Aliens Abroad

by Gini Koch

  If the surge when Lilith had entered me was mind-blowing, this change was so much more that I felt like I was the entire galaxy or that the entire galaxy was contained within me or both. I was one with Yoko Ono, saw how the fusion worked to power the star, understood how the black spot at the core could be triggered and how it could be kept dormant, saw the heat going to the planets, saw every single thing on each planet, down to their subatomic particles, and yet it was all instantly comprehensible. No wonder the Superconsciousness Society had rules.

  Saw all the other stars in the galaxy, all the billions of them. Yoko Ono was one of the rarest—a sentient star. But her powers were weak—no star surfer had visited her in a long time to give her an exchange of powers—and that was why the Anti-Mother had targeted her. Yoko Ono needed help to become all that she could be.

  “In this form . . . I can see . . . what Yoko Ono needs,” Wruck said. “And I believe we can give it to her. When I’m in a form I can do what the form is capable of doing.”

  SuperBun said that he was definitely part of that help and that this was, realistically, what he’d been created to do. And because I was holding him, Lilith had been able to make his atoms match Yoko Ono’s as well. He saw what she needed also. And she needed all of us in different ways.

  Figured physical action was going to be what I was bringing to the table, and knew I could pull the Anti-Mother away from Yoko Ono if I could get her to move just a bit more.

  The layers of body armor were still burning off, but it didn’t matter, because we were one with the star. It couldn’t hurt us because that would be harming itself. The only way we’d be hurt was if the Anti-Mother succeeded. And we were not going to allow that to happen.

  My music changed to “Mr. Shuck and Jive” by Art Garfunkel. Realized that time was going slower for us or faster for us or just running differently than normal, because I was hearing the full songs being played but time didn’t seem to be passing along with the songs. Or something. Chose not to try to figure it out but instead to take the hint.

  “You’re ugly and you dressed your son funny.”

  “What?” the Anti-Mother roared as she moved more of herself toward me. “You dare insult me? You who are nothing more than an insignificant worm? You dare insult my son? He who was the greatest leader this galaxy has ever known?”

  Was more than amazed that this level of taunting was having such an effect. However, the Anti-Mother had been alone in space for a really long time and no one had probably ever spoken to her like this when she was alive. Maybe it was the novelty of the approach that was getting to her. Or the lameness.

  Then again, if faded memory served, I hadn’t been much more scintillating when dealing with the living Mephistopheles. Maybe the Schoolyard Taunting Method was just my best go-to option. However, since my motto was “Whatever Works,” I was good with how things were going, particularly since we were not turning to dust at this moment.

  “You’re the epitome of insignificant, lady. No one even remembers who you are and no one cares, either.”

  “They will care. I will show them, then bring my son to me! He who conquered all!”

  “You mean he who destroyed your star and billions of people in a fit of pique? We’re talking about the same guy, right? Mephistopheles, Lord of the Fuglies, who is totally disappointed in his Mommy Dearest right now.”

  “As if you would know?”

  “He told me so. Personally.”

  “As if he would deign to speak with the likes of you?”

  “Oh, he more than deigns. We hang. We’re kind of BFFs in a really weird way. And he’s not happy that you’re still on this pathetic kill ’em all kick, destined to ensure that you fail and die in a less than spectacular way. Then we won’t mourn you at all. Just in case you weren’t sure. And by ‘we’ I include Mephistopheles.”

  “I will enjoy destroying you.” The Anti-Mother was getting seriously pissed—could tell by the way her particles were moving. We were close to where I’d have a clear shot to hit Yoko Ono. There was nothing for it. Had to put the Z’porrah power cube in my purse and pull the sphere out.

  Looked at the cube as I did so. For the first time, saw every aspect of the cube and comprehended it all. How to work it, what it could do, how to change it to do whatever I needed, and more were burned into my mind. Figuratively, at least at this moment. Didn’t want to think about later moments.

  Felt Wruck sending some kind of essence toward Yoko Ono. Followed the trail of it, too, because even telepathic thoughts and similar things had subatomic particles. Who knew? I hadn’t, but accepted it as reality since that’s what my reality was now. All this was great, too, because it gave me a trajectory to follow.

  Put SuperBun on my shoulder while I carefully placed the cube in my purse and pulled out the sphere. Saw Cradus and Spehidon, their essences, what they really were. They were both beautiful, different from people just as Yoko Ono was, special in ways that were hard for a human brain to describe and something a superconsciousness brain took for granted. And they were both ready to do whatever they needed to in order to assist.

  All of this had taken less than a second, because being joined to Lilith and the star as we currently were meant I was moving far faster than warp speed. But the music sounded normal. Time was weird in this situation and I needed to stop worrying about it. All my focus needed to be on the key situation.

  “You can’t destroy anything. You’re nothing but a parasite. And an ugly one at that.”

  That did it. Taunts that wouldn’t affect anyone over the age of sixteen were working on her like a charm. Chose not to complain—I was all about the universe actually doing me a solid.

  The Anti-Mother moved toward me. Despite being very much like jellyfish blobs, parasites moved fast when they wanted to, and she did. She also moved enough of herself away from Yoko Ono that I now had a very wide strike zone to aim for.

  But I was one with the star, the galaxy, the universe, and that meant I was faster. Went into a windup and tossed the sphere of Cradus and Spehidon at Yoko Ono. Direct hit. Wruck’s trajectory of power had been quite the assist. Go team.

  Grabbed SuperBun off of my shoulder, kissed the top of his head through what was left of our armor, went into another windup, and tossed him as well. Another direct hit. I was “on fire” so to speak. Maybe I should talk to the Diamondbacks whenever we got home. That was me, focused on the potential for survival.

  “Prepare to be utterly destroyed,” the Anti-Mother snarled.

  Moved into a fighting stance, Metallica’s “Fight Fire with Fire” on my airwaves, then said what I’d said often in these circumstances.

  “Yeah? Bring it.”

  CHAPTER 84

  THE ANTI-MOTHER LUNGED TOWARD ME. Part of her was still around Yoko Ono but the rest was stretched out, reaching for me.

  But I’d been hoping for this and therefore prepared. “John,” I said quietly, “let go of me . . . now!”

  He did as ordered and I leaped forward and grabbed her.

  If we’d been on Earth, this would have meant I had icky parasite all over me and was likely to become a superbeing. But here, with my ability to see as Lilith saw, could spot what to grab, how to move, to actually hold onto the parasite and keep it contained. And I had enough body armor left that I couldn’t really feel her. Drax Industrial totally for the win.

  As we started wrestling, realized for the first time that we weren’t standing on anything. This might have thrown me, but when Lilith and I had met, I’d been fighting against her vessel, Uma, aka Bitch Leader, in what had been a weird, invisible sphere where up and down had no real meaning. Meaning I’d had a fight to the death like this before, nothing to get freaked out about.

  And we were wrestling. It was a good thing that I’d been a jock in school, because while track and field was my sport, I’d had an interest in all the others, too. I�
�d had friends on the wrestling team, and Mom and Chuckie both had pushed for me to learn how to escape from wrestling holds well before I started taking kung fu, so wrestling with a slippery parasite wasn’t all that weird. At least on the Kitty Weird Scale, at any rate.

  Since I wasn’t the goal, the Anti-Mother also wasn’t trying to join with me, which was a huge positive. Maybe she couldn’t because of the body armor or just had no interest. She was trying to smother me, to cover me up and engulf me. Could see her atoms rearranging to disintegrate me in some way, and saw that they’d be able to do it, if I couldn’t figure out how to win, or at least how to keep her off balance.

  The Anti-Mother was a much larger parasite than I was used to, so she had a real shot at this. She was the size of a beach towel, and I was used to parasites being no bigger than a medium-sized watermelon, if that big. And a beach towel could wrap up a smaller human, and I was a smaller human.

  But the beach towel comparison gave me an idea. Grabbed her top two corners, so to speak, and started rolling them like you did with a towel when you were going to make a rat’s tail and snap someone with it. Did this at hyperspeed, made even faster by the fact that with Lilith inside me I was at warp speed already.

  The Anti-Mother hadn’t been expecting this tactic, and she struggled to keep her equilibrium. Saw her start to lose her grip on Yoko Ono, as Wruck, now not having to hold onto me, went closer to the core, doing something that I couldn’t risk focusing on.

  Didn’t see SuperBun, but I felt him in my mind. With Lilith and Wruck’s help, he was doing what the Anti-Mother wanted to do—he was joining with Yoko Ono while keeping this knowledge from Anti-Mother. Took a moment to be impressed. Then had to immediately kick Anti-Mother in what I hoped was a tender spot, since her bottom half got around my legs.

  This went on for what might have been ages, might have been seconds, but music indicated was less than five minutes. Chose not to care about how time was or wasn’t passing here. Had to keep on fighting, distracting, making the Anti-Mother focus on only me.

  “Now!” Wruck shouted, as my music changed to “Throw It Away” by Joe Jackson. Wrenched at the Anti-Mother with all my strength and she pulled away from the core.

  Let go of her, reached into my purse, grabbed the cage, triggered it, and did what I was being told—threw it away, at the parasite.

  Results were, happily, immediate.

  The cage expanded, went around the parasite, snapped shut, and went small. As I’d done with Lilith, dove to make sure I caught it before it fell into the star or into space or whatever. As my hand closed around it, Wruck wrapped around me.

  Time to go, Lilith said. We only have moments.

  Dropped the cage into my purse and grabbed the Z’porrah power cube. Had to have a destination and needed to think of it in less than a split second, as I felt our body armor burn away much faster now. Had to be careful, though, and pick the right place, or else we’d end up dead or far away from the others.

  Closed my eyes and thought of the one place that always meant I was safe.

  CHAPTER 85

  “OOOF!” JEFF SAID, as we landed in his arms. “What the hell?”

  Opened my eyes. We were back, in the Distant Voyager, in the mess hall. Well, three of us were back. “Check the sun!”

  “Why do you weigh so much more than normal?” Jeff asked as he put me down carefully. The song ended and another one didn’t start up. Clearly we were back and, hopefully, back to normal. Well, as normal as we ever got.

  “Because John is with me.” Noted that Denise and the younger kids weren’t in evidence, but all the older kids were here.

  Wruck unwrapped and went back to his standard form for hanging around with all of us. Jeff wasn’t the only one staring.

  “Why are you both in Moon Suits?” Christopher asked.

  “Long story. Look, someone, anyone, check the sun. Right now.”

  Jeff’s eyes narrowed. “What did you two just do?” He jerked. “And what the hell is inside of you, Kitty?”

  “Lilith.”

  At this name, everyone who’d been involved with Operation Invasion gasped and most of them went for weapons.

  Put up the paw. They all stopped. Even in this situation the One True FLOTUS Power still worked. “Lilith is on our side.”

  “She’d force you to say that,” Reader said.

  Looked at Wruck. “Your turn.”

  He went into Anciannas form, full wingspan out impressively. “Check the sun!” he thundered.

  Had to give it to human and A-C hindbrains. When a being that looks like an angel says to jump, every human and A-C asks how high. Apparently this worked on the Ignotforstans, too, because they, like the others, were racing to give us sun specs. Or they were running out of the room in terror. Really, it could go either way.

  Started peeling off the remaining layers of body armor and face masks. “Gustav, let me be the first to say that you are a designer of the highest order, and you are not allowed to take a contract from anyone other than the United States, specifically Centaurion Division. Amazing stuff. We, ha, burned through more than a few of them, but the body armor is fantastic. The face masks are, ha, stellar, too.”

  “Baby, are you alright?” Jeff asked, sounding incredibly worried. “What are you talking about?”

  We were not gone as long for them as it seems to us, Lilith said. As you noted, time is different in the center of a star. And yes, before you ask, any star, not just one at risk of becoming a black hole. Which Yoko Ono will now not become.

  “Oh. Gotcha. Um, Mother, you want to tell everyone what just happened? I assume that you, at least, were monitoring.”

  “Yes, Kitty, I was. Well done.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Jeff asked suspiciously.

  “Kitty and John, assisted by Lilith, took SuperBun into the sun.”

  “Well, that was succinct and to the point, Mother. Perhaps not nearly as impressively told as it could be, though.”

  “What did you do with SuperBun?” Lizzie asked, sounding anguished.

  Had all the armor and the Moon Suit off now, so went to her and hugged her. “I let him be the hero he always was and wanted to be.”

  Stop being upset, a voice that was kind of like SuperBun’s and kind of not said in my mind. Saw everyone else’s expressions—this voice was speaking in everyone’s mind. We did what we had to do.

  “SuperBun? Yoko Ono?”

  “Why are you asking about the woman who broke up the Beatles?” Christopher asked.

  “Absolutely zero awareness of popular culture but that pseudofact you know? Yoko was just in the wrong place at the right time. However, now isn’t the time. No, the star of this system is called Yoko Ono by the inhabitants.”

  This earned the appropriate stunned silence, though I could see Reader and Tim desperately trying not to crack up. Raj sidled over to Christopher and started telling him about the Yoko Situation. He was talking softly and at hyperspeed, but with Lilith inside me I could hear him and the speed of the words didn’t make me sick.

  Not anymore. We aren’t SuperBun or Yoko Ono now. We’re combined, something like the way that Dopey and Grumpy combined. Better, I think. Whole. Complete.

  Got into my purse and pulled the trap out. The Anti-Mother was definitely still in there. “Um, does SuperStar work as a name for you?” Heard Lilith chuckle in my mind.

  Yes. We like it.

  “Great. SuperStar, do I put this into a vat of pure grain alcohol or do I do something else with the Anti-Mother?”

  “What in God’s name is going on?” Jeff asked Wruck quietly. “Is the sun’s degradation affecting everyone’s minds?”

  “Hang on a moment, SuperStar.” Turned to Jeff. “Geez. Okay, here’s the fast recap. No one had any good ideas, I had one, talked to John about it, we decided to go for it, Lilith came to
help because she’s not evil anymore and we needed a superconsciousness as part of the team. We went into the sun, Lilith and I fought the Anti-Mother parasite while John helped SuperBun join with Yoko Ono, I trapped the Anti-Mother in this cage that looks like a whiffle ball that Serene created, we’re back without SuperBun because he’s now part of the new sun called SuperStar, the day is saved, the end. And I want to know if I’m destroying the Anti-Mother or not. I’m asking SuperStar what to do because I’m not sure if I should trust my decisions regarding a parasite of this magnitude.”

  Everyone, to a person, other than Wruck, gaped at me.

  Heard a chuckle in my head. It will be easier to just give you all the knowledge.

  “Easier isn’t necessarily better. Just sharing that because it’s in the Superconsciousness Society Handbook, I think. I could try telling it with more details.”

  Saw everyone other than Wruck jerk, blink, gasp, and relax. Then they all stared at us. Clearly SuperStar had decided that Superconsciousness Rules didn’t apply today.

  “You went into a star?” Jeff asked. Could tell he wasn’t sure if he should be thrilled, freaking out, hugging me, or bellowing.

  “We did. And, ta-da, we’re back. Unscathed, too. And they say miracles don’t happen. Moon Suits and Drax Industrial Battle Armor are a great combination. Having Lilith inside me also raised our survival chances astronomically. And John knowing how to turn into a star surfer was a happy bonus. Oh, and having the most powerful rabbit telepath in the galaxy was also one for the win column.”

  “You could have died,” Lizzie said quietly.

  “I know. Frankly, we expected to die. It’s why we’re kind of giddy right now.”

  “Then why did you go?”

  Stroked her head. “The good of the many outweigh the good of the few. I know you know that. Besides, my husband and our three children were among those who were in danger.”

  She looked at me in a way I hadn’t seen before. Realized that she looked proud. “Yeah, that’s true.” She hugged me. “I’m glad you made it back . . . Mom.”