CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER FOUR

'When you are in enemy territory, you know nothing,' Presario lectured to the marines sitting in front of him. 'You have no idea of what the enemy is capable of doing. All you can rely on is your training, your instinct and your fear.'

Presario walked over to a table and picked up a pulse rifle. Holding it out he said, 'Just because you have one of these that doesn't make you invincible. You must accept your own mortality, you must accept that anything, even the most unpredictable, outrageous thing can happen, before you can accept victory. I don't believe in relying on luck.'

Presario had gone from combat soldier to lecturer. He didn't know why the General had given him this assignment. He thought the General was trying to give him some time off to get over what had happened.

There was a knock on the door. 'Come,' Presario said. A man entered with a mobile phone. Holding it out to Presario he said, 'It's the General, Sergeant.' Presario took the phone with a, 'Thank you.'

'Yes sir,' he said into the phone. The marines were watching him, curious as to what this phone call meant.

Presario listened to the General. As he listened, a look of fear came over his face. With the phone still to his ear he turned his head and looked over his shoulder at the marines.

The room was a hive of activity. People raced around everywhere, trying to do one thing or another. They were all on a mission. One they could not fail.

The General and Franks were hunched over a map. It was a map of the outlying area with the towns marked on it.

Presario walked into the room and was momentarily startled by all the activity. He walked up to the General and with a salute he said, 'Good morning General.'
The General looked up and almost with a sigh of relief he returned the salute. 'Ahh, Presario I'm glad you're here. How're the men? Are they up to the task?

Presario eyed the General and looked like he was going to say something. He took a breath and answered, 'They're the best I've seen. If they can't do it, then no one can.' The General acknowledged his answer with a nod of his head.

Franks looked at the General and then at Presario. He asked the General, 'Have you been planning for this?'
The General answered with a determined look on his face, 'You bet I have.' Presario said nothing.

'Here's the plan Presario,' the General said. 'We're going to be keeping an eye on the news. We're going to be looking for missing persons. Anyone that shows up missing, you're going to go in and suss it out. Find out all you can, see if you can find out if it was our science project.'
'Yes sir,' Presario replied.

The General took a step toward him. 'Presario, we want to keep this low key. We don't want anyone finding out. The public doesn't need to know about this. Is that understood?'
'Yes sir,' Presario said, clearly not happy about it.
'Good.'

The General turned around and picked up a piece of paper from the table. 'Here,' he said, holding it out for Presario, 'this is a list of some missing people, go and find out what you can.' Presario took the piece of paper and without looking at it, he put in his pocket.

'Now, the time of escape was 20:00 hours so any thing that went missing before that time you can strike off. If we have any chance of keeping this under wraps, you better get going. We'll let you know the second we find anything else.'

The General held out his hand. 'Good luck Sergeant.' Presario looked the General in the eyes. 'I don't believe in luck,' he said and turned and walked out without shaking the General's hand.

The little girl watched the fire as it freely gave off its warmth and light. She was hugging her knees to her chest. She had something in her hand that she was rubbing gently. An old man sat opposite her, also sharing in the warmth of the fire.

'So Rebecca, how's school going?', the old man asked. Rebecca looked up and smiled. 'Oh, it's alright. I got an A in maths,' she boasted.
'Good for you. What grade are you in now?', he asked.
'Five,' Rebecca answered.
The old man saw that she had something in her hand and asked, 'What've ya got there?'

Rebecca looked away from the fire to what she had in her hand. 'It's my necklace,' she said as she handed it over to him. Rebecca's grandfather reached out and took it from her small hand.

'It's a pretty one. What kind of bird is this?', he asked.
'It's a dove. It means peace.'
'It sure does,' her grandfather answered as he handed it back to her.

He looked at his watch. 'Time for bed,' he announced. Rebecca looked mournful. 'Can't we stay up a little longer?', she pleaded. He shook his head. 'Come on now, what did I tell you. You have to go to bed now so...'
'So I can save my strength for tomorrow,' she finished. 'It's just that, I have scary dreams.'

The old man looked sympathetic. 'Hey now, you just keep that necklace next to you when you go to sleep. A dove means peace, that also goes for a peaceful sleep.' Rebecca looked at her grandfather and then back at the necklace in her hand. 'Ok,' she said resigning to the fact that she was going to have to go to bed.

The old man stood up and was about to help Rebecca up when he heard a noise. He turned towards the noise and asked, 'Did you hear that?' Rebecca looked where he was looking. 'No. What was it?'

He moved away from the campsite, towards where he heard the noise. 'It sounded like something moving through the scrub.' He didn't sound worried, only a little curious.

Rebecca moved up beside him and peered out into the darkness. 'I didn't hear anything,' she said. And then it leapt onto her face. She fell to the ground without getting out a scream.

Rebecca's grandfather stared in horror. He knelt down, weeping, not knowing what this thing was attached to his granddaughters face. 'Rebecca! Rebecca! Can you hear me?', he screamed as he shook her. He then tried to grab the spider looking creature but stopped as he noticed it tightening its tail around her throat.

He didn't know what to do. He was crying. This couldn't be happening he thought. He was panicking which wasn't a good thing for him to do in his condition.

He picked her up and started running. Darkness enveloped him as he ran away from the campsite. Branches smashed into him as he ran through the scrub. He knew this was dangerous but through his mad sheer panic, he couldn't think.

It didn't take him long to fall to the ground, Rebecca slipping out of his arms. He rolled over onto his back, clutching his chest, gasping for breath. The pain shooting through his chest was too much. In his panic he forgot his medication back at the campsite.

In this, his final moment on Earth, he looked over at Rebecca. She was lying on the ground with some hideous looking creature attached to her face. He reached over with one arm, pain engulfing him, and held her hand in his. 'I'm sorry little one,' he whispered.

Presario stared at the setting sun, deep in thought. So far they had found nothing. They had been searching for three and a half days now and still nothing. Presario knew that that couldn't be a good thing.

He was standing in a park in a quiet little suburban town. A marine came running up to him. 'Sergeant,' she said, 'you'd better come take a look at this.' Presario looked at her a moment longer, ran his hand through his hair as he looked at the ground, 'Here we go,' was all he said.

The door opened and the woman that stared back at Presario did so with a look that told him that she was not going to take any bullshit.

'Good evening ma'am,' Presario began, 'my name's Presario and I'm from the United Systems Military. Do you mind if I come in?'

The woman stared at him. He could see that she had been crying. 'Sure,' she said as she held the door open for him. Presario entered and followed her into the lounge room.

'Ma'am, I just want to begin by saying,'
She cut him off in mid sentence, 'What the hell's the army doing here?' Presario was surprised. He had expected the question but he somehow knew that she wasn't going to take his bullshit answer like everyone else had been.

'Just routine,' Presario replied.
'And what's that got to do with my daughter?' Presario swallowed before answering. 'Nothing. Listen, we were here anyway so my CO told me to hot tail it on down here when he heard that your daughter was missing. How long's your father and daughter been missing?'

She seemed to retract her claws at the question. 'About a day and a half. they were due back around lunch time yesterday.'
'When was the last time you saw them?'
'Three days ago.'

Presario sat in the chair, assimilating the information. 'Do you know where they went?' The woman lit a cigarette but didn't drag on it. She seemed worried. Quite understandable under the circumstances.

'They went camping. My father always takes my daughter camping. They both love it. I was never an outdoor person myself.'

'Ma'am, if we had you look at a map, could you tell us where your father and daughter like to camp?'
'There's a million camp sites where they go. You could walk within five feet of them and miss them.'

Presario genuinely looked concerned for the poor woman who was trying her best not to break down in front of him. 'Ma'am, there's a lot of people in the army and we'll check each and everyone of those campsites for you. Don't you think it's worth a shot?'

She looked at him. He saw in those eyes something that he couldn't put his finger on. There was something there that was screaming at him. She had a way about her.

'What'd you say your name was again?', she asked him.
'Presario. David.' She looked at him. Looked into his eyes. She seemed to read into them. 'Susan Ryder. Nice to meet you David,' she said.

He hoped that they would find her father and daughter safe and sound.

The flies buzzed around the dead mans face as it lay in the dirt. The stink was unbearable. A foot stepped down in front of his face. 'Do we know the cause of death?', Presario asked someone.

There were marines everywhere. They had found the campsite with a little hassle. It had only taken them a day and a half to find it. What they found was not promising.

An empty campsite, a dead body about two hundred meters away and, footprints. Too small to be made by the old man that lay dead on the ground. His granddaughter?

'Not sure yet. I'm guessing heart attack,' the med-tech replied. Presario nodded as his eyes took in the sight of the dead body. It was him alright. Susan's father. That meant that her daughter Rebecca was still missing.

He had sent some trackers on, following the track that Rebecca had made. The trackers told him what had happened. That the old man ran through the woods, obviously carrying something heavy and fell over right where he lay.

What he carried was Rebecca. What really worried him was that they told him Rebecca didn't move for quite some time and then, got up and started running. He didn't think they would catch her in time. In fact, he thought she was already dead. It was amazing what the trackers could do just by looking at the ground.

He turned away not wanting to look at the body anymore. A marine ran up to him. 'Sergeant,' she said holding a small bottle out for him to take, 'have a look at this.' Presario took the bottle and read the label. 'For Heart Condition.' He looked at the med-tech and handed the bottle to him. 'There you go,' he said as he walked back towards the campsite.

'Golding, get me in touch with the General, I have some bad news to tell him.'

This was all going to hell he thought. He didn't like it one bit that the General had lied to him. Now he was on a mission to stop anyone else from getting hurt. Unfortunately, he was too late for Rebecca and her grandfather.

How was he going to tell her. What would he tell her. He just didn't know. He stopped. He saw something lying in the dirt. He reached down to pick it up. It was a necklace with a white dove on it. Obviously a childs necklace as the loop was to small for an adult. Rebecca's necklace. He wondered how it had fallen off of her.

'Here ya go sir,' Golding said holding out the radio mike for him. Snapping out of his thoughts he put the necklace in his pocket and took the mike from Goldings outstretched hand. 'General I'm afraid I have some bad news.'
'Yes Presario, I'm listening.'

Presario took a breath closed his eyes and said, 'We believe the facehugger got a little girl sir. Her Grandfathers dead. Died of a heartattack and we're still looking for the girls body.'

'How do you know it was our project?'
'Call it a hunch sir. Our trackers took off down the way the girl went after she laid in the dirt for half a day.'

There was a pause. Presario looked around at the marines doing their jobs. Cleaning up the campsite, looking for any clues that might fill them in on the situation.

'Presario, I want you to bring everything here. The body, everything. We need to make sure of what the man died of.'

Presario clenched his teeth, took a breath and relaxed a little before replying. 'Yes sir. If you don't mind sir, I'm going to take a detour out to the Ms Ryder's house to inform her of her fathers death.'
'No,' the General almost shouted. 'I mean not yet Presario. We don't want anyone asking questions just yet.'

'What?', Presario stated.
'You will not go anywhere near that woman is that understood Presario. We will tell her in due course but for now, you haven't found anything. As far as she is concerned, her father and daughter are still missing. Do I make myself perfectly clear Presario?'

'Yes sir.'
'Good. Now call me once you find out anything else.'
'Of course sir.'

Presario turned the radio off and walked towards the jeep, clearly not happy with the situation.

'BEAR! BEAR WHERE ARE YOU?', the boy yelled. He was standing at his back fence, the gate open. Their back fence was a border to the forest. He was screaming for his dog to come back. There was no real worry in his voice as he would often let Bear roam around the forest but he would always return, having scared the living daylights out of the local wildlife.

The boys father came out and walked up to him. 'Can you see him?', he asked, putting his arm around him.
'No,' the child replied.
'Well, come on in. Bear always comes home, for a feed,' he said while turning him around towards the house.

They started walking back towards the house. 'Have you done your homework?', the father asked. 'Not yet,' the boy replied.
'Well you better finish your homework before dinner OK.'
'Yeah, yeah, yeah.'

They went inside the house, walking past Bear's kennel.

The horse landed running, the rider urging it on. It was early evening and the night was turning out to be quite warm. They were in the woods galloping down one of the tracks between the trees. She was a good rider and rode with confidence. The horse was a magnificent animal.

They galloped down the track as safe as the night would allow. Suddenly the horse reared up, the rider almost falling off. The horse was neighing and stamping the ground, scared.

'What's wrong girl?', the rider asked patting the horses' neck trying to sooth it. She was scared because her horse was a well trained horse and would usually obey her commands. 'Girl, what's wrong? What are you afraid of?'

The horse started to try and turn in circles, not knowing which way to run. Then the alien reached down from the tree above and snatched the rider from the saddle. She screamed as she felt herself being lifted up into the trees away from her beloved horse.

'I don't care if I am just a Sergeant, I'm telling you you're wrong,' Presario screamed at the General.

They were in the command centre where they were running their search from. With little luck so far. Presario was furious that they were still trying to cover everything up. More people were going to die. He knew it as well as he knew the sun would rise the next day.

'Be careful Presario,' the General angrily replied. 'May I remind you that you were a part of this mission in the beginning.'
'More people are going to die if you don't evacuate the town. General, you've seen these things in action, you of all people should realise the danger we're all in,' Presario pleaded.

The General eyeballed him. Who did this guy think he was? Was he not the General of the United Systems Military. This guy was just a Sergeant. A Sergeant by rank due to the General.

Calmly but with authority the General spoke, 'I know very well the danger we're all in. No one will find out about what's gone on here and if that means a few people need to die, then so be it.'

Presario was stunned. Not only by what was said but by the look the General was giving him. He found it hard to catch his breath.

Just then a soldier came bursting into the room, 'General, we have a problem.' The General looked back at Presario who looked right back. Presario lowered his head and closed his eyes. Under his breath he said, 'Here we go.'