Two and a half milliseconds later I was standing in the spot where Tatiana had been standing, frantically looking for signs of her. There was none.
A millisecond later, the little freckle-faced Gray bastard was a puddle of green ooze on the top of that high-rise. I twisted his head completely off and tossed it over the edge of the building. Then, freckle-faced Gray number two joined him. And then number three, and then number four followed him. The fifth one was smarter than it appeared, and had pushed himself into the other grouping of normal-looking Grays—or perhaps they surrounded him like bodyguards protecting the President. I didn't give a flying rat's ass! All of them and I mean not just these forty, uh, thirty-six, of them, I mean all of the Grays that exist in this universe were going to die if some one of them didn't bring me back Tatiana!
I did a giant leap and rolled in the air through a forward tumble and landed where the remaining little freckle- faced bastard had been fractions of a second before. This one was fast and was no longer there. I rolled to my left and was grabbed and clawed at by the other Grays. My body armor protected me from their claws, but they had some sort of baton weapon that packed a mean-assed wallop. Five of them hit me with the things and released some sort of energy pulse on me before I knew what was happening. The pulses would have at least knocked out a normal human. I turned my warp field on and scattered them a bit. I jumped upward and then came down on three of the things at once and squished them against the rooftop. I kind of chuckled maniacally as bluish-green blood squirted over their leader.
A full second and a half had passed at this point and I had killed more than thirteen of the little bastards. Now the W-squared folks were beginning to realize what was happening and were beginning to react.
The surface materials on the alien rooftop came to life with snakelike probes darting in and out at us. One of them wrapped itself around Anson's left boot and snaked quickly up his leg. He shot at it with his left hand as he activated his warp armor. The field cut the probe in two and Anson unwrapped it and kicked it out of his warp bubble with a fast lights-off lights-on maneuver.
'Annie, close up the ship and put the warp field on now!' Tabitha ordered over her comm circuit.
'Warp armor, everyone!' 'Becca said and joined me in the fray.
''Becca, wait!' Jim was right behind her.
'We came in peace, you little bastards!' Anson shouted as he busted a clip full of caps off into several of the Grays.
'Capture the freckle-faced one! He's their leader!' I yelled to them over the comm.
Jim and 'Becca played the squeeze game on several of the aliens at once and took them out quickly. Anson continued firing at them with his pistols. I could tell his bubble was blinking on and off each time he fired. I caught sight of the freckle-face just in time as he was bringing another credit card to bear on Anson.
'Anson, stop firing now!' I yelled and he did immediately.
Tabitha saw what I was warning about and started firing on the Gray with the credit card. He was too fast for her, but she got several more of the bodyguard Grays in the process. She kept firing at the crowd of creatures as I converged on the lead Gray.
The blue-white light flowed from the card but I beat its aim before it could get to Anson. Just as the light started to ooze from the leading edge of the device I managed to get close to the alien at near sonic speeds. I did a lights-off lights-on maneuver and had the little bastard in my bubble with me. I tore his arm completely off and had the nanomachines dissolve it. The credit card device I pocketed. I did a second lights-off lights-on maneuver and grabbed a chunk of the rooftop, which I then used as material for the nanomachines to build zip ties and a choke collar. The nanomachines then placed them around the squirming alien in such a way that its feet and legs were zip tied, its good arm was tied to its bluish-green bloody stump, and the choke collar was too tight around its neck. I reached up to the creature's temple and found the clear headband that they all wore and ripped it off him.
The little creature began to shriek in its childlike voice. 'Stop, Earthlings. Please stop! You must not kill me!'
'Yeah, who's gonna keep me from it you little shit?' I said.
The little creature shrieked as I put more pressure on its choke collar, 'Please, do not kill me!'
'Tell your guys to stop fighting now!' I shook it violently and wanted to kill it badly, but I knew I had to keep it alive in order to save Tatiana.
'I cannot order them to stop without my interface band,' it said.
I held the band in front of it. 'You make any odd moves and you are blueberry syrup, pal!'
It put the headband on and made some facial tick motions. Then the remaining seven Grays stood down. The human team was able to catch its breath for a second and reload their weapons.
'All right, everybody, just calm down,' Tabitha said. 'Why and what did you do to our crew member?'
'She was removed,' the Gray said.
'Removed to where?' Anson asked as he reloaded his pistol. 'You want me to shoot him for you, son?' he asked me, slapped a magazine in, and then chambered a round.
'I do not know where she is. She was just removed,' the thing said.
I stuck my right index finger through its left eyeball and it squealed in agony with a girlish and childlike squeal as the eye popped and the blue-green blood squirted out.
