Free Kitty Katt 11: Alien Separation by Gini Koch

ensure they looked human while they were here. Over time, they’d altered themselves so that while they still resembled Renata they also—per everyone else, and my own eyes, now that I hadn’t seen them for a few weeks—resembled me. It was flattering, really. In a kind of weird way, but that was pretty much par for our particular course.
    Realized that while I could maybe say the princesses were attachés of some kind, or even babysitters for Jamie, they weren’t going to be able to pass as part of our team of female protection specialists. They were probably the best
at
female protection, so to speak, but while they’d learned a lot since coming here, they weren’t really able to pull off the diplomacy required not to ask why the women of Earth didn’t just get rid of all the men attacking them, permanently.
    Looked at the rest of my list. Sure Cleary wanted us down there and he’d be just fine with me bringing all of Alpha Team, supported by Airborne, along with at least half of the rest of those in the room, but we weren’t sneaking down to Florida. We were going in a very obvious and photographable way. Meaning that anyone with half a brain would know something more was going on. And Cliff definitely had a whole, highly functioning brain.
    Frankly, to make this work and not alert Cliff that something was going on, anyone past me, Jeff, Kyle, Len, and, possibly Tito was going to be suspect. We could sneak Tito in because he was both our Embassy doctor and a former UFC cage fighter, meaning he’d have professional input. Cliff would expect Buchanan to be with us, and of course Raj would be going to keep me from making my usual faux pas. Beyond that, though, what possible reasons would we have for bringing along everyone else?
    Kevin came back in the room, interrupting my fretting. He was a human who gave the A-Cs a run for their money in the looks department. Tall, handsome, dark skinned, and with the best smile going, Kevin also had bags of charisma. He’d been a football player before my mom had recruited him, and still had the athletic build going strong.
    He nodded to his wife and seated himself back by her. Denise matched him well—also tall, blonde, and gorgeous, with a matching killer smile and her own bags of charisma. I was only half joking any time I mentioned that if I had to go to Beta Twelve to live forever, Denise would be the mate I’d choose.
    Yep, I’d missed all the hotness. And here I’d found all the beauty almost boring as much as a whole month ago. Wondered how Other Me was handling her return to the land of normal-looking people. Then again, she had Reader there, and Alfred, too, along with Buchanan. And Chuckie wasn’t a slouch in the looks department, either. Presumed she’d find the will to go on with her concentrated number of close, personal hunks and decided to turn my ever-wandering mind back to the current relative conundrums.
    I tried to, but the Lewis kids, Raymond and Rachel, were playing with Jamie, my dad, and Gower now. They were gorgeous, too, a beautiful blend of their parents, and also two of the sweetest kids in the world.
    And in the world Other Me was in they were all dead. I couldn’t get rid of Cliff Goodman and all his cronies in this world fast enough. Perhaps a frontal “kill ’em all” attack was the way to go.
    â€œCalm down, baby,” Jeff said softly. “They’re fine here, and we’re not going to let anyone take any of our friends from us.”
    â€œWe’ve said that before. And been wrong. Dead wrong.” We’d hit the Mastermind hard during Operation Infiltration but it had cost us. A lot.
    â€œWars are filled with casualties,” Chuckie said quietly. “And we may be fighting in the shadows, but it’s a war, Kitty. You know that.”
    â€œTrue enough.” I’d been thinking the same only a few minutes earlier, after all.
    â€œI