Barbarian Box Set: Barbarians of Zandipor Books One, Two and Three(9)

“Dinosaurs?!?” Mandy screams as she whips her head around. “Like, dinosaur, dinosaurs?”

Tin Tom beeps as we anxiously await his answer. “I’m not familiar with a dinosaur dinosaurs,” he says. “But Zandipor is the home of the dinosauriforms. What earthlings call dinosaurs.”

Even Rolanda is freaked out. Her face is turning as white as Mandy’s. She’s a tough bitch but even the best fists in the universe aren’t a match against a freaking T-Rex.

“Observe earthling women,” Tin Tom says. “There is a dinosauriform coming now.”

My blood runs cold and every hair on my body stands at attention as I slowly turn around. There’s a f*cking dinosaur alright, and it’s a goddamn T-Rex. It’s far enough in the distance that I don’t have to pee my shorts yet but that can all change in an instant. I’m assuming, by the three dinosaur movies that I’ve seen, that it can run over here in the time it takes me to tighten up my shoe laces. I really should have tightened them on the ship.

I can’t take my unblinking eyes off it. It’s huge. Even bigger than I thought a T-Rex would be. We’re probably the three only humans in history to lay eyes on a Tyrannosaurus Rex but I don’t feel particularly lucky. Watching Jurassic Park was good enough for me. I don’t need to see the live version.

The T-Rex doesn’t see us and begins walking in the other direction towards the mountain. All three of us take a breath of relief.

“Why did you let us land on a planet full of dinosaurs?” Rolanda asks with narrow eyes.

Tin Tom just beeps. “You are the Captain of the ship. I go where you tell me to.”

Rolanda throws her hands in the air and groans. “I hate you, so much right now.”

Every few minutes there’s a soft thumping in the distance. Dozens of white lines decorate the sky as meteors fall from the heavens. “Why is it raining rocks?” I ask Tin Tom.

He blinks. “It appears that Zandipor is in the midst of a meteor shower. It is the debris from Orunta, a nearby planet that has recently exploded.”

“Holy shit,” I say, looking up at the falling rocks. “Recently?”

“Yes,” Tin Tom answers, “ninety-eight thousand years ago. Roughly.”

“Rocks I can handle,” Rolanda says, jerking her head from side to side. “Dinosaurs I can’t.”

“Let’s get a closer observation of the dinosauriforms,” Tin Tom says. Before I can scream ‘no’ the stupid robot lets out a screeching alarm that echoes down the valley.

It only shuts off when Rolanda kicks him over.

But it’s too late.

The enormous T-Rex is staring right at us and whatever it was interested in before apparently isn’t anywhere near as interesting as us. It starts running. Fast.

It’s so far away but I can still feel the vibrations through my feet. I can still hear it grunting.

Mandy is frozen with fear as she stares at it with wide eyes. “Let’s go!” I scream at her as I grab her arm. She shakes out of her daze and we turn back to the ship to hide inside. It’s sturdy enough to travel through space so hopefully, it’s sturdy enough to withstand a T-Rex’s jaws.

“No!” I scream as my legs turn to jelly. The door of the spaceship slams shut. Tin Tom has his hook connected to a panel on the outside. He closed it.

“Open the door,” I scream as we rush over.

“That is inadvisable,” Tin Tom says in his choppy voice. “The dinosauriforms could do significant trauma to the interior of a spaceship.”

“He’s going to do significant trauma to us!” Rolanda screams banging her fists on the locked door. “Open it!”

“He’s coming,” Mandy whispers. And then she throws up.

For someone who hasn’t really eaten anything in days, she’s throwing up a lot. I’m impressed.

Rolanda is furious. “Open it now you Tin Tom piece of crap!”

“Uh, guys,” I say as they’re fighting and Mandy retches again. “He’s coming.”

Boy is he coming. A flock of birds takes to the sky, flying out of his way as he thunders forward. Fuck the door, f*ck Tin Tom, and f*ck this!

“Let’s go!” I scream, yanking Mandy’s arm as I sprint away. She follows me as I run to…wait, where the f*ck am I going?

Rolanda flies past me, pumping her muscular legs at a speed that I didn’t think was humanly possible. If I knew I would have had a T-Rex chasing me one day, I would have spent much more time on the treadmill at the gym. I might even have put my magazine down and tried to break a sweat.

I don’t know where I’m going but wherever it is, I can’t get there fast enough. Mandy is on my heels and I’m jealously watching Rolanda get smaller and smaller as she runs over to the crest of the hill.

I take half a second to glance back over my shoulder and Mandy passes me. Damn it! She’s my best friend and all and I would hate to see her get eaten by a dinosaur, but if I have to choose who gets a scenic tour through the T-Rex’s digestive tract, it’s not going to be me.

But the T-Rex is stopped at the spaceship. He’s smelling Tin Tom with his baby pool sized nostrils.

“Good daytime to you dinosauriforms Tyrannosaurus Rex,” Tin Tom says to him. “Wondrous to be meeting your acquaintance.”