Now presenting the updated space-raptor epic, with a wordcount now standing at 763. Consider this episode 2 of … iunno, probably 3 or 4. I reckon I’ve got enough left in me to head in the 1000-5000 range easily enough, but if get cut short by the end of the contest… well maybe I’ll carry on anyway if this generates legions of adoring fans.

Anyway! To business:

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I stepped into the dark hallway and then realised… this was no hallway, it was the ejection chute from the orbital nuclear platform that had been built to defend Earth from the threat of alien raptor invasion. Somehow I had stumbled into the airlock, possibly because it was dark. I may also have been drunk, hungover or both. In either case, it was too late to contemplate my situation further because the ejection chute was living up to it’s name and ejecting me into the cold vacuum of space with only the broad expanse of the Earth below to tell me which was up and which was was down.

Luckily in my drunken (or hungover) state I had managed to put on a combat spacesuit before I stepped into the chute. Remaining safely operational up to 4,000 degrees Kelvin it would protect my fragile human body in the long drop to the ground below.

[Take a break at this point to imagine diving freefall from space, any attempt by me to describe it would only spoil what is sure to be a glorious daydream]

Emerging from my impact crater I took a moment to marvel at the destruction my landing had caused; with sheer kinetic energy alone I had carved a trench at least 300m long, and almost as deep. The sides of this mighty scar in the ground were walled with glbum, fused by the immense heat and force from my arrival. Looking around further, signs of more brutal devastation became apparent. Having been absent from my post at the orbital nuclear platform, I had been unable to prevent the alien raptors from invading, and they had wrought terrible destruction upon the face of the Earth with their subsonic blastwave technology. It was down to me, and the arsenal of weaponry I carried with me, to halt their invasion, and kick their scaly raptor behinds back to the wastes of space they came from.

I surveyed the immediate area for any potential threat, but all was clear for now. Jacking into the neural computer interface of my suit I saw, to my relief, that enough of the info satellites were still operational for me to get a clear signal. The feed of images, live from all over the world, confirmed my worst fears. Raptors had bumaulted every major city on the planet, crushing resistance and killing or enslaving almost all of the populace. There were still pockets of free humans scattered about the globe, but none close enough to reach before they too would sucgreat timesb to the raptors terrible force.

Awaking suddenly from the semi-trance of the infofeed, I saw 2 raptors crest the hill ahead of me. They had seen me already, no chance of a surprise attack, and were closing the distance between us rapidly. Fortunately for me the raptors greatest strength was in space, although from orbit they could decimate the human population at a stroke, on the ground they were limited by their cold blood and slow metabolism. It makes them slower to react, easier to anticipate. Even with 2 of them to fight against, a well-armed mammal stood a good chance. As for me, I was more than well-armed.

I pulled out a small nuclear grenade and tossed it towards the oncoming raptors, turning as I did so to make a run to the side. As the grenade detonated my visor darkened to shield my eyes from the intense bust of hard radiation. One raptor had been caught in the full blast of the explosion and was neatly vapourised where he stood, the other was sorely wounded but was levelling an ultra-isotopic rifle at me. The first blast clipped my shoulder and knocked me back into a nearby ditch. I recovered my footing and returned fire with a barrage from my hyperstatic bolt gun. For all their robust physiology, even raptors tend not to stay standing when you put 3 heavy metal slugs through their torso.

As the thrill of victory and rushing adrenaline faded, I became acutely aware that, though powerful, my stocks of ammunition would not last long against the combined armies of the raptor fleet. I needed to cut them off at the source, the command ship still in orbit, surely filled with further hordes of raptors, to replenish any I killed here on Earth. The raptors on Earth would slowly perish when cut off from their supplies and leadership, but there could be no human victory while that ship remained in orbit.

I formulated a plan, I knew what had to be done.