Jurassic World: Return to Isla Nublar – Chapter 10: Preparing to Leave

A/N: Thanks to everyone who's taken the time to post their remarks via comments. I've enjoyed reading (or answering) each one. In this chapter, prepare to follow the Lexico team and Dodgson's group as they prepare to strive for Isla Nublar . . . but with two totally different missions! Also prepare to meet a new character never before seen in Jurassic Park-related stories or movies. Why haven't we seen the new character before? I made the new character up!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Jurassic Park except the very characters I've made up.

The fourth week since the jet-skier incident opened the doorway to a new adventure was hectic! Lester, Lex, Dr. Sorkin and Levine spent the time getting everything ready for the expedition to Isla Nublar. The people who would go on the expedition would be Lex (she was going to act like Lexico's eyes and ears and report back progress), Dr. Alan Grant (Lexico promised him a large amount of money if he went and unlike the time he was persuaded to go to Isla Sorna in 2001 by Mr. Kirby, Lexico had the money!), Dr. Laura Sorkin, Tim Murphy, Richard Levine and Kailey Harding.

By the end of the fourth week, most of the team, a few others who had been involved with Jurassic Park-related incidents before, and a small "army" of Lexico soldiers (helpful in escorting the group through crowds and clearing other people away from the area the Lexico team needed to prepare for the massive undertaking) flew to San Diego and reached a tourist dock where the Lexico ship would disembark by day break. Lester and Lex got out of their car and walked over to the others.

"What on earth are all these people doing here so early?" Levine asked. "It's more crowded here than New York City on New Year's Eve!"

"A lot of people like to get on their cruise boats early in the morning so they can enjoy the rest of the day," Lex told him. She turned to the others, "Our loading crew should be here any minute to load up the USS Mars for–"

"USS Mars?" Kailey asked.

Lex grinned. "That's what we named the ship we'll ride to Isla Nublar on. Anyways, our loading crew will load the equipment on the ship as soon as they arrive and . . . wait a minute, has anyone seen Grant? Tim?"

Tim shrugged. "Last time I saw him was last night as we were securing the dig site in Snakewater. I'm pretty sure he said he'd be here in a minute."

Just then, a red pickup truck arrived in the parking lot and Dr. Alan Grant got out. He placed his hat on top of his head and slung his backpack over his shoulder.

Lester's expression didn't change when he saw Grant. "You're late," he said.

As he walked past Lester, Grant answered, "Fire me."

"We can all dream, can't we?"

"Looks like the loading trucks are here!" Dr. Sorkin exclaimed as some large trucks with Lexico printed on the side entered the parking lot.

"Alright!" Lester yelled. "Let's get this mission underway!"

Halley and Malone slipped through the crowd. Halley smiled when she saw Lexico's team standing near a large ship with USS Mars on its side. Several soldiers were standing around the group to keep the crowds of other people at these busy docks out of the way of the operation. Perfect! Halley thought. Now that we've located the Lexico team, all we have to do is carry out the rest of my brother's plan!

She turned to Malone and said, "Tell me what Dodgson wants us to do again, Malone."

"Oh, just attach the beacon Dodgson gave us to their ship and we'll be able to track their location and find the precise location of Isla Nublar once they arrive."

"That's it?"

"Yep."

Halley smiled and retrieved the beacon out of her pocket – the device was an inch in diameter, black and had a small, red, flashing light on it. The device also had a suction-cup on the bottom so that it could be applied to just about any surface. Once the beacon was attached to the ship, they'd be able to track down the USS Mars wherever it went and reach Isla Nublar in no time! How could the plan fail? Let's see, I guess a good time to sneak the beacon onto the ship would be when they're loading the equipment onto the ship. They'll be so busy that they'll be less likely to notice.

"Bring it closer . . . bring it closer . . ." a worker from Lexico was slowly guiding one of the vehicles intended to be used in the expedition onto the USS Mars. Lester prepared four vehicles that would be used once the team reached Nublar: two large RV trailers connected with an "accordion" (which was not going to be parked next to a cliff as in the 1997 expedition!), and three land rovers.

Grant watched with interest as the vehicles were driven up the ramp and onto the USS Mars. "Don't worry, Grant," Lex assured him. "We won't have anything too . . . computer-type for you to do on the expedition."

Grant sighed as Lex giggled. Does everyone know about my dislike for computers?

Levine eagerly checked his watch. "When are we planning to leave?"

"It should only take us another 15 minutes to get the rest of the equipment on the ship," Lex said. "We'll leave after that." She turned to the Lexico workers who were loading the equipment. "Let's get those crates on board!"

As the Lexico workers obeyed and started using a large crane to move large wooden crates of equipment onto the ship, Dr. Sorkin inched over to Grant. She said, "So, how is it, working with those fossil bones at the dig site?"

"It's good. Yeah, we're making good progress," Grant answered. "I just wish we could identify those nests I was telling you about. How is it working with the Pteranodons?"

Dr. Sorkin smiled. "It's a very entertaining job. One might think that it would get boring studying them year after year, but they're always revealing new surprises to us. It's their mating season at the moment so the male's crests have burst into vibrant colors in order to attract mates."

"It never ceases to amaze me how they've calmed down since we accidentally let them out in 2001," Grant said, remembering how ferocious the pterosaurs were at the time. The creatures had attempted to not only feed Eric Kirby to their young, but also tried to kill Billy Brennan who somehow managed to survive the encounter, albeit injured. But at least he was alive and managed to recover. Yet, after the Pteranodons had escaped the aviary and flew past the helicopters Grant and the other survivors were in, they did not attack – in fact, they completely ignored them! Grant was perplexed by how such ferocious creatures could turn docile all of a sudden. "When we ran into them in their aviary, they were real monsters. Did you ever have the opportunity to study why they're not behaving as aggressively as they were before?"

"Actually, I've been trying to figure that out ever since we started studying them. I've come to believe that they might have been behaving territorially, but I'm not sure. Further studies are needed before we can say with certainty why they've become more docile since leaving the aviary. It's a good thing that they've become more docile thought! Otherwise the government might have been ready to destroy the poor animals."

"Didn't you say InGen bred two species of Pteranodons?" Kailey inquired.

"Yes, two species were cloned. One of which could be found on both Nublar and Sorna and because of their rather docile nature, they were allowed to roam freely across Isla Sorna. The other species was the more ferocious one and InGen decided to keep them caged up and not bring them over to Nublar to be exhibited there. I guess the pterosaurs won out in the end though, because they're free to roam over the entire world!"

11-year old Taylor Simmons followed her three teenager siblings (two sisters and one brother) as the four of them in turn followed their parents. Taylor has short brown and straight hair and is wearing beige shorts, a camouflage-colored jacket, a basketball cap and pink shirt. Her family had just arrived at the crowded dock and were going to be boarding a(n albeit expensive) ship that was due for Hawaii. The family recently suffered through a terrible divorce about five months ago in which Taylor's mom took the three girls and her dad took Taylor's brother to live with him. This time was tough for the whole family. But over the past several months, Taylor's mother and father were getting back together and were going to be rewed in Hawaii, the location of their first wedding, in three days. Taylor was especially glad that the family was going to be reunited because she missed spending time with all of her family. Soon, she was going to have the opportunity to do just that once again!

"Grab your bags and follow us kids," Taylor's mom, Mary instructed. Taylor's bother, Patrick handed her her duffel bag.

"What's in here?" he groaned. "It must weigh half a ton!"

"You're so silly!" Taylor giggled. "Everything I'll need for the vacation is packed in the bag so I don't have to bother you guys every few seconds!"

Taylor's father, William, shut the trunk after everyone got their bags and they headed onto the crowded docking area. William and Mary looked to the left over the noisy crowd to see what looked like a military group loading crates into a large ship with USS Mars on the side. Mary looked at her ex-husband (soon to be "husband") and said, "What do you think they're doing over there?"

William shrugged. "Looks like a military operation," he replied. "The government doesn't normally let the public know what they're up to. Who knows? It could be some top secret mission." William looked glanced at his oldest daughter, Bethany, as she trailed behind him – she was on her cellphone doing something or other. "Whatever you're doing couldn't wait until after we get settled in our room on the ship?"

"I don't know if I'll have internet connection," Bethany argued. "Besides, my friend Tracy is really looking forward to read my next chapter I'm working on for FanFiction."

"Which story are you writing?" Patrick asked curiously.

"I'm writing a fanfiction story for . . ." she paused as she continued to type, ". . . for the movie Dolphin Tale. I'm on the fifth chapter."

William rolled his eyes and said, "Teenagers these days . . . ."

"What ship will we be going on?" Taylor questioned.

After looked around the dock, William finally spied the boarding area for their ship. "We'll be boarding the big gray one with . . ." his voice trailed off as he foraged in his pockets for the tickets to their boat. "Drat! I forgot the tickets in the car!" Turning to his children he said, "Your mother and I will be right back. I forgot the tickets in the car. Stay right here until we return."

"Sure," Taylor responded.

When Taylor's parents returned and motioned for the kids to follow them, none of them noticed that Taylor wasn't paying attention and therefore didn't follow. She was deep in thought. I can't believe we're getting back together! This should be exciting! I hope there's lots of cool stuff to do in Hawaii, because I'd hate to be bored with no friends to hang out with. She leaned over to where she thought Patrick was standing. "Hey, Patrick, what sort of stuff is there to do in Hawaii?"

Silence. She looked over to her right and gasped – she was alone in the midst of this bustling crowd of people! Where was her family? In the bustling crowd they must not have noticed she wasn't with them! Now she was getting worried. "Let's see," she began, "they probably are boarding the ship now. What ship did Dad say we'd . . . OH! The big gray one!" She looked at the USS Mars and grinned. Cool looking ship! She darted toward the loading area for the USS Mars and looked up at the large vessel. She scanned the ship with her eyes to see if she could spot any of her family members on board, but all she could see were people that looked like military workers/soldiers who were loading stuff on board. Maybe her family was already in their room?

"What if we get caught?" Halley asked. She and Malone were sneaking toward the USS Mars to attempt to get close enough to stick the beacon on its side.

"Now's our only chance!" Malone whispered as the two of them used the commotion around the dock at the moment as cover to get as close as they could to the ship. Finally, they were quite close and slowly approached the ship. Halley looked up at the giant boat and grinned. Alright, lead us to Nublar! She took a few steps back to get a better look at the ship when suddenly . . . "Hey!" Halley knocked into someone and only saw a glimpse as the person she bumped into screamed and fell down off the dock layer they were on and into a lower level with large crate. She was wearing a camouflage-colored jacket, beige pants and a pink shirt.

"Don't be so clumsy!" Malone exclaimed.

"I wasn't, that girl shouldn't have been standing on the edge of the dock like that!" Halley snapped. "Oh well, she'll get out by herself. We've got a job to do!"

"You sure she can get up? It's pretty steep . . ."

"Dodgson's my brother and since he's the boss, I'm second in command! Not you! We work with Biosyn, we're not social workers. Come on, before someone sees us."

Quickly, Dodgson and Malone sneaked up to the ship and attached the beacon to the side. Bingo! Halley thought. Now let's get out of here before we get caught! So the two of them left this area of the dock and slipped into the crowd of tourists nearby.

Taylor lifted her duffel bag off her and looked at her surroundings to get her bearings: she'd just fallen into a huge, metal, cargo-crate full of large, black garbage bags. She wasn't sure what was in the bags, but she didn't wish to find out (especially if they're trash bags!). Looking up, she wasn't sure if she'd be able to get out by herself. "Help! Somebody! Please help me get out of here!" she called . . . but no one could hear her.

Suddenly, the sound of a large crane was heard and the lid of the crate was closed with a loud BANG! Taylor sat in pitch-black darkness. I might be here for a while . . .

"Sir, we're just about finished loading the crates on the ship," one of the Lexico soldiers told Lester. Lester nodded in approval.

"Alright then," Lester said, "Lex, please tell everyone we're going to be boarding in a few minutes."

"Sure." She turned to the group. "Alright everyone, we're about to disembark, so please make sure you have all of your belongings ready to go."

"I hope you guys have a successful mission," said Sarah.

"Yeah, don't get yourselves eaten," Malcolm told them.

Levine chuckled. "Don't worry about us. We'll be fine. I mean, how dangerous could it be?"

After bidding Sarah and Malcolm goodbye, the team members, Lester and the Lexico soldiers boarded the USS Mars and set off. As the dock got further and further from view, Grant continued to gaze at it, knowing another dinosaur-filled adventure was ahead of them.

Levine walked up along side him and said, "Don't worry, Grant. We'll be back digging bones up before you know it."

"That's not what I'm worried about," the paleontologist answered. "The bones will still be there when we get back. That's the great thing about bones: they never run away, which is what we'll probably be doing."

"We'll be doing what?"

"Running for our lives. But I guess it will be worth it, because we really need to stop the deaths of these people and see what's really going on with Isla Nublar."

The USS Mars continued to steadily progress southward toward Isla Nublar. Dr. Sorkin was standing by herself on the deck and gazed out at the sunrise to the east. Kailey approached her from behind with Levine at her side.

"You OK, Laura?" Levine asked.

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

"You've been really quiet all morning since we left." There was a brief pause before Levine continued. "It's nice that Mr. Hammond finally spilled the beans on Isla Nublar. Ever since the jet-skier incident about a month ago, we correctly guessed we that we didn't get the whole story about that island and now we're going to see what's going on! I don't know about you, but this is exciting! I've always wanted to study living dinosaurs and compare them with the ones in the fossil record and we finally have the chance to do that!"

Dr. Sorkin nodded in agreement. "Yes . . . well, let's hope the dinosaurs are still there. We obviously know something survived, but to what extent? I'm hoping ecosystems of dinosaurs have survived, otherwise you couldn't really call it a 'lost world' could you?"

"Well, you can't call it that anyway."

Dr. Sorkin winced. "Why not?"

"Because that name's already been given to Isla Sorna."

Grant sat in his room next to Tim. He was writing in a small booklet when Tim asked, "What are you doing?"

"Oh, I just uh . . . decided to start a diary on this expedition. Not much to write about at the moment."

Tim smirked. "You write, I'll take a quick bathroom break." With that, Tim got up and left the room. After he left, Grant heard a knock on the door.

"Come in," he encouraged. The door opened and Lex and a soldier stepped inside. Grant got up and Lex began to speak.

"Grant, Lester's decided that since you've sort of done this type of thing before, you should be in charge of the expedition."

Grant nodded. "Me?"

"Yeah."

"Dr. Sorkin knows more about Isla Nublar than me."

"True, but you've successfully survived dinosaur-island encounters twice! Not many people can make an accomplishment like that and live to tell about it. Oh, and I almost forgot. You're going to get some of soldiers to go with you on the expedition."

Grant nodded. Good, now the dinosaurs will have to put up a fight to eat us.

"This is Captain Ryan Muldoon," Lex said as she gestured toward the soldier standing beside her. Grant looked Muldoon up and down – Muldoon was a tall African-American man with dark brown hair, a nice face and was probably aged in his mid-twenties to early-thirties. He was wearing all black and looked like the kind of guy who's catchphrase would be "shoot first, ask questions later" – the perfect soldier captain.

"So what do you normally do, Muldoon?" Grant asked curiously.

"Call me, Ryan," he said, "and I've just finished my military training. But I must say, this will be my first time shooting dinosaurs." He then joked, "I hope the intelligent ones haven't developed weapon-making skills!"

Half an hour later, there was a bit of commotion on board the USS Mars. It was so noisy, Grant, Levine and Tim could hear it from their room. "Is all that noise coming from the deck?" Levine asked.

Tim nodded. "I think it is. We should go check it out."

The other men agreed and they left the room and went out onto the deck of the ship. When they got there, they saw Lester talking to a guy that looked like he might be a mechanic.

"Yes, I mean we need to check it as soon as possible!" the mechanic told Lester.

"And it can't wait till we reach Nublar?" Lester asked.

"No, it can't. I mean, it probably won't endanger the ship buoyancy, but I just want to check it just in case."

Lester sighed. "Alright, we'll stop at the next dock so you can fix it."

"What's going on here?" Levine asked.

"Apparently the mechanic feels he needs to check something on the ship's hull to make sure everything's in prime condition. So we're taking a pit stop at the next available dock."

"But if we want to stay on course, there aren't any major docks I know of to stop at," Tim argued.

"There is," Lester answered. "We're stopping at an island a couple tens of miles north of Nublar."

"What is it called?"

"It's one of the islands known as the Five Deaths if that gives you any hint."

Grant gasped. "Wait . . . the closest island in the direction we're going is . . . no . . . you're not talking about Isla Sorna, are you?"

"Unfortunately yes. Our mechanic says it's that urgent. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to have a word with the ship's captain." Lester left the dock and Grant, Levine and Tim were left dumbfounded – they would have to stop at Isla Sorna? Was it that urgent?

"Great," Grant said, "now I'm beginning to doubt we'll make it to Nublar at all."

A/N: I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter. How do you like Taylor Simmons? Please feel free to express your opinions via comments (I kind of like the word "via", don't you?). As some of you might have guessed, she'll be making an appearance later in this story (but not too much later). I also have another announcement: the passive chapters are coming to an end and next week, don't worry, I PROMISE that in Chapter 11, you're finally going to get some intense dinosaur action! For now, r&r until the next time I have to publish the next chapter, where a very familiar and loved (and in some cases, hated) dinosaur will rear its gruesome head! I can't wait to publish it!