David Golemon - Event

"Our initial Discovery team was kept to bare bones on my request due to continuing security concerns that have arisen in external matters outside the influence of the Group. But once we're in and secure, we'll get help on the ground. I have already initiated contact, with Dr. Compton's approval and through the office of the president, with certain elements of our armed forces, and they have been informed that they may be asked to take part in special desert operations. We can no longer wait until the last minute to have things to fall back on."

"Amen to that," Virginia Pollock said, wishing she were on the Discovery team.

"Besides the Event itself, there should be little collateral interference from the people who call the small valley home," the senator said from his seat on the couch. "There may be a few prospectors and maybe a camper or two about, but other than that, the desert should be void of onlookers."

"Okay, people, you know the plan. Site security will heliocast in first, and then we'll clear a spot for the four Blackhawks with the remaining Discovery team and equipment to land up valley from the bulk of the debris pattern. Believe me, we would have liked to have entered from outside the valley, but the slope is too steep and we just don't have the time."

The senator watched all this with a sort of sadness. Besides the anger he felt at his failing body, he knew he was meant to be on this mission. He slowly raised his right arm and motioned for Collins.

"Yes, sir?" he asked, leaning over so the senator didn't have to rise.

"Jack, I wish you would change your mind about the med team," Lee said.

Collins thought about the absence of the Group's medical team. It would be hard on any of the wounded aliens if they were found alive, but it would be just more people to get in the way if the worst-case scenario happened. "Well, sir, the medical team will be with the fifth Blackhawk just two minutes out from the site, and Dr. Gilliam can triage until the med team arrives. We will hurry the initial recon as much as possible, and if we find any of the crew still breathing, we'll get them help quickly enough."

Collins straightened and held out his hand. The old man weakly took it into his own.

Then Niles Compton approached and lightly patted Jack on the back. "Wish I were going with you, Jack."

Collins looked at Lee a moment longer, then turned to face the tired eyes and worn body of Director Compton. "Niles, for as short a time as I've known you, you've done the most god-awful amount of work I've ever seen. You need to rest and let us handle some of the load now. The president placed several calls out to contacts of mine in the private sector; Aberdeen Proving Grounds is one of them. They're going to send out a few items they've been working on that may help us out here. Some cutting-edge technology couldn't hurt. Also the army is sending some state-of-the-art body armor our way that the CIA higher-ups have hijacked for us, and it should arrive in the morning. I hope we won't need it, but... anyway, that's what you can do now, Niles, make sure we get this stuff ASAP. Until then, rest."

Jack reached out and shook Compton's hand, then turned and ushered the rest of the Discovery team out through the door. The first response to an attack of extraterrestrial origin was now operational.

The beast was once again aboveground. Its hunger was sated for the time being and it had even more nourishment stored deep in the earth at its nesting site. Now it was watching its new surroundings. The animal saw the lights in the distance and blinked as it licked the area between its claws. The millions of pores in its purple and black armored skin took in the scent of more prey. Its body was adapting faster each time it fed on the strange and rich proteins. It was becoming much stronger.

It would use its nest soon to drop its young. They would be born already acclimated to this world.

The beast suddenly looked across the desert at the distant lights. The enticing aroma of food was carried by the warm wind from the north.

The beast then leisurely moved its claws to the ground and gently leaned forward. The armored plates on its neck spread and its throat started producing die hum from the concave voice box, bounding it off the animal's palate. The sound, unheard by man or animal, rippled the sand and dirt, once again changing the atomic dynamic of the soil. Then the beast gently dove into the earth. The scent of prey had been much too strong for it to ignore.

Every few minutes the Destroyer would rise from the ground as a dolphin would from the sea, bursting into the air fifteen and sometimes twenty feet in height to scan the area, then letting its massive weight send it back into the soil, and soon it was again parting the dirt in a massive wave as it drew nearer to its next food source, eventually going deep.

The small town in the distance was sleeping, oblivious to the threat and notoriety coming its way, as it would soon be on every news channel the world over as the beast had chosen the earth directly below the town as its nesting site.

The name of Chato's Crawl, Arizona, was about to become synonymous with the word terror.

The three Blackhawks were flying at terrain level. The collision-avoidance radars were on and running, freeing the pilot to stare in abject horror as the computers adjusted flight to avoid objects that loomed ahead through the windshield. Warrant Officer Jerry Brannon didn't care for the "hands-off" approach to piloting. He had been with the Event Group twelve years. Flying with your hands poised over the control collective of the huge helicopter was one thing he couldn't get used to doing. Technology, he reasoned with a pilot's mentality, sucked. He watched the collective, which was the control attached to his left that looked like an emergency brake. You twisted the throttle at the end and lifted if you wanted to go higher, or lowered it if you wanted to go down. Right now, looking at it operate itself was nerve-racking.

He glanced out the windshield at the passing terrain. The greenish image in the night-vision scope was eerily magical as it brought the desert to life around the streaking helicopter.

"Coming up on crash site in four minutes," he radioed back to his passengers.

The crew and security aspect of the Discovery team felt the sudden shift in the Blackhawk's powerful twin turbines, and the steep climb it had to adjust to as the black-painted helicopter flew up the mountainside. The three other Blackhawks of the Discovery team peeled away and would hover at station just below the valley above. Collins felt the slight slowing of forward momentum, then Brannon flipped on the anticollision lights, which cast a red strobe-light effect against the coarse terrain of piled-up rocks that passed for mountains in this region of Arizona, the Superstitions.

Collins felt the old adrenaline rush of landing in an LZ again. The interior lights flashed once, then went to red to allow the advance team's eyes to adjust better to the darkness. Mendenhall, on Jack's orders, loaded and locked his M16. Mendenhall watched as all elements of his short-manned squad followed suit as they too inserted a twenty-round magazine and pulled back the charging slide on their automatic rifles. The indicators on the weapons remained on safe. Lisa had a nine-millimeter automatic pistol in a shoulder holster, as did Jason Ryan, who had been surprised to learn that Collins had included him on the Discovery team. After all, he was a pilot and knew nothing of ground assault or the tactics members of this team used. But Jack had explained he needed people who reacted quickly, and he knew naval fighter pilots were quick-thinking and weren't afraid of taking chances. He was quite comfortable with assigning Ryan duties on the initial team and later for duty in town. He knew Ryan would have the personality to handle civilians in the initial stages.