by Mel Corbett
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
Thank you for reading!
THE QUEEN’S GIFT
About Mel
Taken
Stories of the Alien Invasion
Book 1
By Mel Corbett
Kindle Edition
Copyright © 2017 by Mel Corbett
Kindle Edition, License Notes
All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.
Published by Mel Corbett.
No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, contact Mel Corbett at [email protected].
For more information please visit MelCorbett.com
This book is dedicated to Cillian, whose very existence inspires me to get my act together and publish all my trunk novels.
ONE
RACHEL
RACHEL JERKED AWAKE, KNOCKING over the pile of textbooks and a can of Coke. She swiped her hand over her face. The sun shone through the living room window and her mouth tasted sour. Last night, she’d turned off her phone so she’d stop playing on it and actually study. It must have turned off the alarm. She glanced across the room to the microwave.
8:40am. Late! Shit, she was going to be late for her bio midterm. She grabbed her backpack. Luckily, the scantron and the pencil were ready to go. She’d already missed the bus which meant she had twenty minutes to bike her happy-self across town. She was so late, no one else was on the bike path. Everyone else had either gotten to campus already for their early morning class or else weren’t bothering with only two weeks left in the quarter, but her professor was a sadist, scheduling a midterm at the start of the ninth week of the quarter.
She pumped her legs as fast as she could and zipped past a huge crowd outside the Memorial Union around the end-is-near guy. She didn’t have time to wonder why people were paying attention to him for once, she needed to get to Bainer Hall and her midterm. She locked her bike—by some miracle there were open spaces on the rack still—and ran inside.
The room was empty. Not a single other student. Not the professor. She’d never made it from home to Bainer in less than twenty minutes before. Besides, at the very least Nate would have been here on time. The classroom must have been changed for some reason.
Rachel had to pass the midterm. If she flunked bio she’d lose her conditional med school acceptance. She tossed her bag on one of the desks and dug around for her phone. She finally pulled it out and pressed the power button. The screen lit up, and the apple mocked her while the damn thing took forever to load. When it finally connected to the network, text messages popped up on the screen, and the voicemail box showed fourteen messages.
The top one was from Campus Emergency Warning System. It said to stay home with windows and doors locked. The next one was from Mom.
“CALL ME!!!! ALIENS ATTACKING!!!!!!”
Stupid autocorrect. Whatever was happening, Rachel doubted it was aliens.
“I’m fine,” Rachel texted her and pulled up her browser. Flying saucers made up the ‘o’s in the Google logo and a little green man peeked out from behind the G.
Underneath the Google logo, it read, “Your nearest evacuation center is the Golden1 Center in Sacramento. Please note, several evacuation centers in urban areas have gone dark and are not responding to requests for status updates. ”
This couldn’t be happening. Some genius must have hacked Google—and since Mom believes everything she sees online she bought it, hook line and sinker. Rachel tried Yahoo! and found almost an identical message. She shook her head, stomach sinking. She tried CNN… same thing. Facebook… and finally she surrendered.
She clicked on Mom in contacts.
Instead of ringing, a pre-recorded message came on.
“Phones are down in the South Bay Area. Please try again later.”
Rachel sank into the chair of the tiny desk. This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be real. She emailed Mom that she was fine and was going to avoid the evacuation center. She pulled up messenger and messaged Nate, who’d already sent her about a dozen messages—she must have just missed him on his way to her place. She texted him that she’d be back in twenty minutes, that she had no clue what was happening until she got to campus.
TWO
KAILEY
MR. JOHNSON TURNED TO draw more triangles on the chalkboard, and Kailey couldn’t help but snicker when CJ pointed out the chalk handprint on Mr. Johnson’s butt. It looked like he had just picked a wedgie.
“What’s so funny?” Mr. Johnson snapped as the windows went dark like the sun just went away.
A kid outside screamed something about spaceships, which didn’t make sense. A NASA rocket flew over their middle school last year, and science teachers had made such a huge deal about it for weeks before that everyone had waited outside to see it. Today, no one had said anything about rockets and the whole sky hadn’t gone dark when the rocket had gone by.
Mr. Johnson, chalk handprint still on his butt, peeked out the door and just froze solid. He started gibbering. Kailey had never seen anything like it. CJ ducked outside, and Kailey noted that his ass did not have a chalk handprint picking his wedgie for him.
“It’s aliens!” CJ gasped.
No way! Kailey had to see for herself. She, and the whole class, crowded outside, knocking the gibbering Mr. Johnson out of the doorway.
The ship was really freaking huge. It took up half the sky and moved real fast. Lightning flickered over its surface—it looked almost like a massive greasy black rain cloud zooming across the sky. In a couple minutes, it disappeared north, with black contrails behind it. While the kids still stared up at the sky, fighter jets flew north after the ship, away from San Diego and towards L.A.
All the other kids phones started ringing and chiming as their parents called and texted them. Kailey’s phone didn’t. She texted her parents… but no luck. Then, the principal’s voice came over the PA.
“Stay inside your classrooms with the doors shut,” the PA crackled. “We’ll make more announcements as we get more information.”
Yeah right.
Kailey and CJ whispered about the spaceship, while other parents came and picked up their kids. Not Kailey’s parents though. They were in the Navy and, she told herself, they probably had been called in—or so she told herself. CJ’s parents hadn’t either.
THREE
CONNIE
CONNIE SNAPPED A PICTURE of steaming hot canning jars for her homesteading blog. The jars were just about ready for the boiling-hot tomatoes and she’d need to get the tomatoes into their jars and get them sealed while everything was just right.
“Change the channel,” George called from the living room. “Some sky-
fi movie came on.”
“I’m kind of busy in here,” Connie said. She dipped the ladle into the tomatoes. “You’re going to have to change it.”
“I would if I had the remote,” George hollered back.
Connie sighed, checking her apron pockets. Sure enough, she’d carried the remote with her into the kitchen. She was so spacey lately, already worse than she’d been with Calvin.
She smiled at Calvin in his playpen, then glanced at the TV.
“This isn’t a movie,” Connie said, remote in hand. “That’s Jim Barret from Channel 4.”
“But look at the weird flying things, and they’re talking about aliens in L.A. and New York.”
Maybe George was right, there were weird flying boxes and the things they were saying didn’t make any sense. Maybe it was kind of a War of the Worlds anniversary special or something.
Connie changed the channel. Seven had the same stuff, only with their news team instead of four’s. The anchor from Channel 7 noted that the central offices in New York had stopped responding and that this was footage shot earlier in the day. Her mascara ran down her face, like she’d been crying.
“George, I think this is real.” Connie’s voice shook as she lowered the remote.
“Change it again.”
On the next channel, the reporter from the Denver office screamed. Connie’s cell started to ring. Calvin started to wail from his swing.
FOUR
MARY
“COME ON, MOM, IT’LL be fun,” Mikey said.
“No, last time I went with you boys, my bike stalled and I rolled down halfway down the hill,” Mary said. She had no desire to try to go up Sand Mountain again. “I was spitting out sand for hours.”
“Yeah, fun!” Mikey said. Fourteen and forty had different opinions of the word fun.
“When your bike’s good enough to take you to the top, maybe,” Mary said. She smiled. “Besides, I’ve got a movie to keep me busy.”
“You can’t whine Mom into going with us anymore,” Jordan said. “Not with your voice changing. You’re too old to pull that whiney little kid stuff.”
“I’m not whiney. I just think it’s no fun being alone,” Mikey said. His voice cracked, proving Jordan’s point about getting older.
“Boys, let’s just go ride,” Will said, taking back control. “Let your mom watch her movie in peace.”
When the boys were gone, Mary popped Magic Mike in the DVD player and settled back for a good show.
Not ten minutes into the movie, a man knocked on the RV door.
“You listening to the radio?” he asked.
“No.”
“Playing online?” he asked.
Mary shook her head. They made it a rule to leave the phones locked in the car when they camped. They could unplug that way.
“You’d better get somewhere safe,” he said.
“Safe from what?” Mary asked.
“The aliens are here.”
Mary rolled her eyes in response. This wasn’t someone who’d forgotten to bring the toilet paper camping. This was a full-blown crazy. What had she done to deserve the nut-job knocking on her door?
“No joke. Mass abductions are already happening in all the major cities the world over.” He kept his distance and didn’t try to invade her space like she expected from a crazy.
“Really?” Mary let her voice drip with sarcasm, but he didn’t care.
“Yeah, LA, New York, London, Hong Kong, you name it. They’ve scooped up millions of people in the last couple hours.”
She shrugged him off. He was either nuts or was the sucker in some kind of hoax.
“Look, I don’t know you from Adam, why should I believe you?” Mary stared down the man in his grubby riding clothes. He was like the ones who’d went out with their pitchforks and shotguns to hunt down the alien menace when they performed War of the Worlds on the radio.
“I’m a lawyer. I pay my taxes. I know I’m a bit dirty today, but I’m telling you the truth! You’ve got to get out of here!” His voice rose dangerously high on this last.
“Look, I’ve got some aluminum foil in the kitchen,” Mary said. “You want it to make a hat?”
“Can’t say I didn’t try.” He shrugged and walked away.
That wasn’t the reaction she expected from a crazy, but there was no way he could be telling the truth. Honestly, how many lawyers come up to Sand Mountain to go quadding or ride dirt bikes? Besides, if they did, they would stay in a hotel, not the ancient motorhome that her nut-job walked back to. Her in-laws’ motorhome was a damn sight better than his.
FIVE
!ESTRAITH
AS GOOD AS IT felt to fly again, !Estraith was even more glad to see the round green dot of the parasol waiting for them as she brought the flier back to the yard. !Estraith’s hands felt so certain on the controls as she settled the flier back onto the ground. The screen filtered out the brightest of the sun’s rays, but it was still far brighter than she was used to, especially since her birthing leave.
!Estraith could see her husband’s smile reflected in her displays.
“You’re just about ready to return to work, aren’t you darling?” *Rafu asked from his seat beside her. He knew she missed flying, but there was something else at work here.
“Nith still needs my milk every few hours, and I don’t want to be away from her more than the space between feedings,” !Estraith said.
“You won’t have to be,” *Rafu said.
“What do you mean?” !Estraith asked as she un-fastened her restraints and climbed out of her seat to the floor.
“The Queen is honoring us with a special mission perfect for our family.” His green eyes sparkled, and even the Queen’s honor atop his head seemed alight with the good news.
!Estraith swallowed the tension that rose in her belly. In her experience, it was rarely good when the Queen wanted to interfere too much in her life. Still, there was no denying the Queen’s will.
She left the flier and hurried to the ih woman who shielded herself and Nith from the bright outdoor sun with a parasol.
“How is it perfect for the us?” !Estraith asked, positioning Nith on her hip and taking the parasol from the ih woman. “I’m not being impertinent, I just need to know what the Queen has planned for us.”
“It’s for me as flight control and you as a pilot. We’re being asked to test some new technology and the effects of certain distances from the planet.”
“And the baby?” !Estraith asked.
“She’ll come with, of course.”
“The Queen wants our baby to go off into space?” !Estraith asked. She swallowed. She knew her incredulity smacked of dishonor. Still, Nith was a colicky little girl and had come early. She didn’t want to risk anything with the baby, not when she was finally getting settled enough to sleep through the night.
“Not just our baby, our whole family. Nith will be fine.” *Rafu caressed Nith’s cheek and the baby blew bubbles at him. He grinned. ”She will have her mommy and her daddy and the Queen looking after her.”
SIX
RACHEL
RACHEL THREW THE BIKE towards the rack, not even bothering to lock it. She hugged Nate and buried her face in his chest. She hadn’t thought the whole bike ride home. She had almost no clue how she’d made it back.
“Thank goodness you’re okay,” Nate said. He pulled Rachel away from his chest and wiped at the tears streaking her face. “You’re crying.”
“I can’t get through to my mom,” Rachel said. “The phones are all off.”
“I know,” Nate said, making soothing sounds at Rachel as he led her into her apartment. They settled onto the couch and he put his arm around her.
A line of ants led from the wall towards where she’d spilled Coke all over the table and floor. Her roommate would kill her. The ants had another victory in their war. Rachel stood.
“Where you going, babe?” Nate caught her hand.
“I have to—” She gestured helplessly t
owards the spill.
“No, you don’t.”
Rachel shook her head.
“Aliens are here,” Nate said. “You don’t have to worry about the ants. We have to go to the evacuation center.”
“I…” Rachel struggled to think, to form rational thoughts again. She’d felt so together when she’d Facebooked Jenna and Nate. “I don’t think the evacuation centers are safe. Google said they went dark.”
“Then we’re going to go stay at Jenna’s parents’ farm,” Nate said without missing a beat. “I’ll message her. You pack.”
SEVEN
CONNIE
“MOM, DAD, IT’S NOT a problem. You can sleep in Calvin’s room and Deborah and James, you’ll be in my office.” Connie paced in front of the couch where her parents and in-laws were squeezed in together.
“Where will Calvin sleep?” her mom asked.
Calvin babbled an incomprehensible answer from his play mat.
“We’ll just bring the crib back into our room,” Connie said.
“It’s not like he’s been in his own room that—” The doorbell rang, interrupting George. “– long anyway,” George continued without missing a beat.
“I’ll be right back,” Connie said as she hurried to open the door.
Her sister Wendy and family stood on her front porch. Each of them wore at least a backpack or a duffel bag and held a box of something, even the three-year-old wore a backpack and clutched her teddy bear.
“Wendy! Seth!” Connie exclaimed, forcing a smile onto her face. “Kids!”
“It’s so good to see you.” Wendy shifted her box of cans and boxed food to one arm and leaned in for a hug.
“You, too,” Connie said.
“We were hoping it would be safer out here with you,” Wendy said.
“Mom and Dad want to be away from where the aliens are,” said Frank, Wendy’s seven-year-old. The way he said it made it clear he thought the alien invasion was the coolest thing ever.
“Of course, come on in,” Connie said.