Alien vs. Alien

the priorities, babe.”
    She smirked. “You still have a mouth on you, I see. It won’t do you any good, but it’s nice to see you sticking with what worked for you when you were a kid.”
    “You mean when we were kids, though you
are
older than me. By a good few years.” Her eyes narrowed. Good. “I have to give it to you though—Ronnie here is a much more age-appropriate choice than your very late and not-at-all lamented sugar daddy, even if Ronnie is, what, a decade younger than you. He’s a lot better than his father was, too. And let me point out that I’m emphasizing the word ‘was.’ ”
    “My father was a brilliant man whom you murdered in cold blood,” Al Dejahl said. The bird people nodded. Okay, this was part of the party line, apparently.
    “Yeah, is that the story you’re telling? He was the Devil incarnate. We called him an insane megalomaniac who tried to destroy every living person on this world, and killing him was in self- and world-defense. Nice to see you still desperately trying to fill his fugly hooves, though, because if you take a look around, we have the very definitions of murdering innocents in cold blood littered all over the Mall.”
    Al Dejahl shrugged. “In any offensive, pawns are there to be sacrificed.”
    “You really are your father’s son, aren’t you? Of course, I’m kind of shocked you’re mobile and all. The last time we met, Jeff put quite the beat-down on you. Our Pontifex is the only reason you’re alive.”
    “Weak people don’t last long,” Al Dejahl sneered. “We’ll take care of my dear half-brother later.”
    Surely they knew Gower had taken over as Pontifex. Of course, it had happened when Al Dejahl was unconscious, Clarence was imprisoned, and LaRue was scrambling to save the remnants of their operation. So either their intel wasn’t two-way and they didn’t know, or they wanted to get a rise out of me. Either option meant I needed to give them nothing they could work with. Fortunately, years spent with Chuckie had honed my ability to keep a poker face, and my mother had ensured that, despite the evidence, I knew when to shut the hell up.
    “So, you headed off for galactic parts unknown, found a planet that would let you land, said ‘help, help, we’re freedom fighters, please come help us save our people from an oppressive regime,’ and then kept on going, until you found a planet that would both let you land and was interested in helping you brave saviors to free your world. That about right?”
    “What a smart little girl you are,” LaRue sneered. “If only you were going to live longer, there might be hope for you yet. But humans die so much more easily than A-Cs do, and I assure you, you’ll be dying shortly.”
    “But don’t worry,” Al Dejahl chimed in. “We’ll be happy to raise your daughter for you. It’ll ensure she becomes a useful member of our new society.”
    Thanked them silently for the extra boost of rage. But did they not know I was enhanced? Chuckie had done a good job of keeping it quiet, and every bad guy who’d seen me use the new skills was dead, so maybe not.
    “Really? That’s the plan? Stealing other people’s innocent children and making the world over into some goose-stepping, conformist culture? As if that’ll really work.”
    “It works well when you have the right backup,” LaRue said. Probably true. After all, their new friends were big birds. Goose-stepping might seem right and natural to them. And many cultures seemed to place order and conformity higher up on the scale than creativity and freedom.
    Al Dejahl nodded. “None of your husband’s people will be welcome here. I don’t mean him, of course. You’ll both be dead. But his people will be exiled again. Only we’ll be visiting the ‘home world’ after this. And they won’t be welcome there, either, or anywhere in that system.”
    “How
Mein Kampf
of you. They’re your people, too. Technically, at least.”
    He shrugged. “People are sheep, regardless of what they look like. They crave order. Chaos has descended, and they’ll do anything to make it stop. We’ll only be doing what they want.”
    What
was
it with the League of Evil Bad Guys? Just once, couldn’t one of them be shooting for anarchy as the final goal? What about peace, love, harmony, and Billy Zane in a role where he didn’t have to chew scenery? Heck, even a simple money grab. But no, to a crazed lunatic they went for the total domination idea. Always