Alien Education

by Gini Koch

  He also had the puck and stick. But they weren’t the ones I’d been told we’d be using. The stick wasn’t signed and the puck looked more gray than black.

  “These aren’t your signed ones,” Donovan, the Chups’ captain, said, clearly reading my expression. “Team management didn’t want them to get wrecked. You can keep this puck and stick, too, though.”

  “Cool!” Extra pucks and hockey sticks were not a problem. The Diamondbacks could take a lesson from the Chupacabras was my thought. Maybe I’d see about doing a fundraiser with them next. Clearly I was good at it when I was actually given more than a day’s notice.

  Killer gave me the puck and stick, while doing a bit where he pantomimed wanting to keep them and I had to try to take them away from him. Could hear peals of laughter, much of it sounding as if it came from the kids in the audience. Good, we were entertaining the crowd, which was great. Killer was totally kid-friendly and focused.

  In the end, Killer gave me the puck and stick and a big hug, too. I was far more excited about getting to hang out with Killer than with Jack Johnson. Killer skated backward off the ice, blowing kisses to me the whole way, which I returned enthusiastically. So far, best night at a game ever.

  The Capitals’ goalie, Carcento, skated up. “Aim right between my kneepads.”

  “So you can block it?”

  He laughed. “No. So I can miss it impressively. You’re the First Lady. We’re letting you get the puck into the net, if you have any aim at all.”

  “I do!”

  “They gave us extra pucks,” Donovan, said. “So we can do it a few more times.”

  “We have a dozen,” Carcento added.

  “So if I miss we can do it again?” Didn’t like that I was being sold short and was expected to miss a dozen times, but more time on the ice was fine with me.

  Donovan laughed. “No. They’re doing a raffle where the crowd is taking bets on how many pucks you get into the net. They’ll draw from the group that chooses the winning number. Winner gets a signed jersey from each team.”

  “Oh, awesome! I’m all for it!” Noted that the announcers were sharing this news as well. Realized they’d shared it before, I just hadn’t paid attention. Also realized that it was Johnny and Mitch doing the announcing, making it all so much cooler. My Celebrities I Cared About Meeting quotient was going way up.

  “You’re lucky this is preseason,” Carcento said. “We’d never get away with all of this in regular.”

  “Well, preseason is the most fun then!”

  As Carcento went back to his net, the Chups’ goalie, Bays, went behind me. “To cover your rear,” he said with a grin I could see behind his mask.

  “Everyone’s a comedian.” Not that I minded. Bays was an awesome goalie.

  The enforcer, Pulley, helped me get into position. “Remember, for this, it’ll be like putting in golf, not driving.”

  “I don’t play golf.”

  “For this, it’ll be like miniature golf.”

  “Got it! Softer hits, not harder, right?”

  “Right!”

  Donovan put the puck Killer had handed me down onto the ice, and he and Pulley helped me get into the right position.

  Did as I was told, aiming right where Carcento had told me to, though might have done more of a slap shot than a soft nudge. The puck slid over the ice, going right between his kneepads, as he closed his knees together far more slowly than normal.

  The crowd cheered and the announcement for more betting went out, as Donovan put eleven more pucks onto the ice. “Go wild now. It doesn’t matter how many you get in—the one you just did counts, so if you miss the rest, they can still pick a winner.”

  “And if you make them all, then those who wisely bet that you’re good will get their chance to win,” Pulley added.

  “I love you guys. So, um, can I do a real slap shot, then?”

  “You’re the First Lady,” Donovan said. “You can do anything you like.”

  “Even me,” Bays called out.

  We all laughed and I got down to business. Slapped the heck out of the pucks. Carcento blocked most of them, but I actually got a couple by him.

  As I readied to hit the last puck, the music—which had heretofore been the typical arena electric organ stuff—changed. As I listened, recognized that it was Dean Martin, which seemed an odd choice. Singing “Mambo Italiano” which was an even odder choice.

  Paid attention to the lyrics. They started slowly, but “something’s wrong” was clearly called out.

  So, when the puck in front of me raised up into the air, I was kind of prepared.

  CHAPTER 84

  KIND OF PREPARED wasn’t the same as totally ready. So the puck had time to sprout little metallic legs, little metallic arms with pincers at the end, and pop up a rounded button-like protrusion from its top that then sprouted two tiny metallic antennae, while I watched, processing that no puck in the league worked like this.

  “What the hell?” Bays skated nearer to us. “What’s going on?”

  “Um . . . this isn’t something planned?”

  “No,” Donovan said, as the flying puck sort of hovered in front of us, moving in a weird, syncopated pattern that was vaguely familiar. “No one said anything about this.”

  “What is it?” Pulley asked.

  Was about to say that I had no idea when I saw the other pucks on the ice also rise up and sprout all these special extras. Dawned on me that there was a high probability that whoever was in charge of the music here wasn’t who’d put on the Dean Martin song.

  “Um, you guys? Any of you know how to swing a baseball bat?”

  “Sure,” Pulley said. “But why would we need to?”

  The music changed to “Mambo No. 5” and gave me all the confirmation I needed. Lou Bega was in the house, so to speak, and so was Algar. And the Shadow hadn’t been a liar.

  “Fight and swing to the beat!” So saying, slid forward so I wouldn’t brain Bays, who was still behind me, swung my stick up, and took a shot at the flying puck.

  Which dodged my strike and headed for Bays. But he was a goalie, and he slapped it away with his mitt. The flying puck careened toward Carcento. Who had several of these flying pucks around him.

  Carcento slapped at one of the pucks. And it sent an electric charge out of its antennae.

  The charge hit him where he had no padding, meaning it was able to aim precisely, because goalies wore a hell of a lot of padding. He shouted in pain, but didn’t go down.

  Didn’t wait, just “skated” toward him as fast as I could. This would have been easier if I’d been on actual ice skates, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Besides, careening around was a good idea when you were fighting weird things like this.

  Swung, slid, swung again, doing my best to keep to the beat, which helped avoid being hit by the antennae charge if nothing else. Even if I didn’t hit one, I was able to keep them away from Carcento. “Hit or swing to the beat,” I called to him as I did just that.

  Managed to hit one of the flying pucks with my stick. It slammed into the glass, which afforded me a good look at those sitting behind the net, since I slid into the glass, too. They were all staring, open-mouthed, but no one was actually moving. Meaning they all thought this was part of the show.

  The four players on the ice, however, were clear that we were under attack. Five of us against a dozen little flying things should be a battle we easily won. Donovan got one onto the ice and Pulley did what he did best—slammed his stick on it, which was what I was doing with the one I’d managed to stun against the glass. It took a couple of hits, but both of our adversaries were finished at the same time.

  The cameraman was still on the ice. But he wasn’t filming. His camera was down and, as I watched, he dropped his bag down onto the ice next to it and took off. No sooner was the bag down tha
n more flying pucks burst out of it and headed for us.

  So he’d been planted by our enemies, and Adam’s fight with his regular cameraman had given them their opening. My brain shared that it wanted me to remember this point, but had to save it for later. Right now, I needed all my focus here.

  As if this wasn’t enough, as the music changed to “Hey Mambo” by Barry Manilow with an assist from Kid Creole and the Coconuts, looked up. To see that we didn’t have just the ten pucks and however many were in the bag left to deal with. No, the ceiling was moving and, as I watched, what were several hundred flying pucks flew down toward the ice, sending out their electric shocks on what appeared to be a pattern.

  Whether that meant the one that had hit Carcento had gotten lucky or whether whoever was controlling these things just wanted to remind us that they hurt, I didn’t know.

  What I did know was that I’d been kind of freaked out before, but now, now I was mad. My kids were here, having an extremely rare fun family outing, and if anything happened to them, including something as mild as them spilling their Cokes or dropping their cotton candy due to fear, heads were going to roll. Flying pucks were going down one way or the other. Bottom line—it was now clobberin’ time. Pity we didn’t have The Thing with us, though. Could have used someone made of stone.

  “Incoming!” I bellowed. Wasn’t up to Jeff’s standards, but made do. Looked around for Jeff and the kids. Their seats were empty. Sincerely hoped this meant the Secret Service had done what they were meant to do and gotten them to safety. If not, flying pucks weren’t going to be all I was clobbering.

  Donovan body checked me out of the way of several of the flying pucks that were all around me. This sent me sliding into Bays, who caught me, righted me, then headed off after some of the other flying pucks.

  “Grab on,” Pulley said as he skated over to me. Did as suggested and grabbed the back of his jersey. We sped along, him slapping at the flying pucks around us with power, me just holding my stick out to catch what I could. Managed to hit several in this way. Also managed to get zapped in the butt more than once.

  “Ouch! That hurts!” I didn’t have the same padding on as the players did. Plus, a couple of the flying pucks had grabbed me with their pincers, ripping my jeans and my skin.

  The rest of the teams had figured out something was wrong and came onto the ice. So now there were a lot of us swinging sticks around like bats, but far more flying pucks to hit than there were players.

  Most of us were getting zapped, too. So when the music changed to Perry Como’s “Papa Loves Mambo” of all things, and I naturally altered how I was moving and avoided another couple of zaps, finally got the clue. “Always move and swing to the beat,” I shouted to the players. “As the beat changes, you change, too! Swing at the flying pucks on the backbeat!”

  Shouted this particular rallying cry several times as players skated past me and I slid past them. Dodged some flying pucks along the way—which I really wanted to rename, but the only nickname that came to mind probably wasn’t appropriate for the First Lady to be shouting, though it was fitting, all things considered.

  Donovan and Pulley got on either side of me and stayed there. “Work as a line,” Donovan shouted.

  “I can do that! Follow my lead on the way to move!”

  “You’re the center, you lead,” Pulley said. “We’ll follow.”

  We swayed our way around the ice while Como crooned, lifting feet or jumping over downed flying pucks, smoothly dodging the flying pucks that were coming at us, and hitting a lot of them, too. Other players saw what we were doing and formed up into lines as well.

  With the guys on either side I had a little more protection so could risk a look around. Almost wished I hadn’t. The flying pucks weren’t limiting themselves to the arena—they were in the stands, too.

  Naturally there was chaos because of course there was. Apparently my confidence in my abilities had shown up far too early—I was doomed to never throw a party or an event that didn’t self-destruct in some way.

  Could see Field agents trying to get these things, but they weren’t in tune with me and the players and, hyperspeed or not, they were losing. So were all the Secret Service in the stands. So were all the others. Still couldn’t spot my family and hoped this was a good thing.

  As we swung around the curve of the rink and boogied back, heard Johnny and Mitch. The press box they were in was protected, so they were doing commentary on what was going on. Really hoped the Shadow was enjoying the floorshow.

  “Oh!” Mitch said. “The First Lady just gave that thing a vicious hit. Where are the scouts? She’s got a hell of a slap shot in the air and on the ice.”

  “She does indeed,” Johnny replied. “This is amazing, folks. We’re seeing what might be the first ever synchronized hockey fight in history.”

  “Love the musical selections, too. Johnny, this is amazing.”

  “And those flying things are changing their methods once again, Mitch. They appear to learn the song’s beat and then adapt to it.” Realized that Johnny was right and sent up a silent thank you. This was also likely why Algar was changing music instead of putting us onto a one-song repeat.

  “Johnny, I’m just glad we’re in here and not down there. Oh, look, more people are getting involved.”

  Sure enough, as the music changed to Big Bad Voodoo Daddy’s “Mambo Swing”—and I therefore changed how I was moving, meaning the players did, too—saw some people run onto the ice. People in suits.

  Jeff, White, and Reader had hockey sticks and somehow managed to slide-skate over to join my line. “What are you doing?” Jeff shouted.

  “Trying to stay alive! Why are you here and not protecting our children?”

  “They’re already safe, all the kids are safe. We got them to shelter immediately. What kind of father do you think I am?”

  “Um, a great one! Now, move to the beat, Jeff. It’s dancing time again! And form your own line, guys. Three to a set!”

  White was already boogieing like he’d spent his life on skates, even though he was in dress shoes, just like Jeff and Reader. He zoomed in front of us. Reader and Jeff took his flank, adjusted to what they were doing, and started really moving, slapping flying pucks out of the air and slamming them with their sticks once the pucks were on the ice as if they’d actually practiced before the big match.

  Christopher, in the meantime, wasn’t faring as well. Super hyperspeed was great, but he wasn’t a great dancer, he hadn’t brought a stick, and he also hadn’t been prepared for how slick the ice still was around the boards.

  He hit a really slick patch and slid around the outer part of the rink. Heard him shouting “Whoa!” as he passed us, which happened several times. He didn’t appear to be slowing down at all and, in fact, was pretty sure he was speeding up. Seemed like he was trying to slow down by running faster, which was truly unlikely to work in this situation. Then again, Alpha Four was a desert planet, and that meant he probably had very little historical information on how to handle this. Would have stopped to help him, but had too much else to deal with, beating flying pucks down and destroying them being Job One. Not tripping on downed flying pucks being Job Two.

  Synchronized skating/sliding seemed to be working. At least, we had a lot of metal on the ground. Which created its own challenges. We were all now having to spend more time avoiding rubble on the ice than hitting the still-active flying pucks.

  Needed to do something, because we didn’t have time for a Zamboni break. Had no other ideas, so tried something that had worked in the past.

  “Poofs assemble!”

  CHAPTER 85

  POOFS APPEARED ON JEFF, White, and Reader’s shoulders. Took a fast look around—all the players I could see had Poofs riding shotgun. So far, so good.

  “Poofies, Kitty needs an assist! Can you figure out some way to clean the ice up so Kitty, Jeff, Richa
rd, James, and all the nice players can concentrate on stopping the bad flying pucks instead of focusing on not falling?”

  “Why are you talking to those animals and what can they possibly do—?” Donovan started to ask.

  He was interrupted by Poofs zooming down to the ice, scooping up rubble in their mouths—which, since they were still small but their jaws expanded, was freaky as hell to watch—and left the ice nice and slick in their wake.

  “How do I get me one of those?” Pulley asked.

  “Get us out of this alive!”

  “On it!”

  “Good, because they’re learning.” Pointed up. The flying pucks were forming lines, with far more than three per line. They looked ready to dive-bomb us as the music changed to Don Henley’s “All She Wants To Do Is Dance.”

  White’s line broke formation. “Getting behind you,” he called to me. “As instructed.” That was an order to follow me? Well, okay. Who was I to argue with someone listening carefully to the Algar Channel?

  Saw Reader wave in the “get over here” manner as Tim came out now, stick in hand, wearing skates. Well, nice to know why he’d arrived late—he’d taken the time to prep for the situation. Thank God one of us had.

  Tim zoomed next to me and shoved me forward. “You lead, Kitty! I’ll cover your spot on the line.”

  “Thanks for that.” Changed my movements as the first wave of flying pucks dived toward us. Slide-skated low, bobbing to the beat, added in some spins, because that was dancing, and all of it seemed to help. We were avoiding most of the hits and were hitting flying pucks. So far so good.

  “Mitch, it looks like the First Lady is leading the players in another dance routine.”