Alien vs. Alien

the way.
    “A-Cs don’t crave order?” Which ones did he know? The ones I knew liked order just fine. In fact, until I’d shown up, as near as I could tell, they’d had all of two rebels, Terry and Jeff. Not really a large percentage of the available population.
    “They tend to be . . . far too creative for our plans.”
    “You mean smart.”
    “You say tomato.”
    “Actually, I say whatever, but I get your general drift. So you’re just going to kill all the A-Cs here? At least they’re like you, in that sense. Not even going for the ever-popular enslavement plan? You don’t want your own A-C army?”
    Al Dejahl’s eyes narrowed, and he leaned toward me. “I don’t need any of them,” he hissed. “I have many things that are so much better. And much more effectively controlled.”
    Had to figure out if they were the King and Queen of the Big Bluff or if they really had no idea that we’d taken control of the supersoldiers and, hopefully, the androids. Did they think the supersoldiers were taking hits on Marling’s order? Then again, maybe they weren’t talking about those and were referring to the Z’porrah.
    Decided not to push it. Keeping the bad guys monologing was my specialty, and hopefully it’d give us time for reinforcements of some kind to arrive. “Really? You know, Jamie’s an A-C, too.”
    “She’s a hybrid. More powerful. More useful, too.” Al Dejahl grinned at me. “Your husband should have killed me when he had the chance.”
    “Yeah. You’re part of the group that mistakes kindness and charity for weakness.” I looked at the three Z’porrah in front of me. “So, Big Birds, you’re good with this? Our people showed mercy to this man and didn’t kill him. He and his pals exiled themselves as opposed to facing fair trial. And they’ve lied to you about who they are in our world, they’re threatening an infant as well as thousands of innocent people—and you’re still willing to stand with them?”
    The Z’porrah stared at me. “You are rude,” one said.
    “Um, sorry, but you invaded our world and attacked. No introductions, no declarations of war, no polite requests for surrender. Just wham, bam, look at my parasites, ma’am. Where I come from, we call that being
extremely
rude.”
    “None stand with you,” the second Z’porrah said.
    I looked behind me. Yep, all the people were there. And more. Turned back. “I see a heck of a lot of people standing there.”
    The third Z’porrah shook its head. “Your ownflock is not what we mean.”
    “You mean that because we don’t have other alien races other than human and A-C here that this means we’re okay to be destroyed?”
    The Z’porrah all rolled their eyes. In unison. As the unison thing went, eye rolling in unison was the most icky and unsettling of any I’d experienced so far. “None stand with you. You have destroyed life on this planet. We see no reason not to destroy you.”
    “Ohhhh, you’re doing this for ecology! Got it. You’re ecoterrorists and we’re your next target. Gotcha. Of course, you destroying us makes you no better than we are, but I doubt that matters to birdbrains.”
    “You insult us,” the first Z’porrah said.
    “No. You’re ugly and your mother hen dresses you funny is an insult. Calling you what you are isn’t an insult. By the way? We’re sick and tired of you coming by, probing and freaking out our people. Why you have that intricate tunnel system is a little confusing, though, because you aren’t blinking in the sunlight, so you don’t live underground.”
    The second Z’porrah’s eyes narrowed. “You have found the network?”
    I thought about it, what the subterranean tunnels and dead zones had looked like. Could it be their version of a computer network? Wished Chuckie was here, or anyone from Hacker International, because they’d have known right off.
    Decided to go for it. “Yes.”
    The three birds screeched in unison. They sounded like Bruno and the rest of the Peregrines, only at least a hundred times louder.
    “Destroy them!” the third Z’porrah screamed. “The apes must not have network!”
    Whoops.

    Yi

CHAPTER 97

    I WASN’T SURE WHAT THE Z’PORRAH were expecting when they gave their destruction order. But I had to bet that what happened wasn’t it.
    Jamie woke up, screaming and clawing. She also turned into a Peregrine. Lola, to be exact. Lola clawed and bit at Clarence, who also started screaming and hitting at her.
    Big