David Golemon - Primeval

Anastasia tried her best to keep Alexei moving. The boy was dead on his feet as they broke through the last of the trees and onto the stony riverbank of the Stikine. The smell of the water made Anastasia pull even harder on Alexei's hand and arm. She thought she could maybe traverse the thicker of the ice flows and get across to safety. It was foolhardy, but she knew it was their only hope of escaping the horror she knew was following them.

Just as they reached the river's edge, she came to a stop. Alexei collapsed against her legs as she cried, "Oh, no… no."

The ice had melted during the day at the river's edge, or was so thin she could see the moving water beneath in the moonlight. They would fall through if they tried to escape over the ice. She tried to get Alexei up. He refused. She angrily tossed Petrov's journal away, where it landed on the thin ice, then slid until it hit the water through a large crack ten feet away. The journal lodged against the side of the ice for a moment, and then the swifter current caught it and dragged it under, sending the record of the last of the royal family on a long journey south.

Alexei was still refusing to move, so Anastasia just simply gave in to the boy and slowly sat down beside him on the snow-covered rocks that made up the shores of the Stikine.

"Our journey away from Mama and Papa has come to an end," the young girl said as she placed her hand on the cheek of her little brother. As she did, she saw the giant step from the trees. It stood, watching the children. "It will be nice to see them and our sisters once more, won't it, Alexei?" She made sure the boy's face was covered so that his eyes could not behold that which could not really exist.

"I am sorry I was not stronger for you, Anna," Alexei said in a whisper, his large eyes looking up and then holding hers. He started to turn away, but Anastasia held his head and made him look at her, most desperate that he not see the giant horror that watched them from twenty feet away.

"You are the strongest boy I have ever known. To be as sick as you are, you have done the most amazing thing — you have traveled half the world. Even Colonel Petrov said he would be proud to have you in his combat regiment any day."

"Really?" he said as his eyes slowly closed in exhaustion.

"Yes," she answered. She looked up and saw the beast was now coming toward them, slowly, menacingly. She rubbed her gloved hand along the boy's face and watched their destiny as it came at them, and soon they were surrounded by the only inhabitants of this area of the world for the past twenty thousand years.

Anastasia Romanov closed her eyes and waited.

In the small valley, hidden in a snow-covered covered cave, were four large wagons filled with gold. The bulk of the smuggled treasure of the last tsar and tsarina of Russia would stay hidden for almost a full century until future men of greed found it, and the hidden world of the past would once more run with blood.

The Forest Primeval had not changed for 20,000 years — always hiding its secrets well, protecting whatever lived amongst its woods and streams.

In the night came the nocturnal cry of They Who Follow, as they, too, waited for their lands to be visited by men from the outside world once more. The woods swallowed them, and they became one with the world that nurtured and protected them.

Thirty-five armed USAF air police had most of the base maintenance personnel cornered in a giant hangar outfitted for one of McChord's many Globemaster cargo planes. Most of the men had noticed that the M-14 automatic rifles carried by the police unit had their safeties in the off position. But even stranger was the fact that there were thirty U.S. navy flight technicians waiting just inside of the giant hangar door. No explanation had been offered as the men were rounded up and placed inside the hangar. They waited twenty minutes, and then a loud horn sounded.

A U.S. navy officer in class "A" blues and a white saucer cap nodded at the captain in charge of the air police, and he in turn waved his men into action. In thirty seconds, the hangar was cleared of all air force personnel with the exception of the base commander and ten of the air police. They were soon joined by twenty men in civilian attire. The men went straight to some very large crates that had been unloaded thirteen hours earlier after they had been delivered from March Air Reserve Base in California. They quickly started uncrating the shipment.

As the group of base commanders and air police waited, they heard the loud whine of twin jet engines as they spooled down. The roar was loud enough that all inside knew that a beast was demanding entrance to its dark lair. As the giant twin hangar doors started to slide apart, the men inside were blinded by the landing lights of a powerful jet as it barely waited for the doors to open wide enough to fit its extraordinary wing design. The aircraft cleared the doors by mere inches as it made its way inside, flanked on both sides and also front and back by United States Army Special Forces soldiers who had been waiting just off the runway for the arrival. The president of the United States himself had instituted the new concept of the Green Berets, and the group was newly arrived from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and they trotted inside with the aircraft with their weapons at the ready.

As the technicians and security men watched in silence, the scream of the twin J79-GE-8 jet engines bounced loudly from one corner of the giant hangar to the other. The pilot of the brand-new Navy F-4 Phantom made a fast maneuver with its nose wheel, and made a complete and precise 180-degree turn until it was facing the now closing hangar doors.

The newest and only version of the Navy F-4 was loaded with the new AN/APQ-72 radar, its bulbous nose standing out dramatically from the front end of the fighter. Every technician noted the package the Phantom carried under the centerline hard point. The plastic-covered, steel-framed object was hidden from view, but every man present was aware of what the disguised monster was, and they all had that deep-seeded fear upon seeing it only feet away. They were even aware of what the package and also the very operational name of the mission was called, a name thought up by air force and naval intelligence — Solar Flare. It was a five-hundred-megaton nuclear weapon, and was the most powerful nuclear device ever created. For the moment it was harmless, but its potential as a man-made hell on earth shook them all to their core.

With the brakes finally set and the giant General Electric engines winding down, the cockpit canopy started to rise. The lights from above shone off the Phantom's gleaming dark blue paint scheme, and all present saw that the aircraft had not one identifying marker on its aluminum skin. No navy serial number, no numbers of any kind. The stars and bars had been removed as well as every single etched engraving that would identify the origin of the flight or its manufacturer. As the canopy rose, the navy pilot didn't wait for the ground crew to assist him from his seat. He stood as soon as the large Phantom stopped moving, and was quickly stepping onto the wing. He avoided the ladder that was placed for him and hopped nimbly down from the slick wing. He waved several of the crew away.

"Bathroom!" he called out as he ran in the direction he hoped was appropriate.

A man ran to catch up to the helmeted officer, still dangling his oxygen line and directed him to the right door, and then they both disappeared.

The ground crew from the navy and several of the civilian technicians ran for the Phantom and started removing small plastic covers along the Phantom's wing hard points. The caps hadn't been off more than four seconds when the ground crew rolled up seven experimental fuel pods specially designed for the Phantom. The fiberglass and plastic pods were extremely lightweight and each of six was fifteen feet in length and was capable of carrying a thousand gallons of JP-5 jet fuel. The seventh fuel pod was designed to fit under the Phantom's belly to the rear of Solar Flare, and was only ten feet in length. With every hard point of the fighter filled with fuel pods, the aircraft had not one single defensive or offensive weapon onboard — not counting the strange object hanging hidden under the Phantom. Even the defensive flair and chafe system had been removed. With all of this, the massive twin-engine fighter would have to fight the forces of gravity to even get off the ground.