by Gini Koch
Since Raj was a troubadour, I normally expected him to sound soothing in stressful situations like this one. But he was clearly upset, because he wasn’t trying to exert any talent at all and sounded as pissed as Jeff and Christopher.
“Will other alien flags soon be flying all over our country?” the Serious Newscaster asked. “And are these aliens the reason the Z’porrah attacked our world again? Stay tuned for the first of our twelve-part investigative report: Aliens Among Us.”
Charles Reynolds cleared his throat as the show mercifully cut to a commercial. Chuckie was my best guy friend since 9th grade, always the smartest guy in any room, and also now the Director of the CIA. “It’s not an issue for us to say that the photos were shown out of context,” he said, sounding calmer than anyone else had so far. “And I’m sure we can get someone at the UN to share that the flag was their idea. However, this is highlighting one positive thing—the press and therefore the public at large have bought that the attacks at Camp David were caused by the Z’porrah.”
The Z’porrah were an ancient race of nasty dino-birds who had the longest-running feud ever going with the Ancients, who were an ancient race of shapeshifters. The Ancients were on the side of Earth and the Alpha Centauri solar systems—and by “on the side of” I mean “had meddled with everyone’s evolution but because they cared”—versus what the Z’porrah were doing out this way, which was still mourning the death of our dinosaurs and wishing the rest of us were long gone.
So, during our last frolicsome fun of less than six weeks ago, we’d taken the advice of the Planetary Council and blamed the created in-control superbeing and android attacks at Camp David on the Z’porrah. That our spin for the events of Operation Madhouse had started biting us in our butts far sooner than expected was just par for our particular course. We were, as always, stuck in the sand trap, and only a miraculous hole-in-one was likely to save us.
Serene Dwyer, who was the strongest imageer after Christopher, a stealth troubadour, and the Head of Imageering for Centaurion Division, nodded. “That the press is attacking is no surprise. That’s what they do these days. However, what Alexander and our other galactic advisors told us is still accurate—LaRue Demorte Gaultier was, is, and always will be a turncoat Ancient and a Z’porrah spy, and every action against us can be traced back to her, directly or indirectly.”
“Can we honestly confirm that?” Jeff asked.
Serene nodded. “We can, Jeff. Believe me.”
I believed her, since I knew that Serene was also the head of the very clandestine Centaurion CIA made up of troubadours around the world. I was the only person not involved in their operations who knew they existed. Therefore, if Serene said she had proof, we had proof.
“However, some of that proof can never be shared with the general population,” James Reader said. Reader was the Head of Field, a former top international male model, and the handsomest human I’d ever met. In a room full of A-Cs he looked normal, because the A-Cs were truly the hottest people on Earth. So far as I’d seen, they were the hottest people in the galaxy, but I was prepared to find other alien races just as good-looking out there. That was me, always willing to take one for the team.
“Leave the spin to us,” Doreen Coleman-Weisman said. She was the current American Centaurion Ambassador, a job I’d done for what had seemed like far too long and then, the moment I became the First Lady, far too short a time.
She’d grown up in the Embassy, and though her parents had been traitors, Doreen was loyal to Earth and the rest of us. However, she was the best qualified to be doing the Ambassador’s duties. Well, other than one other person.
Richard White was the former Supreme Pontifex for the A-Cs of Earth, meaning their Pope With Benefits. He’d retired to the active lifestyle when my daughter, Jamie, had been born, and he’d been my partner in butt-kicking ever since then. However, due to the events of Operation Epidemic, where one of our most virulent enemies had launched a bioterrorist attack that had killed half of our country’s leadership, White was now the Public Relations Minister for American Centaurion.
White nodded. “Yes, Jeffrey, this falls to us. Doreen and I have been preparing a statement to counter most of this. With the help of the Planetary Council, of course.” He nodded toward the other aliens in the room, of which we had a lot, since the Alpha Centauri Planetary Council had come to visit at the start of Operation Epidemic and literally hadn’t had time to finish their business and leave yet. We liked to keep our guests busy, go team.
The news came back on. “Welcome back. In a related story to the alien flags flying over the White House, our next story deals with the religious summit taking place in Rome right now.” We switched from the bald-faced lying Serious Newscaster to a shot of Vatican City. “We’ve learned that the Pope and religious leaders from all parts of the world are indeed in agreement that they will be encouraging their flocks to join together in order to face the ‘brave new world’ we find ourselves in.”
The Pope was outside along with a variety of other religious leaders, including ours—Paul Gower. Gower had been groomed by White for this position, and he was reasonably comfortable with it these days. He was also Reader’s husband. The camera zoomed in on him. Sadly, it probably wasn’t because Gower was big, black, bald, and gorgeous, but because he was the A-C’s Supreme Pontifex and, therefore, the person getting all the “blame” in this situation.
Sure enough and right on cue, the Serious Newscaster shared his so-called thoughts. “Is the Pope being negatively influenced by the head of the aliens’ religion?”
“Where is this coming from?” Jeff asked. Though this time he wasn’t asking the room at large. He was asking the two members of the fourth estate who had unlimited access to us—Mister Joel Oliver and Bruce Jenkins.
Oliver had been the laughingstock of the media for decades, because he’d insisted that aliens were on the planet. He remained the best investigative journalist going, and these days, he actually had the respect of his peers.
Jenkins was known as the Tastemaker, and he had tremendous influence. He’d been after us in a bad way during Operation Defection Election, when Jeff had been running as Vice President to the late Vincent Armstrong. But events of that particular frolic had made Jenkins switch sides in a very fast and permanent way. Discovering that one of the candidates you’re supporting is an android did that to some people.
“I believe that the answer is simple,” Oliver said.
Jenkins nodded. “Follow the money.”
“Excuse me?” Jeff asked.
The answer dawned on me. “Oh. This station is owned by YatesCorp, isn’t it?”
CHAPTER 2
OLIVER NODDED. “Yes. Recently added into that media conglomerate.”
“Recently as in the last two weeks,” Jenkins added. “You know, right after the attacks on Camp David that we managed to spin well, and the inauguration gala and Club Fifty-One Gratitude Ceremony, which also went far better than could have been expected.”
“Mergers happen all the time,” Elaine Armstrong said. She was Armstrong’s widow and now Jeff’s Secretary of State. As such, she was fully on Team Alien. “Not that I am for one moment suggesting that this isn’t part of a concerted effort against us.”
“YatesCorp is trying to gather as many affiliates as possible,” Oliver said. “And as Bruce pointed out, that’s only started since the last actions against the A-Cs were salvaged.”
“So, Amos Tobin is making his move.” Looked down the table to Thomas Kendrick, the head of Titan Security and one of the newer additions to Team Alien. “Thomas, your thoughts?”
He shook his head. “I realize I used to be sort of ‘in’ with Amos and the others, but I don’t think they ever trusted me fully, since I came over from the Department of Defense. None of this is something I know anything about.”
Based on what had gone on during Operation Madhouse, I b
elieved him. That the others did, too, was confirmed by heads nodding around the room, including Jeff’s. And if Jeff felt that Kendrick was telling the truth, then Kendrick was telling the truth.
“However,” Kendrick went on, “I can guarantee that they want to harm your ward. That, they never tried to hide from me.”
My ward was Elizabeth Jackson, now Elizabeth Vrabel. Lizzie had been adopted by Benjamin Siler, who was the first human-alien hybrid, being the son of Ronald Yates and Madeleine Siler Cartwright.
Yates was the exiled former Supreme Pontifex who happened to be White’s father and Jeff and Christopher’s grandfather. Yates had built a media empire and then some, which was now being run by Tobin.
He’d also been an in-control superbeing named Mephistopheles. Mephistopheles had allowed Yates to die, with the idea that he’d then move to me. But I’d killed Mephistopheles before that could happen. Operation Fugly might have been six years ago, but there wasn’t a day it didn’t find a way to rear its head and add into whatever else was going on.
Cartwright had been one of the many female Brains Behind The Throne we’d encountered over the years. She was dead now, too, thanks to the fact that we had talented allies. But Yates, Cartwright, and her sister and brother-in-law, Cybele Siler Marling and Antony Marling, had done experiments on Cartwright’s son.
As such, Siler aged far slower than everyone else and, in addition to the standard A-C abilities like hyperspeed, super strength, and faster regeneration, he could “blend,” meaning he kind of went chameleon. That blend could extend to those he touched, and while he couldn’t hold the blend for all that long, experience had shown that he could hold it long enough.
His uncle had rescued him from the torture his parents were perpetrating upon him and had raised Siler in his trade—assassination.
Due to a variety of things that had happened during Operation Epidemic, Siler had moved himself and Lizzie into the Embassy, and they used the name Vrabel for anything public. But the events of Operation Madhouse had put Lizzie into the White House with the rest of us and made her my ward, just because things hadn’t been complicated enough already.
Despite all that had happened to her—including her parents being traitors who’d been ready to kill her when she wasn’t willing to go along with a plan to murder millions of people—Lizzie was a great kid. She was also a protector. Tobin and the others were after her because she’d schooled their kids on why picking on people weaker than yourself was a bad thing to do.
“I get that they don’t like that Lizzie kicked their kids’ and their friends’ kids’ butts. But the only reason I can see for them continuing the vendetta is because they want to hurt Amy and blame it on Lizzie.”
Amy Gaultier-White was one of my two best girlfriends from high school. She was a tall redhead, a lawyer, and still fighting to get control of her late father’s company, Gaultier Enterprises. She was also in the room, because we were nothing if not the most unconventional and chummy administration the White House had seen in a long time if not ever.
“Well, the Fem-Bot Initiative certainly indicates that.” Amy was going to say something more, and it looked like Siler wanted to say something, too, but Tim Crawford ran into the room. And he really had to run to get close enough so that Jeff could see and hear him.
In a normal presidency, this meeting would have been taking place in the official Situation Room. But that room only held about twenty-five people and, as such, was far too cramped for the numbers we seemed to drag with us.
So, we’d done what we always did and adapted. The much larger State Dining Room was converted into what we now all called the Large Situation Room, or the LSR for short. This had been met with some resistance by the White House staff, but we’d shut them down by sharing that we’d eat in here, too.
And, frankly, even though it was more ornate than the Original Situation Room—aka the OSR—it was a lot airier and more relaxed. Sure, the many TV screens weren’t embedded into the walls and such, as with the OSR, but rolling A-V equipment was easy enough to set up when you were dealing with people who had hyperspeed, and in this room we could seat a heck of a lot more people. This meant that we were doing these meetings in the White House Residence instead of the West Wing, but it was a small price to pay to not have to tell various members of our extended team that they had to sit on the floor or, worse, not attend the meetings at all. I’d personally have done a lot to be allowed to miss these meetings, but I was in the minority.
Tim was doing the job that was still the favorite one I’d ever held—Head of Airborne for Centaurion Division. “Where have you been?” Jeff asked, before Tim could speak. “I asked you to be here thirty minutes ago.”
“Sorry I’m late, but you’ll be glad I am. Or at least interested in why.” Tim didn’t sit. “I was at Andrews with the rest of my team, getting briefed on more of what Drax’s helicarrier can do.”
“Where is he?” Jeff asked. “He was supposed to be here as well.”
Tim rolled his eyes. “Jeff, if you’d let me finish, I’d be happy to tell you. Unless you desperately need someone to berate for some reason.”
“He does, we just watched the news and they were, as so frequently happens, mean to us, and Jeff’s tender feelers are hurt. However, I’m here. Tell me whatever it is, Megalomaniac Lad. I care and currently feel no need to berate anyone.”
Tim grinned at me. “Thanks, Kitty. Anyway, a request came through to Colonel Franklin and he felt that we needed to discuss it, so I could brief all of you.”
“And that was?” Jeff asked, sounding annoyed. “I’m not trying to berate you, Tim. I just want to know why you’re late.”
“Jeff,” my mother said sharply, “relax. And that’s an order.”
That my mother was both in the room and telling the President what to do wasn’t so much because she was a meddling busybody as much as it was her job. As I’d discovered six years ago, my mother wasn’t a business consultant. She was the consultant for anti-terrorism and the Head of the Presidential Terrorism Control Unit, a division almost as clandestine as the one Serene was running, but with a lot more power. The P.T.C.U. reported directly to the Office of the President, and most of the other Alphabet Agencies reported dotted-line into the P.T.C.U. somewhere.
“Ah, Angela has experience with this, Jeff,” Fritz Hochberg, our newly instated Vice President, mentioned. “More than you or I do, frankly.”
Jeff ran his hand through his hair. He had dark, wavy brown hair and I liked when he did this, because it managed to make him even more handsome than normal, which, considering he was the hottest thing on two legs, should have been impossible. But it wasn’t.
Jeff must have picked up my lust spike, because he glanced over at me and gave me a very personal smile. He also relaxed. That was me, keeping the top man stress-free by wanting to constantly keep him in the sack. This was, sadly, probably the only FLOTUS duty I was actually going to be good at, but at least I had this one firmly under control.
“You’re right,” Jeff said. “Tim, I’m sorry, please go on.”
Tim shook his head. “Too much caffeine? Anyway, while I realize that the media attacks are making everyone tense—and yes, I know about them because they have TVs over at Andrews—this may make it a little better.”
Resisted the urge to tell him to hurry up. We all liked to own our dramatic moments now and then.
Reader felt no such compunction. “Tim, seriously, stop dragging it out. What’s going on?”
“We have a whole lot of people asking to enlist.” Said as if this was the coolest news in the world.
That sat on the air for a moment. “Um, in the Armed Forces?” I asked politely. “Don’t we usually have that? I mean, I’m sure it ebbs and flows and all that jazz, but people wanting to enlist isn’t all that unusual.”
Tim grinned. “For Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, the National G
uard, and the Coast Guard? Sure. But that’s not what I mean. I mean that we have people, many, many people, who want to enlist to serve in Centaurion Division. And they’re all humans.”
CHAPTER 3
TIM’S NEWS STUNNED THE ROOM into silence. The A-Cs were normally quiet when they were thinking, but a quick glance showed that they were probably not thinking all that much, because to a one, they all looked shocked out of their minds.
White recovered fastest. “Ah, are you certain they want to join Centaurion Division?”
“Positive,” Tim said as his grin got wider. “And they’re not just from the U.S. We have requests coming in worldwide.”
“Why?” Jeff asked flatly.
Tim shot Jeff the “really?” look. “Because they want to fight evil aliens and they want to go into space to do it.”
“Oh, wow, it’s Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, isn’t it? Only we’re fighting dino-birds instead of bugs.”
“I have no idea what you mean, baby,” Jeff said. It was obvious that most of the other A-Cs weren’t getting this one, either—they weren’t really up on any science fiction books, movies, or TV shows, presumably because they didn’t think those were works of fiction so much as historical documents about their lives. The other aliens in the room looked equally confused, but several of the humans all started to come around.
“This could be wonderful news,” Hochberg said. He was a former four-star Army general, so he’d definitely be one who’d know.
We had other former and current military personnel in the LSR with us, and they all started to look kind of excited. “Something like this, combined with the religious leaders being in agreement, could really bring worldwide cohesiveness,” Senator Donald McMillan said. He was a former war hero, the senior senator from Arizona, one of the few honest politicians we knew, and, by now, a good friend.
