I couldn't help but notice everyone writing fanfics about the characters from Jurassic World. Although I had intended to feature parts of it in this story, I have a feeling that some might appreciate it if I include some characters of Jurassic World as well.
Chapter 6
The academics watched from a distance as the mercenaries celebrated the enormous catch. They removed the hook from the beak. In the process, they tore the reptile's cheek, causing blood to trickle into the water. Not that anyone cared, they planned to eat the thing anyway. Ivan walked passed them. He too wanted to get a glance of the majestic animal. More men stepped up to feel the Ophthalmosaurus' strange skin or to take a photo with it.
"What is that doing here?"
"I don't know, but combined with the Styxosaurs we saw earlier I have got a bad feeling about what else might be in the water." Alan said.
Arie gave him a questioning look. Ian thought a similar thing and nervously rubbed his chin.
"Think about it. InGen made for each herbivorous dinosaur the complementary carnivore. So, if we have marine reptiles that eat small fish…"
"…then they probably have meat eaters too." Malcolm finished horrified.
"And with all that blood dripping into the sea…" Arie posed.
Alan hesitated for a moment, but then quickly went after the Ukrainian boss. He stopped him at the water's edge. Irritated the man turned to whomever held him back.
"Sir, you have to get your men out of the water, fast!"
"Why?"
A splash, followed by serpentine shape lunging from the water. It grabbed one of the men in the neck and pulled him under water, smothering his cry for help. The man next to him called out surprised, but another, similar shape jumped up. The crocodile-like snout snapped around his face and drew him to the depths. The celebrations turned to fear as everyone realized they were not alone in the shallows anymore. The panicky mob tried to get out of the water as quickly as they could. Although only waist deep, their chaotic attempts made it exhaustingly difficult to reach the shore. They pushed each other aside selfishly, hoping that the animals would grab anyone but themselves. A couple of men drew their guns and began firing at random in the water around them.
"Get to the beach, NOW!" Ivan commanded.
He went into the water himself to pull out someone that missed a hand and was unable to get up by himself. Two others followed his example and aided others in their escape from the lurking menace.
"What are those things?!" Malcolm asked the professor man next to him.
"They looks like mosasaurs, but I can't tell in this madness."
Meanwhile, the mosasaurs continued their savage assault, repeatedly sinking their teeth into human flesh. The shooting men accomplished nothing, the marine hunters were simply too agile to be hit. When all men were back on the dry, Ivan send someone to get a list of names so that he could mark the fallen. At least five people lost their lives in the swift, but brutal attack. The man whom he had pulled from the water was carried to the medic as he washed the blood from his hands.
A moment later Pavel showed up, following the man that brought back the list. He and Ivan began to discuss what had happened.
"How could he have missed what happened?" Ian said in disbelief.
"I don't know."
"Professor!" Harold called.
They turned around and saw the muscular man gesture them from a distance. Two men carried a snake-like creature with multiple bullet wounds throughout its body. Arie identified it as Platecarpus, a smaller type of mosasaur. Its razor sharp teeth were accompanied by a lethally strong bite force allowing it to easily tear chunks of meat from its prey. As elusive as they seemed at first, this one didn't escape the gunfire.
"Ivan!" they heard behind them.
It was one of the hired-guns. He pointed in the distance and acted distressed. His superior ran towards him and they began arguing about something. Pavel joined them, yet used a more gentle pace.
"Eh, guys." Malcom said slowly.
"What?"
"It seems we've got company."
He too pointed at the horizon. All followed his finger and saw what he meant. In the distance lay The Russian Jewel, but past it was another silhouette nearing Isla Pena. Another ship was headed their way.
.
– A few days earlier –
"Your resume looks impressive."
A woman dressed in white with high heels went through the paperwork that lay in front of her. All around it, the wooden desk was littered with all kinds of evaluation forms, reports and C.V.s of other applicants. Her eyes scanned every line of the document in her left hand, whilst her right clasped around a cup of coffee. On the other side of the desk, a relaxed man leaned back in his chair. He wore a thin green shirt, black pants and sturdy hiking shoes. He had no worries that he would be denied. Then again he never had much worries about anything before, so why now? The woman opposite him was quite the opposite. She acted a little twitchy and her desk suggested that she was undergoing a stressful period. The man wondered whether a joke would loosen her up.
"Thank you. From here your resume looks fine as well." he grinned.
The woman who was just taking a nip from her coffee swallowed it the wrong way and coughed.
"If you think that such language will help you get on board, you are mistaken." she said once she recovered.
The man shrugged. Apparently she was a monotonous woman. It took her another couple of minutes to finish reading his dossier and he waited patiently for that moment to arrive.
"So, you've worked with animals before?" she said, putting aside the dossier.
"I believe that's what it said right there." he replied, pointing at it.
She chuckled, "yes, indeed it does. But the animals you're going to work with here are, well… different."
He scratched his sideburn and leaned forward.
"Look, I know we're talking about dinosaurs here, so why don't we just skip to that? It'll save us both a lot of time."
Although initially feeling insulted, she was now rather shocked that he knew what he was signing up for and could still be so calm. When she got to work there, seeing one of those things in real-life for the first time had freaked her out. Nonetheless she had accepted the challenge, just as long as she wouldn't have to face them. This man appeared rather eager to get to see them. Little did she know, he would eventually even take it a step further.
"Alright then. I've compared your records with that of other applicants and I believe that you possess the qualities we need."
She got up from her chair and extended her hand to him. He got up and took it, subsequently shaking it softly.
"Welcome aboard, mister Grady." she said.
"Thank you, misses… Dearing." he said, reading her name-tag.
"Miss, I'm not married."
"Really? That's interesting." he smiled.
He took a step back and looked at her from head to toe, making made her uneasy. She cleared her throat in the hope he would stop. It made him draw an ever bigger grin. She was saved when a man knocked at her door.
"Claire?"
"Yes?" she said thankfully.
"There's a situation that needs our attention."
"What is it?" Owen asked.
The man gave Claire a questioning look to discover if he was allowed to share any details in the man's presence. She nodded approvingly.
"There's a breach in one of our facilities, we need to send in a team."
She nodded and turned to her newly hired employee.
"Well mister Grady. It looks like you can start off right away."
.
"Who are they?" Ian wondered.
Alan shrugged and pointed at their captor. Pavel boarded one of the transports. Together with a group of soldiers, he headed back to The Russian Jewel. Aboard the boat Alan saw Yamagata by his side. The Yakuza never left the side of his boss.
"I think he's going to find out."
"Perhaps."
The panic-storm that had manifested in the small army subsided and Ivan was once again giving orders. Some started digging a grave for the dead, others returned to their tents. Ivan eventually turned to them.
"There is nothing more to see." he said unfriendly, "You, Harold, get them back to their -.."
He was interrupted by the creaking sound of his radio. Ivan withdrew it from its pocket and pulled out the antenna. He turned the knob to gain a better signal. Although Ivan gestured them to go away, Ian placed a hand on his Alan's shoulder. He nodded at the radio and both understood that it was perhaps useful to hear what was said. The noise became interspersed by a voice. It was one of desperation.
"…Everywhere...kggg… They… kgg…"
"Aleksei! Talk to me!"
After a couple of minutes the creaking had turned to a faint voice. He bashed angrily on the topside of the device. All of a sudden it became crystal clear.
"… all sides. They're coming from all sides."
"Aleksei. Talk to me! What is going on?"
In the background they heard gunfire and more men crying out.
"Oh god… There is another."
"What is happening?!" Ivan shouted.
Aleksei yelled something in Ukrainian, followed by a strange screech. Then all that could be heard was a crunching noise. The man was dead. Ivan slid the antenna back down and looked at the Alan, plumbed down into the sand. Ian began to pace with his hands around his head. Their nightmares had been reawakened.
"Since you've been eavesdropping, would you care to tell me what it was that killed my friend?" Ivan demanded.
"Velociraptor." Alan spoke softly.
"What?"
Ivan leaned forward to hear him better, but Alan did not repeat himself.
"I believe he said, Velociraptor." Arie answered.
"How big are those?"
"About a metre and a half tall." he continued.
"But InGen made bigger ones. Scarier ones." Ian corrected.
"Sounds like we can kill them." Ivan said vengeful.
"They're two metres tall monsters that plan your demise the moment they lay eyes on you."
"They cannot plan against bullet."
He called out to seven names, causing the addressed men to start gathering supplies. He told Harold that he was not to lose sight of the three prisoners. He planned to leave right away, they had to be ready. Ian and Alan looked at each other. It took him about five minutes to get his team ready and return to them.
"Malcolm and Grant come with us. You stay here."
"I am coming too." Arie said.
He looked annoyed at the old man, but saw no reason to haggle over bringing him along. If he wanted to come then why not? But he had no intention to slow down so that the old guy could catch up.
"Believe us, you can better stay here." Alan suggested.
"Like it's safe here. I'd rather tag along with you than stay here awaiting my fate."
Harold nodded and decided to join them as well. It was his responsibility to look after the prisoners. Also he had grown fond of the old man. He didn't know why, but the Dutchman just never seemed to act hostile. Ivan appointed a man as his next-in-command. Then the team of twelve, armed to the teeth and eager for payback, set out for the jungle.
.
In the distance lay the giant cargo ship. Owen was leaning on the railing at starboard as he peered over the water. Yesterday they had located the site of the breach of the habitat. A containership called The Nelly had crashed into the wall. The crew was nowhere to be found and had likely drowned. It had taken them a full day to fix the hole made by the vessel. Then, just before they left their sonar picked up another signal. Another boat was in the area and now they were heading straight for it. He put down his backpack and withdrew his old binoculars from it. He try to spot the name of the vessel. There it was: 'The Russian Jewel'.
'What a desperate name'. he thought.
As he scanned its surface he could distinguish a lot of man-sized silhouettes moving up and down. All this activity indicated that they were spotted. What their response to this discovery would be remained to be seen. Whoever was on it, they were probably not here for sightseeing. Something else he managed to distinguish other than sailors were four cannons, placed on all sides. They themselves had two cannons as well. He had his doubts about their way of approaching these invaders. If they were met with a hostile response they wouldn't stand a chance and from what the stories he had been told, this is not the part of the sea you want to be swimming in.
"Owen, it's time!"
He had volunteered to join the party that would set out to negotiate with the trespassers. If anything went wrong, he would much rather be in the middle of it than stand on the side-lines. Deep down he felt that this encounter was going to end badly, but since he was ex-military he knew better than to question the higher authority during his first assignment.
The Insula, the InGen ship upon which Grady was stationed, came alongside The Russian Jewel. A nearly bold man dressed in an expensive suit waved from the other deck and greeted them heartily. Next to him stood an Asian man with a surly expression. It was impossible to miss the big sword on his hip. Two sailors extended a gangway so that The Insula's company could come aboard. Owen was the last to walk across the small bridge and when they all arrived, the businessman asked to follow him into the nearest cabin. Before he stepped through the hatch however, Owen overheard the Asian man whisper to the sailors.
"Once they are all inside, take their ship and kill them all."
End of chapter