Chapter 2
Nethania was already up when Nathaniel came out of his room.
"Good morning Kitten," Nathaniel said pleasantly. He felt funny about calling his daughter Kitten, since she was still trapped in Utahraptor form.
She looked at him and smiled softly.
"You're up early," Nathaniel said.
"I have a lot to do this morning before joining the League of Utah on a hunt," Nethania said.
He groaned when he remembered his daughter didn't drink coffee or alcohol. Then again his daughter had boundless amounts of energy, so why would she need the caffeine or buzz.
"How was your sleep?" Nathaniel asked, brushing his daughter's coarse hair from her left eye.
"It was great right up till Dario got on my bed and muscled me off," Nethania said.
"That must have been the yelp and thump that woke Alicia and me last night," Nathaniel said. He opened the fridge to see what she had to eat, nothing but raw meat, raw meat and more raw meat.
"Yeah, that would have been me," Nethania said.
"Morning everyone," Alicia said, she was carrying a sleeping Juniper in her arms.
"Good morning," Nethania said.
"Nethania, don't you eat anything other than raw meat," Nathaniel asked.
"Grubs in the crisper," Nethania said. He pulled the crisper drawer open and found the sleeping wax worms in a Tupperware container.
"Whoop-de-do," Nathaniel grumbled, but pulled them out anyway.
"Anything to drink," Alicia asked.
"Fresh mountain spring water," Nethania said.
Nathaniel pulled out the large water jug and poured a glass for Alicia.
"Thank you," Alicia said.
A loud cawing could be heard from the open window.
"Well that's my call for the hunt. Tell Zoe that if she goes out on to the meadow, make sure she takes Tapper Troodon with her. Some of my Nanosaurs can get to be a bit territorial with each other and it can get to be dangerous," Nethania said.
"I'll try to remember that," Nathaniel said.
"She's a Terra Novan dad, she's your responsibility," Nethania said as she left.
Zoe walked with Tapper Troodon out onto the meadow. An Ankylosaurus looked up at her as she walked by.
"Good morning Arny," Tapper said.
"Good morning Tapper, who's the young human with you," the Ankylosaurus said. He had a dull male voice that could put you to sleep if he started talking nonsense. (The same voice as the vulture in The Missing Lynx)
"My name is Zoe," Zoe said.
"Well you're a fine young human Zoe," Arny said.
"Oh yeah," growled a Centrosaurus nearby.
"Yeah," growled another Centrosaurus.
"Hey they're fighting," Zoe said with a teary voice.
"Nonsense, those two are just play fighting," Arny said.
The large Centrosaurus who was the first to say "Oh yeah" pawed his right front foot into the ground and then charged at the smaller Centrosaurus. Their heads connected and they began a shoving match.
"Yeah," the large Centrosaurus growled.
"Alright you two break it up," Tapper said to the Centrosaurus.
"Yeah, we have a young lady present," Arny said.
"Oops, sorry miss,' said the larger Centrosaurus and backed up from the other Centrosaurus.
"Yeah, we were just practicing," said the smaller Centrosaurus.
"I'm Longhorn Centrosaurus," replied the larger Centrosaurus.
"And I am Cory Centrosaurus," said the smaller Centrosaurus.
"My name is Zoe," Zoe said.
"I'm leader of the Centrosaurus herd," Longhorn said.
Zoe and Tapper continued to meet the different species on the meadow.
Nethania raised her head up and examined the field before them.
Gallusaur, Gallimimus, and some Homalocephale were grazing on the small field.
"We'd have to take out the entire field to fill the bellies of the entire rest crew back at HQ Captain," Hookclaw said.
"Oh great," Nethania whispers and rolls her eyes in annoyance.
"What's wrong," Hookclaw asks.
"We've got a herd of brachiosaurus coming onto the field," Nethania groaned.
"Look at the big one," Silverclaw, a female Lieutenant Utahraptor said.
"He's a very old one, he passes," Nethania said.
"Whoa whoa wait Captain; you're not actually planning on taking it on without super theropod backup?" Hookclaw asked, shocked.
"You have any better suggestions Hookclaw?" Nethania asked.
"Those brachiosaurus are the watch towers of the cretaceous, they'll spot us and give us away," Silverclaw said.
Nethania snorted and began to skirt around the field towards the large sauropod. She began to climb up a tree until she was level with the base of the sauropod's neck.
"I see what she's trying to do, but its suicide," Hookclaw said.
"Oh I can't watch," said Sharpclaw, another male Utahraptor turning his head away.
Nethania lunged from the tree at the old brachiosaur. His reflects weren't very fast. She latched on and dug her sharp toe-claw into the sauropod's artery. The sauropod bellowed with fright. Nethania tore into the artery, ripping it open. She back flipped off the dinosaur and managed to stick the landing.
The brachiosaurus' roar of fright caused the others on the field to panic. After several blood-gushing minutes the old sauropod collapsed.
"Dinner is served," Nethania said with a grin.
Nethania got home from the hunt.
"Was your hunt successful?" Nathaniel asked.
Nethania clacked her toe-claws on the hardwood flooring.
"We managed to bring down an old Brachiosaurus," Nethania said. She went to her room to retrieve her high tech plex. She sat down on the couch and ran her fingers across a dial on the plex.
"There that should jumpstart my nano-cells," Nethania said and in an instant her saurian form disappeared and her human form took shape.
"There's the kitten I'm familiar with," Nathaniel said, pulling her close.
"How in the world did that get started?" Ayani asked. She was visiting her old friends.
"When Nethania was a baby she used to sleep on my chest a lot, people said she looked like a little kitten zonked out from a long day of play," Nathaniel said with a warm smile as he recalled Nethania's baby years.
"And the nickname just stuck," Nethania said with a cheerful smile.
Nethania snuggled up next to her father.
"Nethania, I hope it was alright if I invited the Terra Novans stranded here to dinner?" Nathaniel asked.
"I'm fine with it," Nethania said with a yawn.
"Tired captain?" Nathaniel asked.
"Nope, just getting oxygen to my brain," Nethania said.
Nathaniel shook his head, he knew that a mixture of the sound of his voice, the beating of his heart, his warm embrace and his scent was very soothing to her and could easily put her to sleep, a fact that often helped her after tough missions, especially on the one that he actually did have to rescue her. The sleep aid that Alicia gave her had failed to work, so he simply held his exhausted and wounded daughter close to him and in seconds she was asleep.
"You couldn't find me dead in one," Nethania hissed.
Over the dinner Nathaniel and Alicia had fixed up, Maddy asked about making "party dresses" for everyone. Alicia was in agreement with the captain.
Elizabeth listened quietly, trying to learn more about Captain Taylor and see if she could guess who the captain's biological mother was.
"You'd look great in a dress," Zoe said.
"If anyone tries to put me in a dress…I'll rip em to shreds," Nethania said, the other Taylors were very certain the captain was joking.
"I want to hear some war stories," Josh said, desperate to change the subject. The room went dead quiet.
"One thing you never ask a soldier to do Josh is share war stories," Maxwell said.
"War is a very serious business. It can leave many invisible scars," Lucas said.
"You said in Boylan's bar that Nethania and Nathaniel sometimes served together. Aren't there regulations against that?" Maddy asked.
"Admiral Roland and General Philbrick were and are close friends. When I joined the Marine Corp it put a huge rift between me and the Taylor family. I was the first to break the tradition of the firstborn Taylor to join the army. It was considered sacrilege in our family to join the Marine Corp. My own father even turned his back on me. Roland and Philbrick had our units serve together in an effort to close the gap up," Nethania said.
"Did it work?" Josh asked.
"No," Nathaniel said. It was clearly a painful memory for him to remember.
"It wasn't until my unit, The Underdogs, got pinned down in a small village in Siberia, Russia. My father's unit was dispatched to help us. I ordered my unit to get out at the first chance they got. I got separated from the rest of the unit. The insurgents had me in check. The enemy gunfire was heavy, and I was all out of my own ammunition. In one of the houses I got held up in, I found a young girl who had been kidnapped from her home. I got severely wounded, but I wasn't going to abandon her. We managed to get away to the safety of the woods nearby. We made our way through the forest, that when I saw soldiers coming towards us. I was wounded and weakened by hunger and thirst and weighed down by the young girl who was barely seven. We found an old tree trunk that had been hollowed out by a lightning bolt. We hid there. I don't think I have ever been more terrified, than I was at that very moment. I remembered looking through a knot hole and that's when I saw my father coming with his unit. A sight for sore eyes," Nethania said.
"That was the day Nethania broke my nose," Alicia said, rubbing her nose.
"I don't like doctors all that much. I saw the med kit come out and my gut reaction was to punch as hard as I could," Nethania said.
Nathaniel could tell her relieving that memory was a difficult struggle.
"We got her back to base, but the next day she left. She personally saw to it that that young girl was returned to her family," Nathaniel said.
"I received my first Medal of Honor for that adventure," Nethania said.
"Is it true that you have three Medals of Honor?" Skye asked.
"It is a rare occasion for one to receive that many," Nethania said.
"I had an even rarer chance to be the one to place the third on her," Nathaniel said.
"Where all have you served Captain…if you don't mind me asking?" Josh asked.
"Siberia, Asia, Somalia, Italy," Nethania said.
"Hawaii," Lucas said.
"That was when I got ordered state side Lucas," Nethania said.
"She was stationed at Pearl Harbor," Lucas said.
"And I had the ever joyful two weeks of babysitting him," Nethania said.
"It brought the two of you closer together," Nathaniel pointed out.
"After I had to put up with her constantly singing Elvis Presley's Hound Dog all the time," Lucas groaned.
"You aint nothing but a hound dog, you're crying all the time," Nethania said in the typical Hound Dog fashion.
"Shut up," Lucas said and rolling his eyes.
"Well, that's what you did," Nethania said with a smile.
"How did you end up getting along?" Maddy asked.
"I taught him how to surf," Nethania said.
"And to snorkel," Lucas said.
Dario came waddling out of Nethania's room.
"Hey there Dario," Nethania said as he walked up to her.
"Whoa, that's a Dimetrodon," Maddy said with a bit of shock.
Dario simply looked less than pleased at her comment; either that or he was just really tired.
"Well it's late," Elizabeth said after looking up at Nethania's Atomic Clock on the wall.
"Yeah we'd better be getting home," Jim said. They helped clean up the dishes while Maddy and Josh took Zoe back to their quarters.
Nethania saw them to the door.
"I think I figured out who your biological mother is?" Elizabeth said.
"Keep it to yourself, please," Nethania said.
Elizabeth leaned closer to her.
"Its Alicia isn't it?" Elizabeth whispered. Nethania looked over her shoulder at Nathaniel and Alicia who were snuggled up together on the couch.
"Don't tell her please," Nethania said.
"Why," Elizabeth asked.
"We're better off with her not knowing," Nethania said.
Elizabeth was about to argue but Nethania put her hand up and then waved her off.
"What was that about?" Jim asked her after she joined him at their door.
"I'll tell you later," Elizabeth said.