Alien in the Family

looking there, were we?
    I nudged Martini and pointed to the bed. He gave me a look that said I was crazy. I shrugged—probably, but it was worth a shot.
    He didn’t want me near the bed, and he didn’t want to let go of me. I could tell by the way he was moving, or not moving. Oh, well, impetuous was apparently my middle name. I pulled out of Martini’s hand, jumped on the bed, and started bouncing. Impetuous, yes. Stupid? Not so much.
    It didn’t take long, I heard someone make an “oomphing” sound. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
    Martini rolled his eyes. “Only my girl.” He grabbed a pair of my stilettos from the closet and sent them under the bed, hard and fast.
    “OUCH! Stop!”
    “Crawl out and maybe we won’t kill you,” Martini growled. I didn’t stop bouncing. It was kind of fun.
    “Make her stop.”
    “Not just no, but hell no. You’re the one who’s in here trying to kill us,” Martini added. “Why should we make it easy for you?”
    “I’m not here to kill you, Your Majesty.”
    I didn’t stop bouncing, but Martini and I exchange the classic WTF look. “His majesty would like to have that proven,” I shared between bounces. “We start, on this world, by showing our faces. Actually, we start by knocking and being admitted, not doing some alien form of B and E, but you know, whatever works.”
    Someone crawled out from under the bed, opposite from the side Martini was on. I leaped onto his back, wrapped my arms around his neck, and, as he started to flip, my legs around his waist. Tucked my head and held on.
    I’d held Martini like this, many times, when his reaction to the adrenaline harpoon was too violent and he was a danger to himself and me. Whoever I had in a full body lock tried to get me off, but he wasn’t as strong as Martini by a long shot. I tightened my hold, particularly the hold on the neck, and started to choke off his air.
    Martini was right there. “You okay, baby?”
    “Yes. Get a gun and shoot him. Or her. Whatever it is I’m holding.”
    Whatever it was flipped so it was on hands and knees and I was in the air, so to speak.
    “Male, unless it’s a shapeshifter.”
    “Stop . . . her . . . emissary . . . friend . . .”
    “Our friends knock, you creep. Our enemies, on the other hand, love to pull this kind of crap. Jeff, a little help?”
    “You’re doing so well. And you look great doing it, too. Love that outfit. If it gets wrecked, I’m buying you another one.”
    My opponent stopped struggling. “Not an enemy. An emissary.” He sounded pained, as though I’d insulted him.
    “Heard you the first time, dude. Didn’t care then, don’t care now. You snuck in. That makes you an enemy, means someone out to harm us. We have a lot of them.”
    “I’m not one.”
    “Right. Jeff, really, I have to kill him, or you have to help.”
    “Oh, kill him.”
    “Your Majesty, that would not be wise.”
    “You keep on calling me that. Wouldn’t know why.”
    “Your name is Jeffrey Stuart Martini . . . on this world. However, you have a name on another world, and you are the next ruler there.”
    Martini sighed. “Thanks for stopping by. Give my loathing and complete lack of interest to the folks back home. We’d love to invite you to our wedding, but, gosh, we’ve already booked the room, and we’re full up. Now, I’m going to knock you out, so I don’t have to worry about you hurting someone I care about. No hard feelings.”
    “No, wait!” Too late. Martini clobbered him, and we went down onto the floor.
    “Um, Jeff? Dead weight on my arms and legs.”
    He lifted us both up, I detached, and he dumped the body on the floor. Security chose this moment to arrive. “Commanders, are you all right?”
    “Yeah, thanks for the speedy arrival.” Martini had the sarcasm knob up to eleven.
    “Sorry, sir. We had some other issues.”
    “What?” We asked in unison.
    “Variety of small issues.”
    “Describe them. In detail.” Martini shifted me to his hip and I wrapped my legs around his waist.
    Gladys came on the intercom. “We have a variety of unknown A-C personnel in custody, Commander Martini. All claiming to be emissaries from the home world.”
    “How many?”
    “With the one in your room, Commander Katt, an even dozen.”
    “How did they land without our noticing?”
    “Cloaking, I assume, Commander Martini. We have confirmed NASA picked up nothing, but we have done some molecular scans. We have three cloaked ships