribe members came with extra padding that helped sustain them over the last fifteen days.

While we’d only been out of cryo for a bit, everyone started to thin toward a doctor-approved BMI. For me, Carl, and a few others, we bulked up while narrowing at the hips. The ladies certainly didn’t mind, but the guys sorta did. One of the best parts about a girl with a bit of meat on her bones—not too much—was her plump boobs and ass. Take it away and there was less cleavage and underboob flying in our faces.

Not that it mattered that much because more and more, the ladies were just going topless. We pretty much had seen everyone else naked at this point, so two nipples were hardly some evil sin to expose.

I found Aubrey waiting by Bertha with a big smile on her face. “I finished my work early, Darling. May I join you on today’s mission? I noticed you’re a bit light since Carl and his builders are in rush mode to get walls finished now that we have the right trees in excess.”

“Of course, of course,” I grumbled, thumbing the dinos inside the pit. “Did you catch the changes I had to implement?”

“Yes, yes, I did. We’re going to have less eggs and more mouths to feed,” Aubrey said in a positive tone. “Not that we know how long the eggs gestate for or where we will keep the young.”

“Oh, right. Right. Man, this morning has been nonstop. I need clay, sand, meat, and more hay of some sort. But… Do you have the storage shed pokeyball thing?” I asked.

Cassie waved as she arrived and said, “I can grab it.” Before I could answer, she jogged down the wooden walkway, scurrying up the rope quickly.

“Someone’s in a good mood,” I said with a grin.

Aubrey pinched my butt. “You’ve put her on cloud nine. In a day, maybe two, there’s going to be at least one screaming baby who may not recognize his mother. Probably because she’s lost fifteen pounds already from overworking and stress.”

“You think she likes the crib I built?” I asked.

Aubrey picked up my hand, raised it high, and performed a twirl with a delightful squeal. She wore a kilt over the thin diaper bottom the ladies were given to keep critters from crawling into parts they weren’t welcomed. I smiled down at her fondly, loving the joy in her face when she was giddy like this.

“Alan, you’re so oblivious it is cute sometimes. You spent all day ensuring we had a house made, then collected the branches and vines in secret, staying up all night to have Cassie wake up to a crib in our little corner,” Aubrey said, kissing my cheek.

I feigned being shy. “Guilty. But does she like it?” I asked.

Aubrey rolled her eyes. “She cried for a good ten minutes, then growled and said, ‘I’m going to fuck him so hard his dick will be sore.’ And she did.”

“Ha, yeah… I need a day off,” I said with a grin.

Cassie returned with the pokeyball, curiously raising an eyebrow. “Were you guys talkin about me?”

I nodded, accepting the alien device. “I’m excited for Anthony and am happy you like the crib.”

“I thought I made my pleasure very apparent?” Cassie teased, bouncing her eyebrows.

Aubrey smacked my ass. “You still have to say the words. Cassie, this is a man. Man grunts. Man fucks. Man provides. Man likes praise, too.”

“So… just to clarify, sometimes men get rewarded for intent and not results,” I said as I stepped across the bridge to the other side of the river that we just finished elevating. “I’m glad you liked the results, too.”

Cassie said, “If it can hold a bunch of heavy eggs, it can hold Anthony. I love it, Alan. And yes, both the intent and results are worthy of reward. You spoil me.”

“I don’t feel that way. I feel like I’m merely helping you with your second nest,” I said. When I extended the alien device, it highlighted the shed’s footprint. I backed it up against the basin wall directly on the path from the bridge. “Apply device.”

“While close, you need to say approve,” the alien voice said. “Also, you’ve impressed me as well. Congratulations.”

Blue magic swirled in two places. The storage shed materialized into existence with sparkling alien energy. While the process amazed just about everyone, it sure as shit pissed off one individual.

Right in Cassie’s arms, little Anthony bawled in anger, clearly upset. He was wrapped in a blue and white blankie with about as red of a face as a baby could get. Cassie fell on her ass, smothering her son with kisses while holding him in a tight embrace. I didn’t know what to do, so I stepped into the shed for cursory inspection. It was barely big enough to put a curtain between two squat spots. We currently shit not far from the basin’s entrance with a few blankets, building a half-dozen stalls.

I barely managed a full inspection when Cassie barged in, singing to her son. I stepped out, letting her close the door to reunite with Anthony. Between the waterfall and the screaming baby, I decided to get some distance from my home. I watched a nervous Aubrey climb up Bertha’s ladder.

A part of me expected her to stay behind, but that wasn’t the case. We had a lot to do and Cassie definitely was not coming on this mission. I followed Aubrey up the ladder, finding Jarod, Missy, Fred, Alex and Jennifer waiting on us.

“I think the aliens like you,” Jennifer said once Bertha stepped deeper into the jungle.

The raptors stayed back with small teams darting into the jungle to collect nesting items. Watching raptors running with sticks in their mouths would never get old. Maximus stayed back with Tarla, while the triceratops and hadrosaurs joined the group. I looked back at our home, seeing rising walls on the foundation and a flurry of activity. Maybe today was a bit of an off day for the dinos, but for the humans, well, we worked tirelessly.

I shifted my gaze to Jennifer. “Or they seek to throw our world into turmoil. While I’m ecstatic for Cassie, and the other mothers, everything is about to change.” I flashed a pained smile. “Yet again.”

“Yet… again,” Jarod repeated. “Isn’t she going to be mad that you guys left?”

“The tribe isn’t about one person, it’s about a collective power. Without the grind, there won’t be progress,” I said with a shrug. “Also, what good can I do looming over her? She knows she’s loved.”

Aubrey giggled. “That woman is unbelievably happy, but also in a dark place that has been altered drastically. Time will bring her balance.”

Jennifer sat on the bench, rocking with Bertha’s sway while the trees gently drifted by. “So Boss, what’s the plan since the trees are done for now?”

I definitely wouldn’t call our tree harvesting done. We would need hundreds, if not thousands more to continue our domestication of the land, but the small tree numbers waned, we did have enough for the short term, and it was time to shift priorities.

“Fishin,” I said with a poor attempt at a twang. I finagled the binding that secured a bundle of ropes with hooks. I’d prepared the long lines on the back of Bertha’s saddle well before we set off, wanting to try something different. “We’re bronto fishing today without anyone getting off the saddle.”

“Ha!” Jarod blurted with a snicker. “You wanna just drag the fish home?”

“Yeah, I mean, why not, assuming the hooks stay in the mouths. Might even get some of those smaller predators to chase the fish until Sleuth can ambush them,” I said.

“Maybe even keep a few breeders alive,” Jennifer suggested.

Fred said, “I’m sure there are small fish ready to grow in our pool if only fed.”

“Regardless, we have mouths to feed, dinosaurs to fatten, and land to tame. All that takes fuel,” I said, having Bertha follow our river further into the jungle. “Fish are a great way to do that. Plus, we haven’t explored this section of the jungle yet.”

“I hate that term,” Jennifer said, having the most knowledge on the subject. “Basically, a jungle means tangled undergrowth with a humid climate. While true, there’s no canopy life, no second-floor of animals, and no constant mugginess.”

“I could care less what we call it. Hell, I don’t even think of the dinosaurs correctly. They’re dinos. We already know the saur is almost always there. Cutting it out just makes sense, but this is trivial,” I said with a snicker, finishing my checks to get comfy. “A great way to pass the time.”

“Well, when was the last time you checked your obelisk thingy about our status,” Fred asked.

I opened my mouth to respond, frowned when I realized he had a point, and grabbed my obelisk, willing the information forward.

Tribe Points: 1748.33: Tribe Chieftain: Alan Winchester.

Tribe Name: Grant

Tribe Size: 107.3 (includes animals and infants)

Tribe Ranking: 632/283,192.

Daily Beacon Activation: 2/2

Daily Topography Scan: 2/2: Daily Suitability Scan: 2/2

Weekly Dinosaur Domestication: 2/2

“Well, fuck,” I said with a chuckle of pain. Honestly, I wasn’t sure how else I should react. “Hey, when did it change?”

The obelisk flared with warmth, telling me we were being visited.

“The top one thousand tribes earn double uses, top thirty get five times. Your tribe is the smallest tribe in the top thousand, which is very telling,” the alien voice said.

“Okay, I will try to check this more often. Activate both the beacon and the topography scan, please,” I said, uncaring that a giant flare just blasted into the mostly clear sky. My head craned back, and I muttered, “I probably could have tamed Tarla.”

“Or some raptors. They’re starting to get big enough for some of the smaller ladies to ride. All we need is a drop from the sky to give us some more saddles. When is that happening, dear overlords?” Missy asked in a way only a hot chick could master.

I snickered, shocked when the aliens answered her.

“A third wave of tribes are in their starter points, of which this region has ten. Five waves will be released in small clumps of two hundred and fifty or less. After that, drops will start. Knowledge is power, and the later groups get more knowledge and a few more items. This massive section of what used to be West Virginia will only have less than fifteen thousand people from around the globe, most of them not interested in helping you with your problems.”

“About ten days between waves?” I asked.

The obelisk pinged orange, probably to indicate I was close but not right. The stone went cold while the topography scan returned. A few hundred yards ahead of us, the river widened, slowed, and spilled into a small lake.

Outside of the ridges behind us, the terrain rose and fell with snaking rivers cutting into the shallow points. Where there was water, there’d be life, and where there were herbivores, there’d be predators. I wasn’t quite sure what could kill a bronto like Bertha because it just didn’t make sense to risk it. Why try to kill something that can hurt you when there are ample smaller targets.

“Did you hear me?” Jarod asked, waving a hand in front of my face.

I shook my head. “No. What’s up?”

“There’s bound to be predators up ahead,” Jarod said.

Fred nodded, pointing to the overlay where the river reached a grand lake. The space definitely held a lot of water as the lake’s bottom ran deep until it spilled out into a much smaller river.

Jarod suggested, “Maybe we will go around. Fish like to live at inlets and outlets.”

“Uh, oh, you won’t like this,” I said with a fake smile. “We are going into the lake. As in, the brontosaurus likely floats and even if she doesn’t, she can stand in fairly deep water, letting us get our lines into the depths without risking our lives, and this is of course assuming it’s not infested with spinos or baryonyx.”

“Uh oh, I sense ominous foreshadowing,” Aubrey said, earning a sigh from the rest of us. “What! Just because I said something, doesn’t mean it is going to happen.”

“We’ll find out in a few minutes,” I said, barely seeing the lake in the distance through the split in the trees.

Chapter 25

Dino Betrayal

“WHOA, GIRL,” I said, slowing Bertha. “This is my fault for mentioning that they might be here.”

I earned a few ‘I told you so’ glares, because on the southern outflow edge of the lake, a spino basked on the shore. The sail that jutted out of its back flared red with a dull blue coloration on the scales. The snout stuck out a long distance from the eyes, mixing between a crocodile and rottweiler. As if it sensed my inspection, the big dinosaur picked up its head, inspected Bertha, then huffed itself back to a cozy comfort.

Based on the dead hadrosaur body swarming with micro-raptors only a dozen paces away, it’d just eaten, and the rest of the inhabitants picked over the scraps. An adolescent duckbill honked in distress, likely having its parent or protector recently picked off.

I studied just how different this hadrosaur was from the ones we had in the basin. Over the millions of years of evolution, there were dozens of variations, and this kind was different from the hadrosaurs because its bill was wider with a longer domed appendage.

“A young male, who—” Jennifer paused. “Is coming this way.”

“Where are the rest of the herbivores?” Missy asked, glancing around.

I shrugged. “Spooked from the kill. Alright team, minimal changes. Bertha, take us into the shallows, if the bottom is muddy, come right back out. If it is solid, don’t go deep. I need you to be able to swat that fat spino if we need to.”

Jarod opened up one of the backpacks we repurposed, unleashing a nasty smell. I grabbed a hook while a few things happened at once. Jarod handed me bait. The mourning dino neared, and Berta only took two ginger steps into the water.

The spino across the lake snuggled into itself tighter, closing its eyes, super content to be left alone after a big meal. Bertha turned sideways, putting the deep water out of our right side. I chucked a baited line off the saddle, unspooling rope as it soared far. The line kept unraveling even when the hook splashed against the surface, quickly sinking.

The rest of the team went to work, baiting the four other lines. Jarod tossed some chum out and we didn’t have to wait long for the action to unfold. Underneath the surface, large fish swarmed the chum. Swirls and splashes spoke of a frenzy and before we knew it, two lines bounced before being pulled by something big.

A third line wiggled then went slack, which probably meant we lost the bait.

“I can’t believe it’s sleeping,” Fred said, ignoring the commotion.

The colorful spino peeked out every few seconds, but stayed at peace. I couldn’t help but be drawn in by the magnificent predator. While Sleuth was great, having his charm in being inquisitive and helpful, there just was something special about a massive bruiser. I didn’t have the faintest idea as to how I’d feed it, but it was a problem I found I’d be interested in having.

I snickered, watching the activity on the water’s surface clear. “I should sneak up and tame it.”

“What!” Fred exclaimed.

I chuckled with a headshake. “That was a joke. But I do need two more dinosaurs. The thing is, I am not sure we want more dinosaurs.”

The fishing slowed, but the freedom of the lake seemed to know no bounds. I sighed, thoroughly enjoying the moment.

I pointed to the third line that had action, then stilled. “Something spooked them, or they ate the bait and we only got two hooked. So yeah, drag up that line until the hook is exposed.”

Since I planned to lean over the side of the saddle, I double checked my tether, waiting until the hook should be above the water. Once I was certain I wouldn’t fall into the water, I leaned out off the right side.

The instant l leaned out, forcing the line to hold my weight, massive twin yellow orbs stared up at me with a long crocodile shaped snout only a few inches under the surface.

“Welp, that’s why the fish stopped biting,” I whispered.

While not the scariest thing to see in this prehistoric world, the size of the eyes could only belong to one thing: a massive spinosaurus. Plus, Jarod pulled up a rope with no hook on it anymore, which meant cutting the rope of that thickness had to be done by something big and powerful.

“Alright, fuck this. Bertha, out of the water, time to go home,” I said.

We dragged out two big fish, something that upset the lurking spino a great deal. The massive dinosaur lunged forward, splashing water in a wide spray. I clutched my tether, fearing it may snap while the others were just getting curious as to what had me spooked.

The spino snatched one of the fish, yanking on the rope with a violent jerk of its head. The motion sent a spray of water and a test to the saddle’s cleat.

I feared the anchor point would snap on Bertha’s saddle, seeing my life flash before my eyes—mostly because all our tethers were connected to that spot.

A blurring flash whipped across the water’s surface while I dove into the middle of the saddle. The reverberating and loud smack rang in my ears as my chest slammed into the thick leather. I bounced hard while Bertha sped out of the water.

As quick as the action started, it ended.

I glanced up to see everyone else staring down at me in confusion.

“What happened?” Fred asked.

Aubrey and Missy helped me up. “Right, right. The body blocked the view. Uh, a spinosaurus was lurking under Bertha, probably waiting for us to hook another fish it liked.” I leaned over the edge again to see what the hell happened.

A stunned spino staggered on the shore, clearly distraught from something. Based on the wet mark on Bertha’s tail, she smacked him so hard, he gave up our fish. The adolescent duckbill rushed to catch up to us and Bertha gained distance on the lake by running up the river.

“Whoa girl, whoa,” I said, returning to the saddle. “Looks like she rang the spino’s bell, leaving him dazed. We got two fish and, more importantly, look right there.”

During her mad dash away from the lake, Bertha tore huge grooves into the river’s banks. In one of them, the rich tan of clay glistened like a trophy, a prize for the taking. Bertha came to a stop, letting the straggling hadrosaur catch up.

The spino unleashed a terrifyingly weak roar before it sank back into the lake’s depths. I swore it called us an asshole, but without a doubt, it learned a valuable lesson, just as we had. We’d avoid the water; it’d avoid bronto tail swipes.

The two fish flopped around on the shore, eager to get back into the river. They were hefty fish with thick scales and a bunch of spines. If I had to guess, the spikes were the kind a spino might choke on.

Against my always-play-it-safe stance, I untied my tether and lowered myself down the swaying rope ladder. I hopped the final few steps, slinging my bag to the ground. I reached in and hastily assembled the spear.

“Alan, that spino can come racing up this river no different than Bertha did,” Aubrey said with clear disapproval.

I snorted. “Yeah, yeah, Bertha, follow me.” I walked to the spot where the clay shone. “Closer to the lake. Closer. Good.”

The fish flopped behind the bronto, demanding attention. I quickly brained them both, noting their colorations flared with different hues while they bled out.

“That’s different,” I muttered.

“Shovel incoming,” Jarod said, tossing a shovel down, not far from the clay.

“Okay, Jarod and Fred, you’re hauling up. Pull up the fish, then lower bags on the rope lines we used for fishing. Ladies, come on down. We shove and fill the bags rapidly, then head back to base,” I said.

Jennifer was the first one down, inspecting the confused adolescent hadrosaur who’d been through one hell of a day. I ignored them, scooping up a heavy load of clay. Once Missy reached the bottom, she carried over a bag Fred tossed down. I slid the clay into the bag, not letting my eyes focus on any one point in the jungle.

Yes, I watched the lake a bit longer than the other places, but I hurried to get the clay in while ensuring no carno crept closer. A few curious compies and micro-raptors poked their heads out, smelling the blood from the fish. If they were around and confident, it boded well for me.

“We already have a good-looking male,” Jennifer said sadly after a thorough inspection. “I don’t think he’s compatible with the females, anyway. If I had to guess, this one is from the Jurassic, while ours are from the Cretaceous Period.”

“Uh, can you slit his throat?” I asked, scooping another load of clay.

Jennifer gulp, eyeing me unhappily. “Umm… He can still bite me if I get too close and—” I held up a hand, stopping her.

“Death comes for us all. This animal has no family, is not welcome in our home, and while many of us may not like to hear it, you're too skinny,” I said.

I yanked my spear out of the clay where I set it for a quick removal. I lightly tossed it up so it floated, gently being pulled down by gravity. It settled neatly in my palm, cocked back and ready for a throw. In the blink of an eye, I hurled the spear with a throw so powerful my feet came off the ground.

If the weapon hit Jennifer, she’d never have survived, which was probably why she shrieked in shock. It zipped only a foot away from her face, soaring across the distance in a blur. The spear tip punched through the right side of the duckbill’s head, blowing brains out the other.

The young male died before its body even hit the ground.

“You okay?” Jarod asked, unable to understand why there was a shriek, due to being on Bertha’s back.

Jennifer wiped blood off her face. “Yeah… We’re fine. Alan just threw a spear a foot in front of my face to kill our dinner.”

“Ha! How mad are you?” Jarod teased.

I yanked the spear out of the duckbill before returning to my task. Jennifer scoffed. “I mean, he called me too skinny. Probably a first.”

“Our females will be eating for two soon. If you want to increase the chances of those children, you must eat, and as you said, we can’t use this male who is just an oddly shaped cow,” I said with a sigh, disliking, but understanding the nature of this land. We killed to survive. “Toss another line down for Jennifer to tie the body to. If you two can’t haul it up, I’ll help after the clay.”

“Wait, you really killed it?” Fred asked, clearly confused. “Won’t Bertha get mad?”

“She probably has stepped on more infants and adolescents than a carno has eaten,” I said with a snort. “Now, we’re exposed and vulnerable. Let’s get this clay so we can start making rain water collectors, bricks, and so much more.”

“Uh, should I gut this?” Jennifer asked. I shook my head, stopping my work on Missy’s bag once it was half full. The water soaked clay was not light, and I shifted to filling the next bag that Aubrey held open. “Okay, what should I do? I… I think I’m in shock.”

A second shovel clattered not too far from her.

“Tie up the body first, then shovel,” I ordered. “We’ll gut it later where we may use the intestines for line or just to feed more raptors and compies.”

She nodded while the duo pulled up the first heavy bag. “I’m shaking.”

“You got this,” I said somewhat apologetically. “You’re a doctor, a person of science. Logic dictated I kill it without warning to avoid a negative outcome. He died quick, and you were always safe.”

“I…” Jennifer huffed. “I want to bring my kids back.”

I cracked a big grin. “Wonderful, get to digging.”

Over the next hour, we scooped up nearly thirty bags of clay. By the end of it, I was drenched in sweat, lucky to just be scooping instead of hauling the heavy stuff up. The duo up top were beat, struggling to even pull up the last bag.

All six of us dragged the dead duckbill until it rested by the stinky fish. I stole a final glance at the water, no longer seeing the spino. Unfortunately, I feared we’d made another enemy to face a different day.

Chapter 26

Dino Dinner

“HOW IS IT? BE HONEST, BRO,” Darnel asked, leaning over his cooking station.

I slumped back, chewing on the chunk of meat. Darkness claimed the day, fires burned back the night, and we ate our evening meal from our protected longhouse. Carl and the builders had slowly built a log house with a divider in the middle to partition the space. So far, the walls only rose up to my knees, but at this pace, they’d be done in a day or two. The question became, did they build a second floor right away or create an angled roof?

“Wonderful. Bit bland, but I don’t taste the iron as much if that makes sense,” I said.

Darnel beamed a smile. “I pulverized the meat, so yes! Missing the bitter iron is great!” My friend was far more excited than I was. “Most chefs would hate hearing bland, but that’s exactly what I need. Maybe I can find some spices at some point.”

“I keep scanning bushes and roots, trying to find out what’s edible,” I said, pausing. I wiped some of the grease off my fingers, grabbed the obelisk and fired off a flare.

Poppy accepted a skewer, plopping down nearby. She still held the title of the tribe complaint and suggestion box person, so her arrival meant she wanted something.

Poppy asked, “Why does your face sour when I near?”

“A few weeks ago, a young woman told me that people need a home. Look at the smiles around you,” I said, gulping down my bite. “I’m not sure, just worried what you have to complain about, which is almost always valid. Then I have to hope I can find a fix.”

“Fair. I suppose it’s fair. Well, you’re right. I have complaints. Some, not all, are grumpy, not able to take a peaceful nap today,” Poppy commented.

I rolled my eyes. “Half the tribe is grunting or moaning during nap hour.”

“Right,” Darnel said with a snicker. “What? I like Anthony.”

“Babies cry, and I won’t sugarcoat it. Anthony is the tip of the iceberg. The women of this tribe need to get ready because we’re going to have a population boom. Once reality sinks in, the men will follow suit in understanding, or so I hope. It’s time to have the baby talk. It's coming for all of us, and I’m not stopping mothers from having their children returned to them.”

“And here I thought you’d always be the big softie,” Poppy said with a snort, rising from her seat.

I stood too, clearly agitated. “The baby dinos cry too. And yes, the important babies will sleep with us to avoid being trampled. And that is only the start. Our children are going to be wild. Wild! This isn’t some fancy restaurant where people get to scoff at parents unable to discipline their children who are out of order. No, not in the slightest. Our children will play….” My hands swept out, showing the isolated space. “Where exactly?”

“Alan Winchester, she’s merely relaying what the people grumble about,” Aubrey said without an ounce of fear of reprisal.

I stood tall and proud. “No one is angry, but I’m sounding like it because I’m unwavering in my resolve. I can’t stress it enough. Family comes first, not your peace and quiet. There’s never been a better time for me to make something very clear. While we’re in the running for a spaceship, there’s the reality that this is it for us. Fortress Grant is our forever home, the spot we build for our children. If you hate children, then, yeah,” I said, pausing for effect, “this is probably not the right tribe for you and I doubt you find a tribe that doesn’t have one.”

Victor rose with his palms up defensively and said, “Look, I get it. Your points are valid, but so are mine. We don’t have an option to leave or a place to sleep away from a screaming baby, just as Anthony and Cassie don’t have a safe space to cry. We are working ourselves to the bone, and yeah, we need that sleep.”

“I’m a bit confused, and by all means, shoot me your suggestions, but what the hell are you asking me to do, exactly?” I said, keeping my voice calm.

“I’m not the one who complained, but I do have the backbone to speak candidly with you. Why not have a no-kid outpost or shed or upper den? Like something with the dinos or next to the shed?” Victor asked, earning a few nods. I breathed out a sigh of relief, taking my seat. “Wait, what were you thinking we wanted?”

“Expel the children. Sparta them? Send the mothers away?” I asked rhetorically. Everyone seemed to understand I missed their mark. “Something bad. No, a side home is completely reasonable. And no offense, it’ll be secondary in priority.”

“See, fair,” Poppy said. “But you’ve grown more aggressive.”

“He hurled a spear so fast I could barely track it,” Jennifer said with a sly grin. “Our leader is a hard man who can kill without hesitation. I’m not sure I’d have it any other way.”

“Rawr,” Cassie said, bouncing a content Anthony. “Sorry guys and gals and dinos and whatever else. I tried to have Anthony in the bottom, but I needed to get a diaper. During the day I’ll keep him out of the common area.”

“For what?” I asked, actually raising my tone this time out of frustration. I just fought for her, then she stuck her foot in her mouth, trying to be nice. “In two or three days, there are going to be more children. That rope ladder is dangerous, but it can be rolled up at night, and a wall put in place. No, naps need to be done in the open around the dinos or next to the showers.”

“He has a point,” Victor said. “For those of us who want to avoid the children, we need to nap elsewhere.”

“Fuck too, because—” Carl froze mid-sentence, holding up a finger for silence.

A few tense seconds passed with the fire flickering a rhythmic illumination. I leaned toward the basin, hearing the faint words of a foreign language. I frowned, getting my answer only a few seconds later.

“Hey Boss!” Fred yelled from below. “We’ve got survivors at the barricade.”

Chapter 27

Wish Upon the Stars!

I CARRIED the war hammer over my shoulder, wearing our finest armor. It wasn’t much, a Spartan helmet, a thin set of chainmail and a pair of thick leather pants. The metal gleamed from the nearby firelight, clanking with each step. My goal wasn’t to intimidate, it was honestly for safety.

The obelisk around my neck, an amulet of profound power, was the key to the entire cohesion that kept us going. If someone wanted to try something funny, they’d find me in a very accepting mood to match their terms for battle. Tribe Grant was about war. We weren’t meek and we had our excellent ranking for a good reason.

And, of course, like any good plan, everything went sideways the instant I exited the basin to see who dared come to my home at night. Kneeling in front of the gate was a contingent of forty or so Asians.

The obelisk rose off my neck, aiming at the new arrivals with a vibrant humming. After a tense second, it coated them in blue magic, shattering a necklace around a young woman’s neck. All this happened without a single word exchanged, leaving me and mine in a very perplexed state.

“Rise,” I commanded.

The woman who had worn the necklace said, “Jōshō.”

“Well fuck, I don’t speak Japanese,” I grumbled. “Can you translate?”

The entirety of their tribe slowly rose to their feet. They looked exhausted, worn, and horrified. A few of them clutched wounds. All of them needed a bath, and they were just so… defeated.

“I can, Master. May we seek refuge? There have been many predators who harassed our group,” she said in perfect English.

If I had to guess, she studied at an American university, because even her mannerisms seemed on point. I removed my helmet, tucking it under my arm.

“Of course, bring your gear in, shower in the waterfall, then go up top for food. I’m Alan Winchester, we’re Tribe Grant, and this is Fortress Grant, your new home,” I said, totally shifting from my hard-line attitude earlier.

A lot of these survivors were coated in blood, and one was missing an arm below the elbow. The instant they started to come into the basin, my tribe hurried to help them. Fred stared at me with a disapproving gaze. The former tribe leader spoke in crisp Japanese, waving her people into our home.

Every single one of them said, “Arigatō” as they passed, bowing their heads with respect. Once they entered the basin, they set their bags down, leaving their spears behind to form a single file procession into a cold shower. Only the leader stayed armed, wanting to be the last to step into safety.

“Just like that?” Fred asked, a bit bewildered by the sudden transition.

I raised an eyebrow. “Fred, they didn’t start with forty people. They didn’t come making demands. They came with broken hearts, shattered spirits, and a resolve to survive. Thankfully, I shot off the beacon to bring them here.”

“What if they, you know?” Fred started to say.

“Then I crush those who mean us harm and feed them to my raptors.” I mimicked an aggressive chirp. The raptors replied in unison, curious as to what I wanted. Another call put them at rest and the Japanese woman wisely set her spear down. “We are not meek, Fred, but we’re not evil either. Rejoice, for there are more hands to help build and gather.”

“And unfortunately, mouths to feed,” the Japanese woman said with conviction. Even though she was battered, she stood strong. “We ran out of rations two days ago and require help.”

“There is fresh meat on the fire with more than enough. Fish, too,” I said with a smile. “Please, introduce yourself.”

She gulped. “I’m Sayuri, from Tokyo. Because I was the highest-level executive at my age, that meant I became the tribe leader.” The woman glanced at Fred, then me. “He has a point though. Why aren’t you making demands?”

“Who said I won’t?” I replied, waving for her to walk and talk.

Sayuri nodded in understanding. “I’ll negotiate for my people, and if we cannot come to terms, we will vacate in the morning if you shall allow it.”

“I most certainly am agreeable to finding common ground, and you’re not prisoners,” I said, walking us over to the waterfall. “However, you smell of piss and blood. I also believe you have vomit in your hair. Become presentable.”

Sayuri bowed deeply with shame, hurrying to join her people. Most of them already started off skinny, if I had to guess, losing weight as they went. It’d been almost two weeks since the aliens said they were sending waves of other nationalities. That was a literal lifetime for a survivor.

Ten minutes passed with the new arrivals grouping into men and women, scrubbing each other down. Once they finished, my tribe handed them each a towel, then a blanket to wear. One by one, they ascended the rope ladder to join the fire above.

I joined the line, arriving up the top after a young Japanese woman struggled with the swaying ladder’s lip. Once I reached my spot, I removed my armor, laid my weapon next to Anthony’s crib and joined the others by the crackling wood.

Aubrey rocked Anthony while Cassie fetched her medical kit. When she stuck knives into the flames, we all knew what was coming. I shuddered, mostly happy that they made it this far. With shelter, food, and clean water, most should survive, assuming they could put the horrors behind them.

I helped hand out food until I hit polite refusals. “One of you translate. I’m Alan, your tribe leader now. Sayuri lost her obelisk, and now you take orders from me. Eat slowly, but eat nonetheless.” I shifted to glance at my friend. “Darnel, show them the legs.”

Darnel opened a chest with a tarp in it. He pulled out two of the parasaur legs, putting one back. He stuck one on the cooking split with help from Jarod. He didn’t say a word, likely fearing my temper that had actually abated.

“You need to eat to help us from having food rot. You’ll stuff your bellies, drink clean water, and then sleep. When you wake, you will find a lot of my people… courting. We have an infant, but he is just an infant and we are not stopping our primal nature because of him,” I said, handing more skewers out.

No one needed to translate, which said a lot. Sayuri arrived, accepting a skewer and said, “We all speak English, but I forbade it for a while. The aliens used it, so we figured it was a cursed language.”

“No, you were sent here to trade, join, or war with or against us. Hence, English. If you were in Brazil, it would be…. Fuck, what do they speak in Brazil? That one always throws me for a loop,” I said.

“Portuguese,” Cassie said, overlooking each person one at a time.

Sayuri cleared her throat. “Your doctor's breasts are out, and she is… you know.”

I chuckled, seeing one of her nipples leaking.

“Yeah, you gals got nice wraps when you arrived. We did not. Only half of us cover our breasts and because our tribe is doing so well, I was reunited with my son, who was nursing when you arrived,” Cassie said.

“Speaking of which,” I said as I handed out more skewers, “let me tell you what happened to us. We showed up as over two hundred, all of us being born not far from here, but not necessarily raised in these hills. We found Anakin, the ankylosaurus first. We tamed him, then fought a carnotaurus. We tied on that fight.

“Then pig-panthers attacked, but we were ready. Not losing anyone. After that, we dove into the jungle, wanting to avoid a dangerous valley. We found Bertha there. Darnel fed her, she accepted our domestication, and we shifted further away from the good real estate, wanting a home.

“The same carnotaurus we encountered earlier ate our friend before we arrived. We then fought the raptors below, killing the leaders, and claiming the pack. Oh, and we were rewarded for getting Bertha, which gave us that shack down there and this building foundation.

“Today we fought a spinosaurus to a draw, killed a duckbill that we’re eating, and brought home enough clay to start a kiln so we can make rain collecting pots or bowls for eating or bricks. Carl there, our builder, wants to coat the gaps of our growing walls in clay, so we intend to do another run at sunrise,” I said, missing a few things while giving a decent overview.

“You… defeated the pig-panthers?” a haggard man gasped.

“Yeah, I killed one solo. Got gored, but it died,” I said with indifference. “What happened to you?”

Sayuri said, “We cursed the aliens. I tried to throw off the necklace a hundred times on that first day, being automatically granted leadership when we picked none. The aliens called me stupidly stubborn, but I didn’t care because it itched on my skin. We sat right where they dropped us until we were attacked. We finally accepted our spears, pushing back the ugly beasts.”

I held up a hand. “How many of you were there in your tribe at that point?”

Sayuri furrowed her brow. “Two hundred and twelve.”

“Oh, our group started at fifty, added some survivors, then we were gifted a half-dozen. Please, continue,” I requested.

“The herd of pig things forced us into the jungle, giving us no choice. Not far in, three T-Rexes hounded us relentlessly. Most of our noble men threw themselves into the jaws of the attackers to protect us. We fled downhill, using the decline to make the most distance. A hundred and fifty of us arrived in a valley packed with mean dinosaurs.

“We lost twenty people to a single brontosaurus tail swipe. Some lived, but it started a raptor feeding frenzy. A full pack of carnotaurus, along with the T-Rexes, picked us apart for a week while we tried to find a defensible spot to hide. Every time we thought we might find peace, we were forced to move again. It… it was horrible, with day and night blending with screams. Then we saw your first flare today and once we entered this area, the dying stopped,” Sayuri said, taking a bite of meat.

“That’s terrible, and I’m sorry for your losses and what you endured. But… why didn’t you domesticate any dinosaurs to help you?” Missy asked.

Sayuri quickly finished chewing, gulping down some water. “We only started using the topography once we saw your flare. I understand this is hard for you to fathom, but until we hit this point, we were willing to die to spite the aliens who stole our world. We’re a very stubborn people.”

“Obviously, I’m a different kind of leader,” I said, grabbing the obelisk and wishing for my tribe's information.

Tribe Points: 2644.91: Tribe Chieftain: Alan Winchester.

Tribe Name: Grant

Tribe Size: 149.7 (includes animals and infants)

Tribe Ranking: 202/283,192.

Daily Beacon Activation: 1/2

Daily Topography Scan: 1/2: Once a Week Dinosaur Domestication: 2/2

“Two hundred,” the man in the front gasped. “You’re close to a spaceship!”

“The brontosaurus is the reason for our success.” I paused, unleashing an unhappy sigh. “Dinosaurs will keep us alive. If you refuse to work with dinosaurs, killing the bad while supporting the good, there is no room for you here. We intend to build this into a nice base that our children can grow old in. It won’t be perfect, but it will be made with the intent of surviving. Surviving off the world of today, not trying to recreate the world we once knew.”

Sayuri rose, bowed deeply with her hands together, and said, “I need more meat, Master Alan.” I rose, personally handing her a seared chunk of meat. She continued, “We are here to live. What are your demands? My people deserve peace, harmony, and one day, justice.”

“Ironically, justice is probably the easiest one to grant you, but up here, most of our people have spent the last ten days peacefully improving our home. As for demands. You’ll work as equals to all besides those I appoint as leaders to fill roles. I need people to bravely collect clay while I protect them with dinosaurs and spears. I need people to collect dino poop to help create fertilizer. Germinate seeds, turn dino skin into leather, move wood, chop it, and so much more.”

A young man rose, bowing with respect before speaking. “Master Alan, forgive me. I’m Hiso and I must ask. What about the delicate nature of our women? There are only eight of us men who made it to your sanctuary.”

I shrugged. “It was kinda dark, and I wasn’t exactly watching you bathe intently. They will be treated as all people should, with respect.”

“Phew, you will not be forcing them to do—” Hiso struggled to complete his sentence.

“Nope,” I said popping the p. “They’re going to be treated well, and I sure as hell am not looking for more love. I already have three waifus.”

“Three!” Sayuri blurted.

I thumbed Cassie, Missy, and Aubrey. “They picked me as a team… mostly.”

Aubrey shrugged, popping out a boob when Anthony began gulping like a fish. The young man looked away, but Sayuri watched with fascination.

“May I join?” Sayuri asked. “It will help with the transition.”

“Join what?” Cassie asked, a bit offended.

I roared out a laugh, calming when Sayuri frowned. “Sorry, I think you’re lovely and smart, but my heart is taken. You’d also need to talk to them, not me. Hiso, you and the women of this tribe are free to determine their own love lives. We don’t force anything on anybody—except that you cannot impose your will on others. What I mean by that is….”

As Cassie inspected Hiso, I yanked her hair back, landed a deep kiss on her lips, then traced the kiss to her nipple, where I sucked for a few seconds. Cassie bit her lip with fire in her eyes.

“You openly fornicate?” Sayuri asked, her back straight and her hands neatly in her lap.

I glanced around. “Uh, for now. Wait a second, you seem generally shocked. How did you deal with the…?” I glanced at them one at a time, seeing them greedily eating the meat with sunken cheeks. “Have you eaten dinosaur yet?”

“No, we have not,” Sayuri said.

I winced. “Well, that’s one way to have an integration.” I bit my inner cheek, trying to find the right words. “Did the vegetation make you horny?”

“We have only eaten berries, and we did not become promiscuous beyond reason. There were some blankets moving at night more than a simple toss and turn,” Sayuri said, bowing her head. “However, we understand when we are defeated, and we would rather serve a strong and caring master with our bodies, then to let them become food for our true enemies.”

I held up a finger like that Malcolm Reynolds meme where he struggles to find the right words to reply to an outlandish statement.

“My husbando wants to say something he will struggle to relay. The dinosaurs are injected with super breeding alien juice. That is why every dinosaur has a nest, a pack, and a family. They survive and breed. Now that you’ve eaten the meat, you’ll have a good long sleep that you desperately deserve.

“When you wake, you’ll require a sexual release. Solo is fine, partner is better. That corner over there is the shared space where we have no-commitment fun. Other than there, just find a willing partner or go solo and understand no one is going to judge you,” Cassie said, stopping at the man with the bandaged amputation.

“Is this safe to eat?” Sayuri asked, raising the stick. “Are there more side effects than libido?”

“Yup, we’ve been eating it for a month now. No adverse health issues. The sex actually is good for humans as long as they understand what sex is. A mating release. When Alan says you need to eat, it is so you can recover, then work. He isn’t after your virginity,” Missy said, earning a gasp from Hiso.

“This is most unsettling,” Sayuri said, glancing at her people. “However, we find your honesty refreshing and your terms acceptable, especially since we pick love and our partners. That was more than we thought we’d be offered. I officially surrender myself and Tribe Sayuri to you, Master Alan.”

I returned her gesture with a slight bow. “Welcome to Tribe Grant. I hope your addition will be prosperous and smooth.”

Cassie frowned and said, “They need to slow down on the eating. Sleep, then eat some more. Rinse and repeat. I have three people with signs of infection. Their lack of sleep and clean water means I’m going to be doing more than cauterizing, and I’m not a surgeon.”

The one-armed man said, “I’m Dr. Aio. Not a surgeon, but she is right. I can help, then go last.”

“You heard our head medic. Let your food settle and pick out a spot to claim. Uh, are your blankets in the basin clean?” I asked.

“No,” Sayuri said honestly. “Many of them are covered in blood or ruined by tears.”

“I’ll get our extras. For now, rest. Tomorrow you can start by readying your supplies for inspection. I was a military officer, so I find gear important,” I said, heading down the rope ladder with an extra line to attach to the bundles of blankets we kept under Bertha.

Without a doubt, their integration wouldn’t be smooth, proven by the shrill scream of a patient being operated on only a few seconds later. I touched down, petting a raptor who burped a waft of raw fish. That animal, well, she brought hope. The raptors used to be indifferent, but now they enjoyed my presence.

Maybe the new arrivals would blend in, but with our culture gaps, I worried. Worse, they brought a trail of predators in their wake.

Chapter 28

Never Enough!

I HURRIED to get onto Bertha’s back, excited to get away from the inescapable drama. Anthony woke up crying once, going back to bed so quickly, no one even noticed he’d caused a fuss. Honestly, I kissed Cassie goodbye, telling her I was proud of him for sleeping through the night.

The main issue, well, it was Dr. Aio. He suffered an amputation on his left arm from a dinosaur attack. The wound was never treated and our medical supplies didn’t include any sort of pain killers. I, not Cassie or some surgeon, was forced to operate on him; with him being held down and me swinging a greataxe with my full force.

The man lost his arm to an allosaurus while trying to save a friend, and unfortunately, his effort didn’t save anyone. While he tried to keep the wound clean, his group was mostly on the run or huddling to survive. He slapped a bandage on it, enduring the pain in the hopes of finding somewhere safe before he died.

Unfortunately, his wound soured. Maybe it was gangrene or maybe it was just badly infected. I wasn’t a doctor, but he was, and when Aio saw his arm, he whimpered with a trembling lip.

A few minutes after the discovery, I lopped off his forearm, keeping the elbow. Cassie cauterized the wound, and we suffered through his screams for hours. Moving him wasn’t really an option, so I went from people being concerned about a crying baby to not sleeping because of a doctor fighting for his life.

Additionally, the Japanese contingent, who are normally reserved and proper, let loose in the middle of the night. Darnel rose from his restless sleep to cook a second helping of meat, since their stomachs were more accustomed to eating again. Even after just one meal, they tore into the food, no longer feeling bad about consuming.

For once, it wasn’t just Poppy who brought me complaints. People asked for a quiet space for sleeping. I pointed to the stack of building trees and said get to work. Since Bertha and the herbivores mostly stayed outside of the basin, there was plenty of room to build risky housing and, if they were feeling dangerous, they could climb over crags and jagged outcroppings to find other ledges on the cliff.

The other issue was Sayuri. She slept on the other side of Missy, managing to keep quiet during the night, avoiding her lustful urges to climb over the ladies who smothered me. But… she did push to join my harem, causing additional strife. When it came down to it, I sorta needed a break, preferring to risk my life fighting than to deal with issues that would resolve themselves with time and effort.

Bertha slowly walked away from the base, and since I worried about the potential ambushes, I had her push over the three nearest trees. One by one, they crashed down, sending booms through the jungle. The raptors gorged themselves on the unearthed goodies, very content to be tripping trees again.

The process of knocking down the giants was far different from toppling the smaller trees. Once they came down, they stayed where they were minus the easy-to-move shattered portions. While it was nice to have more line of sight, we were quickly building a tree graveyard instead of cleared land ready for tilling.

After the third fall, something big scurried out of the trunk’s path. I chirped a call, sending the raptors behind Bertha. Sleuth paused, sniffed the air, and agreed with a secondary call—an enemy was nearby. And yes, two things became clearer and clearer with the passing time. I began to speak dinosaur, and I also had a sixth sense that I shouldn’t have, which warned me of danger.

Right now, my arm hairs stood tall and goosebumps rose over my skin.

A carno’s twin horns ever so slowly pushed back the foliage, revealing the green eyes of a dark brown predator. The fearsome beast snarled at almost being squished. I backed Bertha up, grabbed a couple of spears from the back of her saddle and tossed them down, enjoying the clattering sound of them crashing into the forest floor.

“Uh, what’re you doing?” Fred asked, folding his arms as he watched me near the edge.

I frowned, grabbing a rope meant for hauling goods up and down. “Getting dinner and protecting my people. Unless you wanna kill it.”

“Just use the bronto,” Jarod said, chuckling at my antics. I sighed, pointed toward the bushes, and made an odd trumpet sound with my lips. When Bertha neared, the carno fled. “Oh. And how are you talking to them?”

“The carno will just run from Bertha directly. As to the talking part—” I shrugged “—fuck if I know. Look, I don’t want to die, but I’m not alone, and I have backup.” I slid down the rope before Missy could change my mind. The bottoms of my feet smacked into the dirty ground with enough force to sting.

“Need help?” Carl shouted from the gates.

I waved for him to keep processing timber. “Nah, I’m good, thanks.” My right palm smacked into her front right leg. “Back up, Bertha. Two steps. Good.”

Once she was far enough back, the carno peeked out again, eager to take a chance at killing a stray human. I picked up the heavier spear, wanting to ensure a light one wouldn’t break. All the carno had to do to win was to dodge my spear strike, then close the distance, and chomp.

He lost the element of surprise, so I was expecting him to toss in the towel and fuck off. For me, it was a lot harder to win, and I should never be putting myself in this situation. Without doubt, in a one versus one, I was definitely outclassed.

I strolled toward the dinosaur, knowing it was big, but nothing compared to a T-Rex in size.

“Hell, I bet its thigh muscles weigh more than me,” I grumbled.

My head craned back a bit, putting the horns at about ten feet. While the height wasn’t something too scary, the weight of the dino definitely sent chills down my spine.

My hands gripped the spear’s leather, creaking from slight twists. At this point, I walked pretty darn far from my backup, stopping to bellow a challenge. The carno roared out, accepting my offer now that I was far enough away to take a chance.

When it bound out of the foliage, its long stride carried it at speeds I’d never match. I grinned with a mad cackle. “Not that I need to be as fast as you.”

I feigned fright, tossing my arms up before I turned to run toward help. The distance closed in a flash until I only had a few seconds before our inevitable clash.

After I dug the left ball of my foot in deep, I spun, readying the spear so the carno could impale itself.

“Come to me, you ugly bastard,” I growled, shifting my angle in an attempt to cut down the dinos' vision.

Sure enough, it happily adjusted, rearing its head back to snap down. At the last second it juked, shifted its head to where my spear should have gone. The thing was, I faked my stab too, tucking into a roll that put the jungle at my back.

The carno skidded to a stop, loomed over my lowered form and snarled with a victorious glee. My adversary figured he’d bypass my stationary spear, which he did, then earn the kill, and run away with my twitching body.

Within the blink of an eye, everything changed.

Since I faced the carno away from Bertha, her tail came without warning. One second I was about the die, the next, a blur arrived with incredible speed. When Bertha’s tail impacted the dinosaur, well, the frame buckled before it cratered.

The once confident predator flew off its feet toward the jungle. The body impacted a tree with a sickening snap, probably already dead from the initial blow.

I rolled to my feet, spear facing the jungle. A chirp from within the undergrowth came from a dinosaur that didn’t belong to the tribe, but it sure as shit sounded like a confident raptor. A snout poked out, navigating to where the carno’s broken body lay in ruin.

I recognized the telltale outline of a raptor. However, this had to be the Utah-Raptor because it stood just as tall as I did. A wave of excitement coursed through me because I was too big to ride Sleuth, but this one would be perfect.

“Hello beautiful,” I said with a wicked grin.

I cawed out, summoning my pack of raptors while I bounded back toward my lighter spear. When I neared the weapon, I leaned hard into the turn, snatching the weapon off the ground. The instant I faced the jungle again, the entirety of our tribe animals surged toward the jungle.

The raptors easily kept pace, matching my speed with their hand claws flared at the Utah-Raptor. The larger predator jolted in fright, disappearing into the forest. Once we reached the carno’s body, I shouted for a stop. My heart slammed into my chest with enough power it messed with my hearing.

Bertha shook the ground, slowing once she neared. She stopped not far away, with Fred tossing over a spare rope. I grabbed it, bending down to secure our kill. In the distance, the agitated pack of raptors chittered unhappily at our audacious show of force.

I listened to their chat, understanding part of what they said. Their language was more about feelings than words and it translated into something more animalistic than refined: herd dangerous, danger mark trees.

Different raptors asked about the easy food, and the reply was gone. A few seconds after that, the jungle quieted, and the raptor pack moved on.

Once I cinched the knot around the carno’s leg, I unleashed a loud whistle, bringing the pack of dinosaurs back toward our home. Of course, not even halfway home, a distant T-Rex unleashed a roar so powerful pterodactyls took flight.

“Never a boring day during the year of the dinosaur,” I said with a snicker.

Chapter 29

With Great Risk!

I’D BEEN CALLED many things over the years. Foolish was rarely one of them. I played my life to a boring standard by avoiding drugs, gambling, excessive debt, and unhealthy relationships. The passive guy who played it boring changed with our new reality.

Aubrey bounced a leg in disapproval four days after the carno’s death. Some of the others thought it might be the carno who killed Peter, but it lacked the scar and didn’t have the same nauseating scent, meaning I still needed some vengeance. Staying inside the base would only benefit my enemies by letting them become better acquainted with our region.

Deep down, I knew we needed to at least continue our show of force while still working to increase our efficiency at home. And yet, that damn carno and where it nested pulled on my strings almost as much as those raptors who got away.

I needed them for their bulk so we could ride them. Unfortunately, something became incredibly evident once we tore open the carno Bertha and I killed. Dinosaurs liked the taste of human flesh. We found two hands and some other bones, understanding one of the mostly dissolved appendages could have been Doctor Aio’s.

So yeah, I wanted to send a really clear message that the packs who hunted the Japanese would have no place in our area. If they tried to establish a base, we’d eventually find it.

“You could have died,” Aubrey said, unable to help herself.

I leaned back in Bertha’s saddle, trying my best not to get motion sickness. While a part of the tribe stayed inside the basin to defend the fortress, I got right back in the saddle for show of force patrols. We burned the human remains we found inside, then shifted to clearing more trees to create a bigger swath of visibility.

“Not likely. I mean this in the nicest way, and not trying to upset you Hiso, but that carno wasn’t ready for an actual fight,” I said, earning a downcast gaze from the young man. He sat in the saddle with a tinge of green in his face. “I have the ability to hurl metal at speeds dinos don’t understand. They’re not used to projectile attacks. In addition, I’m never alone, even if they think I am. In summary, they think I’m the prey, but they are.”

Bertha toppled another tree, the fifteenth in a row. I figured this was enough for now and that it was time to get on the move. With a quick grunt, I ordered Bertha to shift her efforts and walk into the jungle. I left the raptors behind, taking only the big bronto into the wild terrain.

The smaller predators continued to dig in the freshly unearthed ground, having no limit to their appetite. They literally bulged, walking oddly because they ate so much. Bertha compressed some loose dirt on her way out. Since most of the root systems left the soil with the tipped roots, we would turn this into future farmland or level it for expansions if we ever dragged the toppled giants out of the way.

Sayuri said, “Master Alan was very brave and cunning. A foe lies dead, the invading enemy is cautious, and we continue to stand strong with many improvements to our home.”

Aubrey clenched her fists, then released them. “If Alan dies, I lose everything. Every… thing. I’m firmly in the camp of having dinosaurs do the fighting without my Alan potentially dying. You see him as a conquering hero, a great protector. I see him as the father of my children who’ll need to help guide them, and us.”

“Aubrey has a point, and I’m listening. We could have just chased the dinos off, but killing them sure changed the dynamic. Not trying to fight, Darling.” I raised my voice. “Bertha, do you sense any threats?” She trumpeted a soft no. “Take us to the Great Valley, see if you can collect any lost children while we look for enemies to kill,” I commanded, shifting my position in the saddle to sit between Aubrey’s legs. She kissed my hair, running her hands through it. “I love you. Sorry to worry you.”

“And he’s a big softie, apparently,” Jarod said, plopping down in the spot beside me to fit between Jennifer’s legs. “I can tell you one thing; I’m not doing what he did. That was ballsy to the point it was somewhat reckless. No offense.”

“None taken,” I commented. Sleuth chirped that he wanted to come, promising to run fast. “Okay, yeah, but if you get in trouble, run home or use Bertha’s tail to save you.”

The dinosaur chirped a few replies with a long squawk of excitement. The others stared at me with judging gazes.

“Are you talking to that raptor?” Victor asked, leaning against one of the shading poles. He held up a hand. “Fuck me, you are. Sleuth is leaving the pack. How?”

“Not a clue, but you start to get a feel for it. Obviously, I may be affected—or is it effected—differently because I’m a tribe leader,” I said.

“Affected,” Sayuri said confidently. “I think. That one always gets me. I couldn’t talk to dinosaurs while I was a tribe leader. I pleaded with them plenty of times, to no avail.”

“We had no dinosaurs,” Hiso said in an ice-cold voice. “We erred in our stubbornness.”

Victor watched out the left, while Kaity watched out the right. We had Bertha’s saddle loaded up, filled with tools, bags, blankets, and spare water in case we were forced to deviate. After numerous runs, it became very apparent her frame could handle a lot of extra weight. Since using Bertha, the success rate of our missions continued to flow smoothly, earning the trust of more people willing to venture out of their secure home.

“Can we talk about this language thing?” Jennifer said with a fascinated tone. “I…. The raptors are smart, and it is sorta baffling.”

“Absolutely on both points and let’s do a test,” I said, holding up a finger for quiet. I raised my voice, watching the trees pass by with a gentle sway. “Bertha goes first, then you, Sleuth. He’ll love the game, she won’t. Anyway… vocalize sadness.”

Bertha moaned out a long chord. When she finished, Sleuth chirped pitifully.

“Hungry.”

The languages were different, but close in volume and style. For the next half-hour, we went over a lot of common sounds to convey emotions, desires, wants, needs and more. Eventually, Jennifer held a hand out to stop me.

“And how do you feel right now?” Jennifer asked.

Bertha grunted hungry, stopping to rip some vegetation off a tree. Sleuth chirped two calls. Well, a chirp and a squawk, but it was hard to tell his quirks.

Jennifer bounced a finger. “She’s hungry. That one was easy. Sleuth is… worried and wanting to get home?”

“Close. He is cautiously excited. He probably smells the other dinosaurs, and he understands how the obelisk works. He wants me to add to our pack, hence why he asked to come when he wasn’t invited,” I said.

Sayuri’s eyes flared wide. “Your dinosaur… wants to help you?”

“Yeah, of course. He went from a reject to alpha. He’s well fed, happy, and wants to give back,” I said with a shrug. “She just wants to be left alone, and she is. She sleeps by herself at night, even being able to lay down because we set a ring of sentry fires. Bertha is a princess, and with us she is treated like one.”

“You’re saying the dinosaurs want to help because it helps them,” Sayuri surmised.

I snorted. “In a way. There is a lot to it, actually. Let’s start with the fact that their desires know no bounds. What I mean by that is, I talked to Sleuth, asking him how many raptors he wanted in his pack. After a few back and forths, he still said that if every bit of the jungle was filled with raptors, he would need more for the next section of the jungle.

“To dinosaurs, pack or herd size normally signals survival. They’re limited based on the environment, predation, circumstances, breeding rates, and more. To them, though, they are insatiable unless there is a food shortage. That was the only time any of our interactions with them went negative. And it’s not always so clear. Bertha wants to be hand fed while laying down. Sleuth wants to breed a female Utah-Raptor or six. It’s not all noble.”

Kaity flinched when a micro-raptor spooked from its tree. The small chicken-sized dinosaur probably sought the branches for safety only to be disturbed up here too. The woman double checked her tether, feeling safe enough to continue her vigilant watch.

“I told myself when we got to a safe place, I was never leaving again. Now… well, I want a pet. Maybe something like Anakin, but less grumpy,” Kaity said, staring out into the jungle. “I also kinda hate the judgment I get at home.”

“Oh?” I asked.

Kaity was actually the other Jennifer, using her preferred name, though. She never really stood out to me. She worked hard on traps or spears or cooking and didn’t complain. I saw her with Eric a bunch, but they didn’t seem to be official, just testing the waters sort of deal. And now, well, she finally decided to open up a bit since I gave her a good segue.

“I was in a bad car accident only a few years ago.” She raised her left leg, showing a series of long scars and drill points. “I can’t carry heavy things without pain, and I start to limp if I’m on my feet for too long. Basically, I can’t do much besides tasks where I sit down and do them. I didn’t come to complain to you. I came to be useful, and I feel being a dino handler where I sit in a saddle is smart,” Kaity said, sitting on the edge of the saddle to keep watch. “And yes, if I find a baby dino who can help me drag logs or till land or whatever, then I’m more than the limping lady.”

“I haven’t thought of specific caregivers,” Aubrey said.

I wagged a finger with a cocky grin. “Well, if you watched the new Jurassic Park movies, Owen imprints with the babies. We need to get a breeding program going, and yeah, I have no problem with imprinting. As far as I can tell, the mothers just want to hatch the eggs and raise them out of infancy.”

“We really don’t have more space for dinos inside the basin,” Victor said.

“We’re building the primary house, the second floor, then another residence or two below. I talked with a few of the mothers ever since the aliens mentioned we could bring some babies from cryo to here. Under two-years-old, most approve, over two, most disapprove because two-year-olds are wilder and better climbers. Which is getting to my point.

“Children need structure. They need schools, playgrounds, places to play when it rains, and more. Basically, in a few years, if we work hard, and build layered defenses or find a better spot, we'll expand enough,” I said.

“We’re going to need some really big walls,” Aubrey added, being dead serious.

Victor nodded. “Anakin started smacking some of the next crevices jagged edges down. Reward him with a berry or ten and he’ll gladly help.”

“Any bit helps. Which, yeah, we need more dinosaurs. Thousands more, but yeah, I still chip away at our back wall when I can, even if it’s just an inlaid shelf.” I shifted, bobbing my head in self-agreement. “I think our home has promise, and I’d rather have a bevy of dinos out front of it to stop predators than none,” I said.

“Plus the points,” Hiso wisely added. “If we embrace the competition and this new world, then we must understand the system. And if I may be so bold, Lord Alan, we can start by annotating logs of point values with a journal of actions.”

I glanced at him, eventually nodding that I agreed. Before I could tell him I liked his idea, Victor waved his hand down, as if he needed us to be quiet.

“Bertha, something approaches,” Victor said.

The big brontosaurus raised her head high and trumpeted a long, challenging call.

Chapter 30

A Dino Dilemma!

IN THE CIRCLE OF LIFE, most food chains were pretty evident. Plants grew naturally, fueled by dino poop, rain, and a rich soil. As long as the dinos didn’t kill the host, the jungle continued to thrive, providing abundant vegetation. Hell, some of the plants grew so fast, you could see a difference from just one day.

Predators ate herbivores, completing the cycle to give the jungle even more time to sustain. The problem in a dinosaur world became evident when you looked at size. There was a very distinct lack of small prey besides grubs, bugs, and insects. No rodents or rabbit-like animals scurried about, and the most common small dinos were actually predators.

While I wasn’t a paleontologist, or dino expert, I concluded this earlier, having it reinforced by facts as time went by. The herbivores grew huge to avoid predation. The small carnivores could never kill a duckbill dinosaur the size of an elephant. Hell, even our most fearsome dogs before the change would be useless.

So how did they persist? They scavenged eggs, ate overproduced infants, feasted on each other, and stole leftovers from big kills. On top of all this, they were merciless to the smaller carnivores who never grew big enough to become truly frightening.

In a rare sight of hunter and hunted, a pack of dilophosaurus—the kind from the movie who spat goop—chased a moschops. The predators were smaller than our velociraptors, and I saw no sign of fins on their necks or spit being flung at their prey. It more or less reminded me of a bobcat-sized dino who worked like a pack of lionesses.

Their target, the moschops, was one of the dinos I’d seen before. Unlike most of the ancient creatures, this one was from the Permian Period. They reminded me of an oversized iguana mixed with a pit bull because of their intense muscles.

The dilos hounded the moschops, carving small cuts into its hide. The death by a thousand cuts probably would have worked if Bertha didn’t arrive to save their prey. The bronto cocked back her tail and trumpeted a short warning. Her sour mood was instantly respected, ending the hunt.

Without missing a beat, Bertha released her tail and continued her stroll through the conifer jungle, stealing snacks as went. I snickered, returning to my seat.

“And will he die to feed the tribe?” Victor asked.

I shrugged. “Surprised you can see its balls from here.”

“Uh, I can’t, I assumed,” Victor said, earning a fake gasp from Jennifer. “Har, har. For real though, what’s the plan with that one?”

“Based on the book, they eat the bad stuff no one else wants. I figure if we’re creating an area of deforestation, they’re useful. However, the last two we had took off right away, not liking humans,” I said.

“Domestication tickets need to be reset and we may never get double again if we slip in the rankings.” Aubrey pointed at the obelisk. “Can you check the score?”

“Sure,” I replied, pulling up our tribe data.

Tribe Points: 5344.91: Tribe Chieftain: Alan Winchester.

Tribe Name: Grant

Tribe Size: 189.7 (includes animals and infants)

Tribe Ranking: 413/704,196

Daily Beacon Activation: 2/2

Daily Topography Scan: 2/2: Once a Week Dinosaur Domestication: 2/2

“Alright, we gained people but lost ranking. I… It obviously values dinos highly because we added people but not many dinos. If nothing else comes along, I will convert a big raptor and stego when I get home.”

“I bet it's more than a single point if we adopt the moschops,” Jarod said.

I nodded, getting comfy in the saddle. For the next three hours, we exchanged small talk, covering a wide array of topics. The addition of Sayuri and Hiso really changed the dynamic of our group, creating quite a few back and forths I never expected. We dove down the rabbit hole of what-ifs with other nations and how they’d react.

When we arrived in the valley, an overbearing stench of fecal matter permeated the area. I reached into my bag, grabbed a spare female bottom that’d been converted into a mask, and strapped it over my face.

One by one, the rest of our group set about covering the foul smell. For the first time, massive mosquitos began hovering around us, interested in our presence. They quickly shifted to land on Bertha, finding her a reliable source.

As soon as they perched on her taut skin, I used a shovel to squish them. She grunted a thanks, reaching the nasty water. When she dipped her head down, I almost warned her about the quality of the water. However, she’d been drinking the river water downstream of the waterfall, which was definitely polluted.

Dinosaurs weren’t weak like humans, able to drink dirty water without profound issues. Bertha dunked her face into the water, chomped down, and pulled out lush green lily pads the size of a car. She craned her neck around and dropped them in front of the saddle with a wet plop.

Odd water creatures scurried out from the messy clump, seeking the refuge of the water again. A few leeches instantly latched onto her body, eager to cause enough damage to sustain themselves. I stared at the lilies, mostly in shock.

“Well, fuck,” I muttered, not sure what to do. “I was sorta hoping to dry them out or something.”

“What… are… those?” Jennifer asked, bending down low while eyeing the cat sized lake shrimp with morbid curiosity. “Not the leeches, but those.”

“Some prehistoric shrimp or something like that. Maybe a big copepod,” Jarod said.

Jennifer glanced at her lover and asked, “Have you been studying the book?”

“Maybe,” he replied with a wink. “It seems to be important to you.”

I scrunched my face. “Whatever they are, let them do their thing. One more bundle should be enough for this trip. We’ll let them dry out a bit, then wrap them up one by one.”

Bertha shifted another clump of the big pads onto her back, having a few slowly slide down her side until they splattered below. She seemed completely content in the water, so I expected these water bugs were next to harmless.

The wounded moschops stayed under her feet when we slowly walked away from this section of the lake. A few raptors chirped from nearby, curious since they smelled blood from the wounded animal. Sleuth challenged them to a fight, which was not normal for raptors to do when there was nothing to contest over and a bronto nearby, so they left us alone.

Water dripped off Bertha’s back with a few more pads sliding down. I decided to try to deal with one while we circled the inside of the valley. The slimy surface of the aquatic plant immediately left me wanting to wipe my hands off.

I grunted, ignored the sensation and dragged the first pad off her back and onto the leather saddle. Aubrey, Jennifer, and Sayuri helped me roll the thick material up while Jarod flicked eggs, creatures, and leeches off the pad's bottom. Once I had it bound, I double checked my tether and set the pad on her back behind the saddle. We unraveled the pad, letting the sun dry it out a bit.

“We will lose a few more, but I’d rather have the sun bake some of this off. Maybe one every—'' A loud roar interrupted me, coming from the other side of the valley. If I had to guess, the T-Rexes were attacking one of the herds or the raptors. I ignored it because it wasn’t my problem. “Few minutes.”

“I got a… well, a dinosaur coming to join us,” Kaity said from her lookout spot on the side.

I left the pad, walking to the edge of the saddle. When I glanced down, following where her eyes lined up, I saw a small dinosaur with feathered arms and a big beak. It was about as dull colored and dark as any dinosaur could get, likely wanting to blend in.

Jennifer joined me at the side, her eyes lighting up. “Oviraptor. An egg thief. Get it! We need it.”

“Sure, no sudden movements or big noises, okay?” I asked the group, earning nods in reply.

I quickly unbound my harness, grabbed a rope, and calmly slid down Bertha's side, right in the middle of hostile territory. At some point, it might make sense to give the obelisk to Jennifer to do this task, or someone I trusted who was capable, but right now, I seemed to be our best proverbial Tarzan.

Bertha noticed the activity off her side, walking a bit further from water until she slowed to a stop. The oviraptor chirped at Sleuth, asking about food. I happened to have some in a satchel on my left hip, loving this request. I slowed my descent down the rope, landing with a soft touchdown. Most small dinos were super skittish, so I ever so slowly opened up the flap.

I found a charred bit of meat, tossing it to the ground not far from Sleuth. The bigger velociraptor knew what I was doing, but didn’t respect my wishes. The instant the oviraptor reached for the treat, Sleuth pounced. He slammed into the smaller dino’s side.

“No, wait!” I shouted.

But it was too late. The big hooked claw tore open the oviraptor’s stomach, spilling guts onto the jungle floor. The oviraptor flopped with sad eyes, understanding it’d finally met its end.

“Alright, go ahead and kill it,” I said in disappointment.

Sleuth clamped onto the neck, ending the dying dino’s struggle. Once the body stilled, I finished ripping out the organs. Sleuth feasted while I tied the rope to a foot, calling for the ladder to be lowered and the body to be hauled up.

When Sleuth finished, I asked, “Why’d you kill it?”

He chirped out a bunch of angry nonsense at first, but after some coaxing and defined questions, I finally got the answer I needed. When I reached the saddle area, I sat on the bench, getting comfy.

Aubrey asked, “What went wrong?”

“Apparently oviraptors suck at keeping eggs alive. They shake them hard to see where they are in the process of hatching, killing babies all the time. Their claws also ruin the eggs, basically making them known egg killers, not egg handlers. Parents who see an egg stolen by one abandon it as dead because it is, and they’re hated by all species. He said he could steal eggs better, and all I had to do was ask. He may have called me unsmart,” I said, unable to help but chuckle to myself.

“Oh, you should have him do that,” Jennifer suggested with a wince. “Sorry, the book calls them egg thieves, and maybe they can be trained for it.”

I shrugged. “We use Sleuth for a lot of things. Sending him on suicide runs seems too much of a risk. I think most of his points are wrong besides the main one: oviraptors aren’t welcome near eggs. However, a duckbill who can store eggs in their mouth without too much jostling or crushing them is probably a great secret agent to use.”

Bertha grunted a warning, backing up quickly. Before we could even settle, she retreated toward the main body of water that housed the Great Valley, clearly bothered by something. Trees zoomed by, the earth quaked, and each of us grew worried as the tension built.

Based on the resounding thuds, something very big approached via land. As soon as the water’s edge materialized, she dove into the depths for safety. Sleuth hopped into the water, swimming the last bit to latch onto her back. I reached down, grabbing his saddle, hauling him up to join us, amazed at how remarkably well Bertha could swim.

“What the fuck is happening?” Jarod asked.

I only understood when I noticed ripples still forming waves from heavy impacts. “She’s in someone’s territory.”

Sure enough, a brontosaurus, much larger than Bertha, stormed onto the lake’s bank. It blared out a long cry for a dominance fight. Bertha replied in surrender, quickly shifting toward a bank well away from the challenger. As mighty as our friend was, this female was significantly bigger. And yes, even bigger sauropods existed, further stressing the dynamic.

We might feel like the kings and queens of the jungle, but I watched the massive female brontosaurus who just put us in our place. She had a better coloration, the eyes of a demon and the sneer that spoke of violence. Even after we fled, she seemed unsatisfied that blood was not drawn.

The detour helped in a way, because when we neared the distant shore, a chorus of chirps and disgruntled squawks erupted with a flurry of activity. Sleuth hopped off Bertha’s back and into the shallows as we arrived right in the middle of the Utah-Raptor nest. Sure enough, the adults were sent fleeing, leaving behind a lot of eggs and infants.

The pack was huge, but still scared of a massive bronto crashing through their small section of waterfront. Sleuth chirped, asking for a hole. At first I didn’t understand, but then I did. He wanted a bag.

I tied a bag onto a rope, lowered it, and left it hanging with enough tension to keep the flap open. Since we were over the nest, I couldn't see much, but over the next few minutes, he loaded the bag up until it became heavy.

A sharp caw from Sleuth told Bertha to go back into the water. She slowly spun, sinking back in. I pulled the bag up, keeping it out of the water. When Bertha sank deep enough, Sleuth swam onto her back, hurrying over to the saddle where I inspected the haul.

Seven big raptor eggs stirred with three infants blinking up at us from out of the bag. I chuckled at the audacious raptor scruffing his head with approval.

“No fucking way,” Victor scoffed. “Did we just raid a raptor nest… with a raptor?”

“Good boy, and yes, my friend, we did.” I pulled out a raptor handing one to Jennifer. Sayuri received the second one. Kaity received the third. I grabbed the necklace. “Can we domesticate babies?”

The device heated and the same omnipresent voice said, “Yes, but they generally stay near support regardless of who provides it. Dinosaurs are not like humans who seek their parents. While they’re not like dogs either, that is a better comparison. This is not official advice. Save your imprints for wild adults or adolescents.”

“Is there a reward for such an audacious raid?” I asked, unable to keep a straight face.

“You’ve not made it to safety yet, Alan Grant.” The alien unleashed an evil cackle that slowly faded.

I grumbled and Aubrey whispered, “How ominous.”

Chapter 31

When Titans Clash

WE SAT NERVOUSLY on Bertha’s back, knowing we damned well had everything we needed to go home: a series of lily pads still stayed on her back, a dead dino to cook, a bunch of valuable Utah-Raptor eggs, and three infants. Without a doubt, I wanted to get the fuck away from the Great Valley.

And so we reached a different section of shore, watching Sleuth dart into the jungle. Bertha dried off with a shimmy before heading directly toward home. Then, disaster struck.

Not even a hundred feet away from the lake, Bertha literally walked into a Tyrannosaurus Rex. And I mean, she bumped into it, not by it or near it—she literally stepped through a dense section of jungle, then bang.

The huge apex predator munched on a baby brontosaurus who likely had set out to form its own herd, falling prey to the odds. And these odds were terrible even for Bertha, because I was almost certain this wasn’t a lone T-Rex.

“Oh shit,” I shouted, handing the eggs to Hiso. “Guard these with your life.”

I rushed to the back of the saddle where we kept spears pointing skyward for emergencies just like this. When the offended T-Rex roared, heads popped up out of the bushes, telling me it wasn’t alone. I rapidly scanned the yellow-eyed dinos, seeing two babies, a bunch of adolescents, and four other adults. We literally ran into a feast filled with predators while carrying vital supplies and new additions to our tribe.

“No wonder that—” Aubrey’s words died when another T-Rex unleashed an ear-ringing roar.

I snatched a spear, hefted it for a throw, and ran to the front of the saddle to the highest point. Technically, I could go forward more, earning a better throwing spot, but the lily pads would almost surely cause me to slip.

Bertha bull-rushed a baby T-Rex, immediately getting an instant reaction. The predators shifted, lowering their upper bodies like lances to cross the distance rapidly. The mother’s reflexes proved insane because she crossed the distance to save her baby in the blink of an eye.

“Watch out!” I warned, watching momma rex come barreling in with her jaw opened wide.

The T-Rex chomped into Bertha’s left shoulder with a violent body check. Sayuri went flying out of the saddle, way too focused on protecting her infant. Her tether snapped taut, violently yanking her back to safety. Jennifer’s fate was much the same, but instead of her shoulder slamming into the saddle, her face absorbed the rest of the impact while she cradled her infant like a football.

I bent down, gripped the lip of the saddle with my left hand, and used the spear to pin down the lily pads. The mother rex saved the infant’s life, but in doing so, faced the full might of a much bigger brontosaurus.

Even though she suffered a scathing bite, Bertha won the jarring impact. The T-Rex mom staggered for a split second before Bertha shouldered her down, trampling the adult as she ran over it.

When I glanced back, the mother cried out with despair from a shattered back leg. The other T-Rexes, covered in blood from their feasting, watched us bound into the jungle, leaving behind their kill.

Bertha laid on the speed, grunting in pain every time her left leg touched down. No alpha or other rex tried to catch up to us for revenge, and after only a few minutes of reckless running, we came to a slow walk.

“I dropped it,” Aubrey said while we all panted in disbelief, struggling to catch our breath through the anxiety of the dinosaur battle. Like much of war, it’d happened so fast. I thought it wasn’t over, constantly scanning for threats, but the injured T-Rex cried in the distance, earning mourning calls from her tribe. “I’m so sorry, Alan. I dropped it. I dropped it. I dropped—”

I consoled her with a hug, understanding she’d lost her baby during the impact. Her sadness deepened when Aubrey realized she was the only one to lose a baby. I wrapped her up with love. Hiso flashed a thumbs-up after peeking in the bag.

Jennifer talked with a nasally voice from a busted nose. “Probably should have let mine fall.” She swiped her bare arm under her nostrils, exposing fresh blood.

Sayuri came over, only holding her infant in one arm. “My shoulder is broken.”

Without any warning, I grabbed her wrist and yanked down hard, popping the joint back into place. She unleashed a muffled scream, smart to try to cover the noise.

“Dislocated, not broken. Bertha, can you make it home?” I asked.

She tooted a very positive yes. I glanced around, trying to find Sleuth. If he still lived, he was somewhere else at the moment, becoming separated in the chaos. I sighed, kissing Aubrey’s forehead.

A massive beam of yellow light flared only a dozen paces in front of us. It hummed with pulses, just like the drops before. I grabbed the obelisk while we all recovered, and asked, “Have drops started?”

The amulet warmed and the alien said, “You’re only the second tribe to kill a T-Rex in battle. The rest of the mother’s pack quieted her a few seconds ago. If she’d been hurt further from such a crucial kill, then they’d have saved her, but the adolescents stand a much higher chance of survival with so much meat to sustain them. We reward success. Assuming you make it back to base, enjoy your rewards.”

I descended off Bertha’s left side with one hand and my feet as a speed break.

“I’m heading down to clear a drop spot and secure the important loot,” I grumbled. “And to see how bad Bertha is.”

The rope drop went quickly without anyone shouting at me, wisely keeping somewhat quiet. When I touched down, I hurried over to the front left shoulder. A dozen puncture marks and three small scrapes oozed blood. Nothing squirted, which was a great sign, but we had her loaded down with eight people, a bunch of gear, and the saddle was super heavy too.

Now we had a bevy of loot to deal with, a missing guard raptor, and an injured bronto. I ran a hand across the dripping blood, noting a smooth consistency. Bertha trumpeted loudly in frustration. Once her long call ended, she stubbornly tooted she was fine.

Jarod joined me on the ground, but no one else braved the jungle in hostile territory. I shifted away from her leg, pulling the machete off my back. While the drop descended, I hacked back the jungle, having to hope no carno rested on the other side.

“You okay?” Jarod asked, staying within reaching distance of a rope.

I continued to beat back the jungle until I answered, “No. And not because Aubrey lost an infant. I’m upset at the randomness of our environment. You see these massive conifers with their thick trunks that are so big you can fit a bus in them, and you think, oh, I bet it’s super easy to hike in there. Fuck no. I can’t even see more than six feet in front of me unless I’m on a game trail.”

“Predators hunt on game trails,” Jarod teased, lightening the mood.

I snickered. “Right. I almost said hold on to your butts when we were on a collision course with the rex.”

“Just waiting on clever girl,” Jarod joked.

I finished a final bush, not even coming close to taming the jungle. The care package was smaller this time, only taking up a footprint of the small shed. It came with three saddles, two boxes, and three pokeyballs. I chucked the saddles one at a time, guessing one was for stego, one for an ankylosaurus and one for a triceratops. I sighed in disappointment, wanting something for a hadrosaur.

People loved the big dino cows; they could haul a ton, and I was quickly starting to favor them for quite a few things. Still, these were good saddles that could be put to use almost immediately, and we could trade the anky saddle or find another one.

Jarod quickly tied up the saddles, having the others haul them up. I flipped open the first box, seeing a fine powder. When I bent down for a sniff, my eyes widened.

“Dynamite,” I whispered. “Don’t throw this one.”

When I opened the second box, I found empty dynamite containers with long wicks. Jarod walked over, picking up the box instead of inspecting it. He clearly wanted to get back onto Bertha’s back. All this stuff wasn’t that heavy and her wounds, while painful, should be fine to make it home with the weight. Worse case, she hauled us as far as she could, and we trekked the rest back with her saddle off and supplies abandoned.

I picked up the first pokeyball thingy, seeing a dinosaur stable inside. It showed a triceratops fitting in with ease, with plenty of room for a dozen dinos to nest. The next alien orb had a proper stone gate to secure our basin with and the final item said it was a two-way teleporter. It had two little pads hovering over the image. It would barely hold three people standing together, and it gave the range of a thousand feet, but damn, it’d make getting up and down to the longhouse so much easier.

All three of the balls went into my satchel. A heavy rustling from bushes in the distance told me someone was coming, and we only had seconds to react.

I hurried over to Jarod. “Climb with this.” I handed him the box.

“No, I’ll stay. Missy will kill me if I abandon you for this. What is it anyway?” Jarod asked.

I snickered, knowing he was right about his sister. “That one is just wicks and canisters. The dynamite is in that one.” I pointed to the crate they hauled up. I craned my neck and shouted, “Drop two spears, starboard side.”

I unslung my satchel and chucked it high, actually getting it to land up in the saddle above. Kaity grumbled out a complaint but said nothing else. Two spears clattered to the forest floor a second later.

My knees cracked on the way down. I shoved the first tip into the ground, tossing Jarod the second. I still had my machete and spear from earlier, with Bertha and the others backing me up.

“You sure you don’t wanna go up?” I asked, rubbing dirt into my palms, knowing that something stalked us from only a few bushes away.

Jarod bravely followed suit, soaking the sweat off his. “Two is stronger than one.”

“It’s too big to be Sleuth,” I grumbled. On a whim, I chirped for the pack to assemble. Sure as shit, whatever neared, froze. An odd stench wafted on the wind, and I immediately recognized it. “That carno’s back. The one who killed Peter.”

I hefted the spear, cocked it back and ran right to where the sound stopped. While the bushes may be dense, they were easily pushed aside, and a carno was a fairly big target. Once I reached full speed, I chucked the spear with every ounce of power I had.

The weapon whistled from the speed as it shot out of my hand, darting into the bushes.

“Wait!” Jarod yelled, assuming I was going to sprint behind the spear.

A rustling from the spear continued until a solid thud erupted from the bushes.

A few dozen feet away, the carno unleashed a wail of tremendous pain. I skidded to a stop, raised an empty hand so I could catch with it and ran back toward Jarod. “Spear.” He tossed me his, grabbing a spear right after. “I’m securing the kill. Come or go, but do either with all your heart.” I bellowed, “Bertha, take them home.”

Without worrying about my own life, I dashed into the bushes with a spear and machete. I tracked the general direction my spear went, picking up a light jog. Jarod was insane to join me, but he flowed behind me and once I was certain he was right on my six, I picked up the speed.

“Speed, violence, momentum,” I shouted with a growl.

And just like that, I lost sight of Bertha, hunting in the jungle for a carnosaur I’d injured.

“Alan Winchester, you get that cute ass back to me or I swear!” Aubrey shouted, her voice fading with each long stride.

Bushes smacked off my face at a breakneck speed until I almost ran right into the grunting giant. Labored breaths revealed a struggling dinosaur who spooked. I only saw the gray-colored giant for a brief second, thrusting my weapon with a roar.

The tip of my spear sliced a neat line down a retreating tail. The carno shrieked out in pain, going from the aggressor to fearful of me as it decided to flee.

When I stood in the space it vacated, my foot splashed in blood.

“The carno’s breathing was too raspy to be normal and this….” I bent down, swiping my finger through mucus filled blood. “Is very thick.”

Since I was fueled up with rage and my body was near peak perfection for this environment, I could run recklessly in pursuit. I decided against this since even a wounded carno likely outpaced me.

I slowly rose to stand tall again, letting Jarod catch up. The brave but worried man skidded to a halt nearby. His eyes darted about with a white-knuckled grip on his spear. The jungle didn’t wait very long to restart the quirky noises of normalcy.

“Holy fuck, you’re fast,” he managed between panted breaths.

I pointed to blood on the fronds. “If at any point you fall behind, say something immediately. If the bushes rustle closer without me talking to you in English, you fight like the demon you are. I won’t ever caw to you. Sleuth might, but in these dense bushes, stab anyway. Ready?”

The words were clear, concise, but rushed. I had to trust he was actually listening to me.

“Fuck no. But, whatever,” Jarod said, pointing with his head for me to keep going. “What was in the drop bally things, anyway?”

“A stable for the animals, a gate for security with big wooden doors, and the final one was advanced alien relocation tech,” I said, frowning at him for the question.

I realized he was buying time because of how hard I’d sprinted.

“Wait, what?” he asked, keeping up as I picked up a slow jog.

I snickered with a headshake, crashing through the bushes. “Or maybe you were winded and curious. But Jarod, we need to stay quiet. If you lose me, get loud, don’t fucking whisper like an idiot thinking I’ll hear you. Either it's me talking or you kill it.”

“You said that already,” he grumbled.

“Well, in all the movies, they whisper before getting killed. Go out as a screaming banshee with your weapon aimed at the enemy,” I said, not daring to pick up the pace since I really wanted to bring him home to Missandra.

Inwardly, I chuckled at how much I wanted to keep her happy by protecting her little brother.

“This pace fine?” I asked, keeping it at a slow jog.

Tracking the wounded carno proved pretty easy since it bled profusely while shoving aside bushes in its hope of escape. I did manage to note the tracks tighten as the distance from the wounding spot increased. A simple logical deduction told me the wounds were catching up with the beast.

I slowed with enough warning to avoid having Jarod bump into me. Raspy breathing struggled from up ahead in the bushes. It sounded lower, also giving me key information about the dinosaur's health.

I stalked forward, finding the carno lying on its side with eyes closed. Blood pooled under it and it ever so gently fell asleep, breathed three final times, then lay still.

The entry wound had to be on the other side because the hole in the exposed side was bigger than my head. The entire lower portion of the beast was covered in blood and, based on how little exited the body, its allowable blood loss reached a limit.

Jarod and I stood over the animal in shock. He gasped with eyebrows high on his forehead. “How the fuck did it run this far with that kind of wound?”

“Nature is pretty basic. Rule number one, survive. If in danger, escape danger. Hope to heal later. After I wounded it with the thrown spear, I forced it to run, but this was probably mortal regardless,” I said, a bit shocked at the damage I did.

He snorted with a headshake. “Probably. You might as well have shot it with a cannon.”

I shrugged. “This is as good as it gets, though. It was my hardest throw, it hit perfectly, and yeah, I’m impressed.” I sighed, glancing around. “We have two options. We follow its path, hoping to find its nest. Or we go home. I’m just glad I got revenge for Peter.”

“Uh, Alan, look at the chest, no mark,” Jarod said.

My knees popped when I bent down, running a hand over a clean chest. “Son of a bitch. Fuck. This one smelled the same, though, so it probably lives in the same nest.”

“Smelled the same?” Jarod asked, sniffing the air before he shrugged. “Dude, you’re different.”

“Probably. I’m following this line for a bit, then going home if it comes up empty,” I said, rising to stand again. “You coming or walking home?”

Jarod scoffed. “Uh, we’ve been running recklessly through the jungle. I haven’t a clue which way home—” I pointed a spear toward our base. “Wait, how the fuck do you know that?”

“I have two topography scans too, but I know because I know,” I said, unable to explain further. “Come on.” I realized he didn’t have a choice. “Your sister will kill me if I let you follow me this far, then I let you get lost in the woods.”

“You think there’s more?” Jarod asked pensively. “Like alive and angry?”

“Actually, yeah, we lost all elements of surprise since this carno was not quiet. They’d know we were coming before we ever got close.” I stared at the direction this beast fled, turning towards Fortress Grant a second later. “So I’m going to take us home to get a proper force assembled. Thankfully, I can find their nest this way.”

I triggered the topography ability. The map showed we were on the northeast side of Great Valley, which was great since the base was in this direction. Not far away, and in the direction the carno fled, rested a clearing of some sort. It wasn’t a big clearing, but it definitely had enough space to be the biggest point of interest I could find.

“Damn, you were right about which way home was,” Jarod said, sticking his finger into the projection. “And that is where the carnos probably nest.”

I chuckled lightly with a nod of approval. “Great minds. Yeah, and see, we’re not even too far. With any luck, we’ll beat them home.”

“I don’t know. Bertha is slow, but a fast walker,” Jarod said.

Once again, I snickered with a headshake. “We’re running once we get on the nearest game trail. Speed is our ally and every second in the jungle is bad. And… look where this path goes!” I pointed to a trail that went directly from our home to the Carno Clearing.

A raptor’s nearby caw erupted from the direction of the Great Valley. It wasn’t Sleuth, and it was an exploratory call. I cawed back, asking for food. Raptors were smart, sometimes too smart for their own good. By asking for food, it instantly responded.

Food… Here.

“What’s it saying?” Jarod asked nervously.

I chuckled. “That we are welcome to become its food. Just travel to him where a meal is waiting for us.”

“You think it… Oh, I get it. Yeah, let’s jog to the trail, then run before it gets too dark,” Jarod said.

Leaving the carno behind seemed like a waste, so I chopped off a small arm as a trophy and potential food offering before fleeing the area. After a few minutes of brute forcing our way through bushes, we reached the trail without issue, but once we were on it, I ran into something quite unexpected.

Chapter 32

When Ashes Burn!

“YOU GOTTA BE SHITTING ME,” Jarod gasped.

In the distance behind us, a loud raptor call alerted the pack about the carno we left behind. The sheer delight of the replies told me the carno would give us all the space we needed from that pack. While that was great news, in front of us was some sort of juvenile sauropod who stood on the pathway home, unmoving, with a haughty stare.

“I think it's a diplodocus,” I guessed. “Not that it matters, but let me talk to it.”

The large dinosaur was one solid color of forest gray. Spikes along its spine jutted out to deter predators. The head seemed smaller in comparison to the body than Bertha’s, with eyes that were very fixated on us. When I called out like I would to Bertha, it just tilted its head sideways, completely confused for a few reasons.

“Right, fair. Uh, try to feed it,” I said, glancing around to see if any of the vegetation it liked was lying around.

The big dino blared in agitation, wanting us to get out of the way before it trampled us. On the second warning, I sensed a lot of anger, something akin to what the big bronto felt toward Bertha. We were too close, and it let us know. I didn’t need to speak any special language to tell this was a situation on the edge of going poorly.

Jarod led the way into the thick jungle, waving for me to follow him off the game trail. “If you want to go dino hunting, let’s do it with backup.”

While I wanted to tame the big brute, it clearly was not in a trap or eager to join my team. “Fuck, fine. It didn’t look happy any—”

Only the disturbance of air flow barely warned me in time.

I grabbed Jarod, yanking us to the ground. Honestly, if I hadn’t been so familiar with the sucking of air when Bertha swung her tail, I’d have never caught it.

The diplodocus’s tail blurred with tremendous speed, whipping through the space where we stood only a second earlier. The mass belted the tree, sending a shower of splintered wood. Jarod tried to rise, and I held a finger to my lips.

For the next few minutes, the tension grew until jarring reverberations quaked through the soil below us from the diplodocus moving on. When we never got up, the diplodocus wandered away, forgetting about us.

“Damn, that was close,” Jarod said, picking up a bit of splintered wood in dismay. “So powerful.”

I guiltily dusted off the bits of wood before readying myself for battle again. “Yeah, well, good thing you didn’t try to feed it.”

“Maybe carrying that pissed it off,” Jarod mentioned, pointing at my carno arm trophy.

“Look, I’m going to need you to get off my back about this one,” I joked, waving the arm around. The fact we found waving a detached dino arm humorous was a testament to just how crazy life had become. “We need it… maybe. Come on, let’s get back on the trail and—”

When we snuck out of the bushes, the diplodocus turned its long neck to glare at us from about a football field away. Jarod and I picked up a full sprint, not wanting what he was selling. Thankfully, it never chased us, and all signs of raptors faded as well.

However, now that the sun had set, the evening activity seemed to be pretty heated in the jungle. Not even halfway home, the shrill cries of something desperate to survive rang out.

When we rounded a bend in the trail, we found something unexpected to say the least. A pteranodon struggled against a dilophosaurus right in the middle of the trail. The dilo bled from a poke and the flier repeatedly stabbed the dilo, then quickly grabbed the animal by the tail to keep it from retreating.

Of course, the dilo tried to run away every chance it got, creating this odd dance. Even though it was dark, rich whites and vibrant blues coated the taut skin of the pteranodon.

“Isn’t that a fish hunter?” Jarod asked, starting to slow.

I sure as shit didn’t slow, and I didn’t answer. However, I cracked a grin and turned slightly to cover my mouth with a finger. I went from a run to a full-throated sprint, pumping thighs hard and raising my knees for everything they were worth.

The predator and the prey continued their epic struggle with the fish eater, out-massing the small dinosaur. A lot of the why didn’t make perfect sense at first glance. Once you added in how far the ocean was, how fast animals were breeding, and how the smaller predator could be eaten, well, it seemed like a simple case of hunger meets opportunity.

My stride lengthened, my speed increased, and I hit a point of no return while speeding down the trail.

Yes, I could kill them both, but that definitely wasn’t my plan. At the last second, I dropped my weapons and jumped as if it were the Olympics. I outstretched my limbs like a glider squirrel, hoping to snag the dino if it tried to flee.

The pteranodon never even acknowledged my existence since she was facing away and focusing on pecking her prey to death.

Today was that dilophosaurus’ lucky day.

Gravity pulled me down hard, perfectly letting me wrap up the pteranodon. The beast squawked in sheer fright, caught completely unaware.

She tried to open her wings to take flight, pushing hard against my hug.

Of course, I wrapped the big lady up tighter, straddling her back with a leg and bear hug. “Get over here!” I shouted to Jarod, holding on for dear life. “Dog pile this thing before it bites my arms off.” I grunted during my struggles, winning with each passing second since I was fresh and the pteranodon was somewhat exhausted from a prolonged fight with the dilo. I added, “But don’t hurt it!”

“Which is it? Crush it or hug it?” Jarod said, arriving with a wheeze.

Before I could answer, Jarod flared his arms out, and he belly flopped onto my back. Thankfully, nothing broke, or I didn’t hear any loud snaps. We grunted a lot, and at this point, the pteranodon went batshit crazy. Over the next minute or two, the struggle nearly bucked us off until it grew tired.

I grabbed the obelisk on my necklace and said, “Consume daily domestication.”

The stone grew warm, emitting a lot of blue magic. The amount became so much that I slammed my eyes shut until they dimmed.

Tribe Grant has consumed its once a Week Dinosaur Domestication: 1 of 2 Remaining.

Time until next charge: 6.99 daily rotations

Congratulations. You have domesticated an adolescent female Pteranodon.

Species: Pteranodon

Sex: Female

Age: 7.44 sun rotations: Weight: 8.5 Zexa

Rarity Value: 44.0

Efficiency Value: 38.8% of species

Traits: Boorish, Indifferent, Loner

Known for: Being a populous flier with limited carrying capabilities.

“Really, you caught a pteranodon? I should have guessed,” the smooth alien voice said. “Alright, you’re showing promise even with a handicap. A captain is not supposed to be alone, they need a crew and that crew can’t all be people who hide in the bowels of a ship.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I admitted.

“Oh my, apparently initial estimations of viewer reactions regarding your catch are very positive. I assumed as much. I need to talk to someone, but you deserve a reward,” the alien said.

“Well, the last reward you gave me brought a carno, so…” I said, high-fiving Jarod over our success.

We dusted ourselves off, collected our belongings, and resumed jogging home. The pteranodon gently flew above us as if we were suddenly best friends. Whatever the alien had to say, well, it’d have to wait because the stone went cold.

“Dude, why are you so crazy?” Jarod asked, finding a second wind a few minutes later.

I shrugged, keeping up the pace with my eyes scanning ambush points. Everywhere my eyes went, the spear flowed. “The bird was an opportunist who got in over his… her head. She’s hungry, we have food, and I love the idea of people being able to fly for recon,” I said.

“No way it holds us,” Jarod wisely deduced.

Without missing a beat, I replied, “But Sayuri?”

Jarod glanced up and said, “Yeah, a few of those Japanese girls are at most ninety pounds soaking wet.”

“Plus, I’ll learn the bird’s language at some point. No one can see into the jungle very far, but general reports on enemy nests or fortifications will be super amazing,” I said, slowing to a walk when a herd of duckbills walked in our direction.

These were the super-sized variants, easily bigger than an elephant. Their colorations shifted from grays to tans, with a few shaded in black or greens. No vibrant colors were showcased besides on the bills, where the females were muted and the male coloration unique. They were likely heading from one valley to the next, using the evening to progress with minimal worry. Their size and the density of the herd made them incredibly formidable, and while some appeared feeble, they were ready for a fight.

I said, “Off the path, leave them be.”

Jarod shifted off the trail and I followed him. It was his first turn taking point, and he stabbed every bush with the full understanding that something may be on the other side. That herd was huge, forcing us off the trail for a good ten minutes. At the end of the group a single mother tried to keep up, followed by nine newborns who slowed her down.

Most mothers would have left them behind, but she seemed caring on a different level. I finally tossed the carno arm, setting my weapons down. I chopped a low branch on the backside of a tree that’d been avoided because it was off the game trail. Once I had it in hand, the mother and I stared at each other with stern gazes.

I ripped chunks off, feeding the infants who gobbled up the small bits. The mother calmed to the point I neared to pet her. It became very apparent this was a ruthless dinosaur when she wanted to be. She loomed over me at twice my height and easily as long as a bus. Her dirty white rough skin held brown and green bands.

Her children, who ate happily, were only the size of a housecat. Each had unique patterns and colorations. I continued to approach her, feeding the babies. They really had to only be a few days old. The mother glanced up at the slow progress of her herd with worry, while at the same time knowing her infants were struggling.

She never got the chance to push me aside because the instant I touched her leg, I grabbed the obelisk and whispered, “Activate Domestication.”

Blue magic flared around the mom, coating her in the simpler, base magic. Whatever happened with the pteranodon was special because this one was normal again.

Tribe Grant has consumed its once a Week Dinosaur Domestication: 0 of 2 Remaining.

Time until next charge: 6.98 daily rotations: Time until next charge: 6.99 daily rotations.

Congratulations. You have domesticated an mature female Shantungosaurus.

Species: Shantungosaurus

Sex: Female

Age: 11.93 sun rotations: Weight: 83.5 Zexa

Rarity Value: 65.0

Efficiency Value: 58.8% of species

Traits: Gentle, Caring, Motherly

Known for: Being bigger than a Tyrannosaurus Rex. They can carry a lot, frequently lay eggs, are decent defenders of the herd, and provide ample fertilizer.

“I shall call you Betty! Lay down, without crushing your babies,” I commanded. Betty did as ordered. I approached her neck and slid back until I fit snugly on her spine. “Are you walking or riding, Jarod?” I glanced up. “Land on her hindquarters, Birdo.”

Jarod chuckled. “Like I’d miss this. Hell no. I can’t wait to see what they say when we exit the jungle riding a platypus variant duckbill with a flier on its back and a row of babies waddling in tow.”

“They’re going to be happy, but mostly worried, because Bertha likely made it home with significant injuries. I know for sure there are going to be some very happy people to see us again,” I said.

Jarod huffed, getting onto the duckbill. Betty gently rose, turned around, and walked toward our base.

“About that,” Jarod said with a sigh. “Jennifer wants to get more serious, and if we were back home, on old Earth, I’d tell her to wait.”

“Yeah, having a husband already tends to do that,” I admitted, picking honesty over sugar coating it. “However, no way their relationship was rock solid. We still have ladies and gents avoiding coupling due to hope.”

“Not many, but yeah. The thing is, I’ve always thought Asians were cute. How do I mention I want something like you have?” Jarod asked.

I roared out a laugh, earning a quick and somewhat muted blare from the mother. I nodded in agreement at her request, lowering my voice.

“She wants me to be quiet so she can hear threats. As for Jennifer, she’s not dumb. You’re handsome, brave, in with the leader, a candidate for my replacement should I fall, not that you want the job, and a good person. In this age, that means multiple wives. It is just a reality,” I said nonchalantly.

“Hmm…. Be confident, be honest?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I think that’s almost always the best option. She may leave you, but I doubt it. From my shoes, go for it, but I can also say you definitely want the ladies to get on board with each other. How do you do that? Well, it takes compromise. I think.” Unable to help myself, I shrugged. “I mostly wing it.”

Jarod nodded, not saying anything for the next hour. Eventually, we cut off the trail, deviating toward our home. When we exited the trees for our clearing, a big fire cooked chunks of the first carno on spears. The entire tribe gathered around, watching two baby raptors play not far from where Bertha lay on her side, receiving treatment.

Sleuth saw us first, chirping out a long call of joy, bounding over like an excited puppy.

“Hey Alan, I almost pissed myself a few times, but I wanted to say, thanks for getting me home,” Jarod said, and in that moment, we bonded as brothers.

“Thanks for a wild adventure,” I said, patting him on the shoulder as the duckbill lowered herself for us to get down. “Birdo, go perch on that rock. Cry out if you spot a threat. Someone will bring you food soon.”

Three very lovely ladies came running to join us now that we fully exited the jungle. I didn’t drop my guard, rushing to meet Cassie, Aubrey, and Missy, who seemed beside themselves at my safe return.

Before we wrapped each other up in a tender embrace, I had to wonder if those T-Rexes, diplodocus, raptors, or carnos would be out to get me the next time I needed to leave the safety of my home.

Chapter 33

When Dinos Fly!

TWO WEEKS PASSED in a hurry without a single away mission besides to let the herbivores eat. Without our biggest asset to help me make a difference, I became a stubborn man hell-bent on improving his home.

We culled the scratched-up moschops who somehow followed Sleuth home, and a spare male duck-billed dinosaur from the original group, to help get through our meat requirements. Bertha became a princess, suddenly understanding she could limp to get humans to bring her extra bushes. Not only that, she learned to trumpet pathetically for food on demand.

Fortunately, we actually were able to pamper her. Birdo, the off-handed name I gave our flier, somehow stuck. We finagled a saddle of sorts so Sayuri and a few others could get lifted into the tops of trees. Once there, they attached ropes to descend or ascend as needed to saw through the better vegetation.

Food was only one aspect of our progress, and thankfully, we wanted to push the jungle back because the herbivores slowly but surely peeled back the vegetation. And just because Bertha was hurt, didn’t mean other dinos couldn’t help. Maximus the stegosaurus, Cali the triceratops, and Maggie the massive hadrosaur became work dinos, more than capable of dragging rocks out of the way or bushes out of the ground.

Inside the base, the first thing I did was add the gate. The alien structure oddly resembled the great gates from Jurassic Park, looming with a sense of power. The massive gates couldn’t fit Bertha, even if the hussy lost weight. However, they were imposing and amazing, with twin side doors just big enough for humans flanking the sides.

The gate definitely secured the gaps in the basin’s entrance, sealing in the main way for anyone to get to our growing home. When it was all said and done, the entire tribe celebrated. And for more than just the security the gates provided.

Inside the basin, right next to the shed, I spawned the stable. It was an excessively large, three-sided building with a roof. Some of it received splashes from the shower area, forcing us to use some massive lily pads to keep the stable dry. Most amazing of all, the ones with constant water, rooted into the stable’s frame.

If I had to guess, the stable would have taken us a month to build, even if Bertha was healthy. It instantly became a hotly contested area among the dinosaur mothers that I was forced to place dividers into. The stone flooring, open air, and sheltered roof became the spot where every dinosaur tried to cram under. Of course, our overflowing human population wanted the space, but the dinos were very… very… stubborn.

For us humans, things went from somewhat barbaric, nomadic, to communal building. The longhouse finished with a flat roof that people instantly moved onto, even if it was exposed to the elements. And the next series of drama flared to life. All it took was one mother with older toddlers to bring them into our home for every other mother to cave.

We went from one infant, to five, in addition to eleven toddlers chasing baby dinos around. And… yeah, there was a biting incident, nothing too bad, but I did put down the infant duckbill in front of the herd. The young child was traumatized, both from the bite, then the dino’s violent death.

After that, we set boundaries and focused on using our materials on hand until Bertha recovered. We installed the teleporter from the bottom of the basin to the second-floor of the longhouse to avoid the dangers of the rope ladder. Crews worked tirelessly to chip away at the jagged rock that climbed up at an angle to provide more floor space for us to expand.

We didn’t want to fill the basin’s bowl where the waterfall fell into, using it for the fish, so we began chucking fragments over the sides of the basin to create additional housing pads. The extra height was needed anyway to prevent flooding during heavy rain days. One of those spots leveled out with just enough space to be utilized. Not long after, the first tiny home for a couple stood awkwardly in the spot.

The duo built it, they earned it, and yeah, after they finished, they focused on helping create a fence outside the gates. The fence wasn’t big, but it would help them keep the wandering dinos from trying to bust into their shack of a home to sleep under a roof.

And that was the gist of how Fortress Grant weathered an injured behemoth. We spent day and night working to improve our base. Since we were over capacity, and there really wasn’t a quiet period, we swapped to day and night shifts to spread out a bit.

Fred took over the night shift, running the tribe while I slept. This seemed to fix some of the drama because now people who had grudges or disputes could at least swap sleep schedules, but it was clear that our previous perks of having homes to ourselves in our former lives altered how we viewed our privacy.

On a personal level, I’d never been happier. Cassie and Aubrey fawned over Anthony, letting me know exactly how happy they were. Missy fucked my brains out on the regular, since they would sneak away when he cried. The fact we grew closer as a family didn’t shock me. I spent more time with them than ever before, and I adored the quality time.

For Tribe Grant, life definitely wasn’t perfect. If people liked to complain, I simply told them to get to work, never running out of tasks. I ordered parts of the rugged mountainside to be demoed with our dynamite, creating a world of noise every day. Fred was on board, running demo during the evening meal while I handled the morning rotation.

All in all, we prospered, firing a flare into the sky twice a night while running massive fires day and night to put a dent in the tree graveyard Bertha created. When the big girl was finally healed, becoming bored with her recovery time, she stirred to go on another adventure.

This was great because we were out of meat and fish, something we definitely needed to fix because all the rest of our animals I wanted to keep around. Instead of loading onto Bertha’s back with most of the team who wanted to do a clay run, I sat on Maximus’ stego saddle. My legs slid between the big spikes, finding grooves that were moderately comfortable.

Bertha trumpeted that she was ready, and I signaled for us to depart the gates. Today was a great day for this mission too, since a heavy rain crackled on the horizon.

After such a long period without danger, I felt a wave of excitement. Missy hugged my back, simply holding me tight from behind. I ordered the entire herd to come, even the raptors. A few infants cried out, wanting to join, being left in the basin behind the big gates.

“They sound so sad,” Missy said, pouting in support of the dinos who were becoming a bit more dependent on their social structures than normal.

I nodded in agreement. “Hey! Reassure them we will be home soon,” I commanded.

The adults cawed, blared, chirped and grunted out signals. The infants eventually calmed down, with most of our residents waving to wish us luck. Hiso flew on Birdo’s back, soaring ahead of our convoy, blazing a path down the river.

“So magical,” Missy said, soaking in the sight of massive dinosaurs moving in unison. She hugged me tighter. “Thank you for getting us this far.”

“I love you too,” I teased, earning a tug so tight I hiccupped a breath. “Easy, beautiful.”

“Sorry, I’m a bit emotional at the moment,” Missy said.

I leaned back, landing a kiss on her cheek. “What can I do to help?”

“Nothing for now. Sayuri is still pushing to get into your bed, and it bugs me. We clearly are happy. Now she is just asking for a dad instead of joining our family,” Missy said.

“Oh, in you ladies I trust.” I patted her leg. “She’s pretty, but looks have never been what it's about for me.”

A flustered sigh escaped her lips. “Well, she’s also smart, sweet, and caring. I weaseled my way in, but I’m not sure if I wanna share with more,” Missy said.

“Missandra Winchester, do what makes you happy. If you’re at capacity, so am I. Your life-partner is -”

“Eww… None of this partner stuff. Wife me up, you dunce. Tomorrow? String ring like in the Count of Monte Cristo movie?” Missy asked.

We swayed in the saddle, gently heading down the stream that led from our waterfall all the way downhill until it fed Spino Lake. Every dozen feet or so, Bertha used a front pad to unearth the substrate while the herbivores ripped out the undergrowth. Whenever a bush was ripped free, the grubs were quickly devoured.

The bushes would get snacked on by the herd, laying in place to be dragged home later. We didn’t rush, and I oddly didn’t have that same sense of brooding worry I used to have. Hell, I killed two carnos and watched a T-Rex get trampled, and I really started to get a feel for what held power on this new world.

I also knew that the big brontos were hours away, unlikely to come charging into our herd, so I relaxed a bit. And in this case, I enjoyed the press of Missy against my back, and not just because she was topless. I genuinely enjoyed her company, and this was no exception.

I chuckled. “You give me shit for saying life-partner, then say wife me up.” I ripped a bit of extra string from where my satchel’s stitching frayed. “Left hand me, wifey.”

“Uh… Wait, you’re serious, but you’re not on a knee.” She panicked a bit, flushing beat red. “I was playing,” Missy said.

“I’m not.” She fake pouted when I glared at her with a frown. “This isn’t America, this is a world where we make our own path. I’d rather be riding a powerful dinosaur in a romantic embrace than on my knees as carno bait.”

“Alan!” Missy said in an excited tone, glancing around as if we were doing something wrong.

“I’ll do what I damn well please and I’m not stupid, Missandra Winchester. You missed your period and have been vomiting while Aubrey is not. While we have sex when the other ladies are not around, if Aubrey comes by—”

Missy ran a hand up the back of my hair, yanked back, turned my head sideways, and kissed me so fiercely I got a boner. When I opened my eyes, I didn’t see lust, only love.

“You give Aubrey her string ring first, you hear me?” Missy said, almost never ever being assertive.

In this case, I let her win. “Yeah… I can do that. We’ve survived a month and a half of this,” I said with a distant gaze. “Probably best to make it official, since you will always know how I felt if something happens to me.”

“Ugh, such a man. A man I adore.” Another kiss, an anxiety fueled giggle, then a pause to sip her water gave me some time. “Let me shift the topic to help my anxiety, since I feel like we’re at perfect biting height for a T-Rex. Jennifer’s kids don’t like Jarod, but her husband and her, allegedly, were sleeping in other rooms, ready to divorce. She made it clear, even when the kids begged, Jarod is not going anywhere.”

“And Jarod?”

“Added two new porcelain skinned beauties to his bed. Jennifer is pretty certain she’ll be pushing out baby number three in seven months.” When Missy said this, I raised my eyebrows. “Yup, whoever he was, he lost. Not too different from Gary, who probably would have been my boyfriend if this never happened. A fling that never would have lasted, but that is the thing. You and I will, and yes, while I’m not super positive, I’m pretty positive we’ll be parents.”

“New world, new you, and a family to bring it all together,” I said, pausing Maximus, who just ripped out a big bush. Sleuth shot after a nasty-looking centipede, chomping on it with a violent head shake until half of it went flying. “Maximus, dig here. We can catch up.”

The stego was a terrible digger, only using one paw to ineffectively swipe backwards. I stood, walking down his back to hop off before I loaded my weight on his neck. His saddle contained side pouches, and I rummaged through the starboard side. When I found the shovel, I grunted at the stego to defend me.

Aubrey paused Bertha, seeing me stop Maximus. The dinos didn’t care that we stopped, needing to eat unfathomable amounts of vegetation. The fresh spring to early summer growth continued to unfold vibrant green shoots from the dinos to feast on. For the next five minutes, I slung more and more dirt until I reached a gravel rich substrate, but not sand or clay.

When I finished, Aubrey stood beside Missy, the tandem neatly shoulder to shoulder with hands crossed in front of their laps as if they hadn’t been signaling to each other. I didn’t need more than a second to figure out why Aubrey braved the ground.

Instead of approaching right away, I smacked some of the gunk off the shovel. Once I had it clean, I strolled to Maximus’ side, shoving it into the saddlebag. I reached down to my personal satchel and unbound a second bit of twine. The ladies held out their left hands with beaming smiles.

“And Cassie?” I asked, wrapping the twine around Aubrey’s finger first.

My lovely brunette batted her blue eyes at me. “Very nice of you to think of her. However… she’d do anything you asked and is already married to you. If you properly ask her when we get home, it won’t be counted as a slight, I guarantee it.”

“I love you Aubrey, have for a very long time. You’re smart, beautiful, compassionate, and absolutely a rock in my life. Our world may never be the same, but I’m honored to have you in it,” I said, finishing the knot on her finger. “May our future and family shine bright. I promise to try my best to provide, protect, and be there for you, both physically and emotionally. I love you.”

Aubrey grabbed my ass and pulled me in tight. “I love you, too, Darling.”

I shifted to Missy, tying her ring slowly. “You’re a wonderful woman who helped make me whole. Others look at your beauty, and I see it too, but I know the woman inside. She is united with me,” I finished her knot, “and I couldn’t be happier. A family is a home, and I can’t imagine a world without you or your support. I revel in our time together. You’re cute, fun, intelligent, witty, and my future.”

“You’re a good man, Alan. Pretty cute too.” Missy winked, wiping tears from under her green eyes.

After a soft kiss, I glanced at them both. “I’ve never known how this works exactly, or what to do. What I do know is that I’ll be there for you, support you when you're down, celebrate when you're happy, and keep you healthy as well as safe. Or die trying.”

“None of that, and we can talk more about this once we get home after you give Cassie a sweet speech,” Aubrey said, kissing my right cheek. Missy kissed my left. “How about we get to Spino Lake and do some fishing, then secure the clay pit?”

“Spinos scare me. Are you sure?” I asked with a grin, knowing it was my plan she suggested.

“Very funny, Alan. There is a lot that can go wrong, but let’s complete this mission so we can celebrate at home,” Aubrey said, twirling her string ring.

Missy vaulted into the saddle. “Maybe after that we can build our own little home.”

“They… The house Eric built is not that solid. I want something solid, but yeah, and I’ve been blowing out one hell of a cave. We’re going to be doing some adjusting here soon,” I said, shooing Aubrey back to Bertha.

She changed her mind, wanting to squeeze onto Maximus’ saddle with us. “Oh, tell me more.”

Before I could say anything, the stone around my neck flared with an angry heat. A second later, a blue dome encompassed us, and I instantly worried about what came next.

Chapter 34

Oh Really!

MY JAW DROPPED when a real-life lizard alien appeared between Bertha and Maximus. No one said a word, leaving a heavy silence in the midday air. The blue dome pinged when it repelled a few bugs who wanted to escape voracious raptors, suddenly finding their hopes dashed.

The lizard alien stared up at me with an odd sort of toothy smile. His outfit came with a humming sheen to it, likely a protection device. I had to imagine, if he came within our midst, he felt safe. “Alan. Alan. Alan. I tried.”

Since he waited a long time without saying anything else, I gave an obligatory reply, “Uh, thanks for trying.”

“Yes, yes. Not all is lost, though. We’re still adapting and enjoying the results of our experiment. You deserve a reward for taming the pteranodon but missed out because my… superior deemed it too much, too close to the T-Rex fight,” he said.

“Uh, do you have a name, and thanks for trying,” I politely replied.

Yes, I should be shouting at him for killing most of humanity, but I just told two of the most beautiful women in the world that I wanted to grow old with them. Telling this all-powerful alien to go fuck himself didn’t make sense if that is what I meant. By no means did I consider the alien an actual friend, but I lost nothing but my pride to do so.

“Atticus works. My species is incredibly patient. While we experience time no different from you, we find minor changes… Unfitting. A species that went from five feet on average to seven feet is significant, and in the case of humanity, that would take thousands of years until you reached peak optimal height, an achievement worth celebrating.”

The alien strode between the dinos, enjoying his time with his hands tucked behind his back.

He continued, “Then your species would have augmented into something akin to a cyborg, going fragile. After that, you’d master some of the tech to restore your original size of just six feet, completing a ten-thousand-year cycle that we immortals view as a milestone year. And yes, another celebration. Daily rewards go against our norm. Space travel is somewhat slow, dying is only done in battle, and no matter how exciting you try to make time, it is still very… consuming with entertainment better if it is stretched out.”

“Hence having us fight in an arena filled with dinosaurs over a decade?” I asked.

“Not exactly correct, but close enough. It is a fraction of our people, but it helps pay the bills. If you don’t prove useful, we exterminate all species who don’t conform,” Atticus said, letting his words hang heavy. “Countless species have fallen. Countless more remain.”

“In a civil war, this sounds…” I unleashed a quiet whistle. “…rash.”

“Tempered words are wise. You’ve been one of my favorites to watch, but you would have been great if you knew what was coming from day one. None of the other waves are splitting and, in fact, many waves are consolidating. However, we increased the age brackets, added more spawn points, and to make things extra delightful, increased the dinos on the planet,” Atticus said, dancing his clawed fingers together with pride.

“Ah, that is what you meant by soldiers,” I said, and he surprisingly nodded, understanding our mannerism. “If you just wanted to reward me, you’d have sent a drop, but you didn’t. Something’s changed and you want to talk to me?”

“Astute deduction,” Atticus said dryly. “Initially, we planned on creating guards for the drops, but when we tested it in a region far from here, it was less than ideal. No one showed up. The guards started killing all the dinos, and your kind lacked the resources to eliminate such foes, anyway. We like the drops, we want the drops, we will continue to add the drops, and more. However, the drops will get stale with time, and we will need to implement something new when they do.”

“I love this saddle,” I said, patting Maximus’ covering. “That one, not so much.” I pointed to the horribly constructed emergency attachment on Birdo. “Pretty sure Hiso shouldn’t be hovering on it. May he enter?”

Atticus glanced up, not saying anything or moving his hand to control the dome. A hole in the dome materialized, allowing Birdo to enter. Hiso guided him nearby, nervously landing. With the flick of his wrist, Atticus removed the bindings attached to the bird.

“She’d have been unable to fly if you kept that up. And that is our issue. We overestimated your ingenuity to create basic items. You have been here for almost six of your weeks. You have made zero leather, retrieved zero metal, and haven’t turned hatches or handles into saddle rings,” Atticus said.

I winced, figuring it was best to say something. “To be fair, we tried and we’re working on improving our furnace, which is part of this clay run.”

“I know. That is part of why I’m here. Let me get back to the main point. Your species abandoned all of its roots to the land at such a rapid pace, we assumed part of your nature would be restored when stripped of the luxuries. We also figured you’d be braver and willing to take deaths to find metal, salt, clay, sand, and other vital materials.

“We don’t care if you live like your ancestors did in the agricultural age. In fact, we like it. An age where humans create super farms in tandem with dinosaurs is about as far advanced as we want you besides for the best tribes. It really does help us.

“You have to understand the dinosaurs rarity and species values desync and sync at times. When they both line up just right, there is value. Value is normally a derivative of a task being completed that someone can’t do or doesn’t want to do. So many of our kind find line breeding dinosaurs tedious.

“We don’t acknowledge clone cheating or genetic manipulation. In our society, a rare dinosaur must come from the unknown factors of randomness that occur naturally. When the subspecies handle our breeding, it tends to extract some value over time. But most of them are in a zoo on a ship.

“In your case, you’re going to be doing it with the consideration of survival. You will start managing breeding lines to do far more than what we ever intended. Sure, smart raptors getting smarter is not uncommon, but an aggressive stegosaurus is. And yes, there are a lot of dynamics at play. We also want you to fight each other, or grow, or trade—further advancing the species over time. That is why I am here.”

“Uh, we have been breeding dinosaurs, just not very methodically,” I said.

“That’s because you haven’t gone out there and gotten enough. You have to start collecting the good ones!” Atticus said.

I blinked a lot, then said, “Why limit us to one a week? Why not one a day?”

“It is two at the moment, but we don’t love the mind control aspect,” Atticus replied, telling me he wanted humans to turn dinosaurs into pets naturally. I sighed because I wanted to have working drones who followed commands without objection. My silence eventually earned a shift in the conversation. “How do you like the teleporter?”

“Well, Atticus, I think I speak for the entire tribe when I say it is a wondrous improvement, especially since our infants struggle on the rope ladders. Thank you,” I said.

He bowed slightly. “You’re welcome.”

Jennifer cleared her throat, raising a hand. The alien inclined his head. “What powers it and can we tap into the power to avoid the smoke of fires to have lighting?”

“Harmless waves of nebula energy you barely can comprehend are trapped inside. Technically, you could power a light from it, but you don’t have one. Yet. We want to give all the tribes tech. Drops and special achievements will earn Orbs of Discovery, or pokeyball thingies as you call them. And funny you asked about the NE, pronounced knee, NE for Nebula Energy.

“We’ve been refilling your supply, but we want it to fade. Not only will drops come from the sky starting tomorrow, but your obelisk will reset. When it does, you can scan for NE during your topography use. In the heart cavity of certain dinosaurs, NE will be in a container. Kill the dino, place the fuel in the device you prioritize, and you have power.

“And yes, new machines will be added to your base. We want to keep you at the agricultural age level, with some variances. I say this again because it's important. A turret crossbow, or bolt ballistae, will be the strongest weapon you ever unlock in this world. If you try to use explosives, we designate for mining as weapons of war, the powder will simply return to our ship.

“And there is a bit more. Everyone is going back to one tame, full reset tomorrow.” Atticus winked. “The alpha tribes were getting too many advantages, which helped them unlock more milestones, and more, and more, and the cycle continues.”

I bobbed my head in understanding, not so much agreement, even if he had a point. I literally gained a momma hadrosaur and her babies right after Birdo. If we didn’t have two, our dino population would be less for sure.

“It was good while it lasted. These machines,” I rolled my wrist suggestively, “what will they be like?” I asked.

Atticus paced between the dinos, all eyes fixated on his calm movements. “Place bloody dino skin in, get clean leather out. Place a bunch of leather and two ingots into a different machine, and out comes a saddle. We may remove these items, and they’ll be expensive to run at the start, but you simply can’t make leather at any level across all the tribes. In summary, your ability to venture out is so limited, you never go out.”

“Wait, wait.” I grumbled, catching onto a plot hole. “These dinos with the NE. What if I want the dino you’ve selected? Killing it hardly makes sense? Right?” I tried to connect the dots and failed.

“They’re not normal dinos and they won’t have support. The obelisk will tell you the breed, size, age, and distance.” He glanced around, appearing to grow interested in something. “And this is my adjustment to your transition into a warrior subspecies. For taming the pteranodon, the first in the world since they’re normally extremely hard to trap, you earned this.”

A dazzling blue magic flared around Atticus. One second he stood there confidently, the next we shielded our eyes, finding him gone when the magic cleared. A small crate of loot waited where he used to stand.

The dome rescinded, leaving us alone in the jungle at the same time he arrived. I slid off the Stego, approaching the items. The first thing I grabbed was a pokeyball, immediately inspecting it.

“Huh?” I blurted.

“What is it?” Jarod asked from Bertha’s saddle.

I tossed him the ball, not worried if he didn’t catch it. The man deftly caught it, read the description and blurted, “A pool. What the hell do we need a pool for?”

“We don’t, but I bet we can trade it. Or we can spawn it to have the animals drink out of it,” I said.

“Or fill it with dirt for a farm,” Missy suggested.

I sighed. “Maybe we don’t trade it.”

Aubrey arrived, lifting a crate’s lid. “Worms? He gave us worms. Damn, these are big and chunky.”

“Vermiculture!” Jennifer blurted in excitement. “Feed them fresh grass, leaves, leftover food, and they will create the best soil. Damn, and he gave us a setup farm for them. This.” She scooped out a big handful of worms, letting them fall back into the crate. “This is amazing!”

I was far less impressed, not liking the idea of eating worms if it came to it. But I did like the idea of having something for the micro-raptors and compy babies who fed the bigger dinos.

“Okay, okay, you sold me. I just need you to find someone to manage it because it won’t be me.” I cheerfully opened another crate. “This one is tough but thinner rope with more hooks. Apparently, someone liked our dino fishing. What’s the saddle for?” I asked Aubrey.

“I… I don’t know. It’s angled and sized for something we don’t have. If I had to guess, a variant of a hadrosaur we haven’t seen yet,” Aubrey said.

“Alright, not exactly a great reward, but it still helps us. At the very least, we can spawn the pool into the cliff side to create a water storage and open up living space above without the bullshit work that’s needed,” I said, putting a positive spin on the situation.

Jarod slid down, hurrying over to help us load up the gear. Over the next five minutes, we finished securing our items, with everyone looking at me to see if we were going home. Sure, we’d gotten a decent reward, but the mission hadn’t even started.

“Nothing changes. We need clay. Clay is that way. So are dinos and if there is a reset tomorrow, I have two dinos to tame in the wild or convert at home if we fail to. Yeah, we stick to the plan, get clay, then we prepare to go to a drop tomorrow,” I said, helping Missy back into the saddle.

She sat in the saddle incorrectly, choosing to snuggle into me. Aubrey giggled, climbing around us to cling to my back.

“And the fishin’?” Eric asked from up on Bertha’s back.

“Definitely needs to happen with Bertha. We go to Spino Lake. We’re out of food, and that means hunting or fishing, but we get clay first, then come back. We can manage two trips before dark no problem,” I said, knowing I may have just jinxed us.

Chapter 35

Delicacy!

NOW THAT THE pack of raptors joined our herd, they really changed the dynamic of things. Yes, the big herbivores chomped, munched and ripped at vegetation, but they did so in this boring and dull way, even if they were filled with personality.

The raptors loved foraging while we toiled, more than happy to dart about as they hunted for their favorite snacks. It was riveting to watch as big dinos turned over rocks or ripped out bushes. And occasionally, the pack would go wild when a bigger dino would shake some small critter out of hiding.

They helped pass the time as sixteen of us loaded up clay, completing our gathering in only an hour. Our main limiter was carrying capacity because we loaded up every last thing, even the empty dynamite boxes. Makeshift bag saddles were draped over Maggie and the big Hadrosaur hauled clay like a boss. Since we all busted our butts to speed through the process, it came as no surprise when most wanted to stay back in the base to avoid a second mission.

“You’re going back out because the alien winked, aren’t you?” Missy teased.

Aubrey kissed my cheek. “We got enough fish for today. Super proud of Maximus.”

The spinos were indifferent to our arrival, understanding that fighting a herd was never in their best interest. And yes, there was the stinging reminder that Bertha packed a punch. Maximus could flick his tail with baited hooks, dragging fish to the shore.

Without a doubt, watching a dinosaur fish was pretty epic. Of course, that changed when our pteranodon dive bombed the water a half-dozen times, failing over and over. Every single time, she came up empty.

“Yeah, I know, but not for Birdo who’s a terrible fisherman,” I said, thumbing at the bird who perched atop the massive gate. Aubrey folded her arms, popping out a hip to rest on. I knew what was coming. “Fine, fine. Maybe, just maybe I’m going fishing for new dinos before I lose the resets. If I fail, I’ll just domesticate something in the pens.”

“The mothers are delighted about the egg bins that came with the stables. They poke their heads in, feel the warmth, then coo.” Missy giggled with a pleasant twist. “Hearing a stego momma coo is about the cutest thing ever.”

“Well, that baby may become food once they push it out of the house,” I said sadly. “This is a farm as much as it is a war camp.”

“Do we make a slaughterhouse at some point?” Darnel asked, arriving from a small door next to the massive gate. We bro hugged, exchanging smiles. “This is a great load of clay. I’m excited to make a big kitchen with some of it.”

“Excellent. Have you scouted the carve-out I selected for it?” I asked, using a nod to point at a spot I failed to turn into a cave with dynamite. “It’s a bit exposed but we can put a barrier around it or give you a pet dino to guard over you.”

He nodded, folding his arms with a long gaze. “Oh, huh, hmm… I… I’ll get back to you about the pet. Maybe.” Darnel pointed at the carve-out. “The spot’s a bit rough, but I already see the end result.” My friend paused, fidgeting a bit, giving me his telltale sign he had something he wanted to say, without saying it.

I chuckled. “Out with it.”

In a rushed way, he said, “Bro, I kinda want to get out there to do herb and root picking.” I snorted at his wince. He continued, “I may or may not need a bunch of dinos around me.”

“Well, do I have an update for you! Starting tomorrow, this changes,” I said, grabbing the obelisk. “Unleash a scan and a flare.”

The blue wave of magic shot out while a massive firework of light erupted in the gloomy sky. We’d still been pretty big on offering refuge, not having any takers yet. There were five waves of two hundred survivors with numerous starting points nearby. My best guess was these West Virginia hills had ten to twenty thousand who started with only half lasting long. Ten thousand survivors in this region with a pretty mediocre survival rate, seeing as how some folks killed themselves on purpose, sucked at adapting, or died to predation.

The flare shot high into the sky with the scan unfolding in a rippling wave. Nothing special happened on the scan, revealing the same details besides a few less trees populating near our base.

“How will it be different?” Darnel asked, folding his arms again.

“It said it will highlight points of interest for items. I’d have to assume that it will include rare herbs, mushrooms, roots, and the such,” I said.

His big brown eyes lit up with excitement. “Fuck! Yes! I’ll be rock solid if it comes to some velvety flowers. I mean it, Alan, rock, solid.”

I chuckled, knowing he was being a bit goofy while still serious.

“Phrasing,” I teased, earning a child-like snicker from my friend. “But yeah, come on out with us anytime. Just sit in the saddle, we’ll pick stuff, have you approve and move on.” I patted his shoulder, letting him know I planned on driving on. I raised my voice. “Hiso, Jarod, Carl, Poppy, Jennifer, you’re up. Either stay in the saddle or get in it.”

“What about us?” Missy asked.

I pointed to Maximus, Cali, and Anakin. “Get their saddles off, scrub down the raptors, and check for bad eggs in their nests. And make sure—”

“We show the mothers the eggs before taking them,” Aubrey said. “You sure you don’t want us to go?”

“Yes, no, maybe. Take care of those things for me, please,” I said, heading to Bertha’s saddle.

Over the next ten minutes, I waited while the others organized. To pass the time, I used the thinner rope to attach spare hooks. Funnily enough, we created quite a few traps for tiny dinos and birds, not really catching much. The light bulb went off in my head when I considered fishing for dinos via rope and hook with a chunk of fish.

A raptor would probably be able to dislodge the hook, but I wouldn’t know if I didn’t test.

Hiso happened to be the last one to return, grabbing the extra-bait box. As soon as he got comfy, I grunted out a call for Bertha to take us back towards Spino Lake.

With ample time before sunset, we found our comfy spots to watch the trees shift by.

A nice breeze cooled the day, but those scattered clouds bothered me. I knew we’d be trying to capture a drop tomorrow and doing so in the pouring rain. Honestly, even if the changes opened up great opportunities, I may just sit at home until the rain stopped since it reduced visibility, smell, and our ability to hear.

Hiso handed me a ball of clay, breaking my musing.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“For playing catch,” the Japanese man replied. I frowned, not quite understanding. “I want to improve. Training in hand eye coordination will help. May I make more and wrap them in twine?”

Now I understood that he intended to create a baseball of sorts. “Yes.”

Carl chuckled. “Gotta love Alan. Right?” Carl teased Hiso. I didn’t get it, so he filled me in. “Hiso and Sayuri want to build a combat training area. They figured you’d get angry, but once they had space assigned that I approve of, you might come around to the idea. I told them if Fred loved the idea, you would too.”

“I do. Approved. Speaking of which, when do we need to do more wood runs?” I asked.

“Next week maybe. I need the ground leveled to keep going. Honestly, and I don’t mean this in a rude way, but I want that drop tomorrow. We can really expand quickly with just a few alien foundation things. The stable, for example, would have taken me months and the ability to mix concrete to make.” Carl snapped his fingers. “Done just like that.”

“We can’t shortcut everything,” Poppy warned.

Carl grunted unhappily at his wife. “Yea, you’re right, but here’s the catch. When Alan spawned both the stable, gate, and the longhouse, he literally erased months of work. Not to be too much of a downer, but damn, we’ve been busting our ass and are making limited progress because the hills are stubborn.”

Bertha continued down the river at her leisurely pace. I definitely couldn’t argue with his logic about the shortcuts. When I spawned the gates, it changed the landscape in a way that would have pretty much been impossible given our current technology level.

Not only that, the stable cut into the rugged terrain with ease, adding at least a few hundred square feet of protected space. Every inch came at a premium, with people sleeping on the stable’s roof now and the second hut getting close to finished. We finally had a bit of elbow room.

“We may not risk going after the prize. We may. It depends on where the drop, you know, drops. I value life, even if the aliens want me to risk ours for rewards. Honestly, we have no reason to go after the NE capsules in the dinos. We can make stairs, but yeah, putting in raw items and getting quality stuff out the other side is pretty sexy,” I admitted, contradicting myself somewhat.

“I’m not playing foreman for a reason. Hard to preach I want to advance without taking risks,” Carl said, soaking in the muggy day. “Plus, it’s good to let someone else be in charge for a bit.”

“Alright.” I rose, popping my back before I grabbed a spear, doing a stretch. “That’s Spino Lake at the end of the river. We’re not here for fishing. We’re hunting.”

“I fucking knew it,” Poppy said, glaring at her husband. “His wives were pissed he didn’t want to bring them.”

“Wives?” Jarod asked with a raised eyebrow.

I winced. “Uh, so, hmm… Missy told me to wife her up as if it was some great challenge. One thing led to another, and I should have talked to -”

Jarod interjected, “Me first? No. I’m not her father. Hell, I barely get along with my sister half the time.” He chuckled. “This is the most sane I’ve ever seen her, and she’s pregnant. Father would have strangled you—” Jennifer slugged his arm with enough force to not only shut him up, but he rubbed his arm angrily. “What the fuck?”

“Jarod, he would have led with her being pregnant and wanting to do the right thing if he knew,” Jennifer said.

Jarod hung his head while I roared out a laugh. “Ha! Jennifer is wrong and relax. We sorta think, not knowing for sure. I figured it out because Aubrey is trying extra-hard while Missy is not. I love her, she loves me, and we’re a great family. And, of course, it wouldn’t be happening this fast except life’s changed. But yeah, in a perfect world, we’d have already had this conversation over a cigar or whatever.” I stuck a hand on his shoulder. “Instead, we’re going into the lion’s den.”

“Fair. Fair. Are you sure about this? Spinos can kill Bertha, and we can barely hurt them,” Jarod asked, changing the subject.

The trees thinned as the river slowed and we finally entered a portion of the jungle, where we could farm smaller variants to take home. The widening water deepened until it spilled into the small lake. Bertha wadded into depths, sloshing water with smooth motions. She stopped when the river reached her shins, craning her neck out to inspect the lake.

“I don’t see them,” Jennifer said, her voice heavy with apprehension.

We scanned the area, knowing that the spinos weren’t sunbathing. Sure enough, a tiny wake in the water deviated closer, stopping once the submerged spino could see us.

I snickered. “Warn him away,” I told Bertha.

We plugged our ears and the big female unleashed one hell of a trumpet. The spino didn’t slink back or even flinch. Instead of worrying, I tossed over a line into the shallower water, letting the chunk of old meat splash loudly.

The big yellow eyes watched us with indifference, not doing anything different. The line pulled taut after only a few seconds in the water. I left it as is for a few reasons, but the biggest of them was the spino’s reaction. Those vibrations in the water triggered a core memory, and the spino finally fully understood we dared them to eat the fish.

When the big yellow eyes vanished from sight, I pulled the fish up with mighty heaves. Once the fish left the water, the spino rose once more, took a final look and gave up by swimming away. By the time I had the fish brained and secured, both spinos slowly rose from the water to sunbathe on a patch of distant rocks not far from where I saw them eat before.

“How’d you know?” Jennifer asked.

I snorted. “I didn’t, but the law of survival is pretty high. If it can hurt you, it can kill you. If it can kill you, hunt elsewhere or wait for the right time.”

“Arggg.” Hiso grumbled, swatting at a series of insects near his face.

Poppy oddly cheered up at the sight. “Oh, Alan. Yes, yes. Sorry, but people still like to come to me with complaints even if they’re fewer than before.” The woman wasn’t sorry, losing quite a bit of weight over the two months of surviving. I tossed the fish guts into a box for the dinos later, flashing her a fake smile to continue. “The bugs are getting bad at home.”

I opened my mouth to answer when Carl snorted and said, “There’s your answer right there.”

Jarod and Jennifer followed his finger while I completed my task. Jennifer lightly nudged her lover with an elbow and a testing glance. Jarod pointed at the water’s edge, not far away, with a chuckle. He snapped his fingers, looking at one of the big toad dinos.

“Hey, I know this one,” Jarod proudly said. When Hiso grew confused, Jarod added, “I’ve been studying the dinosaur book. That’s a Bezos toad. It’s actually called a beelzebufo, but yeah. It’s a big ass frog from sixty-five million years ago.”

“And what do frogs eat?” Carl asked.

I snickered. “Insects. What do they poop, though?”

“Depends on the species, but I lived in Florida for a bit, and they laid these easy to pick up, fully formed turds,” Jarod said. “I think we should get a pair.”

My earlier epiphany from earlier hit pretty hard and I said, “I’ve got just the plan.”

“You seem ambitious in your goal,” Hiso commented, watching me wind up the fishing hook.

I snickered, letting the windup reach a key point, then released to send the fish head flying. The coiled line stripped off the neat pile circle by circle. The bait crashed through the jungle and landed on the shore only a few feet from the massive toad.

After a few attempts, we finally repositioned Bertha without spooking one of the beelzebufos. The lake was littered with them to the point it only made sense that the spinos didn’t eat them. We did see a large herd of duckbills come honking to the river’s edge, considering bringing another female home. They dipped into the water one by one, drinking while taking a swim to remove dirt and bugs from their sides.

The big toads left them alone, hunting in the water and on land. I definitely saw the merit in keeping them around to target nuisance species.

“You shouldn’t touch them. The book mentions they have a slimy coat that causes some species to gag—spitting them out, or paralysis,” Jennifer said. “Worse, when we get them home, they’ll clog up the pond.”

“We can use the pool for them,” Poppy said.

Carl shook his head. “Heavens no. I want to build a fire pit under the pool for warm water. Sure, it's muggy and hot as hell right now, but it will get colder and colder.”

“You had me at warm water,” Jennifer teased. “But… both my points remain.”

The massive toad hopped closer to the fish head, intrigued by the smell of an easy meal. I didn’t jiggle the line or tense, simply letting nature take its course. Meanwhile, Bertha snacked with abandon, having ample food to choose from since no one of her height fought back the vegetation in this spot.

I grunted, grabbed the obelisk, and said, “Hey, our resident dino experts have a great point. If I hook this dino, it’s trapped, but I can’t touch it according to the book of knowledge.”

Atticus flared the obelisk with heat, only showing up as an omnipresent voice. “How badly do you want to get rid of your bugs? It won’t kill you, but it will make you loopy for a few days.”

“Then my tribe doesn’t get to participate in the epic regional conflict you established. I don’t have a standing army or second in command who I want to send on away missions,” I said.

“I can’t say more besides five have been domesticated world ide with only one suffering adverse effects,” Atticus said, providing just enough insight to give me an idea before he vanished.

“He’s gone and—”

The green and blue striped beelzebufo snuck up on the fish head while we chatted, devouring it with a single bite. It immediately sensed something was wrong, hopping with its powerful legs in the hopes of seeking refuge in the lake. The distant lunge carried it maybe fifteen feet in the air before the line snapped tight.

A loud groan creaked out of the rope to the point I thought it might snap. Bertha whipped her head around to see what tugged on her saddle. When she saw the beelzebufo fighting a hook in the corner of its mouth, she dragged it away from the water.

The big toad smacked into a tree, getting stunned. I grabbed the rope and said, “I wish to use my domestication charge.”

Nothing happened.

“Alright Bertha, drag it upriver next to the clay depot. We just have to hope the hook holds,” I said, turning to Jennifer. “You brought the blankets and extra clothes?”

“Yeah, which do you want?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Both, since I’m going down. Might as well come down, Jarod. If something goes sideways, just kill it.”

The big toad was dragged behind without a care in the world. The big bronto violently ripped sections of foliage with abandon, snacking while she walked. We adjusted our stances based on her gait, managing to stay upright without a problem. Meanwhile, the toad smacked into trees, tore through bushes, and fought the whole time.

When we arrived at the clay, the big toad seemed exhausted, so Jarod and I descended the opposite side of the bronto. We didn’t say much, both of us figuring out the solution: either use a cover to touch the animal or a pinky nail. One thing was certain: the frog was definitely trapped.

My feet touched down, squishing into the soft bank from the final drop. Jarod followed behind me, approaching with a towel under his arm, a bag in his left hand, and a spear in his right. He stayed calm, just as I did.

We approached the fatigued beelzebufo with indifference and an air of confidence.

One of the eyes shot open, and it was in that moment I knew we underestimated our prey.

A blurring motion lashed out.

“Shit!” I raised my blanket like a shield.

Fortunately for me, the strike never landed on the thick material. Unfortunately for Jarod, he received a tongue lash directly at his startled face.

The attack was lightning quick, catching us both off guard.

He fell backwards, sliding fingers across small punctures that the tongue left behind.

“Arrggg…” Jarod cried out, crashing onto his ass with a thud.

I surged into action, jumping with the blanket stretched out to avoid physical contract. When gravity pulled me down on an inevitable collision course, I bounced off the slimy hide. The big toad grunted, very annoyed by my weight smacking into its back.

My feet found purchase on the gritty terrain, and I quickly scrambled to compress the toad with my mass. I shifted the pressure to free a hand, quickly grabbing my obelisk. “Use my domestication.”

Jarod writhed on the ground, screaming in pain.

The Beelzebufo bucked, fighting the hook and my weight. Even though it was exhausted, that fight-or-flight kicked in and it sure as fuck wasn’t ready to go down. We tussled to the point I was forced to use two hands to keep from flying off.

After five more minutes of struggle, I sighed when the reptile struggled to breathe.

“Anything easy is not worthwhile,” I grumbled, uncovering the blanket enough to touch the slime with a pinky finger. “Use my domestication!”

A flare of blue magic blinded my vision. Before the process ever completed, I rolled off the reptile.

Tribe Grant has consumed its once a Week Dinosaur Domestication: 1 of 2 Remaining.

Time until next charge: 6.98 daily rotations

Congratulations. You have domesticated an adult male Beelzebufo.

Species: Beelzebufo

Sex: Female

Age: 7.34 sun rotations.

Weight: 11.2 Zexa: Rarity Value: 0.834

Efficiency Value: 23.79% of species

Traits: Simple minded, Bottomless stomach, Irritable

Known for: having a torpidity tongue, eating bugs, and hopping great distances.

“Well, it’s a pretty lame specimen, but it sure as fuck packs a punch,” I said, finding Jennifer consoling a green-faced Jarod. “How long will it last?”

Jennifer poured water onto his wounds to flush them. “Few days if it is bad, few hours if not. He’s going to be miserable.”

Jarod vomited a second later, his eyes rolling back in his head until he passed out.

I picked my brother-in-law mid-heave, chucked him over my shoulder, and wrapped his thighs in a bear hug. I worried he might fight me, but he stayed limp in my embrace.

Instead of checking on him, I raced up Bertha’s rope ladder. When I reached the saddle, I convinced the others to help get him secure. Jarod breathed evenly, and his lack of consciousness was probably for the best because his face swelled up pretty bad.

I went to the ladder, getting ready to unhook the super-toad, seeing that Jennifer already did so. “How is he?” she asked, ascending to join us with a worried scowl.

“Sleeping soundly,” I answered, bringing the hook line up. I glanced at the beelzebufo and said, “Rest, but when recovered, go up this river until you reach your new home. Croak in a friendly manner if we’re not home yet.”

“Wait, what?” Poppy asked in confusion. “Jarod could be dying!”

Carl grunted. “We have to spend one more domestication. There’s the spinos, those duckbills, and then more frogs.”

“I need a few days of fish, too. We play it slowly and suffer along with Jarod if he wakes. We still have a few hours before it gets dark, and the spinos made it pretty clear. They’re going to let us stay. Hell, they probably are very happy for us to remove some of the toads that they won’t eat,” I said.

“Well, I fear the beast that eats them,” Hiso whispered.

Jennifer arrived, barely hearing him. “Titanboas or some version of them that was aquatic. Our knowledge is somewhat lacking, but yeah… Just because we haven’t seen them, doesn’t mean they don’t exist and the ancient one might be much bigger than predicted because these toads are massive.”

“If they can eat those, then we’re nothing,” Carl said in an ominous tone. “The story of our lives. I… I’m worried, as is Poppy, but if his breathing is steady, hopefully we can finish a trip today without coming back tomorrow.”

“Keep an eye out for snakes, and yeah, we try to get resources,” I said.

Jennifer huffed. “He should be fine, and I’ll watch him. As far as giant snakes go, there should be some, and we’re also missing sarcos, massive gators, and their smaller cousins. Regardless, there are a lot of unknown or unseen species that can kill us, and Alan is right. We should use our time here to the best we can.”

Carl folded his arms and added, “Look, I’m not some master of war, but if some Chinese fucker is trying to kill me, that toad can fire a knockout dart faster than an eye can track.”

“Or dinos. We can set them up, push the herd through them, and they’ll sticky tongue targets. The herd moves on from the dead, and they’re pretty darn trapped if they’re unconscious,” Jennifer added.

We exchanged some grunts, mulling over the options. I glanced down at Jarod, sad to see him so out of it. However, Carl had a damn fine point.

“A toad it is. After some fish, and that’s assuming we make it that far without some emergency erupting,” I said with a sigh, preparing every fishing line we had.

One way or another, I was going to make sure Fortress Grant could withstand us leaving for the drops—or worse, survive if we never coming home.

Chapter 36

Pre-War Rituals!

AUBREY BIT my earlobe and whispered, “Harder.”

Before I went to bed after a hard day at Spino Lake, the ladies led me toward the front of the gate. I ensured Jarod was recovering smoothly. The new toads were soaking in our large pond, and that the fish were delivered to Darnel. During my work, I never even noticed Cassie and Aubrey snuck away.

I ate a nice fish dinner, sitting by Missy who held a cooing Anthony. A baby's temperament was always hit and miss, but as other babies cried, he was chill, happy to be held. Of course, Missy asked for a walk after our meal, leading me toward the camp’s gates.

We arrived at Bertha’s saddle placed on rocks well off the water. Those sneaky ladies of mine pushed back hanging blankets like curtains. They’d taken the saddle off Bertha, something we did while she healed, but we never shifted it as a bed, keeping it in the alien tech containers.

They had a different idea for it instead of letting it sit in the ball, and their efforts were wondrous. I found myself saying goodnight to Missy and Anthony as Aubrey dragged me into the makeshift bedroom. Comfy pillows were strategically laid out, clothes were quickly strewn across the room, and after an hour of lovely chat, the kissing began. Cassie excused herself for a bit, leaving me and my brown-haired beauty alone.

Of course, as the passion transited into something more… heated, sparks flew.

I grunted, earning a sweet moan from Aubrey. She wrapped her legs around my hips, shoved her pelvis up, and buried my rock-hard cock deep into her dripping vagina. Her blue eyes flared with desire, and she crushed her lips to mine the instant we gazed into each other's souls.

With each stroke, she pushed back, wanting me deep inside her. I definitely tried to oblige her hunger, her love, her passion. We entered a cadence of affection, swapping between fiery kisses and tender necking.

“I love you, Aubrey Winchester,” I whispered into her ears.

She shuddered in delight, shifting her left hip down before twisting in an attempt to get on top. My lovely vixen failed because I didn’t want to swap, earning a chuckle from me and a giggle from her. I kept on rocking the boat, but she clearly wanted to climax on top so on the second hip check…

I didn’t let her win, but I did pull out to gaze at her fully nude form in the firelight that seeped through the blanket walls. Her full breasts lay heavily on her chest with her nipples pert from the excitement. Whatever extra padding she brought with her to this new world vanished weeks ago.

Fit thighs led to supple hips with a cute thigh gap. She grinned, taking in the sight of my hard body while I let my eyes linger on her gyrating breasts.

“Get on your back, husband, I’m going to work that cock just the way you like it,” Aubrey said, bouncing her eyebrows.

I instantly crashed into an open spot, twisting onto my back somewhat clumsily in my rush. She loved this, but not as much as she loved straddling my groin.

“I need you in me.” Aubrey lined up her dripping slit, teased my tip with her entry, then slammed her hips down while squeezing her sex in all the right ways.

This time she grunted, and I moaned, lavishing in the moment. Her hips snapped back so her clit could grind into my groin. Her full breasts smashed into my pecks.

“So tight,” I praised.

“So big. I’m just… going to… right here. Oh yes, Alan!” She repeated this line over and over for a good five minutes, until her hands squeezed on my shoulders, and she screamed, “Oh, fucking, yes!”

While I wasn’t quite ready for my finish, I certainly was happy to help her get over her first finish. My large hands clamped onto her hips, helping to keep her pinned on top of me. I kissed her neck, swapped a hand to twist a nipple, and held on for the ride of my life.

Not even a minute later, Aubrey climaxed so hard I worried someone might come over and shush her. Her sex dripped down the sides of my balls, overflowing from the orgasm. She collapsed to lay beside me, a heaving mess of tousled hair with a sheen of sweat from the warm night.

Aubrey caught her breath, scooted down, then snuggled into between my leg. When she caught her breath, she readied to finish me off. One hand stroked the shaft, the other played with my balls, and her tongue masterfully danced along the bottom of my cock’s head.

“Alan?” Aubrey said with a muffled voice.

I held back her hair. “Yes, Dear?”

She popped me out of her mouth. “Don’t come in my mouth, but if you make it back to me after this drop, I’ll let you try anal or cum on my face,” Aubrey said, earning a chuckle from me. After she went back to sucking my cock, she asked, “Whatso funny?”

“You are the reward, not special sex, but if you wanna try new things, I won’t say no and damn, you give the best head,” I said.

She didn’t argue that Cassie was probably better, focusing on her own methods that I thoroughly enjoyed. Eventually, I neared a finish point, and gently pulled her hair to get her to stop. I lined up five pillows, setting her ass on them with her neck and shoulders holding all of her weight.

With her hips elevated, I rotated to my knees and slid into her slick vagina. My thrusts increased until I couldn’t hold it in anymore. My cum exploded into her with quaking pulses. I held my cock, shoving it in deep even though I normally would have pulled out by now.

Aubrey winked, knowing damn well what I was doing. She rubbed her belly happily with a big smile. Why she was so baby crazed was beyond me, but I was crazed to make her happy, so I rolled with it. I knew damn well I’d barely have time to raise kids, but I shouldn’t stop the natural cycle of life, or a mother’s love.

When I eventually pulled out, Aubrey nested to the point she was half asleep. I laid a blanket over her, kissed her forehead, and put on my kilt. Cassie waited outside, happy to take me to the shower area under the waterfall.

I couldn’t help but beam a smile.

Life was grand, and if I died tomorrow, then I’d do so as a happy man.

Chapter 37

To War!

“DO you think we should have painted our faces?” Victor asked with a snicker.

Fred snorted. “No, Victor. Alex, double check Fin’s gear one more time.”

Fred was in charge of team two, which consisted of Sleuth and Bertha. In his squad of five, he commanded Alex, Victor, Fin, and Sayuri. Sleuth would be recon, Bertha tanky support, with all five of them having bows and arrows. Her freshly cleaned saddle held side walls to protect from counter arrows.

In my team, only four of us worked as a flanking unit. We had Cali the triceratops, Maximus the stego, Maggie the massive duckbill mom, and then the two tranquilizing frogs. Which, yeah, Jarod recovered nicely from the torpidity with some quality sleep.

I was riding with Cassie on Maximus, fitting nicely together to help defend the dino. The saddlebags were mostly empty besides some survival gear to let Maximus with the weight. Cassie would never leave the saddle, becoming the getaway driver for whatever trouble I brewed.

While she wore some of our scant armor, it wouldn’t save her from a rex bite, and she refused to stay at home. I wore a helmet and nothing else besides a kilt. I carried a machete on my left hip, a satchel on my right hip, a shield on my left arm, and a hefty spear on my right hand.

Jarod rode on Cali with Jennifer being his driver. I considered swapping out the mothers for some of the single Asian women, but the last thing I needed was for our very first mission to go sideways because we tried to vary people based on importance.

Going forward, yes, the same crews would get rotated to either away missions on their own, or back in the base with the builders, organizers, and dino farmers. By no means were those who stayed behind less vital, but they were safer.

I let my angst go, rubbing Cassie’s thigh. The ominous clouds rolled in fast, depositing some of their load. The drizzle stayed light, the day gloomy with a thick overcast, and I couldn’t help but know that the visibility was only going to get worse.

We needed the rain though, deciding to place the pool up in the mountain, not far from the lip of where the second-floor would rest. After much deliberation, I decided on turning it into a cistern. The worms were being grown in leftover boxes for now and storing rainwater seemed important.

More importantly, the pool opened up a bunch of new space, cutting into the mountain. As if they heard me reflecting, Carl and his builders hammered away in the background, striking chisels into rock to create anchor points for the second-floor roofing.

“I hope they finish soon,” Cassie said.

I grunted with a loud moan of short calls, ordering the dinosaurs forward. If anyone became upset, we moved without an alien drop in the sky. They didn’t say anything. Bertha stepped forward, quaking the ground in muted silence. We waved back as a final goodbye, taking off in what could be a wrong direction.

I didn’t much care if it was, having an ulterior plan at play. The instant we set foot in the jungle, Cassie tensed.

“Just talk. It’ll help the nerves. Not like we’re quiet,” I said, listening to Bertha snack. The stego and triceratops were no different, ripping lush bushes every chance they could. “Anything works.”

“You wooed me last night under the waterfall, telling me how important I am to you.”

“True then, true now, true tomorrow,” I admitted.

Cassie sputtered her lips nervously. “I feel it’d be cliche to ask about a ring since the—” Cassie started to say but I held up a finger. She nervously whispered, “What is it?”

“Whispering almost never works. Check your necklace,” I said. Her hands wrapped the string until they found a twine ring tied to it. “You’re a great mom, a wonderful support partner, and while I know we never get solid bonding time as much, I always enjoy it, you, and Anthony. Welcome to the family.”

She kissed my cheek. “It’s surreal, and exactly what I wanted. To have someone care enough that he came home, no matter how hard the world was to him and us.”

“Well, this isn’t the greatest place to get into something overly emotional, but I wanted you to know I didn’t forget about you, just needed to find the time, and Aubrey wanted her ‘night’ last night,” I admitted.

“You did great, and she begged me to swap places, but this is what I signed up for. You got us this far, Alan, and I have a son to protect, so I’ll do what I need to,” Cassie said, glancing around at the forest as if she might recognize the area. We actually weren’t too far from where I tackled the pteranodon. “Speaking of… what are we doing?”

“Going to war, Cassie. We’re going to war. You see, I used the device today. There is an Apex Stegosaurus on the south side of the great lake. If we kill it, and harvest its NE, we can have additional power for our teleporter, enough to last a long time since it’s our only device,” I said.

Maximus pushed back a branch, snipping off just enough that I had to toss an arm up to avoid getting whipped by the remainder. We led the way, so the others slowly followed our path. Bertha snacked, dropping bits of food and the frogs seemed perfectly content hopping along with the rain at a steady pace. The only dino that seemed bothered so far was Sleuth, who stayed under Bertha’s frame since the weather bothered him.

“Oh, no one mentioned you looked,” Cassie said.

I shrugged. “Most of the news is pretty fucking bad. The nearest metal is at least five miles. Sulfur twenty. Salt twenty-five. We have clay, herbs, vegetables, berry bushes, roots and more, but even coal was three miles away, and this is coal country. It is so bad, I may move us, depending on what the drops are. Or maybe an outpost with teleporters because moving metal five miles is bullshit.”

“I… I like our home, but a metal outpost sounds nice,” Cassie said, fixing a loose strand of wet hair to secure it in her ponytail.

“Yeah, and to make matters worse, we need to kill that stego. We only have a few days until the advanced teleporter runs out of power. I think it was always a tease, a way to entice us into being more proactive,” I guessed.

“Probably, but Alan, what is this way?” Cassie asked, point ahead of us. “In the here and now?”

I raised the hefty spear and pointed toward a random spot in the jungle. “Well, right through the dense undergrowth, there is a spot where only weeds and roots grow. No trees are there because it’s a big sand deposit. It also happens to be the spot where the last carno I killed was trying to return to.”

“Oh… As in the carno who killed Peter?” Cassie asked.

I nodded. “That’s my assumption.”

“Ah, revenge is a dish best served cold,” Cassie said. “Striking their nest when least expected. Smart.”

“Thanks. The two I killed weren't nearly enough. I need proper revenge and I want that nest. I’d like a drop from the sky. I’d like to tame a carno even more. When it comes to fighting humans, I’d much rather be on the back of a nimble and fast predator than a slow and lumbering tank.”

Maximus grunted in disapproval. I patted his back with a grin. He quickly ignored me, chomping on new growth only.

“I fully agree. You can kill carnos with one eye closed,” Cassie said.

“Let’s hope so because we aren’t far away, and no beacon in the sky is giving me reason to stop my assault,” I said.

Cassie glanced back, waving at Jarod and Jennifer. “Are you going to tell them? Or Fred?”

“Huh, no. I fully expect them to connect the dots well before any fighting happens,” I said.

Cassie unleashed a mad cackle. “You plan on winning quickly, don’t you?”

“Absofuckinglutely,” I replied, drawing the word out without a pause. “With any luck, the carnos will never know what hit them.”

Chapter 38

Call in the Cavalry!

THE RAIN THICKENED, coming down in a torrential pour to the point I hoped our work in the basin didn’t create a clog. I couldn’t help but admit I may have overplayed my hand with the visibility worsening. Based on how long we deviated from the trail toward the carno clearing, I knew we were only a few paces from the thick jungle’s covering.

I stopped Maximus, sliding off his saddle to run behind to Cali the triceratops. Jennifer sat in front of Jarod, guiding the three horned dinosaur. They were completely drenched with stern faces filled with resolve.

Jarod immediately saw me, watching my approach with a furrowed brow. “Trouble?” he asked, loud enough to be heard.

I answered, “Right, maybe this time whispering works. This is the carno nest and—”

Jennifer interjected with a spreading grin. “You sly devil, what if the package is dropping, and we can’t see it because of this blasted rain and jungle density?”

I shrugged. “Stay close behind her crown. Jarod, you wanna come, or are you still too groggy?”

The dots on his face no longer bleed or ooze blood, but they hadn’t fully healed, either. The rain was probably good for a bit, but I resigned to swap him out with someone from the bronto after this.

“Yeah, just wet and my cheek is sore, but I’m ready,” Jarod said.

“Good. I’ll send in Bertha, to barrel through the nest. During the chaos everyone else will flood in after. You and I… we’re on foot to support the ladies while staying out of the swipe or horn range,” I said, navigating to the trike saddle to grab a spare spear. “Let me flow as primary.”

“Obviously. You putting yourself in biting range first sounds great.” We shared a chuckle, ducking instinctively as a bolt of lightning boomed nearby. “Maybe this time they won’t target me for some stupid reason,” Jarod said, snickering as he slid out of the saddle.

“Ready?” I asked. He dug in the saddle’s bag, grabbed a machete, and nodded. I sucked in a deep breath and shouted, “Bertha!” The bronto’s long neck shifted until her head came down to us mere humans. I pointed the thick spear in the direction of the clearing. “Scatter the nest, kill the adults, save the eggs or children. Go!”

Fred shouted in confusion, swiftly changing to a game face. The archers with him scrambled to ready arrows, swapping from a leisurely ride to battle in a few seconds. Bertha charged forward, bulldozing a stunted tree with her massive frame, knocking it into the clearing.

Branches snapped, bushes ripped free, and the instant Bertha surged through the wood, our small pack followed in her wake. Jarod and I trailed Cali, watching the triceratops bound without a waddle. Her front paws dug in as did her back, and she alternated leaps to keep up with the rapid pace.

Our jog and spot at the back proved too tempting for Sleuth. The raptor easily kept our pace, curiously keeping his head on a swivel to figure out what was going on. Eventually, he chirped a few questions about who we were attacking.

“Carnotaurus,” I said, jogging through the bushes.

As if on cue, a primal roar erupted through the jungle. Bertha trumpeted an angry reply with zero fear. To her, the infinitely smaller predator may have sharp teeth, but she could just sit on the puny carnivore.

Sleuth instantly cued in, finding himself delighted to be in the back of the charge. Carnos preyed on smaller predators almost more than they did herbivores, so he was keen to avoid being eaten.

“Get in there, distract or isolate babies, but avoid fighting! We need to grow our army,” I growled, busting out of the bushes to see the chaotic scene.

Just as the topography map predicted, the entire clearing was filled with long grasses, weeds, and other lighter vegetation. The ability to see more than a few feet was not only refreshing, it sent terrifying chills through my body.

Four adult carnos and a pack of sixty or so dilophosaurus swarmed Bertha, vehemently committed to defending their home. The small dinos darted about, brazenly scratching Bertha’s thick hide.

A single tail swipe tore through the dilo pack, sending most of them flying. The carnos quickly shifted away from the strike, with most of them focused on trying to bite the tail.

In a surprising move of agility, the instant her strike finished, Bertha pounced like a cat, using her front pads to crush a carno into pulp.

Maximus and Cali arrived in unison, diving right into the trio of carnos left standing. On the left, a half-dozen older adolescent carnos who stood about our height were abandoned to defend the nest. I shifted, going straight for them.

Basco, the bigger of the two toads, crossed the distance in a single bound, lashing a tongue strike out mid-air. The female, Loli, followed his lead, landing a second strike on the same target. Even if the adolescent roared out with a drowsy tilt of its head, the situation was far from perfect.

I never expected the carnos to pack with dilophosaurus’. Even a chihuahua’s bite can hurt and there were dozens, if not a hundred, of the little shits in the nest. I understood the dynamic; the carnos ate the dilos if they had a bad hunting spree and they added a defensive layer to their nest while the dilos were protected by the carnos—mostly.

My right boot connected with a dilos’ ribs, shattering them. I flowed into the nest, focusing on the dilos while the big battle raged in the middle of the opening. I’d just gored a dilo when Jarod tackled me from the side. A whoosh of air tried to pull us off the ground from something snapping overhead.

Bertha whipped her tail around, crushing half the nest to catch two fleeing carnos. The adults were adjusting to save their brood, running right into the path of the strike. Their yellow eyes shifted, turning almost a shade of soulless when they realized their fate.

Their bones snapped and the impact from Bertha’s tail strike sent them flying.

A mix of roars, pained shrieks, and human shouts filled the air. At this point, the last carno that bled from a horn puncture cried out for a retreat. While I scrambled to reach my feet, I saw a secondary puncture wound that’d healed over. I ran forward, almost hurling my spear after the beast who darted into the jungle, escaping the fate I wanted so badly.

“Arggggg!” I shouted in frustration, not willing to give up.

I darted through the sand, pumping my legs extra-hard. The instant I hit the jungle, I guessed a path the carno would take to escape.

With the spear leveled like a lance, I risked everything for my revenge. A flash of lightning flared, barely illuminating the eyes of the carno who’d killed Peter. The dino had stopped, calling out to its allies to regroup.

I shifted my angle once the lightning died down, crossing the distance in a second. The carno turned at the last second, seeing me before it was too late. An evil snarl spread across its face, but its eyes spoke of a sad frustration.

Any notion of mercy left a long time ago, and I jumped with my spear extended before the bastard could fade into the jungle. My angle was wrong, my strike only amounting to a grazing scrape at best. The carno never understood why, assuming I just had a bad jump.

Between the downpour, I only caught a glint of the large teeth readying to consume me. My right foot connected with the nearest tree trunk with my knee bunched. The instant it touched, I pushed hard, altering my trajectory downward.

The carno’s jaws snapped shut, only finding air. I landed right under the lower jaw, digging in hard with my left foot to stabilize my momentum.

A fierce growl of disapproval reverberated from the carno’s chest.

I grinned, belting out a fierce battle cry while finding myself only a few inches from the carno’s feeble arms. With all of my might, I shoved the spear upward, jumping to add every little bit of power.

The tip shot through the soft skin, piercing the lower jaw with ease. For the briefest of seconds, the metal found a weak resistance to puncture. Whatever the tip fought, lost, and the weapon dug into the brain.

I expected to go on a ride, being dragged by the big brute while it violently fought to persist.

Instead, the mind died, all control of the body failed, and I found myself diving to get the hell out of the way. The carno collapsed with a wet smack, earning a swift demise.

The bush I dove into halted my progress, spitting my back out to loom over my prey.

“Ha! Finally,” I growled, standing on the dead body, unleashing my best triumphant roar.

When I finished, I awkwardly yanked the bent spear free, stalking back to the clearing. Peter died, a scar on my soul, and a mark against my tribe, but inside, a surge of joy washed through me for finally killing his killer. At the same time, the sounds of death rang through the air from within the Carno Clearing.

I returned from the jungle, finding a bunch of defiant dilos unwilling to surrender. Since the spear was bent, I detached the bend until only the first third fit in my palm like a javelin. I flipped it with a toss into the air to go from stabbing to throwing.

A juvenile dilo hissed at me, earning a spear to the side of the face. If I killed it, so be it and in this case, I pierced the brain. The weapon tore free with ease.

“Cage the dilos. We need our dinner to not spoil,” I bellowed.

Sleuth pushed a few infants back into the nest, getting help by the frogs to contain the situation. Bertha trumped out defiantly, sending tremors through the ground when she reared up and slammed back down.

Before we could assess and clean up the mess, a flare shot into the sky from nearby. The direction was towards where we originally started our adventure from, and we really weren’t too far from the origin point.

Jarod impaled a juvenile dilo who’d gone berserk. That death proved to be the last among the youth of the nest. Their spirit broke, and they started taking orders from Sleuth.

“You wanna go, or secure our gains?” Jarod asked.

I snickered. “Both. Keep Sleuth and work with Fred to bag all this up. We will come back for the sand once the rain stops, and it dries out somewhat. Muzzle the tiny infants and stick them on Bertha’s back. No matter what happens, this line of adolescents is our future. You’re in charge.”

For the first time, I slipped the necklace over my head, grabbed the obelisk, and unleashed our own flare. The rain day turned bright with twin flares only a few hundred paces apart. A tingle of excitement coursed through my being as I handed off the obelisk.

Jarod stood with his jaw popped open in shock. “What are you doing?”

“There is someone nearby who needs me, and I gotta be honest, I’m their best chance. I… I expect that necklace when I get back.”

“Alan! We need you here,” Cassie pleaded, understanding what I intended.

I hurried over to Maximus’ saddle, grabbing a new spear while a terrified scream for a woman pierced the night. “That is directly under that flare.” I grimaced with my knuckles whitening from grabbing the spear too tight. “Look, I can get there in a minute or two, scout, and adjust. Not like you’re hard to find. Basco, Loli, flank me,” I commanded, picking up a dead sprint.

The beelzebufo bounded in long hops, easily keeping up during my mad dash. I tucked my spear into a lance, weaving between the tall grass. Another woman screamed with a terrified, flustered cry. She needed help… desperately wishing for a savior.

One thing was certain—I sped to her rescue. I just so happened to be one of the most lethal humans who hungered for violence.

“This is my jungle,” I growled, speeding toward the cries of distress.

Chapter 39

Fear the Reaper!

THE TERRIFIED SHRIEKS of a desperate woman split the air, quieted the jungle, and hit me right in the heart. I crashed through the thick bushes without caring about the scrapes I endured or the noise I created. After only a minute or two from the carno clearing, the cries turned to a blood curdling scream filled with pain.

With all my strength I pushed harder, slowly outpacing the giant toads who bounded in long hops above the bushes to keep up.

A chirp from a cocky Utah-Raptor painted enough of a picture. The call taunted its food by asking for it to cry louder. An evil grin spread across my lips, knowing this beast made a crucial mistake.

I burst from the jungle, finding a half-dozen ladies with spears pointed forward toward a pack of raptors. The young women wisely pushed their back against a tree and used their spears to try to cover all angles, but a large female raptor had dragged a woman from the group to make an example of her.

Not far from where she ineffectively fought, most of the other raptors feasted on the guts of a dead man and a different woman who’d succumbed to the pack’s hunt.

My arrival came with a snarling chirp that said one thing.

Alpha.

Before the nearest nimble raptor could adjust, my spear slid through the ribs of the audacious predator. I released my grip, vaulted over the stunned and dying raptor with my shield forward.

The next raptor hopped like a shocked cat. Its reaction lined up my shield strike perfectly.

Two hundred pounds of finely tuned man crashed into the raptor, knocking it down with a snapping impact. I followed it down, letting the ground act as a secondary impact. As the raptor’s eyes glazed over, I whipped a punch down directly against the dino’s skull.

The skull cracked, my knuckles ripped open, and I slammed my fist down two more times until its eyes rolled back.

I stood triumphantly, bringing my machete out. Eight of them formed a half-circle, snarling and hissing. I twirled the blade, raised my shield and pushed the raptors back with a confident challenge.

The pack chirped anxiously, egging each other on to be the one who attacked. When I’d juke forward, the raptor I faced would hop back for space. Every time this happened, they filled the gap a second later, keeping their circle set.

Right as their confidence neared a high point, I grinned at the crashing bushes from out my left.

“Ah, but I didn’t come alone,” I growled.

The massive toads landed with slides, lashing out with their tongues the instant they arrived. Their presence split the pack, and I seized the moment. I bound for the three raptors between me, Basco and Loli.

When the raptors hopped back to avoid my weapon’s strike, I backed them right into rapid tongue lashes. Confused shrieks erupted from the raptors until the massive toads infuriated the pack.

We all paused when tremors rumbled through every fiber of the Earth. I spread my arms wide then flexed with the loudest human roar I could unleash. I didn’t need to say a damn thing in their language when I confidently strode directly toward their pack with zero fear.

The raptors shifted their vision toward where the tremors originated. A titan neared. They knew it, I knew it, and it was only a matter of time until my reinforcements arrived.

A crack of lightning illuminated the jungle, revealing the tips of a stego’s spikes rushing through the bushes.

“This is my jungle!” I bellowed, sprinting right into their midst.

Maximus burst through the bushes, jumping into the fight on the left flank, with the beelzebufo lashing out over and over. The once confident raptors jumped back, squawking out for a full retreat. I considered hounding them, but if I already went on a suicidal hunt to avenge Peter.

“You’re fucking nuts!” Cassie shouted. “Do you know how crazy you are fighting a pack of raptors! The big kind!”

“This is my jungle,” I said calmly, not easing her worry one bit. I turned to the survivors, walking back until I could rip my spear free of the dead Utahraptor. Now that I could inspect them, I saw frightened women of Eastern Block descent. Maybe Kiev or Croatia based on a quick glance. “English?”

“Fluent,” the injured woman with the ruined ankle said. While I tended to not get woozy or weak around blood, her ankle was a mix of torn flesh, bone and ruined skin. The raptors thoroughly gnawed to the point they were torturing her to intimidate the rest. I happened to see the obelisk hanging off her neck. I reached down, snatched it, and yanked it off her body. “Owe! Mine!”

I growled, flaring my teeth as if I were no different than an animal. “Where are your dinosaurs? Where is your power?”

“Easy, easy,” a different woman said, her English smoother, without a heavy accent. She swapped to a language I couldn’t understand, calming the others, and then asked, “You could have died to save us. Why?”

“Because I can.” I set my machete away, eyeing the dead with a sad frown. “I… I can protect you. Come, be my guests until you recover.”

A different woman asked, “Any food or water?”

“A roof, lots of food, clean water, warm blankets, good people. Who knows, maybe we can revert some of those sunken cheeks. After that, if you wish to leave our protection, you may do so,” I said. The uninjured woman spoke rapidly in her language. “What language is that?”

“Polish. I taught English in Warsaw in a life that feels like a lifetime ago,” the black haired, pale skinned, young woman said.

“Good. Where are the others in your arrival group?” I asked.

She hung her head in sadness. “We ran into a large group of Mexican survivors who call themselves the Cartel.”

Jarod snorted, arriving to hear that line with Cali. “They sound fucking lovely.”

The woman grumbled, sorting her bag from where she dropped it. “They’re not. They merged with a lot of rules, some of them included breeding lines based on individual rarity or selective first pick for leaders.”

“The fuck?” Cassie blurted. “Sorry, normally I avoid swearing, but what!”

I raised an eyebrow. “You become a sailor when you’re emotionally vested.”

Cassie stuck out her tongue.

The Polish woman nodded. “I’m glad I’m not alone in being bothered about women becoming breeding stock.”

“Yikes,” I said.

“Yeah, well, some smart people made some very compelling arguments. Part of their logic wasn’t wrong. The… adverse effect of the local food left us a bit… promiscuous. This defined heritage, giving the species the most chance. We could love who we wanted, but breeding was more,” she huffed, “Spartan. Yeah, Spartan works.

“Most agreed as long as it was fair to the Cartel as well as the Snowmen, and it was, but that didn’t change the reality for about twenty of us. This is what’s left after a week of stumbling around. I… I think we’ve been walking in circles, and they’ve tried to get us to come back twice. Our goal has been to get to a flare we keep seeing, but…” Her finger shot right toward our base.

“I’m glad we found you before you died,” I said.

One of the other women frowned, and with a heavy eastern block accent blurted, “But at what cost?”

I ignored her at first, inspecting the raptor I knocked out. “A week is a long time. Here.” I handed out my canteen from my bag. “We also have rules, but they don’t involve rape for breeding lines. Simple stuff like working, helping and such. Regardless, you don’t have to stay.” I handed out bits of food to another woman. “That’s good, right?”

When I gripped the other tribe’s obelisk and touched the raptor, Atticus appeared in a flash of blinding light. I grumbled, shaking the flaring coloration out of my eyes.

“You can’t use that,” he warned.

“My adrenaline is still flowing through my veins, and I’m not exactly in a good mood for company,” I admitted to the alien.

“While many are brave, few are so violently talented. It’s delightful. However, rules are rules. You must use your obelisk to domesticate this dinosaur.” While Atticus talked, I walked over to the dead guy’s bag. I opened it up and grabbed a neat bundle of rope.

“Why visit instead of being a dick and letting me learn through trial and error?” I asked.

Atticus unleashed that odd mirthy laugh I hated. “You dropped a few hundred places while Bertha recovered, but now… You're twenty-ninth and likely about to grow by six more members.”

“The rejects of a super tribe,” I said with a snarky tone.

“It’s not the size that matters, it’s the strength of the punch, just ask Omioo,” Atticus said, pointing to the raptor I bound. “I enjoy talking with you for some reason, even if you’re a blip in time, you entertain me.”

“Joy,” I said, unable to hold in a chuckle. I laid out the line after binding the feet, then chopped the end to cut the rope. A second later, I wrapped the muzzle. “Where are the drops?”

“Waiting for night, of course,” Atticus said as if this was beyond obvious.

I sighed. “We’re only twenty-ninth in points, not power. I suppose it’s my own fault for going on the offensive, especially since you stripped rewards from ranking.”

“No, we just stopped giving the mega tribes who sit in their base and earn points through basic tasks from continuing to get freebies,” Atticus said, spreading his arms. “As always, excellence is rewarded. You’ve shown great prowess, not only defeating a named foe, but also by saving this feeble group.”

With all my power, I held back my sneer. “They’ll become mighty and strong, one with the land.”

The alien lizardman snickered. “I know.”

A large ball of blue magic glowed brightly not far from where the raptors fled. When the magic dimmed, Atticus vanished, leaving behind a big pallet of gear.

I turned to the Polish woman who’d been doing most of the talking. “What’s your name?”

“Elsa, and yes, I was born before the movie,” Elsa said.

“Load up the stego with your bags, while avoiding the toads.” I finished tying up the first raptor, moving to the two who were tranquilized by the toad torpor. “Cassie, grab the orbs and conduct an inventory.”

“Alan, they need to kneel,” Cassie warned when Maximus snarled.

Elsa stared at me coldly. “You… you’re not normal, are you?”

“I’m a simple kinda man, but no.” I called out a mourning howl, earning a blaring call from the herd of dinosaurs. I closed the eyes of the dead, hoping their souls would rest. “I’m going to keep you alive, keep you fed, and try to make you happy.”

Elsa kneeled, and a second later, the others joined her. The golden hue coated them all, even the injured woman who struggled to get up.

“I’m carrying you home, just lay there for now,” I commanded.

“Alan!” Jarod cried out, accompanied by the soft vibration of Bertha wanting to get closer.

I cupped my mouth and shouted, “Over here. We got a reward, injured, and survivors.”

Elsa hesitantly approached, raising a shaky finger when a massive shadow highlighted from a lightning strike. “What… is… that?”

“That’s Bertha. Everyone thinks the T-Rex is the king of the jungle, but in reality, the big sauropods rule the most powerful herds. At least here anyway. She’s not even fully grown, but she sure is a champion,” I said, moving onto the third raptor.

The others slowly arrived with the new carnivorous adolescents hungrily sniffing from all the blood. I ordered Sleuth to keep them back for now, stringing the dead raptor to a fishing line next one that dragged a carno.

Once I finished that, I finally managed to see the wounded woman who Cassie stopped sorting loot to help. I kneeled beside the pale woman who bravely kept from screaming further from the pain.

“She’s in deep shock, and she needs to relax. I… Maybe Aio can save it, but… At least the blood loss is minimal,” Cassie said with a twist to her lip. She clearly was trying to be positive, but it didn’t look good.

I snapped my fingers, earning the wounded woman’s attention. “I need to put you to sleep. Understand. It’ll feel odd but it’s what you need.” She nodded weakly. “Loli, put her under.”

The toad smacked her with a tongue hit to the neck in the blink of an eye. The injured woman vomited, then fainted a second later.

My knees cracked as I rose, folding my arms. “Cassie, tourniquet the lower leg. It’s only two hours to home and I’m ninety percent certain Aio will chop it anyway. We want her to avoid excessive blood loss.”

“And the dead?” Fred asked.

“Burying them won’t work, and we can’t burn them. We return them to the Earth, a part of the cycle we hope to break,” I said sadly. “Jarod, what’d we get?”

“A bunch of balls, two raptor saddles, and then twenty boxes of coal and salt,” he replied.

I crossed the distance to the crates, waving over the new Polish ladies. “Bring these over to the bronto’s underside. There’s a simple pulley elevator you can use to get these loaded into the bottom netting. Jarod and Jennifer will help.”

Jarod handed me my necklace, then his satchel. I donned the device and slung the bag over my shoulder. Before I opened his small bag to see what lay inside, I saw the Utah-Raptor who I punched unconscious stirring.

When I loomed over the predator, I noticed a whole lot of pain in its eyes. My hand tracked the ribs, finding them shattered. I didn’t puncture a lung based on how cleanly it breathed, so I found myself at a crossroads. It couldn’t walk in this condition even if I domesticated it.

No, it’d need babying.

“Babying… Hmm…” I scooped the slowly waking dino up, carrying her toward Bertha. Fred glanced down with a whole lot of judgment. He’d just used the long stretcher to raise the wounded woman, clearly fatigued. “One more up top. I’m going to domesticate one of the larger of the two. Then the other will go up to. Whatever you do, don’t -”

“I’ve got five baby carno’s up here, at what point do you stop bringing dangerous animals home, thinking they’re pets?” Fred asked. He had every right to be concerned. “Why not just make one of these big guys peaceful and do you have any idea how tired my arms are?”

“You’ve got a point, I… I don’t have a good answer besides I have a full grown breeder for our pack that is great at helping the tribe,” I said, resolving my determination. “Let your arms rest. Give me a minute.”

Cassie attached the raptor to the stretcher while I opened the bag. I pulled out the first alien orb, seeing a meat preservation station that required NE to run it. I certainly needed this, happy with its addition. The next orb was another small shed. The third orb was another stable. The fourth was a gate we didn’t exactly need.

“And the last?” I muttered, pulling out a wood processing station that also required Nebula Energy. I glanced up at a curious Fred who rotated his shoulder. “We got salt and a preservation machine. I bet we feed it salt and meat and spoiling meat suddenly goes away. Less culling, more room to ensure predators are fed.”

“Look, I was on board anyway, but Alan, and I mean this in the nicest way I can, I don’t want to lead, or to have Jarod lead. You dashing off to save some… damsels may not be worth it,” Fred said, disliking the fact he had to say the words.

“No, I get it. Our scouting team is growing, and the velociraptors are pretty much snack sized to almost everything out here unless they’re in big packs,” I said, bouncing an orb in my palm. “Anyway, we got a shed, a stable, a gate to use on one of the caverns I cut out, and then a lumbermill thingy.”

“You want this saddle?” Jarod arrived, carrying over a raptor saddle.

I unleashed a wicked smile. “Absolutely.” He followed me toward the two knocked out raptors. I glanced down at them both, noting they were about equal in size. I grabbed the obelisk and said, “Inspect.”

Species: Utahraptor: Sex: Female

Age: 2.34 sun rotations.

Weight: 6.2 Zexa

Rarity Value: 0.234

Efficiency Value: 4.79% of species.

Traits: Disobedient, Unruly, Grouchy

Known for: Scouting capabilities

“What does this even mean?” Jarod asked, standing over my shoulder.

I shrugged, rotating to the more colorful of the two females. I set my hand on the body and said, “I’ve never tried this, so I’m a bit surprised it works. I have to figure the EV means something. Anyway, Inspect.”

Species: Alpha Utahraptor: Sex: Female

Age: 3.70 sun rotations.

Weight: 6.3 Zexa

Rarity Value: 72.1

Efficiency Value: 96.79% of species.

Traits: Matriarch, Noble, Inquisitive

Known for: Leading a pack with bonus attributes to scouting capabilities.

“See, they look the same to me,” Jarod said.

I snorted with a slow shake of my head. “Same.” I snorted. “Atticus?”

The obelisk flared with heat, unleashing the disembodied voice of Atticus, “The higher the efficiency value, the better the animal. Two high EV animals that mate will produce above average infants, but many will still be far below such high scores. These scores break down further, with different variants, but breeding is normally done in isolated environments. For instance, this raptor variant may end up better or worse once domesticated, only time will tell.”

“We care about the animal’s traits, ability to listen, and usefulness,” I replied, letting the sentence hang. “A breeder in a pen won’t.”

The lizard-man nodded. “A higher EV should result in a more useful domesticated animal. The raptor beside this treasure will be more prone to making mistakes, but our domestication alterations prohibit them from lashing out on their master. However, a low EV animal might incite dangerous tendencies in wild tribe members,” Atticus warned.

I pointed at the unconscious female who was subpar. “She might get the wild raptors to rebel?”

“Yes.” Atticus vanished in a flare of light.

With a sweeping blow of the machete, I severed the unconscious raptor’s head with a single swipe. Jarod covered his face to avoid the spray of blood. My hand swept out to touch the alpha female.

The instant contact was made, I whispered, “Domesticate this dinosaur.”

The green eyes flared open with a surge of blue magic coating the dinosaur.

Tribe Grant has consumed its once a week Dinosaur Domestication: 0 of 1 Remaining.

Time until next charge: 6.99 daily rotations

Congratulations. You have domesticated an adolescent female Alpha Utah-Raptor.

Species: Alpha Utahraptor

Sex: Female: Age: 3.70 sun rotations.

Weight: 6.3 Zexa

Rarity Value: 72.1

Efficiency Value: 96.79% of species

Traits: Matriarch, Noble, Inquisitive

Known for: Leading a pack with bonus attributes to scouting capabilities.

The dinosaur shook her head, slowly coming out of her stupor. I grabbed the saddle from Jarod, thanking him.

He handed it over but stayed there. “I’m ready for a nap.”

“Best part of farming is you can nap whenever. Go get on Jennifer and ride her back home,” I said.

Jarod snorted. “You mean Cali?”

“Excuse me, Sir Alan,” Elsa said, raising a hand. “Do you really think we’re going to become… dino breeders?”

“Ellie, you look like a nice Ellie,” I said to the dinosaur, ignoring Elsa for now.

Jarod chuckled, “Ellie and Dr. Grant. Fitting. Hey, Elsa, did you know that Alan is a ninety-seven plus as a human? He’s faster than most, able to process situations with lightning speed, can talk to dinosaurs, never gets lost, almost always knows what to do next, and he wins. Wins a lot. He’s the future of humanity, kinda sad right.”

“He’s a hero, a man worth bending the knee to,” Elsa said, folding her arms. “And I never in a million years imagined I’d say that.”

“Yes, Elsa, and just as we’re manipulating the dinosaurs, the aliens are manipulating our breeding pools. I’m honestly shocked your group let you go,” I said, latching the saddles onto Ellie. “You good Fred?” I shouted. He flung a thumbs up over the side of Bertha. “Nice and slow, Tribe, nice and slow. We go home to do it all over again when that beacon drops.”

I walked without getting into Ellie’s saddle. Elsa kept pace, risking her life by staying on the ground. Cassie watched from Maximus’ back, shifting to adjust to the dinosaur's waddle walk.

“You think I should be bred?” Elsa asked with a stern glare.

“Yes.”

Elsa pressed her questioning, “By a man I don’t like?”

“No. People are the greatest asset we can get. I should have over two hundred souls in my tribe. I barely have half that while absorbing a full wave of Japanese. Suicidal and suicides would never put me at max, but I started this chaos without some key knowledge. I’m not sure I’d be willing to let an unprepared party die,” I said.

“Is he always this charming?” Elsa asked Cassie.

Cassie replied, “He has three wives who’d tear apart anyone who’d tried to harm him. Alan is not just a good or great man. He is Man.”

“I feel I should flex,” I said.

“I don’t think you can flex harder than killing a big ass raptor with your bare hands in the middle of a lightning strike,” Elsa said.

Cassie snickered. “We’re doing so well, the aliens had to delay some of our rewards and shift the game rules. But charming, no. Not until you get naked does his brain click that he can be emotional beyond caring.”

“She looks fantastic naked,” I said.

Elsa frowned. “Three wives. Hmm… We didn’t want to be… ra… have sex against our will. Surely you don’t think they should have slapped collars onto our necks.”

I walked through the jungle behind Jarod who slept on Jennifer’s back. The first signs of the tall grass peeked through the undergrowth.

“No but I’d have held you back until you were prepared. Look, I get it. Love is amazing, pure, and should come from the heart. You have six Polish women on that bronto. How many did you set off with?”

“Twenty became fourteen. Some went back when it became apparent that we weren’t going to do well. Five died with Simon throwing the necklace before the big snake dragged him away,” Elsa said with a shudder.

“Zero deaths is good, nine is not that bad when you consider the Japanese group lost a hundred and fifty four,” I said.

Elsa skipped a step, quickly catching up. “And you?”

“One. Just one to a fucking carno I killed today. I shattered his life. I have his children, I’ll eat his mates, and I’ll let his corpse rot,” I said cooly.

“Look. I’m grateful for being saved. Especially for Ola who they tormented, but I’m big on freedom,” Elsa said.

I raised the spear, pointed it at a general spot in the sky. “You see that? That right there?” I asked. She shook her head, glancing at me with a furrowed brow filled with confusion. “I’m not surprised. That’s common sense. When the Cartel conquered your tribe, you reacted on emotion when you should act with a poised purpose. I don’t blame you, I really don’t, but you should have accepted the deal. Play the game. When they let their guard down, you should have stolen more supplies or dinos, then escaped when you couldn’t be caught.”

“I… You’re not wrong, but we mostly had a small pack of those spitting things that don’t actually spit. Guard dogs for the tribe that worked well with the horned things,” Elsa said. “The Cartel had some trikes and a stego, part of the reason they joined.”

We stepped into tall grass, hearing the chittering of raptors and dilos picking over the dead. I sucked in a deep breath and roared, eliciting a roar from the rest of the tribe. The scavengers fled, retreating until we passed through.

“They fear him,” Cassie said. “His dinosaurs love him, because he is one with them. Even the wild ones respect him.”

“Wild ones?” Elsa asked.

“I carry my baby through a pack of raptors who have no mind control, they merely are a part of Alan’s herd, of which Bertha manages and the rest of us help with,” Cassie said.

Elsa blinked, clearly confused. “Baby?”

“Let me tell you all about how Tribe Winchester became Tribe Grant. We have an hour of walking to go,” I said, scooping up a handful of sand while on the move. I bounced the wet dark sand a few times before I continued. “It all began at a Walmart.”

Chapter 40

Homecoming Queen!

SAYURI FOUND me helping oversee the predator's new pen. We had intended to turn the blown-out cavern on the right side of our base into more housing for us. But the gate and stable dramatically expanded the space while providing a ton of peace of mind to the entire tribe. After the recent raid, we brought in a bunch of wild adolescent carnos, some dilos, and a wounded adult raptor.

Ironically, the cavern wasn’t too much smaller than a large zoo enclosure. The back stable provided ample space for the few nesting velociraptors. The mothers watched over the eggs while I actually kicked the infants out to bug hunt by giving them a doggy door that only they could fit through.

We hit a crossroads of sorts. With the new expansion through dynamite and alien items, a different tension settled over the group. We reached over a hundred people, and yes, while we swapped sleeping hours, created small buildings, and added the second floor, things were tight.

I knew the stable in the basin was a hotly contested issue. Most of the tribe only wanted the alien mind-controlled dinosaurs in the pens for various reasons. I honestly didn’t disagree, and ironically, the most violent dinosaurs weren’t the big toothed predators, they were the ornery duckbill babies.

Which meant that I was forced into a tough decision. In the end, I kicked their honking butts out too, just without a door to get back in. Bertha couldn’t fit in anywhere, a fact we all accepted long ago. I had to let it go and understand the herd would sleep in the clearing amongst the fallen giants.

As for the cavern, it wasn’t just for the raptors. I moved all the nesting or mothers interested in nesting into the space while kicking out everyone else, including those big enough to not need human help to age. Honestly a lot of the adolescent dinosaurs preferred to spend their time away from the mothers who were keen to prepare for another clutch of eggs.

“It’s like they flip a switch,” Sayuri said, pointing to a velociraptor that was probably two weeks old. “The second they can hunt or forage on their own, they’re no longer their kids.”

I stood at the cutout where air was flowing in, watching the mother forget about her offspring. “She’s about to go into egg laying mode again. These dinos are no different than us in that regard, but I think they’re going to dial it back soon, or maybe the breeding hormones are just for us because there clearly are enough dinos.”

“Yes, how will we deal with all the babies,” Sayuri asked.

I shifted to watch her, wondering what she was doing here. After I brought the Polish ladies home safely, the storm worsened. Even with the whipping winds and black sky, we managed to see a bright green glow, telling us the drop was in play. The thing was, it descended towards a spot at least two to three times as far as the Great Valley. Not only that, only a few minutes later, celebratory fireworks let the region know that someone got lucky to get the supplies.

The hype was over, and it took three days for the ground to dry. We ran sand on day four, clay on day five, and today was an off day. By this time tomorrow, I’d have another reset on my dinosaur domestication, which was why I found myself studying the carnotaurus adolescents who wanted to get into the warm nesting spots.

“I… I don’t know. The aliens seem to think we can just endlessly walk around to trade, explore, add dinos, remove dinos and then finally decide for some safety. But Fred has a point, we are generating enough protein daily and our deforestation will eventually mean we’re pushing the dinos further and further for their vegetation,” I said.

“Yes, but most of that will take years. Well besides the jungle. It’ll grow back, but the extra land is nice. We can each have a house if you erected a wall out there,” Sayuri said.

I grunted. “Huh, figured Fred sent you in an effort to cull the dinos. No, Carl sent you. He wants the wood processor online.”

“After you pulled that nebula energizer stuff out of the teleporter, we had two accidents and a few people simply moved in with the herbivores. We shouldn’t have been living with them inside the basin at all, their dung sticks to the boards and -” I held up a hand, stopping her mid-sentence.

“Not Carl,” I rightly assumed. “Aubrey sent you. How devilishly clever. Come, walk with me, Sayuri,” I said, heading toward the basin gate. Lina and Poppy stood at the big door, pulling guard. I gestured for them to open it. Staying in the big clearing we worked hard to expand. “You were once a high executive, so you’re sharp, quick to analyze and react. How would you fix my problems? And keep in mind, I just ordered all the dinosaurs out of the basin a half hour ago.”

“Permission to speak freely?” Sayuri prefaced.

The inner dinosaurs slowly lumbered out of their pen, eager to get to fresh water and lush greens. Bertha picked her head up and grunted that she was tired, not willing to topple trees at the moment. Our clearing was littered with them since burning was much less efficient without heavy machinery and the big trees were so massive.

“Yeah, the worst you can do is put me in a bad mood that I’ll recover from,” I answered.

“Kill all but Bertha, problem solved,” Sayuri said, having no issue with her words even if I hated them. “Raid a nest, get eggs for a week, meat for more, and then do it again. The aliens will just repopulate whatever you farm and Hiso did the math, it’s more points.”

I paused, turned her and pulled on her taut skin by her cheeks and forehead. She grumbled but didn’t stop me or tell me to leave her face alone.

“Nope, you don’t seem alien, but you sure as fuck sound like one,” I said, earning a frown. “I’ll tell you what. You go tame a bronto, use Bertha, and we will build a secondary dino free base. However, you have to be the one who risks their life to domesticate, build, defend and so on.”

“You’re not some dino lover, Alan Winchester, and you’re being stubborn,” Sayuri said.

I snickered. “Yupppppp. Definitely sent by Aubrey. Look, you both seem to forget why everyone died in the first place. Because there were no dinos. What if lava runs down that mountain, or the water stops flowing, or floods ruin our home. You want a hundred of us to hunker around one dinosaur? Look at them, they love us, they’re a part of this family.”

“But they turn crystal blue water brown, shit non-stop, and we don’t use them effectively for much gain besides eggs that they get upset about losing. And let’s not forget they’re extremely loud—even when not mating,” Sayuri said, regurgitating the talking points both Poppy and Aubrey fired at me.

The long story short was… people didn’t like living on a farm. To be fair, I didn’t blame them, but I sure as shit wasn’t getting rid of my dinos. The second they tried to leave without dinos, they’d become dino food. Not that Aubrey would leave, but yeah.

Ellie—the colorful teal and black raptor—bounded over, curious as to why the Asian woman who was not one of my wives talked with me in private. Ellie proved to be a great friend and ardent watchdog of sorts. I drew a circle in the air, signaling I wanted a scouting mission. Sleuth tagged along when she bound into the jungle in the distance.

Sayuri tucked her hands behind her back and said, “Okay, you can tell Aubrey I made her case. Yes?”

“Yeah, sure,” I agreed, knowing it could be easy on her.

“Good, you need more brontos, not just one. And a team of T-Rexes. I know, they’re hard to get, but your small dinos are not the kings. There are dinos called the giganotosaurus that are bigger yet for predators, and Bertha is actually still small for a sauropod. In essence, your best dinosaur is a raptor that only smaller dinos and humans fear.”

“Ah, so you disagree with my wife?” I asked.

Sayuri unleashed a sly grin. “With one of them at least. And to be fair to Aubrey, she may be flustered because a hadrosaur baby bit her butt. When it startled her, she stepped in fresh dung… twice.”

“Ha! I… Yeah, we’re desperate for space. At least with Ellie and Sleuth, I can keep them in the bowl, knowing they won’t shit in there. Same with Birdo,” I said.

She bowed with respect. “Master Alan is wise in his decision. Some guards are better than none. May I share something?”

I nodded in approval, shifting from my gaze at the dino moms to focus on her. Sayuri reached into her small bust that she never exposed willingly, letting a nipple slip out. Her beet red blush was genuine, more so when I wiggled my eyebrows. It wasn’t like she had some massive boobs, or nipples were a big deal, but to her, it mattered.

“I find you’ve recovered nicely, Sayuri. You were so frail there for a bit and your body is very beautiful,” I complimented. She bowed slightly, offering her folded paper. “Chin up. If Aubrey is sending you to face my wrath, you’re making progress.”

I unfolded the paper, ignoring the vibrations from Maximus who walked by closely on purpose for attention. Before I could open it, I gave the big guy scratches just the way he liked it.

The dinosaurs and their personality never ceased to amaze me. Most of the time, Anakin forced me out of his way, being a stubborn grumpy goofball. Cali the triceratops flat out stopped, demanding pets before she’d go forage. And yeah, as soon as I started giving Maximus attention, Cali roamed to say hi.

“Fine, fine, go scratch Maximus, Sayuri,” I ordered. I leaned into Cali’s crown, scratching between her horns while I studied battle plans and blueprints. The distraction from the herbivores definitely made digesting the information harder, but I didn’t hate what I read. “Who helped you draft these?”

“I got feedback from Jarod and Hiso peer reviewed, but they’re my plans,” Sayuri said with her rare show of assertiveness.

I believed her, mostly because she assumed T-Rexes wouldn’t run away from an even fight and that sauropods wouldn’t kill first, ask questions later. Instead of asking her questions, I wrapped my hand around the obelisk and asked, “Hey Atticus. If I controlled a hundred brontos and another hundred T-Rexes, would someone be upset?”

The obelisk heated, flaring with life. Atticus generated a head to study the plans. “Next.” I flipped the page. “Next. Next. Ha, not likely. Next. Uh… I’d have to see it to believe it, but the math is sound,” Atticus commented on one of the plans to use thirty big toads to knock out a Rex. “Right. Right. Your question. Uh, no. You’re fine. If our civil war spread to this region of space, and my third cousin wanted to send a meteor to reset Earth, would you save your people?”

I nodded only slightly hesitating. “Oddly specific, but yeah, not that I can with a brontosaurus, but yeah.”

“That means that your power will never be… throttled. As long as you understand what you’re doing, suffering for our entertainment to have the opportunity to give your species a real chance at reaching the great universe, you’ll be fine. Some human individuals will never step off this planet, but they are very powerful.

“Those that follow them may become worthy, while your offspring may be sour—part of the fun. When the time comes, they’ll be replaced. Or before that time. We do enjoy a good event though,” Atticus said, vanishing back into the necklace.

Once it grew cold, I let it go, walking toward the jungle to get Cali on the move again. She kept going when I deviated to open the mother’s gate. Ellie and Sleuth finished their checks, so I felt confident letting out the mothers and their infants to join the greater herd.

The small carnos chirped with joy, only to have Maggie keep them from entering. They chirped in annoyance, giving up for now to join the herd. The mass of dinosaurs dove into the jungle to pick on whatever they could. Some may not make it back, but oddly enough, we normally added more dinos than we lost when I let the herd roam a bit.

“Okay, this plan uses tongue torpidity. If I tame an army of toads, I have to feed an army of toads, but you cover this by leaving them at the lake, not our home. The plothole here is, they’d face predation at the lake. At least some sort of predator eats them, even if we haven’t seen one yet.

“More importantly, it’d take half a year to get enough of them to start knocking out big dinos. That is a lot of domestications that could go to getting more Maggies. She lays big ass eggs, can haul like a champ, has big clutches, is easy to find, is easy to trap or calm, and is great. Her children are terrors, but they aren’t supposed to live. That is why she has a dozen infants.

“As for these plans. These traps won’t work because T-Rexes aren’t loners. The brontos can smash through these frameworks unless we get a bunch of metal and start a blacksmith. Ugh, I need to get to the mine, but we’re not ready for it yet. Honestly, these are all decent, but these three are the only ones that work in my mind.

“The double rope baited trap. Get a loop over the head and around the neck. When the rex can’t bite down, you run circles to layer the rope around the feet, then pull tight, boom down he goes. There are a ton of things that can go wrong, but not bad if you manage a rope around a predator’s neck. And I might catch a spino or a giga or an allosaurus this way too.

“The mating bronto also works, but she has never laid an egg or called out for sex, so I’m thinking Bertha is still too young. The day it comes, we should be ready for it and we’re not. And the final one is my favorite, truly diabolical. You want to push a different herd into a herd with bronto babies or eggs and steal them. Same with the T-Rex nests. Use other dinos to do the dirty work then swoop in with the victory.”

“We just need a saddle for Birdo to start learning when and where we can maybe try some of these and while you seem uncertain, maybe you can improve them,” Sayuri said.

My head jostled back and forth while I mulled over some concepts. “Yeah, maybe. Probably. They’re a great start, Sayuri. What should I tell Aubrey?”

“Nothing. She’s sick but she’s worried it's not from missing her period. She’s sorta emotional at the moment, blaming the fumes and the rope ladder. She really wants the -”

I sighed, cutting her off. “Teleporter back online. I know. I know. I suppose it’s time I killed this apex stego with Nebula Energy in it. At the very least, see what it looks like. It seems to be in the same area for the last six days so probably smart to head out there, then use my daily scan to unlock new data.”

“Or… you wait until your domestication is up, try for a baby rex or bronto or other sauropod,” Sayuri said, bravely touching my arm. Our cultures were so different, but I kept my mouth shut, putting a hand atop hers. “I enjoyed our conversation, Alan.”

“As did I, Sayuri, as did I,” I replied, heading towards the jungle to shepherd my flock.

Aubrey loved me, she loved her family, and I understood her frustration. I tried to give her the wounded Utahraptor who we didn’t domesticate, figuring it would be grateful for her help, coming around to Aubrey. The stupid thing was too feral, so I sent it into the meat preservation machine. Which… we only had enough salt for a few months, meaning I’d need to either get more in drops, or haul ass across the countryside on a dangerous mission to fill empty containers.

One thing was certain, I had a mountain of work to do, and I needed it to happen yesterday.

Chapter 41

A Dash of Flavor!

“BRO, YOU’RE SURE?” Darnel asked, glancing around the clearing.

Instead of hunkering into the base to let the next day pass so I could domesticate something from the Great Valley, I decided to take Darnel out for a trip to the Carno Clearing. He put on a brave face, a bit of armor no one else needed at the moment and brought way too many bags.

Bertha complained the whole way to the fields, aggressively eating every step of the way. She was in some sort of fit about wanting to be hand fed, I thankfully could force her to work. In an effort to diversify who ventured outside the walls, I brought Elsa, Reina, Himari, and Rin.

While they were pretty, most women became about their expertise and personality more than their looks. I mostly blamed my supermodel wife, Missy, who worked on helping build out our breeding line for fliers since we were almost positive the clutch of three eggs Birdo laid were fertilized with quick incubation times.

Elsa turned out to be the Polish leader, coming to me with their integration issues. They mostly blended in just fine besides to ask for more supplies or new work assignments to find where they fit in. Reina, Himari, and Rin were from the Japanese contingent, proving to be less shy than the others, eager to help and even volunteered. Volunteering was a big deal to me, so I happily brought them on our adventure.

I patted Darnel on the shoulder. “The raptors are doing a thorough recon, even using the dilos to forage further out. If there is a predator looming, we’ll stumble on it, and we don’t descend until we’re safe… ish. I purposely brought a new crew because of how docile the area should be at the moment. If the scouts die or signal it’s too dangerous, we head home.”

Rin tied her hair in a ponytail, watching the swaying weeds and long grasses. “I can go down if you’d like.”

“Bertha has a way of making you feel safe,” Elsa said, eying the jungle.

Rin nodded. “Imagine having trees to run behind that step on your attackers if they get too close. She’s a princess though.”

I snorted with a light chuckle, shaking my head with a big grin. Calling Bertha’s legs trees wasn’t the worst analogy. “Ha! After she got hurt, she was spoiled. Now she has a cult of humans who scrub her pads daily to the point she doesn’t want to get them dirty.”

Bertha lightly replied with a short song of sorts that hit different notes of complaint.

“Dirt is… bad, no she said icky.” Rin eyed me to see if she was right. When I nodded, she clapped happily. Bertha shifted, walking deeper into the field so she could eat while standing in the sand. A big pit from our digging rested not far off our right. “She’s amazing.”

“A queen in her own right.” I frowned, knowing the raptors should have looped around already. I shouted, “Ellie, how’s it looking?”

She didn’t chirp back, meaning she found something. I wouldn’t be shocked one bit, seeing as how this was prime real estate without any owner. Instead of fretting, I opened up the toolbox at the end of her saddle, pulling out a shovel. The entire saddle was lined with spears besides the side doors to get down, so I didn’t exactly need to get more weapons.

I chucked the shovel into the pit, becoming agitated a bit. Most of the pack of raptors stayed back, but I brought six of them in addition to our two best scouts. In theory, the junior pack members could be staging a coop, but it just didn’t -

A throaty shriek from a man erupted only a few feet in the jungle. My eyes deviated, quickly focusing on a point not far from where the carno nest used to be. Ellie shrieked, warning whoever she caught not to move. Sleuth signaled for me to be cautious between snarls.

After all the shit my wives gave me, I decided this was a great time to manage the issue with a sledgehammer instead of going it alone. A few quick trumpet sounds ordered Bertha to investigate. She didn’t argue, never giving me princess sass when it came game time. I grabbed a spear, popped my back, stuck the weapon over my shoulders and rotated my hips to complete the stretch.

“Damn Bro, you look like Turok,” Darnel said, nudging Elsa. “You’re drooling.”

“Fuck, I mean, damn. If he was single, I’d be tying him up to hide in a cave somewhere, then pretend like it was too dangerous to go outside. We’d be stuck in…” Elsa stopped talking when I bounced my pecs. She blinked a few times, then said, “What were we talking about?”

“She has zero shame, I like it,” Rin said, thumbing Reina and Himari. “Raise your eyes ladies, in our new culture you disrespect beauty when you avoid it.”

“Can we get serious about the man below yelling at the raptors in Spanish?” Darnel said with a whole lot of judgment.

“We are being serious and before you cast stones, Himari is looking at you, not Alan,” Rin confidently said.

I chuckled when Darnel blushed. “He just had a breakup too.”

“Awe man, you suck,” Darnel joked.

“Hey, well, you guys talk it out, I got some diplomacy to attend to,” I said, stopping Bertha when I found the six raptors circling a man riding his own velociraptor. I grabbed a rope, leaned over the side, and asked, “What are you doing here?”

The young man was short with a solid tan, black hair, and dark eyes. If I had to guess, he hailed from somewhere in Mexico that was overcrowded by alien standards.

“Hablas español?” he asked.

I shook my head and said, “No. English?”

He shook his head.

“Well, fuck,” I muttered. In the end, I was able to conclude a lot. He was a scout, he probably was sent to check the sand and herb spot, or to figure out why there were a bunch of flares here almost a week ago. I could drag him home, find someone who spoke Spanish and interrogate him, but it’d be cleaner just to kill him as far as diplomacy went. When Elsa tried to see who it was, I pushed her back. “No. He’s from the Cartel and probably after you.”

“What are you going to do, Master Alan?” Rin asked.

I raised an eyebrow, making sure my voice wasn’t loud enough to be heard by the scout below. I asked Rin, “Don’t you have honorifics?”

“Yes, but ‘super soldier hero I want to carry me over his shoulder’ doesn’t have a specific honorific that works as well as Master. Plus… We may be Japanese, but we will never return to Japan,” Rin said, delivering the words with a solemn tone.

“Even with his three wives and Sayuri pushing hard, you want to do what? Be a fifth fling?” Elsa said.

Rin tugged on her long ponytail. “And you don’t? We have thirty-one men to seventy-two women. Some of those men will never take a second wife and don’t deserve one. Meaning I have to become a lesbian, be lonely, or join a family that will share.”

“It’s just so… different,” Elsa said.

I snickered. “And this is a good thing to debate. You worried I would turn you into sex slave, both of your groups, instead you have frustrating freedoms. Have these conversations, it's why I am trying to include new people in our missions. But I sorta need to focus. Anyone speak Spanish?”

Everyone shook their heads, then it dawned on me. I chirped a question, earning a tilted head from Ellie until she caught on. Ellie unleashed a string of chitters with a growl.

“What’s going on?” Darnel asked.

“We’re interrogating the raptor,” I said.

The rider caught on instantly that the animal under his saddle might be betraying him. He glanced at me, then Ellie, then back at me. I listened intently, learning this man was from a tribe three valleys away. The raptor said the human grabbed sand, then hid. Well, he said squishy dirt and cower, but I understood.

I leaned down and chirped out a command. The raptors quietly walked backwards into the jungle, and I said, “Adios amigo,” with a goodbye wave. Bertha unleashed a triumphant, yet friendly call before she ripped a section of foliage off a nearby tree. The big bronto shifted to vanish into the jungle in a loop back to the sands.

“And the results?” Elsa asked.

“At face value, he’s on a mission to find sand and grab a sample. While there are many hills and valleys in this area, the raptor said was from pretty darn far. It makes sense in a way, some of the deposits are far or not listed, so the aliens didn’t give starting point resources,” I said.

Rin said, “They did give you salt though, which was likely a choice.”

“Hard to argue the logic. Look, he seemed nice, he didn’t spook, and maybe he doesn’t come back with a full army of raptor riders looking for a fight. Even if he did, it takes time to form an army. We’ll be long gone before then,” I said, sitting down and kicking up my legs on an empty crate. The sway of the saddle had become second nature at this point, so I lavished in the ride, soaking in the mix of fresh air and sunshine that peeked through. “It’s fucking gorgeous out.”

“You don’t worry about the big birds that are the size of... Uh, something big,” Darnel said, sitting on my left.

Rin didn’t hesitate, plopping down beside me while grinning at Elsa. I let them do their thing, focusing on Darnel. “Quetzal?”

“Yeah, I think,” Darnel said, peeking his head out.

“It’s from sixty-eight million years ago. A true giant. Also, a bit lost to be in these hills. Its natural home is in nests perched above oceans, swamps, and lakes. Its primary diet is fish and small dinos.” I leaned out to see a clear sky with only a few lofty clouds. “I think they’ll never try to pick off anything that can hurt them. You have to remember; birds are pretty fragile to maintain flight.”

“I… I’m oddly reassured,” Darnel said. “You think he’ll be back?”

“No, but it’s time to get you your own dinosaur to load up with cooking supplies. What kind of dino would you want?” I asked, shutting my eyes with a spreading grin.

As expected, he fidgeted on the saddle.

“Uh, wait, what?” Darnel blinked.

I held up a finger, digging into my satchel. With my eyes still closed, I handed Rin some of Sayuri’s plans. Then some to Elsa. Unable to help it, I opened my eyes to dig into the satchel before I handed the other girls some pens and notebooks. “While we travel, think about how you’d capture more intense dinos. I need fliers, giants, and reclusive species. Spread the word. Rewards for plans that work.”

Darnel held out a palm, but I placed a different book in it. Inside was a proposed future layout of Fortress Grant. Darnel let out a low whistle as we returned to the low nutrient sand pit teeming with wild grass, weeds, and herbs. He spent a good minute or two, going over my basic plans without saying a word.

I left my seat, forgoing the cover to enjoy some sun basking. A few pteranodons flew over the big spread of water we called the Great Valley. Trees swayed, a scent of early summer hung heavy, and it was neat to experience the post rain environment on a world filled with dinos.

While others struggled to adapt—like Darnel who reminisced about his fancy kitchen, his studio apartment in a fancy building, and high-speed internet. I had zero problem letting things slow to a crawl to entwine with nature. A few insects buzzed around, the ladies chatted in hushed tones, and I closed my eyes to let time drift by.

Eventually, Darnel joined me with a grunt. “Hey Bro, so… you want to have me process meat for long storage and cook fresh daily?”

“Yeah, a big kitchen with a whole staff. Not just people at a fire making due,” I said.

“We would need… a lot of clay bricks, like a lot.”

I shrugged. “Once we get the planer going for turning trunks into slats, we can build all sorts of things. Even with it, a massive kiln would be weeks if not months of work.”

“I’m in. Mostly the brick making and not clay gettin part,” Darnel admitted, and I snorted out a chuckle. “Bro, this… this is ambitious though. The lake is almost an hour away.”

“Says the -”

“Guy who’s never been. I get it,” Darnel interjected. “How far is it really?”

I sat up, holding my index finger to the sky. “First, I was going to say the guy who needs the clay the most, meaning that we need to secure that clay inside our walls. Pause, breath, ingest. You lock a door for a reason and our perimeter is no different. We need that clay inside our walls, same with this sand. Second, an hour on Bertha’s back is about two miles. While it may seem unbelievably daunting, the dinos make it possible. I need them outside our farm fields anyway.”

“Yeah, three walls. Carnivores in the middle, herbivores outside. You… you plan on growing the herd a lot, don’t you?” Darnel asked.

“The plans are incredibly ambitious. In those plans, the waterfall will fall through floors of development. We will have stairs three floors inside the basin until we reach the upper housing, then a teleporter platform from there to the lake where we go on missions. I fully intend to turn our waterfall into a clean swimming pull with another drop and break point to tamper backflow,” I said.

“Yeah, I get it, just… this is a ton of work,” Darnel said.

Rin grew curious, coming into the sunshine with a pleasured gasp. “Your early summers sure are lovely. May I see.”

Darnel handed her my plans for expansion. Basically, I wanted to shift the dinos away from the base to give them their own farmland. The inner clearing would become farms. The carve outs and buildout on the mountainside would be more homes. Our herds would live off the land more and more as time went by with us prospering off isolated—species specific—hatching buildings not too different from how we raised pigs or chickens.

“Winter’s going to suck balls,” I said, earning a chuckle. “But yeah, I’m going to wholesale rip weeds out and toss them onto a blanket I set in the pit of sand we dug.”

“Wait, you want to wall off… forty miles?” Rin asked.

“Of course. This is our land. There is no better way to prove that than to make a wall only brontos can knock over,” I said.

“The sheer number of trees will be staggering,” Elsa said, tossing down blankets and shovels. “But I suppose you have a point. There is no resource more plentiful than wood. Surprised you waited this long to try the milling machine.”

“We need to give it a single name,” I somewhat joked.

“Woodinator!” Darnel said with a booming voice.

The group chuckled, shifting from their studies and writings to do what we came for. Whatever wasn’t used for cooking or planting would go towards bedding or feed. Today wasn’t about sand or clay, it was about preparing for the long haul.

Rin said, “This has three schools, homes for everyone, villas with views, waterfront cottages, treehouses, hidden storage points, egg farms, and so much more. Uh, not to be rude, but you did this?”

“I… Yeah,” I chuckled, heading down the ladder. “Once you spread everything out, then think about what resources we have, how we process them, then you start to have that. That may also be iteration thirty. I don’t doodle by the fire; I draw base layouts. I have others.”

“Has Sayuri seen those?” Himari asked, starting to descend the ladder.

I snorted. “No, no one has. The ladies think I’m writing a journal and are being respectful of my privacy.”

“She’ll wanna see them, even I know that,” Elsa said.

I hopped down, reaching the sandy, but mostly firm ground. A pile of blankets rested nearby that I dragged over to the pit. The raptors neared, basking in the sun not too different than a deer would. Once I had my preferred method of collection established, I started the long and dangerous grind of pulling out the long as well as short stalks from the grass.

“Any method to this madness?” Rin asked when she arrived to join me.

“Grab it near the root, yank it free, toss it on the pile. Rinse, repeat.” I sat down, scooting my butt as I went. “I’m not sparing any, this is going to all be ripped up at some point for the sand. I fully intend to create a filter for the waterfall, then have on demand shower areas with heated water along with warm baths. When winter comes…”

“It’s going to suck.” Elsa plopped down, glancing up at the sun while she worked. “Are these weeds important?”

“I don’t know. Darnel thinks they are,” I said, ripping them out regardless.

Darnel glanced around speculatively the instant he touched down. The fact Bertha ate peacefully and the raptors chilled, put him at ease. “I’ve been studying the book and looking at the daily scans. There are four edibles in here. This is one, it is kinda like a green onion. We want a weed with…” He plucked a weed out of my pile. “This. Epic! I can sort these.”

I almost told him how blatantly inefficient it was to sort items while we were exposed. Then I saw how he became oblivious to the fact he could be running from a carno or rex in a few seconds, engulfed in his task. Maybe this is what I needed too, a spree of non-violent, boring progress.

Tomorrow would be different though; tomorrow I’d have to kill an apex stego, assuming I could.

Chapter 42

A Nasty Taste!

I OBSERVED the apex stego from Bertha’s saddle with a very concerned frown. The fifteen others from the tribe whispered with concern. To start, it was pink with white spikes, looking nothing like any stego in coloration. All the other dinos avoided it like it had the plague, and sure, it contained a golden glow, but that wasn’t the oddest part.

“It has two fucking heads,” I said, tossing an arm in the air.

“But it’s only adolescent sized,” Jarod said with a chipper tone. “Wonder why?”

I grabbed the obelisk. “What gives?”

The stone heated with a violent flare of energy. Atticus said, “Look at it, then say inspect.” And just like that, the stone cooled.

The two headed abomination watched us with indifference, not reacting when I said, “Inspect.”

A shimmer of green energy ejected from the obelisk, providing a chart of information.

Apex Stego.

Mutation Failure: 7734549

Sex: Female

Age: .70 sun rotations.

Weight: 29.3 Zexa

Rarity Value: 0

Efficiency Value: 0

Nebula Energy: 304

Dinosaur Immunity: 100%

“Hmm… Well, one thing is good here. This is enough NE to power the teleporter for six months or both the teleporter and woodinator for half that,” I said.

Jarod grunted, folding his arms. “But we gotta kill it?”

I scratched the scruff on my face, knowing I needed to get Cassie to shave me sooner than later. Up to this point, we’d circled around the Great Valley picking up a small herd of Gallimimus who wanted to walk slowly under Bertha’s protection. Since we stood within eyesight of the four great herds of the valley, a few adolescents—whose parents moved on to the next hatch—decided to come to the herd without competition for space.

A part of me loved it.

Part of me knew we’d have an exodus if I ever let one of these alpha herds near our adolescents. Another thing was clear too, while the other dinos seemed scared of this mutation, they didn’t seem to fear Bertha.

“I bet it does damage to Bertha, or else we could just shoot arrows and not even move,” I said.

“Uh, we got like… fifty arrows?” Fred said, knowing we left some back at base. The Japanese brought some with them from their starting point, but arrows had never been a big thing for us. “Maybe send a raptor out to get attacked by it?”

“No, I hate wasting lives. I’ll kill it,” I said, grabbing the wooden shield and a light spear. “Anyone else wanna try it alone?”

“I’ll help,” Carl said.

Quite a few of the sturdy men who I’d come to rely on volunteered as well. However, I stopped them. “While it’s super nice to hear your conviction, I want to fight it alone. If the fight goes sideways, I’ll just grab onto the quick rope and you guys get me off the ground. The more people up here, the faster I get into the saddle and the more spears and arrows can hurt it.”

“I love you, Alan, we can build this variation of a base without this stuff if we have to,” Aubrey said.

“We sure as fuck do. That dino’s not even a year old and since it has two heads is probably slow to react. Anyway, if it goes sour, I’ll bring the whole crew and risk the tribe.”

Before anyone could argue, I handed off my necklace to Jarod, kissed Aubrey, and headed down the ladder. The south side of the valley sprawled into a delta of sorts with lake flows and highlands. You could see where the land flooded during the heavy season, prohibiting old growth. The sheer foot traffic out of the valley carved out a big swath of hip-high reeds mixed with grasses, a perfect place for dilos to hide but not much else.

I wrapped a leg around the rope that was supported by our elevated pulley, grabbed it with one hand and dropped smoothly with a controlled drop. My feet smacked into recently dried muck. Without a doubt this section was heavily fertilized, squishing slightly with each step.

I pulled a makeshift mask off my kilt, wrapping my face to cover the smell. The apex stego snorted, bellowing out a nasty roar when its four eyes focused on my arrival. A wash of purple energy flowed out of the mutated dinosaur.

To my utter shock, every dinosaur – including Bertha – fled from the apex dino’s wave of purple energy.

“Oh fuck,” I grumbled, watching the stego charge, running faster than I could in it’s double bounds.

“Coming!” Jarod shouted, fast rappelling down the rope while Bertha led him further away.

I dug in and burst into a sprint to buy him time. Since no escape plan existed that included a bronto running faster than me, I definitely shifted how I wanted to handle this fight. The stego, while not fully grown, was still bigger than a horse and gaining fast.

I raised my spear, pointing to a spot the stego would reach me. “Flank, distract, don’t engage,” I bellowed, somehow managing to keep myself from slipping on a pile shit my left foot splattered into.

The last thing I worried about was recycled vegetation on my legs during my mad dash. The stego thankfully didn’t track a stumbling Jarod who tried to reach me in time. I skidded to a halt, rotated to face the beast, and raised my shield.

“It’s just us,” I taunted, smacking my spear into my shield. “What kind of freak lab did they cook you up in?”

The stego gyrated its heads, unleashing another powerful mystic roar, further pushing back all the dinos in the area. I grinned because it grew furious at my lack of being affected.

I shoved the spear forward to keep our distance. The apex stego bucked angrily at my audacity, not having many issues with keeping its two heads fixated on me.

In an attempt to test it further, I slid the spear tip across the dino’s vision.

This just pissed it off, and whatever delayed advantage I earned, vanished when it barreled toward me. The spike gyrated, with the tail arching high, getting ready to swat me.

I spun left, leaving myself open to a tail strike.

As predicted the dino slid to a halt, charged up its tail even further and unleashed a swipe.

The moment it committed, I did the most unexpected thing both brains expected – I jumped directly to land on its back. Those spikes were great at stopping a T-Rex from chomping down, but I simply landed between the biggest set on the back, using the big triangles to my advantage.

Only a second after I touched onto the back, I stopped my momentum by shoving my spear deep into a spot between the shoulders. The stego thankfully fought just like any other wounded beast. And yes, I feared it might be able to shoot its tail spikes or something.

The end of tail tried to reach me, only cracking a vertical spike with its strikers.

“Okay, that was close,” I grunted.

I hopped onto the spear, shoving it down with all my weight. The metal tip ground against something solid, not budging very deep. The stego roared, once again sending every dino fleeing.

Jarod neared with his spear at the ready and a bunch of worry on his face. “You okay?”

“Uh, probably. It’ll take a while to die but maybe that’s a good thing,” I shouted over the roar.

Jarod stayed back, wanting to keep away from the dino’s wrath. The alpha stego continued to try to hit me with its tail, failing over and over while inflicting damage for me.

Jarod shouted, “Are you fucking mad, it’s almost hitting you?”

“Just a bit of bucking, Jarod, quite fine. Hey, but…” I let go and hopped onto the spear again, once again connecting with some bone that prohibited a deeper blow. “Get a bronto egg! Or a baby!”

“What! How the fuck will I know what a bronto egg looks like and won’t the herds come back before I can get to Bertha?” Jarod said.

I huffed, realizing he had a point. “Well, maybe it will take them near an opportunity.”

“Aren’t bronto eggs like two hundred pounds?” Jarod guessed.

We probably should have stopped chatting because the stego finally noticed him, turning on a dime. I sighed, giving up my hopes of capitalizing on the moment. I yanked the spear free with a sickening slurp, repositioned it to match where the heart should be and drove the tip into the flesh.

Jarod screamed like a girl sprinting toward a retreating Bertha in the distance. I jumped, sunk the spear down, and it was like someone flipped a switch. The apex stego lost control, face planted with a swiftly ending skid, and never breathed again. I yanked the spear out, covering my feet in purple blood.

“Hey, hey! Get back over here,” I shouted at Jarod.

He heard me, not making it far before a dome appeared around the dead stego. Jarod stopped just enough to only bump into the barrier. A portal opened, letting the startled man in.

Jarod grinned with a spear in the air. “Nice job, Alan.”

Atticus generated into being, walking around the dead dino. “A baby reward for a baby’s demise.” He leaned down and closed the stego’s eyes. While I pictured the lizard man as something akin to a soulless immortal fiend, he showed unexpected compassion here. “You’ll be among a select few who know this, but there is scant harm in transference of such knowledge: genetic manipulation must occur naturally outside of AI.”

I raised a questioning finger. “You’re telling me that you can turn me into nothing but a dna strand and a memory, cloning me, but not give me four arms?”

“Mostly correct. Care to guess why?” Atticus asked in a curious tone.

“Uh, guess is the right word here, but here goes nothing. The rules of the universe. Based on how you view time, I have to assume there are some hard realities about the greater environment,” I said.

“Close enough. A partial mystery. A two headed human or dino can be born, fused at creation. This was a scientist trying to make a stego stand upright, capable of carrying a shield to protect infantry. While none of that worked, it could hop well though,” Atticus said, pointing to the dome. “You earned a kill, you deserve to collect your Nebula Energy in peace. Don’t eat this dinosaur, it will kill you, not make you a superhero. If you test fate, you will not wake.”

“If you ask the ladies, they already think he is one,” Jarod said in a positive way to avoid offending me.

Atticus said, “You’re the first tribe of your region to kill an apex dinosaur. Many have died across the globe, so it is not a great reward.” He tossed me a single ball. “Until next time.”

The alien vanished, leaving us one hell of a mess to deal with. I inspected the orb, then chucked it to Jarod. Instead of playing games, I jammed my hand into the hole my spear created, reaching down until I felt a solid canister.

“Wait, a spino saddle! Wow,” Jarod said.

I grunted, ripping the canister out with wet slurp. Parts of the metal glistened in the sun, dripping thick blood onto the corpse.

“Spinos scare me more than a rex does,” I said, taking my mask off to wrap the canister with it. “Ah, there’s Bertha. I don’t like how the big brontos are eyeing her, probably best to get out of here before we get in a dominance fight.”

“I bet they stole infants who ran into fallen trees or rocks or nest walls,” Jarod said.

I snickered. “I sure as hell hope so. How about we run thataway and let them adjust so we get out of here.”

“Sounds good,” Jarod said, matching my jog. The dome dropped before we ran into it, and we set off at a brisk pace to loop around the terrain that enclosed the Great Valley. “I’m excited to see the woodinator and teleporter working at the same time.”

“Ugh, Darnel got you,” I teased.

“Yeah, and he mentioned villas in the mountain with great views. I can’t wait,” Jarod joked back.

We were on a bit of a high at the moment.

I’d brushed against death, coming out victorious yet again. Even with a surprise, I adjusted, and tonight would be no different. I had a feeling a lot of hard decisions would be coming soon, and with them, more battles once drops descended again.

Chapter 43

Tribe Summoning!

WHILE THE SECOND floor had more space with fewer partitions, Carl discouraged putting the full tribe’s weight up there until he could manufacture better supports. We definitely used it, but after a sag started to show, we decided to lighten the load.

The never-ending rotation of finding more space to live ate at the tribe’s core. Sure, most were thrilled with the teleporter’s return but as we neared our second month, we never built any monumental second warehouse or massive new two-story home.

And while I wanted to, the reality was, any residence outside the gated protection or off the cliff’s safety came with a whole lot of risk. If we cleared the fallen trees, erected a basic wall in close, then yes, I would build more risky homes.

With a restless population, a recent set of wins, and the tribe needing to discuss its short-term goals, I called a general meeting on the first floor of the longhouse. After some delays and bathroom breaks, it took almost fifteen minutes to assemble everyone.

I stood on a crate, with my head almost touching the ceiling. When I raised a hand, the dull roar of side chatter quieted minus a few children not caring about the decorum.

“Tribe Grant! It’s a pleasure and an honor to see you all before me looking healthy, somewhat happy, and more importantly, in a place of safety. Before I start, this is a long overdue overview with some back and forths. What happens next is vital to our future. I really think so. I don’t want to exclude mothers, so we will give them a chance, but if a child throws a full-throated tantrum, you will need to go up a floor,” I warned.

The crowd seemed fine, glancing around to see how others reacted. Toward the stairs, Cassie nursed a suckling Anthony without worry about any judgment cast her way. Aubrey sat on nearby crates facing the crowd, along with Missy and Sayuri flanking her. The three ladies had a few graphs for me to showcase with all my data sorted to help me answer questions.

“We are going to cover a wide range of topics. I’ll cover a topic, finish my speech, then open the floor to questions. After a few questions, I’ll move on. If you didn’t get a question answered, write it down and post it on that board. I’ll answer it there. Okay, and away we go,” I said, asking for a sign from Aubrey.

The signs were just thin slats of wood produced from the woodinator. We then drew on them to help visualize whatever I wanted to talk about. While I set my first prop in place, I enjoyed a gentle breeze that swept into the room. The press of bodies brought a mild heat, so the relief was nice. The sun had set, a light rain drizzled onto the upper roof, and we’d eaten a delicious meal.

“I have ambitious goals for this tribe and its people. Those goals can’t be met if we are only working a few hours a day, then either relaxing or building our own side projects. At first, this made a lot of sense. We weren’t fit, we were used to sitting in chairs all day, and our diets went from processed foods to fresh.

“I see it everywhere. People are able to stand on their feet and work longer hours, but I’m not a slave driver, nor do I always want to have a massive grind for our people. And yes, I love that Garret and Olivia built their own house; even if this encouraged others to risk being outside our protection. So far no one has gotten hurt besides our production numbers and that is my issue.

“The math doesn’t lie. With the woodinator functioning, if we simply fed the machine more wood, it’d cut down construction time on side projects drastically, and more importantly, your homes would be sturdier. I have zero desire to always live with others, but this issue has a lot of problems.

“First and foremost, how do we make allotted resources fair? Here is my plan. We build a hundred homes, some will be anchored into the steep incline around us, some in caves, some out in the open, and a few even as tree houses. As soon as a house finishes, those who are interested in it, put your name in a bowl. Maybe you find yourself negotiating with the winner and become a roommate, never needing a place of your own.

“Once we have built enough that no one needs a home, we add a few more for expansionary purposes, then shift onto other projects that include drastically different goals. In summary, instead of building your own homes, we build them as a community, handing them out as we go through luck. If you never get what you want at the end, we make it happen—I guarantee it. This is fair, but your tribe will ask you to do more work.

“Since I know the question is coming, what if you have ailments or recent injuries? Simply get a note from Aio or Cassie. Children will enter a daycare stage to free up mothers. Pregnant women will work until they shouldn’t. The more we do now, the quicker we can return to a standard of living we are used to. While I can talk about housing for hours. This is it. We build as a team, we lottery the homes, the last people get custom homes within reason. Questions?” I asked.

Only Kaity raised her hand. “I fucking hate climbing rope ladders and stairs in general suck for me. However, I love the morning views of the great valley from the current roof. I’d adore that. Could we maybe add a teleporter to that section?”

Kaity did well with her baby raptor, but I also put her in charge of imprinting on the rapidly growing baby hadrosaurs. She picked out two of the better females, doing a great job in getting them to adore her. Even though her work shifted from heavy physical to more nurturing, that didn’t mean she should have to sleep without a view.

I ran a hand over my smooth chin, loving it was freshly shaven. “No guarantees, but I have talked with Carl. If you look, almost all of the housing on the ground is going to be storage or community areas. We’re currently above the biting height of even the most fierce dinos.

“And fuck yeah, the views are great. The downside is getting up here and also building up here. It literally is the reason we still hear Victor fart in his sleep.” A light chuckle rippled through the tribe. “But yes, during construction, I’ll absolutely have the teleporters connected from the woodinator to the upper areas. Post construction, I may shift it from our gear staging point, to the distant outer gate, but I may not. We may get another set or an escalator, who knows, but I hear you and want to make it easy for once we age to stay in our homes.”

Jennifer elbowed Kaity. “He called you old.”

I didn’t but her friendly banter didn’t stop the group from another light chuckle. “Next?”

Jarod said, “I think we saw this coming and most of us have been working more. But people are going to want to hear it. How much free time? How many days off?”

“After a morning meal, right to work until nap or relaxation hour. Back to work until a few hours closer to sunset. Closer to a ten-hour shift, seven days a week until we catch up. If it is too much, we dial it back, but here me out because this next part matters to your reaction. Priorities and longer-term layout goals. I’m going to move on unless there is a pressing question,” I said, knowing what came next.

Poppy stood and asked, “And what if we find ten-hour workdays with no days off disgusting?”

This earned her a few stares, but most of us knew she didn’t feel this way, but wanted to play devil’s advocate since people would come to her to complain. I also figured this was a preemptive question instead of someone complaining, because this was new information to even those closest to me.

“I’ve built some rapport with this tribe. For almost the last two months, I’ve kept things slow, steady, and allowed an adjustment period without one whip being cracked. With the woodinator online, we need to fix some urgent problems. Sanitation, noise, space, and more. That won’t happen without input from us, me included and at least I’m not lording over the tribe while they work.

“Also, there are twenty-four hours in the day. I am asking for less than half of them. This is about our future and our survival. Honestly, we should all be working sixteen-hour days, getting two to rest and six to sleep. But some of you will find ten hours so offensive you have to leave in defiance. You must go to a fictional land with everything built for you with no problems.

“Since I’m fair, if you assemble at least three others, I’ll let you depart with one dino of my choosing and the supplies you came here with. You’re not prisoners forced into a work colony. You are farmers forced to survive a dinosaur world. Our wonderful Polish contingent was sent away without support, and most did not make it,” I said sadly.

“It’s fucking brutal out there. I’d take sixteen-hour workdays over running through the jungle trying not to get eaten just to have to work for a month without sleep to live in a hut that a snake eats me out of because I have no…” Elsa said, huffing a bit from her long-winded sentence. She just stopped, realizing she was getting too emotional.

Sayuri added, “Right. This home is a blessing in an otherwise dreary world. We’re lucky to sleep peacefully for long hours.”

I said, “Easy, Poppy is merely doing her job. This next part is less up for debate and something I settled a few days ago, but some feared I might adjust back because egg collection has been down. The dinos will not return to the basin -”

A round of applause stopped me mid-sentence, earning a frown because I wanted to segway how I would house them. The tribe didn’t care to hear more, elated. They were clearly sick of dino shit, babies calling out, nasty water, and the list went on.

Once it died down, I swapped a board out with the massive kingdom-sized expansion I had planned. The outer walls would travel down the mountainside a few hundred meters to the right of our current base. They’d go straight south until they looped around Spino Lake. A series of slats would go into the riverbed, attaching to a wall that spanned the river.

The wall would travel hours of distance toward the Great Valley. There’d still be a corridor for dinos to pass around the terrain, but the wall cut hard north, grabbing the sand clearing. Our border continued to wrap around the therizeno pond, then dove back toward our base. The final stretch shifted the wall to connect to another cliff half a mile to our left, or west.

“I don’t want ground floor homes outside those massive gates. If I did, I would build a much closer fence. Instead of wasting effort and redoing it, I just want to go right into homes in the cliffside and basin, a pen for the dinos, and then this marvelous mighty wall that claims our kingdom. This is a year’s worth of work, maybe less, maybe more. The woodinator allows any bits of wood to go in, and we can design whatever we want to come out. Suddenly this goes from looking impossible, to looking like a mountain of work. But once it gets going, I feel we can do this.

“I intend to create a big siege engine type machine that can roll along the wall’s path. Once that is built, we clear the land and level it, using dinos to help every step of the way. The woodinator will spit out beams that are one foot wide, one foot thick, and forty feet tall. Not small, but one thing we have plenty of is trees.

“Once set in place, the siege engine contraption will use a pulley to raise a big boulder, then drop it on the spike. We will hammer in our walls, one big spike at a time, with only ten feet between them. While this is the general idea, the final plans are not finished, still being tweaked, but a secure wall that protects our land will change everything.

“The dinosaurs we rely on will be pushed to drink out of the river further away from the base. Right now, they’re polluting our water to a point I worry the clean stuff from out of the mountains is getting contaminated. Regardless of the contamination factor, we do intend to start using charcoal, sand filters, and boil our water to even higher purity standards than before.

“While we reclaim the basin and the waterfall’s pond for our use, I also fully intend to build massive stables for our dino at the current edge of our jungle. I want them to have a safe place to sleep at night. If we can protect our herd, give them safety to prosper, then we shall never go hungry with boons to our work efforts.

“I want the dinosaurs. I’m never going to fully remove dinosaurs from our home. However, the only dinosaurs that will be allowed into our inner basin will be domesticated through this artifact.” I thumbed the string around my neck, highlighting the obelisk. “Forever removing dinosaur dung from our living area.”

They figured this out already, but I decided to play into a positive to keep spirits high. The tribe really liked to complain, and I listened, making the change.

“Even though I just built the stables, I talked with Atticus. I can take them out, but! We lose the extra space they created. Or we can repurpose them. I’d rather keep them in for us! And yes, we will be moving into and on top of the stables starting tonight. Round of applause to the moms who cleaned up the stable to high living standard,” I said, clapping myself.

A few of the moms, Jennifer included, waved.

“Not everything is perfect. I do want Ellie, Sleuth, and a few others to sleep in the basin. No poo, but yeah. We’re still doing a night and a day shift, so it’s not a huge deal, but one day that will end. Anyway, I want more space for us. The other thing is, I added a second stable inside the cavern for the nesting mothers. They… they’re our future, but they’re also animals. I was thinking of maybe having the cavern stable converted into a nursery where -”

“Yes!” Cassie blurted. “Sorry. Sorry. I… I’m not alone in wanting to have a space where our children can be loud and annoying without infuriating the tribe. It’s secure, well ventilated, musty and dark, but it’ll be great for our first contained zone.”

Sayuri copied down some notes, giving me a thumbs up.

“Alright. We can go into that more later since we all seem in agreement. Dino poop is going to be dropped for the future farm fields. We are pushing the dinos out of our living quarters to free up more room. Okay, uh, Missandra, you’re up,” I said, ceding my spot for a bit.

Missy brought a board up, covering our expansion and reorganizing plans. I wanted to slide on with the progress for the obvious reason that there wasn’t a debate. I was going to wall us in with layered defenses even if it took twenty years.

“The gallimimus is a dinosaur unlike any other,” Missy said, earning mostly perplexed reactions from the crowd. I glanced at her amazing rendering of the dinosaur. Not only was she stunningly beautiful, she could draw too. “While I’m in charge of breeding fliers, we opened up a great new opportunity when our explorers who killed the apex stego returned with a team of gallimimus.

“This feathered dinosaur is an omnivore, beyond fast, and can easily carry any of our dainty females. Big men are a bit more of a worry, but what do we have an excess of?” Missy paused for effect. “Petite women who have been put on an end of the world diet. We have one tamed, sorry domesticated. Some of you may have seen the tests where women cling to the bodies, barreling down the clearings at incredible speeds.

“It’s time we adjusted our methods. While no saddle is needed quite yet, we may get them sooner than later.” Missy flashed a fake smile, losing the crowd. “Fine, I’ll just say it instead of leading into it. Always sucked at public speaking. We’re building a female—or small male—scouting team. You’ll be tasked with running to drops, surveying nebula mutated dinos, and general trap checking or setting them up.

“Sayuri has been kind enough to come up with some fantastic traps for us to start to implement to catch prey and potential dinosaur targets to domesticate. One thing is certain, Bertha is a powerhouse, but slow. Too slow. If I can’t get six volunteers, some will be voluntold as Alan calls it, and from those six, someone will always be on duty to perform quick reaction forces.”

Rin raised her hand. “I’m in, but there’s no room to carry anything else really which seems like an issue.”

Missy glanced at me to see if she could answer. I nodded without hesitating. “We’re going for only orbs to start, recon the rest, then shove out a proper war party if the other supplies are worth it. And yes, we may end up making friends and only needing you to trap or scout dino sites for potential recruitment.”

I stood. “This recon force will shift to fliers in some regards too. Maybe even duckbills. That raptor rider survived passing through quite a bit of hostile land by being nimble. I truly believe the first drop landed outside of someone’s base. However, no women will be involved in distant diplomacy.” I held up a finger. “Distanced diplomacy only. And there is a reason, before I piss off nearly seventy women. Which brings up our next elephant in the room.”

Aubrey swapped out a chart that highlighted the differences of gender. “Either we’re going to need to rescue a bunch of men or find a bunch of cats. I know no one wants to hear this, especially some of us with cultural sensitivities, but each one of our vaginas is worth ten times what a man’s penis is worth.”

“I did not see this going this direction,” Fred blurted. He held up his hands defensively. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. My husband has a point. We’re wanting to capture, take care of, and incorporate as many women as we can. We’re more than baby factories, we’re farmers, organizers, builders, caretakers, and so much more. But yes, I agree with Alan when he says he’s shocked the Polish women were allowed to leave. Too many of them died for zero reason and as time goes by, there will be no mistake, women are going to be highly sought after,” Aubrey said.

Rin had zero problems raising her hand, but Aubrey picked Kaity. Kaity said, “Okay, we get it. You want us to be careful to not get captured, but then you go into how you’re going to send us into war. And this doesn’t seem like a broadcasted message about safety, it’s about how there are still men and women who are not… you know. Well, some of us have lovers we missed more than we want to… you know, replace.”

“I can’t find a single man,” Rin added. “But yeah, this sounds like a breeding thing?”

I raised my hand, calming a small uproar. “Who’s had sex with someone against their will?” I waited. No one raised their hand. “We’re going to breed the dino lines, not human lines, end of story. I… I was asking about being a sperm donor recently. It was a private, intimate moment that passed quickly. I just want to say, we need to stagger babies, and some women may want to be mothers alone since there is no suitable partner, and I’ll try to ensure they find the support they need.”

“Wait, you will?” Jennifer blurted, glancing at Jarod. The two Asian ladies who flanked him squinted at me with judging eyes. “This is news to us.”

“Consider! Just consider. Look, not to get too personal, but I actually thought I’d live as a DINK, Dual Income, No Kids, and then I met my family. My mom used to always impress upon me that the greatest achievement a human can manage, for it is not easy or guaranteed, is raising the next generation.” I shooed Aubrey off the pedestal. “I’m not saying those with husbands in cryo should have babies. I’m not judging anyone on anything. However, take a moment of silence.”

We sat there with only one toddler demanding attention. In the distance, a dinosaur roared. When it finished, I raised my head to glance at the large number of ladies in our midst.

“Out there, bad things are happening. There’s no police, no alien justice system, only strength and power fighting to survive. I have both and I wield them with care, love, and compassion. Make no mistake, I seethe at the reality, and if you’re captured, then I can’t save you from what is likely a fate you can only imagine in nightmares,” I said.

Elsa rose and said, “I asked.”

“You asked Alan?” Aubrey blurted with eyebrows raised.

We both knew it was Sayuri. Ironically, Aubrey frowned, shook her head and answered. “Sorry. Back when I was being pushed onto the Cartel. I asked during the merger delegation who I’d be… bred with. The ringleaders pulled out a ledger, noted me as female number seventy-three, then gave me six male numbers! Six! What the fuck? I… It’s only been about ten days since I’ve been here, but I’ve smiled so much my cheeks hurt. The leadership is trying to warn us that we probably need to couple up to help housing demands. If we keep housing low, the wall that keeps the bad people and bad dinos out gets priority.”

I winced. “That plays a huge factor, and the most important one. This next one is far less important, but it also weighs into the ‘let’s be safe’ talk. Hiso has a very interesting stat. This tribe has earned the most points through growth. Be it a dinosaur, a saved person, or more defenses.

“On top of that, whenever a new egg hatches, we earn a lot of points. We had one that imprinted a higher efficiency than the parents, earning even more. People are going to catch on that breeding is great for points that can be used for... well Atticus won’t say. Not yet anyway.”

“They reward us for killing other humans, which is fucked up,” Carl said.

I grunted, biting a lip. “Yup, and I’m almost positive that dinosaur may have lied to me when I met their scout which means we are on the edge of war. The enemy is coming, and we have to understand the violence is about to escalate. To get their spaceship, they’ll have to crush us, steal you all and then get you to pop out babies while working a farm.”

“But we think there is time before the wars start. We feel we’re ahead in knowledge,” Sayuri said.

“Points aren’t rewarding us,” Kaity said.

Poppy stood, once again playing the devil’s advocate. “They are. And those points are major leverage. The aliens will let us use them and this tribe wants to protect us, not wage an endless war. You may not feel that way, but Atticus likes Alan.

“He’s a bit boorish, reckless, and stubborn, but he’s my tribe leader who I’m proud of. I understand what he is saying. We're thirty fourth in the ranking. If we turn it up a notch, and maybe free some women in bad situations, or absorb smaller tribes, we can earn that ship and free some of our loved ones.”

“Yeah, but will I be forgiven if -” Kaity started, then stopped. “I’m grateful. I really am. I’m a disabled woman who should have died in this kind of… hell. If everything lines up, I’m not going to be his Krissypoo anymore. I’ll be at least a decade older, forty pounds lighter, and tanned… and I hate the sun!”

She broke down at this point, and I decided to wrap up our meeting. I waved over Sayuri. “Place the new work schedule on the board, create the suggestion box, post the job openings, and anything else we need to cover.”

“Dino breeding, feeding, food supplies, and scrubbing during rains. Our farming, dung relocation, berry picking, seed gathering, and worm compost as well as new expansion. Then we needed to cover clothing, daycare ratios, shift leaders, and more. Actually, we barely scraped the iceberg, Alan,” Sayuri said.

“I—I—I’m a human still. Maybe I’m just weak, but I can read the room. Let the woman grieve, she held on for a long time,” I said sadly.

“Elsa is going to push hard for you to save the friends she left behind who lacked the courage to join her,” Missy warned.

Aubrey sighed, bouncing a frustrated leg. “She lusts for Alan, and we need a cohesive tribe, not one filled with infighting. If I’m pregnant, or at least routinely getting my quality time, it may be prudent of us to make her happy.” Sayuri tucked her head down, unable to meet Aubrey’s eyes. “You too. My husband loves me, a fact I don’t even need to question. This is also about survival and the future. Don’t let others know I’m opening my heart for peace because I may change my mind. It’s not weakness, it’s strategy.”

Missy snorted. “Even an attempt to keep the tribe on a good path is met with some action. I think Alan is content for the aliens.”

“Very much so. I don’t hate the idea of staggered birthing. Either way, it will be seven to nine months until we lose a ton of our workforce to childbearing, then rearing,” I said with a sigh.

“What’s next?” Cassie asked, arriving with a happy Anthony. The little guy adored Aubrey, instantly being swept away. Cassie cued into our heavy moods. “Everything okay?”

“I may be turned into a stud,” I said with a smirk. Cassie grabbed my ass with a gleeful grin. “I thought you weren’t ready for another baby?”

She rolled her eyes. “Not for another year, but the pull-out method is not exactly bulletproof. I’m also eager to get back to work, it seems like you put a lot on our table.”

“I… I’m going to let everything free besides the domestic dinos. I need to show everyone I’m serious about shifting the farm away from the farmhouse,” I said with a sigh. “Then, I’m going to take Bertha out and try to set traps while rounding up more strays or just work my ass off. I’m not sure.”

“You’re worried we’re going to lose a lot of strays if we stagnate with work?” Missy asked. When I nodded, she folded her arms. “We have never let our timer slip and our number of unbreakable dinosaurs grows each week. The others may go, but new ones will come.”

“I’m going to have to make a tough decision about the adolescents,” I said sadly. “It’s a job no farmer ever wants to do, but it seems to be the age they roam the most at. Actually, I’ll make a very basic pen in the clearing to keep them in.”

“The predators will need to eat fresh meat soon,” Missy said.

I couldn’t disagree even if I wanted to. After gathering the Nebula Energy, I decided to focus on building plans and tribe structure. And now I lost a few more hours trying to make sure everyone was happy.

“We don’t have to rush anything yet. We have the preserver and all that carno and raptor meat. If we want to offset it, I’ll go hunting or figure something out. At least the tribe is close to being on the same page,” I said, deciding to go on a ride with Ellie. “Actually, I know what I need to do.”

“What’s that?” Sayuri asked with worry.

“I need to go exploring. I want to see if I can track that raptor down,” I said.

Aubrey watched me, her face growing heavy with worry. “Alan, they’re called the Cartel for a reason. They may be shorter than you, but they’re deadly.”

“I know, I know. I… I need to go, but I’ll promise to be back. Make sure Fred and the night guards know that I may come back at any point,” I said, kissing a series of cheeks goodbye.

The night called to me, and I couldn’t help but want to figure out just how bad the situation was in the Cartel camp.

Chapter 44

Getting in Trouble!

FOR WHATEVER REASON, I needed to detox from the tribe. Maybe it was because I really hated letting the dinos and their babies out to the elements. Deep down, I sadly knew it was absolutely needed. They’d destroyed the basin, ruined the water, and it’d take some time to return it to a decent standard.

Also, if we weren’t ready to take care of animals, then letting them take care of themselves made sense. As a last hurrah before everything changed, I opened up the speciality gate that protected my planned breeding nest.

I walked in, shifted the ready to hatch eggs to the carno cave and kicked out the pack of raptors. Since no one was keeping dinos out, all the nesting moms went in there with the gate wide open.

A few of the female raptors, mostly distraught by Ellie’s presence more than the other dinos, darted into the jungle to either eat heavily for a new clutch or to take off. I knew most of them would come back, but the herd in the clearing seemed a bit smaller.

The big loss was the clump of gallimimus who joined us during the apex stego trip. Those suckers didn’t mind being in a herd to eat in peace, but once it was time to go, they darted away from Bertha, not needing her protection when they were full of energy.

I hopped onto Ellie’s saddle, riding out of the clearing where a half dozen fires illuminated the night. Long trails of smoke told the region we were not afraid to show where we stayed. It wouldn’t surprise me if other groups were doing smoke diffusion because I rarely saw big plumes like our base gave off.

The ride through the clearing was done in peace with only a few of the herd noticing my escape. A few minutes later, we reached the game trail, and I dismounted. I let Sleuth and a few other loyal raptors come with us, deciding to dive deeper into the jungle with a jog that turned into a run.

An odd pull wanted me to go to Carno Sands, and since it wasn’t a bad distance to run, I stretched my legs by lengthening my stride and picking up speed. The night air was filled with humidity, minimal wind, and a friendly ambience.

No branches whipped my face but I did body check a big mosquito, knocking it down with an irritated buzz. The raptors flowed around me, more than happy to be on the hunt. Of course, my behavior was a tad abnormal. Humans didn’t run down game trails in the night by themselves with only a spear and machete.

Ellie asked if I was upset.

I chirped and cawed a reply that roughly meant restless.

Even though we had more than enough dinosaurs to use, and our food issue was partially solved since we could turn meat into jerky, I still didn’t have the means to produce metal or leather or so much more. Being reliant on the aliens was a bit of a bummer, but I knew we’d adapt to drops and the alien technology items seemed to be part of a package they wanted tribes to have. When these issues coupled with a hundred people crammed into a tiny secure space, I enjoyed letting my mind wander while running.

The bushes zoomed by with my stride lengthening until I felt like I was running for a timed PT Test. We passed a lone adult ankylosaurus, giving him plenty of space. He actually seemed curious to see me, instead of grumpy like Anakin. I flipped a two-finger wave, speeding deeper into the jungle.

When we neared the clearing, a raptor not from my pack chirped a warning. I sneered, recognizing the voice. Ellie called back to her former pack, instantly sending them scattering. I quickly slowed to a walk, catching my breath on the outskirts of the clearing.

Once I felt ready, I crept toward the sands. The trail bent, then opened up, allowing me to notice the area was unoccupied. Even though nearby dinos didn’t move into the space, someone visited recently. On the far side of the clearing, a big pit became an issue. And without any surprise, it lay close to where I found the scout.

I huffed, unleashing a short series of caws and chirps to Ellie about if she was able to deceive another human. She answered my question with a yes.

“So, the raptor lied?” I guessed.

Ellie just blinked, understanding my assumption but finding herself unable to answer. Deception was very possible, if not a common occurrence among raptors, but raptor to humans was a new dynamic, and we both sorta ventured into the unknown. I briskly walked across the sand, stopping just shy of the large amounts of sand removal.

I frowned, grabbed my obelisk, and unleashed my daily topography scan. The blue wave of magic shot outwards, creating a growing map in front of me. The very edge of that map went all the way to the starter zone. We never really traveled that far from our point of origin, so it sorta made sense no one else would go too far.

I suspected a tribe lived not too far from the southern side of Great Valley. They got the drop, there was another pond, some clearings, a winding river, and a lake in that area with rugged terrain. We still were at least two-thousand-feet above the plains, so the terrain certainly had room to drop. The thing was, whoever dug this sand did so from an angle that didn’t make sense.

No.

They had to have come from the northwest.

The map finished generating completely, adding the final layers of key resource points. I traced my finger in a line from the tracks in the sand outward on the map. Sure as shit, it lined up with the small waterfall at the end of the brook where we caught our first prehistoric fish.

“The Japanese fractured, most died, but some could be alive. The Polish and Mexicans combined to further grow the Cartel, and based on the heavy foot traffic, this was their doing. So that leaves the undiscovered southern groups a mystery,” I muttered to myself. “How many are at that waterfall and what kind of dinos…?”

Ellie and Sleuth sniffed around inspecting the tracks in the sand. I’d considered covering our tracks a few times, but we not only were aggressive and about speed, but hiding a bronto’s indents would be impossible. I stepped around the digging section, surveying what the dig team left behind as clues.

It didn’t take long to get a good idea of what visited the site. “Three duckbills, four raptors and a… trike?” I asked the raptors to see if I missed anything.

Ellie chirped, many spikes, to tell me she thought it was a stego. I couldn’t really argue, seeing the tracks led directly into the forest. If I had to guess, between our two groups we were changing the landscape pretty rapidly since we were so close together.

Before we set off, an adolescent Utahraptor approached, asking to join. “Tell him on the way back, but he has to protect herbivores and follow your commands.”

I set off, dashing into the bushes with my spear forward. In my mind, I intended to crash through ferns until I found the trail to follow uphill towards where I expected their camp to be. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

Not even ten feet into the jungle, the tip of my spear impaled a raptor who waited in ambush. The young male cried out in anguish, asking for mercy.

Ellie lost her shit, unleashing a feral battle cry with a lethal intent to any raptor who dared to challenge us. The pack of Utah-Raptors who decided to play games were already down a member and since our pack had an edge, they pounced.

Sleuth hopped over me, skidded to a halting turn and lunged to clamp onto the neck of the raptor who tore free of my spear. Since I didn’t relish fighting in the jungle, I sprinted back to the clearing. I stumbled upon Ellie clawing out the guts of a male raptor with precision.

She pinned him down with one foot, surgically killing him with the other. I tensed, readying for an enemy raptor to try to attack me. The rustling crash of animals fleeing told enough of the story. The Utahraptor pack wanted a round two—after a few quick deaths, they retreated.

Instead of getting bogged down with the remnants of the fight, I wanted to keep going. I pulled out my machete, walked over to the now dead raptor, chopped off the long, hooked claws and stuffed them in my bag. A few seconds later, I dashed through the jungle once again, weaving between trees. The dinos that carried the sand left an amazingly easy path to follow that arrived on a nice game trail.

I stayed on the hunt, pushing myself hard into the night with the raptors flanking my sides.

Not even fifteen minutes of hard running later, the flicker of a nearby fire lit the upper portions of the jungle canopy. While the jungle prevented me from seeing further, I knew I reached my destination.

A sheen of sweat coated my skin as I slowed to a jog. A few paces later, I stopped, drank some water, ate a snack, and relaxed to calm my breathing. My raptors asked for snacks, gobbling up the salted meat without even chewing it. Since I became a boring human, and calmed to the point they thought we might sleep here, the raptors started to lay down.

“Alright, stay here, just Ellie will join me,” I said quietly, stalking closer to the fire.

No rich laughter belted out, but the downdraft of the fire stung my eyes, helping to showcase I was at least downwind. I deviated a bit, content to be hidden, creeping over a stump and between two rocks. After another big tree, I peeked out to see a series of sharpened stakes in the ground, protecting a ring of people.

The defenses were meant to keep out bigger dinos, but a raptor or human could weave between them and a bronto would just walk over them. Beyond the crude defenses, a bunch of hastily built leaning structures rested against trees to provide homes. A single long house just like ours rested near the water with a glow from an interior fire, hidden behind spikes in the ground. A big metal container, something clearly from the aliens, had a bunch of sand spilled around it.

They did have a leather machine, but it was unpowered, and three sheds were placed near their dinos. I waited patiently and watched, surprised by how quiet it was for so many structures. When I grew confident the camp was asleep, I shifted to further inspect the dinos.

The Cartel had an adolescent stego, six velociraptors, five duckbills and a bevy of small dilos. If I had to guess, the hadrosaurs and dilos were wild because they were stuck in a basic pen of sorts. Movement from my left forced me back into hiding.

A Mexican looking man rotated the perimeter, clearly bored and confident of his defenses. For the next half hour, I watched, growing somewhat convinced these guys weren’t half bad even if Elsa was pretty against them. No one screamed, the guys who walked about were pretty fit and calm, and…

Then it dawned on me. I hadn’t seen a single woman.

While not the most unusual thing, it seemed odd. I decided to shift my position closer to my raptor pack. Mostly because if I was a bad guy, doing bad guy things, I’d want to leverage my dinos for protection. I backed up, swung wide, then approached closer.

A few metal spears blocked the bigger wooden stakes, providing a tighter security point. From this point, I saw a cage with three women in it. Each of them had gags in their mouths, ropes binding their arms, and tears streaking down their face.

I backed up, hanging my head in shame.

Once I was far enough my voice couldn’t be heard, I paced anxiously. My saddled raptor watched me with judging eyes. “Maybe they were bad. Maybe they violated some rule. Maybe… I should ask them.” I patted Ellie’s cheek. “Stay with the others. If I don’t come back, bring this to Jarod.”

She nuzzled into my chest, accepted the necklace into her saddle, and vanished into the jungle instead of saying goodbye. I stalked through the jungle, walked confidently to the spikes, and saw the guard was chatting with a buddy on the other side of camp.

It only took me a quick second to navigate my limber form through the Cartel’s defenses.

If I crouched and tried to be a crook, I’d be seen as a thief, so I strode confidently through the lean-tos, giving the dinos who might smell me as an adversary a wide berth. The soft moans of a couple fucking briefly drowned out the snoring of a tired man. If I had to guess, hauling all that sand beat them up pretty good because most of the lean-tos I passed were filled with snoring.

A woman exited a makeshift door that was nothing but a blanket hanging from twine. A board helped prop up the tent with a big 42 carved into it. The more I looked around, the more I saw the camp littered with number identifiers for who lived where. The young woman smacked her lips with a lot of blinking as if just waking up, zombie walking right by me. It wasn’t like I wore some fancy cloak while I continued deeper into their base, coming up to the main clearing with the sheds.

From this angle, I couldn’t see much of the cage, staying downwind. The space was about the same size as our basin, spanning a good seventy or so feet in each direction. Based on the bushes squished into the forest floor, they’d had mud problems, likely from the dinos.

Each of the sheds had closed doors without any sort of heat or windows for cooling. Extra spears and gear rested around the sheds, telling me that people went inside, items out. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what sort of people got to sleep in the best buildings.

A raptor curled up out in front of the furthest shed that had a wooden sign with the number one on it.

I grinned, thinking about how some things were great for some settings, terrible for security. The raptor shifted, clawing at something in its sleep. The dinosaur was likely protecting its master if I had to guess.

A few quick paces brought me close to the prisoners. When I loomed over the sitting women in the cage, they didn’t notice me at first, not hearing my light footsteps.

I bent down, placed a finger over my mouth, and waved the most alert one forward. She shook her head at first, blinking in confusion. Her head tilted in confusion until she realized I was an unknown man. She carefully neared until I reached in. With a bit of trust, she allowed me to gently remove her gag. She was white, with black hair and dark eyes.

“Polish?” I guessed.

“Huh, no, American,” she said with a slight Texan accent.

I gulped. “Fuck. Okay, stay calm, stay quiet. How’d they catch you?”

“This super sweet Polish man brought herbs for our meat four days ago, ya know. This morning he comes back offering to show us a safe path to the herbs so we can gather them ourselves, ya know. Then halfway there, a bunch of people jump out with spears... There was no chance to fight back. They killed my friend and his partner, binding us with bags over our heads that only came off a few hours ago,” she whispered. Her body wracked with sobs, and she managed to say, “He… He…”

I worried she might start crying loudly, cutting her off.

“Shush. Please. I need you to be strong and quiet. This is life or death, understand.” She bit her lip, a tear running down her eye. I pointed at the shed. “He’s in there? The necklace wearer?”

“Yes… Save us, please,” she pleaded.

I stroked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Hey, I’m the good guy, but sometimes we have to do things that don’t make sense at first. It will if you trust me.” I slowly pressed the gag back into her mouth. “Turn around so I can tighten it. When they ask what you saw, blame a short Mexican man using a blanket to hide his identity. I’m coming back for you. I promise. Be strong.”

I could tell she wanted to talk so badly. I pointed a finger to the ground and spun it. She turned and I tightened her gag.

My knees popped slightly when I rose to my feet. The raptor snoozed and it reminded me of those youtube videos where the leopard sneaks up on the dog and carries it away into the night, because I showed zero fear, approaching as smoothly as a hunting leopard.

With a twirl of my wrist, I flipped the spear to aim down. The instant I arrived next to the dinosaur, the weapon lanced down. The tip plunged into the closed eyes of the raptor; its leg twitched once, then never moved again.

For this guard dog, I was the leopard, but I wasn’t content with just the pet. No. I needed the master too. The spear stayed where I left it so I could adjust for what came next. I never stopped moving, knowing every second saved helped. I pulled my machete off my hip with my right hand while my left smoothly opened the door.

I sorta expected him to be sleeping with a bunch of women, but he lay sprawled out with his knees to his chest covered while spooning a blanket on his side. The necklace for his tribe lay around his neck with the rivers of glowing burning bright. I didn’t ever close the door, cocking my arm back.

I’d never killed a man before, but I didn’t have some big giant moment of self-doubt or worry. The machete swiped down, cleanly slicing through the neck before it landed with a deep thud into wooden flooring. Blood spurted onto the shed’s wall, making more noise than I did. I left the machete, knowing the blood on it would be used to track me if I took it.

My hand grabbed his obelisk, and I instantly regretted the action. A searing heat burned into my palm with what felt like the intensity of the sun. I fell to a knee, doing everything in my power to keep from screaming out.

The alien device shuddered before shattering it into a million bits of dust. I turned around, not quite sure why the obelisk got destroyed when I wanted to use it as leverage. But… something profound happened that I hadn’t expected. The glow of blue magic from the shattered obelisk shot into the woods where Ellie waited, a second later it pinged back, coating some of the Cartel’s dinos in blue magic.

Then it dawned on me.

The tames converted, no longer bound to their former master. Their ownership transferred to me and no dinos would be hunting me to find their master’s killer.

“In this world, the victor gains the spoils,” I muttered.

I grabbed the machete, content to have it back in my grip before I put it on my belt. I strode out of the shed, closed the door, yanked my spear free of the raptor, and walked away from the dinos upwind.

“Stay calm, wait for my return,” I said, loud enough to be heard.

The guards saw the magic, deviating to see what was wrong with the dinos. I drew further away, slipping into the encampment filled with numbers to signify who was who. The guards chatted in rapid Spanish, unable to figure out what was wrong and each step further away helped quiet their words. A few people woke to see the mild commotion and I simply walked through the lean-tos until I found a spot where the defenses were the lightest.

With the distraction of the dinos happening on the other side of camp, I snaked out of the feeble stakes, disappearing into the woods. I picked up a run, smelling a carno nearby. I considered deviating, then decided otherwise, cawing out to my raptors to join me.

If the carno chased me, I never heard it. It only took a few minutes of running through the bushes, but once I reunited with Sleuth and Ellie, I hopped in the saddle and sped all the way home. I doubted many would be happy I snuck off, getting in a fight with raptors.

Even fewer would be happy when I ordered our entire tribe to march right back to the Cartel base in the dead of night. We marched to war, and we did so with agents already behind enemy lines.

Chapter 45

To War!

DARNEL STRETCHED, grumbling while he sipped a warm tea he created. I tried it, disliking the taste. “So, Bro, let me get this straight. There is a group twice our size, you snuck in their base, ninja’d their boss, and stole their tames.”

“Uh, it sounds so easy,” Fred joked.

“For me, it was,” I cooly replied. “They lacked proper guards, had no walls, and were asleep from a hard day’s work. Think about how many more layers of defense we have and how many more we can add. But yeah, this is going to be fairly basic.”

“What can we add?” Poppy asked.

Missy winced. “He wants the dinos in the pit.”

Poppy opened her mouth, then closed it. I shrugged. “I always said I’d keep our best dinos in the basin. But yeah, wild dinos will always be wild. The Cartel was seriously lacking in spreading out their dinos and layering their defenses to prevent human intruders.”

“I’m shocked they haven’t come out to greet us yet,” Jarod said, relaxing on the saddle seat.

“It’s coming. The instant the sun hits the horizon it’s going to be hard to miss the brontosaurus with dozens of dinosaurs in tow,” Aubrey said.

I kissed each of my wives on the cheek, adding one to Sayuri’s when she bravely offered. Elsa nervously fidgeted, taking the nook of my elbow I offered her. I confidently guided her along Bertha’s leveled neck until we reached her forehead, taking a seat on her brow.

The big behemoth craned her neck up, gently walking through the jungle. From up here, my stomach grew a bit squeamish, mostly because we only attach to her neck. If we fell we’d slid down until we smacked against her body, assuming the necklace rope attachment held.

Inside the base, the early morning people moseyed about, oblivious to the danger on their doorstep. Only a few steps later, we stood outside the spike walls I crawled through earlier.

As if blessed by a divine presence, the sun peeked over the horizon providing just enough light to reveal Berta staring at a bored guard. The young Mexican man stopped dead in his tracks, painted the cross with his fingers across his chest, then fled into the camp.

He never cried out a warning, he never asked any questions, and he sure as shit didn’t protect the others. I sighed, not overly surprised. Humans didn’t mind a fight, but they normally preferred it when the odds were in their favor.

“Elsa, shout for whoever used to be in charge of your contingent,” I said.

She cupped her hands, sucked in a deep breath, and shouted, “Alesky, wystąp naprzód!” Elsa repeated this three times until a man groggily peeled back a blanket curtain. Most of the camp started to stir, curious as to what the commotion was about.

A young woman shot up, waving energetically at Elsa. She shouted a bunch of stuff in Polish at a speed I’d have struggled with even if I understood the language. Elsa smiled, then shouted something back, earning a frown from the woman.

“That’s Alesky, he speaks English,” Elsa said, pointing to the groggy man. “Well, they actually both do. That’s Bozena, the scientist who matched with Alesky since their ratings were so high.”

I smiled and asked, “I suppose an introduction is in order. I’m Captain Alan Winchester, tribe leader of Tribe Grant, ranked…” I grabbed the obelisk, projecting my information. “Oh, fourteenth in the world. I jumped up in rank.”

The Polish man folded his arms, staring up at me in bewilderment. “The cliff base?”

“Yes! Wonderful. Wonderful, you understand where we are from.”

“What do you want to trade?” Alesky asked, shifting to hushed Polish with a few of the others who gathered. A different pale skinned man ran to fetch the Mexican leader. “We don’t have much.”

“Ah, I came here for a different reason. Wake them all up, so they have a chance to make the right decision,” I said, gently swinging my legs. When an archer peeked out, the first sign of any defense, Bertha raised her head, changing the angle. “Ah! Be careful, Mr. Bowman. I’ll march in and start a slaughter if you show further aggression.”

A woman’s shrill scream erupted from the shed. Her cries of horror swapped, becoming filled with torment from a lost lover. I was somewhat surprised it took them this long to realize the fate of their tribe leader. The enemy camp grew confused, not understanding.

The wailing woman was restrained, and her cries muffled. I unleashed a single call to all the dinosaurs.

‘Jump.’

As one, both my herd and their dinos inside their camp jumped, sending a quake through the entirety of the region. Distant birds took flight, people bent their knees with arms out as if there was an earthquake, and Alesky stood in horror.

I sorta suspected this would happen later in the negotiations, but he pieced enough of it together. I owned his dinos now, which meant I wasn’t here to trade, I was here to conquer. Before he could bolt, I waved my index finger side to side.

“If you run, my raptors will hunt you down first. I killed your leader, and you need to listen very carefully,” I warned.

To escalate the situation, I chirped to the raptors. ‘Protected the cage.’ Dozens of raptors weaved through the defenses at weak points, storming the breach so they could posture around the three women from Texas. Bertha raised a pad over the spikes and dug them out effortlessly until they lay flat on the ground.

“What are you doing Elsa!” a Polish woman pleaded.

Elsa stared down at her with venom in her eyes. “Why are there three women in a fucking cage!” she roared.

Of all the people for diplomacy, the hot-headed woman was not the best, but coming from her, this hit home hard. A Mexican woman quickly translated for those who didn’t speak English. By this point, everyone in their camp held a spear tentatively, understanding how bad the situation was.

“They were lost and then refused our rules, biting Filip,” the woman said.

Alesky found a bit of backbone, realizing he might get out of this situation. That changed when I said, “They killed their lovers, then raped them. Hardly being lost, breaking rules. But the rape is allowed, isn’t it?”

“Of course not. Don’t twist our ways. Those with high species efficiency should only breed with their peers, it’s about science, not love,” Boneza said.

“You fucking zealot. You think keeping people in a cage will appease the aliens or your god. This is your only chance. Grab your spears and nothing else and leave. You’re beyond saving. I have no pity for those who subjugate and rape,” I bellowed.

The happy woman from earlier shouted, “I wanted to go with you, but feared I’d die. If I speak out, I’m beaten. They force me over a table with hands bound and legs open because I have some shitty point number thing.”

I clenched my right fist, then let the white in my knuckles fade.

“My friend is coming over, she’s an absolute sweetheart. Get on her back right away,” I said, ordering Ellie to rescue her with a series of chirps. The enemy stirred, raising spears tentatively, waiting for someone to make a call. Ellie reached the person I hoped wasn’t lying. She got on the dinosaur’s saddle, riding her to safety. “How many others are like her, pawns to your evil doing?”

The science woman said, “It’s not evil. We can’t save our families without -”

“You saw our stats right in your face, Bozena. We’re getting a ship. What place is your tribe in?” Elsa asked defiantly.

Bozena’s eyes shot around, trying to find the tribe leader or a Cartel officer to save her. Eventually she said, “I don’t know.”

I snickered. “I do. Zero. You’re at zero points. I crushed your tribe’s amulet, stole your dinosaurs and shattered your dreams of ever reaching a ship. All because you killed those ladies' friends, then enslaved them.”

Boneza raised her hands defensively. “I had absolutely nothing to do with that. The aliens are the enemy, not us. I need my children back. You don’t understand.”

A crying baby in the background might as well have sent an arrow through her heart.

“Yeah, Bozena, we’ve been graced with our children back for achievements earned, all we needed was a solid base,” Cassie shouted from behind. “You’re looking at a family. A tribe maybe, a family definitely. We’ve come for the women whose mates you killed, then raped. You aligned with bad people.”

“We’re not bad,” a Mexican man said in very good English. “We’re just guided by the streets. The women will...” He flashed a smile. “Would have, come around.”

“Hey, the lady on Ellie’s back, do me a favor, shout out to everyone who wasn’t a part of this farce. Those worth saving but were too scared to stand up, I’ll save them,” I said.

The Mexican man said, “We’re not powerless.”

“No, I get that. I really do. But do you want to fight right now? Because if you want to do anything other than organize your things and try for revenge later, I’ll happily oblige,” I said with a toothy grin.

He shook his head, leaving the area to organize a retreat.

Over the next ten minutes, she called out a few names. Most came happily, some were scared until Alesky forced them out of his camp, understanding what was about to happen. His sliver of humanity saved them from being too cowering to stick around. He then confidently strode into the Mexican side of camp, rounded up a few meek males and a dozen or so females, pushing them in our direction.

“Okay, you have those who are innocent. What now?” Alesky said.

“Go west or south, start over, realize your goal is to build a home, not a human breeding camp. Have someone kneel to you and earn a new tribe. Probably avoid the people who want to live by the laws of the streets,” I said with indifference. “I’m returning the ladies to their home after they get to see ours so they can say nice things about us.”

“Puta,” a different Mexican man said, spitting on the ground. “You killed my friend.”

“And yet here I sit, unafraid and on your door. I’m the one looking down at the bitch,” I said. “There’s some dinos for you to attack. Or better yet try to throw your spear at me.”

He did neither, turning around to pack up his gear. Most of the Mexican side of the camp did the same. I sat there patiently, watching them quickly flow out of camp to the west. Alesky waited, until the very end when they were gone.

The Polish man said, “So, I didn’t kill their mates or friends. But I was there, and I didn’t object. So was Filip and his brother. No one else knew of our… treachery. We were told they’d never have their gags off until they were on board with our plan for getting their families back from cryo. Not the best plan, but the aliens said babies are worth a lot of dino kills.”

“Well, yes, it’s so they breed out the digital humans. Our next generation will be lean, fit, and have no idea what a cell phone is, but they’ll know how to fight, to hunt. Take Philip, his brother, and go start a new life far from here. I won’t kill you; I’d rather have the dinosaurs struggle to do it,” I said, turning my gaze to Bozena. “Did you know?”

“I suspected,” Bozena admitted.

“Did you encourage the lower breeding free for all?” I asked. When she nodded, I sighed. “Anyone directly responsible for that also needs to go.”

That only left a few people who were innocent. Elsa talked to them in Polish, only selecting two more. In the end, we ended up with eight men and thirty-two women who decided to not risk setting up another base with split power. They needed to collect their things, a process that didn’t pass quickly as I’d have liked.

Hour after hour slowly shifted by with Elsa and I deciding to leave Bertha’s head to stand on the ground. Most of my army joined us pushing into the camp while the final Polish contingent departed. We slowly walked toward the cage of women. Fred deviated, dipping his head into the shed and stifled a choke from the smell.

“He shit himself,” Fred said.

I shrugged. “I guess. There was a lot of blood splashing about to probably cover the smell.”

The raptors darted about, flowing like waves being pushed by a boat’s bow to make room for my approach. I reached the cage, popping the lock off with a simple gesture. The woman from earlier turned, giving me her wrists. I deftly unbound them with two simple pulls.

She yanked her gag down and bounded into my arms for a hug. I patted her back while she sobbed. My wives hurried to help the other ladies while I carried her through my tribe. Not one person seemed upset I’d stolen their dinosaurs or shattered their base or killed their leader in his sleep.

If anything, I hadn’t done enough.

Deep down, I wondered if I’d been too lenient. I’d forced them into the wilds with no place to call home. The predators would start to pounce, and it was likely they’d never survive the winter, let alone thrive, but they might eke out enough of a living to be a pain.

I patted the distraught woman’s back, promising myself I’d shatter each and every one of them if they ever tried to enslave good people again, regardless of country or ethnicity. I wanted to make it very clear, this was my region, and I’d protect the humans in it, even from other humans if I had to.

Chapter 46

Bang the Nail with the Hammer!

TEN DAYS PASSED IN A FLASH.

Before departing the Cartel’s camp, we cleaned up all the blankets and spare items left behind, then departed to let the jungle reclaim the land. Once home, we hunkered down to acclimate the new arrivals, create more space, and pretty much start a new chapter in our tribe’s history.

This was mostly done through bringing people closer to dinosaurs. The Japanese integration had always been about creating space, assigning tasks, then hoping they adjusted. I definitely missed getting to know them one by one in depth. And honestly, it was just fine to let them recover.

Since some time passed, I pushed them to integrate with our greatest asset—the dinosaurs. Yes, some were scared at first, but there was something magical about touching a bronto’s leg or rubbing a triceratop’s horn. We definitely worked hard to turn the cliff face into something better, but I really wanted to remind people that dinosaurs were the difference maker.

The people we rescued from the Cartel were never allowed near the dinosaurs. That changed with so much more. To us, and yes, me too, I wanted to make sure they knew they were more than a number. They were given plenty of food, blankets, clean water, and only half shifts, on day or night.

A few grew worried about the night, but no one ever got hurt and night shift didn’t venture out as far as day shift did, but they still went outside the walls to clean up and keep the woodinator functioning. The half shifts ramped up fairly quickly out of necessity more than anything else. While ten days was a lot, it didn’t fix our compounding housing issue.

Since I’d somewhat easily entered the enemy base and aced their leader, we realized I needed to move with extra precaution taken. Suddenly, protecting the tribe’s obelisk held a whole new meaning. We shifted the layout of the first floor to put my small room under the stairs.

This location was central, hidden behind a door, and we carved out a few decoy hiding spots in the stone wall. The room was tight, but sufficient for now. And yes, I hid the obelisk while I slept, stashing it in an end table with a false bottom.

After a hard day of work, I ate a hearty meal, drank some extra water, then decided to retire for the night earlier than normal. When I entered the small space, I found Cassie and Sayuri going over some plans. Cassie rose, kissed my cheek, and winked, leaving alone with the lovely Asian woman.

Sayuri patted the spot beside her, tucking a long strand of black hair behind her ear with a mischievous smile. There was one thing I learned about Japanese women that I enjoyed. Behind closed doors, their shy nature seemed to fade to allow their personalities to shine.

“Whatcha working on?” I asked, sliding off the amulet to stash it.

I’d already showered, swapped into a clean kilt, and scrubbed my teeth. Sayuri waved me closer, pretending not to be nervous by continuing to work. We didn’t really have much alone time even in public, and this would be the first time in this kind of setting. The fact she was alone with me wasn’t happenstance at all either; without a doubt, Aubrey, Missy, and Cassie were at play.

“Struggling to make an egg farm. Half the problem is picking out the right animal since we’re still learning so much,” Sayuri said, blushing when I neared her.

“Uh, how about we close that for now,” I said, and she closed the book. “You’re in here for a reason.” Her eyes stayed on the book in her lap. “The others are normally the aggressor.”

“I’m not them, and while I’ve pushed for this, I’m still me,” Sayuri said, adjusting her breast wrap to reveal her small breasts.

I raised my kilt up to expose my penis, earning a gulp in reply.

“There are many ways this can happen, but your comfort will always be my priority,” I said, tracing a finger over her shoulders. I dragged it around to reach her nipple. When I pinched it, she whimpered. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

She nodded aggressively. I chuckled, taking that as enough of a cue. My finger continued down her body, tracing over her belly button. My entire hand slid over her thin thigh, and she gasped again, spreading her legs welcomingly. For a few minutes, I kissed her shoulder, teasing her flesh with exploratory fingers.

If I had to guess, this was as good as sex for her because she started to squirm with pleasure and panted breaths. A few deft shifts of her waist knot set her bottom free. She grabbed my hand, pushing my fingers over her tuft of pubic hair.

Her slick slit welcomed me with abandon. I kissed from her shoulder to her neck, twirling my two fingers over her clit. Sayuri’s hips thrust and twirled with a bitten lip and muffled moans.

I kept going, deciding to do something different. Since she was so receptive, I layed on the hot kisses, reacted to her moves, and helped her climax.

If she were a man, I’d call it a premature ejaculation, but yeah, her whole body tightened. A few seconds later, she folded over, bit my shoulder, and orgasmed without even needing penetration. After a minute of intense breathing, and her teeth peeling off my shoulder, she leaned against the padded back of the room with crimson cheeks.

“Wow,” Sayuri said.

I grinned, not sure what to say. My boner was rock hard and untouched at this point. Her innocence and inexperience were fun though. Her eyes focused on my dick when I lay down.

“Get on top,” I ordered.

She beamed a smile, shifting to stand over my erection. Sayuri squatted, placing her palms on my abs while staying on her feet. She lined up her dripping sex to my tip and gently slipped my cock into her.

Her mouth popped open with a whimpered moan. She quickly bit her lip, pulled me out, then teased me back in. Without a doubt, her tiny pussy was not ready for my girth. In and out I went, sliding a bit deeper with each pop of her hips.

A wilder side of the shy woman snuck out when she grinned ear to ear, lavishing in the moment. She rotated to face away, reached between her legs and pulled my dick to an angle she could use.

A second later, she teased her slick entry, letting me watch her little pussy grip my cock as it slid in. For the first time, she plunged my entire manhood into her. I moaned from the euphoric feeling of her little sex squeezing my cock.

Sayuri shot me an over the shoulder blushing stare before she adjusted to twerk. Over the next few minutes, she pumped her hips in all the right ways. I enjoyed both the intense warmth and grip of her sex as well as the show.

Since she didn’t like being spanked, I just focused on driving my cock deeper with her thrusts down. After a good ten minutes of intense sex, I bent her over, deciding to finish doggy style. Up to this point she’d mostly been shy and quiet.

“Alan, I want to wait on a child,” Sayuri said, trying to keep me from going too deep from this angle. “Where do you want to finish?”

I frowned, sorta figuring this was me being a stud for her baby. We definitely had different backgrounds and cultures, so I found myself conflicted on how to proceed.

“Any recommendations?” I asked.

“Swallow?” she asked with a cute smile I couldn’t resist.

I pulled out, rose to my feet, and used a hand on the roof to stabilize. A few seconds later I learned she needed to be taught how to give a blowjob. Instead of getting frustrated, I shared some pointers, whispering instructions until I exploded into her mouth.

She greedily swallowed, proving to be a winner in that regard. I smirked when she licked the cum off her lips before giving my tip a final cleaning. And with that little adventure, I added a fourth waifu.

Chapter 47

Work Work!

AS DAY TURNED TO NIGHT, then repeated itself, we ran into the issue of idle hands. Creating new homes in the cliffside hit roadblocks due to constrained working conditions as well as space. For those who weren’t busy, the building focus expanded to creating dinosaur quality of life improvement.

If I had to guess, the tribe understood my great love for dinosaurs and how I was heartbroken about expelling them from all the best locations. And yes, we kicked them out for good reasons, but it bummed me out. Thankfully, this was a great way to find a middle ground. I certainly found purpose in building cozy stables for the dinosaurs.

A few major issues stood in the way of our expansion. Berth had pushed over giants from almost two months ago. While we collected branches for firewood, we mostly left the behemoths where they fell, only shifting a few to keep roads across the clearing. When we built the longhouse’s walls, roof, then second floor, it was done with trees or branches we could manhandle.

Most of the easy to move woods was gone from nearby, meaning we either pushed further into the jungle, or finally started converting the fallen giants. The woodinator only had an opening the size of a woodchipper, expanding into a refrigerator sized body with a larger output than input. There clearly was some advanced tech we considered magic going on inside because it printed a perfect sized board infinitely bigger than itself while storing ten times what it should be able to hold.

We went after the easy parts first, sawing or chopping off limbs, roots, and branches as well as chucking in husks of bushes. Then came the big problem, how did we take a super wide tree trunk and fit it into the machine easily. Sawing planks made the most sense, but not only was it hard for two people to cut a straight line the length of a tree, it just wasn’t effective. Thankfully, all the easy parts provided ample amounts of work to pass the time until we were forced with the tough trunk.

I’d just finished sawing off the last exposed root, letting it fall with a reverberating thud. Victor connected a rope around the thin end, then ushered Anakin to drag it toward the dwindling piles of wood to be processed.

“Thanks,” I said, popping my back.

Victor pointed to Bertha. “She looks ready.”

“Yeah, I fear she’s just going to create a bunch of indents,” I said with a sigh, not sure if our plan would work. “But if we just leave a big trail of decaying jungle, we can never create farmland.”

“Dead trees are great for mushroom farming,” Sierra said loudly for attention from behind. I dusted off my hands, seeing Aubrey and Sierra—the freed prisoner—approaching. “You looked thirsty.”

“It’s curious how often you get brought water compared to me,” Victor teased, flicking a peace salute as he departed to shift Maximus to another limb that needed dragging.

“Mushrooms sound great, but in moderation. How’s Kara and Gina?” I asked, knowing the other two freed women were working to bathe dinos. I purposely let them have some of the better work to adjust and take their mind off things a bit.

“Well, it… It’s nice to be here. Houston Tribe is going to be mighty jealous when they see your fortress and -”

An ear-splitting crack preceded a violent tremor. I instinctively ducked, shifting toward the noise. Bertha stood triumphantly on a spit tree trunk, smashing the fallen tree toward the top. She trumpeted loud and proud with a long call to let the world know how awesome she was.

I chuckled, shaking the ringing from my ears. Of course, quite a few people covered their ears far too late. Much like a cat playing with a toy, the big bronto worked the crack, trying to split the fallen tree in twain.

“Well, that’s going to make a huge difference,” I said with a grin. I happily accepted the water Aubrey bought. “Sorry Sierra, keep going.”

While I gulped greedily, Sierra said, “I’m sure you heard, but Aubrey asked me to cover what our base is like now that you’ve proven what kind of a tribe you are. Tribe Houston lives in the trees, sleeping on rope between limbs to create a platform settlement. Since there’s no kids, there’s no one falling, but its fucking awful. Part of why we were so trusting is because we’re not doing great. But here, we… you have a gate so big a T-Rex can’t get over it.”

Aubrey smiled and said, “Kara and Gina are doing fine. Same as the Polish additions. Trauma is present, and there is a bit of tattling going on. Some of it is bad, but more or less, most are going with the flow instead of exploiting. Missy added a post to the bulletin board that the past is the past and to focus on the future. Time will tell if it works.”

“Ironically, we’ve never been so crowded, and we’re building pens for dinos that aren’t leaving,” I said, earning a deadpanned reaction from Aubrey. “What! The tribe understands. If we went to war without the dinos, we’d have lost, but with them we bullied our way to a victory.”

“Speaking of which. We’re at three ankylosaurus, six triceratops, one gallimimus, one brontosaurus, forty-two duckbills of all variations, sixty-two raptors, seven carnos, eight stegos, two beelzebufo, one pteranodon, and then, like fifty dilos. With the compies, not a clue. I honestly tried to count them accurately, but it’s fucking impossible. I only got the raptors because Ellie ordered them to come together and sit,” Aubrey said, eyeing a juvenile dilo who came over for a handout that didn’t exist.

“We added dinos,” I said with a chuckle. “Those compies and dilos are the chickens of this world.”

Aubrey nodded. “The dilos eat anything, literally even rotten food. They scavenge, breed insanely fast, and are super good at making tiny nests capable of hatching a bunch of fast-growing babies. The only thing more prolific are the compies, but they tend to be good at hiding.”

“I rarely see them for more than a split second, but here I was worrying we’d be losing dinos,” I said.

“A lot of them want a herd. We had a hatching too, so lots of tiny babies for everyone to fawn over. I tried to get people to sign up for imprinting, but it is a lot of work. The raptors who follow Sayuri and Katie around are needy and wild. Meanwhile, your domestication charge is up with two days of no use,” Aubrey said, flipping the page of her notes. “Moving on. Fourteen children, one hundred and eleven women, forty-two men, and three guests.”

I nodded, ingesting the data. “How is Tribe Houston’s ratios?”

“Balanced. Very much so. I think we have two more men than women,” Sierra said, then her shoulders slumped. “We did.”

“Well, I’m planning on taking you home today. When I pass around the Great Valley, I intend to see if we can’t pick up another gallimimus. We also are going to set a few traps and might catch something quick,” I said in a positive tone.

Sierra rocked on her feet, shifting from her sadness a bit. “And if we wanted to stay?”

“Sure, I need to talk to your leader at some point and… Actually, you know what? This is a good time for a break and a goodbye. Let’s wrap up work before Bertha gets too tired to make the trip. I’ve given you plenty of time to recover, time for my people to rest before another journey, and we’re entering a lull in the work,” I said.

Ellie chirped out an alarm, sending a clear signal to the entire team who worked in the clearing. That single sound instantly changed how we postured. The work crews immediately dropped what they were doing, racing for the gates as I’d commanded they do in this scenario.

A man with thick shoulders, a broad smile, and a friendly wave slowly rode a large hadrosaur out of the jungle. He came alone, scanning our hasty retreat with trepidation until his eyes landed on Sierra who jumped up and down with an energetic wave.

“That’s Lieutenant Cole! Come, you gotta meet him,” Sierra said, dashing away from safety.

I took my necklace off, placing it over Aubrey’s head. “Be safe, I’m going to do some diplomacy.” I kissed her cheek before I turned to Jarod. “We’re up, just a spear. Fred you too. Let’s meet the Texans.”

Chapter 48

Dealings!

“I… I was coming to you to ask for help about some lost tribe mates, but I see I don’t need to, Sir,” LT. Cole said.

“Just Alan. Want me to call you Cole or Harold?” I asked.

He was only a year or two younger than me with a personality that made me want to offer him a beer. “Cole works. Everyone calls me Cole, the boon of two first names.”

I decided to take him on a tour, allowing him to keep his weapon. We immediately went towards the nursery section that was relocated to a spot right outside the gated cavern. Since Kara and Gina were there washing dirty mommy dinos with buckets of clean water, it seemed fitting.

The gate lay open with the mothers of the tribe watching their toddlers play behind a small picket fence. Little tiny dino roamed near the opening, wanting to go inside and play with the children. The dinosaur mothers hovered less, but still watched their infants from big clumps of nesting they created for their homes that rested near the gates.

The two former prisoners kept working, only giving him waves. They seemed indifferent, happy, but not as excited as Sierra. If I had to guess, they didn’t love or dislike Cole, but they probably disliked his base of operations or leadership style compared to ours. I wasn’t quite sure yet, but their reactions did provide some insight.

“This is our nesting area. These are the first rounds of our babies. I… It’s complicated but we used to have meat issues, then we earned a preservation machine. After that, we kicked our herd out to fend for themselves, and it turned out to be a net positive. I just have the raptors pick off a few dilos every day or so and no one goes hungry,” I said, watching Missy feed a baby pteranodon with slices of meat.

My lovely wife was sitting on a bunch of pillows with the babies between her crossed legs.

“I didn’t know West Virginia girls were so pretty,” Cole said with a winning smile.

“That’s my sister,” Jarod said with a light chuckle.

Missy waved. “Hey honey, they hatched not even an hour ago and mommy is gone to find a different dad instead of hunting. We all know how that went last time for her.”

I retold the story, earning a laugh from Cole until he blinked a few times. “Wait, you tackled a flying bird to claim it? For real?”

“For real,” Missy said, finishing her task. She built a wall of blankets before rising. She sauntered over, landing a kiss on my lips. Her hazel eyes sparkled with a mix of mischief and love. “Some say that I flying tackled Alan, so he learned from the best.”

A light chuckle escaped my lips while I pulled her in to fit in front of me. She happily twirled eager for me to hold her tight.

“Ugh,” Jarod grunted with rolled eyes. He watched the squawking babies with a gleeful grin. “All three hatched?”

“Yup, almost everything hatched over the last few days. We’re still learning about incubation times. Well, the raptors are far shorter in their timeframes,” Missy said.

Fred said, “Makes sense. Fish have thousands of eggs to have a few survive. Raptors are preyed upon quite heavily, even bigger raptors eat smaller raptors. Dilos have it worse.”

“Right. But as you can see Cole, we’re investing in tomorrow by putting in work today. I’m hoping we can get an aerial unit going. Three babies is fantastic, even if it's going to take a while to get them fully grown,” I said.

Missy shifted, hugging me from the side. “I doubt all three will make it to maturation. One is asking for food, then spitting it up. I figure that it’s just nature. Unless the aliens gave you some sort of baby growth incubator?” Missy asked Cole.

“Uh, hmm… Well Mam, they did drop a care package right next to our base, and it came with some goodies, but I need to understand a few things before I share more. I guess since we can watch cute baby dinos, I can talk. I lost a team of five to a Polish man,” Cole said. “Can you explain what happened to bring them into your base where they’re all smiles with more weight then they left with?”

“Of course. The Polish man was from a group known as the Cartel. He conned you, lured your team to an ambush point, then killed two of the men. Their boss misused the women, dying for his sins by my own hand. I stole his dinos, the good people of their tribes, and then ruined their base. They’ve been here recovering, and I was going to head over with my army to safely drop them off,” I said, mostly catching him up.

Sierra said, “They’ve been gracious hosts, and they have a… Teleporter!”

It wasn’t lost on us she completely glazed over her trauma. She coped, we allowed it, and Cole flashed a winning smile.

“I do say, that sounds wondrous, you seem very happy,” Cole admitted, patting Sierra’s shoulder with pride. “Happier than before.”

Sierra finally fidgeted, growing uncomfortable. “I don’t wanna speak ill, Cole. You know that.”

“No, no, it’s okay. You weren’t the only reason I came. A hunting party of forty Russians arrived at Swamp Valley. They call themselves the Soviets and -”

I held up a hand. “Uh, Cole, for clarity, the valley by you with the four herds or another one?”

He folded his arms and shook his head no. “Not that one. We call that one Bronto Valley, but Great Valley works. There’s another one to the southwest. It’s got land bridges with deeper water and taller trees. Living there made a ton of sense at first, less so now. I guess I need to start at the beginning, assuming you got time?” Cole asked.

I nodded. “Sure, if it runs long, we may head toward your home and talk because I got traps to set and three ladies to deliver home.”

I earned a few stares, but no one spoke up to stop Cole from talking.

“Well, I’ll keep it brief. We started up in the thin trees, the white trunks from Old Earth. The aliens gave us boots, camping supplies, a few outfits, a few saddles, instructions about what came next and a time to leave the starter zone. I convinced the majority of the people to follow me, descending downhill while some went up.

“We ran into a broken faction of the Japanese party, only nine survivors who warned us about what came next while helping us understand a lot. When we hit the big valley, we went right, or west around the opening. We claimed our first dino, a big duckbill, even bigger than the girl I rode in on. Maybe it was luck, maybe fate but we didn’t lose a single person during those three days of slow moving.

“We reached a marshy valley of sorts with elevated high grounds. The water is too deep to stand in for most dinos, and the land bridges into the marsh woods are narrow. I figured we could block off the three ways in, establish a base on the ground, and have some protection.

“Barry died on the first night in that camp. A sarco slithered up from the depths, snatched him by a leg, and dragged him into water to never be seen again. Only a few hours later, we were fending off sarcos with no one sleeping. I used Patty, our duckbill, to get into the trees. After getting high enough there is a lot of liveable space.

“Once we had a few rope ladders on nearby trees, we built treehouses, and nets. But the sarcos never relented even when we started turning them into food. Days passed where we tried to turn our tree base into a better home, but the issue remained—predators. You see, we gave up the ground, which is fine, but how the fuck do you get a dino into a tree?” Carl asked.

I snickered. “You don’t.”

“You don’t. So, more time passes, and we send out scouts, forage for supplies, and start preparing for a better tomorrow. Every week I take the entire tribe out to catch a dino and add it to our team. We lost Claire to a very angry momma stego. She froze when I yelled at her to run. It… Lennox died to a rex who said fuck your spear and ate the weapon and him. Oh, and Kirk either jumped into the water or a snake managed to eat him without anyone noticing until it splashed into the water,” Cole said, his gaze going distant.

“Damn, you’re dropping numbers?” I asked.

“Yeah, and a week ago, a spino swam onto our lower platform, stealing a defenseless duckbill before we could even do anything. They’ve done that twice now. How the fuck do I stop a spino? I don’t unless I have a bronto or a wall. Our barricades on the land bridges are terrible, not stopping any of the aquatic predators,” Carl complained, raising a finger. “Oh, and some asshole toad like that one hit Annie with a tongue lash, trying to drag her into the water. It took five of us to kill it and save her.”

“Yeah, they’re perfect anti-people creatures. Uh, we lost one guy to a carno ambush. When we rescued the first Polish contingent, two died to raptors with one being gnawed on that I saved. We… She lost the foot, but our doctor created a -”

“Doctor?” Cole asked with hope. “We have a nurse, well, three, but no doctor. We have a broken leg and arm, but they’re not healing right.”

“Aio can maybe help. It’s not like he has some special tools. Is that why you came?” I asked.

“Three reasons, well, more like four. We’ve been watching you, especially during the stego fight with the blue dome. We figured you were Americans and planned to say hello. However, I personally found Michael and Carson. I knew the Polish folks killed them and found out they had a fairly big army mining sand, likely for water purification, also a problem for us,” Cole said.

“Yup, fixed that one, what else?” I asked.

Cole sighed. “I was gonna see if we could live over there.” He pointed to the east, a spot where another river flowed out of the mountains. “Living in the trees is great until you do it. I can go on, but our story tells a pretty decent picture, but it gets worse.”

“Oh?” Jarod said, petting Sleuth who came sniffing by for a treat.

Cole glanced at Sierra sadly. “We think Jack died last night.”

“You’re brother?” Sierra asked and he nodded. “Sorry, he was a good man.”

“The best, and his death is why I’m risking everything to visit here.” Cole stared deep into her eyes. “Did you tell him about the Soviets?”

“Huh? The guys who shouted for the drop?” Sierra asked, folding her arms. “No, mostly because they only came by once.”

“Five times. I just dealt with them at our barricades without telling most of the others.” He sighed, bending down to pet a baby duckbill. I was going to warn him but when it tried to eat his fingers, he flicked the bill. The baby squawked in annoyance, then asked for food. “They’re west of us, by at least a few miles. Best I can tell, the main central point of this part of the land is south. We’re on the northern starting point with a lot of tribes all around. Anyway, they have at least a spinosaur, and I think they got a different drop.”

“Wait.” I held up a hand with a twisted face. “The Soviets killed your dino?”

Cole shook his head. “Probably.”

“Why?” Fred asked with a grunt.

“They’ve never hid the fact,” Cole replied. “They think we’re at the only drop point for the region. They firmly believe no one should be camping the drop spots.”

“That wouldn’t make sense,” I said, interlocking my hands to bounce my thumbs against each other. “I… Hmm… They’re determined.”

“Yeah, I know. There’s this game where drop points are static, there may be more, but they’re convinced we have to move or else we get all the best drops. I said we didn’t want to move, even though we do, and they said they’d make us. While Texans aren’t big on backing down from a fight, we’re not ready to brawl with shitty defenses and a home we can barely live in, let alone protect.

“Each time they visited, I was given a move out date I told them to fuck off, mostly because we had figured they would struggle to launch an attack. Sure enough, a spino came in, ignored the dinos, used its front paws to stand on a tree, and started chomping on our ropes. Jack drove a dagger into its eye, getting it to retreat. He held on, diving into the depths with the monster never to be seen again,” Cole said.

I folded my arms. “Brazen. Was there a rider?”

“Nope. Anyway, we’re good people, too trustin’ if you ask most of us, but there is one member of our party who was a first wave survivor that never joined your group. We’ve heard of a few groups in the area who might help, but Clara spoke of an army captain who seemed pretty competent, so I just had to hope that this base was you,” Cole said.

“Captains can be bad,” Fred said, slamming a palm into my shoulder. “But Alan’s a good one. Give us a moment please. Probably a good time to talk to Gina and Kara.”

Cole nodded, understanding we need to chat in private. The instant he was gone, Sierra commented, “He wants to live with you, not one river over. I said my piece.”

She retreated, skipping over to pet Anakin who finished dragging a log. Clearly, she was just built to be positive even if the world around her beat her down. Or maybe she was just excited to be avoiding a tree fort.

“Not gonna lie, tree fort base sounds awesome,” Jarod said, with a snicker. “Until you realize how limited it is and how living on ropes would be insufferable. Every movement would reverberate if I had to guess.”

“The ladies we rescued had nothing but good stuff to say while not exactly excited at Cole showing up. I think we’re going to keep running into groups bigger than ours. This will help even the odds if we steal some of their members,” I said.

Fred tossed a hand in the air. “More men will help a lot. Especially if we’re about to start fighting over drops.”

“I hope they’re not static. Plus, they scooped up a drop’s worth of loot, definitely having supplies we can use,” I added.

“The downside is we could face a rebellion. You’re already standing on a widening foundation of people. Sure most of the Japanese tribe members like you, but you haven’t grown on the Polish coalition yet,” Missy said.

“It’s only been ten days for most of them, but I hear you. Alright, they’re good people and those seem to be fucking hard to find. Fuck the Soviets. I mean it,” I said with conviction.

Jarod pointed south. “Well, good, because look at what is dropping out of the sky.”

From this distance, it was hard to tell how far the sky drop was falling, but it one hundred percent was not on the same spot. A wave of relief washed over Cole’s face when he saw the drop was close to his base, but further south than the first one.

The Soviets would undoubtedly use this against his base though. I mused over how it’d give us cover to extract his tribe. At the same time, I wanted those orbs. Before I could even call for her, Rin shot out of the inner basin with her face tight to the gallimimus’ feathers. The duo blurred with speed as she kept her profile low to avoid slowing the dinosaur.

I grinned watching the duo fly out of the base.

One thing was certain, it’d be hard to catch that gallimimus unless they slammed into something.

I cupped my hands, sucked in a deep breath, and bellowed, “Survivors from Houstin need us. We march to help them relocate out of the swamp to either join us or be our neighbors. Russians, who like to be called the Soviets, sent a dino into their base as a warning, wanting all the drops for themselves. I unknowingly sent the Cartel right toward potential allies.

“We’re at an inflection point, and without a doubt, the Tribe Wars is at its infancy. We march as a tribe, not to get drawn into a fight, but to use our might to save lives. Day shift, grab your spears, collect the spare bags and crates and do it with a purpose. Wake night shift, we can’t have the base raided while we leave.”

I jogged toward Cole, waving him to follow me. The man let his defeated nature get the better of him, slumping his shoulders. “Sorry to ask for help.”

“Nah, Bro,” Darnel said, arriving to hand me my necklace that Aubrey must have handed him. “This is what we do. We already have most of this stuff ready to load up onto Bertha since we were planning on a run anyway.”

Bertha unleashed a deep call, the kind meant to wake the others. In a matter of moments, the tribe buzzed like a swarm of angry bees, hurrying to organize for the mission. A few of the new dinos hesitated, considering running into the jungle.

“That rider, she’ll never be able to carry all the supplies,” Cole said.

Missy slid an arm around my back while Cassie rushed by with her medical kit, kissing my cheek. Sayuri arrived, loading me down with the travel notebooks Hiso used, also kissing my cheek. Aubrey came riding out on Maximus, hurrying out of the basin while protected by the new wooden box enclosure we added to his saddle with the printed wood.

“Rin is not going for the supplies,” I said, hurrying to Bertha, having Cole follow as I talked. “She’s going for the orbs. We want the Soviets, the Chinese, the ‘whoever’ else there is that arrives at the drops to think they’re the first ones to arrive. If she’s not the first, she turns around. She’s not allowed to talk to anyone, and her mission is simple. Get there first, steal the orbs, get the hell out.”

“Oh, I bet the others will have scouts,” Cole said.

I shrugged. “Maybe, but will they be able to stop Rin. She’s pretty fucking feisty.”

“I’m not sure how to respond, a lot’s happening quickly,” Cole said.

I reached the extended rope that hung well off Bertha’s side. The instant my hand gripped the rope, I climbed it while others slowly climbed her ladder.

“This is still the military, Cole, just the kind that focuses on using dinos as machines of war. If you want to help, rush to your swamp, get them prepared to leave or to support me. If you face a rebellion or rejection of our aid, I’ll just get a new tame and return home,” I said.

He understood I dismissed him, jogging to his duckbill. I reached the top, grabbed the extension bar and used my upper body strength to cross the distance to Bertha’s saddle. Once I reached the pulley, I yanked on the rope, starting the cycle of bringing gear from below up top.

No matter how efficient we were, this was a process that’d take at least a half-hour. I sighed, grunted, and did the best I could to get Bertha ready for war. In the distant sky, a pink drop slowly lowered toward the ground.

“It’s evil,” Elsa whispered, taking a sip of her water.

We glanced at each other for a second in understanding. “Life is not fair,” I whispered.

Elsa unleashed an evil cackle. “No, it’s not. It definitely won’t be fair for anyone who stands in your way.”

“War is brewing, but you’re right, I won’t lose it, and maybe letting people restart is the wrong answer,” I muttered.

“Hang onto that humanity, Alan. You have a world of love supporting you,” Elsa said, and I couldn’t help but agree, especially when Missy finished the rope ladder with Cassie right behind her.

Life was worth living, life was worth saving, but I’d crush anyone who tried to harm my family or my tribe.

Chapter 49

Opportunity Knocks!

RIN SLOWED THE GALLIMIMUS, approaching our caravan with wild hair and her dino clearly tired from hard running. We’d only traveled halfway to the Great Valley when she found us lumbering down the main game trail. While I wanted us to be ready quicker, we weren’t experts on readying for war yet.

The confident woman slowed, vaulting off the dino’s back smoothly. Padmey, the gallimimus, immediately found a spot to lay down in a curled ball to have a rest. She was fully domesticated so I knew she wouldn’t run off once we slowly walked away from her.

Rin climbed the side of Bertha’s loaded up saddle, reaching the top quickly. Based on her shit eating grin, she had good news.

“You did well,” Sayuri said proudly.

“I’d say. Master Alan, I come with news. Some good, some bad,” Rin said, waving off my gesture to sit. “I need to stand for a bit after that. Which would you like first?”

“Bad,” I said in an even tone, enjoying my comfy spot on the saddle with Cassie, and Sayuri snuggled into me.

Aubrey and Missy ended up staying behind with the night crew to run the base defense as well as taking care of the baby dinos we left back. If I died and lost the obelisk, I didn’t want dinos we had domesticated turning on them. In theory, they could create a new obelisk and use the nests to restart with. It wasn’t a perfect strategy, but it provided some comforts that our tribe might live on if our necklace fell.

Rin drank some water, popped her back, and said, “Well, I was seen. I couldn’t avoid it. If I had to guess, a different scout had orders to observe but not touch. And they beat me there by using a dactyl bareback.”

“Whoa! That’s crazy,” I said with widening eyes. “One slip and you die.”

“There was a rope, but it seemed to connect hips to hips. Where if the rider fell, he pulled down the dino, so they crashed together or whatever,” Rin guessed.

I glanced at Sayuri who eyed Hiso. Hiso shrugged. “I think Atticus was right. Those dinosaurs can talk and perform basic actions, but if you take a reptile with hollowed bones, add a bunch of weight to it, you will ruin it quickly. They… They’re just not made for that kind of use. It’s one thing to pick up a fish and carry it for a few minutes once a week.”

“Right, I get it. In some cases, using them until they tire is super worth it. Your observation and data-based opinion is noted,” I said, returning my gaze to Rin. “And?”

“He knew I spoke English somehow. Mostly because of my approach angle…” She winced. “I’m going to change that next time, but he got it wrong. Anyway, he stayed in his tree perch and shouted that whatever I took would be his since their army sat outside my base,” Rin said.

My eyebrows shot high. “Fuck, well, this could be good though. If I have an army readying to invade the swamp—a drop becomes a distraction. He’s going to report that others are contesting the alien gear, likely splitting their forces.”

“A lot of this will be posturing,” Fred said, adjusting his seat across from me. “This is two drops where a tribe is in a key position. They’ll want an outpost there, maybe, and no competition in that spot at the very least. It really is beneficial to kick Tribe Houston out.”

“Cole can’t hold the swamp, and I’m not sure I want to have deaths to help him,” I said, biting a nail. “This is so fucked up. We’re talking about war. No sorta war, not kinda war, but full-throated battle. There’s no way we can step into a two-sided battle without casualties, and I’m fond of you all.”

Rin added, “He said we only have a few more days. Oh, and he said we could work for food or die for our stupidity in something blah blah blah… and I got too far to hear the rest.”

“I bet they’ll attack before then, but to what end. Assaulting a tree base in a swamp requires a siege more than anything. It’s kinda hard to stab up versus down,” I said.

“Could be posturing, but if this is where the drops are, and if they get most of the supplies, there is little downside,” Fred said.

I couldn’t argue with his logic, but something just seemed off. “This isn’t a game. We have only once been offered new people. Deaths are bad, very bad. Every person you lose is someone you can’t replace for decades.” I pointed at Hiso. “Did we get a lot of points for defeating the Cartel?”

“Yes. A lot of points honestly. Killing the T-Rex was less. Permission to speak freely, Master,” Hiso said with a slight bow. I dipped my head in approval. “We’ve plummeted in the rankings and only recently stabilized a bit from the wave of hatched dinosaurs. If I had to guess, a lot of tribes are using traps to secure bigger dinosaurs in addition to waging war. Where we focus on our base, they focus on what the overlords want, conquering.”

“Sure, sure. That makes sense, especially with the dinos. But dead people help no one long term.” I huffed out a long exhale. “Rationality meets emotions and normally loses. If you’re on a high, you want more. Points matter and drops give points.”

I grabbed the obelisk and willed our tribe stats into creation.

Tribe Points: 280741.07: Tribe Chieftain: Alan Winchester.

Tribe Name: Grant

Tribe Size: 293.9 (includes animals and infants)

Tribe Ranking: 1403/704,192.

Once a Day Beacon Activation: 1/1

Once a Day Topography Scan: 1/1: Once a Week Dinosaur Domestication: 1/1

“Well, that’s better than the five thousand something we had yesterday. Competition ballooned too,” I said with a grunt.

Sayuri pushed her finger through the ranking number. “Alan, they’ve put a lot of people onto the planet. I know we had billions before, but this is almost a hundred and fifty million if every tribe has two hundred.”

“I guess you have a point. If the Soviets conquer, subjugate, and lose a few people but gain more, then who cares if you lost twenty,” I said unhappily. “They clearly are willing to test their luck. Speaking of which, is there more bad news?”

Rin shifted her view from the glowing sheet, dipping her head. “Maybe. Probably. I heard dinosaurs from the south nearing and in the distant southeast, a second drop slowly descended. I think the area is more populated than we could have guessed.”

“Hmm… Okay, well, we knew other starting points would come into play. One thing is for certain, the bigger our walled section of the map becomes, the more we tame and dominate the land. Sure, fliers can get in, but imagine this army running into a wall between us and that drop,” I said. “Anything else bad?”

“I think a siege of allies is bad and other aggressive tribes are bad enough,” Rin said, earning a chuckle from the crowd on Bertha’s saddle. “Ready for the good news?”

“Yeah, of course,” I replied, rocking with the gentle sway of Bertha.

“There’s a young female not far away,” Rin teased.

I frowned. “I like a lost woman. I’m very spoiled, but I do like rescuing damsels in distress.”

Rin stepped between Cassie and I, running a finger up my cheek seductively. “Don’t I know it. But this was not a woman, I just happened to not see any balls on the T-Rex caught in the trap.”

“A rex?” I blurted.

“A rex!” Rin replied in a sultry tone. “She’s been tied up at the ankles too. If I had to guess, she was caught before someone had a chance to claim her due to a timer not being ready. Instead of trying to move the big lady, they left her bound and risked it. She’s not defended, likely because no one would eat her or mess with her besides… Us.”

“A risk we’d probably take,” I said.

“This will put us at war if we steal it,” Fred said with a grim tone.

“For all we know, it’s Cole’s trap. Also, no offense to the Soviets, India, Cartels, or whoever else we face in the coming years, if you leave a rex unconquered in a trap, you fucked up, not me. We domesticate, fray the rope to be cut as if teeth did it, and plead innocence,” I said without any remorse.

“Damn, how far?” Cassie asked.

“Only a few minutes away. We will hear it grunting and crying from the trail, that’s how I found it,” Rin said, reaching into her satchel. “And then there’s these.”

She tossed me three orbs right into my lap. I chuckled and said, “And just when I thought a wrapped-up T-Rex with a bow on its nose was more than enough.”

The first one contained a rope maker. Based on the requirements, it simply needed fibrous materials. Tree bark from the woodinator would be fine, meaning we could get more from the first machine’s productivity. Rope was a pillar of our existence, and while this was unexpected since we were given ample amounts, especially with the stuff we looted, I sorta felt it wasn’t needed for us right now.

The second orb held another woodinator no different from the first. While I’d hoped it’d have a bigger intake, the first one did have a lag delay. Right now, we didn’t have much of an issue, but if we suddenly absorbed the Houston Tribe, we would definitely be able to use a second machine.

The third orb contained a saddle for a diplodocus. How we’d ever tame one of the big sauropods was a bit of a mystery, but having spare saddles in storage for trades or exchange was better than nothing.

“A woodinator, a rope maker, and a diplodocus saddle. Fantastic work Rin,” I said.

“Not exactly amazing, but solid,” Fred added supportively. “I wonder what Cole got from his drop.”

“Something he wanted to hold tight to his vest. I think we’ll find out soon enough, assuming I don’t leave him to his fate with the Soviets. While tough to say, I’m not going to lose our entire tribe to save them,” I said with a sigh.

To cheer me up, the disgruntled moan of a T-Rex drifted on the wind. Bertha belted out a soft warning to her herd, not knowing about what Rin revealed. Or maybe she knew the injured T-Rex wasn’t alone. Either way, the next minutes and then hours would be vital.

I handed Rin the orbs back and thumbed the base. She accepted them, kissed my cheek, then stashed them away before fast repelling down the rope.

“I worry it’s a trap,” Cassie said.

Fred snickered. “As we should. As. We. Should.”

Chapter 50

Soviet Trickery!

“SHE’S MISERABLE,” Jennifer said, standing over the rex. She pointed to the clear signs of a visitor who arrived and vanished some time ago. “And look, her mate or sibling visited her.”

I bent down, gently rubbing his nose after a quick walk around. “His sibling… It’s an adolescent male, but nearly full grown. I want to know where he was trapped from.”

A simple strand of rope bound the snout, somehow sealing the jaws shut. The ankles show the same thing, a single band of tightened rope. Something just didn’t make sense with how they caught the rex, but the tracks left clues.

“I’m going to assume this wasn’t a rex that visited them,” I said, running a hand over the indent in the firm jungle floor. “This had webbed feet.”

“A spino?” Jarod guessed.

I grumbled, then concluded, “Likely. All signs point to the Soviets. Which, I’m not shocked, this is a great spot to set a trap.”

“They nest somewhere around here,” Jarod said, saying what I was thinking.

I glanced at Sayuri and Hiso who studied the surrounding trees. While they did their job, I did mine, setting a hand back on the rex’s nose.

“I wish to domesticate this dinosaur,” I said, initiating a surge of magic through the obelisk.

A bright flare of blue light flashed through the area, coating the dinosaur in a vibrant sheen. A corresponding ping of… happiness triggered before it vanished.

Tribe Grant has consumed its once a Week Dinosaur Domestication: 0/1

Time until next charge: 6.99 daily rotations

Congratulations. You have domesticated a young adult male Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Species: Tyrannosaurus Rex

Sex: Male: Age: 1.10 sun rotations.

Weight: 96.9 Zexa

Rarity Value: 42.1

Efficiency Value: 51.79% of species

Traits: Snippy, Agitated, Boisterous

Known for: Large weight carrier with lots of fierce teeth.

“He’s an adult, but I doubt he’s fully grown,” I said, removing the bindings from his snout, then his legs. “From now on, your name is Darth.”

When Darth stood, he unleashed a furious roar, agitated to the point he wanted to fight. I walked to his thigh and patted. “Your goal is clear, provide support to Bertha. Avoid her tail and keep predators off her. If you do this, I will always try to ensure you are well fed with a supportive family unit.”

He unleashed a second roar, stomping off with extra-heavy footsteps filled with frustration. I watched him fade into the jungle, navigating directly to where our main army waited with Bertha. Sayuri wrote notes in her book while Hiso pointed to the obelisk. I triggered it for him.

Tribe Points: 300741.07: Tribe Chieftain: Alan Winchester.

Tribe Name: Grant

Tribe Size: 294.9 (includes animals and infants)

Tribe Ranking: 403/704,196.

Once a Day Beacon Activation: 1/1

Once a Day Topography Scan: 1/1: Once a Week Dinosaur Domestication: 0/1

“Twenty thousand points. I mean, yeah. Ellie was five as an alpha,” Miso said.

Sayuri raised her pen, having an epiphany. “It’s gone.”

“What’s gone?” I asked.

“The Russians, or Tribe Soviet, were here, that much is clear. I completely agree we have spino tracks. But Darth’s legs were too perfectly bound, his snout too neatly contained.” Sayuri paced. “Giving them an infinite dinosaur trap would be too… convenient. No. That’s not it.”

I pointed to the spot where his left hip rested, remembering patting it. When I bent down, I found blood and traces of gore. However, he didn’t have a scratch on him.

“They baited him in…” I scanned around. “Then he never struggled. It’s like someone flicked a switch, knocking him down.”

“Frogs maybe?” Hiso guessed.

Jarod shook his head. “No, they’re super messy, digging in when they lash out. We’d see marks and Darth would have gone fucking ballistic. No, there’s other tracks besides the spinos.”

“Alright, we know it wasn’t a struggle, it was quick, and it wasn’t something we have heard about. So… I’m gonna guess they have a limited use super stun weapon,” I said.

“Huh?” Jarod blurted.

Sayuri said, “They baited Darth in, knocked down a massive predator without a hassle, and were so confident in his sleep, they bound him.”

“Who the fuck binds a T-Rex’s mouth with it awake?” I asked rhetorically.

“Why limited though?” Jarod asked, somewhat saving himself.

“Because it would be stupid broken OP if it wasn’t. And this fits into the how the fuck do you trap a sarco this early in the events. No wonder they’re willing to kill over drops. They’re giving out super weapons,” I said with a sigh.

“We need to stop them,” Jarod said.

I glared at him until Sayuri surprisingly put a hand on my shoulder. “The Art of War is important. You have an adversary willing to kill innocents in the name of conquest. They’re strong, capable, and smart. They saw Rin, and they likely left a scout here to observe the rex or at the very least are scouting the area periodically. I’m a pacifist at heart, but they didn’t yell at Rin to talk. They yelled at her to capitulate.”

Her brown eyes stared deep into mine and I asked, “Are you, the pacifist, willing to die to stop them?”

“If we don’t stop them when they aren’t ready, they’ll hunt us when we aren’t. You just added a fearsome predator to our team. This is the time to lose forces in the name of attrition,” Sayuri said, hanging her head. “Me included.”

“Talking won’t help, Alan. We both know it. They’ll only talk if we hit them hard,” Jarod said.

“I can guess all day long as to what’s going on, but in reality, I need to scout.” I raised my voice, “Ellie, Sleuth.” The dinos crashed through the bushes like eager hounds. “Outside swamp, find humans, count, don’t get caught, return to Bertha. Understood?” They chirped happily, eager to stretch their legs. “Go!”

The biggest raptors joined them crashing through the bushes to get ahead of Bertha.

“I love how they follow orders,” Jarod said.

I snorted, pointing toward Bertha. “Yeah, well, they were our cover if a rex came to save Darth. Now they’re gone, so let’s get back! And just so we’re clear, if no opportunity presents itself, I’m just going to focus on getting Cole’s people out of the swamp.”

Chapter 51

Soviet Showdown!

ELLIE CHIRPED ANGRILY, cawing with growls and snarls at times. Fury burned in the raptor’s eyes, spurring her pack into a riled-up anger. I didn’t see the same cowardice from her species I’d grown accustomed to, proud to call her an ally.

I didn’t bother trying to calm her down, choosing instead to close my eyes to listen. Understanding raptor was fairly easy, but Ellie was talking fast and with slang. I cued into her shifts, analyzed thoroughly, then understood.

“They have their spino not far from the swamp and it’s roaming aggressively. Sleuth… He died to the spino and never stood a chance, but there’s no humans, just the spino trying to keep people from coming out,” I muttered, coming up with a plan on the fly. “We mourn later. This is what we do.”

My tribe listened intently, eager to hear the plan. When I finished with a grimace, determined faces stared at me with an understanding of what came next.

“That’s stupid, but effective,” Fred grumbled. “Your orders?”

“Sayuri said something earlier about the Art of War, and you know what, I think I have a plan,” I said bringing everyone in close.

I wasted an hour, maybe two at most, but I figured this was the best way to help our ally, get revenge for Sleuth, and strike the Soviets. While the regular raptors would talk to me, they weren’t all that happy about being given orders by me. They preferred to hear orders from their boss, Ellie.

Without much of a choice, I took this in stride, having a backup plan. The instant Bertha and my team were in position, I fired our flare high into the air. Not even ten seconds later, a fearsome T-Rex roar reverberated through the jungle.

Bertha surged forward from our hiding spot, eager to spring into action. The plan turned out to be simple: attack the one-eyed dinosaur from two sides with overwhelming force. The instant we breached the foliage, I grinned in delight at being right.

The spino not only was in the open, but it also ran in the exact direction I expected it. The flared fin was a mix of light blues and tan. A deep blue coated most of the body and the gait of the big predator reminded me of an iguana running.

“Fine, I owe you a foot rub,” Cassie said, holding onto her tether with white knuckles. We bounced from Bertha’s haphazard charge. “To be fair, I wanted to lose.”

“Alan, I’m impressed,” Hiso said, trying his best to say upright as Bertha ran recklessly. “You accurately predicted the spinosaurus’ commands involved falling back against unfavorable odds.”

“And right toward the drop where the Soviets have all their forces.” I chuckled, mostly because the one eyed spino had yet to notice he ran directly toward Berta and a team of stegos. “It’s solely focused on Darth and the trikes.”

My plan came to fruition, but unfortunately, my words rang true. I wanted to box the spine and chip away at him.

Bertha had other plans.

“Oh shit, brace for impact,” Fred said, racing to double check his tether.

In life, there are a lot of moments that stun you such as opportune or inopportune times where shit just happens, and there is zero you can do to stop the trainwreck before your eyes. In this case, the spino actually had two eyes, but one of them no longer functioned, filled with blood. Since the spino wanted to evade Darth, it turned its bad eye toward the jungle, while keeping the good eye behind it.

I’d asked Bertha to simply take down the large predator. Her orders didn’t specify how she should perform her task, only to get the job done. And so, the spino ran right towards us, only hearing Bertha’s thunderous charge at the last second.

The spino skid like a cat seeing something scary, grinding its webbed feet down. It tucked its head back, further digging all four feet into the grasslands in an attempt to stop.

Bertha crashed into the spino with almost triple the body mass. Not only did she bulldoze the spino, she went limp, carrying her weight onto her target. This happened in a flash, and for that brief instance, every rider in her saddle became weightless.

When the two bodies finished colliding—with Bertha absolutely crushing the spino—I went flying until my tether snapped hard. The rope yanked me around like a rag doll for a good ten, maybe fifteen seconds with my body pinballing off others and the saddle.

The world became a blur of motion and I definitely smacked into someone smaller than me.

I coughed, landed on the saddle, and the gentle sway of Bertha walking returned along with my senses. A quick glance over my shoulder revealed Darth’s jaws clamped onto a struggling spino’s neck. I figured I’d have to watch it kick around for a bit, but Darth yanked up hard, tearing the throat free in a gory mess.

The spino twitched once and died while Bertha strutted like a queen. I’d swear she glanced back with an entitled snub. A predator got caught not watching, and for once, the prey brought death.

I checked on the crew, finding Darnel turning pale as he held up another broken finger—this time an index. He stared in horror before vomiting vegetables and tea onto my boots. I helped Cassie up who rubbed her forehead where a goose egg started to form. She quickly leapt into action, calming Darnel so he could sit for treatment.

A few things spilled, but I knew we were about to fight so most of the gear was tied down. Before I could even individually check anyone, the barricade to the swamp swung open. Four riders atop duckbills raced out.

Our largest girl squawked a friendly hello, recognizing Cole’s dino. I set about picking up the stray books that feel out of satchels. I didn’t need to check mine since it was empty, feeling good knowing Rin had the orbs safely at home. I did worry the enemy might be making a big circle flank to get to Fortress Grant, but they’d be dumb to assault our walls without their biggest dino.

Cole rode up, his jaw still agape from what he witnessed. “Did your bronto linebacker the spino?”

“Uh, it was a bit of a jumbled mess, but yeah,” I said with a grin.

Sierra, who rode back with him, pointed at Darth, “Who’s that?”

“Well, I was going to ask you guys about that. May we come in? I want to get you moved right away because the Soviets are going to be pissed that I stole their dino and killed their spino,” I said.

“Fuck, you stole their T-Rex, that’s awesome,” a blond-haired man said. Cole shot him a glare. “Uh, sir. That’s awesome, Sir. Private Kalenski. My friends call me Ski though.”

“Captain Winchester, but these guys like to fuck me with me and call me Alan Grant,” I said, thumbing the team. “So, about that invite or do you want to stay?”

“No… Dorthy got fucking eaten by the spinosaurus while I was away. The Soviets aren’t going to let up, not here anyway,” Cole said, turning his duckbill around to take us into his home. “Your herd is impressive.”

“They follow Bertha mostly, but thanks,” I hollered down. “Hey, just so we’re clear, we’re not going to just let them run over us. I understand, your base is shit for long term survival and defense, but I intend to go on the offensive before they can turn us into their slaves.”

“No, I get it. I do. I was hoping we could pull a night shift or something for a bit until we get settled. The thing is, morale is in the shitters, we’re exhausted from the spino not stopping, and this drop came down so close again that it is an over the top omen. The Soviets won’t be the last group, and this position is terrible to defend,” Cole said, ending his spiel with a defeated sigh.

Sayuri whispered, “If he intends to betray you, he will take his chance soon.”

I nodded, understanding the dynamics. I’d be stupid to fully trust a stranger, but right now, our goals aligned. We followed him onto the walkway, barely fitting on the path.

When I reached their base, fully seeing the extent of the situation, I frowned. Bertha stuck her head into a gaggle of onlookers who stood on wobbly foundations of rope with sticks over them. Technically it was safe, but you couldn’t have a fire, it was not high enough, and they never actually created anything to make it… inviting.

Below the base, a few sheds circled a fire pit. Most of the group's supplies lay outside, ready to go. They didn’t have much but one machine caught my eye.

“What’s that do?” I asked, pointing at the metal contraption.

“It makes dull colored fabric. Just add grass, fibers, and hide and you get more blankets or clothing,” Cole said, grumbling a bit at the end. “It’s not working though, mostly because it ran out of NE pretty quickly.”

I cracked a grin, tossing my hands up as if there was nothing I could do. “Well shit, half our women go topless, best to leave that behind.”

This earned a light chuckle from the huddled mass of folks from Houston. Sayuri instantly recognized some of the Japanese people in their midst, waving happily.

Cassie rolled her eyes. “Will it go into a ball?”

“Yeah, so… on that first drop, we got that,” Cole said, using an alien orb to convert the machine back into blue magic. “And we got this.”

He chucked an orb at Darth. The rex glared, realizing the small ball would just bounce off. It was still a ballsy move since the massive predator’s jaw dripped blood. A burst of blue magic washed over the dino until a saddle with walls and a roof materialized. On the underside, it held a bunch of storage pouches for long missions. The sides had fold down seats, but it was clearly a military saddle.

“Whoa, that’s great, nice find,” I said.

Carl added, “Yes, and we have a three-charge stun gun I didn't tell you about. The Soviets have one, that’s how they -”

“Knocked out the spino. I know. Do me a favor, don’t point it at Bertha or she will go ballistic,” I warned.

“Wouldn’t dream of upsetting her or you. We’re fucking miserable here, I’m about to get voted off the island, and your people love you enough to travel across dangerous terrain just to help me,” Cole said, earning some disappointed glances from his tribe. “What, it’s true. I pushed for this base. Enough about our woes, stop standing around! Let’s get the fuck outta here before we get bogged down in fighting and have to ditch half our stuff.”

I handed Cassie my obelisk, then helped Sierra back into Bertha’s saddle. While she started yanking up supplies, I went down to help. Meetings like these would always be a risk, but if I played it right, I could double my tribe's chances at a prosperous tomorrow.

While a part of me became giddy with excitement, the Soviets would figure out what happened. They’d understand a bronto left footprints near their dead spino, and near their captured rex. And yeah, a darker side of me wanted to ambush them while they hauled away their loot from the drop.

For now, I stayed mostly positive while allowing myself to grieve a bit. We’d won while losing Sleuth and giving up another drop. In exchange we got the first drop, more people, and a T-Rex. I feared the fighting would only intensify from here.

Chapter 52

Hometown Hero!

I SMACKED the axe into the tree tirelessly, creating a swath of splinters around my feet. After the tenth swing, the busted section sprung free, bouncing away from the trunk. It fell into the clearing, ready to be hauled away. I wiped the sweat off my brow, shifting further down the line to do it all over again.

Bertha cracked only a dozen trees today, two less than the day before.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that smashing solid wood trunks was hard on her body. She’d knocked down hundreds since we settled in the region, creating a big zone for us to spot large incoming dinosaurs. While the extra vision was nice, it became hard to navigate and a bastion for smaller dinos to lurk in.

The jungle graveyard was but one of my problems.

I had grandeur dreams where expectation crashed against reality. The only way to improve our lot in life was through hard work so I worked. Lieutenant Cole resigned from all responsibilities bestowed upon him the instant we reached Fortress Grant. He gave me his obelisk, quit, and slept for almost two whole days.

Sleeping wasn’t exactly right, and I later learned he grieved. The man lost his twin to the spino, and honestly, I was glad he came out at all. At best, Jack worked as a slave for the Soviets, at worst, he lay in the animal’s guts.

When Cole retired, I promoted Private Ski, an active-duty combat engineer who had been a pillar of Tribe Houston. He towed the line, immediately jumped into action to fill the vacuum, and was unfortunately given the cold shoulder by his people.

His abundance of energy grated on most, but that wasn’t the issue. He just sucked at being personable. Every conversation was stilted, filled with dumb words that fell flat against his good intentions. Ski wasn’t ugly, or stupid, just awkward.

The fix for one of my new officers was simple, I asked Rin to guide him in his integration into our tribe. One thing was super clear: the Houston Tribe loved Fortress Grant and there never was any intention to go anywhere else.

While Rin may have wanted to be a harem member of mine at some point, she was far too fiery to fit with the other girls. Since we never even held hands, but she was eager to make me happy—I told her to elevate Ski’s status.

While this helped me, and Ski got to benefit with me mentioning I put in a good word to Rin, the others from Tribe Houston knew I played politics. Honestly, of all their issues, they cast side eyes, but let this one slide.

When Cole said morale was low, he wasn’t fucking kidding. They hadn’t slept well in weeks, their diet was only charred meat, and even that was lacking. A few showed signs of malnourishment, likely on a road toward scurvy. More important than food or sleep, they’d lost hope, turning on each other in cases that divided the group and wore down their leader.

Naturally, I didn’t have the room or patience for their drama, but I did respect it. All the work we started on the stables in the yard for the dinos hit a full stop. We shifted into an emergency building phase for new housing since we added so many people. This meant we needed new wood, and I stubbornly refused to further exacerbate our fallen tree issue.

With the Soviets out there, I kept the work closer to the base with our dinos between the jungle and our workers. Carl and his builders never slowed, toiling around the clock with extra hands finding new purpose.

We sure as shit made a lot of progress though, adding more homes in a shorter time than ever expected. In addition to the sudden drag on morale, we shifted heavily into a war footing. I didn’t want to risk scouts outside of the clearing that weren’t dinosaurs, knowing it was super easy for an ambush to pick off solo riders. Instead, I sent the herd into the jungle to keep the underbrush thin while providing protection. No diplomat came, and we sure as shit didn’t send anyone.

Even though I felt overwhelmed at times, I was proud of our tribe. I didn’t dare show any weakness, applauding all the hard work while wishing for a nearby drop to bless us. And that was how I spent the last five days in the clearing, doing everything I could to feed the two woodinators.

When Missy approached, snapping her hips once I locked onto her form, I knew the last bit of drama would smack me in the face.

“Well, how’d it go?” I asked, popping my back.

I set the big axe over my shoulders twisting slowly with the midday sun basking against my skin. Missy bit her lip, bouncing her eyebrows with a half grin. She cleared her face, returning to a serious gaze.

“So hot, but I came with your report. During an orgy, an exploratory and unwanted finger went in a butt. In retaliation, the victim picked the wrong person, not the culprit to get payback. The retaliatory behavior escalated into a fight, and I think, after some time and admittance to mistakes, we’re over it. No one tried to rape anyone in the traditional sense, but yeah, I could see the complaint as valid and the mistake as honest,” Missy said.

I nodded, waving over Anakin so I could attach this chunk of wood to drag it closer to the woodinator.

“Makes sense. How are you?” I asked.

Missy sighed. “Eh, you know. Moody. I’ve only got two babies left. Birdo thinks they’re a lost clutch so she’s -”

I put a finger to her lips, knowing she’d dive deep into work talk unless I asked again. “Not the damn dinos. How are you?”

“Eh, gassy, craving chocolate, but we don’t have any. I get butterflies every time I hold Anthony, which makes no fucking sense, because I never was a doll loving housewife dreamin kinda girl,” Missy said with a palms-up shrug. “Truthfully, I’m happy. My life is boring in a good way, my work is fulfilling, and my high school crush dotes on me every chance he gets.”

I pulled her in for a hug, kissing her hair. “You’ll make a great mom.”

“Won’t be alone, that much is for sure,” Missy said.

Anakin arrived, and I shifted to attach the chunk of tree to the cleat on his harness. “We may be. Don’t underestimate the power of almost three hundred-fifty people hell bent on getting more room.”

“I… How are you?” Missy asked.

I chuckled. “Are you sure you want to know?”

After I finished tying up Anakin to the chunk of wood, I shifted back to the tree. Missy simply folded her arms instead of answering.

“Fine, I suppose I can talk while I work. I’m happy but miserable. Peter’s death still haunts me. That carno’s demise didn’t really fix… me. I don’t really know how to define it, but I’m definitely wanting a vacation.” I smacked the axe into the wood. “Yeah, a day off might be warranted.”

“Oh, keep going?” Missy purred. I didn’t answer, swinging the axe a few times with loud chops. Eventually she continued. “Maybe, and he died right in front of you, that’s never going to be a shrug your shoulders moment.”

I snorted, slamming the axe into the next section of the split trunk. “And yeah, Cole has gotten to me now too. It’s only been five days since we brought in Houston, but damn, they were in the dumps.”

“I had a friend I stopped spending time with because of her depression, but if you look around, there are more of them working today than yesterday,” Missy said.

She had a good point, one that I merely bobbed my head to in agreement. “I know. I know. I just feel blue. Sleuth was a friend in an odd sort of way as well. Or maybe it's the looming Soviet threat. Anyway, I’m ready to get out of my funk with our shower tonight.” Missy winced with an awkward sway. “What?”

“Well, Cassie was hoping to squeeze in too, and you’ve been kinda distant with her,” Missy said.

“Ha! I spend the most time with her out in the field, but yeah, not in the bed. That’s not my fault, I just don’t -”

“Have enough time,” Missy said, finishing my sentence. “You’re a good man, Alan. If you ever need to talk, come talk, but keep that strong face on firm, they’re a pack of wolves in there.”

“I know. I know. I’d rather have them jaded and ready for some revenge than too scared to hold a spear,” I said, smacking the axe into the trunk.

Missy came closer, piling chunks of splintered wood. “Why don’t you go on a hunt with Ellie and Darth? You seem to be at peace in the jungle.”

“Maybe. While the next week is crystal clear, build, build, build. What do we do after? I won’t endlessly angst about it, but I may be proactive. There may be no other choice than to start to disrupt the Soviets' lines,” I said.

“Sayuri wants to hold back Rin,” Missy said.

I shrugged. “Not a bad idea. It paid off once, but they saw the trick. If the next drop is at a better angle, sure. Or we get a quetzal bird that can actually support our weight.”

“The book mentions an ‘argentoctavius’ something. Even Jennifer calls it ‘argent’ instead of the scientific name,” Missy said.

A large chuck of wood almost hit her foot from my next swing. “Not a shock. It’s pretty natural to abbreviate things. I saw those birds, they’re built… different. I wonder where they are?”

“No one’s seen one yet. Maybe going to find the doctor fellow up in the mountains will lead you to one and give you some time to escape the monotony,” Missy said, referring to the main other team from our wave.

I sighed, smacking the axe a final time, freeing another chunk of tree. “You know, there were bronto herds over there. Full herds.” I stared off into the distance, licking my lips as I imagined it. “I wouldn’t mind flying a bronto flag with an army of big ass brontos.”

“Ah! See, there he is!” Missy proclaimed, eyeing the chunk of wood. Since she was pregnant, she wisely decided not to strain herself. “Plus no one can be sour at you if you’re out of the base. That’s kinda why Cole came to us. He needed to escape the doom and gloom for a bit.”

“Yeah, I should take him too. Leave Fred in charge with Carl. I’ll think about it. I don’t want a T-Rex army. Raptors die to just about everything. Carnos are just worse rexes. Brontos work, fight and attract more,” I said, slamming the axe into a trunk, knocking away a new chunk of wood. “You know what. I think it’s time I read up on them again.”

“Early shower, how enticing. Let me give Cassie some warning while the rest of us prepare to brief you,” Missy said, hurrying away before I could continue the conversation.

She knew I watched her shapely hips, popping them just right for me. I chuckled, not sure if I wanted to leave home with threats on the horizon, but a mission for mountainous creatures or brontos seemed smart. A quality flier would do wonders for our ability to secure drops, I just had to hope I could leave the base and come back with it intact.

Cassie bent over, her hands tightly gripping a guide rail meant to keep those who shower from falling into the pond. Since we needed every square inch, we’d covered most of the water in bridges to build housing over. This section, where a good portion of the flow was directed into a shower of sorts, was one of the places where you could fall in.

Since the kids and the overcrowding became a problem, a lot of couples preferred to have sex in the shower area. Sure, the water was a bit chilly, but once you got going it was fine, and the cleanup happened naturally.

Cassie wiggled her ass, not saying a word because she didn’t need to. I slid into her, waiting for her to push back. My sweet Cassie shoved back hard, wanting it rough. And so, with others walking into the adult section of the shower, I grabbed her hips and shoved hard.

For the next ten minutes we grunted, moaned and fucked like rabbits. Every thirty seconds or so, she’d flip her hair to see if I was near cumming. Since she wanted to space out a baby as well, I normally came on her tits, but this time I could tell she wanted something different.

When I grinned that I was almost done, she scooted forward to plop me out. Once I bound free, Cassie shifted her legs wide, leaning her chest against the railing for stability, then reached back to spread her butt cheeks while puckering her asshole.

“Uh, water doesn’t work as lube,” I said with a chuckle.

She reached into a bucket of cleaning supplies, grabbed a jar, scooped out some white stuff, then lathered up her butthole. “It’s coconut oil. Damn good, all natural, and yeah, it’ll do.”

I shrugged, accepting a bit she handed me. Most of the people showering ignored us until Elsa entered the shower.

The Polish woman said, “This looks awkward. He’s hard, you look worried, and what are you putting on your penis.”

“Uh, apparently coconut oil,” I said, blocking the water with my hunched form. Elsa knew better than to touch, but she paused short of the showers to watch. “Are you sure Cassie?”

“Definitely. Cum for me, Alan,” Cassie said, backing up her butt.

I snickered, lined up the tip, and let her do the work. The progress was slow, but over time I gently entered her back door. Cassie moaned harder than normally, super into it. I’d never had anal besides with a drunken one nighter.

This was both intimate, sweet, and something I savored. Ironically, all the rough sex never got Cassie to cum, but once I started slowly fucking her ass, she strummed her clit, crying out in an orgasm a few minutes later.

The extra clenching did the trick, and I exploded into her only a few seconds after she reached her release. For a good minute, I let myself finish my climax until I softly plopped out of her back door.

Cum ran down her cheeks for a few brief seconds before she rotated to start actually bathing me. Elsa had shifted at some point, showering on the other side of us. She winked when I saw her, proudly giving us privacy.

Cassie giggled. “Liked that more than I thought I would.”

“Yeah, was… pleasantly different. I have to admit, I may go a bit harder next time.”

“Alan, you spoil me,” Cassie teased, rising to kiss my cheek. “Now, I want you to sleep in the Mother’s Den tonight.”

“Ah, Mother’s Den is a great name for the Mom Cave,” I said.

Cassie rolled her eyes. “We’re not a bunch of men wanting to pretend it’s still the good ole Halo days. We’re just wanting to raise our children.”

“I know, I know. Alright. I want Ellie nearby and Darth outside the gate,” I said, relying on the dinos to keep us safe.

“I have to say, I think the Soviets are the ones who should worry about their defenses, not us, but yeah, bring Ellie in to sleep at our feet, I’d like that,” Cassie said.

I accepted the meager bar of soap, lathering the rag. Without a doubt, I was a very lucky man, but her words got my mind running. Then I started to worry.

What exactly were the Soviets up to?

Chapter 53

Tomorrow's War!

“I’M NOT sure who needs to hear this, but I’m proud of you,” I said, sitting by the fire.

Darnel cooked up a lovely dinner at the end of a long day. To clear out space for the day crew to sleep, the night crew lumbered out of the upper longhouse. By this point, we’d created plenty of foundations to give people a smooth floor to sleep on inside the main gates or inside the Mother’s Den.

Due to some creative thinking and extra-hard work, it only took another five days to create something manageable with sleep rotations. The base transitioned from an organized longhouse with a few outcroppings to a whole lot of ‘built where it can fit’ along the cliff face. With tangible progress, it seemed like some of the sourness from the swamp faded.

A few people said thanks, or told me they were grateful for my efforts, but for the most part, people chowed down on some delicious meat pie Darnel created. He included some vegetables the forage team collected, and I knew in the coming weeks, more and more of the planted crops would be ready to harvest.

I enjoyed the cool breeze after a long day of sun on my back. Aubrey and Missy arrived with Sayuri and Hiso not far behind them. While I’d wanted to get away for a bit, I decided to hunker down so we could thoroughly research something.

“We have a question,” Hiso mentioned, not sitting yet. He held open a journal, bouncing a pen in his hand with a twisted face filled with confusion. I went to answer, and he added, “Not for you. For Atticus.”

“Oh?” I said, grabbing the obelisk.

If the reserved shy man was being this forward, I figured it warranted a try. The device flared with heat, and I nodded at Hiso for him to speak. The short man straightened his spine, snapping his journal closed.

“Your Eminence, we have absorbed Tribe Houston, a fitting addition. We also absorbed part of the Cartel. Both of these tribes held dinosaurs we added to our collection. One through peace, one through violence. It would be safe to say that if another tribe was formed away from ours, then returned back into the fold, we would be able to circumvent the one dinosaur a week rule,” Hiso said.

Atticus quickly replied, “And your question?”

“If we keep our obelisk here and send an away mission to gain new dinosaurs with a new tribe, can we accept those dinosaurs?” Hiso asked.

Atticus replied, “Yes, no, maybe. It depends on the intent. If your goal is to cheat, no. If your goal is to start a tribe, and you fail, then return with extra gains, yes. The rest falls into a maybe. If Alan is going to go on a long-distance mission, you can create an obelisk at your base that will allow beacons, scans or domestications.

“However, they run on the same timer. Also, at some point, I’m not sure if you noticed, domestications will be done without our technology. Eventually you will need that tool less and less as the wild is bred out of them. In closing, you have one dinosaur mastery a week, no more and attempts to circumvent that without conquest or diplomacy will fail. It shall be fun to watch.”

Hiso dipped his head in a short bow filled with respect. “Thank you, your Eminence.”

The stone faded until it became cool once again. I raised an eyebrow to see if he had anything else to say, but he shook his head.

“Alright, that takes out a potential work around the rules. Jennifer and I spent the better part of four hours studying everything we could, then talking to Bertha. Her ankle is sore by the way,” Aubrey said.

I grunted with a nod, already having a plan in place to let her rest for a bit. “Smart. How’d it go?” I asked with a mouth half-filled with food. “The studying part.”

Aubrey sputtered her lips in frustration. “As we’ve learned, the top of the food chain rests with the super predators. Their counter, the sauropods. A pack of tyrannosaurus-rexs can take down a solitary brontosaurus, but we never see them alone. Call it evolution, intelligence, or just common sense, but the instant a bronto has a herd of spiky dinos that pack a punch on its side, the odds are drastically in its favor.”

“Or in a one on one, they still are hard to defeat,” Darnel said, coming to sit beside me.

“Yes. The natural predation of most sauropods is slim, since there are far easier targets to attack. The biggest flaw of all these giant herbivores is that they start off small, slow, and weak—a perfect target for predators. After they can roam with the herd, they can leave it. Some do, some don’t. And that’s where things get interesting.

“The book says that they’re not solitary creatures, always preferring to have company. The size of their herd, which can be dominated by an alpha bronto with many subjects, depends on the vegetation regrowth. Since the place we call the Great Valley can support four brontos, it does.

“Way up in the mountains, where Bertha was born, she became hungry, unable to compete with her former bronto herd for easy food. So, she wandered away, then kept going until you found her. She’d been chased out of the Great Valley not even a few hours earlier, feeling defeated then happy to be offered a snack by a human. Basically, if you get too many brontos, you’ll have to cull the others in the area, so the vegetation stays at a healthy rate, or let the herd be nomadic,” Aubrey said.

I licked the wooden spoon, a bit upset I didn’t have more to eat. Sierra came over, bringing a second bowl as if she’d been watching.

“He’s bulking up,” Darnel teased.

Aubrey giggled. “We noticed.” She gently ran a hand through my clean hair. “So basically, brontos beyond a small grouping are not a great idea unless we have the land to support them without competition for their food. With this latest bit of knowledge, we can’t really afford to get a big farm of them anyway.”

“Ironically, I can breed the small predators on bugs and fish, feeding big predators in a loop that is almost unstoppable. Herbivores will always be limited by my ability to farm vegetation, and nobody farms the bronto food better than mother nature,” I said with a sigh.

Hiso winced. “Technically, if we were willing to wait for generations of growth, we could optimize the land. Not trying to argue, but we never know. Our great grandchildren may be wishing we strategically planted certain trees in perfectly spaced rows for optimal growth. There may also be a fast-growing bush with high nutrients that will solve their food issue, but Bertha said I was crazy for asking.”

“Her single word was… dumb,” Sayuri said, shifting in her seat. “A majority of us agree, the collective is better than the solo. Too many leads to problems but you have a point—converting a pack of T-Rexes is manageable based on our calculations of protein intake versus realistic dilo or raptor farming guesstimates.”

“I suppose. I still want fliers. To get fliers, I have to travel or get creative. I need to get airborne and figure out who is where. The smoke on the horizon is always so unreliable, but if I take Birdo I risk rendering her flightless in the middle of a mission,” I grumbled. Based on how the others stared at me, they knew what was coming. “Unless we tame one of the big fliers.”

“They’re rare,” Jennifer said.

“We’ve been here for close to three months and have seen four,” Hiso said, already having the page in his notes marked.

I inhaled deeply, finalizing a plan. “Okay, three charges just sitting on the stun gun is dumb. Hitting anything before the weekly is ready, is also dumb. We go for a spino the instant the domestication reset happens. In the meantime, we assault Spino Lake to strip the pads for roofing.

“As we do that, we fish. This is where you fancy people with your high-level degrees come in. Build me a quetzal trap that we hang a fish from, up top of the mountain in a clearing. Something exposed and right out in sight from below, but easy to see from the air. We’ll shift the teleport for a day or two until we have a nice stockpile of preserved whole fish.

“The trap is a bonus and worth the effort, especially since most of us have a bed to lay on. We still build our housing, defenses, and quality of life improvements, but yeah. We get back out there as a unit, move as a force, and get some more clay too,” I said.

“Spino Lake will start to suffer if others come and cause an over harvest,” Sayuri lightly said.

“Everyone is worried about the Soviets,” Poppy said, listening up to this point with a reserved quiet. “They likely recovered the loot crate and the odds and ends left behind by Houston.” I went to say it was hardly anything, but she held up a finger. “There’s more. Grant has been fortunate with death. Few have perished and our population grows, not dwindles.

“Children will swarm these tiny spaces, and out there, war rages. Most understand that diplomacy can be a weakness as much as it’s a strength, but you’ve sent zero delegations anywhere. There may be a London team or Delhi team eager for an ally because the Soviets and team Winnie from China are working together.”

“So, they feel like it’s hopeless. How do you stop war without meetings?” I said with a sigh. “Shifting to find these other tribes is dangerous, almost as much as going into their presence without backup. It won’t be easy, but if we get a bird, it should be. If no quetzal comes in a few weeks, whatever damage we did to Birdo hopefully has healed. I’ll send riders soon, and not an excuse soon, but as a justified reason,” I said.

“And who would you ally?” Sierra asked since Ski was noticeably absent.

If I had to guess, the Houston team didn’t want him here for this meeting, pushing Sierra forward. It also explained her sudden appearance with Elsa earlier to talk with Aubrey and Missy. I not only was getting a bigger harem, but factions were putting seats on the council in a way that just happened to align.

“Ally is a strong term, but I’m open to it with anyone willing to talk. I don’t even mind rotating drops with the Soviets if it means we get a few years of peace without the overlords forcing a fight.” I pretended to have a sudden moment of realization. “What if I sent Rin and Ski on a diplomacy mission on Maximus to the smoke you guys saw to the southeast from the swamp? The distance to the other bases should only be a day or two away.”

“Yeah, it was consistent. Based on what the others have said, they never came to talk, and we never risked a team,” Sierra said.

“And the Soviets?” Aubrey asked, creating a tension in the air.

“Ah, they’re last,” I said. “Our starting point is pretty much wrapped up. We can start to find the others, but we know someone is south of the swamp, so it seems like a good place to start. If Rin and Ski vanish, I’ll be sad and ban ground diplomacy going forward. Any objections to the next few days of planning?”

A lot of eyes darted about, but everyone kept their mouths closed. Spino Lake would define our tribe in the coming days, and I worried how it’d go since Bertha may need to rest. I found myself fairly confident in my abilities but taking on a pair of spinos sounded dreadful without our leviathan.

I hoped she’d be better soon, or we would have to get creative in our methods.

Chapter 54

Fancy That!

THE MISSION to Spino Lake went smoothly. Bertha happily came without her saddle, eager to munch away while nursing a sore ankle. Since we absorbed all of Houston’s hadrosaurs, they became our primary carrying force with the raptors and Darth on guard duty.

Bertha dropped the pads by where we dug clay, giving us a ton of work to do. All the wild dinos gave us plenty of space or decided to hang out in the herd. Apparently, a T-Rex with a bronto wasn’t too abnormal. If I had to guess, the fact Darth stood out, instead of trying to blend in and hunt, played as much of a role as the relaxed posture of the other dinos.

After wonderful progress, the day ran long, the sky grew dim, and I pulled us home to retire for the night. The next morning, we jumped right back into it with even more people eager to get out there and experience some sunshine and freedom. Ironically, the two days of boring but successful means proved to be a key turning point in morale.

The boon of having a roof just in time for a midsummer shower also helped lighten the mood. I watched their faces though, the ability to mesh with others while having hope of a better tomorrow went from a ‘maybe’ to a burning spark of desire.

And yes, the fresh fish we caught in abundance, in addition to plump berries we picked, didn’t hurt. Our biggest setback was a lack of catching a spino. The big predators either lurked or sun bathed with an alert wariness, accepting our presence near their home but not close to them. We definitely weren’t friends, with both sides becoming anxious if either neared. The issue we faced with catching one was the big predators weren’t hungry or willing to go to an exposed point with the bait we set.

At the same time, it’d only been half a day of trying since a lot of our time was spent exploring and studying. On day three, we finished the trap up top for the quetzal. The ruse ended up being nothing more than a clearing with rope between trees to create walls. To get in, a quetzal would have to tuck their wings, dropping down. To get out, they’d need to fly, something the opening didn’t allow.

The basic trap didn’t stop scavengers yet. The compy/dilo combo would require some simple walls at the base of the trap. Even if it needed work and pteranodons could fly in and out, it was something the enemy had to fly over or stumble upon to find.

It also served as a great boost towards morale. Since it’d been two weeks since Tribe Houston integrated into Tribe Grant, Cole came out of his hole a bit, nervous for Ski and Rin since I sent them on a diplomacy run.

The tension built up as they were overdue by the third day which worried us all. That apprehension faded when Maximus came strolling out of the jungle with both riders on his back. The reams of fabric were missing, something I sent with them as a gift or trade. The side saddles seemed filled with new items, so wherever they went, they brought something back with them.

I stood on the balcony that hung over the drop below the longhouse. The waterfall plunged off to our right, hitting a series of logs to create a larger area of rain. People washed clothes, showered or collected buckets for whatever purpose they needed over the basin pool.

“Hey,” Cole said, getting my attention as we waved to Rin and Ski. “Do you know the difference between a pteranodon and pterodactyl?”

I did, but I smiled and shrugged, so he could tell me.

“The dons are toothless, the dactlys have teeth,” Cole said, watching Ski. “Good kid. Awkward, but good. He seems happy with that… assertive woman you stuck to his side.”

“I never expected a dominatrix type from Japan, but they seem to work well together, and I bet they have good news.” I glanced over my shoulder to see Carl arriving to join us. “Whatcha got for me?”

“Figured I’d get in before the diplomacy swamps you,” Carl said, handing me a book.

I glanced down at the plans that stopped the spread or housing, consolidating the homes or adding levels. The decision would not go over well, but we shored up a lot of our issues with recent wins.

Even if the added homes, roofs, successful missions, and more were boring, they were positives. And I could use that goodwill to deliver some bad news… Hopefully.

“I can sell this on defensive reasons alone. Spread is good, too much spread is bad. However, I have a feeling this is for another reason,” I said.

Carl nodded. “Flip the page.”

The crinkle of paper never got old, shifting to reveal a more ambitious expansion without permanent footings. In a way, I understood his plan, but I didn’t like it; I wouldn’t reject it though. The notes on how he wanted to build homes based on the season spoke volumes too.

I inhaled deeply before I released a sigh. “Approved with a caveat. Mostly. Let me try to summarize.”

“The puns,” Carl said with a snicker.

I smiled with a guilty shrug. “Winter is still four months away, so we have time to prepare for the snow. When the cold arrives, only the homes with the clay brick furnaces will be approved for fires. Making those will take both time and effort.”

“We can call those anchor homes,” Carl said with a grin. “The others are termed hammock homes, to be torn down once the nice weather fades. They’ll stop rain, and are more than hammocks, but yeah, once snow comes, they’re useless. Plus, their airy nature helps keep things cool by spreading body heat, since the longhouse is insufferably hot. Since we have the rope maker, we can use rope for barriers, like a prison in a sense to keep predators out, at least the fliers and large ones.”

“Yeah,” I commented. I passed the book to Cole. “Thoughts?”

He checked over the plans quickly and replied, “Even though I retired, I approve. We have a lot more… family units. Yeah, that works. They didn’t live in open spaces, sectioning off parts of the rope platform for privacy. Your open sex policy is… was different from ours.” He held up his hands. I happened to know he joined one the night before last. “Not complaining. I’m merely saying this is a good way forward. It is the best of both worlds without over investing in housing.”

“The wall must get done,” I said unhappily. My voice shifted to longing. “One day. One day.”

Carl sighed in agreement. “Well, if you’re ready to shift toward walls we can, if not, the building team is going to finish the animal stables, then convert them into barns. We won’t be the only ones who can freeze to death.”

I grumbled, not wanting to shoot myself in the foot. “Fine, finish the stables, but print some of the parts for the pillar hammer. Give those engineers enough busy work so they aren't rushed or forgotten.”

“I’m one of those engineers!” Carl said playfully. “But I hear you. We’re printing rope with a backup of materials to be processed, so the hammock homes will have their supplies. We definitely need to start making cleats if we want to expand further. Which means more metal, and a blacksmith or a forge or some alien tech. Since quality anchors are hard to come by it’s another reason to give the people an excuse for more permanent homes—safety.”

“I get it, I get it. Alright, thanks Carl. Here comes Rin and Ski,” I said, gesturing for Cole to hand Carl his book back. The diplomats paused at the balcony doorway, allowing Carl to leave before they entered. While they clearly needed a shower, they appeared happy and healthy. “Welcome back.”

“It’s good to be back!” Rin said, smacking Ski’s ass to push him through the door. “Holy shit you guys are great at building.”

“Hey Cole,” Ski said with a half wave. “Good to see you.”

“Likewise. I… I’m not sure where I fit in but want to hear how it went since I was too scared to send anyone,” Cole said, shaking his hand, then turning to observe the activity within the clearing.

“A journey well worth the risk,” Rin said. “As always, which bit of news would you prefer first, my King.”

I raised a questioning eyebrow.

Ski said, “It’s an inside joke about how we need to call you a king too. You see, King Archie rules the Britonia colony to the south. He has lords and ladies, knights and scouts, barmaids and serfs. None of it is based on their rarity value and all of it based on merit or desire.”

“Sounds a lot more fun than what we had,” Cole said with a chuckle.

Rin grinned. “Fuck yeah it was. They have a tavern! WIth real music.” She hugged herself with joy. “Apparently drops have instruments, and now I need them in my life.”

“I think the overlords are tailoring rewards at times. Britonia, sounds nice,” I said.

“They’ve done nothing besides build since they arrived. They found a big clearing, knocked down small trees and then built, built, built. No dinos though,” Rin said.

Again, I raised a curious eyebrow.

Ski added, “They eat them, and collect eggs from outside the walls, but no tames inside the walls. No dinos help them build, and no dinos are mind slaves to their will, as they call it. They do use them for food, leather, bones, and whatnot though.”

I folded my arms, rocking my feet while I tried to avoid staring at all our wonderful dinos that did so much for us. Without them, our efforts would be minimal, which instantly queued up a question.

“Wait, how do they have a base built without dinos?” I asked, unfolding my arms to sweep them across the chain of production in our clearing. “That is a lot of free labor.”

“A few things. First, Archie started his base right away by getting lucky from immediately leaving the starter zone to find a safe clearing. Most of the others in his wave, the first wave, didn’t know what else to do, so they joined him. Every wave after that, he recruited the majority of the people, regardless of nationality, giving them an established home. People like safety, food, beds, and music, who knew?” Rin said sarcastically.

I replied, “Well shit, good to hear. Scary, because they have to have nearly a thousand people, but good to hear. I -”

Ski held up a finger, interjecting. “More than a thousand. That Polish contingent, they’re in there, restarting without their crazy breeding stuff. I’d say they’re reformed, but I have only heard of the past and seen the present. Regardless, Britonia is adding people at a decent rate, to the point he finally stopped accepting refugees until the walls can be expanded. Not everything is perfect though. They’re out of easy to move trees, have overcrowding issues, and Bertha could crush their defenses, but the walls work.”

“I’d love to get a simple wall up,” I grumbled.

Cole snorted. “Maybe don’t share this news to everyone. I know some will be super eager to jump over to a base without dinosaurs.”

“About that, well, there’s a lot to cover actually. They want to swap twenty people. Those who want a new and secure home that integrates the old with the new, for those who want to just farm the dinos without caring about them. In addition, they’ll trade any timber, meat, salt, clay, and sand for eggs they can’t eat because they are hatching. As in, they find eggs that they can’t crack and use, so they incubate them. If we don’t want eggs, they have a tool crafting station they earned from a drop, but we need to bring the materials or wait for them to get some,” Rin said.

“Excellent. I think. I’m not sure I want eggs when we can raise more than enough dinosaurs of our own, but they may have species we want. Regardless, it seems like someone we can at least find common ground with,” I said, leaning against the balcony’s railing. “They mention the Soviets?”

Ski looked to Rin who nodded for him to talk.

“Yes. I merely kept my mouth shut when he said the Soviets were cutting a deal with the Swamp People to establish a drop rotation. Obviously, we knew what kind of negotiation tactics they were using. Again, I said nothing, only that Tribe Grant has yet to talk to them. Britonia is supposed to get the next drop in accordance with their deal, then two other groups get theirs, and finally it goes back to Soviets,” Ski said.

“Other groups?” I asked.

“New Dehli and…” Rin snorted. “Wikanda. Yeah… I can’t tell if they’re serious or being satirical.” Rin glanced out at the horizon. “As for Britonia, they don’t see them as evil, that’s for sure. If I had to guess, the Soviets played nice because their flier scouted the base and the Soviets rushed over to play nice when they saw their might. And yes, I mentioned that we may not be on as friendly terms as they were and if that’d be a problem.”

“I’m going to assume they’re indifferent,” I guessed.

“Yup, they’ve even taken in some of the Polish refugees while it seems that the Cartel went to the Soviets,” Rin said.

After a few seconds of silence, I grabbed the obelisk. “Atticus, may we trade supplies for domesticated dinos Britonia has collected but don’t plan to use?” A green wave of magic ping outwards. “Excellent. Ski, did you trade the fabric?”

“For dynamite,” Rin said. “Should help us expand a bit more or we can save it for a mining run. They had no use for it.”

I dipped my head in agreement. “Okay, this changes nothing, and it changes a few things. I want instruments, I want nails, I want their extra people, and some of the most despondent might be good to relocate.”

“Careful, they have a full kitchen in that tavern with all sorts of cooking going on,” Rin warned in a teasing way.

Her words stung nonetheless.

My best friend meant the world to me, and I went out of my way to try to keep him sane during these trying times. While I knew he wouldn’t leave, it hurt because he might be happier there. We definitely didn’t have a fully established small city to match this fabled place.

“The tool maker, alien tech?” I asked. Rin nodded. “Okay, good. Good. Eggs aren’t what we want, but let’s get a proper trade caravan ready. They may have a moral objection to giving away domesticated dinos.”

Ski winced. “About that. They use the necklace, they just kill the dinos quickly and humanely, their words, not mine. They won’t judge us, but that is their stance on the issue.”

Cole chuckled. “We converted and butchered twice.”

“This is on, I actually understand,” I said, mulling over the implications.

Cole said, “This is great news. I’ll be honest, I’d rather be in the defensible cliff face than a village with a small wall. And yet, it does give us options.”

“Indeed. Alright, I need to get back to work. We’re going to see about adding a dino to the roster I have the domestication charge ready. In the meantime, you both need to bathe.” I scrunched my nose. “Because ya stink.”

They thanked me, I thanked them, and when they vanished to shower and rest, I watched the skyline proudly. A few musing thoughts ran through my mind from these recent developments. One thing was certain, I had the itch to do more than work.

“Need help with anything?” Cole asked.

A wicked grin spread across my lips. I pointed to a pteranodon circling above the trap. “As a matter of fact, we’re going to grab Jarod and go on a little mission. A boys’ trip filled with action, adventure, and some damsels.”

“Uh, what damsels?” Aubrey said, arriving at the balcony doorway.

I waved her over, folding her into the front of me to smother her in a warm embrace. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, and plus, it’s a surprise.” I kissed her hair. “What brings you to my balcony?”

“Need me to leave?” Cole asked.

I shrugged. “Not because of this but go prep for a three-day mission. We’re taking that Jarod with us. It’s time to leave the base and do some dino stuff again.” Cole dipped his head in acknowledgement, leaving me alone with Aubrey. “I need you to prep five people who may want to move to Britonia. I’m going to visit in person sooner than later.”

Aubrey’s eyes drifted to the obelisk. “And the amulet?”

“Going with me. I’ve got a domestication charge and there is no pressing dino in our base I’m desperate for,” I said, knowing this would be a risk. “Plus, we’re not going far today. I may change my mind before we actually set out though.”

“And this Britonia, what should I say?” Aubrey asked.

“Be honest with the people, tell them Britonia is not one with the dinosaurs and is more or less a settlement any guy with a bronto or a ramp can invade. However, there are a few cases where people need something fresh, this is their chance, no more than five for now, lottery if you must. Last thing we need is to show up with twenty and they turn out to be slavers who were playing a con.”

Chapter 55

Aww Hell No!

SAYURI KEPT HER PROFILE LOW, waving me over towards the quetzal trap she not only designed but also played a role in building. She hid behind the low wall that we used to keep the compies and dilos out of and based on her expression, something excited the lovely raven-haired woman.

“A quetzal?” I whispered, hurrying with a hunched over frame to stay behind the wall.

She shook her head, pointing up instead of into the makeshift cage. A team from Houston deftly walked on the rope we tied between trees to create the upper portion of the cage. I was honestly impressed. They must have used a thousand strands of rope to make the walls and then a hundred to make the top. Most of the crisscrossing rope was tight enough to keep a pteranodon or pterodactyl out besides the main opening, while still letting the keen-eyed fliers see the buffet of dangling fish.

The fact they hung the fish attracted more attention from other fliers because it proved hard to eat. The feasting along with flapping might as well have rung a dinner bell. Right now, crews walked on tight ropes sealing off the exit meant to be big enough for a quetzal. Whatever they caught, they wanted to keep it contained.

I peered over the wooden slats that only stacked a few feet high.

Inside the cage, Birdo rested in a nest with a bloated belly and a happy grin on her face. She even had laid her second clutch of eggs, presumably overnight. In the trap, nine pteras of both toothy and toothless types feasted, napped, or built nests from where someone must have slid in sticks, grass, and twigs.

“Oh shit,” Jarod hissed in excitement. “Did we just trap a bunch of fliers?”

“Yeah, but now we gotta feed them,” Cole grumbled, then paused. “Hey, correct me if I’m wrong, we don’t want these ones, right?”

I waved us away from the developing situation, a bit surprised the birds didn’t care about the humans who worked above them. If I had to guess, Birdo being in the trap helped keep them calm. We stepped back into the jungle so we could talk without whispering.

Another pteranodon noticed the activity, approaching the humans with mild interest. The smell of the fish combined with the sound of the feasting sent it right into the trap without much concern. If its buddies were happy, then it was eager to eat too.

“Well, fuck,” I said with a shrug. “Who knew?”

“They’re starving,” Sayuri said, reaching into her satchel to record the recent arrival. “Only three have left and I think I know why.”

“While interesting, why are you closing the trap off?” I asked.

She winced, slumping her shoulders. “Let me explain. Let’s start with the fact that pterosaurs have many forms. In this case, we have the two most widely known species. Pteranodon and Pterodactyl. While it is safe to assume they’re mainly after fish, that may not be true.

“Birdo is no different than any other predator, being an opportunist. She’ll eat insects, live compies, dead compies, any meat, and even rotting food. They really are built to survive. However, they’re either struggling because of predation or over-population.

“Or maybe the heavy density and mix of Jurassic, Cretacious, as well as Triassic Periods is having a negative effect on these species. This is just a guess, but I think the aliens are letting them die from starvation, then dropping in replacements who die of starvation, furthering the compy numbers. At some point there will be balance.”

“Okay, I get it, I do. It makes some sense,” I admitted. “However, I’m a bit confused as to what you’re planning?” I stuck a hand on Cole’s shoulder. “I’m with him. We don’t have a fish farm to support them, and our meat production is already strained.”

“You miss the point,” Sayuri said, gently closing her book. “These are not farm animals for us. Well, they can be. Certainly. However, we catch one, tie it to a peg in a clearing, and then use it as bait.”

“Oh, fuck,” Cole blurted with a growing grin. “Savage but I like it.”

“Wait,” Jarod said, connecting the dots I already figured out. Sayuri wasn’t excited about the trapped pteras, she was excited because she knew once they were trapped, there was only one thing left to do. “How do we get a bird out of this… cage so it can be bait?”

“Three strong dudes and some blankets,” I answered, pointing to the big pile of blankets Sayuri and her team were using to finish the pen. “Let’s wait for them to close the exit first.”

“Yeah, but there is no door in,” Jarod mentioned.

“There’s a spot between the trees over here,” Sayuri said, guiding us around the clearing after we grabbed some blankets.

I held up a hand to the other two once we neared a spot in the boards that was leveraged in place by a set of boxes. Most of the boards had been drilled with rope securing them to the big trees. The more I studied the makeshift pen, I found myself impressed by their work.

“I was wondering what we were going to do with all the rope we hauled back from Swamp Base,” I muttered.

Sayuri snickered, shifting the boxes to show the entrance. “The team volunteered when I crafted up this plan and the rope printer is spitting out this stuff with ease.”

“It’s brilliant. Now, I need you to pick out a male for me that is toothless,” I said.

Sayuri blinked a few times, weighing her words. “I recommend you pick a male with teeth; biting through fabric is harder than pecking.” She pointed to a blue and white pterodactyl. “He should do.”

I peered up through the gaps in the rope, seeing the final touches on the trap close. A man from Swamp Camp flashed me a thumbs up and his name escaped me even if we exchanged friendly manly nods daily.

Since the timing seemed right and most of the birds still ate, I snuck into the cage, setting a blanket over the back of Birdo. The female Pteranodon nuzzled my touch, happy to see me. The other birds didn’t care one bit about my ploy.

It was at this point, I mentally said fuck it.

I strutted right up to the bird Sayuri picked, ignoring his efforts to shred the preserved fish. A part of me considered tossing the blanket onto the flying dino in the hopes it’d go quietly into the night. Another part figured I could noisily drag it out in a choke hold.

Instead, I cocked back my fist and domed the distracted predator with one hell of a sucker punch. The eyes rolled back in the head, and it collapsed. Suddenly, all the other pteras who ate fish on strings paid attention to me. They squawked in annoyance, letting me know they wouldn’t let me get so close without a fight.

I reached down, folded the knocked-out pterodactyls wings, and scooped him into the blanket without taking my eyes off the others. It didn’t shock me that Birdo removed her blanket rather quickly. I walked backwards until I slid out of the trap for the others to seal again.

The instant the others secured the exit, I gently set the bird down. Jarod chuckled and said, “I've started to think you were born for this.”

I shrugged. “Maybe.” I stuck out a hand bringing my fingers to my palm in a gimme motion. Eventually Sayuri caught on, handing the end of a long rope. “Alright, where did you have in mind to use this fella as bait.”

“That peak right there,” Sayuri said, pointing with her head further uphill. “When it goes for the bait, you stun it.”

“And if that doesn’t work?” I asked.

“Huh?” Cole blurted. “The Soviets knocked out a rex and a spino with the stun rifle.”

“Yeah, but they were never seen. Have you ever tried to hide from an eagle-eyed super bird who has all the best angles?” I asked.

“Blankets with leaves on them,” Jarod suggested.

Sayuri grabbed a second rope, tying a simple loop on the end. She ran the long length through, eventually creating a cinch point. “If the rifle fails, hook this around a foot. If it’s trapped, you win.”

I asked for the rope, whirling it like a cowboy would. The first few rotations failed, but by the fifth try, I tossed the rope out in a feeble attempt.

“I think I just found a way to pass the time. Maybe Dinosaur Wrangler should be an occupational title in this new reality,” I suggested, enjoying the motions.

“Good way to pass the time… once we hike up the hill,” Jarod said.

Cole hefted the barely breathing bird over his shoulder. “I have a good feeling about this, even if the plan is crazy.”

Chapter 56

War in the Sky!

“MAYBE YOU KILLED IT,” Jarod guessed, sitting under the blanket with me. We strung it up, cut a few holes to peer out, then relaxed and waited. “It’s been a few hours.”

“The clearing may be too small,” Cole suggested.

I ignored them, writing a small journal entry into my book. I rarely had time to just sit with my back to a tree while doing nothing and for once, I didn’t draw layouts or doodle. Since the opportunity presented itself, I took advantage of it. My notes—I preferred to journal in shorthand—told the tale of how I’d changed. In a lot of ways, Jarod wasn’t wrong in his assessment that I’d been born for this.

And so I passed the time through reflection while they chatted. Ironically, I started to have a nagging feeling I may have put the poor bird into a coma. It failed to rise, and the midday sun already sank, descending toward the horizon. I jotted some lines about how Ellie was rock solid, Anakin grumpy, and Bertha a princess when a cloud cut out my light from the blanket’s hole.

At first, I might have ignored the happenstance occurrence, but we were looking for wingspans of monstrous proportions to come gliding in—it was too perfect. Sure enough, Cole peered out from the edge of the blanket with his eyes widening in shock.

The rhythmic flap of massive wings shifted the breeze, puffing up our poorly veiled cover. For a second, I worried the incoming quetzal might tear off the blanket, seeing us at the last moment.

Instead, it landed with a surprisingly delicate touch.

Gray and baby blue feathers tightly hugged the body of something so large, I found it hard to relate to. The more I inspected the feathered giant, the more I noticed how it wasn’t too different from a giraffe. Of course, the tan colored beak, feathered, and massive wings set them apart, but they definitely stood about the same frame with their massive necks and elongated lower bodies.

The clawed hands flexed, dancing across the air while it gingerly walked toward the fallen pterodactyl. The quetz’s head tilted in confusion, staring down at the unconscious prey. For a second, I thought it might nudge the tied down bait.

The beak stabbed down, crushing the petrodactyl’s skull with a swift strike.

“Holy fuck,” Jarod swore, glancing at me for orders.

I gulped.

To me, facing a carno would be easier because the quetzal had a long beak that may as well have been a spear. Not only that, it could snatch me up, dropping me from heights I didn’t want to comprehend. Unlike the petras, this beast would have no problem carrying a man.

“Hey! You okay?” Cole asked whisper, poking me.

I quietly snorted. “Yeah, I’m fine. They don’t have a manual on how to capture a monster.”

Cole raised the stun rifle. “Should I fire it?”

“Wait,” I hissed, noticing the big bird cocking its head, likely catching hints of our whispers.

Either Cole didn’t hear me, panicked, or saw an opening I didn’t because he sure as shit fired the weapon.

The alien rifle snapped upwards from a kick. A sparkling projectile of golden energy silently shot out with a dazzling twirl. As if it disobeyed the laws of reality, it flew so slow, I figured I could outrun it.

And yes, even though the projectile slipped out of the weapon without even a hint of a sound, the quetzal instantly locked onto our position.

“Dammit!” I cursed, bursting into a run to get distance from the others.

“Well, that tells us we lost our ambush,” Cole said, running behind a tree.

Jarod held his ground still a good distance from the bird with the jungle between him and the target. He raised his spear and for the first time, the quetzal chirped an annoyance call. Cole set the weapon down, bellowed out a roar, and charged through the jungle toward the clearing.

“Shit, shit, shit,” I cursed, racing to arrive at the same time knowing that we’d be far stronger as three than as one.

Bushes smacked into my chest, but their height let me watch how the quetzal reacted to being shot. The slow flying bolt struck it in the wing, sent a bit of shock through the body, then dissipated.

The quetzal shook off the stun, bent down, snatched the dead bird off the grass and soared into the air with a leap. Its massive wings sent gusts of wind pulling through the area. The instant it reached a few feet off the ground, the rope attached to the petrodactyl’s foot pulled tight.

In a brazen, and somewhat stupid display, it refused to let go of its kill. Cole reached the clearing first, soaring through the air to smack into the quetzal’s back. He clutched feathers, climbing higher and higher without much of a plan besides hope.

Due to the angle, Jarod arrived before me, adding his weight to the creature when he leapt onto a leg. I hurried over, seeing the quetzal's dark black eyes staring at my audacity with pure hatred.

A fleeting thought told me to mention that all it had to do was let go.

I snickered, speeding out of the jungle, across the grass, and lunged with my arms spread, ready for a bear hug.

“I’m slipping!” Jarod warned with panic in his voice.

I smacked into the leg, bringing the big bird down until he could barely fly due to my added weight. Wind gusted, feathers flew freely, and the legs bucked to dislodge us.

The situation wasn’t going to improve, so I wrapped my legs, clutched the obelisk with a free hand and shouted, “Use my domestication charge!”

The device warmed, the bird glowed blue, and Atticus’ disembodied voice arrived, whispering, “I almost didn’t grant you this one. However, a predator that traps itself because it is a stubborn idiot with a burning desire to eat, is still trapped. Here’s a saddle since you’re the first of your continent to domesticate one.”

A flare of extra blue magic wrapped the immense bird. A second later, a big saddle with an underside pouch materialized on the body. You didn’t ride on the back, likely to avoid interfering with the wings. I unleashed a warm laugh of joy at both the saddle and the calming dinosaur.

The quetzal landed softly, ruffling its feathers. When I exited out from under it, the standard information displayed in front of me.

Tribe Grant has consumed its once a Week Dinosaur Domestication: 0/1

Time until next charge: 6.99 daily rotations

Congratulations. You have domesticated a young adult male Quetzalcoatlus. Would you like to name it?

Species: Quetzalcoatlus: Sex: Male

Age: 3.70 sun rotations.

Weight: 85.9 Zexa

Rarity Value: 11.9

Efficiency Value: 24.79% of species

Traits: Noble, Stubborn, Elitist

Known for: being the king of the skies.

“Hmm… We were doing a star wars theme at one point. How about Malcolm?” I asked the quetzal. The big dino squawked at me to stop talking to it, clearly agitated. I removed the rope from the pterodactyl’s foot, watching the big beast devour the smaller bird with an upturned head and wide-open gullet. “Right. Right. Malcolm works.”

“Holy fuck, that was intense,” Jarod said, inspecting a claw cut on his calf. “Shit, better get this inspected.”

I gestured to Malcolm. “Get in the saddle, it’s the quickest way home. Come back here after,” I ordered. Jarod didn’t argue, eager to dive into the pouch. Before he could fasten in, the quetzal finished swallowing its meal and burst into flight. It seemed so quick; the situation became a bit surreal in a way only combat could. I glanced at Cole. “What happened?”

“I can explain,” he said, raising the weapon.

A prompt appeared, much in the same way my notifications showed for everyone.

Weapon: Stun Rifle: Caliber: Unlimited.

Restriction: Bound to owner.

Owner: Harold Cole of Tribe Grant

Capacity: 3 rounds.

Effectiveness: The more alert the target is of the owner, the less stun the slow moving projectile will unleash.

“The later I fire, the worse it gets, assuming he is onto us. Which, yeah, he heard our whispers,” Cole said.

I grunted. “Fair. Good job on landing on his back, but uh, out of curiosity, what would you have done if he flew away?”

Cole walked back to retrieve his spear while I walked into the jungle to begin undoing the blanket cover. He didn’t answer at first, eventually arriving with a shrug.

“I have my knife on me. I’d have started cutting. If we went too far, I’d have started over. Honestly, that has been a bit of a shock to me. No one has tried to start fresh somewhere new yet,” he said.

I snickered. “They sure as fuck are about to with Malcolm able to carry three. I definitely don’t hate the idea of secure outposts in strategic regions like a metal deposit. On foot though, it’s hell out there besides for the best of us.”

“Yeah, I suppose that is the reason. Anyone out there alone is easy pickings. Hell, after hearing the story from the Japanese—where some of the men willingly died to save the others—it… This world is fucked up now,” Cole said unhappily.

“I’d like you to stay,” I said.

He dipped his head. “I know. I can do a lot of good. Ski was a smart choice, but the people love Sierra who is supported by the ‘Karen Wing’ as I call them. They’re not wrong, but fuck, they’re annoying.”

His dry humor amused me. “Poppy fits right in with them, feeding me the best suggestions that I’ve been eager to implement. I think resolving their good points has earned me a lot”

“Having the resources to calm them,” Cole inhaled deeply, “is a gift I yearned for with all my heart. You’ve done a great job in letting my sanity recover and their sourness fade. I… I enjoy seeing the smiles.”

“Well, why not join me and Darnel on a trip to Britonia. I want to see the place for myself and learn what King Archie is like. Who name’s their kid that?”

Cole shrugged. “My nephew is named Archer; not sure we can judge.”

“Ha! Fair, you coming?” I asked.

“No, bring Ria and Darnel. Or just Ria. They’ll want to see a familiar face,” Cole said.

I sighed, finishing off the last knot. Once I had the cover secured for transport, I undid the final rope that kept the knocked-out bird in place.

“I suppose you have a point. Maybe once I get a feel for it, we can make a big trip over or something. A mini vacation, assuming things line up right,” I mused.

“Sounds good. Personally, I just want to get to know Satomi better. She really helped me get out of my funk,” Cole said.

I patted his shoulder, heading back into the clearing. “Well, part of my mission is to find out if the Soviets have any slaves, ideally one named Jack.”

Cole folded his arms, watching the sun dipping on the horizon. “If he’s in there, nothing will stop me from freeing him.”

“Or me,” I admitted. “I may not know him, but he belongs here with two ladies on his arms for attacking a spino like a boss.”

“If he died, it was a glorious death,” Cole said, bobbing his head with a pained expression. “I… I’m not going to hold onto hope, but if you look, thanks. I’ll owe you one.”

We stood in silence until Malcolm flew back with Missy waving from the saddle. We waved back at her, just soaking in each other’s presence about what could be a coming raid. My gorgeous wife scrambled out of the saddle at such a pace her busty left boob popped free.

“Can I keep him?!?” Missy asked, oozing with excitement.

“Seeing as you’re our aviary care officer from day one, I don’t see why not,” I said.

Missy pumped a fist with a little dance. “You’re sooooo getting laid as soon as we get home.” I kissed her cheek with a light pinch on her butt. “Rawr!”

“We have company, Babe,” I said.

Cole snickered. “I’ve seen worse, and right now, I’m worried about this saddle holding our weight.”

“He won’t lift off if he’s too heavy. Malcolm let me know with a bit of an attitude that I hope fades. He is super snooty,” Missy said, keeping her spirits high. “Now! Who wants to fly?”

Chapter 57

Death From Above!

“I’M TELLING YOU, it is not that simple,” Carl said with a sigh. “These aren’t tamed or domesticated farm animals.”

I stood at a big desk meant for stacking materials outside the gate. Both woodinators churned out products from a mix of small trees and de-limbing the giants. We stopped knocking over the big trees weeks ago, focusing on progress over the long-term farming area.

“I hear you, but we have to do something because the dilos are the tuna of the dino age. I need a protein source for the fliers and these things eat anything besides shit. They’ll devour rotting food without a sweat, and they grow so fast, while laying so many eggs, it’s a win-win,” I said.

“They do eat raw eggs of other species, so that helps. Herbivores eat plants, they lay eggs, the dilos eat the eggs, the birds eat the dilos, and we have our breeding cycles established. It’ll become a city farm,” Aubrey said.

Sayuri added, “Dear Alan, let us worry about the layouts and schematics. If the first few iterations are not simple, we recycle and start again. Same as Hiso is learning for his wall construction machine.”

She had a point. Since we integrated Tribe Houston and brought them online, I cut back work hours a bit and found the progress exploding.

“My guys hate doing reworks. Look, my issue is the fact that the dinos shit where they eat. That will mean all sorts of infestations. No, this won’t work. We over do it because there is literally no limit to how much land we have to use or jungle to harvest.

“We have to expand this plan to allow for a mini city for them to get what they need. And before we start building this, we need the stables redone.” Carl soured, clenching a fist. “Redone is painful. Let’s fix the stables first before putting carnivore breeding, raising, and farming plans.”

I nodded, listening to his complaints with an open ear. “Alright, Sayuri, Aubrey. You heard him. Help fix the stables to get our egg farming going without dinos being pissed at the collectors. I know this leaves you planning and plotting again but try to think of everything and ask around.”

“I don’t love it, but I do understand it,” Aubrey said, folding her arms. “And your mission?”

“I’m taking Elsa and Rin,” I said, pointing with my head toward where they loaded up Malcolm with three days’ worth of supplies. “I hope to be home before dark.”

“And your necklace?” Aubrey asked. I lifted it over my neck and placed it over her head until she wore it proudly. “I won’t let it go to my head.”

“Fred is in charge of defenses. Jarod is in charge of day shift; you manage the colony. I should be home soon,” I said, kissing her cheek.

Carl grunted and said, “We need nails and dynamite.”

“And we need -” Sayuri started to say, going silent when I leaned in to kiss her on the lips publicly. She blushed profusely when I finished. “Uh, where was I? Oh, right, we need everything besides wood, fiber, blankets, rope, and dinos.”

I waved over Missy who waited patiently to see me. She’d been passing the time by talking with Poppy. My gorgeous blonde gingerly skipped over with a big motherly grin on her face. Since I felt the need to say a different kind of goodbye, I stepped away from the others, getting closer to my getaway bird.

Missy opened up the baby carrier on her chest. A little pteranodon peeked out, seeking food. My lovely wife reached on her tippy toes to kiss my cheek. “Heya handsome.”

“Babe,” I replied, kissing her forehead once she returned to normal height. I didn’t pet the baby bird, merely watching it react to my presence. “This is the one?”

“Yeah, this is April. She’s more docile, happy, and misses me when I leave. Her brother is a bit of a shit but should make a good guard if we ever get a spare domestication and he survives. One thing is certain, April doesn’t like to wander, exploring in close while June, well, he has already left the clearing and came back with a tick of some sort,” Missy said.

I grinned. “Well, no guarantees, but I may be able to work a deal. And Missy, if it’s my life or April’s -”

“Break her neck. They have babies almost as fast as dilos do,” Missy said.

“Fair. Fair. You’re smarter than you let on sometimes, maybe see if you can improve the dilo farm plans,” I suggested, earning a cute fidget.

“I think I will. Thanks for the vote of confidence.” She removed the baby sling, exposing her swelling breasts that slowly matched her expanding belly. The next sentence was lost to time, defeated by her beauty. “Alan, she’s cold.”

I shook my daze away, grinning. Aubrey rolled her eyes in the background with a sly smile. “Right. Right. I’m focused again.” I reached over and patted my left shoulder blade. “April needs to go on my back since the saddle puts the weight on my front.”

“Are you saying you need help, dear husband?” Aubrey said, coming over to aid Missy.

“He’s too tall. Oh! Maybe he can sit down and become lost in our thighs,” Missy teased.

Over the next few minutes, I did indeed enjoy the view while they created a carrying case for the pteranodon baby. When it was all said and done, I figured April would just slide out mid-flight, becoming lost to the jungle. I said a few final goodbyes, already saying farewell to Cassie who just got off the night shift.

Rin and Elsa waited in the saddle patiently while Malcolm snoozed. After eating the pterodactyl yesterday, it ate a whole dilo at sunrise. Farming the dinos made sense, but right now they did a pretty great job of naturally replacing losses.

It didn’t hurt that the dilos kept returning for the easy food, only to be picked off strategically by Ellie. The raptor worked tirelessly to secure our perimeter while carrying out my commands. A part of me wanted to have her follow Malcolm with the raptor pack, and one day, I may try that, but for now I neatly walked up the ramp before hopping feet first into the pouch saddle.

Twin clips secured my pouch section I fit in, giving my arms freedom through holes while my body lay in a cocoon of sorts. The more I wiggled, the more it felt like a sleeping bag on the bottom of a dinosaur. Rin smirked, eager to take off while Elsa clutched her arm openings with white knuckles. The baby bird slept on my back, super content to be tucked away somewhere warm and cozy.

“Alright Malcolm, turn a little bit to your right,” I commanded, and he shuffled a bit until we lined up with Great Valley. “Excellent. A nice and gentle flight in that direction.”

His massive wings unfolded, sliding the tips across the woodchip covered clearing. Elsa slammed her eyes shut while Rin giggled with glee. We burst into flight with swirling gusts of wind that quickly dissipated once we left the ground.

At first, I had to shut my eyes from the debris, but once Malcolm picked up height, flapping hard for a bit, the view never got old. Once he reached about three times the height of a tree, he glided smoothly, allowing for a serene flight.

I gently tapped Elsa’s arm. “We’re fine,” I said with a bit of excitement in my voice. “There’s Carno Clearing, the sand undisturbed and the wild grass growing back quickly.”

The Polish woman slowly peeled an eye open. A bit of the anxiety remained, but for the most part, she calmed after exhaling a big sigh of relief. Rin pointed at a wounded adolescent stego, fleeing through the clearing. A pack of carnos hounded it, a rare sight of big predators taking on big prey.

I watched the scene unfold with bated breath.

The bloody stego had a bunch of spirit left, quickly bounding across the clearing to reach the safety of the jungle again. It’d take a miracle for it to survive because I counted at least eight adult carnos relentlessly on the hunt.

“And they’re gone,” Elsa muttered, rightly upset that the fight passed so quickly.

“And so are we,” I said with a scoff. “It takes me an hour to get here by foot but minutes via the air. Hmm…”

I considered going to scout the Russians, but then I’d never make an alliance, and I’d get side-tracked. Somehow, knowing this didn’t make me feel better so I internally grumbled while enjoying the view.

“Holy shit, I can’t see anything below the canopy,” Rin said.

“Yeah, it is going to make scouting hard,” Elsa guessed.

I pointed to a worn game trail, one I used a few times. “You get fleeting glimpses where it’s easiest to see. However, you have a point, nothing stays up high in plain sight. Even the pteras hide under the canopy.”

A few more minutes gently passed while we ingested the majestic view.

“And here comes the Great Valley,” Rin said. The instant we had a view of the herds her smile turned into a frown. “And now I can say I’ve seen a bronto penis chasing a female.”

A light laugh escaped my lips. “Bertha seemed unfazed, but it may be the season. The weather will heat up for a few more months, then the cold will seep into our bones.”

“Fuck the snow,” Rin cursed, scanning for other signs of life. “Hey, when is the next apex dino?”

“I… I don’t know. I figure we are getting a drop every two weeks and a dino every month. We honestly are overdue for a drop. And yeah, it may also be dependent on our consumption,” I guessed, watching the flat valley shift back into jungle until it neared the swamp. I somewhat blurted, “You can hardly tell there are humans here.”

Rin pointed out four different sets of distant fires on the horizon. “Not trying to argue, but yeah. If you look, you see us.”

“Well, I need to see where the good guys are, the bad, and dino tracking too. Honestly, I need a dozen quetzals, and we’re still a small team. I think that’s where the Soviets are and I’m considering scouting them before we have our meeting,” I said with a bit of a growl.

Rin shrugged, soaking in the view.

“I… I love it,” Elsa said, blown away by the nature, drifting underneath.

Every minute or so, Malcolm would flap extra hard, climb a bit, then glide peacefully over the dangerous terrain. The Houston Swamp raced into view, growing rapidly. A random sarco yawned with the morning sunrise, and not far away, a fish jumped to eat a bug grabbing a drink.

The signs of the former base were there without much else. The Soviets didn’t swoop in to colonize the swamp, leaving it alone now that it was empty. I did trace the path from the swamp to the smoke in the distance further confirming my theory.

“I… I feel like that smoke is far too light,” I said.

“What do you mean?” Elsa asked, now in a chipper tone.

I grumbled, waving a hand in the direction of the Soviet’s base. “They had two waves, so four hundred people. We let almost two hundred of the Cartel go, so there’s six hundred people. That is more than us but look at the smoke.”

It was hard to make out everything from this distance, but it seemed like the Soviets wisely picked a spot of terrain with a rising backdrop, not too different from ours.

“And the only smoke is a dying fire,” Rin said curiously.

Malcolm banked from the swamp, following a rich and thick river that slowly sped up. As the lush waterway dove downhill ever so slightly, the coloration improved. Dinos lined the bank, sunbathing or drinking. A few predators lurked, eager for opportunities.

Game trails split the jungle so the herds could shift from water to more peaceful regions they nested in. The three of us entered a comfy silence, enjoying the majestic nature of a dinosaur world. From above, without dangers on all sides, it really did become something… better.

The dinosaurs below shifted from the shadow Malcolm cast, peering up or seeking cover if noticed—depending on the creature’s size. A surreal sense of belonging flowed through my being, and I felt in-tune with nature, even if I soared above it.

“My curiosity is definitely piqued, but I need to see Britonia before making a decision,” I said, deciding to let the angst go.

Alas, the peaceful journey came to an end not even an hour after it started. A break in the jungle started because of a sandy rocky clearing that stretched for a good distance. Tan sand fought with rocks of various sizes, helping keep the space free of the dominating jungle.

The wall, well, it wasn't as impressive as I’d imagined in my head. It only stood ten to fifteen feet high with lots of variance creating low points. There were no guard towers, no parapet to walk around, and a total of three gates. Most of the wall was simply two fallen giants pushed together with upright short trees between.

Yes, some sections held spots with proper poles, neat fencing and angled top parts to prevent climbing, but that was only a quarter of the fence. I didn’t really have much to say though, we didn’t even have a fence at all.

On the inside of the base, a slew of housing clung tightly together and without a doubt, this was where the people of Britonia focused their efforts. The homes were nice too, with most of them being built in either log cabin style or planks. Someone in that settlement had experience with building by hand or watched a lot of youtube at some point.

The inn, which stretched twice as long as our longhouse, stood two stories tall with people on balconies pointing at our incoming arrival. The establishment belched smoke, was crowded with patrons, and lots of clothing hung from stringers to dry in the sun.

Britonia bustled without a care in the world toward defenses. If I had to guess, a herd led by a brontosaurus would just deviate around the walls. Predators like a raptor could hop the wall in certain places, but they’d be facing a hive of humans. Even if they jumped over, mangled a person, they could never drag them away to eat in peace. In summary, it was just good enough to manage in this dystopian world.

The nearby river held a fancy windmill on its bank where scoops of water eventually dropped into a crude aqueduct. The device was clearly alien while the water carrying system was clearly human. The water led to a massive filtration system that leaked, the entire time, soaking the sand.

On the inside of the wall, wooden slats created walkways or foundations to lay over the coarse substance. I hated getting sand in places I didn’t want it, and the people of Britonia prioritized their sanity over safety.

The final aspect I found myself somewhat taken aback by was the sheer population density. If King Archie expanded his walls, which he desperately needed to do, then his defenses would border with the jungle, giving all sorts of openings for climbing dinos to invade.

“At least he has the common sense to avoid expanding,” I grumbled.

“He really did it. The crazy son of a taco did it,” Elsa said with a grin. “He has a home without dinosaurs.”

When we drifted by, repeated shouts to see children became a theme. Mothers desperate to reunite with their babies. I flashed them a thumbs up.

“Son of a gun, but I got what you were going for,” I joked with a snort. “Alright Malcom, fly us straight home. I don’t need to interview this King Archie to understand what is at play and my arrival needs to be done with flair.”

“Huh? Why?” Rin asked.

“Archie is big on diplomacy. That is how he amassed such a following. He’s making deals with the Soviets and whoever else is at play. If I show up to do a trade, it needs to be done right and convincingly,” I said confidently. “And I want to bring the children. Since today will take too long to assemble and march out early. We head home, prep for tomorrow in the base and then I’ll scout the Soviets while the tribe is busy.”

“I suppose. You want to bring the whole army?” Rin asked.

“Most of it and we’ll use Birdo to warn us if we need to turn around,” I said. “Flying was nice, but Malcolm is a high value asset so I will rest him after we scout. I don’t want a betrayal to happen with only one of our guys in the saddle with two new transplants. No. We do this right. It’ll take a full day to get here, but we can map out a good path that avoids the bogged down hotspots,” I said confidently.

“Uh, so…” Elsa said, pointing to a series of people who waved. “Bozena and Alesky are in there. Are you going to disclose their… history?”

I frowned. “No. I’d rather have them on the inside feeling like they owed me one than being the asshole who ruined their second chance. Honestly, that is the whole point of punishments, and prison. However, I’m not a nice guy. If they finagle their way to Grant and make a second mistake, I’ll just kill them and dump the bodies, telling others they went to start a new tribe.”

Elsa bit her lip, waving goodbye. Malcolm gently turned, flying towards home. “Thanks. They… They thought they were right without a lot of information and eager to survive.”

“It’s politics, not for you,” Rin said with a scoff. “Although, I’d feel the same. Probably. Maybe. Eh, who knows.”

“I do know we’re going to pick up stragglers and lose some of the herd during the trip,” I said with a sigh.

“Yeah, but the intel we gain, along with the willing workers, well, it’ll be amazing,” Rin said.

I snorted. “Positive is a good look on you. However, I’m mostly interested in drawing a regional map and finally figuring out some metrics about these bases. One thing is certain, the aliens want us to jostle over resources, but humans have this way of telling their bosses to fuck off. I just have to hope King Archie is reasonable and the other players aren’t as kill happy as the Soviets. And yeah, I’m curious as to what the hell is going on in their base. Something seems…”

“Off,” Rin said in an ominous tone.

Chapter 58

A Leaf in the Wind!

“ALAN WINCHESTER!” Missy pouted, holding onto my wrist. “Take her with you.”

I handed April back to her keeper, changing plans on the go. Missy definitely wasn’t talking about April. She welcomed her little princess in with pecking kisses while rubbing faces with the tiny dino. The situation definitely didn’t call for me to take a helpless baby on a dangerous mission.

Since the tribe shifted to leave in the morning, bustling about to place supplies for an easy load up, I solidified my conviction to scout the Soviets. However… I wanted to change a few things to help my odds.

Rin knew Britonia, and there was a chance I’d get delayed so I wanted her to stay with Ski so they could still conduct the trade mission without me. Jarod would go with the main herd, standing in for me with Jennifer commanding the dinosaurs, but I fully expected to make it back in time.

“Missy, Cassie is half asleep on her feet and needs to rest—not go on a mission. The flight is only an hour or two tops and look at him!” I thumbed Malcolm who snoozed soundly. “Hauling people around takes a lot out of him. Just because he can, doesn’t mean he should.”

“I…” Missy rose to kiss my cheek. “I’m not the nagging wife who argues with her husband. I want you home safe, keep that in mind. And yes, I, and all your other wives who have me representing them, want you to return to us.”

Cassie stretched on her tippy toes, falling back to her heels quickly so her milk laden breasts bounced just right. “To war or bed? I’m fine with both.”

“Bed. He flies better when he’s lighter, and it’ll give us extra speed, in case we need it. If I have my way, we’ll never even land and be back within an hour,” I said, patting Malcom’s head. “Time to go. Ellie! Keep them in line. Darth! Don’t let anything close. Bertha! Keep being a princess!”

The ladies giggled while Bertha trumpeted a ‘yes’.

“Love you,” Missy said, compressing her hands onto my cheeks with a squeeze.

A slight pull downward allowed her to gently press our lips together. Cassie hugged my side, yawned, planted a kiss on my cheek and slung an arm into Missy’s elbow nook to drag her away. I watched them go with pride instead of sadness, taking an extra second to watch their shapely asses.

Once they were a dozen paces away, I double checked Malcolm’s saddle. I brought two canteens, enough jerky for a week, a solid spear, a basic spear, some camping tools, a shield, and extra blankets. It wasn’t a lot, but it’d have been more if I brought others.

“Hey, it’s time,” I said, popping my back.

Malcolm shook himself awake, dusting off some feathers. He squawked that he rested long enough. I double checked his harness, before hopping into the sleeping bag type slot. I secured myself in, flicked a quick wave to those who watched, and settled with a few adjustments.

Malcolm burst off the ground, rapidly soaring right toward the tops of the nearest giant trees. The vegetation passed only a few inches from my face, shifting from the wind to brush against the leather.

Once we angled above the canopy, the quetzal picked up more altitude than before. We reached a somewhat dizzying height, soaring over the thick jungle that shrank in size. A buffeting reverberation through the big dino was joined by a chilly tailwind pushing us from behind. He glided almost effortlessly, cruising with additional speed.

From my vantage point, I saw almost thirty smoke trails in the area. The fires were definitely the best way to find humanity, because I just couldn’t see most camps due to how dense the jungle was. When we flew over the Cartel’s old base, I only noticed a few knocked over trees since the upper canopy covered most of the space.

Our last flight was so much closer to the ground it really did give a different scale and scope of size to the rugged terrain. The down-sloping hills clashed with mountainsides much like our base, providing plenty of semi-secure spots to build in. While it was great to get a better sense of the area than just from a topographical scan, the Soviet’s smoke trail became nothing besides the thinnest of traces on the horizon.

“What the fuck is going on?” I grumbled.

Malcolm couldn’t hear me with the gusting wind, and I wasn’t talking to him anyway—more or less muttering to myself in frustration. Something wasn’t right and it ate at me.

I’d yet to travel this far west from our base, wondering where these guys started. My eyes traced to our starter zone, seeing it completely converted into a local jungle, no longer showing any signs of Old Earth.

We’d considered going to do big harvest runs of beech trees, only holding off because our clearing needed to be cleared. Any thoughts of going a few hours away to get trees were now nixed. I sighed, mostly because starter zones would be great for telling where I might find survivors without fires. I really believed there were plenty of small groups in need of help, cowering in isolation.

Finding them from this height would be impossible though and combing the jungle on foot was not only tedious but exceedingly dangerous. Instead of worrying about those I couldn’t find, I decided to try to understand the layout of the land. Not too different from our section, the terrain descended but at a slower rate, creating less waterfalls and fewer defined valleys.

The land leveled out with only a few clearings due to elevated hills or nutrient poor soil. After another fifteen minutes of drifting on the upper winds, Malcolm lowered himself from his cruising altitude, bringing us over the trees at a decent pace.

Based on how much snappier his movements were, having less items in his saddle and two less people made a big difference.

We passed under a massive sauropod leading a herd down a big trail toward a wetland area. Once we crossed over the broken jungle, we saw the typical water creatures: spinos, beelzebufos, dactyls, and even a few snakes basked in the sun.

“Well, I now know where the spino came from,” I said, seeing a T-Rex drinking from the edge of the lake.

This one was smaller than Darth, but it still was a bit odd to see one so close to the Soviets. If I had to guess they captured Darth out of convenience due to their offensive operations instead of doing so near their base.

Numerous game trails cut from the shallow lake in all sorts of directions with numbers in flowing streams cutting breaks in the terrain. The smoke trail grew a bit more prominent now that I drew so close.

The tension grew as I neared until I finally found their base. A large clearing nestled against a big hill with steady water flowing downhill over rocks. All around the rapid brook of clean water lay the debris of humanity.

I couldn’t see a wall or fence from this angle, or this distance, but I could make out blankets stretched across points to create housing. A single fire billowed out the smoke, unattended by anyone. Based on our reports, there should be hundreds of people in the camp, but I didn’t see any movement.

“Up a bit higher,” I commanded with a deep tone.

Malcolm flapped a few times, increasing our elevation quickly. I considered telling him to loop around the base, but too many things added up at this point: a dying fire, not signs of life, and an eerie silence.

He drifted over the canopy, approaching the clearing at a height any archer would struggle to reach. If they were somehow hiding in anticipation of my arrival, then they were doing a fantastic job. If they sent a smaller flier at me, well, I wasn’t worried and it turned out, I didn’t need to worry at all.

We cleared the edge of the trees, arriving into a camp filled with blood, death, and mayhem. Sure, there were spiked walls on the jungle’s edge to keep invaders out, but whatever happened here, didn’t happen from exterior dinosaurs.

Malcolm read my mind, slowing to a snail-like pace to drift over what used to be the Soviet’s camp. Based on my initial inspection, the evidence painted a clear picture—betrayal. The Soviets lay dead in a spanning section of the base. Some died by spear, some were attacked by dinosaurs, and others were executed while on their knees in a line.

Of the fifty or so dead men, a dozen of them bore the resemblance of the Cartel members. I sighed, noting another dozen dead women piled toward the base’s exit with even more bodies partially burned in the main fire that died down.

It was almost as if they decided to stop cleaning up their mess and just start over at some point. I chirped out a call for Malcolm to land. While I didn’t intend to do much more than investigate the area, I did want to see if I could find any survivors, or see if any of these white guys looked like Cole.

Malcolm gently touched down, scanning the devastation with his keen eyes. I sighed, unbuckling my harness.

No one called out for help—nothing stirred besides leaves in the wind.

My feet touched down, landing with a deafening crunch due to the sheer silence. I sighed for a few reasons. In my mind, I’d played out numerous ways for my Soviets problem to come to a close. Out of all of them, a pile of dead bodies due to betrayal wasn’t what I figured would happen. Sure, I expected us to be at odds, but I also figured I could impress them into being tactical or peaceful through my sheer might.

In the end, letting the Cartel into their midst proved to be their undoing. I walked across the gritty terrain, crunching gravel with each step. A dead Mexican lay with his eyes closed and a hole in his throat. Someone removed the arrow, letting the body rot. It spoke volumes about their character.

Based on the dried blood and flies, whatever went down had to have been at least a few days ago. The first Russian I inspected suffered a terrible death. No one closed his eyes for him and based on the scuff marks around him, and the mauled stomach, he fought to keep from being eaten by a few raptors. I knew the Cartel didn’t have dinos when they left the camp, I forced them out of.

Sure, they could have created a new tribe, claiming at least three, maybe four since I’d last seen them, but if I was the Soviets, I’d never let them into my camp.

“You stole my move,” I said with a sigh, figuring out how this played out with a simple inspection.

The camp was picked over, littered by the tent contents being tossed out in a hurry. Parts of the camp never received any sort of mass pilfering, likely home to the Cartel section. Most of that area was neatly disassembled.

I walked deeper into the camp, motioning for Malcolm to follow me. I used my spear like a walking stick, turning over bodies to look at faces. A few women were among the men, some of them Mexican. Death came for everyone at some point during the betrayal.

A series of fat compies slept in an abandoned nest, gorged on the flesh of the dead. They grunted and groaned, warning me to not bug them even if they were powerless against me. At the very back of the camp, where the flat land inclined with the brook, a series of small tunnels led into the hill.

Piles of dirt spoke of recent digging, and I wondered if this was where they stashed stuff. A faint whimper seeped out of one of the holes, and at first, I figured they trapped a dilo in there. When I bent down and removed stones that held the grating in place, I saw a broken ankle not far into the hole.

“Fuck,” I grumbled, glancing at Malcolm. “Cover me.”

Since I didn’t have a choice, I set the spear down, working to pry open the prison hole. A few tense minutes later, I peered into the tunnel finding a broken and battered man, likely deep in a fevered dream.

Based on the marks, he’d been forced to crawl into the tiny hole to die. He’d been fed and given water, living in his piss and shit for weeks if I had to guess based on the stench. Even though I couldn’t see his face, I summarized who this was.

I hung my head in sadness, not having the obelisk to grab.

“Hey Atticus,” I said with a sigh. “Is this Jack Cole?”

A necklace appeared around my neck, dropping an obelisk to rest on my chest. My thumb slid under the string so I could inspect the item. It wasn’t the same, but not too different with the rivers of power being smaller and the overall pendent being smaller as well.

“When you travel, you can still use your tribe’s power,” Atticus said through the stone.

“We have over three hundred thousand points, I’d like to use some to determine if this is Jack Cole, Harold’s brother,” I said.

“Checking is free, always has been. Just inspect him, and you will see it is. While we can’t use points to heal people, and he is near death, we can offer a mission. Jack was sent to die after having all his fingers broken and his ankles shattered. One of the Cartel’s prisoners, a Russian woman who goes by Vodka, kept him alive. She’d sit here for hours, feeding off his strength to persist.

“Her fellow Soviets laughed at her, but she didn’t care, finding his spirit worth her time. What is that human saying ‘misery loves company’? We found the exchange fascinating because there was no hope, less so when she tried to crawl in here with Jack during the betrayal. She never made it, being dragged toward a new home as a slave,” Atticus said.

“She failed to protect him,” I said, grabbing my spear to rise to my knees. “So will I. I don’t have any way to save him.”

“Ah, but you do. Rescue Vodka, and Jack will be restored to your home in Fort Grant,” Atticus said in a charming way. “But wait, there’s more. Jack only has eleven hours, seven minutes and twelve seconds left. So the time is ticking. In addition, poor Vodka is one of many prisoners, making her extraction challenging. The more you get to Fort Grant the bigger you reward.”

“Rescue the damsel, save two lives, maybe more,” I said with a snicker. “Has there ever been a more noble calling?”

“Yes,” Atticus swiftly answered. “Not dying when you currently lead hundreds and what could be thousands if not tens of thousands one day. Your life is worth a hundred times that of Vodka’s and Jack’s combined. But you’ll accept the quest regardless, won’t you?” Atticus asked.

“Uh, yeah. Not sure how I’ll find them or if there is a guide or -” I started to say.

When the obelisk went cold, I had my answer.

Atticus wasn’t going to give me all the answers besides a mission. I didn’t know where they went, what Vodka looked like, and what it’d take to get her free, but I sure as hell was about to find out.

Chapter 59

A Hurricane’s Roar!

“ALRIGHT, BUDDY, LET’S CIRCLE BACK,” I said to Malcolm after we soared over what remained of the Cartel tribe.

Unfortunately, it grew in size, absorbing Russian men and women. Of course, most of them were not voluntary, being dragged in sequence by dual ropes, one at the feet and one at the wrists. Yes a few of the Russians walked free among the Cartel, flipping sides, but their numbers were thin and the prisoner numbers high. If I had to guess, the group once was over four hundred. Now it held just over three hundred with a hundred of them being slaves.

Fortunately, they only had two hadrosaurs left.

There might be raptors hidden in the wings on the game trail, but I doubted it since I flew over a pack of carnos sunning by devoured raptor corpses. While it was good to see their main assets sundered, I couldn’t help but get very confused as to why they decided to move.

The more my mind pondered the decision, the more I realized that I was the likely cause. Of course, I snickered in amusement. If they moved to a new area as an unknown, they could explain the situation away while keeping the prisoners from talking. Me… I’d have seen right through their bullshit, knowing their character and have fought them until the Russians were freed.

The Cartel followed a game trail that spent the better part of ten miles in very stable and level terrain. Honestly, just about anywhere in here wasn’t a bad spot for building an open base, but where they headed… I knew that they were marching right toward a valley filled with lush vegetation and an elevated island with a river wrapping both sides. They obviously used their topography scan, finding a great game trail that connected our region to this region.

What they didn’t know was that not only did a tribe already own that spot, but an upcoming corridor was where a large and impressive T-Rex nest rested. They unknowingly marched right towards a super bad situation, and I needed to figure out what to do.

Dinosaurs, from all my experiences, preferred to move on after a win; either to relax and eat, or to simply get away from another fight. Great white sharks weren’t too different in the sense that they simply didn’t go and slaughter more than they could eat for no reason. Unless the Cartel turned, a lot would die, and probably extra during a fight.

I played it out in my head where the Cartel tribe leader pushed his hadrosaurs with all their supplies into the enemy, giving them up to live another day. Instead of waiting for it to happen, then reacting from the air, I decided to guide Malcolm to the opposite side of the upcoming canyon.

We landed downwind of the T-Rex next, nestling into a dense section of jungle. When a dilo rustled out of a bush to see what arrived nearby, Malcolm was waiting. The beak stabbed down, goring the small dino with a clean punch through the skin. Blood dripped off the tip with wet smacks into the vegetation.

The dilo continued twitching for a few seconds, killing the surrounding noises of the jungle. Malcolm left it alone, not wanting to disturb his guts before another long flight.

A minute after it died, the insects slowly increased their calls. I relaxed, not bothering to get out of the saddle. A few scenarios of what came next ran through my head and in the end, my daydreaming proved useless because an irate voice boomed through the jungle.

I couldn’t see the reason for the outburst, but I didn’t need to be a genius to figure that dragging a bunch of slaves across the land was going to lead to issues. Not even a second after his rapid tirade in Spanish—a T-Rex drowned out the region with the mightiest of roars.

I snickered, letting my urge to save the day fade. My line in the sand had been crossed, the proverbial dice cast, and I only had one thing to do, wait.

For the next two, maybe three minutes, the humans shouted to form a plan or battle lines, I couldn’t tell. During their chaos, the T-Rex nest emptied with the repeated booms of heavy footfalls. Their curious calls said that they were eager to investigate who dared to enter their territory.

The roars came closer and closer until I knew a fight neared.

“Alright, Malcolm. Up we go,” I said, hoping our movement would at least have partial cover from the intense moment.

We soared into the air, nearing some light branches. I glanced back, seeing dozens of compies rushing the dead dilo’s body. Before I could see much more, we smacked into the canopy, swiftly earning the freedom of the open sky a second later.

Malcolm spread his wings wide, flapping hard to pick up forward speed. The treetops zipped by until we arrived at the game trail’s break. In the bottom a hundred-plus humans with spears rushed forward to greet a dozen T-Rexes who showed zero fear of the pointy metal.

The Cartel leader decided to hold back his hadrosaurs, likely wanting to save the gear the duckbill dinos carried. I snickered, listening to the callout to coordinate the defense vanish from the massive dinosaurs shrieking out their anger through throaty roars.

While I could have watched the fight unfold, I focused on my mission—finding a random Russian girl with a stupid name. Behind the defense, a core group of officers huddled near the hadrosaurs. Suddenly, the fact they were held back made sense. During my earlier recon, I’d missed that each of the large dinos controlled the long string of prisoners.

Not only did they hold the gear, they dragged the slaves.

I figured I’d be in for one hell of a fight when the first signs of chaos unfolded. One of the slaves undid their bindings. The man ducked down, picked up a rock and smacked a guard on the side of the head with enough force to knock him out.

While the fight for freedom unfolded in the back, the front lines never held, folding well before any solid defense worked against the mighty predators. Maybe it was because of the group being backstabbers, but deep down, I knew just how terrifying a T-Rex was up close.

The people who were sent to stop the T-Rexes were never going to do much more than feed the predators a dozen bodies. Sure enough a brave warrior belted out a battle cry, rushed forward with a jump to aim for the heart. His heroic leap ended suddenly when he died from a T-Rex bit him in half.

“Oof,” I grunted, watching the T-Rex not slow a bit, spitting out the top half. “And there goes my theory.”

As the front line of defenders buckled, falling in ones and two to bites, kicks and trampling, the matriarch T-Rex surged for the duckbills. The officers, for whatever reason, must have figured the sacrifices would be enough and their valuable dinos were off limits.

Their plan lay in ruins as the defense turned to an ‘everyone for themselves’ free for all.

Talking to Malcolm simply wouldn’t work, so I tugged on his saddle to guide him. He shifted above the chaos, lowering his flight onto the wide trail. The matriarch T-Rex bulldozed into the front hadrosaur, sending it down with a trumpeting cry of distress. Half the slaves shot off their feet, yanked by the shifting rope.

I reached into the pouch with the machete pulling it free. A spear raced out, for what I thought was a strike meant to harm the big T-Rex. Instead, the weapon lodged into the neck of a burly Mexican man. A Russian woman ripped the tribe’s necklace off the twine, running three paces before a T-Rex’s mouth engulfed her body to the knees.

A loud and sickening snap neatly severed at the ankles. The T-Rex tilted its head back, swallowing the woman and any hope of the tribe continuing with her. The remaining hadrosaur lost the mind control, instantly bolting for safety. Sixty weary humans dug in heels, unable to stop the dinosaur’s mad flight for distance from the predators.

The T-Rexes feasted in their victory, picking apart the retreating warriors and slaves. I guided Malcolm after the fleeing hadrosaur, swooping in. He whooshed by a triumphant T-Rex, tucked his wings and lined up on the hadrosaur’s back.

Whoever captured this scaly green dino with green stripes, must have been desperate because not only was he small, he was young too. The ground blurred underneath until we loomed over the fleeing dino’s neck.

I considered lashing out with a strike, deciding against it. Malcolm’s beak lanced down with a precision strike, puncturing the back of the neck.

For a fleeting second after the tip shattered the spine, I figured the hadrosaur may never stop. Like a light switch, the big dinosaur who hauled half of the slaves, collapsed. Malcolm flared his wings, landing near the twitching body.

Without a doubt the hadrosaur still lived, whimpering with sad calls. I forced away the guilty feelings, fully content to sacrifice it to save hundreds. I unclipped my harness and flopped out of the carrier on the outskirts of the fight. The second I touched the ground, I sprinted for the rope the vulnerable Russians were tied to.

Before I could unleash a large chop, the Matriarch T-Rex demanded attention by stopping with me solely in her sights. The dark brown dinosaur stood a good two, maybe three feet taller than Darth. Her tiny arms were comical but the massive teeth that dripped blood were terrifying. Her fit thigh muscles bulged, tensed with a slight crouch because we both knew she wanted to be ready for anything.

We stared at each other, and yeah, I knew I was only a few lunges away from death. The rope’s attachment to the weight of the dying hadrosaur confined them no matter how hard they fought. I audaciously cut the rope, understanding it may be the last thing I ever did.

A second chop severed the line. The Matriarch T-Rex roared, pissed that I didn’t run.

When her primal shriek finished, I chirped back to her, pointing to the hadrosaur. I spoke the same as I would to Darth, telling her the same thing the raptors said to the bigger predator. This kill is my gift to you. The phrase was so common, it only needed a meek call.

A secondary roar belted through the area, unleashed by an eager juvenile female who dashed to her leader’s side. The Matriarch snapped her bloody jaws in a discipling way to the younger female.

She grunted and cawed to kill the hadrosaur.

At this point, I had enough fun and knew our welcome officially ended. I picked up a run with a shooing motion for the Russians to get the fuck out of the area. A few humans were still being picked off, but their deaths slowed as the T-Rex pack secured the area.

The T-Rexes rushed the fallen hadrosaurs, eager for their favored meals. It hurt to watch, but whatever was in those saddles would probably be destroyed and not worth coming back for. Most of the former slaves worked together to get further from terrifying predators, shouting at stragglers.

After only a few minutes of running the first group of slaves ran into the second group with a few guards mulling around with weapons not postured dangerously.

Malcolm earned a ton of attention, and with him, I drew the eyes of the survivors. I tensed, readying for a fight. They glanced at me, talking in hushed whispers. Only three of the slaves were Mexican, clearly standing out against the alabaster field of humans. Of course, their captors stripped them of all clothing, and based on the fact most were a healthy weight, the transition from freedom to slavery had been short-lived.

Since none of them said much besides to huddle closer together because the jungle was scary, I took the initiative.

“Vodka,” I shouted over the din of chaotic talking.

The hundred plus people turned, facing me. A young Russian woman with a homely appearance stepped forward. A deep scowl of resentment was plastered on her face, and I noticed a scar across her chest from something that healed a few weeks ago.

“It’s Vesna, not Vodka. Only Jack calls me Vodka,” she said. While she talked, I returned to Malcolm, sliding the machete into the sheath on my hip. I grabbed a shield and a firm spear in case we decided to fight it out. “Who are you, and what do you want, American?”

She spat the last word, helping another person get free of their rope bindings. Slowly but surely, the chain rope that bound them together unraveled, granting their freedoms. I still was nervous at how close we were to the T-Rexes, especially since they seemed to be content with killing more than needed.

The distant terrified cries faded, turning into loud shouts in Spanish in what was likely an attempt to consolidate the survivors. I’d just been put on a timer I was almost certain I couldn’t escape. I snickered, turning to see some of the guards lining up to put themselves between me and their defenseless slaves.

I raised an eyebrow, daring them to come forward. The tense… Mexican standoff shattered when one of the Cartel slaves shouted back to someone who neared.

To me, the Russians weren’t saints, but their leadership had already been purged. The ones who stood before me were the meek who only wanted to live without making waves. While that disgusted me in numerous ways, it gave them some leniency when it came to my mercy.

For the remaining Cartel members, a primal surge of anger coursed through my being, lighting my heart with flames of hatred.

A crash through the bushes nearby provided enough warning for me to adjust, hiding behind a tree. When the scowling short man erupted from the bushes with his spear gripped tight, he shouted angrily at the slaves freeing themselves.

His words finished, his eyes followed the slaves’ glances, and he gawked at Malcolm just chilling nearby.

When he tilted his head in confusion, I rushed into motion. My spear drove hard into his back, pierced his heart, and erupted out his chest. My boot smacked into this back, and I yanked the spear out with a slurp. He fell to his knees, wondering who betrayed him. Even though his mind had a few seconds left, he collapsed to die in confusion.

I popped my spear up into a light toss. When gravity pulled it down, I deftly caught it. Another Cartel member arrived just in time to see a blur of motion. My spear cratered his skull and split his head down the middle with brains splattering against a tree.

The wet smack caught the attention of the next man who made a ruckus on his approach. I somersaulted into his path, readying by swiftly extracting my machete. He slowed, not understanding what exactly caused the nearby gore. When he poked his head out of the bush curiously, I lunged up, ramming my machete under his chin.

The weapon dove in, hitting the underside of his skull. It neatly sliced its way back out. The body fell and the easy kills ended because six Cartel memebers arrived in this small clearing at the same time.

The Russian guards continued to posture defensively for the most part, uncertain of what to do. The one lady who called out to the slavers in Spanish found herself at the bottom of a stomp fest.

Without a doubt, the gravity of the situation sank in: the American came and with him, he brought death.

I hurled the machete into the chest of a nearby female Cartel guard, missing the heart but definitely ruining a lung. She clutched the weapon, extracting it for me to toss it at my feet, and fell onto her back in shock.

My hand snatched a fallen spear off the jungle floor with a twirl to orient it toward the enemy. The five became seven, eleven, then fourteen when the main clump of Cartel guards arrived at once. Their faces reflected relief at reuniting with the slaves… until they saw the four dead members near me.

“Attack!” I bellowed to Malcolm.

While I hated to risk him, if he died, he’d do so honorably.

I surged across the distance with my shield forward and the spear leveled. The first Mexican I charged stood half a foot shorter than me without any signs of bulking up since he arrived in our new environment. I almost felt bad because he trembled from the sight of me barreling down on him with Malcolm flying overhead.

He thrust his basic three-part spear with a feeble effort. His terror-filled eyes swapped to hope that he might skewer me at the last moment.

“Fucking pathetic,” I roared, smacking his spear aside with my shield.

The tip of my spear shot forward at a speed he struggled to comprehend. I popped his right eye, driving the tip into his head until it smacked the back of his skull. I let my right hand slide down the shaft while my left shoulder tucked, allowing my shield to smack into him with all my weight.

He went flying with a spray of blood flinging out of his ruined eye. I flicked my wrist, rotating the spear and hurled it into the rib cage of his nearest ally. I stole the dead man’s weapon, eager to help Malcolm who distracted the main body of Cartel members.

Three charged as one, finally showing some backbone.

I ground the balls of my feet into the ground and sprinted away, dragging the fight further from where Malcolm distracted the main clump. The instant I reached a tree, I sprinted hard, leaning into the massive trunk’s bend.

I hopped roots, speeding in a circle. Sure enough, one of the wise guys decided to try to cut me off. I dove like I was trying to steal a base, sinking my spear into his guts while dodging his machete strike.

My speed forced me into a roll. The bushes’ lower branches grated against my skin, helping stop my tumble. When I came to a stop, I scrambled to my feet, grabbing the machete he dropped. The two who flowed around the tree slowed, squaring me up as their buddy ripped the spear out of his guts.

Since they skidded to a stop, eager for an unfair fight, I shifted yet again, running toward Malcolm. The quetzal twirled, banking hard for me, sensing something from behind while he distracted the Cartel warriors.

The matriarch T-Rex erupted from the bushes, stomping one guard while bending down to snatch another off the ground. The man screamed the entire time the T-Rex tossed him into the air. His arms flailed until gravity dragged him into the awaiting teeth that ended his cries as they snapped shut.

I reached up, latching onto Malcolm’s leg as he flew by, being carried away from the unfolding scene. The Soviets didn’t skip a beat, immediately fleeing the scene as one while the Cartel scattered from. Since the rope binding them together had mostly been untangled, the Soviets fled back onto the main game trail, racing toward their old base.

Even though they’d been dragged this direction for what was likely two days, they ran with the primal spirit to survive. Malcolm set me down only a few feet into the trail. I ran ahead of the others, guiding them for a good fifteen, maybe twenty minutes until I found a decent spot where the trail widened to take a break.

When I glanced back, letting the others catch up, no dinosaurs or Cartel chased us. I walked closer to where Malcolm landed nearby, checking him over for damage. Five or so minutes passed, giving the recently freed Russians a chance to recover and for the stragglers to join the group.

When I turned back to the freed slaves, I didn’t smile or try to appear welcoming. I instead still held my weapons, seeing two less guards than before.

“I’m here to free you. If you… five want to stop me, so be it.” The five guards shook their heads, more or less blending in with the other armed Russians. “Uh, one of you, translate for me, assuming I don’t need to kill you first.”

Vesna waved at me with hands down, trying to diffuse the situation. “Enough, Mr. Macho. These are the good ones. The bad ones fled. Answer my question, American, why are you here?”

I snorted, watching the huddled mass closely. Since none seemed eager to fight, I leaned against Malcolm. “Who is Jack to you?”

She blushed slightly, earning extra stares from some of the others. “A friend. A friend I should have never had. He… he’s alive?”

“Yup! Wanna see him, a nice life with a bed, normal work hours, and a tribe with hundreds of dinosaurs?” I asked.

She glanced at the other, speaking in Russian quickly. When she finished, she said, “You’re from the Americans who killed the spino?”

“Yes. And more,” I admitted, not wanting them to get blindsided. Honestly, I just needed the Vensa, but yeah, the eighty something healthy women and cowardly men weren’t a terrible way to expand Tribe Grant. “I violently defend those in my charge.”

More talking in Russian erupted with a man saying, “It’s not safe to talk here.”

I wagged a finger at him. “He actually has a point. This group is in a bad situation that’ll likely get worse. You were never getting through that canyon, and even if you go around still, the best spot is taken,” I said, delivering the bad news. More translated followed with shoulders slumping.

“The Cartel, what about them? They killed so many of us for no reason!” a woman shouted in a heavy Russian accent.

“They’re as good as dead. Those who survive will die soon or become second class citizens. And!” I adjusted my point to hold up a finger. “The Cartel leadership only left to avoid a war of attrition against me. I have hundreds of dinosaurs. The Cartel had six after the betrayal.”

“Good, they should die, but why brag about your power?” Vesna asked.

On a whim, I reached into the saddle and tossed a spare spear to the biggest man. He sadly picked it up and in a heavy Russian accent said, “I’m math teacher, not fighter, thanks though.”

I offered, “Go back to your old base, form a new tribe, kill any Cartel or dinos you see, and visit me for sanctuary if you are willing to bend the knee.”

“Why… Why help us?” Vesna asked.

“You sure are a stubborn lot. Why bug me into answering what is clearly in front of you?” I held up a palm. “Don’t answer that.” I huffed. “In some ways, because I’m pure.” My words were mostly a guess that I decided to refine. “I rule through laws. I create a safe environment for mothers to raise their children and for men to work to provide for them. You don’t deserve that, but this is a fucked up world and for whatever reason, the aliens sent me to rescue you. And here we are. I need Vodka to come with me. Is that her?”

Vesna folded her arms with quite a few of the others who spoke English nodding. “I already said it was. I… I like speaking English and Jack was only trying to keep a dino from eating his friends.”

“So, you want a big reveal moment. Well, I was sent to reunite you with Jack,” I said.

“I… I don’t love him,” Vesna sadly admitted.

A mirthy laugh escaped my lips. “Liar. And who cares if you do. Fuck anyone judging you. You’ve all literally lost everything. You have no dinos, are in hostile territory, have no weapons, no food, no canteens, and no support. You’re fucked, but I’m willing to help you even though I should leave you to die with the Cartel.”

The math teacher from earlier said, “You want us to go to our old camp, then east to the mighty smoke?”

I nodded yes, returning to Malcolm yet again.

“Come Vesna. If you don’t fight me on this, I’ll bring my army across the region to march your people home,” I said, waiting for them to translate. “I need to get you in the saddle so we can fly home and complete the mission the aliens set.”

Vesna hurried over, asking a few questions about how to get in. The math teacher set the spear down and approached with palms up.

“Will all be welcome, what tis like?” he asked.

I snorted. “It’s great, and you’re free to leave after you recover. We’ll even make crude items to take with you, but you won’t want to leave. We have stability, comfort, safety, supplies, and good people to build a future with. Your old leaders brought sin to the land, I’m no angel either, but this is a great opportunity. However, if you don’t behave perfectly for a good while, you won’t get a second chance again.”

I patted Malcolm who lowered his chest, providing ample room for me to get in. I helped Vesna in first, then loaded myself. Once I was in his saddle, the nestling sensation of being held brought an odd comfort.

“Get to your camp, secure the defenses, be nice to each other, and await our arrival. If we don’t show up in a few days, come to us,” I commanded.

The math teacher glanced at the other Russians, then me. “Maybe. Regardless. Spasibo.”

Malcolm shot into the air, leaving the survivors behind. A few feet up, a beaming Vesna stared back to where her old base used to be, and her smile faded.

“The aliens saved him?” she asked curiously.

I nodded. “What’s Spasibo mean?”

“Thank you. It means thank you. You know, for an American, you’re not too bad,” Vesna said, enjoying the flight.

As the canopy drifted underneath, I couldn’t help but wonder how Cole would take having Jack back. Then I started to grow curious to how Jack would react when I told him we were rescuing the last of the Russians. From four hundred to a hundred – and mostly women – survivors.

I’d never stop rescuing good people, but I definitely hoped I could stop finding bad people to fight. Somehow, I didn’t think that was how this new world worked.

Chapter 60

Warlord Jasper

A Brewing Storm!

“YOUR ORDERS?” Arvor asked, staring at him without any sign of emotion.

Jasper sat in the comfy saddle with his feet propped up on a box. The diplodocus swayed, walking back from a mission to gather berries, a fact he took pride in. His population boomed to the point it was getting hard to feed everyone.

Unlike the Brits or the boorish Dehli Tribe, he never limited his space by confining his people. No, they lived on the move with dinosaurs and soldiers always keeping guard to protect the tribe. Everyone said he was crazy to push his people, to test their limits and yet they thrived.

What others like the Brits and these Locals called Tribe Grant would never know was that being on the move kept them hard. It forced their tribe to live with the land. Sure, there were mistakes, untimely ends, and some desertions, but as a whole their tribe tripled in size as it roamed, absorbing the desperate and those eager for protection through numbers.

Jasper earned a device that revealed where the next four drops would be located. This bit of information wasn’t a secret among his officers, and after their mission, he knew Arvor would be asking about the fabled gifts from the sky.

“That drop is too close to the Locals,” Jasper said, plucking a berry out of a bowl to eat it like a king. “Plus, I hear they’re powerful.”

“Our scouts estimate their might to be at half of ours, solely reliant upon their leader,” Arvor said.

Jasper nodded, knowing this already. In the Year of the Dinosaur, it proved exceedingly hard to keep tabs on others. Word from trade and their flying scouts did give some insights. Jasper took any information he could get while trying to enjoy small victories like th6e extra berries he brought home.

“I can’t imagine what that is like,” Jasper said, having a hard time trusting others to get the job done. “Still, this is not Old Earth, this is a kill or be killed environment. If we cripple the Locals enough, we will absorb them, adding a lot to our power and even more to our score.”

Arvor rocked with the big dino’s odd gait, choosing not to sit. “Jasper, I’ve always supported you. Every single bit of information I have on this Alan Grant fellow has been downright scary. Can you talk to dinosaurs?” Jasper scoffed, shaking his head. “I know what you’re thinking. Some of our people can too, and we have a free roaming, ever-growing herd, but why potentially anger the guy with dinosaurs that can defeat ours?”

“Because!” Jasper hissed. “When winter comes, we can’t move across the land. We can’t place tarps for shade or rain. It’ll be snowing with frozen ground everywhere. This isn’t Florida! We have to have stability. Nomadic tents won’t work and why the fuck should we build anything when all we have to do is take it at the opportune moment.”

An evil grin spread across Jasper’s lips when Arvor sighed with a nod in agreement.

Chapter 61

A Calm Breeze!

THE SIGHT of Fortress Grant brought joy to my heart. Malcolm complained about how he needed to eat, then have a long rest. Long was always subjective to a dinosaur, but I fully understood he wasn’t a machine. We soared into our clearing at Fortress Grant right as the setting sun neared the horizon.

Most of the residents worked to keep the base growing while some very important ones must have seen our arrival coming. Aubrey waved, standing next to Bertha. A small team around her also waved once I exchanged the greeting. Missy, Sayuri, and Jarod stood around a small fire, studying a journal while Cole and his twin were all smiles.

We gently touched down with Aubrey holding the rest of the tribe back and for good reason. Almost all of the dinos chirped and called out from our arrival. I realized Malcolm was calm because of me, but Vesna was not a tribe member and that stirred the dinos.

“I need her to kneel, Alan,” Aubrey said, grabbing the obelisk. “Else she needs to leave.”

“But… This wasn’t part of the deal,” Vesna said in her thick accent.

Jack shouted, “Oh come on Vodka, you can always break your deal once you’re away from the base later. We got a lot to talk about, and I’d rather get to see you for once without dinos tearing out your guts.”

“That’s Jack?” Vesna muttered at a volume only I could hear. She uttered a few curses in Russian. “Oh Jack! You’re better. I… I’ll kneel, and just so everyone knows, Alan agreed to save my friends.”

“And I swear I will try. They’re still far,” I replied.

Aubrey raised an eyebrow as Vesna detached her harness.

She kneeled, being coated from the magic around Aubrey’s neck. I spent the next ten minutes catching everyone up on the Cartel’s betrayal, the Soviet’s utter collapse, and how the remaining Russians were worth saving.

Once my side of the story was done, I shook Jack’s hand. “The aliens liked your love story.”

Cole’s brother had a big scar on his eyebrow, other than that, they were identical. Jack, who seemed to be in amazing spirits, released my hand. “I… I’m just glad to be alive. Hey, Alan, right?”

“Yeah,” I replied.

He pointed his head at Vesna. “Care if I walk and talk with Vodka?”

“Vesna,” she said, stepping towards the inside of the base, eager to be swept away.

“You’re a member of the tribe, by all means, explore. I’ll need a summary at some point unless –” I started to say when Cole finished my sentence with a dip of his head. “Happy reunion then.”

The duo walked off with Aubrey pointing at the necklace I wore. “What’s this one do?”

“Everything besides dinosaur domestication. In a way, I get it. We’ve hit a big enough size where we may need a scout team with a beacon and it doesn’t make sense to risk all the dinos to get sulfur,” I said, pulling her in for a side hug. “You’re not letting all that power go to your head, are you?”

The lovely brunette playfully rolled her eyes. “Nope, and you were only gone for half a day.”

I snickered, watching Jack put a hand over the homely Russian woman’s shoulder. “I bet there’s going to be a dozen women from Houston, pining over him. The hero who scared the spino off then endured torture.”

“But one woman did something for him when all hope was lost,” Cole said, already used to the way I interacted with my wives. “The summation is that he held onto the spear all the way until the shore, not wanting to get off in the sarco infested waters. When he bailed, Soviets saw him fall and quickly bound him. They beat him for information, then left him to die. He told them what they wanted to know, but they didn’t care, and it wasn’t any great secret.”

“I won’t hold it against him. He… Let’s be grateful Atticus gave me a deal.” I pointed to the dinos who looked like they got extra rations and a thorough scrubbing. “Excellent prep work.”

Cole held up a finger. “Well, I do have something else. Jack said that the Soviets talked about the Brits a lot. They noticed a few things. Every group has people who speak English.”

“I noticed. Good English too, not the broken stuff. What else?” I asked.

Aubrey rubbed my back and said, “They had their scout come back with an arrow in the shoulder. Vodka… Vesna, translated. Men as dark as night from Africa shot him with a crossbow. The scout was going for a distant drop to the east when this tribe struck without talking first.”

“An African group, okay, not too surprised. The crossbow is. Between the translations, something could have been missed though,” I said.

“Maybe,” Aubrey admitted. “What’s the plan?”

“You, me, our family having dinner on the balcony,” I said.

Cole unleashed a deep laugh, pointing into the sky. I glanced over my shoulder, seeing a drop coming down from the area around Spino Lake. Cole said, “Are you sure about that?”

For the first time in three months, I grunted with a shrug. “I’ve been on one hell of an adventure, that’s close, and yeah, I am going to play the king in his castle tonight. If you don’t wanna lead it, Jarod or Fred can, but it will be someone else doing the fetch quest for once.”

“Uh, what about Rin? The Houston people adore her, she’s smart and capable too,” Cole suggested.

“Sure, take Bertha and a force of thirty. Warning shots to those trying to take the gear, kill those who ignore them. Don’t dally or get bogged down in a fight. Grab the goods, get the fuck out. We have a long journey to the old Soviet base in the morning,” I said, gently scooping up Aubrey, tossing her over my shoulder.

“Oh, please unhand me you…” Aubrey’s playful tease halted suddenly. “Alan?” Her voice was filled with curiosity until she added, “Is this skull in your hair?”

“Maybe.”

“Alan! Set me down you neanderthal,” Aubrey shrieked as I hauled her toward the showers firmly in place.

“No.”

The problem with the showers, or perk, based on who looked at the situation, was that they were no longer easily accessible. Behind the gate, a long elevated first floor spanned across the entire basin. Near the back of it, the waterfall fell into the water below the platform with a minimal opening to utilize every bit of space we could.

To get to the showers, I had to navigate myself through where the majority of the tribe congregated. Our main cooking fire, with a half-built kiln, rested outside the gate’s protection and upon my approach Darnel waved. Behind him, the wash of a hundred small conversations roared out since the interior was absolutely crammed with people. My friend handed out kabobs to people coming in from day shift and to those going out for night shift.

Darnel asked, “Lady problems?”

“Always,” I said in a joking manner.

“He’s covered in gore and smells like iron!” Aubrey said with a huff. I adjusted her into a carry like a man walking his wife through a door, except I walked mine through a dinosaur gate. “Oh, I like this. You’re forgiven.” Her eyes tracked a visiting Ellie who sniffed me no different than a dog would. “She missed you.”

I asked how her day was in dinosaur noises and she replied boring. Not even a dozen feet into the crowd, I found Hiso and Sayuri sitting at one of the few long tables that doubled as emergency sleeping space.

Before I sat down, I sucked in a deep breath and bellowed, “A moment of your time.” The side conversations faded quickly. “The Cartel betrayed the Soviets, killing off most of their men, all of their leadership, and the remaining folks I freed from slavery. I think they’ll respect our rules, and if they don’t, I’ll banish them. Rin is leading a team to a drop by Spino Lake. I need those of you who are able to help secure the close drop out of the door five minutes ago. You should be back in two or three hours tops.”

A few people hurried into action while most loitered about. This was their downtime and the best period of the day besides sunrise for day shift to catch up with night shift. I gently set Aubrey into the bench before sliding in myself.

“Pull up the tribe score,” I ordered.

Aubrey grabbed the obelisk, projecting the data a second later.

Tribe Points: 1,730,741: Tribe Chieftain: Alan Winchester.

Tribe Name: Grant

Tribe Size: 724.3 (includes animals and infants)

Tribe Ranking: 1903/681,190.

Once a Day Beacon Activation: 1/1

Once a Day Topography Scan: 1/1: Once a Week Dinosaur Domestication: 0/1

“Holy shit, we added a ton of points, but… this is sad,” Hiso muttered.

I nodded in agreement, not saying anything at first. Eric passed by, stopping to view the score with folded arms. He said, “I’ve looked at the data, we should be doing better.”

“Yeah, but there are twenty thousand less tribes,” Aubrey said with a distant stare. “We’re slipping in rank because -”

“War. War engulfs Earth yet again. Consolidation is good for the species, but not for the people.” I danced blood-soaked fingers on the table. “We’re no different, swallowing tribe after tribe until our base is so busy, we won’t need a furnace to heat the buildings.”

“Right! And we have all the windows open,” Sayur said.

I grinned, letting it turn into a frown because the conversation wasn’t exactly light. “Look, I… I don’t see a world in which everything is shared nicely. If I had to guess, there are a dozen tribes in the area, some of them making deals and claims on drops like the one outside our base.”

“Just tell them it's ours,” Eric said with a scoff.

Hiso correctly sighed with a head shake. “And so it begins anew. These supplies bring conflict, not peace.”

“Alan crushed the Cartel twice, saved the Houston Tribe, and by this time tomorrow will have converted the Soviets into our fold. Our base is doing better than ever before and it doesn’t matter who we face, because we do so with a mighty herd,” Sayuri said.

I grumbled. “The Art of War is keen on learning about your enemies. We’re going in blind and that needs to change.” I rose from my seat. “We secure this drop, then continue our diplomacy. I’m not worried about falling in the ranks. I’m concerned about keeping us alive, content, and happy.”

My hand swept across a mix of humans from different regions of the world. Most smiled with exuberance, enjoying their break before we continued to expand, explore, and exploit the environment.

I gently picked up Aubrey again with an ear to ear grin. “Excuse me while I take my wife for a shower… even if she is squeaky clean.”

Aubrey pretended to swoon. “We’ll be back shortly after a brief… cooldown. Yes, my husband had a big climatic fight and now it’s time to celebrate before the start of a new adventure.”

The End!

Yes! I love telling Tribe Grant’s story. Thanks for joining me on this great ride. The best way to stay tuned to updates, news, or get giveaways is to join the Royal Guard Publishing discord. Wishing you and yours the best,

Marcus

Afterword

I grew up as a little kid, wondering why the greats of old died. Then Jurassic Park came out, and it scared the living shit out of me as a kid, but… I quickly turned that fear into fascination. The reality was that dinosaurs ruled this Earth in a way we could daydream about. This is one of those what-ifs I don’t think we want. Kinda like a 40k reality—nah, man, I’ll pass. But maybe, just mmaybe,if we work together, humanity can form their tribes to become something special.

Hence Tribe Grant. I am loving this book, it’s kind my deal. I may or may not be playing a lot of a certain video game that bears some resemblance. I definitely enjoy dinosaurs and survival stuff, knowing this is exactly the type of book I’d love reading.

If you did enjoy, give it some love. Book two is half done with this book being delayed for audio production, so I bet two will be on preorder darn close if not at release. And yeah, support our wonderful voice actors, get the audio too.

Personal note: since I used to do these and loved reading Craig Alanson’s journal entries. Life is good. I never wrote for money, always wanting to tell a grand tale. That is why there are flops like Spartan Justice on my resume. Audio is fantastic, and I still write because it is my jam. My 2024 goals are to buy a classic car or something I really want, since I don’t have a car or drive often. The Fam is doing well, our pets are getting very old, and life is sorta skating by.

I do wish you and yours the best.

Marcus

Dino Tribes 2

A Prehistoric Build and Survive Harem Adventure

Marcus Sloss

Copyright © 2024 by Marcus Sloss

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Contents

1.  A Smart, Dumb Rex

2.  A Man Who Has Everything

3.  Drops Galore!

4.  Old-Fashioned

5.  Let's Do a Diplomacy

6.  A Metal Resolve

7.  People of the Sand

8.  999

9.  Gravedigger

10.  Damsel in Distress

11.  Spy Toads

12.  Birthday Dinner

13.  One Day and Counting

14.  Rainbows and Whiptails

15.  Investigator

16.  Bolt

17.  Long Time No See

18.  No Dinos Allowed

19.  Making Nice

20.  A Woman Who Knows Things

21.  Uninvited Guests

22.  The Wedding Gift

23.  A Buttload of Problems

24.  Lucky Number Five

25.  Shut Up and Take a Shower

26.  Spielberg

27.  Fire in the Hole

28.  Neon

29.  Zealot

30.  The Shifting Earth

31.  A Deadly Quest

32.  Report!

33.  The Warrior Woman

34.  Winner Take All

35.  Mountain Duel

36.  Abe

37.  Me and My Four Best Friends

38.  Padme

39.  Girl in a Golden Bikini

40.  Dinos Don't Play Fair

41.  Always a Bigger Dinosaur

42.  Orion and Finch

43.  Knowledge is Power

44.  Queen of Spies

45.  I Like You, Too

46.  Only Power

Afterword

Check This Out!

Chapter 1

A Smart, Dumb Rex

THERE’S one thing they never tell you about the end of the world—about alien takeovers, dinosaurs coming back, and people returning to tribes and killing each other. You know, your common everyday end of the world? Well, there’s one thing they never tell you about it.

The stars are fucking fantastic.

I was out on patrol tonight, taking a simple duty for once. Sometimes, I got tired of leading people. The weight of over 700 people’s worlds rested on my shoulders, and now and then, I just wanted to walk around the jungle with a spear and throw it at anything that moved.

Nothing much did, though. I rode Darth, our eldest T-Rex. He was old enough to mate, according to our alien encyclopedia, but he was still not full-size. Wherever he went, the ground shook, and dinos scattered in fear. The larger the predator, the better of a patroller they were, because just walking around scared enemies off.

A twig snapped nearby, and I turned toward it, but not with much worry. Contrary to what the horror movies of Old Earth might tell you, twigs always snapped in the jungle. Usually, it was wind, or settling detritus. It was when you heard two sounds, close together, that you needed to worry.

About ten feet off, a dead leaf crunched.

I went still, and Darth did too, even though I didn’t order him to. Did he sense a presence? As a predator who attacked very large prey, the Tyrannosaurus didn’t have much need for good hearing. Very little could hurt him, so he was rather deaf. You had to yell for him to hear commands from more than a couple of feet away.

The forest was eerily quiet under the watchful light of the moon. The foliage was dense to either side of the patrol path, carved by months of dinos passing through on their rounds. My one hand tightened on my spear and I stood in my stirrups.

A rustle. Might just be the wind.

Unease trickled down my spine, even though an attack by something small was unlikely. What could possibly be brazen enough to stalk a rex? I thought. Raptors sometimes gave it a go, but they tended to go after younger, smaller rexes.

My free hand on the reins now, I raised my feet from the stirrups to the set of the saddle, where I could leap off at a moment’s notice. If something attacked us, and if it was smart, I knew exactly where it would go.

Yet nothing moved in the shadows between dense mangroves and vine mats. Only the ferns trembled in the quiet wind. Darth's snorting breaths were the only real sound.

He growled. Yeah, something was up, if he could sense it.

"Easy boy," I muttered. Something was out there, watching and waiting. If it wasn’t raptors, it would be humans.

If it was humans, we might be in big trouble. I should switch from my spear to a flare—

Without warning, a massive light-brown shape erupted from the bromeliads ahead of us, launching itself at Darth's exposed throat. My reflexes kicked in and I swung around his neck by the reins, driving the sharpened tip of my spear deep into the beast’s chest only moments before it reached Darth’s throat.

Easy, I thought. They always go for the throat.

Then the creature roared, but it was like no roar I’d heard in months. I recognized it not from the prehistoric landscape of New Earth, but from nature documentaries I used to watch as a kid.

The creature was falling now, sliding to the end of my spear. It wasn’t a dinosaur.

It was a tiger.

The creature writhed, swiping feebly at me with its hook-like claws. I was forced to drop the spear under its weight, and Darth reared back to get clear of it, bellowing in fury.

The tiger thudded to the ground, my spear still embedded in its flesh. It snarled, blood pouring from the wound. Darth made to stomp on it.

A sharp crack sounded to our left.

"Darth, spin!" I barked. Immediately he dropped his foot and pivoted, his massive tail swinging in a wide arc to clear the area around us. His head swept sideways with the rest of him, and momentum pulled me outwards. I let go of the reins and thumped to the hard ground of the main path—

Just as more tigers erupted from the underbrush, streaking towards us from every direction.

The first was a distraction, I thought, and Darth bellowed as the second tiger slammed into his flank, claws raking across his thick hide. I clambered to my feet and sprinted for the dead tiger, my spear still protruding from its chest. The tigers ignored me for now. To them, Darth was the real threat.

But that was odd, too. Most dinos we came across had met humans by now. Either these tigers had never encountered humans—unlikely—or they’d easily killed any humans they had found.

That meant I couldn’t underestimate them—but I never underestimated anyone. That’s why I’d lasted so long.

Darth completed his spin, lashing his tail, upending three tigers before they could land a bite on him. His heavy footsteps shook the earth, and I nearly lost my balance as I ran toward the nearest upended tiger.

I stopped running, set my stance, and threw.

Tiger number two, down, I thought, running again to reclaim my weapon.

"Keep them off you. And protect your neck!" I shouted to Darth. “Bite what you can, but don’t prioritize that! Knock them down, and I’ll finish them off!”

Obedient as ever, the rex lowered his head and swung his tail in another wide arc, using it as a brutal flail against two more tigers. There had to be eight of them, and one had made it onto his back. It raked its claws across the meat of his ribs.

The remaining tigers backed off, Darth snapping his teeth after them. They weren’t leaving, though. I could see them studying us as I retrieved my spear. The things were planning. I could almost sense them devising ways around Darth’s defenses.

“Darth, spin again!” I commanded as the foremost tiger tensed.

Their next attacks came staggered, the first one a total fake-out, the tiger lunging halfway toward Darth and then switching direction. This time, several tigers slipped past Darth's lashing tail. One pounced at me from the side, and I barely dodged the rapid slash of its paw.

Darth rumbled in pain as three tigers leaped upon him, and he ceased spinning, all his focus on keeping his precarious balance. The tigers clung to his broad back, clawing and biting, shredding the saddle. His thick hide blunted their attacks, but they’d dig through him in no time. All cats were famous for having sharp claws.

I aimed my spear at the tiger highest on Darth’s back; if I went for the others, I might hit Darth. I threw, taking the creature in the side. It lost its grip and slid off.

Darth stomped on it. My gut twisted at the horrible crunch.

A roar of fury went up from one of the other tigers, but it wasn’t Darth he was angry at. One pair of feline eyes locked onto me, and the tiger charged me, leaping from the high ground of Darth’s back.

Weaponless, I grabbed another standard patrol item on my belt: the net. As I barely sidestepped the lunge, I snapped the weighted net out behind me, ballooning it.

The tiger slowed as soon as it felt the material in its face, but then it panicked, thrashing against the mesh. Within moments it had tangled itself up better than I ever could on my own. The human-woven netting wouldn’t hold the thing forever, but it bought me time to get my spear back.

The tiger let loose a new roar, and the other tigers heard the cry. As one they abandoned their attack on Darth and turned their focus to me. Even the ones on his back stopped digging at him.

I was exposed, alone, with all their attention, and nothing but a flare and a knife to use against them.

They fanned out, yellow eyes glowing with bloodlust, all of them dropping low, ready to pounce. I took a deep breath. Think, think.

But dodging five tigers at once would take a miracle. I didn’t have that sort of agility. No human did.

Suddenly Darth stomped his foot, the thunderous sound shaking the trees along the path-side. The tigers hesitated, a few eyes drawn back to the towering T-Rex.

Seizing the opportunity, I went back for my spear. From now on, patrollers will have to carry two. One wasn’t enough against a herd.

As I wrenched my spear free, I heard a growl behind me. I turned to see a sixth tiger, hidden until this moment. It was right behind me, coiled to attack.

Before I could react, Darth snapped his powerful jaws around the creature, lifting it into the air. The tiger thrashed and yowled as Darth shook it like a dog toy. With a final violent shake of his head, he flung the tiger's limp body aside.

The other tigers froze at this display of brute strength. I held my breath, spear out, waiting to see if they would continue to fight.

But the loss of their companion had drained their resolve. One by one, the tigers melted back into the forest, abandoning our little tussle.

I let out a whoop of triumph, punching the air. Darth rumbled happily in response. I leaned against his scaly leg, both of us exhausted.

“You did good, buddy,” I said, patting his ankle. “I didn’t even have to boss you around half the time. You’re smarter than I gave you credit for.”

Darth rumbled again, dropping his massive head to nuzzle me. It was like getting nuzzled by a China cabinet full of teeth.

I scratched his chin. He and I were becoming fast friends, lately, although he was bonding well with Cole and Elsa too.

Satisfied with the scritches, Darth swung his head away and started chewing on a sapwood tree. He spat it out a moment later, his snout wrinkling. Unsurprisingly, sapwood trees tasted like sap.

“Then again,” I said, “maybe you’re exactly as smart as I thought. But hey, we work good together, eh, boy?”

He didn’t answer, going for another tree. Predators liked to munch on them, but it was a teeth-cleaning instinct. They preferred to swallow red stuff, not green.

With the tigers gone, an eerie silence descended on the forest. "Let's get out of here," I said, hauling myself into the torn saddle, which barely clung to Darth anymore. Once there, I reached for my belt and retrieved a flare, the third standard-issue piece of a patroller’s kit. I aimed it directly upward and fired it off by pressing a self-light button at the base.

One flare, sent straight upward, meant a non-emergency. This would call a harvest team to this location, with protection. I needed these creatures skinned; until now, we’d been dealing almost exclusively with dino leather for clothing and warmth, and fur would be a nice change. The net would need to be retrieved as well, and we could take their meat to see how good it tasted. Darnel always enjoyed trying new recipes.

With that out of the way, I touched the obelisk around my neck and said aloud, “Mark this location on the topo map, please.”

A chime sounded in confirmation. The next time I used one of my daily topography scans, the site of this ambush would show up as a marker. I was going to want to track the tigers from here if I could. New furs would be worth their weight in gold.

“All right, boy, there’s still some patrolling to do,” I said, and Darth wheezed out a patch of ferns and began to lumber back down the path. I kept my spear at the ready, senses primed for any sign of renewed pursuit. But for now, at least, it seemed the tigers had learned their lesson; humans were not easy prey.

Then again, it was strange that they’d ignored me at the start of the fight. We’d been noticing for some time that dinosaurs recognized humans now, whereas before, they used to see us as harmless fellow dinos. Now, they almost always saw us as threats. We were apex predators, just as bad as T-Rexes, if not worse. Wild dinosaurs had learned that through experience.

But not those saber-tooths. Why was that? Those furs would be highly sought after. Surely they’d been attacked before now?

“Do you think they’re new?” I asked Darth, not because he would answer, but because I liked thinking aloud. “They might be. Aliens are always dropping new teams, so why not new animals, too?”

The choice of saber-tooths was concerning, though. Those tigers were known for their Arctic habitats.

“They’re a preliminary measure,” I decided. “Because winter’s on the way.”

I shivered. Winter. Autumn was upon us now, the nights chilly, the days comfortable—but it would only get colder from here. Tribe Grant had a lot of work yet to do.

And unfortunately for us, tiger fur would be the least of it. War was on the horizon. Perhaps it always would be.

“Enough excitement, Darth,” I said. “Let’s go home.”

Chapter 2

A Man Who Has Everything

IT WAS EARLY MORNING, well before dawn, when I got back to camp. I left Darth in his enclosure, where he happily curled up, his tongue lolling. Hard to believe he’d just been so smart in that fight, and all on his own. Normally he acted like an oversized dog.

I checked the gallimimus pens, then the pteranodon nest, and finally the raptor stables, but all were empty but for a few injured, healing animals. I’d sent all my scouting teams on various missions lately, so the hunt for the saber-tooths would have to wait. They’d likely be far out of range before I had a real chance to track them—although if I had to guess, they’d be back in no time. The aliens would make sure they had a chance at revenge because vengeance made for great entertainment.

Sighing to myself, I decided to call it a night. I could do more leading tomorrow. For now, I wanted to rest. I also craved a bit of solitude.

I remembered the stars, and I knew where to go.

“Thought I might find you up here,” Sayuri said an hour later. I’d heard her coming up the cliff-side path for a while now. She wasn’t on my hunting crews outside of her required hours, and never on the ground fighting, so she wasn’t great at being quiet. Especially not in bed.

“We starting this early now?” I asked her with a sigh. Dawn was breaking above the mountainous edges of the horizon, the vibrant stars fading into an expressionless sky. Ever since I’d learned about Britonia, the fortified settlement to the south of me, I’d started to have trouble sleeping. The aliens wanted Tribe Grant and Britonia to kill each other.

I hoped their king, Archie, wanted to tell the aliens to go screw themselves with a million trike horns. But I worried that he might have other ideas.

“There’s going to be a problem with the water,” Sayuri said, sitting next to me on the top of the cliff. Our feet dangled over a hundred-foot drop, overlooking the settlement we had worked so hard to build. And there it was—the other reason I had trouble sleeping. Winter was coming.

And we weren’t ready.

“There a reason you needed to tell me this now, and not in an hour?” I asked her tiredly. I rarely got to be alone anymore. Up until a few months ago, I’d been a bachelor. Now I had four wives and several children on the way, plus hundreds of people counting on me to keep them alive. Can you blame a guy for needing a breather?

“I’m telling you out of proximity,” she said. “I was up here anyway, surveying the underground river with Eric.” She pointed back the way she had come. “The good news is that we can excavate the river. Its surface isn’t too deep under the ground, but the water itself goes very deep. We can use it as a natural reservoir... but only if we find a way to slow down the flow. It’s good clean water, but it’s moving too fast.”

By underground river, she meant the source of the waterfall, which hissed out of the rock about twenty feet below us, filling the basin in the center of the settlement. We’d figured the water hadn’t come from nowhere. There had to be a source under the mountain somewhere.

I smiled. “You were up at what, five in the morning? To dig up a lake?”

“That’s six p.m. Japan time. Sometimes my clock rolls back.”

“Ahh. Yeah, my military training gets me the same way,” I said, reaching across her shoulders and pulling her into me. She was so small that she easily fit under my arm, a few wisps of her silky black hair tickling my chin. “So, that was the good news. And the bad news?”

“Due to the elevation,” she replied, not wasting time, “we can expect even the groundwater to freeze come winter. Unless we do something.”

A frozen water source, I thought. Just what we need.

“I’ll think about it. Maybe that sulfur deposit will help?” We recently built our first outpost there. The place was little more than a watchtower with a band of raptors, plus an ankylosaurus crew for insurance. But the aliens kept yammering on about sulfur, so we snatched the place before Britonia could show up.

Sayuri consulted her notebook, which only ever left her hands in the bedroom. “Hmm. Says here that sulfur is used for meat preservation, but we already have an alien machine for that.”

I shrugged. “Still good if we run out of NE to power it.

“Naturally. We have the food side of winter down, at least.” She paused, her free hand wandering into my lap. “Aside from that, it looks like sulfur is used for propellant. Gasoline, basically.”

That got a laugh out of me. Who needs gasoline when you can ride a rex?

“So, not useful. Yet,” I said. “But I bet we could concoct rudimentary flares or bombs with it. Propellant is flammable, after all.”

“I’ll ask around for people who know chemistry,” Sayuri replied. “Maybe they can take a crack at it.”

I nodded. That didn’t solve our original problem, but I wasn’t worried. We might not have a way to warm the reservoir water, but the aliens loved drama. If it got close to winter and we were all on the verge of death, they’d offer me a mission to “save” my people in exchange for murdering someone else’s. Atticus—my favorite alien emissary—would pull strings for me if nothing else.

“Let’s say we do slow the water down,” I said. “What big plans would you have for the reservoir?”

Sayuri’s voice instantly perked up. “Oh, irrigation. Lots of it. We could get clean water into homes, with filtration. We could get it to the smithing shop, to the basin, the fishing pools when they’re low; sluice gates and a little excavation could keep the settlement from flooding. We could have canals. Canals! We could ferry material all around town.

“And of course,” she went on, her voice picking up momentum, “we could funnel water to different parts of the settlement. For example, we could run a wide swath of water across the dino pastures, which would clean up the fecal matter and save us a lot of hands playing poop-scooper all day. Then we could divert that water to the crops—instant fertilizer! But....”

Now she sighed a sad sound. I took the bait. “But...?”

“But it would be so nice if we could terrace our farmland. That, paired with irrigation—it would be glorious.”

It would be. A nice, economical farming setup. Nothing would make my fourth wife happier.

“If we had the manpower to dig up terraces from solid rock, and unearth a reservoir to boot, then I wouldn’t be half so worried about Britonia attacking us,” I said.

She fell silent. There was little else to say on the matter. I’d be leaving soon on a diplomatic trip to Britonia, and while I was worried that King Archie might declare war, all my wives were worried he’d murder me and have done. As if I’d make it that easy, but hey can’t blame a wife for worrying, especially when two of them were visibly pregnant.

Aubrey. Missy.... I shook my head again. They might have to give birth over winter. Would the babies survive, if I screwed up? Would they?

Sayuri’s hand on my thigh crept higher. She rubbed at my crotch and turned her face into my neck. I heard the tiny chuff of her notebook as it hit the stone on her other side. That meant she was ready for business.

“The sunrise sure is beautiful,” she whispered against my throat, slipping her hand into my pants and gripping. My eyes drifted closed as she started to stroke. “I was thinking... this would be a fine place to make a child.”

“Mmmm,” I said, scooting back from the edge and pulling her onto me. Recently, the women of the tribe had used our new hide processor to contrive some skirts for themselves, rather than the prehistoric diaper things they’d come in with. The settlement was now getting into fashion, of all things—different cuts of skirts and dresses, in different hides. Couldn’t say I minded. It made access easier.

“Ooh,” Sayuri moaned as I parted her skirts and pulled her down onto me. My cock slid into her, so easy when she was already so wet. Sometimes I wondered if city planning turned her on.

“I always forget how big you are,” she gasped, rising and falling on top of me, shoving me deep. My hands roved up her back, untying her top, a little thing laced up with leather thongs. Her breasts bounced free, and I curled them into my hands, my thumbs toying with her dark nipples.

“I wouldn’t be half so big if you weren’t so hot,” I said, kissing her jaw and making her shudder and tighten. “You sure you want this, though, Sai? A baby?”

I’d come in her before, our first night together, but she’d asked me to refrain ever since.

“All us wives we’ve been talking,” she said, pausing between breaths, every word a moan. “We’ve concluded that”

I let one hand fall, toying with her clit. “Yeah?”

Her voice changed tempo and she said all at once, “That you should impregnate two of us... every three months... oh, God, Alan. Fuck.”

My fingers played faster. “Every three months? You’re giving me a schedule?”

“We have to maximize... the population growth....”

Her words trailed off, and she breathed loudly against me as I sat back on one arm and enjoyed the view. With my other hand, I worked her, exactly how she liked it. She was in a lather in no time, her thighs tensing against my hips.

“Oh, lords, Alan... you’re gonna make me come.”

“Inside you?”

“Yes. I want it all inside me. I want... your baby... ohhh.”

She slowed as I finally got her there, and she screamed atop the cliff for the whole tribe to hear and look up. Talk about a morning wakeup call.

Well, the cock had to crow, too. As her sex shuddered and pulsed around me, I lost myself to the feeling. I had a lot to do today, and I would need all my self-control for my duties. I wasn’t going to spend any of it by holding back now.

She groaned and clung to me as I came where she’d asked me to. I held fast to the feeling of oneness as I spurted inside her, a sense of delight swelling low in my stomach. She trusted me so much that she wanted my baby.

She trusted me with her own life, and also her child’s.

Afterward, as we lay breathing together, I asked her what she’d meant before. “You said something about every three months?”

She nodded against my shoulder, her naked body snuggled against me to ward off the autumn chill. “Yes. Missy and Aubrey are the first round. Then three months, and you impregnate the second round. And so on. That way, you will always have able-bodied wives to satisfy your needs and help out around the settlement.”

I nodded. Spacing out pregnancies? Sounded smart to me.

My heart thudded. “Wait—two wives every three months?”

“Mmmm.”

“Sayuri, pregnancies last nine months. That’s three sets of three.”

“Mmmm.”

“Sayuri.”

She giggled. “So you can do math.” Her head rose, and her dark eyes sparkled into mine. “Yes, it means what you think it means. Two pregnant wives, three times in a row. We’ve decided that you need two more wives.”

I groaned. “Two? Am I not tired enough already?”

“Yes, two. One to be approved by us, as per usual.” She patted my chest. “And the other dealer’s choice.”

My gaze shot back to hers. “I’m sorry, what?”

Sayuri grinned. “You get one freebie. One wife without approval.” She circled my nipple with a lazy finger, clearly enjoying my mystification. “We just figured that, since you’d be out on diplomatic missions and sometimes we might not be able to be with you... well. You have to take an opportunity if it presents itself. So, we are giving you one freebie. After all, what do you give the man who has everything?”

My eyes narrowed. On any other day, I would have thought this a joke. But not today.

“How on New Earth,” I said, “did you know it was my birthday?”

My fourth wife leaned down and kissed me. “We’re wives, Alan. It’s what we do.”

Chapter 3

Drops Galore!

ONE NEW LOVER. Of my choice.

I couldn’t get the thought out of my head, not when I returned to camp, not when I looked over the seventy-seventh completed dwelling, not when I ate a lunch of dilo jerky and breadfruit, and especially not when the obelisk warmed against my chest and I ran a topography scan.

My choice of woman. She could be anywhere. Anywhere on this map, or beyond.

I’m not sure why the idea gripped me so much. I had always been completely fine with having my wives choose my harem because I much preferred a peaceful home over a menagerie of angry, jealous women.

But you could still end up with that, if you choose wrong, I thought. Ah. That’s why I couldn’t stop thinking about this. It was a lot of pressure but a lot of excitement too.

“Whoa! Drops galore!” Eric said.

My mind finally disconnected from all thoughts of my future mystery wife. It might be my birthday, but it was no time to be lazy. It was never time to be lazy on New Earth.

Eric leaned over my shoulder to look closer at the holographic scan. He wasn’t my normal wingman, but after my morning tryst with Sayuri, he’d caught up with me to give me a full rundown of the reservoir. Lucky for us, he used to be a geologist. It had come in handy as we built Tribe Grant, carving the settlement—ever so slowly—out of the cliff face above us.

Eric pointed between the drop icons. “Damn, three within close range? And that one’s right by the new outpost!”

For a moment I glanced at the saber-tooth marker, but that would come later. My eyes zeroed in on the drop locations next, more out of habit than from conscious effort. My body got a rush of adrenaline upon seeing the icon for drops. Every drop was a treasure hoard of goodies from the aliens. Sometimes a drop contained processing machines, sometimes dino saddles, sometimes the occasional weapon or armor set, and sometimes even cryogenically frozen humans with special skill sets to choose from.

Whatever it contained, we would want it—and we’d want to get there faster than Britonia, and also faster than the Africans. We knew the dark-skinned nomadic tribe was somewhere within range, but we’d been having a devil of a time pinpointing their caravan or even laying eyes on them. Regardless, they were rapid when it came to getting drops.

Which meant I had to act fast.

“Take our spare raptor wing and snag this one,” I said, pointing to the drop nearest our settlement. “You’re leading this one, Eric. Go.”

Eric was running even before he finished nodding to me. He knew the stakes as well.

I held the obelisk to my mouth, my feet already carrying me to Malcolm’s roost. The farthest drop, the one near Britonia, would be impossible to reach in time if I didn’t fly there.

“Contact Obelisk Two,” I said into the alien pendant as I jogged. “Obelisk Two, do you read?”

“Loud and clear, boss,” Carl replied, his voice distorted somewhat, probably for effect. Alien tech was never distorted when they spoke to us, so they must be laying on some theatrics with the static.

“You’ve got a drop near your location,” I said, speeding up into a jog. “Take half your dinos and go for it. Can’t imagine anyone will get there before you do, but scoot back to the outpost before opening the goods. You don’t want your forces split.”

“Sure thing,” Carl replied.

“Good luck. End contact,” I said into the obelisk. The command ended our communication. “Send coordinates for this drop—” I tapped the drop site in the holo “to Obelisk two.”

“This will constitute your second topo scan for the day,” a bored alien voice replied. “Is that acceptable?”

“Yes. Send it.”

The aliens obliged.

“Kaity!” I called out, reaching the first of several tiers of the nesting areas. My pteranodon specialist spun around from the nesting box she’d been leaning over. She was Eric’s girlfriend, so maybe he’d be bringing her back a nice gift from his drop. I waved my arm at her.

“All hands!” I shouted. “Fliers follow me. We got a drop!”

“Arms?” she asked.

I laughed as I darted past her. “Always!”

That was a rule I’d had to reiterate to the flight team: never go anywhere without a weapon. But with our pteras, it did have consequences. They could only lift the weight of small people, generally women, and very rarely was someone small enough that the ptera could also take the weight of a spear. So, this call to arms would halve my team on this trip. I’d get about six followers, eight tops.

It would have to do.

Aubrey met me at Malcolm’s roost, breathing hard, her stomach visibly protruding now as her pregnancy advanced. I slowed as I reached for the stirrups to my quetzal’s saddle. Malcolm ruffled his feathers; he was ready to go, my command already reaching him across the mental connection granted by the alien tech.

“Aubrey, you should be—” I started to say.

“No. I’m going with you,” she replied.

I wanted to argue, but there wasn’t time. Besides, a sky-borne Malcolm was the safest place she could be.

“Fine. Get on,” I said. “But no strenuous exercise, you hear me? That’s final.”

She huffed, following me up the stirrups. “Throwing a spear is hardly strenuous.”

“Say that when you’re experiencing g-force,” I replied, pulling her up behind Malcolm’s wings into his brand-new saddle, another recent gift from the aliens. “Malcolm, go,” I told him, and started listing directions as he took off.

Meanwhile, Aubrey was looking over the topo scan, which I had yet to dismiss. It followed me so long as I had the obelisk, and I realized I should have handed off the necklace before leaving. It would be bad news if I got killed while wearing it.

“We’re headed for this one?” she asked, pointing. “Alan, that’s—”

“Right next to Britonia? Yeah, I know.”

It wasn’t something Eric had fully comprehended. Jarod would have, but he was still snoozing somewhere, and I had to use whatever tools were on hand.

“But... Alan, they’ll get there first, won’t they?”

“Not if Mal gets a move on. He can cover ground faster than land dinos, and recon says King Archie hasn’t got a flier team. He barely has a team of dinos at all.”

“Yes, but they’re all outside his walls, right? They can probably deploy faster.”

“With people who don’t want to ride them, and probably haven’t trained much,” I put in. Britonia was already known for avoiding the use of dinos at all costs. Their tribe was too busy copying the history of Old Earth, complete with a monarchy and an old-fashioned fortress, to get invested in prehistoric livestock. Whatever the aliens wanted them to do, they did the opposite. It was stupid, but it did give me hope for peace between us. If they didn’t want to kill us to please our overlords, then we wouldn’t have to kill them right back.

I glanced back to see Kaity’s flight team taking to wing about a half mile behind me. They’d be slower than Mal, but that was fine. If I could hold the drop with Malcolm for a few minutes, they’d catch up.

And I needed to hold this drop, more than any of them.

“Alan, what are you planning?” Aubrey asked. We were going so fast now that she had to shout.

“I’m making friends,” I called back, “or at least, I hope so.”

“And if they don’t want to be friends?” she asked, gripping tight to my arm.

I grinned at her. “Then I’m starting a war.”

Chapter 4

Old-Fashioned

THE CRISP AUTUMN wind tossed my hair like the unruly salad it had lately become. The prehistoric jungle unraveled beneath Malcolm, a carpet of faded green date palms and aspens and trees without any name I ever knew. The occasional pine or ancient pine relative—shone through here and there, the only hint that this place had once been swimming in wintergreens.

I kept my gaze fixed ahead, where the drop lay. After a half hour of intense flight time, I spotted a pimple of a shape on the forested horizon.

I nodded at it, and Aubrey squinted to see what I meant. It was Britonia, the fortress-city. Our scouts had described it to us, but now I performed my own brief survey of the distant place, hoping to get some sort of feel for it.

Do you want us dead? I thought. Or do you want peace and prosperity for your people? Whatever it is, I'm about to find out.

"We're close," I shouted over the roaring wind.

“Time to suit up, then," Aubrey called back.

I eyed her, but she merely flicked a finger at the obelisk hanging around my neck.

“That’ll be my suit,” she said. “I’ll stay airborne, don’t worry. As for you....”

She picked her way over to the side satchel of Malcolm’s harness, holding onto the guide ropes as she did so. It wasn’t a long walk, as the lower back of the quetzal was much longer than it was wide. At the satchel, she flipped the top to reveal a set of alien armor nestled inside, like little silver eggshells broken apart by a long-gone beast.

I laughed, the sound stolen by the wind. Aubrey had lately taken to outfitting our war animals so that we could launch an attack or be defensive at the drop of a hat. It was her pet project, the smart mission overseer that she was.

I was grateful for her foresight now, and with a bit of help, we began strapping the alien armor pieces onto my body, taking care to lean into the wind.

The bluish, lightweight metal felt cold even through my shirt. As each piece clicked into place, my anxiety rose. My eyes kept wandering to the woods. Where is that drop? Are we too late to reach it first? Britonia is within sight of it....

If they had raptors at their command, they could get there faster than Malcolm could fly. But I’d heard Britonia wasn’t much into using dinos. They were old-fashioned, adhering to the old ways of humanity. Building an Anglo-Saxon city-fort was proof enough of that.

Old-fashioned? Maybe future-fashioned is the real term for it, I thought, scowling at the memory of the aliens taking everything from us. It was easy to forget we were still basically toys to a greater race. I couldn’t blame Britonia for not wanting to please their masters by taking on dinos as they’d been instructed.

I secured the last piece of armor and took a deep breath. "Keep your eyes open,” I said.

Aubrey nodded, tightening her grip around my waist. Malcolm shrieked and beat his powerful wings as the icon on the holo grew closer to our location. I still had not dismissed the floating map.

Abruptly Malcolm dove, making us shout just in time for him to level out again, and start circling. Aubrey turned green and had to sit down in the middle if the saddle area, but I watched the quetzal’s shadow passing over the jungle canopy below, searching for the telltale glint of alien metal.

There! I spotted a clearing just ahead, with a large misshapen object at the center of it. Malcolm banked at my command, aiming toward it.

At that moment, sunlight broke through the early morning cloud cover, clarifying the view. In the clearing, the alien pod stood twice my height, looking nothing so much like a couple of refrigerators linked together at odd angles.

I would have smiled, but of course, there was more: a herd of triceratops surrounded the drop, nosing curiously at the metal shell.

"There's our drop!" I said, patting the nearest of Malcolm's feathery ribs. "Get as low as you can, but keep your distance from the trikes."

The quetzal shrieked in reply, back-winging to coast just atop the canopy as we neared the edge of the clearing. I chewed my lip, wondering how we’d deal with the trikes when it hit me.

You had a plan, and this can factor into it. Hell, it can make the plan better!

“Aubrey!” I shouted, and she looked up from her spot on the leather floor. “I’ve got a task for you.”

“I’ll do my—urk—best,” she replied. “Just so long as—hurk—as Malcolm flies in a straight line after this!”

The bird’s rapid changes of direction couldn’t be helping with her pregnancy nausea, so I wasted no time in giving her instructions while Malcolm circled as lazily as he could. When I was sure she understood, I turned to the other storage bag attached to Malcolm’s harness and retrieved a spool of reinforced rope. As usual, it was a gift from the aliens. Unlike Britonia, I would use all the tools I’d been given, even if my overlords had been the ones to give them.

“Malcolm!” I boomed. “Swerve and go back, then round the clearing peninsula five times!”

As the quetzal banked and made a beeline for the perimeter, I shot Aubrey a sheepish look. She held a hand to her mouth, eyes winched closed, waiting for the circling to be over.

Once Malcolm flew close and low enough, I leaned out and dropped the rope among the trees at the edge of the clearing. As he circled, I kept dropping ropes, getting them as tangled in the foliage as I could. After five passes, I dropped the rest of the rope into the canopy.

"Take me down, buddy," I said, patting Malcolm. The quetzal dipped low in response, making me feel weightless for half a second before he leveled out and gave a monumental flap of his huge wings. That stalled our momentum enough for me to jump over the side of the saddle and not die when I thudded to the ground.

Another massive wing-flap later, and Mal was rising again, blowing the grass back and reminding me—again—that my hair was getting too damn long. It whipped into my eyes, enough to hurt.

“Be careful!” Aubrey called out, drawing the attention of the trikes just as much as Malcolm was. The herd had yet to notice me, even though I’d landed among them.

I turned and darted into the woods, my light armor moving smoothly with my body. The stuff didn’t even clink, just molded to each contraction of muscle as if it were a second skin. I hadn’t gotten much chance to use it, preferring to save it for the most important missions, but I was thankful Aubrey had packed it onto Malcolm.

Inside the tree line, I searched out the nearest segment of dropped rope, and started following it to its end. As I ran it through my hands, I looped it over stumps and branches and even one random boulder. If an object looked like it might hold a lot of weight, it has a loop around it.

Behind me, the trikes roared at Malcolm’s retreating form, while the ones in the center kept munching on the contents of the pod. I cringed at the thought of what they might be eating. Were we losing valuable goods?

I shoved the thoughts down. By the time I was done here, it wouldn’t matter.

Finally I found one end of the dropped rope, and I hurried to tie it to the thickest tree trunk I could find. My military training had included tying knots, so I knew this one would hold against pretty much anything. I found the other end of the rope soon after, pulled it tight, and knotted it too.

As I finished up, I heard the first sounds of the approaching Britonian drop-hunters, shouting to each other. A hadrosaur call added to the noise, which meant they were riding duck-bills, not raptors. That was a plus for me. Hadrosaurs were less dangerous, and slower, even if they had more stamina and weight capacity than raptors.

Time was nearly up. I lunged back for the clearing and then planted my feet, detaching my arm piece and using it to catch the morning light. After a few flashes up at the sky, Malcolm responded with a strange, loon-like cry. Aubrey had seen my signal, and Malcolm was diving toward me at a rapid clip.

I took up a position inside the feeble barricade of tangled ropes, like a circus conductor in the center ring of the big top. I kept my knees bent in case I needed to vault over a trike because soon, I’d have them running toward me—and toward the trap of the ropes.

As Malcolm leveled out a final time, Aubrey hefted a spear and threw. The first missed, landing among the disturbed trikes. Aubrey threw another without a second’s hesitation.

This one hit.

It struck the flank of one of the larger trikes. The creature let out a bellow of pain. A loud bellow. What a drama queen.

Immediately, panic erupted among the herd. The giant creatures split apart and bolted, stampeding right into my haphazard rope fence. Vines snapped and trees splintered as the maddened dinosaurs tore across the clearing, catching ropes and pulling up the plants they were looped into. I managed to dodge the two trikes that ran nearest me before I raced after Aubrey’s first spear.

As soon as I reached the weapon, I heard the incredible groan of a tree heaving out of the earth behind me. Trikes cried in pain as they plowed into the immovable knotted ropes and got gored by the trikes stampeding behind them.

I hefted the spear, whirled around, and leaped for the smaller beasts at the back of the group. One side of the clearing had caved in, with trikes plowing over a wide swath of trees, but this side held. At least two trikes were tangled, two were gored, and half a dozen stalled and confused.

I leapt into their midst, and started stabbing. The Britonians were only seconds from arrival, and as my very first act of diplomacy, I was going to put on a show.

Chapter 5

Let's Do a Diplomacy

ROARS CUT THROUGH THE CLEARING, followed by the gurgle of lifeblood. I heard myself yelling too, a fierce and inhuman battle cry that would help set the scene even more. I channeled my inner barbarian and went to town on the befuddled animals, putting my spear to good use.

Creatures collapsed as I mortally wounded them. They didn’t know how to react as I wove between and underneath them, avoiding their horns and their thick tree-trunk feet. I yanked out the spear only to use it again, and again, always spinning to confront the next victim.

Trees creaked, the ground shook, and above it all, a human shouted in warning. The Britonians scouts had arrived to witness my brutality.

Good, I thought. Let them watch me.

Within minutes, dead and dying dinosaurs littered the ground in the clearing and forest. Of the trikes that remained, none were a threat. They lay groaning as they bled into the earth.

I stopped when the last threat was neutralized, standing in place and heaving a breath. Satisfied that I’d mortally wounded the whole herd, I stalked over to the pod. A few trikes thrashed in their death throes, and I kept clear of those. The clearing was a mess of splintered trees and trampled moss. Aubrey circled overhead on Malcolm, keeping watch, close enough for Mal’s species and size to be obvious.

Spear still in hand, I clambered up the pile of boulders under the pod. Blood and saliva slicked the metal surface of the drop. I popped the nearest access panel and peered inside.

Two stasis pods lined the interior like a couple of stalls in a bar bathroom. I scanned over the labels. One pod offered either a vertical farmer or a molecular biologist; the other offered a nutritionist or a geologist. Both had the option to choose someone randomly. I left the pods alone.

Off to one side, where the dinos had eaten a hole in a panel—I reminded myself to see if I could make their teeth into weapons, because dang, they’d chewed through this metal like it was made of Jolly Rancher—and near the hole, I found storage lockers packed with seeds. I cursed. The dinos must have smelled the seeds and they’d clearly eaten half of them. There were no labels whatsoever. I snatched a few and pocketed them.

As a male voice shouted in the clearing behind me, I snapped my gaze over the pokeyballs affixed to the ceiling.

“Identify,” I said, only to find another meat preservation unit and a woodinator. This was good news since I already had these things. This would make it easier to leave them behind.

The last ball, however, held something called an excavator. My eyes lit up, and I grabbed it. This one was going home with me.

Pleased with my findings, I stepped back out of the pod, my hand on the upper edge of the doorway as I leaned out, acting casual. I grinned, squinting against the morning sun.

Somebody shot me with an arrow.

I sighed as it bounced off my armor. They might as well have thrown a stick.

“Hey, that wasn’t very neighborly of you,” I called out, exiting the pod and emerging into the light.

The Britonians shifted nervously all around me, parking their hadrosaur mounts wherever they could find a piece of clearing that wasn’t taken by dead trike. A dozen men sat astride the duckbills, dressed in scraps of crude metal armor and brandishing alien-reinforced spears. Their leader, a muscular bald man with a jagged scar across his face, held up a fist to halt a procession that had already halted. I immediately pegged the guy as a blowhard.

“You are outnumbered,” he said in English, although his accent was very, very French. Like straight-out-of-a-movie French. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was faking it.

I shrugged one shoulder, tossing the excavator pokeyball up and catching it again. “I am? I don’t see nearly enough of you.”

Baldy scowled. “Surrender now, and you will be spared. My king is a merciful man.”

I chuckled, loud enough for everyone to hear. The men around Baldy shot glances at each other, and then at the slaughtered dinos, and then back to my bloody spear. Others watched the woods, obviously expecting an attack. I could almost see them thinking, There’s no way one guy just offed a whole herd of triceratops on his own.

Well, I had, albeit with a little ingenuity to keep them tangled and stuck in place—but none of them could see the rope, not yet. To them, I looked like a one-man army who thought he outnumbered them all.

“Will you surrender, or will you die? Speak!” Baldy shouted.

No women, I noted, scanning the riders again. That was never a good sign, not these days.

“Your king is Archie, right? And you are?” I asked Baldy. Before he could respond, I gave him a little half-bow. “I’m Alan, leader of Tribe Grant, by the way. And this—” I waved at the pod behind me, then paused. As soon as I’d given my name, Baldy had flinched.

Why did he do that? Strange. Are they afraid of me, or is it something else?

Plowing on, I continued, “And this drop is my gift to you. Better yet, let’s call it Tribe Grant’s gift to King Archie and Britonia, to get our alliance off to a good start.”

Baldy’s scowl had returned since I’d given my name. "Well, well. If it isn't the legendary Alan," he called out mockingly. "Rumors of your exploits abound, yet here you stand, alone and outmatched."

A few of his followers jeered in agreement, but not the majority. This guy wasn’t well-liked, and my “legend” had preceded me. Some of the Britonians had gone white, even the two brown-skinned ones. Surprisingly, they looked Middle Eastern. Arabic and French, what a mix.

A pulse rent the air, familiar to me, but not to them. I leaned against the pod’s door frame, arms crossed.

I said, “Oh, I came alone, did I?”

At that moment, Malcolm burst across the clearing with a piercing shriek and a shower of leaves torn from the canopy. Showy bastard, I thought. Keep it up.

While I watched at my ease, the Britonian riders' hadrosaurs bucked in terror, even though Malcolm was once more out of sight.

“Hold, hold!” Baldy shouted, raising his little fist again. The intruders exchanged uneasy glances, working hard to control their spooked mounts.

They don’t have a lot of control over them, I noted. So those were domesticated the hard way, without alien domestications. At the same time, the riders haven’t trained on them much.

It seemed a pretty huge oversight for King Archie to have scout units who could barely manage their mounts. Was he an idiot, or was I missing something? Men didn’t become kings in this world without some measure of intelligence... but maybe this tribe just got lucky?

Baldy growled audibly and shot me a glower. I suppressed a laugh. He looked like a French sommelier who’d just taken an order for a Bud Light Lime.

“One... bird hardly constitutes an army, no matter how large and impressive it is,” Baldy said. “You will surrender, Mister Alan, or—”

I pointed upward. “Or my flight wing of pteranodons will swoop down and bite all your heads off? Hmmm, tough choice. Surrender, or snack... hmmmm....”

Baldy looked up and paled, taking on the pallor of melted brie. Overhead, Kaity and her fliers had arrived, and they circled the clearing lazily, like buzzards. We had practiced the formation for exactly this use.

The Britonian leader backed away, his mount obeying his muffled command. His hadrosaur was an alien domestication, or else it wouldn’t be so obedient. Only the best for the Frenchman.

"It seems we've, ah, underestimated you, Mister Alan," Baldy conceded. He leveled a much more peaceful gaze at me. "I am called Napoleon, leader of King Archie’s scout corps. It is an honor to meet the esteemed leader of Tribe Grant.”

I almost snorted. Napoleon? All right, buddy. Whatever you say.

“Pleasure to meet you,” I said brightly. “Now, about that alliance....”

Chapter 6

A Metal Resolve

THIRTY MINUTES LATER, I was winging back to camp. I now had a meeting with the king—and a brand spanking new pokeyball in my pocket.

“Your audience is impressed,” Atticus said. “You managed to initiate alliance talks without even meeting the leader of the opposing tribe, and you dictated the entire encounter. You’ve been awarded points for your impressive display.”

I shrugged, reclining against the back of the saddle with a snoozing Aubrey leaning into my chest. The entire meeting with the Britonian scouts had gone almost too well. Yeah, I didn’t go home with the drops, but I wasn’t in desperate need of a nutritionist or vertical farmer. The seeds were a loss, although I had snagged a handful. And Napoleon hadn’t commented when I’d left with the excavator. Sayuri was going to be thrilled about that one.

“I thought you aliens preferred violence,” I said to the holographic projection of Atticus, my Empire handler. Over the last few months, I’d seen a lot of alien liaisons; I couldn’t tell them apart physically, only by their personalities, but those were mostly outright shitty—all except for Atticus. He was all right.

“Oh, we do,” Atticus agreed. “Or at least we think we do. What the audience enjoys is the tension. And that little meeting was full of tension! The way you set it up to look like you’d slaughtered a whole herd of triceratops single-handedly—”

“I did slaughter a whole herd of triceratops single-handedly—”

“—and how you acted so magnanimous in giving away your drop! Yours, not theirs! When you were alone! Atop a mountain of corpses!”

I raised an eyebrow. If I didn’t know better, Atticus was his home-world’s equivalent of a movie buff.

He seemed to see he was letting himself get too excited because he cleared his throat in a very human way. “Ahem. Anyway. Your display of dominance without the use of violence against humans was both clever and intense. A great watch. Lots of action with the trikes, too. Shame you lost the rope, but the point value should be worth the loss.”

I waved a hand, dismissive. “Yeah, yeah. Points this, points that.” I had a near-army of bookkeepers working under Sayuri day and night, watching the numbers and trying to figure out exactly what point value every act had. It was hopeless. The aliens awarded points like they were reality show hosts, doing whatever suited the audience’s mood at the time.

“If you manage to kill King Archie during next week’s meeting, you will get a significant boost, as well,” Atticus said. “You might even reach a double-digit ranking again.”

I curled my lip. “I’m not killing anyone unless they try to kill me.” I threw in a smile. “But I’ll keep it tense. That I can do.”

Atticus nodded, looking even more excited about that prospect than about violence. Definitely a film critic, this guy.

While I still had him here—and in a good mood—I pulled out the excavator pokeyball. “So, how’s this guy work?” I asked.

“Standard terraforming excavator,” Atticus replied. “Eats a five-by-five-foot chunk of rock or soil, and turns it into gravel, dirt, or sand, depending on the material going into it. But its Nebula Energy needs are rather extreme. You won’t be able to get many uses out of it before it runs out of NE and you need to refill. Also, I wouldn’t advise standing in front of it—” He paused, glancing to the side as if hearing something. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, dear.”

That got me sitting up straight. “What is it?”

He faced me. “Nothing.”

“Atticus.”

“You, ah... you will see soon enough, I suppose,” the alien said. “One last thing. Tribes that reach the top 500 ranking will only be receiving one domestication charge per week from now on. This includes any tribe who has ever reached that rank, you included, so... you have been nerfed.”

I narrowed my eyes. Atticus never gave up information for nothing. He felt obligated to me... possibly, he felt bad for me. Why?

I thought of the other two drops. I’d sent teams after both of them. One near our settlement, but the other....

Raising my obelisk to my lips, I said, Obelisk Two, come in. Obelisk Two?”

“Here, boss,” Carl said.

“The drop?”

“Got it, no trouble. Running inventory now will report soon.”

I frowned. That was the more distant drop. The other had been close to our settlement, but I had no way of contacting them remotely.

“Malcolm, change course,” I said, checking my memory. “Straight south, a mile-and-a-half northeast of the settlement.” Where Eric’s assigned drop had been.

As Malcolm banked, I looked up, hoping to get more info out of Atticus—but his hologram had winked out completely.

“Alan...?” Aubrey said, her voice tight as she rose onto her hands and knees to look at me. She must have woken during my conversation with the alien because she sounded very awake.

“I think Eric and the raptor team are in trouble,” I said, answering her unspoken question.

“But—if they are, shouldn’t we wait for Kaity?”

I glanced back toward Britonia. Kaity and her team had fallen far behind us again.

“No,” I said. “I won’t risk them, too.”

This had been the safest drop, the closest to Tribe Grant. There was something fishy about this.

“Could be a trap,” I said. “I’m going alone. Not gonna risk anyone but myself.”

Malcolm's talons dug into the soft earth as we landed a few hundred feet from the drop site. I slid off his back, patted his beak, and took off running through the lush jungle. Aubrey had agreed to stay behind, but I felt her worried gaze on my back.

Ferns whipped against my legs and vines tugged at my arms, but I pushed forward as if I hadn’t just murdered a couple dozen triceratops. Every part of me burned. It had been a long day, and it wasn’t even noon yet... and I suspected the day was about to get longer.

I skidded to a stop as I came upon the corpse of a raptor. Once, I might have ignored such a thing, but raptors had become a vital part of Tribe Grant—used for scouting and fighting and any number of other things. As I scanned the surrounding forest, I found more corpses... all raptors.

I’d sent Eric here with a raptor team.

The bodies of the raptors lay twisted on the ground, their scaly hides peppered with bite marks from what looked like a carnotaur. At the same time, I found several creatures whose limbs had been sheared off smoothly, the edges burnt. Those marks reeked of alien tech. Whoever came through here had serious firepower.

"No, no, no," I muttered, rushing to the nearest raptor. I placed my hand on its flank, still warm. "What happened here?"

The raptors didn’t respond, glassy eyes staring at nothing. My heart pounded as I looked around. The area was too quiet, and the songbirds were silent. This must have been an ambush.

They knew we’d come to any drop near our settlement, I thought. They had troops prepared, ready to run to a drop site near Tribe Grant. They were ready for us, lying in wait.

This was premeditated by someone hiding inside our territory. Whoever they were, this enemy was close, and they weren’t afraid that we knew it.

I spotted familiar markings on one raptor, realizing it belonged to Lara, one of my best riders. She’d been training to run her own team. Bile rose in my throat as I saw the raptor's neck broken at an unnatural angle. Lara would never abandon her mount, unless....

"Lara!" I shouted, whirling around. The trees ate my voice without echo. "Eric!"

I just saw him. Just this morning! He was on the cliff-top with Sayuri!

Only silence answered me. Malcolm screeched far behind me, but he was the only one responding.

I broke into a run, sprinting over roots and under branches toward the drop site, my dread growing with each pump of my legs. As I emerged into the small clearing—exactly the type of place where the Empire likes to make its drops—my worst fears were realized.

Bodies hung from the trees.

They swayed gently in the breeze, and I knew every face. My tribe—my friends, my family—all of them trussed up like animals after slaughter. My legs grew shaky, bile rising in my throat.

Eric, Lara, and six others stared back at me with vacant, dead eyes.

I wandered toward Eric. I wasn’t really thinking, just moving. A glint of black caught my attention, and I looked closer at Eric’s chest. Around his neck hung an amulet, a dark pendant that seemed to absorb the light around it. I recognized it immediately—one of the obelisks.

I did not own a third obelisk. This object was entirely new to me.

My gaze hardened as understanding dawned. This was no mere drop raid or territory dispute. Someone was sending me a message. They were saying, We killed your people, just like we killed many people before you. See, look at this obelisk we stole from our previous victims... and go ahead, take it. We don’t need it. We are strong enough to kill you without it.

Rage tangled with grief inside me, like two cords wrapped so tight that they cut off circulation. I wanted to hate myself, to say, I never should have sent Eric here.

But no—I’d had every reason to believe this site was safe, that Eric would be safe.

Someone was fucking with me.

I took a deep breath and reached for the obelisk. “Identify,” I said.

Surrendered Obelisk 23499: Former Tribe: The Buffalo Bills

Current Tribe: None (Unclaimed)

This had been taken from another tribe, one that had lost to the same villains that had attacked my people here. And whoever had killed the Buffalo Bills’ leader had been smart enough to take the obelisk and use it before it disintegrated along with its dead owner. That meant my new enemy had probably killed several tribes before the Buffalo Bills. You had to defeat other tribes several times before you learned to take their obelisks and use them.

I tried to steady myself as I dropped the obelisk back against Eric’s chest. I’d hoped it had been tagged by my new enemies, but it was unclaimed. As I’d thought, this was a gift from my enemies. A message that said, we don’t fear you.

After swaying on my feet for a moment, I started investigating the area methodically, doing my darndest to keep my emotions at bay. I noticed the signs quickly because they were obvious: bent grass in a huge radius, several hundred footprint indentations of various depths. A stampede went through here—likely a contingent of duckbills with riders. I recognized the footprints of hadrosaurs, dozens of them, hundreds.

Britonia had hadrosaurs, a part of me thought. I’d seen them just a half hour ago.

I couldn’t assume anything based on that alone, though. Duckbills were common. Also, this whole crime scene could be staged. It might have been made to look like an army had gone through here. I didn’t dare assume anything. The presence of the obelisk made it clear that I was dealing with someone smart.

I followed the stampede trail with my eyes, leading northeast. I was tempted to follow it, but the trail was too obvious. I could already tell that my enemy was cunning, not stupid.

In light of that, I looked for more evidence and found another herd’s worth of dilophosaur prints almost entirely masked by the larger duckbill prints. The small, acid-spitting dilophosaurs had been among the hadrosaurs, possibly egging them on by spitting at them. We already had a couple of them that we used like sheepdogs, but this had been a group.

This was a manufactured stampede, I realized. The hadrosaurs hadn’t had riders but had instead been driven by dilos, forming a path that was meant to draw me away, likely into another trap. I was glad I came alone, or else the people with me might have insisted on following the false path. I knew Cassie would have, headstrong as she is.

So I swept the area slowly, searching for any clue the killers left behind. A scrap of cloth snagged on a branch... a broken staff or wheel tracks... anything to tell me who I was up against.

Then it caught my eye: several branches had been broken, and when I raised my gaze, the broken twigs led towards the sky.

I stopped and examined the damage closely. Something winged—but compact—passed through here, snapping the branches as it took flight.

When I explored farther into the forest, I found more launch spots. It wasn’t just one flying dinosaur, but many of them.

The stampede had been a distraction, then. We weren’t supposed to find evidence of flying dinos, at least not right away. We were supposed to act on emotion and immediately chase the more obvious tracks. At the same time, the launch paths weren’t hidden well, either. They could have easily landed and taken off in a clearing. So these tracks, too, were something I was supposed to find.

Either way, these trails were made by pteranodons or possibly pterodactyls, their larger cousins. But wild fliers rarely come this close to our village; they prefer the mountainous crags to the north.

That meant these attackers had a trained flying team helping them. And of all the tribes in the area, there was only one that I knew had access to domesticated flight-capable dinos: my tribe. The Britonians had no flight team, and although we’d heard rumors of an African nomadic tribe heading our way, those rumors made it clear that the Nomads traveled by land.

I smiled mirthlessly. They want me to turn against my own. This was a setup. I knew because Kaity and her fliers followed me to the Britonia drop site. They had arrived looking fresh, not like they’d murdered eight raptors and eight people in cold blood on the way there. So I knew they had not done this.

But someone wanted me to think they might have.

I nodded slowly, considering the implications. One of my own riders turning against me... that would divide my tribe, make us stop trusting each other. It would sow discord.

I took one last look around the grisly scene, imprinting it in my memory. Whoever did this would pay—but until then, I wasn’t going to discuss those ptera tracks with my people. I was not going to allow this to drive a wedge into my tribe, which was clearly the plan of this attack. The enemy wanted to make us fear them and to fear one another.

With a sigh, I took the new obelisk from Eric and turned to leave.

As I did, my foot snagged on something hard. I stumbled, nearly falling on my face. I looked down to see what tripped me.

Half buried in the dirt was a chunk of metal, dull and corroded. I bent down and picked it up, turning it over in my hands.

Raw metal, I thought, because it couldn’t be anything else. It had the same compact feel as the sulfur crystals that we mined near our outpost. This had come from an ore vein, which had in turn been manufactured by aliens as a part of our survival game.

“A metal deposit...?” I wondered aloud. I didn’t know what type of metal it was, but any relatively strong metal would essentially take us into a modern age if we both discovered and learned how to process it.

So another tribe has found a deposit, I thought. Perhaps this, too, had been planted for me to find. The enemy had technology beyond that of Tribe Grant. Maybe the ore deposit was close by, kept secret from the topo map.

This right here... it could be the whole reason for this massacre, I thought. What if these new enemies had an excuse to keep us from this area? An excuse to kill and goad my people, in the hopes we’d leave this place?

I straightened. There’s a metal deposit nearby. There must be. I didn’t know what metal it was, but its ore could be made into all sorts of useful things. It might be the most valuable commodity in existence right now.

I clenched my fist around the lump of metal. Other tribes would kill to control a metal mine. I already knew Britonia had one, given the crude armor they’d been wearing. Were they behind this? Anything was possible.

I tucked the lump into my pocket and whistled for Malcolm. It was time to head home. I’d send others to return here, but I’d tell them to go no farther. We had to pick up our dead loved ones, but nothing else. Given how staged this whole crime scene was, following the stampede trail might lead to a trap.

A metal deposit changes everything, I thought. And that deposit, wherever it was, would belong to Tribe Grant. We just needed to stay alive long enough to discover it and steal it back from a murderous gang of thieves.

Chapter 7

People of the Sand

WHEN WE LANDED BACK at the settlement, my wife Missy was waiting at Malcolm’s nest. Sayuri stood behind her, clipboard in hand, ready to give a report. Missy grinned as she ran up to the quetzal.

“Look, Alan! Our first baby Utahraptor!” she exclaimed, showing me the little chirping infant in her arms. “One of Ellie’s eggs finally hatched—”

Her grin faded fast when she saw mine and Aubrey’s faces. As I dropped from the saddle, I said, “Sorry, Missy. Bad news. You can show me later. Sai?”

“Yes?” Sayuri asked, stepping past Missy.

“Can you speak with Darnel and arrange a memorial dinner? I’m afraid that we’ve lost Raptor Wing One.”

Her eyes widened. “Raptor Wing... all of them?”

“Dinos and humans both. And get Fred for me.”

Her eyes moistened, and she nodded. I could have asked any number of people to set up the memorial, but she would do it fastest and most efficiently. I needed fast and efficient. We couldn’t spend too much time on a funeral when the killers might use it as an excuse to attack us.

Once Sayuri was gone, I waved an arm at Kaity, who had just landed with her ptera team in the next nesting area. They hadn’t made any detours, so she hadn’t seen the carnage.

“Yeah, Al?” the redhead asked me. “What is it?”

I held my breath. I would be telling a lot of people about our losses today, but Kaity might be the worst of them. She and Eric had built the settlement’s very first house together. They’d been dating since the beginning, and now....

I steeled myself, and I told her the truth.

It was going to be a very long day.

The memorial dinner turned out nice, given how quickly it had been rustled up. Darnel used some new spices he’d found on a recent scout mission, and the steak-and-eggs of the night tasted like they came from the Old World again. When I sampled it before my eulogy, I could almost imagine myself sitting at a restaurant with a cold beer in one hand and a steak knife in the other.

The metal knife, at least, would be coming soon. I’d prioritize beer-making once my enemies were dead.

“We have enemies,” I stated soon after, standing at the head of the funeral crowd. I had chosen a plot of tilled farmland that Sayuri’s team had recently cleared out. The dead lay buried already, retrieved and interred by Fred and a team of armored dinos. The same dinos now patrolled the city walls, on double alert during the ceremony.

I wasn’t worried, though. The attack on Eric’s team had been intended to sow dissent, to make us think our own fliers had betrayed us. I knew better, but as far as the enemy was aware, dirty rumors had started spreading in Tribe Grant. They wanted those rumors to percolate before they made their move.

“We have always known we had enemies,” I went on, as loud as I could manage. Those who knew the dead most sat up front, on the ground, but dozens of our 700-plus members stood beyond them. Some of the audience even watched from the nearby ankylosaurus enclosures, braving animals that weren’t alien-domesticated to pay their respects.

“These deaths are a reminder that humans are just as dangerous to us as the aliens, if not more so,” I said. “We must remain vigilant at all times, and take nothing for granted. While I vow to ensure the safety of our settlement, it is clear that someone aims to destroy it. I will stop them. I will kill them. But until that happens, the old buddy system is reinstated. No one goes anywhere without three other people, not even within the confines of the encampment.

“These new enemies mean to divide us, to frighten us, but Tribe Grant is strong. We are not so easily frightened. When we face opposition, we rise to meet it, always. In doing so, we keep growing.”

I raised a fist, and hundreds of eyes followed my movement. “Here in my hand is a collection of seeds. We have no specialists who can identify them, so I will plant them here, now, so that our lost friends can help us even after they are gone. Like you, like me, like all of Tribe Grant, they will help us grow, even after death.”

With that, I dropped the seeds across the tilled earth. Sayuri would assign a team to them, and over time they would identify and foster the crops, whatever they were. She’d also bring them inside and keep them warm over winter so that they could produce more seeds for us to use in the spring.

“In Tribe Grant, our goal is threefold,” I called out, facing the crowd again. “We seek peace! We seek plenty! And when all else fails, we show the world our power and we make peace and plenty!”

Cassie raised her fist beside me. “Power, peace, and plenty!” she called out.

Fists rose before us, a field of resolute hands. “Power, peace, and plenty!” the crowd echoed, the words surprisingly clear, as if they’d been rehearsed. All of Tribe Grant was on board with this motto. Peace and plenty above all, and power to back it up. That was our goal, and it always would be.

With that final battle cry, the ceremony was concluded. As Darnel rose and gestured for his team to start passing out food, I turned to Jarod, Missy’s brother and my right-hand man. If he had been the one next to me when the drops had occurred, he would be dead now, not Eric. A part of me was thankful. Losing Eric was horrible, but Jarod... losing him would be like losing Peter all over again.

At the same time, I couldn’t let that fear get to me. I had to put him in harm’s way to suss out our enemies—but I wasn’t going to send him alone.

“Jarod. We need to—” I started to say, but at that moment, a chime sounded from the obelisk around my neck. I blinked and checked the notification, which appeared in hovering blue text.

“Crap,” I said. “Carl just spotted a new abnormal east of him. Ugh, it’s in rex territory, too.”

Abnormal dinosaurs were one-off, extremely powerful versions of their species. When we defeated them, they dropped Nebula Energy or NE. This energy was then used to power all our alien tech.

“You want to harvest an abnormal right now?” Jarod asked. “Can’t we let this one go? I mean, given the circumstances. Haven’t we got an enemy to track down?”

I shook my head, thinking of the high power needs of our new excavator. We needed that thing to function as long as possible, for all kinds of uses. And if this abnormal was a rex, it would have a lot of Nebula Energy. The tougher the mutated beast, the more power it could give us.

At the same time, I needed someone to scout our enemies, to follow the dilo stampede trail quietly, with tact. I trusted myself and Jarod with the task, a small force, but now....

A new person joined us, puffing air out her cheeks. Sayuri’s old friend, Rin.

“Alan! Thank the overlords I found you before you left. I have news, and I’m guessing it relates to all this.”

My gaze locked on the petite Japanese woman. Her all-female gallimimus scout team was supposed to be out on a mission to track down the Nomads—the African tribe that had lately been seen in the region. Rin’s team wasn’t due back for another week.

“Talk to me,” I said.

She saluted with a fist raised to her shoulder, a brief imitation of my earlier gesture to the crowd. “Yes, sir. Well, we started our search by going wide, using teams of four, looking for traces in a grid. Eventually we found their tracks. They left a huge trail, impossible to miss—”

“Dilo prints?” I asked.

She nodded. “Lots of ‘em.”

Just like at the drop site. “Go on.”

“Well, eight of us went ahead to try to locate their camp, and half traced their path backwards. To see where they’d come from, like you asked.”

I nodded. This is why they hadn’t been expected back in so long. I wanted them to see if they could find any sacked villages along the Africans’ path.

“Well when we traced the trail backward, it—it was crazy, Alan. It wove all over the place, in and around hills and thick trees and swamps. They didn’t move in a straight line at all, only across flat ground. Some trees were sawed up, but not many.”

My eyes narrowed. “Sawed, as in with a metal tool?”

She nodded. “And then the reverse trail just... ended. At a sand pit. We rounded the whole thing, even spread out again in a grid pattern, but we couldn’t find out where they came from. It was like they’d been dropped from the sky into the sand pit, and just strode off from there. We even saw burn marks in the sand, but there wasn’t much else to see. Rains and passing dinosaurs ruined most of the evidence.”

I scratched my chin. The Africans had appeared out of nowhere in a sand pit, with metal tools already in hand. A tribe like that would definitely want to control a metal deposit. They already knew the value of metal. Plus, they had a team of dilos....

“Any evidence of fliers accompanying them?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“And along the path? Did you glean anything about them?”

“Oh, yes. They are clearly nomadic, if not very economical in how they travel... never any permanent structures, not even set places to go to the bathroom. Shallow fire pits and poop piles everywhere, dead dinos left to rot. We found a few dead humans, too... emaciated, probably prisoners at some point. They weren’t in great shape. We think they were beaten to death. Footsteps all around, so there was an audience each time. These Nomads aren’t nice people.”

Rin paused, swallowing. “But back on the trail itself, we found almost no human footprints, so most of their tribe are either riding dinos or carts. And there were a lot of carts; we found wheel tracks. Counted at least a dozen different wheel widths.”

At least a dozen carts. Dilos. Metal tools and a penchant for violence....

The evidence looked damning, but at the same time, these people were nomadic. As far as we knew, they hadn’t gotten close to us yet. “Their heading? Generally?” I asked.

“South, we’re guessing for the winter.”

Like a band of bloodthirsty geese, I thought. But if they planned to keep traveling, what would they want with us?

Whoever taunted us at that drop site had intended a bloody, all-out fight. They were preparing for a battle, not a skirmish. But nomadic tribes, by nature, were just opportunists. They would attack and subsume small settlements in their path, but trying to overtake a rooted tribe of seven hundred? It wouldn’t be very smart of them.

“Population count?” I asked. “Any guesses?”

“Only a couple hundred.”

That was hardly enough of a force to fight Tribe Grant with, even if they wanted to. But taunting Tribe Grant... driving dissent among us, weakening us, trying to lure away our troops to pick us off.... I wouldn’t put it past these so-called Africans. Maybe they were offsetting low numbers with smart tactics.

Still... they had no fliers. I couldn’t make any assumptions.

“What about the team you sent ahead? Any word on the Africans’ current location?”

When Rin turned pale, I knew her answer. The scouts sent ahead had not returned.

Chapter 8

999

THE DISAPPEARANCE of Rin’s scouts suggested we had an enemy on our hands, whether or not the Africans had killed Eric. Having a new enemy meant keeping an eye on that enemy.

We had to find out where they were located—and see what there was to be seen there. Maybe we’d find peace. Maybe the scouts were just lost. I didn’t think so, but assumptions could kill.

In the end, I tapped some of my newer team members to head the hunt for the Africans’ camp. Cole, his twin Jack, and Jack’s girlfriend Vesna had been training on our dinos for a while now, and they were ready to take on a mission of their own. Elsa, a former runaway from the Soviets, also came along for the ride—mostly because Cole was going. The two had grown close over the past couple of weeks, bonding over the shared trauma of losing so many friends to the Soviets.

The plan was this: while Jack and Vesna pinpointed the Africans’ location using their perch atop Bertha, Cole, and Elsa would man a team including Darth, several trikes, and half of our ankies to protect the big brontosaurus. The Africans couldn’t kill Bertha and our armored dinos nearly so easily as they could take out a galli squad, so I let Rin’s team stay back to rest. Maybe later, I’d have them hunt the saber-tooths, but the big cats were far from my main concern at the moment.

Once they located the Africans, my team would try to initiate talks. If the Africans got violent, my team would note their location and leave. They had ample defenses for a retreat.

Meanwhile, Jarod and I took a couple of Utahraptors to the location Carl gave us. If we could harvest this new abnormal dino—also called an Apex, since the mutants were always stronger than other dinos of the same species—then our new excavator might have enough power to dig out winter dwellings for us, not to mention its irrigation and farming uses. By the time Sayuri birthed her first child, I wanted to see all her city-planning dreams realized.

“You’re crazy, you know that, right?” Jarod shouted from behind me as we exited the forest and met the rocky base of a mountain. We’d passed the sulfur mine some time back, but apparently, the rex had moved on from where Carl had first spotted it. Now we were reduced to tracking it the old-fashioned way since I’d used up my topography scans for the day.

Fortunately, a mutant rex was easy enough to track, even in the poor evening light. The Utahraptors' claws clacked against the rocky terrain as we rode, following an obvious path of destruction—stones upturned and shattered, shrubs ripped from their roots, and massive prints in the occasional patch of mud. I even glimpsed clay at one point and made a mental note to send a harvest team later.

“What am I crazy for this time?” I called back, not bothering to stay quiet. If the rex found us, all the better. It would save us time.

“Fighting a mutant rex with only two raptors! At night!” Jarod replied.

My hand drifted to the secret weapon hooked to my belt, and I took it into my hand. The excavator item, made from alien tech, was impossibly smooth. Most alien tech came with a few charges, allowing us to learn how to use it. I planned to test the new tool in this fight.

Of course, battling Apexes wasn’t its intended purpose, but so what? I liked to keep things interesting.

As for Jarod, he had a secret weapon of his own—Tribe Grant’s laser, stolen from the Soviets. We’d earned back a charge for it using an NE kill a week back, but we only had that single charge.

“Yeah, well, it’s about time I put this armor to good use,” I said, tapping the metal plate on my chest. “Besides, everyone else is busy finding the Africans. I’m more concerned with their safety than mine.”

“And what about my safety?” Jarod asked, but there was a smile in his voice.

“Just don’t hit me with that laser charge, and you won’t have to go anywhere near the rex.”

Absently, I rubbed the small metal pokeyball against my leg armor When I realized I was doing it, I stopped and checked the pokeyball for scratches. Surprisingly, the ball showed no damage. However, my leg plating had a new scratch on it.

Tough stuff, I thought. Huh. Why would the aliens give us a material stronger than our armor? It seemed like an oversight on the Empire’s part. Maybe this was the metal they typically used, and they simply took it for granted.

Either way, the pokeyball material could slice through solid rock if it were sharp. I made a mental note and filed it away for later.

"How much further do you think it is?" Jarod asked, scanning the horizon.

"Hard to say." I turned my eyes back to the rubble. This particular mountain was a stubby one, but we were getting higher now, emerging from the forest. I didn’t want to think about taking a tumble down the rocky Cliffside, even if it wasn’t sheer.

"But the rex can't have gone far,” I said. “Not with the way it's plowing through everything in its path." The trail of scree was certainly easy to follow.

"Let's hope we find it before anyone else does,” Jarod replied. “After what happened to Eric....”

I nodded but said nothing. It was hard to believe eight of my people had died only this morning. I couldn’t take revenge just yet, but I could certainly take out my frustrations on this Apex.

The landscape grew more rugged, but thankfully flatter, as we continued on. Our raptors nimbly scaled the jagged outcrops and shifting gravel; they were like the mountain goats of this era, always surprising me with their agility.

A roar in the near distance made both of us pull up short. It instantly didn’t sound right—almost mechanical, like a roar put through a speaker with the auto-tune on. I held up a closed fist, signaling Jarod to stop. We listened. At first, only the wind. Then, the pounding of massive footsteps... coming closer.

I hefted my spear and narrowed my eyes. "Get ready."

The footsteps grew louder until the very ground shook beneath us. Our raptors shifted nervously, hissing lowly. I moved them carefully into an open, flat section of the terrain, where we’d have a little space to maneuver when the time came.

Then the rex appeared, cresting a nearby ridge in an explosion of stone and dust. The T-Rex towered over us, but luckily it looked juvenile, only about twice our height. Still, it looked impressive while perched atop an even taller rock face, its rectangular head blocking out the brightest colors of the sunset behind it. Liquid dripped from its gaping maw.

I grabbed my obelisk and said “Bioscan” before the creature could do anything else. I must be just barely within scan range of it, because blue text hovered before my face, giving me information on the mutant:

Apex Tyrannosaurus Rex: Mutation Failure: 10101074

Sex: Male

Age: .85 sun rotations.

Weight: 17.8 Zexa

Rarity Value: 0

Efficiency Value: 0

Nebula Energy: 999

Dinosaur Immunity: 100%

I had barely enough time to catch the number 999—more than triple our last harvest—when the rex roared again, and a concussive force nearly knocked us from our mounts, even at this distance. That was definitely not a normal roar.

I gripped my spear tight, muscles tensing. Was it just me, or was that rex glowing? Blue lines snaked along its chest, legs, and neck, like neon lights.

“Jarod!” I shouted. “Use the laser now, while it’s—”

But the T-Rex didn’t give Jarod the chance. With another air-compressing roar, it fixed its tiny eyes on us. The neon lights on its body turned suddenly violet.

At the same time, all the loose rocks, all the shrubs, and even one bleached dino skeleton rose into the air all around us. They hovered, like magic, incomprehensible.

Oh shit! It’s a special ability!

"Look out!" I cried, throwing myself flat against my raptor’s back and urging it into a lunge. At the same instant, the missiles hurtled through the air to where I’d been. My raptor shrieked as the tough branches of a shrub whipped along his ribs, and a piece of flying rubble nearly unseated me.

When the bombardment finally ceased, I risked a glance up. The T-Rex was gone, vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. I swore under my breath. Would we still have to chase it?

"You good?" I asked, turning, only for my stomach to drop. Jarod was struggling to stand, and he looked all right, but his Utahraptor was a mess of blood and sand. Several deep gashes spurted blood along its flank. Jarod hadn’t gotten clear in time.

"Just a bit bruised," he answered. "But poor Lawyer here....”

As if in response, his Utahraptor took one shuddering breath, and fell still.

I bit back an angry cry. I hated losing dinos, especially those I’d fought with—and our Utahraptor population was slim enough as it was.

Without warning, the T-Rex appeared again.

One moment, our little clearing of flat stone was empty—and the next, it was about 50% rex. The beast materialized next to Lawyer and Jarod, tilting its head back to roar. Another concussive blast flattened me and Jarod.

Next, a hailstorm of rocks pelted the area, flung by the beast's telekinetic powers. “Toilet, go!” I shouted to my Utahraptor. I didn’t even have time to feel stupid about its name before a large boulder caught Toilet broadside, sending the poor raptor spinning.

"No!" I cried out, scrambling over to the fallen mount. It was no use—the raptor was dead, crushed, its rib cage caved in. Grief and rage boiled up inside me.

I forced myself to refocus. The T-Rex was eating the first raptor now, ignoring us for the time being. Jarod had taken shelter behind an outcropping, but he was effectively trapped if the rex decided to go for him.

I needed a new plan, and I needed it fast. Otherwise, I’d be losing even more friends today.

Never again, I thought. Not ever again.

I was going to show this rex who was boss.

Chapter 9

Gravedigger

VAULTING TO MY FEET, I leapt over a fallen shrub and sprinted towards one of the boulders the rex had just thrown. After skidding behind the protection of the rock, I caught my breath again. If I was out of sight, the rex wouldn’t think to fight me, at least not for a couple more minutes.

But hot damn—this rex’s abilities were beyond anything we had encountered before. Teleportation, telekinesis... the aliens weren’t pulling punches with this one.

They think I’m getting too far ahead, I thought. First a nerf to my domestications, and then this, all in the same day? Did somebody have it in for Tribe Grant?

Either that, or they are testing us. I shot a glance at the glowing lines of the dino. Thanks to those, the Apex would be visible even in the dark. So really, it was easier than it could have been. The aliens must believe we could take it, and it was packing some serious energy.

Too much energy, I thought, and my stomach performed an unpleasant twist as I realized this Apex was too good to be true. We’d known it was a rex early on, because of where we’d found it, in rex territory. It also glowed in the dark, and it was worth insane energy.

This Apex dino was bait.

The timing, I thought. Oh fuck, the timing!

The Apex dino appeared just as I sent people to find the Africans’ camp. It was too important, too valuable for me to leave it to someone else to kill.

The aliens don’t want me on that other team, I thought. Why?

The answer came easily: Violence and tension. That’s what Atticus had said. Aliens loved violence and tension.

Tribe Grant’s mission to find the Nomads was supposed to remain exploratory, not violent... but now that I thought of it, my people were craving vengeance right now. They’d take any excuse to fight the Nomads, and what if the Nomads were too much for them?

Whoever killed Eric had also left a trail for us to follow. At the end of that trail, I was dead sure there was a trap. If that had been the work of the Nomads, then my exploration team was headed straight for that same trap, albeit by a different route.

I hadn’t thought of this because I’d been separating violence and diplomacy in my head. I didn’t know if the Africans were behind this morning’s massacre, but the dead people in their path made it clear that the Nomads were dangerous. And I’d just sent my vengeance-craving people to search for them.

Violence and tension, I reminded myself. This was a recipe for disaster no matter who killed Eric’s team. The Nomads weren’t going to make nice today, and neither were the people I’d sent.

Yet here I was, distracted by an Apex that conveniently showed up just as my team left to find the Nomads. The aliens wanted me kept apart from my people—because if I wasn’t with them, there would be violence.

I raised the obelisk to my mouth, thankful that I’d forgotten to leave it behind with Aubrey. “Obelisk Three, come in!”

A staticky pause. The sounds of tearing flesh stopped, and the blue light on the ground around me shifted. The T-Rex had finished his meal.

Finally, a garbled voice came through the crystal. “—no, it works like this, I’ve seen him do it—hey, Cole here. Is this Alan?”

“Return to camp. Now. With everyone,” I said.

A pause. “Are you sure? We just saw signs of smoke—”

“Now!” I shouted, throwing my whole body forward as the boulder rose into the air at my back. Every instinct screamed for me to run as fast as I could, but I couldn’t outrun a flying boulder, so I turned and readied myself.

The boulder stopped rising and shot toward me, eerily fast for its size. I had a split second to decide how to avoid it, diving left, my arm held up protectively at a specific angle.

The boulder glanced off the arm of my alien armor, shattering the entire piece. Despite the loss, I’d effectively deflected the impact from the rest of my body. I spun around and somehow landed atop my dead dino, which was a softer landing than hard stone, at least.

Covered in blood now, I looked up. That’s when I saw her—a smaller T-Rex, partially concealed around one corner of the cliff side. She looked young, not fully grown, about Darth’s age. Our eyes met and she let out a plaintive cry.

I was puzzled by the sound and her presence. She wasn’t in attack mode like the mutant was. Why was she here, watching the battle unfold? She hadn't joined in the attack. It seemed she was waiting for something.

Before I could ponder further, the earth shook as the male T-Rex charged straight for me. I abandoned my raptor and rolled to the side just as the Apex beast smashed headfirst into the corpse. Bone fragments and viscera exploded from poor Toilet. There was probably a Taco Bell joke in there somewhere, but I was more concerned with staying alive.

The T-Rex reeled back, dazed. Now was my chance. I darted forward, spear poised to drive into its heart. But as I lunged, a massive force slammed into me from the side, sending me flying.

The damn beast was using telekinesis again. I tumbled roughly along the ground, pain shooting through my side where the invisible blow had landed.

From the shadows of the cliff, the female T-Rex cried out once more. I still didn't understand her intent, but one thing was clear—I had to end this fight soon, or Jarod and I wouldn’t survive.

I scrambled to my feet, gritting my teeth against the pain. The male rex had regained its senses and now stalked toward me, murder in its glassy black eyes.

I couldn't defeat it in a direct confrontation. I needed to outsmart it.

My hand fell upon the excavator item on my belt.

As the T-Rex charged, contracting the air with another roar, I activated the pokeyball by depressing the small circular button at its seam. A small machine unfurled from the ball in a twist of alien light teleported here from some other place. It was smaller than expected, looking like a metallic Tee-ball stand, the kind little kids hit whiffle balls off of. A single button glowed at the top, and the whole thing looked down at a 5-by-5 grid of blue light. It must be displaying the section of the ground it meant to target.

I pressed the button just in time.

A burst of raw Nebula Energy shot forth, instantly transforming the bedrock in front of the machine into a loose pile of gravel and dirt. To my eye, it was about a 5-by-5 foot square, and likely it went just as deep.

Caught by surprise, the T-Rex lurched forward, its footing turned treacherous. It stumbled, struggling to stay upright on the shifting ground as I grabbed the excavator by the neck and jumped back.

I used it again, and again, three more times total, increasing the size of the gravel pit to a rough 20-by-20 feet as the rex thrashed about with its fat tail and stubby arms.

I took several hits as it flailed, but nothing that caused lasting damage. Opting to preserve the remaining excavator charges—if any,I darted around to the rex’s side, seeking an opening to strike with my spear. I had hoped the excavator might reduce the dino’s bones to bone shards, too, but no luck.

Just as I got close enough to the neck to deliver a killing blow, another psychic blast heaved all my newly created gravel into the air, where it swirled violently before firing toward me.

I barely managed to dive out of the deadly hailstorm's path. The gravel peppered my leg armor as well as the cliff side, gouging out chunks of stone and shattering more of my precious protection.

All the same, I found myself once again behind Toilet’s body. His thick lifeblood seeped up between my fingers and under the broken pieces of my armor. The T-Rex was momentarily distracted, scanning the area for me, still sitting in its now-empty pit. This was my chance.

I burst from hiding, racing towards the cliffside and ignoring the pain in my legs. The excavator glowed in my grip, still active, so I aimed its targeting light high along the rock face. At this distance, the tidy grid stretched and distorted. I depressed the trigger anyway, unleashing a concentrated blast of alien tech.

The cliff wall exploded in a thunderous avalanche of granite, sending me instantly into a fit of coughing. If I never inhaled rock dust again, it would be too soon.

Regardless of my discomfort, the trick worked. The excavator’s targeting grid was angular, so it didn’t cut as deep, but it still cut effectively. Gravel poured from the hole, but better yet, a huge crack raced up the cliffside. The excavated rock could no longer support the weight of the stone above it, and moments later, an enormous chunk of stone collapsed directly onto the T-Rex with what felt like the force of a meteor strike.

I allowed myself a grim smile of satisfaction. That definitely killed it. The piece of rock had been bigger than the rex!

But, just in case I was wrong....

"Jarod!" I shouted over the settling din. "Hit it with the laser!"

Jarod finally popped into sight again; he knew to stay out of my way during close-quarter battles unless I called for him. He nodded, activating his pokeyball and raising the resulting rifle-like weapon to his shoulder. The barrel crackled with building energy as he took aim at the mound of debris entombing the T-Rex.

But before he could fire, the rubble erupted upward in a telekinetic shockwave. The T-Rex burst free, bellowing its fury. Though battered, it was still very much alive. What was it made of? Iron? Damn!

My elation turned to dread. I braced myself for another barrage of rocks and gravel. But strangely, it did not come. Perhaps the T-Rex's psychic abilities had limits? As it took a step, the lights along its body flickered. Yes! It was weakened after all.

“Wait, Jarod! I’m going to down it, so you can’t miss!”

He lowered the gun as I ran back toward the rex. “What...? Don’t be an ass! I’m not gonna miss!”

“Tell that to your wives! Neither one is pregnant yet!” I shot back.

I tightened my grip on the excavator. When its targeting light had been spread out, its attack had been weaker. In its normal grid, it had not damaged the dino. But I remembered Atticus saying not to stand in front of it. If I put a very concentrated target on a single material....

When I got within range, the dazed rex snapped its jaws at me, but I dove into a roll, narrowly avoiding its teeth. As I came up, I planted my feet and held the excavator item right up against the rex’s tree-trunk thick leg.

The targeting light, blocked by the nearby object, became a pinpoint of blue on the T-Rex’s knee.

I pressed the button.

The T-Rex roared in pain and surprise as its knee disintegrated, melting into a mist of muscle and bone, and skin. It toppled away from me, crashing onto its amputated leg with a tremendous crash.

The moment its body settled, I shouted, “Now!”

I wasn’t taking chances with this one.

Jarod ran closer, took aim, and fired. The laser beam lanced out and pierced the T-Rex's skull right between its hate-filled eyes. It let out one final agonized shriek before falling limp, all its neon lights going out.

Chapter 10

Damsel in Distress

I STARED down at its massive body, making sure it was truly dead. Only then did I step back, breathing hard. My alien armor was in tatters, barely clinging to my bruised body. But we had done it. We had slain the beast.

I held my obelisk and said, “Harvest.” In our very first Apex kill, Atticus had handed over the Nebula Energy in pokeyball form, but now I knew how to get it out of a dino myself.

Seconds later, a glowing blue orb rose out of the rex’s chest. It looked like it was made of light, simply phasing out of the skin. I grabbed it and rolled it around in my palm. It felt like a typical pokeyball, even if it looked radioactive.

“How much?” Jarod asked, joining me.

“A lot,” I replied. “I think the max. The Inspect function said 999 NE.”

Jarod let out a tired whoop of triumph, and I allowed myself a weary smile. It had been a near thing, and we’d lost Toilet and Lawyer, but 999 NE could probably get us through winter. That would serve all our critical energy needs.

At the same time.... I lifted the excavator and said, “Reduce.” This triggered the machine to teleport back to wherever it was stored, twisting into the ether like a Salvador Dali painting. When the strange phenomenon was over, it left me with another pokeyball in my hand.

I raised both balls together. “Inspect. Transfer energy until full, at one-tenth speed.”

Jarod leaned closer as we both watched the number 999 appear above the glowing orb, which then began feeding light into the dull one, transferring NE from storage into the machine that would use it. The 999 fell slowly, as I’d asked it to. I didn’t want it to drain in the blink of an eye, but I did want to see how much the excavator could hold.

To my surprise, we reached 700 without the transfer showing any signs of slowing. I cut the power.

“Damn, this holds a lot,” I said, throwing the excavator ball straight up and catching it again. “The woodinator can run a week on just 100 NE, which is its max capacity. But this holds more than 300.”

“You think we can carve out more houses with it?” Jarod asked.

I nodded. “We can test it when we’re home. Sayuri’s better with the math, and I don’t want to waste more charges here.”

I wiped the sweat from my brow, fatigue setting in. I clipped the balls to my belt while Jarod did the same with the laser.

“One second. I have to check on the others,” I said, raising the obelisk to my mouth.

Jarod spread his hands. “Where am I gonna go? Our mounts are dead.”

“I’ll call Carl for pickup. We left a couple of pteras with him, and he was building an air carriage, last I knew. Maybe it’s ready. If not, I can send a message back for Malcolm—”

Just then, a piteous cry caught my attention. I turned to see the female T-Rex watching us warily from the ground near the corner where she’d been hiding.

“Shit, she’s still here?” Jarod said.

I strode toward her, squinting in the dark. “I think she’s grounded. The falling rock or one of the air compressions must have knocked her over.”

When T-Rexes fell over, they had to really struggle to right themselves, especially if they were weak and given the mournful sounds she was making, I guessed she wasn’t in prime condition.

“Is she sad the Apex died?” Jarod ventured.

I shook my head. “She was making the same sounds when it was alive.”

“Well? You speak dino. What’s she saying?”

“I can understand raptors, Jarod. Rexes will take more practice... then again....”

I listened carefully until she made the sound again. It was familiar. Vaguely like the raptor cry for—

I laughed out loud. “She’s not sad. She’s horny!”

Jarod missed a step. “You mean—”

“She’s in heat! She’s probably been following this rex around for days, trying to mate with him! But he was an Apex. He couldn’t have cared less about mating.” The things were mutants, unable to breed.

She cried out again as if asking us not to add insult to injury. Then she laid her head down and seemed to give up entirely.

Jarod tensed, drawing his folded spear from his back, but I stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"Hold on. She’s Darth’s age. She could breed for us." We had several baby rexes, but Missy told me they were struggling to survive. A motherly instinct could help them, and with Darth’s participation, we could produce more.

Jarod looked doubtful but lowered his weapon. “That’d be nice. Means Lawyer didn’t have to die for nothing. As far as mounts go, replacing Utahraptors with rexes would be an upgrade for infantry.”

I nodded, thinking of Britonia, with its high walls. An infantry of rexes would go a long way if they decided to war with us.

“You gonna use a domestication charge on it?” Jarod asked.

I shook my head. “No. I’m down to just one, and I want to always have one in reserve.” After all, you never knew when you might get the chance to snag a spinosaur or a bronto. It was not an opportunity to be missed.

This meant I’d have to have the female collected and trained the old-fashioned way. I watched her closely, screening for a violent temperament, but she only breathed and whined. She was ready to die, heartbroken over her lost crush and wasted pilgrimage.

I raised the obelisk to my mouth again. “All right. Let me make a few calls.”

Chapter 11

Spy Toads

JAROD and I didn’t make it back home until midnight. However, we did make it with our lovesick T-Rex intact, thanks to Cole. He had come running to our location on Darth’s back the moment we cut contact during our fight with the Apex. So he’d been halfway to us by the time we realized we wanted to keep the female rex. She perked up upon meeting Darth, and Cole had no trouble leading her away from the mountain. They should make it back to Tribe Grant just after we did.

As for Jarod and myself, Carl’s new ptera-carriage got us home safe. The contraption was still a rickety thing, little more than a wooden platform that could be strung up between six alien-domesticated pteranodons, but it allowed the small creatures to carry the weight of several full-sized guys like us. Otherwise, like the gallimimus, the pteras could only carry one small man or petite woman apiece.

We arrived to a hushed audience. I could feel the confusion in the air as the carriage set us down. Thanks to our ptera scouts, everyone knew we were coming. All of my wives waited for me, a question in their eyes.

I steeled myself as I stepped up to Cassie, the woman at the front, her arms crossed and her gaze aflame. She was the spiciest of my ladies, and my decision had her riled.

“Why did you turn Bertha and the crew around?” she asked. “Aubrey tells me they had just spotted smoke! We could have met the Africans already. If they had hadrosaurs, we would have known they’d killed Eric! We could have had our revenge already if you hadn’t—”

I laid my hand on her shoulder, and she stopped speaking at the weight of it. Her face softened when she saw the look on my face.

“What happened? Alan? What is it?”

“You suspected a trap,” Sayuri said.

I sighed. “Something like that. I think the Nomads would have responded with violence if we found them.” And clearly Cassie would have responded in kind, I thought. Damn, if she saw even a single hadrosaur... I have to be careful who I send on potentially diplomatic missions.

“I also think the aliens wanted to witness that skirmish,” I went on. “They love to see bloodshed. It’s why they drew me away... because without me, we were more likely to get violent.” I eyed Cassie when I said this, and she had the decency to blush.

Sayuri cocked an eyebrow. She felt the accusing eyes on us just as well as I did. Everyone was hungry for vengeance. I’d really underestimated that.

“And you have proof that this was a setup?” she said, already knowing the answer.

“Not yet. But I will. Jarod,” I said, turning to him. His first wife, Jennifer, was halfway into his pants already, so relieved to find him alive. At this time of night, the aphrodisiacs in our food hit hardest.

He groaned. “Please, boss. Not more work.” He squeezed Jennifer’s butt for emphasis. “Just let me unwind.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “But grab Carmila for me. Her house is on the way to yours. Wake her up and send her to me, then get some well-deserved rest.”

Jarod nodded, allowing Jennifer to tug him away by his belt. She’d been reticent about sharing his bed with another woman, but when he’d asked her to consider Rin, she’d given it some thought. Rin was often away on missions on the gallimimus team, and she wasn’t the loving type. Her relationship with Jarod was strictly transactional, and Jennifer had eventually capitulated. The male-to-female ratio of Tribe Grant practically required a multiple-wife system, but Jennifer didn’t want to share her partner’s love. Rin only wanted sex and respect, not love, and Jarod met those needs in spades. All in all, their little trifecta worked out.

“Carmila?” Cassie said. “She has some sort of job in the settlement, right?” She was asking Aubrey, but it was Missy who answered.

“She manages the beelzebufos. She’s our toad specialist.”

Cassie frowned. “How will our toad specialist help with this?”

I gently urged her to turn around, and she did so. Together we began the long walk back to our shared hut, which we’d been lucky enough to draw a lot for last week. It wasn’t much. It barely fit a two-person bed and a chair, but my family treated it like a clown car, always testing the question: How many wives can we fit?

As for Cassie’s infant son Anthony, he was still being kept in one of the infant-designated “loud houses.” One of my wives was always there taking care of him, usually his mother.

“You let me worry about that,” I told Cassie. Because she spent most of her time with Anthony, she wasn’t really current on the happenings of the tribe. “But first, Sayuri? Your clipboard is out. I’m guessing there’s a report?”

“The cartography team you sent last week returned,” she said. “That kid, Alfred? You were right to think he knew his way around a map... his drawings were something else, very precise. He mapped the most passable route to Britonia, as requested. It’s relatively straight, too.”

I nodded. Alfred used to be a huge nerd in the Old World. I’d had a feeling he was into tabletop role-playing games, which meant he’d have at least some experience with maps.

“Good,” I said. “Have Bertha start clearing trees from Alfred’s route tomorrow morning.”

Aubrey gasped. “You mean—we’re making a road to Britonia?”

I smiled half-heartedly. “Just another show of power. We want to prove to King Archie that an alliance is smarter than a war.” The road should be partially finished by the time I met up with the king next week, and if he had even half-decent scouts, he would learn of it well before then.

“Missy,” I said as we turned onto the hard-trodden path leading to our section of houses.

My youngest wife cleaved to my side, her sizable tits bunching up against my arm. “Yes?”

The sultry way she said the word made me remember it was still my birthday. Well, maybe the day after, now. It was either very late night or very early morning. Either way, my wives probably had plans for me that went beyond my hall-pass for a new wife of my choice.

“I, ah....” I struggled to regain my train of thought. “We picked up a new rex today. A female, the same age as Darth, and in heat. Cole should be arriving with her soon.”

Missy bounced on her feet, making her chest jiggle. She took every chance to put herself on display for me, and I always appreciated it. One of her hands wandered into my pants and squeezed as she said, “Really! That’s great news. She might even help us keep the babies healthy—”

I tried to ignore the movement of her hand as I said, “Um, well, there’s a problem... the rex isn’t alien-domesticated. She’s pretty meek right now, but once she’s out of heat, she could be a problem.” Lords know I’ve seen territorial mama rexes tear other, bigger rexes in half, I added mentally.

“So,” I said, as we came to the door of our hut. “Do you think you could domesticate her? The old-fashioned way?”

Missy straightened away from me, her hand coming with her. “What, you mean like a horse?”

I poked the air with a finger. “Yes! Like breaking a wild horse. Exactly.”

Missy stuck her own finger in her mouth and licked it, although I could tell by her face she was thinking my words over seriously.

“I’m sure it could be done, Alan, but... a rex? That would take someone’s total dedication, their complete attention, for months. I don’t think anyone has that kind of time around here; I certainly don’t. But even if someone had the time, they’d need the inclination, too. And a wild rex? Everyone will be too terrified to try it.”

I listened, then sighed. After looking around the faces of my other partners, I saw that they all agreed. Missy was right; domesticating something as powerful and dangerous as a rex was going to take a very specific personality. Oh, I had no doubt I could do it, but I’d be busy with diplomacy for months. And after that, I’d be busy with winter... then with my children. Hell, I would be busy until I was dead.

Maybe I should use up a domestication on her, I thought. I’d acquire a new one in a few days, and she’d probably remain complacent enough until she laid eggs. Maybe we could kill her after she laid? But that seemed a waste.

An entire wing of rexes... just think of it.

No. I’d domesticate her if I had to, but we would start breeding rexes. We needed to if we wanted to survive.

“Why are you so concerned with preserving your charges?” Sayuri asked once the silence got long. “I know you want one for backup at all times, but one does refill each week.”

It was hard to explain, but they all deserved the answer. “It was something Atticus said once,” I explained. “He said we didn’t quite ‘get’ domestication yet. That other tribes had ‘caught on’ better than we had. Something like that, anyway. It just feels like we are missing something, where domestication is concerned.” And taking away our domestication charges certainly hammers that home, I thought to myself.

Now Aubrey stepped forward, placing her hand against my cheek. “Oh, Alan... you are always thinking about every side of everything, always worrying about things no one else has even considered yet.” She rose on her tiptoes to kiss me. “Come on, let’s help you let all that go, if only for one night. It is your birthday, after all—and all of us have gifts to give you.”

I nodded, looking around at my women. Some days, I loved them so much, that I felt blinded by it. The feeling made my whole body tingle.

But just then, I heard the soft thwup of a footstep behind us and turned. “Carmila,” I said.

The young auburn-haired woman glanced between me and my four flushed-faced mates. “Uh... you rang?” she asked, slowing.

There was a whisper behind me, and someone shushed someone else. I know what they were thinking. He’s choosing Carmila. She’s the one he wants!

But no. I liked her fine, she was pretty, but she and one of the former Soviet men—one of the few good ones—had a good thing going. Their relationship was helping smooth integration between our different tribes, and besides, they obviously loved each other. I wasn’t about to get between them.

“Yeah. I’ve got a job for you,” he said. “Well, for you and your toads.”

She stopped a respectful distance away from us. “Anything for you, Alan,” she said.

I smiled. That sentiment—that unquestioning loyalty it always warmed my heart, too.

“I need you to find evidence that the Nomads were planning to harm us when we came to them,” he said. “Talk to Cole and Elsa. Send your toads in to the spot where they saw smoke, and have them report back. And see if the stampede from the drop site led to the same place.”

Her green eyes widened. “What? Me? I don’t know the first thing about spying!”

“No, but your boyfriend does. What was his name?”

“Dimitri,” she said slowly, already concerned for him.

“Don’t worry. I don’t want you two to get close, just the toads. You send them in from a few miles out, then wait for their report. They can answer yes-or-no questions since they are alien-domesticated. You know yes and no from them, right?”

She nodded. Any self-respecting dino keeper knew that much about their charges, at least.

I continued, raising an eyebrow. “And if they come across anyone....”

Carmila nodded again. “The bufos should stun ‘em, and me and Dimitri can bring ‘em back if it’s safe?”

“Exactly.”

Carmila surprised me by saluting with the same closed fist that Rin had offered me this morning. “Peace and plenty,” she said.

I inclined my head. “And as a last resort, power,” I added.

When she was gone, Cassie’s hand slid over my shoulder. “I think you inadvertently invented a tribe motto today.”

“Peace and plenty,” Missy mused.

Aubrey reached for my belt. “And as a last resort....”

I let them lead me into the house. The birthday boy had finally come home.

Chapter 12

Birthday Dinner

INSIDE OUR HUT, I found a fire burning low in our little hearth. Not every dwelling had a hearth yet, since it took clay to build and was a hazard to the wooden walls. Eric and Kaity had one, but it always seemed like a fire hazard in their rickety home. However, Sayuri had decided to test the concept in our home as well. It had been built of stronger stuff, just like all of the newer dwellings.

“Good, it’s still hot,” Aubrey said, bending down in front of the embers. A large carved rock sat atop the heart of the fire, filled with water. It steamed.

When we have metal, we’ll have much better kitchen implements, I thought, and the whole idea of metal brought a flood of worries again. I shook them off as Aubrey dipped a rag in the hot water and stood.

“Now, we wash you,” she said, curling her nose. “You’ve had a long day, you know.”

I cracked a smile and spread my arms. “Can’t blame you for that. Wash away.”

So I stood in the center of the small, one-room hut as my partners took my clothes off and washed me. Cassie began by prying off my dented chest plate, and Missy deftly unclasped my arm and shoulder pieces. My armor was so damaged that I think only a few pieces of it could be retooled or salvaged, but that was a problem for tomorrow.

Once my chest was bare, Aubrey set about scrubbing it. I outright moaned at the feeling of hot water on my bruised and beaten body, the liquid drizzling down over my pectorals and abdomen.

“Mmmm, I swear you get sexier every time we take your clothes off,” Missy purred, reaching for my belt yet again.

“It’s only because you all barely see him,” Sayuri said, consulting her clipboard in the corner of the room. She eyed the hearth and made a notation. Clay does not appear to transfer heat to surrounding wood, or something like that, if I had to guess.

“You saw him this morning,” Aubrey said, without heat.

“I see him lots of mornings,” Sayuri replied with a smile, lowering the clipboard. “Which is why I’ll go take Anthony duty. Poppy’s doing us a favor by watching him, but she’s earned herself some sleep. Besides, this room is too small for all of us.”

I watched her go with some disappointment. I still hadn’t told her about our new excavator and spare 700 NE. But then Missy had her hands under my armor, and my mind shot off to other things.

“She’s bisexual, you know,” Cassie said, still working on removing my ruined shin guard.

“What?” I gritted out.

“Sayuri. She’s bi. She offered to, you know, make things more interesting with all of us.”

“But we had to tell her no,” Aubrey added, working her warm water down my bared legs. Missy hadn’t bothered to remove my undergarments; she was already on her knees, stroking me through the fabric. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the feeling as my cock rose up to meet her.

Sayuri... bisexual? Hmmm, I thought. For some reason, it didn’t surprise me.

“Well, none of you are bi, and I don’t want any of you uncomfortable,” I murmured, already losing track of the conversation. Aubrey’s rag moved back up the inside of my thigh, and she handed it off to Missy. Missy finally took off the last of my clothing. Then she turned her stroking to scrubbing.

Lords, I felt brand new.

Cassie took off my last boot, leaving me totally naked. Cassie’s hands roved up my back, moist where Aubrey had cleaned it. She started rubbing my shoulders, putting her lips to my ear.

“She told you about our main gift, right?”

I nodded. “One woman of my choice. But you all know I don’t need that, right? I don’t need any other women. You all are ple—”

“Shhh,” Cassie said, finishing the sound with a lick to my ear. “We know what’s best, Alan. Besides, you don’t have to choose. The option is just on the table if you ever want it. No consequences. We promise.”

With that, she trailed love-bites down my neck, her hands curving along my ribs and up my chest. She palmed my pecs, toyed with my nipples a bit, and then outlined my shoulder blades with fresh kisses. Meanwhile, Missy had lost the rag and had begun nuzzling my cock, her tongue flicking my freshly-cleaned balls.

“You could choose another bisexual woman,” Missy whispered against my shaft. “Then she and Sayuri could give you a good time.”

“Until then,” Aubrey said, moving to stand by the bed, “we’ll do our best to be fun for you. And we have something special planned for tonight.”

Then Aubrey took her shirt off, her lily-white tits drawing all my attention as she tantalizingly revealed them to me. My mouth already watered for a taste of them, but when she laid back on the small bed and slipped off her skirt to reveal nothing underneath, I suddenly hungered for a taste of something else.

“Ah,” I croaked. “And what plan is that?”

Aubrey spread her legs wide, reaching down to part the lips of her sex with two fingers. Missy slipped my cock into her mouth, wet and slow. Cassy whispered, “We’ve made up a three-course meal for you. Go on. Aubrey is the appetizer.”

With a little push, she shoved me forward. Missy twisted, allowing my cock to slip from her mouth with a little moan.

I crawled onto the bed, and Aubrey sighed, her breath rattling. “I want you, Alan,” she breathed.

I parted her legs—and dropped my head between them. Then, I started to eat.

“No, not—ohhh,” Aubrey murmured, her thighs loosening to both sides of my head. She tasted of woodsmoke, of forgotten worries, of want. My upper lip rubbed her clit while my tongue roved her opening.

After a few laps of her sweet juices, Missy joined us on the bed. She nudged my thigh with her hip, and I rose up onto my hands and knees. She slid underneath me. I could tell she’d undressed.

“And the main course,” Cassie said, running her hand along my back as she joined her sister-wives on the bed. “Served however you want it.”

On cue, Missy cupped my dick with her porn-star tits. I groaned into Aubrey’s pussy, making her shudder.

Missy pressed her breasts tight around my cock, and Cassie disappeared for another moment and returned with something in her hand. She reached for my dick and somehow dug into Missy’s tits deep enough to rub something slick over me.

“Palm oil,” she said. “From a previously extinct species of date palm. We tested it extensively on ourselves when we missed you... you’ll have to let us know how you like it.”

Well, I was definitely liking it. I started to thrust, plunging my cock into Missy’s huge, tight breasts while plunging my tongue into Aubrey.

“Oh, Alan,” Aubrey moaned. “This is so hot. You’re going to make me come, aren’t you?”

I said nothing, working to please her, all while my cock rode high enough to pummel Missy’s jaw. She breathed hard, gasping my name, her fingertips rubbing the underside of my head whenever I pushed through. I could tell she was only using one hand on me. Three guesses what she was doing with the other.

Now Cassie crawled into bed, too, lying next to Aubrey. I raised my gaze to see her with one hand on her bare breast, the other working her clit, legs spread to show me she was already wet. I heard the squish of her need, all while Aubrey’s insides pulsed on my tongue, and Missy moaned and begged me for more.

“Come on me, Alan. Come all over me,” Missy begged.

I met Cassie’s eyes. “When you’re ready for dessert, Alan, you let me know,” she said. “But don’t worry. I can wait for your second wind—”

Aubrey cut her off with a deep, half-choked groan. “Oh fuck,” she cursed. “Alan, fuck—Alan!”

Her thighs shuddered, and I moved forward, slamming my dick into Missy’s mouth. She took me to the back of her throat, my balls slapping her chin. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the warmth of her, the frenetic play of her tongue around my shaft, the tightening of her throat as she struggled to fit me. Meanwhile, I’d gotten close enough to dip the fingers of my left hand into Cassie and grab Aubrey’s breast with my right.

Aubrey went limp, gripping my hand tighter to her chest, insensate, her head rolling from side to side. Cassie gave a choked cry, and then began to breathe hard with each rhythmic thrust of my hand.

It went on like that for a little while, with me lost in a mouth and a pussy at the same time, all while holding onto a nipple for dear life. I listened to the groans and grunts and soft breaths of their pleasure until Missy gripped my hips and started mumbling loudly against my cock. I pulled off her.

“Damn,” she rasped. “You made me come first. How haven’t you come yet? My lords!”

“You made yourself come,” I accused, crawling forward. I met Cassie’s eyes, and suddenly we were the only two people in the room. She giggled, which wasn’t a typical sound for her.

So quiet that only I could hear her, she said, “How is it that you make me feel beautiful just by looking at me?”

I dropped my hips and plowed into her without mercy. As she cried out, I said, “You are beautiful.”

“Oh, Alan, you big—big softy—oh lords yes. Give it to me... yes....”

Her words melted into nonsense as I fucked her silly, leaning back on my knees and parting her legs wide. I hammered into her, so fast she probably could hardly feel me with how damned wet she was. But I couldn’t slow down. I physically could not. If a spinosaur had ripped off the entire pine-wood roof at that moment, I still wouldn’t have pulled out of her body.

“I’m close,” I said, puffing my cheeks out. “Where do you want it?”

Her back arched, taking me deeper. She cried out as I met her offer with force, driving into her hard, one solid thrust instead of a dozen little ones in the same space of time.

“In me,” she sighed out, her arms going back to grip the simple headboard behind her. “In me, Alan. I’m ready.”

I suddenly remembered what Sayuri had told me that morning. We want you on a three-month schedule. So now, it’s time to get me and Cassie pregnant.

“Are you sure?” I asked, already cresting. She nodded hard.

“I need you,” she said. “I need your babies, Alan. I want Anthony to have—a sibling—”

Hastily I grabbed at her clit with my thumb, and I gave a triumphant shout as she made me come. But I kept up the hard thrusts while I spurted into her, good solid hammer-blows of cock to keep her feeling it. My thumb depressed her nub, moving with me. Even as I softened, she came.

I finished as her body pulsed against me, as she breathed my name into my ear.

Minutes later, we all four lay exhausted and spent. I couldn’t believe my three very-straight partners had contrived to do this with me. None of them had touched or even kissed the other, but it had to be hard to share like this.

“That was the best birthday dinner ever,” I said, already falling asleep.

Missy closed her hand on my cock and put her sweet mouth to my ear.

“Wait until you taste breakfast,” she said.

Chapter 13

One Day and Counting

UNFORTUNATELY, breakfast was not to be. I woke up before dawn to a sound that I couldn’t place. Instantly, I ran through all the extra security I’d ordered for the settlement: extra patrols around the walls, ten-minute reports from scouts instead of hourly, one armored and one carnivore dino in every dwelling area, and twice as many messenger torches. The bad feeling I’d gotten while fighting the Apex had led me to implement all kinds of extra security measures, and I was still confident in that instinct, even if I didn’t have proof yet.

So I listened, tense, my wives breathing softy on all sides of me The sound came from outside the hut’s single shuttered window. A low snuffling whine. A dino? No, it sounded more—

Human.

I sat up, recognizing the sound from hearing it so many nights when my wives needed comfort. Carefully I pried off hands and arms and wedged my way out of bed. I threw on a fresh pair of pants, left folded in our single chair, most likely by Aubrey. Silently, I thanked her for always thinking ahead, for anticipating my needs better than I ever could.

I opened the door and found Kaity on my doorstep.

She shot to her feet and scrambled away, her face wet with tears. “Oh my lords, I’m sorry.” She ran her arm across her face. “I didn’t mean to scare you—”

“Scare me? I’m the one that scared you,” I said, exiting the hut and securing the door behind me. “Sorry about that. I’m used to being silent; it makes it easier to hunt.”

Kaity hugged herself tight, standing awkwardly. “Oh. Right, of course.”

Well, if she wasn’t going to tell me, then I’d ask: “What are you doing here at this time of night?”

Kaity looked away, shifting uncomfortably on her bum leg. That tiny place in the back of my mind asked, Her?

No, I thought, angry with myself. She’s in mourning, you idiot. Eric died less than twenty-four hours ago!

Even though I’d always seen Kaity as an asset in the skies, I’d never for a moment thought of her romantically. But now that my wives had given me the green light to take on any new wife I wanted, it seemed like I couldn’t even look at a woman without imagining taking her to bed. It was like hitting puberty all over again.

Still, the thought of Eric sent a pang through me, and it became clear why she was here. “You don’t know what to do with yourself, do you?” I asked her. I remember feeling the same way when my mother died. I was fourteen at the time and sitting still made me insane. I wanted to do something, anything, even though nothing could bring my mom back.

Kaity seemed to hold her breath, and then she just broke, her body going loose and her sobs breaking free. She threw herself at me and I held her.

“I’m so sorry, Kaity. I’m so sorry.”

“He’s gone,” she moaned. “He’s gone, gone, gone....”

I thought of my younger self again. There was no solution to death. I couldn’t fix that. But as she wept against me, I realized that I could help her. I could give her something to do.

And that, most likely, was why she had come to me. She surely had dozens of friends in this camp. But I was the only one who could ask something of her.

When she finally fell quiet, her tears expended, I squeezed her once and said, “I really am sorry, Kaity. I didn’t see this coming I don’t think anyone could have. I would never have sent him into danger if I’d known. It was the safest, most secure drop site of the three.”

She nodded against me. “I know. I don’t blame you. But....”

“But?”

She pulled back, looking up at me with red-rimmed eyes. “Some of the others... they’re angry you called off the hunt for the Nomads. I know you, though. You did it for a good reason. But I... I just....”

“You want revenge,” I said. “Or at least, to help. To make his death worth something.”

She nodded.

While the stirrings of anger among my people disturbed me, I’d be taking care of that soon enough. For now, I would handle what I could.

“Kaity, I need you,” I said. “I need your fliers, but for a special mission. We have to find out who did this to Eric—but in a way that won’t get more people killed.”

Her face brightened, just as the moon popped out from behind a cloud. She seemed to glow with hope, and in that moment, she really was beautiful.

“Anything, Alan. Something. Please.”

I swallowed. “I found flier tracks at the site where... it all happened,” I said. “There was a team of fliers, not just the stampede of dilos. But we haven’t seen any evidence of other flight teams in the area. I....” I paused, unsure if I wanted to say this. “I think the enemy wanted me to find the tracks. They wanted me to suspect my own flight team of betrayal.”

Kaity recoiled. “What? We would never!”

I patted her arm. “I know, I know. But you have an alibi anyway. You just happened to come with me and Malcolm that same day. You wouldn’t have had time to betray us. So, I think... Kaity, someone is operating a flight team in this region, and they are hiding it well. I need you to find it.”

She was nodding now, eyes off to the side, her left brain back at work, emotions shoved aside. “Yes... yes, we could explore in a grid pattern like the galli team, only high up. Use the dinos’ better sight to guide us....”

I gripped her shoulders, forcing her to look at me. “I trust you to do this right,” I said. “But, Kaity... do it safely. That’s an order. I don’t want a single death for Tribe Grant over the next 100 days. I want Eric to be the last. I want that to be his legacy. The point boost alone will take us into a double-digit ranking. It could earn us one of the ships, Kaity. It could guarantee all of our safety, well into the future.”

She bit her lip. “So losing him... it would count for something?”

I nodded fervently. “Yes! It would. But be careful. This enemy is smart. They’re thinking ten steps ahead. So we have to think twenty.”

She rubbed her nose. “I can do that. I won’t react on emotion. I’ll stay smart. Eric always said I was smart....”

She caught her breath, and I hugged her again. Another few tear-filled minutes later, she left, walking away down the hard-packed track to the ptera pens.

A small ding sound was the only warning that Atticus would appear. The next instant, his blue, transparent hologram materialized beside me. He, too, seemed to be watching her leave.

“Carmila and Kaity, huh? That’s two side missions assigned to untrained inferiors in only a few hours,” he commented. “You have been awarded a bonus for task delegation. You can now get a scan of a person’s stats if you get within ten feet of them.”

A person’s stats? I thought. Since when was that a thing?

It didn’t matter at the moment, though. I crossed my arms and raised an eyebrow at him.

“Your superiors feeling a little guilty about taking away my domestications?” I asked.

He said nothing for a moment, and then, “More like bored. Everyone likes seeing dinos do crazy things.”

It figured. It all came back to entertainment with these bastards.

Shaking my head, I said, “What if Kaity and Carmila succeed at the tasks I’ve given them? Will I get bonuses for that, too?”

“Points,” he said. “They will be worth quadruple the points of your normal missions, as well, since they are secret missions by untested players.”

“I’ll get even more points if I keep my people alive for over 100 days,” I told him. I said it more like a challenge than a statement.

Atticus huffed a laugh. “You’d be the first.”

My jaw actually dropped open. “You—you’ve got to be kidding. No one?”

“Not a single tribe on your entire planet. Not yet.” He shrugged. “But there’s one tribe at 91 days, currently.” His lizard face twitched, an expression I was coming to recognize as distaste. “But my dear beloved Empire won’t make it easy on them.” His vertical-pupiled eyes swiveled to me. “Nor will they make it easy on you.”

“Ha! Tell them to bring it on,” I said. “I’m getting that 100 days death-free, and I’m getting one of your ships. You just watch me.”

He smiled, but there was something in it, a slight tremble to his lip. He was worried about something—but what?

“I know you will, Alan. I’m counting on it.”

Then he vanished, leaving me alone in the dark.

Chapter 14

Rainbows and Whiptails

THE NEXT WEEK PASSED QUIETLY, with not a single peep from our hidden enemies. Some people thought that it must have been the Nomads who killed Eric and the others, but that the restless tribe had seen our might and moved on. Angry whispers followed me through camp, saying I had let the Nomads go, that I hadn’t taken revenge on them.

Little did they know that Carmila and Dimitri had been hard at work with their toads, gathering intelligence... and about a half-dozen African captives. So far, the men had refused to talk, but all of them were ebony-skinned, so I figured they belonged to the Nomads.

Even though the captives stayed mute, Dimitri proved especially adept at dragging the victims back to his and Carmila’s dwelling without anyone else seeing, and tying them up. I didn’t want them seen, because I didn’t want their leader to know for sure that Tribe Grant was the one capturing his men.

Regardless, Dimitri currently had orders to keep them contained and quiet. I hoped that would wear them down.

Even if it didn’t, I now knew for a fact that the Nomads were our enemies. Carmila had found the camp site where my team had seen smoke from Bertha. There was no camp there. Only prints—and an enormous, hidden hole in the ground, intended for Bertha. The Nomads had known we were looking for them, and they’d laid a trap in response.

The stampede trail hadn’t led to it, though. It was still unclear whether they killed Eric or not.

Either, and I had been right. The so-called “diplomatic” trek to the Nomads had been intended to end in violence. But I’d deal with all that when I returned from Britonia. Maybe by then, our Nomad captives would let something slip about their tribe’s leader, or the tribe’s weaknesses. While I was gone, several of our female Soviets had volunteered to torture them. I told them psychological torture only, since physical stuff was only going to get false confessions. I’d spent enough time in the military to know the truth of that.

They ex-Soviets had claimed to have “ways.” They promised to report their findings to me when I returned.

As for the Britonia trip, I was set to leave tomorrow, and I was getting anxious about it. Politics weren’t my thing. I preferred to have my hands on a spear with a dino in front of me. I preferred pep talks over peace talks. I was trained in the military, for lordssakes. I was taught to fight first and ask questions later.

“You sure you want to do this now?” Jarod asked me. We’d gone on a spur-of-the-moment mission today, just to take my mind off Britonia. By this point in said mission, the jungle near Spine Lake had fully enveloped us in its humid embrace. My heart pounded against my ribs, adrenaline flooding my veins. This place teemed with danger, yet also opportunity.

I really needed some action right now.

“Yeah. I’m getting all tense, thinking about politics,” I whispered back, creeping forward through a patch of fig trees.

“He’s not kidding,” Aubrey said, on my other side. She really shouldn’t be out here, but I needed her observational skill today. “We have to make him come twice to get him to sleep anymore.”

Jarod rolled his eyes. “Ugh, you guys are as bad as Rin.”

I shot him a grin and glanced back at the rest of my team, their faces taut with anticipation. Missy hung close, sheltered on both sides by Jack and Vesna. Vinny and Darnell followed after, and Cole and Elsa played the rear guard.

The ground vibrated faintly, and I faced forward, raising a clenched fist. The team halted behind me. The chatter of mini-raptors fluttered between the barred sunbeams all around us, leaves rustling with unseen movement and soft wind.

We were close to the lake now, but we were coming upon a small herd of something that was circling the edge of the open area surrounding the water. The ground shook considerably, and I guessed they were large. They might be carnivores, if they were at the edge of the watering hole.

I turned and whispered to the others, "Remember, we're here to test the new equipment. Non-lethal takedowns only. Stick to the plan."

Over the past week, Tribe Grant had acquired some new assets. Some of it came from Carl’s drop, but some also came from Missy, Vinny, and other clever members of my tribe. I was anxious to test it all out, to burn off steam before I had to leave.

The team passed the message back, and nods of assent followed after. Satisfied, I gestured forward. We crept out of the brush surrounding the watering hole where we normally harvested clay. My heart slammed against my chest at the sight that met my eyes: dozens of dinos, in dozens of sizes and shapes... and colors.

Kaity hadn’t been lying, I thought. The diversity here really is stunning.

While Kaity hadn’t found our mystery flight team yet, she had noticed this nomadic group of dinos. And just as her report stated, there were varieties here that I’d never seen before... and of those I had seen, some had traits that were completely unfamiliar to me. Hell, if my eyes weren’t deceiving me, one of the stegos had crystal back plates! They blinded me with sunlight when I looked at them.

And, right in front of us, a dinosaur I’d never seen before—the ones whose footfalls I was feeling. They stood at about twice my height, and with the webbed spines along their backs, they definitely looked carnivorous. Yet as I watched, they stopped to pick at patches of grass.

I signaled for a pause and held my obelisk up to the nearest one. “Bioscan,” I said. The term “Identify” didn’t work on living things, so I’d learned but my bioscans on dinos were unlimited, so long as I was close enough to them.

Species: Amargasaurus: Sex: Male

Age: 3.06 sun rotations.

Weight: 28.3 Zexa

Rarity Value: 76.660

Efficiency Value: 90.32% of species

Traits: Showy, Proud, Lazy

Known for: A scary-looking herbivore useful in frightening off much larger carnivores with its colorful spine displays. However, they can be rather slow and lumbering as mounts.

Holy dick on a stick, I thought. Those rarity and efficiency numbers were way higher than any I’d seen before. As the amargasaurs lumbered past us, unconcerned, I turned to Missy and relayed my findings.

Her eyes widened. “What? We have to catch them! The rarity alone will net us all kinds of points. I can breed other dinos to a higher percentage if they are compatible, too.”

I peered past the amargas at the other colorful, strange herbivores at the watering hole. I think Kaity was right. This is a treasure trove of high-quality dinos, I thought.

I couldn’t care less about the “quality” of a dino, so long as it did its work and was healthy—but the aliens loved beautiful and interesting beasties. Atticus’s comment about me not fully understanding breeding might have something to do with this.

Well, if that were so, then today we would please him a great deal.

Time to work, not be wowed, I told myself, signaling for the team to run ahead of the amargasaurus herd. Everyone obeyed without question, knowing that our survival depended on it.

Once we reached the front of the unconcerned herd, I led us back into the trees and pointed up. As one, we all scrambled up the nearest trees, using the thickest vines to swiftly pull ourselves halfway to the canopy.

I chose a sturdy tree with dense foliage to conceal myself. From my perch, I had a clear view of the amargasaurus herd approaching below.

The juveniles wandered aimlessly, nipping leaves and grasses. A few of the older ones played guard on the edges, their long necks swaying as they kept watch—but, as promised by the list of stats, even the guard dinos looked lazy.

All of them proved showy, too. Each one had a different pattern along its back webbing—stripes of orange and blue on one, vivid green splotches on another. I make a mental note to target the most colorful ones. Their unique genetics will diversify our breeding stock the most.

When the front of their column got close, I gave Missy a signal that looked like I was throwing fish food in a pond. In response, she reached into her back-satchel and pulled out a handful of crushed leaves and berries—a concoction designed to entice plant-eaters. She had assured me that it made the herbivores back in camp go crazy, the dino equivalent of catnip for cats.

Leaning out on a sturdy branch, she sprinkled the bait inside the tree line where I directed her. The sweet aroma wafted up through the air. Even my weak human nose could smell it.

The amargasaurs caught wind of the scent immediately. Their nostrils flared as they turned and started ambling toward the bait. After another signal, my team began to anchor hand-made nets and ropes to the upper branches.

The amargasaurs followed the bait to the spot right underneath the nets. They clustered close together, at least a dozen of them crowding the pile of bait. Plenty for us to work with.

Once half the herd was in prime position, I gave the final signal. My team dropped the ropes in unison, ensnaring the amargasaurus in a huge, tree-anchored net.

The dinosaurs let out startled honks and bellows at the sudden movement, thrashing as they tried to back up. But it was no use. We had them right where we wanted them, and with some more well-practiced tugs, we had the dinos tangled or grounded or both.

Still, the dinosaurs were panicking as they struggled, their bellows met with questioning cries from the direction of the lake. I had to silence them to keep from spooking the other dinos, but I’d prepared for that, too.

All right, Vinny. Let’s see if you know your shit, I thought, sliding alone down a vine to the forest floor.

I dove into the herd, narrowly avoiding the nearest dinosaur’s snapping teeth. Those chompers might not be sharp, but they could easily crush my bones to a pulp. I grabbed the first amargasaurus by the top of its round snout, before shoving one of our deconstructed alien spears past its teeth. It bit down on the spear, but couldn’t damage the alien metal. This gave me just enough space to reach into one of my deep pockets, grab a handful of grainy paste, and shove it onto the amarga’s tongue.

It thrashed, nearly wrenching my arm off, but the spear saved me from being forever left-handed. I stole my arm back, yanked out the spear, and moved to the next dino.

The tails of the panicked dinosaurs whipped back and forth, thin and snapping toward the tips. Their long necks and powerful legs flailed about like trees in a hurricane. I vaulted spines here, ducked under snouts there, and got a year’s worth of BDSM role-play from the tails in between. I was gonna have welts after this.

Worse, the thick nets kept tripping me, and bark kept getting in my eyes as the ropes scraped it off the trees.

Half-blinded, sore, and unsure of my footing, I still managed to make my way through the herd, dodging angry snouts and colorful webbing until, one by one, the dinosaurs fell quiet in my wake. It was dangerous work, but Vinny’s new drug took effect rapidly. Soon, the dinosaurs were out cold, and there were no sounds of a stampede from the lake.

Standing back, I wiped sweat from my brow and called upward, “You discovered that much poison just by looking for herbs and spices?”

“Well, someone had to taste test all the aromatics we found,” Darnel called back, dropping down to join me. The rest of the team followed suit.

“And I threw up enough times to figure out what hurt, and what didn’t,” Vinny added, clapping me on the back. "Still, I wouldn’t have the balls to stick it down their throats like that.”

“Well, one thing’s for sure... I’m not choosing a dominatrix for my next wife,” I said, rubbing my back where he’d slapped it. “I think we can literally dock their tails to use as whips.”

From there, Missy and I pored over the downed amargas. Most were young and healthy, but we marked the prime specimens according to the bioscans. A recovery team was set to follow us in an hour, and they’d transport all the marked dinos back to our village while slaughtering the others for food.

"Let's move out," I said, once the last amargasaurus had been scanned. From there, we crept cautiously back to the sunlit clearing surrounding the lake.

Where are you, spino? I thought, scanning the water. I knew a spinosaurus lived in that lake, possibly more than one. It could leap out at any time, but so far, I hadn’t heard any fearful cries or big splashing noises. Maybe it was waiting for its favorite treat?

“Keep clear of the water’s edge," I reminded my team. "We don’t have Bertha to protect us from Ol’ Spiney this time.”

Today was the first of my 100 days death-free. I would never again let that clock reset—and if the spinosaurus tried to test me on that, it was in for a whole world of hurt.

Chapter 15

Investigator

AS I LOOKED BACK at my team, I caught the flicker of fear in more than one pair of eyes. Darnel was visibly sweating. But Jack, Elsa, and Vesna wore flat expressions, unperturbed. They’d seen some shit, and they feared nothing. I was liking those three more and more, and I appreciated Cole for keeping them all sane with his leadership and good humor. One day, this would be his team, not mine.

Back on task, I told myself, giving the watering hole another once-over. There were dozens of gorgeous dinos worth capturing, but I had to choose the best first, because something could spook them all at any moment.

Then, I spotted it—a young brontosaurus-like dinosaur. It looked like a much younger Bertha, but there was a certain shape to its head that was different.

I pointed. “What is that?” I asked Missy. I know she liked to study dinos in her spare time, to help her learn how to better care for them.

But she shook her head. “Not sure. If we get close, we can scan it.”

“If it’s not dead first,” I said, because the poor creature’s flanks glistened with deep claw wounds. The little sauropod was limping its way to the water’s edge to drink, but it looked about ready to fall over. Its wounds were fresh, still bleeding.

The last time we saw a diverse group of dinos like this... they’d been following Bertha around, I thought. Was it possible that this group had once had its own brontosaurus? But the thing had been killed, leaving its child behind?

Several hulking Utahraptors supported that theory, however brightly colored they might be. The deadly dinos circled the baby long-neck, snapping and hissing, earnest for a taste. Their sickle claws and serrated teeth would tear the juvenile to shreds as soon as they saw fit to attack, but they were clearly wary of the water. As usual, raptors were smarter than they looked.

Do I go for the bronto, or for more Utahraptors? After fighting the Apex, I needed both.

Then again, why not both? I gestured to Jack and Vesna, moving my hand as if I were spitting into it. Operation Dilophosaurus.

The pair nodded, mirroring one another, and started to run. I shot a final gesture to the remainder of the team—Go to the other side of the lake and keep up the mission. Until I’m back with you, Jarod’s in charge.

As the bulk of my team jogged away toward easier prey, I fell in behind Jack and Vesna. Together we sprinted toward the raptors, who started to notice us. Once we had the herd’s full attention, Jack and Vesna both pulled shining metal objects from their packs. With a flicking movement, they unfolded the metal objects into portable shields. From this side, I recognized that metal. The objects used to be my heavily damaged chest and back plates, now repurposed as a pair of shields that could bounce light directly into a predator’s face.

The raptors winced as sunlight lanced across their reptilian eyes. Meanwhile, the bronto trumpeted and started to back away from the water. What had it just seen?

I had no time to guess, because I was now racing around the gaggle of Utahraptors, their entire herd now focused on the bright, flashing circles of metal. The first one leapt at Jack, its claws glancing harmlessly off the metal—but the weight made the big man stagger back. Vesna was quick to jump in front of Jack while he regained his footing.

I got behind the raptors, and started scanning them. The first beast came back with numbers I almost couldn’t believe:

Species: Alpha Utahraptor: Sex: Male

Age: 1.29 sun rotations.

Weight: 5.4 Zexa

Rarity Value: 72.1

Efficiency Value: 93.78% of species

Traits: Disobedient, Unruly, Grouchy

Known for: Scouting capabilities

The Utahraptor noticed me as I marveled at it, and the thing turned. "Hey! Over here, you overgrown turkeys!" Jack taunted, banging his shield and getting its attention again.

As the raptors lunged and swiped at Jack, I charged in among them, performing bioscans left and right. While Jack and Vesna worked to hold their attention, I unloaded my spear and stabbed through the raptors with low scores, marking the high-scoring ones with shallow cuts instead.

Keeping low, I zigzagged through the raptors’ ranks, towards the watering hole and the baby long-neck. I stopped to mark every raptor, and while most took a bite at me, they tended to clamp their jaws on the butt-end of my spear, stalling them, and giving me the chance to shove a dart into their necks.

I was running out of darts, though, so I scanned the most optimal Utahraptors and skipped the rest.

Suddenly, a large raptor snapped its head around and looked right at me. Its eyes were emerald, the vibrant green of spring leaves, like nothing I’d ever seen on a dino before. I knew at a glance that it was valuable.

Its unnerving eyes locked onto me, and it snarled intelligently. I froze, which wasn’t like me.

“Bioscan,” I croaked.

Species: Mindraptor: Sex: Female

Age: 2.24 sun rotations.

Weight: 5.9 Zexa

Rarity Value: 97.7

Efficiency Value: 98.14% of species

Traits: Intelligent, Decisive, Vicious

Known for: Mind-controlling dinosaurs of lesser intelligence, and striking blind fear into those of higher or equal intelligence. It cans serve as a leader for any pack of any type of dinosaur.

The raptor tensed, ready to pounce, and I twisted away, the whoosh of air from its jaws ruffling my hair. A thrill of fear blurred my vision as I faced off with the raptor.

When the raptor attacked again, its claws gleaming in the dappled sunlight, I sidestepped and slammed my spear against the back of its head, aiming to incapacitate it. The raptor merely hissed as the spear grazed it, and it whipped back toward me with uncanny speed and started chittering.

Once again, I found my muscles stiff. It was doing something to me. But I had more intelligence, and it couldn’t fully control me.

“Oh, you’re mine,” I said.

I lunged forward once more, aiming at its throat with the butt of my spear. As the weapon made contact, the creature let out a strangled cry and took a step back, its throat likely aching. I prodded it again, driving it away from me. Only then did I notice that the other raptors had all gone still to watch. Even Jack and Vesna had given up trying to distract them, and merely stood vigilant, shields held before their bodies.

The raptor tried to level me with its gaze again, but I bopped it on the head.

“Blink, and you’ll miss me,” I said, hearing the smile in my voice even before I felt it on my face. I chittered at the beast in a language my old friend Sleuth had taught me: Me. Boss. You. Not boss.

The raptor whined, then roared, snapping at my spear sideways to grab it and thrust it away. I was left startled and weaponless, but I acted anyway, on pure instinct. To not act meant death.

I threw a punch—and missed.

At least, that’s what it looked like. My arm went straight down its throat as it turned its head to snap, and we found ourselves locked together, the raptor’s teeth sinking into the tendons of my upper arm, its eyes glaring into mine.

I opened my fist, and dropped my last handful of sleeping herbs. Me. Boss, I repeated.

Its eyes flared, fear hammering through me in time to my pulse and then the dino’s bright eyes faded.

It whined at me. You, boss, it said, a plea.

Then it collapsed at my feet.

I went with it to keep my arm from getting ripped off, and when the other raptors didn’t attack me, Jack and Vesna ran forward to help pry the mindraptor’s jaws off mine. After that, I wasted no time in spending one of my two domestications on it.

There was no way I was letting this bad boy—ahem, bad girl—escape.

“I’ll call you... Investigator,” I said, naming her, just like I did during every domestication. It was a mouthful of a name, but she deserved a lot of syllables... and it did some honor to poor Sleuth, my very first dino mount. My eyes burned. I had been avoiding thinking of him, but now....

Thanks for teaching me this language, old buddy, I thought, hoping Sleuth’s spirit could hear me. It kept me alive today, and it helped me make a new friend. Lords, I bet you would have liked her.

Cradling an arm that now sported new holes, I stood up from Investigator’s resting body. Jack and Vesna backed away from me, their faces slack with awe. I faced the Utahraptor herd and hissed, Me! Boss! in raptor-ese.

The Utahraptors ducked their heads, whining, not arguing. The message was clear.

They were mine.

I turned my back on the raptors. Some part of me—the human part—screamed that it was too dangerous, that I should never look away from an enemy, that they were animals who would turn on me instantly. But the rest of me knew these raptors were harmless. After all, their own leader had just named me her boss. I was now their boss’s boss, and that made them afraid.

I turned my attention, finally, to the juvenile long-necked dino, hoping it was still lingering at the edge of the water. Unfortunately, it was nowhere to be seen.

As I stepped closer to check for its prints, the surface of the lake bubbled near the shore. That was my only warning.

The next moment, the spinosaurus finally made its appearance—and its huge mouth was aiming for me.

Chapter 16

Bolt

THE CHURNING water gave way to an enormous crocodilian head attached to a bulky, sinuous body. Water streamed down its toothy snout. Its red eyes fixated on me as it let out a bone-rattling bellow.

A fresher, more primal fear took hold of my gut, and the mindraptor had nothing to do with it. I said a silent prayer, knowing I didn’t have the strength or the smarts to get out of this one.

I closed my eyes. I had a good run.

The next thing I know, something hit me—but it was a helluva lot smaller than a spinosaur. A horrifying stench followed after.

“Stay away from him, you bastards!” Cole shouted.

I opened my eyes to see the spinosaur, mouth open, only ten paces away and watching me. It wasn’t frozen; it still breathed, almost purring, its nostrils flaring. It smelled my odor too. I dared a look down.

Cole had just hit me with what looked like a dino-skin hacky-sack. Something moist and stinky oozed from within it.

“Cole... what is that?” I ask.

“The female rex’s pheromones!” he replied, running up to my side. “I noticed the smell when I took her back to camp. I was downwind of her the whole time.”

“And we figured, hey, I bet those pheromones would scare the pants off other dinos,” Elsa added, joining us as the spinosaur finally slunk back into the lake from which it had come. Finally I breathed out, feeling my lungs shrink, noticing every sensation of still being alive.

“Sorry. We were going to tell you about it, but we wanted to test it first,” Cole said. “We, ah... we hadn’t planned to test it today, though.”

“That’s... all right,” I managed, my voice faint.

Elsa snatched up the fallen pod and rubbed some of the liquid on her arms, then handed it to Cole, who did the same. "It thinks we're baby T-Rexes now," Elsa said with a grin. "That should keep us safe while we round up the dinos.”

Still dazed from near-death, I scanned the watering hole. Dinos lay fallen in all directions, mounds upon mounds of them, blow-darts in each of their necks. Those nifty little reusable darts had come from the drop near Carl’s outpost. The darts’ metal capsules had come empty, but Vinny had solved the problem of figuring out what to put in them.

So many new dinos, so easily. I laughed out loud. "Thanks, guys. That was a close—”

A juvenile’s cry for its mother cut me off, and I knew in my soul that it was the long-neck. I pivoted, kicking up sand in my rush to see the brontosaur lookalike as it wandered back out of the forest, looking at me with huge baleful eyes.

My body shook as I strode toward it, blood seeping down my arm. "Let me get this one," I said. "Then we can go home.”

The couple jogged to keep up with me. “But we’re out of the knockout juice,” Cole said.

I pulled a pokeyball from my belt. “It’s a good thing I borrowed this from Sayuri, then.” She almost hadn’t allowed me to take it.

As I approached the bronto, I offered a raptor call, a noise equivalent to Safe. Help. Not that the creature had any reason to fear me. Even as a juvenile, it was twice my height and even longer end-to-end than the adult amargasaurs.

Still, it was injured, a red gash cutting through its yellow-and-blue flank. It reminded me of a lightning bolt cutting across sunlit water. It would scar beautifully, if I could keep from spooking it again.

It came back for a reason, I told myself. Maybe it heard the spinosaur’s growl of defeat?

I approached cautiously, rounding in front of it. The juvenile tilted its head to one side to keep watching me. Cole and Elsa knew well enough to stay behind.

“Easy, buddy,” I said soothingly, finally getting near enough to scan it. Like the others, it had pretty good numbers, but it wasn’t a bronto after all:

Species: Brachiosaurus: Sex: Male

Age: 0.58 sun rotations.

Weight: 25.3 Zexa

Rarity Value: 60.770

Efficiency Value: 88.02% of species

Traits: Quick-Thinking, Dependable, Easygoing

Known for: They grow even bigger than brontosaurs. Enough said.

Even bigger than... hot damn. It must be Christmas.

I came to a stop, one hand out in front of me, palm open. Behind my back, I depressed the button on the pokeyball. The excavator appeared just as it had during my fight with the Apex rex, but it showed up behind me, where it wouldn’t startle the brachiosaur.

Gradually I moved it out in front of me. The juvenile blinked at it warily, its gaze tracking the targeting grid as I aimed the light at its feet. After testing, we’d confirmed that the excavator would only destroy a single material (or general amalgam of material), and it chose to destroy whatever was most prevalent within its grid. So, unless the light was only on its legs, the excavator would target soil and not damage the dino.

When I had an angle I liked, I pressed the trigger. The brachiosaur instantly sank.

It scrambled for a moment as the hard sedimentary rock beneath it turned to sand, displacing its footing. It cried out in confusion, and I darted forward before it thought to charge out of the angled pit.

Four well-placed excavations later, and I had the beast sunk to its underbelly in sand, the walls of the pit now too steep for it to climb out. I stepped back, admiring my work. Instant quicksand. Damn, this thing’s useful.

I heard someone approaching from behind me long before they appeared. I could even tell by her step that it was Missy.

“Impressive, as always,” she said, curling her arm around mine. “What is it?”

I told her, and her eyes widened.

“You mean—another Bertha? A bigger Bertha?”

“Once he’s big enough, yeah. I think I’ll call him Bolt.”

She considered for a moment, her blue gaze running deep with ideas. “Do you think he could mate with Bertha? Once he’s old enough?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. His values are high, but it’s your business to know what that means.”

Missy nodded. “And you still have one domestication left... amazing.” She pivoted around to face me, looping her hands around my neck and pressing her ample chest to mine. “Are you saving the last one for... anything fun?”

My hands dropped to her hips, then around beneath her skirt. She gave a delicious little peep as I gripped her ass.

“You let me worry about that,” I said. “But right now, I’m hurt and I’m horny. I could use a little R & R. Say, inside that patch of woods there?”

She giggled. “Oh, Alan, you dirty boy.” But she was already tugging me away, her steps light as feathers. I knew she must be thrilled with all the work I’d just given her. A potential army of high-value breeding stock to experiment with. I might as well take her now, since I wouldn’t be seeing her again for a month, at least. She’d be too busy watching dinosaurs have orgies. I almost envied her that.

But her question stuck with me. Are you saving that last domestication?

Just before we entered the woods, I turned back to the lake. A long head had emerged near the shore, crocodilian, watching me. For the first time, I saw the flash of three blow darts protruding from its skull. Clearly, the sleeping draught hadn’t worked on the beast. Had the darts even penetrated its hide?

I pointed to my eyes with two fingers, then to the creature. I’m watching you, I told him.

And one day, he was gonna be mine.

Chapter 17

Long Time No See

THREE DAYS LATER, Bertha shoved out of the dense forest with me on her back, and we both saw Britonia up close and personal. Bertha came down on the tree she’d just uprooted with a satisfied roar, and shouts ran along the wooden wall to announce us.

The upended tree was another show of strength, meant to make the statement that no wooden walls could keep us out. At the same time, I called for a halt of my forces, keeping a respectful distance now that I’d made my point.

Of course, the Britonians had seen us coming. Bertha wasn’t exactly easy to miss, and neither was the army of armored ankylosaurs that flanked us on either side, their spiked tails swishing through the underbrush. With their help, Bertha had cleared space for a road along the last mile of our trek. Eventually, I planned to clear the full route, but that was a task for another day. Right now, we just needed to keep putting our power on display, every chance we got.

Power, peace, and plenty, I thought. The first could lead to the others, if done right.

I patted Bertha’s thick neck, taking in the towering fortress that loomed before us. Made entirely of timber, it looked like it came straight out of the history books in medieval Europe. On its far side, it had even been built on the edge of a large water body, possibly an ocean; I couldn’t see the other side of the water from here, and my fliers had yet to attempt a crossing to map it.

Still, wood walls could be flimsy against the right dinos. We had wooden defenses ourselves, but they were patrolled by our spikiest defense dinos to augment them. Here, I saw no dinosaurs on patrol whatsoever. Bertha could plow right through this without even taking an anky club to the knee.

Cole said from my left, “You weren’t kidding. No dinos.”

“They’re crazy if they think they can survive without them,” Jarod added.

I’d chosen to bring both men with me, since they currently served as my generals, in a sense. Cole was a better politician than myself, and Jarod could use the experience.

Unfortunately, neither man was very intimidating or particularly battle-hardened. Jarod was a follower, albeit a very good one, and Cole had an extreme aversion to blood and risk. I wished I had someone at my side that could really put the fear of the overlords in these Britonians, but I couldn’t think of a single man or woman that could play that part. Peter might have, and his loss still stung. Cassie probably had it in her, but she was more concerned with child-bearing than warmongering. She’d practically begged me to give her a second baby. I would never have forced that on her.

No matter. I was imposing. I had imposing down pat. But someday, I’d need an emissary to stand where I couldn’t. Maybe I’d find one inside these very walls.

"Keep your eyes open," I said. “The rumors and reports could always be manufactured.” The Britonians were known for disdaining all things alien, for trying to do everything without our overlords’ help. So far, they had achieved that via numbers alone. The fortress was massive.

And I was about to see the inside.

Bertha snorted, as if sensing my determination. Malcolm even circled high overhead, simply making an appearance. I can dive down and eat any one of you, he was saying. Just try to hurt Alan, I dare you.

Jarod fidgeted nervously beside me. "Do you really think they're smart enough to spread false rumors and hide dinos? Why?”

“So they can surprise us later,” I replied. “Anything is possible.”

“You aren’t very trusting, are you?” Cole put in.

“It’s kept us alive, hasn’t it?” I replied.

He grinned with one side of his mouth. “Oh, I wasn’t criticizing you. I feel safer in your shadow than anywhere.”

That got a smile out of me. The Britonians were still milling about atop the wall, wearing bona fide uniforms in dried fabrics of unknown origin. It was clear they were just making me wait, though. They would have seen us coming for miles.

I patted the small obelisk hanging around my neck, and pulled up our stats to pass the time. Our points had actually jumped quite a bit just upon our arrival. The aliens were always happy to see a show of force.

Tribe Points: 2,226,144: Tribe Chieftain: Alan Winchester

Tribe Name: Grant

Tribe Size: 760.6 (includes animals and infants)

Tribe Ranking: 411/679,783

Once a Day Beacon Activation: 1/2

Once a Day Topography Scan: 1/2: Once a Week Dinosaur Domestication: 1/1

My adventures last week had sure boosted our ranking, but the numbers could change at a moment’s notice. Whoever came out of this meeting on top would get a significant boost.

Or we both will, if we come out even, I thought. Peace and plenty before power, always.

A familiar figure mounted the wall just as the mantra ran through my mind. As soon as I saw him, I climbed the ladder leading to the smaller observation saddle around Bertha’s head.

“Lean forward, girl,” I told her. “Snack on one of those Popsicle sticks. They look like beech, your favorite.”

She bugled lowly in reply, and as I climbed, she dropped her prodigious head to the wall and began to munch on the sharpened tip of one of the wall logs. I reached her head saddle just as the Britonian emissary did.

“Long time no see, Mister Napoleon,” I said.

He suppressed a sneer, badly. “That’s General Napoleon,” he said.

I almost laughed. Instead, I inclined my head respectfully. “You got it, General. Nice to see you again.”

It was an obvious lie, formal and stilted, but it would do for now.

Napoleon paused to cross his arms about ten feet from Bertha’s growing pool of slobber. The sound of her sucking mouth filled the silence for a moment. She really did enjoy beech pulp.

"King Archie welcomes you to Britonia," Napoleon said. "Please leave your... beasts... outside the gates. You may bring your entourage with you."

I chuckled. Cole and Jarod would get a kick out of being called my entourage. By contrast, Bertha rumbled unhappily beneath me, possibly offended at being called a beast.

"Of course," I replied. "Your house, your rules. But first....”

I signaled to my so-called entourage, and both men unlatched the huge saddlebags to either side of Bertha’s main saddle. A large sack of gravel poured from each, a gray-white cascade of rock that pooled at Bertha’s giant feet. She stomped a patch of it flat, for effect.

"A gift for your king,” I explained, “to begin paving the roads between our cities.”

After Sayuri had finally gotten a hold of her precious new excavator, we’d come up against a problem: what to do with the gravel it created. We could form terrace farms, dwellings, and irrigation tunnels with the tool, but we still needed to cart out all the excavated material.

Well, the future road solved that problem. More points for creativity to Tribe Grant.

Napoleon eyed the bag of gravel with disdain, no doubt wondering if dinos had been used to create it. These people really had sticks up their asses.

"His Majesty thanks you for this... gift," he said, lips curling. Clearly he didn’t want to be friends, but hopefully Archie felt differently.

I smiled pleasantly. “My ankylosaurs will spread it while I meet up with Archie.” I held out a hand. “If you would?”

Napoleon's face twitched at the casual use of the king's given name. Whoops, my bad. I wasn’t used to titles.

He turned on his heel. "Follow me. The king never leaves his castle, so we will take you to him.”

I nodded and followed, while Jarod and Cole crested the ladder to fall in behind me. Soon this Napoleon fella would understand that hiding behind his walls would not save his king, not if I decided to attack him. My people would tolerate his friendship, but never his tyranny. That’s what I’d come here to impress upon Britonia, if peace couldn’t be achieved first.

Chapter 18

No Dinos Allowed

ON THE OTHER side of the wall, Napoleon led us down a set of rickety stairs that gave me a good view of the whole city setup. Britonia had been built in rings, each with their own wooden wall, starting with the castle at the bull’s eye of it all. I could see the castle from here, if it could be called that, since it was wooden. They had managed to make it tall, though. Tall and very pointy.

Below us, the first, widest ring of the city was... well, it wasn’t pretty. The smell of human waste rose to meet me once we reached the first landing, and the first word that came to mind was squalor. The muddy streets of this area were filled with gaunt, filthy people who shrank back in fear at the sight of us. They clustered under ramshackle dwellings built of twigs and dried leaves, but most of the thatch was rotted through. I didn’t see any public outhouses of any sort, which was telling.

There did seem to be some industry, though. Decently-dressed men dragged carts among the people, tugging them along well-worn tracks. Most of these men appeared to be Arabic, like some of Napoleon’s fighters had been back during our first encounter. They paused here and there as I watched, speaking to people, poring over bits of wood the people handed them, and then distributing rations without keeping the wood.

Is that money? What is that? I thought, squinting at the wood pieces. Was some sort of information marked on them?

Either way, my opinion of the place improved. Yes, this was poverty, but at least the food was free. And no one seemed to be stealing anything—

I soon figured out why when a bony little man snatched an unfamiliar fruit from a cart, then cut and ran. Before I could even begin to react, the merchant raised a crossbow, took aim, and fired.

The thief went down without a sound, the arrow clean through his neck. My gut sank in surprise, my body tensing up. But for what? There was nothing I could do.

A small child near him picked up the fruit he had stolen... and ran back to the merchant to hand it over. I stared, mystified, until the merchant smiled and offered a small knife to the boy. The boy grinned and brought out his own little piece of wood. The merchant marked it with the knife.

“Did... did they just kill a guy in the street?” Jarod asked no one in particular. All three of us had stopped dead to stare.

“Occasionally, it is necessary, yes?” Napoleon said, clearly impatient to be off. “If you cannot do labor, you cannot eat. If that man had done his labor, he would not have needed to steal.”

I frowned. “What sort of labor are they doing?”

“You may ask the king and his advisors that. It is not my job to play teacher to you.”

“Oh? You’re not an advisor then?”

Napoleon looked at me with murder in his eyes, then spun away, clearly not caring if I followed him or not. With a last glance at the dead man—a group of women had arrived to carry him away—I fell back in behind the Frenchman.

When we reached the bottom of the stairs, a contingent of Britonian guards waited for us. Up close, I could tell that their uniforms were sharply ironed—by metal. Was it possible they had killed Eric?

I kept my eyes peeled for clues. Just because the Nomads were an enemy didn’t mean the Britonians weren’t also bad guys. Only time would tell.

As for the he guards’ clothing, it had the gray-brown color of most tanned dino hides, but the chest pieces had been dyed black with a plus sign, its vertical bar shorter than its horizontal one. Most of the guards appeared to be white, but a couple were Arabic, like the ration distributors.

“The English flag had a plus sign,” Cole pointed out.

“So did the Confederacy,” I replied.

He shook his head. “No, that had an X behind it. More likely these people are clinging to their European heritage. Stuck in the past.”

I nodded. Given the complete lack of dinos, I figured he was probably right.

As soon as I stepped off the last stair, the guards shouted and pushed at the people nearest them, even though none of the people were actually trying to get close to me. Most looked terrified, though some hovered at a safe range, hope in their eyes. Maybe they thought that visitors would give them labor to do?

Labor, so that they could eat, I thought, shaking my head in disgust. I mean, my tribe was the same; in exchange for hard work, I promised prosperity. My people wanted for nothing, but that was all thanks to our partnership with the dinosaurs. There were no dinosaurs here.

As we neared the first inner wall, it opened for us. Once again, no one made a break for the entrance. The guards, despite their shoving and yelling, didn’t seem afraid. These people were scared. They were under the thumb.

One wrong move around here, and you die, I thought. That’s how Archie kept these “peasants” in line.

Inside the next ring of the city, the dwellings improved slightly. No shit, I thought. This place was a classic case of the Haves and Have Nots.

“Is it just me, or did the people get whiter?” Cole said.

“It’s not just you,” I replied. There was racism at work here. Because of course there was.

“The Europeans, we were here first,” Napoleon said. “Those from the Middle East were not used to this climate. We helped them acclimatize. No one is treated as lesser here for their color. Some just have more useful skills than others.”

“Sure, Polly. Whatever you say.”

You could have fried an egg on the Frenchman’s cheeks. Somehow he kept it together.

Cole leaned close to me. “I can see why you wanted me with you,” he murmured. “If you want my advice, stop egging that guy on.”

“I know, I know. He’s just so... eggable.”

“Maybe next time, we bring him eggs as a gift.”

This got a laugh out of me as we passed through a merchant sector, following a stone-cobbled road to another gate. The gates were staggered after the first ring, a good defensive move. Archie was ready for a siege at any time.

Along the road, merchants hawked their wares from carts and storefronts, all of it built from the skinned trunks of small trees. They had no woodinator, no way of planing or processing boards. That said, there were bark shingles here, unlike the thatch roofs and floors in the outer rings. I saw a metal lock on the door of more than one shop, but the material seemed to be reserved only for the most prosperous buildings. And most of those sold clothing, of all things. The variety of dyes was now on full display, with merchants sporting just as many colors as the amargasaurs we’d captured at Spine Lake. Saber-tooth hides would sell for a pretty penny up here.

All the same, this place had its peasants, too. The more commonly-dressed people stared after us with sullen resentment, not fear. I kept one hand on the laser pokeyball at my back. It was an overpowered weapon, but if it came down to killing Archie and escaping on Malcolm, I planned to do it with style.

We moved through the city like this, zigzagging between gates as the population grew whiter, cleaner, and better dressed overall. Finally, Napoleon led us through a stone archway into a lavish courtyard filled with flowering trees, transplanted shrubs, and even a fountain. I had no clue how they powered that fountain. Everything was laid out in neat, geometric rows.

You’d think they pulled the King of England out of cryo and transported him here, I thought. They were seriously trying to look like Buckingham Palace, right down to the smartly dressed guards with their tall black hats and red sashes. None of them moved as we passed.

Was nobody going to say it? “My first impression of Britonia,” I whispered to Jarod, “is that the whole place is fucking ridiculous.”

He snorted and nodded upward. “Look at those spires,” he said, indicating the decorative points on the tallest parts of the castle slash mansion. It made the thing look a bit like a grumpy hedgehog when Archie probably intended for it to appear dangerous. “Pointy, useless bullshit. How did they even get all those spikes up there? I bet those towers aren’t even safe to live in. The floors probably can’t take your weight.”

I followed his gaze but didn’t reply. How did Archie get the spikes on those towers? Using a team of fliers, maybe?

Or just decent engineering, I thought, straightening as we came up to a grandiose gate. Despite the opulent trappings of the carved wood a thing that might require metal, I noted the carving itself was indiscernible, already worn down by weather. How much had it cost to commission it? Scratch that—how many food rations did it cost to commission it?

Clearly, Archie cared more for appearances than his own people. But he didn’t take good care of the appearances, either.

Careful, I reminded myself. I’m not here to take his people or change his ways. I’m here to make peace. And if any of his peasants should want a nicer place to live, well... I’ll be sure they know that my doors are open.

For now, diplomacy was paramount. Inside the castle, we ascended a grand staircase lit by open windows, the walls stained from rain under their sills. The stairs were just as wooden as the rest of the city, but at least the ground floor was lined with granite flagstones, although who knew how much labor it had taken to bring them here. Bland, inexpert tapestries peppered the walls, again a pale imitation of what Great Britain’s real buildings had once looked like. The arrangement of the artwork wasn’t symmetrical, either. The place was too new, and the Britonian artisans hadn’t caught up with the demand for decoration, not when the locals were clamoring after new coats and silly hats.

Napoleon announced me at another pair of doors, and a dodgy-eyed herald entered to then announce us to the king. Finally, the doors swung inward. I stepped inside and suddenly found myself casting a flickering shadow. The room inside was lit with sconces in real glass, flames glowing within them. These people had contrived wicks and oil and glass. They weren’t as backward as I’d thought.

I strode confidently forward, keenly aware of the eyes of nameless courtiers following my every move from under the sconces. At the far end, atop a gilded throne—real gold, damn, what a find—sat Archie.

He looked... well, rougher than I expected. A rugged beard gripped his pale but tanned face, his light eyes narrowed with suspicion, his dark hair tied back behind him. He wore a fine purple robe, made from the thick fur of some rare mammal, and of course a gold band for a crown. Despite these luxuries, he sat bare-chested, and that chest was ripped, each muscle clearly defined. He held a hand out, displaying enormous biceps as he rested his palm on the pommel of a sword. Metal again, but I couldn’t get ahead of myself. The Nomads had metal, too.

I stopped at a respectful distance and inclined my head. "Your Majesty. Thank you for granting me an audience."

Archie’s mouth twisted into a humorless smile. "The great Alan honors us with his presence,” he said, in a suppressed British accent. “Now tell me—what do you want?”

Chapter 19

Making Nice

IT FELT SO AWKWARD JUST STANDING HERE, talking to a guy play-acting as a medieval king. But he knew that. He wanted me awkward.

“I only want one thing for my people and yours,” I said. “For all people, really. I want peace.”

“Sure you do,” the king replied, slouching back in his gold throne. “The show you put on at the drop site wasn’t peaceful. But all right, I’ll play ball, as you Americans like to say. How should I address you? I wouldn’t want to piss you off on accident.”

I was starting to hate the entire concept of titles. “Alan is fine.”

He cocked his head. “I heard you used to be military. What rank?”

My brow went tight without my say-so. “None of that matters. It’s in the past.”

He laughed, spreading his hands and swinging the sword as he did it. “Ah, but the past does matter, friend! It is how I have built such a grand city... by taking inspiration from history.” He pulled one hand back into his lap and leaned forward. “But you’re not here to discuss history, are you? Tell me, what do you want with my country?”

Country? That’s a stretch, I didn’t say. Instead, I spread my hands diplomatically. "I want only to strengthen the bonds between our tribes our people. The aliens want us to fight each other. They even incentivize it. But we can rise above that, and seek peace and prosperity over points. That is my goal today."

Archie laughed again. “You say you want peace, yet you pull up half the trees between my front gate and Tribe Grant? We both know that 'road' is just a pretext for invasion. Just like the gift of the drop was a show of your force, and that little birdy of yours is a threat.”

Malcolm, a “birdy”? Oh boy, this guy’s testing me.

I kept my voice level. "My intentions are peaceful, I assure you. The road is to make trade easier between our nations.” I figured nation was a better term to use on him than tribe. “After all, Britonia stands to become a powerful merchant nation, since it’s situated on the edge of the water. We could provide you with goods procured through the use of dinosaurs, which you could then sell at a markup to others along your trade routes. We have access to sulfur, planed wood, eggs, colorful skins—and of course, ready access to drops and Apexes."

I left unsaid that I had already proven I could get to any drop or Apex before he could. All the same, he kept his smile fixed in place.

“We have no need of lizard tech, be it dinosaur or alien,” Archie said, straightening. “We are human and proud to be so. Humans can achieve greatness on our own.”

He certainly believed he had done so. But one day soon, he’d find out he was woefully far behind when compared to the rest of the world.

“Perhaps you don’t want lizard tech,” I said, “but other nations will happily buy it from you, once you establish the trade routes—if you haven’t already.”

The king rubbed his beard, the animosity in his eyes dimming. He was seeing the sense in my offer, even if he didn’t see his own nonsense in rejecting these things himself. I thought back to the drop I’d handed over to him. Had he kept any of the pokeyballs? Had he even released the frozen people?

There were seeds, I remembered. I’d pocketed a few, but the others....

He surely took those. He uses food as currency. He can’t have come this far without accepting the occasional handout... or without getting down and dirty.

There might be more here than met the eye. He had achieved a lot. His settlement was larger than mine, if not worse overall. I needed to stay wary of him.

“You really don’t want war?” he said, his tone changing. It was a serious question.

I crossed my arms. “Nope.”

“Yet you’ve wiped out both the Soviets and the Cartel, and absorbed that tree-house tribe,” he pointed out.

I sniffed. “The latter was their own decision. The others were... ah, uncooperative.” I had almost said they abused women, but then it occurred to me that I had not seen a single brown-skinned woman in Britonia. That was concerning. If there were Middle Eastern influences here... the traditionalists in that part of the world weren’t known for respecting the fairer sex. And the Lord knew the English weren’t known for respecting anyone, sometimes not even themselves.

I decided to take a stab in the dark, to fish for information on this. “Tell me, Your Majesty. Do you have a wife?”

He smiled. “I have several,” he said.

So much for tradition.

“And presumably, you have children, or some on the way?” I asked. “Don’t you want to make a better world for them? A world where men cooperate, not kill each other?”

“You know I do.”

I did know that. Already, Britonia was known for offering gifts in exchange for alliances. Which made his antagonism toward me all the more strange. Had someone been whispering in his ear about me?

The king straightened suddenly, then rose from his chair, as if he’d just had an idea. He snapped his fingers at a courtier. “Bring my wives and my daughters. Make sure they are presentable.”

The courtier bowed—which looked abysmally silly—and fled. The king faced me again, then descended the few steps off the platform of his throne. Once we were on a level, I found myself taller than him. His face darkened for a moment, but then he smiled and waved me toward a side door.

“Come with me. See the view.”

I followed him, Cole and Jarod following silently a few feet back. Courtiers opened the doors for us, and Archie led me out onto a terrace that I wasn’t sure could hold all our weight.

He swept an arm at the ringed city below us. “See this?” he said. “All of it, achieved by pure human ingenuity.” He pointed right, to a wide expanse of cleared forest along the ocean outside the walls. From here, I could see laborers working the fields. A lot of them.

“Farms,” he explained. “Supplemented by hunting and gathering, but not for long. We are completely self-sufficient here. All without using anything the aliens have given us. Instead, as you say, we sell or gift these items in exchange for precious metals or alliances. You are right to think Britonia will become a world power. We intend to create currency, to connect all nations.”

“Yet you used dinos to come to the drop site,” I pointed out.

He scowled. “A necessary evil, since horses are extinct here and we’re a long way off from the next steam engine.”

I scanned the rest of the vista, but it wasn’t very remarkable. Ocean, forest, farms, and forest that was actively being turned into farms. He’d also built a few piers out into the water, so he was well aware of his future importance in trade. It looked like he was building a ship of some sort up against the largest pier. I wondered if an aquatic dino might be able to pull something faster than a ship could sail. Archie certainly wasn’t going to figure that out for me.

Aside from that, the only thing of note was the smoke cloud, rising up along the wall near the widest expanse of farmland. It was enormous and thick, reaching high up into the sky, well beyond a simple bonfire.

“Burning something?” I asked.

“Dino offal,” he replied. “Whatever we can’t use of their bodies. They’re only good for meat, you see.”

I didn’t recall seeing meat being handed out to the peasants, only produce. I sniffed the air. I didn’t smell burnt meat, but then again, we were far away.

A door creaked behind us. “Your wives and daughters, Your Majesty.”

Archie turned, and I did too. There in the doorway were no fewer than eight adult women, all but one of them in their twenties, if I had to guess. One child also clung to the skirts of the woman on the end. The child couldn’t be older than eight, so either she was Archie’s child from before the aliens came, or she’d come with one of his wives.

But all that wasn’t what caught my attention. That award went to the headscarves. All the women were clothed from head to foot in black-dyed skins, all but their eyes covered, even though some of them were clearly European.

“Behold, my beloveds,” Archie said, sweeping his arm at the women the same way he had done for his city as if they were something he had achieved. He then flicked two fingers at the young woman and child on the end. “And my step-daughters, Yusra and Nadiyya. Yusra’s the little one, Nadiyya the big one.” He chuckled as if this were a joke. “They are a handful, those two. Especially Nadiyya. Honestly, she’s a bit of a bad influence on the little one. But perhaps you could help me with that?”

Immediately, the oldest woman in the group tensed up. She stood next to Nadiyya and Yusra, her sharp eyes locking on Archie. I thought she might outright attack him, but she didn’t.

He probably keeps her in line the same way he keeps his people in line, I thought. I liked Archie less every minute.

“What exactly are you proposing?” I asked, even though it didn’t take a genius to figure it out.

Archie leaned casually back on the terrace railing. I couldn’t believe it held him up. His architects deserved a raise—maybe a few extra onions and carrots this week.

“Take one of them,” he said. “You’ve got more than one wife, haven’t you? Take another. Preferably Nadiyya, but if you’d rather have the little one, well. That wasn’t uncommon in the olden times, either.”

My stomach was tying itself up in knots. I could feel Cole’s anger behind me. He must be thinking of Elsa and the other Soviet women. Lords knew I was, too.

“Archie,” the older woman said suddenly. She had to be the girls’ mother. The word was a warning, although clearly, she was trying to make it sound like a plea.

“Oh, relax, Yaz,” the king said, waving a dismissive hand at her. Then he pointed to me with a thumb. “This guy is known for treating his women in the old way, and I know you think that’s better. So even by your standards, there’s no better place for them to go.”

Her gaze flicked between her daughters. Yusra didn’t seem to understand. She looked scared. Nadiyya stared straight ahead, barely blinking, her face made of stone—or at least, what little I could see of her face.

Finally. the woman, Yaz, closed her eyes and gave a small nod. Archie crossed his arms, his voice going gruff again.

“It’s settled, then.”

“No, it’s not,” I said, my voice tight.

“Oh?”

I nearly took a step toward the king, nearly dropped my hand to the laser pokeyball on my belt, but someone caught my arm from behind. Cole.

I paused to let him lean close and whisper into my ear. “Don’t act rash. We need to think about this.”

I was surprised to hear that from him. “You must be joking,” I whispered back. “One of them is a kid!”

“No, Cole’s right. He’s goading you,” Jarod said, and suddenly I found myself in a huddle. Speaking in a low voice, Jarod went on, “He already said he knows your reputation. He wants to make you angry. I don’t know why, but he does. Give him an excuse, and he’ll kill you.”

“I’d kill him first, and you know it,” I said.

“Yeah, but would we make it out of here?” Jarod asked. “You put on a show, but Malcolm’s far away, and you haven’t got your obelisk to contact him. We both know your only way out is to run. Malcolm’s just there for show.”

He was right, of course, he was right... but still.

“This is an opportunity,” Cole added. “Take—I mean, free the older girl. She could have good information for us.”

“Or she could be a trap,” Jarod said. Ever since the night with the Apex rex, he’d taken to thinking everything was a trap.

“Even so. We can use that, too,” Cole said.

They were both right.

“Plus, at least one would be saved from this hellhole that way,” Cole said. “We all know you’ll free her immediately.”

I ground my teeth together. “I’m not so sure about that,” I said, but I turned around anyway.

To Archie, I said, “I take it this is a condition of our alliance?”

He grinned, wide enough to make his beard spread a little. “The way I’ve heard it said, you’re not a man who needs anything else we could offer you. I doubt you even have use for gold. But you do like your women; you’ve got four already. So take my stepdaughter and marry her. That’s a good, old-fashioned way of establishing an alliance. It worked for the Spaniards and Germans and so on. It can work for us.”

“And in return?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Like I said, Nadiyya is disruptive, and Yusra isn’t even mine. I don’t want them around my future children, especially Nadiyya—and I can tell you’re more interested in her anyway.” He shrugged. “But if it would make you feel better, I can take something in return. Maybe a handful of every vegetable or fruit seed you’ve found so far, or any you discover from here on? I gotta say, I’m getting dead tired of rutabagas. Would that feel like an even trade to you?”

No, it absolutely wouldn’t, I thought, but I bit back the words and held out my hand.

“I’ll take very good care of Nadiyya,” I said, meaning it. Archie shook my hand, hard, as if he meant to crush my bones.

“Oh, and one more thing,” he said, while our hands were still clasped. His smile took on a malicious twist as he tugged me closer. “If you don’t marry her, and publicly... if you just set her ‘free,’ as you think of it... then, our alliance is off.”

He let me go and grinned. “Are we clear?”

Chapter 20

A Woman Who Knows Things

THAT NIGHT, my team and I made camp about a mile out of Britonia. I didn’t want to stay there another minute.

“—and once we have our seeds collected, we’ll get some kind of ambassador out here, someone good with bargaining,” Cole was saying to Jarod, both men currently poring over a notebook at my makeshift camp table. It was a piece of planed wood perched between two cut logs.

I sighed and continued to pace the tent. They were handling some of the logistics of the new alliance, but my head wasn’t in that game. Sayuri would find me a good ambassador, probably several. Right now, I had a much bigger problem.

I stopped walking and dropped my arms. Damn it, you’re just being selfish, I told myself. It was obvious what I had to do.

“I’m going to bed,” I said, and Cole and Jarod barely had time to look up before I stalked out of the so-called command tent to the little sleeping tent next door.

Steeling myself with a heavy breath, I opened the flap and ducked through. The sleeping tents weren’t tall enough to stand up in, so I had to drop to my knees as I entered—

Only for a knife to prod into my throat.

Its point came to rest directly on my Adam’s apple. Nadiyya had moved like a snake, whip-quick, and I froze in place. She did too. The threat of death bubbled between us, her eyes narrowed, intense. It occurred to me that Archie might have predicted this, too. Maybe he’d instructed her to do this.

Yet she hadn’t actually cut my throat—yet.

“I’m not here to fuck you,” I said.

It was crass, I know it, but it was the crassness that startled her. Her eyes widened in the little window of her headscarf, catching the light from the communal fire in the clearing behind me. I saw that they were hazel, not flat brown. There was a lot of color and detail inside them.

I settled back on my ass, and she followed me with the knife, keeping it to my neck, scowling again. With my hands on my knees, I leveled my gaze at her and said, “Look. Your stepdad said I have a good reputation in this department, and he’s right. I won’t sleep with you. I won’t expect a thing from you—except to marry me.” The words made me want to spit. “I don’t want that any more than you do, but if it earns us an alliance, we have to do it. Otherwise, a lot of people will die.”

I waited while she considered this. Where did she get that knife? I wondered. She certainly hadn’t been allowed to have one.

“You should have chosen Yuyu,” she said suddenly. Her voice was harsh, but somehow also melodic. She had no accent at all, except maybe something West Coast-ish. I don’t think she was actually raised in the Middle East.

I blinked as her statement caught up to me. “What?”

“My little sister. You should have picked her, gotten her out of there.”

I laughed out loud. “And get a reputation for marrying kids? No thanks.”

“You can’t just leave her,” Nadiyya said. “That asshole will marry her off to the next creep who looks at her sideways.”

“I won’t just leave her,” I said, anger leaking into my voice. “I won’t leave any of them. Tell me, is a single one of his wives willing? Even one of them?”

Finally, the knife slackened against my throat. Her eyes darted as if she feared being overheard.

I put my hand on her arm, and she let me.

“Nadiyya,” I said. “You are with Tribe Grant now. You’re a first-class citizen. You can say what you want. Hell, you can even take off that scarf. I’m surprised you haven’t done it already.”

She went still again, like a statue. Then she took her knife back, slipped it under the fabric over her mouth, and sliced through.

The action exposed her face, and she shrugged entirely out of the scarf. This revealed a stunning young woman,In her early twenties if I had to guess. Skin like warm coffee, hair raven-black and braided tightly, except for a ringlet that fell in front of her eyes. Her face had an oval shape, dignified, her lips and neck a study of elegance as she squared her shoulders.

“You’re planning to go to war with Britonia?” she asked.

I chuckled. “Not if I can help it, no. But deposing him? That, I can try.”

She didn’t smile. “He already expects it. He expected that before you came.”

I leaned just a hair closer to her. “About that... he hasn’t been talking to any black guys recently, has he? He hasn’t been behind closed doors with any... nomads?”

“I wouldn’t know,” she said, shoving the knife into a sheath somewhere inside her long robes. “He kept me locked up most of the time. Ever since I tried to stab him.”

I was liking this woman more and more. “I’m surprised he didn’t just kill you.”

“Yeah, well, he was married to my mother in real life, before all this,” I said. “He rescued her from the aliens when he got enough points, and then he saved me and Yusra to make my mother happy. Things went to shit when we merged with the Saudis, though. After that, all he ever talked about was respect. He didn’t think we appreciated him enough.”

I shook my head. What a shit show. This new world really went to people’s heads.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “Look, tell you what. You and I let’s make our own alliance. You may have been locked up, but you seem smart. I’m guessing you know things that could help me, and I also need your cooperation with the marriage thing. In return for all that, I’ll get rid of your stepdad, one way or another. You can even help me do it.”

She stared at me, assessing me. I felt warm under her gaze. I thought, Here’s a woman who knows things.

“Deal,” she said. “Just one last thing.”

I smiled. This woman was a dealmaker. I might have just found my ambassador to Britonia. Archie was going to love it.

“Sure. What’s that?” I asked her.

“Get the fuck out of my tent.”

Chapter 21

Uninvited Guests

NADIYYA and I slept separately on the ride home, and I figured we’d sleep that way indefinitely. On the long days atop Bertha, we talked. That’s how I figured out she had lied to me.

Because she really did know a lot.

Exits. Secret stashes. Sleeping quarters and layouts. Cultural systems, military ranks, who was in with the king, who was out. She knew vices and wives and she even knew psychology. She’d been going to college for it before the aliens beamed her up.

She had also known full well that the Nomads had met with Archie. Their leader was a man called Jasper, and his eyes had lingered too long on hers.

By the time we reached home, I had the rudimentary makings of a plan, but I needed Sayuri and others to help refine it. And there was also the issue of dealing with the Nomads—and the issue of the marriage itself.

“You’re sure they won’t all murder me in my sleep?” Nadiyya asked me when my four wives scurried up to Bertha. We’d just arrived home, and I could tell they were all relieved to see me, even at this distance. I hadn’t allowed them to come for safety reasons, and I absolutely did not regret that.

“They promised me one wife of my choice,” I said, keeping the disappointment from my voice. It was selfish, I know, but I had hoped to choose someone I could actually be intimate with. Someone that was a choice, not a business transaction.

“That isn’t a promise not to kill said wife,” she pointed out.

I chuckled. “You have a point,” I replied. “Guess you’ll just have to play nice.”

I spent the morning of my wedding day with the one woman that no one in Tribe Grant could live without Bertha the brontosaurus.

“You’re my real true love, aren’t ya, Bertie?” I asked, patting her skull as she uprooted yet another massive cabbage palm, simply by putting her weight on it. A trail of destruction lay in our wake, with ankies and trikes milling about, ripping up brush, and pounding the earth flat. Dilos brought in excavated gravel by the cartload once my resident cartographer, Alfred, deemed an area flat enough. Our road project was well underway.

Bertha shook her head and gave me a pleased burbling noise before knocking down another tree. Beside her, Bolt attempted to copy the movement, but he chose too large of a tree and ended up just pounding his front legs against it. She lowered her head toward him, grabbed a sapling in her teeth, bent it back, and let go. She bugled when it whacked him in the face.

“Now, now, be nice,” I told her. “He’s going to be bigger than you someday, you know.”

Kaity had informed me—during one of her rare trips home to rest—that she didn’t think Bolt and Bertha would be able to mate. “They existed in the same period, the Late Jurassic,” she’d explained. “If they could mate, we would have seen fossil hybrids of them.”

I wouldn’t put it past the aliens to toy with the dinos, but Atticus had told me once that mutations had to happen naturally, or else they just ended up with an Apex. So, sadly, Bolt and Bertha were not made for each other. At the same time, she proved a good mother to him, and he would one day be an asset. Bertha herself was young yet, and eventually, she’d want to mate. Bolt could pick up her slack when that happened, provided I could find a suitable boyfriend for her.

Bertha burbled again, and I patted her behind her jaw, where she liked it best. Meanwhile, my gaze slipped to the tree line. Still nothing from the Nomads, but they remained nearby. The beelzebufo spy team had caught two more scouts, both of which weren’t saying anything... because their tongues had been cut out, and not by me.

This leader of the Nomads, whom Nadiyya had called Jasper... he wasn’t taking risks now. Permanently disabling his own scouts just to keep me from getting information... this guy was a real piece of work.

Worse, the scouts didn’t seem to mind. They remained tied up and vacant-eyed, always pretending not to hear anything we said. That’s what was being reported to me, anyway. I hadn’t found time to meet the prisoners in person yet, but it was on my list.

Shouts pulled me from these thoughts, and I looked toward the front of our road crew. Two women on raptors were racing toward me, part of our advance scout team.

“They’re coming!” Himaro shouted. “The Nomads! Headed this way!”

Immediately I spun to my ladder and began my descent to Bertha’s back. “All hands!” I shouted. “Defensive positions! Dinos and humans alike!”

By the time I’d slipped off of Bertha onto Investigator, the big Bronto and her new stepson were surrounded on all sides by half our entire stock of armored dinos. If it would hurt you to bite it, I had it with me. After seeing that huge hidden pit in the forest, meant for Bertha, I wasn’t taking any chances.

“How many,” I said, pivoting to Himari and her sister-wife Penelope. Unlike their husband Darnel, these two didn’t shy away from danger, but I hated to see them together. What if they were attacked? Darnel’s heart would break to lose them both at once.

I made a mental note to make a new rule against this as Himari said, “Nine. One big guy, the boss, with another man talking to him while they walked. Probably his second. Six guards on raptors, and one woman on a carno. She, ah... she looks like a real badass.”

Looking like a badass while riding a carno? Color me surprised. There wasn’t any other way to ride a carnotaurus.

“You said walking?” I asked.

“Yeah. In no hurry. They saw us, too. The big guy just waved.”

Huh. It wasn’t an attack then, but a delegation. Drawn here by the road, maybe? Or it was another trap.

“Penelope, go back to camp and let my wives know I’ll be late for the wedding ceremonies,” I told her. “Himari, stay close to me. I want this guy to see that Tribe Grant has women in respected positions.”

The scouts nodded, and Penelope took off running on her raptor. Himari fell in beside Investigator, and the two raptors exchanged a growl and a whine. Me boss. Yes, you boss. Me small.

“I think that big woman with him was respected,” she said, keeping her voice low. “She wasn’t in chains or anything. Lots of scars.”

That did have me wondering. Nadiyya had told me that Jasper had looked at her like she was a piece of meat. Was this woman Jasper’s wife? His sister maybe? Could she be his general?

If so, she had to be impressive indeed, to manage a position like that under a misogynist like Jasper. Then again, Nadiyya could be lying to me. She had been inserted directly into my household by a competing nation. I had to stay vigilant, just in case.

Before I could psych myself out too much, one of my anky trainers sent back a call of warning. At the front of our road construction, two men had just emerged from the tree line, surrounded by six more men on raptors. The woman on the carnotaur took up the rear.

With my laser pokeyball on my belt the weapon had both charges good to go I rode out to meet the leader of the Nomads. I hailed the man at the front with a wave and a friendly smile. He did the same and stopped walking to wait for me, his hands hooked into his pockets.

I didn’t hurry my new mindraptor along. Instead, I tried to take the man’s measure as I approached. Dark skin, as expected; the Nomads were all supposed to be African. I wasn’t even sure they spoke English. He’d woven his hair into tight but neat rows against his head. All of his armor was alien tech, he was showing off. At the same time, he was stout and broad-shouldered. Rather than make him look unimposing, he looked dense. Fighting him would be like fighting a brick wall.

The guy slightly behind him, presumably his second-in-command, had somewhat darker skin and almost two heads of height on him. He scowled in a bookkeeper sort of way as if he wished he could be reading instead of doing diplomacy. He had a certain squint that made me think he had worn glasses on Old Earth.

A physical disability, huh? I thought. He must be smart, then, to be in such a high position.

When I pulled up before the two, I shot a glance at the carnotaur and nearly did a double-take at the sight of the woman. Even astride the carnotaur, I could see she was as tall as the bookkeeper but nearly as broad as Jasper. At the same time, she wore only scant armor, wrapped mostly around her ample chest and round hips. Her near-midnight skin showed through at all the joints as if her only concern was ease of movement, not protection. Given the muscle she had on display, that made sense.

As for the armor she did wear, it was all black-dyed dino leather, not alien tech. She didn’t want it weighing her down. The same dye had been splashed across the carnotaur’s flank and smudged around its eyes, raccoon-style, turning the creature half-black. This woman wasn’t kidding around. She fought at night, and she drew blood when she did it.

I noticed one last thing as I turned my eyes back to Jasper: all three of these people wore obelisks.

As Himari crunched to a stop behind me, I kicked off this little meeting with my best leader voice.

“Jasper of the Nomads Tribe, I presume?”

Chapter 22

The Wedding Gift

THE STOUT MAN’S stance was easy, his smile even easier. I didn’t like it, but more so because it seemed out of place on a man who’d so casually wandered out of the woods and onto my road. I didn’t sense duplicity in his grin, but that didn’t mean anything. People who surprised you and grinned while they did it were people who liked having control.

He spread his arms, magnanimous. Already I sensed a trend.

“Ah, so you’ve heard of me! Well, this saves time. And you are?”

His voice was loud and thickly accented, but his English was perfect. I shot a glance at the woman, but she remained expressionless, her eyes dark and foreboding. The slight distaste on the second guy’s face had also faded, leaving behind a cool mask.

I didn’t trust these people. At all.

“I’m Alan, leader of Tribe Grant,” I said brightly, sliding off Investigator and striding up to Jasper. We shook hands, and he gripped me like he was trying to bend rebar. I responded in kind.

“You don’t say!” Jasper said. “And here I thought you’d be holed up in your little mountain settlement, drinking your nectars and enjoying your women.” He slapped me on the shoulder, still grinning. “Yet here you are, a man of the people! Doing work! Building a road!”

“Not much point in sitting around when there’s work to do,” I said simply. I cast about for what to do next. What would be courteous? Getting him a drink? Some chairs? Inviting him back to camp?

This guy tried to kill Bertha. I don’t have to be fucking diplomatic.

“Ah, and so much work it is! This road—” he stomped his foot on a patch of flattened earth where Bertha had ripped up a hundred-year-old traveler’s tree. “It is a true achievement in the making. You must be a visionary. That’s what I’ve heard.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Oh? From where?”

“From those you’ve defeated, of course!” Jasper replied, swinging his arm back at one of the six guards who’d fanned out around us, every one of their hands lying cautiously on some sort of crossbow weapon. “Why, this man here, he was in the Cartel, and then joined the Soviets, and now he is a Nomad. You have defeated him twice now. Although I must admit, he didn’t use the word visionary.”

I looked at the Mexican man, and he looked back, eyes cold. I didn’t recognize him.

“You keep... questionable company,” I commented.

Jasper laughed, a deep sound that seemed to bubble up from his belly. “Ah, but we are Nomads! We don’t have the luxuries you sedentaries do. We must have strength above all else, you see. Resilience and strength. If you have it and can take orders, you are welcome in the Nomads.”

I didn’t want to ask the question, but I had to. “And your women?”

Jasper crossed his arms. “All pregnant!” he said, his voice booming with pride. “As I hear yours are, not so?”

He was deliberately not answering my real question. I nodded my chin at the woman on the carnotaur. “She doesn’t look pregnant.”

“Oh, that’s just Lindiwe. She is barren.” Jasper chuckled. “We tried to cast her out when we discovered this, but she killed every man who tried. So, we keep her.” He shrugged. “Eventually, a dino will choke on her big fat bones. Until then, she does the killing that my men cannot. As I said, we value strength among the Nomads.”

I was halfway to boiling now, and he probably knew it. There was a reason no other women were present, and that only a barren woman had earned any sort of rank. I couldn’t imagine what this Lindiwe woman had endured to reach her position. Even from twenty feet away, I could see scars riddling her arms and legs—the jagged pink lines of claws and teeth, as well as the smooth cuts of knives.

And they would toss her for being barren? That said volumes about what the other women were up to at the moment.

“Himari,” I said, “could you send for chairs and refreshments for our guests, please?”

Yeah, I didn’t need to be diplomatic. But the longer I kept this guy around, the more likely I’d learn his weakness.

As Himari saluted and led her raptor away, I said to Jasper, “While it is nice to finally meet you, Mister Jasper—”

“Lord Jasper,” Jasper said, never losing his smile. “What can I say? I like the sound of it.”

I bet you do. “Of course, Lord Jasper. Well, I presume you have appeared for some reason? Do you wish to discuss relations with my tribe?”

“Relations? Oh, no. I came to attend your wedding.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. How does he know about the wedding?

Jasper leaned to one side. “Where is Nadiyya, anyway? She was a picture, that one. You are a lucky man. Although I doubt she is a virgin. She probably fucked half the guys on campus before the Descent. Her father makes her pretend to be demure, but I could see the lust in her eyes.” He nodded sagely. “Her little sister, on the other hand—”

“You are not invited to my wedding,” I said. It took all my effort to keep the growl from my voice.

“Oh? But I took all this effort to procure a gift. Arvor?”

He snapped his fingers, and the tall man at his shoulder extracted a pokeyball from his long coat and plopped it into Jasper’s open palm. Jasper rubbed it on his shirt and admired its shine for a moment before passing it over. He was all theater, this one.

“Happy matrimony to you,” he said.

I sensed a trap and gave a signal behind my back. Some of my anky troops began to rearrange themselves. Men and women slid from backs in case of explosion, and the few who had ranged weapons aimed them. I was grateful that Carl had found so many bows in his drop, but my people had barely trained yet in using them.

Meanwhile, Malcolm fell into a dive far above us. He had great eyes. He’d seen the signal, too.

“Identify,” I said to the pokeyball, and a line of text cropped up.

WoundHeal v2.6: Can cure any single wound on a human or dinosaur.

Does not negate infection.

“Quite the cheat code, not so?” Jasper said. “Unfortunately, my Nomads have no use for such a thing. If a man is useless enough to become injured in my tribe, he is left behind. But perhaps he can always crawl to you.”

I looked up, my face darkening. I felt a thunderhead passing over me. Or it might be Malcolm. He cawed, his cry long and jagged. I knew what it meant.

“Yes. Anyone in need is welcome to join me,” I said, hooking the WoundHeal to my belt. “All are welcome in Tribe Grant—provided they offer peace. But that’s not what you’re offering, is it, Jasper?”

Jasper didn’t miss the lack of title. He watched me, his mirthful eyes going dim. For the first time, I saw behind the veil, and here was the truth. All that bubbly exterior might have looked convincing, but I only needed to glimpse the shadow underneath to know which one was the true Jasper.

As he stared me down, I watched him back. Himari appeared in my peripherals, a trike behind her, chairs hooked onto its horns. I forestalled her with a gesture. This meeting was over.

“You killed my people,” I said. “At the drop.”

Jasper’s smile spread like a plague on his face. “You had not determined this already? You disappoint me. After all, your spies are so very effective.”

My stomach curdled. Carmila. Dimitri. Where were they? How long since they’d last been seen?

“But alas, as I said—your treasure hunters were weak,” Jasper went on. “They were easy to dispatch. But you are not so easy, are you, Alan? You have strength. I can respect that. I shall enjoy watching it fade from your eyes.”

I stepped closer to him, hand on my laser. “You admit it, then? You killed Eric and the others. You laid a trap for Bertha.”

For the first time, I saw a flicker on his face, a dark flash in his eyes, the mask breaking. He still didn’t know how or why I’d avoided his trap, and he didn’t like not knowing.

“Not my best idea,” he said, reeling his nonchalance back into place. “I should steal the Bronto, not kill it. Would be a waste.”

Ignoring the comment, I said, “You’ve declared war on my people with these actions. You do realize that, right?”

“War?” he replied. Then he laughed, a single loud guffaw. “One cannot go to war with a soft people like yours. One can only destroy them, consume them, spread their legs, and fuck them. I have the obelisks of a dozen fallen tribes, and I have not been to war yet. Tribe Grant will be no different.”

Overhead, Malcolm cawed again, and that same flicker of unease shot across Jasper’s face as he looked up. He feared Malcolm. He feared attacks from the sky. But why? There’d been ptera tracks at the site of Eric’s murder. Didn’t the Nomads have fliers of their own?

I stepped backward, hand dropping from my laser. “You are no longer welcome here. Get out of my sight.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Oh? You’re not gonna fight me right now?”

“Leave,” I say, “or I have my quetzal drop a sulfur bomb on the thirty other men you’ve got hidden behind the tree line. Consider this my last warning.”

For the first time, Arvor reacted, spinning around to search the trees. The second-in-command gave the game away much more easily than his master did. He was skittish and careful. He had to be the planner. Jasper was just the one that executed the plan... and any of his enemies along with it.

Meanwhile, Jasper spat into the dirt. “Tricky, tricky,” he said. “Your bird was scoping for you, was he?”

“Go now,” I replied.

“You don’t have sulfur bombs,” he said.

How can he know that?

“You willing to risk thirty of your best fighters—and raptors—on that?” I asked.

He huffed. “I’ll go. But only because the element of surprise is officially wasted. Another bad idea on your part, Arvor.” As he turned half away, Jasper paused, then looked back at me. “Enjoy your new wife while you still can, Alan Grant. Because before long, she’ll be mine—along with all of your other precious whores. I’ll be sure to treat them real nice.”

Rage boiled in my chest as Jasper turned away. But Himari had joined me again, touching my arm, and holding me back.

If I did anything to Jasper now, I put all my people at risk. It would hardly be a close fight, thirty paltry raptors against fifty defensive dinos, plus Bertha and Malcolm and a very angry Alan. However, I’d vowed not to lose a single tribe member to violence, not ever again.

So I let him go. But I hated doing it.

“I’m going to kill him,” I said.

“Obviously,” Himari replied. “But not now. At least that’s one mystery solved... they were the ones that killed Eric.”

Was it truly solved, though? What about the fliers? And how had he known about my wedding, or known I was lying about the sulfur bombs? And the supposed metal deposit... I’d seen no metal on Jasper. Nothing that hadn’t come from the aliens.

“He intended to kill me just now,” I said. “Malcolm might have caught him out, but it’s clear he’s done hiding from me. For weeks, we haven’t been able to find his camp, and now he shows himself? He’s going to act again. Soon.”

The man wanted me dead. He’d stopped his entire nomadic tribe just to fight me. He didn’t need to. My tribe was strong, and hardly an easy target. So why?

Because winter is coming, I realized. And he wants a place to bed down.

I whirled and leapt back onto Investigator. With a simple chitter, she cleared our path of dinos for me, her mindraptor tricks coming in handy.

“I need to see Sayuri,” I said. “Everyone else, back to the settlement. Full defensive mode. I’ll leave it to you, Himari.”

Himari saluted with her fist. “Peace and prosperity.”

“Power,” I replied, and then we were off.

He’s going to attack the settlement, I thought. And he’ll do it at our weakest. When we’re most preoccupied, when we least expect him.

The Nomads would attack us tonight.

Chapter 23

A Buttload of Problems

A LINE of women trailed me as I stormed into Carmila and Dimitri’s little stone house, throwing the wood door open before me. The door, made of saplings knotted together, banged against the inside wall. All of the Nomad captives looked up at once, a knot of them tied to each of four central roof posts. We were up to eleven of them now.

My heart swelled with relief when Carmila stood up from among them, a bowl of water in her hands. “Carmila,” I breathed, then straightened. “Where’s Dimitri?”

The red-haired woman frowned at me. “Feeding the bufos,” she said.

“You just saw him?” I asked.

She nodded.

More relief washed over me, followed by a swell of confusion. Aubrey and Sayuri crowded behind me, both of them wearing white. Missy, Cassie, and finally Nadiyya hovered at the tail end of my retinue, wearing white except for Nadiyya. We’d cobbled together a vibrant red-and-black wedding sari for her, reminiscent of Britonia’s colors.

I must have looked a picture to the captives, as I was very late for my sham wedding—but I had bigger trikes to tussle right now.

“You and Dimitri will immediately stop your spy efforts,” I said, pointing a finger at Carmila, my voice intense. Carmila paled and nodded, and I dropped my finger. It wasn’t her I was mad at.

I spun. “How could Jasper know about my wedding if he hasn’t gotten hold of Carmila and Dimitri?” I asked Sayuri, speaking low. “I didn’t even send messengers to Archie. We only started planning it yesterday and it’s going to be a surprise to most of the tribe.”

Sayuri exchanged a fearful glance with Aubrey. These were my two managerial wives, the ones who maintained my household and implemented my orders. But both of them were clearly at a loss.

“You said Jasper knew about Carmila and Dimitri?” Aubrey asked.

“He all but suggested he had them in his possession already. But they’re both here.”

“He also knew we didn’t have sulfur bombs,” Sayuri added, rubbing her chin.

“And I’ve got the feeling he knows even more,” I said. Jasper knew my opinions on women and made sure to press all those buttons. He also knew about Nadiyya and my visit to Archie. All while I knew next to nothing about him. I knew he had a team of hadrosaurs that he could drive to stampede, and some spitting dilophosaurus to cause the stampeding. My flight team had yet to discover another pteranodon wing in the area, but Jasper had definitely worked in tandem with a flight team.

As for where the Nomads were before they started killing my people, my gallimimus scouts had traced the Nomads’ trail back where they came from... only to find the trail had started at a pile of sand. We thought the aliens might have dropped them from the sky, but why would they do that? And why so late in the game? And why do it on a patch of sand, anyway?

So we didn’t know where they came from or where they were located. We only knew they wanted Tribe Grant under their thumb. They wanted our settlement for the winter, and our women for their entertainment.

I cursed loudly, making my wives jump in surprise. I rarely lost my cool, but we were flying in the dark here. Did we have a spy in our midst? Someone to feed them information?

He would love for us to think that I told myself. He wanted me to believe our own flight team had betrayed us. He’s smart. Sewing discord is part of his plan—

A part of me froze, and I swiveled back toward the captives.

“He knows they’ve been caught,” he said. “He knows Carmila and Dimitri exist, and he knows his men have been caught. He knows which men.”

I stepped closer. This capture was a part of Jasper’s plan, too. “He’s getting information from them. From these guys.”

It was a good place to be. I received reports from Carmila and Dimitri just outside this wood-slat door. We hadn’t thought the captives a threat, since they couldn’t move in their bindings.

I scanned the trapped men and immediately noticed something about them. All of them were either small, or skinny, or old, or somehow maimed. One guy had no arm. Another’s leg was in a brace, bent permanently the wrong way.

They also looked tired. Beaten. My team of ex-Soviet inquisitors hadn’t caused physical harm, but they’d gotten into these guy’s heads. Still, no one said a word. Ever.

Almost as if Jasper would know if they spoke.

I reached for the nearest captive and snatched up his skinny little arm, turning it over. Nothing. I grabbed another.

“Carmila, none of them have gone digging through their own shit, have they?” I asked as I waded through the unwashed masses.

She swallowed audibly, dry-washing her hands. “Several, actually. We thought... with the Soviets messing with their heads....”

I shot to my feet. “Which ones?”

She pointed at the tallest captive, the guy with only one arm, and for the first time, I saw true fear on one of their faces. The African man looked almost European, he’d gone so pale.

The sight stilled me. I paused, trying to get ahead of the situation. My mind raced and tripped and fell and got up again, covering more ground.

Only a few seconds went by, but when I finally spoke, it felt like an hour of thought had passed through me. “I can tell. They’re disgusting. Wash them up again.”

Then I turned and very audibly banged the door closed behind me.

“Alan—” Sayuri started to say.

“Shut up,” I replied.

She missed a step, and well she should. I didn’t speak to my lovers that way, ever. I shot her a look, then waved her away from the hut. Not here. This is for show.

I strode to the next hut over and scoped it out. Empty. Bless them all, my wives got the drift and followed me, even Nadiyya. I did make her stay a few feet apart, though, as I explained everything to the others. I still wasn’t certain I could trust her.

“Jasper said he had obelisks. Spares. Lots of them,” I said. “He even left one for me to find, remember?”

The women frowned, and then Missy gasped, her hand actually slapping against her lips. “You don’t think—he was spying on you through the new obelisk? Listening to you this whole time?”

I shook my head. “No. I checked it when I found it. He hadn’t claimed that obelisk, so he couldn’t use it to listen to me. But an obelisk could be used for that purpose. To listen, remotely.”

“And he had spares,” Sayuri repeated.

Silence for a moment. I had to see if they reached the same conclusion as me. I had to know that I was on the right track.

It was Cassie who figured it out first. “Omigod, gross,” she said.

The others rounded on her. “What?” Missy said.

Cassie shook her head, hand on her mouth, appalled. I felt much the same.

“They... they... they put obelisks up their butts!” Cassie cried, flinging her arm back toward the hut. “Then they allowed themselves to get captured! And Jasper listened in through the butt plugs!”

A pause, and then Missy’s moan of disgust filled the silence. Aubrey just went pale. Ever businesslike, Sayuri turned back to me.

“That’s why you left without investigating the one-armed man. Why you told me to shut up? Because he was listening?”

“Yeah. Sorry about that. I didn’t want him to know I knew, but... I’m not sure how well I hid it.”

“Not well enough to use it to trap him,” she said. “But maybe....”

She trailed off. “Maybe what?”

Sayuri didn’t seem to hear me. Her dark eyes had a far-off look to them, her finger softly tapping her chin as she thought.

“He has something on them,” she surmised. “On the captives, I mean.”

I nodded. “Yeah. That’s why they aren’t talking. Jasper would hear it if they blabbed.”

All that psychological torture, all our questions, and none of them had said a single word. Jasper had collateral on them. Perhaps they had loved ones he would kill if they spoke to me. The fear on the one-armed man’s face—when he thought I’d figured it out—had said as much.

“They’re all weaker-looking people. Jasper said he hates the weak,” I said. “So, he discarded them. Gave them to us to spy on us, and to keep us busy, lead us on a goose chase or something.”

Sayuri shrugged. “Or most of them are real scouts, and he just uses his weakest men for the most dangerous jobs. I do think Carmila and Dimitri are more skilled than you’re giving them credit for, but still.”

But still was right. This was all beside the point. The real question was, how could we use this? What did it even mean?

Sayuri is right that I can’t let Jasper overhear something now, and use it to trap the guy. He’ll be suspicious after I mentioned poop.

However... he might still use things I said before. What did I say last time I was here? Oh right, I invited Carmila to the wedding....

At the time, Dimitri had been with her. He’d whistled and asked how I was going to fit five lovers into one hut. They’re going to kill each other, he’d told me. I’d laughed and said....

“Jasper thinks I’m going to be in Eric and Kaity’s old place with Nadiyya tonight,” I blurted out. Ever since Eric died, Kaity hadn’t been able to live there, and the place had been left vacant out of respect for Eric. But now that I had a bona fide princess to house, I’d taken the only empty house available to me. Nadiyya was supposed to live there alone, and I was supposed to visit her now and then to make it look like we were consummating.

So he would attack tonight, ten to one. And he knew I’d be at Eric’s old house with Nadiyya. He already had a penchant for stealing obelisks, so he’d definitely make a beeline for mine.

“Sayuri,” I said slowly. “How many charges are left in the excavator?”

“We have enough NE to fill it one more time. Why?”

A smile edged across my face. “I have an idea. But we’ll need to move forward with some of our city-planning projects. It’ll be a bit... ahead of schedule.”

She crossed her arms. “Go on. Talk dirty to me.”

Oh yeah. This was gonna be fun.

Chapter 24

Lucky Number Five

A PLAN WAS IN MOTION. Defenses were prepared. And I stood at the altar, quiet and brooding, as Darnel gave my big wedding speech.

“We are gathered here todaayyy to witness the joining of two great houses,” he boomed, probably channeling his inner Game of Thrones. “Here, we have the lovely Princess Nadiyya of Britonia, who will henceforth be the fifth honored bride of our Main Man Alan Winchester-Grant....”

Darnel wasn’t a bad orator, all said and done. His deep voice had the whole crowd enthralled. They already loved him because he made such good food.

If only my own thoughts could stray back to food.

“Alan, smile,” Aubrey mouthed from behind Nadiyya. My other wives were arrayed in their white clothing behind my newest wife, all except for Sayuri, who was busy elsewhere. The crowd wouldn’t miss her. That woman was always busy.

I plastered a smile on my face, holding the muscles tight. Nadiyya didn’t look much happier than I felt. Although I had promised to leave her alone when it came to the bedroom, she was still being sold off to some guy she didn’t know. She couldn’t ever be seen having a relationship with anyone except me, or else risk my alliance with Britonia. So, she would forever be stuck pretending to be my lover in public, while not being able to take any lovers of her own. Even if I deposed Archie, this would stand. It was a crummy situation all around.

I had to admit, though—she was beautiful. Her red sari clung to her little waist, the black sash pushing her tits up provocatively while the rest of the garment covered her ankle to wrist. We’d gotten a fiber-weaving machine from the drop by the sulfur site, and Carl had transported it back to the settlement especially for my wedding, once again via ptera-carriage. It occurred to me to wonder where they had gotten red and black dye—much less the white fabric my other wives were using. Someone must have discovered a bleaching agent to use on the few saber-tooth pelts we’d acquired. Tribe Grant was turning out to be fashionable.

Nadiyya’s gaze rose suddenly, and we locked eyes. Nadiyya looked away again, sad. I’d been half-hoping to see her blush. Was it really so bad to be marrying me? Maybe a part of me had hoped we could develop a friendship, at least... but her eyes were watering. She might cry any moment.

“Do you, Princess Nadiyya of Britonia, take this delicious chunk of man meat to be your lawfully wedded husbando?” Darnell said, making me blink. I’d been so lost looking at Nadiyya that I’d stopped hearing him.

Nadiyya straightened her shoulders and looked past me. She said woodenly, “I do.”

Ouch, I thought.

“Alan Winchester,” Darnel said, his brow dropping a little, “do you take this, ah....” He guttered for a moment, probably cutting out a phrase like Sexy Waifu Number Five in lieu of something serious. “This delicate flower of a beloved ally to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

I couldn’t help it. I reached out and touched Nadiyya’s cheek, lightly, an invitation. I tried to say with the touch, shove me aside, and I’ll go. But let me in, and I can be there for you. I can support you however you need.

Her hazel eyes shifted to mine, and she searched my soul with those eyes. I felt the power of the mind behind that gaze.

Then, she smiled. It was still a sad smile, but she reached up to twine her fingers with mine, pressing both our hands to her cheek. Out in the crowd, someone said, “Awwww.”

I took a breath and said, “I do.”

That evening, I set the very first standard for a wedding ceremony in Tribe Grant. It included picking us both up on carnotaur skull chairs and carrying us around—a vaguely Jewish tradition, I think. There was also a toast, courtesy of Jarod Power and Plenty... in the bedroom! and a surprise beer from Darnel. Don’t ask me how I made it, he said, and I didn’t, but I also didn’t drink much. It was sour and bready, and I wanted to stay sharp.

Others imbibed his entire stock, though. I let them. It was important for my tribe to not suspect a thing. If they did, Jasper might save his attack for another, less predictable day. I would lose my edge if I didn’t see him coming. Besides, my fighters and defenders were ready. They’d been that way ever since Eric’s death, so they would appear no more vigilant than usual.

All the while, I kept thinking about the sand.

“You don’t look well, husband,” Nadiyya told me as we danced to Elsa’s version of I Will Always Love You. The Russian woman didn’t have all the words right, but the feeling was there.

I shook myself. “Sorry.”

“Something’s going to happen tonight, isn’t it?”

That got a smile out of me. “Nothing gets past you, does it?”

“Is it Jasper?” she asked, not answering my question. I thought, She and Sayuri were going to get along fine.

“It’s... under control,” I told her.

Her mouth thinned out. She knew I still couldn’t trust her. But she wanted me to trust her. I could tell.

I thought of the look she’d given me during the vows, of how she’d pressed my hand to her cheek. We were partners now. I had chosen her. My wives, as promised, had not argued my decision. They’d been friendly toward her, but that was probably because I didn’t plan to actually sleep with her.

“If I tell you a secret,” Nadiyya said suddenly, “will you tell me what’s on your mind?”

I frowned. Some part of my brain went, oh shit.

“I thought you already told me everything you know,” I said carefully.

She raised an eyebrow at me. “Not a state secret, silly. My secret. You... you deserve to know.”

For a moment we just danced. Her hair hung free of any head scarf, long and silky black, catching the breeze and flickering against her caramel cheek. I almost ran my hand through it, almost pulled her mouth to mine. Almost. It would be a lifetime of almost.

I weighed my options, then shrugged. I’d be with her the rest of the night until the attack happened. If she wanted to betray me, she’d need to do it right in front of me, where I could probably stop her.

“Sure. What’s your secret?” I asked, spinning her even though the music didn’t call for it. She pirouetted gracefully, taking my lead, before traveling back up against me.

Her lips nearly met mine when she said, “I’m a lesbian.”

All the air went out of my chest, which was a strangely pleasant sensation. I filled the vacuum with a quiet laugh.

“No wonder you looked so sad,” I said, swaying once more as the music ended. I cursed my inner self for ever wanting the poor woman. A lesbian, having to pretend to fuck a man for the rest of her life! Yeah, that wasn’t gonna be fun.

A man whose voice I only vaguely recognized took up the next song, a Sinatra tune. This time, he did know all the words.

“Sorry about that,” Nadiyya said, picking up the conversation like we’d never had a pause. “The situation just got real, you know? On the altar. I used to be engaged back in Old Earth. Her name was Rachel. But I doubt I’ll ever see her again, now.”

“We can try to get her back,” I said. “Sometimes, the aliens—”

“No. Don’t promise me anything more,” Nadiyya said, her gaze dropping. “You promised to kill Archie for me, but if you fail, I can take it. But I can’t take it if you promise Rachel, and fall through.”

Understandable. “All right,” I said.

She looked up into my face again, the rising moon turning her hazel eyes into mystic blue orbs. “Now you. What’s going on?”

I gave her the Cliff Notes of the situation as we danced, and it proved a better way to spend the night than to awkwardly avoid each other’s eyes. It brought us closer, too, so that our voices couldn’t be overheard. I found myself wanting her, despite everything. I hoped she couldn’t tell.

“Okay,” she said when I finished describing my plan. “So, when you and I go to Eric’s old house, we’re going to leave through a cellar Sayuri just excavated for us. That sets the trap, and we’re home-free.”

I nodded. That about summed it up.

A soft thunking sound started to rise around us, but Nadiyya spoke over it. “Sounds like a good plan. But you still seem worried?”

“Yeah. It’s about the Nomads,” I said as the thunking grew louder. “I wish I knew where they came from, you know? If the aliens are supporting them or—”

I stopped talking and dancing at the same time. The thunking noises had turned to pounding, and all around us, I saw why: my people had snuck in armor, and shields, and barrels, and boards, all while Nadiyya and I weren’t looking. Now, they were pounding sticks and branches and spears against the flat surfaces, all in tandem.

I realized what it meant: a new tradition. I laughed. “I think they want us to kiss.”

“Oh,” Nadiyya said. “Like pounding tables at a wedding....”

I smiled at her. “One for the crowd?”

She hesitated, then smiled back. “Oh, what the hell.”

I kissed her and she kissed me back.

My chest surged, and heat and need dropped through me in equal measure. Still, I didn’t press any closer until her tongue rode along my lips, an invitation.

The crowd whistled and cheered as I gripped the back of her head and made a memory of it. Our tongues danced, our breaths tangled together, and I pulled her close enough to feel my need for her. She tensed, and I came back to myself, gasping, “Sorry. I got carried away.”

She met my eyes, smiling in an unsure way, her cheeks flushed. “It’s all right. Me too.”

I righted her, and she bent low to brush off her sari, even though there was no dirt on it. This gave me a painful view down her cleavage, and finally, the thunking and cheers all died out. Another tune came on the human radio, but it was Japanese, and I didn’t recognize it.

“Ahem,” she said, straightening. “You were saying, um, about the Nomads? Where they came from?”

That entire train of thought had completely hopped the tracks. “Oh, right. Yeah. My scouts said their trail began on a patch of sand.” I tried to gather the different bits of that report to the front of my mind again. It was hard to think past that kiss.

“Sand?” she said. “Like, they were underground?”

“No. The scouts said it looked like they fell out of the sky, off an alien—”

I stopped dead. The music fell quiet. There, at that moment, I tuned everything out.

I gripped Nadiyya by the arm and said, “Their trail ended at a mountain.”

Her eyebrows dropped low. I was talking nonsense to her.

“What if... Nadiyya, what if they came from under the mountain?”

“I thought that’s what you said,” she replied.

“Sand. Sand can come up when you dig up from the ground, right?”

“Yes...?”

I threw my arms around her. “Nadiyya, you’re a genius.”

“I know, but... why?”

“That’s their secret. They have an excavator.”

And in helping me to realize that, my new wife had just saved both our lives.

Chapter 25

Shut Up and Take a Shower

EVERY SINGLE ONE of my raptors escorted Nadiyya and I to our honeymoon suite. The team of riders fanned out around us, each one wearing a celebratory sash sewn with bits of metal. The pieces had been cobbled together from broken spears and armor, or from other accessories brought from Old Earth... notebook binders, earrings, and so on. None of it was new metal, but when sewn together, the sashes made twinkly little Christmas sounds. Another Tribe Grant tradition in the making.

All of these people had been excited to witness my wedding, and now that they were dropping me off, they’d be headed to the outskirts of the settlement to relieve the current rotation of guards. Little did they know they’d never make it that far.

The battle would be here in a few minutes.

As we drew close to Eric’s old house, I pulled up short, feeling a tightness in my chest and a burn in my eyes. Someone—probably Aubrey—had decorated the wooden-walled hut with garlands of white blossoms and dino teeth. I wished Eric could have been here to see the wedding. Eric, and Lara, and Peter, and Sleuth. Tribe Grant had lost too many already.

They would be with us tonight, in spirit.

I leaned forward over Nadiyya’s shoulder and whispered into her ear, “You ready?”

“As long as Vinny and Carmila are ready, then I am,” she replied.

After she’d given me the clue that revealed Jasper’s secret, I realized she was perfectly trustworthy. Now, I would see if she was battle-worthy, too.

Somewhat chastely, I kissed her on her hair and said, out loud, “Head to the baths now, and meet me back here, my love.”

“Of course, husband,” she replied, just as vocally. We wanted to be heard.

With the charade acted out, I slid from Investigator’s back, pokeyballs jingling on my waist. I waved to the men and women who’d accompanied us, then fisted my hand into a salute.

“Power!” I called out.

“Plenty!” they replied, before cheering. Someone again added in the bedroom, and a few lighthearted laughs chased me to the hut.

A package lay on the stoop, and I frowned and bent to open it. There was no wrapping paper in this day and age, but someone had lovingly tied fiber around a banana leaf for me. A note was included, scrawled on a little skipping-stone tag:

from Missy and the dinos: P

P Δ P

I smiled. The triangle and three P’s clearly represented my new motto of peace, power, and plenty. That girl really could surprise me with her sweetness sometimes.

After pocketing the tag, I tugged on the twine and opened the package, finding an object I didn’t recognize at first. It looked like a long, triangular block made of thick glass reminiscent of her triangle icon if I had to guess which pulled into a crescent shape at both ends. Along the center, four rings lined the interior of the triangular block. These reminded me of brass knuckles. I tried them on, and the whole thing fit.

Huh, I thought. Using this in a fight would be like punching with a sliver of moon. Not terribly practical, especially if it was just glass, but it would definitely stand out. This could end up being iconic for me, and leave it to Missy to come up with something iconic. That woman was probably going to invent this world’s version of Gucci handbags, so why not luxury weapons, too?

I flipped it over to look closer, and the triangular piece caught the moonlight, casting a flash of rainbow on Eric’s old door. That’s when I recognized the triangular shape as something other than a symbol; it was also a prism. At least, a prism that had been stretched at both ends to resemble a sort of... tiara?

Ooohhh, I thought. It wasn’t a tiara. It was a crown, albeit one that doubled as brass knuckles. Dubious, I plopped the object on my head, where it faithfully dug into my too-long hair and stuck in place. The design had seemed simple enough to be masculine, but I’d never know for sure without a mirror.

Regardless, it had been given with love. I wondered at first where Missy had gotten the glass, but the note actually answered that question: from Missy and the dinos. I remembered seeing a glass-like material on some of the rare stegos we’d caught before leaving for Britonia. This must have been fashioned from one of their back plates. I’d have to ask her about its properties later.

Here’s hoping it brings me some luck, at least. Shrugging, I pushed the door open, taking care not to look at the mountainside looming over me. Sayuri was up there somewhere, waiting. I entered the room Eric used to share with Kaity and immediately walked to the fireplace on the wall facing the cliff side.

Unlike all the dwellings built or excavated since, this home was made entirely from wood saplings stuck into the ground—except for the fireplace. It had been painstakingly crafted from stones and clay by Eric’s own hands, and was as steady as any structure in camp, aside from the mountain itself. By my order, no one had stoked the fire for me. While the bed was made, there were no petals to welcome me into its embrace. I hadn’t wanted to risk anyone else coming here before me.

With my heart rate kicking into high gear, I bent to strike flint over the dry tinder in the fireplace. Clack. Clack. Clack.

As the seconds ticked on, my gaze drifted to the broken spear shaft Eric used to use as a fire poker. I had my own spear, a better one. My tribe had come so far since those first spears. But it was there, should I need it.

Would I?

I must have been wrong, I thought as my spark finally caught tinder. It’s not happening tonight. All of my preparation was for noth—

Halfway through that thought, the floor of Eric’s house disappeared.

I snatched up the poker and fell into a crouch in front of my tiny, hard-earned flame. A perfect circular hole had opened up in the flooring in front of me, and something silver stuck in the middle of it.

Not an excavator, I thought. A drill.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Jasper said, once the last of the earth fell away to reveal him.

He stood in the hole, the dark square of a tunnel behind him, and a huge silver drill pointed upward at his side. Before I could respond, he made a noise out the side of his mouth. Chick, chick.

Chains clinked behind him, and not two seconds later, dozens of shapes hurtled past him.

I fell back, fire poker out in front of me, as a horde of unfamiliar dinosaurs either attacked me or fled out the window holes and the door of the still-standing hut. One even caved in a wall in its rush to wedge itself out between two rickety slats.

The creatures were partially feathered but definitely saurian. They stood about half a human’s height, round-headed but clearly predatory, with raptor claws on their feet and slavering fangs. Their eyes flashed madly in the firelight as they surged out of the ground and finally out of the hut—leaving me and Jasper behind. I’d killed two with the poker, which had deterred the rest from going after me.

Outside the huts, the celebratory sashes of my raptor team jangled. Orders were shouted, and weapons were drawn.

And, of course, someone screamed.

Leave them to it, I told myself, staring down the barrel of a metal-shafted crossbow bolt. Jasper grinned at me from the handle end of the weapon as the same six guards from that morning emerged from the tunnel at his back. More would be behind them, an entire fighting force. Yet his second, Arvor and the warrior woman Lindiwe were nowhere in sight. That concerned me.

Abruptly, Jasper’s grin faltered. He’d finally seen my lack of surprise. He opened his mouth, then shook his head, glowering.

“Congratulations on your nuptials,” he told me and fired.

I dropped flat, and the bolt twanged off the fireplace mantle above me. Jasper cursed as screams rang in the distance. Those dog-bird dinos had reached the general population and the partygoers. The raptors would be in pursuit, but would it be enough? I hadn’t expected him to bring dinos through the tunnel, especially not anything half so deadly as those guys. I had to trust my fighters to handle the threat.

At that moment, I heard it—a distant, ringing crack.

“Give me that,” Jasper snapped, likely taking hold of someone else’s loaded crossbow. Then he grunted, and a shape drew up level with me—Jasper, now in a helmet. He wasn’t taking chances.

As the roar built behind me, he aimed the bolt between my eyes.

That’s when half the water in our reservoir crashed against Eric’s house, and washed every single Nomad away.

Chapter 26

Spielberg

I’D KNOWN for some time that Jasper intended to attack me. He wanted my obelisk. He only needed to know when and where I’d be caught unawares. So of course he’d choose my wedding date and my marital bed, both of which he knew from his spying. Eric’s old house was supposed to be the place where he ended Tribe Grant and took everything that was mine.

It wasn’t gonna work out that way.

Fortunately, Eric’s house had been the first one built in our settlement, and it remained set apart from other dwellings. We’d warned Eric that it had been rickety and too far from safety, but he and Kaity had enjoyed the privacy. It had worked out fine for them—and now, the house’s wooden walls and remote location worked to our advantage. I thanked him in my head when the water struck.

Sayuri had been hard at work with her excavator, diverting the underground river just for me.

As the torrent bowled over the walls of Eric’s house, I stayed in front of the meager fire that I’d built. The stone fireplace and chimney tipped slightly under the onslaught, but other than that, the structure held. The wooden walls didn’t have that much luck.

I saw Jasper’s eyes widen and heard the twang of his crossbow as he triggered it. I held up my arm, the remnants of my alien armor still strapped on under my wedding skins. I used arm-pieces the most, so I’d had my pauldrons and greaves reshaped into vambraces.

But my defense hadn’t been necessary. Jasper’s arrow went wide as he tilted his head and stepped backward.

Water surged into his tunnel, hammering his body from both sides.

It was a lot of water. The underground reservoir that Eric had surveyed on the clifftop had been deep, and Sayuri had been anxious to use it for irrigation. Today, I’d sent her off with the excavator to cut a hole. With a little help from Carl and Alex our resident mason and plumber Sayuri had managed to aim our first irrigation channel directly at Eric’s old house.

The fire hissed and went out as I crouched in front of it, spray soaking me and the hearth both. Below me, Jasper tumbled backward. His men shouted and screamed and then gurgled as the water kept coming. Sayuri must have performed a miracle of engineering. I’d expected them to fall over, sure, but the wave completely washed them away.

I watched it happen until the water stopped, and then I called for a raptor. My team was busy fighting off the small, ravenous creatures that Jasper had sicced on us. Little bodies littered the area and screams still rent the air as the dinos terrorized the dwellings. By now, most of the figures I could see in the wedding firelight had taken up arms.

At my call, the nearest raptor pivoted and made a beeline for me. Its rider, Jennifer, nearly fell off but managed to cling to her leather bridle as the raptor brought her over to me.

I stood up from the wet hearth as her eyes widened. Eric’s entire home was gone, all the furniture and flooring and walls, everything except the chimney, fireplace, and part of the stoop. There was also a brand new hole in the ground that seemingly went very deep.

“I need your raptor,” I said. “I’ll explain later.”

Her mouth did that fishlike gaping movement, but then she nodded and slipped off the creature. I would have used Investigator, but a Utahraptor was too big for this hole. Even this guy would need to duck.

Before I turned to follow Jasper, a thought occurred to me. Jennifer was our resident dino expert, as she used to be a biologist, and had taken to reading all the dino informational materials that the aliens had given us.

“Do you know what those little dinos are?” I asked, nodding at the mayhem in the firelight.

She nodded. “Deinonychus. Carnivores, but those ones seem especially vicious.”

I remembered Jasper’s whistle. A whistle, not a command.

“They aren’t domesticated,” I realized aloud, scanning over the few shadows of the creatures I could see from here. “I think he starved them, then released them. They should be distracted by enough easy meat. Kill and rip open a hadrosaur and they’ll descend on it, then use nets to catch them. We can see if they’ll be useful for something.”

Jennifer hesitated, not used to being given commands. “All right. I can do that,” she said.

I shot her a smile. “I know you can.”

Then I leapt into the hole.

All the men had been washed away, but the drill remained. I could only see the flash of a metal point without the firelight, but I felt into the darkness behind the object. It was enormous, and I wondered how exactly it worked.

Regardless, the drill wasn’t mine, so it wouldn’t respond to my commands and turn into a pokeyball or start spinning. I left it behind, tugging the raptor along by his reins. I chittered lowly at him, asking his name. He responded with something like Skrii-errh.

“Spielberg. Right, I remember naming you,” I whispered. He was one of my earlier raptor tames, before I started hoarding domestications.

After learning his identity, I spoke to him in raptor-ese, which I’d learned quite well by now, thanks to Sleuth and Investigator.

Follow, stay back, I told him. See. Warn.

The raptor had much better vision than I did, so as I pushed into the dark, I wouldn’t go blindly. With him close behind, I’d have a warning if anything ahead of me moved.

We pushed into the soupy hole, and after about a minute, he gave a low chirp. Dead.

There was no urgency to the sound, so I expected the body when we came upon it. I stepped over the spongy dead man and moved on.

It was the first of many. These poor bastards must have been knocked against the walls in the initial torrent. Going unconscious underwater was bad news, and so was a snapped spine. But there hadn’t been enough water to drown all of them. Some of those attackers would still be alive.

At the same time, the dead proved useful. As I proceeded down the tunnel, I managed to scavenge one of those nifty metal crossbows and a handful of bolts. I was just reaching for a fifth body when—

Close attack! Spielberg screeched, and as he jerked back on his reins, I ducked. Something cut the reins, and I swung out with a leg and caught the attacker at the ankle. He thudded to the ground with a heavy grunt, and then I stabbed my newly acquired crossbow bolt into his back. I missed the heart, the bolt head skidding over a rib. The man’s cry shot away down the tunnel.

I ended it with a slash to his neck, then tucked the bolt into the belt quiver I’d picked up. I lifted my new bow and aimed it ahead of me.

There goes my element of surprise, I thought, but I still had the element of night vision. It was go-time.

Spielberg chirped at me. Several humans coming, he said.

Center? I asked him.

Left.

Bless these intelligent animals. I sidled left, against the wall, then aimed directly down the tunnel at my chest height. I fired.

A gurgle sounded. A short guy, then, my chest height had been his neck.“What the fu—” a second man said as the first toppled. I nocked another bolt, pulled it back, and fired at the voice.

“Aaaagh!” the man shouted, followed by a thump as he fell. His vocal chords were still working just fine, wherever I’d hit him. “Someone’s in the tunnel! Shoot him!”

I need to tell Spielberg to flee, I thought. His larger form would make an easy target, now that the fight was on.

But before I could speak, Spielberg turned tail and ran. I frowned after him. Had I spoken aloud? He was alien-tamed, so he couldn’t flee without a verbal command.

Well, it didn’t matter at the moment. From here on, I’d fight on my own.

Chapter 27

Fire in the Hole

AS THE RAPTOR exited the tunnel, I bent low and ran to the man who was shouting. This time I pulled my knife. When I heard the first crossbow bolt whine past me, I stopped the man from shouting for good.

I hit the ground and rolled to the other side as more shouts echoed up the tunnel. The ground was loose here, dusty, and the hole was round instead of square. However the drill worked, it must be different from the excavator’s clean five-by-five gravel conversion. It seemed the drill had erased the tunnel stone, not converted it to gravel. That would explain why we never heard rumbles.

I held onto my remaining three crossbow bolts as someone down the tunnel called for light. I squinted so that when someone finally got a torch-lit, it didn’t blind me.

Three more shots killed three more men, and then I was all out of ammo.

“There he is!” one of my remaining enemies shouted. He pointed at me as I leapt to my feet, whipped open my convertible spear, and threw it. The weapon ran him through, and I chased it down the tunnel, dodging a late bolt before retrieving my weapon.

I cursed. There were dozens of men here. I hadn’t expected such a large force, and although they were bedraggled and recovering, there were too many. I had come alone, hoping to snag Jasper’s obelisk or scare the men off. I had no dinos with me, nothing that could maneuver well in a tunnel.

I was a dead man walking.

“Hold your fire!” a voice shouted, and I growled at the sound. The horde of men began to shift as someone pushed through their group, and then Jasper emerged at the front. I nearly threw my spear on instinct, but the man clinked as he walked. Metal armor had been sewn into his clothing. Not only had he discovered and taken over a metal deposit, but he’d already figured out how to fashion the stuff into plates.

As Jasper strode toward me, I said, “What happened to your favorite lackeys?”

Jasper grinned in triumph, like a man who had just been served an enemy on a silver platter. “Lindiwe is doing whatever she wants. She works best that way. But Arvor you know those book-types, they always have plans B and C.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. This might be Jasper’s main force, but he had others on standby. I had to hope my scouts and defenders had their eyes open. After all, I couldn’t do everything.

But I could do this.

I dropped my hand to my waist and gripped the pokeyball on my belt. Jasper’s face went slack, and he was smart enough to leap to one side as the laser gun manifested before me, pulled through its miniature dimensional gate, its handle landing squarely in my hand.

I sighted down at chest height and fired once, purposely letting the recoil swing me to one side.

The beam of alien light zipped through one man and then shot to the right. The laser bored through dozens of human torsos in one fatal, horrifying blow. Then the laser’s light buzzed out, the single-lit torch hit the ground, and blood splashed wetly onto the sandy, concave earth.

There were no screams.

As the last remaining flame died under a spray of arterial blood, I lunged right and hurtled down the cavern on light feet, the laser already back on my belt. As Jasper rose to his feet, I got behind him. He made the mistake of unfurling a blade made of vivid blue light, which revealed his exact location. I threw my spear.

He whirled and deflected it with a metal-clad arm. In the haze of blue light, his black eyes turned alien, and his smile looked like something out of hell. A few men started cursing and moaning behind me, the initial shock of their injuries wearing off. Any moment, one or two survivors would cobble together a crossbow and a bolt, and end me.

So I’d finish this now.

Jasper roared and came at me. I ran to meet him, then dropped onto my ass as his sword came straight down. I took a risk, holding up my arm to deflect his blow. His weapon was clearly alien, but my arm-plating was, too.

The plating did better than protect me. Jasper cried out as the tech rebuffed him, sending him surging backward—but not before I’d leaned back and driven my foot clear between his legs.

Metal banged against my foot, a codpiece of all things, but I know he still felt it because his hands instinctively went to his crotch as he fell. He recovered fast, though, and as his sword arced around, I barely managed to get to my feet and jump over the swing.

I backed off, out of range of the energy weapon, and seized a crossbow off a body. It was loaded, and I took a breath and aimed it, slowly, carefully, all while Jasper got to his feet.

“Won’t work,” he said, spitting blood. The next moment, the energy weapon flared. Its blue blade morphed into a thin, oval shield that protected his whole body.

I turned away and fired the bow.

It took down a one-legged man who’d managed to stand and aim a crossbow at me. I got him in the throat, and he fell.

Then I let loose a shout, my voice raised high, to carry: “Tribe Grant takes everyone!” I bellowed. “Even if you’re injured or maimed! Even if you kill me here, will your own tribe want you back? Will they abandon you, leave you to die here, alone?”

Jasper roared and surged toward me. I threw the crossbow at him, and it caught flame when it struck his shield. As the smoke obscured his vision, I knelt and held up my arms. The shield hit me, meeting its match against my vambraces. Because of the low angle of my strike, the recoil took Jasper’s legs out from under him. He shot backward, the shield hitting the ground and my legs both. We fell into a sort of heap, me facing up, him down.

I reached over the searing-hot edge of his shield, and I stabbed him in the eye with my ever-present belt knife.

He’d been raising his head, trying to get up, and now his remaining eye went wide at the sight of me. Groaning in pain, I let the knife go and scrambled out from under the shield.

His wide eye glazed over. His body slumped. Jasper collapsed, dead, and his blood sizzled on the blue energy, evaporating even as it pooled.

I reached down and grabbed his shield by its handle. With a pained grunt, I flipped Jasper’s body over to look at his obelisk.

“Identify,” I muttered. I had to know if this was over or not.

Surrendered Obelisk 11933: Former Tribe: Rastafarians, Man

Current Tribe: Nomads Afrikaans

“Shit,” I said. The sheer fact that this was a surrendered obelisk meant it wasn’t the main obelisk for the Nomads. It also still belonged to the Nomads, meaning I hadn’t killed their leader. The Nomads would be disbanded if I had.

I remembered seeing Lindiwe and Arvor wearing obelisks. He must have given the real obelisk to one of them for the battle, and it didn’t take a genius for me to know which one. Jasper didn’t think very highly of women. He wouldn’t have wanted Lindiwe to have control over his tribe. No, he’d give it to Arvor—or some other person I’d yet to meet.

I straightened. Unfortunately, tonight’s fight was far from over. It had been a long day already. My legs had been seared good, and the burned skin I saw in the shield’s blue light glistened wetly. There was nothing for it. I faced Jasper’s men.

Only to find, to my amazement, that every man still facing me had his hands in the air and his head down. Most knelt on the ground, bleeding from significant injuries where my laser had grazed them. Several shapes lurched away down the tunnel, choosing to flee rather than surrender or fight.

Well, this would save me time. I stalked over to the second-nearest man, who looked more conscious than the guy closest to me. That guy looked dazed from blood loss.

“You,” I said. “You get immunity from one crime if you tell me where Arvor is.”

He kept his eyes down. “I don’t know. Arvor kept his own team. But it’ll be bad. Some kind of trick.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What has he done before?”

The Nomad swallowed. His hands visibly started shaking. “Triggered a sinkhole once. The thing ate a whole tribe. Started a rock slide and trapped some people in a cave. Poisoned a well with some kind of mineral.”

I already sensed a pattern. “What is this guy, a geologist?”

The man actually nodded.

Damn. A psychopathic geologist. Now I’d seen it all.

I flung an arm out. “All of you, head back to Tribe Grant. Help each other get there. No living man left behind.

“Once you reach the exit, stay in this hole. Don’t touch the drill where you guys left it. If you touch it, every dino in the area will be after you. I’ll hunt you down until you’re all dead.”

This would be my test. If they left the drill alone, I’d know they were trustworthy enough to accept into Tribe Grant. If all of them, together, kept their hands to themselves—and if they killed anyone who tried to abscond with the drill—then their honor could be salvaged. It would take a hefty transition—and probably some serious redemption regarding the Nomads’ women—but if they could do this, I’d let them live.

And if they ran with the drill, well, I’d catch them. Either way, I’d end up with a drill.

With that order and warning given, I stepped past the man. I was headed out the way Jasper came in. If I could see where he parted ways with Arvor, maybe there’d be footprints to show—

Something clamped onto my ankle, stopping me. I whipped the shield around, barely stopping it in time to keep from cutting off my assailant’s head.

But it was just the man I’d been talking to. He’d gone totally still, the hot edge of the energy shield at his throat.

“There’s—there’s another one,” he croaked.

I pulled the shield back, and checked the handle. A simple toggle switch poked out under the crossbar of the weapon. I toggled it, and the shield became a sword with a fwoop.

“Oh yeah? Two of what?” I asked him, checking the weight of my new weapon. When I looked back at the man, a tear broke from his eye. He thought I was going to kill him.

“Two drills,” he said. “There’s two drills.”

I stared at him.

Then I ran.

Chapter 28

Neon

I KNEW EXACTLY where Arvor was. He’d had the same idea that I had. The same idea that Eric, a surveyor, had.

Instead of leaving out the back way, I hurtled back toward Tribe Grant at full speed, leaping from the hole as soon as I saw moonlight. I hit the edge of the hole mid-chest and hefted myself over it. Then I whistled.

I expected Malcolm to caw in reply, but distantly. He should be far away, scouting in the absence of Kaity’s flight team. Instead, I nearly jumped out of my skin when his answering cry sounded not thirty feet away. He sat on the ground.

Already jogging toward him, I let my eyes adjust. The wedding bonfire had been stoked higher, which was a good sign. The human shapes in front of it moved with purpose, but not urgency. The fight with the deinonychus must be over. Had Jennifer managed to drag over and slaughter a duckbill already?

My answer came with another cry from Malcolm. This one was prideful, but also a cry for approval. At his feet lay a dead hadrosaur, already thoroughly dismantled. The deinonychus were nowhere in sight, but at least they hadn’t been slaughtered while eating the thing.

Jennifer must have seen me running toward my mount, because she caught me halfway, with Missy running behind her. I lost a step seeing my youngest wife out and about. They were supposed to be at the longhouse for all this, with Anthony.

“You gonna explain that hole to me now?” Jennifer asked. Missy was breathing hard, unable to speak.

“Not yet. Has anyone else attacked?”

“You mean aside from those meat-brained little goblins? No.”

That was good. No one else had currently made it to the settlement’s interior to attack. Then again, Lindiwe might be waiting in the woods to pick off the survivors of Jasper’s attack. She used all that black dye for a reason. She likely worked best in the dark.

I reached Malcolm and chirped up at him. Very good, very smart, I told him. Excellent kill. I am pleased.

“Wait, Alan,” Missy gasped, still heaving.

I turned and laid a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Missy, but I don’t have ti—”

“Malcolm killed the hadrosaur,” she huffed out.

“Yeah, I see that—”

“Without an order. No one ordered him. He was too far away.”

I blinked, unable to process why this mattered.

Missy half-collapsed, putting her weight on her knees. I dropped next to her, knowing there was something more to this story. Missandra could be frivolous, but when I was intense like I was now, she wouldn’t delay me unless it was important.

“Something happened here, Alan,” she rasped. “The little dinos got into the settlements. People were screaming, and getting hurt. Investigator called for help and all the riderless raptors jumped their fencing and came and helped and—and we fought side by side with the raptors. And something happened.”

Jennifer took over before I could ask. “What she means is, raptors and people started fighting in tandem as if they’d been trained for it. But it was just regular people, Alan. Not people trained on raptors. It was farmers, cooks, cleaners, all the people who only take fighting missions when you run out of volunteers.”

“But they all fought like a team,” Missy summarized.

“And right after you told me to get a dead hadrosaur, Malcolm dropped one on us,” Jennifer said.

My thoughts skipped like a vinyl. Like a team. No one ordered him.

“It just seems important,” Jennifer said. “Where are you going? Can we help?”

“Not without Kaity’s flight team,” I said. “And I don’t have the time to wait for good archers. For now, evacuate the settlement, but be prepared for someone to be lying in wait. I think Arvor is gonna flood the whole basin and try to take the settlement, but that warrior woman is probably waiting to kill anyone who leaves.”

Jennifer nodded. “I’ll find Jarod. Or Cole. They’ll know how to do all that.”

“Don’t discount yourself either. You and Missy are good with the dinos. Use that.”

She nodded, and I planted a kiss on Missy’s cheek, then boarded Malcolm. They were both right: it was important that dinos and people had suddenly begun working together as if they’d been training for months. That meant something. I just wasn’t sure what.

Swallowing, I leaned forward over the front edge of Malcolm’s saddle platform. I thought to myself, We need to get to the cliff, now.

With a cry of excitement, Malcolm took wing.

My eyes opened wide as he launched us into the sky. I had given no command. Had he taken wing based on my thoughts? Since when had this been possible? He’d killed the hadrosaur and dropped it without a command, too....

But hadn’t my own dinos always been in tune with my needs? Everyone said it was uncanny, how easily I’d learned the raptor language while working with Sleuth.

As my gigantic, azure-winged quetzal delivered me to the cliff overlooking my settlement, I remembered what Atticus had said all those weeks ago. Something along the lines of, You haven’t figured out domestication.

Maybe I had already figured it out. And tonight, my tribe had, too.

Malcolm landed near the hole where Eric and Sayuri had descended to the underground river to do their surveying. The huge bird chirruped with concern as I began to climb down.

“Sorry, boy,” I said. “You won’t fit.”

I didn’t have time to wait for other Tribe Grant dinos, either. Arvor was known for using underground structures and rock formations to hurt people, and this cliff complete with a full-sized underground river would have definitely factored into the Nomads’ Plan B.

Once I merged with the darkness inside the excavation, I activated my new energy sword, more for its light than anything. The walls down here were close and jagged; Eric had used natural cavern structures for the passage where able, with chiseled narrow spaces to connect them.

I tested a wall with the energy sword, and a bit of rock fell off. That was good news, but the weak bzzzt of the blade had me worried. The blue light flickered on impact, too.

“Identify,” I said, pressing ahead through the tunnel, shoulder-first. The descriptive info box for the sword flared in front of my mind’s eye:

Surrendered Legendary Weapon 6: Name: Neon

Former Tribes: Nomads Afrikaans, Katana

Current Tribe: Tribe Grant

Known for: A unique weapon that can be toggled between sword and shield form. It will not damage anyone from the tribe it belongs to.

It can also cut or melt through almost anything, but at what cost? (Literally. You gotta pay for it.)

“So... not useful right this second,” I grunted, testing the blade with a fingertip. As promised, my finger came up against the blade painlessly, although it didn’t seem to be solid in the normal sense. It felt like it was made of a sound wave, a vibrating plane of air so intense you could touch it. Weird, but good to know.

Satisfied that I understood the weapon better now, I set to wheedling my way past a particularly skinny corner. The sword gave me a light source, at least, but I stopped using it to shear the walls. It clearly drained NE when it was used.

Interestingly, though, it now belonged to me—even though the leader of the Nomads hadn’t been destroyed yet. Normally, all items owned by a tribe would only respond to that tribe, unless ownership was officially transferred. Yet this one responded just fine to me.

Must be something to do with its “Legendary” status, I thought as the trail blessedly opened up for me. Maybe Legendary items pass from loser to winner, rather than being tied to the main obelisk of a tribe?

That would certainly leave room for shenanigans, and the Empire had really enjoyed their shenanigans thus far. At the very least, this meant I’d go into this fight with more than a one-time use laser and a portable spear. I would face Arvor with a real weapon, one intended for use by aliens so advanced, that they had returned Earth to its prehistoric era overnight. Well, it felt like overnight, but that was beside the point. All in all, this weapon would kill my enemy. That’s exactly what I wanted from the thing.

As I wedged deeper through the passage, the sound of rushing water began to trickle up to me. When voices joined that sound, I turned off the sword and took care to approach quietly.

The passage opened near the end, and I stopped and peeked around the corner. I’d gone deep enough to reach the river, which was about as wide as two men lying sideways. It was dangerously deep, however, and rushing fast, even though it looked calm on the outside. Sayuri had dropped a fist-sized rock into it to illustrate. The thing had shot away like a bullet.

From here, this river spewed out a small hole in the cliff face to form our little waterfall, but its reservoir ran nearly fifty feet deep into the mountainside. It turned into a sort of whirlpool further down, as it tried to force itself out of the wall at high speed. We thought it had been engineered this way, to one day blow up and drown everyone who had settled below it. Another good show for the aliens, if we didn’t manage to find the problem and solve it.

The underground waterway was shallower than I remembered from my only visit here, about a week ago. Sayuri had been practically glowing as she described her irrigation plans, and she had clearly succeeded in one of them. The water line had dropped because she’d managed to reroute some of its water to Eric’s house and the tunnel beneath it, an area she’d wanted to convert into rice paddies.

That flow had stopped, however. I wasn’t sure if she’d stopped it, or if it had been clogged by debris. I couldn’t think of any other way she could have done it without putting herself in serious danger.

A reddish light shone down the pathway, probably from a burning flare. Silhouettes flickered in front of it, standing along the squared-off ledge that Sayuri had been excavating for days. A man spoke lowly, but I couldn’t make out the words over the earnest gurgle of the river.

Abruptly, someone shouted, “You’ll kill children! Innocent people! You can’t—”

The voice stopped, muffled as someone closed their hands over the person’s mouth. My blood ran cold.

They had Sayuri.

Chapter 29

Zealot

AND PROBABLY ALFRED, too, I thought. With Eric gone and the new road scouted, my pseudo-cartographer had started helping Sayuri.

With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I peered around the edge of the passage exit once more. This time, I could make out two figures on the ground, with two people standing over them, crossbows to their heads. Three other men stood nearby, listening to a tall figure as the man pointed this way and that.

I caught a word or two. “Drill a hole above... line, then... make the bitch... excavator....”

My teeth ground together. That was Arvor. He was planning to force Sayuri to use the excavator in tandem with their drill. When she refused, he’d kill her. And she was definitely going to refuse, leaving Alfred, who probably didn’t have the same stomach as she did.

Six people, and two with crossbows to my friends’ heads. No more Tribe Grant deaths, I reminded myself.

As my eyes darted and my plan came together, I took a moment to slow my racing heart and close my eyes.

Malcolm, I thought, if you can sense me... there’s something I need you to do.

It was madness, but everything I did was madness anymore. And if it worked, our tribe’s ranking would skyrocket—even if I was dead.

To plan for that little eventuality, I removed the obelisk from my neck and wedged it out of sight among the jagged ribbons and points of exposed rock beside me. Sayuri would find it, but Arvor wouldn’t. So I had to make certain Sayuri survived this.

Once that was taken care of, I tensed up and focused, my eyes on the river, my hand on my new sword-slash-shield weapon. On Neon. The thing had its own name.

A cry sounded around the corner. I caught a shout: “Do it!”

Time was up.

With the flip of a switch and a buzz of blue light, I activated the shield and charged out of the tunnel.

Then I dove into the water.

The rushing river caught my shield just like it had caught the rock, and I barely landed on it before the water catapulted me toward the Nomads. By the grace of our ugly lizard overlords, I somehow managed to get my feet under me and leap off the projectile shield.

The shield spun away, clanging wickedly against the wall opposite the river. This drew attention away as I soared through the misty air and slammed into the two men holding my friends hostage. Months of hunting dinos and years of military training gave even my body good aim. I managed to miss both Sayuri and Alfred where they knelt, pummeling their captors into the ground and bowling over the next pair of Nomads.

Bones snapped underneath my two targets as we landed, and blood spattered the ground where a broken crossbow had impaled one of them. He went limp while the other sprawled, groaning. I played it simple and kicked him into the water.

He shot away into the dark, and his shout ended almost before it began. By now, the two men still standing had recovered. One of them, Arvor, wielded a pokeyball in one hand, but no weapon. The other guy leveled a metal crossbow at me.

As the two men in front of me the ones I’d plowed into on accident started groaning, Arvor’s gaze flashed back to Sayuri. In that instant, his attention was off me.

I triggered my laser and aimed it at the ground underneath me.

The laser seared through the two men I’d tackled and kept going, lancing across the rock at the bowman’s feet. The guy fired, and the bolt hit me, but I was too hopped up on adrenaline to know where. The next moment, the ledge of rock underneath the bowman slid into the river, completely severed from the base stone around it. Before he understood what was happening, the rapid water shoved the displaced boulder sideways. He toppled.

Even I had to wince at what happened next. Yikes. No one will ever find that body.

“Enough,” Arvor said, loud enough for me to hear him over the water, which hadn’t stopped raging this whole time. Still grounded, I looked up at his face, but couldn’t make out his expression; the light in the tunnel came from the dying flare behind him, shrouding his face in reddish darkness.

For a moment, I was confused. He spoke like he had a weapon trained on me, but there was no spear, no bow. I moved to stand.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Arvor said, stepping to one side. This revealed the familiar object behind him: a drill. Aimed directly at my chest.

“I’ve seen enough heroes to know what you’re thinking,” Arvor said. “And you may feel free to sacrifice yourself if you like, but this drill will move forward until I command it to stop. Once it gets through you, it will also go through your friends.”

I didn’t dare look back. “Sayuri? Alfred? Are you good?” I called out.

“Yes!” Sayuri replied. “But, oh, Alan—”

“We’re hogtied,” Alfred moaned.

Great. They wouldn’t be running away, then.

“A three-for-one deal, you see,” Arvor said.

“I’ll never help you,” I shot back. Tribe Grant was being evacuated as we spoke, but there would still be people, dinos, and precious, hard-won infrastructure below. I wouldn’t do a thing this man asked.

“Oh, you will once you’re weak enough.” Arvor inclined his head, and I frowned, daring to follow his gaze.

A crossbow bolt stuck out of my thigh—and it was bleeding. A lot. I couldn’t believe there wasn’t pain.

To spite me, the pain chose that moment to take hold. I hissed through my teeth and put pressure on the leg.

“Looks like an artery,” Arvor said. “Perhaps you could use the WoundHeal that Jasper foolishly gave you? Be my guest. I’ll just give you a new wound if you try it. And kill your two friends to boot.”

I rasped a laugh. I didn’t even have the WoundHeal on me. That had gone into storage for cataloging.

“What do you want?” I snapped at him. The flare was dying down, and I glimpsed Neon twenty paces down the corridor. I’d never make it before he triggered his drill.

“I presume Jasper is dead?” he asked, not answering my question.

“Yeah. I guess that makes you boss now.”

The flare started to sputter. Without breaking his gaze on me, he reached into a pocket and pulled out a new flare.

“How’d you figure out we had the drills?” he asked. “You must have if you killed Jasper and came here.”

I couldn’t believe this guy. He had me dead to rights, and he was interrogating me on how I discovered him.

“What do you fucking care?” I asked.

“You should not have known that,” he said, speaking clearly and plainly, even over the roar of the water. “I took pains to hide evidence of the drills, you see. Exiting the mountain at a sand pit. Taking a weaving path through the forest instead of tunneling through hills and trees like we normally would have.”

“All for what? To kill Tribe Grant?” I asked.

He shrugged one shoulder, an eerie, stiff movement. “To kill anyone in our path. To always possess the element of surprise, until finally, we leave the shifting earth. Until our masters see our worth, and we take to the sky.”

Leave the shifting... what the heck? This guy sounded like a zealot.

The old flare gave a final sputter. Arvor cracked the fresh one in just his hand, a neat trick. In that instant, the light blinded him for one infinitesimal moment.

I used that moment.

I lunged.

Chapter 30

The Shifting Earth

ARVOR TRIGGERED the drill the moment I made impact with him, but I had already tackled him against it. The drill went sideways and then rumbled to life, spinning. We both fought to keep our balance and failed, toppling off the far side into the water at the same time as the drill tipped into it.

The river caught both of us like a boulder. This had to be what an avalanche felt like. A brick wall at twenty miles an hour.

Then, miraculously, the pace slowed, the water temporarily blocked by the fallen drill behind us.

Malcolm, now! I thought, even though there was no way in hell this would work. The drill would be gone soon, spinning off deep into the mountain at whatever angle we’d set it—and Arvor and I were still headed toward solid rock. There was no way we’d get through the crack leading to the waterfall; it was too far down. We’d be human soup once the drill spun away.

Still, we clung together as we went under the surface. I moved my arm across his body, searching. He flailed, not understanding what was happening. His bookkeeper's brain had no Plan B for this.

Then, a saving grace. I found our stolen excavator, its pokeyball in his pocket, straining the seams of his coat. I pressed the button for it, and the rod expanded. I aimed it ahead of us, and I fired.

A blurry blue grid rippled across my vision, and then there was a faint glimpse of the sky. We hurtled toward the opening at sudden top speed, half-drowned already.

I hit my head going through and blacked out.

It only lasted moments, and when I came to, I was airborne. Water spread around me in a dissipating cube shape, forced through the hole I’d made with the excavator. Below me, I saw the chaotic and utterly beautiful spread of Tribe Grant. I realized at that moment that our city needed a name. After all, it would be the first of many.

A sound shot through the core of me. Rikkawww!

Malcolm swooped, right on time, and plucked me from the air like the prey that I had once been to him. His talons cut into me, and he screeched plaintively. Pain.

This is what it meant to domesticate dinos. Atticus was gonna be thrilled.

As Malcolm swooped away, and as I faded away, drawn into the dark by my blood loss, I thought I saw something against the low moon. A birdlike shape, ghosting away in the nighttime.

I heard myself curse, and then I gave in.

I woke up to agony in my crotch region. I heard the sizzle of burning flesh. I lashed out and grabbed someone, anyone.

“Don’t use the WoundHeal,” I cried out.

Then more black.

Time melted away and reformed again. Female voices spoke over me.

“Use it anyway!”

“No.”

“Sai, look at him! He’s lost too much blood!”

“He’ll recover if there’s no infection. It’s Alan, after all.”

“We live next to shit pens! There’s always an infection!”

“We follow his orders, Cassie. The WoundHeal stays in storage—”

Then Aubrey’s voice. “I’ve got an idea.”

Bright daylight and the sweet smell of my mother’s gardenias. I didn’t remember that smell until this very moment, and overlords take me, I would never forget it.

I sat up, gasping, as color filled in the gray. Energy pulsed through me like blood.

No—it was blood. But I’d figure that out later. Right now, I was being attacked.

“Alan!” someone cried, and of course it was Aubrey. She threw herself at me. “You’re awake!”

Before I could even speak, two more bodies crashed against me. Missy and Cassie, if I had to guess.

Someone patted my leg. “Good to have you back,” Sayuri said.

I frowned at her as her shape resolved before me, a figure standing in the center of the dwelling we all shared.

“I told you not to use the WoundHeal,” I said.

She smiled softly at me, her dark eyes warm as sunlight. “You said not to use that WoundHeal. But we found another one, with a little help.”

Finally, my writhing blanket of glee pulled back a bit, and Aubrey looked at me with her vivid blue eyes. I shook my head to clear it. This felt like too much.

But I needed something to focus on. “Report,” I said.

“It was all Aubrey!” Missy cried, throwing her enthusiastic arms around her sister-wife now that she’d had her fill of me. “She thought of those poor men with the obelisk butt-plugs! She went and told them Jasper was dead and Arvor and Lindiwe were missing, and that most of the Nomads’ fighting force had died or surrendered. She convinced one of them to finally talk and give the location of the camp. Kaity flew over with Carmila and Dimitri and scouted as our fighters attacked.”

My eyes widened. “You did all that without me?”

I wasn’t angry. I was impressed. Sometimes, it seemed I was surrounded by followers. I was proud to see they’d taken the initiative.

“Cole and Jarod helped,” Aubrey admitted.

“Oh, shut it!” Cassie said. “It was all Aubrey. She’s been on more of your hunts than any of us. She directed everything.”

“I couldn’t have done it without Cassie yelling at people for me,” Aubrey said, and Cassie laughed and hugged her. The two old friends giggled together, flushed with happiness. It was contagious. A grin spread across my face.

“It was quite the feat,” Sayuri said. “Aubrey directed. Nadiyya planned. I coordinated. Cassie kept everyone in line. And Missy selected the best dinos for the job.”

“Luckily, there weren’t many Nomads left,” a male voice added, and I jerked my head to see Jarod and Cole standing in the corner. Jarod waved at me sheepishly, while Cole went on, “We found only about twenty fighters there, most of them left to guard their caravan supplies. They’d been relying on not being found, so we caught them unawares.”

“Without a single death on our end,” Sayuri put in.

I exhaled a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. “And the hostages they kept, to control our prisoners? And their women?” I asked.

The two men exchanged glances. “We found the hostages, all safe. Mostly children, sons and daughters of the captives. But the women....”

When he trailed off, Sayuri said, “They were gone.”

I turned back to her, and only then did I notice one more shape sitting primly in the corner of the room. I met Nadiyya’s gaze, and she smiled, but she barely seemed to see me. Dark bags clung to her eyes, and her face was more shadow than anything. When was the last time she’d slept?

Nadiyya planned. That’s what my wives had said. And the planning was the most important part.

“Hey, ah... could everyone leave for a moment? Except Nadiyya,” I said.

My wives glanced at each other, then over their shoulders at their newest sister-wife. Cole and Jarod were already leaving, but the others fell in quickly behind them.

Missy exited last. “We’ll be right outside.”

I knew the person in the room who would have the full story. As Nadiyya stood to approach me, I finally sat up all the way in my bed. I tugged back my gallimimus-down blanket to get a look at my leg. My whole body was naked and scratched and bruised—so I hadn’t been unconscious for long—but my thigh was perfectly intact. I recalled the rush of warmth in my body. Did the WoundHeal replace all my blood?

“Tell me everything,” I told Nadiyya, dropping the blanket again.

She sank down beside me and laid it all out.

“Twenty hostiles neutralized. No surrenders. All hostages recovered, including five juveniles ranging in age from six to seventeen, and three men in their twenties with disabilities. No women anywhere, but we did find their... enclosure.” Here she paused and looked at me, waiting.

“I don’t want to know, do I?” I asked.

“No. You do not.”

I nodded. The Nomads were no more, so their crimes would not continue. That’s what mattered.

“It seemed the women were freed and fled. They were impossible to track, even with the use of dinos,” Nadiyya continued as if we hadn’t paused.

“Lindiwe?” I asked.

“Possibly. She has not been seen, not during the battle at Tribe Grant, nor after.”

I chewed the inside of my cheek. Lindiwe had been a part of the Nomads’ attack. But she’d never actually attacked. She’d never even been seen.

“She saw the writing on the wall when Jasper got flooded out,” I guessed. “She didn’t care if Arvor succeeded in drowning Tribe Grant. She only cared that most of the fighting force was dead. So she left and freed the women.”

Not the hostages, though.

Nadiyya seemed to anticipate that I’d think this, because she said, “Evidence suggests that whoever freed the women also tried to free the hostages. It was a single emancipator, but she—or he—was bleeding a great deal, even before they arrived.

“We think she had to back off from the hostages. She was injured, and the hostages had more guards than the women. The women were barely guarded, as they were... heavily sedated, and tied up. They were much easier for a single person to free.”

She arrived injured? I thought. Did that mean...?

“Lindiwe turned on her own men,” I said.

“We suspect that, yes.”

I took a breath. “And Arvor?”

“His body has not been found, but we are still looking. The mountain ejected you like a couple of pinballs.”

I recalled the shape gliding away in front of the moon. They were not going to find Arvor—and Tribe Grant wasn’t going to get credit for destroying the Nomads. Their obelisk remained intact around that bastard’s neck.

Sighing, I said, “Tell me the rest.”

“The rest is a supply list. As Aubrey guessed, the Nomads had quite the collection of bits and bobs from the tribes they annihilated. Among them, another WoundHeal, in Arvor’s mobile tent. Do you want to hear the list of the rest?”

I nearly waved my hand and said, “Sayuri handles that.” But I stopped myself. In the last few weeks, I’d used a shield as a speedboat and a pokeyball as a gravel pit. Knowing my tribe’s possessions—and thinking of new ways to use them—was integral to our continued survival.

So Nadiyya listed out my new hoard, and it was impressive indeed. Jasper had collected enough alien tech to start a settlement of his own, no problem. Yet he still saw fit to steal mine.

“... and rice starters,” Nadiyya finished. “Sayuri is especially happy with that since her flood plain idea is very much coming to fruition now that we’ve got two extra holes in the mountain.”

I wanted to ask, but I didn’t. I’m sure Sayuri would show me all her new irrigation later.

“What about the metal?” I said.

Nadiyya blinked at me, swaying in her chair. She was fading fast. “I listed a lot of metal, Alan... what specifically are you looking for?”

I spun my wrist around. “You know. Raw metal. We had strong evidence they’d come across a deposit...?”

She shrugged. “We only found fabricated items.”

“No machine to make them, though?”

“No. And no basic smithing tools, either.”

Huh. The mystery continued.

“I don’t suppose Kaity has found their flight team, either?” I asked. I didn’t like the thought of Arvor gliding away like he did... but even if he possessed some kind of flight suit, that didn’t mean he had a team of pteranodons. They clearly hadn’t attacked us in the fight.

“No. Nothing has been found. Alan, you should rest some more. You can think about all this tomorrow. The tribe will just be happy you’re better.”

She drove an easy bargain with that one. I’d never felt so tired in my life, and it was hitting me all at once.

“Fair enough,” I said, lying back in my big bed. “But I won’t rest unless you do. In another bed,” I added quickly.

She had tensed, but now she loosened and smiled at me. Lesbian or not, that smile made me dizzy, and I was already lying down.

“I’ll come back in the morning with the rest of the report,” she said, standing. “Good night, Alan.”

“Good night, Nadiyya. And thank you. I know you were more responsible for—” I waved a hand “—all this, than anyone has probably given you credit for.” She was already a pro at working behind the scenes.

She bowed her head. “You honor me, husband.”

“Oh, stop. You’re from California,” I told her.

Nadiyya raised her face and surprised me by winking. “Until we obliterate every tribe half as evil as the Nomads... that will be our little secret.”

Chapter 31

A Deadly Quest

I WOKE WELL BEFORE DAWN, with only blackness outside the windowless frames of my hut. It had been light outside when I went to sleep, but it was impossible to know whether that had been yesterday morning or afternoon. I sat up and stretched, finding myself alone in my bed.

Worry spiked through me. I swung my legs off the mattress and rushed to the nearest window.

“Relax,” said a voice, just as blue light flared in my room. I spun around, feeling anything but relaxed.

Relief sank through me like rocks. “Damn it, Atticus.”

“I apologize for making your blood pressure spike,” the alien projection replied. He’d positioned himself in the center of my hut, but he was less clear than usual. He kept flickering and distorting as if his signal was bad.

Their tech never acted like that.

“You took your damn time showing up,” I said, flinging a hand at him. “What’s with the flickering?”

His eyes darted as if he were looking at someone off-screen. He swallowed. Someone was watching him.

I tried a new tack. “You said relax. Why?”

“Our biotech categorized your emotion upon waking and determined it was worry. It then used an artificial intelligence algorithm to determine why you might feel worried. It concluded that you were afraid your partners were in danger, and they are not. They simply left you alone to ensure you got a restful sleep. That is why I told you to relax.”

I released a pent breath. “Oh? And why all the free info? You could have just let me worry.”

“I am short on time. I need your full attention for my announcements.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Oh, yeah?”

“Congratulations, Alan Winchester,” Atticus said, sounding very official. “Your tribe has achieved the rank of 87. You are now within the top 100 tribes in the world. As such”

“What? Did you say 87?!” I exclaimed.

Before he could answer, I went to grab my obelisk—but of course, it was gone. I’d stashed it up by the reservoir, and I’d had no chance to tell anyone yet.

Atticus’s lizardy face twisted in what might be a frown. “Yes, I did say 87. Did the signal go out again?”

I shook my head and peered out the window. Dawn was breaking over a settlement that was already alive. Men worked stacking stone and clay for dwellings near the excavated area of the cliffside, hadrosaurs dragged carts of gravel out to the road, and the new rice fields glistened under several inches of water as women waded through them, planting shoots.

“Eighty-seven,” I mused to myself. We truly had come so far.

“Yes. You received many points yesterday. The near-obliteration of the Nomads Afrikaans, and the conversion of their remaining male members to Tribe Grant, has skyrocketed your score. However, its obelisk is not yet destroyed, even though only eighteen members remain.”

Eighteen? “You mean the women that Lindiwe freed?”

He paused and glanced to the side again. I held back a smile. Atticus was no idiot. He knew what he was allowed to say, and what he wasn’t. He didn’t need to look at his superior for confirmation.

You’re giving me hints, aren’t you? Crafty bastard.

He turned his slitted eyes back to me and blinked their inner lids. Gross.

“I am not at liberty to discuss that,” he said.

That confirmed it. Arvor is alive, and those women are with Lindiwe.

I crossed my arms. “So what are you here for? Just congratulations?”

“No.” He paused, his gaze drilling into me even from light-years away. “Alan, the Dasku—our interstellar enemy—are nearing Earth at unprecedented speed. We did not expect them for several more decades, but it seems they have made a detour for Earth. Therefore, our timeline has moved up.”

I dropped my arm off the windowsill and stalked toward him. “What? How long?”

“Anyone who survives winter shall have to face them at the other end,” Atticus replied.

I reached for his collar, hoping to shake him, but of course, he was a projection. Damn. I hated talking to air.

“Then give us some ships already!” I cried.

“We cannot award ships until... certain parameters are met.”

“What parameters?”

“I cannot say.”

“Enough of this,” I snapped, crossing the room to the chair next to the bed. Someone had laid out my clothes, and I shoved my legs into the pants. “I’m tired of your half-answers and games. Fuck rank 87. It means nothing—except maybe it’ll make you nerf me again.” I shot him a glare. “Oh. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? What? Can I no longer get any domestications, then?”

Atticus stared me down, his gaze set. It was another secret code, another message. He was telling me to listen. He was saying, This is important.

“To the contrary,” he said. “All tribes who rank under 100 will now receive a quest. Some have already achieved it, but most have not. I am here to tell you the quest.”

I loosened, dropping my shirt against my leg. “What quest?”

“Because of our advanced timeline, we now cannot wait for tribes to acquire Metal naturally.”

“Metal? Do you mean the stuff Jasper had? What kind of metal is it, anyway?”

“It is just Metal,” he said. “Think of it as having a capital ‘M.’ It was seeded into the Earth and allowed to attain certain properties since your freezing. It may appear to be copper, silver, or gold, but it is none of those things. Those colors are merely different qualities of the Metal.”

I put my shirt on, pensive now. “Okay. And this quest?”

Atticus raised a hand, and a short chime sounded. “I have sent the exact parameters to your obelisk, but in short, the quest is thus: all previously discovered Metal deposits in the area have been marked for all the top 100 tribes to see, where before they were secret. However, this includes claimed deposits. You will find that Metal is... quite rare. There are only two deposits within a reasonable range of you.”

Two. That must be Jasper’s deposit, and Archie’s. I saw both of them with metal.

Atticus paused, and I narrowed my eyes at him. “And the catch?”

“Anyone without three sources of Metal by winter’s end will be ineligible for the top ten,” he replied. “That means each eligible tribe will need one deposit of each Metal quality.”

The words took a long time to pass through me. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“You mean, anyone without three Metal mines will not be able to acquire a ship... and I’ve got only two mines within range?”

“As I said, they are rare.”

Once again, I wanted to rip my shirt in half and fling it at the wall. “But where will I get the third mine, if there are none in range!?”

“I said only previously discovered mines are marked. There will be a secret mine within range, yet to be discovered.”

I opened my mouth, only to catch movement out of the corner of my eye. It was a person approaching the hut up the gravel path—two people, Missy and Sayuri.

For some reason, the sight of Sayuri made me put on my thinking cap, and a new realization struck me. “You’re saying all discovered mines are public? Even when they get claimed?”

“Yes.”

I swallowed. That was the catch.

“You’re going to force us all to fight over the deposits.”

“Yes.” He didn’t even have the decency to deny it.

I closed my eyes. “Anything fucking else?” I asked as the women’s footsteps drew up beside the door. The handle turned.

“I offer a warning,” Atticus said, speaking rapidly out of nowhere. “That woman, Lindiwe. Do not—”

His image cut out, and this time, it definitely wasn’t a signal issue. He’d been about to tell me something.

Lindiwe. Do not. Do not what?

The door opened, and my two wives strode in, completely unaware of what I’d just been told. I breathed out heavily, hoping to steady myself as I smiled at them.

Right. Lindiwe is still out there—and she probably knows where one Metal deposit is located. Are the Nomads in the top 100? Has Arvor’s map been marked? Did he come back to Lindiwe with a new proposition?

I had no way of knowing what Atticus had meant to tell me, nor why he wanted to tell me at all. He was clearly about to be punished for the slip, in one way or another.

One thing was for sure, though: I had to be wary of Lindiwe. I can’t forget about her. She has to be dealt with.

I just had to figure out how.

Chapter 32

Report!

“OH! You’re up and at ‘em!” Missy said cheerily. “Sayuri wanted to wake you, but I said I wouldn’t let her if you were snoozing too soundly.”

“I’m glad you’re awake,” Sayuri said. “I have my report to give.”

My pasted-on smile faltered, and Missy said, “Ohhh, stop it, Sayuri, look at him!” She spread her arms and flung herself at me, her boobs crashing delightfully against my chest. “You can’t make him suffer through reports now! He just woke up! He’s been through hell!”

I held her close, content to simply cherish my youngest bride for the moment. Thanks to the Empire, I had new reasons to be afraid for her. Not only was winter just around the corner but so was our second damned apocalypse. We had a couple of autumn months and one long slog of winter to find three Metal deposits, and either steal them or hold them.

“It’s all right, Missandra,” I said, running my hand down her blonde hair. Something seized in my throat, and my hand kept going, down over her ass.

I already knew what this quest was going to lead to. And right now, I really didn’t want to think of it.

“Fuck, you’re perfect,” I whispered into Missy’s ear, nosing her hair aside to kiss her neck.

Missy quivered. “Oooh, Alan. Don’t say things like that, or I might start taking your clothes off.”

“Say things like what?” I asked her, glancing at Sayuri. “Like how I want to fuck those huge perfect tits of yours? And make Sayuri watch while she gives her report?”

Sayuri actually paled, her mouth falling open. But Missy stepped back and reached down for the hem of her shirt.

“Lords, Alan, you are so dirty. I love it,” Missy said, pulling her shirt up over her head. I nearly cried as her boobs bounced out, first one, then the other, like they were both competing to get into my hands first. The left tit won, and I had it in both hands, my thumbs pressed to the nipple before she’d even gotten her shirt off all the way.

“Alan, I can just come back,” Sayuri rasped, as Missy went to kneel. I caught Missy’s arms.

“No. I want your bottoms off, too.”

Her hazel eyes rose to mine, one eyebrow cocked. “Maybe I want to keep them on. How about that?”

I grabbed her by the hair and pulled her up. “You’ll do what I fucking say.”

I had pulled her gently, even if it didn’t look like it. Missy melted in my grip. She was into this, and right now, so was I. After dealing with the aliens, I needed to have power over at least one thing, and being put in her place was Missy’s favorite pastime.

“Okay, Daddy. Don’t hurt me, Daddy.”

“Get naked and get down,” I said.

As she hurried to comply, practically hopping out of her skirt and thudding to her knees, Sayuri tried to weasel out of this again.

“Alan—”

“Go if you want,” I said, as Missy pulled down the pants I had made the mistake of putting on. I pulled my cock out and shoved it into Missy’s mouth without so much as a warning. Her warm throat tightened around my shaft, and her moan of surprise made the vein along the bottom contract.

I looked over at Sayuri as Missy started to suck. “But you don’t really want to go, do you? The girls told me your little secret. About being bi.”

My Japanese wife was already Slavic-white, but now she went positively glacial. She gaped at me. Missy’s mouth made sweet little sucking sounds in the silence of the hut. I had to close my eyes and shudder for a moment. How long had it been since my last fuck? How many injuries between now and then?

And I was feeling those injuries now, bruises and soreness all over me. I reached over, grabbed the room’s single chair, and tugged it close to me. I sat on the edge of the seat. Missy never even lost rhythm. Her tongue swept up the left side of my cock as it went down her throat, then the left side as she pulled back off again.

I laid my hand on her head and added more force. She moaned and went faster.

“Well?” I said roughly. “You gonna give your report or not?”

Sayuri swallowed audibly, but she stepped closer and raised her ever-present clipboard. I noted that it was shaking a little.

“I will, but on one condition,” she said.

Missy made a loud choking sound, and an air bubble swept over my head. I stifled a groan and replied, “I won’t make Missy do stuff to you. She’d be uncomfortable.”

Sayuri’s dark eyes had descended to Missy’s face, and now they glazed over. “No. I don’t need that. I just need you to fuck me after. I’m going to need... the release.”

“Done.”

“Will you save yourself for me?”

“Just give your damn report, Sai.”

Swallowing again, she did. “The, ah. The hundredth dwelling was excavated today... you’ll be pleased to know that the... excavator... was recovered from the floodplains.”

I pushed Missy’s head down once, just to feel my cock go as deep down her throat as I could. Her muscles tensed around me, followed by another choked moan.

“Good,” I said. “Start work on more dwellings. A hundred isn’t enough anymore. And start letting people volunteer to go to Carl’s settlement. They should have some shacks by now, with the new... woodinator....”

My breath caught as Missy rose to my tip, her fist gripping my shaft as she sucked down my head at full speed. I wasn’t going to last if she did that much longer. I tugged her head back so that my dick popped out past her swollen lips. My head bumped her cheek, leaving a wet trail down her sun-tanned skin.

“I asked for a titty fuck, not this bullshit,” I growled at her.

“Yes, Daddy,” she breathed, cupping her tits so that the nipples pointed up at me. I scooted farther off the chair, and she rose higher on her knees.

“Sayuri, the palm oil,” I said.

I expected a response, maybe rolled eyes, but Sayuri looked and moved like a ghost as she leaned toward our shared bed and reached under it, coming back with a canteen of oil.

Meanwhile, Missy encircled my cock with those thick mounds of flesh, settling her tits on my thighs. She started to pulse them around my shaft, going dry.

“Pour it on,” I told Sayuri.

She came closer, and did so, tipping the canteen onto Missy’s nipples. I watched as the flesh shone, as the liquid seeped into the cracks around my cock. The movement went smoother now, slick as good pussy. I watched for a moment as my head popped in and out of the top of her cleavage. When it nudged her chin, Missy moaned, ducking closer to feel more of it, like a cat nuzzling against a leg.

I tore my gaze away because I didn’t want to come yet. Sayuri was staring at my cock and at Missy’s big tits. It must be like double dessert for a bi girl.

I grabbed one of Missy’s tits, just to run my hands over the wet skin. To Sayuri, I said, “What else?”

She blinked as if coming out of a dream, and true to form, she consulted her clipboard. “Regarding the floodplains—”

“Ah, yes. The floodplains.” I had been wondering about that. “What happened with the original hole you bored in the cliff, the one that washed Jasper away? And then the hole I made later?”

The clipboard was visibly shaking now. “The first excavation... my hole... oh lords.”

I chuckled. “Just say it.”

“My hole got plugged with debris, but it’s still draining water. It’s a second, wider waterfall... with a little irrigation, I got it flooding the rice fields.”

“And my hole?” I said. “Is it spewing?”

Sayuri pleased me greatly by giving a tiny, short moan. As if it had come on involuntarily, and she’d cut it short. Below us, Missy said, “Lords, you’re big, Alan. Come on me. Cover me in your cum.”

I ignored her. “Sayuri?”

“The hole you... excavated... caused the reservoir to drop several feet. That, paired with the new channel you formed with the laser and drill, has significantly reduced the speed and force of the underground river.”

Now I was surprised. “You’re kidding. I didn’t even do that on purpose!”

“Well, the drill was tough to recover, let me tell you. It drilled right into an empty cavern, which then flooded and took pressure off the main river. The reservoir is now exactly that—a slow-moving reservoir.”

This had me excited, so I dropped my gaze and treated myself to more of my cock between Missy’s tits. She noticed my attention, and pouted at me, her eyes hooded.

“Please come,” she said. “If you come, I’ll come.”

She was only using one hand to guide her tits now. The other was busy below.

“You’re not good enough to make me come,” I lied to her, as my cock rode up her sweet little throat. She inhaled desperately, throwing her head back, rising up on her knees to take my cock on a long ride through her tits.

“Oh, Alan—you feel so good. Fuck.”

I looked up again, only to feel Sayuri grab my face in both hands and kiss me. I pulled her close with one arm, tilting my head to shove my tongue into her.

“This is so hot, it’s so stupid hot,” she murmured as Missy’s titty-fucking noises broke through the smacking of our lips.

“What happened to your report?” I gasped between kisses.

I half-expected her to say fuck the report, but that wasn’t my Sayuri, no sir.

“The reservoir—” another kiss “—is a good thing, but also a problem “—her tongue swept my mouth “—because now we’re open to attack through the water itself. Before, the river’s speed protected us—” her head dropped, and she kissed a trail up my neck that made me instantly insane “—and I want you, and—”

A knock sounded at the door. I choked out, “Who is it?”

The door opened, and Nadiyya poked her head in.

“I’m coming!” Missy cried.

Her body shuddered against my cock, and Nadiyya got to see the whole show as Missy grabbed my dick and balls and deep-throated me. The sight of Nadiyya in that moment, with Missy coming at my feet and Sayuri pressed against me it was too much. I shattered with a startled, “Oh, fuck.”

Missy popped off me, her hand still working furiously as my cum spat lines across her face and neck. “Oh, Alan... oh, yeah, please give it to me.” She didn’t even know Nadiyya had shown up.

Shit shit shit, I thought, still coming. I grabbed my head and cupped the rest of the cum in my hand. “Shit, Nadiyya. I didn’t say you could come in!”

My new bride stood in the doorway, eyes on Missy. Then her gaze darted to Sayuri.

Then she fled.

“Crap,” I said, before repeating helplessly, “I didn’t tell her to come in.”

Missy moaned a twisted sound, and fell backward, her hand stiff between her legs. She had to reach around her swelling stomach to touch herself there, but it was hardly a deterrent. The crazy girl had come a second time, and she was completely oblivious to everything else.

Sayuri straightened. “I’ll go after her.” She moved toward the door, but I caught her arm.

“Wait, Sai. She’s... she’s a lesbian.”

I’m not sure why I said it, but it seemed important, if Sayuri was going to go running after Nadiyya for lords-knew what reason.

Sayuri’s eyes widened, and she stared at me like I’d just given her a beelzebufo with a bow on it.

Then she rasped out a short laugh, and said, “Shit, Alan. You sure it’s not my birthday?”

With that, she left, jogging after Nadiyya. I slumped back in my chair, unsure what to do with myself. Missy giggled from the floor and met my eyes.

She rubbed some of my cum across her right breast, tweaking her nipple suggestively. “I liked that. I liked you talking down to me.”

I lifted one shaky leg and shoved her on the hip. She fell backward.

“Get out of here, you dick-slurping little cum rag,” I improvised. “You gotta clean up and get out of here. I can’t look at you.”

She grinned slyly at me. “This isn’t over,” she promised. Then finally, she got up and left—and Sayuri passed her on the way in.

I stood up to receive her. “Okay, it’ll take some work,” I said, “but I promised to save some sex for you—”

“Forget the sex!” she exclaimed. “Lindiwe just got here!”

“Lindiwe?” I said, already tying my belt again. “What does she want with us?”

Atticus’s warning rang through my head again. That woman, Lindiwe. Do not—

Sayuri rushed over to her clipboard and snatched it up before turning her wild eyes on me.

“Alan... she has your obelisk. And she’s asking for a fight to the death.”

Chapter 33

The Warrior Woman

AS SOON AS I stepped outside my hut, I sensed a difference in my surroundings. I squinted up toward the cliff, and in the early morning light, I saw a jagged silhouette where there should be a straight line of rock.

“What the—” I started, but Sayuri took my arm and kept hauling me down the gravel path.

“Remember the missing hadrosaurs? The ones that Jasper stampeded through the drop site to lead us away from Eric’s body??” she said. “Well, they’re all up on the cliff. Must be at least a hundred of the things.”

I shook my head. “But how did Lindiwe get them up there? Unless—” I cursed “—is Arvor with her?”

“No, that’s the thing... oh, Alan, you just have to see.”

We rounded the corner of a large boulder the settlement had yet to break down, and there was the basin, the water line lower than normal since the waterfall wasn’t under as much pressure. The path to the settlement’s entrance lay beyond the basin, and there Lindiwe stood on her carnotaur. A ring of women huddled close to her, or at least as close as they could; six of my raptor riders had encircled her, spears already aimed for her throat. A large group of Grant tribespeople watched on from a safe distance. I tasted several flavors of unease on the breeze.

Of all the details in the scene, though, it was seeing the carnotaur's hot breath misting the air that got to me. It was chilly, a clear sign of autumn. Time was running out.

As we drew closer, I glimpsed the obelisk on Lindiwe’s neck—as well as a second pendant on a leather cord. My obelisk.

The sight of it sent a spike of anger through me. That pendant marked my status as leader of this tribe, and seeing it on Lindiwe's neck felt like a personal violation. But I swallowed my anger and kept my face neutral. I needed to be more concerned with how she got the obelisk. I’d hidden it well, and very randomly. A dino—or some sort of alien tool—must have helped her.

Regardless, what was the purpose of putting my obelisk on display like that? To shake me down? The truth was, I knew nothing about Lindiwe. I hadn’t even heard her speak.

Jasper certainly seemed to have a strange respect for her, I recalled. At the same time, the man had been an overt misogynist. Maybe she was here to thank me for killing him. Could this Lindiwe character be converted into an ally?

Beside me, I could sense Sayuri's growing fear as we drew much too close to the carnotaur. At this range, the black-painted predator could kill either one of us before we had time to dodge—that is if we were normal people. I wasn’t quite normal anymore.

I reached over and gave my wife’s hand a reassuring squeeze. "Steady," I murmured. “No sudden movements.”

Sayuri nodded, though her eyes never left the carnotaur's massive jaws. For all her smarts, she didn’t spend much time on the ground with a spear.

“Stand down,” I said to the riders. After a short hesitation—they must think I was crazy to come this close to a carnotaur unprotected—the six men backed off.

Lindiwe watched, eyes narrowed, no doubt suspecting some trick or trap on our part. We were close enough to see the whites of her eyes.

The truth was, I simply wanted to talk. To show her that I did not need to resort to violence or cunning. That I was willing to negotiate in good faith.

Up close, Lindiwe was a dark-skinned, muscular beauty, with minimal armor that left most of her physique exposed. Clearly, she prioritized speed and mobility over protection since the parts with armor weren’t joints. Someone had to be very confident in their fighting skills to leave all their joints exposed.

What little clothing she did wear was black, matching the black paint on her carnotaur. Her long, braided black hair seemed to absorb the dawn light. Even her eyes were such a dark brown they appeared black in the shadow of her brow. Everything about her conveyed danger, from the coiled strength in her limbs to the cruel arc of her lips.

Sayuri pressed closer to me. The carnotaur loomed over us, its head hovering at twice my height. Its hot, rank breath washed over us with each exhale, clouding the air. Lords, I hated carnotaurs.

“Welcome to Tribe Grant, Lindiwe,” I said, inclining my head to show respect. “I’m Alan Winchester. But of course, you already know that.”

She said nothing, and abruptly the group of Nomad women hurried forward to hide in her shadow, now that the raptors had backed off. This drew my gaze, and I frowned. Among the women, skin tones ranged from dark brown to pale cream, including at least one Middle Eastern-looking woman. I was surprised to see such diversity, as the Nomads we'd fought had all been of African descent.

The women watched me with wide, frightened eyes, although they kept stealing glances at Lindiwe, who sat tall and proud on her mount. She was an anchor for them, which made sense, given she was the one who’d freed them from the Nomad camp after I’d washed Jasper back down his tunnel.

I bowed my head again, this time to the women. “I was sorry to learn of the ordeal you’ve all gone through. Please know you need not fear me nor my tribe. Our laws forbid any person from forcing themselves on another. You are welcome here for as long as you need, even if you don’t join our ranks.”

Lindiwe snorted, drawing my attention back to her. "Don’t waste your pretty words on us,” she said. Her voice was husky and dark, like desert shade. “We fuckin’ know better. We never trust men.”

I processed this for a moment, and when I spoke again, I kept my voice calm and reasonable. "I think we started on the wrong foot here. My people mean yours no harm. You don’t have to like us; we merely want peace. My fight was with Jasper and Arvor, not you."

Lindiwe's eyes narrowed. "And why should I believe someone,” she growled, “who just murdered my whole tribe?”

Chapter 34

Winner Take All

WELL, that was a way to kick off a conversation. I had a feeling she didn’t personally miss any of the people I’d murdered, but I didn’t say so.

"Because you're no fool," I said. She wouldn’t be standing where she was, alive, after earning respect from a man like Jasper, if she wasn’t. "You know that peace would be better for all of us. We won’t gain a thing from more conflict.”

Lindiwe's lip curled. "We both know you have plenty to gain. Our camp is loaded with shit we stole from the tribes we defeated.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Did you take back your camp, then?”

Her gaze flickered, like the opposite of a spark in her black eyes. She sensed a trap, and she was right.

“You found our camp,” she guessed. “And you finished it off.”

I nodded. She stared at me a moment longer—this woman had really learned how to weaponize a stare—and then said, “Impressive. That bastard Arvor managed to hide us from almost everyone else.”

I spread my hands. “Don’t look at me. I was unconscious at the time. It was my wives who made it happen.”

Lindiwe raised an eyebrow, then glanced at Sayuri for the first time. “Is that true?”

Sayuri nodded. Her voice only squeaked a little when she said, “Yes.”

“He said wives. How many of you are there?”

“Five,” Sayuri replied.

Lindiwe scoffed again, and it occurred to me that she hadn’t even mentioned my obelisk yet, even though it was on clear display. Here was a woman who didn’t do politics. She cut her way through them, instead.

“Look,” I said, trying to get us back on track. "I’m standing here unarmed, and so is my wife. It’s obvious we don’t want to fight. That leaves the question what do you want? Why have you come here with my obelisk on your neck?"

This sent a murmur through my gathered tribespeople. Few were close enough to see the second obelisk on her neck—but none of them knew that the other obelisk, from the Nomads, was a fake.

Meanwhile, Lindiwe laughed, a harsh sound that made the carnotaur beneath her shift, its tail flicking back and forth. “You think I’m stupid? If I try to kill you right now, you’ll just shove your wife in front of you.”

Sayuri gasped and surprised me by rushing forward. “He would never!” she exclaimed, before shaking a finger at Lindiwe. “Look, just because you have bad experiences with men doesn’t mean there aren’t still good men in the world!”

Lindiwe only peered down at Sayuri as if she were a curiosity. “You’re kidding, right? The man has five wives. You think he respects you?”

“Yes! He does! We all chose him; he didn’t force us. It’s not like he went to the wife store and bought us.”

“Yeah, that’s right!” a new voice cried, and we all looked to the side as Missy stepped forward from the Grant crowd, her eyes locked on Lindiwe. “We’re with him because we love him. And having sister-wives is actually kinda fun.”

And just like that, Cassie and Aubrey emerged from the crowd as well, as if magnetized to Missy. Cassie urged Missy forward, and the three of them joined Sayuri and me, right there in front of the carnotaur. Nadiyya remained absent, which was probably bad for my optics—but after what she’d just caught me doing, it made sense that she needed some space.

My chest swelled with pride at their bravery. Standing next to a carnotaur was something even hardened warriors had trouble with.

By contrast, Lindiwe's eyes flashed with disgust as she studied them, her lips curling into a sneer. “You have got to be kidding me. The man isn’t satisfied by one woman, yet you think you matter to him?”

“You wouldn't say that if you went to bed with him," Cassie shot back, her eyes never leaving the other woman's face. "Satisfaction goes both ways."

I could feel the heat rise in my cheeks at those words, and while Lindiwe boiled in front of us, I laid a hand on Cassie’s shoulder. I didn't want this confrontation to devolve any further.

"Well, you’ve got them all good and brainwashed, haven’t you?" Lindiwe growled.

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. "Nobody is being brainwashed here," I retorted. "But it’s not like I can convince you of that, much less right this moment. Ladies—if you could leave us for a second?”

My wives turned to look at me. The truth was, having them all this close to a carnotaur—with all of them either visibly or most likely pregnant—was not something I was comfortable with. Aubrey must have seen it in my face because she hustled the others away. I had never appreciated her mother-hen personality more than I did right then.

Cassie couldn’t leave without a last word to Lindiwe, though. “You may think I’m brainwashed, but I have my baby son back in my arms because of this man right here. He cares, more than any leader on this planet. I’m proud to be one of the five women he loves because he’s five times the man you think he is.”

I don’t love Nadiyya, I wanted to say, but I bit my tongue. For now, our little political sham of a marriage had to look happy on the outside.

As my wives left and Lindiwe scowled after them, I closed my eyes for a moment, focusing my thoughts on Investigator—not on her position so much as the general feel of her in my memory. Basically, I pictured her and recalled her scent and the feel of her scales. Then I thought, I could use a little backup right now.

It had worked for Malcolm, so why not Investigator? I hadn’t known the mindraptor nearly as long, but my bond with her had grown rapidly. I had yet to fully test out her powers, though. Lords, where would I find the time?

Before my last partner even joined the crowd, I heard Investigator’s clawed feet scraping the earth as she raced towards me. People yelped in surprise as she nudged into the back of the crowd.

At least they sound startled, not afraid, I thought. That was progress. It seemed Missy had been right about my people warming up to predators during the deinonychus attack.

Speaking of deinonychus... when Investigator broke free of the crowd, seven of the creatures dogged her, their feathers slicked back for speed. I hadn’t even known they had feathers until that moment since I’d seen them before in the dark.

“Oh, hey, girl! What have you got there?” I said softly, as Investigator ducked close and nuzzled her head against my palm. “Did you adopt the stragglers into your herd once they stopped attacking us? Of course, you did. You’re the boss.”

With a chuckle, I turned my attention back to Lindiwe, only to find her staring at my hand on Investigator’s head. Her face had changed, the hardened edges going slack. She was unnerved.

“This is my usual mount, Investigator,” I said, opting for a friendly introduction to try to ease the tension. I didn’t mention that Investigator had special powers.

Lindiwe looked directly at me, her eyes fierce as a hammer blow.

“Bioscan,” she said.

I blinked. Had she just commanded her obelisk? Or mine? Well, neither one would work for her. My obelisk only answered to me, and hers was a fake.

Yet her eyes darted side-to-side as if she were reading a screen that was invisible to me. A line of my stats, maybe, using the obelisk system. I wouldn’t be able to see another tribe’s screen, then, unless they wanted to share it with me. Did that mean it was tied to our thoughts?

Regardless, I’d never tried to Bioscan a person. Atticus had given me the ability recently, and I’d totally forgotten about it. I’d have to give it a go later.

Then her reading stopped. I could swear she went two tints lighter in skin tone.

Now I was curious. I wanted badly to say “Bioscan Self,” but I’d look like an idiot if I did that now.

“Like what you see?” I asked.

She raised her gaze to me. “A fight to the death,” she said.

I blinked. “What?”

She pointed right at my nose. “You.” Then back between her breasts. “Me.” Then she patted the spear at her hip. “A fight to the death. The winner will take both obelisks and both tribes.”

Now this caused a flurry of discussion among her tribespeople and mine. I heard Cassie say, rather loudly, “Fuck that noise.”

I opened my mouth to laugh off the entire idea, only for it to hit me: Lindiwe just used her obelisk, and it gave her information. It obeyed her. And she was offering to give it to me, to give me leadership if I won her contest.

“You... you have the real obelisk for the Nomads?” I said, hardly believing it myself. “I thought Jasper gave you a fake.”

Now Lindiwe smiled for the first time. The smile was a long shadow, a promised threat.

“Oh, he did,” she said. “But I stole the real one from Arvor months ago. Was just waiting for a chance to take them both out... but you beat me to it, didn’t you? Well.” The smile erased itself from her face as she leaned forward over her carnotaur’s neck. “Your wives did say you satisfied them—and when I kill you, if it’s even half so good as killing Jasper, then you’ll satisfy me after all.”

Chapter 35

Mountain Duel

A HALF-HOUR LATER, I found myself atop the flat cliff overlooking our settlement. The morning sun had crested the horizon en force, casting the smooth rock in a warm, golden glow. A light breeze ruffled my hair as I took a deep breath of crisp air.

“You’re sure I can’t talk you out of this?” I asked Lindiwe. “We can become friends without fighting, you know.”

She stood twenty paces from me as if we were about to initiate an old-fashioned gun duel. “If you are too cowardly to face me, simply surrender, and your obelisk will switch masters to me.”

I sighed. “You really only hear what you want to hear, don’t you?”

“And you really don’t ever stop talking.”

She had a point. After so many days resting, I was itching for a fight anyway, and she’d certainly set this one up nice and fancy. A ring of the Nomad’s hadrosaurs surrounded us, keeping us separate from the crowd on the other side. These were the same hadrosaurs that had been lining the cliffs minutes before, the same ones that had made the false stampede. I suppose that, for a nomadic tribe, they were the most versatile animals for running a caravan.

The creatures’ ducklike bills bobbed as they shuffled nervously around us, adhering to Lindiwe’s commands exactly and further proving her obelisk was the real thing. Their muted honks and snorts barely covered the silence of my people. Tribe Grant was afraid for me.

Well, Lindiwe might be imposing, but I didn’t plan to lose.

Lindiwe straightened haughtily. “Now—the rules,” she said. “I propose one dinosaur each, our choice. We will wear the clothing we are currently wearing. Two spears each, any type, and a single Orb.”

“Orb?” I asked.

She nodded at the pokeyball on my belt. “Ah,” I said. “Creative name.”

She ignored this comment. “You good with those parameters?” she asked, being very official about it. She’d probably seen a lot of action flicks back in Old Earth. I rested a hand on the alien-metal head of the spear hooked to my waist, taking comfort in its solid weight.

“Works for me,” I said.

“Great. I choose the legendary sword Neon as my Orb, and my carnotaur Abe as my partner.”

Great. She recovered Neon along with my obelisk.

I glanced at the crowd, thinking. Investigator paced in her own little clearing, worried for me. A shadow darkened the cliff for a moment, and I glanced up to see Malcolm circling. I could choose either of them.

But against a carnotaur... I wanted something bigger, but also on the ground. Something just as tanky as it was dangerous.

“I choose our laser,” I said, patting the pokeyball on my own belt. I didn’t tell her it was fresh out of charges. “And my Tyrannosaurus Rex, Darth.”

Lindiwe blinked but otherwise showed no reaction. She looked around. “You have a Rex? Where? Send someone to get him.”

“Oh, don’t worry. He’s coming.”

Already I had quested out for his essence in my head, and already I’d felt the prick of a response. I was getting the hang of this mental-command thing, even if I didn’t quite understand it just yet.

Once he arrived—taking the long way up through the forest—we would fight. But I wasn’t going to kill Lindiwe. Not only was I going to prove that I could beat her, but I would also convince her that Tribe Grant was worth joining. I could already tell Lindiwe would be an asset.

As soon as I began to feel the rumble of heavy steps, I clacked my two spears together. Currently, they were in their portable form, folded up.

“Any other rules?” I asked. “Darth will be here any second, and he’ll want to get started.”

That same strange look had come over my opponent again. She almost looked worried, but not about the fight. I could tell she’d never feared a battle in her life.

“Name a second. I name Isioma.”

A woman from the Nomads jumped up and, without any hesitation, wedged her way to the front of the hadrosaurs. If her mistress were to die, it would be her job to clean up the mess. At least I think that’s what seconds do.

“I name Cole as my second,” I said. The man was close by, watching silently. Jarod was still with our defenders, in case Lindiwe’s presence here was a distraction in some larger plot.

The ground began to shake then: crash, crash, crash. Darth rounded a jagged ridge and came into view. The crowd parted to make way for him as he joined me. The big beast breathed hard, already winded, but I could tell from his twitchy body language that he was still spoiling for a fight. He got like this anytime he went a few days without a mission.

Lindiwe clacked her spears together, just as I’d done. “On three, then. One,” she said.

In that instant, the warning I had received from Atticus suddenly rang in my mind: "That woman, Lindiwe. Do not...." But do not what? Had he meant don’t fight her?

“Two.”

Well, it was too late to drop out of this now. I readied myself, spears out.

And finally, Lindiwe said, “Three.”

The sun glinted in Lindiwe's dark eyes, and the next instant, her carnotaur lunged.

No command from her, not even a muscle movement. Her beast just went for me, full tilt, faster than I’d ever seen a carnotaur move. The ground trembled beneath its feet. I had only one chance to avoid being crushed or devoured.

My vision tunneled. I saw the twitch of a muscle in its neck that signaled it would try to shake its head, to grab me and toss me to the left. I dove the opposite way.

The beast missed me.

I hit the ground flat, chest and elbows crashing against the wind-worn stone. There was no way to land elegantly when you threw yourself that hard. I slid for a moment, then hurried to stand again, spinning as I did it, in case Lindiwe was throwing a spear at me.

Turned out, she was. The thing clanged against the ground where I’d been. She was already racing toward me again.

I blinked when I saw how far Darth was from me. Damn. I threw myself pretty hard—

Not important. “Darth!” I called, but he was already swinging his tail at chest height on the carnotaur, reading my needs before I could speak them. The carnotaur Abe, its name was Abe—tried to sidestep, but it had too much momentum. Darth slammed the unstoppable force of his tail against the immovable object that was Abe.

I sprinted toward the site of impact, expecting to see Abe hit the ground, its lungs collapsed. Instead, the carnotaur sailed backwards like a lords-damned baseball.

Then, incredibly, it landed on its feet and slid. Lindiwe never even lost her seat.

They’ve trained together, one part of my brain told me, while the other said, that impact didn’t look right.

Once the two were still, Lindiwe let loose a cry that might be a Swahili curse and hurled her second spear at Darth’s thigh. Darth was still moving, but he was big and lumbering.

She only grazed him, but it was a matter of luck more than skill. Her spear shot away into the crowd of hadrosaurs.

By now, I’d nearly reached Abe, and he was looking away from me. Lindiwe was out of spears.

From the corner of my eye, I caught someone in the crowd tossing her spear back into the ring. It was too far away to help me now.

She turned Abe toward me, then cursed as I leapt for Abe’s chest with my own spear. Abe reared, and I punctured his thigh.

The creature wailed in a strange, stilted pitch, its breath fetid and vaguely smelling of motor oil. I sidestepped Abe as Lindiwe leveled a kick at me. She missed.

Then she yanked the spear out of Abe.

He cried out again but still turned. I barely got my own spear up in time to block her as she swung for my head.

“How the fuck did you move that fast?” she snapped, before Abe jerked forward again, pulling her out of melee range.

Darth rumbled into position beside me, and dropped another spear at my feet—the one an onlooker had tossed into the ring. It was like a dog dropping a bone for his master.

I was amazed. I hadn’t asked him to do this—but over our connection, he must have sensed the importance of the spear, and retrieved it for me.

“Thanks, boy,” I said, accepting the gift with a crouching spin. Clearly, Lindiwe preferred to attack me, not Darth, but he was a big target if she decided to spend a spear on him again. I didn’t want to lose the big guy.

Abe abruptly charged again, his steps a little staggered from his injury. As my eyes locked with Lindiwe, the same strange tunnel vision came over me. I read her every movement but saw nothing I could use. She was a closed book, an enigma. A human.

Damn—I’m taking on dino senses, aren’t I?

I couldn’t marvel at this. She was upon me. This was gonna be one hell of a fight.

Chapter 36

Abe

ABE NEVER SLOWED HIS CHARGE, not even when Darth read my needs once more, and snapped at him. As soon as Darth made the move, Abe left the ground. He had jumped while running at full speed.

Darth’s jaws crunched down on Abe’s tail, stopping Abe with surprising ease yet again—but Lindiwe had dislodged herself from the saddle. She flew out of it, still carried forward by the momentum of her stalled mount.

As Lindiwe soared toward me, I couldn't help but admire her skill and audacity. I sidestepped, then swung my spear like a bat. She landed where I’d been, on her hands and knees, and my spear struck her across the shoulder blades. She cried out, and so did Abe. Darth must have thrown him, but I didn’t look. Instead, I raised the spear to clobber her in the head with it.

She twisted, crossing her wrists in front of her. The weapon banged off her wrist armor, and the next moment she pushed me back, swung her legs forward, and arced herself to a standing position. The sheer muscle of that move astounded me.

“Use the sharp end, you moron,” she said, raising one hand as if to slap me.

I shook my head. “I don’t want to hurt—”

And Abe was there, a blur of black raging past us. Lindiwe caught his reins and he yanked her away from me, her spear spitting sparks as she dragged it along.

I couldn’t believe the speed of that thing. It moved like a raptor, but it was twice a raptor’s size.

As Darth bounded over to my exposed position, Abe pivoted, swinging Lindiwe up into his saddle as if they’d practiced the move a thousand times. It was unreal how in tune the two were.

The thought hit me a second time: Their bond is unreal.

As Abe fell still and Darth slowed at my position, I knew what was coming. Lindiwe leveled her spear, aiming without the distraction of movement. I took a page out of her book and raised my fist into the air.

“Eat me!” I shouted to Darth.

His head dropped, and I realized my mistake. He was alien-domesticated. He had to obey me. He would literally eat me, here and now.

Except he didn’t. For some reason, he read my intentions and opened his jaws around me, covering me in meaty-smelling darkness and surrounding me with teeth as long as my hand.

A dull thunk marked Lindiwe’s spear glancing off Darth’s naturally armored skull, which was covered in spines. He released me without a single tooth ever touching my skin.

He’s like a shield... his mouth is a shield! I need to stay with it!

But to do that, I had to hook myself on his teeth. I had no hook, nothing but a spear to stab him with—

I saw the solution just in time to swipe the glass crescent off my head, slipping my fingers into the knuckle holes of my crown and sticking them between Darth’s two front incisors. He pulled me upward with ease because, to him, I might as well be a rag doll.

Lindiwe was charging again. In my sudden tunnel vision—it seemed to come upon me when I got charged by another predator—I saw Lindiwe scowl at Darth. She was tired of me having a partner, not just a mount. But she was out of spears, yet again. I grabbed the one she’d just thrown, leaving me with all four of our combined weapons.

Yet still, she raced toward me, thinking to kill Darth. I knew what that meant.

She’s going to use Neon.

The legendary weapon still had some charge left when I’d seen it last. It would damage Darth no matter where she struck him with it.

A muscle twitched in Abe’s left flank. He’s changing direction, going right.

"Spin!" I commanded Darth mentally, and his massive body rotated like a damned merry-go-round at full speed, his tail whipping up a gust of wind around us.

With all my might—and probably some might from the dinos I was connected to—I pulled against Darth’s power enough to twist the crescent crown between his teeth. This threw me away from him at top speed.

I landed like a boulder, on my shoulder and side. The impact was hard enough to knock me unconscious, dislocate my shoulder, and crack a rib.

Instead, I felt a dull thud in my body.

How in the hell did I just do that? I thought. And, more importantly: Did it work?

When I came to a stop and looked up, Lindiwe had seen me. An easier target, alone, while my dino was still partway through his move. Darth couldn’t rush to protect me.

Her carnotaur hopped sideways, then twisted, landing on its feet. It had changed direction on a dime, and now it aimed for me, not Darth. I had managed to protect him for another few moments.

“Bite the motherfucker!” Lindiwe shouted, even though Abe had already started to thunder toward me.

She’s connected to him, too, I thought, perfectly aware I was exposed here. Lindiwe had learned the trick my tribe was only just now discovering. Was that what she’d seen in my stats? That ability?

Was that what had scared her about me?

I distantly heard a cry from Malcolm as I threw a spear. It stuck in Abe’s chest, but he kept running. I threw another, same thing. When I aimed for his head next, Lindiwe activated Neon in shield form and protected him.

How is he still running? And where is the blood? I had only the final spear remaining, and although Abe had clearly roared from pain, he had barely slowed. And his stagger from before—the injury I had dealt to his leg—it was gone.

Finally, I understood what was wrong with her dino. I flicked the final spear to its full length, held it horizontally between my hands, and leaned my body forward.

Abe reached me, closing his jaws on the spear.

In that moment, I channeled my connection to Darth, using our bond to its fullest capacity. I had already run faster and swung harder than I should have. I had already hit the ground hard enough to break bones, yet had taken no damage.

I was taking on some of the properties of my dinosaur, and right now, I wanted Darth’s mass.

When Abe had slammed into Darth before, Darth had flung him back easily—so when Abe bit into my spear and I shoved it downwards at the same time, his whole head shot into the ground.

He collapsed, far too light, far too easily deflected. He couldn’t weigh more than a juvenile raptor, and I’d been channeling the strength of a rex.

As his jaws crunched down into the stone, I jumped over him and elbowed Lindiwe in the chest. Without the tunnel vision and speed of a predator, I never could have achieved the move in the instants allotted to me.

But I had those things, and I knocked her back.

As she fell away, I seized the broken end of the spear and drove it into the back of Abe’s neck as he was struggling—weakly—to rise. This time, the injury stopped him cold. He went still.

Lindiwe screamed.

A chime sounded, and I knew what it meant before I turned to find Lindiwe kneeling, one hand on the back of her neck.

But that, too, was impossible. I leveled my spear at her face.

“Your carno was a fucking abnormal,” I said. “How in the flying hell did you bond with an abnormal?”

Chapter 37

Me and My Four Best Friends

ABNORMALS COULDN’T BE TAMED. This was a known fact. They also couldn’t mate, or be domesticated. Alien technology worked on normal dinos, but not Apexes. They were alien tech, their bodies full of Nebula Energy—energy I had just harvested from poor Abe.

I glanced back at him, and now that he was still and I was close, I could see the strange lines in his skin, as if his flesh had been shaped into plates, then glued onto him. Under all that black dye, I had no doubt he was colorful or he glowed or he had some other obvious trait marking him as the Apex he was.

“Jasper didn’t know,” I realized out loud, turning back. “You used Abe to protect yourself, didn’t you? That’s why you earned Jasper’s respect and became his general... because you had figured out the bonding trick before he did. And you’d bonded to a fucking abnormal.”

That part was still impossible. Lindiwe wiped her mouth and glared up at me, her dark eyes like burnt edges. She wasn’t about to give me an answer.

“Atticus,” I said. “You there?”

No response. Strange. As my handler, Atticus was usually close by whenever I achieved any significant success, and beating Lindiwe and Abe was certainly one of those.

The last time we spoke, when he warned me about her... he’d gotten into trouble. He’d said too much.

I’d worry about that later. For now, I prodded Lindiwe in the throat with the business end of the broken spear.

“How did you bond with—” I started.

She activated her shield.

The blue tech flared to life, severing my spear near its point—and cutting into the rock underneath her. I leapt back in case she pulled the laser sword next, but instead she spun, still crouched, dragging the shield through the earth around her.

When I realized what she was doing, I lunged for her, my armored arm in front of me. I needed to push her before she completed that circle—

I was too late. As she spun, she’d cut a hole in the ground underneath her. She fell through, shield and all.

Cursing, I jumped into the hole after her without a second thought. I knew the underground river and its reservoir were beneath us, or else she wouldn’t have been able to cut through. Sayuri had also said that the river was no longer fast-moving enough to slam me into a wall and kill me outright.

So I jumped, giving Lindiwe no time to prepare for me coming down on top of her. If I waited even three seconds, she’d have Neon in sword form and ready for me.

Instead, I fell about ten feet and landed on top of her.

The fall was lucky. All my weight came down on her arm as she started to swing at me, and I forced her arm against a rock and felt it crunch under my full weight. She screamed in agony, dropping Neon. I grabbed it at the same time I put my glass knuckles to her throat.

Now I had her prone, with her weapon in my hand. I’d definitely won this time.

Right?

Her scream tapered off into a cracked, tear-stained laugh, and that’s when I saw them. I’d landed along the edge of the reservoir.

A full herd of dilophosaurus blocked the path.

The small, acid-spitting beasts had their gazes glued to me, their bodies unnaturally tense. Where had they come from?

Arvor. Somewhere along the line, I’d heard that Arvor kept dilos as pets. Like the hadrosaurs, they’d been held in reserve, kept hidden from Tribe Grant until just the right moment. Jasper had used them once to stampede the hadrosaurs.

And now, as the new leader of the Nomads, Lindiwe had complete control over them. Even if she hadn’t bonded them all, they’d have to obey her if she gave any command—

She grinned and said, “Melt him down.”

Damn, she didn’t even bother to gloat first. She just told the fuckers to kill me.

“Transfer NE to laser!” I shouted, scrambling backward as the first loogie of hot acid hit me. I threw Neon aside and grabbed my pokeyball, but already the caustic spit was eating through my skin. I could jump in the water, but the relief would be temporary. I’d be helpless in the water.

A chime sounded, and I activated the laser, and I cut all those useful dilos in half.

I watched them die with a sinking sensation in my gut. I only had a few other acid spitters, and I could sure use more of them in my menagerie. Missy had told me they didn’t breed well.

That’s when I really felt the pain.

I loosed a long, drawn-out curse word as Lindiwe snatched Neon back. The traitorous legendary weapon worked for her, switching sides yet again. But as she leveled the blade at me, I raised the laser.

“I’ll put a hole through you,” I panted, “before you can hit me. Don’t make me do that. Just don’t.”

The big woman stared me down, with only the light from the hole above and the blue light of her sword to illuminate her. With her skin tone, she seemed like half a human, half a shadow.

“You’ll never let me live,” she said. “At least, not for long. Not until you have your way—”

“You don’t fucking know me,” I snapped. “You can fucking go, right now, anywhere but here, just so long as you never come back.”

She responded to this with a stare as the agony on my skin intensified. The dilos had gotten my arm, my neck, parts of my left leg, and my chest. It wouldn’t kill me for several minutes when it ate through the epidermis. I’d need to get into the water before then.

Steps sounded behind me, and voices, familiar ones. My people had had enough of wondering what was happening down here, and they’d chased me down through the reservoir’s normal entrance.

“You’ve learned to bond more than one,” Lindiwe said.

Groaning, I channeled Darth’s resilience. The acid pain grew distant, if only temporarily.

“What are you talking about?” I shot back.

“I’ve never seen anyone else bond a dino,” she said. “And I have only ever bonded one. You’ve got four.”

Four? Must be Malcolm, Darth, Investigator... oh, and Bertha, I thought.

“Yeah? So what?” I said.

She narrowed her eyes and smiled darkly at me. “So what if your people find out?”

I blinked at her. “What?”

“What if I tell them your secret?”

This had me stumped. “It’s... not a secret?” I said.

At that moment, Aubrey shouted, “Alan!” and the footsteps picked up the pace to reach me.

But Lindiwe’s expression had shifted into confusion. “You told them?” she asked.

“That I could bond dinos? No, I didn’t tell them.” I laughed. “They told me.”

After all, we had discovered the bond when Jasper had set all the deinonychus loose on the settlement, and the raptors had come to the rescue. In fighting the threat together, my people had bonded to the raptors. Malcolm had even acted on his own bond to me, without my knowledge. My wives had explained all this to me afterward.

Well, Lindiwe couldn’t comprehend that. I hadn’t seen someone so thrown off since we’d been dropped onto New Earth. I struggled to understand what was going through her head.

Her own leader... Jasper... he didn’t know about her dino, her bond.

And Arvor won by tricking all those tribes....

I stood back up, just in time for someone to catch me as I staggered. Spears were brandished to both sides of me, aimed at Lindiwe.

I managed to hold up a hand. “Leave her be,” I said, at the same time as Cassie hissed, “Shit, those are spitter burns!”

Fabric tore, and the next moment, she was dabbing a blessedly cold, wet rag all over me. I tried to focus on Lindiwe through it all.

“You’re used to secrecy,” I said. “Knowledge is power for you. It’s how the Nomads killed so many, how you managed to gain a rank for yourself among so many men that wanted... other things from you.”

The big tank of a woman said nothing, but I noticed that Neon had lowered an inch. She was no longer certain that I was a threat.

I put a hand on Cassie’s wrist to pause her ministrations. She stopped, and I took a tough step forward, dropping my own laser to point to the ground.

“You thought I was keeping this secret, for my own gain. That I led this tribe because I was keeping some dark secret. Because that’s how you’ve survived, that’s how your superiors have survived. Off secrets. But I don’t keep secrets.”

That must have been what Lindiwe had seen in my stats. It had scared her, to know someone else knew her secret. That someone else had the power to bond. She’d wanted that secret kept, so she could hold onto power. She feared me because I made her powerless. I rendered her secret moot.

“How?” she breathed. “How did you bond with a normal? I... I could only ever bond Abe.”

I swallowed. I might have bonded with four dinos without even knowing it, but I was dead certain even I couldn’t bond with an Apex. I wanted this woman to stay.

“I can teach you,” I told her. I indicated those behind me. “So could some of them.”

She looked at them, her eyes dazed, as if she hadn’t even noticed them until now. Seeing someone so imposing suddenly shrunk down like this—it was like seeing all the meat sucked clean out of a rex.

“Be my general,” I told her. “Join us. Join Tribe Grant.”

“No,” she said softly, shaking her head. “No, you’ll kill me.”

“I could have killed you three times now,” I pointed out. “I could do it now.”

“It’s a trick,” she said, almost pleading as if she wanted me to be lying.

I didn’t know how to convince her. She looked suddenly so broken. I couldn’t imagine what had been done to her, what she had gone through to get here, how many people had already broken her trust. What could I do to get through to her? What did she need? What was she missing?

Then I had my answer. She just lost Abe.

Abe is probably short for Abnormal. She’d lost her bond mate, her only bond mate.

“Come with me,” I said. “Let me give you a gift. And then, if you want to leave with it, you can. I won’t hold you back, and I won’t hold back your tribeswomen, either. And you can take any of the Nomad hostages that want to go, too.”

Her eyes widened. “You have the children?”

I almost laughed at myself. I should have led with that. Then again, she would have suspected another trick. Trick after trick after trick.

“I have them. They’re all yours. Do you want to see them first, or your gift?”

For the first time, I saw the flicker of a smile tug her lips. She gave the tiniest puff of a laugh. I’d amused her.

I smiled back. “The gift it is.”

Chapter 38

Padme

“YOU WANT me to believe you aren’t going to kill me, yet you lead me into the heart of your jungle?”

I chuckled, striding side-by-side with Lindiwe down the winding path to our out-of-settlement dino enclosure. Here is where we kept all the dinos that were dangerous to others.

“Still feels weird, hearing Appalachia referred to as ‘jungle,’” I said. “This used to be all maples and cedars through here, not palm trees.”

A thoughtful silence passed as Lindiwe mulled this over. The crunch of footsteps was the only sound; my entire team tramped along behind us, including Cole and Jarod, my wives, and a few of the more intrepid dino caregivers. We might need their expertise in a minute here.

“Sometimes, I miss Africa,” she said. “I lived near the Sahara and the sunsets... there was nothing like them. Still, sometimes, I prefer jungle.”

“Ah, so you lived in Africa?”

“For some time, yes. Went away to university, and returned to start a school of my own. A school for girls.”

This took me aback. She didn’t seem like the teacher type. But this did explain her good English.

She caught my eye and flashed that burnt-edges smile at me. “I was the admin. And the muscle,” she said. “Some of the locals... weren’t keen on the school. I showed them exactly where they could shove their disapproval.”

I laughed out loud. I was liking this woman more and more. Even better, it seemed we were getting along on the mere promise of a goodwill gift. She must have been very heartened to learn that the Nomad’s hostages were nearby and safe.

Still, there was a sadness to her. I could see it in the way her smile faded as the silence moved to crush us again.

“I’m... sorry about Abe,” I said.

After a moment, she shrugged one shoulder. “He was a tortured soul.” She sighed. “They all were. Every abnormal we ever harvested... I was happy to help them die. Abe was different because he could heal himself. I found him before the Nomads found me.”

I wondered where she’d been before that. Alone? With a tribe? With a tribe the Nomads defeated? Now was not the time to ask.

“Ah,” I said. “And he didn’t weigh much, did he?”

“Abe? No. Hollow bones,” she said. “Like a bird. He could turn on a dime and leave nine cents showing.”

“And also get blasted backward by anything heavier than him.”

She sighed. “It was like flying sometimes. But he’s in a better place now. It... got harder and harder to keep using him. He wanted to help me, but he was always in such pain....”

Lindiwe trailed off, and a pang of regret stabbed through me. “You were really that close to him? You felt his pain?”

“From the very beginning,” she said.

No wonder she was such a gruff and tough person. And no wonder she looked so conflicted. She must feel as much sorrow as relief.

Ahead of us, the path opened, big leafy fronds parting before us like the fans that Egyptian Pharaohs used to use. We entered a small clearing with more paths branching off into the underbrush. Various cries sounded down each path, and Lindiwe tensed as she recognized one of them.

I dropped a hand on her shoulder, making sure she could see it before I touched her. She allowed the contact, although she still eyed me as I did it.

“Don’t worry. All the dinos you’re hearing are staked down and monitored.”

“Staked? Why?”

“They haven’t been domesticated yet,” I replied, scanning the posts set into the ground near each path. One was marked simply REX in big letters. I took it. “We’ve run out of charges for them,” I said. “For now.”

Another twenty paces down the path, the canopy cleared to allow light to pour down on an enormous, sleeping shape. It breathed heavily, with deep exhales that made the bromeliads whiffle near its mouth.

I swept out an arm in as grand a gesture as I dared. “Meet Padme, your new bond mate,” I said.

Lindiwe had still been walking, but now she stopped short. Behind us, my entourage stopped too.

“Alan,” Cole said. “I don’t advise—”

“Padme is hers,” I said. “As a gift to my new general—or to my new ally. It’s her choice.”

When I looked back to Lindiwe, I saw a woman transformed. Her face lit up like firelight.

“You’re giving me a rex?”

She knew, just as much as I did, how hard these guys were to catch.

“Yes. But we can’t spare a domestication. You’ll have to do that yourself.”

Her hand had already hovered over her obelisk. “I won’t have more until next—”

She cut herself off as Padme raised her head and looked back at us, her eyes big and morose. She reminded me of a basset hound.

“She lost her mate,” I explained. “He was an abnormal. We tried to introduce her to Darth, but she was inconsolable, and he wasn’t sure what to do with her.” Even the big rex had been loath to take what didn’t belong to him. I wondered now if it was because he had a bond with me. Morality wasn’t usually a thing in the animal kingdom.

Lindiwe didn’t look like she’d heard me. Padme had looked at her, and there her gaze remained. The two had completely locked eyes.

A shape moved to join us from the shade of the jungle. “We believe there is a way to bond dinos without domestication,” Nadiyya said, and I raised my eyebrows to see her here at all. “We have only just learned this might be possible, so we haven’t had time to figure out an exact process. But here you are, already a professional, able to bond abnormals. If you can bond to Padme, we can study how you do it, and try replicating that. It will be a great gift in exchange for our gift to you.”

Lindiwe had started nodding halfway through this, and now she slowly stopped and looked back at Nadiyya as if only just seeing her.

“You—you’re Archie’s eldest,” Lindiwe said, startled. Nadiyya nodded.

Lindiwe flicked a thumb between us. “And you—? Him?”

“It’s complicated,” I said.

“Nothing has occurred without consent,” Nadiyya added matter-of-factly, for the benefit of our listeners. She nodded to Padme. “Do you believe you can tame her?”

Lindiwe turned back around, frowning. “I’m not sure. I didn’t even know you could bond to normal dinos... I can only bond to abnormals, as far as I know. But that comes easy to me. This....”

Trailing off again, Lindiwe set her shoulders. “I’ll try something,” she said.

Then she walked up to Padme.

I tensed, but Nadiyya caught my wrist before I could say or do anything. “Let her try,” Nadiyya said. “She’s the best person equipped to do it. She’s been bonded longer than any of us.”

I hardly heard her argument. I was too aware of the fact that Nadiyya was touching me. Touching me after witnessing... that, only this morning.

She avoided my gaze and nodded back to the rex. Lindiwe had just reached the sorrowful dino’s enormous snout. Even as a young adult, Padme was larger than Darth. Her snout alone was as large as Lindiwe’s whole torso.

Lindiwe reached up a hand, palm-out. Padme turned her head to one side and peered curiously at the hand. Then she chirruped. There was no other word for the noise she made.

“There’s a good girl,” Lindiwe said, keeping her hand upraised. “A big man broke your heart, did he? Did he hurt you? He went and got dead, like an idiot?”

Padme moaned as if she understood.

“I never much liked men,” Lindiwe said. “They’re always hurting us, aren’t they?”

The big rex nuzzled Padme’s hand, eyes closing.

I smiled. I’d seen enough.

“It’s a shared experience,” I said. “Shared emotion. It binds us.”

The raptors in camp, protecting their own—with humans fighting right alongside them. And Bertha, and Malcolm, and Investigator, and Darth. We all shared so much.

“Never mind that they’re bonding over being man-haters,” Nadiyya said.

I squinted. “No... Padme loved her mate. Lindiwe hated men. They were both hurt by them, though... so it’s not sharing the same experience. It’s understanding each other.” I looked back to see what the others thought, but my entire entourage stared at me as if I’d sprouted rex arms from my head. I shrugged. “Or something like that.”

In truth, this really felt like a natural extension of our relationship to dinos. Alien technology had augmented these creatures—and it had augmented us. We had a lot to learn about that technology yet, but there was a rhyme and a reason to it. We only had to figure it out.

“We’ll use this to try a few things,” Missy said excitedly, practically bouncing out of the woods to join Nadiyya. “Oh, I’m so excited to get started!”

As she spoke, Padme lowered her head again, and Lindiwe strode back to us. As she approached, she reached for the cords around her neck and drew both obelisks up over her head.

When she reached me, she held out the objects.

“I surrender my tribe to you,” she said. “The Nomads Afrikaans are no more... and good fucking riddance.”

I took the obelisks and bowed my head, my glass crown throwing a rainbow across a nearby palm trunk. “Thank you, Lindiwe,” I said. “With all of my heart, thank you.”

She grinned. “That’s General Lindiwe, to you.”

Chapter 39

Girl in a Golden Bikini

THE NEXT DAY, I found myself at Spine Lake.

I was crazy to be here, and I knew it. Even crazier to be here alone. But the settlement had been abuzz today with the news that we’d acquired a new general. The story of how Alan fought the great Lindiwe and earned her trust was already spreading like wildfire.

I hadn’t earned her trust, though. Not yet. For now, I’d settle for her cooperation. Either way, she was busy today. I’d given her a small army to rule over, and she was out establishing dominance with the fighters. Since everyone in the camp was a fighter when their name came up in the volunteer queue, that meant Lindiwe had power over everyone in my camp. I’d left Sayuri, Aubrey, and Nadiyya behind to help her out. They’d make a full report to me later, and all of them were good judges of character.

Meanwhile, Missy was busy integrating the Nomads’ dinos with ours, while Cassie was helping the new people fit in. The sight of children had sent some women to wailing. Soon, there would be a lot more wailing as we added another dozen babies to the tribe.

So, all in all, there was a lot of noise, the fighters were occupied, and my wives were focused on their tasks. In the chaos of it all, I’d managed to slip away—and for once, I was completely alone. No one was looking for me, or worrying about me, either. It was a rare dose of freedom, and I was going to milk it for all it was worth.

I closed my eyes, inhaling deeply, letting my senses absorb the nature all around me. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken a walk through this forest. Just a walk, with nothing to hunt and nowhere to be. Well, I did have plans, but I was in no hurry for them. The air was crisp, smelling of crinkled leaves and moist soil. The lush jungle was browning at the edges, the vines easier to hack away with a knife. The climate was wacky here, who knows how long before the Earth found homeostasis again? The aliens had messed everything up.

I savored it all with my own human senses until finally I reached my destination. The trees opened up, and there was Spine Lake, smooth as glass, with Malcolm’s distant shape reflected on its cloudless surface. He wheeled above, keeping tabs on me without interfering with my peace.

Now he swooped closer, although I’d given him express orders not to intervene unless my life was in danger. I wanted to do this alone if I could.

Vendettas were best solved personally.

As I strode up to the lake, the hard earth gradually softened, until I reached the part of the clearing where we’d mined all our clay. There was plenty more here, but we were using wood a little bit more often now. Soon, metal might be on the table as well. My tribe was moving up, moving on.

At the edge of the water, I unclipped two pokeyballs from my belt and held one in each of my hands. I began to walk along the perimeter of the lake, slowly, always keeping myself half-facing the water, searching for any signs of a disturbance.

If my wives had known why I was here, they would have killed me. At the least, they would have made me take Bertha. But my enemy was smart enough to avoid humans when they were accompanied by dinos larger than he was. I needed to be alone.

I needed to be bait.

A breeze kicked up, riffling the mirrored surface of the water, distorting the endless blue of the sky. My tribe would be headed to that sky at the end of the winter. I would earn my ship. I had sworn it.

That’s when the spinosaur pounced.

Using the brief ripples to hide its attack, it erupted out of the water toward me. I barely had time to notice the slight pull-back of the surface before the dino’s jaws were practically in my face. It overshadowed me like a mountain of death tipping over.

I triggered the pokeyballs in both hands.

The two drills exploded into being, swirling with that strange alien ether as the pokeyballs pulled them from their pocket dimensions. Against all my normal instincts, I threw myself to the ground, backside first, and lay flat between the big metal objects—just as the spinosaur came down on them.

The thing very nearly crushed me, its own weight driving the drills deep into its shoulder and throat. It stopped falling mere inches above me. Blood curtained onto my chest, and I scrambled away to avoid the thrashing arms. In its death throes, the spinosaur swiped and snapped at me, but the drill in its shoulder made it slow, and the one in its neck made it weak.

I rolled to my feet and started to stalk a path around the creature, searching for my chance like a predator. I waited until its movements turned cumbersome.

Then I shot straight for its neck.

I made a beeline for it from the side, and one eye pivoted to me as I unhooked a final pokeyball from my belt. Once I stepped into blood, I dropped and slid back under the spinosaur. The creature might have snapped at me, but the drill had messed with its neck muscles.

I slapped the drill in its neck, and said, “Store.”

The drill sucked itself out of existence and back into an alien void, dropping to the ground, back in ball form. The spinosaur sagged, still propped by the second drill.

I shoved the WoundHeal pokeyball into the gash in its neck.

"Activate,” I said, and the light flared, green this time. It lit up the entire channel of the spinosaur’s throat. I could have fit my whole body in there, could have built a house from its rib cage. The thing was huge.

And now, it was healing.

I grabbed the deactivated drill and darted left, converting the second drill to storage mode on my way out from under my prize. With both drills back in hand, I turned to face the spinosaur, Neon held up before me in shield form, just in case.

But the spinosaur didn’t attack. It merely laid there, gurgling, confused as its mortal wound healed, as nature itself worked in reverse.

When I cautiously approached, it half-heartedly snapped at me. When I got close enough to touch it, I didn’t waste my chance. I dropped Neon, and I said, “Domesticate.”

The charge I’d been saving for ages worked instantly, and a chime sounded, followed by a second, cheerful noise. The dinosaur’s stats

appeared in front of me, as per usual.

Tribe Grant has consumed its once a Week Dinosaur Domestication: 0/1

Time until next charge: 6.99 daily rotations: Tribe Grant has 0/3 Special Dinosaur Domestications remaining

Congratulations. You have domesticated an adult female spinosaurus.

Species: Spinosaurus

Sex: Female

Age: 4.18 sun rotations: Weight: 42.5 Zexa

Rarity Value: 88.160

Efficiency Value: 77.07% of species

Traits: Sly, Capricious, Just Plain Big

Known for: Killing. Lots of killing. When it’s not good for killing, what’s it good for? Killing.

You have 1 hour to name your new dinosaur. If a name is unassigned, one will be given to it that must be used to garner the dinosaur’s attention.

I let out a breath. So did my dinosaur. “You’re a girl, eh?” I said. “And here I thought you had a boner for me. Instead, turns out it’s a crush.”

She gave a low growl in response, all attitude and no remorse. It reminded me of a scene in an old sci-fi movie, where the pretty woman defied her captor, even while wearing a golden bikini. She was still a sex icon to this day. I’m pretty sure Alfred had a picture of her in his wallet.

It suited. After all, everyone else was going to want this dino, too. Not sexually, though. Never that.

“I’ll call you Leia,” I said, rubbing her long crocodile snout. “Sorry about the stabbing, Leia. It was the best way to weaken you before you could murder me.”

She moaned, still pained by the wound in her shoulder, which I hadn’t been able to heal. I swung my pack around the front and pulled out a banana leaf stuffed full of poultice.

“Don’t worry. I’ll fix you up,” I told her. “You’ll be up and at ‘em in a week or two, good as ne—”

Leia nearly bowled me over as she roared in my face, the sound all pain and no violence. Water hit me, a spray of it, and I leapt to the side to see another pair of long, serrated jaws clamped down on my precious Leia’s tail.

“Hey!” I shouted, dropping my pack and pulling out my spear instead. “Let go of her, asshole! She’s mine!”

But instead of turning its attention to me, the second spinosaur gave an epic heave, and Leia cried out again as she was yanked back five feet. I leapt into a run, but another jerk pulled her five more feet, then five more.

Her fellow bottom-dweller was taking her back to the lake—and by the way, he was sinking his jaws into her, I didn’t think he meant to keep her safe. He was a smaller spinosaur, but he saw opportunity in her injury. If he killed her, he’d rule this roost, and have a tasty dinner besides.

I jumped on his snout when I reached it and stabbed down, but the crocodile skin resisted, hard as igneous rock. The spino let go of Leia and shook its head, throwing me. I landed and held up my spear—

And the spino caught my leg in its jaws.

Chapter 40

Dinos Don't Play Fair

THE NEXT THING I KNEW, I was underwater, bubbles sailing past my face. The big predator pulled me down, and down, and down. Sediment swirled around me, rapidly blocking out the sunlight. I hit a cloud of silt.

My leg screamed in pain.

I released a few bubbles from my mouth, and in the moment of stillness that followed, I wedged my spear into the spinosaur’s gums. It let me go, an instinctual response. I whipped the spear to one side for good measure, leaving a long gash in its mouth.

It was hardly a victory. I was deep underwater now, trapped in its domain. I was a tiny little snack for this bastard, and once again, all I had was a spear.

I gripped it tight as the murky void spun around me, but I had no idea where to aim the weapon. Kicking through the churning water hurt like hell, pain lancing through my leg with every stroke. Could I not go even a week without a traumatic damned injury? I needed to prioritize some new armor after this.

That thought alone kept me from panicking, pragmatic as it was. The beast was somewhere in this debris-filled abyss, hunting.

There! A shadow shifted to my left, followed by a flicker of movement. I squinted, trying to track the spinosaur's outline through the haze. My heart pounded in my chest, my breath escaping in a stream of bubbles. The movement ended again. Where did it go?

I strained to listen, but my ears rang from the impenetrable silence of the depths—until a sharp crack resounded to my right, and I whipped around, coming face to face with the spinosaur. Its maw gaped open, rows of dagger-like teeth glinting as it snapped straight for me.

I hurled my spear with all my might. The weapon shot through the water and struck home, lodging in the soft flesh at the back of the beast's throat. It let out a roar of bubbles, thrashing in rage and pain.

My triumph was short-lived. As the spinosaur whipped around, its spiny tail caught my injured leg, white-hot agony piercing my side. Darkness crept into the edges of my vision as I struggled to stay conscious. Blood streamed from my wound, possibly attracting more predators to the scent.

Through the haze of pain, one thought echoed in my mind: I had to find air.

Summoning the last of my strength, I kicked away from the creature and swam for the surface as fast as my damaged leg could take me. The water seemed to stretch endlessly above, but after what felt like an eternity, I finally broke through to the open air, gulping in deep breaths and blinking at the harsh sunlight.

No. Don’t let your eyes adjust.

I was too far from shore, and I’d never make it before the thing came for me. Against the backdrop of a blue sky, I’d be a sitting duck to the spino.

I drew a huge breath and dove down.

I pushed toward the mass of silt below me, still roiling. Even as I looked, the clouds spread like a mist, and the spinosaur’s long snout emerged, trailing blood from the corners of its mouth.

Not a fatal wound, then. It had spat out my spear, too, so who knows where that had gone.

I kicked straight for the spino, trying to use its bad frontal vision to my advantage. Most predators had their eyes on the sides of their heads, all the better to swing their jaws at prey and snap them up. It gave them blind spots just in front of them.

It worked—for a couple of seconds.

At that time, my gaze landed on the enormous ridge of webbed spines along the spinosaur’s back. I still had a knife in my belt. If I could cut into that webbing, I could latch onto the creature’s back and start stabbing it where it couldn’t get to me.

I swam as fast as I could toward the spine, but at that moment, the spinosaur let out an enraged bellow that sounded like a boat engine in the water. It surged out of the depths, jaws snapping, and I curled into a ball to make myself smaller. Now my arms, knees, and calves were exposed. Those parts of my body still had armor.

The spino failed to chomp down on me since I’d effectively shrunk myself but it did hit me. The armored parts of my body shielded me from the impact, but I still sailed away.

All of this in just a couple of seconds. I slowed near a rock, and kicked off it, still heading for the spine. I grabbed one spine just as the creature's head shot past, jagged teeth missing my arm by inches.

Damn. It could turn its head almost all the way around. I wouldn’t be safe on its back.

I let go of the spinosaur's back as it started to roll against a wall of rock to one side of us. It was trying to throw me off, but it didn’t realize yet that I’d let go. My injured leg screamed in protest as I kicked toward the cloudy vortex surrounding the beast. I gritted my teeth against the pain.

As the spinosaur slammed against a large rock, I managed to get hold of a spine on its shoulder. I flattened myself against its upper front leg, hoping to inch my way toward its neck. If I could get close enough, maybe I could use my knife—

A deafening roar shattered my concentration, even muffled as it was. The spinosaur zipped around again, but this time, its movements were sluggish, uncoordinated. It was tiring.

Right! I thought. It’s not a sea animal. It’s a land animal who likes attacking from this lake. I’ve already surfaced once, but it hasn’t. It must be running out of air!

I grabbed onto the base of its skull, pulling myself up as the creature bucked and then rocketed toward the surface. It moved so fast, and the water had so much pressure against me, that I couldn’t even draw my knife as we made for the surface.

The spinosaur broke into daylight again, and I closed my eyes and heaved in a breath. An extra flash of darkness passed over me, and then I was down beneath the waves again, and going deeper fast.

I dared to open my eyes, and by sheer luck, I saw the flash of silver on the lake floor to the side of me. I let go of the spino at the same time I kicked off its leg, aiming for my spear. It landed in a blast of fresh silt.

Meanwhile, I chased after my spear, kicking hard through the murky water. The spinosaur noticed me and snapped at me again, jaws closing around empty space as I shot down and away from it. It might be huge, but that made it clumsy down here. It was slower than a true sea creature would be—but it could hold its breath a lot longer than I could.

Down here, the odds were against me. I’d never been much of a gambler.

I reached the spear and thought, Then I’ll learn how to cheat.

Chapter 41

Always a Bigger Dinosaur

I TOOK hold of the spear, yanked it out of the mud it had gotten stuck in, and launched myself away. The spino’s teeth grazed my thigh an instant later, dragging along the edge of my armor plating. Pain lanced through me and I gasped, air bubbles escaping from my mouth in a wild stream. No major damage, but it cost me time. My lungs strained and my injuries pulsed.

As I escaped the biting range of the spinosaur, it tensed its legs for another lunge attack. Its massive tail swept up a current behind it, and then it shot forward. I brandished the spear, and the light managed to catch it.

The spino missed me at the last moment, on purpose. It stopped its momentum on the rock wall, then looked back at me, calculating.

It was afraid of my spear... so it hit me with its big tail instead.

It didn’t move very fast, but I was armored and holding a spear and basically free-floating by this point. I had no leverage to swim out of the way.

The lash of its bulky tail drove most of the breath from my lungs. My vision grayed out, and my senses were overwhelmed by the creature's muscles slamming into me. I tumbled end over end, losing all sense of direction... and my spear.

“Shhhiiiibbbtbbttt,” I cursed, crashing into something hard. When my head finally cleared, I caught a glimpse of the spinosaur turning to face me. It let out another boat-motor roar, displaying rows of dagger-like teeth.

When it saw that I no longer had the spear, it charged again, with no subtlety or strategy left to its attacks. The spinosaur wanted only to crush me, to rend my body into pieces. I kicked the hard object I’d run into, hurling myself toward the sky with all my might, narrowly avoiding getting flattened against the rock.

As I bubbled up toward the sunlight, a shadow crossed over me, the same one as before. I sent out a mental command, and as soon as I broke the surface, I threw my fist into the sky.

Malcolm swooped low and caught me by the arm, yanking me away. His talons cut into me, but my armor saved me from the worst of it.

The spinosaur roared at full volume, breaking the surface beneath me. It jumped like it was Free fucking Willy, hot damn.

Malcolm screeched, worried and frazzled.

“No,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere. Circle around again, throw me straight in.”

Malcolm protested even as he wheeled. I had used a domestication on him, so when I gave a command, his free will didn’t come into play.

The spinosaur had disappeared by the time I got within throwing distance. Leia lay farther onto the beach than where I’d left her, but she’d obviously tired to the point she’d stopped moving. If the spino turned its attention back to her, I’d be out both a spinosaur and a domestication.

“Let go,” I commanded, and Malcolm did.

I dove headfirst into the water, hands outstretched before me. First air rifled past me, then bubbles, the world upending from bright light to blue darkness.

I saw the shape of the spinosaur, looking away from me, recuperating. With a subtle shift of my muscles, I changed my trajectory and dove beneath it.

My fingers found purchase on its foreleg as I slowed down, and I swung myself around the spine until I slammed into its underbelly. The spinosaur screeched in surprise, an eerie sound in the water.

I drew my knife and stabbed the thing in the chest.

As with most predators, its underside was its weak point. I stabbed clean through the crocodilian skin and slashed sideways to cut a bigger hole into its lungs. The tissue was hardly delicate, but my knife was hardly dull. The spinosaur spasmed, air and blood escaping the hole in a macabre cloud of red silt. Water was vacuumed in to replace it.

It was drowning—but it wasn’t dead yet.

For the last time, it heaved toward the surface, dragging me with it. As it went, the spinosaur slammed into the rocky side of the lake, trying to crush me against it, to scrape me off—but I was cradled in its armpit now, and it failed to hurt me.

Still, my fingers slipped on wet scales, my grip less sure every moment. I was tiring quickly, and its wound would take time to kill it. When we hit the shore, the battle would go on—

We broke the surface, shattered it like wet glass, and I let go as the spinosaur beached itself. I crash-landed in mud almost too deep to get out of. I struggled to get free before the big dino could snap at me—

An earsplitting shriek split the air. The spinosaur jerked in surprise, head swinging around.

Malcolm let out another battle cry and dove at the spinosaur, raking at its head with his talons.

The spinosaur bellowed in reply, distracted from its attempts to kill me. I could hardly see, much less get my feet under me. The sun was blinding after the dim underwater world, and I squinted against its glare. Luckily, the spino would be equally blind.

Malcolm swooped again, but this time he attached himself to the spino, shredding the webbing on its back, an epic distraction. The spino roared and readied to snap at my quetzal.

And Leia closed her jaws on her old friend’s neck.

I stopped scrambling for a second. Leia had managed to roll herself over. The other spino went still as stone, and Leia held fast.

Reality surged back into me. “No, Leia!” I shouted. “Don’t kill it!”

She froze, then slumped. Whatever energy she’d somehow found was fading fast. I staggered over to her and touched her knee.

My eyes closed. My senses narrowed. I pinpointed my sense of her. The bond was faint, but it was there.

I was really getting the hang of this.

“Channel language,” I said, more from habit than anything—but the command worked. When I turned and spoke to the entrapped spinosaur, my words came out in rumbles.

Me big. You small. Acknowledge, or die.

The spinosaur tensed for a moment—then fell still.

I stared in amazement as its eyes landed on me, its gaze submissive and calm. It blinked slowly, and Malcolm gave a joyous caw.

I had not one spinosaur, but two of them. The biggest dinos around.

But there was always a bigger dinosaur. Always.

I smiled at the sky. Bring it on.

Chapter 42

Orion and Finch

I SPENT the next hour wrist-deep in poultice and blood, praying the whole time that there wasn’t a third surprise spinosaur lurking in the depths of Spine Lake.

Leia was an easy fix, for now; her shoulder wound took a bandage wrap and a hunk of poultice, and my healers could deal with the rest when they got here. Spinosaur Number Two was another story. He had a hole in his lung with water and blood leaking out of it, and he struggled to breathe. His wheezes were harsh enough to blow me off my feet.

But he let me work on him, with no complaints. I still couldn’t believe I had caught him. One male, one female... the real mother lode. I’d be raising my own herd of spinos in no time.

I made him roll this way and that so that all the water could drain out of him. Once I was satisfied that I’d done my best, I poulticed him up as well as I could, then sewed him shut with an oversized dino needle. I’d had it made from the little chunk of Metal I’d found at the ill-fated drop site. One of our tribe had been a jeweler in a past life, and she’d somehow found a way to fashion the stuff. It was a little bent and very burnt, but it worked. When I was finished, the wheezing had stopped. My healers could sort out the rest.

I patted the spinosaur on his belly. “You can roll over now,” I said, stepping back. He rolled onto his stomach with a groan.

“Huh. You can understand me without an official domestication?” I asked, but true to form, the spinosaur didn’t answer.

To Leia, I said, “Tell him not to go back in the water, or he’ll drown.” My sewing job wasn’t going to hold up if he went back in the lake.

Leia looked at me and gave a small, disdainful noise.

“What?” I said, spreading my hands.

She only turned her head, every movement laborious, and groaned and rumbled at her nest-mate. Number Two lowered his head in submission, happy enough to rest. A part of me considered keeping the name Number Two. He’d certainly been a shithead to me.

Overhead, a distant caw announced Malcolm’s arrival. That meant he’d delivered my message home about ten minutes ago, so people would arrive here within the hour to set up watch around the spinos until they were recovered enough to make the trek home.

Until then, I’d hold vigil over my prizes. These guys were sitting ducks for any hungry raptor packs that passed by, but they were smart enough to stay quiet and not moan and groan. Now that the immediate threat of death had passed, I made the rounds around the two enormous beasts, giving them a closer inspection. They seemed young, but well past juvenile age, so they wouldn’t die of old age anytime soon. Scars littered their yellowish, spotted hides, and Number Two was still bleeding from his damaged back webbing. I hoped that webbing wasn’t necessary for his survival. I didn’t think it was going to grow back.

Once I was satisfied that the webbing was the last injury, I took my obelisk and said, “Bioscan.” This pulled up Number Two’s stats:

Species: Spinosaurus: Sex: Female

Age: 4.18 sun rotations.

Weight: 40.2 Zexa

Rarity Value: 88.160

Efficiency Value: 82.07% of species

I gaped at the stats. Then I cursed.

“You’re a girl?” I said, and behind me, Leia made that disapproving noise again. I turned to her. “You two are the same age. Is she your sister?”

Leia grunted in assent. I swore again. I don’t know where I got the idea that Number Two was a male. Looks like I wasn’t going to be rolling in spino babies after all.

“Some sister she is,” I huffed. “The bitch tried to murder you.”

Leia rolled her head, a bit like a dog shaking water off. It might be her dino equivalent of “Predators gonna predator.”

I turned back around, and a glint of light in the sand caught my eye. “Well, we’ll find you a male somewhere,” I said, walking toward the glittering object. “Or you’ll bring one to us. If you’re brood-mates, you should go into heat at about the same time.”

When I got close, I found my crown in the sand near the water’s edge. It must have fallen off during my tussle with Leia. I plopped it on my head, where it settled comfortably. The thing had helped me out several times now, and I tended to forget I was wearing it until I needed it. Still, I made a mental note to protect it in situations where I knew I’d be moving around a lot.

With my job done for now, I went and sat on Number Two’s foreleg. I looked into her eyes, and she looked back. She wasn’t domesticated, not via the alien’s tech. She still had free will. She could still kill me if she wanted.

“I think I’m going to make you my main mount,” I said. I doubted anyone else would trust her, even if the tribe had warmed up to raptors of late. “You’ll keep me on my toes, won’t you? Hmm. Let me give you a name.”

She watched me without judgment, more curious than anything. I think she was just as mystified as I was to find herself submitting to something so small.

I chuckled. Something small, but enormous, big enough to change her world. I remembered a movie where an entire galaxy had hung around a housecat’s neck. And the housecat’s name... what was it....

“I’ll call you Orion,” I said. She grunted, neither liking it nor disliking it. I sighed and glanced back toward the settlement. Speaking of names, I thought. I can’t keep calling it “the settlement.” We have a second camp now, and it’ll only get confusing. We’re permanent here. We should act like it.

“Prosperity,” I said. “Our capital city will be called Prosperity, and the outpost will be Peace. As long as everyone agrees, anyway.” I wasn’t a tyrant, even with naming things.

A chime sounded, and I sat up straight. Even Orion perked up.

“Atticus?” I said, as a shield came up around me and a lizard-man materialized, formed by blue light.

“The Empire game-servant you call Atticus has been detained for re-education,” the Empire lackey said formally. “You may call me Finch.”

I blinked. Well, that was a name choice. The alien probably thought it was just as impressive as Atticus was since they were both from the same character’s name. These guys really didn’t understand us.

Someday, I’d use that against them.

“You said Atticus was detained?” I said. “Why?”

“For interfering in the Game.”

I stood up, my hands balled into fists. “What do you mean? He didn’t even do anything!” Last I’d known, Atticus had been warning me not to do something with Lindiwe. I still wasn’t sure what it was, but fighting her had definitely been a challenge. I figured that’s what he’d meant.

“Game-servants cannot give advice. They can only make offers. Those are the rules,” the stiff said. “Otherwise, they might profit from insider trading and—how you say—being a bookie? Yes.”

So by giving me hints, he makes it more likely that I’ll win, and therefore he can place bets on me? I suppose that made sense, but Atticus didn’t seem the betting type.

“Will he be coming back? Is he all right?”

I asked this because, of all the rod-up-the-ass lizards I’d met so far, Atticus was by far the least annoying. I almost enjoyed speaking to him. No—scratch that. He was my friend.

Friends with an alien. Damn. How the turns have tabled, I thought. Meanwhile, the alien said, “Perhaps. Re-education takes as long as it takes.”

Re-education. I didn’t like the sound of that.

“Well, okay... why are you here, then? Come to shower me with spinosaur points?”

“Yes. You are not the first tribe to domesticate a spinosaur, or even two of them, but you are the first to domesticate one without a domestication charge. The viewers are very impressed. You have been awarded a prize: the location of the silver Metal mine nearest you. It will now appear on your topography scans.”

I very nearly looked right now but held myself back. I was hardly in a position to hunt for the mine right this second.

Besides, Finch’s lizard lips were stretching backward in what I’d learned was a patronizing smile. Atticus never smiled that way, because he wasn’t a dick.

“This leaves only two more Metal mines to be discovered,” he said. “And only five months to discover them, before the Dasku come to call.”

I ran my arm across my nose, itching it, hiding my scowl. These guys were really hammering this Metal quest home. Something else was going on, I could sense it.

“Noted,” I said. Then I pointed upward. “So, what’s with the bubble?” The aliens didn’t normally bother with shielding unless they were up to something. I noted that Malcolm was beyond the bubble, out of reach of me. I was the only human inside this thing.

Finch’s eye twitched. “The bubble will be standard practice from now on. It’s just procedure.”

Oh, yeah. There was definitely something going on here.

“Well, okay then. Anything else?”

He looked unsettled as if he could sense I didn’t buy his story. “Yes,” he said, but the word was a little too bright. “Yes you will receive advance notice of the next drop, to commemorate your achievement.”

Commemorate, my ass, I thought. Whatever was in the next drop, they wanted me to have it. Mark my words: the stuff was going to seem tailored to Tribe Grant. I was going to get advance notice either way.

So he was distracting me. Turning my attention away. Whatever. I’d play his game.

“Sounds good,” I said, waggling my fingers at him. “Tally ho, then.”

He stared at me for a moment, then vanished with a chime. Bastard didn’t even say Have a nice day.

Malcolm screeched from high above, and I hailed him, feeling tired. The fighting, the surviving, the mystery, and the politics... it could really take a lot out of a man. For the next forty or so minutes, I could rest on Malcolm’s feathers while he kept watch on the clearing for me.

But when I got back to camp, I’d be the guy with the crown again. I’d have to figure out what these aliens were up to, and I’d have to decide what we were going to do next.

Chapter 43

Knowledge is Power

THE REST OF THE DAY, I played catch-up, giving commands until I lost my voice. Sayuri dogged me the entire time, listing off decisions I had to make and announcements I missed during the few days I was asleep.

Blinking hard and trying to recoup some energy, I knocked on the stone-and-clay wall of the dwelling my wife had just led me to.

“The hundredth one, you say? We should mark it somehow.”

Sayuri scribbled something on her clipboard beside me. Two assistants now hovered behind her, one of them a petite, skittish woman from the Nomads. Sayuri said she used to be an archivist. I was just glad she’d gotten herself some help.

“I’ll have it engraved,” she said, “same time as we mark the boulder with Prosperity’s new name at the city entrance.”

“What about excavating more dwellings?” I asked.

She nodded. “We plan to, but we want to consult a geologist first.”

“What? Since when?”

She looked up and cocked her head, a few black bangs framing her face. She’d taken to tying her hair back lately, and it gave her an erudite look that I found erotic. Sexy librarian and all that.

“It was Nadiyya’s suggestion,” she said. “The way the underground river was set into the mountain like it was ready to blow, made her suspicious. She thinks the aliens tamper with the environment to make for better entertainment.”

“Ah. So she’s afraid an excavation into the mountain could flood us if we carve into the wrong spot?”

“Or bring the mountain down on us, yes.”

I slapped the wall of our hundredth dwelling and moved on. I didn’t know the names of the new owners, which were drawn by lot. I knew less and less of my tribespeople personally as time went on. We had hit 800 people when the Nomads integrated into our ranks.

“It’s just as likely they’ve hidden treasure in there too,” I said, taking Sayuri’s lead and heading toward the southern side of the cliff face. “Treasure makes for good television, or whatever they watch us on. Yeah, we can try to find a geologist.” Like Arvor, I didn’t say. “Or some sort of scanning tech. The next drop is going to be tailored to us somehow—at least, I think it is. Maybe they’ll throw that in there.”

I said it aloud, hoping the new guy the new game servant, or whatever he called himself—would send me a treat to make me forget how suspicious he’d been.

Sayuri made a swish on her board. She was using charcoal now, on slate, since our paper had run out. She converted relevant notes to leaves when she got home at night, etching them with the tip of a pen knife. We should really learn how to make paper, I thought. That, and a thousand other things.

“Carl completed his ptera-carriage, so he says,” Sayuri told me. “Now he’s working on using the sulfur for projectiles. He says there’s a chemist over at his outpost—I mean, over at Peace—who wants to help.”

Peace—that was the new name for the sulfur outpost, our second settlement. That put a lot of expectations on whatever our third town would be. A place called Power would really need to be impressive.

“Good,” I said. “Fresh, advanced weapons never go amiss, even if we are in peacetime. Has the messenger left?”

I’d sent a flier to Archie to alert him to the treachery and demise of the Nomads, and to let him know his so-called daughter was safe and sound. Cole had suggested I add that last bit, for politics. I personally didn’t think Archie gave a damn about Nadiyya.

We were just about to reach the part of the settlement where the mountain’s base was lost to the forest, and I whistled as we rounded a huge pile of gravel.

“Damn, Sai. You’ve been busy.”

Here, the cliff face was more sprawling than sheer, so there wasn’t any danger in excavating it. And excavate was what Sayuri had done. Bertha had clearly taken time off from road-building to uproot a whole host of trees, which were being carted away by our new hadrosaurs. This left space for Sayuri to excavate the farm terraces that had so excited her. They were carved like giant steps into the mountain.

“We’ve got to fill them with soil yet,” she said. “And, Alan... I think it’s time we work on a real defensive wall. A single person could slip through and poison us once these farms are in use.”

“Good point. Make it happen,” I said. I’d been putting off the construction of a real wall for some time, opting for pointed tree trunks stuck into the ground and whatever pokeyball insta-defenses the aliens had granted us. But now that Spine Lake was spinosaur-free, we had easy access to plenty of clay.

A new idea struck me. “But build dwellings into the walls as you go. More long-houses. The one we have is more than crowded.” We already had a tent city within a city, and even if a geologist cleared us to build into the mountain, the crowding problem was going to remain.

“Make every structure do double duty. Good idea,” Sayuri said.

I peered off down the trail of spilled gravel. “How’s the road going?”

“Apace,” she said. “But it’ll still take weeks to even clear it to Britonia’s borders, much less smooth it over and pave it.”

Someone was walking up the road toward us, and she waved. It was Nadiyya.

“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe we should pause that work before winter.”

“Don’t tell her that,” Sayuri warned me. “She still wants Archie dead.”

I pressed my lips together. I still planned to do that, for myself as much as Nadiyya. But I wanted to do it without starting a war with Britonia, and that would take politicking that I had yet to learn.

At the same time, maybe I should give up the plan. We had only five months to survive winter and find all the Metal deposits....

No. I promised Nadiyya.

My newest wife strode closer, but she was still out of earshot. “Do you think I made a good choice, Sayuri?” I asked.

“Choice? Which one?”

“Choosing Nadiyya.”

Sayuri sniffed. “You didn’t choose her. You were strong-armed into taking her off some asshole’s hands... but I am glad you did. She’s really smart about people.”

I blinked, my brain catching on to the phrase You didn’t choose her.

“Did you know she’s been talking to Carmila and Dimitri?” Sayuri continued. “That woman’s been giving them spy tips. I swear she has an eidetic memory.”

“What do you mean, I didn’t choose her?”

Sayuri must have noticed the change in my voice because she turned her focus back to me. “Well, you didn’t. It was a political marriage. The two of you haven’t even slept together—don’t worry, we keep that private,” she added, meaning my wives let people think that Nadiyya and I were intimate.

That was beside the point, though. I cocked my head, unsure if my next question crossed a line or not.

“Look, Sai... you’re not saying I still have my birthday choice, are you?”

She squinted at me, then chuckled. “What, five not enough for you?” She laughed, but it was a sound of good humor. “Of course, it isn’t. You can’t even be satisfied with one spinosaur. Oh no, Alan Winchester needs two.”

My chest swelled. Nadiyya hadn’t counted? I could still choose another woman. Anyone I wanted?

My mind wandered somewhere that surprised me. Ebony skin, and thick muscle, and a smile like burnt edges—

I cleared my throat and turned around. “Any one of you would be enough for me. It’s you ladies that decided one wasn’t enough.”

“I can’t deny there’s truth in that statement,” Sai said seriously, just as Nadiyya reached us.

“Hey, Alan. Sayuri,” Nadiyya said. She paused awkwardly a few feet away, then blurted, “I was hoping to talk to you both about something. Privately. Are you free anytime soon?”

My mind immediately shot to the last time I’d seen them both privately when Nadiyya had walked in on... too much.

“Uh,” I croaked. “That depends. Sai?”

She consulted her board. “That about wraps up the itinerary for now. But can we meet on Bertha? There’s still something I want to show you, and her back-saddle offers privacy.”

Nadiyya glanced my way. “That works for me.”

I inclined my head and turned, searching out the nearest deinonychus. Investigator had the new dog-sized predators delivering food and messages and doing any number of other odd jobs throughout the day. Between her mindraptor powers and her bond to me, she was proving incredibly useful. I could also swear she was taking on some of my human intelligence. Seems the bonding tech went both ways.

When I caught sight of a nycho dropping an unfamiliar fruit in front of a woman taking notes, I shouted “Hey, you!” in raptor.

As a relative to raptors, the nycho snapped its head toward me.

“Come,” I commanded.

“God, it’s crazy how you can do that,” Nadiyya breathed, as the little doglike dino trotted up to us.

I knelt in front of it. “Big lady. Come here now. Go tell.”

The nycho gave a pleased little yip and hurried off to find Bertha. Bertha had spent enough time around raptors by now for her to get the jist of what the nycho said. Even if she didn’t, her minders all rode raptors. The message would get where it needed to go.

I turned back around. “So what’s this about?” I asked Nadiyya.

Her brown cheeks turned rosy. “It’s not what you think.”

My own face went unexpectedly hot. “That doesn’t answer the question,” I replied, keeping my voice firm and even. Nadiyya and I were all business. I had to respect that.

“It’s... about the Nomads,” she said. “And the aliens. And everything.”

I locked eyes with Sayuri. If she’s been talking with Carmila and Dimitri....

“I don’t want to talk here,” Nadiyya reminded us. “But... I think you understand what I’m getting at. Knowledge is power, and we don’t have enough of it. That has to change if we’re going to make the top ten in time.”

I considered that for a moment, looking back over the new terraced excavations. If I hadn’t figured out Jasper’s secret in time... if I hadn’t sussed out Arvor’s location... none of the people working that farm would still be alive. Or if they were, they’d be much worse off for it.

I had to protect them, and protection could no longer be attained from a simple shield and spear. We’d come a long way from our days wandering the jungle, fucking like animals and trying not to get eaten. My hand drifted to Neon, its unactivated handle on my hip. It was a great weapon, but it wouldn’t solve all our problems.

No, from now on we needed intelligence beyond scouting. We needed a spy ring, and a very, very good one.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s meet Bertha halfway.”

We had some planning to do.

Chapter 44

Queen of Spies

BY THE TIME we made it onto Bertha’s back, the sun graced the horizon, bathing Prosperity in fiery color. From the dwellings to the north to the irrigation lines along the main basin, to the dino pens in all their glorious variety... to the mountain longhouse, the waterfall and showers... to the rice fields, down a slope from the dino pasture where the reservoir now drained when the sluice gate was up... and finally to the new terraces and the road running out from them—all of it lit up in oranges and pinks and golds, vibrant and alive. An old line from a kid’s movie echoed in my mind: Everything the light touches. This felt the same.

“Look there,” Sayuri said, next to me, leaning out over the railing of Bertha’s saddle. “The city center—the Square, they’re calling it.”

“Looks like an octagon to me.”

She slapped my shoulder. “Oh, be serious. Look.”

And I looked.

Below us, my people had constructed stalls to separate different jobs, with workers cooking meat and sorting roots and drying banana leaves at different tables. I’d seen the place before, of course, but it seemed more bustling than usual. Soon, I figured out why.

“There are more dinos,” I said. “Especially raptors.”

“Exactly,” Sayuri replied.

Where before the Square had been populated exclusively by people, it now sported wider trails and the lumbering movements of ankylosaurs. Hadrosaurs dragged materials in, and nychos and micro-raptors passed those materials along to the humans at the tables, who gave the dinos treats in return. Once any human-made products were completed, raptors picked them up in packages and delivered them to storage, easily dodging everyone else to keep their cargo intact.

Wilder yet, babies cried in the midst of all this. A few kids toddled around. One even petted a nycho—an undomesticated deinonychus—and his mother watched, but didn’t call him away.

“They trust the dinos. They really trust them,” I breathed.

Sayuri bumped her shoulder to mine. “It’s all because of you.”

I snorted and shoved back from the railing. “You can’t go giving me credit for everything. We discovered the bond tech during the nycho debacle. I had clues before then, but it was you ladies who extrapolated from what was happening, and figured it all out. You all know more about the everyday goings-on in Prosperity. It would have taken me months to catch the difference, but you saw it right away.”

Sayuri fell silent, probably searching for ways to make this my win, and not hers.

“Come on, Sai. Just take the compliment.”

She smiled, almost shy now. “All right.”

Behind us, Nadiyya cleared her throat. “This bond,” she said, as we turned around. “It could be more useful than we realize. Dinos can go places we can’t... especially micro-raptors. Those things are like rats in this era... or pigeons. No one bothers to notice them, or even kill them.”

I nodded. “So this spy ring you’re proposing... it would make use of micro-raptors?”

“And bufos, and smaller fliers. But really, we’ll want someone bonded to at least one of every type of dino. Each of them has useful traits.”

She made a good point, as expected, and she was so beautiful as she delivered it. Her face was earnest and smooth, her hazel eyes vibrantly intelligent. Everything about her was sharp, except for her shape, and her chin. She made me think of chocolate, the good kind, the fair-trade stuff with salt in it. A rare candy that never tasted the same twice.

I shook myself and shifted my gaze past her wind-tossed long hair. My attraction to her was definitely getting out of hand. Better to focus on the road stretching into the distance, falling into shadow as the sun slips away.

“I’ll officially name you my Britonian ambassador tomorrow,” I said. “That will come with privileges. You’ll have all the authority you’ll need to form this spy ring in secret.”

She inclined her head. “Thank you, Alan. And Sayuri.”

Sayuri gave a formal Japanese bow of respect. “I appreciate you letting me in on the secret.”

“I had to. You’re the coordinator of pretty much everything,” Nadiyya said with a smile. “Honestly, it’s kinda... um.”

I could almost feel the heat off her cheeks again. Was she about to say, It’s kinda hot”?

My throat dried with jealousy. Nadiyya had a crush on Sayuri, not me. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. I knew I didn’t like it, but I wasn’t sure why. Maybe it felt like cheating? I don’t know.

“So. What will be the first project of this spy ring?” I croaked out. Shit. I couldn’t even hide my feelings in my voice.

Good thing Nadiyya was still in business mode. She met my eyes and crossed her arms.

“The fliers,” she said.

I blinked. “The new spy team’s fliers?”

“No, the flight team that our enemies have been using,” she said. “You saw evidence of fliers at the site of Eric’s death. And a flight team had to be necessary to get information about the reservoir and about the specific location of your wedding house, for them to drill to it. Our hostages could listen, sure, but they couldn’t see much. So Jasper had fliers, but we don’t know where they are.”

Nodding, I said, “He had Metal too. And we didn’t find much of that in his stuff.”

“The Nomads’ stores are still being cataloged,but yes,” Sayuri put in. “It didn’t seem like Jasper controlled a mine of his own, given the state of his equipment and his nomadic lifestyle.”

All true. “So we need to find the fliers. And the mine.”

“Precisely,” Nadiyya said. “And also, Archie’s weaknesses. I didn’t see enough when I lived there, cooped up as I was. I’ll need more eyes on the inside.”

This again. Her preoccupation with destroying her stepfather had me worried. “Nadiyya—”

“And before you say it, consider this: Archie met with Jasper before he met with you. He said as much. And he has Metal. What if Jasper got Metal from him? What if those fliers were Archie’s?”

I scoffed. “Archie hates dinos.”

“What if he wants you to think that?” she said. “Look, I know that asshole personally. He’s more than capable of subterfuge. He cheated on my mother constantly, and she never knew it.

“But I knew it,” she went on. “I’ve seen him play his games.” She straightened and scowled at me, which made my heart sink. “But go ahead, don’t believe me. I’ll just prove it to you with facts. Smart guys like you still listen to facts.”

With that, she turned on her heel and stormed off to the other side of Bertha’s saddle. I sighed. I’d have to talk to her. I did trust her, completely, but I knew what it was like to be so laser-focused that you didn’t see the answer right in front of you.

For the moment, I’d let her cool off. I leaned over the edge of Bertha’s saddle, watching the forest lazily pass us by. The moon was rising now, and it was enormous, bigger than I’d ever seen it. Had the aliens affected the moon’s position, too? Or had they changed the atmosphere to magnify the heavenly body somehow?

Sayuri leaned against the wooden railing and nudged my shoulder with hers. “Penny for your thoughts?” she said.

“The Empire,” I replied. “Atticus getting punished, and that shield being standard practice now... something is going on in the sky.”

“Nadiyya will figure it out, mark my words,” Sayuri said, slipping an arm around my lower back. “Would you just look at that moon?”

I followed her gaze. “Makes you feel small, doesn’t it? In a good way.”

The soft wind blew her hair back, and her eyes closed as the moonlight washed over her pale face. She smiled as if drinking in the feeling of that light. I loved moments like this, where she put down her clipboard and allowed herself to be human for a while.

“They feel so far away, down here,” she said. “The Empire. The Dasku. All our big-picture responsibilities.”

And our ship, I thought ruefully. I couldn’t help but wonder if we’d really make the top ten. But we’d made the top hundred, and that was the first step. We could only take this one step at a time.

I reached my arm across her shoulders and pulled Sayuri close. “That reminds me. I don’t thank you enough for all you do,” I said, kissing her forehead.

She sighed and turned into me, pressing her lips to mine. “Just be a good father when our children come. That’s all you need to do to thank me.”

I grinned and kissed her back, harder. “I can think of other ways. We did get cut short last time, after all.”

Her gaze deepened as she considered it, but then her eyes deflected to Nadiyya. The woman’s slim form stood at the front of the traveling saddle, facing away from us, like a shadow that held back the wind.

“Oh,” Sayuri said. “Then I suppose we should ask her to leave.”

I glanced between them. “Hmm. Let me try something.”

Letting go of Sayuri, I strode over to Nadiyya and stood at a respectful distance beside her. “Nadiyya?” I asked.

She started with a jerk as if I’d woken her up from a dream. She looked at me with that same frightened bird look from when she’d caught me coming all over Missy.

“Hey,” I said. “I just wanted to make it clear... I don’t trust Archie, either. I just need proof before I go starting wars.” I smiled. “Assassination might not end in war, though. Not if our new spy ring does it right.”

Nadiyya blinked, the moon catching in the orbs of her eyes. At night, it was impossible to tell their color. Hazel, with a little extra gray....

Finally, her shoulders dropped, all the tension draining out of her. “Thank you, Alan. You’re right. I can’t have tunnel vision.” She offered a dazzling half smile, raising her eyes to mine. It was almost flirtatious, the way she fluttered her eyelashes up at me.

Lords damn me, but I wanted my wife.

Here goes nothing, I thought, nodding back to Sayuri. She waited for me, wringing her hands. Perhaps she guessed what I planned to do.

“Me and Sai, we were thinking we’d have a little fun up here. Still a ways before we get where we’re going, and Bertha has a nice sort of sway to her. Besides, it’s getting chilly.”

Nadiyya blinked again, then took a step back. “Oh. Oh, I can leave, then.”

I moved closer to her, trying not to seem imposing as I did it. “Or—you can stay,” I replied.

A long silence sang between us, a melody of quiet.

“I like you, Nadiyya. I think that’s obvious,” I finally said, sliding my hand closer to her along the railing. “Sayuri likes you too. A lot. She has desires that I can’t satisfy, if you know what I mean.”

Nadiyya swallowed, reaching up to grip the top of her dress, pinching it closed over her cleavage. “I don’t think you’re right about that. She’s very satisfied... I mean, very. She’s, ah... she’s told me about it.”

Now it was my turn to blink, to deal with butterflies in my gut. Have my wives been trying to convince her?

“Still,” I rasped. “We could try... something. If you want a little release.”

Nadiyya looked away from me, tucking a whipping strand of hair behind her ear. “Are you asking me to go to bed with you?” she said.

I tried to measure my words, then gave up, shrugging one shoulder. “I’m asking you to do what feels right to you. You’re a part of my family now. We love each other in this family. Sayuri and I want to love you however you want to be loved.” I paused, hoping to hammer home my final point. “Even if that means I leave you alone.”

The wind blew as Bertha swayed. Her enormous foot came down with a boom, like the heartbeat of the night. Leaves rustled in the canopy along the roadside. We were so high up, so apart from it all.

Nadiyya breathed out slowly, then dropped her hand from her collar. The top of her dress fell open, revealing just the hint of the top of her breasts.

“I haven’t done this in a long time. With a woman,” she added sharply.

The message was clear: you aren’t invited.

I was okay with that. Okay, I wasn’t, because it sucked. But I could still try to convince her. I had all the time in the world. After all, she was my wife.

Without asking, I took her hand, sliding my fingers gently between hers. She allowed it, which I thought was a good sign. I remembered that she used to be engaged to a woman, back in Old Earth. This was going to be emotional for her. If we threw a cock in the mix, that would make things worse.

I wonder if she’s even had a man before? Yeah, that question wasn’t helping.

We reached Sayuri, who glanced between us, looking for confirmation that this was happening. I nodded to her. This was already awkward.

“Should we... ah... find a blanket?” Nadiyya stammered.

I rolled my eyes—not at her, but at the whole situation. I let go of her hand and gave her a gentle shove toward Sayuri.

“Go on. Kiss her,” I said. “Fuck the blankets.”

And Nadiyya turned to Sayuri and leaned in.

Chapter 45

I Like You, Too

THE TWO WOMEN regarded each other, their noses close together, loose locks of hair flitting against both their cheeks.

Then they both closed their eyes, and they kissed.

Wow, that was stiff, I thought. The only part of their bodies that had touched were their lips.

“Like this,” I said, grabbing Sayuri by the waist. I dipped her, and she gave a sexy little “eek!” before I ate the word right out of her mouth. My tongue met hers, forceful and hungry. She responded in kind, her arms sweeping around me, her fingers digging into my hair.

I righted her and pushed her against the railing, never breaking the kiss. My cock hardened for her, pressing against the heat beneath her hadro-skin trousers. I slid the button through her pants with one hand, keeping her tight against me with the other. When her trousers loosened around her hips, I switched sides to kiss her deeper. Then I pulled away to trail heavy kisses down her neck.

“Oh, Alan... how do you do this to me....”

I reached her collarbone with my mouth, and suddenly all the patience went out of me. I felt like I used to feel in those first prehistoric days when the aphrodisiacs in the food consumed my whole mind. My mouth found the top of her breast, and I bit into it and gripped her neckline. I yanked her shirt off, and the threading tore.

She cried out, a half-moan, and I took her nipple between my lips while my other hand dipped into her pants. She wore nothing beneath it, as panties basically hadn’t been invented yet. My fingers slicked across her wet lips, then curled into her. I rubbed her clit as I French-kissed her tits.

Heat surged around my fingers. I nearly took her right there. But this wasn’t a two-person trolley. We were all on this ride.

I stood back to my full height, breathing hard, letting go of Sayuri’s pussy. She melted back against the railing, both tits to the wind now, her torn shirt loose around her shoulders and arms.

I turned to Nadiyya, and I felt wild like I was capable of very naughty things. “That’s how you do it,” I said, shoving my hand down my own pants. “Now fucking do it, before I take her myself.”

Nadiyya’s eyes dashed between us, and I felt sure she’d back away, or run, or start stammering again. Instead, her face went hard, battle-hard. It was the face of a raptor rider meeting a T-Rex head-on

Sayuri barely had time to look at her before Nadiyya’s mouth was on hers.

The woman went crazy, and so did my hand. Nadiyya’s kiss wasn’t just one kiss, but dozens in succession, fierce things that tilted Sayuri’s head back and forth, exploring every corner of her mouth. Sayuri moaned at the attention, and Nadiyya gripped her right breast and squeezed. Sayuri’s nipple rolled between her angry fingers. She broke free of their kiss and moaned.

Nadiyya let her lover escape, and then she copied what I’d shown her in her own way. She devoured her way down Sayuri’s neck, leaving red marks that would be obvious come tomorrow. I caught myself stroking harder when she sucked a nipple between her teeth. One beautiful woman doing that to another... I had to slow my strokes, or I might come just from this.

Sayuri let loose a cry as Nadiyya thrust a hand into her pants. The fabric fell, revealing the front of Sayuri’s sex, with that delicate hand pulsing underneath it, making wet noises between her thighs.

“Alan,” Sayuri breathed, the word ragged with want. I looked up to see her gazing at me through barely-open eyes. “Come here... let me,” she said.

I didn’t need to be told twice. As Nadiyya kissed a moist, moonlit path down Sayuri’s stomach, I stepped up next to her. Sayuri reached into my pants with one hand, the other barely keeping her upright against the railing.

“Kiss me,” she exhaled. Then she stroked.

I gripped her by the neck with one hand and kissed the side of her throat until she shuddered. Her hand went at me clumsily, because the angle was bad—but Nadiyya’s head was so damned close to my cock that I was halfway to coming already.

“I want you,” Sayuri said. “I want—”

Her voice was lost to a strangled cry, her head thrown back. I jerked back and looked down to see one of Sayuri’s legs hooked over Nadiyya’s shoulder, and Nadiyya was....

Oh fuck, this was hot.

Sayuri breathed rhythmically, matching Nadiyya’s bobbing head to her hand movements. With my free hand, I shoved my pants away. I wanted to see my cock next to Nadiyya, even if she’d never suck it herself.

Sayuri suddenly let go of my shaft and gripped Nadiyya by the hair, pulling her off. There was a wet smack as tongue left pussy, and Nadiyya looked up.

Her eyes shot to my dick.

Sayuri still had her by the hair. She pushed Nadiyya toward me. Hopeful curse worse pounded through me, in time to my heartbeat. Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.

“I need it wet,” Sayuri said. “Make it wet for me.”

Nadiyya glanced up, and my lords, I almost came when she met my eyes. Her expression was unreadable, but when she leaned forward, it wasn’t because Sayuri had forced her. When her mouth opened on the tip of my head—

I made a sound I’d never heard out of my own mouth before, and my cock slid over her tongue and down her tight throat.

Holy dino balls, this was good. I watched her sweet mouth draw away, her lips brown against my paler flesh. Then she opened her mouth a bit wider, swirling her tongue along the soft ridge of my head. It was a savory taste, exploratory. She sucked me down one more time.

Then she pulled off again, paused, and returned to Sayuri. Why had she paused? Did she want to keep going?

Sayuri gripped me before I had time to miss Nadiyya, and now her strokes were slicker, riding Nadiyya’s saliva. I kissed Sayuri on the mouth, turning my hips to give her a better angle.

“I want you,” she blurted between kisses.

“I know.”

“Only you. You know that, right?”

I did know it. Sayuri barely knew Nadiyya, and this was just something fun to try. Or at least it was supposed to be. I personally wanted my dick back in Nadiyya’s mouth.

Sayuri suddenly jerked back and cried out, very nearly falling off the railing. I had to grab her and haul her back, and that moment proved how precarious our entire setup had been because it toppled me and Sayuri both.

We fell in a heap, where she clung to me, moaning. Nadiyya crawled over the top of her stomach and stared down.

“You like that, do you? Well, it’s your turn,” Nadiyya said.

Hot damn. Where was this dominator coming from? She could fuck my wives in front of me any day.

I sat up just as Sayuri’s hand fumbled for my cock again. I fought for focus, reaching for the bottom hem of Nadiyya’s dress.

She saw me making the move, and once again, she met my eyes. I tried to express all my want for her wordlessly as I pulled the supple leather into my hand, and began to lift it up off her thighs.

Straddling Sayuri as she was, it took only a few moments for the dress to reveal her slim thighs, rounded nicely across Sayuri’s stomach. Next came her sex, just the front, her two main lips barely visible over Sayuri’s navel. The two women were intimately skin-to-skin.

I rose onto my hands and knees and leaned closer to pull off the rest of her dress. She breathed out, long and low, as it went over her head. Her tits hung free, bigger than I’d expected. She always wore such tight clothes, and such high collars, but she was anything but modest underneath.

I pressed a hand to her shoulder while Sayuri kept stroking me. “Lie down,” I told Nadiyya, and she did.

Fuck, I thought as I glimpsed the wet between her thighs. But she didn’t spread her legs. It wasn’t an invitation, not yet.

I gripped Sayuri by the hair and said, “Make my wife come.”

Sayuri nodded as she let me fling her forward. Now Nadiyya did spread her legs, those smooth, unmarked thighs opening to either side of Sayuri’s sex-tossed hair.

With Sai’s hand no longer on my cock, I felt lonely and ready. I positioned Sayuri in front of me, raising her ass to cock-height. I rose onto my knees and gripped her by the hips.

I pulled her onto me. I pulled myself into her.

Groaning, I let the feeling linger, let her pussy-muffled moan echo through my mind. There was still a faint pulse inside her from the orgasm, and she was wetter than she’d ever been. After all, we were servicing both sides of her sexuality. She was getting double the pleasure, tonight.

I pulled out and back in, my gaze dropping to watch her sex close around me. At that instant, Bertha landed a massive step on the gravel road, and I groaned as the vibration rocketed through my cock.

After that, I took every chance to make use of Bertha’s movements to get as deep in my wife as I could. Oddly enough, Nadiyya began to moan a minute later, gasping in the same rhythm as my thrusts. At first, it merely felt natural—but then I realized that Sayuri must be timing her ministrations to mine. I thrust harder, and Nadiyya moaned in response. I thrust faster, and Sayuri sucked harder.

I looked past her bobbing head, into Nadiyya’s eyes. She had raised herself onto her arms, legs spread wide to take her pleasure, her breasts jiggling with the force of my cock. Sayuri transferred my power to Nadiyya and made her shake with it. It was almost like fucking her myself.

Nadiyya bit her lip, hissing air in through her teeth. She gripped her own breast and fell back, but she still watched me. I watched her.

We fucked that way for a full minute, but it felt like seconds. My knees cracked as my pleasure spilled over the edge, and I started hammering into Sayuri, trying to get as much enjoyment from her body as I could before the orgasm ended for me.

“I’m gonna come,” Nadiyya cried suddenly. “Oh, fuck, I’m coming!”

She fell flat to her back, both her hands twisting her nipples viciously, and her legs closed tight around Sayuri’s head. Those tits rose up as she arched her back, reacting to the pleasure. “Yes, oh God yes, Alan....”

At the sound of my name, my body jerked, and I cursed as my orgasm caught me totally by surprise. Sayuri broke free of Nadiyya’s pussy to moan into her navel, her head still locked between Nadiyya’s thighs.

“Yeah, you like that?” I rasped, spurting hard as all hells. I kept thrusting, watching her ass jiggle until my cock had no choice but to pop out of her. White cum chased me out of her hole.

Sayuri flipped over, naked and used. Nadiyya closed her legs and breathed hard, not looking at me or at anything. Her whole body had a thin sheen of sweat.

“That was good,” I croaked out. “Really good. For you?”

Her hooded eyes finally drifted to mine. Her legs loosened, just a little. I could see the wet core of her, plain in the moonlight. She wanted me to see.

“That was good,” she murmured. “It’s been a long time.”

If I had still been hard, I would have made my move. But I wasn’t, so I didn’t. Damn it.

I debated whether or not to lie down next to Nadiyya, or next to Sayuri. There wasn’t really space in the middle of them, as Sayuri was now curled against Nadiyya, her hands roving over her tits. Nadiyya barely seemed to notice.

I chose to lie down next to her.

She didn’t pull away as my shoulder bumped hers, nor as I rose up on an elbow to look at her. She met my gaze unabashedly, the complete opposite of the shy woman she’d been only minutes ago.

“You’re really hot, you know that?” I said.

She did me the courtesy of laughing. “Yes. I know that.”

I hesitated, then let my free hand drift to her left breast. She closed her eyes as my fingertips brushed her hard nipple. Did she want me to stop, or was she closing her eyes to better enjoy it?

“Is it okay if I touch you like this?” I asked.

She made a noise in her throat, a sort of hmm. Then, she said, “If you put in a bit more force than that, yeah. I’m not the wilting flower that your other wives are.”

A smile shot across my face. It felt suddenly like broad daylight. I spread my fingers and cupped her whole boob.

Nadiyya did that thing again, biting her lip. I already knew that look was going to end me.

“If I were hard, you’d be in big trouble,” I said.

Her eyes opened again, and this time, her gaze was serious and clear. The tension of pleasure faded from her. She made to look away, to turn away, but I squeezed her breast, insistent. She saw the message in it and paused to look back at me.

“I’ll never do anything you don’t want, Nadiyya,” I said. “Ever. You do know that, right?”

The woman held my gaze for a long moment, her eyes gripping mine. I couldn’t have looked away if a quetzal swooped down on me and carried me off into the night.

“Yes,” she said finally. “Yes, I trust you. I just....”

“You said my name earlier,” I pointed out.

Nadiyya sighed. “Yeah. I did, didn’t I?”

Both of us were dancing around the real question. Bertha swayed beneath us like an old childhood swing.

“Give me time,” Nadiyya said. “I’m not sure about this. But I like you, and... well, I’m curious.”

I nodded. “Your pace. Whatever you want, Nadiyya.”

She chuckled. “You can stop saying that. I get it already.”

With the conversation ended, I lay flat beside her. My palm slid over her thigh, my fingertips inches from her sex. I didn’t go farther, and she didn’t push me away.

Give me time. I’m curious. It wasn’t a no.

I smiled to myself. I would make it a yes. A very loud one.

“I like you too, Nadiyya,” I whispered into her ear.

The three of us lay like that, all the way home.

Chapter 46

Only Power

THE THUD of heavy leather boots was my only warning before I woke up to find Lindiwe in my face.

“Get up, Mr. President,” she said. “We’ve got news from our flight team.” Her eyes zipped down. “Nice package, by the way.”

Then she left.

I sat up, still half-dazed from sleep. Bertha was no longer moving. She’d returned to her own personal clearing and was now happily munching on a pile of leaves that had been stripped off a gum tree and left for her.

With a grunt, I pulled myself into a crouch and grabbed my pants before standing up. I’d never even taken my shirt off last night. Beneath me, Sayuri mumbled in her sleep. Nadiyya rubbed her eyes, and I had to force myself not to drink in her naked body in the daylight.

“Kaity’s team found something,” I said.

Nadiyya’s face cleared instantly. As my ambassador and newly-minted spy coordinator, she would want to hear what Kaity or her underlings had to say.

As soon as I got my pants on, a puffing Jarod climbed over the railing near the ladder where Lindiwe waited, tapping her feet.

“Al... an...” he rasped.

I belted my pants. “I know. Lindiwe told me already.”

Jarod leaned over his knees. “Damn... she’s fast.”

“What can I say?” Lindiwe said. “I work out.”

By this point, Nadiyya had draped her dress down over herself again, and none too soon. I found I didn’t want Jarod to see her naked. He’d seen all my other wives at least half-naked, but ever since our bodies had grown used to the aphrodisiacs in the environment, everyone had gotten a little more modest. Honestly, I preferred it that way—so long as the modesty stopped in the bedroom.

“Lead the way,” I said, indicating the ladder. Lindiwe gave a short nod and flipped over the railing.

“Jarod, stay with Sai,” I said. When he nodded, still wheezing, I followed Lindiwe. Nadiyya kept close behind me.

We crossed Prosperity fast, stopping only when we reached Carmila and Dimitri’s house, which might as well be our temporary spy headquarters. Lindiwe knocked twice, paused, and then scraped the door loudly with a knuckle. She barked out a random word: “Bullwhip!”

The door opened. I assumed that had been a code of some kind, to get us into the building.

“Don’t bother memorizing it,” Lindiwe said over her shoulder. “I’m going to change it every time I leave. You’ll have to give them one too, if you want back in. Passwords should always be a one-time use.”

Damn girl, you're scary, I thought. “Good idea,” I said out loud.

“It certainly is,” Nadiyya added, following us inside. “Where did you get the idea?”

“Ran a girl’s school in a bad place,” was all Lindiwe said. “We got creative, that’s all.”

I had to wonder if there was more to it. After all, there was definitely more to her. But all that would have to come later. Inside the hut, I found Carmila standing over a familiar woman from the flight team. She was a Soviet, pale as snow, shaking as she held a steaming clay cup to her lips. Darnel must have invented tea.

I didn’t know the Soviet’s name, so I turned to Carmila as Nadiyya closed the door behind us. The room seemed smaller with all the hostages freed.

Instead of saying anything, , Carmila simply met my eyes, nodded, and then knelt beside the woman. Someone had draped a blanket over her shoulders.

I had a feeling this wasn’t gonna be good.

“Aleshka? Alan’s here. Can you tell him what you told me? Then you can lay down and rest.”

The shaky woman looked up, her eyes distant. She truly hadn’t noticed me before now. Her mousy brown hair clung to the dried sweat of her cheeks, and her eyes were red-rimmed and baggy.

“I... I....”

Swallowing, I grabbed my obelisk. “How many days since our last death?” I asked the system.

“Nine,” the voice replied. I breathed out. Nothing since Eric... meaning the flight team wasn’t dead.

The news seemed to perk Aleshka up, too. She raised her head a bit higher. “They’re still alive?”

Carmila stood, and I took her place, crouching and putting a hand on Aleshka’s shoulder. “Tell me everything,” I said.

She swallowed a thick sound that suggested she hadn’t drunk water in some time.

“We hadn’t found anything in a week,” she rushed out. “Kaity was getting angry. She... she wanted revenge.”

I nodded. That had been the whole point find the fliers that had helped attack Eric and make his gruesome death count for something.

“She said the enemy must have had spotters for us,” Aleshka went on. “Wherever they were, they dove back under tree cover whenever we got close. They had to have a huge network of lookouts, and she wanted to get past them. She... she went alone.”

I cursed inwardly. Damn it, Kaity.

Opening my eyes again, I said, “What did she do, Aleshka?”

“She walked. Toward Britonia. Crossed the border at night.”

My stomach tightened, a cold knot. Aleshka didn’t stop.

“We waited half a day, enough time for her to get out of lookout distance from us. Then we flew toward Britonia. And past it. Then back again. That’s all we did.”

A beat passed, and Nadiyya said, “She was checking for fliers alone and on foot, where the suspected lookouts were most likely to miss her. And then she was watching to see where the fliers went to roost when the lookouts warned them to leave the sky.”

Aleshka nodded. “That was the plan. We waited at the rendezvous point to see if she’d been successful, but....”

Her voice stammered into silence, and she broke down into sobs, dropping her head between her hands.

“I never even saw them. They killed the others’ pteras first, from the woods, but their arrows missed Turnip... that’s my ptera. It was complete chance. She’d just turned her head to nip at Carrot, and the arrow missed her... she took flight before they could reload. But the others couldn’t. Carrot and Rut were both dead. I heard screams....”

Aleshka broke into sobs again. The cold knot in my stomach turned to iron, and I rose.

“Britonians,” I seethed.

“We can’t assume that for certain,” Nadiyya said, “but we’ve scouted most of the region surrounding their fort, and aside from the Nomads, there’s no evidence of more tribes. Unless Arvor was hiding a flight team up his sleeve....”

I remembered the way he’d swooped away from me. I still didn’t know how he’d done it, but I was dead sure he wasn’t riding a dino.

“They would have used their ptera team to help them take Prosperity if they had one,” I said. “You’re right that we have to maintain some doubt, but Kaity walked into their territory, and didn’t come back out again. Then her captors got her friends’ location out of her, and they hunted them down, too. Archie doesn’t want any word of this getting out.”

Lindiwe snorted. “Watch for something friendly from him. Some warning of activity in his region. He’ll fake something, to account for why three of your people didn’t come home. Meanwhile, he’ll be torturing them for information.”

My chest constricted, my breaths coming faster as the rage boiled inside me. The man had looked right in my face and offered his friendship. Fucking liar.

“He was working with Jasper all along,” I said. “He met the Nomads ahead of me and worked out an agreement with them. If he has fliers, then he wouldn’t see the Nomads as a big threat compared to me, since they only had ground units. So he helped them destroy me to remove the bigger threat.... His fliers must have scouted Eric’s drop site for Jasper’s team, and helped make sure no one got away.”

Nadiyya had been right. Not a single dino in all of Britonia proper, and it was all a front to hide a flight team from the world. How many fliers did he have? He might be way ahead of us when it came to intelligence if he already had an exhaustive lookout system in place.

“But where is he keeping them? Does he have a roost somewhere?” Nadiyya said. “I mean, I never saw one.”

I thought back to the balcony in Archie’s castle. We’d looked out over his lands together, but it had been mostly farms. All except for that giant smoke pit—

“The smoke pit,” I said. “It hides the fliers from the citizens, so even they can’t see them come and go.”

Nadiyya drew a sharp breath. “But that means—”

“They’re roosting under the ground,” Lindiwe and I said, almost simultaneously. We locked eyes, and the next moment, I had my obelisk in hand.

“Show topography,” I commanded.

One of my two daily topography scans rolled out in front of me, a blue plane hovering within the confines of the room. Points of interest marked the detailed landscape, including the self-set point where I’d encountered the saber-tooths.

I held up a finger, reading, searching. “The Empire said they’d give me the location of a Metal mine.” I hadn’t yet looked for it, but I did now.

“Hold the map,” I said, making the scan stay in place instead of moving with me. Lindiwe saw Britonia before I did.

“Shit,” she cursed. “There it is.”

And there it was. The words Metal Mine (Silver Grade) #45099 had cropped up at exactly the same spot as Britonia.

“They built their fortress on a lords-damned mine,” I breathed. ““The Metal Jasper had come from them.”

His Metal had been silver, too. Just like all of Britonia’s metal objects, their locks, and their armor.

“And they’ve got a secret flight team hiding under there,” Lindiwe growled. “Who knows how long they’ve been using it to hunt other tribes. Archie’s reputation as a peacemaker is probably all rumor, too. Make friends up front, then pit other tribes against each other from behind the curtain, using fliers to make sure that everything goes to plan.”

It was a special kind of genius, just like Arvor and his geology. I was getting tired of secrets and subterfuge. Is this why Napoleon flinched when he first learned my name? Because he knew that his country had already betrayed me? Did he wonder, back then, if I knew?

Their ground mounts were poorly trained, too, I recalled. All a part of the front. Britonia didn’t need ground mounts when they had a flight team, complete with a lookout system and a secret roost.

Silence ticked past us as the news sank in. Of all the people to speak first, I didn’t think it would be Aleshka, but she surprised us all.

“But they’re alive,” she said. “They’re still alive. Kaity and the others... we have to go get them.”

“If we do that,” Carmila said, speaking for the first time in a while, “we will start a war.”

I shook my head. Damn him. Damn, that asshole to hell.

“Not if we go quietly. We go in, get our people, and get out again... and maybe leave a nice surprise behind when we do it.” I turned to Nadiyya. “Carl said he’s working on explosives. Can you go find out if he’s got prototypes yet?”

She nodded and wasted no time in leaving, her long, tight dress swishing behind her.

Seeing her go—watching this precious thing walk away from me, into uncertain times—made me remember what was at stake. This was going to lead to war eventually; Archie wasn’t stupid. Even if we retrieved our people, he’d know we had done it. We might buy time before he declared war officially, but that’s it.

So war it would be. War with a bigger nation. War with a huge fortress on a heavily defended hill.

But Archie fears us, I remembered. He already tried to end us. And we’ve got something he doesn’t.

“We have ten times the dinos he’s got, and we’ve got the bond,” I said, straightening. I turned to Lindiwe, and she smiled darkly back at me. She crossed her beefy arms, looking ready for anything.

“I’ve only been a general one day, and already you send me to war,” she said. “Some leader you are.”

I could hear the joke in the words, but they stung all the same. I didn’t want war, had never wanted war. But mutual prosperity and peace hadn’t worked on Archie.

Only power was going to do.

<<< END >>>

Afterword

I grew up as a little kid, wondering why the greats of old died. Then Jurassic Park came out, and it scared the living shit out of me as a kid, but… I quickly turned that fear into fascination. The reality was that dinosaurs ruled this Earth in a way we could daydream about. This is one of those what-ifs I don’t think we want. Kinda like a 40k reality—nah, man, I’ll pass. But maybe, just mmaybe,if we work together, humanity can form their tribes to become something special.

Hence Tribe Grant. I am loving this book, it’s kind my deal. I may or may not be playing a lot of a certain video game that bears some resemblance. I definitely enjoy dinosaurs and survival stuff, knowing this is exactly the type of book I’d love reading.

If you did enjoy, give it some love. Book two is half done with this book being delayed for audio production, so I bet two will be on preorder darn close if not at release. And yeah, support our wonderful voice actors, get the audio too.

Personal note: since I used to do these and loved reading Craig Alanson’s journal entries. Life is good. I never wrote for money, always wanting to tell a grand tale. That is why there are flops like Spartan Justice on my resume. Audio is fantastic, and I still write because it is my jam. My 2024 goals are to buy a classic car or something I really want, since I don’t have a car or drive often. The Fam is doing well, our pets are getting very old, and life is sorta skating by.

I do wish you and yours the best.

Marcus

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Dino Tribes 3

A Prehistoric Build and Survive Harem Adventure

Marcus Sloss

Copyright © 2024 by Marcus Sloss

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Contents

1.  The Seven Spies

2.  Prospector

3.  It's Raining Pteras

4.  To the Rescue!

5.  Bingo

6.  Cowboy

7.  The Dinos that Bind Us

8.  Spyosauruses

9.  Making Doors

10.  A Molotov Eulogy

11.  Dropoff

12.  Traitor and Assassin

13.  Under the Table

14.  The Only One

15.  Mr. President

16.  Copper Kittens

17.  Queen

18.  Answers

19.  The Cube

20.  Insurrection

21.  Points of Color

22.  Complimentary

23.  Christmas Gift

24.  In the Closet

25.  The Proposal

26.  Midas

27.  The Portable Morgue Strikes Again

28.  Death From Above

29.  Eccentrics

30.  Number Six

31.  Copy/Paste

32.  Dismantler, I Choose You!

33.  Mercy

34.  Joy Ride

35.  Bait

36.  Winner Winner Dino Dinner

37.  Clientele

38.  The Finance Guy

39.  Making More Doors

40.  Happy Holidays

41.  Close to Home

42.  Innovate and Overcome

43.  Facing Fears

44.  Sharing Warmth

45.  I've got to Take This Call

46.  Award Ceremony

47.  Truebond

48.  Revolutionaries

Epilogue

Afterword

Check This Out!

Chapter 1

The Seven Spies

IF YOU’D TOLD me a year ago that I’d be starting a war today, I would have never believed you. If you’d told me dinosaurs, telepathy, and aliens would be involved, I would have asked what two drugs you were smoking, because a single drug wasn’t enough.

“Do you, ah, always have to wait like this?” Poppy asked. She was hunkered down behind me in the shadow of a large boulder, where a curtain of thick overhanging vines shrouded our entire team from view. The boulder also covered a deep, winding micro-raptor warren. The little creatures inside chirped at us curiously, but they didn’t bother to attack. One of the former Nomads had recently formed a bond with two of Prosperity’s resident micro-raptors, and they had helped him discover this place.

It was good enough for our little party of seven, at least temporarily. We’d left Nadiyya some miles back, at a well-hidden field base with more room, where we would hopefully end up camping tonight—provided our missions went to plan. Jarod, Cole, a couple of amargasauruses, and some raptors—Investigator included—had stayed back to protect my newest wife. We couldn’t bring any large dinos with us, anyway. We were deep in Britonian territory.

“Stealth is waiting,” Lindiwe said, her voice so low, it was almost a grunt. The big woman crouched in front of me, close enough that I could see the pulse in her neck. She watched the forest, never turning around, but always listening.

Poppy’s voice was worried when she replied, “I know. It’s just—it’s so quiet.”

I twisted to look at the older woman. Poppy was one of our main child caregivers, and she normally only did missions when we needed volunteers and Poppy happened to draw a short straw. That occurred rarely nowadays, since Tribe Grant’s numbers had grown almost to a thousand. Now that we could utilize the bond, people had less fear of working alongside dinosaurs—and having a dino partner made any sort of mission much less frightening. Meanwhile, some of the work inside Prosperity was pure drudgery. I made sure everyone worked, but they could choose their jobs, for the most part. At least the irrigation system had negated the need for pooper-scoopers.

Anyway, Poppy was used to burping infants and changing diapers, not deep-stealth missions in enemy territory. It was my job to keep her at ease.

“Try to relax, Poppy,” I said. “We’re just waiting for notification of a drop. Once we have it, we’ll approach it quietly—it’s not like we’ll be in a huge rush. And Radish isn’t seeing anything, is she?”

Poppy audibly swallowed and closed her eyes, searching her bond with one of our tribe’s juvenile pterodactyls. We’d brought Poppy here expressly because she had formed a very unique bond with the creature. Because Poppy and her husband Carl currently lived in separate settlements, they had taken to using Radish to pass messages back and forth. Somehow, Poppy had bonded to Radish in a way that allowed her to perform basic communication at a distance.

“She’s sending the all-clear wave,” Poppy said, opening her eyes. “Like usual.”

Apparently, Radish could send the basic message “all clear” or “danger” with a certain mental push that Poppy had learned to read. They were refining their little language, but right now, all we needed was to know if Radish saw other dinos with human mounts, in the air or on the ground, and in which direction. Apparently, Poppy could read those basics; it sounded almost like a sort of mental Morse code. Radish was doubly useful because she could wander the skies without a mount and not appear suspicious, since pterodactyls were quite the common creature around here. If I had Malcolm watching, people would know we were here. That giant blue bird always gave me away.

Regardless, if Radish saw mounted dinos, that meant Britonia was close. And if any Britonians found us, it would mean war, if we didn’t play our cards right.

It’ll be war either way, I reminded myself. But it could be today, or it could be next week... and the longer we hold it off, the more time we have to prepare.

It all depended on how much we succeeded today—and whether or not we got caught.

A buzzing sensation cut off my thoughts; it felt like a cell phone was vibrating on my chest. I touched the obelisk that hung there. I’d silenced its chime for this mission.

“It’s go-time,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “Show topography.”

The obelisk obeyed my command, and a map of the surrounding area flared blue around me. It was dangerous to have the map visible, since it could easily be seen through the trees. However, Radish had just given us the all-clear. We’d take the risk to get the location of the drop.

“There,” I said, pointing over Lindiwe’s shoulder to the drop marked just ahead of us on the map. It was blinking, marked with the words ADVANCE NOTICE, plus a timer counting down from five minutes.

Nifty, I thought. The timer was an unexpected perk. Our new alien handler, Finch, had promised us that we’d get advance notice of the next drop, but I hadn’t known how advanced that notice would be. He’d let slip the day we could expect the drop, which was today—but the advance notice timer simplified things.

There were two other drops, too, but I had teams back home ready to snatch the ones close to Peace and Prosperity. The one nearest Britonia was the one we were after—and not for its contents. Our intentions were much, much darker.

“Quarter mile east, trending south, seven or eight minutes to arrival,” Lindiwe said, standing. She was on the move before I could check the map’s scale to see if she was right. Once everyone had filed past me, I found that she’d nailed the distance and direction, just by eyeballing the map.

Damn, she scary, I thought. But I was smiling. I was thrilled Lindiwe was on our team, now. She’d proven an asset a dozen times already, even if she didn’t trust me just yet.

I took up the rear behind Jaivyn, the guy with the micro-raptor buddies. The two little guys scurried happily along to both sides of him. I knew the man couldn’t talk—his tongue had been cut out by his former leader—but he could bond micro-raptors like nobody’s business. The former Nomad ahead of him, Sudi, had brought a dilo along. The waist-high, spitting creature ranged away from the group like a sheepdog, herding us.

In the center of the line of creeping tribe-mates, Dimitri and Carmila kept low, already used to missions like these. They watched Poppy’s back while their beelzebufo toads followed us. I didn’t even see the creatures.

All in all, we made up a pretty formidable spy team, at least for our first foray into Britonian lands. Once I’d told Nadiyya my idea for this mission, she had recruited the former Nomads and Poppy, and briefed them. The fewer people on the team, the better—provided at least a few of us had good aim. I eyed the pair of short spears up ahead, crossed on Lindiwe’s back, and the crossbow fixed tight to her hip.

I held the obelisk to my mouth. “Maintain silence mode. Contact Obelisk Five and pass along message: found drop site. Five-minute timer on advance notice. Quarter mile east of our position. Headed there now. ETA five minutes.”

For another few seconds, our line of spies wended their way around a fallen tree and carefully edged through a sea of ferns, keeping to shadows in case we had fliers overhead. If Radish noticed anyone approaching, Poppy would raise a hand to let me know.

The obelisk buzzed, and I held it up to my ear.

“Roger,” Nadiyya’s voice replied. “Scouts estimate 16-minute arrival time once Britonia receives notification of that location.”

I did the math. If they had five minutes before they found out the location, and 16 minutes to arrive—then they’d reach the drop 21 minutes from now. That gave us 13 minutes to prepare for them once we got to it, possibly more if they lagged, which they might. They had no reason to believe we’d camped their drop, and therefore no reason to rush.

“Send reply: roger that. Proceeding as planned. Update 13-plus minutes,” I said into the obelisk, letting it fall back against my chest.

Nadiyya replied with a simple double-buzz notification, ending our discussion. The less noise we made, the better.

The forest passed us by, rife with the small sounds of ranging, small dinos. The leaves ruffled in a slight, chill breeze, and the dappled afternoon light glittered along the browning shrubbery. I heard no insects. It was cold here, with winter on the air and night on the approach. I had hoped for a nighttime drop, to better hide our activities, but it was not to be.

All the better to watch the action go down, I thought, scowling. No doubt the Empire had planned the timing. I’d made a show of beating Britonia to their last drop, and the Empire probably wanted to see any potential confrontations for this drop. After all, relations between our tribes were a barely-disguised powder keg at the moment. We knew that Britonia had betrayed us, and they knew that we might know, but they weren’t sure. And both of us were currently building up our plans to destroy the other at the most opportune time.

Lucky for us—or possibly unlucky for us—I always preferred to make the first move. I’d light the powder keg before they did, and I’d give them a reason to think twice before retaliating. I wanted them scared and unsure of themselves. With about four times our numbers and ten times the fortifications, we needed to put them on tilt if we wanted to win.

At the head of our line, Lindiwe held up a fist with a single finger extended. Everyone stopped except me. I crept to her position.

“Check again,” she said.

“Scan topography,” I told the obelisk, using my second and last scan for the day. I’d dismissed the first one to lessen our visibility.

We were right on top of the drop, but I couldn’t see it in the thicket where we’d stopped. Lindiwe drew one of her spears and sliced down a mat of hanging moss, which had dried up with the onset of autumn. Bits of brown moss shaved away, revealing the alien refrigerator-like drop in a depression beyond. If I hadn’t been looking for it, I would have never seen the thing. It was tilted sideways, half-buried in mud.

“Damn, you’re good,” I said to Lindiwe’s back. She’d taken one look at that map and pinpointed not only the drop’s location, but our exact path to reach it. I checked the time, and she’d been correct about our travel time too.

The dark-skinned, beefy woman let my compliment roll right past her. “That mud... the drop might sink. Send Carmila or Sudi; they are lightest.”

I shook my head. “No. I’ll go. You set up the perimeter.”

She didn’t argue, she just signaled. The team followed her off to the side to start setting up.

Thirteen minutes, I thought, watching a large bubble rise and pop to the side of the drop. Without my advance notice, the thing would have probably been submerged by the time we got here.

I parted the dead moss and crept closer. Was that quicksand? Was there a bottom?

Well, I was about to find out.

Chapter 2

Prospector

FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, the drop box was locked.

I cursed under my breath and glanced up. No Britonian fliers, as of yet, but the seconds ticked down. I was currently crouching on top of the drop, on one wall of the refrigerator shape. The whole thing had tilted sideways like a boat cresting a wave, but it sank a little more each moment, displacing large bubbles that spattered me with mud when they popped.

The lock was a sort of keypad-slash-screen thing, except there were only two buttons—no numbers—and the screen displayed a red image of a brontosaurus on it. The only clue to the contraption was that the buttons were identical to those I’d seen on our pokeyballs—but when I pressed them, the display blinked yellow. Nothing else happened.

So, it was probably the same tech as the pokeyballs, meaning there was a little pocket dimension on the lock. It probably sucked the lock mechanism away into a tiny portal when I got the thing to work. I squinted, and I could just make out a line of unreadable alien text.

“Move,” Lindiwe said. I actually jumped. Despite how muscular she was, this woman was made for stealth.

I leaned to one side so she could see the panel. The fridge sank further.

“That’s bond tech,” she said.

I blinked. “What?”

“Dinosaur bonding technology. Press the button and channel your bond to the displayed animal. It should open.”

I spared a moment to frown at her, but then I made the attempt. I pressed the button and channeled my bond to Bertha. The brontosaurus was miles and miles away, but her presence was always there in my mind. The yellow image turned green, and the door clicked.

“How did you—” I started, but Lindiwe was already gone. I shook my head and pulled open the door, dropping inside. I had always known the bond was a technology, not magic, but I never thought to use it that way. I’d need to practice more with it. The possibilities could be endless.

Inside the drop, my chest expanded, and my mouth dropped open. Mother lode, I thought, eyes wide.

Taking up one whole wall of the fridge was a suit of armor, gold-tinted, clearly a new material. I’d once had an alien suit of armor, but I’d mostly destroyed it, and it had half the heft of this baby. This was like version 10-point-oh to my version 2-point-six. Little lights twinkled along the arms and chest, and the hands had more pokeyball slots on them. A built-in bandolier circled the outfit, made for pokeyballs to click in, close at hand. I guessed the back was set up for easy weapon retrieval, too.

But just as soon as my pulse kicked up from excitement, my heart sank. I didn’t have enough time to equip this thing before the Britonians got here.

I’d have to let it sink.

Grinding my teeth, I turned to the other wall. Four pokeyballs had been affixed to it, and nothing else. I recognized three of them as various fabricator upgrades we already had, but I tossed them into my small pack anyway. They could always be used in Peace, Tribe Grant’s secondary settlement.

The fourth one, however, was unfamiliar. It was gold-tinted, just like the armor, and labeled simply as “Storage.” I pressed the button, taking care to aim it away from me and out the door, just in case. A strange distortion, like heat, lit the air in a cone in front of the opened ball, but nothing else happened. I recognized the strange, purplish-blue vortex as a part of the storage dimension where all the other pokeyball items were kept. The aliens really seemed to rely on this technology. Did they rely on the bond tech in the same way?

Raising an eyebrow, I deactivated the Storage ball and then reactivated it on the suit of armor. The entire chest piece vanished, sucked into the ether within the ball.

I suppressed a whoop, and rapidly stored the rest of the armor. My mind raced ahead. How big was the pokeyball’s storage dimension? What else could I do with this thing? The applications were endless. I already had one idea that we could test out tonight.

The final wall of the drop container—the place was barely larger than a Porta-Potty, so all the walls were small—contained an object I’d already recognized, but I had to scowl when I looked at it. I hooked the Storage ball to my belt, and instead equipped the final item, turning around and backing directly into it. The suit closed around me. Unlike the armor, it was made of thin, alien fabric, and it clung to my existing, half-broken armor without impeding my movement. I didn’t know if I’d have reason to use it anytime soon, but this would be the fastest way to get the stuff out of here.

And none too soon, because with a persistent gurgle, a bubble of mud oozed over the bottom edge of the doorway. I grabbed the higher edge of the door and pulled myself out, then leapt off the top and back to safe, solid ground.

I saw no one, which was good. It meant my people were hidden, stationed in their places. I darted into the nearest tree cover, where I found a worried-looking Poppy with mud on her cheeks. The mud was an invention of Missy, my second wife. I’d recently captured several herds’ worth of very rare dinos with very rare properties, and one of them had had “ice blood.” Basically, the stuff was near-freezing instead of hot. Missy had mixed it with mud to create this. She claimed it masked body temperature with 300% efficiency, meaning we wouldn’t show up on any heat sensors if the stuff was smeared on even just a third of our bodies, provided it was spread out. Heat-sensing animals also wouldn’t be able to notice us. We didn’t know if Britonia had any heat-sensing technology or dinos, but tonight, we couldn’t afford to find out the hard way.

“Find anything good?” Poppy asked, as the drop container gave a monumental glurp and fully vanished into the mud.

“You know it,” I replied. Leave it to Carl’s wife to be more concerned with the drop’s contents than the upcoming fight. Carl was managing the entire settlement of Peace, and he must be rubbing off on Poppy, despite the distance between them. I made a mental note to relocate some of our children to Peace, so that Poppy could leave Prosperity, and the happy couple could live together again.

Not important right now, I told myself. Sometimes I got lost in the details of running a pseudo-empire.

“Any word from Radi—” I started to ask, but Poppy suddenly grabbed my arm.

“Yes. She just now said, fliers inbound.”

Hmm. That was faster than I’d expected. Seems Britonia had a bit more diligence in the air than on the ground. Their ground units weren’t the best.

I hunkered down, waiting. The shadows shifted across the forest floor as something high above cut through the light. Poppy and I held our breaths, huddled beneath the dense foliage of some kind of date palm, fat with fruit. The mud bubbled again in anticipation.

If our intelligence was correct, a group of eight Britonians would descend on the mud pit just beyond the tree line, riding pteranodons. Our plan wasn’t a simple ambush, though. We had ulterior goals, and if we messed up, three members of Tribe Grant would die... and possibly, so would we.

A shout drifted down through the trees, and I leaned to one side to trace it. There they were: eight ptera riders flying in formation, casting sinister shadows over the forest canopy as four of them swooped in closer, the beating of their dinosaur's wings like thunder in the stillness. Britonia’s flight teams were supposed to be a secret. A vast network of lookouts made sure the coast was clear whenever the flight teams left their roost. We’d bypassed those lookouts today by leaving our command tent far behind, and by bringing only our stealthiest tribespeople. Carmila and Dimitri had lots of practice, our two Nomads moved even more silently than Lindiwe did, and even Poppy kept quiet, used to wandering among sleeping infants.

I tried to get a good look at our enemies without breaking cover. I could only make out a few things, but it was enough. None of them were women, for one. These assholes believed women belonged in the home and nowhere else, even though realistically, women made better ptera riders because they were smaller.

Most of the riders were Middle Eastern, and the two in front of each column of four appeared to be white. The leaders of each quad were white guys, which also figured. Europe had always been known for its colonizers. Even after the apocalypse, Britonia had modeled themselves after the stereotype.

All of that, I’d expected, but one last thing stood out: all of the fliers wore light silver armor. Armor they’d made using their secret mine.

That fucking mine, I thought. It was a huge secret, a hidden place where Britonia did their dirty work. I was near-certain that our friend Kaity and two of her flight team were being held prisoner in that place.

Today, we’d get them back.

Chapter 3

It's Raining Pteras

MY STOMACH CHURNED. Our little spy team had never been tested, but I trusted my people. We could do this. As the pteras circled above the mud pit in sets of four, their riders scanning the ground below for any signs of the sunken drop, I clenched my fists and mentally prepared myself for the chaos that was about to unfold. The tension among my team was so heavy that it seemed to muffle the sounds of the jungle. I couldn’t see them, but I could feel them. We all knew what was at stake, and the weight of that knowledge rested heavy on our shoulders.

We’re coming to get you, Kaity, I thought, just as two pteras dipped below the canopy to get a better look at the mud pit. On their topographical map, they’d see the drop’s location right there.

As soon as they dipped below the canopy, a glob of acid shot out of the trees opposite my position as Sudi’s two dilophosaurs spat at the enemy.

Both pteras cried in pain, and the formation changed as the first two riders spun around and half their friends dipped lower to help them.

“Shoot at the source!” their flight leader shouted.

As the enemy scanned the forest, they aimed bows into the spot where the dilos were hidden in the upper branches of a traveler’s tree. None of them were looking our way.

I raised the dart gun to my mouth.

Right on cue, blow-darts zipped through the air, silent but dangerous. The first two pteras took the brunt of the assault, as well as their riders; even though both wore armor, even on the ptera’s wings, there were too many projectiles. A few darts found a target between armor plates, and the first two riders plummeted down into the muddy clearing, mounts and all.

Meanwhile, the other two fliers from their quad whipped around, but not before one of them took a couple darts, too. The third fell, leaving one in the first group, and still four more out of range above us.

The fourth rider raised a shield to his face and flapped out of range, but we’d stopped firing the moment the enemies noticed us. We kept silent once more, hidden. On the ground, one of the riders groaned, still alive. In fact, all of them were still alive. The darts were sleeping agents, not poison, and they were weak at that. We had only minutes before the fallen enemies stirred again.

This was probably why the other five riders didn’t immediately turn and make a run for it. They didn’t think we were a real threat, not yet. But if they did decide to flee early, I had a certain laser pokeyball attached to my hip. I’d kill them all, if they ran—but I hoped they wouldn’t.

As soon as the fifth ptera flapped out of range, Jaivyn’s micro-raptors burst into action, racing noisily into the woods in a playful, hopscotch-like way. They were too small to see clearly, but they sounded just like humans would, like a pair of running feet.

The Britonians raised crossbows and descended closer to the ground, their shields up to protect them from more darts as they got back in range. They fired toward the retreating micro-raptors, but their targets were small, and they missed. Once more, we had our enemies distracted.

With a powerful throw, Lindiwe hurled the first beelzebufo into the air.

The unsuspecting pteras squawked in surprise, their instincts causing them to veer towards first one projectile, then another, as our two adult toads sailed toward them. They had no time to reload their bows, but even if they did, the beelzebufos would be tough to hit.

The toads themselves had great aim, though. As they arced past the pteras, each toad lashed out with its tongue, deftly landing a paralyzing lick on one ptera each. They aimed their tongues between armor plates with no issue.

Beelzebufo tongues some of the stickiest things around, so with their tongues still stuck to their victims, the toads swung away, dropping at the bottom of their arcs. We’d meant for Dimitri to catch them, but the mud was lucky. They fell harmlessly into it, and I knew the amphibians would have no trouble hiding there and eventually squirming their way out.

The two pteras who’d been licked began to sway. Their riders fought to control them, but it was no use; the two mounts fell into the mud, where their fellows were starting to thrash weakly as they came awake.

Above us, the enemy cocked several crossbows, the clicking sound clear in the silenced battlefield. The three still-airborne Britonians were aiming at the spot where the toads had been thrown from.

Lindiwe raised a shield to take their fire. When the bows twanged and the shield clunked from two impacts, I took a final moment to steady myself, focusing on the familiar weight of the spear in my hand. Then, when the time was right, I exited the tree line and hurled it with all my might.

The spear whistled as it flew, its alien metal giving it a strange call as it sliced against the breeze. It struck one of the riders squarely in the chest. He cried out, his body sagging to one side. The ptera beneath him faltered, unable to maintain its altitude with the imbalance caused by the dead, toppling rider. They wheeled to the ground in a tailspin, the dying man still strapped to his saddle.

With the first one shot down clean and the rest reloading, Lindiwe stepped out from the cover of the trees. We couldn’t throw at the same time, in case we both missed and hit the pteras. We could only afford to lose one of the creatures.

With her eyes fixed on the remaining two riders, the deadly woman tracked their movements, gauging her throw. With a swift, powerful motion, she hurled her own spear.

Seconds later, I heard a strangled cry as another rider took a hit, his ptera faltering, whirling toward the earth like a maple seed spinning from its mother tree. Their landing sent up a geyser of mud and reeds as they crashed into the mire.

Only one enemy left.

I knew they would run, fleeing to safety, where they could report what just happened. We knew these flight teams didn’t carry obelisks with them, and would have to return to lookout points to give reports. We knew this from several weeks of hardcore surveillance, and also because we didn’t think the Britonians had more than a couple of obelisks. They couldn’t be traded in the typical sense, and the Britonians had taken care never to destroy enemies themselves. They wanted to look peaceful at all times. That’s how they won fights and gained citizens—by making other tribes do their dirty work.

Because of that, they’d had no chance to acquire any more obelisks, aside from the ones they had started with. However, they made up for their lack of communication with a robust lookout network—so we knew this last guy was gonna run. We could afford to lose his ptera, so now, every single one of my people raised a crossbow to fire. One of us had to get through.

But the guy surprised us, this time, by dive-bombing the clearing. All our arrows missed, while the Britonian raised a weapon I’d never seen before—

And pointed it directly at Lindiwe, who had turned to block a crossbow from one of the fallen riders. It was her job to kill them as they woke up.

She’d never see the attacker in time.

I lunged in front of her, reaching for the only thing I could think of. I hadn’t brought a shield, and even if I had, the Britonian’s weapon was unfamiliar to me. I held up a hand as he pulled its trigger.

A blast of silent energy bloomed around the gun’s muzzle, sparking rapidly. It was some sort of rapid-fire gun.

I triggered the new Storage ball.

My own pocket dimension flared, sucking in the quiet alien bullets that had been intended for Lindiwe. As my general turned to see why I was suddenly next to her, the gun stopped, maybe running out of ammo. The last Britonian pulled out of his dive and banked. Spears chased him, but all of them missed.

He was going to get away. This would all be for nothing.

I pressed the button on the Storage ball again, and said, “Retrieve gunfire.”

I’d learned long ago that the alien’s technology could be picky. Whenever I was using something intended for human use, it only responded to very specific commands. However, when I used pokeyballs, the technology seemed to respond to my will just as much as my words. I suspected this was because pokeyballs were used by the aliens, too, and they built their own tools for ease of use.

That assumption proved correct yet again, as the Storage ball spat out the bullets it had just absorbed, at the same speed at which it had absorbed them.

I aimed, but I barely had to. It was like firing a silenced Gatling gun. The ptera rider jerked, and his mount cried in pain as the bullets struck something vital. They both dropped straight down, wings folded, like stones.

I lowered the pokeyball and turned to find Lindiwe watching the falling enemies. Her eyes slid to mine, and for an instant, we stared at each other.

Something passed between us. It wasn’t thanks. She knew I’d just saved her life, and I knew it pissed her off. At the same time, I felt a shift between us. She had respected me before, but I could sense some of her previous coldness draining away. Her teeth ground together. She didn’t like what she was feeling.

I grinned at her and popped the pokeyball back onto my belt. “You’re welcome,” I said.

She grunted, but I recognized the sound as a laugh.

The moment passed, and we went back to work.

Chapter 4

To the Rescue!

LINDIWE LEAPT INTO THE SWAMP, her movements swift and sure as she fought against the sucking mud to reach the first of the downed pteras. She drew her knife.

The drugged riders did not finish waking.

As Lindiwe made short work of the fallen riders, I signaled for Sudi and his dilos to make sure the final rider was indeed dead. They’d loot that gun, too. I didn’t want Britonia to have it, not when they could just fabricate more bullets with their Metal mine.

My hand wandered to the Storage pokeyball, and I glanced down at the alien device. It shone gold more clearly now, in the late-day light. Experimentally, I rubbed it against my alien Metal arm bracer. The silver bracer got a scratch, but the pokeyball remained unmarked.

My old armor is the silver Metal type, I thought. Just like the Britonians are mining. But this ball....

It must be the gold type of Metal, stronger than the silver. I think my new armor set must be made from it. We had yet to find the source, though; Britonia and Tribe Grant were both still searching for the gold Metal mine in our region.

As for the copper Metal mine, the aliens had marked it on our topo map when they’d given us the Metal quest. It was located within our tribe’s borders, about a half-day’s Rex ride from Prosperity. I didn’t know if Britonia knew the location, but if they did, why bother stealing it yet? The copper Metal was the weakest type, strength-wise, and almost useless against their silver equipment.

All the same, copper Metal was fairly soft, more so than normal copper. We could shape it into tools without a Metal fabricator, which we had yet to find. Most of our crossbow bolts and spears were made from wood, but copper would strengthen them.

Finding the gold mine, though... that would be the real treasure. The golden Storage ball on my belt was just a sample of the strongest alien Metal. It—and the gold armor set I’d stored inside it—were probably the most indestructible objects I owned. This drop had been a vital find... almost too vital. I couldn't help but think about how close we had come to losing everything. If not for the alien device, I might have died just now, and Lindiwe with me. Then where would Tribe Grant be?

At the same time, this drop had been intended for my tribe. This specific item was meant to go to me, as well as everything else in that fridge. The aliens knew I’d go for it, since I was aware I’d be getting advance notice. Did they know that weird Gatling would be there to threaten me? But how did they know I’d figure out how to use it like this?

Or did they expect the Gatling to kill us all, and for our stuff to go to Britonia?

I huffed a laugh. That was honestly the most likely scenario. We’d only gotten advance notice because Finch had wanted to distract me. Also, this was the first we’d seen of enemy guns. We hadn’t been prepared for them. We should have gotten crushed.

Regardless, I was giving the aliens way too much credit. They wanted a good show; that was all. We were just entertainment to them—funny little chess pieces with a carrot dangling in front of us. Get into the top ten, and we’ll give you a ship, which you can use to defend our planet in our stead—because it isn’t your planet anymore.

Fuckers.

Grinding my teeth, I turned to help the rest of my team retrieve the struggling Britonian pteras. I hated the aliens’ game, but I had no choice but to play it.

Shaking my head, I set about helping the others subdue the pteras and collect the clothing of the fallen. The Britonians had improved upon their style since I’d last visited, and all the riders wore black-and-red livery that had clearly been through several fabric processing machines. Even muddy and bloody, they were quality. It was yet another reminder of the power and prestige of the enemy we were about to go to war with.

“All right, everyone. Suit up," I announced as the last thrashing ptera was freed. The creatures flapped their wings anxiously, trying hard to take off, but my team had them lashed to trees until they were ready for launch. Mud splattered all of us as the creatures flailed about. They could feel we weren’t Britonians; they knew we were enemies. Did that have something to do with the bonding tech, too? Was it a sort of radio wave that we gave off, or something?

I used to work in communications in the military, so I’d sit down and ponder that later. For now, my team stepped out of range to change into the dead men’s dirty uniforms. Dirty was better than nothing, so long as the clothes were Britonian; we didn’t intend for people to get a good look at us.

As I dressed, Sudi returned with the alien Gatling and passed it over.

“Dead?” I asked, about the Britonian I’d just shot.

He nodded. “Unrecognizable.”

The Nomads rarely spoke, but when they did, they conveyed plenty of information in as few words as possible. Unrecognizable, I thought. The word stuck with me, and I eyed the dead Britonian half-sunk in the mud at my feet. I was getting a pretty nasty idea.

As for the Gatling, it was out of ammo and therefore useless to me. I stored it anyway, but until we could make our own bullets, that’s where the weapon would stay.

Lindiwe gave a hand signal a few minutes later. “All right,” she called, in her general’s voice. “Let's get airborne. Alan?”

She glanced back at me, one eyebrow raised. I was kneeling in the mud, doing something quite disturbing. To her credit, she didn’t ask why.

"I'll be right behind you," I told her, nodding toward the pteras.

And with that, my team took leave of the ground. We were all headed well beyond enemy territory now—and there was no telling if we’d ever get back.

The wind whipped through my short hair as I gripped the leather saddle of the ptera beneath me. We’d had to give two of the pteranodons PowerUp shots, or else they wouldn’t have been able to carry Lindiwe and I, since we were the two most muscular people on the spy team.

The PowerUp shots did the trick, though. We’d acquired them from the stores of the Nomads, after we’d defeated the tribe. They’d had a lot of good stuff in those stores, especially given they’d gone around defeating everyone in their path. The shots were supposed to juice up dinosaurs, not people, giving them additional strength and energy the same way that adrenaline seemed to work for people. I’d given a couple of vials to Vinny to see if he could learn how to fabricate them. Given the Metal mines contained the same metals the aliens used for their tech, I was starting to think they never gave us anything we couldn’t make for ourselves, if given enough time, materials, and ingenuity.

Regardless, the shots worked. The small pteras struggled, but they managed to carry the two beefiest members of our team. Everyone else had been chosen for their low weight as well as their other skills.

After killing one enemy ptera, we’d been left with seven of the creatures for the seven people on our team. That’s why we’d taken care not to kill more than one of the mounts. Radish, Poppy’s little spy-pterodactyl, was a juvenile; she was too small to ride, but she held our two dilos and two micro-raptors with no trouble, carrying them in a sack like a Jurassic stork making baby deliveries. The little dinos were hollow-boned, just like she was, and very light.

In addition, since Radish was the only flying dino on our side, she also kept a lookout for anything abnormal in the forest beneath us. Given her size, she appeared to be a nearly-grown pteranodon from below, so we’d still look like a full team of eight pteras to anyone watching.

Still, it wasn’t easy going. These creatures might be our ticket into enemy territory, but everyone was struggling to maintain their balance atop the protesting beasts.

"Keep a tight hold!" I shouted over the deafening rush of air around us. "They'll tire out eventually!"

My own roid-raging steed bucked and twisted, desperate to dislodge me from its back, but I held fast. The pteras had been alien-domesticated by Britonia, so they did not belong to us, meaning they wouldn't obey our commands. And the further we flew, the more it seemed like they knew we were enemies, likely because of some technology we couldn’t see.

However, they did know to return home once their riders were dead. We’d counted on that. They would lead us straight to their roost, deep behind enemy lines, and probably directly under the Britonian fortress. Once there, we’d recover Kaity and get the hell back out again.

One by one, the pteras began to tire out and accept their new riders. Their movements became less erratic, their attempts to shake us off less frequent. I exchanged a relieved glance with Lindiwe, who shrugged. She was currently working to bond a teenage T-Rex, so to her, a little bucking ptera was nothing.

It didn’t take long for Britonia’s enormous fort to come into view. We’d been seeing its column of smoke for a long time. Hidden behind that smoke was the entrance to the roost, and the Metal mine that Britonia kept hidden. I hoped to scope it out a little, so that one day, I could seize it. Once we were through the smoke, though, there was no telling what we’d find. Would we even have a chance of finding Kaity, or would it be an instant fight? Would war begin today, or would we stave it off a little longer?

Time would tell. For now, I could only hope our disguises held out long enough for us to land without getting immediately killed.

We had only minutes before we’d touch down. I gripped the obelisk pendant hanging from my neck. It was time to report to Nadiyya.

"Alan?" she said, her voice crackling through the pendant as I activated our connection.

"Reporting in, Nadiyya," I replied, raising my voice over the rushing air. “We’re on our way, no complications, no casualties. Some great equipment, though.”

“Good to hear," she said. There was a pause, and I opened my mouth to say over and out, but my newest wife spoke again. “I suppose you’re going dark after this?”

I frowned. She knew I’d go dark. She’d practically invented this plan. She’d gone over it with me a thousand times.

Was she... was she nervous? She only ever said useless things when she was nervous.

“It’s going to be fine, Nadiyya,” I said.

“Will it?” she replied. “You’re just... you’re so close to him, Alan.”

She meant close to King Archie, of Britonia—the man who still had her mother and sister imprisoned. I wasn’t sure how to reply at first. I knew she was worried for them, but they weren’t in danger the way Kaity was. I’d promised to help them, but I couldn’t promise to do it soon.

“He won’t hurt them, Nadiyya. We have time.”

Another silence. The smoke column drew ever closer. I could smell it on the air now, like charcoal and rubber. Where the hell had the Britonians gotten rubber?

“That’s not what I meant,” she said finally. “I meant that he’s crafty, Alan. He’ll know you’re there. He probably already knows. I—”

“Wait,” I said. “You’re worried about me? That’s what this is about?”

My pteranodon flapped. There was no reply.

My chest thudded. This wasn’t what I thought it was. Was it? Could she be developing feelings for me?

No, I told myself. No, she just knows she’s toast if I’m dead. All of Tribe Grant will be in trouble, but especially her, my Britonian ambassador. It’s self-preservation, that’s all.

“I’ll be fine, Nadiyya,” I said. This woman might be my wife, and although we’d had a bit of fun with Sayuri in between us, we hadn’t actually consummated the marriage. She was a lesbian. But that didn’t make me want her any less, fool that I was.

And like a fool, I added, “You stay safe, too. I care about you. I hope you know that.”

A strange noise sounded over the obelisk. I had it right next to my ear, but the wind was loud.

“Just stay safe, okay? Don’t be a hero,” she said, her voice hitching. “I want you to come back, Alan. I don’t know how to explain it, but... I know I want you back.”

I cursed inwardly. I wanted to pursue this conversation, but my ptera was diving now, toward the smoke cloud.

“I’ll come back to you, Nadiyya. I promise. Have to go—love you. Over and out.”

I cut the connection, wincing. I’d told her I loved her. Was that okay to do? Probably not, but it was too late now. Besides, the statement was true. It was impossible not to love someone as intelligent and gorgeous as my one-of-a-kind spymaster.

I tucked the obelisk away, resigning myself to going dark for the foreseeable future. I now had dozens of obelisks, once again thanks to the Nomads’ stores, but we didn’t want them being overheard or their signals getting found out while we were sneaking around inside Britonia. Given how the pteras were acting around us, I had to wonder if the obelisks gave off more signal than we realized. Or did our dino bonds themselves give off a signal? That lock panel on the drop would suggest that.

Get your head in the game, Alan. These were questions for later. The fort rushed past beneath us, with a couple of sentries waving from atop their high walls. The dirty, bedraggled people in the outer ring of the fort looked up at our passing, shouting in awe, clearly startled. I don’t think Britonia’s commoners knew their own flight teams existed, but we couldn’t make these pteras obey directions and go the long way, hiding their approach. The secret was out to the general populace now.

The glance into enemy territory was short-lived. The next moment, the pteras dove into the column of smoke, their wings cutting through the thick haze like cleavers through sausage. I clenched my jaw and squinted, the acrid air burning my eyes.

I could die any second, I thought. Any moment.

But I couldn’t die. I’d promised Nadiyya.

I leaned forward in my stolen saddle, and rocketed into the unknown.

Chapter 5

Bingo

THE ACRID SMOKE cloud enveloped us, stinging my eyes and making it hard to breathe. As we burst through the other side, I blinked away tears and saw the vast underground mine sprawled out before us. They had clearly dug the place out with an excavator, with steep shorn walls that stopped at random right angles, like a Rubik’s cube with chunks missing. It looked like it went a quarter mile deep. Damn, it must stretch to halfway under the whole damned fortress. If we blew this place up, we could collapse the city and win the war fast.

While also killing half the innocents that live here, I thought bitterly, turning around to check on my team. It was a dim place, the caverns lit by what smelled like sulphur torches every ten feet along the walls. Tribe Grant hadn’t invented anything like that, but if it was being used here, it must be cheap and long-lasting despite its weak light. Crafting with alien materials didn’t always seem to follow the established rules of our pitiful human science.

The smoke and the sunset backlit my team as their silhouettes emerged from the haze behind me. I did a quick count, and everyone was there, including Radish. I could also see the source of the smoke now: a massive metal-smelting operation stretched beneath me in long lines of tables and conveyor belts, complete with multiple machines that looked like altered versions of woodinators. The rows of silver machinery hummed and clanked as workers fed metallic chunks into them, and smoke puffed out the top of every smelter. Finally, molten metal poured out the far ends of the machines, pooling inside stone molds, which the laborers pushed aside to cool.

The sight was both impressive and terrifying. How did they manage to build such advanced technology in secret? I currently had two woodinators, but they had at least eight metal-smelters. Eight.

Their flight team, I thought. How long had they been in operation? How far did they range? Was it their main goal to collect drops across a huge area, before other nations could get to them?

And they only turn to betraying allies when it suits them, I thought with a growl. No wonder they’d been so miffed to have me steal their drop that first time. Drops must be where Britonia got its funding. Either that, or it had a huge source of money and lots of other tribes to trade with.

I turned my gaze back to the ground as the smelters faded into the smoke haze behind us. The pteras continued to approach their home roost, wherever that was, and we just had to go along for the ride. Below, dozens of laborers moved about in strict lines, managing ores, excavators, and other machinery I didn’t have a name for. Most of them didn’t even look up at our passing, but it’s not like we were making noise or flying in front of the sun and casting a shadow. Fliers might be common in this place, or they might just blend in. Probably, it was both.

Then I saw it—the chains. The people here were chained about the ankles, connected to machines and each other. Prisoners? Or slaves?

Goddamnit, Archie. You hadn’t filled out enough spots on your Evil Empire bingo card? You had to add forced labor, too?

I shoved my rage down and turned on my warrior’s eye, as I knew Lindiwe must be doing. If we wanted to free these people, we needed to defeat Britonia, which meant we needed to know what we were up against.

Turns out, the answer was a lot.

We crossed over a place where laborers were popping metal shapes from their molds, and compiling them into rows upon rows of armor, before crating them up. There were hundreds of armor sets visible in this spot alone, and this was just today’s product. I spotted a repair area where unchained specialists worked on a silver Metal trebuchet, complete with a couple of projectiles as big as a deinonychus.

Everyone on their flight team had been equipped with crossbows and spears, I recalled, thinking back to the Britonians we’d taken down. I hated to think that every fighting man in Britonia was fully armored and equipped, but it seemed a likely eventuality, given what I was looking at. And they had—what? Four times our population?

We had the location of a copper Metal mine, but no smelters to mass-produce equipment, and the copper-colored alien Metal was weaker than the silver variety anyway. In a battle on open ground, we were toast.

But we have dinosaurs, I reminded myself—although after seeing that trebuchet, the idea didn’t make me feel that much better.

At the same time, I did see an escape route for us to use later. Along the far wall, a deep-set line of excavated space snaked back toward the entrance. I saw no one there, and nothing lighting it. I was pretty sure it was a piece of mine that had stopped producing new Metal, and had been abandoned. We should be able to exit via that route when we needed to.

The pteras rounded a sharp corner and began to descend. The cacophony of metal clanging against metal filled the air as we passed over some sort of bullet station, where laborers hammered small objects with glowing hammers that clearly hadn’t originated on this planet. The smoke here smelled like sulphur again, but also charcoal.

Gunpowder. I thought of the psuedo-Gatling. Oh shit. They’re making ammunition!

To all sides of us, Britonian men and women were hard at work, crafting vast quantities of objects meant to annihilate my tribe, and anyone else that stood in Archie’s way. I had to hand it to the man—he knew how to keep a secret. The immense scale of their operation left me feeling dwarfed, a sinking sensation settling in my chest. My tribe had never faced such an overwhelming enemy before.

But at least we knew they were overwhelming. I should almost thank Kaity for getting kidnapped. Now that we knew what we were up against, we had a fighting chance of defeating it.

I urged my ptera forward with a pinch to its neck, reminding it that it wanted to be home and to get rid of me. We soared along the edge of the cavernous space, the creature’s wingtips brushing against the sheared stone walls. At least our disguises seemed to be working; no one had sounded the alarm yet. But we were still up high. Once we landed, anything could happen.

A dinosaur stable emerged from a shadowy corner up ahead, a rectangular building just like a horse stable, only it had nests for a roof. I gripped the saddle hard as my mount banked, wings flaring. It landed in a whirlwind of hay, and I wasted no time in dismounting it into its nest, and jumping off into the stable area below. Once there, I drew my plasma sword but didn’t activate it. The neon color of the blade would draw too much attention.

In the stable, the scent of damp earth, musty straw, and animal excrement made my eyes water almost as bad as the smoke had. I scanned the dark place, feeling suppressed by the warmth from the nests above, which settled down on me like a heavy blanket. The flickering light from a single flameless torch cast eerie shadows on the walls, but I saw no one.

"Careful," I whispered to Sudi, the first person to dismount and join me. The former Nomad’s eyes also darted for any signs of danger. "We don't want to spook anyone."

Before the words were out of my mouth, the sound of footsteps crunched outside the stable. My heart raced, pounding in my ears like a tribal drum, but it was only a single set of footsteps. I crept up to the entrance while Sudi ducked out of sight.

A Britonian woman entered, striding past me. She was frail, gaunt-looking even from behind. When she turned to peer into the stable, searching for the riders she must expect to meet here, I saw hollow cheeks and dull eyes. She wore tattered clothes that hung off her thin frame like pillowcases. She couldn’t be here of her own volition.

Just then, Jaivyn and Lindiwe dropped through the ceiling. The caretaker's eyes widened as she saw the two dark-skinned Africans. Britonia didn’t have any people with that skin tone.

Lindiwe drew her knife. This woman had seen us.

And if I didn’t play my cards right, she wouldn’t see anything else ever again.

Chapter 6

Cowboy

I KNEW we couldn't risk this Britonian woman raising the alarm. In one swift motion, I lunged at her, grabbed her from behind, and clamped a hand around her mouth. She murmured against my palm, startled. I considered drugging her, but maybe she would know where Kaity was.

Lindiwe had rushed to do the exact same thing that I’d just done, only she now brandished a knife. This woman was lucky I’d been closer.

"Quick, tie up the pteras so they can't give us away,” I hissed at Lindiwe. I could tell the animals were jumpy, and several squawked as they landed. The creatures knew we didn’t belong here, and there’s no telling what they might do to draw attention. Lindiwe nodded, and she and the two Nomad men set about securing their own pteras while I worked to fasten the caretaker's hands behind her back with spare reins from a saddle hanging on one wall. My heart hammered in my chest as I gagged her.

"We should kill her," Lindiwe said when I finished, nodding at the caretaker. My entire spy team now stood behind her in the center pathway of the stable. Through gaps in the ceiling, I could see all their pteras bound and muzzled, but not in an obvious way. When seen from below, they’d appear to be resting.

I shook my head. "No, she's not our enemy. Look at her—she's just another victim of King Archie's tyranny. We're here to save our people, not harm innocents."

Lindiwe did not look convinced, but she wasn’t my general because she was merciful. She trusted no one, and that made her brutally effective. She’d be able to kill plenty of people here in a few minutes, no holds barred. My personal morality didn’t extend to kidnappers.

"She has seen us," Lindiwe warned, the unspoken consequences like a bad smell lingering in the air.

She had a point. Our intention was to get in and get out, without being seen. If we succeeded, this woman could still give us away, rendering our mission moot.

"Then we’ll take her with us," I said firmly.

“And if we cannot?” Lindiwe pressed.

I didn’t reply, but I made it clear on my face. If it was necessary, I’d kill this woman to save my tribe. But it wouldn’t become necessary. I’d make sure of it.

Lindiwe harrumphed. “Just don’t collect any more strays, boss. We have enough back home as it is.”

I chuckled, and then that word caught up with me: home. Lindiwe hadn’t been with Tribe Grant very long, yet she considered it her home? The thought bolstered me.

The feeling didn’t last. "Those war machines," Poppy said from behind Lindiwe, her voice trembling. "What will we do? There were so many...."

Carmila and Dimitri exchanged nervous glances, their faces pale beneath their disguises. The two Nomads remained stone-faced. I knew Jaivyn couldn’t talk at all, but even Sudi kept silent. These men were accustomed to death, and lots of it. Nothing fazed them anymore.

Still, everyone had made it here in one piece. Radish hadn’t roosted; she was still circling. She would be recognized as a pterodactyl upon landing, so she was supposed to drop off the smaller dinos somewhere where they wouldn’t be seen.

"If you’ve got white skin, fan out and set up a perimeter,” I ordered, my voice steady, giving away no hint of my concerns over the Metal operation we’d just seen. “Keep it casual, though. We need to blend in as much as possible. The rest of you, keep to the shadows and watch the exits, and everyone else’s backs. I’m going to ask this woman some questions.”

As my team dispersed, I turned back to the caretaker. Her eyes darted between me and the exit, clearly searching for an escape route. She breathed hard and fast, sweating and crying.

"Listen," I said softly, trying to sound reassuring. As I spoke, I tied her to a post to keep my hands free. "We're not here to hurt you or the other workers here. We’re just here to get our friends back. At worst, we kill some guards. Something tells me you won’t mind that too much. So, where would King Archie keep captives down here?”

Her gaze remained distrustful, yet she shook her head. I loosened her gag so that she could speak.

"I don't know. I clean the nesting stables, that's all. Please, sir. Don’t kill me. I won’t talk.”

I chewed the inside of my cheek, thinking.

“Did you have any kids on Old Earth?” I asked her. “Or younger siblings? Like before the apocalypse?”

She paled, then nodded.

“If you come back with us, or say nothing to the guards when questioned... I will give you your little ones back. I vow it,” I said.

She searched my eyes. I knew she wouldn’t believe me.

“Look,” I said. “Britonia has obviously focused all their efforts on their military industrial complex. Meanwhile, Tribe Grant has focused on its people. We’ve been able to get our kids back for months now. I’m sure you’ve already heard rumors about that.”

I saw her throat bob as she swallowed. She nodded.

“So I’ll keep my promises. I also won’t kill you when I leave. I’m trusting you, and right now, I’ll also prove my dedication to my people, so you know you can trust me in return. We are here to get my friends back. They were kidnapped, and we always take care of our own. So please help me. Think hard,” I insisted. “Is there any place in this mine with high security?”

If they’re even here, I thought, but they had to be. King Archie would want to keep his political prisoners hidden from his people. I knew he’d stash them down here, outside of the fortress, but this place was still enormous. There were too many corners to check.

The caretaker bit her lip before speaking again. "There's a storehouse a few buildings over. It's got guards standing at one end of it, but just the one end. They’ve shot people who’ve gotten close... they don’t ask questions. They just shoot."

That sounded like a decent place to start. "Thank you," I said. It wasn't much, but it was something, and it sounded relatively close. "I’m going to gag you again, but you can work through these knots in an hour or two without help, and then you’ll be free again. We can try to take you with us, but it might not be feasible... just know that if you keep quiet, I’ll make sure you get your kiddos. What’s your name?”

“Jenna. Jenna Friedman.”

I committed it to memory. Maybe I could help her sooner by asking Finch for a favor. Either way, I’d keep my word.

“I won’t forget it,” I told her, reapplying the gag. “Take care, Jenna.”

I crept up to Lindiwe in one of the doorways.

“You are foolish to trust the enemy,” she said.

“You were an enemy not too long ago, and I trust you,” I replied.

She crossed her arms and eyed me, from my feet to my eyes. It didn’t quite feel like disapproval. I couldn’t read her at all.

I nodded out the doorway. “What’s it looking like?”

She grunted. “There's a guarded storehouse in one corner of this mine cavern, just like that woman said," she reported, pointing back the way I’d come. She must have scoped out the cavern from every side of the stable, ever efficient. "We can see it from here, as we are on a rise. However, the storehouse is on the other side of what looks like a barracks, and I don’t see any way over or around it. Too much open area, and obviously too many guards. It’s a barracks, after all. One alarm, and we will be swarmed.”

I took all this in. “Can we go through?”

“Yes, if we can cause a distraction to draw eyes away. There’s a central door in the barracks that’s locked but not guarded. A dilo can acid through that lock.”

It was a trick we’d been practicing for some time now, and it definitely worked on silver Metal. I wondered if the gold variety would hold up to dilo spit.

“Also, there’s an escape route close to the storage house,” Lindiwe added. “So we’ll have an out.”

She must have seen the same abandoned mine area that I’d seen. “Any word on the dilos?” I asked. We’d need them to arrive soon, if we were going to implement this plan.

“Poppy reported that Radish dismounted somewhere out of the way,” Lindiwe replied. “The micro-raptors and dilos are headed to our location now, while Radish stays put. I’m worried about the dilos being seen, but there are micro-raptors crawling all over this place. They’re like fucking locusts,” she added.

I blinked. “Locusts?”

She frowned and seemed to search for words. “Locusts were, ah, ubiquitous in my home country. On some years, anyway. Like how pigeons are ubiquitous in New York.”

The comparison made me chuckle. “Well, that’s good then. The micros won’t raise eyebrows, at least.” I stepped back into the stable and held a hand out. “Show me.”

Lindiwe obliged, but as she strode past me, her shoulder brushed mine. There was nothing forceful about it, which is what I would have expected. Also, there was no reason she needed to touch me. There was space enough.

Had she done that on purpose?

My heart thudded, going to places it had no business being right now. I hadn’t forgotten my wives’ birthday present to me: one new partner of my choice, whenever I wanted. Was Lindiwe interested? It seemed impossible.

But the idea excited me, because I was interested. Very, very much so.

Stand down, cowboy, I told myself. She’s more deadly than this entire mission, times two. You read this wrong, you’re dead.

Unfortunately, that only added to my excitement. As I followed her to the final leg of our mission, I said under my breath, “Yee-haw.”

Chapter 7

The Dinos that Bind Us

“CAN you have the raptors sneak up on the guards, bite their ankles, and run?” I asked Jaivyn.

The former Nomad nodded, but didn’t speak. He’d had his tongue cut out by Jasper, but that didn’t stop him from talking to his bondmates.

“Do it,” I told him.

He turned to his two micro-raptors and knelt, chittering at them using odd, tongueless noises. Due to the bond, the raptors should get the hint even if his Raptor-ese was terrible. Back in Prosperity, Jaivyn had a whole herd of micro-raptors he was working to bond with. Apparently, he had been feeding them while tagging along with the Nomads for ages, so he’d only needed a little push to start establishing the bond. These two raptors were just the most progressed of the group. On our next mission, we would have more.

The little raptors peeped in reply and raced off to obey Jaivyn’s command. “Ready,” I told everyone. We all huddled inside the stable now. I shot a glance back at Jenna, the caretaker, but she was working her bonds and looking away. That was a good sign she wouldn’t betray us. If she intended that, she’d be watching our every move. It would make good currency once she spoke to her superiors. Instead, she was giving herself plausible deniability.

Shouts of annoyance reached us, and I spun around to see the guards at both ends of the barracks house turning toward the attacking raptors. The guards didn’t chase them, but they were looking at them, which is all we needed. We were getting good at distractions.

“Let’s go.”

A hot, metallic breeze crept under my dirty uniform as I silently led my team down a series of degraded stone steps toward the side door of the barracks. I could have left some of my team behind, but it would be much harder to escape if we had to go back and collect people. Better to keep us all together, in case we were discovered.

I checked my mental link for Malcolm, and felt the big bird’s presence. Nadiyya had sent him when I’d confirmed we were headed toward Britonia, with the first half of our plan complete. The quetzal soared over the city, extremely high up, ready to be called down when we needed evac. We still weren’t sure where we’d call him down to. We’d gone into this place blind.

The door on the side of the barracks was locked, of course—probably used for loading and unloading.

“Sudi, the door.”

The other former Nomad nodded and hissed a command to the two dilophosaurs running with us. They spat at the lock, and a strange, ozone-like smell rose from their acid as it started to eat through the lock mechanism.

It took a very tense minute, but the lock eventually gave with a disheartened gloop noise. A shout followed us into the room, but it didn’t seem to be directed at us. The micro-raptors were continuing to be a nuisance, keeping eyes off us. They’d be killed if they kept up much longer.

“Call the micros back,” I told Jaivyn, standing to one side to let them pass as my eyes adjusted to our surroundings. This was not a storage room, but a laundry, with tubs lining one wall, and a drying line hanging from the ceiling above them. Showers lined the other wall, so the place moonlighted as a bathing area. How very military of them.

As with a typical laundromat or communal shower, the room was fairly long, with two entrances. It likely led into a hallway full of rooms where soldiers slept. A Britonian private could walk into this room at any moment, ready to shower; it was the time of day for it. Then again, they couldn’t tell the time of day down here. This was a cavern, which meant no windows.

I took a step toward the exit nearest us, taking care not to touch the stacks of crates beside the outside door. This must be where they took in supplies—

Bang! Crash! Bang!

I nearly jumped out of my skin, whirling around to find Poppy standing pale-faced and sheepish beside a completely upended tower of crates. Washing powder had spilled all over the ground at her feet.

There’s no way someone didn’t hear that.

“I’m sorr—” she started to say, just as I heard a voice at the far end of the room. People were coming, approaching the door.

“Everyone, get into a wash tub! Start with the far ones,” I said, pointing at the tubs farthest from us. I grabbed Jaivyn’s shoulder before he could join everyone.

“I need the micros to play in the debris,” I told him. “Tell them to run when they see a threat, then come back around.”

He was already starting to make little clicks and grunts at the micro-raptors before I finished speaking. The man was a master at this. Within seconds, he set his pets to frolicking in and around the spilled powder. With a few taps to his shoulder, I urged him to get into a tub. The team had left the two nearest ones for us, and we slipped inside just as the far door opened.

“What the hell?” a man said.

“It’s those fucking vermin again! Get them!”

The raptors made screeching noises that I could swear were gleeful, and the guards gave chase. I peeked over the edge of my tub. The micro-raptors scattered in different directions, one ducking under the remnants of a crate while the other tried to dart past the guards and out the door. He made it.

The second raptor didn’t.

My heart sank when a guard managed to land a blow on the micro that had tried to hide, sending it crashing into a wall with a sickening crunch. Jaivyn let out a quiet gasp in the tub next to mine, but the soldiers were too busy cheering to hear.

“Got one!” the second guard shouted.

“Let’s finish that other little fucker for good,” the first guy replied, and both of them ran from the building.

“Inside! Now!” I hissed, leaping from my tub. I paused to help Jaivyn out of his hiding spot. For such a tall, imposing man, he looked shaky.

“I’m so sorry. Take the body. We’ll give it a hero’s burial.”

He looked up at me, his dark eyes widening.

“I mean it,” I said. “They’ll think they only knocked it out, and it ran.”

His eyes glistened, and he scooped up his little friend as our team snaked right through the nearest inside door and into a darkened hallway. There was more light down the way the guards had come from. I pressed on in the other direction, deeper into the dark corridor, taking measured steps to avoid making any noise. Doors lined the hall, and when I pressed my ear to them, I heard a variety of sounds... snoring, dead silence, and a moaning woman in more than one of them. Sleeping quarters, then—and confirmation that women were allowed here, if only for one particular purpose.

As I paused to consider next steps, the remaining micro-raptor scurried to catch up with us. Luckily, it didn’t bring the guards along with it. It gave a small, distressed peep, but Jaivyn shushed it. That tiny sound of sorrow pulled my heartstrings tight. I knew it was always a risk of the job, but no one hated losing dinos more than I did. They were family.

Ahead of us, the hallway lightened again, and I heard voices—laughter, chatting. It sounded like some sort of common room. I’d been hoping to find another utility or storage room we could use to sneak out the other side of the building, but no dice.

I held a finger to my lips and signaled Carmila forward. She came, and her toads along with her.

“Tell them to knock out the people in this room,” I said, knocking on the door of one of the sleeping quarters. On the other side of it, I heard at least three voices, possibly four, all of them loudly enjoying themselves. That would suit for a plan B, if my plan A didn’t work.

Carmila nodded, fell into a crouch, and spoke to the two massive toads. I cracked the door, and the animals hopped inside.

A scuffle sounded. “What the—ew! What is....”

“Eeeeek! Get it... away....”

Thud. Thud. Thud.

I waved the team through, cursing when I saw no interior windows in the room. We wouldn’t be able to break past the wall without a big show of light, acid, or noise. We needed to reach the building on the far side of this wall, but we knew it was guarded, and those guards would see us if we did anything funky.

We’d have to exit via the common room, which meant gaining temporary trust from the people inside it. I did a quick mental tally of skin colors and genders.

“Poppy, Carmila, and—ah—yeah, just you two. Put on these girls’ dresses.”

There was no way I’d ask Lindiwe to put on a dress. Besides, there were only two outfits on the floor here—one for each of the two fallen prostitutes. They both snoozed next to the soldier that had hired them. One might end up with a bruised cheek, but otherwise, none were much worse for wear.

“Lindiwe, pull your hair up and try to look, ah, manly.”

She sniffed. “Not hard.”

I laughed because I thought she was kidding.

“What’s so funny?” she growled.

I almost missed the comment, because I was giving commands to the Nomads. “Sudi, Jaivyn, stay here. Use acid to put a peephole in the wall, and I’ll come get you out with Neon.” Their dark skin would make them stand out if they were seen outside this room, especially since they’d dropped their uniforms.

To Lindiwe, I said, “What do you mean, what’s so funny? You’re gorgeous and have big tits, Lindiwe. It’ll definitely be hard to make you look like a man.”

Her face darkened, but I didn’t have time for this. “Never mind. Stay here with the Nomads; I’ll come grab you guys in a couple of minutes. The dinos stay here, too.”

By this point, Carmila and Poppy had dressed in the surprisingly modest dresses that the prostitutes had come wearing. Maybe they were just this guy’s two girlfriends? Polygamy was definitely a thing here. Then again, I was one to talk.

“Dimitri, grab Carmila. Poppy, with me.”

I took the arm of the older woman, and Dimitri followed behind. “Play the part,” I whispered into Poppy’s ear. I didn’t need to tell Carmila and Dimitri what to do; they didn’t need to be told. They were pros.

Before we knew it, we were stepping down the hall into bright light and song. We had indeed reached a common room—complete with sweet, sweet doors to the outside. Unfortunately, a dozen soldiers drank and gambled at a sea of tables between us and the door. My heart flipped in my chest, but I focused on keeping my expression neutral while leading Poppy out by the hand. She had the wherewithal to giggle a couple times in feigned amusement.

A few soldiers glanced at us, their gazes lingering on the women before returning to their games and conversations. We were only one table away from the door when a shrill, piercing cry split the air.

It stopped me cold. I knew that noise. The guard dogs of post-historic Earth.

Deino-fucking-nychus, I thought.

Chapter 8

Spyosauruses

THEY PROBABLY GOT the damned thing from the Nomads.

I turned casually to find the sheepdog-sized predator perched in the middle of a card game on the table behind us, its beady eyes locked on our group. It didn't recognize us as people of its tribe, and its alarm call had now captured the full attention of the room. Apparently, the nycho didn’t do this often.

There is definitely something he’s picking up on, I thought. People couldn’t sense our otherness, but dinos could.

"What is it, Rover?" a gruff soldier demanded, setting his cards down at the nycho’s clawed feet. The guy had a shit hand, and he was clearly happy to have an excuse to drop the game. “Who are you guys? I don’t fucking know you.”

Suspicion clouded his features as he scrutinized us, and he wasn’t the only one. Murmurs of agreement rippled through the crowd. I opened my mouth—

“New recruits,” Lindiwe boomed in a deep, gravelly voice. I twisted again to see her stalking into the room, her chest bound—but not quite flat. She didn’t look like a woman, but she did look like a very ripped gym rat. She’d stuffed herself into a soldier’s uniform, too.

“And before you ask about why the fuck I’m Black,” she growled, “it’s because we’re from the fucking Nomads. That Winchester bastard left us for dead, so here we are. Ain’t that right, Rover? We met you comin’ in, didn’t we, bud?”

With that, she held out a piece of jerky. I recognized it as one of the treats that Jaivyn liked to feed to his micros.

Rover wasn’t buying it, though. He ducked his head and growled like a goddamned Rottweiler.

Lindiwe touched her arm to mine. I sensed her leaning close, so I picked up the sound when she whispered, "Try bonding with it. Now."

Panic flared in my chest. What? I didn’t know Rover. How could I bond with him?

Shut up and do it, I told myself. Lindiwe wouldn’t give a command like this for no reason. She knows more about the bond than almost anyone.

"Trust your instincts," she breathed into my ear, giving me a small push forward.

I sighed. “Damn it, Rover. What more do you want? A whole ptera to chew on?” I said, all while I focused my mind on the deinonychus. To my astonishment, the connection snapped into place like two magnets clunking together, and I felt the creature's fear and confusion ebb away.

What the hell? I thought. How did that happen so easily? I didn’t even start trying yet!

"Oh, I see. You want scritches," I said, curling my fingers under the dino’s chin. It gave a happy chirp as I started to scratch it, and instantly, the tension bled out of the room. "Huh. Little bastard’s learning to call alarms for treats and scritches, is he? You guys must spoil him.”

A laugh went around at that, the suspicion all but gone. With a collective shrug, the soldiers returned to their previous activities. Dice clicked across wood and someone cursed about “these damned birch-paper cards.”

"Let's move," I muttered to Poppy, and the five of us slipped through the common room and out the back door, where the subterranean air welcomed us hazily. And finally, we were facing it: the storehouse, another long building where Kaity and her two teammates were hopefully being held. I spotted a group of guards clustered at one end, their murmurs barely audible over the din from inside the barracks. On the other side, only two guards, but these ones both had bigass guns. That was where we needed to go, but the open area between buildings offered little cover.

I wanted to call the remaining micro-raptor, both bufos, and both dilos to help again, but it was too risky. Using anything but the micro would draw suspicion, and even using the micro might draw attention to where Sudi and Jaivyn were laying low.

So I found myself in need of a distraction again, but nothing to distract with. As we leaned against the wall, ostensibly to chat and get some fresh air after a nice productive session in the bedroom, I kept my eyes peeled for anything we could use. People milled about, but they were far more sparse than the micro-raptors wandering everywhere. As Lindiwe had said, the things were like pigeons here, nipping at guards’ heels and picking along roofs. While I stood there, one even got exploded by a Gatling blast at the far end of the storehouse. Those guys weren’t messing around.

I leaned toward Lindiwe, nodding at the dozens of micro-raptors that wandered the area, scavenging for scraps or just being a general nuisance. "That thing we just did... can we try something similar? I just think... if the bond can be amplified....”

I trailed off, not even sure what to ask.

Lindiwe bumped her arm to mine again, offering skin-on-skin contact. “Whatever you’re thinking of trying, try it.”

I wanted an explanation, but we both knew it wasn’t the time for that. With her skin touching mine, I eyed the small dinosaurs skeptically, then closed my eyes to search my existing bonds. Rover was there, but fading quickly; he wasn’t permanent. I could feel Bertha, Investigator, Malcolm, and Darth, though. I zeroed in on my connection to Investigator, my mindraptor. She was a unique creature, alien-designed, either a natural mutant or some type of cyborg. She had a nifty little ability, and through our link, I could tap into it.

I’d learned through my fight against Lindiwe that, if I channeled my bond to a given dino the right way, I could trade abilities with them. I did exactly that now. It shouldn’t have worked, not over such a vast distance from Investigator, but it did. I felt her control over lesser creatures suffuse me.

That made it obvious what Lindiwe was doing: she was being a battery for the bond.

I could use this. In my best Raptor-ese, I called out, Attack humans!

As one, every single wild micro-raptor within earshot turned to look at me. None of them had been officially domesticated, so they had no loyalty to this place or these people.

A heavy instant later, the minuscule dinos leapt into action, half of them racing toward the guard cluster by the storehouse, and another unlucky half scurrying toward the two guards with the Gatlings. I knew some of them wouldn’t survive it, but the distraction was enough. I hugged the shadows as I slunk along the barracks wall toward the little acid-hole that Sudi and Jaivyn had used to mark the place they were hidden. While the storehouse guards shot and shouted and kicked and cursed at their dinosaur version of sewer rats, I made short work of the barracks wall with my legendary sword, Neon. The plasma blade burned a door opening for the rest of our team to exit, dinos included. I leaned the bit of wooden wall back up against the hole. It would hold up to a cursory glance, but I hoped no one would ask too many questions. This would be the one little hiccup in our plan, but I would have to rely on the complete lack of curiosity I’d always seen in the military. Asking questions meant paperwork and bullshittery. We might get away with this yet.

"Go!" I hissed to my team, and we sprinted toward the storage building, using the last dregs of the micro-raptor distraction to slip past the guards unobserved. I took us to the door where the larger amount of guards had clustered, because the idiots were all gone, chasing micros. I think they might have been on a smoke break, and not guards at all. The two beefier guys were still cursing and shooting as many micros as they could, but they never left their post at the opposite end of the storehouse.

Oh well. I could move through the inside of the storehouse, from this end to that end—and hopefully extract Kaity—all without having to face the two guards.

"Nice work, Alan," Carmila whispered as she squeezed past me into the building.

Almost there, I thought. Kaity, we’re coming.

Chapter 9

Making Doors

A LINE of window-slits near the ceiling lit the interior of the building, revealing a dim skyline of stacked crates along both walls. It smelled inexplicably of straw.

The thought took my mind back to all the action movies I used to watch on Old Earth, and I hastily strode to the nearest crate and popped off the lid. My throat went dry.

These were guns.

Guns. They have an entire storehouse full of guns.

They were simple things, almost like the old British muskets. They lay atop beds of straw, just like they used to be depicted in movies about gun runners and gangs. Despite the weapons’ simplicity, I knew they must be imbued with alien tech. They would decimate my people, with our spears and dino-leather armor. Even if we took control of the copper mine, we hadn’t learned to smelt the stuff yet.

Something deep in my chest clunked into place. I lowered the lid, and moved to the next crate. This one had glass jars in it, with fabric tufts sticking out of the top.

Molotov cocktails. There really was no rhyme or reason to what the Britonians had collected. All of these things must have come from drops. So Britonia had the firepower, but unlike Tribe Grant, they were trying to leap ahead in technology without building a solid foundation first.

Which meant they wouldn’t be familiar with their weaponry yet. Since King Archie was nothing if not careful and meticulous, he would be sure to train his people until they could use each weapon precisely. So the longer I waited to give him a war, the stronger he’d become—and Tribe Grant wouldn’t gain strength at the same rate. We were still in this world’s version of the Bronze Age. They had already reached Modern.

Change of plans, I thought to myself. I wasn’t going to say it aloud.

“Alan...” Lindiwe said. She’d kept close to me, and she’d seen the guns and Molotovs, too.

“Let’s get Kaity,” I replied, snatching up a Molotov and hooking it to my bandolier before I closed the crate again. I faced the interior wall, where I’d need to cut a door. The storage area stretched a long way, and whatever those two beefy guys outside the building were guarding, we would find it through a couple of wall panels. Neon would burn through them easy enough.

The Molotov felt heavy and dangerous on my chest as I navigated through the maze of weapons. Eventually, I led my whole team up to a stretch of bare wall. I activated my sword, making the blue-violet beam flare. I cut through the wood, keeping tense, ready for anything. The NE energy in my sword counted down as I used it. The weapon was an energy hog.

Sweat dripped from my brow as a wood slat gave way. I caught it to keep it from making noise. Turning sideways, I inched through the gap, careful not to make a sound.

Faint, insistent murmurs met my ears a few seconds before my eyes recovered from Neon’s light. There, in the center of a small square room, were three chairs, positioned in a triangle. Someone sat in each one, bound and gagged.

“Mmmmm mm hmm!” one of the shapes murmured, and I darted forward to rip off her gag.

“Alan?” Kaity gasped. “Are you real?”

The poor woman's voice was barely a whisper, but it reached my ears like a lifeline. Relief washed over me as I hurried to ungag the two other women. Worryingly, one of them was knocked out—a very bad sign. The other thanked me, and started sobbing quietly.

“Free them,” I told Sudi, and the man set about doing just that. I knew he’d use his dilos to burn through any constraints he couldn’t untie himself.

"Kaity, it's going to be okay," I said softly, working quickly to untie the ropes that bit into her wrists. "We're getting you out of here."

“I know. I knew you’d come.”

The comment gave me pause, but I didn’t let it slow me. Sometimes it amazed me, the trust that my people put in me. It also scared me. If I ever got killed....

I shoved the thought away. They’d survive without me. Some risks need to be taken. Risks like this one.

Risks like the thing that you’re gonna do next.

"Thank you," she breathed, as the last of the ropes fell away. The other two women slumped free a few moments later.

"Help them up," I instructed. “Carry them if you have to.”

Jaivyn startled me by shouldering the unconscious woman, like she weighed no more than ten pounds. Tear stains marked his face in the faint light through the high window slits. He was still recovering from losing his bonded dino.

I remembered what it was like to lose Sleuth. Months and months of denial, of pretending he’d never existed. I wasn’t fully bonded to him then, not through this alien tech, but now... if I lost Investigator, or Bertha....

I shuddered to think of it.

“All right,” I said. “Back the way we came. We’ll make one last distraction, then hug the shadows near the mining channel that wasn’t in use, until we can sneak back through the smoke cloud and call Malcolm—”

I stopped talking when the outer door opened.

There was no time for anything but a reaction. I snagged my crossbow off my back and aimed it, releasing the bolt with a muted twang the instant I saw a figure on the far side of the door.

Ka-tink. The bolt glanced off the armor of the guard.

The man’s eyes widened. “Intruder!” he started to yell, but Lindiwe cut him off with a roundhouse kick to his throat. He staggered back, his whole body glinting with Metal armor. He’d painted the stuff black, so I hadn’t seen it from a distance. It had just looked like a uniform to me.

I rushed forward and jumped clear over the fallen man, before activating Neon inside the chest of the guy still outside the building. None too soon, either. The man had been raising an obelisk to his mouth.

As he burbled, eyes wide, I cut the power to Neon and helped him drop quietly. By the time I dragged him inside the building, Carmila had paralyzed the other guard with the help of a bufo. She knew not to kill them, in case I wanted to question them.

I glanced at the man, then drew my finger across my throat. I didn’t need to question these men. I knew everything I needed to know.

Carmila nodded, and took out her knife.

Chapter 10

A Molotov Eulogy

“ARE YOU HURT?” I asked Kaity, kneeling in front of her. I ignored the sounds the guard made as Carmila ended his life.

Kaity exhaled a rattling breath, making her red hair flit about her face. “I think... they did something to my head....”

Bastards, I thought.

“Alan,” Lindiwe said, “the bodies are going to make it clear we were here.”

I sighed and stood up. “You have no faith in me, do you, Lindiwe? I already thought of that. Now help Kaity out of here. Take everyone back into the warehouse area. I’ve got to set this scene.”

Lindiwe frowned, but she obeyed, and I stepped back over to the bodies of the guards. It was then that I noticed something unusual. A few drops of acid from one of my dinosaurs had splattered onto a dead guard's gold chain necklace, causing it to sizzle and smoke.

Huh. The dilos took initiative, did they? That was another indication of a strong bond. Not only could we borrow the traits of our dinos, but the dinos could borrow from us. In this case, one of Sudi’s bondmates must have understood these were enemies without having to be expressly told.

I pocketed the broken gold necklace, thinking it might make a nice gift for my wives. It could be melted down into a couple of rings, maybe. Perks of the job.

Next, I reached for my new Storage pokeyball device, pressed its button, and pulled out three of the lifeless bodies I’d collected from the drop site earlier. The cold, unresponsive faces of the Britonian flight team stared back at me as they thumped to the floor in a pile, joining the dead guards. The whole thing sent a shiver down my spine, but it was the only way to hide that we’d been here.

Unlike the guards, these men had been fliers, meaning they were slim and short. They would pass as three dead women once I was done with them.

"Alan, are you sure about this?" Poppy asked hesitantly, her eyes darting between me and the corpses.

"Trust me," I replied, my hands trembling slightly as I unsheathed my plasma sword. The fiery blade hissed in the air, casting a sinister glow on the cold stone floor.

"Stand back," I warned Poppy, and she moved away from the scene. Everyone else had gone into the next room, but Poppy wasn’t used to missions like this one. She was staying close to the person she felt safest with.

As Neon burned in my right hand, I pulled the Molotov cocktail from my pocket with my left. I pulled the fabric out of the bottle with my teeth, before carefully dousing the bodies with oil from the stolen Molotov. Afterwards, I ignited the bodies with my plasma sword. Flames danced across the cadavers. It was a macabre sight, but now, it would appear that the guards and captives had all perished in a fire—a fire that would grow quickly from here.

"Let's move!" I ordered over the crackling of new flame. I didn’t want to be here once it started smelling of charred meat.

Poppy scurried back towards the warehouse area where the rest of our team waited, anxiety written across their faces. Time was running out, but the fire would cover for our escape along the shadowy route I’d seen from the air.

Except... crap. There were already shadows darting in the warehouse windows; people were moving around outside. The enemy didn’t know we were here yet, but as soon as they entered to start fighting the fire, we’d be outed.

“Alan, here,” Lindiwe said, stomping on the floor. The movement sounded hollow, and I knew I’d see a trapdoor before I did. Of course, the thing was locked—but locks hardly mattered to us anymore.

“Sunrise found it,” Sudi said. He must be referring to one of his dilos. “She could smell something underneath.”

I grinned. “Have her burn through the lock.”

He didn’t hesitate, and soon, my entire team was dropping down into the darkness under the storehouse, the metal of the lock still sizzling as we passed by. I went last, hearing shouts as I closed the thing up behind me, leaving us all in a pure black abyss.

There hadn’t been a ladder, but the drop had been enough for Jaivyn to touch with his toes once he hung over the edge. He had to hunch down in the small space as I reignited Neon to give us some harsh but effective purplish light.

The darkness enveloped us, endless and suffocating in two directions. As my eyes adjusted, I realized we had stumbled upon a different kind of treasure trove.

"Where are we?" whispered Poppy, her voice trembling.

"Looks like some sort of distillery," Dimitri said, peering at the rows of large clay pots lining the walls. The air was thick with the scent of fermenting fruits and grains.

I brushed past the group, leading them in the direction of the cavern’s exit. "Guys, we need to move. That fire won't take long to reach this place, and when it does...."

I trailed off, not wanting to verbalize the inevitable explosion that would result from the mix of flames and alcohol. We’d get an even bigger distraction than we bargained for.

"Everyone stick together and stay close," Carmila said, waving Poppy and Sudi forward. She and Dimitri took up the rear guard as Lindiwe joined me at the front. I had to admit it—facing a ceaseless dark had me on edge, but Lindiwe’s presence was grounding. I was used to fighting with Jarod, who—while effective—wasn’t really all that brave. I knew he’d try to have my back, but Lindiwe... she’d have my back, always, no exceptions, no fear.

I really wanted to keep her around.

We hurried through the narrow passageways, the only sounds our ragged breaths and the distant crackling of fire. Then one boom sounded—then another. Boom. Boom. BOOM!

We started running then, panting hard, our footsteps echoing behind us as the alcohol exploded a dozen pots at a time. We ran a good quarter mile before I no longer needed to use Neon. Firelight lit us up from behind.

“Alan!” Poppy screamed, terrified.

“Just run, Poppy!” Kaity said. “We’ve got this!”

And we did have it. There, up ahead, was a set of stairs leading up. “Dilos front and center!” I called, as I delved deep into my mind, searching for the bond I needed most. He came to me, and I let my needs roll across our connection. I felt Malcolm dive.

This was it.

After burning through a lock, we all burst into the fresh night air, the ground shaking violently back the way that we’d come. A deafening boom reverberated through the mine, drawing all eyes far away from us. A blast of hot air chased us out. We’d escaped just in time.

And there he was, Malcolm, swooping down through the smoke cloud. His vivid blue wings flared wide as he banked to land.

“Everybody on!” I said, hustling them all past me. By this point, Lindiwe had started carrying Kaity, and Dimitri now carried the third captive woman, who’d fainted. Luckily all three women were light as feathers.

“We need to go back and kill that caretaker,” Lindiwe said. She was last to board, aside from me.

“No. We need to trust her,” I said, grabbing Lindiwe’s wrist and shoving her hand onto the rope ladder that hung off Malcolm’s huge saddle. “Besides, in a few hours, it won’t matter if they knew we were here or not. Now take this.”

I took the Storage pokeyball off my belt and handed it to her. “Climb to the underside of Mal’s saddle, and activate this, facing it down and away from him. It connects to the alien’s dimensional space, which it projects outward, looking for stuff to store. It will distort you all as you run—not quite invisibility, but something close. Less conspicuous than a giant blue bird.”

She blinked at it, her other hand still on the saddle. “What do you mean, as we all ru—”

She never finished the sentence. On my unspoken command, Malcolm launched himself into the sky, and Lindiwe held on from sheer instinct, her hand still on the ladder where I’d placed it.

I waved at her from the ground. Take care of them, I thought.

Then I turned back to the shadowy side of the cavern. My plan had changed since coming here.

Now, it was time for Phase Three.

Chapter 11

Dropoff

A FEW MORE RANDOM distillery jars exploded as I wended my way back toward the ptera stable. I chuckled to myself at each muted roar; we couldn’t have chosen a better escape route, and this had happened by pure chance.

See how well their soldiers fight when there’s no booze to come home to, I thought. Morale was going to plummet around here, and I knew for a fact it wasn’t great to begin with. Conditions in the city were dismal. In the outer ring of the fortress, everyone seemed to live in poverty. They were paid for their labor in food, but that didn’t cover their other needs—and equality clearly wasn’t a concern for Archie.

I caught a few suspicious glances as I worked my way across the cavern in broad sulphur-light, but the exploding distillery had drawn most eyes away, even now. Of those who looked twice at me, all they saw was a white guy in a dirty uniform. I looked like one of theirs, if only in a uniform that was slightly too small for me, and a lot muddier than it should have been.

I kept my eyes on the wall above the ptera stables, searching for an overhang. Poppy had told me that Radish, her pterodactyl, had hidden itself up there somewhere. I had to find it to get out of here. I could have taken Malcolm, but his normal limit was six people, and he was already carrying nine. If I’d made it ten, the poor guy might not have been able to launch at all. He’d need a PowerUp shot as it was, and Radish would, too. Luckily, I carried a PowerUp dart on me at all times, retooled from a collection of empty darts we’d gotten in a drop. It was standard issue for spy missions now.

My gaze caught on a jagged scar in the rock just as someone grabbed my arm and swung me.

“Hey! Who the fuck are you?”

I wasted no time in spouting off my cover story. “Kieran Wilson,” I gasped, pretending to be winded.

“Your rank?”

“Staff sergeant,” I replied, thankful for my spy ring’s early intel. They’d managed to determine the ranking system among Archie’s men, which happened to be American, despite the fact the whole place was named after Britain.

I followed up fast with, “Look, buddy, I can’t deal with this now. I have to get to the king. Look.”

I held up a chunk of the gold necklace I’d pulled off the dead guard at the storage house. This particular chunk had been subjected to the dilo spit, so it was all molten and twisted, no longer resembling chain links. It looked more like raw ore pulled from a mine vein.

“Found a fucking gold Metal mine,” I said between gasping breaths. “Rode my mount down outside the city. Gotta get to a new mount, stat.”

The man’s eyes widened. Apparently, he was aware of what Metal was, and aware of the fact that the gold-variety mine was still missing. He must be a higher-ranked officer, which made sense; lower-ranked guys wouldn’t have had the confidence to stop me. Their military wasn’t exactly rigorous, not yet.

“I—you—there are proper channels,” the guy stammered.

I shook the gold at him. “Not when Alan Motherfucking Winchester saw the shit at the same time as me. Look, you don’t let me through right now, it’s your funeral. Archie is gonna be pissed.”

Sense of urgency, I thought. Show them what they’ve got to lose. Show familiarity with the king. Keep them on tilt.

While the guy gaped like a fish, searching for more reasons not to believe me, I pressed my advantage. “I’ve got a spare mount, up there.” I pointed straight at the scar in the mine wall. “Secret backup. I’m gonna climb it, and you’re not gonna stop me, got it?”

He blinked up the wall, and I didn’t give him a chance to stop me. I spun around and fled.

No more shouts chased me, but I had no doubt he’d be calling it in once he got his wits about him. I didn’t care. The lines of communication would be flooded with reports about the burned longhouse, the dead captives, the distillery. Archie might get the message, but not fast enough.

I had to seize my advantage, while I still had it.

No one else tried to stop me after that, not even when I climbed the wall and slipped into the slot where Radish was hiding. I mounted the trembling creature and purred calming words until she stilled. Then I gave her a command, and because she had originally been domesticated by alien tech, she had to obey me. As she spread her wings, I popped her full of PowerUp. She’d carry me just far enough.

“You’re gonna go down in history for this, Radish. Did you know that?” I said.

The pterodactyl cawed, and I grinned darkly as she took flight, swooping toward the column of smoke. I checked the contraption at my back, and the flight suit felt ready. A tug at two strings, and I was moderately sure it would expand for me. Or I could fall to my death. There was that.

“Worth the risk,” I told myself. After all, plans had changed. Tonight, I would be playing assassin.

Tonight, I’d be killing a king.

High above the fortress of Britonia, I leapt from Radish and pulled the strings.

Everything worked like clockwork from there. The flight suit expanded between my arms and my legs. I wobbled for a moment, then stabilized, already used to flight thanks to Malcolm. I never even had time to be afraid.

I sailed toward the castle at the center of the Britonian fortress, flying off instinct that had been imbued from dozens of hours riding my quetzal bondmate. I knew scouts would be watching for me, but smoke was currently puffing out of street grates all over the city. It had been a night of distractions and misdirection, and I wasn’t about to let the opportunity fade away. I’d kill Archie tonight, while his city found itself in chaos. Chaos that appeared to be accidental. I’d taken pains to make it look that way.

Come morning, however, it would no longer look accidental. There would be war.

Fine by me.

I angled toward the second-highest tower of the castle, easily searching out the balcony where Archie had spoken to me all those weeks back, pointing out the vast lands he owned. Now here was the one hitch in my plan: I didn’t know where the man slept. He obviously wouldn’t sleep in his throne room, which is where the balcony attached to. And I only had a couple of minutes to make an educated guess, before gravity would pull me out of range.

He’s paranoid, but smart, I thought, thinking back. I remember what direction his wives came from when he called for them to be brought to him. It’s not a complicated castle, so his rooms are likely in the same direction they came from, since he’s so traditionally-minded, and they’d never leave their rooms without permission or guards....

Thoughts like these raced through my mind, narrowing down the places I thought he could be.

Prideful means high up. A whole floor to himself.

Smart means the less-obvious tower, so not the tallest.

Distrustful of his wives... he’ll be close to them....

He’ll give himself the best view....

I narrowed it down as I descended, until I found myself scanning the four towers for wide balconies stretching all the way around a whole floor. I discovered two such places, but only one connected to the throne room tower via a covered passageway. Why covered? To protect the city’s most important person from weapon fire when he’s walking from work to home.

It was a risk, but better to land there with options to go elsewhere if I was wrong. It was high enough that I could float down to other floors if needed.

Landing proved tougher than flying. My feet couldn’t catch me, and I tumbled forward on the balcony, barely protecting my face with the suit’s wings as they went limp from lack of wind. I came to a stop on my knees with an undignified oof, which I tried—and failed—to muffle.

Shaking my head, I leapt to my feet, Neon drawn, ready for attack. Nothing came at me. If guards were normally stationed on this balcony, they were gone now.

It was then that I heard shouting, close by but suppressed. I glanced over my shoulder to find a pair of wooden doors in the center of the balcony wraparound. The voice was coming from there.

I jumped up just in time to get out of sight before the door slammed open and two soldiers bolted out. They made a break for the covered walkway, and something flashed after them—a knife? It barely missed.

“And don’t fucking come back until the bastard’s dead!” Archie shouted after them, his voice sounding sawed-off from beyond the two doors. “I know he’s fucking there! I know it! Now find him!”

Shit. Looks like I’m made, I thought. Either that, or Archie saw through my game. I’d put money on the latter. Forget eagle eyes—the guy had an eagle mind. Only a fool would underestimate Archie. He always thought ten steps ahead.

Which is why I have to kill him tonight. If I didn’t, he’d prepare meticulously for months, amassing even more weapons and growing proficient with all of them. He would become unstoppable, and then he’d wipe Tribe Grant off the face of the planet, alongside anyone else who got in his way.

But if I killed him now, a dumber monarch would take his place... and they’d rush in to retaliate against my tribe, well before they knew how to use all the tools they possessed. The faster I started this war, the more chance my tribe had.

And killing a king was a great way to start a war.

Archie slammed the balcony doors closed, and I nearly bum-rushed them, knowing he would be calling spare guards any moment now. When I reached the doors, I waited ten seconds, listening, and heard nothing.

In one fluid motion, I slipped into the room.

The guy hadn’t even locked it. He was that sure of his safety. I fell into a crouch and got behind the first object I could make out in the dimness. It was pitch-dark in here, windowless. Paranoid, I thought again.

“Are you here to kill him?” a woman said.

I nearly came out of my skin at the question. The speaker was close, off the ground. I waited for a knife at my throat or my back.

“Let me help you. Please,” the voice said, at the exact moment the room’s interior door opened.

The purple-blue hue of alien light fell across the carpeted floor, but it didn’t touch me from where I crouched beside a settee. I watched Archie’s shadow on the floor as he closed the door and lit a lantern. “Damn things are always going out,” he muttered.

“What’s going on?” the woman said, but this time, the question wasn’t directed at me. I peered around the back of the settee to see a woman I recognized.

I was incredulous. That’s Nadiyya’s mother!

But it made sense. She was the king’s real wife, the one he’d married in Old Earth. If I recalled correctly, her name was Yazmin. He probably went to bed with her most nights, if only for the comfort of it.

“Nothing’s going on,” Archie groused.

“Archie,” Yazmin said, like a reprimand.

Archie growled in his throat, and his wife hastened to amend her statement: “My king. I am sorry. I spoke out of turn. I’m merely curious—”

Archie stalked to the bed. “Yeah? And you should be. He fucking got the captives back, I know it.”

“The captives are gone?” the queen replied. “But hadn’t you stationed men there?”

“Not enough of them, apparently. I just can’t believe he’d be this stupid, all for a few fliers who don’t even know anything. We even tried crossing the wires on one of them, but it didn’t work.”

“Crossing wires?” Yazmin asked. I knew she was buying me time.

Archie growled. “You know, that bond thing they’ve figured out with their dinos. It’s some sort of brain connection. We tried to take it out of her. Didn’t work.”

Son of a bitch, I thought. They messed with Kaity’s bond tech? Without even knowing how it worked?

“That sounds... interesting,” Yazmin said.

“Pain in the ass, more like. It made her go crazy. Still, not sure why he’d risk everything to save a couple useless women. Who takes that kind of risk for three nobodies?”

You wouldn’t know honor if it cut your dick off, I thought sourly, my hand tightening on Neon. I kept my thumb hovering over the button, waiting to see Archie’s shadow bending down....

Finally the king ducked back onto his bed. “Now, where were we?” he asked Yazmin.

I activated Neon and shot to my feet. “I’m right here, you bastard,” I said.

Chapter 12

Traitor and Assassin

I STRUCK the king of Britonia across the back with my plasma sword.

He whipped around and snatched the sword from my hands.

It took me a single second to understand, but a second was all it took for Archie to kick me in the stomach. I saw it coming, and on instinct I went limp, letting the kick double me over and shoot me backward. This pushed me as far away from him as I could get, and I struggled into a roll to go farther.

Gold armor. The guy must have gold Metal armor!

There was nothing else I knew of that had even the potential to counter Neon. The sword buzzed as Archie activated it, but I’d fallen and rolled out of range. If I hadn’t, he could have killed me right then.

“I figured you’d come eventually,” he sneered. “And with a distraction that big? You’d seize the chance.”

I coughed, wordless, my hand on my laser pokeyball. It wasn’t Neon, but it could still cut his arms off; the only armor I could see was a chest and back piece, hidden under his sleeping robe. The bastard had been waiting for me. He’d expected that strike to the back. That’s probably why he’d left this room—to change into armor before returning to his wife.

But if I used the laser, I could destabilize half the building. The thing could cut through several rooms at once, and lords forbid I get the angle wrong. I’d have a good chance of killing myself and the queen and half the castle servants.

“You’re a smart one, Winchester, I’ll give you that,” Archie growled. “Unfortunately for you, I’m smarter.”

He lunged.

I leapt to one side, my gut screaming in pain I hadn’t yet recovered from. Archie swung the plasma blade through the wall like butter, maintaining control as he spun back around to go at me again. By then I’d drawn a simple spear, hoping to keep him at arm’s length.

He simply cut right through the spear.

On the downswing, I dropped my severed weapon and surprised him by diving for his ankles. He toppled forward and almost impaled himself on the second spear strapped to my back, but that damned breastplate spared him again. As Neon cut a hole through the floor behind me, I rolled to one side to dislodge the king. I drew my knife, aiming a slash at the back of his knee, but he broke apart from me in time to save himself.

I was outmatched, my own weapon turned against me. I threw my knife across the room and put my hands up in surrender.

“Hey, hey, hey,” I said, backing up as the king grunted his way to his feet. He might be muscular, but even in the time since I’d seen him last, some of that muscle had gone to fat. He had to be at the upper age limit of the people the aliens had set free, and right now, he looked it. He scowled at me from beneath his dark, sweaty bangs.

“We can end this peacefully,” I said, my back coming up against a wall.

He grinned at me. “Oh, you sweet summer child. I don’t believe in peace.”

And King Archie started swinging my sword.

I sighed. Honestly, I’d thought the guy would be a bit more of a challenge. But that’s what you get for being a raging misogynist. If you think women are only good for one thing, then you aren’t aware of what they’re capable of.

Yazmin gripped her husband by the back of his robe with one hand, and slashed my knife across his throat with the other.

He dropped Neon, which went flying across the room, but luckily the blade turned off when its owner wasn’t touching it. It hit the wall a few moments before Archie’s knees hit the floor.

“That’s for my daughters, you sick fuck,” Yazmin growled.

Archie gurgled, then fell forward, dead.

Yazmin stood to her full height, wearing as luxurious a nightgown as humans were probably capable of making at this moment in time. She reminded me of Nadiyya in a way that sent pangs of worry through me. I had to get back to her before this was discovered. I had to get back to my wife.

Yazmin eyed me, distrustful, the knife still in her bloodied hand. “You’re the fucker who married my daughter,” she said.

I swallowed. There was nothing in the world quite like a woman scorned. “I’m also the guy who threw you that knife.”

She huffed. “That means nothing. You’re just as bad as he is, with five wives and counting. I should kill you, too, and have done.”

We both knew she’d never kill me before I killed her, but she was clearly willing to die trying. I knew how this must look to her—like a pissing contest between rival tribe leaders. She hadn’t exactly been hearing any good rumors about me, not with Archie’s propaganda machine running.

“Hey, Nadiyya? Come in, Nadiyya,” I said, speaking the words into my obelisk. Instantly it vibrated.

“Unmute obelisk,” I told the thing.

“—here, Alan! I’m here! Are you all right? The others—”

“Nadiyya!” Yazmin cried, rushing at me. I kept an eye on the knife, which she didn’t drop. She merely stuffed it in her pocket as she made a grab for my dark stone pendant.

Nadiyya was silent for a moment. “...Mother?”

Yazmin instantly broke down into tears. “Oh, Nadiyya, you’re all right. Tell me you’re all right.”

A tearful laugh sounded over the line. “Mother? Is it really you? Of course I’m all right! Where’s Yusra? Is she with you? Where’s Alan?”

Yazmin blinked and seemed to remember me. She shot back from me.

“He’s right here. Alan’s right here, Nadiyya, and he just killed Archie. Can I trust him?”

“What? Yes, Mother, of course you can trust—what did you say? Did you say he killed Archie?”

I covered the obelisk with my hand. “Mute obelisk,” I said, cutting Nadiyya off. This was no time for explanations. “Yazmin,” I said, trying to imbue that one word with all the gravity I could muster, “we need to go. Where is Yusra?”

Nadiyya would never forgive me if I rescued her mother and not her sister, too. Little Yusra would be screwed if she were left here unprotected.

Yazmin dropped her gaze to Archie and paled, as if only just now seeing him. She backed away and started pointing at the door.

“Just two d-d-doors down. Only two. What have I—what just—”

I stalked over to Neon, grabbed it, and asked, “Anyone in the room next door?”

I nodded at the interior wall that led in the direction of Yusra. Yazmin shook her head. “No. They are just part of his apartments—”

I cut a hole through the wall.

“Come on,” I said, reaching a hand back to the first queen of Britonia. “Let’s get your daughter and get the fuck out of here.”

Yazmin blinked, and cast one last look at her husband.

Then she spat on him, and laid her hand in mine.

We were six floors down, with Yusra in tow, before we heard any mention of an alarm being sounded. That warning came in the form of thundering feet overhead as we crept along the inside of the castle wine cellar. The Britonians certainly did love their liquor, to have so much of it stored everywhere.

“It’s there, keg thirteen,” Yazmin said, pointing. “It’s a door. Just turn the tap.”

In the light of Neon’s blade, I passed the massive ale keg labeled “12” and found myself standing in front of keg number 13. I reached for the tap and twisted it like a handle, and the entire rounded front of the thing swung toward me. Inside, the keg was empty, its round interior leading into a stone passage. Archie must have had it built directly into the walls.

“Damn, I really thought better of you, Archie,” I muttered. Yazmin had told me the place was used for smuggling prostitutes in and out. King Archie was all about soldier morale—and about variety in his own bedroom, if I had to guess. But that left him with an enormous security risk. I suppose even Archie had his weaknesses.

Well, I’d be having to contend with the weaknesses of a new leader soon enough. For now, I wanted to get out of here with my precious cargo in tow. Staying wouldn’t help me take Britonia down. I was only one man, and I’d never escape alive.

But when I came back, I would not be alone.

Neon’s light flickered, then went out. I hissed a curse.

“Ran out of NE. It’s an energy hog,” I explained. “Here, take it, so you know I’m not lying and planning to stab you when you’re not looking. I’ll go on ahead.”

Yazmin said nothing, but she reached out and took the inactive Neon. I was happy to cater to her distrust for the time being. The woman had been through so much hell.

From there, it was a long walk to the trapdoor that led to the most upscale brothel in all of Britonia. It was above my head, and I had to climb a small ladder to reach it.

“So—do you trust these women?” I asked Yazmin.

“No,” she said simply. I sighed.

“Here’s hoping,” I said, feeling about for the padlock and taking a shard of triceratops beak off my utility belt. Turns out, the things were hardcore abrasive. They could cut through pretty much anything, given enough sawing. I had the padlock hanging open in minutes.

I returned the trike beak to my mission kit, which was a fancy name for the leather fanny pack I now required for all my fighters and scouts. Then, gingerly, I pushed up on the trapdoor.

It swung open far faster than I’d pushed it, and a crossbow bolt appeared so close to my face that I had to cross my eyes to see it.

“Who the fuck are you?” the gorgeous woman said.

That was the third time tonight someone had asked me that question. My gaze slid up the woman’s bare leg, to her thigh, to her sheer dress and naked breasts—all the way to her face, her eyes limned in charcoal. For a moment, the prostitute reminded me of Kaity. She had flaming red hair—and the temperament to match.

I smiled winningly at her. “The name’s Alan Winchester,” I said. “And I’ve got just one question for you.”

She poked me in the nose with the bow. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“Back on Old Earth, did you have children?” I said.

An hour later, the prostitutes had Yazmin and Yusra all bundled up in the brothel’s field carriage, which was meant to take the “girls” to visit officers out in the farmlands. Earning the brothel’s help had taken nine promises to return lost children to the prostitutes, once I took control of Britonia. I would keep my word to them, if it was the last thing I did.

As one prostitute shut the carriage door on Yazmin and Yusra, the red-headed madam, Marjorie, took a pull on her tobacco pipe beside me.

“You’ll never beat our army, you know,” she said casually. “It’s huge.”

“Why did you make a deal with me, then?” I replied.

She shrugged one bare shoulder. “If there’s even a 1% chance of getting my Rowan back, it’s worth it.”

I bit my lip. Yazmin stared at me from behind the carriage curtains, her gaze urgent.

“What if I offered you more than that?” I said lowly. “Your own homes. Safer jobs. A fistful of gold Metal apiece. Security and prosperity for all of you, and your children.”

She snorted. “You want more wives or somethin’? Cuz we’re taken.” She chuckled at her own morbid joke.

I smiled. “No. I’ve got something else in mind.”

The brothel madam raised a red eyebrow at me.

“Do ya, cowboy?” she said. “I’m listening.”

Chapter 13

Under the Table

LONG STORY SHORT: we survived our escape. It was all a blur in my memory. Now the sun was coming up over the horizon, and I still hadn’t slept. I rubbed my eyes and looked at the map again.

“We can excavate here,” Jarod said, pointing at the drawing of Britonia that our cartographer, Alfred, had copied from our topo map. “Tunnel under the city, into the mine. Then we can gas them right there in their cavern. Kill all the soldiers in one go.”

“Gas them with what?” Cole said, his arms crossed. The two men stood over the long, makeshift table in our mobile command center. This is where I’d left them when I’d gone to the drop with my team. They’d been running comms to the de facto leaders of our two settlements, and coordinating with a gallimimus team on reconnaissance to ensure we got back safe. Nadiyya was technically in charge here, but she was still with her mother and sister. I smiled when I thought of their tearful reunion. I hadn’t stayed long. It had seemed like a private thing.

Jarod threw up his hands. “I don’t know!” he said. “Vinny can come up with something! Maybe we distill beelzebufo venom or something?”

“It’s poison, not venom.”

“Same difference!”

I blinked at the map, my sight swimming from exhaustion. I couldn’t generate ideas, not when I was this tired, but Britonia could attack any moment. I’d just killed their king, after all. It was a move meant to destabilize them, but we had to be prepared for retaliation anyway.

The door to the command tent fluttered, and Carmila strode in. “News,” she said. “Napoleon has taken command. He’s blaming Yazmin for Archie’s murder. There’s no mention of Alan. He got away clean.”

My eyebrows rose, and I was about to speak when the tent wall opposite Carmila moved, and another figure slipped in—Nadiyya. She glanced over Jarod and Cole, but the two men were turned away from her, facing Carmila. Carmila must have seen her, but my head spy said nothing.

I turned to my wife, but she held a finger to her lips... and then inexplicably ducked under the command table, hiding herself beneath the long, burlap tablecloth that kept sap from getting into the maps.

I frowned, but when I looked back at my compatriots, Carmila winked at me. Jarod and Cole were speaking to each other, oblivious.

“So they won’t retaliate?”

“Maybe it’s a cover.”

“Yeah. We should still be prepared.”

Damn them and their full night’s sleep, I thought, just as a hand rode up the inside of my calf. I jumped, but Nadiyya didn’t stop. She parted my knees and rubbed her hands up my thighs.

I swallowed. “Um. Napoleon... he’s a bit of an idiot,” I said, as Nadiyya reached for my belt, making me stiffen. Swallowing, I went on, “If he didn’t make the connection between the explosions, the dead captives, and the assassination, I’d believe it. He cares more about having authority than he cares about leading well.”

My wife’s fingers pried my belt open, and she started tugging on it. I shifted in place to make it easier for her as Jarod said, “What should we do, then?”

“Post our best, ah, scouts. Our spies,” I said. My pants drifted over my knees and pooled at my ankles. “Whenever any force leaves Britonia, I want to know about it. But if they aren’t blaming us, it’s unlikely Napoleon will wrest enough control to get a significant force out right away—”

I cut myself off as Nadiyya’s hand found my dick.

Pulse thundering, I worked hard to gather all my thoughts into one place. Jarod and Cole watched me curiously, while Carmila hid a smile behind her hand. I pushed a tad closer to the table to keep Nadiyya hidden.

“Okay, ah,” I stammered, but I couldn’t think of what to say next. Nadiyya was stroking me now, working me out of my undergarments, my bare skin on hers. I focused and sat up. “Ready the spinos, defense formation Styx. All our intelligence agents should be on Napoleon, while the gallies watch the forest for other intruders.”

Oh fuck, Nadiyya, that feels good, I wanted to say. Instead, I blurted out, “As for our main forces... I need them moved to Peace. All our best weapons, too. That’s closer to Britonia.”

Cole frowned. “But that would leave Prosperity undefended!”

“We leave a contingent of our best men and biggest dinos there, just in c—”

My voice died as something hot and wet engulfed my cock. Nadiyya had just put her mouth on me. Holy hell. She’d only done that once before.

I swallowed and clarified, “Just in case.”

Jarod slapped his hands on the table and leaned on them, meeting my eyes. “You sure about this one, Alan?”

Nadiyya took my cock to the back of her throat. I hid a groan by running a hand down my face.

“Look, guys, I’m tired. But I have a p-plan—” I had to stop talking again as Nadiyya gripped my balls and deep-throated me. At least one of us had energy to spare.

“I’ll tell you more tomorrow. But for now, I need some fucking rest,” I growled. Nadiyya sucked on me with a casual rhythm now, meticulously keeping quiet despite how deep she was going. Right now, I didn’t want to think of anything else but that mouth. Maybe I’d find some energy after all.

My lieutenants exchanged glances, then shrugged. “Your funeral,” Jarod said.

Carmila scoffed. “It won’t be. When will you boys ever learn?”

With that, the three of them filed out, Carmila hurrying them along like she was herding chickens into a hutch. She shot a grin over her shoulder as the flap fell closed.

“Jesus, Nadiyya,” I rasped, flipping the tablecloth up over her head. I was about to say something else, but seeing her face above my wet cock, her mouth pulling on me, her elegant fingers gripped at the base of my shaft....

My chest went light, and for several delicious strokes of her tongue and throat, I just watched her. She kept her eyes on mine, the hazel in them bright. She wore a nightdress, made of rough cotton, but it had already slipped off one shoulder. My eyes dipped to the shadows near her exposed collarbone.

She closed her eyes, and murmured in ecstasy as she drew her perfect lips off me, pulling her tongue along the underside of my cock until she ended the whole display with a lick to my tip.

My voice was faint when I said, “What are you doing, Nadiyya?”

She was kissing up my shaft now, cradling it in one hand. “I’m rewarding you,” she said, before licking me.

“You’re a lesbian.”

“Call me curious.”

I shook myself and pushed her away gently. “Is this about your mom and sister? Nadiyya, I don’t need you to repay me for that. Especially not like this.”

She reached up and pulled her remaining sleeve off her shoulder. The nightdress fell to her waist, revealing her large breasts, the nipples tight and the flesh pebbled with want.

She held her tits up to me, one cupped in each hand, fingering her nipples. “Does it look like I’m not hot for you?”

My mouth had been sandblasted. “Ah....”

“Or should I straddle you and show you what other parts of me want to reward you?”

I licked my lips, searching for the right, moral answer. “I could, ah, call for Sayuri....”

Nadiyya raised an eyebrow. “I don’t want Sayuri. I want your dick. I want it in all of my holes, Alan. I want you to show me what cock feels like, over and over and over.”

Who was this woman? This was nothing like the shy lesbian she’d been only days ago, sucking my cock only because Sayuri asked her to. I’d never been inside her, wasn’t even sure I ever would be. Now she wanted... did she say all ALL of her holes?

Nadiyya ducked her head and nuzzled my dick. “You saved my family. Let me show my appreciation the way I want to show it. Let me show you how scared I was to see you go, to wonder if you might never come back....”

With that, her mouth wrapped over my crown again, pulling the soft mushroom ridges under her plump lips. My cock jerked, thirsty for her, cum pulsing up my shaft. My balls felt tight with pent-up need.

As she sucked on me, half naked, her hair tied behind her head to keep her face clear, I realized the words she hadn’t said. She’d been afraid for me. She’d missed me. She’d thought I wouldn’t come home.

Did she... did she care about me?

Because she’s certainly sucking like she cares.

I knew enough to recognize real desire when I saw it. She wasn’t faking. She wanted this.

I smiled. Might as well let her have it, then.

She pulled off me. “Your cock....” She sank back down, pulled back up. “It’s so big.” Down and up. “I bet it can ride me....” Down, up. “So deep.”

“Fuck, Nadiyya. Where did you learn to talk like that?”

She gripped my shaft and played with my head, rapidly pulling on it just up to the ridges while her fist worked me hard and fast. My cock was so wet with saliva that it might as well have been oiled. The liquid dripped down my balls, where her other hand played with me. Had she been taking tips from my other wives? Damn.

She’s never had cock before, I suddenly thought. Not before she blew me that first time. She’s a literal virgin to cock... oh fuck.

The thought alone made my dick quiver, made the orgasm threaten. I gripped her by the back of her head and pushed her down, and she melted beneath my touch, kissing my base as she took my cock all the way.

I felt her throat tighten, rejecting me. I knew my size could make a woman uncomfortable-really, any size could—but despite this, Nadiyya rose up and deep-throated me again, her face scrunched up, a moan rising up her throat.

“Oh, fuck, Nadiyya,” I croaked. “You’re going to make me come. Oh, fuck.”

She moaned, and took me—and took me, and moaned. Her shoulders rolled with effort, her tits swinging between my legs. I wanted inside her, so badly, but she’d said all her holes. This was only step one of three.

I yanked her head back and cursed as cum blasted up my shaft, spurting Nadiyya across her mocha-colored cheeks. She cried my name as I shoved my cock down and spurted cum between her tits next. I watched it leap across her, white strings of possession. My wife, who loves me. My wife.

I stood up and pulled her onto the table with me, flipping her onto her stomach, bent over the surface with her ass facing me. I rose to my knees, pulling her butt cheeks against my cock.

Leaning forward, I gripped her boob in my left hand while I stroked myself lightly with my right. “You’re going to make me hard again, and then I’m gonna show you what cock feels like,” I growled at her.

“Oh, Alan. Please, please give it to me. I want your big dick inside me. Anywhere you want it, anytime, always.”

Damn, talk about thankful. I had half a mind to take her family back to Britonia and rescue them again, if it meant getting this treatment a second time.

Shut up. That’s your animal brain talking, you idi... you idiot....

My own thoughts stuttered, and suddenly nothing made sense, because I was rubbing my limp cock against her pussy, and it was so fucking wet. I groaned, gripping her boob hard as I rubbed myself between her lips. She rocked back against me.

“Get hard again. Please. Tell me what to do to make you hard again. I’ll suck you. I’ll do whatever you want.”

I pushed my cock forward, just enough to feel her moist nub against my tip. I took my hand off her chest and pressed her down, so that I had better access as I jerked off against her clit.

“Come for me,” I said, circling a hand around her hip to fondle her little bead from both angles. “Tell me when you’re coming, and I’ll ride you. I’ll give you a fuck you’ll never forget.”

She moaned, loud enough for the whole camp to hear. I didn’t care. My shaft was rising to my hand again, widening, lengthening. I studied her ass, her spread cheeks, the extra hole she’d promised me, and the pristine pink of her swollen lips. My head dipped between them, delicious, and if I hadn’t come yet, I would have come right then, without even going inside her.

“Oh, fuck,” she said. “I’ve been scared of this, but oh fuck, I want it. I love you, Alan, I want you, oh—oh!”

Her body tensed, her smooth ass jiggling, and I was hard enough, finally hard enough. I slid into her, past walls that were tightening and loosening in time to her pleasure. I closed my eyes and reveled in it. There was nothing quite like fucking a woman as she orgasmed.

“Alan!” she shouted, and I sank to my full length inside her, going slow so she could feel the whole thing. I thrust carefully, letting her tight channel get used to me. I hardened further, recovering as I took her.

She started to half-weep, half-moan with every exhalation of breath, her sounds desperate and animal and pure. I fucked her from behind, then crawled up onto the table to fuck her on my knees. I thrust until I got rope burn on the burlap tablecloth, and then I pulled out and stood up.

She looked over her shoulder at me, her hazel eyes hooded as she said, “Why’d you sto—”

I seized her by the hips and flipped her, spreading her hips wide for me, on the table’s edge. With one hand gripping her thigh, I fed my cock between her folds. No rope-burn this way.

I fucked her.

I lasted a long time, watching her body part for me, watching her sex glisten along my reddened shaft. Her tits shook and rolled, sometimes into my hands, sometimes not. I split her wide open. I made her come a second time.

When she screamed in ecstasy, I flipped her again, spitting into my hand. I rubbed it between her butt cheeks, preparing her hole for me. I circled it with my head, a warning, an invitation to back out.

“Do it,” she said, breathing heavily. “Do it, Alan. I want you to own me. I want my whole body to belong to you.”

So I held my cock hard and ready, and popped it into her. She hissed in pain, her hole going tight, forming its own little fist around my head. I added more spit and plunged deeper, into the giving interior of her ass.

“God-fuck, you fill me up,” she croaked. “Go faster. I need you to go faster.”

I obliged, only going to half my length inside her, but pushing a little farther as the seconds ticked by. Gradually her grunts turned to moans, and her hand vanished between her legs. I fucked her in the ass against the table, until I’d shoved the whole thing halfway across the command tent.

I looked down and watched my cock plunge all the way into her, and my possession of her suddenly felt complete. This woman was mine, body and soul, to have and to hold. She wore my wooden ring, and she took my dick hard.

“I love you, Alan,” she wept, her body shaking from new pleasure.

“I love you too, Nadiyya,” I grunted. Then I came.

It was my hardest release in living memory, a release born from weeks of craving someone I couldn’t have, and then suddenly getting her in the most forbidden way. My cock ejaculated like it was angry with me. I shouted words, but I had no clue what they were.

I lay against her, heaving, my hands slinking under her tits.

“So that’s what I’ve been missing,” she said.

“Are you still a lesbian?” I asked.

She chuckled. “Sexuality is a spectrum, Alan.”

“Well,” I said, “call me ultra-fucking-violet, because I’m at the end of my rainbow. I don’t think I can stand anymore.”

She flipped over, pulling me out of her. My wife grinned at me; the crazy woman still had energy.

“Time for bed, Mr. Purple,” she told me. “But you’d better let me bathe you first, because when you wake up tomorrow, we’re going to start back at red.”

Chapter 14

The Only One

“DID you say it had a built-in WoundHeal?”

Missy leaned back against the newly-constructed railing of Bolt’s saddle. Thanks to Fred, a construction worker and one of my first followers, the juvenile male brachiosaurus was now outfitted with a saddle about half the size as Bertha’s. He’d been wounded the day I domesticated him, but that had since healed up, and he was ready for business. Discussing his injury was what led us to this conversation.

Missy nodded. “I’ve put together a team of materials experts. At least that’s what I’m calling them,” she said. “So when you got back with a brand-new armor set in tow, I had to have a look. And yeah, we totally found a built-in WoundHeal in the suit. I think it’s only got one charge, but still.”

I whistled. “And the material? The gold Metal?”

“Nothing can damage it, at least nothing the Materials team can test against. But they’ll keep experimenting until you leave on your next mission.”

I’d have to meet these Materials ladies someday. Tribe Grant had grown so large now that I now ruled people I’d never met. Was this team full of Soviets? Mexicans? Africans? Or hillbillies? I was pretty sure I’d glimpsed a couple of those.

“Well, tell them thanks,” I said, pulling Missy against me and kissing the top of her head. She giggled, and when she spoke again, I recognized her village-gossip tone.

“Sooo... I heard you and Nadiyya are getting along better now?”

I swallowed dryly. That was an understatement. Over the two days’ travel home, I’d gotten laid every time I’d made the mistake of being alone for two minutes. Nadiyya practically haunted me. It was like she was making up for lost time.

It was something I still had trouble believing, but when I’d asked again about her sexuality, she’d said, I still like boobs, Alan. I just like dick too. Specifically, yours. The rest of them? Meh.

“Apparently I’m the one man she’s interested in,” I said. “Frankly, I’ve felt a bit like a dildo with a man attached to it. That woman is hungry.”

Missy trailed a finger down my chest. “You’d better take me, and only me, on your next mission. I want you all to myself for two days, too.”

I rolled my eyes above her head, where she couldn’t see them. Don’t you worry about that one, Missy. Sayuri’s already making a sex schedule for me.

Another head popped up over the saddle. Aubrey had arrived. I’d been back home a day, but I’d been mired in planning and talks with Jarod, Cole, Nadiyya, and a dozen other trusted advisers. Pretty soon I’d have to start handing out titles and job descriptions and doing annual assessments and health plans, or some shit. Thank the lords for Sayuri keeping everything in order for me. I still felt like the guy who preferred stabbing things over deciding them.

“Thought I’d find you up here,” Aubrey said. “What is it with you and high places?”

“It’s gonna be even worse now that he’s got a flight suit,” Missy chirped.

A sigh rolled out of me, and I looked out over the basin of water where Bolt was currently dipping his head to nibble on seaweed. The guy wasn’t going anywhere, just grazing. I’d come up to his saddle to escape for half a second, nothing more.

“Go on, Aubrey,” I exhaled. “Report.”

I’d already drowned in reports today, so many that I’d grabbed a random passing tribeswoman and had her start writing them down for me. The biggest one was that Napoleon had indeed wrested control of Britonia from the other courtiers, taking over the castle and military. There had been some insurrection at this, with dozens of Britonians left dead. Archie’s other wives had been demoted to house servants, but they were alive. Being maids was probably better than being that man’s wife, anyway.

King Napoleon—ugh, do I really have to call him that?—had yet to declare any sort of war on us. He’d been smart to blame Yazmin, if he’d even done that on purpose. If he had blamed me, the Britonian people would have called for him to attack me, and he had to know his armies weren’t ready. Oh, they were very well equipped, but they needed to learn how to use that equipment still. I suppose even Napoleon understood that. He was a general, after all.

And the more time he has, the stronger he’ll get, I reminded myself. I could try to initiate war now, but if he wasn’t going to force my hand, then I’d spend this time growing stronger too—or at least coming up with a solid plan to defeat him when he came at me with superior firepower. My little agreement with the prostitutes was the first step of that plan. I just needed to figure out all the other steps, too. I needed to prepare my own people, both for war and for winter.

Speaking of winter, we’d seen our first snow just the other day, meaning dangerous temperatures would come sooner than we expected. We needed ways to keep warm.

In short, I had to make the most of every moment I had. That meant almost no sleeping.

Goddamn, I’m tired.

“Kaity and the others are recovering from their imprisonment,” Aubrey went on, making me blink, “but, ah... Kaity’s not doing so well, Alan. She... well....”

“Spit it out, Aubrey,” I said wearily.

Aubrey’s eyes welled. “She miscarried, Alan.” She sniffed. “All that she had left of Eric is gone.”

My stomach sank to my feet. Oh, fuck. Poor Kaity.

“They also took her to be the leader, and targeted her for... everything they did. We think it was psychological stuff, but she’s mentioned that they used pokeyballs on her, so maybe it was alien tech.

“Regardless, she’s... not right. She sees phantoms. She’s terrified of shadows, and she thinks there are aliens talking in her head. We’ve found a former therapist, and he’s looking after her. He said the delusions are normal after an experience like hers.”

That sounded horrible, but it also sounded odd. I raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure? She seemed normal when we were escaping. But I guess she didn’t talk much.”

Aubrey shrugged. “She asked to see you several times. Okay, all the time. I get the impression she doesn’t feel safe without you.”

I ran a hand down my face. If only I could be everywhere at once.

“Invite her to live with us!” Missy said. “That’s the next best thing, right?”

Aubrey stared at her. So did I.

Missy blinked, then held up both hands. “Oh, not as a wife! No, no. Maybe like, a guard? A helper for Anthony? Even a midwife. We’ll need one. It’s your house, after all, Alan. It’s the safest place someone can be, if they can’t be next to you.”

I considered the prospect a moment, then nodded. After the Nomad attack a few days back—had it only been days?—I’d relocated my personal home to the waterfall longhouse, increasing security both above, below, and around it. I kept half the longhouse open for my guards and their families, and of course the showers remained public. But otherwise, it had become my de facto castle. No one had complained, even though we now had a tent camp around Prosperity’s water basin because of all the people I’d displaced. Housing was a problem, but when hadn’t it been a problem?

It still felt selfish, but I’d realized something when I’d gone after Archie: I had no successor. If I died, there was no one who could take my place and keep my tribe together. Jarod was too much of a follower, Cole too careful, and his brother Jack was too rash—and nobody liked Lindiwe very much, even if they did respect her. Sayuri would never be able to relinquish all her current control to others, and while Aubrey and Cassie might be able to manage it, they were focused on their children, unborn or otherwise.

The best choice would be Nadiyya; she could do the job, and I’d assigned her as my official successor. However, people wouldn’t trust her. She had come from Britonia only weeks ago. The tribe might fall apart into factions if she took control.

All this to say: I had to stay alive, at all costs. Even if it meant taking over the longhouse to have a castle of my own. Ugh, I was just as bad as Archie.

“Yeah. Move her in,” I said.

Aubrey nodded and drew close, patting my arm. “You’re a good man, Alan.”

“Really? Cuz I just feel like a tired man. Every other adjective is gravy right now.”

Aubrey cocked her head. “How about a blow job? Would that help?”

I stifled a groan. Fuck, I’m all empty. Nadiyya had woken me up with reverse-cowgirl this morning, and I was pretty sure I’d made another kid.

“No time,” I said, dropping my arm away from Missy. “I just came up here to get some fresh air, but now I’ve got a meeting with Lindiwe. We’ll need the Nomads’ drills to access the copper Metal mine, and she’s our resident drill expert—or at least, the only Nomad I fully trust with it. We’ve got to find that mine and start smelting armor yesterday. Against silver Metal, it won’t be great, but it’s sure better than nothing... and then there’s the saber-tooths. We’ve gotta deal with those.”

My two wives exchanged glances. “You’re sure spending a lot of time with Lindiwe lately,” Aubrey said carefully.

I huffed. “She’s my general. And holy hell-on-a-hairpin, she knows her shit. It’s scary. It really is.”

They didn’t look like they disagreed with that sentiment.

“It’s just...” Missy said, her voice trailing a little. “If you chose someone for your birthday wife, you’d tell us, right? You wouldn’t keep it a secret?”

It took me a moment to process the phrase birthday wife.

Oh. They mean my birthday present—one new partner of my choosing, for any reason, anytime.

I laughed out loud. “You think me and Lindiwe...? Ha! She’d eat my balls with a side of barbeque before she’d go to bed with me. And if we had been to bed, I’d probably be bruised.” I shook my head at their bewildered looks. That hadn’t been their question. Damn it, Alan, get your head out of the gutter.

“All that’s a long way of saying yes,” I told them. “Yes, if I took a new partner, I’d tell you all right away. Through the obelisks, if I had to. No secrets.”

The tension went out of both women, as if strings had snapped inside them. Had they really worried I’d cheat on them?

“I told you he wouldn’t,” Missy said.

Aubrey nodded. “I know. It’s just, the way she looks at him....”

My eyes widened. “Way? What way?”

Aubrey tapped her lip. “It’s more like... how she doesn’t look at you. There’s no spite. There’s spite when she looks at pretty much anyone else. A kind of looking-down-her-nose kinda thing.”

“Not at women, though. Just men.” Missy giggled. “Not even with us, even though we’re basically a harem.”

Huh. Now wasn’t that something? Maybe I wasn’t imagining it.

I excused myself after that, with promises of much giving-and-receiving of sexual favors when I had time. But as I dropped off Bolt’s ladder and started walking toward our untamed dino enclosures, I wondered if maybe Lindiwe and I could try a solo mission. Not just to watch how she looked at me, either.

My body tensed, my fists closing. I’ve got questions, Lindiwe.

It was time she explained what happened in Britonia. She knew more about the bond than she was telling.

It was time I found out who she really was.

Chapter 15

Mr. President

“HEY THERE, MR. PRESIDENT,” Lindiwe said. “I wondered when you might show up.”

I’d just exited the jungle path that led to Padme, our female Rex. We kept her in the undomesticated dino area just outside Prosperity.

As I approached Padme and Lindiwe, the big Tyrannosaurus glanced between the two of us, then moaned piteously and tugged at her ropes. I couldn’t tell if she wanted freedom, or if she was still pining after her long-lost lover, an Abnormal she had wanted to mate with.

“Mr. President?” I asked, eyebrow rising.

“An old joke, on account of all the blondes hanging all over you.”

She must have been watching me with Missy and Aubrey. But why? Jealousy? More like distrust, I thought.

“Looks like you’ve been making progress bonding with her,” I said, nodding to Padme. We were currently standing within chomping distance of the undomesticated dino but she didn’t attack, so that was something.

“You should assign her to someone else,” Lindiwe said.

I scratched my jaw, looking the relaxed dinosaur up and down. Padme had her own special space in this forest enclosure, where we kept valuable dinos that we hadn’t tamed yet. Each dino had a person assigned to them, and we hoped to use a bond to domesticate them rather than one of the tribe’s rare alien domestications. In Padme’s case, though, an alien domestication might become necessary. We needed a female to mate with Darth, and the sooner the better.

“She likes me. She lets me touch her,” Lindiwe conceded, holding her palm out toward the dino as she gingerly stepped closer. “But it’s slow going. Isn’t it, girl?”

In response, Padme gave a rumbling murmur. Even that small sound was somewhat terrifying, coming from a Rex.

“She’s a big ol’ carnivore,” I said, shrugging. "The bigger they are, the harder to bond.” We were starting to figure that out. If a dino was used to being boss—as in, being larger than other dinos—it took more effort to make it accept a partnership with a human. Meanwhile, Jaivyn already had two new micro-raptor buddies since coming back. They were smaller than him, so it was easier for them to see him as a worthy partner. They thought they were getting a good deal.

“It’s not that,” Lindiwe said. “There’s a block. With Abe, it was instant, like we were magnetized to each other... it’s different for me, Alan. I’m different.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, but Lindiwe saved me an answer by waving me forward. “Come on. Touch me while I try again. I have a theory.”

Touch me. The idea made me remember our Britonian mission all too clearly. Twice Lindiwe had touched me and told me to form or utilize my bonds. And it had worked both times, so easily. She was like a battery.

I wanted to unravel that mystery, so I strode forward and joined Lindiwe beside Padme’s leg. The dino looked dubiously down on us, as if she expected us to start painting her toe-talons bright pink.

“Don’t touch her, just me. Don’t try to bond with her,” Lindiwe said.

“I wasn’t planning to—”

“I mean not even on accident.” Lindiwe touched Padme, and closed her eyes.

I kept my mind on other things. There was plenty to think about. I had to travel to the copper Metal mine, claim it from whatever dinos probably guarded it, and start mining the material before Britonia did. I also had to find the gold Metal mine, and claim it before Britonia did. And then I had to seize control of Britonia’s silver Metal mine, meaning I’d have to defeat them in a war. Ugh. So many mines.

Having all three mines in my possession was a must, though. We couldn’t earn ourselves a ship if we didn’t control all three metals, and Tribe Grant had to earn a ship. It was the only way we’d be able to defend our world.

And the only way we’ll have the firepower to ever fight back against the Empire.

I swallowed. That was a goal I never said out loud. An impossible goal, but one that I harbored in my heart all the same.

Even if we got all the mines, though, we still had to keep our points high. I needed Britonia’s citizens to accept me once I took their country, and I needed to hunt enough saber-tooths to outfit my people for winter. Plus I couldn’t let any of my citizens die. If I could get to a hundred days death-free—days which included lots of winter—then it was practically a guaranteed spaceship, provided I had the mines too.

Three mines. A hundred days. When you boiled it down that far, it seemed simple... except we were starting at zero mines, and we were up against another tribe that was four times our size and far, far better equipped.

Lindiwe sighed loudly. “It’s not working. I can’t form any connection at all.”

I dredged myself back out of my thoughts. “Have you tried, uh, getting to know her? Befriending her? The bond isn’t like a magic spell that just happens. It’s tech. Some extension of our brainwaves, or something.”

She scoffed. “Of course I’ve tried getting to know her. It’s why she lets me get so close as it is. I mean, come on, this is a wild T-Rex. Do you have any idea how miraculous it is that she’s letting us touch her right now?”

I rubbed the back of my neck. She had a point. It took me months to build my bond with Bertha, for example—but she’d already been alien-domesticated. Malcolm, Darth, and Investigator, too. They hadn’t been wild to start with.

Then again, I had bonded the spinosaur Orion without a domestication—but I’d had to show her my dominance in an underwater fight, among other things. I couldn’t replicate something like that.

“But it’s more than that,” Lindiwe added, frowning as she petted Padme’s leathery ankle. “The thing I felt with Abe, the bond... I can’t find anything like it inside me. Even though I feel the same kinship with Padme, it’s like there’s nothing there... like looking into her and expecting to see raging rapids, where instead, there’s only a dried-up riverbed. Abe had the rapids, and she doesn’t.”

I ran that through my head for a moment, then said, “Huh. Now that you mention it, tapping into the bond is kinda like swimming in my dino’s psyche.”

“Yeah. But for me, Padme’s empty.”

“Is it because she’s not alien-domesticated?”

Lindiwe snorted. “Ha, no. Abe was an Abnormal. He couldn’t be domesticated.” She shook her head and dropped her hands to her hips. “Anyway, you try it. Touch me again, and then try to bond her.”

The idea took me aback. “But you’ve put in so much work with her, and I barely even know—”

“Just do it,” she said, and then she surprised me by adding, “if you don’t mind.”

That’s as close to a please as I’d probably ever get from the woman. I touched her forearm again—trying not to think too hard about that closeness—and shut my eyes. I searched for a bond with Padme, the same way I usually did with my own bondmates.

The river was right there, and it pulled me in.

I gasped. She was huge. The sheer power of her, and the abruptness of my diving into it... it was like my very soul took an ice bath right then.

Just as quickly, it ended, with Lindiwe yanking my hand away. “I fucking knew it!” she exclaimed. “You bonded to her. Without even trying. Tell me I’m wrong.”

I shook my head. It was just like that deinonychus guard dog in Britonia, that same amplification of power that I’d felt when controlling the micro-raptors using Investigator’s ability from afar.

The world spun, and Padme gave an inexplicable purring noise. I could feel her presence now, as clearly as I could feel Malcolm a mile above, or Darth patrolling the settlement wall, or Investigator managing all the nychos as they helped cart stuff out of town.

“That settles it,” I said. “You’re some kind of battery.”

Lindiwe grunted. “It would seem so.”

I shook myself, and my vision resolved. I hadn’t even realized I’d been seeing the world in different colors until then. Heat vision. Padme’s heat vision.

“This bond is strong. Too strong for a dino I just met. I can barely connect this well to Bertha, and she’s my oldest bondmate,” I said.

“I know. I felt the same thing with Abe. And yet I can’t bond to a normal dino at all.”

Lindiwe sounded almost sad. I hadn’t thought she was capable of sadness, but of course she was. She was human, just like any of us.

“Lindiwe... where did you come from, exactly?” I said slowly.

She sighed and spun in place, pointing a thumb back at Padme. “Tell that big brat to obey me. I’ll get her saddle. I made the fucking thing myself. God knows where I found the time.”

I frowned after her, but I wasn’t going to press her. So Lindiwe was a battery—and she knew she was a battery. She knew she was different, and she didn’t want to share why. I could understand her wanting her privacy, but hopefully one day, she’d feel safe telling me her secret.

Until then, we could use this. It felt almost like cheating—but with Lindiwe to help, my people could generate instant, strong bonds. Forget alien domestications. I didn’t need them anymore.

What’s more, I was reasonably sure Lindiwe was unique. If there was no one else like her, then having her gave Tribe Grant a distinct advantage.

Maybe we can go up against guns and gold Metal after all, I thought. If every person in Tribe Grant had a dino best friend, we wouldn’t go down easy anymore.

Chapter 16

Copper Kittens

PADME HAD no trouble accepting my order to obey Lindiwe. In fact, she seemed happy about it. The juvenile dino pirouetted when Lindiwe hopped into her saddle after severing the ropes around her leg.

“Well, some bond was formed, at least,” I said, sitting astride my own Rex, Darth. After a mental call from me, he’d come running.

“Just pull up the topo map, Mr. President,” Lindiwe groused. Whoops. She’d clearly wanted to bond Padme directly, after so much time spent befriending her. To find out she had limitations must be tough. A woman like Lindiwe wasn’t used to having anything get in her way.

“Sorry,” she added a moment later. “Didn’t mean to get snappy. I’m just... ugh. Can we just go?”

I pulled out my obelisk. “Sure thing. Run topography scan.”

The blue, three-dimensional map erupted around me, translucent. With a few hand movements, I zeroed in on the copper mine, which had been marked on my map back when the aliens had given me the end-game quest.

I gave Lindiwe directions, and she nodded before saying, “You’re sure your little empire can function without you for a few hours, Mr. President? Because I can always do this alone if you’ve gotta go impregnate a couple more buxom babes.”

There was no vitriol in the words. She was joking with me. I grinned at her. “And leave all the fun to you? I don’t think so.”

She cocked an eyebrow and said, “So leaping into unknown danger is better than sex?”

I winked. “Depends on the danger. And on the sex.”

With that, I mentally leaned into Darth’s mind. Let’s go, buddy.

Together, we ran.

The thick jungle air was oppressive with humidity, yet strangely cold. Jungles weren’t supposed to be cold, yet this one existed in former Appalachia. This entire place was a contradiction, a bastardization of Old Earth.

Darth stomped through the dense undergrowth, shoving aside massive fern fronds and snapping branches, his every step sending tremors through me. If he hadn’t been so big and heavy, we might have had trouble getting through these woods. The scouts we’d sent after the saber-tooths’ trail had eventually given up and gone home. Even raptors had trouble out here.

“Watch your step, Darth,” I said, keeping my eyes peeled for any sudden dips that could snap a Rex’s ankle. I didn’t know how sturdy his ankles were, and I didn’t want to find out the hard way.

“It’s tight as an asexual nun in here,” Lindiwe sniped, shoving a tangle of shriveling vines out of her face. “The light is barely reaching us. Feels like nighttime or something.”

Lindiwe rode beside me on Padme, her sharp eyes scanning the shadows for any signs of movement—not that we would see anything with the underbrush so thick. The usual distant calls of jungle birds and beasts had grown eerily silent, which meant we were getting close to our destination.

I wiped the cold sweat off my forehead and gripped my spear tighter. My aerial scouts had flown over this area countless times, but their visuals could never penetrate the thick canopy. The ground scouts had called the place impassable and requested Bertha’s help reaching it. In both cases, whatever was hiding in this forsaken place had the scouts spooked.

"Sounds like there's a river up ahead," Lindiwe grunted, breaking the tense silence. I could hear the burble of water, too. Water meant open air and a lower dose of claustrophobia, but it could also serve as a perfect ambush point. I kept myself ready as our huge mounts thundered closer.

Finally we pushed through the last of the overgrown foliage and emerged onto a small beach that ran along a wide, lazy river. The water was murky and brown, but that wasn’t what worried me the moment I saw it.

The river was littered with bones.

Some were massive, jutting out of the surface like crooked teeth; others were part of smaller clusters of carcasses that hadn’t quite rotted yet. There were no rocks—only bones. Rib cages that had to belong to brontos stuck out of the center of the river, seaweed trapped between ribs. The partially-submerged armored shells of ankylosaurs twisted under the surface, making the water rise in strange lumps.

On the opposite bank was a rock face, sheer. It rose up about thirty feet.

“How didn’t our team see that from the air? Looks like a plateau,” I said.

“It’s overgrown with vines. Maybe it’s just a wall?”

I narrowed my eyes at it. The stone was uniform in color and texture, not layered. It was possible it was alien-formed, but the growth was too old to have come from new humans.

“Either way, looks like we found our mine,” Lindiwe said grimly. “This is right where it was marked on the map.”

I didn’t need to pull another topo scan to check. By now, I knew to trust Lindiwe on this sort of thing.

“Something tells me it isn’t undefended,” I said, my eyes flicking to the bones in the water. The place felt like an elephant graveyard from some kid’s movie. I hadn’t heard a single animal call in a mile.

Well, danger or not, there was no way around this river—the only path led straight through that prehistoric chop shop. At least it appeared to be shallow, but whatever had slaughtered all these beasts and piled their bones might still be lurking nearby. I eyed the water itself, but it didn’t seem deep. The river wasn’t hiding plesiosaurs or anything crazy like that.

I sighed and steeled my nerves. “Well, whatever you do, don’t drink it,” I said, a completely unnecessary statement. Lindiwe chuckled, and I smiled.

“I’ll go first,” I said, giving Darth a gentle kick from his stirrups. He stomped into the river, sending bones and debris flying with his first step, where he crunched through a duckbill corpse that hadn’t finished rotting yet. A cloud of flies rose around my face, buzzing.

“Ew, Darth, gross,” I said, waving the bugs away as he took his next step. This step sent no tremors through me. It felt almost gentle by comparison... odd.

Lindiwe followed close behind, and suddenly the stench hit me. The air grew cheese-thick with the scent of rotten meat. Between the odor and the flies, I stopped noticing how soft Darth’s footfalls had become.

Then, when my vision and my nose both cleared, I noticed again. A great sucking noise rose from the river as Darth took his next step.

An unnatural chill ran down my spine and a profound sense of dread filled my chest.

“Lindiwe, stop! Turn around!” I hissed over my shoulder at her.

There was mud here—thick, sucking mud. These other animals had gotten stuck in it.

And any moment, we might, too... all while something waited for us to start sinking.

“I... I can’t! Padme’s foot is stuck!”

“Just one foot? Get the other on better ground! Darth! Crunch into some bones again. I need you to have solid footing!”

Luckily for me, my larger T-Rex was still heavy and strong enough to find some bones and shells to stand on, but the mud only pulled the bones down too, and Darth destabilized himself.

“Oh crap, Darth. We can’t have you tipping over,” I said through the side of my mouth. “Fine. Plant your left foot so you feel steady.”

My spear was raised to my shoulder now as I scanned the jungle around us, searching for any signs of movement. But there was nothing—only that unnatural, predatory stillness.

Darth let out a low rumble, clearly unsettled—and then Padme shrieked in alarm. I twisted in my seat to see the female Rex’s claws scrambling for purchase on a slippery ribcage. The bone shifted under her foot and for a moment, and it seemed she might tumble over. Lindiwe quickly righted her with a few steady words and some choice tugs on the reins, all the while cursing under her breath.

Then silence again. The jungle hemmed us in on both sides, the ravenous river everywhere else. We were trapped... and something was watching us.

A bone suddenly shifted under Darth's foot and he bellowed in alarm, struggling to stay upright. My heart leapt into my throat as I fought to keep my seat. If Darth fell here, we'd both be done for.

"Steady!" I shouted, willing Darth to regain his balance as I rose to my feet on his saddle, ready to jump clear if needed. He managed to right himself just as more bones began to shift and tumble ahead of us, where we weren’t even standing. Was there quicksand under here, or....

No. Something’s moving under the bones, I thought, watching the long, jerky stride of something orange-brown under the water, headed toward us, churning the river and deftly propelling itself against bones.

Darth whined, and I knew that whine. I spread my awareness, and saw more of the strange jerking shadows.

"Ambush!" I cried, but it was too late. A blaze of movement erupted as an orange blur burst from the river next to me, bones and water flying. In that moment I saw the first creature in all its terrible glory: a saber-tooth tiger.

My first thought was, But I thought cats hated water!

My second: We’re fucking surrounded.

Chapter 17

Queen

I SWUNG my spear at the pouncing cat, but the hit barely made the tiger flinch as hundreds of pounds of muscle side-swiped me. I slammed back against Darth’s thick neck while the tiger left a gash on his back, leaping free.

Twang. Twang. Twang. Lindiwe fired crossbow bolts in a steady stream, keeping the underwater shadows at bay. Blood clouded the water before the current carried it off, and several shadows moved to the anky shells.

They’re hiding under those things. There must be air pockets!

“Tell me these are Abnormals!” I yelled, leaping clear of another tiger. Abnormals were super-powerful dino experiments sent by the Empire to plague us, and Lindiwe should be able to sense them.

“Nope!” she shouted back to me. “They’re totally normal! They’re just really fucking smart!”

There was nothing worse than a smart enemy, and to defeat one, I’d have to get creative. I dropped my hand to the laser pokeyball. Time to bring this baby back out. I’d gotten it charged back to full, but that only meant I could use it twice.

I held it out and triggered it, aiming the laser at the water. A bright beam of energy shot out from the device and steamed through the river, and then I flicked the beam up, where it pierced the rock wall, causing a loud crackling sound. I could see light on the other side, meaning it wasn’t a plateau after all.

The steam hid us from view, but that didn’t help us. The tigers knew where we were, and the T-Rexes couldn’t move away from their positions just yet.

As I hooked the pokeyball back to my belt, one of the sabers suddenly burst from the cloud cover, its enormous claws appearing before the rest of it. I swung my spear around, barely getting the weapon up in time to impale the creature.

It struck home in the tiger's shoulder, and it took both my hands to keep the spear from sliding off Darth along with the injured beast.

Twang. Twang.

“Use your spears!” I shouted at Lindiwe. “Bows are useless at close range, and it doesn’t stop them anyway!”

“I’ve got to keep them away from Padme! She’s completely stuck!”

Lindiwe must be peppering tigers with bolts as they hunted for weak points at Padme’s legs. At this rate, Lindiwe would be out of arrows in no time.

But they’re targeting just one Rex. Smart bastards. They’re grouping up, taking down enemies one at a time.

Still, I could use that. Gripping my spear, I lunged off Darth’s back toward Padme, cleaving through mist and praying I didn’t land on a bone shard.

I splashed into the slurping mud, but a gigantic pelvic bone rose beside me. I was small and agile enough to use it to get free, and now I could see Padme’s legs through the fog, with soggy shapes darting around it.

“Stop shooting!” I called out. “I’ll take care of them!”

“Good, cuz I’m all out!”

A few feet ahead of me, one of the hazy shapes paused to try to see me, and I leapt forward off the pelvic bone, driving my spear deep into its flank. It twisted with an enraged snarl, claws raking across an angled ankylosaur shell as I took refuge behind it. I left that tiger behind to bleed, and targeted another.

Darth bellowed behind me, but I recognized his frustration in the sound. Bone cracked as he lifted his leg off the shattered bone he’d been using for leverage.

“No, Darth!” I shouted, but I was too late. Two tigers gave sharp, truncated whines in quick succession as Darth bowled them over with his tail, but when he put his foot down again, it sank deep into the mud. I could sense his dismay through the bond.

Damn it! Now they’re both stuck!

I took down another tiger, but we were sitting ducks in this mire, and this herd felt endless. The bones provided the only relatively stable ground, so as Darth thrashed, I ascended the nearest bone and got a feel for the rough surface.

It was surprisingly easy to maneuver around the bones. They were coarse, not too slippery. No wonder these tigers use this as a hunting ground, I thought, ducking and slashing out with my knife, opening a red gash along the side of yet another pouncing cat. It yowled and retreated. If you know the layout, you can outmaneuver anything, and jump underwater to hide in air pockets when you need to.

The mist was clearing now, and Lindiwe resolved from the miasma, spear in hand. She let fly right at me, and the weapon whistled over my shoulder. I whipped around to see it glance off a bleached ribcage emerging from the mud. A tiger had just taken shelter behind it.

"They're using the bones as cover," Lindiwe called out gruffly.

“Yeah, and the shells, too,” I said. “They go under, and I think they’ve got air pockets down there.”

She drew her backup spear and whacked a saber upside the head with it. "Have we got anything that can zap the water?”

“That would hit Padme and Darth.”

“Yeah but they’re massive. They’ll just get a buzz, right?”

I shook my head. I’d need my Rexes in the war with Britonia, and I wouldn’t risk an injury to their legs.

I glanced up the split rock wall, where shapes prowled along the top. It seemed like half the herd was up there, just watching. These cats were playing with us.

“They’ve stopped to regroup!” I said. “Come on, let’s face off, equidistant from the Rexes... if we can get them all on that side of the river, we can drop the wall on them.”

My laser still had a charge, but toppling rock walls was an imperfect science. I wasn’t sure I could do this right.

“Righto, Mr. President. I’ll watch your six,” Lindiwe called out, sounding breathless. Even she was tiring. The tigers were whittling us down.

Leaping from bone to bone, I made my way into position, pausing once to fire my crossbow at a tiger that tried to get at Darth from behind. The bolt punched through the tiger's front paw, pinning it to a hadrosaur femur jutting from the mud. The tiger snarled in pain and fury.

Seeing an opportunity, I called to Darth. The lumbering T-Rex swiped his heavy tail, smashing into the rib. Tiger and bone went smack into the water. I flinched and looked away. That hadn’t been pretty.

Good luck recovering that pelt, I thought. I had one domestication left, and I was definitely gonna use it on one of these cats. These bastards were too smart not to collect them. I wonder... can we shear them like sheep?

Water suddenly doused me as a shape crashed into the river just in front of me. I threw up an arm, coughing out blood-tinted water as the tiger corpse came to rest, a spear sticking out of its spine.

Lindiwe gripped the haft and yanked it out. “Get your head in the game!” she said.

I shot her a grin, feeling half-feral. “I’m not the one who’s out of position!”

She sneered. “I did it to save your miserable life!”

“Oh, so you do like me, then?”

She laughed, short and bewildered. “You’re fucking crazy, you know that?”

“That makes two of us,” I said, slogging over to her. We’d missed our chance to group the tigers, but Padme and Darth were roaring and swinging their tails wildly, and the tigers weren’t risking it anymore. Either that, or they knew we were the real threats, because they were coming for us now.

And so, back-to-back, Lindiwe and I coordinated our attacks, working as a team to take down the ferocious cats as their turned their attention on us. Lindiwe borrowed my crossbow, and I started provoking the tigers, driving them out into the open with shouts and thrown rocks. Once they were clear of the bones, Lindiwe got clear shots at them, and I fended off any of them that got too close.

“Ha! I feel like we should start counting. See who’s the better fighter,” I shouted, my voice raised from adrenaline and raw bloodlust.

My partner turned slightly around, grinning, and for the first time I felt a true kinship with her. We both understood the heat and fury of battle. We’d both just gone over that edge.

“Oh, yeah?” she said, aiming her bow again. “Well I think this is number sev—”

A blur shot past me and landed squarely against Lindiwe's back. She cried out as it knocked her into the mud a clear ten feet away from me, near Padme’s feet. She went under the water with a splash as the tiger raised its paw to rip at her neck.

“Padme!” I shouted, pushing a mental command into the word as I threw my last spear. This left me undefended, but the spear sailed true, striking the tiger in a back leg. It roared but turned, forgetting Lindiwe as it readied to leap at me—

Just in time for Padme to snap its neck with a well-aimed bite.

I let loose a breath of relief. My bond with Padme was just as strong as any of my other bonds; she’d followed my unspoken directions, no problem.

But Lindiwe was still under the water.

Worse, Padme had lost her balance with that bite. She tipped forward, tail whipping in desperation. The big dino was going to fall.

“No!” I shouted. The fall could injure Padme irreparably, but worse, it could flatten Lindiwe, if she wasn’t dead already.

I had only seconds to act. My hand went to the pouch at my belt, grasping for one of my newest metal spheres: one of the Nomad tribe’s drills.

The huge silver cone manifested in front of me, two handles set into its rear end. As Darth miraculously swept an attacking tiger away from me, I seized both handles and aimed for the spot under Padme’s chest, between the Rex’s legs and the place where Lindiwe went down.

The spinning drill surged forward, lurching right into the path of Padme's falling body. The drill caught the T-Rex's weight, stopping her deadly descent as I let go of the handles to still it. I dove for Lindiwe, found her shoulders in the mud and haze, and pulled her free. She wasn’t breathing.

Well, there were some things you learn in the military that your bad dreams don’t let you forget. I rolled Lindiwe against an anky shell and pounded on her chest, just as I’d been taught all those years ago, in some other world.

Then I tilted her head back and breathed into her mouth, making her chest expand. It was dangerously intimate, and possibly the most terrifying thing I’d ever done.

Please wake up, Lindiwe, please....

And of course she did, with typical Lindiwe style: she spat water square in my face, and then punched me on instinct. I went spinning and dropped under the water myself.

“Oh shit, Alan!” she rasped, but I held a hand up.

As she coughed violently, I said, “I’m good. We’re good. Padme’s got you.”

And indeed, the dino had Lindiwe’s back. I sensed it right away through the bond. By using the summoned drill as leverage, Padme had gotten both legs out of the water and onto anky shells. She looked like she was waterskiing. It would have been comical if she wasn’t murdering tigers.

I caught my breath and stood, sinking my hands back into the still-spinning drill. Sputtering and sodden, I pivoted the device at the rock wall, ratcheted the controls to set it to move twenty feet, and let it loose.

As it trundled away from me, I scanned the ridge overlooking the bone-strewn river. Tigers still prowled along the top, many of them scarred and slightly grayed—the elders of the herd, watching the younger tigers prove themselves, their slitted eyes fixed on the melee.

Are... are they a tribe too?

Well, tribe or not, I raised a hand and flipped them the bird as the drill slammed into their little wall. The ridge crumbled on top of the device, boulders crashing down into the riverbed along with the elder tigers. Roars lit the air and then abruptly stopped. Whines and yelps cut through the din of shattering bones and crushing rocks.

I grabbed Lindiwe and pulled her back. We huddled under Padme as rubble turned to dust and blasted us with a fine, dry mist.

When the collapse ended, we emerged cautiously from the river. The tigers that had survived the rockfall were stunned, and I immediately went to the first undamaged, young female I could find, and domesticated her using my alien domestication.

Tribe Grant has consumed its once a Week Dinosaur Domestication: 0/1

Time until next charge: 6.99 daily rotations: Tribe Grant has 0/3 Special Dinosaur Domestications remaining.

Congratulations. You have domesticated an adult female smilodon.

Species: Smilodon

Sex: Female

Age: 2.17 sun rotations.

Weight: 3.5 Zexa: Rarity Value: 72.360

Efficiency Value: 92.02% of species

Traits: Intelligent, Conniving, Curious

Known for: Attacking in highly coordinated packs and determining their most dangerous adversaries on the fly. Also killing pteranodon babies and leaving them on your stoop.

You have 1 hour to name your new dinosaur-adjacent. If a name is unassigned, one will be given to it that must be used to garner the dinosaur’s attention.

“Protect us,” I told the female. She rose from the water, unsteady, and shook her head. When another tiger rose nearby, she growled at it, and the smaller tiger backed away, whining.

The retreat gave me an idea. I’d just killed most—and possibly all—of this feline tribe’s elders. That left a power vacuum in a normal tribe. Would it be the same here?

“Tell them I’m boss now. I’m pack leader,” I said.

My new tiger tilted her head back and roared.

Stillness followed, and then one by one, the other tigers roared in response. Those roars were smaller, though—not challenges. None of them attacked. They just watched me.

“Kneel,” I told my new pet, and she did. I crawled onto her back. “Now rise up on your hind legs, and present me to your tribe properly—”

I gave a startled yelp at how suddenly the tiger obeyed. I barely kept hold of her scruff in time, but I managed a feral roar of my own as I raised a fist to the sky.

The tigers roared in response, and I knew I had them. As my tiger dropped down again, I scratched her behind one tawny ear.

“I think I’ve just made you a queen among tigers,” I said. “So I guess that’ll be your name—Queen.”

The tiger gave a low, catlike mrrr in response. Darth roared in triumph, followed shortly by Padme, who sounded pleased as punch. I checked my bonds, and both dinos had regained solid footing. Darth had been wounded in the time since I’d left him, but the slash stretched across fat and back muscle, not organs—nothing a simple poultice couldn’t remedy, given time.

“You should call her First Lady,” Lindiwe gasped, trudging over to me, one hand to her chest. “Or maybe... Marilyn.”

I instantly swung off the tiger. “Whoa, whoa! Are you all right?”

Lindiwe smiled agonizingly up at me, one eye winched closed from pain. “Just a little ‘ol collapsed lung. Gotta watch my breathing, but I should recover.”

I thought of the WoundHeal in my golden suit, which was still back at camp in the storage pokeyball. There was no way I’d wait weeks for Lindiwe to be fighting fit. The moment we got back, she’d be on the receiving end of some heals.

Teeth gritted, she nodded past me. “Looks like you found the national treasury, Mr. President.”

I turned and finally saw past the meek tigers.

Behind me, the river ran red with blood, the bones scattered and broken, bits of marrow floating away on the current—but the wall where the tigers had gathered was now exposed, and it glittered. A rich vein of copper gleamed from within the broken rock.

If we drilled deeper, I knew what we’d find.

Chapter 18

Answers

I WANTED to scope out the copper mine immediately, but I couldn’t leave Lindiwe rasping like that. After she helped me form an instantaneous full bond with Queen—vastly strengthening her domestication—I left the saber-tooth behind with instructions to defend the mine, and Lindiwe and I returned home to Prosperity. I offered to share my seat with her atop Darth, but she refused. If you need extra security, Mr. President, you don’t need to make up excuses.

She was a woman of grit, but a touch of pride, too. I gave her the space she wanted, but I made sure she and Padme rode ahead of me, and I stayed tense, watching to make sure she didn’t fall or go limp. And, of course, she didn’t. We made it home without trouble, and as soon as we rode past the half-constructed walls of the settlement, I pulled up next to her.

“Go see Doctor Okoro,” I said. The woman had come from the Nomads, our first real doctor, and she alone made the entire battle with the other tribe worth it. “That’s an order.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, POTUS,” she rasped, but her breathing had grown only more labored. A collapsed lung might not immediately kill a person, but in this future Earth, it was as dangerous as anything else.

As she trotted away, with Padme narrowly avoiding taking the roofs off a couple of houses, I made for Missy’s new Materials section of the market square. Indoor space was at a premium still, so her new team had to operate in broad daylight, moving all their stuff whenever it threatened to rain. Any day now, they’d hole up inside the mountain. We were actively in the process of excavating more of it.

These practical city-planning thoughts were almost calming to me, but they also made my teeth grind. I should be concerning myself with building more shelter before winter and managing my civilization at home, not with war. But Britonia wasn’t going to let us peacefully ride out the winter. They had the same goals as I did.

On the way to the Materials crew, I dismounted at Vodka and Jack’s hut, just in case they were home. They were. Vodka answered the door naked, albeit wrapped up in a quilt made from discarded clothing of Old Earth. She rubbed her eyes, yawning, peering up first at Darth, then at me.

“Alan...? What is it?”

I hadn’t noticed until then that it was nearing midnight. My pulse was thundering, and somewhere in my mind, I’d thought it was noon. I glanced around, startled to find that my senses had lent to that idea: I could see everything clearly. I had taken on some sort of night vision. But from which bond? I don’t think Darth had this good of eyesight. Investigator? Or possibly Queen?

Definitely Queen. Cats had night vision on Old Earth, so why not here, too? Dinosaurs tended to see more in a reptilian sense. They were better with heat and movement.

Regardless, the smilodon’s senses had bled into mine without me realizing. All from a brand-new bond. Damn, I still had a lot of questions for Lindiwe—but she couldn’t answer until she could breathe properly.

“I’m sorry to wake you so late,” I said, “but I have a task for you and Jack. We found the copper mine, but it’s currently only being defended by a herd of saber-tooths that I don’t have direct control over. Do you think I can trust you and Jack with protecting it and setting up lookouts? And also harvesting the furs of the cats we killed there?”

While Jack and Vodka weren’t exactly in leadership roles, they were close to it. Cole was Jack’s brother, and the two were fairly inseparable. I knew that Cole hoped to set his brother up as a leader of some future settlement, and I trusted his judgment. Vodka was also Elsa’s second-in-command, so I trusted them with this.

The Russian woman’s eyes widened as she instantly woke up. “You captured our first mine? That’s great news, Alan!”

It would be, if I didn’t need to capture two more before Britonia steals this one away from me, I thought bitterly. Damn the Empire and their insane quest.

“Thanks, but it won’t be worth much if we lose it right away,” I said. “Can you defend it? You’ll have to take our larger dinos to forge a path through the dense brush, but I don’t want any dinos visible over the canopy. Probably all of our trikes, and then some raptors to follow behind. And take care not to spook the sabers. Their leader is alien-domesticated and should obey you; you shouldn’t have to fight the others, just encourage her to control them.”

Vodka nodded, assuring me it would be done, and I sent her the mine location through her and Jack’s shared obelisk. I thanked my lucky stars again that I’d recovered so many from the Nomads’ stores. As Tribe Grant spread, instant communication across vast distances became ever more valuable.

After exchanging a few more details and assurances with Vodka, I made a beeline for the waterfall. The market would hardly be open this late, after all, so I climbed up to my longhouse and roused Missy. She had her own bed with her own wall partition, but she was the only one. Nadiyya and Sayuri had taken to sharing a large cot, and Aubrey and Cassie could hardly be parted.

“Missy. Missy! I need my armor back.”

My youngest wife blinked her big hazel eyes up at me as she stirred awake. “Your... armor? Alan? You’re back?”

Can’t everyone just wake up faster? I thought, but it was a sour thing to feel. I sat into bed beside her and sighed. The world couldn’t always work on my time, but damn if I wasn’t worried sick about Lindiwe.

“I need the Storage pokeyball,” I said clearly, trying not to sound urgent. “Do you have it?”

Missy nodded blearily and sat up, reaching into the basket on the floor beside her cot. She might be young, but she was smart to keep something that valuable close to hand. It couldn’t be trusted with anyone but my closest circle. I know for a fact that Sayuri sleeps with a dozen of our pokeyballs under her cot.

“Here,” she said. “But we still want to run more experiments—” she yawned “—when you get a chance, of course.”

I nodded and kissed her forehead, already anxious to go. At the same time, her pregnant belly had emerged from the bedding along with her, and it made my heart sink a little. Here she was, still a teenager at nineteen, and carrying my child... and I woke her up in the middle of the night just to leave her again, all to help some other woman.

It reminded me, in a way, of what had been lost. Her innocence—and the innocence of so many others—had been stolen away that first night in New Earth, when the aphrodisiacs in the fruit and meat had made us all insane with lust. And now, Missy was stuck with a man who had only one-fifth the amount of attention she deserved from the father of her child. So were my other wives.

Yet I needed them. My wives were the cornerstones of Tribe Grant. Meanwhile, they needed my protection. It felt so transactional, sometimes.

I stroked Missy’s hair, hating the Empire for everything they’d done to my planet and my people. Missy took my wrist and snuggled her cheek against my palm.

“It’s good to see you, Alan. Do you want to stay?”

I knew what she was offering. “I can’t.”

She must have heard the dismay in my words, because she peered up at me, going still. “Alan? What’s wrong?”

I sighed again. This new world was so complicated.

“You deserve more than me, Missy. You all do. You each deserve a man who can give you his full attention.”

She cocked her head, frowning. “Where’s this coming from?”

I closed my eyes and didn’t respond. It was so much. My feelings for Lindiwe... the pressure of the Metal quest... the impending war. All of it.

She let go of my hand and pulled me into a kiss, gentle and meaningful. “You’ve told us before, Alan. Love is boundless. None of us get one-fifth of your love, we get all of it. That’s what matters.”

“Yes, but—”

She kissed my words away. “And you saw what the male Nomads did. What the Britonian men do. Better that we get one-fifth of a good man’s attention than the whole attention of a bad one.” She smiled. “Besides, we have work and children to keep us busy. Alan, we are a team, all of us. Even if it keeps getting bigger.”

I frowned. Did she know about Lindiwe? Did I even really know about Lindiwe?

Then the rest of her argument caught up with me, and I leaned into her, kissing her mouth, then along her jaw and down her neck. “You’re right,” I murmured. “You’re so right.”

She giggled and pulled me closer. “I’d say I’m wise beyond my years, but it’s really all Aubrey. We’ve been discussing this sort of thing a lot lately and—and if you don’t stop that right now, I’m not going to let you leave.”

I’d kissed all the way down her left breast and pulled her nipple into my mouth. A whole lot of me wanted to go further, but I stopped myself with a playful nibble and a goodbye kiss to her mouth.

“Sorry. Got carried away. But someone has an injury, so I’ve gotta run. I’ll finish what I started soon, though.”

She tapped my nose with a finger. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, cutie.”

I caressed her blonde hair off her face. “You know I won’t.”

With that, I painstakingly left my wife, and my other wives, too. I was neglecting them lately—all but Nadiyya, although at the rate she was going, I’d have to start avoiding her—but duty called. I climbed down from the longhouse and made my way toward the doctor’s residence. I kept waiting for the exhaustion to hit me, but it never did. My blood seemed to be pumping with pure vigilance. Was I starting to get nocturnal like the saber-tooth, too?

My bondmates are bleeding into me, I thought. I had learned to channel their abilities, even specialty abilities like Investigator’s mindraptor tricks, all the way down to being able to speak their languages to others of their kind. How long before I didn’t know where a dino began and I ended? Should I stop bonding new dinos? Did anyone have that answer for me?

There was only one person who knew more than I did about this.

All right, Lindiwe, I thought as I opened the door to the doctor’s hut. It’s time you gave me some answers.

Chapter 19

The Cube

I FOUND Lindiwe crawling out of Doctor Okoro’s bed, with the doctor herself slumped over in a chair beside her.

“Whoops,” Lindiwe rasped, plucking the sleeping dart out of the doctor’s neck. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”

Despite her rough voice, I could tell she was being playful. I crossed my arms, raised an eyebrow, and leaned against the door frame, waiting.

Lindiwe rolled her eyes. “She wanted to observe me all night, and wouldn’t take no for an answer. This is her own damn bed, and she’s got other patients, Alan. She needs to be rested for them.”

“And you don’t think you’re important enough to care for?”

“No more than anyone else.”

I dropped my arms and moved to help her lift the doctor back into her own bed. “You know that’s not true,” I grunted.

“Maybe not to you,” she croaked.

“You’re a general, Lindiwe. I don’t mean to compare the value of different people’s lives, but you can’t risk yourself. I’ve got no one to replace you, and Kingfuck Napoleon is gonna declare war any moment.”

She chuckled as we settled the doctor into her covers. “He won’t declare, and you know it. He’ll ambush you instead.”

Over the past couple days, Lindiwe and Nadiyya and I had been forming a new plan to fight Napoleon. It was still in its early stages of development, but the plan relied on Napoleon ambushing us.

Still, I wasn’t going to let her change the subject.

“We need to talk, Lindiwe,” I said, straightening. “About the bond.”

She looked away and made a flippant motion at her throat. “Not sure if you noticed,” she croaked, “but I’m not really in any state to talk.”

“Come with me to the basin,” I said. “That’s an order.”

Lindiwe huffed, but she followed me out the door. Together we trudged down the path between huts. This neighborhood had recently been built next to the rice paddies, after a field previously used to raise ankies had been relocated to Peace. It housed 50% former Nomads, although I’d made sure to integrate them with other settlers in every other house. I didn’t need factions in my tribe. We had to unify if we were going to earn our ship.

At the end of the path, we passed through the silent market and reached the basin. Were the place ever to flood, the market would go first, rather than any residences. Sayuri and Fred had done a lot of city planning to account for all kinds of eventualities.

For the moment, though, I’d chosen this place for its emptiness and quiet. Nothing stirred here, nor anywhere along the banks, except the hulking mound of a sleeping Bertha. After all, she could hardly be flooded. She’d just raise her head above water and wait.

On the thin, sandy strip of beach, I triggered the Storage pokeyball. “Retrieve gold armor set,” I commanded, and it worked. The armor materialized in that strange, shifting nether in front of the pokeyball, then dropped to the sand with a clank and a thump.

“What? You wanna fight or something?” Lindiwe said.

I knelt, rifling through the pile for the left gauntlet. Upon finding it, I unlatched it to open it up. As Missy had told me, a needle was set into the metal, its point capped. I pried it out carefully.

Lindiwe took a step back from me. “What the fuck is that?”

I cocked my head at the needle. I was just as flummoxed as she was.

“Missy said it was a WoundHeal. But—”

“That doesn’t look like a WoundHeal. That looks like a fucking syringe.”

My thoughts exactly. WoundHeals had always come in the form of pokeyballs before. I kept frowning.

“It was set into the armor. It’s for healing,” I said. “But you’re right. I wonder....”

Lindiwe seemed to stop suspecting me of wanting to off her, because she stepped forward to get a better look. “You’re sure it’s a WoundHeal?”

I wasn’t, but Missy had been. How could she have known, though?

Oh, right. I held my obelisk to the syringe and said, “Identify.”

WoundHeal v2.2: Can cure any single wound on a human. Does not negate infection.

“It’s a different version,” I said. “But yeah, it’s a WoundHeal... huh. Maybe the pokeyballs contain the same thing, but the distortion warps our view of it? So while we are stabbing people with a needle, we only see that other dimension twisting the air?”

“Sounds about right. The Empire really are duplicitous bastards,” she said.

For some reason, that statement landed really hard on me. The Empire are duplicitous bastards.

“Either way.” I handed it to her. “You want me to poke it in, or you?”

“That’s what he said,” she replied, before adding, “Neither. Save it.”

“You either take it, or I’ll stab you with it and potentially get it wrong and waste it.”

“You’ll be wasting it anyway.”

I shrugged. “Let’s agree to disagree.”

She looked at the syringe with distaste a moment longer, as if she were unhappy to find herself valued. It reminded me a little bit of my former self, during boot camp. They made recruits feel like worms, like worthless little grunts, before they allowed them to get stronger and take pride in themselves.

“Fine,” she said, snatching it away. She put it to a vein in her arm with uncanny precision, and I watched, feeling cold, as she injected herself.

When the vial was empty, she swayed, and I rushed forward to support her. She was heavy, all muscle, and not in control of herself. I lost my balance, and it was all I could do to help her fall over without hurting either of us.

She groaned, eyes closed, her hand gripping her chest—and just as quickly, she fell still, her eyes opening.

My general didn’t look at me, though. She stared up into the clear, cloudless sky, so embroiled in it that I was afraid she was dead for a moment. Finally, her chest rose—an even breath—and she blinked.

“I guess I’ve got no more excuses now, do I?” she said, still avoiding my gaze.

“No.”

Still lying flat on her back, she snuggled deeper into the sand, waving off my support. “You want to know where I came from,” she guessed. “Why I can do what I do, why I know what I know. And why they’d even let a barren woman descend to begin with, when every other woman was fertile at the start of all this.”

I didn’t answer. I’d actually forgotten that she was barren. It was the only reason the Nomads’ leader, Jasper, had allowed her to operate outside of the caged life he’d forced upon his tribe’s other women.

Still, if I spoke, I knew I’d say something like You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. But I couldn’t afford to give her that option. I needed to know who she was, and how best I could use her knowledge to keep my people alive.

She closed her eyes and said, “I was an alien experiment.”

I blinked at her, my heartbeat suddenly making my head swim with fresh blood. I sat back in the sand next to her, my own gaze falling to the discarded pile of my priceless armor. I wasn’t seeing it, not any more than she was seeing the stars.

Lindiwe released a pent, staggering breath and kept talking.

“I was a real person. I ran security for a girl’s school in Africa. I know that, but it’s all I remember about myself... I think because the aliens abducted me, all of us, while I was on guard duty outside the school. It was my last, most recent, and only memory of Old Earth... children, husband, family, I don’t know if I had any of that. All I know is that I rose into the sky, and next thing I knew, I woke up in a glass cube with some... some creatures looking in at me, taking notes in the air itself, writing with light....”

I leaned an arm across my knees. “The Empire.”

“No. Not them. Someone else.”

I looked over at her, only to find she’d slung an arm across her face. Was she... was it possible... was she crying?

If so, it didn’t show in her voice. “I know that sounds crazy, but I’ve seen that Finch guy project to you. The aliens I saw looked nothing like him. They were more like... like... like little gray dwarves. Like Tolkien-style, but all gray and no beards, and their hair was scaly. Like Predator-style dreads that moved weird.”

Well, that’s new, I thought. The Empire always appeared as lizard men. Had she been abducted by a different race? Maybe one of the Empire’s underlings, or their Dasku enemies? But if so, how had she ended up here?

Atticus—my former Empire handler—had warned me not to do... something with Lindiwe. But what? Could she be a spy, working against the Empire? Was Atticus a spy too, and that’s why he’d been sent off for “reeducation”? If so, why was Lindiwe still here? Or did the whole thing have to do with the experiment?

Damned alien politics. I knew they mattered, but I doubted I’d figure it out myself. Leave Sayuri, Nadiyya, and my other big thinkers to hash out the details. I was here for a different reason.

So I took a risk, and laid a hand on Lindiwe’s shoulder. She still had her face covered.

“What did they do to you?” I asked.

“I don’t know. All I know is that I’d wake up a lot, but I’d never go to sleep. I’d wake up, struggle to stand... and they’d test me. The floor would start moving, so I had to run... or they’d feed me different things... or they’d hand me cords which led to a panel of lights, and they’d check which bulbs lit up.”

She wiped her eyes with her fingertips, then hid behind her arm again. “I never saw beyond the wall panels full of instruments,” she went on. “There were so many cords leading under one door, but they never opened it while I was awake.”

Her breath caught, and she seemed to gather her voice again. “The whole thing was... endless. Waking up, but never falling asleep, never even remembering that they’d knocked me out.”

That sounded awful. “And with your only memory being your abduction,” I said. “You must have thought the world had ended.”

She nodded.

“Any idea why they chose you?” I asked. “Anything that made you, I don’t know, unique?”

Lindiwe laughed ruefully. “Yeah. I’m a chimera. You know what that is?” She finally removed her arm to look at me, which pushed my hand off her shoulder. “Like in real life, not in fairy tales and anime.”

“I... uh, I’ve heard something about it, somewhere,” I said. Damn, her eyes are intense.

She wove her fingers together on top of her chest, staring into the sky again. I’d never seen her look so peaceful. It was as if she were telling someone else’s story, separating herself from it. I couldn’t blame her.

“It means I have two different sets of DNA. Two blood types. I started off as a fraternal twin, before birth, but my embryo absorbed my brother’s cells. It’s not actually that rare. I’m not even sure it was the reason they wanted me... but maybe they experimented on hundreds, even thousands of chimeras. I’ll never know. All I know is that room.”

She was leaving something out. “And the bond...?”

Her jaw worked. “I started waking up with dinosaurs,” she said, her voice low, almost a growl. “And that’s when I started to learn.”

Chapter 20

Insurrection

FROM THERE, the whole story spilled out of Lindiwe. It was all I could do to keep up.

Every day, every wake-up, they gave me a different creature. Although you could barely call some of them “creatures.” More like different combinations of parts.

I always woke before the animal, only to find it beside me, a mass of teeth and claws and scales. I always saw it waking, always knew it would kill me.

So I started killing them first.

I listened, barely able to imagine the fear and horror of it—of not knowing who you were, of being trapped and helpless, of having to kill monsters every time you woke up. Suddenly all her muscle made more sense; she’d been forced to defend herself, always over much-stronger foes.

Eventually, the researchers stopped letting me do the killing. I began to wake up with my whole body strapped down. Then the dinosaur—or the experiment—would come to me. It would open its mouth to eat me.

Then it would die.

Tears shone on her face now, although her voice was mechanical. Her body didn’t shake or shudder with sobs. It was like the story was draining out of her in liquid form, leaving her eyes in the form of water, leaving her mouth in the form of words.

I knew they were killing the creatures themselves. The experimenters murdered them right before the creatures could kill me. Each time, there’d be a flurry of writing in those glowing notes of theirs. They never seemed happy—not until the change.

I asked what change. She had to pause before answering.

One of the animals didn’t try to kill me. Instead it... it sort of... entered me. Its mind blurred into mine.

Then they killed it.

That finally got a sob out of her, and she sat up and dried her face with a sleeve. “Shit, I hate this,” she said.

My hand itched to touch her shoulder again. “It’s okay, Lindiwe.”

“No it’s fucking not. They owned me. And they made me make friends with... then they killed....”

She hissed wordlessly, and pressed her fingers into her eyes, as if to stem the tide. Her face contorted in rage, and she continued, “It got easier each time. I learned to force the bond mentally, to give the dino some chance. They looked more like dinosaurs, as time went on.

“Anyway, if I could keep the creatures from attacking me, the researchers wouldn’t kill them right away. But they still killed them eventually... and I loved those dinos, every time. They were killing living beings that I loved.”

Lindiwe suddenly flung her hand off her face, seized a stone off the ground, and hurled it into the basin. “And I was training myself for them. Doing exactly what they wanted! The bond got better and better, until finally, I could sense the pain all the dinos were in. Real, horrible pain, and then... then I started killing them myself. Again. While loving them.”

I couldn’t help it. I laid an arm across her shoulders and pulled her closer. She didn’t lean into me, she barely bent at all—but she did bend. She allowed the hug, meager as it was, and I sensed some of the rage filter out of her.

“They were Abnormals, then?” I said. “All of them?”

“Yes. I didn’t know it then, but I do now. All of the dinos were also experiments. Hell, some weren’t even dinos at all... they had me wake up next to a sentient petri dish, one time. But yeah. Never any regular, pain-free dinos.”

I thought about what Atticus had told me. Forced mutations don’t work. They fall apart. They have to happen naturally, or not at all.

Lindiwe, as a chimera, was one such natural mutation. Maybe the aliens had been studying her, hoping to replicate her dual DNA? Or maybe—

“You were helping them bridge a gap,” I said. “They were altering one part of you. Maybe your brother’s cells, or yours. Mutating one portion of you, but not the rest.”

It was possible. That might be a workaround for the mutation problem that the Empire’s scientists kept coming up against.

If these Gray Dwarves are even Empire at all....

“That’s as good a guess as any,” Lindiwe sighed. She startled me by dropping a hand on my knee, cupping it closer to her as she put more weight on me. “All I know is that, once I started bonding to their little Abnormals without any trouble, they let me go. They just dropped their little experiment off in the wild. Once I was free, I started finding Abnormals myself. I used them to help me survive at first, but I just couldn’t do it for long. I put so many out of their misery. Then I found Abe, and for once, one of them wanted to live. Just a little longer, just enough to matter.”

Oh, Lind, I wanted to say, keeping my grip on her shoulders firm. We were close, too close, and I didn’t want to mess with it, didn’t want her to realize how we were touching. She had hated me, once, called me a womanizer. She didn’t want to be one of six—I knew that.

But I want her to be. I want her.

If her arm dropped any lower, she’d feel that. At the same time, her story entranced me. I wasn’t thinking of sex—I was thinking of her. Of how much she was trusting me, sharing this with me. It reminded me of the trust of my other wives. It was the best, warmest feeling in the world.

“I’m sorry about Abe,” I said, not for the first time.

She shook her head and said, in a cracked voice, “I know.”

Time passed like that. We didn’t move. I feared I’d break the spell if I did. Before us, the moon smiled down on its own reflection in the water, so bright the whole basin seemed to glow with it. The surface rippled in a faint wind, not unlike the pokeyballs’ dimensional rifts. It made me think of other worlds, of nowhere-spaces, of technology beyond my wildest dreams.

But the stars made me think of my humanity. Our humanity. The stars were the past, each pinprick of light hundreds or thousands of years old. Meanwhile, we were the future. We were going to save the human race.

Finally she flicked a tear off her face, and stiffened away from me, moving to stand. I followed.

“I almost forgot. One time, back in that cube prison, the researchers threw some poor kid in the tank with me and a deinonychus,” she said. “A regular nycho, not an Abnormal. I couldn’t bond with it. But when I tried to shove the kid behind me to protect him, the nycho chilled out. Just went all hazy-brained. And the kid gasped and next thing I knew, I woke up alone.” She brushed sand off her pants. “So I figured I was some kind of battery for bonding to Normals. They never tried it again.”

I kept a respectful distance from her as I considered this. Why wouldn’t they try again?

Because they fear the truebond, I told myself. The connection I had to Orion—and now Padme—was incredibly strong. And with Lindiwe, a truebond became easy to accomplish. I no longer had to fight with a dino to gain a truebond with it. I could just use her.

“So you figured out you were a battery,” I said. “And they did, too. And they didn’t want to pursue that?”

“Yeah. Weird, right? Next thing I knew, I woke up on Earth with an Infertile tag on me. You can see it if you run scans.” She shrugged. “Not sure if I was infertile before, or if the experiments did it, but it was almost nice of them. Saved me a lot of trouble when the Nomads got hold of me.”

I shuddered to think how much trouble. But my mind kept returning to Atticus and his warning and his subsequent reeducation.

Oh shit.

“Anyway, I can’t tell you much more than that,” she said. “I just knew I could bond Abnormal dinos, and that I could battery other people to bond normal ones. Of course, I didn’t quite get that at first, but I’ve figured it out since meeting you. I guess it gives us a pretty big advantage, doesn’t it? Especially over someone like Napoleon—”

“No it doesn’t,” I cut her off.

She tensed, rounding on me, instantly combative. “What?”

My mind raced, skidding like a race car on a gravel track. Oh shit oh shit oh shit.

“It’s a fucking trap is what it is,” I said, inventing the idea on the spot. “You’re only continuing the experiment for them, only giving them more data. You have to stop.”

Hurt flashed across her face, and I met her eyes, willing her to see into mine, to understand.

I dropped a hand on her shoulder again. “Promise me, Lindiwe. You won’t help anyone bond again.”

This is why Atticus warned me. Why they sent Lindiwe to the Nomads. They knew Jasper would come to me. They knew she would meet me.

And that’s why they’re reeducating Atticus.

This was all a part of his plan.

It was a bit of a logical jump, but all the pieces fit. Atticus had known Lindiwe’s secret; why else would he give me a warning about her? It was also a big secret, which was why he’d been sacked for trying to tell me about it.

But if Lindiwe was such a big secret, why had she been set free? That had to be another part of some plot I wasn’t aware of. Either way, the Empire didn’t want me using her abilities, and her freedom wasn’t supposed to happen.

Which meant I had to find some excuse to ignore her abilities, or they would end the threat—by getting rid of her, and possibly me, too.

But how could I say all that out loud? How could I tell Lindiwe that I didn’t mean what I was saying? Atticus was on our side. He was working against the Empire. I don’t know why, or how, but the scientists were with him. They released you on purpose, declaring an unfinished experiment complete, in the hopes she would make her way to me. They were giving me an unfair advantage.

Atticus wanted to make sure I’d win.

And if the Empire knew I’d figured that out, they’d show no mercy. It was no wonder Britonia was getting so many favors. The Empire wanted them to destroy me, without looking like they were directly involved. I was the poster child for some insurrection they were dealing with... and I had to go. But it had to look real to the Empire citizens watching me for their own entertainment.

This had politics written all over it. What were the chances I’d find an experiment like Lindiwe? Next to zero.

Unless she was handed to me. On purpose. For a reason.

“Promise me, Lindiwe. You’ll never use your ability again,” I told her. “You can’t give our overlords more data. You can’t help them. Please. Who knows what they’ll do with that info?”

It was a false reason not to use her powers, but a compelling one. The fact was, if we keep using this bond, the Empire would make sure I lost.

They imprisoned Atticus, I thought, and they’ll do worse to me, to all of Tribe Grant, if they think I will use Lindiwe’s power.

Lindiwe squinted at me. She knew something was off.

“Think of Abe,” I said. “Think of how he died, Lindiwe.”

Her eyes widened. “How does that—”

“Think of it.”

She paused, and then I watched the gears turn in her eyes, on her face. Every muscle in her body seemed to twitch as her face hardened.

Please, I willed her. Please see it.

Unlike all the other Abnormals, Abe had wanted to live. He’d been willing to suffer as long as he could help her. As long as he could serve a purpose.

That’s what Lindiwe was. She was the purpose. She was the one who had joined me despite all her pain, whose ability might yet save us all. But we had to save it for the moment that mattered most. Otherwise, the Empire would stop at nothing to end us. We had to be clueless, or we would be dead.

Her whole expression went flat. “I see,” she said. “I won’t use it anymore. I refuse to give them more data.”

In that final word, in its emphasis, I knew she understood. And if she didn’t, then at least, she trusted me.

“Thank you, Lindiwe. For understanding.”

She grinned and pounded a fist against her healed chest. “And thank you for the heal,” she told me. “And you know, I think you had a point, in the end. Turns out I am important, after all.”

Chapter 21

Points of Color

AFTER A RESTLESS NIGHT of rough sleep and scattered dreams, I woke up to a chime from my obelisk.

“Ugh,” I groaned, rising from a knot of wives that hadn’t been there when I’d gone to sleep. Cassie, Aubrey, and Sayuri all clung to me, snoozing and naked. I dislodged their peaceful forms and swung my legs out of bed, rubbing my eyes.

“What do you want, Finch?” I said.

The Empire handler had projected himself in front of me, and through a window opening in the wall of the longhouse, I saw the large bubble the obelisk was projecting on his orders. That was a new thing, always having that bubble—but unlike last time, Finch’s voice didn’t come through with static. I picked up on that subtle change and tensed, remembering last night and the revelations with Lindiwe.

She has an ability that the Empire wasn’t aware of—and if I use it before the exact right moment, they’re going to kill me and her both.

It was no wonder Finch was talking to me now. He was going to probe. I had to make him think I was resolute in never using Lindiwe’s power again.

Of course, he gave a different reason for his visit: “A great deal of points have been awarded to you of late, and I’ve simply come to report them.”

Sure you are, I thought, standing. The aliens were usually happy just to award points wherever they liked, and never explain any of it to us. I looked wistfully back at my sleeping lovers, wishing I could spend my morning on something more interesting than talking to this translucent blowhard.

“Fine, give me the list,” I said, swiping my pants and shirt off the wall.

“Well, of course, you are one third of the way to completing your Metal quest, provided you maintain control of the copper-type mine,” he said, his slitted eyes widening as he focused on something close to his face that I couldn’t see. “That alone has helped you to remain in the top fifty, but other accolades have propped you back up to number nine.”

I popped open the Storage ball close to the floor, so all my armor could fall out without too much noise. A coppery stench emerged from the ether along with the armor pieces—the scent of blood and bodily fluids.

Right. I’ve still got like five bodies stored in there. I guess this meant the bodies and armor all went to the same place. At least I didn’t smell any rot.

“Good, I’m still in the top ten, then,” I said, clipping my armor on.

“Yes. You’ve also gained a bonus for diversity, now that you’ve added people of a darker skin tone to your tribe.”

I scowled, clipping my breastplate into place. It fit perfectly.

“They’re just people,” I said. “Color doesn’t matter to Tribe Grant. I didn’t collect the Nomads’ women and their peaceful men for points.”

“Well, regardless of your intentions, diversity in genetics will improve the overall health and resilience of your tribe’s progeny, so—”

“What else?” I said, cutting him off. Discussing my progeny and genetics like we’re racehorses you’re planning to breed over generations... these bastards saw us as livestock, not sentients. Someday, I’d make them suffer for it.

While I headed for the rope ladders down to Prosperity proper, Finch went on as if I hadn’t interrupted him.

“Your T-Rexes mated, so that was a small boost.”

I stopped mid-ladder, then smiled to myself. Darth, you dog, I thought. He must have snuck out of his stable to meet with Padme last night.

“And you were the first to control a full herd of smilodons. Most just kill them for pelts.”

“Yeah, well, give me time. I might still do that.”

“The pelts you have already gained will drastically improve your winter stores, so there were points for that.”

I was getting tired of this. Better to cut to the chase, to the real reason I knew he was here—to test me.

“Get to your threats. You’re going to tell me I’ll lose points every day I don’t use Lindiwe’s power, aren’t you? Because you want to continue your little experiment with her.” I dropped off the ladder, to the ground, and mentally gave Investigator a call. Darth might be a little busy at the moment.

Finch’s projection kept hovering beside me, equidistant, like a topo map I hadn’t anchored in place. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him freeze. The strange stillness was momentary, and if I hadn’t been looking for it, I would never have seen it.

“Unfortunately, yes, that is the case,” he said, missing only half a beat.

“Well, I won’t do it. Fuck your data. From here on out, Lindiwe gets to be a normal human woman, end of story.”

I’d accept any draining points, if it meant they wouldn’t simply nuke me from space. Lindiwe was too valuable. I couldn’t be allowed to have her... if I used her. But I’d just claimed that I wouldn’t use her, and because I was already known for my bleeding-heart policies, the Empire bought my lie. They believed me. The draining points were their way of letting this slide, at least until they could kill me less publicly.

The politics made my head spin. Atticus wanted me to succeed, and he wanted me to have Lindiwe, but in secret. He got taken away, meaning he was a part of some rival faction to the real power in the Empire—the power that Finch represented.

All of this, I could deal with once I got into space. For now, I just wanted my ship.

Before Finch could talk again, Investigator ran up to meet me, a mini-heard of nychos at her heels.

“Ah, well, it is your loss, I suppose,” Finch finally said. “But you shall have to do something big soon, for the point drain not to take you out of the top ten. Need I remind you that only the top ten get ships and will be allowed to defend your planet from the Dasku?”

I swung up onto Investigator’s back, not bothering to saddle her. “Yeah, yeah.” I’d have plenty of points soon enough, more than any amount of drain could take away from me.

“You seem confident for someone who has not found two of the three necessary mines.”

“I’ve got half your quest finished. With the smilodon pelts, winter will be a breeze for us. The bastards are shaggy, too. We can shear them, and use them to hunt other sabers, maybe even a mammoth or something. So we’ve got winter down pat.”

“Only if you survive your competitors,” Finch said softly.

Investigator and I had already made it into the forest, bounding along down the path Lindiwe and I had taken yesterday. I wanted to check in on Jack and Vodka. Finch moved with me, as did his bubble. Why the bubble, anyway? And why wasn’t his transmission staticky anymore?

Things are happening up there. Things I’m not aware of.

“When I get my ship,” I said, ignoring his comment, “how will that work? Will you drop it off for us?”

Now Finch’s pause was much more obvious. I peered sideways at him. The forest rushed past behind his see-through form, like the trees were thoughts running through him as he tried to figure out what to say.

“I have just asked Command your question,” he explained finally. “They say that the ten winners will be teleported to an aerial hangar on the appointed day, along with any party members within ten feet of them. There, an awards ceremony will be performed.”

An awards ceremony, huh? “So we’ll start off with babysitters.”

“In a sense.”

He didn’t elaborate, which seemed odd given all the other details he was offering. Either way, I couldn’t trust a single thing this guy told me. Atticus had been different. If there were sides, I wanted to be on his.

I opened my mouth to ask if Finch was done yet, since I had places to be—but at that moment, I spotted Jack on a Utahraptor ahead of me. He waved, approaching rapidly. Given his smile, I didn’t think he had bad news.

But then he passed through Finch’s bubble... and something happened.

It was so momentary that I nearly missed it. Jack was allowed to enter the bubble, since he was wearing an obelisk, too—but the moment he passed through, Finch vanished.

No—not vanished. He shrank. He went from a tall, shrivel-skinned lizardman to a short figure. I didn’t get a good look at it, because my eyes had been on Jack. It was like he turned into a child or something. Just as quickly, it was over.

I studiously pretended I hadn’t seen anything as Jack and I slowed to meet each other.

“You done yet? I got business,” I told Finch.

My handler bowed, which had to be a human thing. It was probably a mocking movement among others of his kind.

“There is only one last point allocation you should be aware of. We now consider your mastery of the so-called ‘truebond’ to be official. This was a stipulation of the final Metal quest, so considerable points were awarded. Now, to complete the final quest, you have only three tasks: seize and control your local silver Metal mine, located under Britonia; discover and control the gold Metal mine in your region; and survive five more months with a top-ten point value at the end. If you reach the 100-day mark without any tribe members dying, you will receive a considerable bonus.”

Beside me now, Jack paled. He knew our stipulations, of course, but most people preferred not to be reminded of how stark they were.

“Sounds like I got my work cut out for me,” I said. “Time is points, Finch. You can go now.”

“Very well. Good luck to you, Alan Winchester.” The lizard-man smiled and blinked his snake-eyes at me. “You are going to need it.”

I sniffed in disdain as he vanished. It was clear the Empire thought I was trying to avoid war with Britonia, even though the war was inevitable. Well, far from it. I knew Napoleon would ambush me, and I also knew where. The only trick was when.

“What is it, Jack?” I asked him.

“We secured the mine, just like you said. We’ve got one of Sayuri’s assistants out there with Carl to start mining it. We can’t do much without a smelter, Carl says, but we can at least get the stuff out of the ground using dinos, and start storing it closer to home.”

I nodded. “Good. Any sign of Britonia scouting it?”

“None, even though our activity is pretty obvious. We haven’t even spotted lookouts, so the Britonian flight teams aren’t interested in the copper mine.”

“They wouldn’t be,” I said, running my hand back through my hair. “They think taking the mine will be child’s play once they’ve killed me and taken Prosperity, so they’re focusing on achieving that first.”

Jack paled. “Oh. Really?”

I patted his upper arm and laughed. “Don’t worry about it. I got it handled.” I frowned at him. “But you look like you’ve got something else...?”

He had hardly needed to return to me to give a routine report; he had an obelisk for that.

His eyebrows rose. “Oh, right!” He started patting about his person. Vodka had sewn him a vest full of pockets, and he’d apparently forgotten which one he’d stuffed something in. Finally he retrieved it.

“We stopped on the way to the mine, you know, for drinks for the dinos,” he said, holding something out to me on the flat of his palm. “And as they were drinking from a creek, we found this!”

I reached for the object. At first glance, I thought it was a dinosaur finger bone—albeit an abnormally pretty one—but as I picked it up between my fingertips, my heart stopped.

It was dull and lifeless, but one thing was certain: it was yellow.

“Do you think...?” Jack asked.

I looked up at him, nearly speechless. Finally, I found words, but they weren’t for Jack.

I held my obelisk to my mouth. “Connect to Obelisk Six.”

A small shwoop noise connected us. “Rin here,” Rin said over the line.

“Rin, this is Alan,” I said. “Whatever you’re doing, stop, and get back to camp, now.”

“What—? Ah, sure thing, Alan, but can I ask why?”

I turned the pebble in my hand again, until it caught the light and flared gold.

“We’ve got a gold mine to find.”

Chapter 22

Complimentary

FOUR MONTHS. Four. And we didn’t even find the mine—and Napoleon still didn’t attack us.

“What do you mean, you couldn’t track the river farther?” I said, leaning hard to my left in Orion’s saddle. The gigantic spinosaurus turned as if my body were hers. No commands needed, verbal or mental. This was the power of a truebond—a domestication made through friendship and respect, not alien tech.

With Orion, I’d forged the bond myself, without Lindiwe’s help. During the heat of our underwater battle, now months past, I’d established my dominance and brought her to heel.

“The river ran too deep underground, with no space above it to breathe,” Rin said, speaking to me over obelisk. “We can’t survive underwater, Alan. Lords know we’ve tried.”

Four months of panning for gold, four months of tracking that damned river, and all it got us was a hole in the ground we couldn’t actually enter. Tracking the flakes of gold had led Rin to yet another underwater river, just like the one Orion and I were tromping over right now.

I leaned back, and Orion twisted and slid across the new-fallen snow, coming to a stop a good ten feet from the edge of the cliff overlooking Prosperity. I was getting good at sliding across icy ground now, and I was reasonably certain I could stop her within a foot of that edge, but I wouldn’t risk it unless I had to.

Rumbling in satisfaction, Orion twisted and lumbered back to the hole in the center of the cliff, where I’d dropped on top of Lindiwe in our first fight with each other. Lindiwe watched me now from the back of Leia, our other female spinosaurus, before she attempted to copy my move.

“Did you try to source it again?” I asked Rin.

“You know I did. We went overland for miles, checking every stream and creek we found. No more gold. We tried for four months.”

Orion reached the hole and roared into it. Her roar echoed back out tenfold, bouncing against the cavern below, rippling along the underground river that fed our waterfall. She liked to hear her own roar come back to her. She was pretty full of herself.

“Damn,” I said, finally coming to terms with the reality: I had wasted Rin and her gallimimus scout team on a fool’s errand. Now I had to hope I found the gold mine some other way—probably through side quests or clues from the aliens. As if I could rely on that. It was clear they favored Britonia to win; Tribe Grant had fallen to 57th place, thanks to the fact that Napoleon still hadn’t declared war or attacked us. I was starting to think he was waiting for us to finish our road, so he could steal it, and not have to do the work himself.

At the same time, his lack of attack fed into my own plans—plans that I had refined greatly over these past few months.

“Well, fuck it,” I said. “Throw in the towel, Rin. Call Nadiyya and get a new assignment. I’m pretty sure she needs help delivering sleeping darts to Britonia; maybe you can help with that. Most of our spies are tied up elsewhere, and those darts are important.”

“Will do,” Rin replied. “Over and out.”

The obelisk chimed, and Orion roared into the hole again, her tattered back spines quivering in pleasure as the roar came back out.

Behind us, Lindiwe and Leia skidded too, but Leia fell over and Lindiwe had to leap free. She cursed. She continued to have trouble with any dino that wasn’t abnormal. Padme was still her best mount.

“A bit clumsy today, are we?” I called over to her.

“Oh, shut up,” she said, bending down to help guide Leia back to her feet. Both spinosaur females were surprisingly resilient. Unlike most predators—who ran on two feet with two weak, useless arms—the four-legged spinos didn’t have much trouble getting up when they toppled. They were also more muscle than anything else, and their skin was surprisingly impenetrable. We’d also decked them out with small, hammered plates of copper, interlocked to form a light mail. All of the tribe’s best mounts had that armor, now.

Orion turned to trot over to her struggling sister, at the same exact moment I decided to do the same. As much as I loved my other mounts, this truebond was growing on me. We moved like one beast, one mind, bleeding into each other. My skin could hardly be pierced by blades when I rode Orion, and I hit a helluva lot harder.

“Need help?” I asked as we drew close.

“No. She’s just acting funky.”

I frowned. “I haven’t noticed Orion acting odd.”

Leia finally gained her feet, and Lindiwe mounted her for more practice. “That’s because you and her are basically the same creature. You don’t see the difference because you’re acting and feeling just like she—”

Lindiwe didn’t finish the sentence, because the next moment, Leia jerked her forward, plowing through snow as she made a beeline for the forest off the ridge. Seeing them go, I had the same urge to run, and instantly Orion and I were in hot pursuit.

The forest, I thought, gotta get to the forest. Gotta be loud. Gotta roar!

I threw my head back and loosed a mad bellow at the same moment Orion paused to do the same. Our voices twined into each other, a strange and similar cadence that seemed to blend into one single noise.

It was wonderful, exhilarating, and next thing I knew, I’d stormed into the trees. Up here, it was easy to go from ridge to forest. This part of the settlement had no walls, no protection. It wasn’t a cage like everything else.

Out. I must get out! I thought, my body zinging with need. I need my wives. I must find them! I must make many babies with them!

Together, Orion and I bounded through the woods, crashing down a mountainside that had already been trampled by Leia and a loudly cursing Lindiwe. I kept catching snippets of her shouts on the breeze.

“You dumb bitch! What the—fuck! Stop!”

I laughed and laughed and laughed.

I don’t know how long we rambled for. Miles, probably. But I started to tire. My heart started to sink.

My wives. They aren’t here....

I gave another cry, this time of sadness. Leia joined me, pulling up next to me and leaning against my side—no, against Orion’s side. From her saddle, Lindiwe reached across and grabbed my shirt.

“Alan! Alan, what the fuck?”

“They’re not here,” I whined. “They’re not here, and I want them.”

She shook me by the collar, enough to make me blink. What had I... had I really just said that?

“Who do you want? What are you talking about?” Lindiwe cried.

“My... my wives?” I said, but the words suddenly sounded foreign and bizarre. I frowned down at my hands, gripping the reins. That brought my crotch into view, and it was... active. I was hard as a lords-damned rock.

Heat raced up my neck and into my face. “Oh, shit,” I said. “I think I’m... I think the spinos are in heat.”

“You don’t fucking say,” Lindiwe replied, leaning back into her own seat. “So is that why you’re flying full-mast?”

I would have brought my legs together, but I couldn’t, not in the saddle. I tried to get a hold of myself, and a joke was the best way.

“And you would know I’m flying full-mast why?” I asked, raising one eyebrow at her. “You got wandering eyes, Lindiwe?”

Lindiwe’s expression went flat, and she faced forward. Was that a hint of red in her neck, too?

“You’re too close with Orion,” she said. “You were in the same heat as her. You couldn’t control your bond.”

I wanted to argue, but it was damned clear she was right. I bent forward to scratch the spino behind her nearest torn neck spine. All her spines had been ripped up in our battle, but they’d all healed without any infections.

“You’re right. Until she mates, I probably shouldn’t be riding her,” I said.

Lindiwe sighed. “Go back, Alan. Use up that erection. I’ll take Leia and find a male and bring him back.”

The heat returned anew to my neck. Use up that erection. It felt odd to hear that coming from Lindiwe.

I realized why: I want to use it on her.

For the hundredth time, though, I didn’t say a thing, didn’t make any move on my general. I’d already decided that I wanted her as my “birthday wife,” but only if she wanted me first. If I put even the slightest pressure on her, and it wasn’t reciprocated, I knew I’d lose my most valuable general—and now, one of my closest friends.

I couldn’t risk that. And I certainly couldn’t try to seduce her from a position of power. After what she’d experienced with the Nomads, I knew that wouldn’t go over well.

“All right,” I finally managed to answer. “I’ll go. But you’re sure you can handle a male?”

“Give me your obelisk,” Lindiwe said, holding out a hand and wiggling her fingers. “I’ll be able to use your domestications, that way.”

I handed over my obelisk, and she traded it with hers. I remembered that she’d stolen her tribe’s main obelisk from Jasper all those ages ago. She’d never tried to do that with mine.

“It shouldn’t be hard to find a male, not with the way Leia’s moaning,” she said. “I’ll domesticate the male the old way, after they mate. Males always get sleepy after mating.” And she winked at me.

I had to look away. I couldn’t trust myself to respond to that in any reasonable way.

“I guess we’ll have a little army of spinos before we know it,” I croaked.

“You don’t have to sound so sad about it. Especially not during the holidays.”

That made me chuckle. It was nearly Christmas Eve. I knew, because I’d been watching the date on my obelisk very carefully.

“Go on home now,” Lindiwe said. “Oh, and Alan?”

“Yes?”

She smiled and dropped her gaze. Despite pulling free of the truebond, my dick remained stiff.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said.

Chapter 23

Christmas Gift

I WAS STILL BLUSHING like a schoolgirl by the time I made it back home. I sat Orion down and sternly told her not to leave her nest for any reason, and then I left her to return to my own nest.

When I reached the longhouse, however, I found it occupied by the most anti-aphrodisiac thing of all time: my mother-in-law. The former Queen Yazmin was stringing up a garland of braided willow branches inside my house, while the ten-year-old Yusra played with little Anthony in one corner. Nadiyya sat at her desk, concocting plans, as always. She had her obelisk out—probably talking to Rin. All of my wives’ beds were empty.

“Oh, Alan! There you are,” Yazmin said warmly, turning to me. “Help me string this? I’m not quite as tall as you.”

At this, Nadiyya raised her head, her tired face instantly perking up.

“My pleasure,” I said, striding over to my mother-in-law and helping to hammer a nail up above our other door frame. After hooking the garland in place, I said, “This isn’t necessary, Yazmin. You should be doing this for your own house—or for the children.”

She waved a hand. “Oh, I already did that. Besides, our great leader deserves decorations, too!” She handed me another loop of garland. “Now string those up while I get you your Christmas present. Oh, where did I put it....”

I frowned at her, but I didn’t stop hammering in the nails and festooning my house with holiday decor. “A present? For me? That’s not... I mean, I didn’t think to get anything for you. Plus, it’s not Christmas for a few days yet.”

Yazmin barely seemed to hear me as she busied herself about the room. She had likely just cleaned the whole place, which was her way of showing love, but she always left random things here and there. She wasn’t nearly as bright as her daughters were, but I had to hand it to the woman, she could make anyplace feel like home. None of my wives really seemed to have the gene for home management—or maybe they were all just too busy. There was something to be said for coziness, though, so I appreciated Yazmin. She brought a special warmth to my people, one they didn’t know they’d been missing. It was like she’d brought a little of Old Earth here with her.

Nadiyya said something into her obelisk, then stood. She still didn’t appear to be pregnant, but her cycle had stopped. True to Sayuri’s plans, I now had a fifth child on the way, and several more due about when the Dasku came, one month from now.

Cold raced along my arms, and I forced myself to stop thinking about that.

It’s almost Christmas Eve, I told myself. Everything will be different, come Christmas morning... provided Nadiyya’s spies have all done their jobs.

“Ah, here we are!” Yazmin trilled, coming up with a package wrapped in birch bark and twine. She handed it to me gaily, half-bowing as she did so, like a princess in a story book.

“Merry Christmas, my liege,” she said, only partially kidding.

I stood there, at a loss, unsure what to do. I was kicking myself for not getting her anything—for not getting anyone anything, to be exact. It had completely slipped my mind.

“But... it’s not Christmas?” I said.

She slapped my forearm. “Oh, just open it. You’ll want it sooner rather than later.”

As I shrugged and pulled at the twine, Nadiyya approached, also curious. The birch bark fell aside to reveal two pokeyballs. I cocked my head at them.

“Identify?” I said.

It was a command that even my secondary obelisk could obey. Words hovered over the pokeyballs, describing them:

Dismantler v1.6

Can dismantle any nonliving object into its respective parts. This action cannot be undone.

GeoScanner v4.8

Can scan through up to ten feet of solid material and return compositional information on the scanned area.

I read them twice. “Where did you get these?” I asked.

Yazmin was chewing her fingernail, but now she pulled it out of her mouth. “A bit of a long story,” she said. “But once, Archie went to a drop and took me with him. He cleared out the drop, all except for these two balls. There was this sort of folding panel, but Archie and his men didn’t really notice it... you know how men aren’t always great at seeing little details, no offense. Anyway, I checked when he wasn’t looking and saw the balls there, but I didn’t say anything, and Archie left them behind.”

I turned the balls over in my hand. Made of silver Metal and nondescript, they looked like every other pokeyball I’d ever seen, but they had entirely new capabilities. The GeoScanner especially caught my eye. We might be able to use that to find gold Metal.

“And you remembered where the drop was? And went back to it?” I asked.

“Oh, no. I mean, not very well,” Yazmin said, fluttering her hands at me. “But your cartographer, dear Alfie, he helped me narrow it down once I remembered the balls existed, which took me an embarrassingly long time... you know, lots of things on my mind. Anyway, we found them just yesterday, which is why you’re getting them now. I know they’re useful, and I don’t want to make you wait for them.”

I hooked both balls to my belt and smiled at my mother-in-law. “Thank you, Yazmin. These could help a great deal.”

She patted my chest. “I know, sweetie. And you’re welcome. Hug?”

I chuckled and spread my arms. “Sure.”

It was our first hug, the two of us, and afterward Yusra came over to hug me too, followed by little Anthony, who clung to my leg. The little one-year-old really liked clinging to legs, especially while people were still walking.

After Yusra pried my stepson off me, Yazmin glanced at Nadiyya. Something unspoken passed between mother and daughter, and Yazmin soon hurried everyone out, Anthony included, leaving me alone with my wife.

Nadiyya wasted no time in pressing up against me. She walked her fingers up my chest. “It’s so hot to see you with my family,” she purred at me.

“Hmm. That sounds a little Freudian to me,” I replied, smiling. Nadiyya had formed a habit four months ago that she had yet to break: every chance she had me alone, she instantly went after me. I couldn’t say I minded at all.

She licked her lips. “How do you want me?” she said, cutting to the chase. “The other girls will be here soon, and I’d rather not share you.”

I laid my hands on her hips, remembering Lindiwe’s command: go use up that erection.

“Everyone’s gathering in one place? You sure it’s not Christmas?” I said.

She shrugged, her hands drifting to my belt. “They’ve got something to ask you. So I hear.”

That sent a shock of disquiet through me. When one wife wanted to have a “talk,” that was bad enough, but five of them?

Nadiyya pulled my cock into her hand, making me groan and close my eyes. “It’s nothing bad,” she said. “In fact, you’ll like it... about half as much as you’re going to like this.”

Chapter 24

In the Closet

I PREFERRED NOT to have one wife walk in on me having intimate time with another, so I bent my knees and lifted Nadiyya off her feet. She laughed scandalously as she wrapped her legs around me, and I carried her deeper into the longhouse, into a closet. It was a part of the partition constructed between my half of the longhouse and the half now belonging to my guards and their chosen partners. The whole place had basically become a municipal building, showers included. Sayuri had rerouted water to make newer, warmer showers elsewhere.

I stepped into the closet and closed the door. Two walls and the door were made of thin palm trunks strapped together, but the outer wall was the solid construction that had come from the automated longhouse. I rammed Nadiyya against this wall, and she moaned.

“I can’t believe you still haven’t gotten tired of dick,” I said.

She laughed as I tugged her dress down, exposing her sweet, tawny breasts. Her skin reminded me of cappuccino, and tasting her was like getting a little bean-juice in the morning—it woke me up, electrified me, and took me back to a time when things were simple.

“Never your dick,” she said. “Sayuri uses some toys on me now and then, when we’re craving you and you’re away, but even if they’re the same size, it’s not the same.”

“You’re such a dirty girl,” I growled into her neck, fiddling with her skirts until I found her underwear. Proper under-attire had been a bonus of the saber-tooth pelts, and a perk of being the boss meant all my women received that comfort. Although I did miss when they used to go nude.

I tugged the panties aside and dipped my fingers into her. She shuddered, arching back against the wall. I ducked my head between her tits and worked her another moment, until she was wet but not an absolute waterfall. That was where she liked it best, the perfect friction.

She shuddered in my arms, as if trying to make herself heavier so I’d drop her onto me. “Please, Alan. Oh lords, I need you.”

I took my fingers out and found the wet little bead, and I rubbed it as she squirmed, her boobs caressing my face to either side. I turned my head to suck on her, pulling her nipples into little peaks, one by one.

Before she could get too wet, though, I spread her legs in my hands, positioned my cock to one side of her panties, and slid into her.

My breath caught as I got my morning fix of sweet energizing liquid. “Oh, Nadiyya,” I breathed.

“Damn it, I want your cum in me,” she said, her breath against my nose as I leaned back to look at her. It seemed like a century had passed since she’d been my uncertain, lesbian, unconsummated wife.

I raised her up, my arms taking her weight like it was nothing. I channeled the strength of my dinos without thinking now, and it made the bedroom ever more interesting.

“Still claiming you’re a lesbian?” I said, fucking her.

“Yes. A raging—fucking—lez—”

Her assertions faded into wild moans as I hammered my cock deep into her body, lifting and dropping her rapidly. She said this was her favorite way to take me, that I went deepest this way.

“I love you—I love you—oh, fuck—I love—”

I shoved her sideways, into one of the wall shelves where we stored our linens. Dropping one of her butt cheeks onto a shelf freed one of my hands, which I used to cover her mouth.

“Liar,” I said. “You’re bi as hell.”

She shook her head and murmured against me, and the heat of her mouth on my hand made me hot. During the day—or more often, the night—Nadiyya was a capable and ruthless spymaster. But here in my arms, she was gelatin, a woman with no will whatsoever. She craved me more than Missy did. Yet she still claimed to be attracted solely to women. I was just an anomaly, her one and only path to the “dark side,” as she called it.

Strange as it was, I liked hearing this from her. I liked knowing I could flip a lesbian to the other side whenever I got my dick into her. I was just that good.

I popped free of her pussy, then rammed in again, my crown driving as far in as I could go. It made the flimsy inner wall of the closet shake, and something in the shelf sounded like it broke.

“Yes! Harder,” she begged me against my hand. I obliged, pulling out as far as I could and then burying my full length inside her. I went slow enough to feel every bump and ridge of her channel, and when the vein under my cock quivered, I took my hand off her mouth and found her clit.

“No! I don’t want to come first—”

“I’ll come when you come,” I said, nibbling her ear. “I like how tight you get around me.”

She twisted in ecstasy, hardly able to bear my dirty words. Soon, I had her sweating and the shelf cracking under her weight. Her juices dripped down my balls as I moved faster inside of her, bringing myself to the edge.

“Damn it—how—do you feel—this good—”

The last word melted into a wordless cry, and I felt the sudden pulse of her orgasm closing around my cock. I took my hand away and rode the waves of her pleasure until I crested myself, spilling inside her, nearly caving in the closet wall with my last thrust.

She leaned close and clung to me, breathing hard as she tightened her muscle in time to my spurts.

“Don’t forget me,” she breathed against my shoulder. The words took me out of the heady feeling of after-sex.

“What?” I said, pushing back.

Nadiyya smiled hazily at me, then loosened her legs from around me. I took the hint, pulled out, and dropped her back onto her wobbly legs.

“You’ll see,” she said, tucking an errant strand of hair behind one ear. “Come on. The others should arrive soon.”

She pulled her dress up and tugged me out of the closet by the hand, only to stop back inside my bedroom, flushing. I looked past her shoulder the see a very pregnant Aubrey stretched out on her side, naked, lying across the main bed of the longhouse. I shared the main bed on rotation each night, trying to keep things fair between wives.

My first wife was alone, though. She smiled at the blushing Nadiyya. “You sounded like you were enjoying yourself in there. Did you leave anything for me?”

“I—I—”

I laughed. As forward as Nadiyya was, her embarrassment always gave me a chuckle. She could command an entire spy team of women, but if she saw one naked, everything went out of her head.

I cupped her butt fondly. “Go on, Nadiyya. Hey, go look over these new pokeyballs if you’ve got the chance.”

In all of our lovemaking, I hadn’t even taken my pants off, nor removed the new balls off my belt. The Dismantler and GeoScanner were going to be useful, though, and we should start determining their capabilities as soon as possible. I handed them over to her.

Nadiyya nodded and hurried out of the room as I headed for my personal shower. Sayuri had rerouted the waterfall up here as well, and she’d added hot stones activated by NE to make the water warm when I turned on the tap. I wasn’t sure how the mechanism worked, but she was supposed to explain it to me soon. It was just one of many meetings that kept getting pushed back, in the face of all my war preparations.

After taking off my remaining clothes, I stepped into the hot water and sighed as it rushed over me. I used a cake of lye soap to clean my shaft off, and scour my sweaty bits besides. I knew Aubrey wouldn’t leave until I came again, and she preferred for me to smell good. I couldn’t blame her.

Still, the thought of having to get erect again made me think of my earlier hard-on with Lindiwe. Curious, I closed my eyes and channeled my truebond with Orion.

Lust. Mate. Want, need—

I opened my eyes again before I could bellow out a mating call.

“Oh, my. That was fast,” Aubrey said.

I chuckled and turned, my hand dropping to my dick. “You’re just that hot to me,” I told her. It was a white lie, but it made her smile radiantly. I suddenly had visions of being able to satisfy my wives even more, now that I had this ability. I could even draw on my dinos for strength to keep me from tiring. Now, my only limit would be time.

And right this moment, I had time to spare.

Chapter 25

The Proposal

“CAN I SUCK ON YOU?” Aubrey asked, rising onto her hands and knees and crawling to the edge of the bed. She moved differently now, her belly round, just about to burst. I worried about that belly, and about Missy’s too. They would be among the first births in this new world, and although we had a doctor now, she hadn’t specialized in birthing. I knew the maternal mortality rate would be much higher in Prosperity than it had ever been in Old Earth. Would I lose Aubrey soon? Or Missy? Statistics said I’d lose at least one wife to childbirth. I hadn’t really considered it until they started to get plump.

Maybe the ships will have better medical equipment, I thought. In all the old sci-fi movies, space ships had medical bays. I had to hope that was true.

For her part, though, Aubrey didn’t seem worried about childbirth. She tossed her blonde hair out of the way and said, “It feels like it’s been ages since I tasted your cum. I didn’t think I’d ever miss cum, but I swear, something you eat makes it sweet.”

I smiled, dislodging my darker thoughts, and I held out my cock to her. She leaned forward, ducking under my shaft to lick my balls before drawing her tongue up the underside, to my head.

There, she found a spot of lust waiting for her, and she licked it up, one hand going to my balls. She squeezed them gently as her mouth widened, the tender ridges of my head pressing past her full lips. I leaned my head back as my softest skin slid across the mound of her tongue, then into the constriction of her throat. I had to hold her head and angle myself down a bit to go deeper. She rolled my balls between her fingers and moaned.

“And here I thought you wanted to talk to me about something,” I said, cocking one eyebrow as I pulled back out of her. She gasped, a bit of saliva pulling off with my head to drip down her chin.

She kept her grip on my balls, though, so I couldn’t back away far. “Oh, I do. We all do. I’m just the emissary.”

I eyed the empty longhouse. “That bad, huh?” Not even Cassie was here to help Aubrey tell me this mysterious thing.

“We thought it best—” she cut herself off to suck me down, hard and fast “—to keep the pressure off you—” again she sucked, making me close my eyes “—with just one of us. But—” damn, how can she make a blow job feel this good? “—I figured I was due a bit of pleasure for the trouble.”

I couldn’t argue that, and her swirling tongue took me to task again. She didn’t try to talk after that. She just gave me the simple pleasure of good head, a soft and easy lovemaking. Sometimes I closed my eyes, sometimes I admired the way she feasted on me like a starving woman, and sometimes I watched her enlarged breasts swing and sway. She was already making milk for our future child, and the idea of licking those pebbled nubs made me harder.

It took her nearly a half-hour, but I knew Aubrey had dino bonds of her own now, and the stamina and pain dampening to match. Her cheeks didn’t tire from blowing me, something she used to complain about. She could even take me deeper in her throat without discomfort, given her bondmates had much larger throats than she did.

So we made a languorous time of it, slowly bringing me to completion. When my breath stuttered to a halt and the first spurt shot down her throat, I pulled out and hastily—but carefully—pushed her flat. I knelt over her and finished on her pussy, knowing that to enter her now would only make her uncomfortable. We hadn’t had regular sex in weeks, as the baby made it less pleasant for her.

Once I had her lips smothered in white, I worked my cock against the little bead I’d come to know so well. My cum served as a lubricant, growing sticky and adding to the friction over time. Although I wasn’t near so hard anymore, I didn’t have to be. It took me ten minutes and a little finger work, but soon, I had her just as pleased as she’d made me.

After that, we couldn’t put the conversation off anymore. I joined her in the bed, and she tucked against me as best she could, with our child nestled just between us.

“Out with it,” I told her.

She sighed. “Okay. Rip off the bandage, I guess.” She tilted her head up to me, her blue eyes like rippling water over white stones on a clear day.

“It’s... about Kaity,” she said.

It took me a moment to parse this. There were so many people to track sometimes, and, to be honest, I hadn’t really seen Kaity much in the four months since we’d rescued her.

I tensed and leaned back. “Is she all right?”

Aubrey looked down at her belly, biting her lip before she said, “Not really. She hasn’t flown on a ptera since she was captured, Alan. Missy added her to the Materials crew, and she’s been doing good stuff there... she made the heat implements for the showers, and all kinds of other stuff. So she’s been productive enough, but we can all tell it’s a distraction. As soon as she has to stop working, well... her demons come back.”

Well that didn’t sound good. “Demons?” I asked.

“She blames herself. For Eric. For the capture. And the Britonians did things to try to make her talk... nothing sexual, thankfully, and really they didn’t do much physically at all. I think they might have used alien tech to torture her mind, Alan... her symptoms are so strange, and we don’t have any psychologists in our tribe yet.”

Making a mental note to acquire therapists if I ever got the chance, I stroked Aubrey’s hair, now partially plastered to her round cheek. It was true what they said about new mothers glowing. My wife positively lit up this whole room, even with her worried expression. She would make an incredible mother.

“I’m sorry to hear that, but I’m not sure how I can help,” I said. Aubrey had nearly as much power within Tribe Grant as I did, so I couldn’t imagine what she needed my permission for. “Just tell me what to do, though, and I’ll do it.”

She shook her head, flinching her eyes closed. “You wouldn’t say that if... oh, just rip off the bandage, Aubrey, you dolt.” Her blue eyes flared, resolute, and she took a breath and blurted, “We want you to marry her, Alan.”

Now, I have done a lot of surprised blinking in my time on New Earth, but this time, my eyes seemed to freeze open. I had no words for this request. I mean, Kaity? Eric’s widow? She barely knew me, and come on—I had five wives already! Plus a sixth “birthday wife” on the table, if it ever got that far. Was she proposing I take on a seventh partner?

Worse, the poor woman was in a rough place mentally. It sounded like Kaity was scattered and sorrowful and who-knows-what-else. It would be cruel of me to take advantage of her in that state.

All this ran through my mind, but none of it reached my mouth. Aubrey winced even though I said nothing. She rushed to explain before I could stop her.

“It’s just... you calm her, Alan. Carmila told me she acted normal around you when you were all fleeing the mine... and whenever anyone talks about you around her, Kaity seems to get calmer. We don’t think sex has to be involved at all. We just think... she should stay here. With us. For her own mental health.”

I frowned, then cursed. “Shit. I think I already said I would do that months ago, but I forgot. I guess we all did.”

“So you’ll let her come stay?” Aubrey said. “Maybe she’ll get better, and then she can decide to leave if she wants to. Of course, we all know you’d never take advantage... and marriage here is pretty liquid, anyway—”

I touched a finger to my wife’s lips. “Stop, stop,” I said. Clearly she and my other partners were in agreement on this; they’d just foisted the request off on Aubrey. “I’m sorry. This is a lot... to take in.” That’s putting it lightly.

Aubrey startled me by hugging me close, and her face left a damp sensation on my shoulder.

“Just promise you’ll consider it,” she said. “Kaity really needs to feel safe, Alan, and you make us all feel so safe.” She took a breath and pulled back. “And Sayuri and Missy say that she’s very skilled in the Materials group. The flight team misses her, but she’s terrified of flying now, and we think having a mechanical engineer in your inner circle will be helpful. She’s a good candidate for a new wife.”

I shook my head at her. “And my birthday thing?”

“Still on the table.”

“Seven wives, though, Aubrey? Seven?”

“I know. We would promise to stop after this.”

I shook my head again, then a third time, mystified. I pushed away and laid flat on my back, feeling spent in more ways than one.

“Sounds to me like you can’t make that promise,” I breathed out. “Everyone wants a piece of me, all the time, and Tribe Grant is only going to get larger. Between politics and public opinion... I’m starting to feel like a tool, Aubrey. Having to marry Nadiyya was bad enough, but now I’m some kind of refuge for scared women?”

“She’s not some scared woman. She’s Kaity.”

Aubrey had me there. Kaity had been with Tribe Grant from the very beginning. But where did it end? I had a finite amount of time and attention to give.

“I’ll do it, if you all have agreed it’s for the best,” I said, pulling Aubrey’s head onto my chest. “But you have to realize, all of you, that I’m only one man. I can only give you each so much of me, and... I’ll be frank, Aubrey. I’m not like all of you. Aside from Sayuri and Nadiyya keeping each other satisfied when I’m out of town, I really can’t share you with other men. Any of you. Not even Kaity, if she’s going to be my public partner. I can’t be seen to share... it’s a man thing. I’m sorry.”

She nodded against me. I knew it wasn’t every man-there were plenty of totally open marriages in my tribe—and I had nothing against other men sharing their partners with each other. I just personally couldn’t do it. And even if I could, it would undermine my leadership. If people thought my wives were going elsewhere for satisfaction, it would make me look weak. That’s just the way the world worked.

“I know. We all know. We’ve agreed to make the sacrifice.”

I slapped a hand on my face, and tried to hide myself behind it.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s go see her, then.”

“Thank you, Alan. You’re making the right—”

But I never got to hear how “right” I was, because the next moment, our warning horns blew.

Chapter 26

Midas

THREE BLASTS—JUST a warning. That meant a visitor had arrived at our gates, but that we weren’t certain they were a friend.

About time, Napoleon, I thought, snatching up my clothes and rushing out the door. My poor pregnant wife couldn’t keep up with me, but I made sure to drop a kiss on her cheek before I left her.

On the porch we’d built around the longhouse, I jogged over to the nearest rope ladder, my eyes snapping to the entrance to Prosperity. In the past four months, we’d finalized our walls. The walls enclosed the meat of the city, including all the housing, high-value dino nests, and all the main hubs of government and commerce. We’d built them as tall as a juvenile Rex, meaning the walls should at least temporarily repel anything except a full-grown bronto or bracho, which we were reasonably certain Britonia did not have.

Still, the walls weren’t the strongest thing possible. Made of driven logs and caked clay, they appeared to be feebler than Britonia’s rings of wooden, reinforced walls. However, we’d hidden a few sulphur bombs inside them, in case anyone ever tried to mow them down.

As I raced down the rope ladder, it occurred to me that I should start using the flight suit to get down from the longhouse. I should start wearing it under my armor. Now might not be the best time, though, as I didn’t want Napoleon to know I had the suit.

As I’d thought, the pretentious and short little man waited for me outside our main gates. He and his men sat astride duckbills, although by now my intelligence had reported an influx in new domestications. It seemed Napoleon wasn’t nearly so scrupulous about domesticating dinos as his predecessor had been.

On the way down the ladder, I called Lindiwe on my obelisk. “Are you back yet? Did you find a male?”

“In record time, yeah. I think Leia might have snuck out to find him before.”

“Are you back?” I repeated. “Are both spinos here?”

“Yes, both girls plus the new male. Everyone’s spent. I heard the warning. Where do you want me to be?”

“You know where the laser’s stashed. Man it. But don’t take risks. You have our main obelisk.”

“Sure thing, Mr. President.” I could perfectly visualize her saluting me. “I shall protect your tribe’s honor with my life.”

“Your tribe, too, Lind.”

“Huh. Guess you’re right. Over and out.”

I smiled at her shift in tone and thumped off the ladder. I found my beloved mindraptor already waiting for me. With Investigator’s help—Malcolm was out on maneuvers—I made it to Napoleon in record time, breathing hard even though I felt fresh. I wanted to make it look like I was worried and wanted to please him.

“Sorry for the wait, Your Majesty,” I huffed when I finally reached him, after descending a slotted ladder on the outside of the city walls. I bent over my knees to get my breath back, even though I felt completely fine. I’d bonded to so many strong dinos by now that I could hardly get winded if I tried.

The bald king sneered down at me from atop the largest hadrosaur in his retinue, which had been decked out in a massive cloak of opulent, silver-Metal mail. Very little was going to break through that—but one thing could: my gold armor. Which I was currently wearing, right in front of him.

I didn’t miss how his eyes flicked over the outfit. My owning such an item could well mean I’d already found the gold mine and started to forge weapons and equipment from it. That would worry Napoleon, or make him greedy, or both. As long as he made decisions out of fear or avarice, he wouldn’t make decisions with logic. That was exactly where I wanted him.

“I would say it was a pleasure to see you again, Sir Alan Winchester—”

“Just Alan.” I straightened and cracked my back, a move meant to be disrespectful. “Told you that before.”

One of the men flanking Napoleon, another white guy, loudly drew a silver sword. “You will not address our king so familiarly, peasant!” he cried.

I chuckled and saluted the soldier. “Aye, aye, captain,” I said, turning back to Napoleon. “So, what brings you here, your Highness?”

“The correct term is Majesty!” the soldier called out, incensed, a vein popping in his neck. “You will address—”

Napoleon held up a hand, and the soldier fell silent. Interesting, I thought. He’d either vastly improved his men’s respect for him since last we’d met—or he’d surrounded himself with useless, loud sycophants. This just keeps getting better and better.

“Ignore him,” Napoleon said, sounding legitimately annoyed. “I won’t mince words with you, Sir Winchester.” Using my title again, despite my protest, was his own little way of snubbing me. “You have someone we want, and you will return her to us immediately, or you will face war.”

My mind shot to Lindiwe, and when I put on my most concerned face, there actually was a lot of real apprehension in it. Then the word return hit me, and I understood what he wanted.

I set my shoulders, smiling. “You want my mother-in-law, I take it?”

“Yes. We are here for the Traitor Queen Yazmin. She must be tried and hanged for her crime of regicide.”

These fools still think Yazmin killed her husband, not me... either that, or they are misdirecting.

I would plan for the latter, but I didn’t honestly believe it. Now King Archie, I had feared. That man had been cruel, but intelligent. It was one of many reasons he had to go.

Napoleon was still a threat, but he was no valedictorian. He had numbers and superior firepower, and he could kill me with that alone—but all of it would be weakened by an inferior mind. That was my belief, anyway. I still made plans as if he were smart, because I couldn’t afford to lose the war he was threatening.

I crossed my arms. “Sorry, but that’s a non-starter. If I handed over my mother-in-law, my wife would kill me. Not to mention next Thanksgiving would be awkward.”

Napoleon’s round face purpled. “Then war it shall be, Sir Winchester. Do not say I didn’t warn you... although shortly, you’ll be saying nothing at all.”

With that not-very-creative threat, he reached behind his back, and withdrew what looked like a spear—only when it came into the light, I realized it was a scepter. A pokeyball, this one in gold, had been welded to the head of the weapon, and I could see a thin strand of decorative gold leading to the handle. Napoleon could trigger the weapon with his hand, without having to touch the pokeyball.

Napoleon raised the scepter threateningly, and I did a quick Identify command under my breath. I didn’t spare much time for more than the name of the item that popped up.

Legendary Weapon 3: Name: Midas

A legendary weapon? Neon was number six. Given those things were supposedly uniques across the entire planet, it seemed mind-boggling that two of them would exist here, in one place, so close together. I currently had Neon on my hip.

Regardless, I had a feeling my armor wasn’t going to protect me from a legendary. With all my might, I leapt into the air.

The Midas beam hit the patch of dirt where I’d been standing, and I looked down at it as I landed halfway up the ladder. The Britonians followed me with their eyes and heads both, since I’d jumped higher than any normal man should be able to. My bondmates had helped me with that.

“Damn,” I said as my wall guards started pulling my ladder up. “Did you just turn dirt into gold?”

The patch of dirt where I’d stood was now a puddle of gold. Suddenly Britonia’s wealth made more sense. How long had Archie had that thing? How much gold had he made with it? That thing could not have very many charges.

“Shoot him!” Napoleon cried, at the same time he waved his scepter. It didn’t go off again, but the movement struck me as a sort of signal. As I activated Neon’s shield-form to protect my neck and other vulnerable areas—you can’t be too careful at this range, even with armor on—I turned. The ladder crested the wall a moment later, and I leapt off as my men flipped the whole thing to the other side. Once there, I turned my head to the waterfall, keeping Neon between Napoleon and me.

“Shit, there it is,” I said. The wall guards glanced back at the waterfall and cursed when they saw the four enormous trebuchets rumbling onto the cliff.

“Pretty stupid of you not to build walls up there!” Napoleon shouted from below me—further proof of his incredible intelligence.

I turned back around, smiling. “Was it?” I called back.

And that’s when one laser and three spinosaurs erupted out of the ground on the cliff, and started doing what lasers and spinosaurs did best.

Chapter 27

The Portable Morgue Strikes Again

THEY’LL TRY to attack from the cliff first, Lindiwe had assured me. Nadiyya had echoed that.

Then we let them, I had replied.

The cliff above Prosperity had always been too tempting of a position. An enemy settlement at the bottom of an accessible cliff? When you had reams of secret flight teams to help you land equipment close by? Napoleon wouldn’t be able to resist thinking of Prosperity as an easy mark.

Unfortunately for him, my high ground was hollow. The underground river running through it had once been too fast to use, but a few accidental, choice cuts with my laser had stemmed the flow and formed an enormous, tepid reservoir. And my spinosaurs were quite fond of deep water, so that’s where we’d put them.

I had to admit, though, it had been a somewhat close thing. I suppose you can’t always account for a dinosaur in heat.

Now that Napoleon had shown his hand with the trebuchets, my archers stationed along the walls shot to their feet and started pummeling Napoleon and his entourage with bolts. Several shouted in pain. Blood literally erupted from one man. Napoleon gave a shout of retreat, and the group fled, leaving behind only four casualties of more than twenty men. Damn that silver armor.

Back on the mountain, the screams of Napoleon’s trebuchet operators carried the full distance to us. Orion, Leia, and the new male were doing work harassing the war machines. I raised a hand, and right on cue, Malcolm swept by above me. I took hold of his leg and he whisked me away.

Punctual, as ever, I thought at him. He cawed shortly, as if to say, Damn straight.

I’d called him as soon as I heard the war horns. In a not-so-surprise battle with a superior nation, you never knew when you’d need a ride.

Napoleon did manage to get pretty close without my scouts noticing, I thought. I would never have sent Leia off to find a mate if I’d thought Napoleon was on his way. So, that was worrisome. He must have slipped past using fliers—or maybe a drill. Or maybe some sort of invisibility tech. The sky was the limit, nowadays.

The presence of the legendary weapon was also a concern. It made sense for Jasper, the Nomads’ leader, to have had Neon; that man did nothing but defeat other tribes. He was bound to collect some goodies along the way. But for a dino-hating guy like Archie to have found a weapon that turned things to gold, and so early on... that couldn’t be chance. It had given Britonia an incredible edge. I resolved to ask Yazmin more about it, later. Perhaps she knew where the weapon had come from.

These thoughts rushed through me until Malcolm swooped upward, banking against the face of the cliff. He slowed just as he crested the rise, flapping hard against his own momentum. I seized the chance to drop off him to the stone of the cliff top, calling to Orion in my mind.

Before me, one of the trebuchets already lay in ruins, torn apart by a spinosaur when their surprise attack first hit. Two of the three spinosaurs were busy battling with the triceratops that had dragged the trebuchets up the cliff from the forest. Once again, Napoleon had proven he didn’t mind using dinos to do his dirty work.

The third spino, Orion, was surrounded by all the Britonian men who’d been manning the combined trebuchets. In the sky, the dark points of an enemy flight wing grew larger as reinforcements approached. I heard a war horn and distant shouts; another force, probably meant to attack Prosperity once a trebuchet took a wall down, had been rerouted to help the war machines.

It was my first real battle in my first real war, and I’d be damned if I was going to lose.

“Alan!” Lindiwe called, waving to me from the hole leading into the spinos’ reservoir-slash-lair. I could trace a line along the stone where she had used the hidden laser to shear a triceratops in half, along with a good portion of rock.

“Stay down!” I commanded, racing past her hole. “But aim for the fliers when they come! Scatter them!”

She didn’t reply, but I knew she heard me. I had to keep her safe, especially given her abilities; however, no one, not even someone as capable as Lindiwe, was going to be safe fighting alongside three rampaging spinosaurs. Unlike Rexes, the massive creatures couldn’t know who or what they were crushing under their feet. I alone had any real chance, with my truebond to Orion and my partial bond with Leia. All three would obey my commands, but in the crush of shouts and weapons and roars, they wouldn’t hear me. Orion could sense my commands, though. I used the power as I ran toward the knot of men who were about to collectively impale her with their silver spears.

I drew Neon in sword-form and loosed a battle cry, plowing into Orion’s attackers at full speed. With a huge swing, I injured three men and fell into a slide.

Jump left! I ordered Orion, more an idea than an actual command, but she was already doing it. She hopped awkwardly sideways, a move no dinosaur would have ever done in real life. The unnatural jump carried her over my sliding body, and she landed among the men I’d surprised. Bones crunched under armor. Men screamed as she twisted and took to the others with her teeth and tail.

Meanwhile, I rose from my slide and tore into the other half of the circle of men. I’d reached them so fast, running across the cliffside at a superhuman rate, and now I fought the same way. Malcolm cawed nearby as he picked off a man trying to fire a trebuchet. I had him set to watch for exactly that.

With her circle of attackers broken, Orion was free to rampage. She struck men off the cliff with the force of her tail, and bit into others until their spines snapped. For my part, I scythed through opponents like a whirling dervish. Their silver-type weapons couldn’t pierce my golden armor.

Just as we cleared the knot of men, a laser beam—the weapon’s last charge—seared up from the ground. Blood rained. I ran through the mist to the nearest trebuchet, and Orion helped me spin it to face the other way with a simple nudge of her nose.

Bits of pteranodon thudded to either side of me as I aimed at the soldier racing up the slope from the forest. Damn, there were so many—but as expected, very few dinosaurs were among them, and nothing large enough to combat three spinosaurs. Two would have been enough, but thanks to my two girls getting horny at just the right time, I had a bonus spino to help ruin my enemies.

After a bit of fiddling to make the trebuchet aim low, I let its bullet fly. To my glee, the rock projectile exploded into flame when it landed. Napoleon had brought incendiary rounds, and now I could use them against his own men.

By now, Lindiwe had gotten on top of Leia. I caught her eyes, and she nodded at the advancing army and raised an eyebrow. I nodded back. A whole conversation exchanged, without words.

She roared commands, and the two alien-domesticated spinos hurtled into the mass of soldiers, avoiding the group of men still aflame. After a brief command to Malcolm, I positioned Neon in its shield-form above my head by wedging it between some cross-struts of the trebuchet. Within a minute, I’d changed out of my armor and into my flight suit. I kept both stored in the Storage pokeyball, which I never let out of my sight anymore.

Back down the mountain, the soldiers had stopped attempting to advance, more focused on defeating the spinos. Spears and arrows stuck out of the spinos in different places at varying depths, and both were bloody. Lindiwe was gone, hopefully doing more damage in close-quarters combat somewhere.

We have to win fast, I thought. My spinos might be big, but they wouldn’t last, especially not with several pteranodons still circling. Lindiwe hadn’t been able to kill them all with the laser blast.

Once I was dressed, I nodded in the direction of the fight, and Orion leapt to help without being told to. Until that moment, she’d been watching my back. With her help, the tide of the battle should turn quickly, so long as the fliers were dealt with. If they couldn’t attack the giant targets of the spinos or Malcolm, I could start doing some real damage.

First, though, I deactivated Neon and ran to the nearest trebuchet. All of them were unguarded, the people manning them dead. The reason for this was Investigator. As always, the mindraptor was near to hand, and this time she was armored. I could probably thank Missy or Aubrey for that. My wives might not always be present in battle, but they always made themselves useful in it, regardless.

Investigator had also brought reinforcements: our deinonychus herd. The dog-sized creatures swarmed the trebuchets, warding off anyone who approached. They weren’t a true guard, but they were enough for the moment. Several men had also appeared, to fight alongside them. My main force would not be coming today.

“Orders?” Cole called, already manning the trebuchet I’d just run up to.

“One second. I’ll load this up with something, and you fire it—it’s okay if it hits the dinos. I want it landing right in the middle of that mess.”

He nodded, and I jumped up onto the war machine’s platform and bear-hugged the enormous incendiary round. I carefully unloaded it and crab-walked it off the trebuchet, where Malcolm would easily see it once he was safe to descend again.

Afterward, I jumped back up and reloaded the trebuchet with four unsightly items from my Storage ball. Despite all the time that had passed, the bodies of the Britonian flight team had not decayed; I had been checking over the past four months.

Well, now was a good time to use the remaining corpses. I piled them all onto the trebuchet and leapt off. Cole fired without having to be told, and the bodies sailed until the sky.

Chapter 28

Death From Above

I KNEW we weren’t skilled enough with the trebuchets to take down Britonia’s fliers, nor to aim at the battle without hurting our own dinos. However, what we could do was unnerve the living shit out of everyone. I heard screams just as I reached the next trebuchet, this one presided over by Jarod.

“Lords of the heavens, Alan. Did you just throw corpses at them? That was something else,” Jarod said.

I shrugged before unloading the original round from the cup. “I’ve done worse.”

“Meant to scare them?” he asked, before answering his own question with a whistle. “Would have scared me. Some are already scattering!”

I didn’t look. Time was short. Every arrow from the sky had a chance to kill a spino, and while I had a spare now, all of them were valuable.

Like a goddamned cartoon character, I climbed into the trebuchet. “Fire me up,” I said. “Highest angle you can.”

Jarod looked at me like I was the most insane thing he’d ever seen. But he knew me well enough not to question it.

He ratcheted the machine a few times. Then he fired.

I heaved up into the sky, leaving my stomach behind me, air slicing into my eyes at such speeds that I had to close them. The skin on my face rippled comically. I flipped over a couple of times.

When finally I slowed, I opened my eyes to gain what bearings I could, to make sure I knew up from down. As I reached my highest arc, I spread my arms and legs out, letting the flight suit catch me. I angled toward the nearest flier who didn’t seem to have seen me.

With a little help from my mental connection to Malcolm, I plowed into him, dropping the guy flat on his own mount’s back—and slitting his throat with my belt knife before he could fight back.

Another body rained down, and the guy’s mount panicked, bucking me. Arrows seared past my head, the flight team now focused on the interloper and away from my spinos. I swung off the ptera, cutting its throat as I went. I didn’t want it sent after me.

It fell, and I fell, but I spread my suit again and caught an updraft, just like I had done so many times with Malcolm. The fliers shot bolts at me, obviously panicking. I didn’t even need to kill them, just distract them.

The screams from below were growing louder.

With another well-aimed dive, I tackled a man off his mount before doing a barrel-roll to slice the throat of another ptera. Three down, two to go, and Malcolm knew it was time. He took another flier out with a dive.

Finding himself alone, the last Britonian flier fled the scene. The last one always fled if they could, so that a report could be made. I’d seen them try it before.

This time, I let the flier go. Let him make his report. Let him tell Napoleon that I’d just defeated four war machines and at least two hundred men with only four humans, a dozen nychos, and a handful of carnivores. This wasn’t a show of force. It was a show of mastery.

And it would make him either very angry, or very afraid.

I swept down onto the outskirts of the battle, landing near Investigator. To make sure the flight suit wasn’t damaged, I stored it with a press of the pokeyball. It vanished off my body instantly, joining my armor in storage.

In just my underwear now, I mounted my raptor and leapt into the fray, fighting my way toward Lindiwe, who fought under and around Leia. Months of practice made the two a formidable force, even if they had no mental bond. Training was a perfectly good replacement for that.

Still, both were injured. So I joined them. Using both mental and shouted commands, I brought my spinos in together. The remaining soldiers swarmed us, knotting up, pressing forward to attack.

This made them the perfect target as Malcolm started dropping the bombs.

The incendiary trebuchet rounds exploded on impact, and the quetzal had no trouble aiming when all he had to do was drop the balls straight down into the melee. As soon as he dropped one, he returned to the trebuchets for another. With the enemy soldiers bunched up, Cole even managed to fire his trebuchet among them; the machines took a long time to reset. His aim was true, and so was Malcolm’s. More men died in metal and fire.

I don’t know how long we fought, or how many I killed. All I know is that the tide turned, and between one moment and the next, suddenly every Britonian was running. Every single one broke and fled for their lives.

They left me heaving, invigorated, covered in blood and small wounds. The haze of battle cleared, and I turned to face my losses. One of my new dinosaur med-teams, led by Vinny, materialized out of the hole the led into the reservoir. They ran toward Leia, because Orion was lumbering happily next to me.

And because the poor male was already dead.

He must have gone down in the crowd surge. I sighed, feeling awfully bad about it. The male had been larger than the females, a valuable addition to my team—but he couldn’t have sacrificed himself for a better cause. Especially not since he’d likely impregnated Leia and Orion first. We’d have a whole generation of spinos to replace him.

I still approached him and closed the big guy’s eyes, giving him silent thanks to pay my respects. This whole event had gone even better than I’d imagined. Not a single human lost.

“Sorry,” Lindiwe said. Still kneeling, I blinked and looked up at her.

“For what?”

She shrugged one shoulder. She looked flushed, alive, on top of the world.

“You told me to keep safe. But it’s not in my nature.”

I laughed. “I know. I’m not upset. Honestly, you did the right thing. We might have lost two or three spinos if you hadn’t been helping them.”

She dropped into a crouch and slapped my chest with the back of her hand. “Oh, that’s a good one, Commander-in-Chief. I barely made it out with my skin.”

“I mean it. You did a lot of damage.”

“Whatever you say.” She stood again and crossed her arms, gripping her elbows, an odd look for her. “But I have to admit, it got close. A few times. I used to want to die, but today....” She shook her head. “I’m not who I used to be. I’ll be more careful from now on.”

I rose and gripped her shoulder. “Good. Value yourself the way I value you. Or a bit less.” I chuckled. “If you valued yourself that much, you wouldn’t ever leave home.”

She frowned at me. “What does that mean?”

I didn’t answer, and I’d never meant to. I’d seen Jarod running up to us, and he arrived in time to spare me an answer.

To his credit, he didn’t fall over his knees gasping like he used to. The guy had spent the past months getting in better shape.

“That went awesome,” he said. “We really showed them! I didn’t realize the spinos were living in the reservoir. Did you know that?”

“Of course I did. That was the whole point,” I said. All along, we’d been planning for Napoleon to attack us from the cliff. That’s why I’d had the spinosaurs nesting there. I knew Napoleon wouldn’t be able to resist such a good offensive position, especially one without any defenses.

But just in case we lost, I’d had the main population of Prosperity moved to Peace using underground tunnels. The Nomads’ drills worked wonders for that; seeing the tunnel system in Britonia had given me the idea to make some of my own. If we happened to lose today, then we would only lose the real estate, not the inhabitants or valuables. Peace was much more defensible anyway, and much closer to Britonia. When we launched our counter-offensive, it had to come from there. That was the next step in the plan.

As for Napoleon’s attack, I’d meant to rebuff it with as few fighters as possible. I wanted him to fear me or hate me or both. I wanted him to act rash. I wanted all-out war. And if he came back and took Prosperity, he’d be pissed to find it empty. I wouldn’t need the city for what came next.

Jarod’s face fell. “Well, that’s cool, but next time Napoleon will bring his entire force,” he said, as if only just realizing this. “He’ll just go to Peace now that Prosperity’s empty.” He perked up, possibly remembering that Peace didn’t have the environmental weaknesses that Prosperity had. “We’ll be ready for him, though.”

I snorted. “Actually, we won’t be.”

When Jarod paled, Lindiwe met my gaze.

“Can we tell him now?” I teased her.

My general said yes.

Chapter 29

Eccentrics

LIKE SO MANY of my best plans, this one had been on a need-to-know basis. And only my wives, Lindiwe, and I had needed to know. If Napoleon had been aware of the spinos nesting under the cliff top, we would have never ended up with his war machines.

Now, we could use them against him.

So, since the jig was up, I told Cole and Jarod about today’s plan. I also explained it to a few other advisers who tuned in over obelisk. While Lindiwe made the rounds collecting the trebuchets into the Storage pokeyball, I made our battle plan clear.

“First off—we’re going to let him have Prosperity. He’ll hopefully come back with a bigger force, only to find the place empty.” If he’d taken it today, he would have brought more men to defend Prosperity, meaning we’d have almost the same result. “He should also send a force to attack Peace. Maybe he’ll give up on Prosperity, although I doubt he’s smart enough... either way, his forces will soon be divided. This in turn weakens Britonia’s defenses. Once the fortress is suitably vulnerable, we attack the city directly instead of waiting longer to be attacked.”

“Once it’s vulnerable? When will that be?” Jarod asked. “They’ve got weapons and Metal out the ass.”

I tapped my head. “I have a date right here. I’ll let you all know when the time is right.”

I’d cut it close, though. Or at least, Napoleon had. He’d waited four whole months to attack me, which I’d both expected and encouraged. When he’d chosen to blame Yazmin for Archie’s murder, I knew that he’d delay attacking us. Whether he believed her to be the killer or not, he was enough of a military man to know that a retaliatory attack wouldn’t be smart. He knew as well as Archie did that the more time he had to build up his armory, the easier it would be to defeat me.

So I’d let him build that armory. I’d let him bide his time. And then when December rolled around, I started pecking at him. My spies started picking off his scouts. My fliers started skirmishes with his. Soldiers started showing up dead in the streets of Britonia. Carmila, Jaivyn, Sudi, and Dimitri had gotten in a lot more practice as assassins.

Then, finally, I’d made Yazmin’s presence public. We’d kept her and Yusra in hiding to protect her, but only a few weeks back, I had publicly declared her a part of my family. That had gotten back to Napoleon, and he’d been forced to act. The previous king’s supposed assassin was now in my possession. He couldn’t let that slide.

I’d driven him to attack, and he had.

But this was still just half the plan. The second half would be trickier. After all, I’d let him get stronger.

I slammed a palm against Jarod’s shoulder blade, grinning. “And when the time comes to defeat Britonia,” I declared, “then we show Napoleon what we’re made of.” I wish we could have been made of gold-type Metal, I added mentally, but oh well, we’ll find the mine later.

“And what’s that?” Jarod asked, possibly having the same thought.

“Dinos, of course. We’re made of dinos. Meaning we’ll have to win with our buddies over their muscle and numbers... and here’s how we’re going to do it.”

“I don’t like this plan,” Cassie said an hour later.

My third wife was leading me down one of the tunnels we’d cut into the mountain with the excavator. A small contingent of people had turned back to Prosperity once they’d learned today’s battle was won, and I’d tried to stop them, but my wives warned me against it.

“You don’t like any plan where Alan uses himself as bait,” Sayuri said, at my other side with her ever-present clipboard.

Cassie inclined her head. “Can’t argue that.”

I slipped my hand into hers and squeezed. “I’m sorry, but I have to lead Napoleon away from Tribe Grant. It’s the best way to get him alone. He knows if he destroys my obelisk, he gets control of the whole tribe and won’t need to kill a bunch of us. Prosperity and Peace are more valuable to Britonia as two alive and functioning city-states, not two empty husks—or worse, full of people who hate him.”

Sayuri nodded sagely. “A populace that hates you is a populace that overthrows you.”

“He doesn’t seem like the type to care about that,” Cassie said. She wasn’t wrong. “And you won’t have the real obelisk on you. He has to know that.”

“Not if he thinks I’m going into hiding to protect it.” Besides, he really hates my guts, I thought. I showed him up and made him look the fool. He can only save face if he ends me.

I didn’t say that out loud, because I didn’t want Cassie to worry even more than she already did.

“Don’t worry, Cass,” Nadiyya said from behind me. “We have plans if he doesn’t take the bait, too. We have plans on plans on plans.”

“From Plan A to Plan Z-point-two,” I confirmed.

“Well, all right,” Cassie said, although she squeezed my hand harder all the same.

As a group, we turned into another, deeper tunnel, this one marked with door sections where the excavator was supposed to come through later on.

“By the way, Cass, the nursery is looking good,” I said, nodding at the single test room that had been carved out. It was a simple square space with a crib built inside, this one currently empty. “It was a good idea to build them into the mountain. This way, the crying babies will stop keeping people awake at night.”

“Not a lot of light, though,” Nadiyya commented.

Sayuri flipped a page back on her clipboard, scanning it. Absently, she said, “Poppy and Yazmin have daily excursions planned. The children will get light. Also, Lindiwe said this would be better for security—Alan, does Neon have any spare NE?”

She must have been checking our Nebula Energy figures. I leaned over as she tapped the board. Even while walking, she was running numbers.

“We’re low?” I said. “Damn. And I filled it so full with that mutant Rex, too.”

“We have been growing quite fast.”

“Noted. I’ll give you half of Neon’s NE stores, but can you hang back and call Aleshka? Maybe I can snag an Abnormal while I’m out baiting Napoleon.”

Sayuri nodded and paused to make the call on her obelisk. Aleshka was the leader of our NE-seeking flight team. Now that Kaity had stepped down, the flight teams had been broken down into several specialized units, and Aleshka had proven adept at looking for signs of Abnormals from the sky. She’d been horribly shaken when the rest of her team had been kidnapped, but since they’d returned, she’d taken to wing again. All of them had, except Kaity—but as their leader, she’d taken the brunt of the Britonians’ tortures.

I faced forward, eyeing the last of the planned nurseries. “When were we planning to excavate these, anyway?” I asked Cassie. “We want them ready as soon as we take Britonia. I made a promise, and I intend to keep it.”

Cassie knew which promise I meant. “We can get them done in a day, once Sayuri thinks it’s safe. After you sliced up the mountain with your laser and drained water into all kinds of places, there’s no telling what might burst out of a hole down here.”

“Water. Noxious gas. Really gross cave crickets,” Nadiyya supplied, taking Sayuri’s place on my right. “It’s been risky to excavate what we’ve already excavated, and it’s been entirely on a volunteer basis. Now that we’ve got Yazmin’s GeoScanner, though, it won’t take long to check for issues before cutting into the rock. You’ll get the nurseries you need, when you need them.”

“Once Napoleon’s flushed out of here, anyway,” Cassie said, worry still edging her voice.

“He will be,” I assured her, stopping before a large, lit cavern. We’d left the nursery far behind now. “This is it?”

Nadiyya nodded. “Yes. We wanted the Materials department far from anywhere people slept, in case, you know... explosions.”

I stepped through the door while Cassie hurried ahead of me. “You’re really doing those kinds of experiments down here?” I asked.

“They try not to, but—Kaity, stop!”

Nadiyya surged forward suddenly, drawing my gaze to Cassie, who had seized Kaity’s hand inside the room. Kaity sat at a table full of trinkets, a pokeyball in her hand. Lying in front of her was a contraption I’d never seen before, made of components I hadn’t seen in ages. Wires and gears and battery boxes. Old World tech, but all twisted into something I didn’t recognize.

The two women were wrestling the pokeyball from Kaity’s hand as she sobbed and fought them. I took a moment to Identify the ball, wondering if that might solve the mystery.

It was the Dismantler.

She was trying to destroy her own invention. What the heck was going on here?

Chapter 30

Number Six

“STOP! Let me destroy it! It’s worthless!” Kaity choked out, still sobbing. Before I had a chance to intervene, Cassie wrenched the ball from her hand and shoved it at Nadiyya. Nadiyya backed out of reach, and Cassie knelt in front of the flailing Kaity, running her hands up the woman’s arms.

“Shh, shh. Kaity, that’s your best work. You can’t destroy it.”

Kaity kept crying, but she calmed somewhat. “It doesn’t work.”

“Yes it does. It just doesn’t do what you wanted it to do.”

“No! It won’t make them go away!”

“Hey, hey. What’s going on here?” I asked, stepping closer, my palms held up in front of me. I knew that Kaity had insisted on returning to Prosperity after the battle, and that Nadiyya and Cassie had come along to make sure she was safe. But I didn’t know she’d be in this state.

As soon as I spoke, though, Kaity went still and looked at me, her green eyes enormous. She shot to her feet, nearly bowling Cassie over.

“Alan! You’re here!” she cried, and then she threw herself at me and broke down weeping. I stood mortified for a moment, my palms still held out. She hung on me like a coat on a rack.

Finally I blinked and embraced her, all too aware of my promise to marry her. As I patted her back, I said, “Um, ah... there, there, Kaity. It’s all right. Everything is going to be okay.”

She kept sobbing, but some of it turned to words. “Did I do good, Alan? Did I? Did he matter, did Eric matter?”

I closed my eyes, and now I did hug her with all my heart. I could still remember how broken she’d been when her partner had died, and how she’d begged me for a job to do, to avenge him.

“You helped more than you could ever know, Kaity. And you honored him by it.”

She sobbed against me, dampening my shirt and leaning on her good leg. I slowly helped her back into her chair, mentally kicking myself the whole way.

My wives have been telling me for months that she’s not doing well. But I never thought to visit her. I should have.

Now that I thought of it, I realized my wives—specifically Cassie and Missy, who saw the most of Kaity—had been dropping hints that I ought to visit her. But as usual, subtle hints went over my head. I had so much on my mind lately, and I’m sure they didn’t want to distract me, either.

I should have come on my own, hints or not. She should know what she’s done for us.

Once I sat her down, I took Cassie’s place in front of her, kneeling. Pulling her hands into mine, I said, “The house Eric built helped us defeat the Nomads. Information you provided helped us uncover the Britonian flight team, and even when you were caught, you helped us. Your capture got me into Britonia, and it helped me kill the king. That was all because of you, Kaity. And now you’ve built... this.”

I glanced at the contraption she’d been trying to destroy, but it made no more sense from this angle. I cocked an eyebrow at Cassie and said, “What is it?”

“It’s a battery charger,” Cassie explained. “She also, um... she kinda invented batteries, too. She’s made electric power modules that can be recharged. They can also be retooled to power alien tech.”

I frowned. “Don’t we have power sources already?”

“Not when we run out of NE.”

She had a good point. We had to rely on our overlords for Nebula Energy to run the tech they gave us. But if we had an alternate power source....

We have a future, independent of the aliens, I thought. I squeezed Kaity’s hands. “Kaity, that’s amazing. Why would you try to dismantle something like this?”

She closed her eyes so hard that her whole forehead wrinkled. “It doesn’t hurt enough. It doesn’t make them go away.”

Again I had to look to Cassie for an explanation. She sighed and ran one hand back through her hair, rubbing her burgeoning belly with the other.

“She was trying to do shock therapy on herself. She has very bad dreams, Alan. Memories of the torture. It was some sort of alien device... it didn’t leave any mark, but she gets confused and scared a lot. She says she keeps hearing voices.”

“Now when you’re here, though,” Kaity said.

The words were so clear, so sane, that they drew everyone’s gaze back to her.

“What do you mean, Kaity?” I asked.

She was smiling at me, softly, and despite her tear-stained face, she seemed like an entirely different person than she’d been a moment before.

“I’ve been asking for you for weeks. Months, maybe... I’m not sure.” A shadow danced across her bright eyes, and she shook herself and looked around. “God, it’s all clear. My mind is clear, just like it was when you were with me in Britonia....”

She trailed off, possibly as flummoxed as everyone else.

“We thought she was exaggerating,” Cassie breathed. “But she wasn’t. She really is better.”

I cast about for some reasoning that made sense, and my mind went instantly to Lindiwe. She had a special ability, so why wouldn’t I?

Yet I would know if I’d been experimented on, wouldn’t I?

“Maybe it’s my obelisk?” I said, holding it out. My obelisk was the main one for the tribe, and it had capabilities still beyond my understanding. “Is it this, Kaity?”

She shook her head. “No, it’s you.”

I didn’t ask how she knew. I just trusted her.

“Well,” I said, standing, “the only thing I can think of is my truebond with Orion. I’m the only one in our tribe who’s got one so far, and the aliens gave me points for it. So they think it’s valuable.”

“Hmmm,” Nadiyya said, tapping her lip. “Do you think it’s like... like comms? Like some sort of technological connection? After all, it can’t be magic. It’s just tech we don’t understand.”

“Either that, or Kaity has a huge crush on you,” Cassie suggested, grinning.

Kaity flushed as red as her hair and shot Cassie a look. “That’s not true! It’s more than that.” She seemed to remember she was holding my hands, and she dropped them like they were flame-hot. “No, it’s something in him. This truebond thing, maybe. It turns off the voices! Oh God, it shuts them right up....”

She pressed her hand to her face, trying to hold back more tears. I wasn’t sure what to say.

However, I knew what I had to say, now that she was clear-headed. We’d come here to try to convince her to leave Prosperity, but I’d also wanted to see whether or not she did want to marry me. I knew now that she couldn’t answer that question in her normal state. She had to be lucid.

Which she always would be... but only around me.

I pulled up a chair and sat in it, holding my hands between my knees as I leaned forward.

“Kaity,” I said. “My wives have suggested I marry you. Did you know that?”

She sobbed once, then choked, as if she were trying to pull the tears back inside her. Her teeth gritted behind her hand.

“Yeah. Yeah, I asked them to.”

That was a relief. “It’s so you can keep the nightmares away?”

She nodded. “Yes. We don’t have to be intimate, but I know—I know I can’t spend nights with you without being a wife.” She finally dropped her hand, her watery green eyes looking at anything but me. “I know it’s a politics thing, and that’s fine. I can do that. Hell, I can even be intimate if you want to be. Anything to take them away.”

I slapped my hands to my knees and leaned back. “That won’t be necessary. Fine. If you’re sure, we’ll do it. I’ll have the others move you in to my quarters in Peace.”

As soon as I said we’ll do it, she slumped like her strings had been cut. “Oh, thank you, Alan. Thank you so much.”

Damn. Those must be some crazy voices, I thought, shaking my head. Another mystery worth unraveling, later on. I used to work in communications in the military, and if the truebond was some type of information relay... and it made her hear voices....

Maybe the voices are real, I thought, my eyebrows rising. Maybe she’s connected to something, somehow.

I wondered now if the device used to torture her had been a torture device at all. The aliens liked to see us dominating each other, but they didn’t seem to revel in brutality. What if someone retooled a communication device in a way that drove people mad? What if they were trying to read her mind to find out my secrets, and this was the unwanted result? Hadn’t Archie said something about stealing her bond?

And now, she’s clued in to something way too big for her mind to adapt to. And my truebond with Orion—a smooth, clean relay—somehow helps clear up the static.

This would help us fight the aliens. I knew it. But we had to earn that ship, first.

“I’m sorry, Kaity, but... I do have to go away for a while, and you can’t come with me. But once we defeat Britonia, I can keep you close.”

Her eyes welled, but she nodded. “I understand. Thank you, Alan. I’ll be a good wife, I promise.”

“Just be yourself, Kaity. That’s enough.” With that, I stood up and turned to Cassie. “You can get her to Peace?”

My third wife nodded. “Yes. Vinny gave me something to sedate her a little. We use it when she gets too riled.”

Kaity pulled her hair off her neck, exposing it. “Better give it to me now, before I lose my nerve.”

As Cassie busied herself in her belt pack, Kaity’s eyes met mine again. She cracked a smile and said, “So, do you take me to be your lawfully wedded whacko?”

I grinned back. “Only if you take me to be your lawfully wedded polygamist.”

She snorted. “Could be worse. You could be a lawyer.”

And that’s how I married wife number six.

Chapter 31

Copy/Paste

AS KAITY DRIFTED into half-awareness and Cassie started helping her to her feet, I pulled Nadiyya out of the Materials room.

“Since we’re here already,” I said. “That special project we asked Missy to handle... has it been handled?”

I’d meant to check in with Missy on this, but it had been a helluva week.

“You mean the giant ball of dilo spit with the stego-glass shell?” Nadiyya said. “Yes. The Materials team finished it a week ago, and it’s ready to be implemented.”

By stego-glass, she meant the glasslike material that grew out of the back of one of our most specialty dinos. It’s what my crown-slash-glass-knuckles was made of, and it was sturdy stuff—so sturdy, in fact, that the Materials team had discovered it was resilient against dilophosaurus spit. It wasn’t perfect protection, but it took days to wear through.

“Best drop it in, then,” I said. “And start a timer on someone’s obelisk. Have them report to me when it runs out. I don’t want a timer distracting me on my own interface.”

She nodded. “Consider it done.”

I shook my head. “I sure wish we had more dilo spit. That stuff would be really useful against Britonia.”

Nadiyya sighed, her gaze sliding to Sayuri, who was approaching up the cavern again. “There are a lot of things we don’t have, that would be useful against Britonia. Like all those sleeping darts I just sent off with Rin. You do realize those were the last ones in our stores, right?”

“Yep. Worth it,” I told her.

She smiled. “You’re right. Besides, we always make do. If we run out of one thing, we just invent another. It really keeps things interesting around here.”

Sayuri slowed as she came up next to us, at almost the same time Cassie staggered out of the Materials room, propping up the half-asleep redhead I’d just married. I moved to help, but Nadiyya stopped me by pressing the Dismantler pokeyball to my chest.

“I’ll go. I have to return to Peace with them, anyway. You take this for safekeeping. We’ve been using it for research, and it’s been useful in taking apart alien tech and such, but something tells me you’ll need it more in the coming days.”

I accepted the ball, and Nadiyya, Cassie, and Kaity hobbled off toward Peace. I added the Dismantler ball to my tool belt, where I now had a fully-charged laser, the Storage ball, and Neon.

Beside me, Sayuri said, “She’s a great inventor, you know. Kaity.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“She’s found an efficient way to keep an area heated, did I tell you? If we can find a way to activate Finch’s little personal-protection shield around an area, we can create a greenhouse and grow food even in winter.” She paused. “Or in outer space, if the ships don’t provide for it.”

I scratched my jaw. That would be something. I inclined my head at Sayuri’s obelisk. “Is that a spare?” I asked.

She was the one who kept inventory. She nodded. “Why? Do you need it?”

I held out my palm, and she handed over the obelisk and set it on the ground. “Get behind me,” I said, kneeling in front of the obelisk. She did as I asked, pressing close to me, and I activated Neon in shield form between the obelisk and us. I didn’t know how this was going to work, but I was being more careful with my life lately. It was getting down to the wire with the Metal quest, and if I kicked the bucket, Tribe Grant would fall to chaos. At the very least, my death would cost us too many points before the ten ships were awarded.

Carefully, I extended the Dismantler outside the shield, and laid it on the ground, aimed it at the obelisk. I kept my mind thoroughly on the word shield, while keeping my truebond to Orion wide open. I pressed the ball’s button, and hastily pulled my hand back.

None too soon. As the Dismantler broke the obelisk down to its base parts, blue-violet light erupted in front of us.

The concussive force of the dismantling shot us backward, and it was all I could do to stay upright. Still crouching, we slid down the hall behind the protective oval of Neon. But instead of heat, frigid air whispered against us from all sides. My ears rang, but I didn’t hear any sound.

The light faded, but didn’t go away entirely. Ahead of us, the Dismantler lay untouched on the floor... and a translucent blue shield shone bright all around us.

“How... how did you know that would happen?” Sayuri shouted. I could barely hear her over the ringing in my eats. I hoped I hadn’t damaged our hearing permanently in the rippling, surreal silence of that blast.

I thought of Kaity, and how my truebond had calmed her alien signals. The obelisks contained those same signals, and they always reacted to the will of their user. I’d figured that, if I could dismantle an obelisk at a moment where it had a specific task to perform... well, anything could happen. These were strange times.

“I didn’t,” I said to Sayuri. “But with this tech... it never hurts to try.”

And so it was that Tribe Grant abandoned Prosperity—while I abandoned Tribe Grant.

It wasn’t like that, of course. We would return to our promised land soon enough, and I kept in regular contact with my people via obelisk as I traveled the wilds, searching for gold. It seemed a frivolous waste of time, looking for that last mine, but everything I could do for the war effort had already been done. For the time being, my absence protected my people from attack. Napoleon was looking for me; my spies confirmed this. I could also tell by the frequency of the Britonian flight teams I kept seeing between my stints riding Malcolm. Perhaps Napoleon guessed what I was doing, as well. He needed the gold mine just as much as I did. Only one of us would be earning a ship.

For days, Malcolm and I scoured the landscape surrounding the place where Jack had found the first gold nugget, but my scouts had done their jobs. There was more gold to be found upriver, but the river eventually went underground, where it became impassable. I could potentially use another obelisk, broken down into shield-form, to explore it. That would have to be later, though—and we hadn’t tested the dismantled shields to see how long they lasted. I couldn’t assume it would protect me from the surging water forever.

Well, I’m sure I’d come up with a way to find the mine after we defeated Britonia. Hell, maybe they had found it themselves, and I’d obtain it just by defeating them.

Let’s hope not, I told myself. It’s bad enough we’ve got to fight against their silver-type Metal. If they got the gold stuff, we’d be toast.

Anyway, that’s how I passed my time... searching, plotting, and worrying for several days until finally, it was the day before Christmas Eve. Tomorrow would be my big day of action. I hated the thought of another day searching in vain for gold like a desperate prospector, so when the call came in that an Abnormal had been tracked to its lair, I boarded Malcolm right away.

“Time for some fun, eh, boy?” I said, as we lifted into the sky. We could always use more NE, but after draining Neon to 10% full, I knew we had enough to get through our showdown with Britonia. I needed this to blow off a little steam, more than anything.

Aleshka’s directions took me to the beach, of all places. Britonia had been built on a coastline, and several miles outside their patrol range, my flight team had come across a suspicious-looking sea cavern. Anomalies like this often meant an Abnormal had hidden itself nearby. But when I landed outside the place with a poof, a curtain of sand arcing around Malcolm’s feet, I didn’t see why my people were suspicious.

It was a cavern all right, natural, half-hidden by the way the rock formed around it. The sea water had drained out with the tide, leaving a dead-looking, muddy path that led into the dark tunnel. A patch of sad, winter-drained palm trees stood sentinel along the drained bank, and boulders were scattered across the deeper spots where some standing water still remained. The rocks could probably be used as bridges when the tide was in.

Still, it looked like any old cavern at first. Frowning, I strode closer, keeping alert in case anything leapt at me. I could call my scout team to ask what they had seen in the place, but I was too bored, and wanted to figure it out for myself.

When the sand shifted over to hard-packed soil, I watched for footprints, but I found only the marks of micro-raptors. You could pretty much find those things anywhere, but it was a little strange that a prey species would frequent a place where an Abnormal supposedly lived.

As I drew nearer the cave, I began to sense it. There was something off here. It tugged at my awareness in a familiar way, but it was tough to place. Silence loomed, as it always did near Abnormals. I stayed tense, but no attack came, until finally I stood before the cave opening with no other option but to go in.

I wasn’t afraid to, but currently, Neon was my only source of light, and its energy levels were low. I much preferred if this thing could come out to attack me. Hesitating, I glanced back over my shoulder, checking to see if it might have snuck up behind me. I kept Neon ready in case anything attacked from the front.

Nothing. Just those palms, those boulders.

My eyes narrowed. Something is wrong with thse boulders....

Now that I was looking, the palms didn’t seem right either. From this side, with only plain sea and sand behind the objects, it was more obvious. I finally placed the feeling I’d been having.

It’s like I’m looking at an optical illusion.

Once I understood that, I made the connection. The scenery here wasn’t natural. The palms were all nearly the same height, the same size... and they were all equidistant from each other. There was a line of them, like someone had hit Copy/Paste on the universe, every three paces, as they walked in a zigzag line.

The boulders were even more obvious about it—the same size, same shape, same composition. Different bits of mud and moss clung to them, but the rocks themselves had been identical before the elements got at them. When I surveyed one up-close, I found a vein of quartz, a foot long, like a sword-slash. All the boulders had the same exact vein.

All these things... they’re identical. I shook my head. Whatever scout had noticed this from the air deserved a commendation.

Behind me, I heard a chitter.

I turned, but it was only a micro-raptor, stepping out of the shadows. “Hey there, little guy,” I said, hoping my voice might draw the predator out. I shooed the micro away. “You should get going. It’s not safe here.”

The thing chittered at me again, and another micro exited the shadows behind it—then another. They all chittered.

It was the same exact sound.

I backed away. I remembered this now. The opening scene in a famous dinosaur movie... recreated.

I knew they would come before they appeared. Another micro-raptor. Another. Another. All of them the same height, same size, same shape. All with the same blue-violet sheen to their skin, which I could see now that they’d come into the light.

“Aw, hell,” I said, as the horde of micros grew and grew. One dozen, two dozen, a hundred... the little tiny prey beasts became a massive predator in moments, all of them chittering as they advanced on me, hopping between boulders, skirting the trees.

A single Abnormal was one thing, but a hundred little ones was another. I could laser through tons of them, but not nearly enough to end them. Neon wouldn’t keep me alive all that long, and I could hardly kill a hundred beasts with two spears, one knife, and ten arrows.

I had to get out of here. I kept backing away. Their chitters grew faster, more insistent. When I reached Malcolm and grabbed the ladder into his saddle, he gave a low caw of fear.

“Let’s go, boy,” I said. The quetzal rose off the ground.

Like a tidal wave of teeth, the micros attacked.

Chapter 32

Dismantler, I Choose You!

THEY FOUGHT LIKE ONE BEAST, one mind, leaping at me and Malcolm talons-first. We both wore armor, mine gold and his copper, but the micros were so numerous that they found every nook and cranny to scratch at. Claws wedged in between my armor plates and micros clung to Malcolm’s chain mail. Anywhere they could attach themselves to us via claw, they hooked in, and started thrashing with their teeth.

I kicked and swung punches, but no sooner would I dislodge one than another would take its place. It was like being swallowed by a beehive, and within seconds I had to swipe them off my face. Chunks of flesh tore off my cheek, my jaw, my eyebrow as they locked onto me and I scraped them off. Malcolm flapped hard, dislodging a dozen micros only to leave room for two dozen more to attack him.

There should have been bones here, I thought, fumbling for Neon. Oh, fuck... there were bones here. The tide just washed them out.

I activated my legendary weapon, if only to protect my face, but Malcolm was already slowing. Slashes of blood glistened amidst the roiling mass of micro-raptors, and I knew my poor mount had been injured. His flaps were already weakening. He screamed, the sound melting into a begotten moan. On the ground, the quetzal was too exposed. His size only made him a bigger target down here.

With a roar, I leapt off the saddle-ladder, shoving the shield forward so that all the dinos in front of me tumbled back. In that half-second before another frontal attack struck, I ducked down and used the laser to sweep just above the ground in a level arc. The weapon’s charge was momentary, but it scythed through dozens of the creatures in one go, turning the attention of the survivors to me.

Go, Malcolm! I thought at him, because it was his only chance to flee. While the micros locked onto me, Malcolm spread his wings wide, flinging more of the creatures off himself. With one monumental flap, he managed to get airborne. Dinos rained down around me, but I couldn’t see them anymore. The micros had piled onto me, filling the gaps where the destroyed micros had been. The weight of the little creatures pressed me flat, until I lay under Neon, my whole body protected... while my shield rapidly lost its integrity.

Nine percent... eight percent... shit.

Malcolm would try to swing back around for me, but I didn’t want to risk him getting grounded again unless I was absolutely sure I’d be a goner otherwise. I tried to scoot away, but the horde went with me, chittering like they had cockroaches in their ancestry.

I could use the laser again—no doubt I would—but it wouldn’t end the threwat. It might give me the chance to launch to my feet again, though.

Seven percent integrity! I have to get up!

But just as I aimed the laser, something stabbed me in the back of the neck. Instinctively I reached for the attacker, only to find my stego-glass crown. It must have fallen off my head, and I’d scrambled over it, and the sharper end had poked me. It wasn’t a claw after all.

Hastily I slid the glass-knuckles part of the crown through my fingers. It might help me punch my way out of this mess, if nothing else. Again I reached for the laser, only for light to suddenly sear into my eyes. I threw an arm up behind the shield. Holy lords, that was bright!

The swarm had broken for only a moment, but the light that had shone down was like the sun itself. Where had that come from? A part of my brain screamed that it didn’t matter, while another whispered, Pay attention to the anomalies. When you make use of strange things, you win.

That was true enough, and when the mass parted again, I paid attention to the light as it flared from the direction of my hand.

“The fuckin’ knuckles!” I grunted. The stego-glass had magnified the sun. The crown had a prism design on the front, so it must have condensed a ray of sunlight down to a point so bright, it was still leaving a spot on my vision.

A prism. Hot damn! A prism!

With a roar I rolled forward, leaping to my feet. The micros were so numerous that I almost couldn’t move against their weight, but my bonds gave me the strength needed to get upright.

Three percent... two percent. I shoved Neon’s shield form out in front of me, where it toppled onto the micros. As it sizzled through the ones under it, still more crawled over the backside of the shield, tensing to leap at me.

I held out the hand that wore the prism, aiming it like a crossbow—and I set the laser on the back of my wrist, pointed into the prism.

I fired.

The last laser charge buzzed into the prism with a fwoop of feedback before exploding out the other side in multiple rays. The stego-glass prism split the beam into six or seven other beams, each one less powerful, but just as deadly to the little beasts.

A screech went up as I twisted, plowing through six times as many dinos as before. Heads and necks and severed rib cages went up in a spray of gore as I shouted incoherently. It only lasted a few moments, but when the laser cut out, an entire field of micro-raptors lay dead before me. Only a couple dozen remained.

These ones, though, were at my back. They pounced, shoving me forward. Neon had gone out, the laser was empty, and one set of glass knuckles couldn’t keep twenty damned critters off me. I pulled a spear, but couldn’t get it out of its holster before too many dinos got their talons in my armor joints and stalled me.

They hooked into me, pulling, biting, clawing. It was all I could do to shield my face.

“Hrrr-ahh!” someone shouted, and suddenly my vision cleared. I blinked into the bright daylight at the muscular, enraged form I’d grown to know so well.

Lindiwe spun and stabbed, knocking micros off me, running them through. She skewered three in one thrust as I watched. Finally, I got my wits back and fought to my feet. Lindiwe put her back to mine as I drew my spear.

We said nothing as we fought. We didn’t need words. We’d trained together too much, and besides, we knew the code: I’ve got your back, if you’ve got mine.

When we had the mass whittled down to four dinos, the creatures started to back up.

“Oh no you don’t!” I shouted, throwing my spear. It flew true, lancing clear through a micro.

“They’re duplicating!” Lindiwe cried.

I spun, rounding on the three remaining raptors, but suddenly they had become six. For the first time, I noticed how empty the battlefield was. No bodies, no blood, just piles of dust blowing on the wind. I could have sworn I saw bodies... no, I definitely did. They just hadn’t actually been made out of meat.

“The duplicates aren’t real!” I said, snatching up my spear again. “Or at least, they’re not substantial. I think they’re made of sand.” Sand was plentiful here, after all, and it was a silicate. That meant glass, which could probably be used to refract light to mimic any creature.

I swung my spear at the six dinos. “Only one of those fuckers is the original!”

Lindiwe was breathing hard. Without any dino bonds, she didn’t have the strength or constitution that I had.

“You sure it’s not back in the cave?” she asked. In the time it took her to speak, the six dinos became twelve. As they backed away, the creatures flickered and melted apart, drawing sand up out of the ground and into new molten, matching forms. It was like a fucking drug trip, watching it happen.

“Exponential growth,” I said. “We have to find the original now. And yeah, I think it’s one of them. Otherwise duplicates would be coming out of the cave.”

“But how do we know which is which?” Lindiwe shouted, swinging her spear and managing to stop two of them duplicating by batting them up into the sky. “They’re duplicating too fast for us to keep up!”

They did seem to be pivoting from attack mode to duplication mode. Without any area-of-effect attacks, we’d be overrun.

I took an inventory of my weaponry, but the spears, knife, and most of the scouting pack wasn’t much use. I had two pokeyballs left to try, but I couldn’t think of anything in the Storage ball that would help. I couldn’t trebuchet these guys... although I still had incendiary rounds left. But I couldn’t just toss one at the creatures. They were so close to us that the rounds would burn us, too.

Then my hand slid across the Dismantler, and I had an idea. “Keep their numbers down!” I told Lindiwe. I tossed my spear and ran up to the nearest pairing of dinos. I held the Dismantler out and triggered it at the first dino, the one that had initiated the duplication.

It exploded in a shower of blood, which turned to sand instants later. I skipped over the dino it had created, moving on to another pair, then another.

It took too many minutes, which gave the dinos too many opportunities to duplicate. I started to lose hope. If one more duplication occurred, I’d have to call Malcolm down to retrieve us while he still could.

Lindiwe grabbed my shoulder and pointed. “Those ones over there! You haven’t tried those!”

In the crush of bodies—many of whom had switched back to attack mode—I hadn’t been able to track which segments of the micros I’d scanned already. I took her word for it and sprinted for the final knot of untested micros. They pivoted to me, switching modes like little machines, all acting in tandem. I saw the pattern in them, an almost snowflake shape to their positioning. At the center was the one that must have duplicated the rest of them.

I swung a path through the others, and used the Dismantler.

The micro did not disappear.

“That’s it! That’s the real one!” I cried. “The Dismantler can’t work on flesh, only nonliving—”

I didn’t even have to finish my sentence. An arrow sprouted from the chest of the unfortunate little abnormal. Blood sprayed, real this time, as the thing fell backward, writhing.

The others did not disappear.

I lunged forward, grabbing the Abnormal up by the neck and calling for Malcolm. He cawed, diving, and I seized Lindiwe by the arm. Together we ran clear of the copies, raising our arms to the sky—and right on cue, Malcolm and landed in front of us.

I took hold of his ladder, and Lindiwe took hold of me. Malcolm shrieked at the added weight, flapping one wing hard to keep his balance. We climbed up to his saddle while he flailed, and I threw myself across to the other side, balancing him out.

The micros had gotten to him by this point, and they chittered madly, trying to ground him. I took both my spears in my hands, and Lindiwe took both of hers. Together, we cleared the pests off Malcolm’s bloody armor until the poor beleaguered quetzal could get airborne again.

Lindiwe cursed once we’d ascended thirty feet, turning to me. “I never thought something so small could be so scary!” she shouted over the wind.

I shoved the still-struggling Abnormal at her. “Hold this!” I shouted back. “Kill it if it duplicates itself!”

Then I opened the Storage ball and pulled out one of the trebuchet incendiaries.

All right, Malcolm. Turn back around.

Chapter 33

Mercy

MALCOLM SET us down just outside Peace, with the ailing Abnormal still in our possession. It was too loud to talk on the flight, but the entire time my thoughts were alive with the things I could do using this dino’s ability. Sure, its copies might technically be made of glass—unable to take brute force attacks—but as illusions, they would be helpful in all manner of situations. And the sheer endless numbers of them... my brain danced with ideas of copying myself a T-Rex army and scaring all the Britonians straight.

But when Lindiwe took us down to the spot where she’d left Padme, she remained quiet even when Malcolm settled down for a rest. I expected her to be as excited as I was. Sure, I already had a plan to win the war, but I could switch it up. An army of Rex copies would make for an easy win.

Yet Lindiwe slid off Malcolm silently and trudged over to Padme. Without saying anything to me, she reached for her mount’s reins.

“Wait!” I called out. “Where are you going?”

I had the Abnormal hooked to my belt, the poor creature trussed up in my reinforced ropes. I didn’t know what mechanism it used to duplicate, but it apparently needed to move, and I’d made that impossible. It had stopped bleeding, though, its wound healed through already. By contrast, Malcolm needed medical attention.

“I was on patrol when Rin contacted me about the Abnormal,” Lindiwe said, her hand on the dangling reins. “I’d better get back on patrol.”

She didn’t turn around to look at me, and I sensed that something was very wrong.

Frowning, I said, “Rin told you about the Abnormal?”

“Yes. I asked her to tell me about any she found. I’ve been killing and harvesting them for months now.”

I blinked. Well, that explained why I hadn’t heard of an Abnormal in all that time.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t realize.”

“It’s all right. You were too busy for your wives to bother you with it, but Sayuri was getting in a tizzy about running low on NE. So we worked something out.” She shrugged. “You’ve got enough going on, and I could take this off your plate. So I did.”

Her voice was subdued, rough. I got the sense I’d done something wrong, but I couldn’t figure out what.

“Well, I’m glad you came this time,” I said, meaning it. She’d appeared in that mound of micros like an avenging angel out of myth. “I think you saved my ass back there.”

She said nothing. Why? I racked my brain for an answer.

She asked Rin to tell her about all the Abnormals... and now that I’ve got one in my possession....

Finally, I understood. Lindiwe knew what I was thinking, what I’d been thinking this whole ride. I glanced down at the limp dinosaur affixed to my belt, and for the first time since Malcolm had stilled, the Abnormal made a sound—a whimper.

I remembered then. Everything Lindiwe had told me about Abnormals... how tortured they were, how their very bodies were their enemies, how their entire lives were pain. As the failed mutant experiments of the Empire, they led twisted lives full of madness—and Lindiwe could bond with them. She could feel their agony.

How had I forgotten that?

I sighed. It would have been so useful, too.

“Lindiwe... how does it feel?” I asked.

She stiffened, then turned. “How does what feel?”

I’d taken the dino off my belt, and now I held it in one arm, half-cradled. Now that we were safe on the ground, it deserved a little more dignity than a shot duck.

“How does he feel?” I ask, nodding at the micro-raptor.

“She,” Lindiwe corrected me, automatically. But her voice had softened, and she finally took her hands off Padme’s reins. “She’s in pain, Alan. And there’s loneliness... so much loneliness.” She turned, and her eyes glimmered with unspent tears. I’d never seen her so openly emotional, not even when she’d told me her story. “The copies were never enough. Nothing was. She was driven to kill anyone or anything that got close... and she wouldn’t realize she was doing it until after.”

I shook my head. How unbelievably sad, to be bred with murder in your body but not in your heart. With my free hand, I stroked the poor dino’s little head, and it whined again. Though it was unmarked, I knew enough Raptor-ese to recognize a sound of pain.

“What can we do for it?” I asked softly. “What should we do for it?”

“You know what we should do, Alan. The same thing I did for all of them. Even my Abe, in the end.”

I closed my eyes. So useful.

“I’m sorry, little one,” I said, “but this is all we can do for you. I hope it brings you peace.”

With that, I tightened my grip. A single, sharp movement later, and I’d snapped its neck.

The crack rang like a gunshot in the silence, and the little dino’s body faded to sand. After it had all sluiced away, a nugget of Nebula Energy was left behind in my palm. I fed the power into Neon for safekeeping. I’d retrieved the legendary shield-sword after we’d cleared all the copies.

To my surprise, the tiny dino had contained a good 700 NE. The Abnormal Rex I’d fought had rewarded 999 NE, the max amount of NE. to be so close to that number, this dino must habe been pretty damned dangerous. If not for the little trick with the laser and my crown, I probably would never have beaten it.

I laid the empty NE crystal on the little patch of sand and took out my knife. The crystal itself was only quartz, according to the Materials team, so nothing valuable on its own. Lindiwe watched quietly as I scratched a small RIP in the crystal. It wasn’t much, but the poor beast should be commemorated. This should be a reminder to all of the cruelty of the Empire.

Those fucking lizard-lords. I’ll kill them all.

I straightened. Or perhaps not all of them. Not Atticus, and not his revolutionaries... if I’m right, and they do exist.

“I should go,” I said. “I need to get farther from Peace and make my presence obvious enough that Napoleon has to go for me. It has to happen today.”

Lindiwe knew my timeline—it all came down to tomorrow, Christmas Eve—but she didn’t tell me to go.

“Let me call for the med team for Malcolm,” she said, patting Padme’s flank. “Me and Padme can drop you off wherever you need to go, and if you want any of your bondmates close by, you can call for them when you decide where you’ll camp.”

I nodded, suddenly feeling exhausted. Loss often did that to me.

As Lindiwe made the call over the obelisk, she nodded me up the saddle. I shrugged and went up first to wait for her, but when she climbed the small ladder, she hesitated at the top.

After a tired moment, I realized the reason. We were about to share this saddle. It was plenty large enough for two—but which one of us would sit in front, and which in back? And how close would we be, exactly?

I knew what would happen to my body if she was pressed close to me, so I was about to suggest I sit in front when she took the front spot instead. I swallowed, and the sound came out louder than I’d intended. She gave a command, and Padme hauled herself up from her resting position. This angled us backward for a moment, making Lindiwe’s rump rub against my thighs and my groin.

Closing my eyes, I tried to think of other, less-attractive things as Padme took off into the forest.

“Which way?” Lindiwe asked me gruffly, and I gave her directions.

After that, we traveled in silence. That should have made things easier, but it didn’t. It left too much room in my mind for the sensation of Lindiwe’s ass rubbing against me, of my arm around her waist, tight to her firm abdomen. I spread my fingers against her stomach to keep her in place, and my free hand felt awkward, unsure where to go. I looped it around her stomach, too, but the top of my hand brushed the bottom of her breast. I pushed it away, but not before my cock hardened.

She had to feel it now.

I tried to scoot back, but it didn’t seem to be working. As soon as I put distance between us, Padme’s heavy steps would drive us close again.

“Sorry about that. It’s the rhythm,” I finally had to say.

“Nothing to be sorry about, Alan,” she replied. “Just focus on holding tight, or else you’ll fall off.”

I blinked, then obliged her, pressing my cock against her lower back. Now, when she pushed back against me, I recognized it as something she was doing on purpose. This had nothing to do with Padme moving us back and forth.

Did Lindiwe want to feel me?

Tentative now, I lowered one hand to her leg, spreading my fingers over the round flesh of her thigh. I gripped her in a way that made my interest obvious, but not too obvious. Plausible deniability.

She didn’t push me away.

My heart beat with each heavy step of the Rex, and now I did something that made my intentions perfectly clear.

I slid my other hand from her stomach to her breast.

I felt her breath catch, felt her whole body go stiff and then loose again. I found the edge of her shirt, and I didn’t draw a single breath as I slipped my hands under the fabric... and cupped her bare skin in my hand.

Chapter 34

Joy Ride

MY COCK THROBBED. I found her nipple and rubbed it between my fingers. She leaned back against me, inhaling hard, making her tits rise with her breath. I massaged her breast, as big as Missy’s, but with a whole lot more body attached to it. Where Missy was thin, Lindiwe was muscle. She was so much power.

I wanted inside her.

As I gripped her chest with one hand, the other slid up her thigh to her belt. I managed to flick it open, and I slid my fingers inside. She never made any move to stop me.

I found her slick, hot, undeniable. I bit into the side of her neck.

She grunted as I hooked a finger into her, pulsing in time to my grip on her tits. I soon had her shirt pulled down, both her boobs getting equal attention from me as I slid fingers past her nub and into her. The wetness grew.

Her grunts turned to groans as she ground her ass against me, teasing my dick as she rode my hand. I left her tits alone, and used both hands to pleasure her. I needed her to come as fast as possible. This ride couldn’t last us much longer.

As her groans grew longer and surprisingly more feminine, she let go of the reins with one hand to grip my leg. She lifted me in time to my thrusts inside her, and we moved against each other as if we were making love.

By the time her wetness soaked her undergarments, I had her neck peppered with red marks. She leaned into my kisses and bites, moaning and then finally shuddering.

“I’m gonna come,” she said.

They were simple words, not a gasp or a cry, but they were all I needed. I took my hands out of her and pressed both palms between her shoulder blades. She twitched as she bent forward for me, and then she loosed a strangled cry as her orgasm began. I hadn’t stopped in time, but that didn’t matter. Once I had her leaning into Padme’s neck on her hands and knees, I reached for her belt again, and pulled it down and over her rump. The two dark cheeks escaped, enormous and rippling. Her pink line of need was only too welcoming.

I took the reins from her for balance, and rose to my knees.

I put several fingers into her again, sensing the pulse of her ecstasy. She rocked against me, Padme’s steps helping to make her needs obvious. There wasn’t the faintest sense of hesitation. Once I stopped feeling her pleasure, I reached for my own, fiddling with my belt until I got myself free.

Her big, strong body seemed to melt when I fed my cock between her lips, my head rubbing against her steamy sex.

“Alan, I want you,” she told me. Simple.

I pushed myself into her, all the way.

She cried out, lashing an arm around the side of Padme’s neck while slapping the dino’s muscle with another. As Padme kept riding—ka thud, ka thud—I followed the rhythm, thrust after thrust.

I’d wanted her for so long. Too long. She was so tight on the inside, and almost ridged, the bumps of muscle swelling over my shaft. I gripped the reins in one hand, and hooked her hip with another, driving her onto me as hard as I drove into her.

I’d fucked on a dino before, but never against one. The Rex’s movements were hypnotic, as if calling us to come together. I knew I wouldn’t last, so I pushed my hand around and went for Lindiwe’s clit again. She freed her other hand to help me. It was the first time I’d ever had my cock, my fingers, and her fingers inside a woman, all at the same time. I have no idea how we kept our balance, but we did.

Lindiwe came first.

It shouldn’t have happened that way. I did cheat a little. I channeled my bonds for fortitude, popping in and out of my dinosaur bondmates, feeling how not horny all of them were. I wisely stayed away from Orion on this front, but the others allowed me to last longer than Lindiwe did.

But when her rhythmic cries changes from needy grunts to breathy moans, I let loose. I sped up faster than Padme’s pace, jackhammering like a college kid, possessing Lindiwe for all I was worth. I slid through her channel hard and fast as she tightened on me, then pulsed. Her ass cheeks jiggled around my shaft as she took my full length, shuddering in climax. I spared a second to glance at my pale skin sliding between her hard flesh, her pink folds. Lords, it was hot, all of it was so hot.

And better yet, it was guilt-free. This was my birthday present from my wives, nearly five months after they’d given it.

Happy birthday to me, I thought as I came.

I didn’t slow. I rode her with every spurt, keeping hard for too long, as four months of desire spilled inside her. She was infertile, so we didn’t have to worry about that. I could drain the snake wherever I pleased.

When I started to soften, I sat back, my cock sidling out of her. She plopped down in front of me on the saddle—and her trousers tore apart when she didn’t put them back on first.

She didn’t seem to notice she’d left her ass and pussy bare to me. “Should be close now,” she said. “Where should I drop you off?”

I gripped her thighs, lifted her, and settled her back on my dick. It might be softening, but why waste such good rhythm?

“I said,” she gasped, “where do you want to be dropped?”

Already her pussy was working its magic. “As far away from here as we can.”

I barely remember that night, the heated gallop, the tumble into the grass after. I barely recall how it felt to have her ride me, all that muscle and weight giving me a run for my money. She drained me like it was her one mission on this Earth, until we lay spent in the grass lords-knew-where.

I woke up with her hand on my poor soft dick, a sweet torture under the moonlight.

“I should get going,” she said, stroking me. “It’ll be Christmas Eve soon, and you need to start a fire if you want Napoleon to come.”

I nodded, reaching up to trigger the topography map in my obelisk. The blue diorama emerged around and through us, her face hovering inside the mountain of Prosperity.

I anchored the map in place, then traded off the tribe’s main obelisk with hers. “Just in case he manages to kill me,” I said. “You know the plan. It should succeed without me.”

She fingered my balls. “You know it won’t.”

I did know, but there was no sense taking unnecessary risks. She’d keep the real obelisk safe.

After looping it around her neck, she tapped the pendant against my nose. “Good move, anyway. Never underestimate the power of deception.”

Wise words, I thought, and we lay silent for a time, her stroking me, and me watching her do it. She was so beautiful, so strong, so dark and intense. A brooding masterpiece. It was surreal to think any man could be inside of her, much less me. Had it even really happened? Maybe we should go again, to make sure.

I tucked her dark hair behind her ear, but she didn’t lean into the touch. She hadn’t responded much to anything gentle I did.

Right then, I knew I had to ask. “What are we, Lindiwe?” I said.

She never paused stroking, even though my cock was not quite up to task yet. “What do you mean? You’re my leader. I’m your general.”

The way she worked my cock suggested something more.

I put my hand on hers, stopping her. “You’re my lover.”

She tilted her head at me. “Are you proposing? Because that’s a hard no.”

I chuckled. I had expected as much.

“I know. You’re not the wife type. Besides, you’d get called Lucky Number Seven, and that would piss you off so much, you’d probably kill anyone who said it out loud.”

Lindiwe dropped her head and actually laughed. I was dead sure I would die for that sound.

“Alan, you goof. You really know me too well.” She shook her head at me and met my gaze again. “Yeah. I ain’t no one’s wife. But I’ll be your lover, public as you want. Or not public. Whatever works.”

I chewed the inside of my cheek for a moment, before taking the risk. “And... other men?” I asked.

She snorted. “What other men? I can barely stand you.”

It was a joke, and we laughed together, because we got each other. I understood that now.

“You’ll tell me if that changes, right?” I said.

“Sure thing, Mr. President,” she told me. “But it won’t change. I’m a man-hater. I’ve seen too much not to be.... But I’ll hate you less than the others.”

“By that, you mean you’ll love me to the end of your days?” I shot back.

She licked her lips and looked down at the achievement in her hand.

“If you come again with just my mouth, then I must love you,” she said. “Because that’s going to take a whole lotta work.”

Chapter 35

Bait

TURNS OUT, she did love me. Hot damn, what a night.

She left an hour later, and it pleased me to watch her stagger over to Padme. I hoped she didn’t walk straight for a week—but also, I hoped she’d recover fast. It might affect her combat ability in the fight tomorrow.

I lay for a long time under the open stars, the topo map still glowing around me. Bright blue in the night, it would attract one of Napoleon’s flying scouts in no time. Since only a tribe’s main obelisk could anchor a map like this, and also make one this large and detailed, the scouts would know it was me. They had likely reported my location already.

Groaning, I sat up, and set about equipping myself with everything I had. If I wanted to kill another king, I had better come prepared. My gold armor, Neon, my Storage ball, the Dismantler and the laser, and all the usual stuff in my scout kit. This was all I’d have to take over a kingdom.

I didn’t have long to wait.

I’d just started to pace the small clearing, going over the plan again and again in my head, when something dropped at my feet. I had barely enough time to look down and see a loop of rope before it snapped tight around my legs.

The lasso flipped me. I shielded my head with my armored forearms to keep from getting knocked out as my back hit the ground, and the next thing I knew, I was airborne, swinging from a long reinforced rope over the canopy of trees.

With a grunt, I tensed my abdomen and managed to look up at my kidnappers. A Britonian ptera wing, nine people in total—one more than there should be. At the front, the lone pterodactyl rider led the rest of them higher and higher into the sky.

Napoleon, I thought, shaking my head at him. If his rapid ascension into the sky was any hint, the man planned to drop me from a height I couldn’t survive. He’d want it to be public, meaning I had a few minutes before the drop. He’d drop me near Britonia, which I knew was close, and I finally saw the city as I spun and swayed at the end of my line, trying to keep the blood from rushing to my head.

Britonia’s fortress limned the horizon, backed by the dying light of sunset. Pair that flaming light with the huge stack of smoke they used to shroud their mine from detection, and the whole city looked aflame. He was going to drop me at the gates or something. Drama queen.

Investigator—this one’s on you, I said, speaking into my bonds. Days ago, I’d ordered all my bondmates—besides Malcolm—to hunker down in different places, all equidistant from each other. Depending on how Napoleon tried to kill me, I wanted at least one of my dinos close at hand when I tried to kill him back. Investigator was the one closest to Britonia, so I sent her instructions to run closer to the city while keeping as quiet as she could.

Above me, Napoleon leveled out, raised a hand in some sort of signal, and banked. The ptera team maintained course as he dove to fly alongside me. I tensed and grabbed my Storage ball tight in my hand. If he tried to hit me with a spear or arrow, I could absorb it into the pocket dimension.

None too soon. The moment I had the Storage ball to my chest, another rope hit me from the front with full force, a pair of silver balls on both ends. The rope whipped around me and cinched itself tight, freezing me in place.

Another similar rope sailed past me, spinning to nowhere. Two of the other riders had been waiting for me to move before binding me, and Napoleon had taken precautions by having two of them shoot a bola. I could still press my pokeyball’s button and move it a little, but otherwise, I was defenseless. Napoleon wasn’t close enough for me to store him.

I saw him mouth the word Identify, before his scarred face settled into a smug grin. He’d seen my pokeyball, but he knew it wasn’t a threat, so long as he kept his distance.

“Let me guess!” the bald man shouted over the blasting wind. “You wanted me to find you!”

I didn’t bother to answer him, keeping my complete focus on staying protected. We were high enough that any drop could kill me, and he was free to attack in any way that he pleased. I hadn’t expected the bola, not in any of my scenarios, but I could still make this work. I couldn’t afford to die here—so I wouldn’t.

He pointed at my obelisk. “That’s a fake!” he called out. “You were using your topo map as bait! You don’t have your main obelisk.”

No shit, I thought. I hadn’t thought he was dumb enough to believe I’d expose myself like this on accident. Still, he could have proven me wrong.

He drew a sword, of all things, from a scabbard at his hip, angling his pterodactyl a little bit closer to me. His Midas scepter glinted at his back, useless in the moment. I kept the Storage ball ready.

“Now, I’m not sure what you intended to achieve with this little goose chase,” the portly king gloated, grinning with one side of his mouth. “Maybe you wanted to slow our advance? Cover the tracks of your escaping people? Hell, maybe you’re just a coward who wanted to survive what you know will come next.” He shrugged. “Well, either way, it won’t work. I’ve dispatched troops to Prosperity and Peace already. I am not distracted. And when I drop your broken body among your fighters, how soon before they all lay down arms, do you think?”

I almost rolled my eyes. What a speech. And you had to shout it, too.

I figured I could feed into his power fantasy a little bit. “You bastard!” I roared, as if I were the losing party.

Little did he know—he’d played right into my hands.

Napoleon hefted his sword. “I’d like to say it’s been nice knowing you, Alan—but I’d hate to lie to a dead man.”

His mount flapped hard, raising him higher. Once he’d cleared the range of my pokeyball, he swung with his sword. The rope snapped.

I dropped like a stone.

Chapter 36

Winner Winner Dino Dinner

WITH WIND WAILING past my ears, I kept my grip tight on the Storage device. The pokeyball was the only thing that mattered. I twisted it around in my hands, until it faced me.

I pressed its button into my chest.

The sky warped, the trees and sunset yanking together like pulled taffy, and my next breath stopped dead in my lungs. I was no longer falling, although the world around me was. Reds and oranges, clouds and treetops—it all raced by, blurry and dreamlike. Then it stopped and reversed.

The pokeyball had hit the ground, with me inside it—and then it had started to bounce.

While the object itself kept on moving, I remained still and utterly weightless, trapped inside the Storage dimension without any ability to breathe. I rotated slowly in place, disoriented by the way the images around me moved in such stark contrast to my body.

A few odds and ends floated inside the Storage dimension, mostly things I’d stored here as tests, like eggs and fruit and bugs. The trebuchets were the exception, floating just past arm’s length from me, so that when I reached for them, I couldn’t touch them.

I’d tested a human once, a volunteer woman from the Materials team. Given how the dead bodies hadn’t been damaged nor decayed in Storage, she’d been willing to be sent in and back out again. She’d survived, but she’d exited the place breathless.

So I knew that I wouldn’t be able to breathe here. And I knew I couldn’t get out on my own.

But as I hovered, lazily spinning, I saw something my test subject hadn’t reported to me: buzzing, straight lines exuding out of my head. I couldn’t actually see them originating from my skull, but when I tilted and turned, the lines moved with me. I saw dozens, but a handful were much brighter than the others, and one positively thronged with light and power.

Instinctively, I understood what they were: my bonds. Here in this place of strange, foreign science, my bonds were lines of visible data, communications constantly emitting from me. One of the brighter ones, just visible at the top of my vision, was moving.

I knew what it connected to: Investigator. She was trying to get to me, following this very connection. My lungs burned with the need for air. Would she make it in time?

I didn’t count seconds. I just waited. It was the only thing I could do. The hazy real-world images stilled as the rolling pokeyball finally came to a stop. Shadows passed far overhead, banked, and came back. The Britonians had to ensure I was dead, but they wouldn’t find my splattered body anywhere.

Come on, come on, I thought. This was going to be closer than I’d ever intended.

And then, just as I felt my chest seizing, my dear beloved mindraptor burst from cover, racing toward me. She skidded to a halt and paused over me, unsure, curious.

With the last of my breath, I sent my thoughts along her connection and rasped, Hit it with your nose!

Investigator ducked her head, slamming her snout into the distorted bubble that surrounded me.

Next thing I knew, I was breathing.

I gasped and seized on the grass outside the ball, and I had just enough wherewithal to grab for Investigator’s reins and mentally tell her to Go!

The raptor shot into motion, dragging me unceremoniously out of the clearing. The twang of crossbows and the schwoop of a landing spear chased us from the open space.

But as soon as the brush started whipping at my armor, thorns digging into the spaces between plates, I stopped her. Investigator slowed, giving a low rumble of concern when she turned to see me bloody and disoriented. I scrambled onto her back, gripped her reins—

And closed my eyes.

I felt them now, clearer than ever: my bondmates. Darth, Bertha, Investigator, and Malcolm, with their strong bonds which I’d built over time; Orion, with the incredible power of her truebond; Padme, with the amplified insta-bond that Lindiwe had given us; and so many other half-formed starter bonds, created between me and the countless dinos I cared for.

All of them connected to me, fed me, gave me power and strength. Those glowing lines were conduits not only of communication, but raw potential. Any dino language, any ability, I could channel it all.

I brought Investigator’s ability into myself—and fed it with the life force of everyone else.

The power swelled rapidly, stronger than I needed it to be. I cut the feed.

“There he is! Fire!” a voice shouted, zooming past overhead. I looked up at the plunging ptera.

Dive-bomb the ground, I commanded.

The ptera dove.

A scream chased the poor creature down. I would regret this, but it was the only way. Another shadow passed.

Dive-bomb the ground.

More screams that didn’t last, more cries of confusion. One by one, I caught the minds of the pteranodons in my mindraptor grip, and gave them commands that they couldn’t refuse.

As an ability, it shouldn’t have worked. Pteranodons were not usually susceptible to Investigator. But with the combined mental strength of Orion, Darth, Bertha, Padme, and Malcolm all feeding her, not even Napoleon’s pterodactyl had a chance.

I brought the enormous creature down second-to-last, leaving a single terrified ptera to flee and report what had happened. The pterodactyl sailed straight into the earth, snapping its own neck in the center of the clearing I’d just fled.

Investigator chittered in discomfort. I couldn’t blame her. This power should never be used like this. I never again wished to kill another innocent dinosaur—but I’d do whatever it took to save my tribe, and my tribe included hundreds of dinosaurs that were loyal to me.

As soon as the pterodactyl slumped, its twitching body gone still, I cut ties to Investigator’s power and turned her around. She trotted back to the fallen creature, and I dropped off her back, drawing Neon. Napoleon staggered to his feet from his saddle and saw me. Grinding his teeth, he reached for his legendary weapon.

“Gonna turn me to gold?” I said, shaking Neon into shield-form.

“I guess we’ll find out,” he said.

Then he struck.

He moved with remarkable sureness, given the way he’d just plummeted from the sky. He leapt from the dino’s back and slammed his scepter down on my shield. It was the moment of truth.

The weapons repelled each other.

He spun backward, his body whipping about like a rag doll as the force of his attack reversed on him. That same force flung me onto my back, but my armor protected me, and I turned the whole repulsion into a roll.

Both of us fought to our feet at nearly the same time, where we circled each other, unsure what to do. These two weapons couldn’t be used against each other—but they could defeat any other weapons we possessed. To draw a different weapon meant death. To keep these was pointless.

Or it should have been.

I charged.

With my best battle cry, I raged toward him, shield at the ready. He reacted with the same instinctual move he had probably used a thousand times. That move had never failed him. He had a legendary weapon.

He triggered the power of Midas. Napoleon tried to turn my shield into gold.

In any other case, it would have worked, but now the shield rebuffed him, shooting his own move back at him. For a moment, I thought he might turn himself into gold—but no, he’d gotten lucky. He thunked to the ground with a brand-new gold plate where his silver chest piece had been.

He laughed maniacally, righting himself. “Ha!” he shouted, banging his scepter on his new chest plate. “Try to get through this, you fucker!”

I dropped my shield away and set my shoulders. “I can’t,” I told him, as he raised the scepter to fire again. “But she can.”

At that moment, Investigator leapt from the trees. With the uncanny silence of a Utahraptor in tune with her master’s every thought, she pitched herself at Napoleon.

Before he could swing, she bit off his head.

Chapter 37

Clientele

I SIGHED. “You fell for it again, old buddy,” I said, striding to the body. It fountained blood everywhere as I made a give me that motion to Investigator. With a hearty chirp, she unclamped her jaw and handed over the head.

From the beginning, I had always known Britonia’s greatest weakness: they absolutely hated their dinos. They had not discovered the bond yet. They only used dinos for travel. They relied solely on their human ingenuity for everything.

It had carried them a long way, but this was a new world. Investigator belonged here, whether Britonia liked it or not.

Napoleon would have never seen her coming.

“He never did look where he was supposed to be looking, did he?” I asked, scratching my loyal friend behind her eye ridges. I bent down and hefted up Napoleon’s scepter, then turned and pressed the pokeyball head to Napoleon’s face. His entire skull turned to gold and stopped bleeding.

“That’ll make a fun tree-topper tomorrow, don’t you think?” I asked Investigator. She inclined her head, as if considering the prospect. Tomorrow would be her first Christmas, if everything else went to plan.

Speaking of plans, I thought, kneeling to yank the obelisk off Napoleon’s severed neck. I Identified it, but it wasn’t Britonia’s main obelisk. Nothing is ever easy, I thought ruefully. That could have ended things a lot faster.

Into my own obelisk, I connected to the main line, around Lindiwe’s neck.

“Obelisk Home, this is Alan. Napoleon and his flight team are dead, excepting one left to spread the word. He said he’d dispatched his armies to Peace and Prosperity. Can you verify that?”

“Obelisk Three, this is Obelisk Home. Glad to hear you finished off the old windbag. As for his armies, can confirm. One’s marching along the road to Prosperity, the other’s about halfway to Peace.”

I grinned. All to plan. “All right. You know what to do.”

“Leave Peace and engage in full-frontal assault? You don’t have to tell me twice,” Lindiwe said. “Over and out, Mr. President.”

“Over and out, First Lady Lindiwe.”

She laughed. “Don’t call me that ever again.”

The line went dead, and the battle was on.

Not ten minutes later, and I was airborne on Malcolm’s back. We followed the same path as the lone ptera rider, who had returned to Britonia to share the news that the new king was dead. This would put the entire fortress in a state of confusion. Who was king now? Who should be king? Right now, every courtier and adviser—hell, anyone in the upper class of Britonia—was starting to think to themselves, Hey... I could make a good king. I just have to convince everyone else....

It would be chaos, all the more so because the best generals were away with the two armies that Napoleon had sent out. If those generals learned of the assassination, they’d vie for power too. Some might get distracted. Some might turn tail and return to Britonia, leaving their armies leaderless and disorganized.

And somewhere in that big, huge mess, the real obelisk lay hidden. Napoleon would have left it somewhere safe, with someone he trusted. After Yazmin’s supposed betrayal of Archie, he wouldn’t leave the obelisk with one of his wives, or probably any woman at all. It would be an adviser, a second, a courtier whose only task today was to keep the thing safe.

Hopefully, that would make him really bored.

The moment Malcolm soared over the wall surrounding Britonia, I leapt off his back, expanding my flight suit. I’d stored my armor in the pokeyball, all except the chest piece. It protected the largest target on my body—my torso—from the archers that were already starting to notice my intrusion.

I couldn’t make out details as I hurtled into Britonia, and I certainly couldn’t hear a damn thing over the roaring wind, but I glimpsed arrows shooting past me. They went wide. I was too fast of a target, my body angled like a thrown knife. When I could finally make out the pointed tips of the city’s inner walls, I flared my arms and legs. The reinforced alien fabric caught the air and slowed me with a massive, ear-popping fwoop noise, and I sliced toward the inner ring of the city.

I didn’t aim for the castle, though. I raced above the streets, just barely skating over another ring-shaped wall, and then I flopped around in midair like a giant flying squirrel. With my speed almost completely arrested, I leaned back and touched down running. I’d hit the right street, thanks to four months of practice with the flight suit, but it was still a short run to my destination.

Women screamed, clutching purses; men shouted for the fortress guard; but mostly, the wealthy people of this neighborhood watched me with gaping mouths. They had no idea who I was or what to do.

Within a minute, I was racing up the wide front steps to the ornate building I’d been aiming for. The two-story mansion had a wraparound porch on both floors, and up until a moment ago, beautiful women had been lazing about on those porches.

At the sight of me, though, every single woman straightened in her chair and raced inside. They’d kept up their little illusion of normalcy long enough.

It was go-time.

I shoved the double doors open and barreled into the lobby of the brothel, where chaos had erupted. Men were shouting, swinging punches, and trying to run as blow-darts rained down on them from the mezzanine above the lobby. The prostitutes that had been distracting the men had already leapt clear, hiding under the mezzanine to watch as their former clients raged and staggered and collapsed.

The door rammed closed behind me as the madam, Marjorie, dropped a lock bar across it. I spun on her.

“How many?” I asked.

“At least fifteen.” She smiled. “When the cat’s away, the mice will play.”

True enough. “Show me,” I said.

In the lobby, the last client collapsed with a grunt. Marjorie clapped her hands.

“All right, girls! It’s time to shine. If you know any of these men to be a palace employee of any significance whatsoever, please stand next to him. If he has an obelisk around his neck, raise your hand. If he has ever bragged of knowing Napoleon personally, step on him.”

She must have prepared her workers for this ahead of time, because they started moving before she even finished her instructions. Here was an efficient woman. Sayuri would want to put her on staff.

“Glad to see Rin got you those darts,” I commented. Marjorie trailed me as I approached the first prostitute with both her hand up and her foot on a guy’s chest.

“Oh, yes. A pretty girl, that one.” The madam’s voluminous red dress flounced loudly behind me.” We tried to hire her on, but she said no.”

“Yeah, she can barely stand the husband she already has,” I said.

Marjorie inclined her head at a fallen client we were walking past. “We’ve got more of these guys upstairs. Nearly half of the rooms were occupied when you dropped in,” she said. “And three girls were called up to the palace tonight. They knew to keep their clients down all day.”

I could only imagine the brothel’s most popular workers, sitting in huge beds in the palace, relaxing next to their drugged-up clients and picking at their pretty nails. Easiest paycheck they’ll ever get, I thought, smiling.

“The guy we want is most likely in the palace,” I said. “But we don’t want to miss him. I’ll look these guys over one at a time, and then I’ll take the secret passage.”

Marjorie dipped her head again, red curls bobbing. “As you wish, my lord. And what of your promise?”

Stopping at the first marked man, I unhooked Neon and Midas from my belt and handed both of them to Marjorie.

“These are two of the world’s only legendary items,” I said, “and one is packed full of Nebula Energy. To say they’re priceless is an understatement.”

The madam frowned darkly at me. Her hand twitched to her hip, where she probably had a knife hidden.

“We didn’t do this for artifacts,” she said. “We did this to get our children back.”

“And you will.” I nodded at the mythical weapons. “Those are just insurance. I understand how trust works, and a woman like you isn’t going to give trust blindly. So, if I don’t fulfill my promise to you by the weekend, you may keep those priceless weapons. At worst, they will allow you and your girls to start a comfortable life with a better tribe.

“But,” I added, “my tribe won’t fail you. I’ll be taking those back in a couple of hours.”

With that, I looked down at the fallen man and said, “Identify.”

A basic stat screen came up, drastically limited. Without my tribe’s main obelisk, I could only see a few relevant numbers: the person’s health status, their tribe affiliation... and their rank within their tribe.

Name: ????: Health: 95/100

Tribe: Britonia

Tribe Status: 28/3767

Occupation: ????...

The information went on from there, listing out occupation, stats, abilities, equipment, a brief description, and all sorts of other things that only showed four question marks now. I stopped reading at the tribe status anyway.

“It’s not him,” I said. I needed someone higher up the chain than the 28th most important person of Britonia. “But take his obelisk. It should let you Identify other guys... we’re looking for someone in the top ten rank, and we want him fast.”

The prostitute standing over the first man nodded, kneeling down to take his pendant.

I moved on to the next man.

Chapter 38

The Finance Guy

WE CLEARED the brothel in record time, with the girls picking up and using any obelisks they came across. The closest rank to the top ten ended up being sixteen, but it was a man who’d never bragged of knowing Napoleon personally, and he’d only stayed behind today because he had a sprained ankle.

Marjorie led me to the trapdoor without needing to be told to. “I know which rooms they’re in. Come with me.”

Now it was my turn to follow her into the dark passageway that connected the brothel to the palace. As we walked, I shoved my arms into the coat of a Britonian guard, just to give me some semblance of a disguise once I reached the other end. It was hard to believe that Yazmin, Yusra, and I had been traveling through this same dank, moldering hallway only four months ago, heading in the opposite direction.

Once we were alone, I asked, “Did you have any issues with your girls? Did any of them not want to betray Britonia?”

She snorted, a disconnected noise in the darkness. She used Neon to light our way, making the walls of the tunnel glow blue-purple. The color made her silhouette look angelic ahead of me.

“Loyalist whores always get themselves married,” she explained. “In a world where men can have as many wives as they want, why not pick up a prostitute or two? But only a loyalist idiot would want to be a rich man’s tenth wife. The rest of us know that he’ll treat her like crap.” Her curls flounced as she shook her head. “No. We didn’t have any problem with loyalists. They don’t last long in brothels.”

I nodded. These women were smarter than anyone gave them credit for—except me. I’d given them credit. I’d offered them their children back, and I’d offered them a future, because I’d known exactly what they were capable of.

In exchange for that prize, I’d asked Marjorie to put every single one of her brothel’s clients down for a little nap... on a specific day. Today was that day, Christmas Eve, and my whole plan hinged on this—on the last three clients, hidden away in the palace.

My heart raced, treading faster than I could in this shadowy tunnel. Have Lindiwe’s forces met the Britonian army yet? Have they already been overrun?

I didn’t have time to delay, but Marjorie knew that time was money. She soon found a door and pushed through into a brightly-lit hallway decorated with pine garlands. Even in Britonia, they celebrated Christmas Eve.

We instantly came upon a guard as he scurried past our secret door, with some kind of rolled scroll in his hands. He stopped, eyes wide, and I ran him through with a spear before he could cry out in warning.

I snatched his scroll, popped the seal, and scanned it. It said Napoleon was dead, but nothing else.

We moved on.

Turns out, that guard was hardly an anomaly. Men rushed up and down the halls, chased by shouts. I grinned. My chaos was in motion.

“Here,” Marjorie said, stopping at a door. It was locked, but I slipped a knife up the crack between the door and jamb, popping the simple mechanism open. I rushed in to find a naked man snoozing face down on a wide bed, with a fully-dressed blond prostitute reading a book in a lounge chair nearby.

She looked up from her reading glasses, raising one eyebrow when she recognized Marjorie. “About time you showed up,” she said. “I’ve had to turn away six messengers already. They’re starting to get quite suspicious.”

I scanned the man, but his ranking was in the forties. “Damn,” I said, but the curse was drowned out by raucous shouts down the hall. These were more insistent, more dangerous than the other shouts had been. I recognized the sound of wood striking wood.

The blond woman stiffened. “That doesn’t sound good.”

Marjorie also froze, but only for a single blink. Immediately she raced back to the hall.

“That’s Hana’s room!” she cried, practically flying down the corridor. I was right behind her, and around the next bend, we found six men hefting a log in front of a door. They were using the thing as a battering ram.

I drew my spear, and attacked.

It felt good, in that moment. It was like going back to basics. I stabbed the sixth man up through the lower back, piercing his lung so he couldn’t cry out. As he dropped his section of log, the man next to him turned, only to feel my knife slide across his neck. I kneed him in the lower stomach, pushing him into the next man.

The log tipped backward and the four other men turned to see me, one of them distracted by his comrade bleeding all over him. I yanked my spear out of my first victim, who’d crumpled to the ground. “Get back, Marjorie!” I cried, leaping sideways to catch a blade in my chest armor. The weapon would have sliced through my arm if I hadn’t moved.

These guys understood the game fast, and one managed to fumble his crossbow to chest-level. I lunged straight at him, my spear piercing his shoulder and pinning him to the wall. His arrow twanged, and another guard screamed in pain.

I finished the pinned man with a knife-slash to his gut, then dropped, sweeping my leg out to upend the fifth man. My harsh kick flipped him onto his back, his own crossbow firing into the ceiling.

I drew my second spear and, without extending it, I stabbed him in the neck.

A shadow lengthened ahead of me, and I rolled to avoid the attack as the sixth man leapt for me, swinging a blade. I glimpsed the guy who’d been accidentally shot, and he was raising a gun at me. A gun, a goddamned gun!

I threw my knife at the same time he fired, a huge puff of smoke emerging alongside the bullet. It felt like a shotgun blast, hitting my chest near my shoulder, jerking me hard. The armor saved me.

Weaponless, I flailed as I spun, and by chance I smacked the last guy in the back of his head while he was trying to turn around to swing at me. He grunted, then crunched as his head struck the wall. His body slowed my momentum, and I moved, shoving off the wall and backward to avoid any more projectiles.

But there were none. When the smoke from the gunshot faded, the last guy lay with my knife in his eye. The log had fallen, and the others were dead.

I dove forward, grabbed my knife, and tried to slip the lock on the door they’d been battering. No good.

“Hana!” I shouted. “It’s Alan Winchester of Tribe Grant. Please let me in! There’s no time!”

I knew for a fact that Lindiwe and my forces had already engaged Britonia. People were dying. My people.

The door cracked, and I blasted through, unapologetically shoving the Asian-looking prostitute aside. I made for the bed, where a clothed man lay snoring. I Identified him.

I nearly choked at his info box:

Name: ????: Health: 95/100

Tribe: Britonia

Tribe Status: 1/3767

Occupation: ????...

“He’s number one,” I breathed. “It has to be him.”

But when I pulled down the man’s collar, there was no obelisk.

“You’re kidding,” the Asian prostitute gasped. “He’s an accountant.”

Well, you’d need a good one, if you can turn shit into gold, I thought, grabbing my Storage pokeyball and shoving the guy’s whole body into it. I didn’t have time to search him for what I needed.

Once he had vanished, I said to the Storage ball, “Retrieve obelisk.”

The closed ball opened again, and exuded a large black pendant in a haze of dimensional light. Who knows where the guy had hidden it—he’d sewn it into his clothes, probably—but when I Identified the obelisk, it was the real thing all right. The main obelisk of the entire, 3700-person tribe of Britonia.

I gripped it in my hand and declared, “I, Alan Winchester, hereby seize control of the tribe of Britonia, and add its entire population to Tribe Grant!”

Chapter 39

Making More Doors

AND SO THE obelisk changed hands, just like that.

“Did... did that just happen?” Marjorie said. She’d followed me into the room, and she and Hana now stood next to each other, wide-eyed and staring at me.

“Are you the king now?” Hana asked.

I spun toward the door. “For now. But if anyone kills me, they take Britonia back. So I’ve got some work to do.” In the doorway, I paused and looked back at Marjorie.

“Get your women somewhere safe,” I said. “I’d suggest tying up your old clients.”

She swallowed thickly and nodded at my belt. “What about the guy in your ball?”

“Oh, he’s suffocating,” I said. “He might already be dead in there. I figured he had to be an asshole if he was the number-one after Napoleon. Why? Should I let him out—did you know him?”

Hana’s face darkened. She knew him, all right.

“No. Keep him in there. Let him rot.”

There was a story here that I’d probably never know, but I gave her a nod. I didn’t tell her that his body wouldn’t rot in that dimension. He’d remain pristine... and pristinely dead. Forever, if I wanted.

It hardly mattered now. “I’ve gotta run,” I said. “Stay safe—”

“Wait,” Marjorie said, sweeping forward, her skirts whooshing. “Take these back. You need them more than I do.”

She handed me the two legendary weapons. I accepted them.

“Thank you for trusting me,” I told her.

“I’m trusting you to stay alive until Christmas,” she said. “Because otherwise, we are all dead.”

Back in the hallway, I pulled my obelisk to my lips.

“Obelisk Seventeen to Home Obelisk,” I said. We’d had sixteen obelisks before I’d stolen this one. “You are a go to start commanding their dinos.”

A manic laugh sounded over the line, followed by the clang of metal on metal. Lindiwe didn’t answer, but I knew she’d gotten the message. Now that I’d taken over Britonia, all of their dinosaurs were now under Tribe Grant’s command. Even on the battlefield, Napoleon’s dinos would turn on their riders with a simple command from any member of Tribe Grant.

I never stopped running while I spoke. I made a second call after I turned into a corridor full of windows.

“Obelisk Seventeen to Obelisk Nine,” I said, calling Carl this time.

“Holy shit, you did it,” his voice said.

“You’re a go, Carl. Get up here now!”

I didn’t have to explain; the plan was already in place. As he confirmed, I dropped the obelisk against my chest. I’d just reached the window closest to the accountant’s room, and I cracked it open before climbing onto the sill. I jumped without hesitating, and my flight suit carried me easily down to the front courtyard of the castle. Once there, I activated Neon’s shield, stuck it into the ground, and pulled four stored objects from my storage ball.

The two trebuchets—and their two huge rounds of ammo—materialized before a single guard thought to fire at me. Once the huge war machines appeared, however, guards came running from the castle door and from the gates of the inner wall. I was too far from anyone to be shot at reliably, so they raced to get in range of an easy bolt or a sword swing.

I didn’t give them the time.

With a heave and a grunt, I loaded an incendiary round into the first trebuchet, ratcheted the aiming mechanism to mid-height, and fired at the castle. The Metal ball arched at the castle door, landing high and to the right. Close enough. As the metal capsule shattered and spilled flames across the door, I loaded the other trebuchet, which was facing the other way. I fired this one at the gate leading from the city to the courtyard, all in the space of twenty seconds. Arrows sizzled off Neon, still propped at my back, while spears and arrow plunked into the trebuchet at my front.

The gate, being a larger target, was easier to hit. Fire and Metal shards licked across it, sticking like blazing glue.

I stored both trebuchets again, hooked Neon to my belt, and drew my two spears.

All right, friends. Time to show them what we can do.

Technically, I had always been one of the world’s foremost experts on bonding dinosaurs—but I used to know very little about it. I’d had four months to rectify that lack of knowledge.

I extended both spears, stuck them together end-to-end, and ran straight into the attacking guards.

Arrows shicked off my chest plate, but several struck my unarmored flight suit—only to glance off as I channeled Bertha’s fortitude. Briefly, my skin took on the unbelievably thick properties of the skin on Bertha’s legs. The flight suit still tore, but my skin rebuffed arrows. I should have started doing this ages ago.

Spears rocketed toward my head, but I kept my face tilted to one side so my predator’s sight would be clearer. As I channeled Darth’s ability to see movement, I saw the spears coming, almost as if they were frozen in time.

Then I channeled Investigator to dodge them, moving with a Utahraptor’s deadly speed.

Finally, with a roar, I drove into the knot of guards shoulder-first, channeling the raw, unadulterated power of Orion. Men fell like bowling pins as I swung my elongated spear for good measure, knocking a dozen men to the ground and clearing my path.

As the archers atop the walls reloaded, I stabbed my spear into the ground and vaulted skyward, bending the alien metal under my increased weight. The thing nearly snapped—Bertha’s thick skin and Orion’s strength came at the cost of added pounds—but I made it. With a stomach-dropping swoop, I heaved over the wall and expanded my flight suit to fall at a graceful straightaway on the other side.

The archers never got a chance to fire at me again. Something passed overhead, making shadows dart along the ground beneath me. Still gliding, I dared a look back.

Carl’s ptera-carriage had descended to the courtyard while the guards and archers were distracted. Although the armored flying dinos and the carriage already looked like pincushions, they had made it. Dozens of men lined the sides, firing from a pile of every arrow my tribe had ever manufactured. A few explosive rounds rolled out of bear hugs as I watched.

I faced forward as explosions roared behind me. Carl and my elites would take full control of the palace in no time. Meanwhile, I had to carve a path for our other forces to meet them.

At the next inner wall of the city, I dropped to the ground yet again. This time, only the wall guards thought to shoot at me, and Neon proved an acceptable shield for that. The other guards had already started running for the inner gates, where the commotion was.

Stay safe, Carl, I thought, as one of my flight teams swept by overhead. You too, Rin. All of you, stay safe.

With that thought in mind, I withdrew the third trebuchet from my Storage ball. I’d stored all the big machines in a ready-to-fire state, because it would take too long to wind them up.

A few adjustments and one incendiary round later, another wall of Britonia was aflame. This time, I’d hit men, and they screamed and flailed as they fled the fire. One jumped from the wall, screaming, then fell silent as he thumped to the ground.

With my double-spear vaulting pole left behind the first inner wall of Britonia, I simply ran for the second wall. Channeling all the power, speed, and dexterity of my dinos, I leapt at the burning gate with my laser pokeyball outstretched. I made one quick, looping gesture—another thing I’d been practicing—and cut an oblong hole in the gate. I struck it at full speed, and the circle popped right out of the gate. I fell through to the other side, and kept running.

I might not have found the gold Metal mine yet, but I hadn’t been spending these past months twiddling my thumbs. I had finally taken the time to train myself on everything I had—every weapon, every bond, with every partner I could think of. I’d kept my training with Lindiwe and the spinosaurs secret, but my people had watched me grow stronger with everything else. I often practiced publicly, in the main dino fields of Prosperity, giving my people hope while also learning what I needed to know. Those skills were coming in handy right now.

It took some doing, but over the next half hour, I managed to set all of Britonia’s city walls aflame. When I finally climbed the outer wall, its archers had already fled. They could see the rest of Britonia burning. They’d heard of Napoleon’s death.

They knew which way the wind was blowing... and what a wind it was.

Once I‘d crested the outer wall, I took a moment to squint against the sun. The sky swarmed with flying dinos, including several pterodactyls and even a quetzal we hadn’t known that Britonia had. As I watched, I saw figures falling from mounts. It always happened the same way: two fliers would attack each other, but the moment they got close, one mount would do a barrel roll and drop their rider.

I grinned. Those falling riders were Britonians. If one of my people got close enough to give an enemy ptera a command, the ptera would obey. They were Tribe Grant’s dinos now.

And the horde only grew. With my intensified vision, I spotted Carmila in the vortex of flying dinos. She must have successfully snuck back into the roost below the city, where her mission had been to find trustworthy people to mount all of Britonia’s own dinos against them. And in a mine full of forced laborers, it wasn’t hard to find people willing to fight their oppressors. Already the ptera caretaker, Jenna Friedman, flew at the head of her own contingent. I reminded myself to check on her after the battle, and make sure she was rewarded for all of her help.

Meanwhile, several of my original units were dropping sulphur bombs. They weren’t very deadly, but they smelled so horrible that they made the Britonian citizens flee indoors, keeping them out of danger. That was another one of Vinny’s new developments.

Wherever the city guards had gathered to make a stand, still more flight teams fired javelins tipped with triceratops horns, which pierced silver Metal armor better than anything but gold. When those ran out, dilo spit could be tipped onto enemies to weaken them. Of course, we didn’t have much of that left, after the big project I’d left for the Materials team.

As I marveled at all of this, the sound of crashing drew my attention back the other way, and I turned to see Bertha plowing through the jungle toward me. Trees bent around and behind her as my armies followed or flanked the huge beast. Cheers of victory caught the wind, and with a foreboding crackle, the front gate collapsed to let my people in.

Chapter 40

Happy Holidays

THAT NIGHT WAS CHAOS—BUT good chaos. I spent every waking minute with my advisers, especially Sayuri and her assistants. Every decision I made got fed through my fourth wife, on down through a bureaucratic chain of managers and assistant managers and their assistants. We’d gone from a population of about a thousand to nearly five thousand people overnight. If I’d spent the last four months training to fight, Sayuri had spent it planning how best to run an empire.

She had the palace door fixed and guarded before the night was out.

As I moved about my new city, tackling the million random tasks set before me, I kept in regular communication with Lindiwe. She’d taken a team to stamp out the dregs of the Britonian army that had been sent to Peace. Meanwhile, Nadiyyas spy teams quietly handled the pockets of rebels that cropped up in the city that night.

My other partners made good use of themselves, too. Cassie and Yazmin set about collecting women who wanted their children back, providing them with cribs we had assembled in Peace. As we passed midnight, babies started appearing all across the fortress, and that alone fostered years’ worth of goodwill. Carl—who’d built many of the cribs—likened it to a nativity scene, given it was Christmas. I had to admit, we’d timed it all well.

By day two of my rule—Christmas Day—we had people dancing in the streets. We cracked open all the kegs of liquor that we hadn’t exploded on our first time through the silver mine, and we started pouring drinks... for everyone, Britonian or Grantian alike. My gallimimus team, ever alert for danger, scouted the inside of the city that day, keeping watch for troublemakers. They served as our first police force, although I’d have them back to their normal work soon enough.

We opened the food stores too. Aubrey took over the job of the Christmas feast with gusto, and by dinnertime on Christmas, there was enough food across the city to feed 5000 people—all without any of them having to trade in their labor to earn it. My people ate, and they drank, and they got a taste of what it meant to be Tribe Grant. Tomorrow, we’d have to rein it all in again, start tallying resources and making plans and possibly rationing... but hell, we had hundreds of dinos laying eggs now, and dozens who could go out and hunt more for food. My people weren’t going to starve, and they wouldn’t freeze either. We’d learned to shear our herd of big cats, and scouts had even picked up some mammoth tracks a month ago. Now we’d have time to go back and hunt the big beasts.

Through all of this, I never slept, channeling the strength in my bonds to keep myself awake. Malcolm helped the most in keeping me alert, now that he’d discovered the existence of Britonia’s quetzal. She happened to be a female, and my big blue bird buddy couldn’t be more thrilled. Let’s just say he had boundless energy. It might have kept me feeling a little too alert, but it was worth the discomfort to make sure my new city was safe.

Somewhere around nightfall on Christmas Day, I finally collapsed into my throne. Someone had gathered up all the palace courtiers that the prostitutes had captured, and dropped them off for me to deal with. Quite a few of them were missing from the day I’d tried to find the obelisk. The prostitutes didn’t say where they went, and I didn’t feel like asking.

“Well,” I told the men, blinking hard to keep them in focus. “I don’t think I have to tell you that you’re all up Shit Creek without a paddle right now. So I’ll keep this short and—”

“We will never bow to you!” one of the men shouted. “We still have an army. A big army. Or did you forget?”

I recognized the guy who shouted. He was the one who got all high-and-mighty about me calling Napoleon by the proper title a few days ago. After he finished blubbering, he looked around at all his fellows, but they kept their gazes on the ground, not engaging him.

“The army we sent to Prosperity!” he yelled, as if he had to hammer it into their thick little heads. “It was nearly a third of our force! Hundreds of people with state-of-the-art armor and weapons!”

This time, a few of the captives did perk up. I could see it in their eyes: Oh, right. We are technologically superior to Tribe Grant. Even a third of our force could have a chance to take the city back.

It was all I could do to offer up a tired harrumph. “You mean the army currently sucking down water poisoned by dilophosaurus spit?” I said.

The rebel wannabe paled, then pointed at me, his face twisting. “You lie!”

I shrugged. “I don’t care if you believe me or not. But we did place a slow-release capsule full of dilo spit in our reservoir before we fled. I imagine that’s gonna give your army a lot of heartburn, if not kill them outright... I don’t know, really. We never got to test it.”

I was referencing the Metal-shelled orb full of spit that I’d contracted from the Materials team. According to the one scout we’d left at the scene—Dimitri—half the remaining Britonian army was currently vomiting all over Prosperity. We would come through and offer terms tomorrow, to whoever was left... or we’d just send in all of our carnivores. After all, they no longer had any dinos that would obey them. We probably could have beaten them without the poison, but I figured, why not hedge our bets?

“Liar!” the man kept yelling, and I inclined my head at him. A guard I didn’t recognize stumped forward, grabbed the rebel, and dragged him away screaming.

No one else spoke after that.

Straightening in my chair, I finally said what I had to say: “Look—war is war, and survival is survival. I know we were enemies a day ago, but today, we all belong to the same tribe. I will not hold your past against you. I will instead offer you a choice: stay in Britonia, or leave. If you leave, no one will stop you. If you stay, you can argue for your usefulness... but most likely, we’re going to start you off with the least desirable jobs in our new empire. If you’re good, you can work up the ranks. If you’re not, well, at least you’ll be fed.”

I flicked a hand, and now all my guards came forward to grab the prisoners. “You have one day to decide. Merry Christmas.”

This finally concluded my duties for the holiday, and before the door even closed behind the captives, I fell fast asleep in my throne.

Chapter 41

Close to Home

IT TOOK about a week for the dilo spitball to stop poisoning the water in Prosperity, and by that point, the occupying army had surrendered. None of them had died, thank goodness, but they’d all have chronic heartburn for the rest of their lives.

As for the surrender itself, it had more to do with the fact that I now ruled all their families. I never made any threats, but I didn’t have to; these guys were used to an iron ruler, who would kill you for any slight, even one as small as stealing an extra onion. Naturally, they had been afraid I’d slaughter their wives and kids if they didn’t surrender. Meanwhile, I didn’t even know which of my 3800 new citizens were their wives and kids.

I guess, in my case, someone else’s reputation preceded me.

Either way, as soon as news of the surrender reached me, I packed up all the lovely brothel ladies aboard Malcolm and the ptera carriages, and off we went back to Prosperity. We’d used dozens of pre-made portable cribs to acquire babies for the regular population of Britonia, all in the hopes of pacifying them once we took over. It had worked. However, my very first loyalists had been forced to wait.

Today was their day.

“It’s a good name!” Marjorie shouted to me as Malcolm flapped over the gates of the fortress.

I leaned toward her to hear her better. “What?”

“Power! It’s a good name!”

My gaze dropped to the word, now emblazoned on the outside wall of Britonia, next to the spot where the gate was being repaired.

“Well, it had to be done,” I yelled. “It’s our motto.”

“Peace, Prosperity, and Power. I like it,” the madam replied, reaching back to tie her hair so it would stop whipping into her eyes. She was a beautiful, striking woman, but when I looked at her flaming hair, I couldn’t help but think of Kaity instead. Marjorie would make a powerful lifetime ally. But Kaity... she was my wife.

I was about to join up with her, too, for the first time since the battle. She’d been eager to return to the Materials room to continue her research. I wanted to research her a bit more, as well—and that wasn’t innuendo. The weird thing with the comms in her brain had given me an idea.

“So,” Marjorie asked, once Malcolm broke cloud cover and we got a moment of eerie aerial silence, “what are we at? Points-wise.”

I tapped my obelisk—the real one this time—and checked.

Tribe Points: 8,087,253: Tribe Chieftain: Alan Winchester

Tribe Name: Grant

Tribe Size: 4668 (includes animals and infants)

Tribe Ranking: 2/679,783

Once a Day Beacon Activation: 2/2

Once a Day Topography Scan: 2/2: Once a Week Dinosaur Domestication: 1/1

“Huh,” I said. “We’re number two.”

Her green-blue eyes got big as moons. “What?”

I shrugged. “But that’s probably because of the point bleed. I’m refusing to use an ability they handed us, so they keep draining—”

“Did you say number two? In the world?”

I wasn’t sure what she wanted from me. I’d just absorbed nearly 4000 new citizens with minimal bloodshed while also being very entertaining to watch. What had she expected? America’s Top 40?

“Just before the battle,” I said, “I went a hundred days without any of my tribe members dying. That gave me a ridiculous number of points. We were at number eight when we took Britonia, so it stands to reason we’d get lower after that.”

Still, the number two bothered me. It made me wonder who’d made number one. Because what I’d just done was epic despite the aliens wanting me to fail. I understood now that there was some sort of uprising happening, with Atticus and Lindiwe’s creators being a part of it. The Empire hadn’t wanted me to win because Atticus had supported me. They’d tried to hamstring me a couple of times now.

But Britonia had been a favorite. Archie and even Napoleon had been given a lot of perks. An early legendary weapon that made currency, an early silver mine, and who knows what other bonuses I didn’t know about.

So who out there was winning? Who were the other nine? Presumably, none of them had overcome the odds quite like I had. I would bet they were all big favorites of the Empire.

Which left me with the question: when I finally did get my ship and go to war with the Dasku... would the Dasky be the only ones I had to contend with? Would I be able to trust my own allies?

Or would Tribe Grant be seen as the weakest link? Would the Empire get us killed? Would our own fellows want to kill us?

This fight won’t be over just because we get a ship, I thought, curling my fist around my obelisk. But first, we have to get a ship.

And to do that, we still needed one more thing: the gold Metal mine. We had three weeks left to find it. Three weeks to win or lose.

The hunt was on again—starting today.

Yazmin, Sayuri, and Kaity met me and the prostitutes in the nursery cavern under the mountain at Prosperity. Yazmin waited primly, hands folded in front of her. Sayuri was writing on her clipboard; she never could stop working. And Kaity rocked on her heels, muttering to herself, agitated—right up until the moment I got within ten feet of her.

She calmed like a flag in a dying breeze. Her whole body slumped with relief, and her darting eyes cleared as I drew close to kiss Sayuri on the mouth, and my mother-in-law on the cheek.

“You’re back,” Kaity sighed when I turned to her.

I smiled at her. “Not for that long. Nadiyya thinks it best I move to Power from now on... but you are welcome there, too. We can move the entire Materials team.”

Kaity nodded, her ponytail swinging behind her. “I would like that,” she said, then cocked her head at Marjorie behind me. “And who’s this?”

I made introductions quickly, knowing that Marjorie and her girls didn’t want to wait any longer. Once Kaity had the rundown—she tended to forget these sorts of things in her agitated state—I held a hand out to Yazmin.

“If you’ll do the honors,” I said.

She nodded, then held up the GeoScanner at one of the squares that had been drawn on the nursery wall. The pokeyball converted over into a handheld screen, in a process I now understood as tapping into the Empire’s pocket dimension. Whenever a pokeyball was triggered, the ball itself got swapped for the item it was connected to, in the Storage realm.

The GeoScanner turned out to be a flat handheld panel, not unlike Sayuri’s clipboard. As Yazmin ran it over the wall, the scanner projected a series of statistics in English. I glimpsed a couple of words:

Feldspar 36.7%: Quartz 18.2%

Miscellaneous Solids 8.2% (Expand?)

Miscellaneous Liquids 0.1% (Expand?)

Miscellaneous Gases 0.1% (Expand?)

Judging by the last few lines, there were no air or water pockets in this section of wall, so it should be safe to excavate. The numbers changed as she kept scanning, the beam going five feet deep into the wall. Sometimes the minerals would move up or down the list as their composition grew or shrank.

“Hmm. That’s strange,” Yazmin said as she got to one side of the wall.

I tensed. “What is it? An air pocket?”

“No... but this wall’s good. Let’s dig it out.”

Sayuri stepped forward, never one to waste time. She already had the excavator in hand, an object like a tee-ball stand. She activated it in the center of the marked square, and a grid of blue-violet lines lit up the wall. A second later, the entire wall vanished, becoming a five-by-five foot hole. Gravel poured out of the space.

I was quick with the Storage ball, and packed up all the gravel with just a few choice presses of the pokeyball’s button. By the time I’d stepped back to avoid the rubble, the rubble itself was already gone, leaving behind an empty stone room.

I placed a bright NE lantern on the floor inside the entrance wall of the room, and nodded Marjorie into the place. “There you go, madam. Your nursery. Go ahead and set up the crib.”

The madam stared into the opening, suddenly speechless, her portable crib clutched in her hands.

Finally, she seemed to wake up. The other prostitutes crowded the entrance as Marjorie flipped the crib up into its final shape, hooking the wood slats into their notches. The construction was a collaboration between Carl and his wife Poppy, and I already knew it worked like a charm.

No sooner had the crib appeared than a chime sounded—and a baby immediately started screaming. The poor thing had just magically appeared in the hard crib, and I couldn’t blame the little girl for squalling. She’d been in cryostasis for ages, after all.

The sound of weeping followed us as we respectfully stepped away. I moved to cross the hall, but Yazmin stopped me with a hand on my arm.

“Let’s do her next-door neighbor first,” she said softly.

One excavation was as good as any other. “Okay, sure,” I replied.

She set about scanning again while the prostitutes either fawned over Marjorie’s daughter, or shifted from foot-to-foot, anxious to get their own children back.

But when Yazmin finished scanning, she shook her head. A strange expression had draped over her face, as if she’d just seen a particularly fascinating ghost.

“Not this one,” she breathed, looking up. “In fact, I changed my mind... I think we should excavate the other side first.”

“Whatever you say,” was my answer, but she had me curious now. What was in these walls? Explosive gas? Magma? It could be anything, but she didn’t seem afraid, just bewildered.

Over the next couple of hours, we managed to cut a room-hole for every last one of my brothel allies. By then, I’d added a good sixteen new babies to my population—some daughters and sons, but some nieces and nephews too, and even a sibling. We also got one pair of twins.

Once all the women were settled in, and I was alone with Sayuri, Yazmin, and Kaity, Yazmin returned to the wall space she had told us not to excavate.

“You gonna tell us what’s up with this chunk?” I asked her.

Yazmin angled her shoulders back, taking a deep breath. “Better if I show you,” she said. “But I’ll warn you... be ready with that Storage ball.”

Kaity put a hand to the wall. “All right, mystery wall. Tell us your secrets.”

Sayuri found the center point, and excavated the wall.

Just as before, the grid appeared; just as before, the stone crumbled into gravel and spilled. I held out my Storage ball to catch it all, but the moment I was about to press the button, something glinted up at me. I thought it might be water, and I tensed.

Then the fall of rock came to a standstill... and it didn’t stop glinting. There was a long line of shiny stone, as if we’d excavated a vein of something embedded close together.

In disbelief, I waded into the scree, staggering to the glittering bits of gravel. I picked up a piece of it and turned it over. I let the light catch and re-catch it.

Then I turned and held the pebble out to Kaity.

“Kaity... does this look gold to you?”

Chapter 42

Innovate and Overcome

WITH THE DISCOVERY of the gold Metal mine, Tribe Grant completed the Empire’s quest. All we had to do was survive three more weeks of winter without dropping out of the top ten, and there wasn’t any reason we wouldn’t—especially not with all the gold.

It was surprisingly easy to mine the stuff using the Storage ball. We just had to store all the gravel from a gold vein excavation, and then recall only the gold from the ball. It took only a verbal command. Within a day, we had enough of the stuff to start using Britonia’s equipment to smelt armor and weapons out of our highest-grade material.

I got those machines running day and night from the outset. I wanted to be ready when the Dasku came.

On day four after finding the mine, I woke up in my new bed in the palace of Power, with Lindiwe curled up against my side. She murmured in her sleep, naked and peaceful for once. I considered sticking around, but then I heard a faint clunk from one room over, followed by a curse word.

I eyed the color of the light through the curtains. Dawn, golden and trembling.

With a yawn, I carefully pried myself free of my general without waking her. It had been a Saturday, and Saturday was usually Lindiwe’s day to share my bed. She used to just come over whenever she pleased, which caused a few issues until I made her promise not to do it during sleep hours. She had obliged, which meant she at least respected my wives now, even if she didn’t officially want to be one of them.

I slipped into a pair of pants, considered putting on a shirt or cloak or something, then discarded the idea. Although it was cold in the room, with snow piled up on the balcony through the stego-glass windows—the snow was building up on Malcolm’s back while he slept out there—I didn’t feel the cold much anymore. My bond with the saber-tooth Queen tended to keep me warm nowadays.

Hiding another yawn behind my hand, I crossed the thick hand-woven carpet to an interior door. My new quarters were Aubrey’s doing, with all the wall space dedicated to tapestries of my “victories” and “good works.” It felt a little self-centered to be surrounded by pictures of myself feeding the hungry or slaying kings. I had wanted portraits of my wives, but they’d flat-out refused. I could understand that. What woman wanted to see other women on a man’s wall when they were naked in his bed?

Maybe a history would be better, I thought, knocking on the inner door. From the day we started the Tribe, to our first dinosaur kill, to discovering Prosperity... all the way to finding out Prosperity was a literal gold mine, and always had been.

All in a world that had become its past self. Sometimes, life really was cyclical.

“Yeah? Come in,” a voice said from the other side of the door. I pressed through and closed it behind me.

Kaity’s room, adjacent to mine, had originally been intended for a butler or maid. It was smaller and simpler than my quarters, with a plain twin-size cot and only one tapestry, an abstract piece sewn with a little piece of every material we had discovered so far. The room did have access to the shared balcony, though, and we could see Malcolm’s front end sleeping on the other side, a blanket thrown over him. His new mate had gotten a little testy recently, and we were pretty sure she was gestating some eggs.

“I heard you curse?” I said blearily, blinking down at her workstation. The desk took up an entire wall. It was bigger than her bed.

She pushed back from the desk suddenly, bumping into me. “Oh, sorry. Yeah. I figured something out. Look!”

Kaity held up a chunk of gold Metal, and for a moment I didn’t understand what she wanted me to see. Then I saw it—the gold Metal had a scratch through it.

“See? I was able to mark it.”

I blinked, scanning her table. “Do you have diamonds or something?” Maybe somebody had let her borrow an old wedding ring.

She shook her head no, then held up a transparent shard. “It’s the stego-glass. It’s actually stronger than gold, once it’s been tempered. I found a way to temper it.”

“Holy shit,” I said, peering closer. The shard of stego-glass had a smoky quality to it now; that must have been from the tempering. Amazed, I looked around for a place to sit. I had to pick up a chair she must have thrown in frustration at some point. I sat.

“I don’t think the aliens even know about it,” she said, pulling the glass back. “It comes from a single stegosaurus, remember? One with a natural mutation. Alan, it could be the most valuable dino we have.”

I huffed a laugh. Our most valuable dino, and I hadn’t even set eyes on the thing in what? Five months?

“I’ll set a guard around it,” I said, leaning closer. “Hey, Kaity? Did you sleep last night?”

She was still absorbed in the glass, but now she blinked. “Last night? Isn’t it only....”

She trailed off, her eyes widening as she finally noticed it was dawn.

“Still making up for lost time, I see,” I said, settling back in my chair.

Kaity ran a shaky hand down her face. “Damn. I get really absorbed in this stuff, I think because I’m afraid I’ll lose my mind again any minute. I keep forgetting that the clarity won’t go away. As long as you’re close, I can keep working.”

I patted her hand, trying not to feel the faint zing of intensity I’d started to feel whenever I touched her. She had a certain zeal for her work that I found attractive. Had always found attractive, to be honest.

“Work is great, Kaity, but you need to remember to care for yourself, too,” I said. “Don’t make me order you to get more sleep.”

She laughed. “Even if you ordered me, I can’t today. I’ve got to oversee the new currency production, get the percentages right between the different kinds of Metal.”

I nodded. It was an important job. While the legendary scepter turned anything into solid gold—real gold, not the alien Metal kind—that only devalued the gold. To offset that, Sayuri had a plan to distribute currency we smelted from alien Metals, which had more practical value than natural gold. Given the newly-renamed fortress of Power sat on a coastline, she figured we could increase trade for miles in all directions, keeping up a steady influx of new citizens to prevent us dropping out of the top ten over the next four days. Also, it’s not like all this would be over when we got our ship. Old Earth wasn’t just going to end. There would still be people here that needed protecting, and we planned to invite them all to our shores.

I patted Kaity’s skinny little shoulder and stood. “Well, then, you need a coffee. Or maybe a cold ride on Malcolm. Either one ought to wake you up nicely—oh, wait. I’m sorry.”

My neck heated. I’d totally forgotten Kaity’s new fear of flight. Ever since she’d been captured by Archie’s men, she had avoided all flight dinos like the plague. Even the sight of the ptera-carriage made her jumpy.

She smiled and rose with me. “Actually... a ride on Malcolm sounds n-nice.”

I frowned at her stammered words, my hand still on her shoulder. Damn, she was dainty. I thought I might break her if I squeezed too hard.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

She nodded. “Yeah. It’s time.”

Still watching her, I made for her balcony door and opened it. After stepping out into the snow, I reached out and tugged the blanket off my enormous quetzal. He took up both our balconies whenever he snoozed.

As Malcolm stirred, I gave my sixth wife a small bow.

“Ladies first,” I said.

Chapter 43

Facing Fears

MALCOLM HAD A LARGE SADDLE, enough to move around in, but only two places where a rider could actually sit. The two backrests were situated at the front of the saddle, which is where I led Kaity, with a fresh blanket under my arm.

I spread the blanket for her, and she sat against one backrest, already looking shaky.

“Are you sure you don’t need a coat? Or at least a shirt?” she asked.

I shrugged. “My bond with Queen keeps me warm,” I said, sitting down next to her. “Plus, I’ll just wrap up in the blanket.”

As I pulled the edges of the blanket over me, Kaity did the same and snuggled closer. Like an idiot, I suddenly realized why I really should have worn a coat. This probably looked like I was flirting with her, offering to cuddle up under a blanket like this.

Yet, she had clearly taken that invitation. Feeling suddenly bare beside her, I looped an arm across her shoulders. When she didn’t shy away, I pulled her closer and instructed Malcolm to take off.

The world tilted as the big bird rose to his feet, and Kaity stiffened and released a little moan of fear as she tucked her face into my shoulder.

I patted her arm. “It’s all right, Kaity. One step at a time.”

I felt her nod against me, too insistent, too nervous. It was like her wires were crossed all over again.

But we all had to face our fears sometime. With a mental twitch, I suggested Malcolm take flight.

He folded his great blue wings, then tipped off the balcony’s rim.

As the quetzal dove, Kaity screamed into my neck, her hands turning to claws on my arm and chest. We plummeted toward the courtyard below; Malcolm liked to be theatrical. He flared his wings at the last second, making Kaity cry out and shifting our balance to one side. Her legs ended up in my lap. She ended up in my lap.

For fuck’s sake, Malcolm, we want her used to flying again, not more terrified of it, I chastised him silently. He gave a wild rikaww of laughter as he shot upward once more. The sun broke the horizon just as we crested the palace, spilling golds and ambers and sepia tones all over the fortress and the coast that surrounded it.

A line from a kid’s movie came back to me. Everything the light touches... is mine.

Right now, that included Kaity, her frail body huddled on top of me, her eyes winched tight against all this beauty. I reached up to tuck some whipping strands of red hair behind her ear.

“Open your eyes, Kaity. See the sunrise.” I fought the urge to kiss her forehead, to say It’s almost as beautiful as you.

Then I thought, she’s my wife, and she’s clinging to me. And I kissed her forehead and said, “It’s almost as beautiful as you.”

It was almost too quiet to hear over the wind, but her eyes flickered open, and she held still for a moment, her soft green eyes glued to mine. I had my hand on her neck now, and I found myself caressing her. She looked perfect here, as if her flaming hair were just another tone blended into the world by the rising sun.

I expected her to back away, but she didn’t.

Her gaze swept away from me, taking in the beautiful sight, the clouds in their coppers and pinks. The air growled past, too loud for us to try talking. I watched her horror as it bloomed into wonder. We were out over open ocean now, and far below, an enormous aquatic beast breached the waves for a long moment before vanishing into the depths yet again.

Carl had plans to capture the things, to use them to pull water caravans across the ocean, in the hopes of recruiting new citizens from foreign tribes—but I didn’t share this fact now. A part of me wanted to talk, to say anything at all to distract from the rising, unexpected hardness that now rubbed against Kaity’s thigh.

Malcolm beat his wings again and again, bringing Kaity’s weight down on me and then lifting it away again. I couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to unbuckle my trousers, pull up her long skirt, and have her slide onto my cock.

For now, I tried to settle for her hip and thigh against me, and the pulse of flight itself. She closed her eyes and leaned close to me, but some of the tension went out of her. She stretched up a little, hands on my chest, and she spoke into my ear.

“Thanks for being here,” she said.

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak as her palms fed heat into my pectorals. Gradually, she leaned off to my side again, drawing one leg off my hip—off my cock.

My dick bounced, terribly obvious, as her leg tugged over it. I released a tiny moan, a sound I doubted she could hear over the wind.

This is madness. I never wanted Kaity before now. Okay, of course I thought about it, but—but yeah, I thought about it. And I’m thinking about it a whole lot right now.

One of her palms began to drift down to my abdomen as she leaned close to my ear again. “It’s not as scary as I remember,” she said. “Up here.” She paused in her caress, her fingertips at my navel.

“Or down here either,” she said, as she drew her hand over my dick.

My breath staggered to nothing as she squeezed me through my trousers. When Malcolm flapped again, Kaity pumped.

“Are you sure about this?” I croaked.

“No,” she replied, “but it’s really distracting me from the fact we’re a thousand feet up, so I’m going to do it anyway.”

I shifted inside our little cocoon of warmth, and with one hand I opened up my own belt buckle, so that my shaft spilled out into her hand.

Kaity raised an eyebrow at me. “In a hurry, are we?”

“The more distracting, the better,” I explained, closing her hand on my shaft. I closed my eyes, and told Malcolm to fly just a little higher. I didn’t want Kaity to just face her fears.

I wanted her to cure them.

Chapter 44

Sharing Warmth

HER HAND CLOSED on my shaft, her breath hot on my ear. She stroked my full length and back up again, her fingers rounding my head. Pump, pump, pump.

“You’re bigger—than I—expected,” she said, each word in time to a stroke. “I suppose—it’s no wonder—why you have—all those lovers.”

Mention of lovers made me think of Eric. Was this wrong? He had been my friend, and he had perished only months ago.

Then Kaity said, “Oh, fuck... I’ve needed this.”

Mourning happened in stages, and for everyone, it was different. What mattered was that she wanted this. I’d given her every chance to be my wife in a different way, yet here she was, with her hand on my cock.

But there was still one thing I needed to know. “Do you want me, Kaity?” I didn’t say what I really meant: Am I just a stand-in for somebody else?

“I’ve wanted—you since—the beginning,” she said. She paused to look down at my penis, loosening her grip to stroke it up one side and down the other. “But at the first orgy, you were busy with... well, several women. So instead, I joined up with the first guy I saw.”

She was close to me again, close enough to say the words hotly into my ear instead of yelling them.

“It was fine,” she went on. “Eric turned out to be really great. I guess I forgot you for a while....” She backed away, drew her fingertip over a spot of cum, and licked it. Leaning back in again, she continued, “Although sometimes, I would get off to the thought of you. Anytime I heard you fucking, I had to wake Eric up to service me.” She grinned and met my eyes. “I mean,” she said loudly, combating the wind, “why do you think we had to build a house separate from everyone?! He figured out I got horny whenever I heard your wives moaning! He got jealous, so we had to move away.”

All this was news to me, but it was also hot news. The idea that someone had been getting off to my lovemaking, even from afar... fuck, was I really that good?

Fuck yeah, I am, I told myself. Now that I’d settled whether or not she liked me for real, I slid my hand around her back, and pulled her on top of me. She was now perched on her hands and knees, and she took her cue to start working me with her hand again. Her eyes drifted down to my junk, her mouth open. Her neckline hung low at this angle, her tits swinging with her rhythm. They weren’t big breasts, but still they jiggled and moved alongside her. When Malcolm banked, I saw one hard and pink nipple. I hooked my hand under her skirt and palmed her thigh, venturing up to the crux of her legs. She scooted closer, and somehow we made it work—her hand on my cock, my fingers edging her panties before finally slipping inside.

She moaned and shivered, probably as much from the cold as my touch. I found her plenty distracted already. Her wetness made me crave her mouth on me.

Malcolm dove abruptly, making us both weightless, and then he caught himself. The change in momentum shoved her hand to the base of my cock, pressing hard to my balls. I groaned, feeling as if the pressure might make me come early, just squeeze all my seed right out of me.

I fingered her until her eyes closed, until her hand job got sloppy. I found a sort of flicking-tickle that she liked, and before I knew it, she’d inched forward and dropped her shirt to bury my face in her tits. My cock hovered beneath her pussy as my fingers kept working, moisture slicking the inside of her thigh. I sucked a nipple until she moaned, then sucked the other. She shuddered and came onto my hand.

She did it quietly, her cries lost on the wind. I could only tell because the inner walls of her pussy started to contract around my fingers, and she reflexively gripped her own boob and squeezed it as she threw her head back.

For a moment, I got to see her tits in their full glory, her red hair flailing about her head like the locks of a Viking queen. A thin, fragile queen... more like a Celtic goddess.

Finally she slumped, breathing hard, and said into my ear, “I’m scared, Alan. I need you to distract me.”

“I can do that,” I told her. “Lie down.”

With an oomph, she hefted her bad foot and flipped over, lying on her back with her head on the seat. I straddled her tits, laying my balls on her sternum. She pressed her boobs tight for me, and I spat into my hand to get my cock wet. I rode between her tits for a couple of thrusts, and then lifted up and away. She gasped in pleasure, then opened her mouth for me. My whole body tingled as I slipped my cock down her throat.

With my knees spread and both hands on the seat backrests, I found a good angle, and I fucked her mouth. One of her hands found my hip, and the other my balls. It wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t gentle. I don’t know why, but there was something about her frail, freckled body that made me want to fuck her brains out. I didn’t want her comfortable. I wanted her crazy.

She only grabbed me tighter against her, driving me deeper down her throat.

I closed my eyes and let loose, clumsily slipping past her teeth and making her gag, getting my cock wet with the thick spit at the back of her throat. I groaned into the buffeting wind, not feeling the frigidness of it. When I glanced down at her shoulder and arm, though, I saw goosebumps. She had to be freezing.

She took me anyway.

It reached a point where I thought I might come, and I told Malcolm to dive and land in any open space he could find. I braced against the sudden weightlessness, thrusting down her throat at the same time she rose up to meet me. She murmured, I twitched, and my body carried me right past orgasm and into that nebulous place beyond it, where my balls hurt but just wouldn’t break.

I was half-mad with unspent lust when Malcolm flapped his wings wide and landed in a flurry of snow. I gripped Kaity by the hair and tore her off my cock. My dick jerked as she made a gagging sound. Lords above, I wanted to come.

On gelatin legs, I staggered to my feet, bent down, and gathered her into my arms. I leapt off Malcolm’s back into a deep bank of snow.

“Fuck, that’s cold!” she cried as I dropped her into the snow under Malcolm’s wing. He shielded us with it, giving us our own private little space.

“I’ll keep you warm,” I said, tugging her skirt to her ankles. That old joke about carpet matching drapes came back to me, and I very nearly went down on her—but I wanted to fuck, and I didn’t want to wait.

After yanking her shirt up over her head, I gripped her thighs and spread them as wide as they could go. She shivered, surrounded by snow on all the sides where she wasn’t surrounded by feathers.

When I let go of her legs, she kept them spread for me in invitation. I let my eyes wander down her pearly white skin to her sex, those glistening folds just begging for something thick and hard to enter her. I could have sworn I saw the inside muscle pulse.

“Use me, Alan,” she said, arching her back. “Use me like the spare wife that I am.”

“You’re no spare,” I said.

She laughed and waved me off. “Are you kidding? I’m tiny, with small tits and a damned club foot—”

I grabbed her pussy, my fingers flicker-tickling her clit in quick succession, stealing her breath away.

“You’re my wife, and you’re fucking beautiful,” I said, pushing my shaft down so that my head could nudge her folds aside. My fuck, she was wet. There was no friction whatsoever. “Where do you want me to come?” I asked.

She had reached back to grip snow as if she were twisting her hands into blankets. “I don’t care. Just get into me. Please—”

I thrust forward, joining us for the first time.

Kaity cried out with the most delicious sound, and my poor tight balls swept across cold snow. Gripping her legs once more—to keep them good and wide for me—I hefted her against my cock at the same time I swung my legs forward.

“Oh fuck! You’re big!” she called out, her voice edged with pain. She was tight, super tight, and I slowed, worried.

“Don’t stop!” she said. “It hurts, but it hurts great. Keep going.”

Closing my eyes, I obliged her.

She moaned in half-pain, half-ecstasy as I swung through her tight sex, my balls feeling hard as stones, still forbidding me from coming. I became delirious as I fucked her, so much so that a part of my mind registered the cold, and I channeled Queen’s bond again.

“Oh, that’s—so warm—oh—OH!” Kaity screamed. She tried to force her legs closed, but I held them open as she mysteriously climaxed again.

Then I understood why. As Queen’s mammalian heat flooded me, it seemed to react with the snow on my legs and balls, and the result was an intoxicating mix of hot-and-cold that drove me deep into Kaity, and then over the edge.

I spurted once inside her before I got my senses in order. I pulled out and spurted again, flinging a string of white against her pussy, her navel, her thighs. As her legs folded against me and my seed smeared across her pale skin, I realized she must have felt Queen’s warmth, too. I’d somehow forwarded Queen’s sensations into Kaity during lovemaking.

My future trysts just got a whole lot more interesting.

Also, this gave me an idea.

Chapter 45

I've got to Take This Call

BY THE TIME we returned to the palace, Lindiwe was only just beginning to stir. Normally she was an early riser, but we’d trained last night—the session had ended in fucking—and when her body was tired, she slept hard.

I roused her, and a few minutes later the three of us were all crowded into Kaity’s little room. Kaity and I sat on the floor while Lindiwe looked on from a chair.

“So... what are we testing, exactly?” Lindiwe asked.

“You’ll see,” I replied, with a surreptitious glance at the ceiling. I was my way of saying I didn’t want to say it out loud, for fear the aliens would hear.

“Gotcha,” Lindiwe replied knowingly. “What do you need me to do?”

I already had the Storage ball in my hand, ready to go. “I just need you to time it. Fifty seconds.”

On the way back to the palace, I’d asked Kaity to hold her breath several times, and I’d counted. She could make it to almost a minute before she started turning blue. I gave her a few seconds of buffer time, to be safe.

“Got it,” Lindiwe said. We didn’t have any watches, but she could use her obelisk as a timer.

“I’d also like you to observe and memorize anything you see,” I said.

“I’ll give it a shot,” Lindiwe replied. “But Nadiyya’s the one with the photographic memory. Should we call her up?”

“Not yet. Just do your best and focus more on the timer.” I faced Kaity. “You ready?”

The redhead was fiddling with her hands now. “I’m not sure for what, but... yeah, Alan. I trust you.”

I winked at her. “You overcame your fear of flight today. This’ll be nothing by comparison. All right... take a deep breath and hold it.”

Kaity drew a huge breath, her chest inflating.

I triggered the Storage ball, and pulled her inside it.

“Start counting now,” I said to Lindiwe. Then I closed my eyes and did something that had become second-nature to me by now: I opened myself up to my bonds.

They were all there: Bertha, Investigator, Darth, Malcolm, Orion, Queen, and a few tenuous, faint links to others. I let those bonds hover just out of my mind’s eye, where I could connect at a moment’s notice, draw from them, knot them together, even pull them into other people. The options were limitless—I knew that now. This power was near-limitless. It’s why it had scared Lindiwe so much to know I could use it, and why Archie and Napoleon had stood no chance against me, numbers or not.

In that moment, something new dawned on me. I had so much power that I’d become dangerous.

This is why the Empire has tried to stop me from winning, I realized. It’s why they tried to help Britonia destroy me. Because I’ve learned how to form bonds beyond regular domestication... and the aliens didn’t intend for us humans to have this power.

Oh, they had pretended it was all a part of their plan... just like they’d pretended to be angry I wasn’t using Lindiwe’s secret abilities. But it was all a farce. I knew this for a fact because of Atticus.

He was the one who had told me about the bond. He had hinted at my potential, not Finch, not the Empire. Atticus, the rebel.

He had helped me. Now it was time to help him.

“Retrieve communications band,” I said to my Storage ball.

My eyes remained closed, my bonds held at a distance. I didn’t trigger any of them, but as I sat there focusing, I sensed a new one. It rose from the Storage pokeyball, a tendril of mentality, a vague string of soul. An alien radio channel, so to speak—the same as any bond. It was all tech. None of it was magic.

I pulled it out of Kaity’s head, where it had plagued her for months... and I connected to it.

“Hello?” I said.

A beat passed. Then another. “Thirty seconds,” Lindiwe said.

My shoulders slumped. “It’s not—”

I heard a noise, weak and guttural. A bit of static, maybe fabric shuffling. Where was that coming from?

Without warning, a voice sounded loud and clear inside my mind: Grik’thor abrek er Human? Gorren tik. Hello?

My heart slammed against my rib cage. I knew that voice.

“Atticus?” I said. “It’s Alan. Alan Winchester.”

The briefest of stunned pauses, and then Atticus started speaking like he had a thousand things to say and only twenty seconds to say it—which was basically true, whether he knew it or not.

Don’t talk out loud, they’ll know, oh fuck, they must already know, we don’t have time, listen to me.

I kept listening, trying to memorize everything that he said.

The Empire aren’t who they present themselves to be. They’ve been lying to you from the start. They’re going to try to trick you, Alan. Don’t get tricked. Look at me.

I opened my eyes just as Sayuri said, “Ten seconds—”

I had only the tiniest, mere fraction of a moment to see the projection in front of me: a stubby little gnome creature. This wasn’t Atticus at all.

The Dasku, Atticus started to tell me.

Then, the whole world went blank.

Chapter 46

Award Ceremony

I NEVER GOT those ten final seconds. The Empire figured out my game too quick.

The world blinked, and Kaity’s room and everyone in it inverted in color and went silent, freezing in place like a photo negative. Next, a wall of blue-violet overtook us all and pulled us into Storage. I felt my ability to breathe vanish as I tried to gasp and got nothing.

Just as quickly, we were out of there, all three of us, Kaity included. We all exhaled before drawing huge breaths, blinking at the sudden bright light.

We stood in a huge, cavernous, but geometric space. All but one wall glowed with severe silver light. But the far wall was different; it was blue-violet, but also black... as if a translucent film had been pulled across the night sky.

I thought I saw a scatter of stars beyond that film—but the next moment, I noticed the ten ships.

“This is a hangar,” Kaity breathed. She grabbed my arm. “Alan, these are the ships!”

I opened my mouth, but a cheer cut me off. “The fucking ships!” someone shouted, probably half a football field away from us. I whirled. “We got a fucking ship!”

As Kaity pulled closer to me and Lindiwe drew her spear, I saw that we weren’t the only ones in this huge, metallic hangar. Nine other clumps of people were spread out at equal distance to either side of us.

And before each group, there stood a ship.

Someone cleared their throat, much more loudly than the person who had shouted. I blinked at the bright light along the ceiling, shielding my eyes from it. The throat-clearing must have come from some sort of voice amplifier. The speaker was not here in person.

“Greetings, Top Ten!” the voice said, and I recognized this one, too. It was Finch, my handler—a likely shill for the Empire. “Apologies for the sudden spatial adjustment, but there is no easier way to transport groups of people out of atmo.

“Anyway, congratulations! The moment you have all been waiting for has finally come. It is time to take your new ships!”

“But we’re three days early, aren’t we?” Kaity said.

She was right. We were early.

They cut me off, I thought, tensing. They knew Atticus was going to tell me too much, and they cut him off. Now we’re getting our ships early... another distraction.

Fuck. This was all happening too fast. What had Atticus just told me? I had to remember it. It was important. What hadn’t they wanted me to hear?

With a soft chime sound, Finch’s projection appeared in front of us. An identical copy materialized in front of every other group, too. He was the only thing standing between us and our ships.

With a sweeping, obsequious bow, Finch gestured us to the ships. I barely even looked at mine. I was too busy running Atticus’s words through my head.

The Empire aren’t who they say they are... they’ve been lying... they’re going to trick you....

Look at me. He told me to look at him—and he hadn’t looked like his normal self.

They’re going to trick you, Alan. Don’t get tricked.

“Before you, you will see the Xe-Class Ergazgagt, a top-of-the-line ship whose main purpose is planetary defense. These babies are full of big fat firepower. In short, they are ship destroyers. Point at something and fire, and it’s gone, easy as that. Ten of them together should be more than enough to defend Earth from your enemies, the Dasku.”

Lindiwe tugged on my sleeve. “Alan, he’s lying. Time has passed. The timer I set has been running for three days now.”

I blinked. It felt like we’d set that timer two minutes ago, but clearly something had happened.

They didn’t pull us up here early, like they’re saying, I realized. They still waited until the day they expected the Dasku to arrive. Why? Why not give us three days to get used to these ships?

My mind was racing so fast, that when I stopped to calm it, I understood. They were rushing us. Rushing me.

They want us to come out swinging. They don’t want us to think. Why is that?

Finch was still talking, and I heard a word that caught my attention: “...Arvor, of Tribe Empyrean, step forward and take command of your ship.”

Several groups down from me, a man and his entourage stormed forth into their new Xe-Class Ergazgagt, whatever the hell that meant in the Empire language. I recognized Arvor, the former second-in-command of the Nomads Afrikaans, but only barely. He wore long white robes streaked in gold chain and silver-blue light panels. He looked like a futuristic Pope.

Motherfucker must have started a religion, I thought. Arvor paused at the gangway to his ship, and turned to look at me. Our eyes met.

No allies here, I thought. The hate in his gaze was raw. But maybe the Empire intended that, too.

They helped him win, knowing he’d want to kill me. They really don’t want me to survive.

As Finch reeled off more names and turned this whole thing into a parade, I fought with everything I knew, everything Atticus had hinted at, every suspicion I had ever had about the Empire. Something was about to happen, something pivotal, something the Empire had planned meticulously for.

Something Atticus and his rebellion had tried so hard to prevent.

“Alan Winchester, of Tribe Grant,” Finch said.

For the first time, I looked up and saw past Finch’s lizard body. I looked at my ship, the thing we’d all spent a year trying to earn. All of my tribe’s blood, sweat, and tears had gone into this ship. Peter, and Eric, and Sleuth, and so many others had died or faced torture to help us reach this object.

It looked like a barracuda, long and thin, a literal gun ship. It was made of the silver Metal the aliens prized so much... but not gold. They would never give us gold.

I didn’t hear anything else that Finch told me. I just laid a hand on Kaity’s back and urged her forward, since Lindiwe was already moving.

We ascended the long, skinny gangway. Blue-violet lights lit our way. It should have been a moment of triumph.

Instead, I felt like we were walking to our deaths.

Behind me, Finch said, “It has been our pleasure to forge you into beings capable of your own defense. We regret that we didn’t have more time or better candidates, but this should do. All of you at least have the mental capacity to pilot an Ergazgagt. After all, even a child can pull a trigger, am I right?”

Finch laughed at his own joke. I paused inside the ship and looked back at him.

Finch doesn’t tell jokes. Not even bad ones....

“Oh, and I have a surprise!” Finch added with a little too much gusto. “The Crown Prince of the Empire himself, Prince Irikk, just happened to be in the area, and he has come to see you off! He’ll be in a golden ship, ready to watch your victorious battle with the Dasku. Be sure to hail him to show your respect. Oh—but don’t expect any help from him. The Crown Prince cannot dirty his hands with something as plebeian as the planetary defense of a low-grade planet. Ah, but he has greatly enjoyed your entertainment these past months. You might call him your biggest fan!”

With that, the lizard man faded out. Upon seeing him go, I remembered that moment all those months back when Jack’s obelisk had reacted with my obelisk’s shield. Finch had flickered, then shrunk down to only a couple feet high....

He’d... he’d looked just like Atticus. In that last moment of his transmission, when Atticus told me to look at him—

“Those fucking bastards,” Lindiwe growled. “We got our ships. We finally earned the right to do their dirty work protecting their resource planet. And they still want to make entertainment out of us? Are they serious?”

“I’ve got two very specific fingers I’d like to hail that prince with,” Kaity added.

“I wonder just how good this gun is,” Lindiwe said.

I looked at them, blinking. I should feel their same anger. After all, Finch had just belittled us. He had promised us a future of enslavement, a lifetime of being entertainment.

He’d made us angry, and if I hadn’t been so deep in thought, he might have made me angry, too. As it was, the nine other ships were already airborne.

“Anyway,” Finch said, this time with an air of finality, “as they used to say in your backwards culture before we culled it... That’s all, folks! Have a great fight!”

He’s goading us, I thought. Energy suddenly zipped through me. He’s fucking goading us... all of us!

Without a second thought, I raced toward the front of the Ergazgagt, my feet clanging against the Metal grate floors.

“Shut the gangway!” I shouted behind me. “Lindiwe, get it closed!”

I knew what my fellow humans were about to do.

And I had to stop them. I had to stop them right now.

Chapter 47

Truebond

FINCH HAD BEEN RIGHT ABOUT one thing: a kid could have piloted these Erga-whatever ships. As I plopped down into the high-backed but way-too-skinny chair, I found myself scrunched in front of a panel with only one control: a joystick with a button on the top.

As soon as I grabbed the stick, the ship rocked around us, making Kaity shriek in the back. I could only hope I hadn’t tossed anybody out, but there was no time to lose.

“Lindiwe!” I shouted. “Tell me we’re closed up!”

Kaity cursed, and then Lindiwe’s voice called back, “We are!”

“Then buckle up!”

I leaned the joystick forward, going easy at first, so the women had a chance to find a seat along the walls inside the ship. The joystick ran along a track, and I found that pushing it through the track raised it on a vertical plane while pushing it forward basically meant Go.

Once I had that figured out, I tilted the joystick forward as far as I dared to without a seat belt. The abrupt speed shot me back against the skinny high-backed chair. There was no way those Empire lizard guys could sit comfortably in these things. If I didn’t already know their game, I would have thought these ships had been made for Empire children. But they hadn’t.

They’d been made for Gray Dwarves.

I chased the other nine ships out of the hangar, where a screen suddenly lit up on the flat, unmarked console in front of me. Green dots—one large, and dozens small—sat still on the screen, and when I looked through the front wraparound window, I could see the ship of the Crown Prince, vast and golden, swarmed by dozens of smaller ships all around it.

The ten of us paused to hover in place.

“Ship, comms. I need comms!” I said. The ship didn’t answer me. It had no AI, then. Or maybe it just didn’t speak English.

Another screen flared next to the first, and as it did, the huge green dot blinked on the radar screen. The Crown Prince appeared to be hailing us, and his visage appeared in 3D on the dashboard. It was like looking at a topo map, only even more detailed, as if nanobots had recreated him in full color.

“Feikka rish Kagorren,” he said, the sound coming directly from his mouth on the console. He looked like Atticus, like Finch—a lizardlike man with a bald pate, slitted eyes, hunched shoulders, on a humanoid body a head shorter than I was. Unlike the handlers we had seen before, though, the Prince wore a gold headdress that glittered with diamonds, or something like them. His clothing glowed, right down to the very threads.

He was royalty, all right. The crown prince of our overlords. A leader of the great and powerful people that stole our planet and enslaved us for sport.

“Hjrek arriskekkesh,” he said sagely, and it was so easy to imagine the words. Good work, humans. Very entertaining. You are all so very adorable.

“Fuck!” I shouted, standing up. I searched the cabin for something, anything, that would allow me to talk to my fellow humans, or even to the prince—but every surface was either smooth Metal or a glowing light panel, just like the hangar had been.

Then I started to see it. Three of the human ships, pivoting in place.

They didn’t need to move to hail the prince.

I froze and shut my mind down, nixing all thought down to its base elements. I couldn’t use this ship. I didn’t know how. The Empire’s technology and its language was beyond me.

Well... not all of its tech.

Eyes still closed, I found my bonds, but they were faint. I was in the atmosphere, so far away from my dinosaurs that I might not be able to utilize them.

At the same time, I sensed ten more of them, one thicker than the others, with a strange, dense feel to it.

I grabbed the nine similar bonds, but they wouldn’t come to me. They resisted. They had a different feel too, slimy, and I couldn’t get a grip.

“Lindiwe! Get up here!” I shouted.

I felt her footsteps in the floor, and I seized her by the bare wrist the moment she got close. She stopped moving.

Her power surged into me. Suddenly the nine slimy bonds dried out in my head. I seized them easily.

“Alan, I thought we weren’t—”

“I know,” I said. “It’s time.”

I was openly using her bond-battery abilities, but it was now or never. There wouldn’t be a future if I didn’t get this right.

This time, when I spoke into the bonds, I didn’t open my mouth. I just shouted the one thought that mattered:

Don’t fire!

Silence. I opened my eyes and stomped up to my window, peering out.

You three! I thought, pointing fruitlessly at the three ships who had pointed their noses right at the Crown Prince. Stop! It’s a trick! That guy’s not Empire royalty!

Suddenly one of the bonds twanged in my brain, making me flinch.

Don’t listen to this moron, Arvor’s voice said. That’s Alan Winchester, and he’s a wimp-ass pacifist.

I slammed a fist onto the console and yelled, “I’m telling you! That’s not the Empire’s crown prince! It’s not anyone from the Empire at all!”

Arvor laughed over the line. Are you serious? Look at him. He’s clearly a lizard!

Two of the three aggressive ships remained still, but one moved forward. Arvor’s ship. I couldn’t believe this douche-canoe managed to figure out the bond communications relay. He’d probably deduced it by watching Lindiwe, then used the trick to start his damn religion and amass all this power. He was a smart guy—but not smart enough.

He was about to end our only chance of being free.

Listen, I said calmly. Have any of you ever seen an Empire alien in real life? Ever?

I answered my own question: No, you haven’t. You’ve seen projections. And projections can be anything, they can look like anything. You’ve seen what they want us to see—and they didn’t want us to see them. They showed us someone else. Someone they wanted us to be angry at. Someone they want you to blow up right now, while you’re pissed and armed and not thinking.

I shook my head and said out loud, just to make sure my words came through clearly, “The Empire is dangling a carrot and they want you to bite it. But those lizard guys aren’t Empire... those are the Dasku! And they’re not coming to watch us fight. They’re asking for peace! Watch, I’ll prove it!”

Closing my eyes again, I tugged on the giant, dense bond in my head.

If you do not wish us harm, I said, knowing that the truebond would translate my meaning, then I need you to spin your ship around, once—

Enough of this crap! Arvor shouted. Fire on that Empire bastard! Before he runs off and we lose our chance forever!

Something deep in my heart went cold in that moment. I hovered between reality and unreality, as if the Storage ball had sucked me up again. I knew where Arvor was coming from, what all three of those ships wanted. They wanted to strike back at the galactic Empire that had toyed with them for a year, who had stolen their families, inspired them to kill each other, and used their children as bargaining chips in some game. They didn’t care if the rest of those ships turned and fired on them. Killing a single prince of the evil Empire was worth their own lives.

Such brave, stupid people they were.

I didn’t have to move my ship. I had already aimed it. All I had to do was reach out and slam my palm on the joystick’s single button.

Arvor’s ship imploded in a shimmer of purple light.

And in the silence and horror that followed—one human betraying another—the gigantic golden ship of the Dasku moved. Slowly, carefully, it rotated in place.

I am Kagorren, and we are the Dasku, a new voice boomed, across the thick band of our truebond. And we come to your planet in peace, seeking shelter from the Empire.

I connected the Dasku’s bond to the other eight bonds in my head. Sorry, Kagorren, I said. Can you repeat that?

The leader of the Dasku offered peace one more time, and I made sure all the other ships heard it.

Chapter 48

Revolutionaries

IT JUST SO HAPPENS THAT the Dasku—the real lizardkin of the universe—had a nifty little technology that us humans didn’t. By forming a bond-net across their grand fleet of ships, they could cut the Empire off from all of the tech they’d left on Earth. They could render the Empire not only powerless here, but silent.

The Dasku had literally freed us from the Empire. All we had to do was not kill them.

How did you know we were not Empire? their king asked me that first night. They made a very convincing trick on you, it seems.

Made a trick, not played a trick. The truebond wasn’t a perfect translator, but it was close enough, and it would allow us to make friends with these hyper-advanced Dasku. A week from today, we would reconvene the top ten human tribes up here for a peace conference, but they had to learn how to use the truebond first. Until then, I had Prince Kagorren mostly to myself.

Twice I saw their true forms, I explained. Once, during a glitch—and once on purpose, when a rebel leader showed himself to me over the truebond. My friend Lindiwe also saw them when she was experimented on. I call them Gray Dwarves. They sure are ugly little things. They wouldn’t even make for decent garden gnomes.

Kagorren nodded sagely from the console, and I marveled at the comms tech yet again. How had it relayed the idea of garden gnomes to him? I should be more careful with my words, just in case.

It is quite wise of you, to have developed a truebond so early in your planet’s reclamation, Kagorren said. Normally, it takes centuries for resource planets to rebel, because they are not able to learn the truebond, and hear the call of the rebellion.

Yeah, well... they made the mistake of connecting our pets to their communications relay, I replied. And no one loves pets quite as much as humans do... even if they are big and scaly.

You are a loving species, then? Kagorren asked.

Something like that.

We spoke long into the night, and I was lucky to have Lindiwe and Kaity with me. Lindiwe continued to serve as a comms battery, and over time, her power helped strengthen my skill with the truebond. Turns out, it was much harder to make connections across empty space. I never could have done this without her.

While the two of us asked the prince questions, Kaity spent the downtime exploring the ship and figuring out how to work it. Talk about overcoming a fear of flight. The Earth was like a beach ball underneath us. Just looking at it made me dizzy, so I focused on Kagorren and his story.

Turns out, we weren’t the only ones who didn’t like the Empire. Even the Empire itself had detractors within it, which included Atticus. Kagorren had a guess as to who Atticus really was, and he promised to try connecting us once Atticus called in. He’d been keeping quiet lately, on account of being compromised. I was pretty sure he’d been compromised because he’d warned me.

Either way, Kagorren told me that the Empire had stretched itself thin, which is why they’d had to leave Earth’s own inhabitants in charge of keeping the rebels away. They’d tried to get us to kill the Dasku with an elaborate setup and ten high-value ships, but they hadn’t been able to spare a single one of their own units to watch us. This plan had backfired drastically, and now the Empire was weaker than ever, with ten fewer destroyer ships and a whole lot more enemies.

This left me with one more question, though. But why stop here? I asked, once our conversation wound down. The Empire still has most of our people, so we can’t really join your war effort. And we’re just a nothing, nowhere resource planet.

Kagorren blew air out his neck slits in what I was starting to recognize was a laugh. Another lie, he said. You are not nothing, nor nowhere. Long ago, a great weapon was hidden away on your planet. Half the universe has been trying to rediscover this weapon, but only in the past year did we learn its location. And we never would have learned at all, if the Empire had not reset your planet to its prehistoric age. This triggered the weapon... and it started the Last War of the Universe. It is what brought Atticus and myself to you.

I marveled, open-mouthed. The Empire had indeed seen us as a nowhere-nothing resource planet—but they’d been wrong, and they’d fucked themselves over good because of it.

“Ask him what the weapon is,” Lindiwe said, leaning over my shoulder.

I touched her hand. “That’s a question for another day,” I replied softly. “For now, it’s time to get home to Tribe Grant. We’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”

Epilogue

A YEAR and six children later—Kaity and Lindiwe hadn’t gotten pregnant, and Aubrey had managed to do it twice—humanity was ready to fight our last war.

All nine of our original ships launched from the city of Power, which had become the central hub of the Human Collective, and was now guarded by six different rebel space-nations and eleven different fleets of varying sizes. We had far more allies than enemies. The Empire was a shrunken thing—but it had better tech.

Tech that we and the dinosaurs had figured out.

I’d tell you more about the weapon, but I can’t say I understand it myself. I left that to Kaity and Nadiyya and to all the others who have the science down pat. As for me, well, I’m good at winning. That’s what I’ll help the Rebellion do.

I rise into the air last, driving our tenth and final ship, a gift from Atticus. He’d come late to our little party, just to snag this for me. It was a huge ship, full of compartments—and in every compartment, a dino. Some of us fondly called it the Ark.

We had the gamut now: spinosaurus babies, quetzal babies, a veritable army of little Rexes, a pregnant brachiosaurus, a manufacturing herd of glass-producing stegos, and a human bondmate training alongside every one of them. When this little ark made landfall, the things inside it would be all grown up and ready to roll.

And here I was at the front of this flying zoo, in a seat that fit my body this time. My wives occupied the six seats behind me, each with her own job to do. At my side was my general, there to help in the war effort.

“You ready, Atticus?” I said to the gnomish face on my console.

“Yes. Let us kill the proverbial mockingbird,” he said.

I chuckled. It had been a long time since he’d referenced the source of his nickname. His real name was something bonkers like Reszsnikt. It sounded like hawking a loogie to say it, so we’d stuck with Atticus. It sounded smarter anyway.

“I think you’ve got your metaphors twisted,” I said. “The mockingbird is the good guy in that story.”

Atticus frowned. “But the Empire is the one who mocks us,” he said.

I inclined my head. “Fair enough. All right, team. All systems go?”

“Warp drive systems green,” Aubrey said.

“Dinos’ biometrics green,” Missy said.

“Human inhabitants safe in cryo,” Cassie said. “Except the kids, of course. They’re all strapped in.”

“Life support systems green,” Sayuri said.

“Our representatives are standing by,” Nadiyya said. “All truebond comms green.”

“Weapons green,” Kaity said.

“Connection to the BFG is a go,” Lindiwe finished. “Now come on, let’s fire this Big Fucking Gun before I get as old and gray as a Dwarf.”

“Hey, I take exception to that,” Atticus said.

“Take exception to my ass,” Lindiwe replied.

Atticus chuckled, and so did she, and for a second we all hovered in that perilous moment between yesterday and tomorrow, with smiles on our faces and hope in our hearts.

I shook my head at the thought. “Damn, I’m getting sappy. Must be all these kids I keep having.”

Then I pushed the joystick forward, and led us into the black. We had more humans to save and more fights to win.

“Peace and Prosperity,” Lindiwe said, “and when all else fails, Power.”

I grinned and said, “You’re goddamned right.”

<<< END >>>

Afterword

I grew up as a little kid, wondering why the greats of old died. Then Jurassic Park came out, and it scared the living shit out of me as a kid, but… I quickly turned that fear into fascination. The reality was that dinosaurs ruled this Earth in a way we could daydream about. This is one of those what-ifs I don’t think we want. Kinda like a 40k reality—nah, man, I’ll pass. But maybe, just mmaybe,if we work together, humanity can form their tribes to become something special.

Hence Tribe Grant. I am loving this book, it’s kind my deal. I may or may not be playing a lot of a certain video game that bears some resemblance. I definitely enjoy dinosaurs and survival stuff, knowing this is exactly the type of book I’d love reading.

If you did enjoy, give it some love. Book two is half done with this book being delayed for audio production, so I bet two will be on preorder darn close if not at release. And yeah, support our wonderful voice actors, get the audio too.

Personal note: since I used to do these and loved reading Craig Alanson’s journal entries. Life is good. I never wrote for money, always wanting to tell a grand tale. That is why there are flops like Spartan Justice on my resume. Audio is fantastic, and I still write because it is my jam. My 2024 goals are to buy a classic car or something I really want, since I don’t have a car or drive often. The Fam is doing well, our pets are getting very old, and life is sorta skating by.

I do wish you and yours the best.

Marcus

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Table of Contents

Dino Tribes: A Prehistoric Survival LitRPG by Marcus Sloss

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

Prologue

1. Assimilation!

2. Adoption!

3. Alien Advantages

4. From the Safe Zone to the Starter Zone

5. Dinosaurs!

6. Beacon of Gondor

7. An Age of Giants

8. Steamy Heat

9. Jungle Sweat

10. Milestones

11. Spicy Sweat

12. Life and Death

13. Tribe Reset

14. Land Before Time

15. A Tale as old as Time

16. The Double Pump Fake

17. Dinosaur Christmas

18. King of the Mountain

19. A Clue, a Sleuth, and a Murderer

20. Homestead

21. Survey

22. Foundations

23. Dino Discovery

24. Dino Blessing

25. Dino Betrayal

26. Dino Dinner

27. Wish Upon the Stars!

28. Never Enough!

29. With Great Risk!

30. A Dino Dilemma!

31. When Titans Clash

32. When Ashes Burn!

33. When Dinos Fly!

34. Oh Really!

35. Delicacy!

36. Pre-War Rituals!

37. To War!

38. Call in the Cavalry!

39. Fear the Reaper!

40. Homecoming Queen!

41. A Dash of Flavor!

42. A Nasty Taste!

43. Tribe Summoning!

44. Getting in Trouble!

45. To War!

46. Bang the Nail with the Hammer!

47. Work Work!

48. Dealings!

49. Opportunity Knocks!

50. Soviet Trickery!

51. Soviet Showdown!

52. Hometown Hero!

53. Tomorrow's War!

54. Fancy That!

55. Aww Hell No!

56. War in the Sky!

57. Death From Above!

58. A Leaf in the Wind!

59. A Hurricane’s Roar!

60. Warlord Jasper

61. A Calm Breeze!

Afterword

Dino Tribes 2: A LitRPG Prehistoric Epic (Year of the Dinosaur!) by Marcus Sloss

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

1. A Smart, Dumb Rex

2. A Man Who Has Everything

3. Drops Galore!

4. Old-Fashioned

5. Let's Do a Diplomacy

6. A Metal Resolve

7. People of the Sand

8. 999

9. Gravedigger

10. Damsel in Distress

11. Spy Toads

12. Birthday Dinner

13. One Day and Counting

14. Rainbows and Whiptails

15. Investigator

16. Bolt

17. Long Time No See

18. No Dinos Allowed

19. Making Nice

20. A Woman Who Knows Things

21. Uninvited Guests

22. The Wedding Gift

23. A Buttload of Problems

24. Lucky Number Five

25. Shut Up and Take a Shower

26. Spielberg

27. Fire in the Hole

28. Neon

29. Zealot

30. The Shifting Earth

31. A Deadly Quest

32. Report!

33. The Warrior Woman

34. Winner Take All

35. Mountain Duel

36. Abe

37. Me and My Four Best Friends

38. Padme

39. Girl in a Golden Bikini

40. Dinos Don't Play Fair

41. Always a Bigger Dinosaur

42. Orion and Finch

43. Knowledge is Power

44. Queen of Spies

45. I Like You, Too

46. Only Power

Afterword

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Dino Tribes 3: A LitRPG Prehistoric Survival (Year of the Dinosaur!) by Marcus Sloss

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

1. The Seven Spies

2. Prospector

3. It's Raining Pteras

4. To the Rescue!

5. Bingo

6. Cowboy

7. The Dinos that Bind Us

8. Spyosauruses

9. Making Doors

10. A Molotov Eulogy

11. Dropoff

12. Traitor and Assassin

13. Under the Table

14. The Only One

15. Mr. President

16. Copper Kittens

17. Queen

18. Answers

19. The Cube

20. Insurrection

21. Points of Color

22. Complimentary

23. Christmas Gift

24. In the Closet

25. The Proposal

26. Midas

27. The Portable Morgue Strikes Again

28. Death From Above

29. Eccentrics

30. Number Six

31. Copy/Paste

32. Dismantler, I Choose You!

33. Mercy

34. Joy Ride

35. Bait

36. Winner Winner Dino Dinner

37. Clientele

38. The Finance Guy

39. Making More Doors

40. Happy Holidays

41. Close to Home

42. Innovate and Overcome

43. Facing Fears

44. Sharing Warmth

45. I've got to Take This Call

46. Award Ceremony

47. Truebond

48. Revolutionaries

Epilogue

Afterword

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