Alien vs. Alien

by Gini Koch

  The certainty that these aliens, whoever they were, had been here before and dropped by regularly for routine checkups settled firmly into my stomach. We were looking at classic, stereotypical flying saucers.

  Interestingly enough, the parasites weren’t landing and splatting onto people. They appeared to be in a giant bubble. The sun was low in the sky, and that was probably the only reason the bubble was obvious—the sun’s rays were hitting it in a way that showed its outline. The bubble was similar to the one I’d created with ACE’s help in order to safely dispose of the gaseous Surcenthumain during Operation Confusion. Only about a zillion times bigger.

  There had easily been tens of thousands of people at the One World Festival, and they were all panicked. People were screaming and running and generally acting like it was the end of the world. Because it sure looked like it.

  “The invaders don’t have to do anything,” Christopher shouted as we jumped onto the wall of the Reflecting Pool to avoid getting trampled. “Everyone’s going to kill themselves just to get away.”

  “We have to do something.” Not that I had any idea of what.

  “Stop it!” Jeff bellowed. “Calm down!”

  No one bellowed like my man. He was easily heard above the others. And the people around us sort of stumbled to a halt.

  If we’d had time, Jeff probably could have gotten the calm to spread. But we didn’t have time.

  Yi

  CHAPTER 94

  ONE OF THE FLYING SAUCERS FIRED what looked like a laser beam toward the Washington Monument. But the beam didn’t hit the monument. It hit a supersoldier.

  Our army was here.

  Amazingly enough, the supersoldier didn’t disintegrate. It took its licking and kept on ticking. Nice to know Titan Security had created the Timex Line of supersoldiers. Especially since they were fighting on our side.

  Whether this shocked the space invaders or not I couldn’t tell, but the ships fired again. And more supersoldiers lifted up and took the hits. The sky was already too filled, and the ground was too chaotic for me to be able to determine if any of the lasers had hit anything other than a supersoldier.

  However, giant metal monsters fighting on our side or not, the people here didn’t know and didn’t care. The screams increased, as did the panic.

  “People are being trampled!” I almost jumped off and tried to help, but Jeff grabbed me.

  “Our goal isn’t one person, it’s the world.”

  He was right. Dug my phone out and tried to make a call. As far as I could tell, I connected with Tim, but I couldn’t hear anything. “We need help with crowd control!” I shouted into the phone. Then I hung up and contemplated my options. It wasn’t a great idea to casually stand around texting while the world blew up around me. Hopefully that one call to Tim made an impact, because that was it for telecommunications.

  The invaders hadn’t needed to knock those out after all. The human herd was panicking, and that was all it took. Jeff and Christopher both had their phones out and seemed to be having the same kind of one-sided, mostly useless conversations I’d had. Dropped my phone back into my purse as they hung up and put their phones away.

  A group of people slammed into us. I got separated from Jeff and slammed into Christopher. We both went into the water, but he managed to keep us steady and, more importan`tly, upright. Jeff shoved through, grabbed my hand, and pulled us out of the water. “Run!” We took off.

  We were moving so fast that we were actually running on top of the water. Didn’t have time to marvel—we were too busy dodging people who were scrambling to get out of the way of either the lasers or the supersoldiers. Or each other. The Reflecting Pool was only a minor roadblock—plenty were willing to get wet if it meant they could get out of the way faster.

  Jumped off the end and raced to the World War II Memorial. People were running all over it, but this Memorial had two small, raised stone gazebolike structures on either side of it. A-Cs could jump well, and these weren’t that high, so we leaped up onto one of them, which got us out of the way of the crowd.

  “How long before someone launches a nuke?” I asked.

  “Soon, I’m sure.” Jeff leaned on me.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m blocking. The terror’s too much. I’d already be out if not for the adrenaline.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Okay, I’m good. I can’t feel anything much, baby, so don’t get lost.”

  “I wasn’t the one who was missing for half the afternoon.”

  The crowd was running in all directions. More lasers shot down on us. The supersoldiers blocked most of them. But not all.

  A blast went through the Reflecting Pool. Which would have b

  een okay—it was repairable. The people in the pool, however, weren’t. There were a lot of them, all blown to bits.

  I was thankful Jeff couldn’t feel anyone’s reactions, though I’m sure my screaming was probably enough. I knew I was at the dog-only register. Not that it mattered. No dog was going to pick my screams of horror out from the rest of the crowd.

  The water that was left in the Reflecting Pool was red, and so was much of the stone. Body parts were strewn all over, in the pool and around it.

  Another laser hit the street that separated the World War II memorial from the Washington Monument. The streets within the Mall had all been blocked off for the Festival, so no cars were there. However, once again, there were plenty of people running on the street because it seemed to provide a safer path.

  Many dodged the strike itself, but not all. The blast not only sent bodies flying but also threw up chunks of tar and pavement into the air—and they came down indiscriminately. Booths, stages, old people, young people—destruction rained down.

  Another downside of having to use supersoldiers in this kind of situation was that they were a lot bigger than any human, and they clearly weren’t programmed to watch where they were stepping. They seemed focused on protecting the monuments, which was great, but innocent people were getting trampled under their feet.

  A thought managed to crawl into my horrified mind. “If we can get people into those tunnels, they’ll be safer than anywhere out here.”

  “How?” Christopher asked. “There’s only three of us.”

  I spotted something. A lot of somethings. Lots of guys in black suits, movinpg really fast. The Field teams were here.

  Yi

  CHAPTER 95

  “OVER HERE!” JEFF BELLOWED.

  More than a few teams heard him, and we had a lot of A-Cs in front of us in moments.

  “Grab as many people as you can and head for the Lincoln Memorial,” I shouted. “We’re going to have you take them underground. Pass it on!”

  The agents nodded and took off. Well, some did. Some grabbed people nearby.

  “Link hands!” I shouted as we jumped down and ran past.

  Jeff bellowed that order as the three of us continued to the Lincoln Memorial.

  We couldn’t run at hyperspeed. Well, we tried, but slammed into a group of people who’d reversed direction at the last moment because of a laser blast in front of them.

  I lost my hold on both Jeff and Christopher and went flying. Landed on some bodies. “I’m so sorry,” I said as I scrambled to my feet. “Are you—”

  I was going to ask if they were okay. But they were all dead. I could tell because none of the bodies were whole, and no one was breathing.

  Backed away and got slammed into someone else, spun around, shoved, and generally manhandled. If my purse hadn’t been over my neck, I’d have lost it, and not because anyone was trying to steal it.

  A supersoldier was barreling toward where I was. I grabbed the people nearest me and ran in the opposite direction. Spotted some black Armani suits in the crowd and tried to head for them.

  “No!” a man I had hold of screamed. He yanked away. As I tried to grab for him, he moved out of my reach and right under a supersoldier’s foot. He was crushed in front of me.


  I turned away to head back toward the Field agents I’d spotted but saw now why the man had pulled away. They’d been shot by a direct laser hit, probably what the supersoldier had been trying to block. The other person I held yanked out of my hand and ran off. I couldn’t move.

  The air was filled with dust and smoke now. Not so much that I couldn’t see, but enough to make your eyes water and throat dry. Fear has a smell, and this much fear smelled the way a kick in the gut felt. We were animals, after all, and animals pick up the panic from other animals. I wanted to run away screaming, just like everyone else.

  Thought I heard someone calling my name and turned around. There was a little girl standing on the grass, alone, crying. Somehow, no one had run her over yet. However, it was just a matter of time.

  I ran toward her, dodging people, and got to her just before a clutch of people ran her down. Managed to get us to another clear patch.

  Against all odds, a woman ran to us. “Oh, thank you!” she said as fshe took the little girl from me.

  “Let’s get out of here. Head for the Lincoln Memorial.”

  She nodded and we took off. I was doing better with someone specific to actually protect. I couldn’t be afraid, I had to take care of them. I had the woman by her arm so I wouldn’t lose her.

  Dodged and weaved us around people, like salmon swimming upstream against a thousand grizzly bears. Felt the ground shaking, moved to hyperspeed, and got us out of the way of another supersoldier. It

  just missed us as it took a laser blast. And then another. And then more. These blasts were more rapid fire, like machine guns versus cannonballs.

  “Wow, that was close.”

  I backed us away, keeping them behind me, as the supersoldier took another hit and went onto its, for want of a better word, knees. It fell over onto its face and more people.

  Heard more than felt something. A little sound that I shouldn’t have been able to hear at all. A sigh, almost.

  Looked at the mother and daughter with me. I still had hold of the woman’s arm. But half of her was gone. And so was half of her daughter. They’d been sliced through by laser fire. I’d put them behind me to protect them, but that act had killed them.

  Horror, despair, and rage vied for supremacy. Horror and despair really had the most going for them. But as I forced my fingers to let go of the woman’s arm and watched what was left of their bodies fall to the ground, rage won.

  These invaders didn’t even have the decency to come fight us one on one. I might have no love for the beings from Alpha Centauri who had sided with King Adolphus and come here to destroy me and my friends, but they’d had the balls to face us on a reasonably fair field of battle.

  But these invaders had come and started shooting at us, at innocent people. There was a word for what they were. In one way or another, I’d been fighting against what they were since the first minutes I’d joined up with Centaurion Division.

  They were terrorists. And they had to be stopped. Because everyone who died today deserved for their survivors to live free. And I was going to make sure that happened.

  Or die trying.

  Yi

  CHAPTER 96

  SOMEONE GRABBED ME, AND I JUMPED. “Come on, baby,” Jeff said. “Let’s get this stopped before more innocent people get . . . hurt.”

  “How’d you find me?”

  “I read your mind. Kitty, just remember . . . this isn’t your fault. You didn’t bring these beings down on us. They brought themselves. Now let’s go stop them. Permanently.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t sure I believed him, but I was sure that we needed to stop the madness. We headed for the Lincoln Mtfemorial again.

  I’d planned to head for the area Clarence had been when he’d tried to lure the Gower girls to the dark side. But Christopher was at the base of the steps leading up to the Memorial, and we joined him there.

  It didn’t take long to figure out why Christopher had stopped here. Clarence was here on the steps of the Memorial—and he wasn’t alone. He had Jamie in his arms and a gun at her head. “Come any closer and I kill her,” Clarence shouted.

  We stopped. “How did he get her?” Jeff asked. “I thought she was safe.”

  “No idea.” My throat was tight. I wanted to run and grab her out of his arms, but I knew that would just mean he shot my baby in front of me. “I shouldn’t have left her alone at the Dome.”

  “She wasn’t alone,” Christopher said, voice filled with dread. He didn’t have to voice his thoughts—if Clarence had Jamie, what had happened to everyone else at the Dome? What had happened to ACE?

  Agents were bringing people, and they headed for us. Jeff and Christopher both put their hands up, and everyone stopped. Just in time.

  Light beamed down out of the sky, coming from the flying saucer closest to us. Just like in the movies. I could see bodies coming down inside the light. Several of them.

  The light disappeared, and there were five beings with Clarence. We knew two of them—Ronaldo Al Dejahl and LaRue Demorte Gaultier.

  Al Dejahl didn’t have an image overlay on, so he looked like himself—tall, midtwenties, handsome, well built, dark hair and eyes. Since I wasn’t fighting for my life at the moment, I could spot the resemblance to White easily, and Serene as well.

  The woman with him I also knew, but not in the same way. She was a tall, thin, bleached blonde about my age, maybe a little older, but not much. The Trophy Wife, aka LaRue Demorte Gaultier. I’d met her a few times, both before Amy’s mother had died—when she’d been Herbert Gaultier’s assistant—and after, when she’d become his second wife. I’d never liked her then, which was nice, because I certainly loathed her now.

  They were both dressed in what I could only think of as an intergalactic robe and muumuu combination. The fabric sort of hung off their shoulders like drapes, which hid their body shapes. The robes had loose sleeves that went down to their wrists. I got the impression that if they’d held their arms straight out to their sides, they’d look like half of a white balloon each.

  Of course, they were in them because the beings they were with were wearing the same outfits. And, on five-foot-tall bird people, they looked okay, sort of like extra long and luxurious feathers. But on humans and human-looking aliens it was pretentious, funny, and basically unflattering.

  “We do not come in peace,” Al Dejahl said, voice booming. I was sure everyone around us could hear him. Possibly everyone on the Mall could hear him. That’s right, he had troubadour talent, along with imageering. And mind control. Couldn’t forget about the mind control, because he was undoubtedly going to start using it shortly.

  “No kidding,” I muttered under my breath.

  LaRue looked at the three of us. “You.” She pointed to me. “You will come to us. The others will stay away.”

  Jeff growled. I could tell he was ready to attack. “No,” I said quietly. “I’ll go. You figure out what the hell’s going on and how to stop it. And coordinate our forces, because we seem to be lacking things like air support, Chuckie, the Gower girls, and androids.”

  I squeezed his hand, and Christopher’s, then let go and trotted up the stairs. This was really reminiscent of my short trip to Alpha Four, only I’d had a lot more and better backup then, and I hadn’t been sick to my stomach from horror.

  Stopped a few steps away from them so that I’d have an easy time jumping back and falling down the stairs should one of them lunge for me. “Give me back my daughter.” Jamie appeared to be calm and asleep. I hoped it was sleep and not drugs, but I put nothing past these people.

  The bird-people had heads that looked something like a humanoid version of an eagle, with an extra-large lower jaw. Unlike most birds, their eyes were more centered. I cocked my head. From another angle, they looked like something else vaguely familiar. Couldn’t place what, but I had a feeling I needed to.

  Their bodies were completely hidden by their Space Togas, so I had no guess there, but I did spot six large talons sticking out fro
m under each muumuu. The talons were painted with designs I didn’t have time to focus on.

  Feathers stuck out of their Space Toga sleeves. Didn’t know if this meant they only had wings, had feathers for fingers like an avian version of Edward Scissorhands, or something else. The way things were going, I put my money on “something else.”

  LaRue smirked. “I don’t think so. If you’d just let us have her before, none of this would be happening now.”

  “Right, you’d have enacted whatever horrible world domination plan you had and enslaved us all already. Instead you headed out of town to find new friends.” I looked at their companions. “So, just who are the Bird People of Outer Space?”

  “They are the Z’porrah,” Al Dejahl replied. “An ancient race.”

  The three birds looked at me. I looked back. “Can you understand me?”

  They nodded.

  “Good. Then understand that you’ve invaded and attacked a world that hasn’t done anything to you or yours. You’ve slaughtered innocent people—not warriors but people, civilians. Children, the elderly, the infirm. None of these people deserved to die, and certainly not in this way and with no warning. That’s an act of war no matter what part of the galaxy you’re from. And around here, it’s also considered an act of terrorism.”

  They stared at me, the way birds will.

  “And I’m kind of interested in how, in addition to every other heinous crime you’ve committed and are committing, the kidnapping and threatening of an innocent baby, or chick, is considered okay where you people come from.”

  More bird stares. Contemplated doing a staredown with them. Decided even if I won, I was still likely to lose. Supersoldiers taking the laser blasts or no, we weren’t in a good position.