David Golemon - Event

"Sonsbeeeech, Guss, sonssssabeeeeches, don't shooooooot. Gus and Maaahjtic!" the small being cried, covering its head and burying its face into Gus's chest.

Gus threw his one free arm into the air, turning to the side to protect Matchstick the best he could. "Whoa there, get them laser beams off us!" Gus called out breathlessly.

"Mr. Tilly, what in the hell are you doing down here?" Sarah asked as she lowered the submachine gun.

"Escaping little missy." He placed his other arm around Mahjtic once again and hefted him higher onto his chest. "I guess no one told you. We just got our asses kicked up there," Gus said, nodding upward.

Farbeaux had felt them coming long before they made an appearance. Despite that, the animals struck so fast that five of his men had been taken in the first few seconds of battle. They looked like the same monstrosities he had come across in the Broken Cactus, only now they had grown considerably. But as the smoke from the automatic weapons cleared after the beasts' lightning-quick assault, he quickly counted. He could account for only two of the creatures' bodies. Not a good kill ratio at all. The animals were clearly hard to kill, and he suspected they would be much harder later in their lives. Now he was getting an inkling of the reason his former employer Centaurus was interested in such an animal. The rewards in bioengineering alone could be a bottomless pit of money. And Hendrix would be just the man to head a project that would bring a creature as destructive as this onto some future battlefield. Even Farbeaux understood the ramifications of this animal. Left alone, mankind would never stand a chance against these creatures' abilities en masse.

They had been traveling slowly through the tunnel, stopping every few minutes for a VDF check and some oxygen. They hadn't even noticed that the creatures had been right there among them. Some were half-buried in the walls of the tubelike excavation and others half-burrowed into the floor. One had even struck from above. It was a trap that foreshadowed the grisly loss of a third of his men.

"It seems we are up against a species that is calculating enough to lay ambushes," Farbeaux said, looking at the faces of his remaining men. He glanced over at Julie, Billy, and Tony. "You there, hand me that bottle," he ordered, holding out his hand to Tony.

Tony looked from the bottle of Jack Daniel's to the Frenchman. He held it out and watched in horror as the bottle was passed back and forth between the Frenchman's mercenaries using the whiskey as disinfectant. Watching this made Tony madder than being kidnapped.

"Why don't you guys do what comes natural to French soldiers?" Tony said.

Farbeaux looked at the man a moment, then asked, "And what would that be, my drunken friend?"

"Give up and let Americans get a handle on this."

Billy couldn't help it, he laughed, lowering his head as his mother tried to stifle him by quickly placing a hand over his mouth and pressing hard.

"Still trying to save the entire world, huh? Well, it looks like you may have an enemy you can't bully, it looks--"

"I hate to interrupt, Colonel, but we may want to leave this place. I heard on the radio the Americans are pulling out of the tunnels in anticipation of another strategy," the bearded radioman said.

Farbeaux held his gaze on the three Americans a moment longer. "I believe we can learn no more from this excursion," he said, lowering his eyes. "Either way, Hendrix would have killed me." He looked at his men. "Come, I see no profit in dying here. We shall choose our own time and place, and we'll make it for money, not this dark death."

Julie was having difficulty taking a deep breath in the enclosed and claustrophobic tunnel. She wished they would just let them go.

Farbeaux was just starting to move away when he saw one of the dead animals. He held his light on what looked to be small, round grapes. The light caught a shadow inside that suddenly jittered. His eyes widened in amazement as he realized what he was looking at. Eggs! They were purplish in color and half the size of a wine grape. He looked around quickly, then removed his combat knife. He quickly emptied his canteen and stuck the knife into the membrane that held the hundreds of eggs. He gathered twenty or so on the edge of his knife and scraped them off into his plastic canteen. With his gloved hand he scooped up a few ounces of the clear viscous membrane and also deposited that in the canteen. He replaced it on his belt.

They were just getting ready to start out when the animals attacked again. Farbeaux was just missed as the first animal grabbed one of his men and pulled him into the earth. The colonel yelled and dropped his knife, then quickly fired at the retreating animal. He turned and started pushing his way to the front. Suddenly the whole side of the wall caved in as four of the beasts struck. It was all close-in fighting after that.

Julie pushed Billy and Tony ahead. "Run!" she shouted as she felt more than saw one of the animals turn and start coming their way, screeching and shaking its ugly head.

The screams coming from behind them in the tunnel intensified as they fled as fest as the darkness would allow. Suddenly Julie felt searing pain slice across her back as one of the animals leaped. Her blouse was torn in two down the middle of her back as she yelled for the others to run. She stopped and turned, facing the nightmare in front of her. The animal rose to its full height and roared, but no sooner had the sound emerged from its mouth than it staggered under an onslaught of bullets. Pieces flew from its body as the tracer rounds struck nonarmored areas of its torso. A few of the bullets whizzed by her head, missing her by mere inches. She then noticed a dozen thin red beams of light dotted all over the animal's chest and torso. Amazingly, they were coming from the direction the three had been heading. Everywhere a beam of red light hit, a bullet soon followed, either bouncing away harmlessly or digging into the purplish flesh. She slammed herself into the dirt and covered her head. Then suddenly the animal dove into the wall, cascading dirt and sand over her.

At the same time, the screams and gunfire in the section of tunnel they had just fled subsided to nothing.

Julie was shaking uncontrollably as she felt movement around her but was afraid to look up.

"Miss Dawes, you alright?" a familiar voice called out, barely audible to her through the dirt.

"Mom, hey, Mom, it's the major and Lieutenant Ryan," Billy shouted.

Julie slowly turned over, rocks and dirt sliding away as she winced in pain. She brought up a hand to shield her eyes from the harsh glare of the flashlights.

"That was pretty close," Ryan said, bending over and helping her to her feet.

With a trembling voice she hissed, "A little too close."

Collins stepped forward along with Mendenhall and Everett. Their weapons were still smoking and held at the ready.

"Who else is back there, ma'am?" Collins asked.

"Probably no one now," she answered, hugging Billy and Tony. Ryan pulled the two pieces of her blouse together from behind. "But there were soldiers or mercenaries, French-speaking." She gingerly turned and faced them. "The leader was a man that passed himself off as an Interior Department person in the Broken Cactus. A colonel I think he had been called by one of his men."

"Farbeaux, Mom, his name was Farbeaux."

"Son of a bitch!" Everett exclaimed as he pushed by the others and made his way farther down the tunnel, squatting and holding his weapon high.

As Collins turned and followed, shining his powerful light after Everett's retreating form, he saw the carnage of what remained of the group of kidnappers. Most of them were, he assumed, missing. He looked down and saw a set of tracks leading the other way, away from where they stood and heading back into the tunnel.