Raiders of the Lost World

By Ron S. Friedman

Biplanes, Zeppelins and … dinosaurs.

 

While the Great War rages in Europe, Lieutenant Mathew Rees of his Majesty's Royal Flying Corps is sent to battle bugs, rain and malaria in the sky above the endless Amazon jungles of British Guyana.

 

Little does he know that a far greater danger lay below. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ron S. Friedman
• Release date: Oct 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393316794

Ron S. Friedman

RON S. FRIEDMAN is a Calgary Herald #1 bestseller author and a Best Short Fiction finalist in the 2016 Aurora Awards, Canada’s premier Science-Fiction and Fantasy awards. Ron’s short stories have appeared in Galaxy’s Edge, Daily Science Fiction, and in other magazines and anthologies.  Ron co-edited two anthologies and he received ten Honorable Mentions in Writers of the Future Contest. Ron’s first novel, TYPHOON TIME, will soon be available from WordFire Press.

Book preview

February 1915

A grey cigar-shaped cylinder emerged from beneath the clouds. I held my breath, staring at the airship in disbelief.

Let’s take a closer look, I shouted to my gunner. I pushed the throttle to full thrust. My Vickers F.B.5 bi-wing aeroplane protested but gained speed.

My heart pounded as I felt the wind blowing into my face. I took a deep breath of fresh air. I was about to take part in a combat mission. Finally, a genuine combat mission.

Most of my comrades had been fighting in France ever since the Great War broke out. I was devastated when fate laid a different path for me. Instead of being sent to the front, the commander of his Majesty’s Royal Flying Corps 2nd Squadron chose to send your humble servant to battle bugs, rain and malaria in the endless Amazon jungles of British Guyana.

At sixty knots, I swiftly closed the gap to the formidable Zeppelin. A small crew cabin nestled under her bow. Six roaring engines lined her frame on either side, and blade-like fins jutted from her stern. A large black cross left no room for confusion regarding her country of origin. I had but suspicions as to what a German Zeppelin was doing so far from the European battlefields.

I took a position to shoot her down. One single aeroplane with a single machinegun had little chance of surviving an engagement with a fully armed imperial airship, but I dared not turn home and run. How would I be able to face my fiancée, Alicia? By George! Cowardly fleeing from battle was a fate worse than death.

Lieutenant Rees, my gunner shouted. Mathew, look above!

I glanced up, and my heart missed a beat. A new aeroplane, with a wingspan twice as big as my own, swooped down upon us. As far as I knew, mine was the only British aeroplane in these parts of the Amazon basin. Could it be a German war aeroplane?

Then the amazing occurred. The aeroplane fluttered its enormous translucent bat-like wings. Only then I realized that it wasn’t a man-made machine, but a creature so grotesque, the mind could barely comprehend it.

Like a daemon