Arrival

by Michelle Robbins

  Table of Contents

  ARRIVAL

  ALSO BY MICHELLE ROBBINS

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  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

  MICHELLE ROBBINS

  AMBER QUILL PRESS, LLC

  ARRIVAL

  Life for Liam Sinclair used to be easy. Raves, work, sleep. Lather, rinse, repeat. Yet all of that changed with the arrival of the Urilqii...space aliens, technically, although they looked like everybody else. But if that wasn’t freaky enough, they arrived on Earth to thwart a global usurpation by beings they called The Targolt. Climate change, long-denied, was proof of the invasion.

  Although at first Liam was as skeptical as everyone else, he couldn’t deny one fantastic truth—those space-faring alien dudes were hot, Hot, HOT! Still, despite their smiles and affable natures, despite the continual coverage of their actions by the media, the aliens have been strangely close-mouthed, even after many months on Earth. And Liam, like most humans, can’t help but wonder—what are they hiding?

  He is about to find out.

  First Sergeant Mike, a member of the Urilqii race, lost his love in the last battle with The Targolt and lives with the pain and guilt of surviving while his adored partner did not. But with Liam’s sudden arrival into his life and into his heart, will Mike be able to accept or even admit his growing feelings for the handsome human?

  ALSO BY MICHELLE ROBBINS

  Butterball

  Marked

  Stir Of Souls

  ARRIVAL

  BY

  MICHELLE ROBBINS

  AMBER QUILL PRESS, LLC

  http://www.AmberQuill.com

  ARRIVAL

  AN AMBER QUILL PRESS BOOK

  This book is a work of fiction.

  All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

  Amber Quill Press, LLC

  http://www.AmberQuill.com

  All rights reserved.

  No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  Copyright © 2015 by Michelle Robbins

  ISBN 978-1-61124-726-8

  “Sgt. Mike” Photograph © 2015 AJL Photo

  Cover Art © 2015 Trace Edward Zaber

  PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  Sergeant S. Miles

  The inspiration for, and model of, my “Mike.”

  Thank you

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Mike’s story is about survivor’s guilt and the journey taken by our soldiers to forgive themselves and find the strength to claim their healing.

  Please, let us remember not all of our returning veterans wear scars on their skin. These wounds of the soul are often the most damaging and crippling. Our warriors, on battlefields worldwide, are the best and finest of our country.

  I implore readers of this book to think about Mike’s struggle and always honor and respect the choices of our service people, as well as the sacrifices they’ve endured due to this one brave and selfless choice.

  CHAPTER 1

  Earth, in the close future

  New York City

  The pounding fists against one of the conference room’s sideboards joined in with the din of shouting voices like the drum roll of thunder across Earth’s stormy skies. Interplanetary diplomacy wasn’t his strong suit, but First Sergeant Mike was certain this didn’t bode well for the discussion. Perched importantly on a puffy seat in front of him sat the Envoy, labeled “Mr. Robertson” by these community leaders.

  He appeared calm.

  Always the diplomat, Mike snorted, no matter how hot the zone.

  Mike exchanged a fast glance and a shrug with the soldier standing beside him, Sergeant Steve, and was given an equally fast shrug in return. There wasn’t much either of them could do for Earth’s population. Until two days ago, denizens of this planet had thought themselves alone and dominant in the galaxy—then his people had arrived to shatter that preconception.

  Huge changes, Mike admitted to himself. Earth was not alone, and life existed elsewhere in the universe. More unsettling for the dumbfounded residents was the fact Mike’s people, the Urilqii, had arrived on this pretty blue rock to face off against an ancient enemy that’d targeted Earth for annexation. As such, extinction threatened all air breathing species on this planet.

  Mike knew those were not the kind of changes to which one easily adapted. Still, he had to draw on the reserves of his patience to suffer through the ongoing tedium of ongoing interspecies conferences. It would have been far more stressful for everyone had they arrived at a later date.

  The fact Urilqii bore the same shape and gender alignment, and displayed significant aptitude with the resident language bases, helped ease the shock of their arrival. The fact that they’d appeared on armed, star-going ships, however, had not.

  Fear stunk up the room, as did determination.

  Mike identified and respected it. Much like the steel-eyed resolve he spotted among the dignitaries inside the chamber, he’d done whatever it took to keep his world safe. He knew the situation, and he knew their desperation.

  The skin across his shoulders itched and he dragged himself back to the now. While lost in thought, he’d been pulled unwittingly into a contest of eyeball wrestling with the white-capped security personnel across from him. Marines they were called, and a quartet flanked the dignitary who sat in front of a red-striped, white-starred emblem.

  He stared back at the Marine. Hard.

  The guy’s eyes narrowed, demonstrating a willingness to step up.

  Mike felt the same way. ::Guy’s gonna to get a mouth full of knuckles if he doesn’t ease up.::

  The urge to relax filled his mind via the Envoy. ::At ease.:: It galled, but Mike lowered his gaze from the Marine and consoled himself with the fact the cabal’s mind-link would ensure his annoyance would be loud and clear. Steve covered a laugh with a cough.

  “I will not accept this!”

  The unexpected roar from the one Mike had dubbed Blowhard broke into his thoughts. He steeled his face to maintain his impassive expression. Did the guy think his tantrum could fix the problem?

  “How can you not?” The response of Creepily-Compliant dripped scorn. “The proof is in front of your face.”

  As a whole, the room of dignitaries returned their gaze at the ambassadorial contingent of Urilqii. Mike and Steve—not their names, but given to them by the planet’s residents, who couldn’t pronounce his language—returned the observation without comment.

  The Envoy buried his nose in the laced-fingers hands he pressed against his mouth. Since Robertson muffled his thoughts, all Mike heard through the mind-link was humor and the effort not to say something he thought might sting someone’s pride.

  The one called President Morgan broke into the tense exchange. “Gentlemen, take a seat. We need to hear what our guests have to say.”

  Blowhard wasn’t in the mood to be civil and repeated his protests…and his volume. “This is a trick! We are being overrun by evil beings who want to destroy us!”

  Well, true, Mike thought, but the evil was not his people.

  “Enough,” clipped th
e president. “Sit down. All of you.” He nodded to the seats around the conference hall. “Our planet is threatened. We need to set aside our differences and pay attention.”

  Mike watched the small group of angry men leave the sideboard and throw themselves back into their assigned positions.

  Furniture squeaked. Gasps and grumbles replaced bluster. Some dignitaries throughout the room yanked at the nooses encircling their throats, as though uncomfortable with the fabric.

  The garb was puzzling. If it was so uncomfortable, why wear the stuff? It couldn’t make breathing easy, and in a fight the fabric could be lethal if an opponent caught hold of it and pulled.

  ::And why do the ends point at their reproductive organs?:: In mind-speak, Steve’s voice sounded like a processing machine dealing with a block of rocks.

  The silken tones of Robertson merged into their private conversation. ::The preening of gender is my guess. A mating display? Notice how the female of the species doesn’t wear the nooses?::

  As usual, Robertson spotted a critical indicator. None of the females in the room wore the neck adornment down the breadth of her chest. In fact, there were only a few females in the room. He guessed the higher-ranked females must be occupied with more critical duties.

  Like his people, these humans appeared to separate the genders to avoid unplanned fertility. Well, no worries. It made sense they’d have to deal with the battle fodder before getting to the thinkers, scientists, and culture-caretakers of the species.

  ::The color and design must mean something,:: Steve mused .

  ::That stripe of fabric is often the only bright color in the garment.::

  ::Except for the ones over there…:: Mike shifted his glance to the right side of the hall. ::They’re draped in white from head to toe.::

  ::A different subspecies perhaps,:: Robertson speculated.

  Steve didn’t buy it. However, he was the kind of guy who’d ask what everyone was thinking, but was too polite to mention.

  ::Hatchling down?::

  This time, it was the Envoy who coughed. He seized his water glass and took a hefty swallow. When he set it back down onto the table, squarely in the center of a white piece of linen, everyone was back in their original places and staring at the Urilqii.

  Mike felt the hostility radiating from Blowhard cross his skin like a lash of plasma fire. Yet, Senator wasn’t the only one. About one-third of the collective before them appeared to be barely holding on to their composure.

  ::We’re here to help,:: Steve groused.

  ::They’re afraid,:: Robertson stated. ::Everything they thought they knew has been proven wrong.::

  True, but Mike had no tolerance for sulks. ::They need to get hard, swallow the reality and deal with it.::

  ::Such is why I’m the diplomat,:: noted Robertson, amused.

  President Morgan broke into their thoughts by saying, “Thank you for your patience, gentlemen. Please proceed.”

  The Envoy shuffled the documents in his hand—paper, of all things—shifted on his seat—wooden and hide, if one could believe it—and gathered his thoughts. He began his presentation again, and Mike tuned it out. He’d heard it all before. In fact, he and his cabal had gathered much of the data.

  As the meeting droned on, Mike quartered the room in a careful reconnaissance. His gaze drifted across the collective, assessing everyone for threat and emotional stability. He inspected the shadows and corners. Beside him, Steve was doing the same thing.

  The safety of the Envoy was key priority, as was the hoped-for, successful return to their ship with a treaty. Sure, they could all be replaced, but why bother with the annoyance?

  More shouts pulled his attention back to the assembly. In fact, everyone was shouting, even the president. Mike liked the man.

  He’d seemed clear-headed and direct, but not at this moment. His dark skin had blanched. The chair behind him lay on its back, probably testament to the man’s lunge to his feet. The white hat Marines stood close enough to touch him, but didn’t.

  “You’re telling us they are already here?”

  Blowhard’s voice sliced through the pandemonium again. He, like President Morgan, was on his feet. He, unlike the president, had flushed and reddened.

  “That is exactly what I’m telling you, Senator,” said Robertson.

  “We followed the trail of plundered planets to this sector. There, the trail ended as they went dark, which is their usual action when seeding a planet for colonization, especially if the chosen planet is inhabited. We sent out seekers and sniffers and found this solar system.

  “It looked good for an assault, especially with those four gas giants on your system’s outer edge, so we came in. Imagine our surprise when the sniffers skirted those planets and brought us”— he made a dramatic pause— “here.”

  More bedlam. “Impossible!” seemed to be a popular phrase.

  “Is it?” Robertson’s voice cut into the turmoil. The icy tones stilled denials. “Data retrieval has informed us your planet has been in the midst of destructive climate changes—”

  “There is no climate change!” Blowhard roared. “It’s a simple magnetic shift in the…whatevers.”

  “That’s incorrect, Senator,” Robertson calmly replied. “Earth’s magnetic field has remained in place, static and unchanging, since we’ve been in the solar system. Movement of this type can be identified and plotted. It hasn’t. If you’ll open your folders, esteemed dignitaries, you will find your own data matches our claim that—”

  “The sun is getting hotter,” Blowhard bellowed. A few others nodded, offering support to the claim.

  Mike lifted an eyebrow. ::That’s a joke, right?::

  “Again, no, Senator,” said Robertson, ice creeping into his calm. “Information inside the folder also documents the temperature stability of your star. We’ve noted less activity from your sun, while still seeing warming temperatures and destructive episodes. There’s no need to trust us blindly, ladies and gentlemen. The data is here, in your own hands and on your own computers.”

  “For God’s sake, Bob,” someone shouted from across the room, “sit down and shut up. Climate change is a fact.”

  Blowhard wasn’t ready to give up. “The polar ice is rebounding!”

  “No, it’s not,” offered Robertson, heading once more into the fray. “Droughts, floods, melted ice caps, fires raging across your fields, out of control winter storms, temperature heights broken on a daily basis, flora and fauna struggling to evolve and failing… This is your new norm. Your world will not be able to evolve fast enough and its life will die.”

  “No,” shouted one of Blowhard’s supporters. “This is normal and natural. This is our Eden and—”

  “It’s not normal!”

  Now it was Robertson who shouted. He also slammed his open palm onto the table in front of him.

  “It’s manufactured,” he spat the word, “with the sole intention to end your reign on this planet.”

  Blowhard was opening his mouth for another volley when President Morgan once more cut in. “Enough. If you refuse to be a part of the resolution, Senator, then there’s no need for you to be here. There’s the door.”

  Blowhard’s mouth dropped open. He gaped and sputtered.

  “You can’t…”

  “Yes, I can,” said President Morgan. “Wake up and drink the coffee. The time for political games is over.”

  He turned away from Blowhard to face Robertson and visibly collected his composure.

  “You said the climate change was manufactured. How so?”

  Mike watched Blowhard sulk in his seat. The human looked ready to break apart. Mike wondered how much damage that would do. The Envoy caught Mike’s attention in the corner of his eye.

  “Naturally,” the Envoy resumed, careful to use his calming tone, and shifted slightly in his seat, getting comfortable, “we haven’t intruded onto your planet to make an investigation without alerting you to our presence…”

  Mike bit t
he inside of his cheek so stop himself from rolling his eyes. Of course they had. How else could they have been certain?

  Robertson and his diplomacy, though, and these people ate it up.

  Their heads were bobbing like five-skulled llarbos in a windstorm.

  “However, our experience with the invasive species you face gives us a reasonable hypothesis. How invasion has happened in the past is…is…”

  ::Wake up, :: snapped the Envoy.

  Spurred from his idle thoughts by the mental kick to his ass, Mike stepped closer and placed a palm-sized holographic unit on the table. He pushed the control button on the bottom. The unit lit up with a rainbow-colored funnel.

  Images streaked from the base and bloomed into the room.

  Oversized pictures of hurricanes and tsunamis, thunderstorms, flood devastation, and angry oceans painted the space above the Envoy’s head.

  “They will use atmospheric disturbances like these to conceal the seedlings they drop into your atmosphere. Small, so small as to be unseen by your radars, these transparent seedlings will inhabit your oceans, work to increase instability, and breed more to accelerate the process.”

  “That’s your intention, isn’t it?” Blowhard screeched as he half-rose from his seat.

  Others grabbed his shoulders and yanked him back down.

  “It is not,” said Robertson, still maddeningly calm. “Our species requires the male and the female to reproduce. Our cabals—you would call them battalions—are filled only by the expendable, yet physically strong, aggressive males. While we hope to stay on your planet in order to offset the damages we see, and to assist the defense of your world from this hostile species, we have no way to breed. Thus, you are safe from a soft invasion.”