Alien vs. Alien

thinking, just don’t say anything right now.” I took a deep breath, let it out, and focused on the Inner Me. “Big George.”
    “Yes, Kitty?”
    “There are superbeing clusters in Paris and in the Chaco area of Paraguay. I’m sure they passed some form of electronic information. We need it.”
    “Why?”
    “Because we need to find the supersoldiers and the androids and reprogram them.”
    No one spoke. Waited for the sounds of crickets. Got electronic beeping instead. Same thing, really. Finally Tito, who’d apparently been chosen as Group Spokesperson, opened his mouth. “How?”
    “Um, we’re standing in the middle of Hacker International. What do you mean ‘how?’ Will Smith reprogrammed an alien craft in like five minutes in
Independence Day
.”
    “Kitty, you do know that’s fiction, right?” Stryker asked.
    “I point to the alien armada coming to destroy us, my missing husband who happens to be an alien from a different solar system, and the fact that we can travel via the subspatial time warp filtered through black hole technology that is the gates—just for starters, mind you—and say that
Independence Day
strikes me as more of a blueprint written by someone in the know than a fictional piece.”
    “She has a point,” Franklin said dryly. “I’d also like to mention that we don’t have time to nurture the idea of failure. Do what she wants, and do it now.”
    “Colonel, don’t you have to take all this up to higher authorities?” Buchanan asked.
    “I do, when I have a credible idea of what to tell them. They know about the impending invasion, believe me.”
    “Then why did they let the One World Festival go on?”
    Franklin shrugged. “To avoid mass panic, among other reasons. If we can avert the invasion, we don’t have to let any civilians know about the danger.”
    “Ah, the
Men in Black
theory. It’s sound, I’ll give you that.” But it lacked a certain something, which was any plan for what to actually do to avert the armada. Possibly because there was no way to avert it. Negative thinking. Had to stop that. “Can we somehow get visuals on Paris and Paraguay, where our teams are?”
    There was a lot of muttering from Hacker International, but two of the smaller screens in the room came to life. On the left we had lush French countryside and on the right we had the wilds of the Chaco. On the left we had a lot of huge, scary, metal-encased monsters going wild. On the right we had a lot of huge, scary, non-metal-encased monsters trying to outdo the ones on the left.
    We watched a number of jets flying around all of them. I was pretty sure I could spot the jet Reader was flying based on the fact that it was the one doing the most awesome job avoiding getting hit, which was, from the amount of firepower the supersoldiers were sending out, impressive. But the team in France wasn’t slowing the supersoldiers down.
    Samesituation over in Paraguay. I could spot Tim and the flyboys based on skill and flying signatures. And while the superbeings weren’t as weaponized as the supersoldiers, they had their own naïve charms in terms of horrifying appendages and bodily fluids and such, all aimed at our team.
    However, it was only going to be a matter of time before someone on our side managed to break through. Or until we’d blown up both countries to tiny bits. Or worse.
    A jet was batted out of the sky by a supersoldier, and we all gasped. It crashed into the earth, but its pilot made it out. Only to be slammed into the ground under a different supersoldier’s feet. More gasps, and I heard a couple of sobs, too. Another casualty. We needed to stop this. Part of me wished I hadn’t asked to see what was happening, but we needed to know. I needed to know. I worked better seriously pissed off.
    “What is the crazy you’re going for, Missus Martini?” White asked quietly. “I believe we need to get whatever it is into action.”
    He was right. And I needed to get back into the frame of mind to give orders and keep people going. Took a deep breath, let it out, and turned away from the screens to face the others.
    “We’re going to show a united front, Mister White, and do the one thing I think the bad guys aren’t expecting.”
    “What’s that?” Oliver asked.
    “We’re going to use their weapons against them.”

    Yi

CHAPTER 75

    “H OW ARE WE GOING TO DO THAT?” Naomi asked.
    “Great question! You and Abigail are going to be doing a lot of it, so glad you’re