The Arrival: A Sci-Fi Alien Warrior Paranormal Romance by Ashley West Page A

was some way to get a Camador on their side...
    "This is amazing."
    Sorrin looked up to see Abby standing in the doorway. "Done exploring?" he asked, looking away from her and turning his attention back to the screen of the scanner.
    "Yep. It's not a huge ship, and there are only so many crates I can look at before I've seen them all. What are you doing?"
    He glanced at her and then away again. "Searching."
    "What for?"
    "A Camador."
    "Just one? There's a bunch in that floating city, you know. I don't know if you've seen it."
    Sorrin didn't dignify that with a response, and Abby sighed before coming to look over his shoulder. "Okay, I give. Tell me the plan. I can't help if I don't know what you're doing, you know."
    She had a fair point, and he let out a sigh. It had been just him for so long that the idea of trusting someone else was strange. This was his mission, but he was coming around to the idea of having assistance. "I believe that we will have better luck finding a lone Camador and getting information from them than trying to take on the horde of them."
    "No kidding," Abby said. "You think you can make one of them talk?"
    "I do." He explained his thoughts to her and was pleasantly surprised when it wasn't hard at all for her to keep up with what he was saying. She asked questions about how he thought they could get to the other humans who were still in captivity and how he would do it without tipping off the Camadors. For the entirety of the time that the scanner was working, they talked. They threw ideas back and forth, discarding some and keeping others to tweak to be better. By the time the machine gave a tinny wail, announcing it had located something, Sorrin was feeling better about working with this human woman. She was quick and bright, and that was much more than he had expected.
    "Ah," he said, eyes narrowed as he enlarged the map he was being shown on the screen. There were four pulsing green dots on the map, showing where the Camadors were. "Do you know these places?"
    Abby tilted her head to the side, and Sorrin gave her time to get her bearings on the map. It was a low tech version of a map anyway, all glowing green and red and white lines on a black background.
    "We're here?" she asked, finger hovering over the only blue dot on the screen.
    "Yes."
    "Then..." she traced her finger up and to the next dot and then smiled. "Yeah. I can get us here."
    Sorrin smiled again, pleased. Finally something was going right. He nodded and then beckoned her to sit down beside him. "Strap in. I'm going to take us closer."
    It was a lot like the old days.
    It was nothing like the old days.
    Having a co-pilot was odd and familiar all at once, and it took him several minutes to get used to it as he fired up the ship. Sorrin kept seeing a superimposed image of everyone who had ever been his number two layered over Abby's face, and he made himself look away and focus on other things.
    "People are going to see this, you know," Abby said as the ship rumbled to life with a groan and then began to lift off of the ground.
    "Yes," Sorrin replied simply. People would see it, and if they panicked then that was their problem. He had more important things to worry about. "Hold on," he warned before throwing forward the lever that sent them careening along.
    Abby yelped loudly, and when Sorrin looked at her, he could see that her fingers were wrapped tightly around the armrests of her seat, her eyes wide. She looked frightened and exhilarated all at once, and it was a good look for her.
    Sorrin frowned as he had that thought and then shook himself, focusing on the space ahead of them again as the ship climbed higher.
    "Are we flying there?" Abby asked, speaking louder to be heard over the roar of the engine.
    "No," Sorrin said back. "We're only getting close enough to surprise them still. You'll stay with the ship."
    "I will not!" she said. "You don't even know how to get there!"
    "You can point me in the right direction."
    "And then