Touched by an Alien

felt when he’d had to suggest me as bait for Mephistopheles. “No.”
    “No?” Christopher looked shocked and angry.
    “Greatest number of people are in danger on the floor above us. Most of your population and, as a key point, almost all of your women. We have to save them, first, then come back down here.” I tried to focus on the fact that this was what Martini would have told me to do. I didn’t have to like it—the leader didn’t get the luxury of liking all the choices he or she needed to make.
    “She’s right, Commander,” Hughes said quietly. “We need to clear the last floor.”
    Christopher gave me a long look. “Jeff may be dead when we get back.”
    “I know what he’d pick if I gave him the choice of saving him or saving your race. It’s the choice you two have made every day for two-thirds of your lives.”
    Christopher nodded. “Let’s go.”
    We moved up the stairwell to the top floor—away from all the people here who mattered to me. I knew now, without question, why war was hell.

CHAPTER 51
    WE MOVED UP THE STAIRWELL The biggest positive to the unmarked doors was, I had to guess, the Al Dejahl team wouldn’t know what they were and therefore might have paid them no mind.
    We reached the top floor and eased in. Hughes was doing a great job of keeping Duchess quiet. I couldn’t even hear her toenails. I looked back to see him carrying her. Smart and an animal lover. And handsome for a human. That I could still manage to make hunkiness comparisons was good. That I was making allowances for humans to be less gorgeous than A-Cs was a reflection of how natural this all seemed by now.
    Terrorists all seem to shop at the same stores. They were as regimented in their outfits as the A-Cs were, only theirs ran to fatigues, flak jackets, and a heavy assortment of guns. It was easy to spot the human and A-C males who weren’t terrorists—they were all bound, most of them unconscious, all of them beaten up.
    The women had been herded into an open part of the launch area. There were a lot of them here. Enough for Mephistopheles to do what I knew he wanted—make them all like him. He didn’t want the males so much as he wanted the males out of the way.
    I recognized two of the women near the front—Emily and Melanie, Claudia and Lorraine’s respective mothers. “Where are our girls?” Melanie demanded.
    One of the terrorists, who wore his love of Che Guevara pretty much all over walked to them. He stroked Melanie’s cheek with the barrel of his rifle. “Maybe you and I will discuss that privately.”
    Emily shoved the gun. “Get away from her, you bastard.”
    He backhanded her. Melanie grabbed her before she hit the floor. “Why are you doing this to us?” she asked as she moved Emily back.
    He laughed, and I decided that as far as targets went, he was number one. “Because we can.”
    I pulled the Glock out of my purse. As I did, my hand hit something I’d forgotten was in there—portable speakers. An idea formed. I put my mouth right next to Christopher’s ear. “I’m going to create a distraction. How many of the guns can you get away in about ten seconds?”
    He turned and did the same to me. It was far too erotic for the situation. “All of them.”
    I nodded, and dug out my iPod, took out the headphones and plugged in the speakers. What to choose, what to choose. Well, why not go with what we’d heard was working so well elsewhere?
    Once the iPod was set up, we fanned out, staying low and quiet. I had no idea how Hughes could carry a baseball bat and Duchess while in a crouch, but he was the right man for the job.
    The nasties were clearly waiting for someone or something. I didn’t figure I was a genius to assume it was Yates. Who else, right?
    We were as well situated as could be, guns out, except for Hughes, who was carrying the loaded pit bull. I saw Christopher scan the room; he did it several times, then looked over and nodded. Okay, he knew where the guns were.
    I turned the volume up to eleven again, hit play and slid away as fast as I could. The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Give it Away” blasted out.
    The reactions were immediate—the terrorists, to a man, spun and started to fire toward my iPod. But they weren’t quite fast enough. Christopher might have been tired, but you couldn’t tell from how quickly the guns were flying through the air. The A-C women caught them—they might be scientists, but they sure looked as though they could handle an