Alien vs. Alien

they’re working.” I’d been so fast that the people were basically where they’d been when I’d left, with the woman still doing CPR on Hughes and her husband checking Walker for all the places he was bleeding.
    They’d seen me arrive, so this group didn’t look as shocked as you’d expect. Either that or what with a space armada attacking, maybe someone appearing and disappearing in the blink of an eye seemed perfectly normal.
    “He’s a doctor,” I told them, pointing to Tito. “Please do what he says.”
    Tito knelt down between the two pilots and did a fast check. “Please continue CPR,” he said to the woman. Her husband translated. She nodded and kept on.
    The man stood up and dug a handkerchief out of his jacket. “Here.”
    “Why are you giving me this?”
    He smiled and gently wiped my face. “Because you are crying.”
    I was? Put my fingers to my cheeks. I was. Wanted to say Iwas crying because I was so angry. But I knew I wasn’t. I was crying because Hughes wasn’t breathing and Walker wasn’t moving. “Thank you.” I sniffled and did my best to keep it together. Had to focus on the rage. Hughes and Walker expected me to avenge them. If I broke down, then I wasn’t going to be good for anything.
    Tito made a call. He was requesting emergency support, and he sounded grim.
    “How are they?” I asked when he hung up.
    He stood up and took my hand. “Kitty, last time we were in this situation, I lied to you. You want lies Ӏor the truth this time?”
    My throat felt tight. “That bad, huh?” My face was wet. Should have kept the handkerchief.
    “Not looking good for either one of them, no.”
    “I’ll take the lies. Because you’re a better doctor than you give yourself credit for.” Heard an explosion behind me. Turned to see a fireball going up into the sky. I was fairly sure it was near the Lincoln Memorial. “Tito, I—”
    “Have to go. I know. Be careful, Kitty. I’ll do my best here.”
    I hugged him. “I know you will. And I’ll do my best there. Please make sure all these people get to some kind of safety. They’re the only ones who stopped to help anyone else.”
    “No,” the man who’d wiped my tears said. “We hid. You stopped. We came out to help you, but only because you were here to be helped.” He gently wiped my tears away again. “Never forget that you stopped.” He nodded his head toward the spaceships. “Now go stop them.”
    “Yes, sir, that’s exactly my plan.”
    I turned and ran across the water again, heading for the fireball.

    Yi

CHAPTER 100

    T HE SOUND OF EMERGENCY VEHICLES managed to float over on the breeze as I reached the Lincoln Memorial. I hoped some of them were heading to help Tito, but couldn’t think about that now.
    The fireball was already high enough up that I couldn’t be sure where it had originated, though there were a couple of smoking supersoldiers on the far side from where I was, so I had a good guess.
    Saw no activity at the top of the Lincoln Memorial steps, but there was a congregation of superbeings and supersoldiers near the bottom of the steps, so I ran over there. Not because I was crazy, but because I had to figure that if Jeff and Christopher were anywhere, they were there.
    Sure enough, and they weren’t the only ones. The Peregrines were with them, as were some Field agents, along with the three Z’porrah. They were all fighting—each other and the superbeings—while dodging the supersoldiers. Everyone was moving fast, but the Z’porrah didn’t seem to have the same speed as anyone I’d ever met from the Alpha Centauri system. One small favor.
    A group of androids ran into the fray, and I joined them. “What are you doing here?” Christopher shouted as he ran past me. “Get to safety!”
    “There is no safety right now! And I’m trying help you guys.”
    Of course, I needed a weapon. A Glock wasn’t going to do squat against anything I was looking at here. Had a nostalgic moment for our last intergalactic battle. I’d had a cool Amazon Battle Staff then. Now, I had, well, me. I’d been great with the really fast running, but otherwise, I wasn’t feeling the Living Weapon jazz. Started to consider Christopher’s wisdom. Buրt I hadn’t found Jeff yet.
    Ran through the fight, jumping out of the way here, dodging a supersoldier foot there, sliding past a superbeing attack, to end up at the home plate of where Jeff was, fighting Al Dejahl and all three of the Z’porrah.
    One of the