Alien vs. Alien

Poofs were pleased with how I was once again impressively insightful and rightfully proud of themselves.
    Mous-Mous swallowed the Power Cube and went back to small and fluffy.
    “Damn,” Chuckie said under his breath.
    “Will the Poofies give the Power Cubes to Kitty, or Jeff, or Chuckie, or some of the others, if we need them?”
    There was some mewling about this. The Peregrines got involved.
    “What are they saying?” Christopher asked finally.
    “Oh, the Poofs and Peregrines both want to be sure the Power Cubes don’t get used against us or abused by anyone. They’re working out who should have access when, their own Avenger Initiative sort of thing. I think our Power Cube access is going to be on a need-to-have basis, not a want-to have, but they’re still working it out.”
    “I’m so pleased you have found a way to have the Poofs and Peregrines work together,” Alexander said. “It’s a rare talent, but we had faith in you.”
    “Per Stryker, without the Power Cubes in place, we’re now able to ‘see’ and map all the dead zones and tunnel system,” Chuckie said. “So, good initiative from the Poofs.”
    “My Poofies and Peregrines know how to get the job done.”
    “Only my girl.” Jeff put his arm around me. “You know there’s no way Imageering was able to hide all of this.”
    “Or that the Field teams can alter memories enough,” Christopher added.
    “We’re outed.” Jeff sighed. “Alexander, any chance we can all move back to Alpha Four?”
    “Absolutely, if you wish it. We are prepared to evacuate our people, if it’s requested or necessary. And any humans who are in danger as well.”
    “You’re the best, Alex. But I don’t know . . . maybe we won’t have to.”
    “Love your optimism, baby. Why do you think we won’t be run off the Earth?”
    I looked around. “Because the A-Cs being here is the only reason our allies came to help. Without the A-Cs, Earth would already be conquered.”
    “Think that’s going to be a viewpoint the average person will buy?” Jeff asked.
    “Depends on how it’s spun,” Chuckie replied. “I honestly have no guess. Could be the best thing to happen to the A-Cs, could be talked up as one huge Hollywood marketing ploy, could mean we’re all running for our lives.”
    “Guess we’re going to find out.”
    “Can’t wait,” Christopher said, sounding as though he actually could wait.
    “We have friends in high places. And low ones. And far, far away ones. We’ll be okay.”
    As I said this, the last Z’porrah ship was shoved through the Reptilians warp net. Three Feliniad ships swooped down and carefully and accurately hovered over each su뀀*perbeing. There wasn’t as much air blowback as a bunch of helicopters, but I could still feel the air moving.
    However, being blown around a little bit was well worth the outcome, because when they finished, the superbeings were no more, sucked up into the Feliniad ships. And as soon as the superbeings weregone, the supersoldiers and androids all went still.
    “Who flipped their switches?”
    “Ravi,” Chuckie said. “King Alexander, I’d like to formally request that you demand that the supersoldiers and androids be given into the custody of Alpha Four and removed from Earth.”
    “Why?” I asked before Alexander could reply. “They held off the Z’porrah until the cavalry arrived.”
    “Because if we can control them, so can someone else,” Jeff replied. “They aren’t benign. They were all programmed to destroy. We were lucky this time. I don’t want to bet that we’ll be lucky again.”
    “We will make that demand,” Alexander said. “And then we will have them all destroyed. Charles, I assume you would like to bear witness to their destruction?”
    “Yes, thank you. We need to catalog who the androids were impersonating before they’re disposed of, but otherwise, the sooner we can remove these creatures the better.”
    “If one megalomaniac can think these things up, another one can as well.”
    “Which is why I don’t want to leave any parts around for the next wave of evil geniuses to find,” Chuckie said. “Reader and Crawford know where the bases in Paris and Paraguay are. We’ll be razing those in the next few days.”
    “No argument, I’m with you. Why risk a
Terminator
scenario? Especially since we just had
War of the Worlds
. And then some.”
    Chuckie sighed. “True enough. Ravi doesn’t think we found all of the androids, by the way, just