The Last Resort

The rocket flew straight and true, impacting the chagrined android full in its torso. The hardened tip pentrated into the robot's chest cavity before exploding. The metal warror's wedge-shaped head flew straight up in the air, looking for all the world like those ancient clips of Scott and Irwin's Apollo 15 lunar module suddenly blasting off from the surface of Terra's moon.

"The machine man--he dead?"asked Mama-san.

"The machine man is not merely dead, he's unequivocally, undeniably, really most sincerely dead," Ray replied.

"He dead," agreed Beowulf.

The Last Resort is the fourth and final (for now, at least), novel in the K-9 series of books. It begins with a battle in space, but soon moves to the resort planet of Neverland, the home of Dinoland, Battlefield, and other theme parks available to anyone with enough money to afford them.

They were alive. There was just one problem: The floater lay upside down, its viewports covered by dirt and vegetation. The downed floater suddenly lifted a meter or so into the air before slamming back down to the ground with a solid thwack. "Do you hear that?" Ozma asked.

"Yah!" said Sinbad. "What is that?"

"It sounds like someone sawing a piece of wood,"Ake said finally. "I know it can't really be that, but that's what it sounds like."

It was true. The noise, a great rasping and remarkably rhythmic sound, bore a strong similarity to a saw being worked back and forth through a tree trunk.

"That's someone breathin'," Ozma said, her head cocked to on side.

"Someone breathin'?" repeated Grendel, the puzzlement in her voice slowly turning to awe. "Someone big breathin'."

...Ake guessed immediately what was happening. "Uh, guys, I think a Tyrannosaurus or one of the other big guys is toying with our floater. The plasteel hull is keeping from getting at the meat inside."

"What meat?" asked Grendel.

"Us."

"Doan worry," said Tajil calmly. "That big guy ain't gonna get inside this ship. And even if'n he does, Ake gots his energy rifle."

Ake said, "I'm not sure I want to use an energy rifle unless I absolutely have to, Taddy."

"Why not?"

"I don't want to piss him off."

"Oh."