Now humans are the endangered species. Intelligent dinosaurs have returned from outer space to claim their home world -- our world!
Wildlife biologist Chase Armstrong and rancher's daughter Kit Daniels are at the center of the action again as war for domination of the earth resumes. The Kra, dinosaurian invaders from space, have no place for humanity except on the menu! An action packed adventure story filled with huge beasts of the past, intelligent dinosaurs, US tanks and submarines, and two young heroes who may find love if they survive long enough. Action, start-to-finish, with well researched dinosaurs. A fun read, good for all ages.
Excerpt
The utahraptor pack moved through the juniper woodland with impeccable grace. Gliding silently among the trees of a Montana hillside, they threaded their way through hip-high sagebrush as if the six individuals were a single entity, a flowing front of vapor filtering through the vegetation like a dawn mist.
In the lead, the alpha female raised her head to its full height of nine feet, sniffing the morning air. At the front of her long, fang-lined snout, flaring nostrils took in the sweet smell of sage and juniper branches warming in the sunlight. But the utahraptor was following another scent on the light breeze: the enticing aroma of prey.
She made a faint chut-chut noise deep in her throat, warning the others to silence, then slowed her pace and lowered her long, feathered neck into a tight S-curve. With her head just above brush-level and her feathered dinosaurian tail stretched out straight behind her in fine balance, she advanced carefully on bird-like legs, setting her feet down gingerly on the dry grass. Sickle-shaped slashing claws on the inner toe of each foot twitched in anticipation of a killing strike. She kept her arms tucked against her sides, her three-clawed hands bent back at the wrist, the brown-and-white striped feathers of her forearms flattened against her chest to streamline her movements through the brush. But her hands were ready to lash out and seize her prey, adding the slice of sharp talons to the bite she intended to set into the victim’s throat.
She paused where the sagebrush cover opened into a green meadow, with her pulse quickening. Her prey was in view! The intended victim, a two-legged, tailless animal of a kind she’d seen before but never killed, was walking on the moist grass just beyond a long white, wooden barrier dividing the field from the woodland. She gauged the height of the white barrier and decided it could be vaulted in a single leap. A few sprinted paces after that would carry her to her quarry. The pack would take the victim down as a group, slashing with claws and teeth from all sides.
Aware that she was only half-concealed by the sagebrush around her, she hunkered onto her haunches until she was invisible to her prey. The pack did likewise. She licked the saliva from her jaws, settling in to wait for the creature to become separated from its weapon.
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Kit Daniels loved the green grass scent of the pasture on sunny summer mornings like this one. Strolling out along the white equestrian fence, she inhaled the fragrant breeze and let herself be lulled into feeling calmer than she’d felt in quite a while. Everything seemed at peace in the beautiful valley where Twin Creeks Ranch lay. Sandstone Mountain towered over the pastureland, lit in glowing dawn sunlight under a clear blue Montana sky. Birds twittered in a paper birch grove and a pair of small, delicate, black-and-white pterodactyls flitted past her like swallows, careening after gnats hovering in the calm morning air.
Kit had important business in the pasture. Lucky, her old brown quarter horse mare, had been frisking like a filly with her new pasture-mates, and all the activity had made her start favoring her left front leg.
It was understandable that the old mare was excited. No other ranch Kit knew of was home to a family of nesting parasaurolophuses.
“Parasaurolophi?” she puzzled, taking a look at the long-crested duckbilled dinosaurs, Rufus and Henrietta, who had appeared two weeks ago when spaceships of the invading Kra army released them nearby. The two elephant-sized creatures had wandered here and decided to stake their nesting territory in the pasture not far from the house. They’d dug a nest mound twenty feet across, Henrietta had laid a clutch of eggs, and Rufus had developed the habit of moseying to the barn occasionally to steal hay out of the loft. It was a good thing the parasaurolophuses were here because the adults were pugnacious enough to keep their nesting territory tyrannosaurus-free.
Three yearlings, last year’s brood, had been with the adult pair when they arrived. They’d grown visibly larger since Kit had first seen them and were now as tall at the shoulder as horses. Kit figured that’s what made Lucky feel a kinship to them, but romping around the pasture with Huey, Luey and Dufus wasn’t something an aging cowpony could keep up for long. The limp was worrying Kit.
The parasaurolophus triplets, reddish brown and spotted like fawns, raced past in a two-legged, thundering sprint with Lucky galloping beside them. Kit whistled sharply. The noise had no effect on the undisciplined ducklings, but Lucky’s trained ear made her turn. Letting the yearlings go their way, she trotted to Kit, favoring her left foreleg.
“Good girl,” Kit cooed. She leaned her M-16 automatic rifle against a fence upright, walked to the mare and patted her on a graying flank.
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The alpha utahraptor raised her head and gauged the distance between the prey and its weapon. Still too close.
