Sunday, March 29, 2009

Dino Attack

22 March …

This week was quite sad and today we had the funeral of Army Privates Stan Durant and Gary Jenkins, both from Chihuahua Province. They were on patrol to the east of Fort Humid when the squad was attacked by five dinos that were about six feet in height, bipedal and attacked in unison. It was brutally quick as we have two dead and three seriously injured. Private Wells has lost his left arm, and we are prayerful that he doesn't get infected as so many wounds here do. The squad managed to kill two of them and the other three ran off.
They were very lucky as no sooner than they left the site of the first attack, there was a sound in the jungle of a massive animal moving at high speed, crashing through the underbrush. As the squad turned back toward camp, a much larger dino, standing about nine to ten feet in height, barred their path. It had a terrible growl that we could barely hear all the way back at the Fort. RSM Taggart himself assembled a squad and led it toward the sound of gunshots and the dino growl. Taggart's squad arrived in time to see the dino put down by a volley of fire from the remaining patrol. He claims the dino is some sort of deinonychus. I think I spelled that correctly. Anyway, LT Armstrong and his herbalist assistants were ready for the returning squad and it is amazing at how quickly they worked. Father Flannigan was there as well, helping the medics and praying over the injured.

Major Lamar has the whole fort on alert and all patrols that left were mounted on Pachysaurs to utilize their speed in this environment. A mounted patrol returned from the site of the attack and said nothing bigger than a chicken leg was left. We have not had an attack since we lost Private Simmons, so I guess we are lucky to a point, but it does not help the sadness we feel and the realization that we can not get comfortable in this environment.

On the brighter side of things, Corporal Redfeather’s squad is quite professional at horizontal construction and it is amazing at how well they have taken to the Triceratops. They managed to clear a lot of land in the past week. They will also expand the open perimeter from the fort an additional 200 yards. The Aetherpad is going to be a little bigger than the fort to handle the anticipated overflow of ships.

The temple is still a mystery (except how the door was open). Drs. Caruthers and Palmer have been documenting everything as usual and are still trying to decipher the dead language of the Lizard Men.

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