Prehistoric Park

Achilles Warrior and Utah Thief

Ron drove to the time portal.

"Achillobator is one of the biggest Dromaeosaurs on the planet. Only Utahraptor can match it in size."

Ron had done a number of solo missions, but this time, he wasn't going alone.

His capture team, training the other teams that were to protect the animals recently released from the park, was heading to the time portal to help him.

Their BMP-2, the first Russian Armored Personnel Carrier and egg transport for Prehistoric Park, arrived seconds before the Warthog.

"Hey, Ron! Need any help?"

He chuckled. Justyne, the answer's no, but sure, come on! We're going to Mongolia, 90 mya!"

Ron drove through the time portal, going back 90 million years to when a 20 foot long raptor lived and took the place of Velociraptor.

The bad part?

Tyrannosaurs.

While more common in North America, there were two known ones in Mongolia during the Cretaceous and they just ran into both: Tarbosaurus bataar and Alioramus remotus. Ron drove around them, but the two packs followed him.

The BMP-2 stopped and Dylan set up the time portal.

Ron turned around and drove back, past the portal. Dylan activated it as the two species of tyrannosaurs ran through, back to Prehistoric Park.

"I never knew that those two lived during this time. Still, Tyrannosaurs were successful animals for 90 million years." (AN: New discoveries from China and the United Kingdom show that T-rex's family began during the mid-Jurassic)

Then Ron saw a pack of raptors.

Feathered and deadly, they looked primitive compared to even Utahraptor, an earlier animal.

Ron chuckled. Red and white, they looked beautiful.

And they were heading right for him.

One, a female, sniffed Ron's hair and looked at Veronica.

Ron was worried.

Would they attack one another?

But the female raptor just stared at Ron and Veronica.

Ron put his hand on the Achillobator's snout.

"I said it before and I'll say it again: if it isn't Grama and birds, it's you and raptors!"

The raptors liked Ron, but they hated his brother.

"I'll get these guys back to the par-"

A flock of Ornithomimids ran into the portal, heading into the 21st Century.

"What the hell were those?"

"We're in Inner Mongolia, so they had to be Sinornithomimus. At any rate, we've got the raptors, so it's time to go to Utah."

"Utah? Why the hell are we going to Utah?"

"Utahraptor."

"Oh, shit. I hate Utahraptor."

Back at the Park

Bob got the two tyrannosaurs out when a flock of animals like Gallimimus ran through the time portal.

"Ron, you keep finding this things and I'm going to lose my job."

Back in the past

The two vehicles and pack of Achillobators ran through the portal.

"Why those raptors like following me, I'll never know, but I do hang around all the Dromaeosaurs, so I might smell like them."

"Hey, Ron, I've spotted something."

A number of Ankylosaurs were eating.

"Gastonia. They and Utahraptor were found in the same place, at the same time frame."

Then a large theropod walked past.

It was a Sinotyrannus, a Chinese relative of T-Rex.

Why it was in North America was easy to answer: there was a land bridge connecting Asia and North America for a short time during the Cretaceous and Sinotyrannus came to North America.

And it was a great chance to get one of the weirdest dinosaurs in history.

Ron got the portal ready.

He wasn't after the Sinotyrannus, but the Gastonia herd.

And they were being stalked by two packs of Utahraptors.

It was the middle of the dry season, so that was explainable.

Then a large pterosaur flew overhead.

It was Ornithocheirus, one of the largest animals ever to fly, with Quetzalcoatlus northropi and Argentavis magnificens taking first and second place.

Then the raptor pack sprung their trap, spooking the herd through the time portal as soon as Dylan activated it.

The raptors ran through, following their prey.

Ron and the others, plus the Achillobators had to get out of the way.

The pterosaur flew through the portal as well, entering the 21st Century.

"Oh, fuck!"

The smell of water drew the pterosaur in, and it would attract more of them.

"This isn't going to end well."

Ron drove the Warthog through, and the raptors followed.

The 21st Century awaited.

Back in the Park

Bob watched as two kinds of animals ran through and were separated, then a flight of pterosaurs flew through, followed by Ron and a pack of six oversized raptors.

"Please tell me they aren't heading toward the Deinosuchus pond!"

"Yeah, they are."

"Shit! Get these raptors to a pen! I'm pulling out my secret weapon!"

"What secret weapon?"

Ron drove off to an area of the park used for storage.

Meanwhile, the Ornithocheirus flock was getting closer to the Deinosuchus pond. Bob and the capture team, using the BMP-2, arrived to see them get close.

"We're about to lose a few!"

Then the sound of an engine was heard.

A small plane flew over the pond, driving the pterosaurs away.

It was a P-51D Mustang, armed to the teeth.

Ron fired a burst of .50 caliber rounds at the pond, driving them further away. "Like my secret weapon?"

"That looks amazing!"

It was painted in the colors of the United States Air Force as of the Second World War, but with a difference.

The roundels for the USAF were replaced with the logo for Prehistoric Park.

The next day

Ron pet one of the Utahraptors in their new home, near his Prehistoric Park residence.

"These guys act so much like birds, it's no wonder they have feathers."

The Park was now the home of two new kinds of Dromaeosaur, and the biggest ones ever, a new pterosaur and Ron used his secret weapon, which was a two seat P-51D Mustang, with the back seat modified for Veronica.

"I contacted the Russian government. As we're an international project, we're getting a 10 year old Mil Mi-24 Hind-D. When I get my hands on it, it will be getting a lot of upgrades. I'm not actually done grabbing the giants of the dinosaur world, but I'm also going after huge mammals and killer birds, including the huge Argentavis magnificens. This thing was a huge condor, but this thing didn't eat carrion. It was a hunter, with feathers covering the head."

Then an odd looking helicopter landed nearby.

It was the Russian Mi-24 Hind-D, the new Prehistoric Park transport.

Like the BMP-2 and the Warthog, it too would go back in time, recovering animals that had been dead for years.

But it would need a lot of upgrading, about a month's worth, to get it ready for work.

But Ron had one more animal to grab before he began his work on the attack chopper.

He called it the seagull of the Cretaceous: Ichthyornis.

"The name Ichthyornis means Fish Bird, and with good reason. They ate fish, just like seagulls."

Ron got to the docks.

"Before Nigel started Prehistoric Park, he tested the time portal on a small yacht, the Ancient Mariner. It nearly ended in his death, thanks to a number of Mosasaurs. Yachts are made of fiberglass and wood, and if those can be destroyed by the jaws of death, I'm going for a military ship, which, thankfully, the US government gave us a few."

A pair of Fletcher-class and one Allen M. Sumner-class destroyers were sitting in port after being restored to active duty, this time as Prehistoric Park's newest water vehicles, replacing the N2 submarine.

The flagship was the Palaeozoic, namedafter the first era in Earth's fossil history.

"It was hard to get my hands on these ships, but the N2 was too dangerous to keep using. One shark or marine reptile could kill the entire crew of the sub. This is safer."

The three ships had been modernized, so only 6 people would need crew them.

Ron, however, only needed to go through for three hours, enough time for a flock of Cretaceous seagulls to land on the ship.

Veronica followed Ron on board, with a surprise: 8 small, fuzzy, white baby Velociraptors.

Her eggs hatched and now she, and her new children, were going with Ron to the late Cretaceous, 81 million years ago.

Ron activated the Palaeozoic's time portal generator and went through. Bob, unfortunately, was on board doing an inspection.

When he got to the deck, and didn't see the Cenozoic, the Palaeozoic's sister ship, or the Allen M. Sumner-class Mesozoic, he looked at the bridge.

Ron and Veronica were on the bridge.

"RON!"

Ron chuckled.

"Whoops."

Bob got to the bridge.

"Sorry, Bob, I didn't know you were on board."

3 hours later

Bob watched as a large number of Ichthyornis walked and flew across the deck and railings of the destroyer.

Ron, however, on the small Captain's Gig, named the Permian, after the Palaeozoic's last period.

He was after Hesperornis, a huge bird that he called 'something like a giant penguin with a long neck and beak'.

Then Ron came back, with a number of trapped birds.

Thankfully, they were about to be released into the ship. But there was a huge problem: Tylosaurus saskatchewanensis, the same animal that nearly killed Nigel less then 7 years prior.

And they were closing in.

Ron pulled out his SPAS-12 shotgun, one of the only weapons that could fire underwater.

"Bob, activate the time portal! NOW!"

Ron found a Miklor MGL-Mk 1 40mm grenade launcher.

"I love sharks and sea animals, but I fucking hate this thing! It nearly killed my boss in 2003!"

One of the Tylosaurs beached itself on the deck, almost sinking the Palaeozoic.

Ron fired two non-lethal grenades into the Tylosaurus, driving it off, but it came back in seconds.

Four more and Ron switched to more lethal ammo.

"Fuck you!"

Killing the Tylosaur was regrettable, but it was needed to save the destroyer.

Three grenades blew the Tylosaur's head off, and the body sled into the water.

Bob finally activated the portal, and the Palaeozoic sped through.

The Ichthyornis, driven off by the Tylosaurus, flew through, drawn by the smell of fish.

Nigel, arriving to hear about Bob's inspection of the three destroyers, saw the huge number of seagull-like birds fly through the time portal, followed by the destroyer Palaeozoic.

Ron was on deck, with a grenade launcher in hand.

"Ron! What have you done?"

"I was planning just to grab a few birds! Instead, I nearly get killed by-"

Then another Tylosaur jumped onto the deck, nearly sinking the Palaeozoic and killing Ron.

"Bob, shut the time portal down, NOW!"

A number of animals had come through, including the Tylosaurs.

Ron kicked the one the deck in the nose, forcing it away.

Then he got to one of the few actual weapons on board the destroyer: a 40mm autocannon.

But he wasn't going to kill them; just scare them off.

They entered a trap.

Ron's capture team shut them in a part of the dock, keeping them from killing anything else.

"Fuck you, you fucking fuckers!"

Ron's revenge-and, in a way, Nigel's-was to trap the huge snake-like animals.

"I'm done. And the Palaeozoic is perfect for the job of recovering and transporting animals back to the 21st Century."

In my view, Chased by Dinosaurs and Chased by Sea Monsters happened before Prehistoric Park, and the Ancient Mariner was nearly sunk before Nigel got it back to the 21st Century.

And all three ships were actual US destroyers before they were decommissioned and eventually brought by Prehistoric Park, and renamed after all three periods in Earth's history, starting with Palaeozoic.

Next Time: It gets cold in Prehistoric Park as Ron goes after the biggest flying bird in history, Argentavis magnificens, and the biggest sauropods in North America: Brachiosaurus, Barosaurus and Amphicoelias fragillimus.

Ja Ne!