Уильям Мейкл - Operation - Siberia

“Very good, Cap,” Wiggins said. “But I hardly think these beasties will give us a guard of honor to the runway. How do we get across the open ground?”

Banks laughed.

“The same way we always do things. We run like buggery and shoot the fuck out of anything that gets in our way. Any questions?” The chopper circled high above the domed complex as Banks continued. “We need to let them know we’re here. Let’s make some noise. Move out.”

He squeezed between the flanks of the bull and its nearest neighbor; the big mammoth sidled aside to let them pass through, and trumpeted again; Banks liked to think it was wishing them luck.

We’re going to need it.

The Alma were not slow in taking note that the squad had broken cover, and began to move toward them even as Banks had Wiggins and McCally take point and head for the runway.

“Get the pilot’s attention any way you can,” he said. “The sarge and I have got our backs. Move your lardy arses if you want to get out of here.”

Hynd stood with him as the other three, Galloway limping noticeably, headed off towards the complex. The chopper saw them, and started to come down for a landing. Banks caught a movement in the corner of his eye, and turned to see the four remaining huge thunderbirds swooping down in formation as they had before, intent on seeing off this new intruder as they had done with the last plane.

“Oh no you don’t. Not this time,” he said, and took aim, shooting the lead bird out of the sky. It fell in a flurry of broken wings and feathers, in the space between their position and the Alma. The other three birds broke off and began to circle high above, while the Alma, sensing a meal, surged forward in a rush to be first at the fallen bird. The chance of such an easy meal meant they had lost all interest in the men.

“Fuck me, if I knew it was as simple as just feeding the fuckers, I’d have shot Wiggo long before now,” Hynd said as they backed off, fast, hurrying to catch Wiggins, McCally, and Galloway.

The chopper landed on the edge of the runway between the ruin of the Lear Jet and the domed complex. Two armed men got out and covered them as they ran, Banks and McCally having to almost carry Galloway while Wiggins and Hynd lugged what was left of their kit.

“The others,” Galloway shouted in Banks’ ear. “We can’t just leave them.”

“Somebody will be back,” Banks shouted, and bundled the scientist into the chopper. At the same moment, the two armed backup men started to fire out onto the tundra. Banks turned to look.

The dead bird hadn’t lasted long, and the Alma’s attention had once again turned to the men. A score or more of the loping, shaggy humanoids were coming at speed across the boggy ground, heading directly for them. Banks, Hynd, McCally, and Wiggins lined up at the chopper door, ready to lay down a field of fire.

But it wasn’t necessary.

Whether it was the noise of the gunfire, the presence of the chopper, or simply the fact that there was a large tribe of Alma on his territory, the bull mammoth decided that enough was enough.

His trumpeting bellow sounded loud even above the thump of the choppers rotors. The bull raised his huge tusks high, then lumbered into a charge, directly toward the Alma. At the same time, the door of the domed complex burst open and a gray torpedo, the cave lion, bleeding from a dozen wounds, came out at a run, also heading straight for the tribe of Alma.

Faced with the double threat, the Alma faltered, and broke, fleeing before the onslaught. The mammoth herd, all as one, came on in a stampede that shook the ground, the lion threw itself among the hairy humanoids, tearing and biting and sending gouts of blood spraying in a fine mist in the air.

Overhead, the thunderbirds circled, sensing an imminent feast.

Banks turned his back on all of it, and got his men into the chopper.

He had one last look back as they rose up off the tarmac.

The Alma were in flight, loping at speed away across the plain towards the towering cliffs at the edge of the fjord. The lion had given up, settled, crouched, over a large slab of meat. The thunderbirds were already fluttering down onto another body twenty yards distant, and the mammoth were regrouped in a circle, almost in the same position they had been in previously.

As the chopper turned away, the bull raised its tusks and let out a farewell bellow.

Banks raised his hand and waved back as a fog rolled in below him and the chopper took them away to safety.

Read on for a free sample of Prehistoric Beasts And Where To Fight Them

One of Katherine Muir’s favorite things about taking a panoramic submersible down was watching the bubbling waterline crawl up the viewing windows, letting her see the old, familiar world get replaced by the new, exciting one under the surface. But that was about the only thing she regretted about the design of her new vehicle, this sleek and solid lozenge built with viewports that were much stronger than those of any panoramic-view vessel, but much smaller, too.

Those bubble subs were wonderful for examining coral reefs, fish, and other sea life. Watching the amazing octopus as it changed its color, pattern, everything to make itself completely invisible to predators. The times she had watched them deploy such camouflage, the only way she even knew they were there was because she followed silently behind them and waited until they felt a threat. Then they slapped themselves against whatever surface was nearby… and disappeared . Truly, studying ocean life in the panoramic submersibles was a joy.

But this new vessel, Deep Thoughts , was made not to explore ocean creatures, but the ocean itself. Katherine and her husband, Sean, had designed the submersible, working hand in glove with some of the most innovative subaquatic transport engineers in the world. It had been a difficult decision whether to create a one-person vessel or one more like the bubble subs, with room for two. She and her husband wrestled with how cool it would be to explore together, but a submersible meant to reach the floor of the benthic depths 20,000 feet below the surface couldn’t be very big. So it came down to either giving up the amount of scientific and observational equipment that would allow a second passenger to ride or giving up the fun of doing it as a couple.

They decided in favor of more science. It was to be a research vessel, after all, funded by a variety of philanthropic and academic sources to expand the frontiers of human knowledge about the still little understood landscape and biome at the bottom of some of the deepest water on the planet. Benthic was as far down as one could go and still investigate “normal” undersea terrain. There were deeper fissures and channels, but the deepest average real estate on Earth was benthic, and scientists still knew near to nothing of what went on in the complete darkness at the bottom of this zone.

This wasn’t an expedition, despite the fact that they had a small documentary and communications ship, The Moaning Mermaid , along with their main launch and support vessel, Sea Legs . This was the second of four tests to make sure the submersible—christened D-Plus by the whole smart-aleck crew (because it was “below C level,” har dee har )—could handle the greater pressure and harsher environment it would encounter the farther it descended.