scraping through his shirt as it missed. Then Virginia screamed as Fielding fired more rounds into the creature's back. It forgot about Dills as two of the bullets found the mark between the two plates that protected the animal's shoulder blades. It roared in pain and confusion as it turned from Dills and swiped at Fielding's still form. The huge claws easily separated the muscle, sinew, and vertebrae of the colonel's neck, sending his head flying thirty yards to strike the side of the forensics tent. The Talkhan immediately dove into the earth, again creating a soil eruption that covered most of Dills's agonized body. Then they all saw the wave as it sped for the COMM tent. As they watched, the battle started up again in the huge command enclosure, with Lisa-facing the Destroyer of Worlds, alone.
Gus grabbed Matchstick into his arms and ran for their tent opening. The sight that met his eyes stopped him in his tracks. Bodies were lying everywhere, mutilated and smashed, crumpled and discarded as easily as one would toss away dirty clothes. As he was looking at the scene of slaughter, the whine and zing of bullets sounded in his ears, bringing back memories of his taking fire in Korea. And then he remembered what he'd wanted to do back then and couldn't. But now he could, he thought. The bullets barely missed him as they thumped into the tent flap. He ducked and ran in the direction of the crash site. Mahjtic, sensing the thoughts of the old man, said,
The animal came straight up through the ground and into the tent's plywood flooring. Lisa was lifted up into the air as the wood cracked and separated. As she hit the ground hard, landing on her back, knocking the wind from her lungs, she came face-to-face with the mother as it roared, shaking its head and sending her mane flaring and slicing through the sides of the tent. She roared again, sending spittle mixed with the blood of Lisa's comrades to soak Lisa's fatigues and face. The animal cocked its massive head and looked with hate-filled eyes at the weak creature staring up at her arrogantly.
Lisa stood stock-still, looking directly at the animal as it stood before her. Drool slowly fell from its open mouth as it leaned forward toward the diminutive human. Lisa swallowed as the creature seemed to be looking her over, possibly smelling her. Her right hand slowly started reaching for the M16 that was caught between an upturned desk and a support pole.
It suddenly and deftly reached down and plucked Lisa up in both of its massive hands, its claws digging deep into her sides and back, and Lisa screamed in pain and anger. The mother Talkhan roared again as it looked at the woman in her clutches. Lisa yelled right back, partly in terror, but mostly because she knew her death was imminent and she was angry. With great effort against the pain, she worked her right arm free and grabbed for the nine millimeter in her shoulder holster. Seeing this, the Talkhan squeezed, sending two of the sharpened claws deeper and puncturing one of Lisa's lungs, as it brought her toward its gaping, mandible-snapping, tooth-filled mouth.
As blood flowed freely from Lisa's lips, she weakly brought the pistol up and fired three times in quick succession into the beast's face. She was so weak by now the recoil after each round almost made her lose her grip on the pistol. One of the nine-millimeter rounds caught the raging animal in the right eye, knocking its head back and making it reach for its wounded face. The claws of the right hand severed a main artery in Lisa's stomach as they tore through her body and the screaming mother dropped her to the floor. It covered the wounded eye and roared, shaking the ground and rippling the tent as if an internal wind had erupted. The Destroyer then shook its head and brought the powerful tail up, and instead of stinging Lisa, it smashed the tail into her skull with bone- breaking accuracy. It repeatedly slammed the tail down, trying to obliterate the small creature that had caused it so much pain and anguish. It finished by repeatedly stabbing the now mangled body with its stinger, sinking the barbed tip deeply into the naval signalman's remains.
As the Talkhan stood glaring one-eyed at Lisa's body, the tent suddenly erupted as hundreds of thirty- millimeter rounds exploded into the interior. A number of the armor-piercing shells found their mark, neatly punching holes into the mother. It roared in pain and stumbled forward toward the opening. Then another two rounds exploded into its shoulder and upper chest. It screamed in outrage again as it leaped and dove into the earth just outside the tent, taking most of the canvas front panel of the communications and command enclosure into the hole with it.
The three Apaches circled the camp and saw nothing but broken and lifeless bodies. Their thirty-millimeter chain guns turned and scanned the area of the crash site. Here and there men and women slowly stood and shook themselves off. Most were half-deaf from the loud explosions brought to bear by the attack helicopters.
Sarah had a horrible feeling. They had been unable to raise the crash site for the last half an hour, as they sprinted through the tunnel and up the mountain. Suddenly the radio crackled in her earpiece as they came shallow.
'I repeat, tunnel missions canceled, over.'
Sarah bit her lower lip as she realized it hadn't been Lisa on the radio. But she couldn't wonder about her friend's fate just now.
'We have movement!' shouted one of the point men with the VDF device.
They stopped and the entire team brought their weapons up, and the laser sights pierced the darkness and ran off into the blackness settling on nothing. They waited. Finally, they saw movement, and then the old man suddenly appeared moving fast down the tunnel. He didn't notice at first he was being targeted as several laser sights settled on Mahjtic's wide eyes.
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
