This is what happened:
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ ubuntu-device-flash touch --channel=ubuntu-touch/stable/ubuntu
Get https://system-image.ubuntu.com/channels.json: dial tcp: lookup system-image.ubuntu.com on 127.0.1.1:53: no such host"
I had to write Ubuntu 16.04 to a flash drive an boot off of it because this package is not available for Ubuntu 18.04.