Alien Tango

time,” he added with a grin.
    I didn’t argue with him, but I was still worried. We filed some reports, White took each member of Alpha Team aside to tell them what he’d told me, and then we gated to Caliente Base. I insisted on taking my car, and Martini stayed with me while the others went ahead.
    “Jeff, do you think it’s over?” I asked while we waited to get flagged through the vehicle gate.
    He was quiet. “Why would you ask me that?” His voice was strained.
    I looked at him; the color had drained from his face. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” I put one hand to his forehead and grabbed his wrist to check his pulse.
    “You’re asking me if we’re over.” He sounded ill.
    “Oh! No, Jeff, I wasn’t. I meant the thing with Leventhal Reid.” I stroked his face. “Why would you think I was asking if we were over?” My stomach tightened.
    “I don’t know.” He sounded tired.
    “Baby, are you sick?” I checked his heartbeats. Like his pulse, a little fast, but not out of the ordinary for him being upset. His skin felt a bit clammy.
    “I’m fine. As for Reid, I don’t know.” He looked at me and gave me a weak smile. “You don’t think it’s over, do you?”
    “No, I don’t.” Time to drive through. I looked at Martini. He still looked as though he wasn’t feeling well. I shifted into first, then held his hand. It seemed to help him. Got through the gate, drove to the motor pool area.
    Caliente Base was the smallest base I’d ever been in. Meaning that it only went ten stories into the ground and didn’t house a huge scientific research facility or well over ten thousand people. It was housing several thousand, though. Caliente Base was busier than I’d ever seen it before.
    I saw a variety of people, including Doreen. She was hanging on the arm of a guy who looked as though he’d won every Science Fair from kindergarten through graduate school. He had a dazed, “how did I get this lucky?” expression every time he looked at her. I predicted a happy marriage.
    Due to space limitations, couples were pretty much required to share quarters. Other than soundproofing issues, this presented no challenges since we didn’t have anyone with refugee status younger than twenty, which was considered the A-C age of consent.
    Martini and I found our room. As Commanders, we got bigger digs than most. All of Alpha and Airborne were on the same floor. In addition to this pointing out how much power our refugee status was going to have within the A-C community, I really prayed for soundproofing. I didn’t want to deal with the jokes from Tim and Reader if they heard me yowling.
    I said as much jokingly to Martini and had to spend an hour calming him down. I went from somewhat concerned to really worried. He picked it up, and we almost got into another fight, but thankfully our sex drives solved the problem.
    The sex was great, but when we were done, he was out again, head cuddled on my breasts. This wasn’t totally unusual for us, but normally he’d hold me. I tried to tell myself nothing was wrong, he’d just gotten used to it on the jaunt to Florida.
    I stroked his hair and knew I was a liar.

CHAPTER 63
    THE NEXT TWO WEEKS WERE remarkably uneventful, to the point of dullness. Oh, sure, we had the random superbeing manifestations, but none of them required Alpha or Airborne.
    Club 51 seemed silent, and Leventhal Reid had backed down on his demands to turn Centaurion into a military unit. Some of this was assumed to be because of ACE, though only a handful of high-ranking humans knew about what had happened. We’d have preferred that no one else know, but Kevin had to brief my mom, Mom had to brief the President, and the President pretty much could and did tell whoever he thought needed to know, so we weren’t in a position to keep anything hushed up. Most of the team, Martini included, moved to the opinion the operation was over.
    Some of the time was spent determining which human households were getting gates installed. After this, no one wanted anyone involved with Centaurion driving or flying if they didn’t need to.
    I personally spent some time being evasive with Chuckie and texting with Caroline. I was well-practiced with Chuckie, so that went as well as could be expected, meaning I lied, he got frustrated, and I spent a lot of time feeling guilty. This set even less well with Martini than it usually did, and we spent a lot of time snapping at each other.
    It was even harder