Regina landed up to her knees in water, and immediately raised her rifle, looking around. But a moment later, one of the other soldiers almost knocked her over as he jumped off the boat himself.
"Keep moving!" One of the soldiers in the boat protested.l
Regina walked to shore, getting out of their way. Oh, the rushing of the inexperienced. This rushing to get everything set up was exactly what they tried the last time they came to this time, and that didn't exactly end well. But this was the military, chain of command had to be respected, so there wasn't all that much Regina could do about it. No matter what Regina said, the sergeant would just claim to 'take it under advisement' and nothing different would happen. Gotta love the strict enforcement of the chain of command.
Regina's boat was one of five, all of which were now spilling out soldiers. As per their orders, everyone made it to shore and immediately formed a loose semicircle, establishing a perimeter for the equipment.
They had landed in a clearing, mostly of dirt and rocks. They faced thick prehistoric jungle dozens of feet ahead ahead – visibility through the trees was maybe ten feet in the thinnest of areas.
Regina instinctively looked down, scanning the area for tracks. Several dinosaurs had clearly been here, but the ground was too sandy to keep a definitive footprint. Could have been raptors, or they could have been something harmless.
"All clear!" One of the sergeants from the other boats called out. Regina gritted her teeth. Yelling was not the thing to do here.
Regina glanced at the water. Apart from the transport boats, there were two larger vessels. One carried the timegate they'd be taking back to their own time, and the other carried the One Way Ticket equipment. The pilot of the equipment boat signalled that he heard the sergeant, and slowly drove the boat as close to shore as he could. Once it gently dug in to the shore, the pilot cut the engines.
Well thank god, one less thing to draw attention to them.
The technicians emerged from the boat, stepping onto its deck,where crates and computer systems were either already set up or just stored for transport. It was odd to have computer systems set up on deck like that, but this boat had been built for this one specific purpose.
Some of the technicians stayed on the boat to check on the systems, while others grabbed crates and equipment, jumping off the boat and bringing them to shore.
"How long will this take?" The yelling sergeant asked one of the technicians.
"If everything checks out, five minutes." The technician replied.
From the crates emerged six pieces of equipment. Five of them were rectangular, with sloping tops. The technicians carefully placed them in a circle, the slopes all facing inwards. The sixth piece of equipment was a four foot obelisk, for lack of a better word. A long smooth shaft, with a basketball-sized sphere sitting on top. This done, the technician began to drag a cable from the boat to this setup, apparently the power source.
"Double check, is this the center of the displaced zone?" One of the technicians asked another.
"Let's see." The second one replied, pulling out a PDA.
"I saw something moving!" One of the soldiers suddenly yelled.
Regina quickly brought her rifle up, scanning the jungle ahead of them. The rest of the soldiers did the same, though many of them looked like they'd rather throw their weapons down and get back on the boats.
"Where, I don't see anything!" Another yelled.
"I don't know, it was quick, ran that way!" The first said, motioning to a vague area of the trees.
"Quiet!" Regina demanded. "We can't hear them over you yelling!"
"Don't speak out of turn, soldier!" One of the sergeants barked. "Hurry up and get that thing set up, people!"
"Working, working!" One of the technicians yelled, the bunch of them connecting all the equipment.
Regina shook her head in amazement. This is exactly what happened the last time they were here, first encounter with some kind of dinosaur within ten minutes of landfall. But did they listen to her? No, of course not. They asked Regina along for her experience, but they didn't care for her advice. Amazing.
"There, over there!" A soldier yelled, pointing with his rifle into the trees.
"Hold your fire!" A sergeant yelled. "Shooting at them will just piss them off and bring them all on top of us!"
"No! We shoot them now while they're at a distance!" A soldier protested.
Before Regina could offer her advice – shoot them the moment you see them – several raptors burst out of the forest, in front of the part of the semicircle closest to the trees. The soldiers screamed – either to get everyone's attention or just in fear, Regina wasn't sure – and opened fire. The raptors made it several feet, but were cut down by the rifle rounds. Still, the soldiers quickly backed away, panicking and breaking formation.
"Keep your damn positions!" A sergeant yelled, barely audible over the gunfire.
Then, more came, attacking from several dozen feet to the left of the first pack. Like Regina had seen a million times, they weren't just running in – they were strategizing.
Regina opened fire, cutting down three raptors in three short, controlled bursts. Several other soldiers did the same, though most panicked, spraying inaccurately as they backed away.
Suddenly, Regina heard a loud scream. The raptors attacking from the first pack made it to the line and had pounced one of the soldiers, pinning him and impaling him on their massive toe claws. And at that point, all hell broke loose. Nearby soldiers ran in terror from him, and though others continued shooting as they backed away, formation quickly broke.
The ear-piercing gunshots were soon joined by several screams of pain and terror. Regina tried to aim for raptors that were close to targeting people, but too many raptors were coming for her for her to spend too much time on that.
After dropping another raptor, her rifle clicked empty. She had more clips, but a raptor was already only a couple dozen feet away and running for her. Regina backed up, waiting for it. This took split second timing...
The raptor jumped, and Regina made her move. She quickly strafed to the side, crouching down and pulling out her stun rod. As the raptor was about to land, she swiped at it. There was a blinding flash of light as the charge passed into the creature. It shrieked, limbs and tail flailing. It landed on its feet, immediately tripped, and crashed into the ground, spasming.
Regina quickly went to reload her rifle as two more raptors focused on her. They charged. Regina scrambled to reload. She brought her rifle up as the raptors were inside a dozen feet, and dropped them both. The second one went down, but still slid towards her from the momentum. Regina was tripped up, and fell on her stomach.
"Help!" Someone screamed.
Regina quickly rolled into a seated position, and saw one of the technicians running from a raptor. As Regina brought her rifle up, the raptor jumped for him. By a stroke of luck, the raptor underestimated the jump, only managing to smack onto him from behind rather than land on him. Still, he fell onto his stomach. The raptor stepped on his arm, moved to put its other foot on his back... and Regina put a burst of rounds into its side. It fell over right away, and that was the end of that one.
Suddenly, the raptors stopped their attack. A few still went for the remaining soldiers who were still shooting, but most of them just paused, listening. After a moment of that, they all turned tail and ran far off to the right, back into the jungle, not defending themselves even as some of the soldiers continued to shoot at them. The last of them disappeared into the trees, and that was it.
Regina's relief was brief, even as the remaining soldiers celebrated. This happened the last time they were here, too, and the reason the raptors ran off that time...
"Wow, thanks!"
It was the technician Regina saved. Short blond hair, rather scrawny, looking very odd in his standard issue military uniform.
"Don't mention it." Regina said, scanning the jungle.
"...hey, cheer up!" The tech said. "We scared them off, and-"
The ground shook.
"...what the hell was that?" The tech asked.
The other soldiers asked similar things amongst themselves. Regina just backed away, the waves lapping at her heels, and raised her rifle.
The ground continued to shake. Slow, rhythmic vibrations, getting ever closer. The soldiers quickly clued in to what this could be.
"Pack up, let's get the hell out of here!" One screamed, among the other similar suggestions.
Regina cursed under her breath. If they didn't already have its attention, their continuing to scream would certainly bring it closer. And sure enough, the lumbering footsteps began to pick up speed and get closer.
"...maybe we should-" The tech began.
Suddenly, it burst from the trees. Not a tyrannosaurus, no, it was bigger. Not a gigantosaurus either, this was something else. Its muzzle, tail, and body were all longer than a tyrannosaur's, as well as the entire creature being proportionally bigger.
It stopped dead once it emerged from the jungle, looking at everyone. Some of the soldiers were frozen in surprise, though most began either opening fire or running in all directions. The rifle rounds hit their marks, but the creature's hide was too tough for them to do much to. It let out an enraged roar, and charged for them, heading straight for the boats.
Regina was well off to the left of the boats, so she opened fire on the creature, hoping continued fire might get a bullet lucky enough to hurt it. But as it chased down its first soldier and chomped down on him in mid-run, eating his torso in a split second, it was clear that her rifle would do no good.
"We need to go, come on!" Regina yelled to everyone, yanking the tech back. The soldiers didn't really heed her call – they were scattering in all directions, some going into the jungle.
"We have to get to the boats, we can't outrun it!" The tech said, clearly panicking.
"...if you want to try to get to one, feel free to try!" Regina said.
The creature managed to chase down another soldier, and after it swallowed that meal, it turned and locked eyes on Regina and the tech.
"...time to go!" Regina said, giving him a final yank before turning and running. The tech quickly followed.
They had about a hundred yards' head start, but the creature could close that distance in just a few seconds. Regina and the tech ran into the jungle, hoping the trees would slow it down.
'How can this be happening again?' Regina thought in disbelief.
The trees did indeed slow the creature down, allowing them to keep just ahead of it by several yards. After almost a minute of running, the ground dropped into a rocky ledge, an incline of maybe 50 degrees and dropping almost ten feet.
"Come on!" Regina yelled, just barely managing to keep standing as she ran down the incline. The tech followed close behind, but lost his footing and rolled most of the way.
The creature closed the distance, but the ground gave way beneath its final step. It slid down the incline and fell to its side, taking a small tree down with him. The splitting wood rang out like a thunderclap.
Regina dragged the tech to his feet, and quickly looked around. A few dozen yards away, it almost looked like there was a small cave entrance in the incline.
"Come on!" She yelled, running for it.
The creature let out an enraged roar and scrambled to its feet. It took a second to look around, but spotted Regina and the tech quickly, and ran after them.
It was indeed something of a cave. It was maybe four feet in diameter, and stretched in five or six feet. It descended downwards slightly, so its floor had rainwater pooled several inches high. Regina dove into it, the tech right behind her. They scrambled to the very bottom of the cave, and turned to face the entrance.
Small chunks of dirt fell from the ceiling as the creature approached.
"Great, eaten or crushed, great choice!" The tech said, terror lacing his voice.
The creature did its best to crouch and look into the cave, but couldn't really crouch low enough to reach its massive head in. It tried, getting its muzzle one or two feet in, but it couldn't manage to get any further.
After several painfully tense minutes of this, it gave up. It stood up, gave a disappointed roar, and lumbered back the way they came.