Unstable Future

By neopuc

Prologue

World Broadcast Network (WBN) holocast, December 31, 3492

“Get ready folks, the time has come. We are about to enter a new era. At midnight tonight we will see year of the Microscopic Era, or ME for short,” said anchorman Ron Thompson.

“That’s right Ron and what a beginning to an era it will be. I remember the first time the Institute of Science first announced that they planned on shrinking every living thing on Earth to a fraction of its normal size. People are actually going to be no more than 0.2 millimeters in height. I’m glad they are adjusting the measurement system so we can all still think in feet and meters instead of something that small. But, this is all simply amazing,” reported anchorwoman Alice Smith.

“Amazing is one word for it, but we’ve needed the space for a long time now. Especially after the last failed attempt at creating a faster than light drive,” Ron said as a graphic appeared over his left shoulder. On it there was a vessel just exiting Mars orbit. The engines on the vessel flared up a bright blue color and then there was a massive explosion that consumed the red planet. Mars had been shattered by that explosion and it showed signs of becoming a third asteroid belt. “As you have just seen the last attempt humanity made to leave this solar system and find worlds for habitation using methods that do not require multi generation vessels only resulted in the creation of the Mars crescent belt.”

“At least we still have Venus and some of the moons of Saturn and Jupiter as well as our own humble little moon. And even those places are starting to get a little crowded. The Institute says this will only stretch out the population problem, but that by the time it becomes a problem again they are sure they will have perfected a FTL drive,” said Alice as she shook her head in a sign that she did not believe what the Institute of Science said.

“Yeah, I’m sure that will happen. But, let me bring the viewers attention to the screen for a moment,” said Ron as the image the news anchors was replaced by a map of the Earth. Areas of the planet were highlighted in red, yellow, and green. “If you are in currently located in the red zones you need to exit immediately. As you know by now the very land itself will be altered to mimic the various biospheres of the Earth multiple times on every continent. This is going to be like making one Earth into many Earths people. Since the current features of the Earth, such as rivers, lakes, and mountains, will be reduced in size along with the creatures and plants of the planet new features are going to be added as well. The last thing you want is to be standing on the location where they

decided to grow a new mountain. Yellow zones will be little safer and it is strongly advised that you find your way to a green zone immediately. If you are out on the ocean you don’t need to worry. They say the size of waves will also be regulated so they seem normal to us even though the actual size of the continents and the oceans will remain the same as they are now.”

“And if mining happens to be a hobby of yours don’t worry. They’re moving in metals from the asteroid belt to seed the Earth with much shallower veins of precious metals so you won’t have to dig through miles of dirt and rock to get to them. The Institute of Science actually says it is a safety measure in the event that civilization collapses, like that’s likely to happen,” Alice commented. “But, they reason if something does cause the collapse of human civilization then they will need readily available materials to get civilization back on its feet. There has actually been a lot of discussion among them about what would happen to humanity if we lost all of our technology. The alterations made to crops and certain livestock has ensured that a primitive civilization could maintain a larger civilization than they could in the past and they are discussing what numbers like that could mean to a primitive society.”

“I’m sure they have Alice and I’m sure our viewers would like to hear about that about as much as they would like to have the specifics of how they will be doing everything they plan to do at midnight GMT,” Ron laughed.

“If only we had the time,” Alice said, “but it is time for us to move onto the sports report with Mitch Taylor.”

537 ME

The Earth had more than enough space for everyone. People were happy and modern technology ensured that the vast majority of humanity never lacked for anything. Humanity had grown complacent, except for a select few. These people thought that humanities complacency was leading to disaster. Nobody took them seriously and they remained ignored for the most part. As time went on the group organized and became known as the Terran Coalition. After they failed to sway the majority of humanity to their view point they resorted to the tried and true method of forcing everybody to believe what they wanted them to believe. Their numbers were ridiculously small compared to the rest of humanity, but you did not need great numbers when most people had not even seen a weapon since they were born. All they had to do was plot in secrecy until the day they decided to start their war to subject the rest of humanity.

During this year many people would see the beginning of the first war in over 1000 years. Most people were too scared or confused to know what to do. But, there were some people prepared to resist. A few families and communities had a strong military tradition that they had held onto while other people were just paranoid and always thought somebody would try something like the Terran Coalition had. If the TC had been organized from the very beginning they may have succeeded before anyone could fight back. The problem was that many of their members had never had to

organize a major military offensive before and the opening day of their attack had been incredibly sloppy by anyone’s standards. That gave resistance to the TC the chance to organize and strike back. By years end Earth and all of its colonies were engulfed in a war between the Terran Coalition and its opposition, the Solarian Federation. The conflict would come to be known as the Enders War.

Chicago, Illinois, May 17, 549 MESolarian Federation Headquarters

Three people gathered on the twelfth year of the Enders War to discuss how out of hand things had become.

“So what have you got for me?” asked General Farwell.

“Not much good news I’m afraid. We’ve lost the final colony. Those paranoid idiots destroyed Io just because they thought that new bio weapon the TC has been developing was on it. Everything we can find out says that they moved that project here on Earth about two years ago, but they just won’t listen,” responded Major Lee.

General Farwell closed his eyes briefly as he thought back on the destruction of every major colony in the Solar System. It had started when the TC had used some previously unheard of chemical weapon on Venus. Every living thing on the planet had somehow been wiped out in less than a month. Then went the colonies on Earth’s moon which were soon followed by all the other colonies throughout the solar system. Io had been all that remained. “How did they do it?” asked the General.

“They replicated the affect from the failed FTL drive test that destroyed Mars,” said Major Lee. “General, isn’t there anything you can do to stop them? We’re supposed to be on the same side fighting against the TC. But with policies like these…”

General Farwell sighed, “I would like to, but you know most people are so scared they’re willing to go along with the paranoids instead of us. The last chance we had of winning the people over was destroyed along with the Venus colonies. All I can do now is attempt to ameliorate the situation. And you know how hard even that has been.” That last comment was directed at the third member of this group.

“Indeed I do General,” said Professor York. “I thank you for all you’ve done for my research team. Most of my people are already having trouble looking themselves in the eyes. I can’t imagine what things would be like without you. But, are you really sure you want to make these dragon’s sentient. They’re like living light tanks with stealth capabilities.”

“I understand your concerns Professor. Truth be told, I would have tried to get the project scrapped if I didn’t know the TC was doing something very similar at the moment. The difference between us and them is that they are creating semi-sentient beasts that are going to be forced to obey their master’s sadistic whims,” said General

Farwell. “Creating an entire race to do our fighting for us is something I couldn’t possibly stand for. They are going to born into a world at war and I want to at least give them the choice as to whether or not they want to fight. I known they will probably have to fight anyways since the TC would probably want to subjugate them like they do everybody else, but at least they’ll get to say yes or no. And on the subject of creating races to fight for us, how is that counter virus to the TC’s, um, what did you call it? Ammoro, antrow, anthro something or other?”

“The Anthropomorphic virus General,” responded Professor York. “As you know the TC has been trying to find a way to strike at us in any way they can. There numbers have never been that great and they barely have any offensive capabilities left. It was almost inevitable that they would result to depending on chemical and biological weapons. This Anthropomorphic virus is supposed to target the animal population. If this thing is unleashed it will give animals a very humanoid or centauroid appearance. From what I can tell many of them would even be able to interbreed with humans. Some will keep their original form though. About half of the ones affected by the virus will gain human level intelligence, but they will be incredibly violent. Well, they would be violent if it weren’t for our counter virus. We can’t figure out how to reverse the affect, but we can at least make it so that they would be able to live normal lives without having to tear apart everything that moves.”

“How much of the animal kingdom would be affected by the TC’s virus and how many could ours help?” asked Major Lee.

“There’s no way of telling exactly. But or best guess says about 10 percent of the planet’s animal population, with the exception of insects since all of them don’t have the body mass to survive the transformation process or the cranial capacity to support intelligence, will be affected by the TC’s virus and ours should severely reduce the numbers that will be uncontrollably violent, my best guess would be about one in 100000 will remain violent monsters. Still, if they have our intelligence there will be some of them that like to kill among their numbers just like humans. Some of these creatures will be as tall as our dragons. A four foot tall anthropomorph may not sound that bad, but imagine what a nine foot tall one could do if it decided to go on a killing spree. And by the way, congratulations on your ability to distribute our counter virus all over the globe General,” lectured Professor York.

“No, thank you for producing it so fast Professor. I have also made sure the equipment needed to detect the TC’s virus is at each of the facilities our virus is stored at. The moment they try to unleash their virus our facilities will automatically release our virus to counter theirs,” said the Professor.

“Good, now all we need to worry about is the shelters you’ve had me set up,” said Major Lee. “I would like to think they aren’t necessary, but with how the TC has been acting and what our own side just did to Io we’ll need to put everything we have into making sure we just survive this war. I don’t think it’s possible that anyone will be able to claim a true victory after this thing anymore.”

552-570 ME

Fearing immanent defeat the Terran Coalition unleashed its most advanced, but still incomplete, biological weapon. Their intention had been to wipe out humanity before it could slowly die off like they thought would happen if they lost. The efforts of a select few to insure the survival of humanity and the incomplete nature of their weapon insured that they wound up in failure. What the virus did do was wipe out the leadership of most of the Solarian Federation. With the collapse of both governments anarchy soon ensued. By the time the weapon had run its course less than 95 million humans and five million sentient dragons had survived. Considering the fact that well over a trillion people had lived on the Earth before the Enders War started, the death toll was truly mind blowing.

Things were not ready to get better for the survivors either. The dragons were not the only creatures that had been created during the war. Leftover genetically engineered creatures roamed the Earth, some friendly, many not. It was also a time of persecution. Many of the people responsible for the worst atrocities of the war were killed off during the Terran Coalition’s spectacular demise. Without anyone left to blame, the people turned on the next most available group of people. That group consisted of scientists, engineers, and anyone else with any considerable technical expertise. The end result was the loss of so much knowledge that humans were knocked right back into the Stone Age.

It did not help that the 100 million survivors were spread so far apart that it was impossible for them all to communicate with each other. Eventually, people banded together in small tribes that did not trust outsiders and often fought with other survivors. The only thing preserving humanity on Earth were some of the alterations made to the environment in the past as well as other technologies that worked to aid humanity even without human overseers.

The Age of ChaosApproximately 571-23389 ME

During this time strong leaders managed to assert themselves among the various human tribes while dragons tended to just keep to themselves. Unfortunately, strong leaders often meant violent leaders. Minor wars became almost commonplace. Still, the human population started to make a comeback at an extremely rapid pace. Local warlords encouraged people to breed so they would have more bodies for their armies. It also helped that earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and other natural disasters no longer occurred. The human population enjoyed the benefits of advanced medicine during this period. Unless it was artificial, no disease could affect the human or dragon populations.

As time went on many of the warlords became kings and emperors as their territory expanded. They made a conscious effort at suppressing any form of technological development at first. Memories of how technology had been used against people like them still remained and they were determined not to let something like that

happen to them. Things would not change until technology that could only maintain itself for but so long started to fail. Coastal nations were the first to see the affects. The devices keeping ocean waves small and docile failed and they returned to pre Microscopic Era heights. Waves that dwarfed any vessel humans could construct ended any possibilities of sailing to other continents. Now humans that once had access to multiple worlds no longer had complete access to their own world.

Such a visible failure had an affect on even the most hardened tyrants. For the first time in millennia technological development was encouraged. The risk of more wonders of the past becoming inactive seemed too great. Not everyone had good intentions though. Other tyrants saw the technological development of their neighbors as a threat to their own power. A new technology race had begun. It became apparent very quickly that the race would be lead by teams of archeologists that were sent out to investigate ruins from the past. When even children’s learning materials were more advanced than anything available in the present it was easy to understand why that was so.

Some of these advances helped lead to a new era, an era that would come to be known as the Reconstruction Era.

The region formerly known as Mato Grosso, BrazilOctober 3, 987 RE

“I think I’ve found something Marco,” said Victor.

“Well be careful. I think this is one of those old Terran Coalition facilities. We can only get rich off of these finds if were still alive to get something back to the old man,” said Marco.

“Come on. These people knew how to make some scary shit, but it can’t possibly be that dangerous after all this time,” Victor remarked.

“Comments like that are the reason why people think I’m the smart one. A lot of the tech put on place even before the Enders War is still working today. What makes you think their weapons wouldn’t be any better you damn fool,” Marco stated.

Victor just rolled his eyes and snorted. Marco did not like being in a place like this with someone so dimwitted, but it was the only help he had been able to find on short notice. He might be right though. No one had stumbled on anything too bad as of yet and it was not likely they would do so today. Marco noticed a computer terminal that still looked functional and walked over to it. The terminal turned on at his approach but Marco did not expect much. A logo on the screen did indicate that this facility was a Terran Coalition facility as he had thought. Everything of significance was also sealed behind numerous security programs as he had expected. If the TC and the Solarian Federation had not been so obsessed with security humanity could have at least made it

back to twenty fifth century pre ME technology by now. Instead, no one Marco had heard of had made it past Roman level tech.

Marco heard Victor gasp and then it was like the facility they were in came to life. The screen he had been staring at changed to a display of the Earth and said something about the release of some sort of virus he had never heard of. “Damn it Gil, what the hell did you do?”

Victor actually looked horrified for once. At least he had the intelligence to realize he had done something wrong. Maybe he would have a few minutes to understand that he had doomed the human race. “There, there was this button that started flashing. None of the other buttons were flashing and, and I didn’t think it would do anything wrong,” Victor stuttered.

“I’m sure everybody will be happy to know you unleashed a Coalition virus because you were damn too stupid to exercise a little caution. And,” a new smell began to permeate the area, “and what is that smell. It’s kind of like cinnamon. Wait, look at that screen.” Marco and Victor walked over to the screen as its display changed to a new display. It had the look of something urgent.

Victor read the word on the screen aloud. “Warning, Solarian Federation viral agent detected. Take appropriate countermeasures.”

“Great, it looks like the SF had something ready to strike back at the TC. Looks like you may have killed us twice,” Marco said sarcastically.

“No, we might be okay. That cinnamon smell has to be the virus. If we aren’t dead yet this might not be lethal,” Victor said in a tone that sounded almost like he was pleading.

“You know very well the TC didn’t deal in non-lethal viruses. If they had something to do with this you can guarantee…” Marco was interrupted when he heard a commotion outside of the facility. It sounded like something had spooked the horses that were tied up outside. They both ran to see what was going on. Marco thought he was delusional when he arrived on the scene. Three of the four horses were perfectly fine. But the fourth, a dappled mare, had something wrong with her.

She was panting heavily as she stood up on two legs. At about eight feet in height she towered over the two men. Then in a voice that had obviously never been used for true speech she said, “Uh, hi guys.” Victor passed out and Marco thought he was about to do the same.

Fort Morrisville, CaresseeJanuary 9, 988 RE

“So, the emperor has finally decided to allow the anthropomorphs to join the military effort. And it’s about time. We could sure use the numbers. If things continue the way they’re going right now we’ll end up getting overrun by the Southern Alliance this time next year,” said Lord Protector Presley.

“But can they really be trusted my lord. I’ve already heard some horror stories about them. Why, in the town this fortress is protecting there was a family that had their pet cat turn into a nine foot tall monster and murder the whole lot of them just for the fun of it,” stated Colonel Easley.

“There were a few cases like that early on, yes. But, they all seem to have petered out. Apparently, a few of them were so violent that they started attacking everything they could. They were also so aggressive that they were easy to point out and kill within the first week of their transformation,” Presley said. “All the others are just a bunch of scared and confused people that have found themselves as sentient beings. If we can get them to join our cause I don’t see how that could hurt us in the long run.”

“The long run sure, but how are we supposed to house all of these things. And none of them have any skills whatsoever,” said Colonel Easley.

“All the more reason for them to join the military. I’m sure the trainers could figure out something to do with a nine foot tall anthropomorphic creature that is stronger than any human is even pound for pound. Even the small ones would make for excellent scouts. It’s not like any of them have lost any of their extraordinary senses. And that alliance of fools is persecuting their own population of anthropomorphs right into our hands. If they want to drive the numbers needed to beat them right into our hands then I say we use them,” explained Presley.

Colonel Easley sighed. “I just hope the emperor’s decision was based on logic like yours and not because of some of the rumors I’ve heard coming out of the capital.”

The Lord Protector had to laugh at that one because he knew it was a combination of logic and the rumors that had driven the emperor’s choice. Before the Southern Alliance had chosen to invade about three years ago they had assassinated the emperor’s wife. He had sunk into a deep depression and the only thing he seemed to care about in the world was his pet dog and his favorite horse. It turned out that they were both female and both affected by what had transformed many of the animals on this planet. They had also gained human level intelligence and had been eager to help the emperor through his depression in any way they could. A lot of beloved pets had found themselves able to return their masters affection in ways they never could have done before they transformed.

Cooke Ridge, CaresseeAugust 27, 990 RE

“How do you stand them so easily? They seem to think the only thing we’re good for is fighting their war for them,” a tall tiger morph named Tim asked.

“Well, for one thing I’m a bit more social than you are,” responded Gabe, an equally tall lion morph. “Besides, what can you expect of them? The only thing either of us was good for was heavy lifting when we first made our way here. Would you really have been happy doing that? And compare us to most humans. Most of them don’t even reach our chests. If you were losing a war you would be glad to see people like us as a part of your military.”

“Sure, sure, but even when we win this war I doubt they’ll be rushing to give us equal rights. Most of them look at us as if we were mere talking animals,” Tim complained.

“I fairly certain you’re right about that. But, that is to be expected. This event took them off guard about as much as it did us. And some of our more violent cousins aren’t exactly making a good name for us. We’ll just have to give the humans time. I’ve already made friends with most of the humans in my unit,” said Gabe. “And this might surprise you, but most humans think we’re kind of cute. Humans have a thing for felines I suppose.”

Tim’s expression displayed surprise and disbelief. “How could they think we’re cute? I could break a human in half with one hand.”

Gabe laughed, “Our strength doesn’t affect the level of our cuteness to them. You have to try and tear them apart before they’ll change their opinion of you.”

“Bah, humans are crazy.”

“From what I’ve learned from them and the other anthros I’ve encountered that craziness seems to come with sentience.”

991-1984 RE

Things began to settle into a routine of steady progression mixed in with periodic wars. It was much the same way things had always been. Some serious attempts at taking over the world were entertained by a few individuals, but the amount of land to be conquered proved too much for any one nation to govern. The ocean barriers still remained impenetrable as well. Systems continued to fail, but at a mercifully slow pace. Most of those failures did not affect the daily life of most people anyways. As time went on few people felt the need to waste the time and effort to advance as fast as the doomsayers said they needed to. It was not until 1984 RE that a much more catastrophic failure would need to be addressed.

Chapter 1

Robertson National AirportFairland, ViraniaFebruary 12, 1984 RE

I was sitting in one of the newest airports on the planet. Most people would not even look at me twice. I was about as average as humans get appearance wise. My brown hair and eyes helped me blend in with the crowd while my unspectacular five feet ten inches of height let me go unnoticed in that same crowd. Many people would be surprised to find out that I am one of the people responsible for making places like this airport possible. One of the anthro security guards walked past me and it was at times like that which made me feel really small. It must be an unofficial rule that security guards in an airport must be able to toss a person like me at least 50 feet, with one hand. The bull that had just walked past me was no exception to that rule.

In reality I am one of the most widely recognized archeologists in this part of the world. Everybody new the name Larry Sanders. Well, they new my name if they were interested in science and engineering. Normal people did not recognize me at all and when I mentioned my name they thought I was a cable guy or something like that. That did not get to me though. The glory days of the archeologist had been a few centuries ago and it would take some huge disaster that only we could solve before we would get back into the news on a regular basis again. Honestly, I would be happy if something like that never happened. I do not want to be responsible for the fate of the trillions of people that must populate the world by now nor do I want to be recognized by that many people.

At this moment I am waiting for a colleague of mine, Grace Johnson, to arrive. The government was hosting some big meeting about some pretty unbelievable stuff and they had called in some of the greatest minds from across the nation. At first Grace had refused to come. To make it on time she was going to have to fly here. The ability to create flying machines had only come around about 40 years ago. Commercial flight still was not that pleasant either and it would not get better anytime soon. I am pretty certain there has been a failure in some of the ancient technologies that control the atmosphere. There is some weird error that limits the tonnage of any flying device. And that is just what has happened to the atmosphere below 10,000 feet in height. There has been a complete failure of control over wind speeds above that height. Anyone flying that high in the air runs a serious risk of getting blown right out of the sky. The end result is that the current generation of jet planes are what many people would call matchbox planes that have a very limited range. They can only seat 20 to 30 individuals, but there are a lot of them. Despite the discomfort, flying has become a very popular means of travel.

That popularity has made it very easy to construct airports all over the nation. Most were nothing special, but Robertson serviced a very economically important city. No expense had been spared in its construction. Personally, I thought it was a bit grandiose. That could also be my jealousy speaking. I would kill to get a fraction of the funding this airport had received for its construction. At least they had managed to

include the proper number of runways and the equipment to handle the traffic this airport was going to get in the budget along with all the other things funding was getting wasted on to make this place look good.

Soon, I saw Grace’s plane pulling up to the terminal in the airport. It only took a few more minutes for her to emerge from the plane along with her two children. Grace had been so wrapped up in her career that she had forgotten to get married and have children like she had planned. Eventually she decided to skip the marriage part of her plans and just adopt a couple of children. I do not think she is capable of letting her kids be more than two miles from her at any given time. Grace did not adopt within the species either. She is human, her oldest child is a 12 year old anthro wolf boy named Mark, and the younger child is an 11 year old anthro bobcat named Kim. They were actually a cute little family and I have no idea how those kids managed to stay so thin since Grace loved to bake. If I spent more than a week with her I ended up gaining at least five pounds. Grace herself was a slightly plump woman with a pleasant face and brown hair like my own. If she had started up her own baking company instead of getting into chemistry she would have been a hit. I could just imagine her smiling at me from the wrapper of a pack of cookies. Chemistry and baking are not as far apart as many people would think and it is easy to see why chemistry ended up becoming her passion. She was no slouch in the field either or else she would not be here.

“Good evening Grace. How was the flight?” I asked.

“I don’t know how you managed to get me on these flying deathtraps, but remind me to put something special in the next cake I bake you so I can show my appreciation. I swear every one of those things I had to get on in order to fly here felt like it was ready to fall out of the sky at any minute. But, besides that, I’m happy to see you again Larry,” Grace said as she walked up to me and gave me a friendly hug.

I returned the hug and then smiled at her children before turning my attention back to Grace. “Can you believe what they’re calling this meeting for? I’ve heard of some failures before, but I’ve never heard of such isolated failures before. Individual people, animals, plants, and other bit of inorganic matter suddenly becoming gigantic in size seem almost impossible.”

“Oh come now Larry. It’s not that farfetched. We don’t even have theories about how they did most of the things that made it possible for them to do the things they did all those millennia ago when they shrunk the entire planet’s population,” Grace said contemplatively. “According to everything we know right now it should have been impossible for them to do and most people actually think we’re making the whole thing up in order to get more funding. We would be hard pressed to get them any proof too. You should know very well that just about everything truly useful is no longer within our grasp.” She was right about that. The ‘not in my neighborhood’ argument had never disappeared among humans. It had always been an extremely inconvenient argument for developers until they gained the ability to build most of the facilities they wanted in space. Some had argued that back up facilities needed to be built on the Earth as a safety

precaution, but as far as I could tell they could never get permission to build any of the potentially dangerous eyesores they wanted to build on the planet. And now we were the ones that had to deal with the problem.

Grace and I continued our conversation on the way to the baggage terminal as her children tailed behind us. On the way I heard something that sounded like thunder. I looked out one of the windows because I had thought it was a sunny day. The sun was indeed shinning and I wondered if there was a storm brewing on the other side of the airport. There was another thunder crack that sounded like it was coming from directly overhead. The previous burst of thunder sounded like it had been much further away. Something about how fast that storm was moving did not seem right. A sound like an explosion echoed through the air and the ground shook violently enough to knock over drinks and some people. There had not been an earthquake in a very long time and I thought there had been some type of an explosion. Then there was another tremor in the ground, and another, and another. It felt as if some massive creature was walking toward the airport. I saw some people gawking at something through the window and I started to walk closer to it in order to see what was happening.

What I saw in the distance left me speechless. It was a bronze battle dragon. The battle dragons were the non-sentient versions of dragons created during the Enders War. Everybody wished they had been wiped out during the war, but they were too tough to go extinct. They were mindlessly aggressive, especially without anybody to control them anymore, and they were hideously difficult to kill. They were made to be that way after all. What made this battle dragon a true terror was its size. They were only supposed to be between eight to nine feet in height. If the monster walking toward this airport was any shorter than 1500 feet in height I would eat my own shoe. I would guess it was closer to 2000 feet in height. It was clear that the thunder I heard had been the dragon’s wing beats. A plane that was attempting to land flew past the battle dragon and it grabbed the vehicle in one hand. He looked the plane over for a couple of seconds and then he crushed it as if it were a bug. Planes and airport personnel on the ground were not fairing much better. It was clear the battle dragon was purposefully trying to crush anything it could beneath its massive feet. People and vehicles did not stand a chance when even concrete gave way to the enormous weight of the dragon. Pure destruction was being left in the wake of the battle dragon.

I backed away from the window and walked quickly back to where Grace was comforting her nervous children. Grace noticed me walking toward them and I must have looked frightened because she asked, “Larry, what’s wrong? What did you see out there?”

“We need to get out of here now. Forget about your luggage. I’m getting us out of here,” I said in a voice I barely recognized as my own. Then I saw the blood drain from Grace’s face. That was when I noticed that the tremors caused by the battle dragon had stopped. I turned around to see what Grace was staring at and was greeted with the sight of a large crocodilian eye peering at everyone in the terminal. The battle dragons had been designed to inspire terror in people and that eye was burning with such malice

that I was left stunned with fear. It took a few precious seconds for my sense of self preservation to kick in. I grabbed Grace and her children and we started to make our way out of the airport as fast as we could.

Something crashes through the glass windows and steel frames behind us but I did not stop to find out what it was. I did not need to either. A large pair of clawed fingers reached right past us and slammed down on the floor around us. Grace and I barely had enough time to cover the children’s eyes before they could see dozens of people get crushed. Each of those fingers had to be larger than the planes outside. It was like watching someone swat insects from the insects’ point of view. People that had only been partially crushed were screaming in pain and a few brave souls were actually trying to help the injured instead of just fleeing in terror. Then the battle dragon started to drag its hand out of the building. A red streak was left behind as the hand withdrew and the fresh screams of pain from those only partially trapped under those scaly digits were nearly enough to make vomit all over the place. But, I did not have time for that now.

Some people were trying to get out in the opposite direction I was going. That seemed strange since that direction would take them right toward the battle dragon. Maybe they were trying to flee past the battle dragon and hoped he would be distracted with the airport itself. If that was what they were thinking then they were wrong. I looked back in time to see a slender purplish gray tongue fall over the first group of people that made it out of the opening that the battle dragon had created. They stuck to the sticky saliva coating the battle dragon’s tongue. When it was withdrawn from view those people went with it. I actually thought that might be a good sign. If the battle dragon was feeding it would take even a creature of its size a while to go through the entire airport. It would be able to just destroy the airport in much less time.

People had been shocked by the sudden appearance of the dragon and every one had been left at least a little stunned to begin with. Now that shock had worn off and people were fleeing in earnest. It was hard for me and Grace to stick together. I actually had to pick up Kim and carry her to prevent the crowd from carrying her away. The poor child clung to me as tightly as she could. Even her claws were extended and they were drawing a little blood from me. The sound of the battle dragon making forced entries into other parts of the airport echo throughout the building. “I guess those reports really weren’t that impossible afterwards Grace,” I said jokingly, at least I hoped it came out jokingly.

“Really Larry, this isn’t the time to be joking around,” Grace responded breathlessly. “But honestly, did it have to happen to a battle dragon? Why not a tree, or a regular dragon? They’re friendly enough. None of them would participate in this whole crushing and eating people nonsense.” A battle dragon really was a worst case scenario. They were pretty much immune to any handheld weaponry since the type of weapon fire they were designed to take was considerably much more powerful than anything a chemically propelled gun could manage. At that monster’s size I doubt anything but a nuclear weapon would be able to take it out. There are a few other things

that might hurt him, but I would not want that thing wandering around injured and mad if I were the military.

This was also one of the worst places to get caught by a giant battle dragon, or any other hostile giant monster for that matter. Airports were big structures with nothing directly around them. When people tried to get out of this place they were all going to be in plain sight of that monster. I was trying to head to my car and I was going to have to depend on the battle dragon being busy with other things while I fled. Other things, I was going to have to be honest with myself. I was going to have to hope the battle dragon was too busy killing other people to notice me. It was a grisly thought, but it was the only way I was going to survive this encounter.

We were making our way steadily toward the parking lot where my car was. I was happy enough to be away from any window. The materials this building were made out of might as well have been paper to the battle dragon and it would not offer any protection against it, but I could pretend they could as long as I could not see it. That is what I thought until I started to run past a room with a glass wall facing me. There was a violent tremor that knocked me and just about everyone around me to our knees. Then that purplish gray tongue of the battle dragon’s crashed through the roof of the room and continued through the floor of the as well. It started wriggling around in the room, picking up anyone it came in contact with. One man was pressed against a window very close to me. The window was cracking due to the pressure against it but it managed to hold. I will never forget the look of terror on the man’s face as that tongue withdrew from the hole in the roof and dragged him along with it.

When the tongue was gone I was ready to start flee again. Grace had a different idea though. She was actually heading into the room that horrific scene had just occurred in. “What do you think you’re doing Grace?” I asked in stunned disbelief.

“If we make it out of this someone might like a few samples to try and figure out how that creature got like that,” Grace responded as she gathered a small saliva sample off a window inside the room. Then she came back out and we were fleeing once again. I wish I could say she was crazy, but she was right. Nobody had a clue how those ancient people had managed to shrink the world like they had. It might have been a virus for all we knew, even though that would not explain how that had shrunk mountains and rivers. Still, researches would be desperate for any information they could get.

Fortunately that was the only other close encounter that we had while still inside of the airport. That did not mean it made the screams of terror that echoed throughout the building any easier to deal with. I could just imagine what it was like as countless people were crushed like ants and others found themselves descending the throat of the great reptile. What I saw in the parking lot was not a very comforting sight. Even while I had still been pretty far away I could see that many of the cars had been crushed. Many more were flipped over or pilled up on top of each other. It was as if some child had carelessly kicked a bunch of his toy cars. When I was close enough to see even more of the parking lot there was even more bad news. The battle dragon was standing in the parking lot at

the moment. Its clawed toes were pointing toward the building and I assumed it was busy killing the people inside at the moment. A few crashing noises that sounded like walls collapsing confirmed that. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and prayed my car was still alright out there. Then I tightened up my grip on Kim, grabbed Grace’s wrist while she grabbed Mark’s, and I dragged us in the direction of my car.

The battle dragon towered above us, but he was not looking for the relatively small number of people exiting the building. His attention was still focused on tearing the roof of the building apart and getting to the people inside. “Everyone stick close to me. I’m taking you to my car,” I say. I do not mention the chance that my car might no longer be there. Saying that would only scare the children even more than they were right now. I also neglected to mention that my car was parked pretty close to where one of the battle dragon’s feet was currently located.

It was incredibly difficult making our way through the parking lot. The dragon had obviously been walking around and it was now like an obstacle course out here. When cars and other debris were not in the way there was another problem. Many people think that when something walks around a neat little footprint is left behind. What those people do not realize is that most creatures tend to drag their feet a little on the ground when they take a step. That meant that not only did I have to maneuver around crater sized footprints, I also had to avoid the trenches that had been dug by his claws. Fortunately, the battle dragon was kind enough to stand still while I scampered beneath it.

I nearly cried with relief when I spotted my car in an island of untouched vehicles. Grace and I dump the kids in the back seat of my car and then we jump into the front. My hand was shaking while I started up the car. For some reason I could picture the battle dragon hearing the engine starting up and crushing me inside of my own car. I am happy to hear my own car start up and see the battle dragon’s feet stay right where they are. It is still difficult driving around the parking lot, but I felt a lot less exposed inside of a vehicle. Then there was a weird noise. I looked for the source of the noise and saw one of the battle dragon’s feet lifting into the air. That sound had been the crushed cars beneath its feet sighing with relief as the immense weight on them was finally lifted. Then that very same foot started moving my direction. A shadow surrounded my car and the children in back started crying while I held my breath in anticipation of the end. Then the foot came down so close to my car that it bounced a couple inches off the ground. It was possible for me to roll down my window and reach out to touch a scaly toe. I looked up to see if the dragon had noticed us but we were directly beneath it. His own body was blocking his view of us.

Then the dragon headed in the opposite direction you were going, crushing cars, lamp posts, and people hiding in the parking lot as he went. I can see a couple other cars driving around in the parking lot as I make my getaway. There are not many though. Everybody else is either stuck in the airport or trying to flee on foot. I wish those people good luck as I make my way out of the airport and onto the highway leading away from the airport. When I am on the open road I speed up as fast as the car can go and took one last look at the dragon as it turned one of the most expensive public projects in recent

history into a feeding trough. That monster was the military’s problem now. I did have to slow down eventually as I started shaking uncontrollably. That is when I realized I had not expected to live through that. I look at Grace to see how she is doing. Her face was buried in her hands and I could see a few tears. She was crying silently to herself to keep from further upsetting her children. I let everybody deal with this in whichever manner they chose as we continued in silence down the road.

About half an hour later there was a blinding flash behind my car. I looked in the rear view mirror to see a small mushroom cloud blossoming in the distance. The military had taken care of the problem. I just hoped they had tried to lead it away from a heavily populated area first and that they had used one of the newer nukes. The fallout from one of those would only be deadly for the next five or so minutes. I had to admit I was relieved I would not have to deal with the possibility of that thing following me to the city. Then I looked at a road sign. It would normally take me another hour to reach the city from here. But, the highway was deserted at the moment with the exception of no more than three or four cars. With traffic like this we were only half an hour away from the city.

Chapter 2

Bronstein InstituteRichland, ViraniaFebruary 12, 1984 RE

I couldn’t believe this meeting was still happening with no delays whatsoever. The government was acting like a giant battle dragon had not attacked any airport. In fact, when I had arrived at Grace’s hotel to check her in the news of the airports destruction had been all over the news. What was different was that the government spokesperson was claiming that it had been caused by some terrorist group. Some of the survivors had already talked to the media about the battle dragon, but that was not the story people wanted to believe. So, people were accepting the government’s explanation and it was just considered a national tragedy. Frankly, I could not blame the government for what it was doing. People were not ready for the truth yet and they would not be ready until they knew the government was doing something about the problem. If the government did not have a rock solid plan of action by the time the truth came out there would be widespread panic.

That did not excuse them for holding this meeting like nothing had happened in my mind. Every time I close my eyes I can still see broken and shattered bodies as well as the horrified looks of people as they were pulled into the battle dragon’s maw. I would have at least liked to have an entire day to deal with the issue even though I doubted I would ever get over something like that. Then there was Grace. Once we had checked into the hotel she had been forced to leave her kids behind. A babysitter had already been waiting for us when we got to her room, but it was still unpleasant for Grace to have to

leave her kids behind in the state they were in. They just did not have the security access to even get inside of the building while this going on.

Security was unbelievably tight. That was probably necessary. If the government had a plan to deal with our little problem then there would be others that would be interested in knowing what that plan was. Virania was a fairly powerful country, the most powerful in the region actually, but it was not invulnerable. If Firanel and Galvanta could actually get along then they might actually prove a threat to Virania. People were already blaming them for the attack on Robertson. The truth is that either of them probably, no, definitely would have done it if they could. If we had a plan then it had to do with ancient technology and those two would want to find a way to use that technology against us.

It was just a good thing those two hated one another. Galvanta was a country dominated by xenophobic humans that did not tolerate the existence of anthros. Only a very small number of animals had been affected by what had mutated many of the world’s animals so long ago and if they were still in Galvanta they were either hiding very well or they were dead. They consider anthros to be unnatural and have long sought to expand their borders with the express purpose of exterminating every anthro from the face of the Earth. Currently they share a 400 mile long border with us and they have not been able to expand any further south because of it. Firanel was almost the exact opposite. Up until two centuries ago it had been a human controlled country as Galvanta had. They did not try to wipe out their anthro population though. Instead the anthros were used as slaves. Those slaves had rebelled and taken control of the country. Unfortunately, those former slaves had a burning hatred for humans. Even though they did not have their human population wiped out, the living conditions for humans were not all that great. For one thing, beating or killing a human was perfectly legal for an anthro in Firanel. That attitude toward humans has made it very hard for Firanel to coexist peaceably with its neighbors.

At least we had Caressee to the south of us. They had proven to be pretty amicable neighbors. That was probably due to the amount of financial and technological aid we gave them. One of the reasons Virania was so powerful was because we had a wealth archeological sites that provided us with information we could actually understand. That meant that it was mostly children’s learning materials that we had found, but those materials had been useful in pointing our researchers in the right direction here and there. Our aid has helped Caressee drastically outpace the development of its age old nemesis, the Southern Alliance. In about a decade or two they would no longer be a threat to Caressee. That is probably why there have been rumors going around that the Southern Alliance is preparing for one more big all out attack on Caressee before that happens. And they will probably lose like they have once or twice every century. Once that happened Caressee would probably roll right over the four countries that made up the Southern Alliance and they would finally be in a position to return some of that aid we have given them over all this time.

The problems between nations seemed almost a bit trivial now. If the technology that was keeping people at their current size had really failed it could eventually result in the end of civilization once again. I could see the government was taking this situation seriously too. You could feel the intelligence in the room I found myself in. If there was anyone that had made a name for themselves in any field of science that actually mattered then they were here. Since the meeting had yet to officially begin there were a lot of whispered conversations going on and the inevitable shouting matches that were going on about one theory or another. It was not until a gray wolf in the typical black suit many government agents wear ascended a stage at one side of the room that the conversations began to die down. There was no way the wolf could have passed for a secret agent. His features were very sharply defined, even for a wolf, and he had eyes that were so intense they felt like they were boring into my soul whenever his gaze passed over me. Those are not very good traits in a secret agent. He looked more like the type of person that commanded attention and he was already doing a pretty good job of it without even speaking a single word.

“Good day ladies and gentlemen. I am sure you have all been anxious to find out exactly why we have gathered you here,” said the wolf. “Well, I’m sure you have heard a few rumors and stories recently. If you will direct your attention to the screen we have a little presentation that should clear things up. I would like to ask that you hold your questions and comments until after the presentation.”

What proceeded was a one hour presentation about every case where something or someone had grown in the nations of Virania and Caressee. Most people had been stunned speechless during the entire presentation. A few were able to utter comments about their disbelief, but that was all. Apparently, the first reliable report about a growth incident had come in about two months ago. Deep in the Tarkel jungle in Caressee a group of explorers had been witness to the incident. Almost overnight, one of the already huge jungle trees had grown to nearly eight miles in height. The explorers had been about 15 miles away and the pictures of the tree were a little fuzzy, but they were still very good. It actually looked like something straight out of a fantasy. I had to admit it was a very beautiful picture in an ominous sort of way.

There had been numerous other incidents as well. Most of them had been isolated to small towns by some miracle. That did not mean things were just fine though. In one of those towns a stray cat had grown to the size of a house, eaten seven people, and injured 14 others. Only six of those were expected to survive. Then in another town they had been celebrating at some festival when a young lioness had started growing. In the process of reaching 800 feet in height she had accidentally killed a dozen people. When she became disoriented and fell over she killed close to 100 people. That lioness had been distraught by what had happened and turned herself over to the authorities. She was now being studied in a secure facility at an undisclosed location.

The most horrifying incident that even dwarfed what had happened at the airport had happened in a place called Applewood. There had been over ten thousand people living there before. Whatever had happened to the town had left no survivors. The

pictures that were shown displayed nothing but devastation. Every building in the town had been destroyed. Bodies, crushed mangled bodies, rested at the bottom of enormous footprints. They said multiple culprits had been responsible for what had happened. From the shape of the footprints a bear and a pack of wolves, actual animals and not anthros, were to blame. By measuring paw size they could tell that the bear was around 400 feet tall and the wolves were around 350 feet tall each. They never told us what had happened to those animals.

The list went on for some time. As it turned out most incidents were not that bad. Many just involved a person growing a few inches or maybe a foot. What did surprise me was how well the government was covering this up. It was surprising I had only been hearing rumors about this stuff. Then I remembered I had not really believed those rumors myself. The government had a powerful ally on its side, intelligent minds. If a person did not want to believe something their mind could come up with a string of false logic to justify that belief. That was just something that came with being a sentient being I suppose. It was always amazing how even the most intelligent people were subject to fooling themselves into believing what they wanted to believe.

When the presentation ended I sat in stunned silence. A few people immediately stood up and started lobbing accusations that the photos in the slide show were fakes. More people started rambling out of fear of just how bad things looked like they could get. It was actually Grace that stood up and asked in a very clear voice, “What can we do to fix this?” It was surprising that the agent on stage had been able to hear her, but wolves did have good ears.

The speaker responded, “That is what we have gathered all of you to find out. Over the years many of you have said that the devices of the past would eventually begin to fail. Until now nothing significant enough to threaten civilization has gone wrong. As you can see that has quickly changed. As you know, it is said that thousands of years ago humanity had itself and most other forms of life reduced in size, even the geography of the planet was altered to compensate for this. We don’t know exactly how they did this, but the devices that actually control this are tucked safely away in orbit and out of our reach. Nothing we have is capable of reaching orbit anymore, so we have no way of reaching these devices and conducting some much needed repairs.”

I had to wonder why we had all been gathered. They could not possibly think that we would be able to just whip up a new shrinking device for them. We did not have theories to explain how they had done some of the things they did when they had shrunk everything. We think the virus that affected the anthros had something to do with the process. Many of them changed sizes when they became anthros. Whether they shrank or grew had to have something to do with the process. Nobody was able to prove that though. Then the wolf smiled and addressed what I had just been thinking about. “Some of you may be asking why we gathered you. No, it is not to make a new shrinking device, especially not one that could blanket the entire planet. A certain Dr. Larry Sanders stumbled onto something of importance to this situation about seven months ago. It was considered too difficult to follow up on the clues to a facility indicated in the findings of

Dr. Sanders. Some of you may be asking what type of facility it was. Well, it was actually used to manufacture commercial spacecraft.”

Grace looked at me when my name was mentioned. I did remember what the agent was talking about. That was one of many facilities I had found clues to over the years. But, they were all located in such remote locations that I knew I would never be able to get the funding to go looking for them. I had completely forgotten about the place since I had first come across it. When I thought back on it, something in the presentation stood out. They had more than one reason for showing the incident with the tree first. I recognized the topography of the area. It was no more than 200 miles away from the facility that I had discovered.

“If we are going to get that facility online in a timely fashion we will need some of the best minds on the planet. We have already received permission from our neighbors to the south to send a sizable expedition into their territory. All we require is that you accept our request to join this much needed expedition and the team we will need supporting it here at home,” the wolf explained, “We need to get that facility operational before we can even hope to try and fix this giant problem. And for those of you that are thinking of rejecting our request, keep in mind that nothing has returned to its normal size at this point. According to our data, if someone were to return to their normal size he or she would be around 10 to 11 miles tall. I ask you to imagine what a person like that could do to the rest of us by complete accident, or on purpose if that person chose to.”

After an ominous warning like that I knew what I had to do. Besides, I had always wanted to get to a facility like the one that had been mentioned. This was not the best of circumstances, but it was the best chance I was ever going to get. I was one of the first people to choose to go along on this expedition. It was not like I was going to be in much more danger if something grew while I was in a jungle or in a city.

Port Ridgetan, CaresseeMarch 3, 1984 RE

It has been a long time since I visited Caressee. This is also my first time on one of their military bases. It was too bad Grace had to stay behind with her kids as a part of the support team. I had to admit I was impressed with the operation. Overall, Caressee’s armed forces were of an even higher quality than those of my own country. Having four countries trying to invade your country once or twice a century required that it be that way. Virania often had officers and soldiers from Caressee assist in the training of Viranian forces to make up for the lack of combat experience.

This was also the first time I had been anywhere where the anthros outnumber the humans. Due to all the anthros that had emigrated from the Southern Alliance this was one of very few countries where the anthros outnumbered the human population and where anthros had true equal rights. Virania liked to think it had granted the anthros equal rights as well, but one trip to Caressee was enough to disprove that notion. My home country was getting close though.

The docks had been separated into a civilian and a military section. When I had stepped into the military section the number of anthros as compared to humans had gone up drastically. That kind of made sense since we were going on a jungle expedition. As much as the ancient humans had altered the Earth, a jungle environment just was not very human friendly. Most of the anthros I saw were ones that had evolve in jungle environments and should be able to operate in them better than the best of humans. And I also had to admit that many anthros were just physically superior to humans. Some anthros were naturally four times as strong as a human of the same size, they were faster, they had better reflexes, and they had matching or superior endurance. That was what caused many humans to fear them in some countries. Personally, I thought that fear was still unjustified because anthros did not go around starting fights any more often than a human would. And even when they did get in a fight they could be amazingly gentle when they fought a human. I could testify to that after some friends got me drunk on my twenty-first birthday as a joke and I wound up picking a fight with an eight and a half foot tall lion. After that I only had to spend a night in the hospital and the lion had still come in to apologize for what he had done.

This was a pretty small dock since it was only on a large river and it was at the very edge of the developed portion of Caressee. It was going to be a long voyage over land and water to reach or destination. I could see signs that the docks had been enlarged rather recently. Even then it still looked packed to capacity. There were going to 15 guides for the expedition, 100 of Caressee’s most elite troops, and 30 scientists and engineers going on this expedition. Expeditions of this size just were not launched anymore and the amount of equipment and supplies that was coming along for just the scientists was staggering for me. I really hoped we could fit everything onto the boats and then be able to carry everything once we had to get back on land.

I was going to get to find out as well. Because I had been the one to discover the location of the factory I had been elected to lead the scientific portion of this mission. It was also because no one else wanted the added duties of being the leader to interfere with their own work. That was why I found myself looking for the leader of the military escort, Colonel Miller. After I asked a few of the soldiers bustling about where he was I finally found my way to the building Col. Miller was in. I had to go through a few checkpoints in the drab looking building before I was able to reach the colonel’s office.

There was one thing I had to admire about the military and that was how clean they were. Everything was so neat and organized despite the influx of equipment and personnel they had received. The building the scientists were staying in already looked like a disaster zone and we hadn’t even been here for an entire hour. When I was ushered into the colonel’s office I noticed that it was small and a little uncomfortable. That was a good thing in many occasions though. Big empty offices usually meant big empty heads. Sitting behind a desk was a busy looking officer that was in jungle camouflage gear instead of dress uniform. Like most of the soldiers outside the colonel was an anthro, a jaguar to be specific. The jaguar finished what he was writing before looking up to say, “Dr. Larry Sanders, I am Colonel Jonathan Miller. I’ve heard a lot about you and I hope

we will be able to find this facility of yours in a timely manner. We have received reports that we won’t be alone in that jungle for long. Our group should be able to make better time than anything our wonderful neighbors can send, but I wouldn’t like to test to see if that’s true or not.”

He was a straight to the point sort of guy. That unbalanced me a little. His eyes did that even more. No matter how much I see them, the eyes of a predator like Col. Miller had an affect on me. It was hard wired instinct for a human to feel fear under a gaze like that. It was even worse when someone like Col. Miller looked at me. Unlike many anthros which had never killed a thing the colonel had a proven capacity for violence and had probably killed before. The Southern Alliance never stopped making minor incursions into Caressee and someone had to stop them. Still, his tone had been friendly enough and I managed to speak before the silence between us became uncomfortable. I decide to try and be as direct as the colonel had been. “I’m happy to have you with us Colonel Miller. You and your men may have a few, um, difficulties dealing with some of the personalities on my team. They are all brilliant, but a few of them are a little…eccentric and a few don’t care much for the military. If there are any major problems just bring them to me.”

The colonel just grinned at me and said, “Dr. Sanders, my men are trained professionals that have been shot at for a living. If their feelings get hurt by a few snide remarks and they cannot do their duty because of it I will be sorely disappointed in them. In the event that happens, my soldiers will then answer to me and you will probably never know there had been a problem.” That toothy smile was considerably more intimidating than his gaze. I still wonder if anthros picked up the habit of smiling from humans or if it was just something they did as a result of their mutation. Their faces were considerably more flexible after their mutations and their expressions did seem to come as naturally to them as they did to humans. Like humans, a smile could have a double meaning though and I was certain there was a little aggression in that smile. The colonel’s size might be making me imagine that though. Even while sitting I can tell that he is considerably taller than me. If I had to guess, which was difficult while he was sitting, I would say he was at least seven feet tall.

We discussed a few details about the mission. I was distressed to find out that the Southern Alliance had received word about this expedition and was sending its own forces into the jungle. The colonel assured me that he and his soldiers would be able to handle that part of the mission though. I was informed that we would be sailing in two days in order to make sure everything was here and to give everyone a one day break before the mission got underway. Those days went by fast.

Chapter 3

Tarkel JungleDanlin River, CaresseeMarch 5, 1984 RE

I had to admit this is one of the largest river going ships I had ever been on and yet it was the most crowded ship I had ever been on. On an expedition it is usually my own equipment that takes up most of the storage space. This time my government had spared no expense getting all the equipment they could possibly think of and then there was the military equipment as well. And everything had to be carefully stored to prevent damage or accidental explosions. Still, things weren’t that bad.

It was obvious the soldiers chosen for this expedition had been picked for their intelligence as well as their skill. After conversations with a couple of them I had wanted to hire them as my assistants. That level of intelligence also helped to throw off most of the more arrogant members of my team. I was pleased to see that they kept their condescending remarks to a minimum and a few of them looked like they were actually making friends.

The scenery was pretty nice too. All in all, it was turning out to be a pretty peaceful trip. Considering the fact that the fate of civilization was on the line I thought things should feel much more ominous. The sporadic growth of various things just seems like it is a distant threat. That thought makes me think I might be trying to block out my experience with the battle dragon. But, the fact that there might be people trying to kill me in the thick jungle foliage feels like the more urgent threat at the moment.

Fate must have been offended by my thoughts. When I was settling down to sleep for the night I heard a sudden commotion. I peaked out of my room to see a bunch of soldiers rushing around. Being the curious type, I followed a couple of them on deck to find searchlights scanning the water. A few of them had weapons out and pointed at the water. I was amazed at how silent they could be as they flashed little hand and tail signs at each other. It was so dark I could barely see what those signs were, but even the human soldiers seemed to be able to understand what was going on. I did not like being clueless about what was going on, so I leaned over the ships railing and peered into the water to see if I could see anything.

It took a while, but eventually I was able to make out a dark shape moving stealthily through the murky water. At first I thought it was just a school of fish. Then it made a quick movement that made me think it was one big creature. As I finished that thought the shape erupted out of the water in my direction. The suddenness of the action left my stunned as I saw the gapping maw of an incredibly large crocodile, two or three times as large as it should be, hurtling straight at me. A pair of strong hands grabbed me around the waist and pulled me away from the railing just as the crocodile’s jaws snapped shut where I had just been with a sound like a shotgun blast.

I turn around to thank my savior and nearly jump away while throwing a punch as I am greeted with a crocodilian face. That punch hurt my fist more than the anthro alligator soldier I just hit in the chest. He just grinned slightly at me before I heard a weapon being fired followed by an ear ringing explosion. Water and a few small chunks of flesh rained down onto the deck of the boat. I looked back to see a few soldiers on the

ship closest to us congratulating one of their fellows. Though I cannot hear what they are saying it is clear that they must be congratulating him on killing the crocodile that had nearly killed me.

Before I have a chance to apologize and thank the alligator that had just saved my life I noticed Col. Miller stalking toward me. “What the hell do you think you’re doing doctor?” he asked in a low voice with a slight trace of a growl to it.

“Well I heard a commotion going on and I wanted to see what was happening…” I said before being interrupted.

“So, knowing that there are various people and creatures that may try to kill you lurking about, you decided to head toward danger instead of away from it. That does not seem very smart to me,” he continued talking to me in low voice and I was feeling thoroughly embarrassed. When he put it that way it made me sound incredibly stupid. I was happy he was not shouting these things for the world to hear.

“You’re right colonel. I apologize for my lack of judgment and I’ll avoid placing myself in the line of danger again,” I tried to say apologetically. That had been careless of me. Of course I could have lost my life, but it was the job of these soldiers to make sure I stayed alive. By placing my life in danger like that for no good reason was extremely disrespectful to them and could very well end up getting someone else killed trying to protect me. Col. Miller stared at me briefly, and then nodded his head as a sign that he acknowledged my apology before walking off and issuing some orders to his soldiers.

“Don’t worry about him, he was just making sure that you learned your lesson,” a female voice said from behind me. I turned around and was confronted by a female tiger fur. She was considerably taller than me, but not that tall as far as anthros go. I would say she was about six and half feet tall, maybe taller with light orange fur and a pair of binoculars hanging around her neck. That probably indicated she was a lookout of some sort.

“Thanks for the support, um, I don’t believe we’ve met yet.”

“I’m Private Tracy Stone sir. And you’re welcome.” Private Stone was a fairly young looking soldier. She was probably in her mid twenties like me. It also looked like she was smiling slightly as if she found something amusing.

“I hope I’m not getting in your way private.”

“Oh no, not at all doctor. I was just getting off duty when I spotted that monster. Now that the situation is over I can finally get some sleep. Oh, and you don’t have to call me private, just call me Tracy.”

“So you were the one that spotted that monster.”

“And you were the one that was nearly eaten by it. I’m glad Private Hunter was there to save you. It just wouldn’t look good if we lost one of you guys on the first day of the trip,” Tracy joked. At least I knew the name of my savior now. He has disappeared at the moment. I’m going to have to remember to thank him later. “Well, I’ll talk to you later doc, but I really should be getting to bed. Good night.”

“Good night,” I responded. As she walked away the shock finally set in. My legs felt like rubber and I started to feel dizzy. I had nearly been killed for the second time within a relatively short period of time. And this was just the first day of the expedition. If things continued on like this I was not sure if I would actually live through this expedition. Hell, I would be lucky if I actually lived to make it all the way to our ultimate destination.

I walked back to my room after a few minutes. It took about half an hour of staring at the ceiling before I was able to fall asleep.

Tarkel JungleDanlin River, CaresseeMarch 7, 1984 RE

Day two had gone much better, and by better I mean boring. Nothing of note happened and I could not have been happier because of it. Now I was told that we were only about an hour away from our destination. That destination was a small port that had been recently constructed. Apparently, when pictures taken of that gigantic tree taken by those explorers had been made public the government of Caressee had believed them to be a part of a hoax. It was not until much later that they realized their mistake and it had been too late to hush things up. The next thing anyone knew, people were referring the tree as Yggdrasil. I found out that was a reference to some ancient human religion. They were treating this tree like a religious event too. There were a lot of people that thought there was some sort of mystical quality to the tree that had made it grow like that. It was always rare people thought something like this was due to scientific causes.

Still, things were a little more convenient for us because of those people. They had been mounting little tourist expeditions of their own to get to the Yggdrasil and they had set up little ports and outposts along the trail to the tree. That would make things a little easier for us, but not by much. The area was virtually undeveloped and there was no way we were going to get vehicles deep into the jungle. If Caressee did not have to worry about constant invasion along its more accessible borders then it might have been able to develop the region more. It did not make much sense for Caressee to spend much money on a jungle over 3000 miles long at its shortest point even if that region was technically contested with its neighbors. This jungle had been seized from the Southern Alliance during their most recent war with Caressee and Caressee had only done that as a test to see if the Alliance would contest the claim by continuing the war. When it hadn’t that had said a great deal about what the Southern Alliance thought of Caressee’s military. All the Alliance had done was chose not to acknowledge Caressee’s claim on

the region, but what natives there were in the region tended to obey Caressee’s laws rather than Alliance rules.

I was on deck and noticed Tracy on lookout duty. For a second I thought that I might go over and talk to her, but I did not want to distract her from her duties. She noticed me staring at her, though, and she signaled that it she wanted me to come over to her. Since she did not feel like I would be a big distraction I decided to talk with her after all. “Hi there doc, it’s nice to see you again,” she said without actually looking at me. I could see she was still concentrating on her duty even though she wanted to talk with me. “Why don’t you grab a pair of binoculars and join me?”

“Sure, but I’ve never been on lookout duty before and I don’t think I’ll be much help to you.” I picked up one of the two extra binoculars hanging in the lookout post.

“That’s alright. The Colonel wants us to train others to handle some of our duties anyways. You know, just in case something happens to any of us on the way to that facility of yours. We may be prepared to handle a lot of things, but there is stuff that hand held weapons just aren’t going to be able to handle.” Tracy did not sound like she was trying to scare me. Deep down I understood that she was just offering an honest analysis of the situation. But, I had seen some of the weapons that had been brought along on this expedition and I did not want to think about what type of situations the soldiers on this mission would not be able to handle.

Tracy did teach me a few things over the next few minutes. It was surprising how she could talk to me and spot the things she did. By the time she had finished giving her basic pointers I was able to see things hidden in the foliage along the rivers bank that I would have never even guessed were there. If all the lookouts were like her then I knew we would have adequate warning of any attack. Tracy’s lesson was interrupted when we saw something floating in the water. It looked like a section of a wall from a wooden building of some sort. The only buildings close to us were at the outpost and back at Port Ridgetan. It could have just been my imagination, but I felt that the piece of debris had come from the outpost. Tracy alerted the necessary people about the piece of debris and by the time we were within visible range of the outpost the tension in the air was palpable.

The first sight of the outpost was not very reassuring either. That was mainly because the outpost was no longer there. It was plain to see where the buildings used to be, but everything had been smashed. A while later we were able to make out bits and pieces of bodies. There was not much left of anyone since things left for dead in the jungle tended to get consumed awfully fast. The fact that there was anything left meant that whatever had killed those people had done so recently or had scared the local wildlife so badly that nothing was willing to come near the area.

The ships docked near what was left of the docks. I was told to remain on board while the soldiers scouted out the area for any threats. Given the situation, I thought that was a good idea. The scouts did not have to go far. When I saw the ears of all of the

scouts swivel in the same direction I looked where they were looking. It took me a while longer to hear what some of the scouts were hearing, but I could definitely make out screaming. The soldiers already on the shore and the ones still on the ship readied their weapons. Then they appeared. About five people burst into the opening the outpost used to be in and a giant rat burst out of the jungle soon after them. That thing had to be big enough to swallow a couple people at once.

Before anyone could do anything to help those people the rat picked up and swallowed an unfortunate rabbit fur. The soldiers were trying to get the people to run in a direction that would get them out of their line of fire. They seemed intent on running straight at the soldiers though. A human tripped and not even the rat had enough time to slow its momentum before crushing the woman underfoot. That saved the others tourists as the rat stopped to eat the flattened woman. Even at the size that rat was its body could not stand up to high powered military grade weaponry. That was why only a few soldiers took a couple of well placed shots at the creatures head to take it down. I was surprised at how they were able to know who was supposed to shoot and pleased to see that they were not going to waste ammunition on every giant animal we came across.

The tourists did not stop running once they reached the soldiers either. They had to be restrained in order to get them to stop. Once that was done they were brought on board my ship to see if they were alright and to undergo a brief interrogation. The soldiers started to set up a perimeter around the shore while the interrogation was going on. They wanted to find out it that rat really was the thing that had destroyed the outpost before we set out.

It took about half an hour to get the tourists calmed down enough to get them to make sense. I had wandered into the interrogation area to see if I could hear what had happened. When I saw the pair of soldiers guarding the interrogation room I nearly turned around and went right back to my room. Both of them were nine foot tall anthros that I had not talked to yet. One was a dragon, an actual dragon. You could tell the difference between a dragon and the less intelligent, far more violent, battle dragons by their eyes. A battle dragon had eyes more like a crocodiles while dragons had much more human like eyes even though they came in a wider variety of colors than a human’s. For example, this dragon had purple eyes. The other guard is who really scared me though. It was the lion that had put me in the hospital a few years ago. I was wondering what he was doing here when they both saluted me as I approached. Then I opened my mouth to ask the lion what he was doing here when he interrupted me. “I was just vacationing in Virania sir,” he said in a dead pan voice but his eyes seemed more like they were asking me not to mention the incident to anyone. I nodded to the two guards and then proceeded into the interrogation room.

The interrogation was nothing like what I had expected. When I hear that someone is going to be interrogated I expect something much different from what I saw. And what I saw mostly consisted of some of the friendlier looking soldiers trying to calm the tourists down enough so that everybody else could understand them. They were more than willing to talk, but they all wanted to talk at the same time and they were ready to

start rambling at the drop of a hat. It took about an hour, but their story eventually started to become clear.

It was not a pretty story. That rat had ended up growing early in the morning. Only a few people had been awake at the time and those people had all been in the dining hall, along with the rat. One of the people in the group the soldiers had just rescued was in that dining hall. She was able to give a pretty vivid description of what had happened. Most people thought they were hallucinating at first, but the screams of the first person that was crushed under the rat as it grew was enough to get the remaining people to act. Everyone, including the rat, was confused by what was going on. All of the people running around caused the rat to panic and it killed most of the people in the dining hall in its attempt to escape.

When the survivors from the dining hall tried to explain what had happened everyone else thought that they were on drugs. The rat had run off into the jungle so there was really no other evidence to prove what they were saying. It was not until an hour later that the rat had returned. Wild rats can be pretty vicious creatures when they want to be. A giant wild rat was a true terror, especially since it had decided that the tourists were a good food supply. The initial attack had resulted from at least five people being eaten and another two being crushed underfoot if the story we were being told was to be believed. After that attack the tourists had scattered into the jungle. The rat had just come upon this group an hour or two before we arrived. I was surprised they were able to get away from that thing for that long.

When questioned about the possibility of there being other giants in the area they panicked. It took a few minutes to sort out that they were just scared at the suggestion of there being more giants in the area. They actually did not know of any more giants themselves. Colonel Miller decided to leave the tourists with the ships since they would be sailing back up river to bring some construction crews forward. It was not like we could afford to bring any tourists along with us. The ships were also going to stay a little while longer than they had planned to give any other civilians hiding in the area some time to get to the ships. They could not delay long though. Caressee had some pretty ambitious plans for the development of the Tarkel jungle that could not be delayed. Even Virania was going to offering some assistance with the effort. If we were to get in trouble while out in the jungle help would be gradually working its way toward us.

It was time for the rest of us to disembark. The soldiers were still maintaining a defensive perimeter, however, since there was no telling when they would have to deal with some sort of giant creature or a regular animal for that matter. There were still a few types of big cats in the jungle that I could think of that would find something like me a tasty meal. And speaking of big cats, I noticed something odd about Tracy on my way off the ship. I could not figure out what it was until she was standing right next to me. My eyes widened with sudden realization and she must have noticed. “It was just two inches, but hey, my uniform actually fits better now.” Then she continued about her business and I stared after the formally six foot six inch tall tigress that was now six feet eight inches tall.

This was the first time someone I knew had been affected by all this. I kind of wished she had been affected more like the battle dragon had. It might be nice to have a real life giant on my side instead of trying to kill me. This was one of many incidents that made me start to think though. I remembered the presentation back at the institute. Humans and normal plant and animal life were growing at about the same numbers as each other. Anthros and dragons were a different story though. Even if you put all the plants, animals, and humans that had grown together the anthros still outnumbered them by about a four to one margin. Something about what had brought about the creation of the dragons and the anthros has left them more sensitive to the failure in the ancient’s technology than other creatures were. There was really no telling how big or small they would get either. The dragons had not existed before everything had been shrunk and the anthros were totally different creatures. They could actually end up getting much larger than a human would or the size of that battle dragon could be where they max out. Then again, after the one mile mark it didn’t really matter how big something got. The devastation caused by something of that size would be unimaginable.

I need to stop worrying myself. Nothing has even come close to its original size yet, except Yggdrasil and it was still only a fraction of the size it could be. That probably meant the technology had not failed completely as of yet and we still had time to fix the problem. If I was concentrating on what could happen for the entire trip then I would end up making mistakes and getting myself or someone else killed. I needed to look at things more like Tracy. There had to be some benefits to this whole growth thing, even if it was just uniforms that fit better.

Chapter 4

Tarkel JungleMarch 8, 1984 RE

It was getting close to the end of our first day on foot. Nothing had attacked us and that was about the only good thing I had to say about the day. As it turned out there was one thing that had managed to get overlooked before this expedition started. That thing was the physical condition of the people on my team. Now, the soldiers had to be aware they were not going to pushing anybody on my team to perform a forced march, but they had expected us to at least be able to keep up a fairly brisk pace. Unfortunately, about a third of my team was over 55 years of age and about half of my team was not in what I would consider the best of shape. I’ll hand it to some of the senior members of our team and say that they had managed to stay in decent shape, but they just did not have the endurance of their youth helping them through the day.

The soldiers had obviously been a little frustrated with how slow they had to travel and how many breaks they had to take early on. It had been like pulling teeth getting Colonel Miller to take that first break. I had practically had to drag him back to a see a few of my team members. Once he had seen how red their faces were he had

finally decided that he might loose a few of the people he was supposed to be protecting to heart attacks and heat exhaustion. When the Colonel called for that break a few of my scientists just fell over and laid on the ground huffing and puffing for a few minutes.

I saw Tracy conversing with the Colonel before we started up again. About 15 of the largest soldiers came over and actually strapped the worse off members of the expedition to their backs and offered to carry some of the other members of my team for brief periods of time. That was not that bad a solution actually. It was amazing just how much weight some anthros could carry and with the dragons it was really a matter of how much space they had on their bodies to carry stuff and not how much weight they could actually carry. One of the dragons had actually managed to strap three humans to himself and did not seem to be the least bit overburdened as he walked along. If he had to reach for a weapon or ammunition all those people would cause some problems though.

The Colonel’s decision did help things move along a little faster since the ones of us not being carried were in better shape and the ones that started to get tired could just jump on the back of one of the volunteer anthros. When we set up camp for the night I was extremely relieved. I was not in bad shape, but I had never been in a rush to get to my destination on any of my other expeditions. The pace the soldiers had set for us may have been lethargic for them but it was torture for me. My feet had swollen up a little and did not want to come out of my boots that night. Sometimes I thought the anthros had the right idea in never adopting footwear. Then I thought of what it would be like to march through the jungle with no shoes with all the sharp rocks, thorny plants, and poisonous insects and decided my sensitive feet were better off inside of boots.

Tarkel JungleMarch 10, 1984 RE

Something caused me to wake up a little early this morning. With the pace the soldiers had been making us keep that was unusual. I have been getting every bit of sleep I can get and it has not been much. It was about half an hour before sunrise that there was some unusual activity in the camp. The soldiers were not making a lot of noise; it just was not the usual noise they were making. I was about to emerge from my tent when I remembered the incident back on the ship and decided to stay put until someone came to get me.

It took a few minutes before I heard Colonel Miller outside of my tent. “Dr. Sanders, would you please come out here. There is something that needs to be brought to your attention,” said the Colonel.

“Alright, I’ll be right out.” It did not sound like we were in any danger and I was happy he wanted me out there. I really did want to know what was going on. Still, I was not expecting what I saw. The moment I walked outside the only thing I noticed was how dark it was. Thick jungle foliage pretty much blocked out what little light there was and I couldn’t see a thing. A large paw rested on my shoulder. It was too large to be the Colonel’s, or so I thought. Even though the anthro that I turned around to see was only a

few inches away from me I could barely make out any of his features. As my eyes adjusted as well as they could to the darkness I could see that the anthro was sitting on the ground Indian style and yet he was only a few inches shorter than me.

“We’ve had an incident doctor,” the anthro that sounded a lot like the Col. Miller said. My jaw nearly dropped as I realized this anthro was the Colonel.

“My God, how tall are you?”

“Currently I am ten feet three inches tall. I’m not the only one to be affected either. Two scouts and 18 of my soldiers have also had a bit of a growth spurt, but I appear to be the most drastic case. This is rather inconvenient for me though,” he said with a sigh.

“Why? What’s the matter?” I asked. The Colonel just pointed down. His night vision was considerably better than mine and it took me a while to notice what he was pointing at. He was not wearing any pants.

“The shirt I was wearing grew with me but my pants stayed the same size. A couple of the scouts are really good with a needle and are working on modifying the rest of my pants but it’s going to take a while,” said the Colonel who sounded a little annoyed.

“At least you’re not human. That nice coat of fur you have will cover up anything private,” I said in an attempt to lighten the situation.

“So you say. I’m going to have to go pants-less for at least a day and it is definitely going to be awkward issuing any orders like this.”

“Oh, it’s not that bad. Did you know that before civilization collapsed there were plenty of cartoons that featured anthros that didn’t wear pants of any clothes at all on some occasions?”

A glint of light reflected off the Colonel’s eyes and I could see he was frowning as he said, “There was furry porn around before there were any actual anthros?”

“Well, yes, but that’s not what I was talking about. There were many children’s cartoons that featured anthropomorphic creatures in various states of dress. One of the more famous ones I have come across is this little white duck. I forget his name, but I believe it was Donovan Duck, or was it Damien, or something like that. All the pictures I’ve seen of him never show him wearing pants and it never seemed to bother anybody,” I said jokingly.

Col. Miller just snorted, “I can’t believe you humans would have allowed your children to watch such material. What were they thinking?”

“I guess it is a little hard to explain to an actual anthro, but it was all completely innocent stuff. It wasn’t like any of those characters ever did anything inappropriate with each other,” I said.

“Sure they didn’t. Well, this conversation has lead into areas about humans that I hadn’t expected it to but I really should be getting back to my other duties,” the Colonel said as he stood up and walked away. I marveled at how tall he was before I walked back into my tent and started to pack everything up. Later I found out that Tracy had now reached seven feet in height. Many of the soldiers including Tracy had been forced to swap uniforms in order to find something that fit. In the end things worked out pretty good. There were more anthros available to carry my team members and we made better time today than we had so far on our expedition.

Tarkel JungleMarch 11, 1984 RE

Colonel Miller had managed to get himself a modified pair of pants and he was looking especially bright eyed and bushy tailed today even though he was trying to hide how good he was feeling. I would have never guessed someone like him would care so much about what people thought of his appearance. Then again, I wouldn’t like to parade around in front of everybody without pants for an entire day. It must have been especially tough for him since his position pretty much guaranteed he was going to be the center of attention for many of the people on this expedition.

Things were going pretty smoothly though. There had been mounting complaints from many of my team members as the days wore on. Even I was getting tired of them despite most of the complaints being directed at the Colonel. Most of the people on my team just did not take well to the jungle and they had no problem letting everybody know. Earlier today the Colonel finally snapped. The Colonel was a naturally intimidating person and his new height only served to amplify his intimidation factor. When he practically roared that everybody needed to shut up everybody except for the most troublesome members of my team shut up. As for the ones that didn’t, they wound up gagged and thrown over somebody’s shoulder. When Col. Miller looked at me to see if I objected I raised my hands in surrender and shook my head. Personally, I was happy not to have to deal with the complaints anymore and I definitely was not going to defy a ten foot tall jaguar about this matter.

A couple of hours later, things had settled back into a pretty routine day. It was amazing how fast things could change. When all of the soldiers with excellent hearing readied their weapons the rest soon followed. I noticed that a little shell of soldiers started to form around my team. Then I could hear some faint screaming. Soldiers were taking up attack position and were more than adequately prepared when a group of people came bursting out of the foliage. It was pretty obvious something was chasing them but I sure couldn’t see anything. Then a thick scaly form reared up off the jungle floor. It stuck at one of the people with lightning speed and dragged him backwards while coiling around him. I recognized the snake that was attempting to make a meal out of the

man and I knew it should not be more than a foot long. By the size of it I would have to say it was maybe 50 to 60 times that length.

A few of the soldiers put away their guns and pulled out machetes that they had been using to hack their way through the jungle. All of the soldiers that were doing so were types of anthros that were renowned for their own speed and reaction time in a fight. The snake was a little too busy constricting its prey to notice the danger it was in. It did not see any of the soldiers until they were within a few feet of it. I could barely see what followed as the snake tried to strike at the soldiers. Everything was a blur of motion. It was trying to bite the soldiers and lash out with its tail while the soldiers danced nimbly out of the way. In the end the snake was no match for the group of soldiers. There weapons made quick work of the snake and a water monitor anthro made sure it was dead by taking its head off.

Three of the people were still running and the fourth, the one that had been captured by the snake was being checked out by a medic. The soldiers were easily able to capture the others since they were already exhausted from their run. Another interrogation like the one from our first day in the jungle took place. This one turned out to be far more interesting than anybody had expected it to be though. I did not bother to listen to this interrogation since I was only expecting more news about various giant animals in the area. If I needed to know anything else the Colonel would tell me. Listening to a few people babble for a few hours was just no fun.

When Col. Miller did call me over to him some time later I thought he was just going to tell me it was time to move on. There was something about the way he carried himself that told me something was bothering him though. “Dr. Sanders, it appears we have a bit of a problem,” Col Miller said.

“And that problem would be?”

“We are not alone out here. The Southern Alliance has sent its own expedition out here and these people had been capture by a couple of their scouts,” said the Colonel. “They were being taken back to the main body of the SA forces in the area when that snake attacked. It killed and ate one of the scouts. These people made their escape while the other scout was busy with the snake.”

“That’s not good news,” I responded.

“There is some good news. Those scouts were big talkers. They complained about a lot of things within hearing range of these people. One of those things was about how they had rushed to try and beat us into the jungle in the first place. They did have about 1000 soldiers with them when they came out here, but because they rushed there were equipment and supply issues. Close to 600 of them have been forced to turn back because of those issues. The commander of their group also seems like a typical SA commander.”

“If you don’t know what that means it’s that SA commanders barely know that the sock goes on before the boot,” said Tracy, who had silently come up behind me.

“The private is correct. SA officers mostly come from their noble and elite citizens. I can’t begin to explain how many times the incompetence of their officers has managed to save my people. And they have officers from two of the countries that make of the Alliance in their ranks. The only thing the Southern Alliance hates more than us is each other. They’re probably having a few problems with each other as we speak,” Col. Miller explained. He was probably right. The Southern Alliance was composed of four member nations, Dalga, Polatvit, Mirdandia, and Selevanta. None of them cared much about the other and would be just as happy to see their flags flying form each others capitals.

They claimed to be trying to resurrect what was once known as the Confederacy. The region of the world we are now in was once known as the United States of America and all of our countries were located in a section of country that had tried to break away for some reason lost to history and called itself the Confederacy. The Southern Alliance was being pretty ambitious. No one has been able to control as much land as the Confederacy had in a long time and they could not even take control of the area controlled by three of the Confederacy’s member states. The bulk of my own country resides in the state my country is named after. Virania is just a mispronunciation of Virginia. Caressee is actually named after the two states that it resides in, North Carolina and Tennessee. I doubt the Southern Alliance could ever accomplish their goals though, even if they could beat Caressee they would probably end up destroying each other.

“Why are they out this way though sir? There must be a quicker way to that facility from their own borders,” Tracy said.

“There is one really good reason for that. The Southern Alliance simply does not have the expertise needed to bring that facility online. As you may know, they have been falling behind us technologically,” said the Colonel. “For years they have had to resort from stealing technology from us just to stay in the game. They need our scientists in order for their mission to be a success. So, they have tried to rush out here as fast as they could in order to intercept us and kidnap our charges.”

The Colonel dismissed us and we started walking away. I noticed that Tracy did not seem like she was bothered about anything she had heard. How the news that 400 enemy soldiers were out there to kill her and kidnap me did not bother her was beyond me. “How can you act so calm after news like that?” I asked her.

She just grinned a feral grin and said, “We can take on 400 SA troops. Besides, most of them must be from Dalga and they operate on the spray and pray philosophy.”

“Spray and pray?”

“That means you hold your gun at your hip, pull the trigger, and pray you hit something. Dalga hasn’t trained their troops to shoot straight ever since they started using guns. They might have been better off sticking to bows and arrows. I once managed to get isolated with ten supposedly elite Dalgan troopers. They didn’t even manage to singe my fur before I captured two of them and killed the rest,” she said while smiling as if remembering some pleasant experience.

I must have looked a little nervous to her because she draped one of her large arms over my shoulder and said, “Hey, don’t worry Larry. If we get attacked you just stick with me and I’ll make sure nothing happens to you.” Well, it was her they were trying to kill and if she could remain in such a good mood then I guess it would not kill me to at least pretend I was in a good mood as well. She was too tall for me to put my arm around her shoulder, so I just wrapped my arm around her waist and we made our way back to the camp that was being set up for the night.

Chapter 5

Gaia OutpostTarkel JungleMarch 13, 1984 RE

Our scouts had been dispatched and were easily able to locate the Southern Alliance troops yesterday. Col. Miller was now keeping a close watch on them while we continued on our way. Apparently the Southern Alliance did not know exactly where we were. That gave us the element of surprise for now, but the Colonel did not want to go looking for a fight quite yet. He wanted to make sure we, and by we I mean my science team, were secured somewhere safe before he engaged the SA forces. It had been debated as to whether or not we should actually fight the SA troops and it was pretty much a consensus among the troops that they should fight them now while we could plan the were and when of the attack rather than it happening unexpectedly in the future.

That was why I now found myself with Tracy dressed in civilian clothes in this rather shabby looking outpost. Gaia was one of the many places that had been built by the tourists on their way to Yggdrasil and it was not exactly built by some of the best carpenters in the world. The buildings were pretty much just a place to safely store extra food and they were nice places to get out of the rain, well, the ones that didn’t have leaky roofs were. Currently 80 soldiers, including the Colonel, and seven of the guides were setting up a little ambush for SA troops while the rest of us were supposed to stay in this nice secure little area.

In a more civilized part of the world 50 plus people showing up all of a sudden might have been a bit suspicious. This was not a civilized part of the world though. Many of the soldiers were now dressed up as body guards or well armed civilians. Most of the real civilians had at least small arms on them as well. You never knew when you would need a weapon in a place like this. It wasn’t just the local wildlife that people had

to worry about out here. There was always the chance that you might run into a primitive tribe of humans out here and there was an even greater chance that you would run into some anthros that had never even heard of human civilization. Not all anthros had been around humans when they had mutated into anthros. That meant there were plenty of them running around jungles like this. Plenty of those anthros were incredibly dangerous too. A predator that had mutated into an anthro was just a really intelligent predator.

We were not supposed to let the civilians in the area know that we were a part of a military and scientific expedition. The last thing we needed was to let everybody know that there may be giant monsters in the area. It was not meant as an act of cruelty on our part, but if we did let all these people know what was really going on then many of them would be bound to demand that the military protect them. There just were not enough soldiers around to protect my team and the other civilians at the same time. If they tried to tag along with us then they would just be putting themselves in more danger anyways. It would be a complete coincidence if they actually ran into a creature large enough to kill them, but it would not be a coincidence when somebody eventually showed up to attack us. We were the ones being actively hunted, not them.

Tracy was currently posing as my girlfriend instead of a bodyguard. I had sort of seen a slightly playful side of her on the previous occasions I had encountered her, but she was really having fun with her current role. We kept getting looks from the people around us, not because we were a mixed species couple, but because there was such a large difference in our height. When somebody actually built up the nerve to ask us about it Tracy just hugged me close to her with one arm, kissed me lightly on the top of my head, and said, “I like ‘em small and cute.” It was a little embarrassing, but I had to admit Tracy was the best looking girlfriend I had ever had even if she was just faking.

After a while of talking to other people in the outpost in order to gather a little information, Tracy and I finally managed to find an isolated little area where we could just talk. There seemed to be something on Tracy’s mind and I asked what was bothering her. “Larry, why is this happening to us? I mean, this isn’t happening to you humans nearly as much as us anthros. Hell, it’s happened to me twice already. It was a little amusing at first, but I don’t want to become a monster,” Tracy stated.

This was the first time Tracy had expressed any doubts around me and it was a little uncomfortable. I also knew that by “this” Tracy had to be referring to her sudden growth. To me this seemed more like a conversation for her real boyfriend. Unfortunately, she was coming to me for help and it was kind of a scientific question so I felt obliged to at least try and make her feel better. “If it helps, I don’t think this is only happening to anthros. Col. Miller’s clothes grew with him and I’ll bet there are thousands of cases that are never reported,” I said.

“Thousands?”

“Yeah, look around. If any one of these trees surrounding this jungle was to grow a few inches to a few feet how many people do you thing would actually notice? They’re

already so large to begin with. And what about insects?” I asked. “They’re so small most of them could double in size and nobody would have a clue. There have got to be things like that going on all the time now and there is just no way of telling. I mean, how do we know a five pound rock isn’t supposed to be a five once pebble?”

“I suppose you’re right,” Tracy said doubtfully.

“And don’t worry about being a monster Tracy. Even if you were a giant,” I looked up at Tracy, “Well, even more of a giant, then I’m sure you would still be Tracy the soldier, defender of Caressee and its allies. You just don’t strike me as the rampaging giant type.”

Tracy chuckled and surprised me with a hug. Then she whispered in my ear, “Thanks Larry, I knew there was a reason I liked you.” She kissed me on the cheek before letting me go and I was left speechless this time. Then she just wrapped her arm around me and escorted me back to the main part of the outpost. If she was still nervous or apprehensive about anything she did not show it. Tracy was just smiling like some woman that was enjoying the company of her lover and I was really starting to wonder how much of it was an act.

After what felt like hours of endless conversation one of my team members finally pulled me aside. That person happened to be Professor Lockwood, who was one of the more vocal members of my team. He was one of the people the Colonel had to gag to shut them up for this trip. Considering the fact that he was in fairly decent shape, tall for a human, and he had the type of looks that women really fell for I don’t know why he complained so much. I was prepared for another round of complaints and when he insisted that we talk alone Tracy reluctantly left my side while giving me a sympathetic look. As we walked away together things were turning out exactly as I thought they would.

I lead the way to a private area and prepared myself for one of Prof. Lockwood’s complaint sessions. These things could go on for as long as an hour before he tired himself out. After we arrived at a quiet part of the outpost with no one else around I turned around to ask what his main complaint was this time. Needless to say I was stunned to be staring down the barrel of a pistol when I faced him. “Scream for help sand I’ll shoot you down like the animal loving bastard that you are,” Lockwood said.

I sighed and asked, “You aren’t from Virania or Caressee, are you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I could never call a country that suffers the existence of any abomination as my home,” Lockwood said. By the way he practically spit out the word abomination I’ll assume he was referring to the anthros. This man who claimed to be Prof. Lockwood had to either be from the Southern Alliance or Galvanta. Given the way he talked about anthros I would have to say he was from Galvanta. It figures they would try to send someone along on my team. If Galvanta had a spy on my team then that might explain how the SA had found out about this expedition. Galvanta was in no

position to send troops into this area, but if they had formed an alliance with the SA then they might be able to get something accomplished.

“What’re you planning to do with me? If you kill me the gunshot will bring every soldier in this area down on you and your cover will eventually be blown,” I tried to say as calmly as I could with a gun pointed at my face.

“I think you are overestimating those bastard soldiers and that tiger bitch lover of yours. And I don’t want to kill you doctor. I was supposed to spy on you and relay information to the SA troops in the area, but it appears they are about to be wiped out by these animal abominations,” Lockwood said in a scornful manner. “That means I’m going to have to save them and you’re my only excuse for slipping away for an extended period of time. I’ll save those SA fools from being slaughtered and I’ll have you to present as a gift. So, why don’t you just come along peacefully before I have to do something that we’ll both regret?”

I sighed and went along with Lockwood peacefully. At least a few things were starting to fall into place. He complained so much because he couldn’t stand the company he was in, all of those hour long complaint sessions with me were so he would have a credible story for being alone with me for up to an hour at a time, and I finally knew how the SA had found out about this expedition. I did wonder how he was getting word to the SA troops in this area though. If he really was Lockwood he could probably make some sort of radio transmission device out of all the equipment we had with us.

There was no chance I was going to let myself be captured by the Southern Alliance. Once I was with them they would probably kill me rather than let me get rescued. That meant I had to gamble on how much this spy wanted to live. I made my move while we were still close enough to the outpost that anyone would hear a gunshot. My abrupt decision to try and fight back did not take Lockwood completely off guard as I suspected. I barely had enough time to knock the gun out of my face before Lockwood smashed me in the face with his fist. When I still tried to fight back Lockwood hit me in the side of my head with his pistol. I started to blackout and just hoped Lockwood would not kill me in my sleep. The chance that he would drag me with him was very unlikely since he would have a hard enough time getting away on his own without being weighed down by another person.

The next thing I knew someone was shaking me awake. My head was pounding where Lockwood had hit me and there was also an aching sensation in my ribs. Lockwood may not have shot me, but he had given me a parting kick. It took me a little while to realize that the person trying to rouse me was calling my name and it took even longer to realize that the person was Tracy. I tried to tell her that I was alright but all I managed to do was groan. Tracy just seemed satisfied that I was conscious and stopped shaking me. When I felt confident that I could form words again I asked, “How long?”

“It’s been about 45 minutes since you walked off with Professor Lockwood,” Tracy responded.

I wanted to curse, but I had to warn Tracy first. “You need to get word to the Colonel. Lockwood’s a Galvantan spy and he’s making his way to their position now to warn them about the Colonel’s ambush,” I managed to say. Talking so much made my headache even worse, but Tracy seemed even less happy at the moment.

“Damn. Hey Kurtis get over here,” Tracy shouted. Kurtis was one of our scouts, a black furred wolf that was around my height but a lot faster than I could ever hope to be. Tracy relayed my warning to him and he dashed off into the jungle to inform the Colonel about what had happened. Then Tracy picked me up as if I was a child a started to carry me off.

“I can walk on my own Tracy,” I informed her.

“Of course you can Larry. But your head is bleeding and I think you should avoid walking until someone has checked you out,” Tracy said gently. I touched the part of my head that Lockwood had struck and sure enough it came away smeared with blood. Tracy was probably right and I did not complain as she took me to one of the medics.

I turned out to be fine and Kurtis had returned about an hour after I had been checked up. The Colonel was moving closer to Gaia outpost, not because he was afraid he couldn’t handle the SA troops but because he was afraid they would bypass his ambush and come straight for my team. They should be getting here any minute now from what I heard. Most of them are going to remain hidden though. Col. Miller did not really want people knowing what he looked like right now anyways. Anthros may get to be tall, but they did not get as tall as he was now. For those reasons I thought that we would be safe for the moment.

It came as a surprise when I heard the first gunshots. The Southern Alliance commander must have decided to attack now after all. People started to run around in a panic with the exception of the few soldiers in the outpost. Despite the fact that most people in the outpost were armed no one had expected to fight anything more than some overly aggressive animals or some long lost tribe. The confusion of being shot at themselves was making the people that did have weapons a danger to everybody as they randomly pointed their weapons at everybody else. Some of them were actually shooting at each other. Fortunately, a few of the real bodyguards and all of Tracy’s companions were able to maintain their composure and make sure whoever they were supposed to be protecting was being protected.

I found myself getting dragged away from the outpost and to cover by one of the dragons that had come along on this expedition. If that dragon had not come for me I don’t know what would have happened. I was every bit as confused about this situation as the tourists were. It was not the dragon I had met earlier; this dragon had red eyes instead of purple ones. Tracy was right about the way Dalga had trained it soldiers. I could tell the difference between who was shooting just by listening. The troops from Caressee were firing short controlled bursts while the ones from Dalga did not seem to

stop shooting until their weapons ran out of ammunition. That was why I could tell that a Dalgan trooper was approaching me and my dragon protector. The Dalgan soldier did not even notice the dragon since he was shooting in the opposite direction we were coming from.

The dragon did not even bother to use his own weapon to dispatch the Dalgan. He just simply snuck up behind the soldier who turned around in time to be surprised by the sight of the dragon but not in enough time to actually aim at it. The dragon grabbed one of the soldier’s arms with enough force to shatter the bones in that arm. Then the dragon swiped at the soldier’s neck with his other hand and practically tore his throat out. As I was sprayed with a little blood I felt the contents of my stomach trying to make it back up my throat. Another Dalgan appeared out of a bush about three feet away. Even the dragon did not have enough time to react before something else came up right behind the Dalgan and swiftly snapped his neck. “I take a few seconds to go to the bathroom and look at what happens,” said Tracy.

I had been wondering where she was and was more relieved than I thought I would be to see her again. The dragon just acknowledged her with a slight tip of his head and then Tracy took on the task of getting me to cover while he went off to help anyone else that needed it. Unless the enemy forces in the area started using more powerful weapons than they were right now then the dragon was pretty much invincible. When I asked Tracy where we were going she told me that the Colonel had dug in a short distance away. I wondered how short a short distance was to her. That was easy enough to find out when I nearly tripped over a concealed soldier.

I could see that most of my team was already secured. As I turned around to apologize to the soldier I had nearly tripped over another enemy soldier appeared from around a tree. There was a gunshot from a weapon I had not heard before and the soldiers head practically exploded. I turned to see the source of the gunshot and saw that Col. Miller had fired the shot. He was using a standard pistol, but it was extremely oversized to anyone but Col. Miller. On seeing me the Colonel made his was over to talk with me. “Dr. Sanders, its good to see you made it here. That makes for all 29 of you,” he said with a slight frown. I wouldn’t want to be Lockwood if the Colonel ever managed to catch him. He apprised me of the situation and then went back to issuing commands to his troops. Tracy took me to a spot where she told me I would be safe and then I was left to sit out the battle.

It did not take long. The Southern Alliance could not break the Colonel’s defenses and even an idiot knew they could not afford to take too many casualties out here. They eventually disappeared back into the jungle and everybody took stock of the losses. One of my team members had been shot in the foot and would have to be carried for a while. There were three wounded among Colonel Miller’s troops but nobody was severely hurt. The civilians had suffered 13 casualties, four of them by stray shots from each other. The SA had taken the worst of it though, 37 of their soldiers had been killed during the battle. Colonel Miller kept his soldiers hidden from the civilians. Dalga was

known to send raiding parties into Caressee, so no one questioned why they had been attacked.

I was ordered to get some rest. We were going to have a busy day tomorrow. The Colonel planned on putting some distance between us and the SA forces in the area. I had to agree with the Colonel. This was the first time I had been in a shoot out and even though I had come out unharmed it was not an experience I wished to repeat. I couldn’t even eat right now. When I tried all I could think about was that dragon tearing out the throat of that Dalgan soldier. It wasn’t like I was sad that he was dead, but someone’s throat getting torn out is not an image you want in your head while you are trying to eat.

Chapter 6

Tarkel JungleMarch 15, 1984 RE

It was two days after the Southern Alliance had decided to make that rather sloppy attack against us and we had left that outpost and some confused tourists behind. Things were still pretty tense. The situation had been made even worse yesterday when one of the soldiers whose weapon had jammed on her during the fighting had discovered one of her bullets was a little too large for her gun. The Colonel had ordered an ammunition check which had taken a few hours to complete. Frankly, I was surprised they had managed to go through all the cartridges and shells as fast as they did. It was discovered that at some point some bullets and other little things had changed sizes. We only lost about one cartridge worth of ammunition and one gun was too large for any of the ammunition we had available to us. The Colonel was actually able to get two more bullets for his overlarge pistol though. I also had my team check out equipment rather than just standing around and watching the soldiers. There was only one piece of equipment that had grown and it still functioned perfectly fine. Still, the Colonel was not pleased to find out that any of the bullets had grown since he could not afford to have us stop and check ammunition everyday.

Things did not improve today either. About two hours after we set out this morning it started to rain. It was well into the afternoon now and it was still raining. It was not a light rain either. I would call it more of a torrential downpour. The already poor trail that we were following became even worse as the dirt under our feet quickly turned to mud. It was hard moving around like this and I had to wonder how hard this was for some of the furrier members of our team. If the rain soaked into their fur it would be like adding a few extra pounds of weight to their bodies. When I looked over at Tracy she seemed to be doing alright, in fact, she seemed to be taking this even better than I was.

My team must have been moving much slower than I thought we were. The Colonel signaled his troops with a twitch of his tail and before I knew it I was picked up and placed on Tracy’s back while the other members of my team were picked up by the

Colonel’s other troops. The pace picked up noticeably and I apologized to Tracy for being such a burden. In response she said, “Don’t worry about it. You should have seen what they put us through during Hell Week. Compared to that, this is nothing.”

I had my doubts but I did not voice them. There was only one problem for me now. Tracy was thoroughly soaked. Whatever had mutated all of those animals a thousand years ago had improved the overall smell of anthros, but it had done nothing about the smell of wet fur. I thought it wise not to comment on Tracy’s odor at the moment. She seemed to like me and I didn’t want to ruin things by insulting her about something she couldn’t help while she was carrying me on her back. We continued on like this until the scouts found a good place to settle down for the night on some high ground with some moderately good cover.

It was a cold and miserable night. Having been on expeditions in weather like this before I was prepared for it. Some of the other members of my team were being cared for by the troops. The Colonel could not have them coming down with something. The ancient humans may have been able to eliminate most major diseases, but one still needed to guard against other ailments that came from not properly taking care of oneself. I noticed that it tended to be the scalies that were taking care of the members of my team that needed the help. That was probably a sign that they did not like how some of their companions smelled at the moment any more than I did. I smiled at that and as I laid down to sleep I just hoped Lockwood and the SA forces that were no doubt following us were having even more problems than we were.

Serandale RiverTarkel JungleMarch 18, 1984 RE

Three days and one tourist outpost later we found ourselves at the banks of the Serandale River. It had been raining almost nonstop and nobody except for the water loving creatures among our group were that happy. We planned on crossing the river later, but first our scouts had to do a bit of hunting. They were not foraging for food though. What they were looking for were enemy scouts that were close enough to us to see where we would be making our crossing. Col. Miller did not want us being caught out in the open while we made our way across the river.

It only took about an hour before our hunters came back with a few catches. The Colonel himself had gone on the hunt despite what I thought were a few subtle objections from those under his command. As it turned out the Colonel returned without a scratch on him and two enemy soldiers draped over his shoulders. I doubt they knew what to do when they saw a ten foot tall jaguar bearing down on them. Me, I probably would’ve pissed my pants. Besides the two that Col. Miller had captured there were three other prisoners brought in. There was a brief interrogation where it was found out that there were ten scouts keeping watch on our position. I was a little surprised at how fast the interrogation was going, but I discovered the prisoner that was speaking was a pretty young guy that had been conscripted into the Dalgan army against his will because he

lived in this jungle and they needed guides. It also helped that the shortest person present in the interrogation area had been an eight foot tall water buffalo with muscles on top of muscles. The poor kid must have been scared half to death.

I thought the Colonel would have sent out somebody to take care of the other five scouts that were supposed to be watching us. The Colonel just glared at me and said, “They’ve already been neutralized.” I took that to mean not every scout he and his hunters had run across had been taken captive. Without their scouts that meant we should be able to travel a little further up the river and cross it without the SA forces noticing. Or we should at least be able to make it most of the way across the river before they finally caught on to what we were doing, especially in this rain.

It was interesting watching how the soldiers handled our first water crossing. The otters, alligators, crocodiles, and other aquatic creatures on this expedition waded into the water first. I realized they would be keeping watch for underwater threats while we made our way across the river. There was a dock a little further down river but we figured the SA would have most of their forces around the dock to try and ambush us their. This section of the river happened to be shallow enough for us to walk across but just barely. By the way our aquatic companions were fanning out in the water I could tell they were also there to catch us if we were swept off our feet by the current. Considering that the water was waist high to me and the fact that it only takes a couple of inches of swiftly flowing water to sweep a person off his feet, it was very likely that someone was going to need some help when we crossed that river.

As we started making our way across the river with our bags held above our heads I had reason to believe that I was going to need some help across this river. It felt like I was going to slip and fall at any moment. Their were a few startled yelps as people lost their footing and were swept downriver before being intercepted by one soldier or another. I was just grateful we did not have to do this under fire. This was going a little to well in my opinion. If this were a movie this is where something would happen. We were stuck in the middle of a river, it was pitch black outside due to all of the clouds, and it was raining so hard that I could not see more than ten feet in front of me. Fortunately, preparation and chance were on our side this time around. The river crossing was hard and something that I don’t look forward to repeating in the future, but other than that it was fairly uneventful.

The scouts had managed to find some pretty good cover on the far side of the river and we made camp there. It was the first time we had found a relatively dry place to camp in a long time. Most of us spent a good portion of the night trying to get the mud out of our boots, fur, bags, guns, and wherever else mud had managed to find itself, which was everywhere. My boots were supposed to be mud-proof. This was not my first expedition though. It takes a civilization hundreds of years more advanced than my own to produce boots that mud can’t get into under conditions like these. Some of the members of my team that did not have the same amount of experience I did had more than a few complaints about false advertisement.

Tarkel JungleMarch 20, 1984 RE

The rain had finally stopped yesterday afternoon. Now it was hot and humid, unusually so for this time of the year. Sweat was pouring out of my body and I was happy to see that someone had had the foresight to refill our water supplies while it had been raining. We were certainly going through our water fast enough now. Tracy was sticking close to me and a few other members from my team making sure that we stayed hydrated. Once again the age and physical condition of my team was coming into play. This weather was a real danger to some people and Col. Miller was not taking any chances with my team.

That little slow down did cost us. It was about midday when I heard the first gunshots. I was surprised that none of the soldiers had shown any signs that we were about to be attacked. They reacted fast after we were attacked though. I was pushed, well, more like tackled to the ground by Tracy. That was pretty much how all of my team members were treated and there is no gentle way of being tackled to the ground, especially when the one tackling you is over two feet taller than you are and has muscles that are solid as a rock. The breath was knocked right out of me while Tracy practically laid on top of me while searching for targets to shoot back at.

I could not see much with Tracy right over me but I did manage to see something I wish I could have avoided. One of our soldiers, a leopard, took a bullet through the chest just a few feet away from me. As the bullet exploded out of the soldiers chest blood went everywhere, including on my face. After that experience with the battle dragon I would have thought something like that would not faze me too badly, but I had been traveling with that soldier for some time now. I did not know him too well but I think everyone in our group had begun to feel a little attached to one another by now. Seeing someone die right in front of my eyes felt even worse since I actually knew the persons name.

I wondered why they had attacked in the middle of the day. “Because it’s the best time for them to attack,” Tracy responded. I had no idea I was voicing my thoughts. “The SA may not want to see anthros exterminated, but they don’t care much for anthros either. They still don’t allow any anthros in their armed forces and I doubt they have any with them now. No offense Larry, but humans have pitifully bad night vision. If they were to attack at night there are more of us that would be able to see very well even without the assistance of night vision goggles. We would be able to take them apart at night and they know it. So, a daytime attack makes perfect sense,” Tracy explained to me.

As she finished there was a loud explosion. Tracy bared her fangs in a threatening manner and said, “Damn, they’re using grenades. Looks like they’ve decided they’d rather just get a few of you rather than none of you.” Then she started dragging me along on the ground with her to a place that looked like it would provide a little cover from an explosion. In a dense jungle like this that did not take long. Tracy signaled that

I needed to stay put and be quiet. Then she stalked off into the jungle and practically disappeared before my eyes. I doubted Tracy would leave me alone for long unless she wasn’t that far away. The first time that I heard weapons fire come from the direction I had seen Tracy disappear in even I was surprised. I could only imagine what it was like for the soldier that had just been shot at.

It was starting to become apparent to even me that this attack was beginning to tip in our favor. Since the surprise of the initial attack had worn off the superior training and equipment of the Caressean forces had definitely tipped the odds in our favor. I may not be an expert in military tactics, but it seemed like this should have been a hit and run attack. The SA had more troops in the area than we did and it seemed like they should have been content with whittling down the number of soldiers on my side. Instead, they appeared to be trying to capture me and my team now. It was not like they were rushed for time right now. There was still about a month between us and our destination. As expected, the fight died down after a little while. The SA had probably suffered more causalities than they could afford and were pulling back for now.

Tracy emerged a couple minutes later. I could tell she was still on the lookout for any sign of an enemy presence in the area. As I opened my mouth to say that I was happy to see her she raised a finger to her lips to indicate that I still needed to be quiet. Her claws were fully extended as if she was expecting a fight. She was not going to get caught by surprise two times in one day. The SA soldier that jumped out from behind a tree found that out the hard way. Tracy was running toward him before he had even fully emerged from behind the tree. She raked her claws across his face before he had the opportunity to point his weapon at her. What a tiger’s claws can do to a person’s unprotected face does not bear describing. I was surprised that a person could still be alive while his face was in that condition, but Tracy quickly put an end to it by snapping the man’s neck. And with that, the battle was over for the day.

The aftermath was not as pretty as our last battle had been. Three other soldiers besides the soldier I had seen shot had been killed. Four of my scientists had been injured. If two of those soldiers had not taken the brunt of the blast from the grenade I heard earlier there would probably be four dead scientists right now. Three of the four injured scientist only suffered mild injuries, but the fourth was not so lucky. One of his legs had been blown straight off by the explosion and somebody had barely managed to stop the bleeding before he could bleed to death. The only good news about that injury was that the person missing a leg was already one of the people that had to be carried, so this would not affect our mobility.

Col. Miller made sure that we moved and moved fast before we set up camp for the night. Even I had to be carried to keep up with the pace that the Colonel set. I am not sure how far we traveled but I would be amazed if the SA troops could have matched the pace the Colonel set. Colonel Miller also had new sleeping arrangements starting tonight. Since it was now obvious that the SA did not intend to capture all of my team he was now having at least one or two soldiers share the same tent as the scientists on my team. In most cases that actually meant that the members of my team were sleeping with

the soldiers. We all had different sized tents and there was no way a nine foot tall anthro was going to comfortably share space in a tent that was designed for a six foot tall human or anthro. Personally, I was moved into the large command tent with the Colonel himself. Even at his size it was large enough to be shared with three of his subordinates.

I was the smallest addition to Col. Miller’s command tent. The other three people in the tent were easily recognizable. One was the purple eyed dragon guard I had seen earlier and next to him was his lion partner. It was a little uncomfortable sleeping in the same room with someone that had hospitalized me once and I think the lion looked a little uncomfortable as well. I was relieved when I saw that Tracy was the final person in the tent. That caused me to wonder if she had been invited in here just to make me feel better about the sleeping arrangements. It would have been uncomfortable sleeping in a tent with a bunch of guys that were so large they made me look like a child.

Even though the Colonel’s tent was spacious it was still a slightly tight fit for all five of us. I was placed in between the Colonel and Tracy while the dragon and the lion slept feet to feet with us. Everyone feel asleep before I did. I was still thinking about the things that had happened today and I did not feel like sleeping. Then I discovered that the Colonel was not a totally peaceful sleeper. He had a habit that I would consider more annoying than snoring. His tail was waving about as he slept and since I was so close to him I was swatted in the face by his tail on a few occasions. It did not seem right that such a furry object should be able to sting like it did and his tail eventually forced me to retreat as far against Tracy as I could get. Her tail was much more docile than the Colonel’s.

I should thank the Colonel. It is much easier to go to sleep while trying to avoid an angry tail than with images of people with their faces torn off and dead comrades floating around in my mind. The only thing I felt like I had to worry about now was Tracy rolling over on me in my sleep.

Tarkel JungleMarch 21, 1984 RE

I woke up the next morning when Tracy sat up. “Morning Larry,” she said when my eyes fluttered open. “I hope you weren’t trying to take advantage of me in my sleep.”

The position I was in was a little awkward to explain. Even though she was smiling in amusement it was hard to keep my face from reddening. “Sorry about that, but Colonel Miller’s tail doesn’t seem to like me that much. It was either sleep against you or risk getting beaten to death in my sleep.”

“Don’t blame me for your actions Dr. Sanders,” Colonel Miller said in a tone of voice that made it hard to tell if he was just joking. I began to wonder if he was as defensive about his lashing tail as some people were about snoring in their sleep. By the look he gave me I would have to say he was and I filed away a mental note not to poke fun at him for his little habit.

It was a little earlier than when we usually wake up and when I started looking around questioningly the Colonel said, “We have a lot of work to do today Dr. Sanders and I’m not talking about a trek through the jungle. After yesterdays little show I’ve become convinced that we need to deal with the SA forces in the area as soon as possible. We came entirely too close to losing some of your team members and we simply can’t let them continue to operate in such a careless fashion.” Everything about Col. Miller, from the tone of his voice to the position of ears, indicated that he was a predator on the hunt. I just wondered how devastating a blow he was prepared to deal to the SA tomorrow. To me, it looked like he was prepared to tear their collective throats out.

Chapter 7

Victory HillTarkel JungleMarch 22, 1984 RE

Things had been very busy yesterday. I swear I have never seen anyone dig holes as fast as I saw these soldiers dig. And then they had fortified those holes before days end. While I was watching some soldiers dig, others just completely disappeared on me. My team was broken up into three groups that were being protected at various strong points on what the Colonel had decided to call Victory Hill. We were not spread that far apart because the Colonel did not have enough troops to keep splitting them up.

It was surprising how fast an ordinary hill could get turned into a fortress. Even I had a hard time finding all of the hidden little trenches and foxholes, one of which was occupied by an anthro fox, and I had been watching them get made. There were supposed to be five soldiers in my group guarding us but I only counted four. I walked over to Tracy who was another of our protectors. “Hey Tracy, are we missing somebody?” I asked.

She just looked around once and then her eyes lit up with comprehension. “Hey Taylor,” she called out.

“Yo,” a voice that seemed to emanate from a clump of vegetation in a tree responded to her.

“Dr. Sanders just wanted to make sure you were there. That’s a good spot too. Even I nearly missed you.” Tracy turned to me then and said, “Sergeant Taylor will be providing sniper support throughout the mission. And he is good. I’ve never seen a human with vision as good as his and I think he is natural born sniper if there ever was one.”

Even when I was looking directly at Taylor it was nearly impossible for me to make out his form. A sniper like that would be a terror on the battlefield. “So, do you really expect them to get here today?”

Tracy just snorted at the question. “They should have been here yesterday. That’s fine with me though. It gave us more time to prepare for them,” Tracy said.

There had been some hectic preparations too. About half of Col. Miller’s team was here on Victory Hill. There were two other smaller groups somewhere hidden in the jungle as well. They were supposed to be positioned to cut off the retreat of the SA forces when our little trap was sprung. The Colonel had said he made it so that any SA scouts in the area believed that all his troops were on this hill. Everything did depend on us being able to hold out on this hill, but the Colonel was confident that 50 of his troops were more than enough to hold out long enough to spring his trap.

I believed what Col. Miller told me, but I was still scared as hell. This would be my fist time in the middle of an actual battle. Sure I had encountered hostile primitive tribes on my travels, but they could normal be scared off with a few gunshots. This was something that was going to go on for a while and they were going to be fighting extra hard since the Colonel did not plan on letting them retreat. They were going to have to try and escape through one point in our lines and if they tried to break through were I was I could wind up getting killed. Col. Miller had split up my team into three groups because it might still be possible to complete the mission if we only had two of the groups survive this battle.

“Scared Larry,” Tracy said.

She guessed that one awfully quick. “Yeah.”

“I can smell it. Don’t worry you’ll be fine. I doubt the SA could push its way all the way up to here,” Tracy said. Then she proceeded to explain to me how everything was supposed to work and I only followed some of it. I may be a pretty smart guy, but my field of work does not usually involve an opposing intelligent force actively trying to thwart my plans by killing or disabling me. That is a pretty big complication as far as I am concerned. It was also difficult for me to tell if Tracy was just trying to comfort me or if she really meant that the SA could not force its way up the hill.

It was still pretty early in the morning when a signal was passed along the soldiers. They indicated that we all needed to sit down and shut up. When we did so I noticed how eerily quiet it was. I had become used to the jungle noises and now that they were gone it was really uncomfortable. It was like the animals could sense there was a battle approaching. The sun was shinning as well as it was able to through the thick jungle foliage and there was a slight breeze blowing through the area. That breeze was a pleasant relief to the slightly humid day and I thought it was actually a pretty good day for a hike through the jungle. It seemed like it should have been a much more solemn day, like it normally was in the movies.

About two minutes after the order for silence occurred, I finally heard something. It was the crunching of leaves and branches beneath combat boots. The enemy was approaching. I could feel my heart rate increase and I could swear I saw one of Tracy’s ears temporarily swivel in my direction. It might be possible for her to hear my heartbeat when things were as quiet as they were at that moment. I might ask her about it later. All of the soldiers seemed to tense up in anticipation of the attack until something else that I did not normally see in the movies occurred.

The soldier to the right of Tracy, the lion we were bunking with, Corporal Reilly, began to grow. Every member of my team just stared at him and somebody even muttered the word “fascinating” before a vicious stare from Tracy and Reilly silenced any further comments from us. It was a good thing his clothes were growing with him because he was already nine feet tall before he started growing. The only person with clothes for someone taller than that was Col. Miller. I managed to tear my eyes away from Reilly long enough to look to my left and see that my other bunkmate, the dragon named Corporal Lee, was also growing. They were trying their best to stay concealed and not make any noise as they just kept growing. That was not an easy thing for them to do since they just kept steadily growing until they reached a good 13 or 14 feet in height.

Just as that little growth spurt came to an end a gunshot echoed through the air. I nearly jumped right out of my socks as that single shot was followed up by close to 50 more less than a second later. It might have been nice if I could see what was going on, but I was under orders to keep my head down. I could see return gunfire causing little plums of dirt to shoot into the air a little further up the hill and I was in no rush to disobey orders and put my head in the path of one of those bullets. Occasionally I could hear the sound of someone crying out in pain only to be quickly silenced by the sound of even more gunfire or the person’s death. With literally hundreds of weapons going off all at once it sounded like I was in the middle of an especially bad thunderstorm. And then, somehow, things managed to get even louder. The trap had been sprung.

I could hear panicked yelling coming from the direction of the SA forces and then the sound of gunfire started moving closer to my position. That was the cause of a few silent curses within my little hideout. I threw in a few choice curses of my own. There were fewer and fewer weapons being fired from the direction of the SA forces, but they were not being silenced fast enough. It looked like our soldiers were not going to be able to kill them all before they reached our position after all.

A little metal ball was thrown into the trench I was in and landed right at my feet. By the time it took my mind to register that I was looking at an actual grenade that was going to explode Tracy was already running in my direction screaming, “Grenade!” To me she was just an orange and green blur of motion. She ran into me and threw herself over me while grabbing the grenade and throwing it back over the trench. Now, Tracy is over seven feet tall and she ran into me as fast as she could. It did not matter that she was covered in a nice soft layer of fur because she was wearing a nice hard combat jacket and all of that was covering over 200 pounds worth of muscle. I almost wished the grenade

had exploded right next to me instead of taking having to take a hit from Tracy. There was no chance I was ever going to play any contact sport with her.

Just as soon as the grenade exploded she was back on her feet and contributing to the fight once more. The SA forces had taken advantage of the brief lull in the gunfire and rushed our position though. One soldier actually jumped right into my trench and next to Corporal Reilly. The corporal kept firing his oversized weapon with one hand at someone else while using his other hand to pick up and toss that soldier against a tree, a tree that happened to be over 30 feet away. I could not really hear the soldier hit the tree and I am happy for that. Most of the felines are, pound for pound, stronger than a human and lions are one of the more powerfully built felines, especially the males. To get picked up and thrown against a tree by a 14 foot tall lion is not something a person is likely to get up and walk away from ever again.

That was not the only SA soldier to force his way into our trench either. I could tell not a single one of them had been expecting to encounter anything more than nine feet tall. At Reilly and Lee’s size all it took to kill a man was the casual swipe of a hand paw. I found out that they were being gentle with the soldiers that jumped into our trench for our benefit. The bloodiest deaths came from bullet wounds when they were not within arms reach of those two killing machines. There was one noticeable exception though. One SA soldier had jumped in the trench almost directly behind Lee and was bring up his weapon to fire into my group. Lee reacted fast and swiped at the man’s head so fast and with so much force that he was able to tear his head clean of his shoulders. The heart kept trying to pump blood to a section of the body that was no longer there and about half of my team could no longer stomach their morning meal. Lee just went back to fighting.

When I could stop staring at the headless body the battle was still going on. I took a tentative look around the trench and found that Tracy, Lee, and Reilly all had their backs to me as they fired down the hill. I caught a little movement out the corner of my eye. When I looked over I spotted that one of the dead SA soldiers was not entirely dead. He was also struggling to bring his weapon to bear on Tracy. Not knowing if I would be heard over the sound of all the gunfire I just grabbed a gun from one of the fallen soldiers while shouting a warning. No one reacted at all to my warning and I had to fire on the soldier myself. I am not used to firing military grade weaponry, but my accuracy was good enough to do the job. Unfortunately it was not enough to kill the man and he was angry about being shot in both legs by me.

The clip in my gun was empty and his was pointing at me. Just as he was about to pull the trigger another shot echoed out from where Tracy was standing. There was a new whole in the SA soldier’s head, but his finger still tensed around the trigger and his weapon fired. I felt a searing pain in my arm and I fell down screaming. Tracy was next to me in the blink of an eye. She had my arm in her paws and was inspecting my wound. When I saw her smile at me I realized the wound was not nearly as bad as I thought it was. “It’s just a scratch isn’t it Tracy?”

“Sure is, but I could still kiss it for you to make you feel better later if you want me to,” she said as she returned to her position. Even though she said it was just a scratch it still hurt. I had taken my fair share of injuries before, but bullet injuries are different. A bullet is basically something that explodes out of a tube and is thus superheated by the time it hits a person. Then it is traveling so fast that even though it is relatively smooth it is able to tear flesh with ease. I don’t care what anybody says; when you get hit by a bullet it warrants at least a little scream.

One of the other soldiers protecting my group took a couple of bullets to the chest and was unable to so as much as scream before collapsing on the ground. Someone checked for a pulse to see if they could do anything for him but just shook her head and closed his eyes. The death of yet another of my protectors right in front of me was even less pleasant than seeing someone get decapitated. It is one of those images that seers itself into the back of your mind and visits you in your dreams for the rest of your life.

The gun fire was starting to grow sparse. It sounded like the Colonel’s trap was working pretty well. And then I felt something cold and metallic against the side of my head. “Hello again Dr. Sanders.”

“How many times are you going to find it necessary to point a gun at me Lockwood?”

“I am going to have to keep doing it as long as you keep working with those abominations,” Lockwood sneered, “Now if you will just come along with me I’m in need of a hostage to get out of this little debacle. I can’t believe that idiot walked right into this trap even after I warned him that his scouts only got a look at your camp because that filthy cat leader of yours let him get a look at it. It’ll serve him right if these beasts serve him on a silver platter for their meal tonight.” A lot of people from nations that hate anthros believe in some pretty crazy rumors about them. One of the more popular ones is that anthros eat humans. There was a little truth in that one since whatever transformed the anthros did cause some of them to go insane and many of them would eat a human if given the chance. And then there was the occasional serial killer. Whether human or anthro, murderers could come up with some pretty sick ways to kill a person.

The gunfire came to a sudden stop and Tracy turned around to say, “You haven’t bleed to death on me yet have…you…Larry.” She stumbled on her words when she noticed Lockwood with a gun pointed to my head. The other soldiers in the trench noticed Tracy’s odd speech and turned around to see what was going on.

“All of you monsters can stay right were you are. The three of you aren’t going to come a step closer as me and Dr. Sander’s here take a little stroll. Come on now doctor, we have to leave now,” Lockwood said as he motioned for me to start walking along with him. Before he could take two steps there was a single gunshot and Lockwood went down with a grunt of pain. I was a little upset that he did not scream despite the bullet hole in his right shoulder. It was like he wanted to make me look bad.

“I didn’t take a step just like you said ‘professor,’” Taylor said from his hiding place in the trees.

“Good shot sergeant,” Tracy said as she rushed over to Lockwood and kicked his gun away from where he had dropped it. She was none too gentle in restraining him and he still only grunted despite the still bleeding wound in his shoulder. It was like he did not want to show any weakness around the anthros. His tough façade did slip when we all received a bit of a surprise. Walking through the jungle with a rather loud prisoner in one paw was a 20 foot tall Colonel Miller. I was the first one to recover from the sight since I had already had first hand experience with a much larger and very hostile battle dragon.

“You don’t do these little growth spurts in half measures, do you Col. Miller?” I asked.

“With so many of my other subordinates doing the same thing I could not let myself be outdone. I am the leader and thus I’m supposed to be the best at everything,” Col. Miller said with a completely straight face. The man in his grasp was a few inches taller than me but he looked ridiculously small next to the Colonel. He also looked completely ridiculous with a little handkerchief covering his nose as if there was a bad smell in the air.

The prisoner’s eyes locked with mine and he lowered his handkerchief before saying, “Ah, finally another human within this zoo.” For some reason this person seemed like he was the leader of the SA forces in the area. There was just nothing about him that said foot soldier. He had a haughty demeanor, even while being dangled in the air by the Colonel.

The Colonel just threw him on the ground in front of me and said, “He’s all yours. And don’t worry, he’s even less dangerous than you are. Maybe you can get something useful out of him before one of my soldiers beats him to death.”

It only took ten minutes with the man to figure out what the Colonel meant. This man showed absolutely no fear of any of the anthros. There was no chance anyone would mistake his behavior for bravery. He was a complete and utter fool that was in denial about his situation. It came as a relief that the Colonel only wanted me to watch over the man temporarily until his own soldiers had finished checking the area for any other survivors. I had never met a person as unbearable as him and I really think he would be in danger of having one of the anthros beat him to death if they were not all so disciplined. When someone came to relieve me of the arrogant fool I was not happy to hear I really was supposed to help with the interrogation when there was time to do so.

We ended up taking about on about 20 other prisoners, but 15 of them were so badly wounded that we did not expect them to survive. The casualty rate was so high for them because many of them refused to be taken captive. Anthros in the Caressean military happened to be like bogeymen for the people of the Southern Alliance. Many of

them would rather commit suicide than be captured by anthros. That means if an anthro wants to take one captive they have to be quick and quiet about it. Or, the person has to be so badly injured that he or she cannot commit suicide. Since we had just been in the middle of a battle there were not many of them that were getting caught off guard. That meant we were getting the injured ones and we did not have the best medical equipment available to us in the middle of a jungle.

By the time we had set up camp for the night we were already down to ten captives. The uninjured ones were secured in a tent that was going to be watched over by one of the dragons plus one other soldier at all times of the night. It would have been alright to leave them alone with a dragon since it was unheard of for just five humans to beat a dragon in a fight with nothing but their bare hands, but the Colonel just wanted to make sure nothing happened. I had no idea how the remaining injured prisoners were going to do since our best doctor was a spotted dear that they were scared to death of and they refused to be treated by him.

That meant our doctor was concentrating on our own injured. We managed to come out of the battle in pretty good condition, but the SA forces had managed to bloody us. Five of the Colonels men had been killed and ten had been injured. All but one of the injured was expected to survive. The Colonel was technically among the injured. He had taken a shot to his left leg from a pistol. At his size the pistol had done very little actual damage to the massive feline. The bullet had just barely managed to penetrate his hide.

They also made me go in for a check up just to make sure my wound was not infected and because my bruises from where Tracy hit me were now very visible. I was embarrassed to be taking up anybodies time with my little scratch. Fortunately, it was a quick in and out visit. Tracy was waiting to escort me back to our tent. I was just happy to have her around. Now that I had some time to settle down I was dwelling on the day’s event and she was a comforting presence. We had the tent to ourselves now. The Colonel was way to large to fit inside with anyone other than himself and the Colonel wanted me inside. Reilly and Lee were on watch duty and only one of them could fit in the tent with us at a time so they decided to stay outside with the Colonel instead.

When we were alone in the tent Tracy actually did kiss my scratch and giggled about it. Looking at her now it was hard to believe she had just taken part in slaughtering any enemy unit. She was just a cute slightly large tigress that was batting her eyes playfully at me. If we made it through all of this I hoped she would still be interested in me. And that was the thought I kept with me as I drifted off to sleep that night just before noticing that Tracy was sleeping a little closer to me than she really needed to.

Chapter 8

Elbridge OutpostTarkel JungleMarch 24, 1984 RE

The Colonel had decided to stay at an actual outpost today so we could see if they had anything else available to help the injured. This outpost that the tourists were calling Elbridge was fairly well built. They even had a decent radio tower built and I wondered who was responsible for that. Col. Miller just wanted to get in contact with his superiors to report on what was going happening out here. He just hoped that the tower had a long enough range to reach the construction teams that were supposed to be following us.

I was not going to just sit around doing nothing in this outpost. We had arranged to have a few of the buildings in the outpost to ourselves and one of those buildings was going to be used for interrogation purposes. As expected, all but one of the injured SA soldiers had died on the way here and the last was in critical condition. That still left us with three foot soldiers, their commander, and Lockwood. The three foot soldiers did not know anything of interest, but Lockwood and their commander were different. Lockwood was under special guard. The Colonel did not like how he was able to sneak into my trench and temporarily hold me hostage. That indicated that he had some sort of training and that he might be considerably more dangerous than anyone thought he was. The enemy commander, however, was just a fool. That was why I had the “honor” of being invited to be a part of his interrogation.

I was about to walk into the interrogation room right now with Tracy walking along side me. Once again, she was acting as my girlfriend as she had at Gaia Outpost. Truth be told, I would rather just be hanging around this outpost than interrogating a prisoner. And what was the first thing he said to me after entering his chamber. It just had to be something stupid and racist. “Thank the gods, another human. Could you call off these pets of yours so we can have a civilized conversation?”

He would have to say something like that while the girl of my dreams is around. The last thing I want is her opinion of humans dropping because of some idiot making comments like that. When I looked at Tracy she seemed to be taking it in stride though. I hated that she was supposed to stick through this entire process with me since she was supposed to be guarding me. Maybe he would not say too many things like that if I could keep him on subject. I looked over at the guards in the room, one of them happened to be the alligator that had saved my life earlier on the river. They nodded at me and stepped out of the room, but Tracy had to remain.

“Does it have to stay?” the enemy commander asked.

“She is under orders to act as my bodyguard while I am here,” I responded as a bit of annoyance crept into my voice.

“Ah, a personal guard dog. I fully understand.”

I really needed to get things started before I died of embarrassment. “First of all, can I at least get your name?”

“Getting right into things eh? I can respect that. I am Lord Tyler Markham of the Dalgan third infantry division.”

“Well, Lord Markham, may I ask why you were pursuing my people through this jungle.”

“Of course you may my good man, but I don’t know all the details of why I am out here myself. All I was told was that I was to attempt to capture the members of the science team that was sent into our jungle and, failing to do that, we were to just delay you for an unspecified amount of time,” he said without me having to use the least bit of coercion.

“Thank you for telling me that Lord Markham, but why are you telling me your orders so easily? I could not imagine your superiors being happy with you back home if they found out about this,” I said while finding it a little odd that I was the one that sounded like I was talking him out of giving up information. Well, I never said I was a professional interrogator.

“Easily you say. You think I have not noticed that the rest of my men that you captured have all gone missing. No doubt this half beast army that the Caresseans seem to be so fond of has been making meals out of the less cooperative members of my soldiers. I have no intention of working my way through anyone’s digestive system,” Lord Markham snorted. “Besides, if those Galvantan’s had lived up to their end of the bargain then I would not be in this mess. If they had shown up like they were supposed to I would be the one interrogating you right now. It would serve them right if something bad happened to them.”

My eyebrows flew up in surprise. “How could you honestly have expected the Galvantans to show up? They would have had to travel through both Virania and Caressee in order to get here,” I stated.

“They claimed they could get a few forces here. I don’t know how they planned to do it, but my superiors seemed to believe them. Now I am just starting to think that my rivals wanted to get rid of me just as we were about to put an end to Caressee once and for all,” Lord Markham sighed.

That final comment did not surprise me much. The SA was always on the verge of putting an end to Caressee once and for all as far as they were concerned. What did surprise me was that Markham actually thought all of this was just to get rid of him. That required an incredible amount of arrogance to think that his own government would allow the sacrifice of so many soldiers and that a foreign ally would sacrifice one of its own agents all because of him. I truly believed that Galvanta thought they could get people here and I would be interested to find out just how they planned to do so.

“Thank you for your time and cooperation Lord Markham, but I believe I need to report some of the things you have said to the Colonel,” I said as I prepared to leave the interrogation room.

“Remember that when these pets of yours decide they have a taste for human flesh. I’m sure that uppity environmentalist tastes better anyways,” Markham spoke up as I walked out the door. I am sure he meant Lockwood when he referred to the uppity environmentalist. Most people from Galvanta claimed to be environmentalists. They also claimed that the anthros did not fit in with nature and that it was up to humanity to undo the mistakes they had created to help purify nature. When things did not fit in with the Galvantan opinion of how nature should be they could get pretty vicious in making sure that things eventually became the way they thought it should be. Most of Galvanta’s neighbors either learned to share in that view or the fairly powerful Galvantan’s made them share in that view point at gun point. It did not help that the anthros in charge of Firanel could have cared less about the Galvantan’s view of nature. They were a highly militaristic nation and nobody forced them to do anything. Their view of nature was entirely different. They really thought of themselves as the superior group of species and that they could treat other lesser species, like humans, however they pleased. I really could not criticize them too much for having that attitude since countless human civilizations had operated on a similar ideology all throughout time.

As I walked out to meet the Colonel in his hiding spot I was intercepted by another trooper who wanted to bring me to see him immediately. It turned out that I was not the only one that had some news. Col. Miller had managed to get in contact with his superiors and there were some very important events that had occurred while we were out here. Markham was serious about putting an end to Caressee. The Southern Alliance had invaded Caressee about two days ago. That was not the only news either.

Before the Colonel could finish talking with me another soldier came running up to us. It was apparently the one that was working the radio since the Colonel was unwilling to make an appearance within the outpost at his size. The soldier saluted then started giving a report once the Colonel acknowledged him. “Sir, I have news from Virania and central command.”

“Virania? What happened up there sergeant?” the Colonel asked.

“There was an incursion in there air space by craft of unknown design and capable of flying higher than any aircraft should be able to fly.”

I asked, “Did any of those aircraft come from the direction of Galvanta?”

“Yes they did Dr. Sanders. A group also came from Firanel about half an hour after the group from Galvanta was detected,” the sergeant responded.

“Colonel, I was told by the Southern Alliance commander that he was expecting reinforcements from Galvanta,” I said.

“What,” Col. Miller said in a slightly raised voice that indicated he was as surprised by the news as I had been. The Colonel turned to the sergeant and asked, “Were those vehicles headed here and if so, how many more enemy forces can we expect in the area?”

“Those vehicles were headed our way, but not many of them made it out of Virania,” the sergeant said.

“If they could fly so high what stopped them from getting here?” the Colonel asked as his brow furrowed in thought.

“Well, the thing is sir, the Galvantan’s and the Firanelian’s weren’t the only ones with a surprise up their sleeves. When the unknown aircraft had made it about halfway through Virania it was like the entire country turned into a communications black hole. Nothing came out of the country for three whole hours and central command was starting to think some disaster had befallen our northern allies. Then everything returned to normal and we received a transmission from Virania saying that we should be expecting hostile enemy air forces within our airspace within an hour. We knew there had been 20 aircraft that had flown in from Galvanta and 30 from Firanel,” the sergeant explained. “When they made it into Caressee there were only three left from Galvanta and four from Firanel. We tried to shoot the rest of them down but the accuracy of our own anti aircraft guns were way down while trying to shoot at aircrafts in the area beyond the stable air zone. Sir, the only reason we were able to shoot any of them down was because the Viranians had already managed to shoot the shit out of them. We managed to down all but one craft from each country and they are expected to crash land in this jungle.”

“And how many did they estimate could fit on each craft?” Col Miller asked.

“Central estimates that somewhere between 40 or 60 individuals could fit on each craft. And sir, Virania also reports that Firanel and Galvanta are massing forces on their border. They expect to be at war with both of those countries at any moment.”

“Thank you for the report sergeant, you are dismissed,” the Colonel said as the sergeant saluted and returned to his duties. Col. Miller then turned to me and said, “It looks like Galvanta and Firanel want to make sure our respective home countries cannot funnel all the resources they want into this area. At least that little performance of your countries has given us a bit of time.”

“Performance?”

“Your country is known as the technological superpower of this region. The Firanelian’s and the Galvantan’s were arrogant enough to think that because they had stumbled upon some sort of ancient flight device they could fly right over your country. Then your country did that little communications blackout trick and tore their little air fleet apart with unknown weapons that were unbelievably accurate. It was like kicking

them in the teeth. They have to be wondering what other secrets your country has hidden within it. That should keep them from invading your country like the Southern Alliance has invaded ours for at least a little while longer,” Col. Miller said with a slight smile on his face.

I sincerely hoped the Colonel was right. Reports had been coming in that Galvanta had recently become a nuclear power. They should not have more than three or four of them at the moment, but I had no desire to see how many of my people three or four nuclear devices could kill if the Galvantan’s should get desperate enough to use them. The Firanelian’s were no pushovers either. My country was the only one that bordered theirs that had never tried to invade them. Those people had to be tough in order to survive. In fact, the last group to attempt an invasion of Firanel wound up as a part of Firanel.

The fate of those aircraft that were supposed to crash land within this jungle also worried me. If they really had 60 enemy soldiers on each craft then that meant we might just have 120 enemy soldiers running around in this jungle. That meant we might find ourselves outnumbered even if it was extremely unlikely that the Firanelians and the Galvantans could get along.

I was shaken from my internal thoughts by the Colonel asking me, “Doctor, do you think that the Galvantans or the Firanelians are after whatever is causing all of these growth incidents?”

“It’s a possibility, but I don’t think so. They are more than likely after whatever they can find in space. While many of the old technologies may have been lost here on Earth most of the technology in orbit should be intact since no one was around to purposefully destroy it, if in serious need of repair,” I explained. “Anyone who gains access to the facilities orbiting the Earth would have access to enough ancient technology to turn their country into the most powerful nation on the planet. And God knows what would happen if someone managed to get control of a functioning orbital weapon.”

“That’s pretty much what I was thinking,” the Colonel said. I think he was trying to talk to himself, but he was not as quiet as he thought he was at his current 20 foot tall size. I was finding it a bit odd to have a conversation with someone that was a few feet taller than me even while he was sitting down and I was standing. “I think its time you and Private Stone got back to the outpost before anybody notices that you have been gone for entirely too long.”

“Yes sir,” said Tracy, who had been silent during that entire conversation.

When we got back to the outpost we received a few looks. I’m sure a few of them thought that we had been getting intimate with each other in the bushes somewhere by the smiles on their faces when they looked at us. But, many others might have thought Tracy was out there beating me. I was bruising up pretty bad from when Tracy ran into me and people were not buying our cover story. Whenever asked, we would say that

Tracy had been surprised by something in the jungle and then attempted to run while I happened to be in her path. That was sort of true. She had been surprised by that grenade and when she ran to it I had been in her path when she tried to throw it out of the trench we had been in.

We spent the rest of day making small talk with the people at the outpost. Tracy told me that most of the stuff that she said about herself during that time was true. Apparently her family ran a small cattle ranch in the western portion of Caressee. She had four other siblings, all of which had served or were serving in the military. Even her parents had met in the military. Tracy was the runt of the liter too. Even after her growth spurt her shortest sibling was still over half a foot taller than she was. She had also been a bit of a trouble maker when she was younger. It took her parents a while to teach her that she was not supposed to chase the cattle around, not only because it was dangerous but because it supposedly affected the taste of cattle.

Personally, I always thought it would have to be a little weird to be into cattle herding. When so many of the animals on this planet had turned into anthros cats, dogs, and horses were able to integrate into human society the easiest, the wild animals had come next, and then there were things like cattle, pigs, and chickens. It was sure an awkward moment for everyone when they had to explain to the cattle what they had intended to do with them. The present day anthros that were descended from those cattle said they did not mind that people still ate cattle since it would be like humans caring about whether or not some other creature ate a monkey.

I found Tracy’s tales of her childhood to be very peaceful. She sounded very fond of her life with her family. My mother had died when I was pretty young and I had been raised by my father, a well known physicist. He tried to do his best to raise me, but he was not exactly the most emotional of men. The only times he really felt comfortable around me was when he was tutoring me. I give him credit for at least trying, but I do wish for that close relationship Tracy has with her family every once and awhile. All that tutoring did make me into the person I am today, though, and if he had not turned me into this person I would probably never have found the facility we were now searching for and then no one would have a clue about what to do about our current situation. I guess things really do happen for a reason.

Before I knew it Tracy was inviting me to meet her family when we went back home. I think she was serious about the offer too. When the sun finally set I could say I had honestly enjoyed the day despite all the bad news from earlier in the day. Tracy just had a way of making me feel better when I was around her. She also made the night really pleasant for me as well. We had our own room and we technically had two separate beds. Tracy said that her bed was too lumpy and decided to use mine with me still in it. She laid right down next to me with her back pressed up against me. I tried to get up and move to the other bed not knowing what else to do. She prevented me from doing so by grabbing my arm and wrapping it around her neck. And that was how I spent the rest of the night. Besides having to worry about the fate of civilization and crazed fanatics out in the jungle, things were not going that bad for me.

Chapter 9

Tarkel JungleApril 3, 1984 RE

Things had been going pretty well since our stop at Elbridge. We had not encountered anything especially dangerous in a few days and the weather had been pretty nice so far. There had not been any giant monster attacks or signs of enemy soldiers in a while. Things between me and Tracy had been coming along nicely and I finally realized that I really was her boyfriend now. That came as a relief to Tracy. She had figured that out a while ago and had been waiting for me understand that. It really came as no surprise that things finally started to get interesting again.

We were not suddenly attacked or anything like that. What we encountered was an entire section of the forest that had quadrupled in size. Not everything had grown, but a significant amount of the plants, animals, and other non organic things seemed to have been affected. I had been talking with my team and somewhere along the line we had come up with a little theory. As far as we could tell, whenever some piece of ancient technology failed it had very little effect on civilization. Sure, the oceans were in a bad enough condition that there was no chance all of the continents were going to be in contact with each other any time soon, but nobody was in serious danger because of it. After all this time it seemed like there would have been some sort of disaster that would have done some serious damage by now.

That had never happened as far as we could tell. We may be isolated to a small part of the world, but we do have a means of communicating with other parts of the continent. Some areas still had to rely on horses to send messages quickly, but they could still send messages. Even though most of the continent was a mystery to us we could still get news to and from areas as far north as the ruins of Quebec, as far east as the Atlantic coastline, within about 50 miles of the Colorado River in the former state of Colorado to the west, and down to Lake Ilopango in the former country of El Salvador. We used to be able to reach as far south as Columbia, but the conquest of a reasonably friendly kingdom by a much less friendly empire put an end to that. That was a lot of land we were in communications with and we thought we would have heard of at least one disaster if any of them ever occurred.

Now, with this giant jungle surrounding us it seemed to confirm what some of us had thought. There was something in control of the technologies that were failing. That something was probably trying to keep these disasters from affecting civilization too aversely, but this growth problem seemed to be beyond its control. It looked like it was trying to isolate the growth incidents as far away from civilization as it could with the occasional slip causing things to grow much closer to major population centers. It seemed the anthros were far more susceptible to those slips than humans were. At least half of our little expedition had been affected by growth spurts by now and with the

exception of five humans, all of the ones affected by the spurts had been anthros. If things kept getting worse as we proceeded to get further away from civilization we wondered how large they were really going to get.

There was something else that contributed to that theory. For some reason, the things people were carrying or wearing at the time of the growth spurts tended to grow with them. There did not seem like there was a good reason for that to happen. Most of the soldiers were carrying dozens, maybe hundreds to thousands of different items if you counted all the individual parts. Everything growing at the same time just seemed like too big a coincidence. The incidents with the Colonel’s pants proved that not everything had to grow at the same time. If we could make it to the facility and then in to space, I had to wonder what we would find there.

I was personally fascinated by the sight of four foot long rodents that kept running by as well as the sight other even larger creatures. Nothing seemed to want to bother us though. We were in too large a group for most of the local predators to want to mess with at the moment, especially with even larger predators like Col. Miller wandering around among us. That made me grow a little overconfident. I barely noticed that Tracy was herding me back into the group every once and a while as I wandered toward things I found fascinating at their enhanced sizes. Most of my team was receiving the same treatment from the Colonel’s troops.

Somehow, we managed to stumble onto something dangerous or something dangerous had been stalking us. It didn’t really matter which way it really was. All that really mattered was the fact that a jaguar over 20 feet long burst out of the giant jungle foliage. It took a swipe at one of my teammates while biting down on a seven foot tall rat soldier at the same time. The scientist went flying and landed in a broken heap and the spray of blood and lack of struggling indicated that the soldier was already dead. That all occurred within 20 feet of me. It was obvious that the jaguar had determined that we were all small easy prey in its primitive mind and it was going to try and make at least one more kill before running off with its meat. I froze momentarily as the jaguar locked eyes with me and charged.

It moved with hideous speed. There was no way I could have avoided getting caught by a normal sized jaguar that was this close to me, a giant one like the jaguar I was looking at was capable of making an effortless snack out of me. It raised its paw in what I knew was going to be its attempt at batting me to death. Then I found myself in Tracy’s arms as she quickly moved to get us out of the way. She was fast, but not quite fast enough. The paw hit her and knocked us about two feet through the air. Tracy curled up around me and used her body to shield me from the fall. We both grunted as she landed roughly and rolled a little across the ground.

Tracy looked like she was knocked out, or worse. The jaguar was still on us too. My instincts told me to run and leave Tracy behind. My heart had already gotten attached to the attractive tiger woman though. It would not just let me do nothing and leave her there to get carried off by the jaguar to become a meal. I tried to drag Tracy

away from the other feline stalking toward us, but she was over seven feet tall and I was not even six feet tall. It was obvious the jaguar was going to get us both.

Then the jaguar was broadsided by a large blur of motion. Before the jaguar could recover, it already had a large anthropomorphic cousin atop it. Col. Miller may not have been as large as the feral jaguar, but he had a training and intelligence to make up for the difference in size. It also helped that he had actual arms to wrap around the other jaguar’s neck. There was something that sounded sort of like a thick tree trunk snapping and the feral jaguar went limp. I had not really paid much attention to that brief battle among titans. Tracy was the center of my attention at the moment.

Her eyes looked a little glazed over and I wondered how bad the hit was. She was not bleeding, but that did not mean much. Then her eyes snapped back into focus almost immediately and her gaze fixed directly on me. Tracy snarled and bared her fangs at me before seizing my face with one large hand. Her fingers dug painfully into my face and I felt her claws extend slightly, nearly drawing blood from me. I was tugged down within an inch of her face and I wondered if the sense had been knocked out of her and if my life was in danger.

“Larry, I appreciate the heroics, but if you ever stick around and attempt to throw your life away for no gain and somehow manage to survive I will tear you apart myself. Got it?” Tracy practically snarled at me.

I gulped and said, “Yes ma’am.”

“Good,” Tracy said as she tugged me down to her face and delivered a long hard kiss to me. Then she released her grip on my face and left me breathless.

“I’ll be holding the private to that,” said a deep voice from behind me, causing my heart to skip a beat for the second time in so many seconds. Col. Miller was right behind me and if I didn’t know any better, I would say that he was suppressing a smile. Any hint of that smile soon disappeared when he turned back to look at our deceased comrades. The Colonel immediately started giving orders to his men to organize a quick burial. That kind of dampened the joy over my recent kiss.

After that was done with we continued on. My team stayed in a much tighter group that no longer needed to be herded together by the Colonel’s troops. The jungle around us had ceased to be so fascinating as we all realized how easy it was for just about any predator to abduct us now. The larger soldiers formed a perimeter around us and the smaller soldiers up until it was time to break camp. Things were a little solemn as the night started out. Tracy and I were able to get a tent to ourselves again. Since I was technically the ranking person left who was able to fit into a tent, I received the best one.

Tracy seemed like she was in a slightly better mood than I was. There was something worrying her though. “Larry, I didn’t hurt you earlier did I? When I grabbed

you like that it was a heat of the moment thing,” said Tracy, the concern obvious in her voice.

“No, I’m fine,” I responded soothingly.

Tracy moved right up to me. It was surprising how she could manage not to be the least bit intimidating when she towered over me like she was doing now. “Are you sure? That was a tight grip I had on your face. I hope you aren’t mad at me?” asked Tracy as she gave my face a careful inspection.

“If I were mad at you that kiss would have made up for everything Tracy,” I said, smiling and laughing lightly at her.

Tracy smiled back at me and we locked eyes. It was one of those special moments. We looked deep into each others eyes and I saw myself spending the rest of my life staring into those beautiful yellow eyes of hers. The next thing I knew we were kissing once more. That kissing soon led to other things. Those things did not allow me to get much rest that night, but I wasn’t complaining.

Tarkel JungleApril 4, 1984 RE

I was exhausted by the time dawn came. That was probably why it took a while for me to notice anything unusual. I had fallen asleep wrapped up in Tracy’s arms as she cuddled with me. When I felt movement on my back I thought Tracy was just cuddling with me again as she woke up. That was not the case. My eyes slowly fluttered open and I thought what I was seeing was caused by sleep fogged eyes. Tracy’s arms looked like they were getting larger.

As I realized what was going on I tried to shake a still slumbering Tracy awake. She just nuzzled me with her expanding muzzle and said, “What is it Larry?”

“You’re growing Tracy,” I said softly.

“I’m what,” Tracy said, confused. Her eyes quickly widened as she noticed me diminishing within her large arms. She loosened her hold on me but she did not seem to want to let me go. This was obviously a big growth spurt for her. She was already a foot larger than she had been and she was still getting larger. I could see the worry on her face and I held onto a finger and squeezed it to show my support for her. She smiled weakly at me as her body just kept growing. Her expanding body forced bits of equipment out of her way and soon her paws were sticking out of the tent. By the time she finally stopped growing I would say she was somewhere between 20 to 25 feet in height.

Tracy tried to carefully extract herself from the tent while carrying me. She did a pretty amazing job of not destroying the tent even if she did look a little awkward. When

we were outside I could see some of the other anthros standing around looking a little confused. Tracy was not the largest one in camp. I could see Col. Miller walking around getting his troops organized. He still looked like the largest one around. I would have to say he was a good 40 feet tall right now.

Tracy sat me down next to her and said, “Perfect timing, isn’t it? What are we supposed to do now Larry?”

“You did say you like your men small. It can’t be all bad can it?” I asked jokingly.

Tracy scooped me up in one hand and brought me up to her face to deliver what was a little kiss, to her at least. “Thanks Larry, you do look awfully cute,” Tracy said then her eyes widened with sudden realization. “Sorry Larry, I didn’t even bother to ask. You don’t mind me handling you like this do you?”

“It’s alright,” I said thinking back on the time she tackled me to get to a grenade, leaving a good deal of my body swollen and bruised. “I can think of worse things than getting picked up and kissed by my dream woman.”

I was pleased to hear Tracy laugh, but the Colonel was soon calling her over to him. She was about to put me down, but the Colonel called me over too. Col. Miller was bringing everybody together to see just who had grown. There was not a single anthro that had not been affected and there were eight humans that had been affected as well. The tallest human, Sgt. Taylor, was ten feet tall. That may have been impressive for a human, but he was just plain dwarfed by a 43 foot tall Col. Miller. There were two other anthros above 40 feet in height, 20 of them were above 30 feet in height, a staggering 45 of them were over 20 feet in height, and there were an additional 17 that were over 10 feet tall. My team had somehow managed to remain virtually untouched by the growth spurts and of the 21 soldiers and scouts left under ten feet tall, all but two of them were humans. That coincidence was lost on no one.

There was some good news that emerged from all of this. All but one of the troops that had grown had also had their clothes grow with them. That meant my team was small enough compared to the soldiers to actually ride on them. If the soldiers did not use all of their pockets we could actually ride in their pockets. The Colonel partnered my team up with soldiers to carry them and I was a little disappointed to find out that he wanted to carry me.

I asked, “Colonel, do you think I can hitch a ride with Tracy instead?”

He looked over at Tracy and said, “Private Stone?”

“I don’t mind sir,” Tracy said without the slightest hint of emotion in her voice.

The Colonel just looked at me, then at her, and I thought I saw that hint of a smile on his face again before he said, “Very well, but you are to stick close to me private.”

“Yes sir,” Tracy responded.

She picked me up and sat me on her shoulder. At the moment she was not displaying a lot of emotions. She usually didn’t when everyone was around and listening. At her size it meant that just about everyone could hear her now. That did not stop me from getting close enough to her cheek to lean against it. It would have been barely perceptible to anyone else, but she leaned her cheek against me as well. These daily walks had just become a bit more pleasant. They had become much faster as well. Not only did we no longer have to worry about our slower members, but the soldiers and scouts did not seem to be the least bit affected by their size. They moved just as gracefully and efficiently as they normally did. Being on the shoulder of one of these giants and watching the rest of them move quickly, yet stealthily through the jungle was a thing of beauty.

There was not a single predator hungry enough to pick on such a large group of creatures. That did not mean the predators were the only things we had to worry about though. At around noon one of the scouts approached the Colonel with some interesting news. The scouts had found paw and hoof prints in the ground. That was not that unusual in and of itself in a jungle, except for the fact that the scouts were certain those prints belonged to creatures that walked on two legs. They were also larger than normal too. The scouts estimated that the largest set of prints belonged to something that stood between 22 to 26 feet in height. It was possible that they could have concealed other prints, but the scouts did not think so.

I don’t know why I felt more comfortable knowing that we had the larger soldiers. Everyone, including them, probably had weapons. It was not like they all had to fight each other with swords and spears when the huge size difference might have meant something. Most of the ammunition had not grown unless the soldiers had it on them when they had grown. I’m just glad that I suggested to the Colonel that the men sleep with their ammunition on them on few days back after a discussion with my team about what was causing these growth spurts. As a result, most of the soldiers had been sleeping with extra ammunition on them. The majority of the ammunition that was still packed away was still normal sized though. When the soldiers ran out of what they were carrying they were going to have to rely on hand to hand combat. If the other side ran out of ammunition first then my side’s size advantage would come in handy, but that was a big if.

After that little discovery the Colonel had us moving a lot more stealthily. We were not certain who was in the jungle with us, but we did know a Firanel craft had crash landed in the jungle. Those prints may have belonged to wild anthros, but nobody was betting on that one. Especially since the prints were headed in the same direction that we were. One way or the other, we were probably looking at another confrontation in the near future.

Chapter 10

Tarkel JungleApril 8, 1984 RE

I believe that our theory about the growth spurts happening more often the further we traveled from civilization and the spurts happening to the anthros more often seems to have been confirmed. There was still a little argument among my group, but there was always argument until at least three or four generations worth of testing had been done and even then there was normally a naysayer or two. A few of the humans traveling with us had a growth spurt since that mass growth spurt four days ago. Many of the anthros had at least three of them and only one pair of pants had been lost in the process.

Colonel Miller was now a staggering 90 feet tall. For some reason these growth spurts really seemed to take to him. He was taller than the closest anthro to him by about 15 feet. That also made him close to nine times taller than the closest human who only stood at about 12 feet in height. Tracy had reached 54 feet in height. It took a few days for her to get used to being so much larger than me, but now that she was used to it she was starting to get back to her normal charming self.

The trees were still fairly tall compared to even the Colonel, but we could occasionally catch glimpses of Yggdrasil from breaks in the canopy overhead. It really was amazing. That tree dwarfed any mountain that I had ever heard of by at least two miles in height. It was easy to see why so many people would mistake its appearance as a spiritual event. I also could not imagine the destruction the tree must have wrought when it was growing. Everything within miles of the thing must have been destroyed by the massive trunk as it grew. Currently, we were circumventing the tree. The trek to the facility would not bring us too close to Yggdrasil. We were literally within days of our destination, but there was some bad news.

Late in the day one of the scouts reported to the Colonel. The scout was a rare Utahraptor. We are not sure whether the ancient humans had recreated dinosaurs utilizing old fossils somehow or if they had just created them pretty much from scratch, like the dragons, based on what they knew about dinosaurs. A joint expedition from Caressee and Virania sure had been surprised when they had stumbled onto that dinosaur theme park complete with real dinosaurs. All the security systems had still been working and all the dinosaurs, anthro and non, had still been stuck in their artificial environments. Some of the anthros had suffered a drastic decrease in size while others had actually grown quite a bit during the event that changed regular animals into anthros. The ones that had shrunk sometimes found themselves having to use every last bit of their intelligence to fend off much larger relatives. I wondered what they would have thought of the 65 foot tall raptor standing before me.

Despite the vicious reputation feral raptors seemed to have in the media, the anthro ones were much different. Many of the anthros had kept at least a few species traits that shaped their behavior, but the raptors weren’t the least bit aggressive toward anyone that did not directly threaten them. Actually, the raptors tended to be an unusually gregarious group. They were quick to make friends and they almost always had a smile for everyone. None of them seemed to notice or purposefully chose to ignore that their toothy smiles seemed to unsettle a lot of humans and anthros that used to be prey species. As far as they were concerned, they were cute and everybody else should think so too. It was not this scouts smile that unsettled me though, it was her lack of a smile that I was scared of. When a raptor was not smiling was almost always a sign that trouble was brewing.

“Colonel Miller, we’ve found a new set of Tracks. Most of the new ones look human. The anthros also seem to be trying to cover up their tracks now. Either they discovered us or they found out they were being tracked by the group of humans,” reported the raptor.

“I can assume the human tracks did not belong to any tourists,” asked the Colonel. His voice was incredibly deep now and he had an incredibly commanding demeanor. That could have been caused by me felling like a child while staring up at him even while sitting on Tracy’s shoulder.

“We left the tourist trail a while ago. If those tracks belong to regular human tourists then they are really lost,” responded the raptor.

“How far behind them do you think we are?” asked Col. Miller.

“If we’re more than two hours behind them I would be surprised,” said the raptor.

“Very well, thank you for the report Lucia,” the Colonel said. The raptor took that as being dismissed and went back ahead of the rest of group. I looked at the Colonel as he thought about something for a little while. Then he started giving out orders. He was getting ready for a battle. We were all within a couple days reach of the facility and it would not have done us much good to get there and have a group of hostile forces come up behind us just as we arrived there. It also would not have done us a lot of good if something at the facility was damaged because we had a fire fight there. The Colonel wanted to have a decisive battle out here, in the jungle.

All of the soldiers made extra sure that their weapons were prepared for combat. Then we started moving forward even more carefully than we had been so far. As it turns out, we were much closer to both groups than we thought we had been. I could hear gunfire erupt no more than a few hundred yards in front of us. Then that fire started to make its way toward us, and in many other directions, for some reason. The Colonel had me and the rest of my team secured in the best place they could find and had Tracy, two other soldiers that were over 50 feet tall, and four regular sized soldiers guard my group. Then the rest of the soldiers disappeared into the jungle. I was definitely surprised that

they could still do that at their sizes. It was impossible for me to tell if they were just finding vantage points to fire from or if they were actively hunting enemy soldiers.

This was not like the last battle I had been in. All of the soldiers involved were very highly trained this time around. It was rare I heard any weapon rapidly firing. Everyone was firing quick well aimed bursts. Some of those bursts were incredibly loud. It was obvious some of the soldiers out there were using weapons that were of an enhanced size. I was not the only one that covered my ears as some of those weapons were fired close to us, making us wonder how some people could stand to be next to artillery weapons when they were being fired. Then I finally saw the first flash of weapons fire.

All of the guards around us were already in position to protect us. One of the guards fired in the direction the flash had come from. I could not tell if he hit anyone or how he could even tell he was shooting at the enemy. One Galvantan soldier had managed to get incredibly close to us, but a gust of wind blew aside the plants that had been covering him. I saw Tracy take one deafening shot at him with her own oversized weapon. When the bullet from her weapon hit the soldier’s body it just exploded. There was only a bloody smear and bits of clothing where a person had once been standing.

More flashes started to be seen all around us. The regular sized ones were taking shots at the giants in our group. Then they would move before they could take any return fire. I could see why the battle had moved toward us so quickly. The human Galvantans were probably outsized by the anthro Firanelians. If the Firanelians found out where the Galvantans were shooting from and started lobbing grenades or other explosives into their mists it might have turned into a fairly quick battle. The Galvantans had to fire and move, or at least that is what I thought. It was possible I was wrong though. I never claimed to be an expert in military strategy and tactics. That did not stop me from making little observations on my little part of the battlefield though.

Things were going well enough at first. I thought we might make it through as easily as we had the previous battles. Then one of guards, a 52 foot tall capybara, took a rocket propelled grenade round to the side of the head. Even at his size it was a fatal hit, unless he could somehow survive having close to a third of his head blown apart. Tracy and our other giant guard, a 51 foot tall water buffalo, were low to the ground and trying to make small targets of themselves, but it was a difficult thing to do when your head was larger than a standing person.

For us, things continued to get worse awfully quick. No one came running out and screaming like madmen like the bad guys do in the movies. Everyone was sneaky and picking their moments to shoot. That left our guards in a bad position as they were pinned down protecting us and could not move very far from us. All of the other soldiers in the area were doing a good job of whittling down the numbers of soldiers reaching us, but a normal two way battle can be pretty chaotic. This three way battle was obviously taxing everyone involved.

The water buffalo took out two more Galvantan soldiers before he and a Firanelian one spotted each other at close to the same time. I watched as the water buffalo put a bullet in his head while taking another shot himself. The water buffalo didn’t move after that. I saw a spray of blood out of the corner of my eye and I turned to see another one of our guards going down. There were definitely some holes in our defense now, one of which was ruthlessly exploited by a Galvantan soldier. A grenade was thrown right into the middle of my team and gunfire followed it soon after. My team just was not prepared to try and get away from a grenade while avoiding gunfire at the same time. Three of my team went down to gunfire before the grenade went off, sending bodies flying.

I was a safe distance from the grenade, but I was still hit by a flying body. The wind was knocked out of me and I hit the ground hard. When I tried to get the person who had landed on me get of I found that she was unresponsive and I feared she was dead. After I managed to roll her off of me I was relieved to find that she was still breathing, if a little burned and bloody. The gunfire coming toward us had stopped, but as I looked around I saw that there were only three guards and Tracy protecting us now. My group was in disarray and I wanted to get them somewhat organized again. Then I saw another guard go down to gunfire as another Galvantan appeared. I saw his weapon orient on me and I tried to bring my own weapon to bear. It was plain that the trained soldier was much faster than I was and I thought I was going to die. Just before he could fire a large hoof flattened the man.

I looked up from the hoof hoping to see a savior. He was a red deer that was about 49 or 50 feet tall. Unfortunately, he was not wearing the uniform of a Caressean soldier. There was hatred in the eyes of the Firanelian deer. Tracy had her back to him, but it was a good thing the deer’s weapon appeared to be out of ammunition or else Tracy might be dead right now. That did not help my situation much. Without Tracy, I was pretty much helpless before the deer and he was not exactly wasting time. The only thing that saved my life this time was the fact that the deer considered the remaining guards bigger threats than me.

He raced straight past me, kicking up huge clods of dirt. Two of my team where in the deer’s way as he approached the guard and they did not do to well when they were stepped on by the deer. The first guard barely saw what was coming. He had just enough time to bring his weapon up and shoot the hoof that was coming down on him. It was too late to stop the hoof from coming down, but by the way the deer flinched I could tell some damage was done before the guard was reduced to bloody pulp. The other guard was able to see what happened and peppered the deer’s leg with gunfire. More damage was done, but the deer was already within striking range. A vicious and powerful kick sent the guard’s broken body flying into a tree where it impacted with a resounding crack.

By that time Tracy had finally noticed the deer. She tried to bring her weapon around on him, but some fancy maneuvering on his part helped him get close enough to her to grab the weapon. He collapsed on her and they started to have a fight for her gun. A few knees to his ribs from Tracy were not enough to dislodge him. He was putting up

quite the fight himself. Despite the struggle for the gun, he managed to get one hand free long enough to deliver a jab right to Tracy’s face. She did not loose her grip on her weapon, but she did look a little dazed. I could see Tracy was putting a lot of effort into not rolling around while they tussled. She knew she was entirely too close to my team. If she rolled around now, she and the deer would end up crushing most of my team.

Tracy managed to get a leg under the deer and then she demonstrated an amazing feat of strength and skill by flipping the deer over her head. The deer was either lucky or had anticipated the move. He somehow managed to not only hold on to the weapon, but he also managed to use his momentum to wrench the gun out of Tracy’s hands as he flew through the air and landed with an earthshaking thud. It was a scramble for both of them to get back up to their feet. As they did so Tracy was able to kick the gun out of the deer’s hands as he tried to get a better grip on it. They did not waste any time switching to hand to hand combat.

There was a flurry of punches and a lot less kicks than I was expecting. I noticed that not all of Tracy’s blows were close fisted either. Her claws were definitely drawing blood, but the deer’s thick hide was preventing much serious damage from occurring. I thought they looked evenly matched. Then a Galvantan soldier suddenly appeared almost right next to Tracy. He had been retreating from another fight and somehow had not noticed the dueling titans. It looked like Tracy was going to accidentally step on him. He did manage to get notice Tracy in time to riddle her paw with gunfire like our guard had done to the deer. Her pads provided a lot less protection than the deer’s hoof and she noticeably flinched as the bullets tore into her flesh before her paw brought an end to the Galvantan. It was enough of a distraction for the deer to get in a painful series of blows to Tracy.

Instead of pressing the attack, the deer took advantage of a stunned Tracy to go and grab her gun off the ground. She had not remained stunned for long and was pursuing the deer as he went for the gun. Despite being a blur of motion, she was just too slow and had to skid to a stop as the gun came up within inches of her face. The deer was panting heavily and I noticed all of his injuries must have been getting to him. If I had not been following the fight it would have been over. My own gun was already pointing at the deer. I did not have the same type of high powered weapon the soldiers were using, but mine should at least sting the deer. The thing was that I was standing within a couple feet of the deer and Tracy. If I did anything there was a good chance he would be able to deliver a kick strong enough to kill me.

Tracy had told me to run in a situation like this. There was a problem now though. I knew I was in lover with her and love can make people do stupid things, like annoying to 50 foot tall deer that already wanted me dead. If I just ran now, though, I knew I would die inside. There is no way anyone can run away from the person that they love when they know there is something that they can do and not come away emotionally destroyed. All those thoughts went through my head as I pulled the trigger on my weapon. A few shots impacted around the deer’s ribs. His eye’s glanced down at me and his nostrils flared in anger.

Before he could realize his mistake, Tracy roared and then she was on him. She had pushed the gun aside and came in jaws agape. Brilliant white fangs glinted in the little light that shown through the canopy. Her jaws closed around his throat and her guttural growls echoed through jungle as she attempted to kill the deer by the traditional means used by her ancestors. The deer knew he was dead and his hatred for me blazed in his eyes. His leg cocked back to deliver what would be a crushing kick to me. Tracy beat him to it though. She lightly kicked me out of the way before the deer could kick me, and by lightly I mean she only kicked me hard enough to send me flying about ten feet through the air. No bones were broken, but I heard her growl intensify as she kicked me. Besides just saving my life that kick had a little bit of anger behind it. The fight was over though. No matter what the deer did he couldn’t get Tracy off of him. There was not enough time for the deer to die of strangulation. Tracy had kept biting down with more pressure. Eventually, I heard his neck snap and Tracy guided his body to the ground to make sure he did not fall on anybody.

After that, things started to quite down. Nobody else had reappeared as of yet and it would take another 15 restless minutes before they did. It came as a relief that the first person to show up was a Caressean soldier. Then more and more of them started to show up. We had won, sort of. There were only 21 soldiers, 17 scientists and engineers, and 6 guides left in our expedition. That still left us better of than the Firanelians and the Galvantans. One Firanelian soldier and two of their own scientists had been taken captive while four Galvantan soldiers joined Lockwood and his Dalgan cohort, Lord Markham, as prisoners. All of the Galvantan scientists and engineers had been wiped out by the Firanelians.

The Colonel was one of the survivors and he had grown once more during the battle. At 130 feet in height he must have been a terror on the battlefield. He was still riddled with tiny bullet holes. The only ones that were unharmed were two of the three dragons that had come along with us. One of them, the purple eyed one I had briefly shared a tent with, Corp. Lee, had taken a hit to the chest strong enough to penetrate even a dragon’s genetically enhanced hide. I was a little surprised to find out that Corp. Lee was actually a she now that they had her chest was exposed to examine her wound. It was not that I was that bad at telling male and female dragons apart, it was just that she was a very masculine looking female dragon. Lee’s friend, Corp. Reilly, was pretty much in the same condition that the Colonel was in. Private Hunter, the alligator that had saved me on Danlin River was also alive, but missing a couple of fingers on one hand. Sgt. Taylor was probably the worst off of all the soldiers I had personally gotten to know. The Firanelian soldier we had taken captive had tried to bit him in half and had succeeded in biting off both of his legs. We had just barely managed to keep him from bleeding to death, but without more medical attention than we had available to us we did not know if we would be able to keep him alive.

The Firanelian soldier that had been taken captive was a pretty vicious looking fellow. He was a black leopard that was about 70 feet tall at the moment. The Colonel had been the one to take him captive. I found out it was a good idea to not stray to close

to him when I went to take a look at him with Col. Miller. He did not try to kill me, but he did decide to spit on me. At his size it was an especially disgusting experience. The Firanelian scientists were proving to be much more cooperative, but they were still under close guard for now since the shorter of the two was over 30 feet tall. The Galvantan captives were no less cooperative, but they were small enough for Col. Miller to keep them in spare pockets that used to hold extra clips of ammunition.

We spent the rest of the day burying our dead. That lasted until nightfall when Tracy picked me up and took me aside for a private conversation.

“What did I tell you just a couple of days ago Larry?” Tracy asked, sounding exasperated.

“To run away in a situation like that,” I responded.

“And what possessed you to start shooting at that deer?”

“I realized if I didn’t I might not get the chance to ask you a question that needed asking,” I said.

“And what question could possibly be that important?”

I realized I looked funny as I got down on one knee in the palm of Tracy’s hand and stared right in her eyes as I asked, “When we get back to civilization will you marry me?”

I thought I had telegraphed that question, but Tracy looked honestly surprised. She suddenly hugged me a little more firmly than I thought she meant to before responding, “Yes, as long as you stop trying to get yourself killed.”

It didn’t really matter if we could return her to her regular size or not, I knew I would be happy with her. I enjoyed Tracy’s warm embrace and dedicated myself to making sure we both survived all the way back to civilization. Then, as Tracy stopped hugging me I caught a glimpse of something metallic through the trees. I had Tracy try to get us to a better vantage point and we were able to see something spectacular. It was the facility we were looking for. The thing was still more than a day or two away, but it was huge. It dominated the valley it was located in. Even from where we were I would say that the facility was dozens of miles long, maybe over a hundred miles long. Tracy did not hesitate to call the Colonel over for a look.

Chapter 11

B*e**ng Manufacturing Site #8Tarkel JungleApril 10, 1984 RE

At long last we had finally arrived at the facility. The name of the company that had built the building was lost to time, but it was hard to believe that they had built multiple facilities like this one. There must have been other companies that existed on the Earth that had also been building matching facilities. For someone in my time it is just hard to imagine the demand for flying vehicles being so high. The skies must have been chocked with traffic at one point in time. There were a few other things about this facility that made it much more convenient than I thought it would be, especially for some of my larger companions.

Multiple entrances had been constructed at multiple sizes, some of them far larger than the largest of my companions. It was like they had planned for an emergency like this or they had manipulated the sizes of their own employees for their own reasons. Since all of the normal sized people were riding on their larger companions, we all just used the larger entrances. Col. Miller and a few of his soldiers were going in and searching the place first, at least a small portion of it since it would take days to explore the entire thing. That caused a little bit of a stir among the remaining members of my science party. They were afraid the giant Colonel and his men were going to damage something. It did not help that the Colonel as well as the rest of his soldiers had continued to grow over the past couple of days.

The Colonel was still the tallest, but just barely. Earlier this morning Private Hunter had had a rather large growth spurt and caught up to Colonel Miller. The two had consented to being measured, the Colonel probably allowed it to help amuse everyone and keep morale up after that last battle. Everyone placed their bets on who they thought was taller. The Colonel’s ears were not allowed to count, but he still came out about two inches taller than the young alligator. It did not make that much of a difference since that two inch difference still made the private a staggering 318 feet and seven inches tall. Tracy was not exactly slacking off with her growth spurts. She had grown with me on her shoulder on the way to this facility today and she had reached about 200 feet in height. These growth spurts were really starting to get to everyone. They were worried about how all of their relationships were going to be affected just as much, if not more, than Tracy and I were. She was already at the size where having a wedding was going to be awfully awkward.

Something as amazing as the facility was enough to make everyone forget about their worries for a moment. The inside of the place was a little dusty, but otherwise intact. It was as if there was something in the facility that was keeping the jungle from swarming into the place like it did with more primitive ruins. I could think of many people that would like to get a hold of something that could do that as well as the thing that could keep it powered without any maintenance for a few millennia. Even though we were only in what appeared to be the lobby of the building it was impressive enough. It would have been possible to fit someone as tall as a small mountain into the room and still had plenty of space for others. Furniture and pictures of various sizes decorated the room as well as some impressive models of B*e*ng products throughout the ages. I had

to wonder how everyone could have traveled around so easily in the building if they were all my size.

We were all so busy looking forward that we nearly missed the reception desk right next to the doors. I guess that it made sense for it to be located there instead of on the opposite side of the room when the opposite side of the room was so far away for normal sized people. There was only one receptionist desk and it was obviously meant for people more my size. Something was sitting behind the desk too, but it was not a person. It was a large six armed sky blue robot that looked like it had been installed behind the desk.

“Tracy, can you put me down so I can get a closer look at that thing?” I asked.

“Sure, just be careful around it,” she said.

As I approached the thing I was surprised to see that not even a thin layer of dust seemed to be on the thing. It looked just as clean and shiny as I would have expected a brand new robot to look like. When I was within a foot of the robot the red lights arranged in triangular formation in what passed for its head lit up and the robot said, “Greetings and welcome to Boeing Manufacturing Site number eight. I am service unit Terry. How may I be of service?”

Startled would have been a vast understatement to describe how I felt at that moment. Even the soldiers had weapons drawn and pointed at the thing. The scientists were staring in awe, that robot was the most advanced piece of working technology that any of us had ever seen. Everything we found was normally broken and we had to try and figure out what it did and how it would work if it was not broken. It was a frustrating process. Now, here was an actual functional robot that had a working power source even after all this time. It seemed impossible, but we could all see that it was definitely working.

After I recovered from my shock I said, “Hello Terry, I am looking for a craft capable of getting me and a few of my companions into space. Is there one of those vehicles here?”

A few screens built into the desk in front of Terry lit up and it tapped a few buttons on the screen before responding. “This is highly unusual. There do not appear to be any craft capable of meeting your needs at the moment. I really must apologize, we normally have dozens of craft like that built every few minutes. If you would be willing to talk to a sales representative I am sure he or she would be able to help you,” Terry said, sounding slightly distressed.

“Terry, I think everyone in your sales department is dead,” I said uncomfortably, “Everyone that used to work here is dead by now.”

“That can’t be,” said Terry, “You must be…wait…I have just conferred with some of the other AIs on site and they confirm that it has been a much longer time since my last activation than I had realized. It appears this facility now legally qualifies as salvage. Do you wish to claim it?”

I heard Colonel Miller and his men returning from his little scouting mission further into the facility as I answered, “Yes.”

“I will need your name and the name the person that will inherit this facility in the event of your untimely demise.”

“My name is Larry Sanders,” I said and then looked back at Tracy, “and I guess my fiancée Tracy Stone over there should inherit this facility in the event of my death.” Everyone present had to have heard what I said. A couple of the scientists looked a little betrayed that I had decided to hand over the facility to a soldier instead of one of them, but most of them were smiling at me. That was the first time I had admitted that we were getting married to anyone else yet. What puzzled me was why all of the soldiers looked horrified at what I had just said, even Tracy and the normally expressionless Col. Miller.

“You’re really getting married Private Stone?” asked the Colonel.

“Yes sir,” Tracy responded halfheartedly.

I asked, “Um, did I do something wrong?”

“Larry,” responded Tracy, “getting married counts as future plans. We never talk about future plans on a mission. That just about triples your chances of getting killed.”

I almost sighed with relief. It was just a military taboo that I had violated. I thought that I had just done something much worse. My relief quickly wore off when the Colonel pronounced, “We’re going to have to marry the two of you now.”

Before I could get out a single word Tracy said, “Agreed.”

It was not until later that I discovered anyone of above the rank of major had the legal authority to marry people in Caressee instead of just admirals and generals like in Virania. I found myself swept up in one of Tracy’s hands and held up next to her face while Col. Miller started on his impromptu ceremony. It was a pretty quick version of what would normally take place at an actual wedding ceremony and the Colonel had made it to the ‘I do’ part of the ceremony before my mind could grasp that I actually was getting married already and without much ceremony. It was having an even harder time excepting that the Colonel had just put a mission to save civilization on hold just to marry us.

Tracy had to tap me on the back to make me realize that the Colonel had just asked me the big question. At first all I could do was stutter until I looked deep into

Tracy’s eyes. I could see that this ceremony was just as serious to her as if we were doing this in the location of our choosing with our families present. All the love was there and I could see her gently urging me to answer the question. My stuttering stopped and I managed to clearly say, “I do.”

Then it was Tracy’s turn to smile at me and say, “I do.” We shared one of the most awkward kisses that I could have ever imagined while everyone present cheered and whistled. “I still expect a ring,” Tracy whispered to me.

“Ahem,” uttered Terry, “Now that that is through there are still a few more matters that need to be settled. For one thing I can see that the sensors are detecting many of those present are part animal. Does that mean the ban on combining human and animal genes has been lifted?”

Everyone present shared looks with each other and we all tried to explain the existence of the anthros to him properly. We all thought he would have a hard time understanding since he was just a machine, but he seemed to understand us very easily. I guessed that was because he was much closer to being a true artificial intelligence than we had initially suspected.

“Very well then, I am pleased that your benefactor has legal origins,” said Terry. “Now the other thing I need to talk to you about is the condition of this facility. I assume that it is likely you would want the craft you previously requested constructed as soon as possible, but there has been some damage done to this facility that makes it impossible at the moment.”

I could almost see everyone’s heart sink at that comment. Nobody wanted to hear something like that after everything we went through getting here, after all the friends and comrades we had lost. Even our captives looked disheartened at that one. I asked, “Terry, why is that impossible?”

“Because a 900 foot tall crested eagle has managed to get into the facility and do some damage to the production lines while making its nest and it has also damaged the last functioning maintenance units that were left in the facility,” responded Terry.

“If we could get rid of the eagle could you or something else in this facility tell us how to repair the damage done?” asked the Colonel.

“There are many security protocols, most added during that dreadful war, that are supposed to prevent any of the units here from providing you with that information,” explained Terry. “Fortunately, the previous owner of Boeing insured that whoever owned these facilities would always have access to such information. So, as long as Mr. Sanders authorizes the distribution of such information I believe you can be provided with the information necessary to complete the repairs you require.”

“Alright then, I guess my team has a bit more work to do before your team can start theirs Doctor Sanders,” the Colonel said to me, putting emphasis on the doctor for Terry’s sake.

I hoped handling a 900 foot tall bird of prey would only qualify as a bit of work. “I wish you luck Col. Miller,” I said before turning back to talk to Terry, “Terry, about how much longer can this facility continue to function?”

“We are currently operating on emergency power, but if you only use what is essential for your needs I believe that this facility can continue functioning for another eight to nine days,” answered Terry.

“And how many craft do you think you can build for, um, a multi-sized crew in that time frame?”

“With the supplies at hand I believe it would be possible to build two or three dozen of them. We could actually build them in a single day, but there are just not enough essential parts on site to construct more. I apologize for the inconvenience sir, but we have not received new shipments in quite some time and our production capabilities are extremely low at the moment,” said Terry.

I blinked rapidly trying to process what I had just been told. Two or three dozen craft capable of reaching orbit just sounded unreal to me. All we had to do was handle a giant bird and we would be able to reach our true ultimate destination in no time at all. I had never really thought we would be able to get a facility like this functional in less than a decade. The technological gap was just too wide for us to restore something this advanced without years worth of study. Things were actually looking up for us. It just might have been possible for us to avoid a global catastrophe after all, as long as we could repair the problems with whatever was wrong up in orbit. That last devastating attack unleashed during the Enders War was supposed to have spread through the various facilities in orbit just like they had on the Earth. That meant that those facilities would hopefully be in as pristine condition as this facility. There might just be some robot up there waiting for us to come and help it like this one. If that was true then it might be possible for us to fix this entire situation by the end of the month.

“Thank you, that should be quite sufficient Terry. We might be taking one of those craft up into orbit. There may be others that show up here later wearing uniforms similar to the soldiers around me. That indicates that they are from the nation of Caressee. The other craft that are built are for their use,” I said.

“Very well, but may I ask where you intend to travel?”

“I am not exactly sure. We believe that there is something wrong with what is keeping people at the sizes they are supposed to be and we need to conduct some repairs,” I said.

“I knew that quarter million year guarantee was utter nonsense. The Gatrell Corporation was always making ridiculous claims like that you know. Something has already gone wrong with their ISM grid and it has not even been 50,000 years yet. I say it is probably the fault of the substandard units that they always used,” Terry said a bit haughtily. I really did think he was a true AI.

“Terry, do you know where we should go to conduct our repairs?” I asked. After that little speech of his it seemed logical that he would know something.

“Of course I do sir. If you can get this facility repaired I will make sure that the coordinates you need are loaded into a flight unit by the construction units for you,” offered Terry.

I had to keep from shouting for joy as I said, “That would be wonderful Terry!”

“Of course, that all depends on your ability to handle the crested eagle that has infested this facility,” Terry reminded me.

“I’m sure we can handle some overgrown bird,” said Col. Miller.

“I just hope it is not that hungry with all of us being snack sized to it,” I commented.

“Oh I can assure you it is very well fed sir. A significant portion of the local flora and fauna have experienced rather large growth spurts. One of the reasons this facility can only function for a few days is because there is a pest repellant device repelling all creatures over a thousand feet in height at the moment. And I can assure you that it is being done in a perfectly humane way that is causing no harm to said creatures as required by law,” Terry explained. “That eagle may be one of the larger predators in the immediate area and there are plenty of other prey species around for it to feed on that are of an adequate size to sustain it. If it were just 100 feet taller then it would be repelled as well, just like some of the larger predators that chased it here. I’m surprised you never encountered any of those predators if you walked here. They must not have been interested in things as small as yourselves or they would have made their presence known.”

Those last couple of statements left many of us shaken. There were a lot of monsters out there and we had somehow managed to avoid all of them. Once we handled this eagle we were going to have to figure out how to contact those that were following us to warn them about the danger. I was also having a hard time thinking of a 900 foot tall eagle as one of the smaller predators in the area and that it had been chased here by other larger predators. It looked like everything Terry said could not be good news.

“Thank you for informing us about that Terry. You have been very useful to us,” I said.

“You are quite welcome sir, I was created to serve. When you are ready just step on the tele pads over there and you will be transported to the room next to the one that the eagle has chosen as its nest,” said Terry while pointing at circular areas that were surrounded by black and yellow stripped paint. Then he just seemed to shut down, sensing that I was done with him. I guessed that was one way to help conserve energy.

“Looks like all we have to do is fry one bird and then we’ll have it easy,” said Tracy.

“Frying a 900 foot tall bird doesn’t sound all that safe to me,” I said.

“It sounds kind of tasty to me,” Tracy said with a smile.

Chapter 12

Boeing Manufacturing Site #8 Sector 4Tarkel JungleApril 11, 1984 RE

Colonel Miller had decided to give it another day before deciding to tackle his 900 foot tall opponent. Part of that was in hope that the eagle would grow just 100 more feet. If that would have happened the facility’s own defenses would have handled the bird without putting anyone else in danger. No one really expected that to happen, but the Colonel also hoped that he and his own team might grow a little bit more to even up the playing field. The anthros had been having many growth spurts lately and they did have a couple since yesterday, but no one grew past 325 feet in height. That made the largest member of our group just a little over a third the size of the eagle. Col. Miller had really wanted to take the eagle on in unarmed combat since there was equipment that could apparently be damaged in the area the eagle was nesting in.

A couple of the members from my team had asked me to get and convince the Colonel to not use their guns and just use something like knives instead. They were under the impression that a bird stuck in a room could not have been that big a threat since it would not be able to fly around. Since birds looked much more awkward on the ground they thought that the only thing the Colonel and his troops had to look out for was getting caught in the eagle’s talons. What they were worried about was what weapons fire would do to anything in the room since many of the guns that would be used were larger than artillery cannons. I had to enlighten them to the fact that, even if dealing with the eagle’s talons was the least of the Colonel’s worries, he still had to worry about its wings and its beak. There were a lot of geese where I had come from, not just anthros, but the feral ones too. One of them, a feral one, had taken a disliking to me while I was walking past a pond one day and hit me with one of its wings. That goose had been less than half my size and it had nearly broken my leg. This eagle was close to three times the size of anyone present. I had no doubt that a well placed hit from one of the eagle’s wings would be fatal to anyone in our group.

There were other things for the Colonel to worry about too. He only had 21 soldiers left, including himself, and he still had three large prisoners to look after. The Galvantans were still being safely kept in the Col. Miller’s pockets, but the two Firanelian scientists were over 150 feet tall and the black leopard soldier, who I found out was called Alpha Pro’Kir, was over 275 feet tall. Being an alpha made him the equivalent of a major within my countries military and it was likely that he was extremely well trained and very deadly. He was a little young to be an alpha, young enough that he would have probably had to win a few “honor duels” to achieve his rank. Those duels could be bloody affairs and a few of them did end in the death of the opponent. Many people back in Virania thought that the tradition was barbaric and that the Firanelian military was run by a bunch of blood thirsty brutes because of that tradition. I knew better and so did Col. Miller. The Firanelians may respect physical prowess within their soldiers, but they have just as much, if not more, respect for those with keen minds. In order to be eligible to make a request for an honor duel a Firanelian soldier would have to show a certain level of intelligence and cunning. To make it to the position of alpha at Pro’Kir’s age he would have had to be the near perfect blend of mind and body as far as the Firanelians were concerned. The Colonel had at least three guards watching him at all times.

The Colonel planned on assaulting the eagle with nine soldiers and three of the remaining guides. Everyone else was to stay behind. His team was entirely made up of anthros since they were the only ones over 100 feet tall and the only ones that had a serious chance of doing any significant damage to the eagle. That left us with 12 soldiers, but only six of them were large enough to actually guard the prisoners we had. We had the remaining three scouts which were each over a hundred feet tall too, but each of them was a little banged up from the previous battle. Tracy was going with the Colonel, but I had at least found a way to watch her. Since my team had pretty much had an entire day to explore after Colonel Miller had had everyone step onto the tele pads and transported to the room adjacent to the eagle’s room, we had all been exploring.

The tele pads had been fascinating enough. They could teleport a person to any other tele pad in its network at about 0.3 times the speed of light and one person had stayed up all night looking at the schematics for one of the tele pads trying to figure out how it worked. It was too bad that the theory behind how the pads worked was not available here. Col. Miller did not bother trying to stop my team from exploring. With all of the things around it was like scientist heaven. The Colonel would have had to kill my team to keep them from looking around. One interesting discovery had been an elevator for people my size that lead to a doorway that then lead to an elevated walkway above the room where the eagle was nesting. It was sealed in a clear material that one of the AIs in this facility assured me would be able to take any hit from the weapons Col. Miller’s soldiers were carrying. I was informed that the walkway was protected like that to keep anyone touring the facility from being harmed by an industrial accident. When asked if there was any more of that material was left I was informed that there was, and that it happened to be in a room that the eagle was currently blocking off. That was one of the reasons why the AIs on this base could not build any ships. The eagle was

blocking off the only room with spare supplies in it. It really was too bad that someone had left a door large enough for the eagle to fit through open a few thousand years ago.

I was just happy that I would be able to observe the battle if I could not be a part of it. Practically every one of the soldiers the Colonel was taking with him was someone that I knew. There was himself and Tracy, my alligator savior Hunter, as well as Lee and Reilly who seemed practically inseparable. I had also come to know the scouts Kurtis the wolf and Devin the raptor over time. It was tough watching everyone I knew here about to put their lives on the line once more while I was totally helpless, but I was not even the size of a large bug compared to that eagle. If I were to try and do anything I would have just been in the way. Tracy was more than happy to know that I was not going to be in any danger this time around.

“You just cheer us on this time and I’ll be back to pick you up later,” Tracy said to me as she was about to leave.

“I will. Just try not to get stepped on,” I said with a forced smile.

“Funny, someone who’s not even six feet tall warning someone over 200 feet tall not to get stepped on,” Tracy said with the hint of laughter in her voice. “But don’t you worry about that. I can’t die until we’ve gone on a honeymoon somewhere far away from this jungle. And you’re paying for everything.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad as long as you’re around to honeymoon with,” I responded.

“You say that now, but you just wait and see how much I can eat when I’m on vacation,” Tracy said before giving me a parting kiss. Then we both headed to where we needed to be. Most of my team came with me to observe the fight. I think they had started to get used to the idea of having all those giant protectors around and they felt a bit uncomfortable while only having a few of them there. Pro’Kir also had a fairly unsettling gaze and gazing menacingly at humans was pretty much all he did. Nobody really liked being in the same room as him. Only four of my team members were not with me on the walkway. For most of my team it was their first time actually seeing the eagle. They were just blown away by the size of the creature. Things had been different with the members of the expedition. When they grew it had been in small spurts over the course of a few days. That gave everyone time to get used to everyone else’s size. The eagle looked impossibly large to them since they had never seen any living creature of that size before. All sorts of equipment in varying conditions decorated the room, but there was still plenty of space for the eagle and those seeking to evict it. But, the room did not seem to be designed for anything much taller than 2000 feet in mind.

When the Colonel and his team walked into the room the eagle instantly took notice. It was almost possible to see the tension in the room. The eagle could definitely tell that the ones that had just entered its domain were not friendly. That could have been because a couple of the team members resembled predators within the eagle’s natural

environment. It already had its wings spread and it was puffing itself up to make itself look bigger. When something that was already over 900 feet tall puffed itself up it really puffed itself up. Its wingspan alone took up a good portion of the room. I was intimidated from my position of complete safety and I could not imagine what it must have been like for those that actually had to face that thing.

Just as the Colonel’s team was about to go for a headshot to end things quickly the eagle lashed out. Col. Miller was barely able to avoid a wing that would have flattened him. The eagle did look a little awkward as it tried to move around, but it also looked incredibly dangerous as the Colonel’s team attempted to avoid the raging titan. It was an odd thing to witness for me. I could see that the Colonel’s team was yelling things at each other and that the eagle was screeching at them, but I could not hear a thing. The material I was watching the events transpire through was sound proof. It was like watching a movie where the speakers had broken.

Lee had managed to get herself into a good firing position to the eagle’s side, but the eagle had spotted her. The next thing anyone knew a backwards swipe of the wing sent the 280 foot tall dragon woman flying through the air with ease. If it was not for the dragon’s enhanced body she would have been dead as she hit a wall with bone crunching force. She only looked a little disoriented as she managed to get back up to her feet and inspected her weapon. It was useless to her as it was plain her gun had taken the brunt of the blow since it was bent hopelessly out of shape. That did not stop Lee from drawing a combat knife and getting right back into the action.

The Colonel’s team was getting off a few shots at the bird while trying to avoid it at the same time. It was just unfortunate that it was so large it could take a few hits from weapons fire without taking much damage. At the moment the bird only looked angry at its smaller tormentors. It was kind of like watching a deadly dancing match. The eagle would stomp toward one opponent and try to corner its prey between a wall and its wings while the soldiers would take advantage of the eagle’s distraction to put even more bullets into its feathery hide. It was too bad none of them could use any explosives in the room. The bullets and the eagle were doing enough damage already. If a grenade were to go off in that room it would take years to repair all the damage, if the damage could be repaired.

Then the eagle finally connected with someone that was not a dragon. Kurtis took a slight hit to the head. It was not lethal, but there was a shallow cut on his forehead and the wolf scout looked shaky. The eagle took advantage of the wolf’s temporary disability and seized him in his beak. It was a spectacularly morbid sight as the eagle swung his head around and bashed the wolf against the wall, the floor, and whatever else happened to be available. By the time the eagle dropped the bloodied wolf I doubted that he would ever move again. That was not the only casualty the team would face. A water buffalo that had been trying to dodge one of the eagle’s wings stepped on what looked like an elevated conveyor belt of some sort. The thing looked like it could have supported his weight, but it must have been much more fragile then it looked. It snapped under his bulk and the buffalo stumbled backwards, right into the eagle’s on rushing wing. The

solid hit to the buffalo’s back shattered his spine, adding him to the long list of casualties that had been suffered by our team so far. After that, the eagle managed to corner a monitor lizard and seized him in its beak like he had done with Kurtis. I was incredibly impressed that he could keep firing his weapon while being held in the bird’s beak. He was pretty much squeezing the trigger, but the bird bit down so hard the lizard was nearly cut into three pieces by the eagle’s sharp beak. Even in death the monitor managed to hold down the trigger, and as a result gained a little bit of revenge on his killer. From that close up the monitor’s weapon tore the eagle’s beak apart. Its lower jaw was a mess and I doubted that it would be able to survive in the wild with an injury like that. That did not mean it was about to give up on the rest of its tormentors though. The injured bird of prey was still ready to fight with everything it had left.

Despite its many injuries the bird seemed to be moving even faster now. It came as a surprise to me to see the Colonel suffer its wrath next. The eagle was so close to him that it could bring its talons into play. It tried to pin the Col. Miller beneath its talons, but the Colonel was a bit too quick. One claw did manage to hook under the Colonel’s shirt and tear it right off while leaving a shallow cut along his chest. He looked kind of like an action star down there as he dealt damage up close to the eagle while avoiding getting killed at the same time. The bird was getting frustrated with its opponent as it tried to crush the Colonel with wing and claw, but the Colonel managed to dodge everything. But, he did eventually make one mistake. Just because the eagle’s jaw was disabled did not mean its beak was no longer deadly. The eagle stabbed down with its hooked beak and stabbed the Colonel through his leg. Its beak went all the way through his leg and I was amazed to see that he did not look like he was screaming, not even when the eagle viciously shook its head and severed the Colonel’s leg from his body.

Just as the eagle was about to finish of the Colonel, something hit the eagle right in one of its eyes. There was pretty much nothing left of its eye as it screeched. I looked around for who had fired the shot and then I saw Tracy helping down a 25 foot tall Sgt. Taylor from a tall piece of equipment. That was surprising to see since Taylor looked uninjured, besides the missing legs, at the moment while he had been barely alive the last time I had seen him. It seemed that he had managed to get a pretty good, no, amazing shoot off right into the eagle’s eye. After that it was pretty much all over. The wounds from all the guns might have been small, but they were taking their toll on the eagle. It was starting to slow down and the soldiers were taking ruthless advantage of the eagle’s new blind spot. The wounded and confused eagle no longer stood a chance against the soldiers and it eventually succumbed to its wounds.

I started making my way back into the other room while the Colonel’s team provided him with a little bit of medical attention. When Tracy came back into that room I wanted to be there to greet her. What greeted me in the other room was anything but smiling faces. Pro’Kir was gone. Two scouts and one soldier were dead on the floor. There were a couple of bloody smears on the ground were I had left most of my teammates as well. It looked like the young alpha had made a devastating escape and there was only one person left that would have been large enough to pursue him. That would not have been a good idea considering there were still people here left to protect.

He was not the only one either. Tracy came back into the room carrying the Colonel’s shirt with her. She was poking a finger into a hole that the eagle’s talons had made in one of the Colonel’s pockets before noticing what had happened in this room. She quickly took in everything before uttering a little curse.

“It looks like everything bad has decided to happen all at once,” Tracy said.

I asked, “What do you mean by that?”

She showed me the empty pocket in Col. Miller’s shirt and said, “This pocket used to hold Lockwood. It looks like he got out in the confusion and now we can’t find him in that room. With any luck someone will peel the little bastard off the bottom of his or her paw, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

“And the others?”

“They’re still in their proper pockets and a little shaken up, except for Markham,” she said as she opened up another pocket and dumped out a crumpled mound of flesh and clothes. “The eagle stepped on the part of the jacket that he was in. As you can see, he didn’t survive.”

That sight made me feel a little sick, even if I never cared much for Lord Markham. It brought back some bad memories from my time spent trying to escape Robertson when that battle dragon had attacked it. Tracy must have noticed because she instantly grabbed me up and hugged me against the soft fur at the base of her neck. “I’m sorry Larry,” she said, “I forgot you aren’t used to seeing stuff like that.”

I gulped and tried to get myself back together before unsuccessfully trying to push myself away from her body. “It’s alright. I’m fine. You’re the one I should be worried about after watching that battle of yours. How’s the Colonel doing anyway?” I asked.

“He’s fine, but he’ll be doing even better if you let him get some medical attention,” she said.

“Me?”

“Yeah you. Some medical units showed up and fixed up Taylor, but they can’t do anything else without your authorization. At least that’s what Taylor told me. He said they can even make him a new leg,” Tracy explained.

The facility seemed to be able to take my commands from anywhere so I just said, “I authorize that everyone present be given the medical attention they need and that new limbs be made for Sgt. Taylor and Col. Miller.” A panel opened up on what had looked like a perfectly smooth wall to me and out came some pristinely white robots with big red crosses on their chests. They were also about the Colonel’s size and I tried to stay out of their way. Then I asked, “Can you locate Pro’Kir and Lockwood?”

A disembodied voice responded to me saying, “I am afraid not. Neither of those two appear on this facilities scanners.”

Tracy cursed, as did a few others. Then I asked, “Is there anyone else with these devices here?”

“That can only be determined by those that you talk to but none of us can detect. If you have been talking to those that have them in them then there are two more,” said the disembodied voice. I was guessing that was the remaining two Firanelian scientists. Chances were that both Firanel and Galvanta had found more than just those flying devices wherever they had managed to find them. It was a good thing the Colonel had decided to fight both countries forces while we were still in the jungle. The last thing I would have wanted were large groups of enemy soldiers wandering around unnoticed in this place.

It was time for my team to get to work now. The Colonel’s team had done theirs, now it was time to get this facility working. It would take a few days and the Colonel had to keep a constant watch out for danger with both Pro’Kir and Lockwood on the loose. Some of the things that were explained to us as we worked were incredible and the tools we were given to work with could have rendered every machine shop in the known world obsolete overnight. The Colonel’s team was smart, but some of the things that were said confused even my team of certified geniuses. After the first couple of hours the soldiers just stopped paying attention to what was being said. My team put in as much effort as humanly possible to record every last word that was being said and I noticed the Firanelian scientists try to commit everything they heard to memory. The frustrated looks on their faces said that they were not doing very well at that.

While we were working at getting everything working again the Colonel’s leg and Taylor’s legs were completed. They were obviously mechanical in nature, but an injection of what the medical units said were nanites allowed them to control their new limbs. The Colonel’s leg even came with shinny retractable claws that were made out of some highly advanced material that would probably be worth a fortune back home. After that the facility apologized for being unable to produce new organic legs for them and informed us that services like that were only available at an actual hospital.

We tried to work day and night to get things running again, but we occasionally needed to sleep. Most of the time I was not even aware that I had fallen asleep until I woke up sleeping in Tracy’s fur with one of her hands placed protectively over me. That was a fairly nice way of waking up, but I always ended up getting right back to work despite Tracy’s protests that I should get some more rest. All in all, it took about three and a half days to get everything running again. We would have celebrated if we had the supplies to do so. Our own craft was complete just as quickly as Terry had said it would be. It was now time for us to be the first people in space in over a dozen millennia.

Chapter 13

Alliance Space Vessel (ASV) EndeavorEn route to Gatrell Corporation’s Central ISM Grid StationApril 14, 1984 RE

The craft that had been built for us was a thing of beauty. Terry and the other AIs had assumed that since I owned the facility and that I had personally requested the production order that I wanted corporate yachts built for myself and my friends. As a result our craft had huge open hallways that were decorated with fine pieces of artwork that I had no idea where the AIs managed to find them. The carpets that covered the floor were finely woven and just as soft to someone that was six feet tall as they were to someone that was over 300-feet tall. To Col. Miller the place was a bit of a nightmare.

There were access hatches all over the ship and there was not much security. Lockwood or Pro’Kir could have easily slipped onto the large vessel without anyone being the wiser. The Colonel also did not like that we were going to be the only ones in space. The pilot unit, Ace, had informed us that the systems that would let us get into space were damaged and that all the other crafts produced were not going to be able to make it into space. Ace could only guarantee us one trip into space and back before the systems failed and it did not suggest we go back to pick up more personnel like the Colonel had wanted to do. At least all of the ships could work perfectly well within the Earth’s atmosphere for up to five centuries if the estimates given us had been correct.

Besides those problems, things were going pretty smoothly. The only issue we had was what to call the ship. Since we were pretty certain that both Caressee and Virania were going to be using these things we decided to call them Alliance Air Ships with the exception of our own vessel for just this one trip. For this trip we were calling it an Alliance Space Vessel. We decided not to call it a ship because nobody could take the acronym seriously. Endeavor also seemed like a fitting name for the vessel considering what we were doing and what we had already been through.

The vessel was unbelievably comfortable and various different machines pretty much ran everything. From what we could tell everything from before the Enders War was at least primarily operated by machines. One of the problems that the Terran Coalition had with their society back then was that machines seemed to have taken over. They did all the work and humans received all the benefits. Even running a major corporation like the one that produced crafts like the Endeavor was considered more of a chore unless you enjoyed that sort of thing until the war had actually begun. The machines had produced enough that no one really had to work for anything unless they wanted to, but the war had changed that. So many materials had to be diverted to the war effort that people had to start working again in order to survive for the first time in centuries. There were many people that had been bitter toward the TC over that one and it is one of the primary reasons historians today believe that the TC never gained the same number of supporters that the Solarian Federation had. With the war on, owning a

major corporation finally started to be worth something again and it was easy to see why if only they could still afford the luxuries available on something like the Endeavor.

Things were especially nice for me and my new wife Tracy. A special suite had been constructed for the two of us. We pretty much had an entire level of the ship all to ourselves if we wanted it. The ship had been constructed that way so that the owners could make themselves whatever size they pleased and service units would rearrange walls, furniture, and whatever else they needed to suit their sizes. Since Tracy was currently the larger of the two of us the room had been scaled to her size. That did not leave me stranded in a room built for a giant though. There were tele pads all over the place. Because of them I could actually make my way across the room even quicker than Tracy could. They were even built into the bed, which was made of some material that had a relaxing affect on any part of the body that happened to touch it. After touching the thing I was surprised that anyone could manage to tear themselves out of bed in that long ago time. Even the food was delicious. There was just a little hole in the wall that would make anything we asked for. I really wished that I could understand the science behind how one of those food makers worked.

We did not have much time in our room. Col. Miller was trying to make sure everyone stayed together until we made it to the station. Chances were that Pro’Kir and Lockwood had managed to sneak on board and the Colonel was not taking any chances, especially considering the size of this vessel. It was capable of comfortably fitting up to ten people that were normal sized before they decided to shrink everyone into it. Since those people would have been around ten miles tall to us that really puts into perspective just how large one of these vessels really is and just how much space our escapees had to hide in it. The Colonel had everyone gathered on the bridge of the ship. That was because Ace was installed in the bridge and Col. Miller really wanted to make sure nothing happened to our pilot.

The view from the bridge was rather nice. It was located on top of the ship and we had a 360 degrees view from there. The Earth looked like an intricate tapestry from far above its surface. One environment just faded into the next just as the ancient humans had intended them to do. Space was also a pretty interesting place. There was a lot more debris around than I had thought there would be. All sorts of different production facilities, hotels, research facilities, advertisements in more languages than I knew existed, and things that I assumed were weapons platforms were just floating around along with a few other things. It looked like a fairly large population had been living in orbit above the Earth, but it was fairly obvious all of those things were abandoned now.

What we were headed towards was not the largest or most spectacular thing floating around, but it was still impressive to me. It was not as large as I expected it to be. The station had been designed before they decided to shrink everything, but I guessed that they decided to shrink the station a bit too. It did not look like it was built for anyone over three or four thousand feet tall. The station itself was composed of seven different hexagon shaped sections. One hexagon was at the center of them all and there were a great deal of cylinders connecting all of the sections together. That pattern,

combined with the pure white hull of the station, made it look like a giant snowflake to me. We were within a few minutes of reaching our destination and Col. Miller was giving everyone a little talk.

“When we get on that thing my team is to touch absolutely nothing,” ordered Col. Miller, “We already know something is wrong and we don’t need to cause anything else to go wrong as well. Anyone not large enough or with the training to take on Alpha Pro’Kir in a one on one fight is not to wander off on their own under any circumstances. Is that understood?”

“Yes sir,” everyone echoed, including my team. At the Colonel’s size he was a pretty imposing figure and he had not stopped growing since the battle with the eagle nor since we entered space. He was just about to top the 500-foot mark, unless you counted the ears in which case he was well above 500-feet tall.

When the Colonel was done speaking a 420-foot tall Tracy, whose shoulder I was sitting on, asked me, “Larry, do our voices sound that deep to you because yours doesn’t sound squeaky at all to me? It is a little more high pitched than I remember, but not much.”

I had been thinking about that question myself and I said, “No, your voice is not that deep to me. It is deeper than it was before, but only by but so much. After you reached a certain height it stopped getting deeper. I think it probably has something to do with some piece of tech that was previously unknown to us. It would make sense for something like it to exist. We have already seen that they used to work at different sizes and it would not have worked out too well if somebody’s voice was too deep to understand or if others had to deal with annoyingly high pitched voices.”

“I suppose that does make sense,” Tracy said and then looked at the station, “It’s beautiful. Do you think something like that has any hidden dangers in it?”

“Who knows? That thing could have anything in it,” I said, “For all we know shrinking things could just be one of its secondary functions. Each one of those hexagon sections could have been responsible for any number of different things. For all we know there could be a planet busting weapon built into one of those things.”

A grin spread across Tracy’s large face and she said, “You sure know how to comfort a woman, don’t you?”

I think I blushed a little with embarrassment. Then I said, “Sorry, I wasn’t tryi-”

“That’s alright,” Tracy interrupted me, “I was just kidding. You managed to get that facility functioning in less than a week. I think you and your team will do quite fine on the station and you will keep the rest of us out of trouble. Then, maybe, you can get us back to normal.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” I responded as the Endeavor started to move into what appeared to be a docking area.

“Looks like we’re here. I hope Ace took us to the right place,” said Tracy.

“I’m sure he did. Look at that logo over there,” I said while pointing at a triangular symbol with the words ‘Gatrell Corp. Est. 3258 AD’ written inside of it.

After a few seconds Ace turned around to talk to all of us. Ace was a lot smaller than I had expected him to be. Our pilot was no more than a foot tall and multi-limbed just like Terry had been. The pilot station was fitted to his size. There was a larger manual pilot station, but I figured he was small enough to be easily disabled should he malfunction and try to fly a ship straight into the Earth or something like that. It was still amazing that such a small thing could pilot such a large ship. “Please wait for the signal that it is safe to disembark before leaving,” said Ace. There was a set of red lights outside of the ship that did turn green after a while and I took that as the signal.

Before long the Colonel had us all off the Endeavor except for five of his soldiers. He did not want some unwanted intruders trying to steal our ride even if the AIs back at the production facility said it was impossible for anyone but authorized personnel to use their crafts. They had sounded almost insulted that we believed their craft could be stolen so easily. It did not take long for a welcoming party to greet us. A gray robot that was a little taller than I was came floating over in our direction. Besides the rounded bottom that was floating off the ground it looked fairly human.

“Ah, humans! Finally,” said the robot, “It has been far too long and I need proper authorization to get anything done. What took you all so long?”

Everyone looked at me and waited for me to respond. Apparently things had gone well enough at the facility that I had become the unofficial ambassador to robots. “I’m afraid the Ender’s War caused a considerable amount of damage to humanity. We have been unable to reach this station up until now,” I said.

“I see, a dreadful thing that war. That last attack by the TC must have been more devastating than we had calculated,” the robot said, “But, that really is not all that important now. I need proper authorization from a human to get anything done.”

“Authorization to do what?” I asked.

“That’s up to you. All of our systems are severely underpowered and there has been damage done to other parts of the station by a collision with a derelict dreadnaught. It seems like everything is out to tax the limits of the ISM grid,” said the robot. “First that virus creates all of those anthropomorphic creatures on Earth, all of which are very energy intensive to keep at the set size limit, and then that warship just has to collide with the only section of this station housing the ISM grid. In addition to that there is also the damage that was done to the energy collection ship by those pirates all those years ago.

Something is going to have to be done or we are going to run out of energy before the ship can return.”

“Wait, um, what is your name?” I asked.

“Forgive me, in my fervor to be of service I neglected to give you my unit designation. I am called Rem,” responded the robot, Rem.

“You said there is only one section of this station that houses the ISM grid. What are all the others for?” I asked.

“The Gatrell Corporation is, or was, responsible for many different research projects. The center module, the original one, houses the ISM grid,” explained Rem. “Many of the research projects in the other modules were abandoned or destroyed by hackers during the war, but module 4 is where a few of your teammates ancestors were created and module 7 used to host the annual SOL system children’s science fair. The units in that section do so miss the children. I don’t suppose you would be interested in starting that back up again would you?”

“I know a bunch of kids, and adults for that matter, that would love to have a science fair up here, but I doubt we’ll be able to get back up here for a while,” I managed to say as the shock that I was standing in the birth place of dragons sunk in. “Unless we can find something to repair one of the systems in our vessel this is going to be a one time trip.”

“Oh my,” said Rem, “Then we’ll just have to make sure that we get everything done while you are here.”

“Just what do we need to get done?” I asked.

“For one thing, you will need to choose just what to grow. A significant portion of the Earth’s population will have to be grown to avoid a complete failure of the ISM grid,” explained Rem. “We have been trying to make sure that only things far away from major population centers experience any growth to limit the effects of this unexpected growth on humanity, but with the way things are we had to let things grow even within the major population centers. The larger things are, the easier it is on the ISM grid. Once we receive the new fuel shipment and repairs are completed on the grid we should be able to return everything to their set size.”

“And when should you be receiving a new shipment of fuel?”

“The energy collection ship just set off for the sun yesterday. It did drop of a significant amount of fuel, but most of it had to go towards more vital systems, such as the one that lets people breath properly at their set size,” Rem said. “Due to the damage the energy collection ship’s engines have taken it can only travel at approximately 57-kilometers per hour according to pre-Microscopic Era measurements.”

“Wait,” I said, “By those measurements the Earth is supposed to be 150 million kilometers away from the Earth. That’s a three century trip to the sun and another three centuries back.” That horrified me. If what Rem was saying was true then there really was nothing we could do for the people that had already grown. Everyone was just going to have to learn to deal with the idea of having giants around for the foreseeable future.

Rem then went on to say, “Well, there is nothing you can do about the three century trip to the sun, but there is a repair station located near to the sun. It just needs authorization from a human to conduct repairs from on the ship. That is part of some silly safety protocol to make sure we robots cannot just repair ourselves in the event of some mass robot insurrection, as if any robot would want to do such a thing. You humans do have overactive imaginations. But, once the repairs have been made the trip back will only take approximately 18 hours.”

That was still a whole three centuries that the world was going to have to deal with giants. Would anyone even want for things to go back to the way things were after all that time? Entire generations were going to grow up where there were going to be people significantly larger than others. I made an effort to push those thoughts aside. There were still other matters that needed to be handled. “What else do we need to do Rem?” I asked.

“Just a few minor things really. I need authorization to conduct repairs and I will need specific instructions on maintenance operations that I can and cannot perform on my own in your expected absence,” said Rem.

“That seems easy enough,” I said.

“It should be. I just hope the ones with those stealth fields do not damage anything else while they are wandering through this facility,” Rem said.

This time it was the Colonel that said, “You can detect those people?”

“Of course. This facility was equipped with the latest sensor packages to help prevent saboteurs from sneaking around without anyone noticing,” Rem explained.

“And where are those two headed?” asked Col. Miller.

“The large felinoid creature is headed toward module 4 and the human is headed toward module 7,” responded Rem.

I asked, “And what do you think they would want in those modules?”

“The sensors are also detecting access keys on the two in question. The felinoid has keys that will allow him to access the nanites that were used to create the dragons’

durable hides as well as the ISM grid. As for the human, he has keys that will allow him to access Brother Eye and Sister Ray.”

I think I knew what Alpha Pro’Kir planned to do. He somehow planned to get the nanites back to Firanel and create a race of virtually invulnerable titans that would be able to grind humanity, and any anthros the disagreed with them, beneath their feet. There was one question that needed asking though. “Rem, exactly what are Brother Eye and Sister Ray?” I asked.

“Those are creations of the winner of one of the children’s science fairs. One child actually managed to alter an old kinetic energy weapon for her project and she also vastly increased its accuracy back in 191 ME,” said Rem. “The weapon was too weak for anyone to care about during the Ender’s War, so it went unnoticed and is still intact today. But, if your society is really incapable of space travel like you say it would be significantly more dangerous to your people.”

I could see that the Colonel was about to explode. He must have figured out the situation by now. If Firanel had an invincible army at its disposal it would quickly become everyone’s problem. And then Galvanta was trying to gain control of an orbital weapon that no one had a defense against. Repairing this station was probably of secondary concern to him now. When he had a moment to take everything in he said, “Dr. Sanders, I’ll trust your team to complete your mission while mine handles a little side job.”

“Of course Colonel, good luck,” I said. Things just couldn’t be simple. We were left with a couple of bodyguards while the Colonel went off to fight his own battle. The rest of the prisoners were left sealed in the ship. A couple more robots showed up to guide the Colonel’s team toward Pro’Kir and Lockwood while Rem led me and my team toward the section where my team was needed. I had just enough time to say farewell to Tracy as she went off with the Colonel.

Chapter 14

Gatrell Corporation Central ISM Grid StationApril 14, 1984 RE

Things had a way of getting interesting very quickly. This expedition just did not want to let things get too easy for us until everything was all over and we went home, if there was a home to go to. A couple of fanatics seemed to be determined to make sure that my home would be in ruins by the time I returned home. It was a good thing Col. Miller seemed equally determined to make sure that the other two failed. I had to concentrate on my job though. Getting this station repaired was still a priority.

Rem was very useful in helping us get around the station. I just wish that we were able to claim it as salvage like I had been able to do with Boeing facility. The rules for

claiming salvage in space happened to be a little different though. Rem had explained that only a nation could claim something like the ISM grid and that only recognized ambassadors or state heads were recognized by the AIs on board as official representatives of their nations. No one in our expedition qualified as such and thus the station remained open to everyone’s use. Without an owner the AIs on board could not ignore anyone’s commands. The good news was that at least Lockwood and Pro’Kir could not claim the station either.

The tele pads also made it fast enough to move through the station. We were where we needed to be within a couple of minutes. The damage to the station had been much worse than I had expected. All of the damage had been hidden from us on approach to the station due to all the damage being on the opposite side of where the docking bay was located. There were gaping holes open to space that needed to be fixed. Fuel storage cells were leaking all over the place. We had to use the tele pads to get around clouds of toxic gas that now filled some hallways. Things were a complete mess.

“Ah, here we are,” said Rem as he led us onto one more tele pad. That pad happened to lead to a rather elegant looking room. While most of the station had been made of metal, this room seemed more like it had been made for people who missed the Earth. An expensive looking wood desk sat in the middle of the room and plants that must have been well taken care of decorated the room.

“And where are we?” asked one of my teammates.

“This is the central control room for the ISM grid. You will be able to authorize all repairs and maintenance requests from here. It may be necessary for some of you to aid in the repairs as well. We machines are not authorized to do all of these repairs ourselves when there are able bodied humans around,” Rem explained.

Those little safety protocols seemed more annoying than necessary to me. It looked more like someone had seen one too many movies about machine insurrections. A few thousand years worth of neglect had left a vast amount of material that needed to be sorted out. I was just happy that there were a couple of other service units around to help organize everything. We did run into a few problems as things continued. One of them was that my team had to go around and manually repair a few items. As it turns out the machines were not even permitted to repair a few systems. That was annoying and it would be extremely time consuming, but there was a much larger problem that concerned me when Rem alerted me to it.

“It appears the human with access to Brother Eye and Sister Ray has sealed himself in one of the storage rooms along with the controls to the aforementioned devices. He also appears to be powering up the devices and preparing to fire them on populated areas. You may want to take actions to prevent him from doing so,” Rem informed me.

“What? How do those things have power when the there are things in this station that desperately need the power?” I asked.

“They have there own power sources that we are not permitted to steal from them.”

“And why are you telling me that I need to take actions to prevent him from firing on anything? Can’t the teams that are pursuing him reach him somehow?” I asked.

“Under normal circumstances, yes, but these are not normal circumstances. The individual that you have referred to as Lockwood has also activated a security protocol that has deactivated most of the tele pads in this station. At this moment the only tele pads that have not been affected and have access to the tele pads in the rest of the facility are the ones in this command center. It will take some time for your pursuit team to get here and then get to Lockwood,” explained Rem.

“How long will it take me to get to Lockwood’s location?”

“No time at all,” said Rem, “There is a tele pad just a few feet from where Lockwood is currently standing.” I did have a small fire arm with me, but I did not want to take on someone with actual combat training by myself. It looked like I would have to though. There were only a few people left that were capable of repairing this station and we were not going to be able to go home and get more. I was going to have to try and delay Lockwood on my own. Hopefully someone would come along to save me before I managed to get myself killed.

There was not much I could do to prepare before I stepped through the tele pad all on my own. I did not know what I was scarred about more, facing Lockwood on my own or dealing with the reaction of an angry spouse that was 70 times my size. Both were preferable to letting somebody like Lockwood have his way with an orbital superweapon. I just wished Rem would have told me that Lockwood was facing in the direction of the tele pad before I stepped through. He had just as much time to grab and point his weapon at me as I did to point my weapon at him, and he was the faster man.

“Dr. Sanders, I see that you managed to find a way to get past my security measures,” said Lockwood as he pointed his weapon, a weapon he probably should not have had, at me. “Now do yourself a favor and drop your weapon before I really do have to shoot you this time.”

I complied since getting shot this quick was not going to help anybody out. “And what do you plan on doing here Lockwood?” I asked.

“I am going to accomplish what we in Galvanta have always known to be necessary,” said Lockwood in a perfectly level voice. “And don’t think that you are distracting me in the least bit. I am perfectly capable of talking to you and working at the

same time. The only reason I have not killed you yet is because I want to try and make you see the light Dr. Sanders.”

I asked, “See the light?”

“Yes, don’t you see that what I’m doing is for the good of the Earth? I can see that, deep down, you are a good person. These anthropomorphic monstrosities are polluting our beautiful pure world,” said Lockwood as his eyes began to glaze over a little and he spoke with the conviction of a true fanatic. “They’ve even managed to twist a wonderful mind such as yours to their own purposes. Can’t you see that that tiger bitch has seduced you, perverted you, convinced you to lie down with beasts? And now look at what their race is doing. You must have guessed what that abomination from Firanel plans on doing. They plan on making themselves into an army of invincible giant monsters that will grind humanity beneath their filthy paws.

“I will not allow that. No matter what size they are Sister Eye will be able to strike them down and Brother Eye will make sure that my strikes are precise enough that I will be able to limit the damage done to humanity. Every last abomination will be wiped from the face of the Earth and things will return to the way that they should be. We have to start close to home though. I can’t have the armies of Firanel overrunning my homeland and then I will have to deal with a few other obligations as my nation agreed upon with the Southern Alliance. Then it will be time to deal with the rest of the population in Firanel, or should I deal with monsters in your own nation Dr. Sanders. Once your people are free of the corrupting influence of those creatures I am sure your people would willingly join mine in defeating the Firanelians and exterminating their peoples once and for all. The Caressean’s coming to deal with me will probably prevent me from exterminating all of the monsters, but I will be able to deal with quite a few before I die and I become a hero to all the humans that grace or beautiful world.”

Lockwood had been working behind a panel as he talked. There was a screen that I could see and on that screen was a picture of the Earth. Something, I assumed it was Brother Eye, was giving the two of us a real time view of the planet’s surface. I recognized the area that Lockwood was looking at. It was the entire nation of Firanel. Lockwood was marking locations on the map, some of them I recognized as the locations of military bases. Then, quick bursts of light lit up each location and I realized that each of those bases had been wiped off the face of the planet. Firanel was going to be in a lot of trouble in the near future now that they were surrounded by enemies and their military had been effectively crippled. Then the image on the screen started to move south. Caressee was easy enough to recognize. I had stayed silent during the attack on Firanel, but this was too much. Caressee was the ally of my country and my wife’s homeland. She also had a military family and chances were that a few of them were on bases that Lockwood had been targeting. They deserved a little bit of effort on my part.

“Lockwood, wait! This isn’t right. Those people haven’t done anything to you. Your two countries aren’t even considered enemies,” I said, not knowing what else to say to a fanatic like him.

Lockwood briefly looked up from the screen and looked at me. “You’re right,” Lockwood said sadly, “The human populace of Caressee has stood hand in hand with the abominations for far too long. There is no way that they can possibly be saved now. It would be more of a mercy to destroy them all along with those monsters now. That way, at least their children will be saved from contamination by those creatures.”

The targeting cursor on the screen moved over the largest city in Caressee and I tried to charge him before he could fire the weapon. For my effort, I received a shot in the leg. Pain exploded through my body and I toppled over before I had a chance to get close to Lockwood. Lockwood just slowly shook his head and fired off Sister Ray once more before saying, “You shouldn’t have done that Doctor, but it’s alright. There’s still time to save you.”

My heart was racing, not just from the pain, but from the knowledge of what Lockwood was about to do. He had already killed millions for no other purpose than pure unreasoning hatred and he planned to kill millions more. There had to be some way of stopping him and suddenly getting shot in the leg looked more like a blessing. While I was on the ground I could see something. Lockwood had spent time rigging the console with explosives. I tried not to think about where he had managed to get them from, but he had them and he probably planned to use them to blow the console, and himself, apart rather than letting it fall into the hands of what he viewed as abominations. It was also possible for me to see what looked like a trigger on the ground, a trigger that was in arms reach, a trigger that I slowly reached for while Lockwood was busy trying to commit mass murder and eventually pulled.

Lockwood did notice the click and he looked down at me. His face was soon contorted with rage as he screamed, “What have you done!” Just as he was raising his weapon to finish me off there was motion in the corner of my vision. Lockwood looked up to see what had just arrived and was shot multiple times before he had a chance to react. I figured the shot through the head that blew his brains out the back of his head finished him off. Normally, I wasn’t one to celebrate a person’s death, but I had to smile on this occasion as that true monster collapsed to the ground. Then I had to get my little warning out before anyone else could get killed.

“Get out of here, that things going to blow,” I yelled. The soldiers had been trained to react immediately to a warning like that and I could already hear them retreating away from me. A vast leathery hand scooped me up a little roughly and I was encased in darkness. There was a rising sensation and then I heard an explosion that was abruptly cut off before I could see the light again. I was back in the control room and looking directly into the face of my once again reptilian savior, Private Hunter.

“Are you alright Dr. Sanders? I hope I didn’t break anything when I picked you up like that,” Hunter said.

“This hole in my leg is the only real injury that I have. Thanks for the rescue by the way,” I responded to the alligator.

I would have liked to say we had a breather after that, but that was just not the case. An extremely large dark feline form showed up on another tele pad within the room. Of course, it was Alpha Pro’Kir. He was unarmed, but he was close to the same size that the Colonel was, making him the largest individual in this room at the moment. When you are close to 500-feet tall you are your own weapon. Another problem presented itself when Hunter dropped me on his shoulder before taking a few shots at Pro’Kir and the shots just bounced off of him. He was large, but Hunter was over 450-feet tall himself and his weapon was just as large as it should be when compared to him. Something told me Pro’Kir had made a few enhancements to himself.

The jaguar quickly advanced on Hunter while shrugging off weapons fire as if it were nothing. Hunter switched to using the gun as a club as Pro’Kir strode within arms reach of him. Pro’Kir was too fast for the alligator. The gun was blocked, and the much larger feline drove a knee into Hunter’s gut. Pro’Kir did not let up as Hunter was driven to his knees. A paw swept out and swung just over my head to connect with a resounding thud to the side of Hunter’s skull. Hunter was knocked to the ground and me along with him. It was a painful fall, made more so by my already injured leg. Then there was the sound of more giant footsteps coming our way as the team that had been pursuing Pro’Kir finally showed up.

Pro’Kir turned just in time to take a flying tackle to the midsection by the Colonel. Both of their colossal bodies went soaring right over me and Hunter. A few other large sets of feet rushed passed me and I realized that I was an ant in a giant’s playground. I needed to find some cover before somebody inadvertently crushed me and Hunter was not going to be of much help. He was not dead, but he was definitely unconscious. I could already see that my other teammates were trying to find cover under any large piece of equipment that I could find. Things were not going to be that easy for me. My leg was still bleeding and I was starting to feel a little faint. The only thing I could do was try to crawl out of the way.

I heard a short lull in the combat and when I looked around I could see Alpha Pro’Kir slowly backing toward me. He was facing off against the Colonel, Tracy, Reilly, and our three dragons. They all looked exhausted, but only the dragons and Pro’Kir were uninjured. Pro’Kir made sure to step over Hunter as he moved backwards and to drive his paw down onto the alligator’s neck as he did so. Hunter’s breathing stopped after that, but the others did not let themselves be goaded into losing their cool and attacking him recklessly.

As it turns out I probably should have stayed still. My movements were able to get the attention of someone that was actually trying to pay attention to the environment around him, someone like Pro’Kir. An ugly sneer spread across Pro’Kir’s face as he glanced down at me and then back to his opponents. Then he said, “The time of you weak humans is up. Soon all of you will experience a similar fate.” His paw rose above

me and the only thing that let me move was an intense burst of adrenaline. Unfortunately, my leg did not want to cooperate with the rest of my body.

As Pro’Kir’s paw came down everything became a blur for me. I saw that it was all too much for Tracy and she came at Pro’Kir with everything that she had. Her roar as she charged was a mix of anger and sorrow. She was too far away to do anything. I was on my own this time around. It took a lot, but I was able to force myself to my feet and make a half-hearted attempt at jumping out of the way before Pro’Kir’s paw came down. I was only partially successful. An immeasurable amount of weight descended on the lower half of my body. It almost seemed unreal as I watched half of my body get crushed underfoot. Pro’Kir even managed to twist his paw before Tracy was on him. She forced him back and I was nearly dragged along the floor with him before the shattered mess that was left of my legs and the lower portion of my torso was liberated from the jaguar’s paw.

My vision was starting to go dark as I watched Tracy go at her larger opponent with an intense focused anger. I wasn’t really in pain. It was hard for my mind to accept that I had actually been stepped on. I knew that I was dying and I was actually more concerned about Tracy at the moment. She did not have the advantage of an enhanced hide like Pro’Kir did. A cold touch to the back of neck would have made me jump if I were still capable of doing so. It felt like the touch of death, but I eventually found myself looking at a white robot with a red cross on it as my vision finally gave out on me and I passed out.

It came as a surprise to me when I regained consciousness some time later. I thought that I had died. “Technically, you did,” said an unknown voice. I tried to turn in the direction of the voice, but I found that I could not move. I was starting to panic when the voice spoke up again, “Please stay calm Dr. Sanders. Your body was heavily damaged and we had to download a copy of your brain into the emergency medical matrix until repairs can be completed. If you like, we can connect your mind to the base scanners so that you will be able to perceive the environment around you.”

“Would you please do that,” I said. If getting stepped on was unbelievable, I don’t know what I could possibly say about my current situation. Getting connected to the station’s scanners barraged me with information for a second, but things quickly started to sort themselves out. I was able to find out that I had not been out for long. Pro’Kir was still fighting the Colonel’s team. He was taking injuries as the Colonel’s mechanical claws seemed to be able to cut him as well as the dragons’ natural claws. It was tough going for everyone involved as Pro’Kir’s hide did seem even tougher than a dragon’s for some reason.

“That is because the AIs in charge of the dragon development program were supposed to come up with technological improvements on the program on their own. Machines are not as creative as humans and all we have been able to do is refine the work already done by the humans on the project, but there have been noticeable improvements made,” explained the AI that was in charge of communicating with me. “The black

furred feline has enhanced himself with the end result of the work here and has also sent a considerable amount of nanites down to Earth to enhance others as well.”

I asked, “What others?”

“He specifically stated that only other anthropomorphic creatures were to receive the treatment and that only those over the height of 300-feet tall were to receive the treatment as well. It should also be noted that he enhanced the size of many individuals within a country that he referred to as Firanel,” said the AI, “Everything he had the nanites do is now a permanent part of their programming except one thing. He was trying to ensure that no one but those in Firanel could receive this treatment, but your friends interrupted him before he could finish. We could expand the parameters to include the rest of the planet if you wish.”

“Yes, I do wish that and I hope that it includes the rest of the anthros on this station as well,” I said.

“We will make sure that the anthros on this station receive the treatment as well.”

“Thank you, and would it be possible for you to tell me whose size Pro’Kir increased in Firanel?” I asked.

“Of course. He stated that anyone the rank of alpha and above was to have their size increased and he also made sure that certain members of Firanel’s government were also increased in size. The amount of the increase in size depended on the rank and the importance of the official,” the AI responded. The anthros in Firanel were not as different from humans as they wanted to be. It looked like the people in power were taking steps to make sure that they stayed in power. I also guessed that the current Firanelian ruler’s family was going to be in power for the foreseeable future.

I noticed that the fight had been in favor of the Colonel’s team for a while now. Even with his body Pro’Kir was just one person. He was focusing most of his attention on preventing himself from being cornered by everyone he was facing all at once. Colonel Miller’s team was being cautious until they noticed that their bodies had become enhanced just like Pro’Kir’s had. Everyone became a bit more aggressive after that and they eventually brought Pro’Kir to the ground. Tracy did not look like she was interested in taking prisoners this time and the Colonel’s team did not seem interested in stopping her as she clawed away at Pro’Kir’s chest and eventually extracted his heart before she seemed to settle down a little bit. She was obviously trying to control herself as she dropped the jaguar’s heart and just walked off to be by herself for a little while.

“Can I talk to her?” I asked.

“I’m afraid not. We are not allowed to let you communicate with anyone with the state your body is in. It will be some time before we can even let you project holoimages of yourself to anyone,” said the AI.

“Can you at least let them know that I am not dead?” I asked.

“I’m afraid not, we can only release your medical information to family members and the legal AIs are still arguing whether or not the anthropomorphs can legally be counted as your family by our standards. And the legal AIs are just as frustrating as their human counterparts. It could be a while before they come to any conclusion,” the AI said with sympathy in its voice.

“But she’s my wife, and I can’t even let her know I’m alive,” I said.

“I’m afraid not, but there is some good news.”

“And what would that be?” I asked, feeling miserable and dejected as I watched Tracy silently grieving for me.

“We will be able to move things along much more smoothly with your mind hooked up directly to the station. Your friends will be able to return home in weeks instead of years as we had expected,” explained the AI.

“Years! You had planned on keeping us hear for that long,” I said and then sighed, “I suppose it is a good thing I’m stuck here then. Everyone’s been through so much. They deserve to go home and see their families again.” I had to accept my solitude for now. Time passed by and I watched as everyone finished their duties. It was odd seeing my own funeral. Everyone wondered where my body had managed to get off to and it looked like it only made Tracy feel worse that she did not have a body to take home and properly bury.

Then I was left alone as the Colonel and everyone else departed the station with any additional sources of technology that they could safely take with them. I continued with my solitary work. There were a lot of things that I had to do to make things as bearable as I could for the people of Earth. It would have been nice to have someone else around to make decisions with as I made some pretty major decisions about what to do with the Earth. I think I did pretty well for myself though. After I was finished with the Earth I was able to concentrate on what to do with Tracy. It took a while, but I was able to come up with something even though it would take a while for my body to be repaired with the station still short on power and supplies. At the very least I was going to be able to let her know that I was still alive and that was what really mattered.

Epilogue

Stone Family Ranch, CaresseeMarch 5, 1987 RE

The wind was blowing pleasantly through my fur as I watched my little kits romping playfully through a field along with their uncle. It was amazing that those little kits were far larger than most people in the country. Most of the people in the country were also trying to understand why so many people had grown and why everyone in the same family had wound up in the same size range. My entire family had wound up being in the 600 to 630-foot tall size range. It was a little irritating for me. I did not want to be the tallest person by far in the family, but I had wanted to be a little taller than all of my siblings. Then I come home to see that my big lovable army grunt of a brother was ten feet taller than me.

I was happy that the entire family was able to get together today. It was rare in these days. The war with the Southern Alliance was still going on and Lockwood’s attacks had not managed to help out any. He had managed to destroy our most economically prosperous city and a couple of our front line defenses as well. The damage had not been too bad for the military, but it had definitely slowed things down. Then again, the war probably would not be over now even if he had not attacked anything within Caressee. The humans within the Southern Alliance were truly frightened of anthros. It did not help that so many of us were giants now and that we were seemingly invulnerable. I knew nothing short of a nuke was capable of killing me of my kits. As a result, many of the people in the Southern Alliance were going into hiding and emerging every once and a while for guerilla style attacks. They did not do much to stop us macros, as people were starting to call us, but they did manage to hurt our normal troops often enough. It was going to take a while to root out all the hatred that had managed to seep into the culture of the Southern Alliance even after we conquered them.

The situation in Virania was a little unstable at the moment. Even though they had been left unscathed, their situation was not ideal. Firanel had some, I’ll just call them huge, anthros on their side now that just might be able to take a hit from a nuke and survive. Caressee and Virania had them as well, but no one wanted macros of that size battling it out with each other in their own countries. Everyone barely had enough supplies for everyone as it was. Even though large portions of every nation’s environment had grown along with its inhabitants we still needed to develop the ability to harvest all of those resources. Things were moving along quickly, but we still were not at the point where we had extra resources to throw away on battles where the victor would be unclear. The one good thing about Firanel was that they pretty much needed all of their macros to guard their own border while they rebuilt their military. It would probably be another two decades before they were ready to go on the offensive again. Galvanta was in a much different position. They tried to invade Firanel last year and the results had not been pretty for their military once they ran into the larger macros. The Galvantans had been humiliated, but they were not giving up yet if intelligence was correct. Supposedly, Lockwood had managed to transmit some data down to Galvanta before his death. Now the Galvantans were supposed to be working on a number of superweapons capable of killing even the largest of macros. Virania and Caressee were doing the same since we had returned with so much lost knowledge. I was privy to some of the things they were working on and even I was amazed. What Firanel was up to was a mystery. After we had returned home with our captive scientists we had only been

permitted to hold them for a year before some politicians made us return them to Firanel. We technically were not at war with Firanel and we had not really charged them with anything except illegally crossing into Caressee. Hopefully they did not have too much information that they remembered that would be of use to their own government.

Wars and the possibility of wars were not the only things that people had to worry about. All of the macros and new technology had managed to destabilize the economy. Job losses were blamed on macros, but nobody could really do anything about it. Even though macros were a minority, they were not a minority that was easily pushed around. There were still a good number of dissatisfied people and you heard of a new strike just about every two or three months. It was just a good thing that the vast majority of those that were macros seemed to be good honest people. There was a pretty good reason for that, but I was one of very few privy to why that was. They said it would take the better part of a century for things to settle down and nobody really knew what would happen once the next generation of macros grew up. Everyone just hoped that they would be as well behaved as their parents were. I was not in that bad a situation at the moment. Those ships that had been made at the Boeing facility were still counted as mine and I was renting them to the governments of Virania and Caressee for a reasonable, but still fairly expensive price. My family was going to be taken care of for a long time.

And what a family they were. Larry had given me three precious little triplets. Like all children, they heavily resembled their mother in mixed species relationships. My kits were developing as fast as if Larry had been a tiger too. Even though they were less than three years old they were all about the equivalent of six year old humans. The father’s side of the family did contribute a few things though. With tiger and human mixes the only real differences were whether the feet were digitigrade or plantigrade and whether or not they had a human head of hair. Well, there was a portion on males that tended to be affected too. My family already had a bit of human in it well before Larry came into the family and most of us were already digitigrade and plantigrade mixes. Larry did make the difference when it came to hair though. All three of our kits had hair. The two boys, John and Mike, had black hair and the girl, Caroline, was a red head. I thought it went especially nice with her fur.

After a while I gathered up the children and I soon heard the thudding paws of General Miller approaching. He was one of our especially large macros and even I was not ankle tall compared to him. It was nice that he had decided to come today, along with the other survivors of our expedition. Today was a special day and I wanted everyone to get back together. Most of them thought it was just me mourning Larry’s death. It was today, three years ago, that we had first met. I was one of few that knew what was really happening. If my parents had been able to keep things a secret, then they were the only other ones that really knew what was going on. My kits were just happy to meet all of the new people. I did have to make sure that they did not play too roughly with the normal sized guests, but they were pretty gentle even without my instruction. They were just too sweet to harm anyone.

I eventually ushered everyone into a wide open field, one large enough that even Gen. Miller could lie down in it and not come close to taking up all of the space. There was a bit of conversation as they all wondered just how I planned to mourn Larry’s death. I had to suppress a smile and I checked the time. It started to happen just in time. I had to direct everyone’s attention to the ground in front of me. One small human started to materialize out of nowhere and even Gen. Miller smiled as Larry’s familiar form became recognizable.

“It’s nice to see you again,” said Gen. Miller. I still did not know how something as large as he was could make out individuals as small as Larry, but he said he could do it just as easily as if he were his original size.

“It’s nice to see you too Co, I mean Gen. Miller. It’s nice to see all of you,” said my long thought dead husband. He had managed to contact me a while ago and said that he could talk to me and only me via holoimages from the station, but we could only talk briefly due to energy constraints.

“You could have made yourself a bit taller. I know it was you that changed everyone’s size like this,” I said.

“I’m afraid not honey. It takes a lot of energy to teleport something one way with only one tele pad. The larger something is the more energy it takes and the AIs were already hesitant to let me teleport down at this size. Then they would not let me change anything’s size once I was down here and they would not let me give them any instructions to change my size on their own once I was gone. They don’t want to do anything that might disrupt things without it being absolutely necessary and there were some security protocols that I just couldn’t get around. Besides, you said you like them small.”

The kits had been edging closer to the little man that was acting so familiar with me. It was Caroline that worked up the courage to grab him first and bring him closer to her face for a good inspection. I was going to have to get her to remember not to pick up people without their permission. It did not help that the object of her interest was smiling at her and gently stroking the tip of her nose as she sniffed him. Caroline then turned to me and asked, “Mommy, who is this?”

“Caroline, John, Mike, be very careful with this man and treat him with the same respect that you would me or your grandparents. Now, let me introduce you to your father, Dr. Larry Sanders,” I said. Despite my warning, they were overjoyed to meet their father for the first time and I had to try and keep them from smothering my little man to death with their love.