Touched by an Alien

Jeff was, to have a shot.”
    “Okay, no worries. Just checking.” Sure, I was lying, but he didn’t need to know that.
    “We’re almost there.” He pointed to a very low-key complex in the middle of nowhere. It didn’t look military, scientific, or even interesting. Without a doubt, this was the Science Center. “Okay, the nose needs to point down, so we have to go under the red line.”
    “You told me to never go under the red line.”
    “While we want to go up or fly, yes. Now we want to go down and land, so we go under the red line.”
    “You said under the red line was bad.”
    “Kitty!”
    “Fine, fine.” I eased off on the stick and, amazingly, we went under the red line, at least as far as the instrument panel was concerned.
    “Pull up! Pull UP!”
    I did. It was impossible not to with him screaming in my ears. “What’s wrong now?”
    “Under the red line means just a bit under, not nose-diving!”
    The radio crackled. “Unidentified aircraft, you are not cleared to land.”
    “Who was that?”
    “No one I recognize.” Christopher pointed. “There’s open desert. Let’s land and then I’ll run us back.”
    “You don’t think I can land at the Center?”
    “I think it’s been taken over by hostiles.”
    “Oh, um, good point.” On the plus side, there wasn’t a lot of concrete in the area Christopher was directing us to. On the downside, if we crashed, it seemed unlikely anyone was going to come to rescue us. Ergo, I had to be sure we didn’t crash.
    A part of me wanted to do this with my eyes closed, but most of me wanted to survive, so I listened to his instructions and did my best to do exactly what he said. “Wheels down.” I flipped the switch and we felt the machinery move. “Good. Now, the next part’s the hardest, but people with less skill than you do it every day.”
    “You’re not great with the idea of building confidence, are you?”
    “I think you’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever met,” he said quietly. “And if Jeff ever hurts you, I’ll kill him.”
    “Oh.” I didn’t know what to say. “I think you’re totally hot and incredibly appealing even when you’re being snarky, but I also think I’m falling in love with your cousin, and if I kiss you, he’ll never speak to me again” probably wasn’t destined to be the greatest line in the history of romantic entanglements.
    He squeezed my waist. “It’s okay. Let’s get this jet safely on the ground and then go save everyone.”
    “Sounds like a workable plan.” I took a deep breath. “Ready.”
    “We need to bank and come around, we’ve overshot.” No problem, Starfighter training handled it. “Now, we’re back to easing down. Good, Kitty, that’s good. Even up a little … right … now down again … good.”
    It went on like this until we were close to the ground. “This is the hard part.” I refrained from comment. “As we get down, you have to pull back up, just a bit, so only the tires hit the ground.”
    “Christopher? If we die, I just want to say that I really like you.”
    “Thanks, Kitty, I really like you, too.” We sounded like junior high kids, but I just didn’t want to die without saying something nice to the person who’d be dying with me. His arm tightened around me. “Okay, almost there.”
    The ground came up fast, and I did what he’d told me, started pulling up just a bit. The tires touched, and we bounced—high. The stick got hard to control, and we hit the ground again. I fought the stick, but it was winning. “Now what?”
    He put his free hand over mine. “Now we find out if anyone up there likes us.”
    “Oh, great.”
    Christopher was trying to move the stick, and I wasn’t sure I should let him. “That’s good, fight it,” he said, through clenched teeth. “You’re slowing me down.”
    He pulled us up, and we were airborne again, going a bit too fast. I pushed against him harder, and we slowed down, banked, and then dived again. “I thought you said nose dives were bad!”
    “You’re not fighting hard enough.”
    I increased pressure again, and we pulled out of the nose dive a bit. Something was flashing on one of the monitors. “Um, Christopher? What’s that screen?” I pointed at it with my nose.
    “Oh, hell.” He pulled the stick hard, and we went up, spinning. “Fight it, Kitty, those are missiles heading for us.”

CHAPTER 49
    AS IF THINGS DIDN’T SUCK QUITE ENOUGH . I wasn’t sure what we were going to do, but