Prolog
The Banold had been watching the population living on the third
planet from the star located in the outer spiral arm for some
time.
They had been watching even before their unique method of
a traveling from planet to planet had been developed.
The
Banold called their mode of travel a tunnel after the tunnels
their ancestors had dug to escape predators hundreds of
thousands of years ago. Now hundreds of thousands of years later
they used those same predators to defend and protect not that
they had anything to defend from, until recently.
The dominate mammals on the third planet where a source of
curiosity at first.
The Banold had taken some of the dominant
mammals as well as various plant and animal samples from this
world as soon as a tunnel to that world was judged safe to
travel.
It happened by accident that the Banold discovered how
this very odd species could solve a problem that had plagued
them since they genetically enhanced their species hundreds of
years ago.
The problem was a case of unintended consequences
something the mammals from the third planet were very familiar
with.
At first, the Banold resisted the temptation. They were
not an aggressive species by nature.
They studied the mammals
as their domestic situation started to grow worse, then they
made a decision, they observed the mammals, they planned. They
1
acted.
At first the Banold went slowly gauging the mammal's
reaction the muted response surprised them.
The mammals seemed
to be too absorbed in their own affairs to notice some of their
numbers were missing.
The Banold started acting on a wider
scale. The mammal’s response generated puzzlement among the
Banold the mammal's reaction to the expanded abductions was
concern in some areas indifference, scorn, and even humor in
others. Then the Banold slowly continued expanding their
operation, that got the mammal's attention, and the humor and
scorn vanished, replaced with apprehension and fear.
The Banold
had discovered something disturbing about the mammals as a
group. They were unpredictable the Banold hated
unpredictability.
The Banold were not militarily inclined. War was something they
had only a limited experience of, on the Banold Home world wars
were short relatively bloodless affairs that would have been
called major riots by the mammals. Once Guardians arrived with
ferocious protectors things calmed down pretty quickly.
The
Banold were not pacifists, just practical. They had survived
vicious predators in their very early history, and they survived
by cooperating, cooperating, to a degree, that would have had
some of the mammals scratching their heads, others gaping in
naked admiration. After the predators had been tamed the Banold
simply kept cooperating, it was just easier.
2
The mammals knew war, and that was a major reason why it took so
long to make the decision to take the mammals.
The Banold
feared the mammals the Banold feared the mammal’s violent
nature, their unpredictability.
The planners and the few mammal
experts had assured the Banold leadership the mammals were too
primitive and divided too effectively resist their plans. The
Banold unity of purpose and technology gave them an advantage
the mammals could never match, and anyway it was not as if they
had a choice it was either the mammals or the Banold.
In view
of the mammal's unpredictability, the Banold would simply have
to observe the mammals closer wile things proceeded, there would
be risk, but they were too far along and the situation to dire
for a halt.
1
Maggie Lopez-Clark,
soccer mom of five drove down a deserted
darken road in central Nevada deeply annoyed.
Her police
officer husband had argued against this trip.
The troopers were
finding too many cars with the doors ripped off, and the drivers
gone, or empty cars, and empty ransacked houses for that matter.
The internet and talk radio where full of nothing but the
disappearance of so many people on the roadways, on the
outskirts of large housing developments, and in large cities all
over the world.
Nobody knew why it was happening the popular
3
reasoning was Aliens. Explanations ranged from the Rapture, to
various Aliens to an advanced race that inhabited vast under sea
colonies. Maggie unlike her husband didn’t listen to talk radio,
and used the net to pay bills, and do research on big-ticket
items the family was planning on buying.
She had to drive to
her mothers in Sparks, or there would be hell to pay.
Maggie’s
mother could be kindly called high maintenance. Maggie thought
she was just lonely, but if mom weren’t happy thanks to Alex
Gram Bell invention nobody would be happy. Her two brothers and
younger sister had the good sense to leave Nevada, and flee
across the Rockies.
Maggie’s husband was given a choice. Maggie
would see her mom tonight spend the weekend come back Monday
afternoon or risk Maggie’s mom taking a cab to the bus station
and showing up on their door step at some ungodly hour, Aliens
or no.
Maggie and her hubby could look forward to several weeks
grand ma holding the kids spellbound and annoy her and her
husband going on about what they were saying on talk radio about
the missing people.
Maggie’s husband reluctantly caved but
insisted she take her .45.
Maggie was going to take the case
with her Browning 1911 pistol and three magazines regardless.
Maggie was no fool, and she would call her hubby every half
hour, if she was one minute late she would have every state cop
in Nevada looking for her.
4
Maggie flipped her phone closed after checking in, Jess was
still irritated as where her kids, they would much rather have
grand ma stay a few weeks.
She took a passing glance at the
Black case containing her pistol, Maggie was close to six feet
half Hispanic, half Black and had proved to her husband she
could handle the forty fives recoil, and shoot almost as well as
her police officer husband.
Then the car died.
Maggie sat in disbelief as the car rolled to
a stop, the headlights slowly dimming the damn thing had died.
She looked up her Honda had never just stopped Maggie had took
care to do all and maintenance required and a lot that was not.
She tried to start the car nothing a wave of panic swept over
her.
She looked up and a new wave of fear washed over her.
She saw a
pair of glowing yellow eyes looking at her in the darkness.
Maggie hit the car's dome lights nothing, by touch she quickly
opened the case took out the pistol and slammed the first
magazine home, and chambered a round.
Then the passenger window burst opened covering Maggie with a
shower of safety glass.
She looked over to the passenger side
and screamed. A green nightmare was sweeping the glass from the
window.
Without thinking Maggie lifted the pistol and fired three times.
The first shot staggered the monster the second she saw
5
something fly off in back, the third brought out a soft gurgle
as the monster staggered back into the darkness.
Maggie then saw in the two shadows near the door Maggie without
thinking quickly shot both, both gave off high pitched moans, as
they fell.
Maggie sat in the car trying to make sense of what was
happening. She then heard voices, screaming.
My god there are people out there.
She sat debating, then thought of her kids, she had always
taught her teenagers to do the right thing. She looked around,
Jess said always have a plan. She scooped up the extra magazines
put them in her coat pocket, took out key and opened the door.
Maggie kept looking around, the screaming was louder outside the
car men and women she opened the trunk and took out a flashlight
it was a long black police model.
She turned it on and it
worked she swept the beam around, terrified Maggie kept the
pistol in the direction of the flashlight beam and was about the
head for the voices when she saw something white in the distance
in front of her car it vanished and appeared vanished and
appeared.
Maggie stood trans fixed wondering if she was
dreaming, whatever it was disappearing and reappearing closer to
her Maggie shot twice it was white with two large eyes, and long
tentacles.
It staggered in surprise Maggie saw her pistol was
out of ammo panicked she quickly set the flash light on the
6
7