Jack Dauderman watched as Andy Blacklock slowly led the mixed group of prison guards, Cherokee, and nineteenth-century federal soldiers into position. They were preparing to assault the prison which had been taken over by that nutcase, Adrian Luff.

Jack remembered that night well. He had been one of the guards taken prisoner by Luff's goons, only to be rescued by Marie Keehn and Casey Fisher. After that he and the other guards had been forced to flee, many of them like him, barefoot and in their skivvies.

He wasn't joining the assault to retake the prison, though. That was the task for Andy and his group. No, he had been given another task, one that he was uniquely suited to do; a task that he was possibly the only person in this prehistoric world that had any real, practical experience in performing. He shook his head in wonder. Who would have thought that launching pumpkins across a field as a kid would have prepared him to assault a prison?

Glancing back over his shoulder, he could see his team had loaded the trebuchet they had built. On Andy's signal, they would start bombarding the gate area with smoke bombs, providing cover for Andy's assault.

He moved back to join his team. "Are we ready?"

Kevin Johnson, one of the Cherokee, looked over the catapult and then nodded. "Ready and waiting, Jack."

"Good; when Andy gives the signal, we'll start the bombardment."

Jack turned back to watch for Andy's signal. He could feel his heart beating quickly in anticipation. He wondered if this was how soldiers felt before a battle.

There; Andy was waving his hat in the air; that was the signal! "Fire!"

His team released the catapult and it flung the glass jar into the air. Jack watched as the projectile arched through its flight and saw it shatter against the ground, erupting in a cloud of chemically-induced smoke.

The bomb had landed about twenty feet short of the gate, good enough for an initial shot, but not really where they needed to hit. "Twenty feet forward and fire again!"

His team hustled to move the war machine up to the new location and reset the weapon. Soon a second bomb flew through the air, this time shattering just inside the gate.

Jack smiled. The few test rounds they had been able to fire before moving to the prison had been enough to get a general idea of the range of the catapult. It had only taken two shots to get their range today. He quickly moved back to assist his team in any way he could. "Right on target. Now let's get those bombs fired as quickly as we can!"

Soon they had fired more than a dozen of the bombs and smoke covered the area around the gate. Jack nodded in satisfaction. "Good job, guys. Now it's Andy's turn."

****

A few months later, Jack hid himself as well as he could in the undergrowth around the trees. He and several other guards were to stand ready to help Rod Hulbert if things went wrong.

He had to give Rod credit. Rod had volunteered to act as the bait in their plan to rid themselves of the large dinosaur that had been stalking the community recently, forcing everyone to retreat behind the safety of the prison walls. They had not always been fast enough, though. One of the people of the pre-mounds villagers had been caught by surprise and became the creature's lunch.

Rod had already gone up the hill to get the dinosaur's attention and lead it into the trap. It wasn't long before Rod's voice could be heard calling out. "Hey, you overgrown gecko, over here!"

They could all hear the allosaurus let out a loud bellow and they knew that the bait had been taken. Rod would have to be careful. There was no way he could outrun the beast and he would have to outmaneuver it.

It wasn't long until Jack heard the sounds of several muskets being fired and he knew the dinosaur had been led into the first part of the trap, Kershner's squad.

Sergeant James Kershner and his squad of nineteenth-century federal soldiers had become the official animal control force for the local settlements. One volley from their .69 caliber muskets was enough to take down most of the smaller predators, but this had been their first trial against one of the big dinosaurs.

Jack forced himself to exhale when he realized he was holding his breath. Did it work?

He got his answer after a few moments when he again heard Rod's voice. "What's the matter, Barney; have you got a booboo?"

Within seconds, Rod came rushing down the hill, with an angry allosaur not far behind. Just as he neared the trap, Rod threw himself out of the path of the charging creature, narrowly avoiding its sharp teeth. He rolled back to his feet and looked in the creature's direction.

The dinosaur lay at the bottom of the pit, its bones broken from the fall. It thrashed in agony as its life slowly drained away.

But the creature's screams of agony were another problem. Rod looked up and called out. "Frank!"

Jack moved from his position along with the other guards as Frank Nickerson rushed over to Rod. "Yeah, I'm on it, Rod," he heard Frank say. "Those screams are going to draw in every predator and scavenger in the area, looking for an easy meal. I'll pass the word for everyone to be on guard."

As Frank ran to pass on the warning, Rod turned to the other man who was approaching. "You heard?"

Sergeant James Kershner nodded. "Yes, Rod. My squad will be ready."

When Kershner moved off to rejoin his squad, Rod turned to Jack. "What do you think, Jack?"

Jack shook his head and smiled. "It looks like we're going to be eating dinosaur steaks for a while."

****

The next morning, Jack put his foot into the stirrup of the crossbow and pulled on the string to cock the weapon. He reached over, picked up a practice bolt, and loaded it into the weapon. The practice bolt was a simple wooden bolt he had fashioned so that he didn't have to practice with the metal tipped bolts they had acquired during the attack on the Spaniards.

Kevin Johnson, the young Cherokee practicing with him, gestured. "They're almost ready."

Jack looked down the length of the practice range he had set up to where the village children were setting up the large plant bulb. The bulb was about the size of a man's head and fairly soft, perfect for a target. Additionally, the few people who had tried to eat it had become sick and it was no longer a potential food item, so he was free to use as many as he wanted for targets.

The kids finished balancing the bulb on the large rock and Jack waved them away. When they were clear, he slowly raised the crossbow and took aim. Very little wind was blowing, so he didn't need to adjust much for that. He knew this weapon fired slightly to the right, so he adjusted a bit to the left. He exhaled to steady his aim and squeezed the lever on the bottom, firing the weapon.

The string flung the bolt through the air and the bolt struck the target, burying itself deep in the flesh of the bulb. The village children cheered noisily at his marksmanship and he smiled as he lowered the weapon.

The sound of several people clapping drew their attention and they turned to look at its source, a group of six young Cherokee women.

Kevin gave him a pat on the back. "I would be very jealous of your marksmanship if I thought you had any interest in their attention." He grinned widely. "But then, I know you are really only interested in the attention of one of them."

Jack blushed and couldn't help grinning. It was true; only the attention of one of the women meant much to him, and it was the one woman whose attention his companion didn't seek. That woman was Susanna Johnson, Kevin's sister.

Kevin laughed. "Hey Jack, I approve. In this new world we cannot be too choosy. Even a lousy hunter like you has a chance."

"I can outshoot you any day."

"Here on this practice range, yes, but most targets do not sit still like that plant bulb. It is much more difficult to shoot a living target, like a deer."

"I'll grant you that, but then I didn't have your background. My dad didn't have much time to take me hunting. He was too busy with his carpentry business. You want me to show you how to make a solid joint in a cabinet, that's not a problem. But I just don't have much experience in walking through the woods."

"I will take you the next time I go. But first, I need to impress the other five women with my skill."

"Yeah, fine, but we need to finish up here. I've got that meeting with the big shots in a little while."

The two men turned back to the range and Jack motioned for the children to set up another target while Kevin loaded his crossbow.

****

Jack sat quietly as the governing cabinet gathered around the table. The cabinet had been assembled for an after-action analysis of the efforts taken to rid the community of a large carnivorous dinosaur.

"So Kershner's muskets didn't work?" Andy Blacklock asked from the head of the table.

Rod Hulbert shook his head. "I wouldn't say they didn't work at all. The bullets definitely penetrated and the dino certainly felt it. The volley almost knocked it off its feet. The volley did a real good job of getting the thing's attention. It knew it had been hit, and it wanted to get at whatever had hurt it. The main problem is that the muskets have too short a range and take too long to reload. If Kershner's squad had time to reload, I don't doubt that another volley or two would have brought it down. But one volley just isn't going to do it, short of a really lucky shot, and the men wouldn't have had time to reload before the dino attacked them. The only reason they didn't get attacked was because I was there to distract the beast."

"Okay, but the pit did the trick?"

"Oh, yeah, the pit worked fine, although next time we dig one, it won't take quite so much work. We don't need to waste all the man hours making the stakes; they didn't do a thing and we don't need them. Just the fall was enough to take down a creature that size."

Jack chuckled to himself. "Didn't need the stakes" was definitely understating the situation. After taking the time to dig the pit—no small project—they had then spent days getting those stakes ready, sharpening them and planting them in the bottom of the pit. They had then discovered that the stakes were pointless, a complete waste of time and effort. No land animal that weighed better than six tons could survive a plunge like that. Most of the stakes had just splintered, without ever piercing the dino's hide, definitely a waste of time.

"So, when it happens again, can we just keep using the pit?" Andy asked.

Rod shrugged. "For now it's our only option, but I'd rather not rely on the same trick too many times. We need to find another solution."

"Why? What's wrong?"

"Frankly, it's a big risk for anyone who acts as the bait. There were a couple of times when it was pure luck that I didn't end up as dinosaur chow. Next time I might not be so lucky."

"There's another issue," Jenny Radford interrupted. "It's not a good idea to have something like that in the area. No matter what we do to clean it, there are going to be residual blood and body parts remaining in the bottom. That will attract pests."

"Not to mention bigger animals," Rod agreed.

Jenny continued, nodding. "And just having a hole that deep in the area is a hazard. We've got a lot of kids living here now and eventually one of them is going to fall into it, no matter how closely we watch. A fifteen foot fall could seriously injure or even kill someone."

"What should we do then?" Andy asked.

"We need bigger guns," Rod commented jokingly.

Jeff Edelman shook his head. "That's not going to happen anytime soon. I thought about a cannon or something similar, but we can't even do that right now. The machinists aren't up to casting something like that and, even if they could, we don't have that much powder to spare. We're working to find the materials to make some, but that will mainly go to keeping the muskets and matchlocks going."

Andy was obviously becoming concerned. "Are there any suggestions?"

Jeff nodded. "There is one possibility that's been suggested."

"Go on," Andy prodded.

"Well, it wasn't my idea; Jack here suggested it to me. I'll let him explain."

Andy nodded in Jack's direction. "Jack, thanks for coming. What's your idea?"

Jack cleared his throat. "I think the solution for this situation may be a ballista, or rather, several of them placed around the community."

"Is that anything like the catapult we built to retake the prison?"

"Trebuchet, but no, the only similarity is that both were used to throw big objects at a target."

"Why can't we just use the catapult? It's still sitting out there."

"Again, it's because they're designed to do two different things. The trebuchet works really well for firing objects at a large stationary target, like a wall or a gate, but it can't be aimed quick enough to target a dinosaur."

Andy leaned back in his chair. "I'm listening, Jack. We all know it was really you who got the catapult to work right."

"Well, it was Jeff's design. I just tweaked it for him."

"Don't be modest, Jack," Jeff interrupted. "If you hadn't known to make those changes, the range would have only been about half of what you achieved. I could come up with a basic design easily enough, but you're the only one here who had any real world experience building something like that."

Rod laughed. "How in the world could you get experience like that in southern Illinois? I thought you were studying accounting."

Jack shrugged. He had been trying to get an accounting degree part time, while he worked at the prison to pay for it. "Everybody's got to have a hobby. Some guys my age like to work on cars; some like to go hunting. Me, I liked to build machines to launch pumpkins across a field. I studied old siege weapon designs so I could build my own."

Andy couldn't help but laugh. "Pumpkins, huh. How does this ballista work?"

"Well, think of it as a big crossbow. The firing mechanism I have in mind works differently, but the result is the same. Only instead of a crossbow bolt, the ballista will basically fire spear-sized arrows."

"I don't see how a spear can be any more effective than the rifles."

"In ancient times, it was reported that an arrow shot from one of these machines could go through both a shield and the armored warrior behind it, at a distance of four hundred yards. I think it ought to penetrate a dinosaur hide. More importantly, if we set these up in the towers and similar locations, we can shoot at any dinosaurs from behind the safety of our walls."

He could tell Andy was considering what had just been said before he spoke. "Does anyone have any reason we shouldn't try this?"

Rod shrugged his shoulders. "I don't see why we ...