Chapter 3b

Her eyes swept around the large room before stopping to focus on Matthew, who was leaning over the body of a dead Gilott.

"Before all this started, I really thought that aliens would look completely different to any animals on earth," Matthew said as he looked up and watched Gemma enter the room. "But these looks like some sort of crossbreed of various earth animals. Their head almost looks that of an overgrown hairless sphynx cat, with a few bear features thrown in. While their bodies are nearly the reverse, looking like a bear with some feline features thrown in."

"I'm afraid that I do not know much more about their origins then you, but it is something we should try to remedy. Which bring me to the reason I need to talk to you. We have found some Gilott equipment, we are not exactly sure what it all is but I think we should take it back with us to examine, if you agree."

"Of course, we should take back anything that might help us." he replied as he continued to study the Gilott's body. To him something just seemed wrong. "Maybe we should have tried to capture one of them alive, so we could interrogate it."

"It might be a good idea to capture one but we need to plan for it. To have tried to capture one of these in the middle of the battle would have been too much of a risk."

"How is Rebecca getting on? I can't say that I would like to be doing her task."

"She has nearly finished outside, so there are only the ones in this building that need dealing with," Gemma told him, after she had finished using her internal radio system to get a status update from Rebecca. "The hardest part for her would have been using the lasserator on the remains of the Eves but we all know that it needed to be done. We cannot leave anything behind that would tell the Gilotts that it was not other Gilotts that did this."

Matthew nodded his head and the added, "When you told me about how the lasserator burns off the skin and flesh, I didn't really think about what smell that would create when used on a large scale. In the last few years I have experienced smells that I didn't know existed but this smell of burning flesh is just so intense."

"Sir, I wish I could say that all the bad experiences are behind us now but while I believe that we can defeat the Gilotts, it isn't going to be easy or over quickly. So I'm sure we will all experience more sights and sounds that we would rather not have."

Matthew really wished he could believe that they could defeat the Gilotts, but something just wouldn't allow him to truely believe that, at least not yet. He now knew that the Eves were more than a match for the Gilotts but how long would it take for there to be enough Eves to fight a world full of Gilotts.

"Has the search of this building been finished yet?" he asked trying to bring his thoughts back to the present. By the time the main strike force of Eves had entered the building, the three original Eves inside it had already killed the three Gilotts, that were known to still be inside the building, and had found the humans. Unfortanetly one of the humans was already dead, they would have to wait for the results of a Post-mortem but it didn't look like the Gilotts had killed him or at least there was no sign of any external injuries to him. One of the Eves had also reported hearing a strange noise coming from below her while she was on the second floor.

"Yes Sir, we have searched the whole building but can not locate the source of the noise that Eve 2 reported hearing."

"Could it have been another Gilott that we didn't know about and it managed to get out the building some other way?"

"If there was any other way in or out of here, like tunnels or something then our scans should have shown them. I don't know what she heard but I don't think it would have been a Gilott."

"Sir, we have finished transporting the power source and have now started on the Gilott equipment. We should be ready to leave within the hour," Laura reported to him as she entered the room.

"How is the survivor?" Matthew asked, as he finished his meal.

"She is going to be fine Sir. She is sleeping right now which is maybe something you should be doing, you look exhausted. Maybe we all should get some sleep, it has been a long eventful day for all of us," Louise said as she watched him eat the last mouthful of his food.

"I think you are right," Matthew replied as he started to stand. Even with the help of the environment and the lights of the base replenishing his energy, he really did need to sleep.