Hoskin Bay was quiet that day; there was no wind and the sea was calm. The sky was clear and nothing suggested a worsening of the atmospheric conditions. Logically, nothing could have disturbed the tranquility that the ocean enjoyed that day.

Yet suddenly the sea began to boil. It happened for a few seconds, then a giant metal box emerged. Small waves formed around it and the fish fled as it passed. The submarine was more than 170 meters long, like the Typhoon-class ones on Earth.

Other submarines emerged one after the other. Very quickly at least fifty submarines were making their way to the coast. Then they became a hundred. Eventually, two hundred submarines could be seen in Hoskin Bay.

When they docked Colonel Wainfleet was the first to get out. Behind him came hundreds and hundreds of soldiers equipped with the best technologies. Very soon more than ten thousand soldiers were gathered on the ground.

"Hurry! In line for three, and in combat gear! Kill anyone who dares to try to stop us! We will not stop the march until we reach the Eternal Palace!" Wainfleet yelled.

"YES LORD!" was the response of the troops. They were trained and disciplined soldiers, real warriors ready to obey their commander for any order.

The army began the march towards the hinterland. They had covered just a hundred meters before someone shouted: "Stop everyone! There is movement at eight hundred meters!"

"In what direction?" Wainfleet asked.

"From the north, and it's... in the air?" the man was confused as he looked at the radar. "Fast approaching! Six hundred... five hundred and fifty... five hundred meters..."

Wainfleet looked up; in the distance he could see a small object rising to the sky leaving a white trail behind him. No, it wasn't going to the sky… it was curving… it was… "It's coming towards us! Take shelter!" Wainfleet yelled.

Too late. The missile landed on the central part of the army and exploded; the heat wave and the shock wave disintegrated entire handfuls of soldiers. Arms, legs, heads and bodies flew in all directions and the shrapnel thrown away by the explosion injured other soldiers. Soon after another ten missiles fell, killing even more soldiers and sending the entire army into panic.

'What the hell... they shouldn't have missiles! Where did they get them?' Waitfleet thought, but suddenly the ground began to shake. The colonel barely had time to realize it before a whole handful of dinosaurs appeared out of nowhere and charged straight into the side of the human army.

The army response was too slow. The humans were frightened and confused by the missiles and had abandoned their guard and training. If they had been ready they probably would have been able to hold back the enemy charge, but in that state they had no chance. When the dinosaur wall hit, hundreds of soldiers were mowed down in an instant.

That was precisely the plan that Snock and Abe had concocted: to confuse the enemy lines and then initiate a surprise attack. Snock had Sobek sent the missiles that remained after the brief attack by the main fleet; after all, Sobek had no reason to use them as they were almost useless against such a large fleet. But for a land army of ten thousand people, the missiles could not only eliminate a good chunk of the adversaries, but could also confuse them just enough for the real attack to begin.

The dinosaur charge and the missiles eliminated at least three thousand soldiers, but the rest of the army managed to assemble and form a defense; thanks to the power of their weapons, the dinosaur charge stopped and the animals retreated. But it wasn't just the dinosaurs that were the warriors this time!

On their backs, many of the larger dinosaurs carried machine guns and high-powered weapons. And above their backs were other humans who were using weapons with extreme precision!

'Have they joined forces? How did they manage to forge such a solid alliance in such a short time?' Thought Wainfleet.

The humans on the backs of the dinosaurs were obviously part of the Beleriard army. After all, this was a war that had to be fought on both sides. The humans weren't as experienced as Wainfleet's troops, but they were still army soldiers and had extremely good aim. While the dinosaurs provided them with cover with their bodies and armor, humans targeted the enemy army with long-range weapons, killing hundreds and hundreds of people.

But Wainfleet was unwilling to give up: "Phalanx formation! Let's create an impenetrable defense!"

His soldiers obeyed promptly and arranged themselves in a triangle; those in the front line defended themselves with reinforced metal shields and those in the back rows raised their weapons to fire. Even if they had been taken aback and had already lost half of their army, these people were still elite soldiers: their experience guaranteed them technique, strength and quick reflexes. They were trained to fight in the most desperate situations, so there was no sign of hesitation in their eyes.

Initially the formation worked: their defense was impenetrable and no enemy projectile was able to pass anymore. The dinosaurs and humans of the Beleriard were even forced to retreat, and for a moment the army of the NMWA even seemed to advance.

But then, several shots were heard from all directions and dozens and dozens of soldiers began to fall one after the other. 'Snipers?' Wainfleet exclaimed in his head. 'But where are they hiding? We are in the open field and there are no holes or crevices, and the heat sensors do not detect anything...'

Wainfleet was absolutely right: there was no way that snipers would hide... if they were ordinary snipers! But these weren't ordinary snipers: they were snipers who had the support of dinosaurs equipped with [Ambush]!

After the brief confrontation with the Colonel, Abe had requisitioned all the weapons of the rebels; they were much more suitable for war than the shoddy ones the Beleriard army was equipped with. After that he had chosen the most skilled men at target shooting and entrusted them with the best long-range rifles he had obtained. After the battle had begun, these men lay down on the ground and the smaller and less suited dinosaurs, such as oviraptor, velociraptor, psittacosaurus, and microraptor, lay down on them and activated [Ambush], making themselves completely invisible to them. eyes and sensors of the enemy. With this cover, the snipers had been able to scatter and now they could eliminate enemy soldiers one after the other.

With this technique, snipers killed hundreds of people. The enemy formation became weaker and weaker and the dinosaurs and humans of the Beleriard returned to advance. Enemy soldiers were slowly being decimated as they gained ground.

Snock and Abe were watching everything from behind their lines. "The plan is working perfectly" observed the black man.

The giganotosaurus snorted. "I have eyes, you don't need to tell me. At this rate, victory is already ours"

Abe raised an eyebrow. Snock's arrogance and haughtiness bothered him, but as long as they were allies he was fine. It surprised him that dinosaurs who hated humans so easily agreed to let them sit on their backs so easily, but then he remembered that Jackson had told him that dinosaur costumes were freer, so it probably wasn't a good thing for them. big problem.

When the number of enemy soldiers dropped below three thousand, Snock and Abe realized that the time had come. "Here we are! It's time for a massive attack!" exclaimed the giganotosaurus. "GO!"

"FOR THE BELERIARD!" Abe yelled. "FOR FREEDOM!"

The dinosaurs obeyed and threw their heads down at the enemies, quickly closing the distance between them; the humans on their backs provided them with cover and the snipers in turn weakened the enemy defense. By the time the dinosaur wall crashed into opponents, the formation was too weak to hold back their charge.

From that moment the enemy army fell into chaos. Even if they were elite soldiers, the enemies were now too few to be able to gather and pose a real threat.

Wainfleet screamed orders continuously, trying to encourage the soldiers, and fired madly in every direction; but in the end he too was hit. The huge leg of a daspletosaurus came up against him and crushed him. Wainfleet barely had time to scream before his life was snatched away.

"Ha ha! Nice shot!" shouted the human who at that moment was riding the daspletosaurus, intent on shooting at a group of enemies. "This is going to be nice to tell!"

The daspletosaurus snorted. "Yes, if you live to tell it"

"Tsk. Do you think I have no balls?"

"If we get out alive I want to see them"

"Maybe a little less explicit..."

The battle continued for a few more minutes, then as quickly as it had come it was over. All the soldiers of the NMWA were eliminated one after the other until there were none left. There were no prisoners: the soldiers of the NMWA had refused to surrender to the last and some of them had even taken their own lives to avoid being captured.

The Beleriard, at least for that day, was safe.

Human soldiers quickly raided all the good weapons and armor left by the enemies; even if a little bruised, they were still very respectable weapons. Abe was satisfied: with them he could have reformed the entire Beleriard army and made it an excellent military force. And not only that… "If that's okay with you, I'd like to keep those submarines as war prey" he told Snock.

The giganotosaurus nodded. "Go ahead. We don't need it"

"Is there anything you want as loot?"

"There is nothing you humans use that could interest us. You have your ways of waging war, we have ours. These weapons and machines are of no value to us" Snock replied. "Rather, you should use submarines to fortify your maritime border. At this moment the battle is won, but nothing guarantees that it will still be like this in the future"

"Don't worry, I've already thought about it" Abe said. "With the permission of President Jersey, I will use these submarines and the weapons they carry to form a marine force to protect territorial waters. In this way, an invasion of this type will no longer be possible"

"If they are so useful, why didn't you make them yourself?"

"Building a submarine isn't easy and it isn't a job that takes a day. I had already commissioned the production of some models, but it will take years before we have them. In the meantime, I can start forming a navy with these. Two hundred armed and efficient submarines are not a low figure and will be an excellent starting point for a larger naval force"

Snock couldn't say he understood everything, but he didn't care. Let humans sort out their quarrels on their own.

"It seems our peoples are closer now, right?" Abe suddenly asked.

Snock looked up and stared at the army in front of him. Humans and dinosaurs could now consider their collaboration over, but despite this they were continuing to converse with each other in a friendly manner. "It seems so" he grumbled.

"Don't you like it?" Abe murmured.

"No, I don't like it. I hate your species. But I won't let hatred cloud my judgment, not again. I've already made this mistake" Snock replied. "This was what the pack leader and your president aspired to achieve: peace between our two peoples. I'm not going to interfere. As long as there is a need, I will put aside my hatred"

Abe sighed. He didn't know the story of the giganotosaurus, but he had guessed that he didn't like humans; despite this, however, he seemed quite reasonable, much more so than some people. This was enough. Watching humans and dinosaurs help each other recover after the fight, Abe was for the first time certain that the coexistence Jocelyne and Sobek aspired to was indeed possible.