Event

'Yes, sir, so far no one has entered the landing zone. But we do have a report from a Kiowa scout ship of a state police car heading this way from a dirt road about three miles to the east,' the specialist said. 'And three news helicopters out of Phoenix coming in from the west. The Apaches won't be here to intercept, sir. They just left Fort Carson and Fort Hood two hours ago.'

Suddenly the first giant C-130 Hercules filled the sky, rising over a small hill two hundred yards in front of them. The huge C-130 banked sharply, its left wing seemingly only feet from the top of the rise, and at that moment it suddenly straightened and brought its nose down. Jason had never witnessed an air force combat landing before. The plane was down to a hundred feet before the nose came up. The landing gear exploded downward out of its belly as the wings of the giant plane caught the air. It flared, bringing the nose up suddenly, and the wheels chirped loudly as the 'Herky' bird came into contact with the hot macadam of the roadway. The noise increased as the pitch on the sixteen propeller blades was reversed and the flaps popped high on the wing, further braking the great aircraft and slowing it even more. The rear ramp was coming down just as the plane hit the ground, and the brakes screamed as it came to a stop.

Immediately troops of the 101st Airborne Division ran deliberately down the ramp carrying equipment and weapons. Ryan was approached by a man wearing a tan desert BDU. His helmet was the same Kevlar German-type Ryan himself had been wearing the night before.

'You Lieutenant Ryan?' the man yelled over the noise of the aircraft.

'Yes, sir.' Ryan saluted.

'Lieutenant Colonel Sam Fielding, 101st Airborne advance recon unit,' the man said, returning the salute. 'I'll tell you right now, mister, I was only authorized ten percent of my manpower for this, and they claim security reasons. Now I expect someone to explain.'

They both turned as the thirty-five men of the first unit moved away from the Hercules, followed by a Humvee that shot down the ramp, its fifty-caliber machine gun and TOW missile launcher strapped down for safety while in transport. The plane suddenly revved its four engines to a high-pitched whistling whine while the pilot applied the brakes. Then when the engines were at full power, he released the brakes and the Hercules started its turnout roll. It quickly came up to speed with an assist from eight rockets and was in the air in less than 150 feet, climbing steeply into the sky.

'Colonel Fielding, you can get your men settled just over there, sir. We don't know the full story yet, but my on-site commander is Major Collins, U.S. Army,' Ryan said, holding his black helmet against the thrust of the departing Hercules.

'Jack? They have Jack Collins in on this?' the colonel asked.

'Yes, sir.'

The man looked around and spit onto the roadway. 'Take me to him, young lieutenant,' Fielding said. 'If Collins is here, then the real skit's here.'

***

The two state troopers were spent after their long night out at the Tahchako ranch counting slaughtered cattle and trying to find out what had killed them.

'Say, what's this?' Dills asked.

Two men appeared in the middle of the road, rifles slung on their shoulders. They wore black and had the same color baseball caps on their heads.

'I don't know, but I smell military,' Wasser said from the driver's seat.

The two troopers reached down and unsnapped the straps holding their automatics in their holsters. They stopped a few feet in front of the two waving men.

Wasser opened the door and stepped from the car.

'What's this?' he asked loudly to thefirst soldier.

'Sir, we have an airplane about to utilize this roadway.'

'The hell you say!' Wasser replied, not too gently. His sense of humor had left with the thousandth mangled cow part he had viewed the night before.

'Sir?' the soldier asked.

'We can't be havin' planes coming down on state highways, boy,' Dills chimed in, puffing his chest out.

The two soldiers looked at each other, then hurriedly moved to the side of the road and knelt down holding their hats.

'Ain't you hearing me, boy? We're not allowing any planes to come down on this or any other highway in this state,' Dills said, sunglasses reflecting the morning sun.

'Yes, sir, we heard,' the first soldier said.

The two state troopers were suddenly knocked off-balance, and they grabbed the open doors of their cruiser to keep from being thrown face-first into the roadway. Their hats flew from their heads and they dove to the hot asphalt when the noise hit them full force. A windstorm blew sand and scrub brush against their bodies and rocked their cruiser as the giant C-130 touched down two hundred feet in front of them.

After the strangest night shift of his life, Trooper Dills had reached a point where any more input would just swirl around in his mind and not take hold anywhere.

'Jesus Christ, how can I put all this in a report?' Wasser yelled.

But Dills was already up and climbing into the police cruiser, mentally clocking out for the day.

The News 7 chopper was speeding to the scene at Chato's Crawl. The word was out that the army, in conjunction with the State of Arizona, was quarantining the town and closing the airspace within a hundred miles. The race was on to get there before they could enforce it.

As reporter Ken Kashihara watched from the backseat of the newsroom's Kiowa helicopter, he saw below them the blue-and-white Channel 4 bird slightly ahead of them.

'Goddammit, Sydney, I thought you said we were the only ones up in the air. Look at that asshole,' Kashihara said, pointing down. 'That's that Janice Mitchell bitch from News 4. If I lose an exclusive to her one more time, it's your ass!'

As the pilot started to tell Kashihara to go screw himself, the helicopter was buffeted so hard he thought he'd lost the entire tail boom. He fought to maintain control of the Kiowa as a giant C-130's tail section screamed over them, and then they saw the Hercules turn for the roadway outside Chato's Crawl.

'Goddammit, you see that, you almost got us killed. And for what? Because you got an inferiority complex about that chick from Channel Four!' the pilot said loudly into his mike.

Kashihara was bone-white after the near collision with the Hercules. He looked at the pilot shakily. 'Just get me to that town, and watch the fucking road!'

The cavern was from an ancient underground river that had dried up a thousand years before the creature's arrival. It was spacious, and here the beast had chosen to nest. Meat was stored all around the huge cavern, and the smell of blood was heavy as the beast made its way to the birthing chamber where she had collected water. Her distended belly was ripe with the offspring that were only moments away from taking in the food she had waiting for them. They would be born starving.

The beast roared as the first dilation of her exoskeleton began. The thick armor plate protecting the animal's reproductive organs split with a loud crack and widened with a sickening ripping noise reminiscent of tearing paper. The creature slammed its claws into the side of the rock-lined chamber and roared again. Her legs buckled at the knees and she squatted, bringing the dripping birthing orifice close to the water that lay beneath. Slime dripped from the opening, creating a natural lubricant for the young as they fought their way out. The beast screamed and slammed her massive claws again into the rock as the first of the new generation slowly slid out. The purple mass fell free of the mother and into the water below. The hardened eggshell of the baby sizzled as it began to expand. This egg was already cracked open and had the remains of one of the small animals sticking out of it, being eaten by the occupant of the egg. Another fell; again its shell hissed and cracked. The first baby, free of its shell, was already attacking the second egg as the mother reached down and slapped it away. It flew completely clear of the water and next to the gathered food. She would have to repeat this a hundred times in the next hour as she pushed the newborns toward the stored food.

The last of the offspring was the most difficult because of how large it was. By instinct the mother understood that if the creature wasn't expelled quickly, it would eat its way free, thus killing her. The single male left inside was the largest of the offspring and the last to be born. It would be killed by the mother to keep it from mating with other females in the hatching cycle because she carried enough eggs for millions upon millions of