|
SECTASAURUS V1.0
CLEANER OCEAN FOUNDATION LTD.
Copyright © 5th June 2025 All rights reserved.
(1st draft aiming
90-100 page script adaptation)
ONCE UPON A
TIME IN THE SOUTH POLE
OPENING SCENE
1 - THE ICE GAVE UP ITS DEAD
EXT. ANTARCTIC OCEAN - DAWN (PRESENT DAY)
A vast, desolate expanse of ANTARCTIC ICE. It stretches to the horizon, ancient and seemingly eternal. But it's changing.
GIANT FRACTURES spiderweb across the surface, some shimmering with newly melted water, others exposing deep, blue chasms. The sound is immense
- the GROANING of an ancient world fracturing, the BOOM of distant icebergs calving.
We see the aftermath of human intervention: small, advanced ICEBREAKERS, looking like alien insects, have chewed paths through previously impassable floes. DISTANT INDUSTRIAL SOUNDS
- the hum of generators, the scrape of heavy machinery - hint at massive operations.
The USS ARKTOS - a majestic, ghostly WOODEN FRIGATE - slowly emerges from the melting ice. Half-encased, she lists sharply, her hull bleached almost white, timber groaning under the shift. She's a relic, impossible and eerily intact, from another age.
Above her, the Arctic light is pale, indifferent.
INT. MOBILE COMMAND UNIT - DAY (PRESENT DAY)
MONITORS glow with data: thermal maps of accelerating melt, geological surveys of the seafloor, financial projections. This isn't just about discovery; it's about something far more deliberate. Oil. Coal. Economic growth. Political ambition.
A hand points to a sonar reading on one screen. It's the Arktos, perfectly delineated against the ice.
CLOSE ON SCREEN - Text reads: "USS Arktos. Lost: 1838. Discovered: Present."
The ice gave up its dead. And the Arktos is freed.
EXT. ARKTOS - DAY
A military HELICOPTER, dark and silent, hovers over the Arktos. It slowly descends, kicking up a plume of snow.
SPECIAL FORCES operatives, in muted, tactical gear, rappel down lines. They move with precise, economic efficiency. No scientists. No historians. Just soldiers. Black operations. Their faces obscured by visors.
They hit the deck, securing their lines. The wooden deck is slick with melting ice, pitted and bleached by centuries.
INT. ARKTOS - DECK LEVEL - CONTINUOUS
The lead OPERATIVE, CALLSIGN "GHOST," signals his team. Four others: SPECTER, ECHO, SHADOW, and BANSHEE.
They fan out, weapons raised, methodically sweeping the ghostly remains of the ship. The air is frigid, damp. The sounds are just their muffled movements, the drip of melting ice, and the distant, low CREAKS of the ancient hull.
GHOST stops. His helmet light cuts through the gloom, illuminating something on the wooden deck.
CLOSE ON - A dark, dried STAIN. Not fresh. Old. Embedded deep in the wood grain.
BLOOD.
SPECTER kneels, gloved hand touching it. Not enough for slaughter. Just... struggle.
They continue deeper into the ship.
INT. ARKTOS - PASSAGEWAY - CONTINUOUS
The interior is a labyrinth of dark, narrow passages. Frost-rimmed bulkheads. Rotting canvas. The occasional gleam of tarnished brass.
A low, guttural SCRAPE sounds from ahead. The team freezes. Weapon sights snap up.
GHOST (muffled, through comms)
Hold.
They advance, lights sweeping.
They find a hatch. Heavy, reinforced. SEALED FROM THE INSIDE.
And around the edges of the hatch, on the aged wood, are SCRATCHES. Deep gouges.
CLOSE ON - The scratches are irregular. Some match human fingers. But others
... are wider. Sharper. As if something had been trying to claw its way out. Or in.
SHADOW (muffled)
Unnatural.
ECHO
(Whispers, almost to himself)
1838.
INT. ARKTOS - LOWER DECKS - CONTINUOUS
Deeper. Colder. The air grows heavier. The ship's internal groans seem to swell around them.
The team moves into what appears to be a cargo hold. It's vast, dark, and filled with the shapes of old crates.
BANSHEE, carrying a portable sensor unit, stops. His helmet light illuminates the device.
CLOSE ON SENSOR SCREEN
The display is a chaotic mess of interference at first. Then, a distinct, large BLIP appears. Below them. Beneath the hull.
It's moving. Slowly. Rhythmical.
The blip pulsates, growing slightly larger, then smaller.
BANSHEE (muffled)
Contact. Below deck. Bearing 2-0-0.
GHOST
(Muffled, his voice low, tense)
Nature of contact?
The blip on the screen grows, solidifying. A clear, large shape, shifting beneath the ship.
BANSHEE
(A beat of silence, then a low, strained whisper)
Thermal signature. Alive.
The hum of the ship. The drip of melting ice. The distant groan of the continent. And now, the low, steady, PULSATING HUM from beneath the Arktos.
They found it.
And something found them first.
SCENE
2 TUNNEL COMPLEX - THE LABYRINTH BENEATH THE ICE
EXT. ANTARCTIC ICE SHEET - DAY (CONTINUOUS)
The endless white expanse. A landscape defined by the SCREAM of wind, the distant GROAN of shifting glaciers. The sheer, immense WEIGHT of a continent slowly collapsing.
But now, a new sound. A low, resonant HUMMING, barely perceptible beneath the natural cacophony.
AERIAL SHOT
A section of the ice sheet. Not a fracture from the previous scene, but a deliberate, almost geometric rupture. It looks like a colossal, invisible hand has pulled back a veil.
CLOSE ON - The exposed ice beneath. It's not clear. It's CARVED.
INT. TUNNEL COMPLEX - ANCIENT - DAY (FLASHBACK/HYPOTHETICAL)
QUICK CUTS – HYPOTHETICAL/VISUALIZE:
- Shadowed, impossible architecture carved into ice.
- Vast, dark spaces.
- The hint of something moving, or having moved, within.
This is the LABYRINTH. Ancient. Impossibly old. Preserved in secrecy for millions of years. Now, revealed by the relentless thaw. An architectural impossibility hidden from mankind until now.
EXT. RESEARCH OUTPOST - ICE SHEET - DAY (PRESENT DAY)
A small, isolated research outpost. A single tracked vehicle sits abandoned, half-covered in snow. A single tent flap flutters in the wind.
The only sounds are the wind and the FLAPPING of the tent. No human voices. No equipment hum. No distress signal. No trace.
A scientist vanished. Disappeared. Without warning. Without a sound.
Only a single piece of information remained. A leak.
INT. SKY NEWS BROADCAST ROOM - LONDON - NIGHT
MONITORS glow with breaking news alerts. The controlled chaos of a global newsroom. The low murmur of urgent conversations.
A young RESEARCHER, late 20s, hunched over a tablet. Headset on. Her eyes are wide, fixed on a cryptic message, fragments of data scrolling quickly across the screen. A rushed transmission.
SOUND DESIGN: A distorted, broken audio clip plays in her ear, then cuts out. A guttural ROAR, alien, ancient, mixed with crackling static.
On the screen, a crude outline. Something prehistoric. Entombed in ice. Massively huge. Utterly alien to modern classification. Her fingers fly across the keyboard, typing a quick summary.
CLOSE ON SCREEN - Text: "Prehistoric Antarctic Discovery. Estimated scale: KING KONG."
The discovery is too big to contain.
INT. BBC NEWS WORLD SERVICE - BROADCAST STUDIO - CONTINUOUS
The familiar, cool blue glow of a news desk. A BBC NEWS WORLD SERVICE BUG blazes on a monitor.
JILL BIRD, veteran anchor, straightens her jacket. A technician gives a silent countdown.
JILL BIRD (V.O., crisp, authoritative)
And a late item—researchers in Antarctica say they have discovered a subsurface tunnel complex beneath the compacted snow and ice. We'll bring you more on this breaking story as it comes in.
The news cuts to a graphic of a stylized ice sheet with a tunnel network diagram.
INT. CHARLEY TEMPLE'S APARTMENT - LONDON - NIGHT
A spartan, functional space. Low light. The only illumination is the glow from a high-end tablet.
CHARLEY TEMPLE (30s, sharp, intense eyes, no-nonsense) leans over the tablet. The BBC News World Service live feed plays in a small window. Her fingers are poised over the screen.
CLOSE ON TABLET - The news graphic. And beneath it, a secure messaging app. An unread message from an anonymous source.
SCREEN TEXT:
"The tunnels. They found them. And the jaw. It's out."
Charley's eyes narrow. The pieces click. The vanished scientist. The leaked findings. The tunnels. This isn't coincidence.
She taps out a rapid, encrypted message.
CLOSE ON MESSAGE SCREEN:
TO: STORM
SUBJECT: ANTARCTICA - URGENT
MESSAGE: It's happening. The tunnels. And something else – something huge. We need to move.
Her finger hovers, then with a decisive tap, sends it.
John Storm is halfway across the globe. But Charley knows. She knows with absolute certainty that he'll drop everything the moment he reads this.
EXT. ANTARCTIC ICE SHEET - NIGHT
A low-angle shot. The immense, dark, and silent mass of the continent. The occasional CREAK or CRACK from beneath.
The world had long convinced itself that Antarctica was untouchable. A neutral zone. A wilderness protected by treaties. A fragile lie.
But nothing lasts forever. The treaty was ending. Negotiations stalled. And beneath the surface, a silent war was brewing. Nations staking claims. Corporations laying groundwork. Secret operations unfolding beneath the ice.
The tunnels had surfaced at exactly the wrong time. Or perhaps, the right time for those seeking opportunity.
This was no longer just a scientific discovery. It was a gold rush.
And someone - somewhere - was about to make a move.
John Storm just had to beat them to it.
SCENE
3 GOLD RUSH
EXT. ANTARCTIC ICE SHEET - DAY (CONTINUOUS)
The vast, indifferent white. The HOWL of the katabatic winds. The CRACK and GROAN of a continent in flux.
We see the subtle, undeniable signs of retreat. Dark fissures in the ice, growing wider. Meltwater carving temporary rivers.
MONTAGE - THE NEW GOLD RUSH
1. SWEDISH EXPEDITION
EXT. SWEDISH BASE - DAY A compact, rugged base, designed for extreme cold. High-tech, but with a utilitarian, almost Viking-esque aesthetic.
BJORN ATLAS (40s, bearded, powerful build, eyes glinting with a fierce determination), dressed in heavy-duty polar gear, barks orders to a team loading supplies onto a tracked vehicle. He moves with an almost reckless energy.
SVEN JOHANSSON (40s, thinner, intense gaze, clearly a thinker, not a brawler) is hunched over a complex GPS array, shivering despite his thick parka. He mutters, mostly to himself.
SVEN
(Muffled)
You realize this place is going to kill us before we get a damn thing out of it.
Bjorn just grins, teeth gleaming beneath his frost-crusted brows. He pulls on thick gloves.
BJORN
That's what makes it a prize worth taking.
He claps Sven on the shoulder, a brutal, bone-jarring clap. Sven just winces.
2. MULTINATIONAL EXPEDITION
EXT. MULTINATIONAL BASE - DAY A larger, more established base. Flags from Canada and the US ripple in the wind. A sense of disciplined professionalism.
CATHY CARTER (40s, sharp, commanding, with the quiet authority of someone who's seen too much) stands with three VETERAN ARCTIC EXPLORERS. Their faces are etched with scars from places where the cold doesn't just cut, but guts. Cathy pulls her thermal hood tight, studying the shifting ice sheets through high-powered binoculars. Her brow furrows.
CATHY
There's movement.
One of her men, grizzled, mid-50s, chuckles, breath pluming.
VETERAN 1
Ice moves, Captain.
Cathy lowers the binoculars, her gaze distant, sensing something fundamentally wrong.
CATHY
(Murmuring, half to herself)
No. Not like that.
3. CHINESE EXPEDITION
EXT. CHINESE BASE - DAY A gleaming, state-of-the-art facility. Sleek, cutting-edge vehicles. A stark contrast to the slightly worn American stations seen in previous scenes. The image of power in transition.
LIN PO CHANG (20s, impossibly young, elegant, dressed in tailored arctic gear, a quiet intensity in his eyes) examines the jagged entrance of a newly exposed tunnel network in the ice. He traces a finger along the ancient, weathered rock face. Two SILENT HENCHMEN, built like brick walls, stand impassively behind him.
Lin exhales. His breath curls into the frigid air, a perfect white plume.
LIN PO CHANG
They were here.
One of the HENCHMEN, his voice a low rumble, asks.
HENCHMAN 1
Who?
Lin's smile is sharp as broken ice. Cold, predatory. He looks into the dark maw of the tunnel.
LIN PO CHANG
Not who. What.
A subtle, deep HUMMING emanates from the exposed tunnel entrance. Just on the edge of hearing.
THE RACE
WIDE SHOT - ANTARCTICA
Three distinct trails of vehicles stretch across the vast, ice-covered landscape. Converging. A silent, desperate race for something buried beneath. The sheer scale of the continent dwarfs them all.
INT. MOBILE COMMAND UNIT - MULTINATIONAL EXPEDITION - DAY
Cathy studies a detailed holographic map of the tunnel complex discovered in the previous scene. New sensor data overlays it, showing deeper, more intricate sections.
VETERAN 2
Reports are coming in. Geological. Seismic. This isn't natural.
CATHY
(Quietly)
No. It’s too... deliberate.
EXT. ANTARCTIC ICE - VARIOUS - DAY
The landscape changes again. Not just from melting glaciers. But from human activity. Massive drills pierce the ice. Temporary landing strips appear. The continent is no longer just a neutral zone. It's a battleground.
The visual contrast is stark: the vast, rusting skeletal structure of a long-abandoned American research outpost looms in the background of one shot, while in the foreground, a sleek, new Chinese icebreaker, larger than anything else on the horizon, carves through the ice.
This isn't about treaties anymore. This is a gold rush.
INT. CHINESE BASE - LIN PO CHANG'S PRIVATE QUARTERS - NIGHT
The room is minimalist, functional. A single monitor displays complex biological schematics alongside ancient paleontological diagrams of arthropod evolution. Lin Po Chang sits before it, eyes alight with an almost fanatical intelligence.
He traces a diagram of a prehistoric insectoid jawbone – the same one from the leaked data. He was a paleontologist. He knew. He had theorized. He knew what lay beneath the frost long before the world cared enough to look.
He wasn't just after minerals. He was after something living. Something far older than humanity.
EXT. TUNNEL COMPLEX ENTRANCE - NIGHT
The entrances to the newly revealed tunnel complex are now bustling with activity. Lights cut through the perpetual twilight. Teams in arctic gear move in and out, setting up equipment.
Bjorn Atlas's team is focused on securing the 'archaeological prize' ..... whatever immediately recognizable artifact or mineral deposit is visible.
Cathy Carter's team is methodical, cautious, establishing a secure perimeter. Her eyes constantly scan the distant horizon, looking for threats not on a map.
Lin Po Chang stands at the mouth of the largest tunnel entrance, his two henchmen silent shadows behind him. He looks down into the dark abyss.
The ice was retreating, exposing secrets buried for millennia. Three expeditions raced against
time - and each other - to stake their claim before nature swallowed her treasures again.
The shifting of alliances. The shifting of ice. Both inevitable. Both deadly.
The HUMMING from within the tunnel grows almost imperceptibly. A low, resonant thrum.
And this time, Antarctica wasn’t just giving up her ghosts. She was releasing something that had never learned how to die.
SCENE
4 - UN CALLS FOR JOHN STORM
.....
...
ARTWORK
- Somewhat better than the huge ants in "Them," but perhaps not as good as
the CGI in Antman. Now a museum
exhibit in Sussex, England.
The artwork is based on an Australian Bulldog
ant.
John
Storm, the rugged ocean
adventurer is also an amateur Paleo
Anthropologist, near obsessed with his DNA
collection called 'The
Ark,' that is safely embedded in his trusty ship, the Elizabeth
Swann, protected by the ever
watchful Hal.
As the Antarctic ice melts at an alarming rate, ancient creatures long thought extinct are unearthed—gigantic prehistoric insects frozen for millennia, their eggs preserved in the permafrost. When one hatches aboard a cargo ship bound for Southampton, the nightmare begins. The crew is picked off one by one as the monstrous Sectasaur adapts, evolves, and hunts. Now, John Storm must confront the terrifying consequences of humanity’s reckless interference with nature before the escaped horror multiplies beyond control.
A
startling discovery in the ice, sharp jaws protruding from a block of
solid ice.
SECTASAUR™
PLOT SUMMARY
At a time in the not too distant future, the ice melts at both poles revealing features on the land not seen for
thousands of years. A converted Frigate, the US Arktos is discovered at the South Pole locked into melting
ice, then freed. She has been missing since an expedition in 1838. A famous ship at the time, formerly the USS Essex, she had been bought at auction in 1837 and hastily refitted by a group of explorers who had come by a fossilized artifact thought to be of considerable archaeological importance. The fossilized jaw was said to have originated in
Antarctica brought back as a souvenir by the Russian explorer
Fabian Gottlieb von
Bellingshausen during his fabled 1820 expedition.
Another fantastic discovery is a labyrinth of tunnels beneath the ice, dated by scientists to be millions of years old. Mysteriously, the scientist who discovered and dated the tunnel complex disappears, but not before his find is leaked to a Sky news researcher on the Discovery channel.
Alerting Charley Temple to the unfolding story. And yes, she rises to
the occasion, sending alerts to her fellow adventurer, John Storm.
The Antarctic is inhabited by survey expeditions from up to six counties at any one time. Though the country is not the sovereign territory of any one nation. But, by agreeing a series of treaties, an understanding is in place and this wilderness is amply protected as a result.
Three new expeditions are launched by competing concerns, the first a Swedish venture lead by a headstrong
Bjorn Atlas and his navigator
Sven
Johansson. The second expedition is a multinational effort lead by
Cathy Carter with 3 veteran arctic explorers. The third expedition is a private enterprise secretly
part funded by Chinese Triads, under the leadership of
Lin Po
Chang, a child genius and infamous martial arts champion and his two dedicated henchmen.
Taken
by surprise, and a knee jerk reaction, John goes to attack the Sectasaur,
before realising they have a rapport.
A race ensues where the teams vie with each other, to secure the archaeological prize that is there for the taking.
Lin Po
Chang, is not only a master of the martial arts (Taekwondo & Karate) but also a keen paleontologist, who predicted the existence of variant life-forms on this continent and has more than a hunch as to the inhabitants of this tunnel complex.
Several fatal accidents occur in quick succession, then an egg clutch is discovered in a section of a tunnel. For a moment all rivalry is dispatched as the parties marvel at the find. They assume the eggs are prehistoric and dinosaur remains, though the eggs have a tough leathery
exterior (Alien -
Ridley
Scott), rather than a hard shell.
Systematically, Chang eliminates the remaining opposition, pitting the Swedes against Carters
crew (Ice
Station Zebra - Alistair Mclean), until only one man and one woman remain alive to challenge Chang:
Sven Johansen and
Cathy
Carter. In a desperate act of self sacrifice, Johansen tackles Chang while Carter escapes, seriously wounded to reveal the tragic turn of events to her Sky colleague, the self same Discovery channel researcher - she dies shortly after.
Meantime, Chang deploys his talent to nurture one egg through a simulated incubation when a creature not seen on Earth during Man's evolution is brought back into an unsuspecting world.
The creature is smuggled aboard an ageing Ice Patrol survey vessel called the 'KoolArctic' bound for England, in a crate marked rock
samples (Relic & Arachnophobia), whereupon it burrows out and grows rapidly, eating two crew members of the survey vessel who discovered, then tried to kill it. Chang had already relocated the remaining eggs, before setting out to rendezvous with his precious cargo in Portsmouth, unaware of the developments onboard
KoolArctic.
The second mate on the KoolArctic reports the chaos aboard their vessel to the British Admiralty, shortly after being forced to abandon ship with the remainder of the crew, on the advice of his superiors to scupper the ship. The ship sinks but the resourceful creature manages to cling to flotsam then hitch a ride on a container ship the 'Atlantic Express' under the cover of darkness.
The
artwork is also suitable for use in "Jimmy Watson's Magic
Dinobot."
A proposed network TV serialization, about boy who saves his paper round
money to buy himself a robot for Christmas. Then, when assembled, it
come to life, to become his friend.
MI6 and the
CIA decide to send in
John
Storm, an expert diver, archaeologist and enthusiastic adventurer to report on the goings
on, in return for a generous contribution to his causes. Storm is happy to oblige if it means adding to his DNA collection for his usual fee - a hefty donation to his favourite charities. Having equipped his solar
and hydrogen powered ship, the Elizabeth
Swan, with arctic clothing and supplies, he,
Dan Hawk and
Charley Temple sped from the
Southern Ocean to the Weddell Sea and there to Deception Island, an extinct volcano.
The team set up camp onshore and soon the trio locate the excavation site, then using the 'Ark' (a DNA database) Storm uncovers disturbing new evidence to support a theory that
dinosaurs were not wiped out by a meteor striking the earth (creating an artificial ice age), but by very efficient hunting animals related to the Vespoidea or Myrmecia Giganticus taxonomic group, part of a long extinct branch of the family Formicidae of the order Hymenoptera - insects in plain speak. This strain appears to have evolved rapidly by adaptive radiation. From the evidence on site it seems that these deadly animals hunted in packs in significant numbers to overwhelm much larger animals (an example of which may be seen in 6mm army ants overcoming a 40mm bull ant and just about any animal in the jungle that gets in their way).
They
lived at a time when dinosaurs ruled the earth. Maybe, partly explaining
the demise of the smaller prehistoric creatures, such as Velociraptor.
Where Tyrannosaurus Rex would have starved in a volcanic winter, smaller
animals might have fared better. Except against creatures with a higher
tolerance to freezing conditions, and even faster reaction times.
From DNA analysis aboard an energy depleted Elizabeth
Swan, Storm estimates that this species grew to between 3-5 metres and that they were warm blooded with a high tolerance to low temperatures, with a kind of lung to supply vast amounts of oxygen to their spiracles via an organ pumped dorsal aorta to the other organs in an otherwise classic exoskeleton arrangement. Storm and Hawk realize the danger if such a creature were ever to be introduced on the mainland and with evidence that eggs have been removed from the site, alert MI6 and the CIA to the danger.
A
nightmare situation, if the Sectasaurs multiplied to threaten other
species on earth
Storm and crew head to England at high speed. Meanwhile Chang has landed in Portsmouth, to await the remaining eggs unaware that the
koolArctic is at the bottom of the ocean and the Atlantic Express then docks in Southampton to unload her containers.
The giant prehistoric animal jumps ship at night crossing the River Test heading west, finding comfort in the outskirts of the New Forest where it feeds on ponies that are in plentiful supply. Eventually, losses of these equines come to the attention of a nature group and that is passed on to Hampshire police, relayed to MI6 and thence to John Storm.
Storm and crew came into the Solent proceeding up the Beaulieu River to Bucklers
Hard. An expedition into the bracken led Storm some miles from one of the pony corpses toward a wooden area near Worts Gutter (Furzey Lane). Storm called
MI6 for backup. MI6 rushed to surround the area with heavily armed troops to protect civilians.
John Storm and Charley Temple went in hoping to somehow capture the animal without harming it. They stalked the animal for a time, but the creature had located and been stalking them, following their scent trail - when the giant insect came up from behind over the brow of a ravine and knocked Charley nearly unconscious as she reacted in fright. Storm managed to strike the creature with an axe he had picked up along the way. It fell down lying still in partial shock.
Charley and John marvel at the anatomy of this ancient breed. Ignoring the dangers, they both set about patching the creature's wound with antiseptic and bandages that Charley had brought along in case they got into trouble. The dino ant allowed them to patch her up, ignoring the pain, it lay immobile listening to the couple talking, pretending to be incapacitated. The creature understood that the dialogue between John and Charley is not aggressive or threatening, but rather caring - and marks these two humans down as allies.
The insectoid feigned recovery, when John panicked and again went for the axe. Also as a reflex action the dino ant lashed out at John, throwing him backwards over a ledge, and Charley sprawling through some undergrowth. He managed to grab hold of a few roots - he was now at the mercy of the creature.
The huge insect rushed in for what John thinks is the kill, but instead puts itself at risk on the ledge to pull John up to
safety. Meanwhile government troops are closing in and have seen what looks to them like a struggle, so increase their pace determined to kill the creature.
John dusted himself off while the magnificent insect squatted adjacent, also cleaning itself. Puzzled at the turn of events, he spoke to the animal - and the creature responded, turning its head to look at John - as if trying to understand. The giant insect regarded John's voice as a friendly sign and had logged his and Charley's scent as such.
The
clever creature jumped ship, to end up in the United Kngdom, as the
first port of call
As a scientist John could not help himself, but to offer his hand palm up to the creature. The animal moved to the hand and studied it with both of its feelers, tickling him. John's heart was pounding, the insect could easily amputate his hand with its razor sharp jaws.
Charley Temple struggled back through the bracken and saw the interaction between John and the insect. She immediately realized that for some reason the creature had accepted them as not being a threat. It had knocked her down as a reflex action. She moved in closer also proffering her hand, and again the prehistoric insect smelled her all over with its antennae. Charley giggled at the touch. Insects smell, taste and feel with their antennae and some
feelers have the magnetic mineral, iron oxide, or magnetite in them, making
their antennae into a biological compass, rather like homing pigeons.
John and Charley exchanged huge grins at the discovery. This animal was not a threat, but more of a find for mankind. Just then the government troops opened fire wounding the animal. John and Charley both leapt in front of the insect yelling at the soldiers to stop firing, but Charley caught a bullet in the arm and screamed in pain. At this the giant insect pushed them to one side and moved forward to protect them both from the gunfire. In the process, it took several more bullets and finally one to the head. It collapsed.
John and Charley got up shouting as loud as they could to hold fire. Charley was in some pain. The firing stopped, enabling them to get to the insect. It looked at them and raised its feelers, Charley took one in her good hand and John the other and the trio embraced for a minute, then the creature subsided and its antenna went limp - it was dead .........
Gone.
John shuddered with remorse, anger welling up inside of him. Charley cried
openly, tears trickling down her cheeks. A well-built soldier ran to the scene whelping with delight at the kill. "Yes," cried the soldier, making macho muscle signs with his arm. "Yes," said John, and gave him a powerful punch to the jaw, and the soldier went down.
"Chew
on that."
Charley went to hit him despite
her sore arm, but a few more men came in brandishing guns. She shouted and glared at them adopting a threatening posture.
"Do you know what you have done. You trigger happy idiots."
The soldiers had no reply, and they went away rather sheepishly; feeling
more than a little foolish. Up to that point they thought they had saved her life.
John filed a report with MI6, advising of a great loss to science. He suggested that the South Pole should be examined further for clues as to how
and when these animals evolved, lived, and survived in the ice.
Cautioning that only
fully vetted archaeologists should complete such a study, not the military. These scientists would need to be briefed by him and sworn to
secrecy under the Official Secrets Act. John also advises that the
tunnel complex should be designated "Antarctic Area
51."
He did not include in his report the few touching moments that he and Charley had
experienced with the Sectasaur. He (they) doubted anyone would believe
them. Any until the species was biologically classified, it would remain
unclear if they were alien,
or the result of evolution on earth.
A
sample of horror, science fiction comics, with giant ants or wasps at
their theme
|