Prelude
As it had for unknown millions of years the chunk of rock tumbled had tumbled through the vast emptiness. This asteroid was different however, not for what it was but for what it contained. Within the pod slept a creature. After the destruction of its ship in the black void between stars it had drifted dormant, sleeping away the millennia in a state of hibernation. Even in hibernation all that remained was a seed, a shadow of former life waiting to be born again. It had been drifting so long that it didn't remember where it had come from. The long eons had drained it from intelligent sentience to its current state not conscious but simply existing as everything but its unending hunger faded away.
Waiting through the endless years the being endured until finally something began to change. The distant brush of light and radiation of deep space began to give way as the heat of a nearby sun warmed it ever so slightly. As it had uncounted times before the seed drifted through a solar system, leaving deep space. Even within a system there was a vast emptiness, hundreds of times it had coasted through systems much like this one, so close to living planets and yet unable to reach them, helplessly flying onward and returning to the endless night it seemed forever condemned to drift. This time was different.
Countless eons after it had been cast adrift, long enough that it may be the only survivor of its species, it began to awaken. The faint brush of gravity played across the surface of its escape vessel. Opening its senses it discovered a living, vibrant world, a blue and green jewel of a planet. A planet which had captured its pod in orbit. With an instinctive thought the creature sent the pod falling toward the planet below, summoning the last of its vessel's energy in a final effort to reach a living planet. The remaining energy was enough, barely, and the long fall downward began.
As the pitted shell of the escape vessel began to glow with the heat of atmospheric reentry the creature sensed a ready supply of sentient life energy below. For the first time in its long memory it could feed. It fell through the atmosphere, friction heating its outer surface until it became a blazing spear plummeting downwards. In fire it was reborn. Rock burned away and stripped of its concealment the true nature of the seed was revealed. A mixture of organic and metallic components merged together making it nearly impossible to determine where one ended and the other began. This however was merely a shell intended to protect the true cargo within.
At the moment of impact the cool evening air of an Arizona desert night was split by a flash of light which burned brighter than the noon-day sun. After the light faded came the blast in a hellish of blowing wind and thunderous sound. Like the light this too faded away and slowly the desert night returned to normal as if nothing had happened.
* * *
Landing + 6 hours
Family vacation was a joke. Rather than doing something interesting they came out here where her father could take his photos of "the beautiful scenic landscape and rock formations that you will one day gain appreciation for young woman." What ended up happening was that she, her mother and her sister would end up huddled in their RV, listening to the generator laboring outside as it struggled to run the air conditioners and the TV. Just like staying at home but not nearly as comfortable, no mall, no friends and no parties. If her father's pictures were really so great then maybe he would have been able to make some money at it rather than becoming just another mindless office drone to pay the bills.
For any 19 year-old girl this vacation was torture. For a popular, attractive 19 year-old who was the school's head cheerleader and defined the term "social butterfly" it was something far worse, solitary confinement.
Stopping to lean against a tall rock Beth took momentary advantage of the small amount of shade it provided and wipe the perspiration from her forehead with the back of her hand. If was unreal how hot it was getting even this early in the day under the relentless desert sun. At least she was sure to get a killer tan that would make her the envy of her friends. Normally she wouldn't be out here, instead watching Regis and Kelly with her mother and sister except for the light in the sky and the thunderous crash she had heard last night. Lightning her father had said, despite the clear night sky with the stars shining down without a hint of a single cloud.
Beth had another idea. It was one of those meteors her science teacher Mr. Stewart was always going on and on about. With nothing better to do she had set out to find it. It might be worth something to the local college. If nothing else the science geeks would probably be will to part with a little cash for a chunk of "real moon rock", enough at least to buy some beer and a new outfit to drink it in.
Taking a small drink from her water bottle she set off once again. After another half hour of walking upon cresting a small rise her pretty face lit up with a look of satisfaction. This must be it! Before her was a crater nearly 100 feet across. It was obviously new as the desert sand around it was furrowed and disturbed where rocks and boulders thrown by the impact had skipped across the landscape.
Beth climbed carefully over the shattered rock, carefully balancing herself and ready to catch herself if she began to fall. Her eyes widened as she drew close enough to see what lay in the crater awaiting her. In the bottom of the crater wasn't a meteor, it was something out of a science fiction movie. A greedy smile curled her lush lips as images of how much an actual alien artifact would get her compared to a mere rock and she scrambled forward to reach her prize.
In her haste to reach the pod Beth disregarded the sense of caution that had so far brought her safely across the shattered floor of the crater and almost inevitably lost her balance when a piece of shattered rock shifted beneath her right foot. With a sudden cry of surprise she tumbled to the ground. When she hit a shot of pain filled her head and darkness overtook her.
Beth laid on the ground, stunned by the fall and only feed from the pod. A thin rivulet of blood flowed down her pretty face from a cut high on her forehead. Suddenly movement began within the pod, unnoticed by the dazed girl. With a wet crunch the chitinous outer shell cracked open with a hiss of equalizing pressure and a puff of cloudy gases. Within the pod the alien quivered with delight. Host was near! It had been so very long without a host, drifting alone in the cold void, kept carefully at the edge of death by the organic systems of the pod. But now the wait was over. The pod had descended to a habitable environment and detected a suitable host being nearby.
Several whisker thin stalks emerged from the pod and waved gently in the air as the alien tasted its new environment for the first time. The atmosphere was rich in oxygen and bore the tell tale traces of early technical civilization. The stalks turned to focus on the warm object lying near the pod. The alien was filled with gleeful anticipation at the thought of bonding with this host. Slowly spaghetti thin manipulative tendrils reached out from the pod and wriggled along the rocky ground toward Beth.
