The Lost Queen Book 2 - Kehlani

63. Dinosaurs

"Good morning. This is your command speaking. You have been given the rules and you know the mission. You are on a 2-minute countdown before the doors open. I would like to remind you about the ships. You are in a weapon of war capable of causing major destruction. Do not take it lightly. Pay attention to your surroundings. Also, remember the AI can take over your ship at any time. Command can take it over and bring you in, or you can ask the AI to take over. If you feel disoriented or confused at any time, request the ship fly itself and notify command immediately. We will get you in. Thank you. 45 seconds."

"Also remember, do not hit anything. Rocks and land are going to be close, and you have the potential to fly at an extremely high rate of speed. You also have missiles under your asses. So if you slam into a rock, they could explode and blow you and the ship apart. Keep your eyes open and give yourself plenty of area around each other and solid objects. Enjoy your flight. 10 seconds."

The ship takes over the countdown.

Then we see them fly around everywhere. Elroy and I watch the screen. They scatter fast and far.

Tre asks, "Command we are allowed to fire, correct?"

"As long as there is no potential for my ships to be damaged, fire at will."

Alden laughs. "Command, we have dinosaurs on this planet. They're like 30 feet tall. Not real quick."

"Everyone try to remain at an altitude of at least 30 feet. Dinosaurs have been spotted."

"We've got a ship down."

"What? Who?"

"Jenny. It appears that she hit the earth and skidded. She is responding. I told her to stay in the ship. Do not eject. Rockets are stable on it."

I motion for the brain. "Get a shuttle to her."

"Launching now."

I click on Alden and Johen's ships. "Alden and Johen you are being rerouted. I have a ship down. Your mission is to defend it. Stay in the area of it and destroy any dinosaurs approaching. WHERE IS THAT DAMN SHUTTLE?"

"Relax baby. We can see it now. Everything is good. We're in the area. We'll watch it."

"Shuttle eta 90 seconds."

I click on more ships. "Dipak, Tobias, Victor, and Marcus. Defend my shuttle. You are being rerouted. This is not a drill. Defend my shuttle. Shoot down any dinosaurs approaching it."

I click the green button. "Shuttle eta 60 seconds."

Alden and Johen shoot off rockets. I watch the ships turn green a couple of times each.

Johen says, "Command, we have dinosaurs, and we are running out of rockets."

"Marcus and Dipak are the closest they're with the shuttle though."

"Marcus and Dipak, go to the downed ship. Dinosaurs are present. Elek and Nik respond to the shuttle and defend it."

"Shuttle eta 30 seconds."

"The green means they're entering visual range." I watch the screen as Dipak and Marcus start shooting off rockets.

"Shuttle eta 30 seconds."

I hit the green button. "Shuttle eta 30 seconds. You will be entering visual range of each other at any second. Do not be alarmed or shoot at each other. How is the rocket count on the downed shuttle?"

The boys tell me numbers at the same time in my headset. That's not helpful.

Elroy counts. "Marcus and Dipak have 2 and 3. The other 2 ships are out."

"It's fine. They have lasers and the shuttle is 15 seconds out."

"Shuttle eta 10 seconds."

I click the button. "All 8 of you stay in the area and defend that shuttle while she is transferred. Once the shuttle lifts off again, Victor, Tobias, Nik, and Elek will stay on defense of the shuttle. Shuttle has touchdown."

"Transport complete. Shuttle is returning."

Victor, Tobias, Nik, and Elek are right with it. They all listened.

"We need to blowup that warship, so nobody finds it. It's got a lot of techs on it, and it's damaged beyond repair."

"Whose over there with at least 2 rockets?"

"Only Dipak now."

I hit the button. "Dipak stay in the area of the downed ship. All others evacuate the area. Your missions were successful."

"Shuttle good?"

"Yep no issues. 60 seconds out. The 4 of them are still on it."

"Keep an eye on that." He nods and I click the downed ship. I make sure the shields are off. Then I click Dipak's ship.

"Everyone is clear of the area."

"Good. Dipak, I'm going to have you blow the ship up. But keep in mind there are 4 live rockets on it. Stay as far back as possible and hit it with 2 rockets. It's going to make a big boom."

"My pleasure, ma'am."

Victor cracks up laughing. "HOLY s**t. YOU SHOT A ROCKET DOWN IT'S THROAT."

"OH s**t. IT'S HEAD BLEW OFF." The boys with the shuttle are laughing their asses off.

"Dipak's clear of the blast radius."

"Dipak, you are clear of the blast radius and there are no other ships in the area, fire at will."

I see a big ass black smoke fireball out the window. I click the button. "Holy s**t. I saw that from here, Dipak."

He laughs, "Well, you did say big boom."

"Yes. Yes, I did. Your mission is clear. Evacuate the area. I'm pretty sure you just rang the dinner bell for every big thing on the planet."

He laughs again. "Yep, I'm moving out."

"Shuttle eta 10 seconds."

"Move her to the medical area immediately. Check for injuries."

"Yes, ma'am."

I stare at the screen for a minute and stretch my back.

"Jenny sustained no substantial injuries. Healing only minor injuries in medical now."

"Great." I click the button. "All missions were successful. Jenny is fine. She had only minor injuries. Now nobody do anything stupid for a few minutes, command needs a stiff drink."

I hear them all laughing.

Elroy rubs his eyes. "That was stressful."

"Yes it was."

"What the hell is that?"

I stare out the window as a big ass thing with big teeth comes running straight for us. I click on Tre's ship. He has rockets. He's closest. I hit the green button, "TRE, COME SHOOT THE BIG THING TRYING TO EAT MY SHIP."

They laugh as he flies in and blows it up.

Elroy puts his eyebrow up. "Let's get off the ground. There's more coming."

"Good idea." I hit the green button, "Thank you Tre, mission successful. Everyone evacuate the area of my ship. We are lifting back off. The dinosaurs have decided they no longer like command's location."

"We're hovering 50 feet above land now."

Green button. "Command is now 50 feet above its previous location, hovering."

"We have another collision."

"You have to be shitting me." I click the ship. "Tye, can you hear me?"

"What mom?"

"AI take over Tye's ship. Can it be flown?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Get it 60 feet in the air and begin the trip to warship dock. Who do I have near it?"

"Tera and Alkawn."

"Reroute them." I click their ships, "Tera and Alkawn, AI has taken over a warship. You are escorting it back. Shoot anything that jumps out at you."

Tera says, "Everything has a right to life."

Elroy smirks and I roll my eyes. "Tera, get out of there. Reroute Mason." I click Mason and Alkawn's ships. "AI has taken over a warship. You are escorting it back to command. Defend it."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Tye is starting to make more sense. I think it jarred him."

"Not surprising. These damn planes are fast. Could you imagine a sudden stop in 1 of them?"

He shakes his head. "When Tye gets back, escort him to medical as well. Give him a full check-up and notify us of the results."

"Yes, sir."

I sit at the screens. These people are everywhere. "I need a break."

"Me too. This is a lot to watch at once." He sits in the other chair.

We watch everything for about 10 minutes.

"Tye's scans are complete. He received internal and external injuries. Recovery time is 16 minutes in the chamber."

"Thank you for the update."

I glance at Elroy. "I'm not saying anything with his mate out there. I don't want another accident when she freaks out."

"Yea, it's only 16 minutes. Better not to scare her."

10 minutes later, Alden comes in my headset. "Let's call this mission over, woman. I need to piss."

"Fair enough, love." I hit the green button. "Mission has been completed. We have our data. Thank you for participating. We are rerouting you back to the ship."

Elroy pushes a couple of buttons, "Bring them back. What is the countdown on Tye?"

"4 minutes."

"That'll be good."

We stare at nothing for a couple of minutes. It's very nice.

"2 minutes on airlock countdown."

Green button. "Welcome back to the command station. You are currently on a 2-minute countdown. I hope you enjoyed your flight. Mission 2 will begin after lunch or tomorrow. Command is worn out and enjoying the quiet time."

We go back to doing nothing.

"60 seconds."

"30 seconds."

"15 seconds."

Green button. "Tye received injuries during an accident. He is located in the medical area. He will be fine. Airlock complete."

We continue to stare at the ceiling. It takes everyone about 20 minutes to make their way back up to the command area. All of them are back. Even Tye and Jenny.

Alden stands up. "I do believe command wasn't joking when they said they needed a drink." I can't help but chuckle. I hear everyone else laughing too. "We are canceling the 2nd part of today's training, and we will do it tomorrow. We are going to return to earth now. If command has questions or instructions, now would be a good time for them to acknowledge us."

Elroy and I pry our asses out of the chairs. I want to see what happened when the shuttle returned. "Victor, Tobias, Nik, and Elek were given the mission of defending the shuttle as it returned. Play that footage. Victor, can you explain and get us to the correct spot in it please?"

"Yea." He does some stuff to the controls, and we see them flying with the shuttle. "It is at this moment in time I nearly pissed myself." We see a dinosaur run right out of the tree line at them. It nearly hits the first escort ship.

Nik rubs his eyes. "You are not the only 1."

"Elek fired a rocket nearly immediately. Oddly enough, the dinosaur looked at Elek at that exact time. Ending up in the rocket shooting down the dinosaur's throat. Here we will see it in slow motion a few times." We watch it play and crack up laughing.

Elek smiles. "I thought he put the rocket out or disabled it or something. Nothing happened. He swallowed the damn thing whole."

Alden nods. "That was a very interesting shot. I don't think any of us could do that again."

Victor gets a drink. "Now we start to panic. Thinking he ate the rocket, his head then blows clear off his body."

Nadine looks at me. "Something actually happened? Was someone in that shuttle?"

"Yes. We are still analyzing the data, and it's open, so I'm not making comments about it. Jenny, would you care to give us a description?"

"Sure. I was close to the beach. Flying alone, and a dinosaur jumped out at me. Much like what happened with the shuttle. I steered out of the way of it. I must have turned too hard and was too close to the ground. I ended up hitting the ground and bounced along the beach. They stayed talking to me. I heard Kehlani on the main channel say something about defending. I was shaken but alright. Then I kept hearing booms, but I couldn't see. Elroy instructed me to stay in the warship until the brains opened it. It wasn't long, and they were moving me into the shuttle."

"Johen and Alden responded first to the area. What did you see, Johen?"

"She was damn near on top of a big ass dinosaur habitat."

Alden nods. "I think we ran out of rockets keeping them off her."

"Oh that's why you pulled us off the shuttle. I was wondering why we got moved." Marcus writes something down.

"What was that big explosion? I was nowhere near that and saw it. No way that was a rocket." Collin looks around.

"Due to the location of the downed ship. I was not sending a rescue mission after it. We got the person out. That was enough. However, the ships have a massive amount of data, intelligence, rockets. We do not want that technology found by anyone. The area was evacuated, and the order was given to blow it up."

"Who got to blow it up?"

Dipak smiles. "Me. It was a very big boom."

Victor smiles. "How do you decide who goes on a mission? It seems like some people got multiple and others didn't have any?"

"For a lot of them, we are trying to see who we have in the area. Who is available with weapons available that we need? Who is closest to take over? You people were everywhere out there. The only time I deviated from that was when Jenny was injured and on the ground. I intentionally pulled Johen and Alden over for defense."

Alkawn nods. "Best pilots."

"What happened with Tye?"

"I was informed of an accident. I spoke with him briefly. He did respond but seemed confused. I had the AI take over the ship and begin its return to command. I believe Mason and Alkawn were put on defense of it."

Nadine sits up. "Why weren't Alden and Johen put on defense of it?"

"They were out of rockets. Wouldn't have done much good if something big came for them."

Johen smiles. "I would run my ship up it's ass."

I smirk. "And then we would be digging a king out of a dinosaur's ass for the next mission. Tye was responding. The AI had control. It was a defended escort mission."

"How come you didn't say anything about it?"

"He was responding. He was taken directly to medical. We were informed he would be fine. At that point, I made the call not to announce his injuries because I didn't want to be scraping you off a rock somewhere because you panicked." Nadine's mates chuckle. "I also didn't want to inform when you were locked in a warship for minutes on end, sitting there unable to get out and be with him. That would have been torture for any mate. So, I announced he would be fine and where he was at the end of the countdown. You were able to go directly to him."

Tobias smiles. "My favorite command from command was when you screamed at Tre to come shoot the big thing eating your ship."

Everyone cracks up laughing.

"Ah yea, there was a big thing trying to eat command. I must have hit the wrong button and announced that order to everyone. But, thank you Tre for shooting the big thing trying to eat my ship."

He smirks. "Anytime."

I point at the window. "It was out there and had a lot of teeth." They nod. "That's when Elroy decided command should relocate."

"There were 3 of them that came out the tree line. It was time to go."

Jenny puts up her hand. "I was able to walk to the shuttle when it got there. Why did the ship still have to go through airlock?"

The ship answers, "Atmospheric conditions were not the same at the surface of the planet and inside the ship. An abrupt shift in atmospheric conditions can cause numerous bodily injuries to a person as well as damage to the ship or equipment."

Alden smiles. "I think that's good. Today's training was successful. We are back on earth now. Everyone feel free to scatter. No more missions today."

Scatter they do. Everyone takes off for the shuttles. I sit and stare at the ceiling.

Alden picks me up. "I know how to get you to relax too, baby." He carries me towards his room.