Alien vs. Alien

mistake. The rest of the Peregrine flock appeared, and they were pissed. They attacked Clarence and the others, clawing at their Space Togas and everything underneath. The scene in front of me turned into a lot of claws, beaks, and feathers.
    At the same time, I heard screams from behind me. Risked a look. People were pointing and running in the opposite direction. Looked where they were pointing, which was at the downed supersoldier. The soldier part was destroyed. The super part wasn’t.
    A superbeing staggered out of its shell. It might have been hurt, but it wasn’t dead by a long shot. Claws, talons, other scary projections jutted from what I charitably chose to think of as its body. As near as I could tell, its head was in what on a human would be its stomach. It screamed, and really gave the Z’porrah a run for their screeching money.
    The superbeing did what superbeings did—it destroyed.
    Had to assume it was seriously pissed from being trapped and controlled inside the supersoldier shell—after all, ACE had told me that whatever was inside the supersoldiers was sentient. It swiped viciously at the people near it, most of whom were Field agents. Not that only our people took hits. The ground was now officially red with blood.
    Supersoldiers ran toward us, trampling people who were, yet again, running away in panic. The superbeing was definitely of the tooth, claws, slice and dice variety, and it was slashing through the crowd.
    But not everyone was running away from it. Some people ran toward it. And, shockingly, they weren’t wearing black Armani suits.
    They looked like regular people, but as they swarmed over the superbeing, I realized they were androids, because no human or A-C could take the damage the superbeing was handing out and still hang on and fight back.
    This was great in one way, but we were now in between the proverbial rock and hard place. If a supersoldier was downed by one of the Z’porrah ships, it was going to open up and release its special surprise inside, which would then start destroying all the things it had been protecting previously.
    When we had battles like this in the middle of the desert, nothing really got messed up other than the cacti and poor desert animals. Here, though, there was so much to destroy—it already looked like World War III, and the attack hadn’t been going on for more than thirty minutes, if that.
    Checked on the Peregrines. They were definitely holding their own. The Z’porrah’s Space Togas were in shreds, and LaRue and Al Dejahl didn’t look any better. But I could see what the Z’porrah looked like without their clothes on. And, to me, they no longer lookeÀd like birds. But I did realize what their heads had reminded me of.
    They looked like miniature Tyrannosaurus Rexes. With wings.
    So much seemed explained, but I had no one to share my new insights with. Not a problem, I had plenty of other things to do. Like not let my head hit the pavement when Al Dejahl broke through my Peregrine line and tackled me.
    Tucked my head against him as we rolled down the stairs. Managed to flip him an extra time so that he landed on the bottom when we hit the pavement.
    “What is it with you and beating up girls?” I slammed my fist into his face. He seemed shocked. So I hit him again. And again. Really, really hard. “You are not a nice guy.” Punctuated each word with a punch.
    Sadly, he recovered and flipped us again. Tucked my head again so it didn’t hit, which was good. But he was on top of me, which was bad. He grabbed my throat so I couldn’t move my head, reared back, fist ready to slam into me.
    Just like the last time he’d been attacking me, Al Dejahl wasn’t paying attention to one important piece of information. Jeff was around.
    I heard the roar before I saw his fist hit, so I grabbed the fingers around my throat and pulled them apart. I was fairly sure I felt bones break. Then Jeff’s fist landed and Al Dejahl flew off me.
    “You okay, baby?”
    “Yes, because of you. Go get him, I’ll get LaRue.” Jeff took off; I scrambled to my feet and took a look around.
    Clarence was down. I wasn’t sure if he was dead, but he wasn’t moving. The three Z’porrah were still fighting my Peregrines. LaRue wasn’t there with them, though. Scanned the crowd. Spotted her, running for the side of the Lincoln Memorial. The hell with that—I wasn’t letting her get into the tunnels.
    Amazingly enough, there weren’t a lot of people where