Primitive War (Book)

Primitive War is the first novel in the Primitive War series and written by Ethan Pittus. It was first published on April 22, 2017 by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform as paper backs and Amazon Kindle as an ebooks. It is also slated to appear as a Barnes and Noble hardcover in 2021. An audiobook version is also available on Audible as of February, 2021.

Synopsis
A search and rescue team known as Vulture Squad is sent to an isolated jungle valley to uncover the fate of a missing Green Beret platoon. As they hunt through the primordial depths of the valley, they discover ancient horrors that not only threaten to unravel their minds, but to end their lives as well. When the casualties mount, the men of Vulture Squad must abandon their human nature and give in to their savage instincts in order to survive...the Primitive War.

Plot Summary
During the Vietnam War, Kendrick Anderson is stumbling through lush valley north of the Demilitarized Zone, having lost his platoon of Green Baret over the past week to unknown attackers. As he continues through the jungle, he comes across a clearing as it begins to rain. As Kendrick rushes towards it, hoping it is the river so he can use it to escape the valley, a flash of lightning reveals the form of one of the assailants that destroyed his platoon. Panicking, Kendrick ran into the roots of a mangrove in the what to his disappointment he finds to be only a pond. As he hides, he can only whimper as the attacker tracks him down and kills him.

South of Vulture Valley, a truck carrying Bishop, Ibex, Jack Wallace, and their driver Dave drive through a village being destroyed by Wallace's men. The three of them listen to Wallace ramble as they park the truck and move through the rest of the village on foot. One of the village woman suddenly grabs Bishop and frantically warns him in Vietnamese about "a feathered demon" that took away her husband, although Wallace quickly brushes it off as superstition and had his men drag her away. A minute later the group reaches their destination: a truck guarded by more of Wallace's men and a dying Viet-Cong. Wallace tells Dave to end the man's suffering, but Bishop and Ibex stop him in order to interrogate the target. After giving him water, the dying soldier in gratitude tells them he was working at a "Collider" before Dave shoots him. After managing to intimidate Wallace into leaving, Bishop and Ibex investigate some canisters in the back of the truck, which turn out to be quite radioactive. Confirming this is what they were looking for, the pair marked the position down on a map of Vietnam and concluded that the shipment came from the interior of Vulture Valley. With nothing else to get from remaining in the area, the pair radioed General Amadeus Jericho and gave what little information they could. They ask if Kendrick and the Green Beret had successfully contacted them, but were told the they had not and the platoon was deemed MIA, forcing them to their next option, Vulture Squad.

Further north of the DMZ at a Viet-Cong internment camp, Captain Ryan Baker, leader of Vulture Squad, and lieutenant Leon Varnes are waiting in the undergrowth to ambush the camp's two guards. Once the deed is done and the one of the team's sniper's, Logan Stovall takes out the camp's own sniper, Eli Taylor and Charlie Miller moved onto the huts of off duty soldiers. After taking out the first hut they came across, the two move on to the hut of a superior officer, quickly killing everyone inside and finding a key to the camp's prison but alerting a nearby guerrilla, whom is quickly taken out by Xavier Wise, whom had been on stand-by up till then. The three of them then make their way over to Ryan and Leon, giving them the keys and helping with retrieving the injured and dying soldiers from within. Up on a cliff overlooking the camp, Logan and Gerald Keyes begins taking out a returning patrol of Viet-Cong, when Logan has a schizophrenia attack. Logan fights through the voices while Gerald comforted him once they had killed all of the enemy soldiers before moving down to the rest of the squad and helping them move the prisoners into a newly arrived Seabringer helicopter. Once the work is done, Vulture Squad moved back as the helicopter departed and their own helicopter, The Father Vulture flew down to pick them up. Once the helicopter has lifted, Ricardo Alvarez, the pilot, informed the men they were heading for Vulture Valley.

Meanwhile, at the Russian compound, General Grigory Borodin informs Con Nhen and his Viet Cong platoon to take away the last radioactive waste shipments of Polonium-T from the site of his particle collider, but realizes that the American forces are looking for his base when Con Nhen brings him Kendrick's dog tags and a map. Afterwards, Borodin tells them to leave and not return, having his second-in-command, Victor, pay the Viet Cong before deciding on his next course of action.

Upon their arrival at Jericho's base, Vulture squad is tasked with finding Kendrick Anderson's Green Beret platoon by General Jericho, who belittles Vulture Squad in front of Ryan. Regardless, Ryan accepts the mission. As the squad prepares for departure, Ryan is haunted by flashbacks of the loss of his squad commander, McNeil, and by his former addiction to morphine. Logan also struggles to control his schizophrenia while Gerald consoles him and convinces him to try and get help when the mission is over while Eli gets drunk on stolen bourbon.

Back at the Russian compound, Borodin brings in the Dogs of War; Tolstoy Asimov, Nikita, Aleksandr, and Sergei Medvedev, to hunt the American forces heading towards their base. Borodin also forces his scientists under threat of death to complete the collider within 48 hours. As this occurs, Ryan and his men are dropped into the jungle to locate Anderson's team. As they trek deeper into the jungle, Vulture squad notices strange tracks and shed, green feathers larger than any bird's. Upon finding some of the Green Beret's gear, Ryan comes across a journal from one of the men. The journal states the Green Beret were being hunted, and it is enough to put Ryan on edge. As they trek deeper into the dark jungle, Ryan notices the forest grow quiet before he is attacked by an unseen predator. As it tries to drag him away, he is rescued by the rest of Vulture Squad, coming away with a bite on his ankle as the creature retreats with shrieking cries into the jungle, followed by more from others of its kind. The Dogs of War hear this and begin moving towards the noise, with Tolstoy and Sergei viciously intent on killing the Americans, while Aleksandr and Nikita are far more reluctant.

As Vulture Squad sets set up camp for the night in a clearing, Ryan takes Leon on a perimeter patrol. As they settle down, Eli begins drinking, causing a quarrel to erupt between Eli, Miller, and Logan. Afterwards, Miller tries to talk to Eli about his alcoholism, but Eli refuses to listen and continues drinking from his stolen stash, discovering a massive tooth while he and Miller stand guard. As the Dogs of War continue their hunt for Vulture Squad, Aleksander is snatched by an unseen creature; the same one that attacked Ryan, and carried away as he is eviscerated. Tolstoy, Sergei and Nikita search for him after he goes missing, finding his partially eaten corpse on the forest floor. Unaware of the predator that killed him, Tolstoy believes Aleksander was killed by the Americans and vows vengeance, poisoning Sergei's mind with more warmongering.

Back at their camp, Xavier takes over the watch and is confronted by a pack of animals that climb into the trees above him. Paralyzed with fear, he can only watch as they inch closer, only to be frightened off when a much larger animal stops in the clearing on its way home with the remnants of an elephant in its jaws. It ignores them on due to not being able to smell them, and heads in the direction of Ryan and Leon. Ryan and Leon are themselves confronted by the mate of the large animal that passed by the camp; a female Tyrannosaurus rex and her two chicks. After being chased by the Mother T. rex away from her nest, they are pursued by the male Tyrannosaurus, which chases them through a grove of bamboo as Xavier and the rest of Vulture Squad look on. Running downhill, Ryan and Leon quickly hide in a ditch, before making a break for the nearby river while the Father Tyrannosaurus' back is turned. Forced to jump over the edge of a cliff into the water, they are quickly swept up by the current as the Tyrannosaurus falls in after them, causing Ryan to try and avoid its panicked attacks as he struggles to keep Leon from drowning. They are soon rescued by the emaciated Russian scientist Andrei Wynn, while the Tyrannosaurus ceases his attack and leaves the river to focus on getting back to his mate and chicks. After Ryan revives the unconscious Leon, Andrei leads the pair to his safe place; Research Station 4.

As the rest of Vulture Squad heads around the Tyrannosaurus' nest, they encounter a herd of rutting Stygimoloch in an orchard, where they are also attacked by Deinonychus. The Deinonychus stampede the herd, with Vulture Squad rushing into the herd to not be targeted by the pursuing Dromeosaurs. While there, a Stygimoloch knocked over, Eli forcing the rest of Vulture Squad to rescue him from being trampled but losing the herd in the process.

Back at Research Station 4, Andrei introduces himself to Ryan and Leon before injecting himself with morphine. In spite of his high, Wynn is compelled by Ryan to give him answers as to what is going on. Andrei then informs of how he was ordered to study the dinosaurs in the valley and how his colleagues were executed by General Borodin when Wynn refused to help him make anti-matter bombs using the Collider, with Andrei alone surviving the execution. He also informs Ryan that it is his fault the dinosaurs have come into Vietnam due to his work on the Collider. Though Andrei doesn't tell Ryan what it does, Ryan realizes that General Jericho lied to him, having known about the Collider and the Russian presence in the Valley all along and blackmails Jericho into sending him an evac helicopter when Leon finds a working radio. A furious Jericho complies, but promises to make Ryan pay for it. He then takes Leon and Andrei to locate the rest of Vulture Squad, who are under attack by the Deinonychus pack. Xavier, Miller, Logan and Eli manage to fight off or kill their attackers, but Gerald is dragged away by several of the dromaeosaurs. Ryan, Leon and Andrei are able to catch up to them and continue chasing after Gerald. During this exchange, Ryan tells Andrei about being bitten by a large predator in the jungle, causing Andrei alarm when he identifies the bite as belonging to a Utahraptor, which won't stop tracking and hunting Ryan until it kills him.

As this happens, Tolstoy, Sergei and Nikita make their way towards Jericho's base, hiding as the Father Vulture passes over them. As it leaves, Tolstoy and his men are spotted by three Quetzalcoatlus. Despite their attempts to hide, the Quetzalcoatlus catch up to them after landing, brutally eating Tolstoy alive. Nikita and Sergei manage to drive them off by shooting at them, killing one of the pterosaurs before they are forced to retreat back into the jungle.

Meanwhile, Gerald manages to kill two of the four Deinonychus that dragged him away. The remaining dromaeosaurs flee, but Gerald is ambushed by a Utahraptor, which begins eviscerating him. The Utahraptor quickly camouflages itself when Vulture Squad approaches and hides with Gerald beneath it, but Gerald stabs it with his knife, causing it to reveal itself, whereupon the Utahraptor tries to flee with Gerald as Vulture Squad shoots at it. Logan catches up to the dinosaur and partially blinds it with his ka-bar knife, (giving it the moniker of Cyclops), and the predator retreats when Vulture Squad opens fire once again. Patching Gerald up, the squad carries him back to Research Station 4, where Gerald tries to console the panicking Logan as he's patched up by Xavier. Cyclops returns with reinforcements; his hunting party. A firefight ensues as Ryan and his team try to hold off the Utahraptors. Vulture Squad is forced to flee when the Utahraptors manage to break into the research station. As they flee, one of the Utahraptors wounds Leon and Cyclops tries to drag Gerald away again. Desperate to save him, Logan enters a vicious tug-of-war with Cyclops, which tears Gerald nearly in half. Logan, knowing he has no other choice and struggling with his strengthening schizophrenia, is forced to mercy-kill Gerald, allowing the Utahraptors to retreat with Gerald's corpse into the jungle, where they devour him.

As Sergei and Nikita regroup after their losing Tolstoy, Nikita tries to console Sergei, telling him that they need to think things through before they make another move. Nikita also tries to get Sergei to let go of the warmongering path that Sergei is setting himself on, but his words fall on deaf ears and he also ignores Nikita's warnings that Borodin lied to them. After finding Jericho's base, Nikita hatches a plan to kidnap the general and urges Sergei to be patient while they wait for the right moment to strike. Back in the jungle, Ryan and the rest of Vulture Squad continue to run from the Utahraptors, though Eli can't come to terms with Logan killing Gerald. Carrying the injured Leon, they are forced to move faster when the Father Tyrannosaurus pursues them, barely making it to the Father Vulture in time. The Tyrannosaur tries to snatched them from the helicopter, but only manages to bite off one of the landing skids, and they manage to escape. However, an RPG hits the Father Vulture, causing Miller and Nguyen, one of the young Vietnamese men Jericho was training, to be knocked out of the helicopter. Unable to go back for them, Vulture Squad is forced to fly back to Jericho's base.

Later, Nikita and Sergei try to attack the base and capture General Jericho. Nikita manages to surprise Jericho, but Jericho gets the upper hand and captures Nikita after brutally beating him. Sergei meanwhile is wounded and retreats back into the jungle after a gunfight with Bishop and Ibex. Shortly after, Ryan and Vulture Squad return, and Leon is put into surgery. While Leon recovers, he is cared for by Dr. Susan Wilcott, Jericho's on-staff doctor. After visiting Leon in the hospital, Ryan promises to send Leon home when the mission is done before going to check on the rest of his team-mates; all of who are deeply shaken up by the loss of Gerald and Miller falling from the Helicopter. Ryan has Xavier check on Eli after Eli goes on a drinking binge, while Ryan himself tries to calm Logan, bringing him out of his schizophrenic episode by telling him he did the right thing mercy-killing Gerald in order to keep him from being eaten alive. Afterwards, Ryan goes to General Jericho's office, where the General is beating Andrei in a torturous interrogation. After Ryan intervenes, he gets Andrei to inform them about General Borodin and the Collider. Andrei informs them about how the Collider can be used to make nuclear bombs with no radioactive fallout, revealing how it opened a wormhole in time that brought the dinosaurs to the present era, and that if used incorrectly, it can create a black hole that would destroy everything. Jericho refuses to believe the information on the dinosaurs, attributing Andrei's words on the subject as an addict's ramblings. Jericho then immediately tells Ryan to get ready to assault Borodin's operations and destroy the Collider, but Ryan, having grown tired of Jericho's bullying and his clandestine war games, confronts him and tells him that he won't tolerate the General's behavior any longer, choosing to rescue Miller instead. Jericho then makes a deal with Ryan, giving him 12 hours to rescue Miller and then assault the Collider, telling him to also take Bishop, Ibex, Ozzie and Shadow as well. Ryan agrees and is allowed to take Andrei as well, since he knows the jungle better than they do.

At a Viet Cong camp, Miller finds himself bound and confronted by Con-Nhen, who proceeds to torture him for information before revealing Nguyen, covered and bound. After dragging Nguyen away, Con-Nhen proceeds to torture Miller, who breaks under the torment. Vulture Squad and Bishop's team meanwhile use a boat to travel upriver towards Miller's location and the Collider, where Andrei reveals that the dinosaurs released by the Collider destroyed the original prototype when it malfunctioned before invading the jungle. They also began out-competing the native animal species in the Valley, as Ryan and his team soon discover when a herd of Triceratops greets then en route. As they slip peacefully between the massive dinosaurs, a pack of Kaprosuchus, immense prehistoric crocodiles, attacks, killing one of the Triceratops and attacking the men aboard the boat. When the boat becomes stuck, Logan leads the Kaprosuchus away and sacrifices himself when they catch and eat him. Logan's sacrifice allows the others to get away, and they continue upriver as the crocodiles leave.

Back in Con-Nhen's camp, Miller devises and escape plan and begins fighting back with Nguyen as Vulture Squad closes in on his location. Miller and Nguyen manage to fight their way to freedom, with Miller killing Con-Nhen personally. Miller, wounded in the fighting, kills himself with a grenade in order to destroy the Polonium-T shipments Con-Nhen had been transporting. Vulture Squad rescues Nguyen in the aftermath, but they realize they've arrived too late to save Miller, much to Eli's horror and grief. Back at Jericho's headquarters, Sergei uses the attack of the two remaining Quetzalcoatlus to infiltrate and attack the General's base, killing Susan in front of Leon when she gets hit in the crossfire. Sergei is horrified by his murdering of an innocent woman, but manages to capture General Jericho and rescue Nikita. He quickly departs while Leon mourns over Susan, with Leon vowing revenge. Sergei and Nikita steal the boat when Vulture Squad and Bishop's Black Ops team returns to base, heading upriver to Borodin's base. After collecting and reorganizing themselves with a map to Borodin's base, Vulture Squad and Bishop's team head to Borodin's base to rescue Jericho and destroy the Collider.

When Sergei and Nikita arrive with Jericho at Borodin's compound, Nikita confronts Borodin over the deaths of Tolstoy and Aleksandr, causing Borodin to freely admit he unleashed the dinosaurs into the jungle when the Collider test-fired and that it was all just part of his attempts to create weapons supplied by the energy the Collider provides. Borodin then murders Nikita in cold blood before taking Sergei and Jericho both as prisoners. However, when one of his soldiers reveals a corpse of a baby dinosaur he killed, Borodin is struck with alarm, as it is one of the infant Tyrannosaurus. The mother swiftly attacks, quickly joined by her mate, the Father. Together, both dinosaurs slaughter the men in the compound as the Collider begins powering up. Borodin manages to escape, but is chased away by both Tyrannosaurs and their surviving infant after Sergei tries to kill him.

Vulture Squad arrives in the Father Vulture, and proceeds to the damaged compound. En route, Ryan reveals his story to his remaining men, showing them his hideously scarred face; like Andrei, he was a morphine addict: the result of his being burned by mortar fire during a mission under the the original leader of Vulture Squad, Adam McNeil. He also reveals he had to mercy kill all of his former squad mates during that mission due to their being too wounded to survive long. Motivated by Ryan's words and his unwillingness to give up, Vulture Squad, together with Nguyen, Andrei, and Bishop's team, proceed into the compound. Sergei frees Jericho and they agree to work together. They are quickly met by Vulture Squad, Nguyen, and Andrei, who after initial hostilities, agree to work together to destroy the Collider. As the Collider continues powering up, Vulture Squad primes C-4 to destroy the weapon. Bishop and his team are confronted by Cyclops and his entire pack of dozens of Utahraptors, who kill them and take the dead bodies of the Russians from the compound. Cyclops, hungry and Vengeful, leads a hunting party against the humans, and while Cyclops faces off with Ryan one-on-one, while Sergei holds off the rest of the dromaeosaurs, allowing everyone else to escape by getting to the helicopter via the roof of the compound. Ryan is torn in half by Cyclops, but kills the Utahraptor alpha by plunging Logan's knife further into the dinosaur's skull through his eye, while Sergei, with his last breath, destroys the Collider and many other Utahraptors in the explosion. Their mission accomplished, Vulture Squad's remaining members fly back beyond the borders of the valley, away from the dinosaurs.

Chased into the jungle, Borodin escapes the Tyrannosaurus family when they flee after detecting the scent of the Utahraptor hunting party, but he is captured and eviscerated by the Utahraptors, before being brought back to the nesting colony of the alpha female (Cyclops' mate), where he is laid out in front of the nest and fed alive to her offspring.

One year later, Vulture Valley is now fenced in to keep the dinosaurs contained. Leon has been sent home to the United States where he attends college on a scholarship courtesy of Jericho, while Eli is the new Captain of Vulture Squad and Nguyen is still working for Jericho. Xavier is now leading Stalker Force, a military force assigned with keeping the dinosaurs contained and killing off the Utahraptors, as they are too deadly and intelligent to be contained. Andrei is now a member of Stalker Force as well and has recovered from his morphine addiction. While searching for the Utahraptor colony, they come across their abandoned nest site. As Xavier and Andrei wonder what has happened to the colony, they receive radio transmissions that Utahraptors have broken through the perimeter fence before they overhear the dromaeosaurs attack the men on the other end of the radio.

Characters

 * Ryan Baker
 * Leon Varnes
 * Logan Stovall
 * Eli Taylor
 * Charlie Miller
 * Gerald Keyes
 * Xavier Wise
 * Andrei Wynn
 * Bishop
 * Ibex
 * Shadow
 * Nguyen
 * Kendrick Anderson
 * Amadeus Jericho
 * Grigory Borodin
 * Viktor
 * Con Nhen
 * Tolstoy Asimov
 * Nikita
 * Sergei Medvedev
 * Aleksandr

Dinosaurs

 * Deinonychus
 * Hypsilophodont
 * Kaprosuchus
 * Microraptor
 * Quetzalcoatlus
 * Stygimoloch
 * Triceratops
 * Tyrannosaurus
 * Utahraptor

Trivia

 * The book is written to the memory of the late Michael Crichton, who wrote Jurassic Park and The Lost World.
 * Multiple homages to the Jurassic Park franchise occur in the novel.