David Golemon - Event

McIntire walked to the front with a rolled-up virtual map. She unrolled it and placed it on the easel Colonel Fielding had placed there.

"As you can see, our operational area is ringed with granite mountains. This will be the outermost area of the assault. The tunnels lead off in all directions as if the animals are seeking the quickest and easiest way to get out once the food supply is gone." She turned away from the map and picked up a softball-sized instrument and held it up. "This is a remote-sensing device that will be air-dropped onto the valley below. It will sense the vibrations underground just like the VDF remote devices each of the teams has been issued. These aboveground units will send a signal to an orbiting global-positioning satellite and an AWACS that will relay the coordinates to our teams to allow you some warning. Of course they have never been used in this manner but--"

"Thank you, Specialist," Collins said, purposely cutting her off. The men didn't need to know the what-ifs if all this technical stuff failed.

McIntire looked at the major, then caught the innuendo about morale and turned and sat, leaving the virtual map out and displayed. The mountains were by far the predominate feature as they circled the valley like wagons in defense against Indian attack, only the Indians were in the circle with them for this fight.

"Okay, assemble to your assigned assault teams and good hunting," Colonel Fielding said.

The men and women of the tunnel assault teams moved out of the tent with not much said. Jack watched them leave with doubt flitting at the edges of his thoughts. They needed more time to plan this assault. He could be leading them into a massacre by not knowing the animal's full potential.

The tent was near empty as Commander Everett and Lisa Willing stepped inside.

"Jack, you wanted to see Signalman Willing?"

"Yes, I did," Jack said.

Lisa swallowed. She didn't know what was to come; Carl had said he didn't know.

Sarah was rolling up her virtual map and gathering her equipment, just getting ready to join her tunnel team.

"Specialist, if you would join us here, please," Collins asked her.

Sarah looked from the major to Lisa and received the slightest downturn of her lips to show she had no idea what was happening. Sarah laid her gear down and joined the small group at the front of the large tent.

Collins nodded in the direction of Colonel Fielding, who quickly pushed the entrance flap aside to allow a tall, lanky man inside. He was carrying something in his arms that was covered with a white sheet. He walked quickly to the briefing table and set his small burden down, but still held on with his old and scarred hands. He lifted one of his hands and quickly removed his fedora and nodded in deference to the ladies in the tent. Then he looked at Major Collins.

Jack half smiled and looked at Sarah and Lisa. "McIntire, Willing, we have something to show you. Colonel Fielding brought it to my attention that in case something happened to those who are privy to what you are about to learn, we had no one else in the field that could possibly protect the most vital asset we have in the coming fight. Therefore you were chosen by me in case something happens to those who are in the know. You are to make sure that this item gets back to the complex unharmed. Your lives are expendable in that pursuit. If none of us return from the assault in the tunnels, Willing, you are to immediately leave Site One with this package and return to Nevada and personally turn it over to the director. If you make it out of the tunnels, McIntire, you're part of the chain. Others have the same orders; you're just the end of the domino line. Am I understood?"

They both nodded.

"Good. This is Mr. Gus Tilly, the man responsible for us even having a fighting chance is this mess. Gus, this is Lisa Willing, U.S. Navy, and Sarah McIntire, U.S. Army."

Gus smiled and again dipped his head in acknowledgment. "The military's changed a mite since I was in, progress ain't all bad, I guess."

"Gus, will you make the introductions?"

Gus took a deep breath and removed the bedsheet from his friend. Lisa and Sarah both stared wide-eyed at the small being that stood on the table, its large eyes blinking in the bright light. Matchstick looked around nervously until it saw the friendly faces of Gus, Jack, and the colonel.

"Ladies, this is Matchstick. He's what you might call one of them little green men."

Lisa allowed her mouth to do what it wanted. It fell open. Sarah actually laughed and clapped her hands just once. Her smile was from ear to ear as she stepped up to the small alien. She looked at Jack, who in turn mouthed the words Go ahead. She slowly brought her hand up and held it in front of Matchstick.

"Well, don't leave the lady hangin', son, shake her hand," Gus said.

Mahjtic looked from Gus to the woman in front of him. Then it slowly brought its small hand up. The long fingers gently touched and slowly wrapped around her smaller ones.

Sarah turned to Lisa and took her hand. "Kind of justifies what we do here, doesn't it?"

Lisa just kept her eyes on Matchstick as she slowly closed her mouth and smiled.

Jack pulled Sarah away from the small group and walked her outside.

"Listen, I have been thinking of something. Do you have your virtual map of the geologic formations of the mountains surrounding us?"

"Yeah, I have it right here," she said.

"Can I see it? I have an idea."

Julie, Billy, and Tony were now being led into the very hole Julie had stared into when she'd entered the kitchen. She had pleaded with the blond-haired Frenchman to let her son and Tony stay behind. But he'd insisted, although politely, too politely Julie thought, and they went along.

Three members of the Frenchman's commando team were the first to rappel into the hole. It wasn't but thirteen feet deep below the surface of the kitchen when it trailed sharply off to the south and down. The tunnel was about six and half feet in diameter and smooth around the circumference. The smell was that of a slaughterhouse, with that coppery odor. Julie noticed as she inched her way down the rope that blood was smeared and splattered on the tunnel's smooth and shiny surface. She silently prayed it wasn't Hal's.

She waited for Farbeaux to land on the tunnel floor, then she approached him, shrugging off the hands of one of his men.

"What is it you expect us to do?" she asked.

"Do? Why, nothing. You may buy my men and me some valuable time, if and when we run into our guests down here." Farbeaux smiled and not too gently moved past her and deeper into the black void beyond. He knew a small sample of this animal's DNA would be highly valuable on the open market, and he might need the lives of the three Americans to deal his way out of town.

Niles was on the video link with Virginia Pollock discussing the autopsies of the animals they had recovered. Alice listened in.

"Basically, we're in deep if that third generation is born. There'll be just too many of them to contain. And you saw the confrontation with those air force fighters. They had adapted well to the lightness of this atmosphere, although we are not sure the parent doesn't have that same ability because we haven't seen her yet. In any case, they were trying to seek the limits of the valley and were possibly sending scouts out before heading for greener pastures when they were attacked by the air force."

Niles rubbed his weary eyes and looked at Alice, then back to the camera.

"What makes you think they haven't already escaped? They could be well on their way to Phoenix, or Albuquerque."