Alien in the Family

I tuned my iPod to my new Fight Songs mix. Ironically enough, ‘We Want the Airwaves’ by the Ramones was song number one. “All ready?”

“Yes.”

“Then, Jareen? Let’s go show these interstellar assholes how Naked Apes and Iguanodons do things out here in the wild, wild West.”

CHAPTER 51

WE TOOK OFF. I was a hurdler with a perfect four-step and she was a Giant Lizard, but we were in complete sync with each other.

We hit the people around Chuckie and Alexander first. I should have had more trouble with the staff than I was. This dawned on me when I sliced off an Amazon’s head right before she could break Chuckie’s back.

“Thanks,” he gasped. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Kicking butt and taking names. You know, routine.” I slammed the staff into another Amazon’s stomach. It went through her. Jareen lopped her head off and finished off the third Amazon. I had to figure ACE was helping me, and I decided if there was ever a time to let the superconsciousness give you a major assist, it was now.

Lenore and Gregory took off, ru

“What?”

I grabbed his lapel. “Think! No ruler on Alpha Four means complete destabilization of that solar system. Guess what planet will lose?”

“Ours, got it.” He grabbed me and held me. “Be careful.”

“I will. Get to some sort of defensible point. I’m sure we’re going to have more wounded. I’ll send them to you. Protect them—and yourself,” I felt compelled to add. I was noting a little too much willingness to take the bullets from Chuckie, and I liked that attitude from him only slightly more than I liked it from Martini.

He nodded, grabbed Alexander, and went back to where I’d been with the Animal Planet folks. I had a bishop and a rook out, and from what I could tell, half of my pawns.

“We need to clear out the extra pawns,” Jareen said.

I had to agree. There were a lot of them. “I’m open to ideas.”

She cocked her head at me. “Even if they’re crazy?”

“I’m the queen of the crazy ideas, babe.”

“Good. Stand back and be ready.” She stepped away from me then started twirling her battle staff over her head. “Do what I’m doing!”

I did. It was like a funky baton. It was also speeding up. A lot. We spun for what seemed like forever but reality said was only about thirty seconds. I noted that the extra Amazons were bearing down on us. All of them.

“Throw it toward them . . . now!” Jareen shouted.

We both did. It was really impressive. The staffs spun like dervishes but with a clear intent to maim if not kill. At least, Jareen’s was. Mine was sort of flying straight but without a clear goal.

“Aim it!” Jareen snapped. I looked over; she was moving her hands around as if she were doing some funky fake kung fu move. I did the same, and suddenly my staff was also actually doing its job.

“Do I want to know how this is working?”

“Tell you when we have the time. I can’t keep this up forever.”

I had to figure that beings that could create spatiotemporal warps and move big ships on their own could also affect a couple of space-aged javelins. The battle staffs were slicing through Amazonian necks as if they were made of butter and the staffs were hot knives. I’d have been grossed out if I hadn’t known exactly what said Amazons were going to do to my people if we didn’t decapitate them.

The staffs flew back to us; we spun them again, and did the whole weird thing again. And again. The Amazons tried to shift their locations, but the staffs went where we wanted them to. They were close to impossible to avoid in this ma

Those few broke off and headed for other melees while our staffs sailed back to us again, nice as you please. “These are wicked cool boomerangs.”

“Yes, but they only work like that for crowd control. We have to use them like true battle staffs now, we’ll be in too close.”

Jareen and I headed for the dog pile that had Reader and Christopher in it. It was the next closest, and the rest of the Animal Planet folks had gone to support Lorraine and Claudia, except Neeraj, who was with Martini and Gower. The three of them weren’t making a dent in Kyrellis.

Sadly, the group we went to wasn’t doing much better against Moira and her assistants. “Yo, freak chick! Why don’t you fight someone your own sex?”

She spun toward me and smiled widely. “My mate says we should keep you.”

“Good luck with that.” I ran toward her, flipped in midair and landed with my feet on her chest. She fell back, and I somersaulted over her to land on my feet. Yeah, ACE was definitely spotting me.

This didn’t slow Moira down much, but it got her away from everyone else. I saw Jareen start kicking random Amazonian butt and the others manage to regroup. Tim was hurt, and so was Christopher. “James, get them out of here! Go to Chuckie.”

Serene was still up and fighting. Maybe the battle staffs responded well to women, not just Jareen and the Amazons, because she was a lot better with it than I’d have expected. Reader and Kevin started to get the others moving. Brian was down, and Serene was standing over him, keeping an Amazonian pawn and the two image-changing A-Cs at bay.

Moira charged me. I planted the staff and used it to let me slam both feet into her stomach. She flew back, still away from the others, which was what I wanted.

Jareen finished off the spares, then leaped over to Serene. She sliced the Amazon down the middle, then she and Serene each took one of the A-Cs. They shifted to look like me. Serene gave a snort of disgust and stabbed hers through the heart. Jareen grabbed the one she was fighting by the head and gave it a vicious twist. The A-C went down. I was glad he didn’t look like me any more, since he was lying on his front but his face was staring at me. For certain it was the guy who’d held the door for me at THEhotel. The one Serene had killed was indeed the other one. Good. Flirting was not an issue. Fake flirting really pissed me off.

Serene and Jareen each grabbed an arm and dragged Brian back. I had no idea where Tito was.

Moira was on me again, and now it was just the two of us. There was a variety of staff-to-staff slamming that didn’t do much other than make my arms feel like they were jolting out of their sockets. The staff spi

“You will enjoy being with me and my mate.” She spun and tried to kick my legs out.

I jumped and landed safely. “I doubt it. I like men. Big, strong, manly men. In fact, I like their hands all over me. And their other parts inside me.”

She was young and easy to bait. “You disgust me!” She charged, I sidestepped and hit her in the stomach with the side of the staff. Knocked the wind out of her, but she grabbed my staff and wrenched it out of my hands, which knocked me back and down. Now she had two, and she was good with them. Moira gri

I was in the same crouch I’d spent years in—my feet and hands were set just the way they were in the sprinter’s blocks before the gun went off. I let her get a little closer, then pushed off with all my strength.

I hit her stomach and took her down. Grabbed the pressure points on her arms and squeezed for all I was worth. Lucked out that they were in roughly the same place on her as on a human. Her hands released the staffs.