Whole New World - Terra Nova

-New World, Old Troubles

Ruby tried not to appear too disappointed when Taylor failed to show. But the truth of the matter was, she was disappointed. 

There she was, 0700 hours sharp, at the training field as specified, and there was no sign of him. 

His words from the day before rang in her head: "Oh I always keep  my promises."

And her own in response: "I believe it, Sir."

And the rest of their exchange:  "See you in the morning, Doc."

"Bright and early, Sir."

But not bright and early, as it would so seem.

Pretty soon though, she discovered the cause. 

Deflated, but trying not to wallow in self pity, she returned to the lab to get some work done and put the early hour to good use. About half an hour later, Taylor and Jim entered the lab, looking deeply distressed themselves. 

"Apologies to keep you waiting, Doc," Taylor said by way of greeting. "But there's a situation."

Of course there was. Of course there would happen to be a 'situation' on their special day. She was being petty, she knew, but again, she was disappointed.

"We've had another death by dinosaur."

Well, that would do it. Now she deflated even further. "Oh no, not again..."

"And someone-" Taylor gave a pointed look at Jim.  "-Thinks it's murder."

Ruby's jaw dropped and she whirled to face the cop. "I beg your pardon?"

He nodded grimly.  "All the signs are pointing to it."

"Who is it? The victim I mean?"

"A soldier, Ken Foster." 

"But, who would kill one of your soldiers?" she cried.

"That's what we intend to find out," Jim stated.

She sighed.  "I guess the New World isn't without the Old World's problems." New world, same old problems. 

Taylor nodded in grave agreement. "We can't solve them all, unfortunately."

"Sorry, if this is a murder, why have you come to me?" she asked.  "That's way outside my area of expertise."

"Like I said, death by dino. We could use your area of expertise, Doc."

"What kind of dino are we looking at?" She paused, and her eyes grew wide.  "Wait, I don't have to look at any - evidence - do I?" She gulped and paled at the thought of looking at a torn-up corpse.

"No, thankfully for you, Malcolm's already identified the wounds on the body: nyko."

"Yikes."

"Yeah, yikes is right." Taylor eyed her. "You wanna help us catch it?"

-______________________-

"Whoa!" Ruby nearly got whiplash as Taylor pressed the gas pedal, sending the rover roaring after the sprinting nyko.

"Hold on Doc!"

"Holding on!"

She and Tyalor - "You ride with me, Doc" - were in one rover, Jim and Wash in the other, chasing after the dino killer. If they could catch it and remove the contents of its stomach - Ruby didn't even want to consider those gory details - they would likely  find Foster's tags undigested, where, hopefully, more information would be available to them.