Ch 14:
After a long journey through the tunnel, they found the main complex. There weren't any people around, likely due to an evacuation considering the jungle was literally on fire. Which was probably a good thing, considering the group was made of people who weren't supposed to be there, as well as an anxious velociraptor.
They made it to a control room filled with computer screens, the large front windows showing the view of the trees on fire.
"Well, this is very bad." Ian announced as he lead the way into the control room.
"This is the same system we used at the park." Claire announced.
"That's convenient." Sierra noted.
"Great. So we can turn on the thing and then we all get out of here." Ian said hopefully as he and Claire took seats at the computer systems.
"ADS." Claire mumbled as she searched for it. "What's this? What's Error 99?" she asked when a flashing screen popped up.
"Not enough power." a new voice announced as some man Sierra didn't recognize hurried into the room. Echo hissed at the sudden intrusion, making the man freeze. Sierra rested a hand on the raptor's back, carefully shushing her for now.
"This is Ramsay." Gray told them. "He's on our side."
"In a breakdown, all available power is seized by the primary system to keep running. We need all that power to reactivate the ADS." Ramsay explained to them.
"So, the system's safety feature is what's gonna kill us?" Alan asked rhetorically, making Sierra snort and Kayla scoff.
"Of course."
"How do we get more power?" Ellie asked.
"We can't." Ramsay answered as he approached the computer Claire was at, being wary when he passed Echo. "But we can redistribute what we have. We just need to-"
"Shut down the primary system." Claire finished.
"Yes, exactly."
"Where is it?" Claire asked, already on her feet.
"Uh, next floor up."
"I'm coming with you." Ellie followed on Claire's heels.
"I'll come, too. I know a bit about the system." Gray added.
Meanwhile, Owen, Sierra, and Maisie had huddled off to one side by what looked like a blueprint on a computer screen.
"We escaped down here." Maisie told him, pointing at the screen. Owen pointed at it, examining the image.
"Where is that? Water treatment center?" he asked, directing the question at both Ramsay and Gray, since they both worked there.
"Hydroelectric system. Sub eight." Ramsay answered.
Owen turned to Claire. "Give us eight minutes, we can find 'em." Owen assured her; it was unspoken that Sierra and Echo were coming with, as well as Maisie.
"Wait, who's this now?" Ellie asked, unaware they were missing anyone.
"Beta and Kilo. Blue and Delta's babies." Maisie answered, making Sierra turn and look at her, unaware her niece had officially decided on the names they brainstormed.
"Velociraptors." Kayla answered casually.
"What?" Ellie asked, bewildered.
"Baby raptors?" Alan added, not sounding thrilled.
"And you named 'em, how about that?" Ian joked.
"I made a promise we'd bring them home." Owen explained.
"You made a promise…to a dinosaur." Ian added.
"Your point?" Sierra asked, tilting her head at Echo standing at her side. Whether the raptor understood the conversation was debatable, but those intelligent eyes were moving from person to person as they spoke.
"You're coming with us, right?" Maisie asked Alan, to a few peoples' surprise.
"Maisie-"
"Please."
Alan exchanged a glance with Ellie before giving in.
"We'll be on five." Owen announced, tossing a radio to Ian.
"We're on three." Ellie added, tossing another one to Ian.
Claire looked up at Owen. "Come back." she ordered him.
"I always come back." Owen assured her.
"I'll have the chopper hot in ten. Wait for my signal." Kayla announced.
"I'll tag along with you, if you don't mind." Zach added. "Some backup," he gestured to the gun in his hand, "and I've got some flight experience."
"Sure thing." she decided with a shrug.
Before they left the room from two different doors, Sierra and Zach paused and looked back at each other. They made eye contact for a long moment before nodding to each other, that one look saying more than words could.
Up on the next floor, Claire, Ellie, and Gray peaked through a small window on a door leading to the primary system. The lighting was red, giving the room an eerie appearance.
The door slid open and they stepped into the room, walking warily as they passed row after row of electric boxes.
"Still get nightmares?" Claire asked Ellie quietly.
"All the time." the blonde admitted, unwittingly reassuring both Claire and Gray. After all, if Ellie still had nightmares decades after her experiences at Jurassic Park, maybe it was normal for Claire and Gray to still have them. "You?"
"Nightmares and therapy." Gray admitted, earning a glance from his aunt.
"I have a lot of regrets." Claire finally answered, causing Gray to glance at her.
"Oh, yeah? Well, we hold on to regret, we stay in the past." Ellie pointed out wisely as they rounded a corner. She paused to look over at Claire. "What matters, I guess,…what matters is what we do now. Right?"
Claire stared at her for a moment. Such a simple statement, and yet…it really put things into perspective. "Yeah."
They continued on and rounded a corner, only to come up short and stare with mixed looks of disgust, horror, and surprise.
Their destination was just at the end of this hallway. But there was a small problem. It was almost impossible to see the ground under the twitching, burning bodies of hundreds of giant locusts. The roof overhead was smoking and shattered, as if the dying insects had crashed straight through.
"Nobody said there'd be bugs." Claire muttered, shivering in revulsion.
Meanwhile
"B4. They're in here." Maisie announced as the group wandered cautiously through the hydroelectric system. Steam was heavy in the air around them, making visibility an issue. Owen was in the lead with Echo, a tranq gun still in hand, Maisie and Sierra were behind him, each with flashlights, and Alan brought up the rear with another flashlight.
"Watch the sides." Alan warned, as if two of his companions weren't experts on raptors. "They always come from the sides. You know, at first we thought they disemboweled their prey, but no. They're smart enough to go straight for the throat. The veins, the arteries. Sometimes both at the same time."
"Okay." Maisie's voice was high and uncomfortable, while Sierra slightly nodded her head. She'd seen the raptors kill enough times to see the truth in Alan's words.
Echo paused, raising her head and sniffing the air, her toe claw briefly tapping on the hard floor.
Meanwhile
Gray was much quicker at crossing the hallway than Claire and Ellie. Sure, he tiptoed a bit, stepping on crunching, oozing, twitching bodies wasn't exactly something he wanted to do. But Ellie and Claire were much more squeamish as they followed him. All the while, Ian's voice was echoing from the radio.
"We've got you. It's right down that aisle. It's right down that aisle where you are. Why are they skulking? You can sprint right for it."
The trio finally reached the end of the isle, looking at the buttons and switches before them.
"Okay, here it is." Ellie said into the radio.
"Okay, it'll be a yellow button on a grid of six." Ramsay told them, to which Gray was already searching the array of buttons.
"There's a green button, do you see a green button?" Ian added. "It's not that green button."
Gray's brow furrowed. Then why was he mentioning the green button?
"It's fourth from the bottom. It's-"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Ellie and Claire both talked over each other. "Fourth one up?" Ellie checked, trying to make sense of Ian's gibberish.
"Third one down, or fourth one up, same thing." Ian responded.
"Ian, be specific." Ellie ordered through clenched teeth. Gray's mind was trying to make sense of all this extra information.
"I don't know how I can possibly be more specific other than to say that the one you want is marked with E1."
Ellie, Claire, and Gray all sighed, easily finding the button. They could have saved the confusion if Ian had said that from the beginning. Gray reached out and pushed the button.
Instantly, all the lights turned off, blanketing them in darkness.
Meanwhile
Echo lead the way, her nose to the ground, until she found a torn grate at the bottom of a metal container, wires visible inside. Something had clearly torn through there, something small but fierce enough to tear through wire mesh.
"They were here." Owen announced as their flashlights lit up the discovery. "Lights off."
They did as he said, though Alan was a bit more hesitant. And he picked up a wrench just in case.
Echo crept away from her discovery, head low and toe claw tapping on the hard floor. Sierra kept one eye on the adult raptor, and one eye out for the little ones. Echo made a low chittering sound in her throat. Then she let out a single bark.
Another, higher-pitched bark responded from nearby, followed by the rapid pattering of little feet. Two small shapes bolted past them and disappeared as quickly as they arrived. Owen took a shot with the tranq gun and missed, the dart hitting metal with a small ting.
"Damn, they're fast." Owen muttered.
There was another moment of silence when one baby raptor leapt into view and screeched at them. Owen raised his gun and aimed, only for Maisie to jump practically in front of him, hand outstretched toward Beta.
"Hey!" she called, making Beta jerk to attention at the sudden change. "Eyes on me."
Sierra glanced at her brother with wide eyes, and Owen returned the look.
Another screech announced Kilo's arrival as he leapt out from the side, just like Alan said earlier. Without thought, Sierra stepped forward, putting herself between Maisie and Kilo with her back to her niece.
"Kilo, stand down." Sierra ordered firmly. Kilo tilted his head at the words, the quills on his head sticking up.
Echo stepped forward, barking at the little raptors before chittering deep in her throat.
The two chirped back at Echo before chirping at each other. They shifted anxiously on their feet, backing up a bit.
"How are we doing this?" Sierra asked quietly. "They're not just going to come quietly. They don't know us like Echo does, they won't cooperate. They'll run or attack."
"I've got to hit them on the side of the neck. But chances are, I hit one and the other will bolt." Owen whispered.
"What about Echo?" Sierra whispered back. At her name, Echo turned to look at Sierra. Sierra lifted her other hand, the one not aimed at Kilo, and spun her finger in the air. Echo chittered before backing up and creeping around the girls and the baby raptors. Beta chirped, turning to watch her aunt as Echo moved around behind the two babies, practically cutting off any escape. But Echo made sure to chirp and chitter at the two, as if reassuring them it was okay. Sierra briefly wondered if the raptor could sense that the two were part of her pack. Maybe she recognized her sisters in the pair, or could smell Blue and Delta on them.
Beta kept turning until she was facing the same direction as Kilo. Seeing that she was more focused on Echo, Owen aimed and shot first at Kilo. Beta didn't even have time to turn her head when Kilo went down before a second dart hit her in the neck.
Both babies went down instantly. Echo's head shot up to attention at the sudden change while Sierra dropped to her knees next to the two babies. She plucked the dart from Kilo's neck and felt for his pulse, relieved that it was still strong. She did the same with Beta and found the same result. Echo screeched at them, shifting her feet agitatedly.
Owen held his hand out toward Echo. "They're okay. They're okay, Echo. I promise."
The raptor leaned down and sniffed at the two, her nose gently bumping Beta's head. Keeping one eye on the adult raptor, Sierra carefully ran her hands down each baby's body, ensuring there were no obvious injuries or broken bones.
"They're okay. They're out cold, but they're healthy. And they likely won't remember any of this once the drugs wear off." Sierra announced. Echo must have decided the same thing, as she stood up straight and seemed to calm down.
"Sorry, kids." Owen spoke quietly, kneeling next to Sierra and talking to the raptors. "I promised your moms I'd get you home."
Sierra slid her cargo jacket from her shoulders, urging Maisie to do the same. "We can use our jackets to carry them." she announced. She carefully picked up Beta, cradling her head like she would a baby before carefully resting the baby on Owen's back. Maisie put her jacket against Beta and tied it around Owen's chest over a shoulder like some kind of baby sling. They then did the same thing, putting Kilo on Sierra's back and holding him there with Sierra's jacket.
"Alright, let's get out of here." Sierra urged, more than ready for this nightmare to be over.
AN: Sorry my updates haven't been as consistent lately. I've had a lot going on the last month or two, and I've been struggling with some writers block.
Hopefully everyone liked how this chapter went, and my inclusion of Gray, Sierra, and Echo. I figure Echo would be smart enough to somehow know the babies are her pack, either recognizing their similarities to her sisters, or by their scent.
Up next is the big battle!