Alien Proliferation

you that.” Great, we were going to have the Chuckie Argument anyway. “He’s always ready to take care of you, isn’t he?”
    “It wasn’t my idea to faint at C.I.A. headquarters.” In the middle of a really high-level discussion about Centaurion Division’s future, where I was representing Centaurion’s interests. Right into Chuckie’s arms, as it turned out. And right in front of the people I was supposed to be meeting with today. The fun never stopped.
    “Yeah. Reynolds was all over the save on that one.”
    “Chuckie caught me just in time, Jeff, and you know it. I’d have cracked my head open if he hadn’t been there.”
    “There’s nothing like seeing the man you know still wants to take your wife away from you carrying her unconscious body in his arms to really make you feel good.”
    Chuckie had proposed when Jeff and I were in the middle of a bizarre breakup that lasted a few hours but almost caused me to be killed, several times. That event still seemed easier than all the pregnancy stuff I’d been going through in the last few months.
    “He was taking me to medical at the Science Center instead of letting a bunch of human doctors get me and take me away to perform horrible tests on me and our baby. Tito said he did the right thing medically, too, bringing me to Dulce.”
    Tito Hernandez had been a medical student working three jobs in between cage fights when he’d helped me out in a big way during the fun interplanetary invasion that Jeff’s proposing to me had accidentally started. He was part of both Alpha and Airborne Teams now and, since he no longer had to work three jobs, had his medical degree. He was functioning as my personal OB/GYN for a variety of reasons.
    Jeff grunted, and I was sure we were headed for the next level of the Chuckie Argument, when the com crackled. I was fairly sure Gladys made it do that when she was annoyed. “Commander Martini? Will you ever be joining Commander White, or will he be handling the situation in Paris alone?”
    “Fine, fine, be right there,” Jeff snapped. He gave me a good, long kiss. “I love you, baby. You behave.”
    “Always. I love you, too. You be careful.”
    “Always.”
    He disappeared out of the room. Almost two years with Centaurion Division and the hyperspeed was still rather amazing. I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and forced myself to relax.
    “Gladys?” Many times I’d found that Gladys hadn’t actually turned the com off.
    “Yes, Commander Martini?”
    “Could you send the nice A-Cs with the video conferencing equipment down, and please ask someone, anyone, to help me finish getting dressed?” Yeah, I was that pregnant.
    “Crew on the way, Doctor Hernandez alerted.”
    “Great,” I grumbled. Tito was a wonderful doctor, but he really walked on the strict side of the medical house. “I’d like to know what’s going on in Paris, too, you know.”
    “All of Alpha Team, other than yourself, Doctor Hernandez, and Pontifex White, are in Paris, Commander.”
    “As mentioned earlier, Charles Reynolds is going to be here shortly, and I can promise you he’s going to want to know what’s going on. I want to know, too. Save me the time and energy and yourself the whining and get someone down here who can share all the details with me before Chuckie gets here.”
    “Commanders Martini and White have asked that we not share situations with Sometime Supreme Commander Reynolds unless absolutely necessary.” Chuckie had had to take over Centaurion Division at the start of Operation Invasion, just before my wedding. Gladys loved reminding everyone of that. I wasn’t sure if it was because she secretly liked Chuckie or just liked to have everyone on edge.
    “Gladys, have you ever heard the human term, ‘put a cap in yo ass’?”
    “You open new avenues for all of Centaurion Division regularly, Commander. Am sending briefing materials down to you now.”
    Great. The so-called light reading. There were many times I wondered if Gladys hated me for some reason, though everyone insisted that she just liked having fun with her job. Since she was the Head of Security, you’d think that would entail being helpful to the Head of Airborne, but that seemed to be mood-based, hers and mine.
    A knock sounded, and several competent-looking A-Cs whose names I should have known by now but didn’t came in and started setting up the mobile video conferencing equipment I’d become familiar with these past few months.