Rave reviews for the Alien novels:
“From alternate realities to alternate galaxies, Koch takes us on the wildest adventures. But it is the camaraderie between the characters that keeps the over-the-top tale grounded and compelling.”
—RT Book Reviews (top pick)
“Koch still pulls the neat trick of quietly weaving in plot threads that go unrecognized until they start tying together—or snapping. This is a hyperspeed-paced addition to a series that shows no signs of slowing down.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Aliens, danger, and romance make this a fast-paced, wittily written sf romantic comedy.”
—Library Journal
“Gini Koch’s Kitty Katt series is a great example of the lighter side of science fiction. Told with clever wit and non-stop pacing . . . it blends diplomacy, action and sense of humor into a memorable reading experience.”
—Kirkus
“The action is nonstop, the snark flies fast and furious. . . . Another fantastic addition to an imaginative series!”
—Night Owl Sci-Fi (top pick)
“Ms. Koch has carved a unique niche for herself in the sci-fi-romance category with this series. My only hope is that it lasts for a very long time.”
—Fresh Fiction
“This delightful romp has many interesting twists and turns as it glances at racism, politics, and religion en route . . . will have fanciers of cinematic sf parodies referencing Men in Black, Ghost Busters, and X-Men.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“I am a huge fan of Gini Koch, and this series. I adore the world building. I love the sarcasm, banter, romance, mystery, action, and a slew of superhero-like characters that stand up against evil wherever they go.”
—Gizmo’s Reviews
DAW Books Presents GINI KOCH’s Alien Novels:
TOUCHED BY AN ALIEN
ALIEN TANGO
ALIEN IN THE FAMILY
ALIEN PROLIFERATION
ALIEN DIPLOMACY
ALIEN VS. ALIEN
ALIEN IN THE HOUSE
ALIEN RESEARCH
ALIEN COLLECTIVE
UNIVERSAL ALIEN
ALIEN SEPARATION
ALIEN IN CHIEF
CAMP ALIEN
ALIEN NATION
(coming soon from DAW)
Copyright © 2016 by Jeanne Cook.
All Rights Reserved.
Cover art by Daniel Dos Santos.
Cover design by G-Force Design.
DAW Book Collectors No. 1724.
Published by DAW Books, Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious.
Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Nearly all the designs and trade names in this book are registered trademarks. All that are still in commercial use are protected by United States and international trademark law.
eBook ISBN 9780698161726
DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED
U.S. PAT. AND TM. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES
—MARCA REGISTRADA
HECHO EN U.S.A.
Version_1
To my editor, Sheila Gilbert, who knows how to get the best out of everyone, me especially, and who has never said “oh, that’s a bad idea” to any of the crazy ideas I’ve tossed at her over the years.
Contents
Praise for the Alien novels
Also by Gini Koch
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
CHAPTER 69
CHAPTER 70
CHAPTER 71
CHAPTER 72
CHAPTER 73
CHAPTER 74
CHAPTER 75
CHAPTER 76
CHAPTER 77
CHAPTER 78
CHAPTER 79
CHAPTER 80
CHAPTER 81
CHAPTER 82
CHAPTER 83
CHAPTER 84
CHAPTER 85
CHAPTER 86
CHAPTER 87
CHAPTER 88
CHAPTER 89
CHAPTER 90
CHAPTER 91
CHAPTER 92
CHAPTER 93
CHAPTER 94
CHAPTER 95
CHAPTER 96
CHAPTER 97
CHAPTER 98
CHAPTER 99
CHAPTER 100
Special Excerpt from ALIEN NATION
About the Author
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As always, so many to thank and so little page space. But, as you can see by the size of this particular book, I’m going to go for it anyway.
Thanks again for both the patience of Job and amazing editorial direction to the fantastic Sheila Gilbert. Bows and cries of “I am not worthy” to my awesome agent, Cherry Weiner, my amazing crit partner, Lisa Dovichi, and the best and fastest beta reader in the West, Mary Fiore. As always, wouldn’t have made it through this book with any shreds of sanity left without you four ladies and I love all of you for pu
tting up with me in all the various ways you put up with me.
Love and thanks as always to all the good folks at DAW Books and Penguin Random House, to all my fans around the globe, my Hook Me Up! Gang, members of Team Gini new and old, all Alien Collective Members in Very Good Standing, Members of the Stampeding Herd, Twitter followers, Facebook fans and friends, Pinterest followers, the fabulous bookstores that support me, and all the wonderful fans who come to my various book signings and conference panels—you’re all the best and I wouldn’t want to do this without each and every one of you along for the ride.
Special love and extra shout-outs to: my awesome assistants, Colette Chmiel and Joseph Gaxiola for continuing to fight the good fight of keeping me on schedule and somewhat coherent; Edward Pulley for allowing me to steal Joseph away all the time with good grace; Edward Pulley again for amazing and inventive Poof creations; Museum of Robots for giving me the excitement of a licensing deal made better because it’s with such an awesome company; Scott Johnson for continuing to allow me to stay at the nicest bed & breakfast spot in San Diego that’s also the oasis of calm in my book tours; Doug & Gen Cook for the opportunity to be “home” while on book tour; Beth Bartlett, Jan Robinson, Lisa Dovichi, Patience Fones, Kay Johnson, Andrea Hippauf, Kevin Bowman, Koleta Parsley, Mariann Asanuma, Vicki & Richard Kung, Stephanie and Craig Dyer, Chrysta Stuckless, Kelly Mueller, Anne Taylor, Michael & Mandi Shelton, Terry Smith, Christina Callahan, Lynn Crain for bestowing beautiful, supportive, wonderful, and delicious things upon me; Robert Palsma for continuously liking everything I do; Michele Sharik, Brian Pituly, and Brianne Lucinda for going long distances to see me; for a ton of physical labor and emotional support, special love to Duncan & Andrea Rittschof; Adrian & Lisa Payne, Duncan & Andrea Rittschof, and Hal & Dee Astell for always showing up and making every event all the better for your presence; and especially to the Authors of the Stampeding Herd—Barb Tyler, Lisa Dovichi, Hal Astell, Sue Martin, Teresa Cutler-Broyles, Phyllis Hemann, Terry Smith, Marsheila Rockwell, and Lynn Crain—I literally would not have finished this book without the competition with and support from all of you, and I’m proud to pound hooves with all y’all.
Always last in the listings but first in my heart, thanks to my husband, Steve, who learned a lot of new drink recipes for me in order to ensure that I kept on writing, and our daughter, Veronica, who both encouraged me and kept me grounded. You both truly complete me and give me all the inspiration anyone could ever need.
THERE’S AN OLD ADAGE—be careful what you wish for. I’ve already learned that it’s true—wonder for one moment if your life could be more interesting and “Whoomp! (There It Is)”, you’re killing a newly formed superbeing and discovering aliens are real, on the planet, and total hotties.
Of course, that was so Twelve Operations Ago. I’ve gotten used to the excitement that is now my daily life, sorta, and the fact that, when push comes to shove, my brand of outside-the-box thinking and ability to just go with the crazy will save the day. It never ceases to amaze me, but at the same time, I know not to complain about things working out the way I’ve hoped they would. Well, mostly the way I’ve hoped they would.
Of course, many times what I’ve hoped would happen has, but with catastrophic side effects no one had predicted. Okay, almost all the time. But sometimes, it’s kind of nice to see that little cosmic joke explode into someone else’s face.
The Mastermind has been unmasked on national and international television, and our side stopped his latest bid to end the world. Go team.
Oh, sure, he killed a lot of people we cared about and many innocents along the way, but that’s just par for the old Course O’ Evil. All things considered, and if we ignore that we hate even losing one person on the Side Of Right, we’ve kept the body count pretty low. At least for our side. It’s not nearly high enough on the evil side, but we do persevere.
However, as our luck would seem to constantly have it, the Mastermind and seven of his cronies escaped. Always the way, am I right?
On the supposedly plus side, this has left my alien husband the new President of the United States, which makes me the First Lady. The fact that I keep on being shoved into these public-facing positions where everyone knows I’m going to blow it and yet still acts totally surprised when I do is just the way the cosmos amuses itself, at least insofar as I can tell.
Of course, if you’re going to inherit a position after the former owner of said position and half of his staff were murdered by your most dedicated enemy, there’s no one better than Jeff to take control and keep the populace calm and functioning. And we can but hope that my role will be small and not televised. Again and again and again. You know, just to mix it up and be different from all the other times.
Oh, who am I kidding? We all know it’s going to be the Kitty Messes Up Again Show for the foreseeable future. But no worries, I have a plan.
What is that plan, you ask? I’m going to channel The Cars and let the “Good Times Roll” while at the same time accepting that when Aerosmith sings about someone being “Crazy,” they’re singing about their Number One Fan. Who is me. In case you, like so many others, haven’t been paying attention.
After all, what could possibly go wrong?
Yeah, I’ll wait while everyone stops rolling around the floor laughing and catches their breath. Because Murphy and his Law are pretty much my copilots.
CHAPTER 1
“EXCUSE ME, President Martini, but we have a situation. It seems the Planetary Council is requesting foodstuffs that, ah, we don’t actually have on hand.”
This whispered, worried statement was coming from the head of the White House’s household, the Chief Usher, Antoinette Reilly.
She was an attractive black woman, a few years older than Jeff, and she’d been wearing a constantly worried expression for the past week. I’d met her before this, when the now-late President Armstrong was the man in charge, and she’d never seemed as ready to request immediate leave as she had been in the week and a half since his death.
And she wasn’t the only one. We were already clearly stressing out the staff of the White House beyond their obvious expectations, and we hadn’t even officially moved in yet.
“What could they possibly want that we don’t have?” Jeff asked, just as quietly.
“It’s, ah, considered a delicacy. Apparently. Only we would need to import it from, ah, the Alpha Centauri system, and even if we could do so easily, Chef is flat-out refusing to make it. And,” Antoinette looked over to me, “ah, I can’t blame him.”
Took the leap. “Oh my God, Alexander wants to have the horrid Alpha Four boiled tapeworms dish, doesn’t he?”
Antoinette nodded. “Madam First Lady, could you please help?”
“The formality of this new stage of my life is literally going to kill me. Can I order you and the rest of the staff to call me Kitty and have a hope of it sticking?”
Antoinette smiled. It was the first smile I’d seen her crack in a week, so go me. “Possibly in private. But right now, we need your help. Formally.”
Nodded, and turned to look down the long conference table. “Excuse me, Alex?”
Emperor Alexander, Ruler of the Entire Alpha Centauri System—at least as far as anyone on Earth other than those of us who actually understood the political system over there knew—nodded his head toward me in a regal manner. “Yes, Kitty?”
“Dude, you’re asking for food that makes humans literally want to barf their guts out. It’s a no-go. And anyone else requesting personal national or planetary specialties, up to and definitely including haggis, need to run those requests through me. So that I can say no in the nicest possible way.”
“That wasn’t what we were going for,” Antoinette said quietly.
“No problem, Kitty. But they’re really delicious,” Alexander said, sounding far more like what he really was—Jeff’s and his cousin, Christopher White’s,
younger relative who we’d put onto the throne of Alpha Four—than the Ruler of the Free Alpha Centauri Worlds.
“Dude, gag me. Seriously. Never speak of those things again in my or any other human’s presence and we’ll continue to love you.” Turned back to Antoinette. “Learn this now—I may have been forced to be the American Centaurion Ambassador, but don’t for one moment think that I enjoyed the job. I get far better results by living by the cat motto of asking for exactly what I want. And that includes being the FLOTUS. By the way, FLOTUS really makes me feel like I’m costarring in a Finding Nemo spin-off as the chipper strip of seaweed that helps the gang save the day.”
Antoinette was now clearly trying not to laugh. Or cry. Possibly both. Gave it even odds either way. “Duly noted, Madam First Lady.”
“The less said about what movie that title makes me think I’m starring in, the better.”
“Best Little Whorehouse in Texas?” Tim Crawford, the Head of Airborne for Centaurion Division, aka the guy doing what remained my favorite job on my entire resume, asked with a quiet snicker.
“Got it in one.”
Antoinette heaved a sigh. Had to figure I was going to generate that in her for the foreseeable future. She was a nice, smart, competent, capable woman, and I felt bad about stressing her out. However, we were still in Major Crisis Mode, and therefore me not being me wasn’t in our best interests.
“So, now that we’ve had an entire week to collect ourselves, what do we do?” It was the day after the third day of State Funerals, otherwise known as the day we buried our friend and the late President of the United States, Vincent Armstrong, and this question was coming from, of all people, his widow, Elaine.
The Former First Lady wasn’t normally included in matters of state, but we were possibly the most unconventional politicians the world had ever known, the former unwilling Vice President and even more unwilling President, also known as my husband, Jeff Martini, wanted her input, and the man who’d murdered her husband and so many others was still at large. As such, Elaine had joined Team Megalomaniac with gusto.
Frankly, the Current First Lady wasn’t normally included in this stuff either, but—under the variety of circumstances that had, in just over six short years, moved me from a happy-go-lucky marketing manager into being a superbeing exterminator, the Head of Airborne, the Co- then Head Ambassador for American Centaurion, and now the wife of the President of the United States—my husband valued my input, and so my input would be inputted. This was a fast-track career path that college had definitely not prepared me for.