by Gini Koch
We had all of Alpha and Airborne teams with us, as well as Kevin Lewis, who was my mom’s right-hand man in the P.T.C.U. and assigned to a permanent position within Centaurion Division. He was a gorgeous black guy who looked like he’d been a professional athlete. He had a great smile that included incredible teeth, and he was loaded with bags of charisma. He was also happily married, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t allowed to look at him. Sometimes I could do it without drooling, too.
With Kevin’s addition, it meant there were three women and just an entire roomful of hunky men with us. I loved briefings.
“Can’t you people do something about the lighting?” Chuckie asked. We were sitting in the romantic glow I loved when Martini and I were in the midst of an all-night sex-a-thon. Trying to have a meeting like this was, at best, difficult.
“No. Like we’ve already said.” Christopher’s snark was on high. “Caliente isn’t as sophisticated a base as Dulce.”
“Define sophisticated,” Chuckie muttered.
“Look, it doesn’t matter.” My necklace was off my neck and sitting in the middle of the conference table, which I knew upset Martini emotionally, even though he understood the need logically. “We can all see it. It’s pretty much an exact match for the light show from earlier tonight.”
“So, you really think this means we have visitors coming?” Kevin didn’t sound as freaked out as everyone else. Maybe it was because he was already married.
“Yeah, I really think so. The timing works out.”
“Very much so,” Chuckie agreed. “We just need to know if they’re friendly or hostile.” I got the distinct impression he didn’t believe Martini had no conscious knowledge of what was going on or how this was being accomplished.
“Well, they’re from Alpha Centauri, and they exiled us here. I’m betting on hostile.” Gower sounded upset, just like everyone else.
“But, why?” This question was from Lorraine, one of our only two other female agents. She was a bit younger than me, and had gotten involved during my first outing with the A-Cs, aka Operation Fugly. Like all A-C women, who I thought of as the Dazzlers, she was beyond gorgeous. She was also beyond nice, and one of my two best girlfriends in the A-C community.
“I’m with Lorraine. I don’t see why it’s a negative.” Claudia was my other A-C female operative and friend. She was about my age, winsome and brunette to Lorraine’s buxom blonde, just as nice. They were both also scientifically brilliant and excellent medical technicians. I could sprint and hurdle and do some kung fu. Somehow, they reported to me. And didn’t mind.
“Why so?” Kevin asked. He was taking over, subtly, which was okay with everyone in the room other than Chuckie. Technically, the C.I.A. reported dotted line into the P.T.C.U., and we all liked the P.T.C.U. a lot better.
Lorraine shrugged. “So they want to come out for Jeff’s wedding. I think it’s nice. About time they acknowledged that we’re all here and alive and doing the work they should be helping us with.”
“They put up the PPB net to keep us from leaving the solar system, hell, to keep us from leaving the inner planets.” Martini sounded as angry as he looked. “These people aren’t our friends, they’re our enemies. It’s about time we accepted that.”
“Paul? What does ACE think? This is really a time when we need his expertise.”
Gower nodded, twitched a bit, and then the ACE voice came out of his mouth. “Jeff is right. But Lorraine is right, too.”
Silence. We all looked at each other.
“Um, ACE? That’s it?”
“Yes.” Gower twitched and blinked. “One day, supposedly the palsy will go away. I think ACE is confused, Kitty. He can’t imagine anyone not wanting to meet you.”
“Oh, the superconsciousness hero worship,” Christopher said as he rolled his eyes. “Can you get through to him that some people don’t think Kitty walks on water?”
“Not really. ACE, ah, doesn’t like that kind of discussion.” Gower looked uncomfortable.
Reader laughed. “Be happy Kitty uses ACE’s powers for good. Remember, ACE thinks Kitty thinks right.”
There was a lot of good-natured laughing and kidding about this, but I knew it to be true—when ACE had come to Earth, I was the only one who’d understood what was going on. So, I tried to think like ACE would, and figure out why anyone would be coming out from Alpha Centauri for this wedding. I came up with nothing, other than an idea of who might know.
“Jeff, is it normal morning in Florida?”
Martini sighed. “Yes, baby, it is.” He pulled out his cell phone and dialed. “Hi, Dad, good morning. No, not yet. Yes, glad you liked the invitations, it took us three weeks to choose them. No, no, I didn’t. Because I hate them. No, I’m not joking, I hate, no, make that despise them. You have got to be kidding. Mom has no right to invite anyone to our wedding, let alone them. Argh! Okay, fine! Look, that’s not why I’m calling.”
He looked over at me and covered the phone. “Against all logic and common sense, my mother invited Barbara and her husband to our wedding.”
“Is she high?” Barbara had tried to force Martini to marry her daughter, Doreen. In fact, it was this incident that had caused the younger generation’s revolt and mass exodus to Caliente Base.
“Who knows?” Martini went back to the phone. “Thanks for the update. Glad to know everyone’s healthy, and could not have lived without the newest babies’ pooping, eating, crawling, and walking report. Now, can we get to the reason I called, since we’re about to go to a state of national emergency?”
Apparently not. Martini leaned on the conference table, his head on his free hand, without speaking. He grunted occasionally.
“Is every call to them like this?” Chuckie asked me quietly.
“Pretty much.”
“No wonder he’s always in a bad mood.”
Lorraine was on her phone, undoubtedly warning Doreen that her parents were going to be coming to our wedding. She looked at me. “Doreen says she and Irving will be happy to physically prevent her parents from entering.”
I managed a laugh. “Tell her thanks and I’ll keep it in mind.” Irving was a human science geek, meaning he was what every Dazzler under thirty was hoping to bag. Dazzlers really went for brains. If the packaging was decent to look at, that was a bonus, but not what mattered. Once we were all relocated to Caliente Base, I’d had to pass a law that they were not allowed to try to meet Stephen Hawking—they would have killed him with love, and I figured we still needed his brain.
Martini was finally getting a word in edgewise. “Great, Mom. Thanks. Can I please talk to Dad again? National emergency and all that. Yes, I really do think it’s more important than the seating arrangements. Yes, more important than the two families meeting. Trust me, that’s going to seem like nothing shortly.”
We were trying to figure out just how to have our families meet. My parents and my Uncle Mort, the career, high-ranking Marine, all knew the truth about Centaurion Division. And they were the only ones in my entire extended family who did. Since my mother was a former Catholic and my father was Jewish, we were already getting the whole mass versus temple questions coming. I hadn’t figured out how to explain that we were going to end up doing neither. I’d done a ton of research into Earth religions to find the one with the closest ceremony to what our A-Cs performed. So far, not a lot of luck.
It appeared Martini had his father on the phone again. “Dad, cutting to the chase here. Do we still have relatives alive on the home world and would they actually think about coming to my wedding?”
He sat up, then he sat back, then he stood up and stepped away from the table. This was never a good sign. I looked at Christopher. He pulled out his phone and dialed. “Dad? Sorry but we need you here, right now. Thanks.” He nodded to me. “He’ll be here shortly, just needs to dress and get to a gate.”
Martini was still on the phone, and I could see his whole body was tensed. Chuckie could, too. “Okay,” he said quietly. “I’
m willing to buy that Martini had no idea of what giving you that thing would do.”
I felt myself relax a bit. “He wouldn’t do something to put me in danger, let alone the entire world. He’s spent his whole life protecting it.”
Chuckie patted my hand. “I know. But I had to be sure.”
“You don’t think he’s faking it?”
“I see his sarcastic ways are rubbing off on you.” Chuckie leaned next to me and spoke softly in my ear, so no one else could hear. “I know they can’t lie. I’ve seen him angry before, more than you, probably. I’ve also seen him scared. And he’s both.”
I gave him a dirty look, and whispered into his ear. “You make it sound like Jeff wets himself or something. He’s not scared often, if at all.”
Chuckie laughed, then did the ear thing again. “I love this, but you’re going to get in trouble when he’s off the phone. And, I didn’t mean it as an insult. Like most of us, he gets scared. But he shows it like, well, I show it, or White shows it—by getting angry, going into an authority mode, and so on.” He laughed softly again. “I’m not insinuating your man’s a wimp, Kitty. If he was, I’d be running Centaurion already.”
I was going to ask him what that meant when Richard White entered the room. He’d used hyperspeed to get dressed and over here, which was sort of a relief. He took a look around. “What’s going on?”
Martini looked at me over his shoulder. “Tell him.” Then he went back to his phone call.
I took a deep breath. “We have unexpected company coming.”
White looked at the necklace. “Oh, my God.”
When the head of an entire religious organization says that, any calm left in the room goes running to hide under the covers.
White sat down in the only open chair, which happened to be the one Martini had vacated. It didn’t appear to be an issue—Martini was still on the phone with his father, and I got the impression it was going from bad to worse.
“You want to explain this? Keeping in mind we have both the C.I.A. and the P.T.C.U. represented in the room?” White looked shaken enough I felt it necessary to remind him he wasn’t with family, only.
He shook his head. “I can’t believe it.”
“Neither can we. Not that we know what ‘it’ is, but we’re willing to bet we won’t believe it, either.”
White looked at Chuckie. “Were there lights somewhere?”
“Funny you should ask.” Chuckie explained the light pattern, both physical and time-wise, and where they were located. “What about those mountain ranges is significant?”
“Nothing, they’re just close and in the right formation.” White had his head leaning in one hand. I was prepared for every A-C to do this shortly.
“So that message could have been sent in to any region?” Chuckie was being polite, but I could tell he was getting tired of one-sentence answers.
“No. It went to the nearest formation by the active piece.” White indicated the necklace. “How did you realize what it was?”
Chuckie shrugged. “I’m more observant than most people.” This I knew to be true. “I’ve seen that thing around Kitty’s neck any time I’ve seen her for the last six months. It was easy to recognize. Six months ago, the second time I saw it,” he added.
“Why didn’t you bring this to our attention sooner?” White sounded angry.
Chuckie let the knife show, just a bit. “Because we had to make sure this wasn’t some kind of dangerous power play being made by Centaurion personnel.” He pointedly looked over at Martini.
“Jeffrey has nothing to do with this,” White said, eyes narrowed.
“Bullshit. He has everything to do with it. However, I’m willing to accept that he had no idea what giving that necklace to Kitty was going to trigger.”
“Richard, it’s sort of creepier than that. The first light manifestation appeared during Operation Fugly.” On cue, White winced. “Um, I mean, during the Big Take-down. Or whatever you call it.” I never paid attention to their names for offensives—they were always official and boring.
“When Jeff knew he wanted to marry her,” Christopher added quietly. “As near as Reynolds has told us, pretty much the same night.”
White nodded. “They are tuned to the family, and Jeffrey’s the last in Alfred’s line.” He closed his eyes. “This will happen with you, too, son.”
“What?” Christopher looked shocked. “I’m not getting married. And, I’m part of your male line.”
“Yes, but it’s different for you because of your mother. And, I know you’ve not declared for anyone yet, but when you do . . . ” White’s voice trailed off and he looked at me. “Oh, dear.”
“This just went to DEFCON Worse, didn’t it?”
“Oh, hell.” Reader had his head in his hands. It was catching.
“What? James, what?”
He looked around. “Oh, well. Not like it’s a secret to anyone in this room.” He sighed. “Kitty, Jeff wasn’t the only one who, ah . . . .” His voice trailed off and he shot an uncomfortable look toward Christopher.
Who went pale. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding! We’re past that!” He shot a look at Martini. “Really, we’re past that.” What we were past was the fact Christopher had also wanted me when we’d first met, and we’d had a brief, wild moment in an elevator. Martini had had a hard enough time letting the incident go, but Christopher and I had been very careful since then and hadn’t done anything remotely romantic, and in fact, acted like opposing magnets when something potentially romantic loomed.
“Yeah, yeah, doesn’t matter,” Martini shot back. “Reynolds is going to be a bigger problem.”
“Me? Why?” Chuckie sounded confused for the first time.
Martini spun around. “Because you still want to marry her if you can. It’s complex, and it’s not pretty, and I need to get the rest of the details.” He looked at Gower. “We need everyone on high alert. Everyone’s going to have to be briefed, in shifts, key personnel first. But down to the youngest child who’s of age to know why we’re all really here. Oh, and all of my family, and I do mean all, down to the youngest kids who can communicate verbally or mentally.” He went back to his corner.
We all looked at each other. “Richard, you mind telling us what’s going on? I mean, it’s that, or we all just go running off screaming into the streets.”
White took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Alfred and my late wife were cousins, not as close as Christopher and Jeffrey are, about as close as Jeffrey and Paul, and Michael, are.”
Interesting, hadn’t known that. “Okay . . . so, cousins married a brother and sister. Not totally unusual.”
“No, not at all, on either one of our worlds.” White didn’t want to go on, it was obvious.
Michael, who’d been uncharacteristically quiet this entire time, spoke up. “You want me to explain it?” He was a smaller version of his older brother—big, black, bald, and gorgeous. He was also a major womanizer, but I doubted that had relevance here.
“How do you know?” White sounded shocked. Gower looked as shocked as White sounded.
Michael shrugged. “My mother told me about it. She was . . . concerned I would use our Unity Necklace . . . inappropriately.” Oh, wow, so him being a womanizer was relevant. Double interesting.
“What did she tell you?” White sounded guarded.
“That we were close enough from a blood standpoint that it could affect us.”
“What could affect you?” I figured the rest of us were getting as impatient as I was.
Michael gave me a wry smile. “Jeff and Christopher are part of the Alpha Centaurion Royal Family.”
Gini Koch lives in the American Southwest, works her butt off (sadly, not literally) by day, and writes by night with the rest of the beautiful people. She lives with her husband and daughter, three dogs (aka The Canine Death Squad), and two cats (aka The Killer Kitties). When she’s not writing, Gini spends her time going to rock concerts with her daughter, teachi
ng her pets to “bring it,” and driving her husband insane asking, “Have I told you about this story idea yet?”
You can reach her via:
her website (www.ginikoch.com),
email ([email protected]),
Twitter (@GiniKoch), or
Facebook (www.facebook.com/Gini.Koch).
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58