First Arc - Introduction of Hermes

The airport had been cleared of all non-essential personnel, and
even those that remained had been stringently examined for value in what
was about to occur.  Freeman privately gave thanks that his 'pull' had
been enough to pass muster.  He felt a knot in his stomach that was
almost physically painful, but he also felt a rainbow of other emotions:
a personal kind of dread, anticipation, curiosity, fear for himself and
his family, and another less palpable sensation.  He hadn't really
feared for his physical safety since his deployment during the Gulf War,
and he knew that feeling intimately well.  This was something else,
something his comrades had sometimes described as "crossing the line" -
the feeling that your world was gone, that whatever new existence you
were in was foreign.

 

Maybe it was worse because the aliens weren't doing anything like
humanity expected.  No flying saucers on the White House lawn.  No laser
beams knocking over the Washington Monument.  Not even Kirk and Spock
beaming down in the Oval Office.

 

Nothing so comforting had been mentioned in their last
communication.  All they had asked for was the coordinates of a flying
craft "in customary use in your airspace", permission to monitor and
emulate it, and finally a time and a location to land - something. 
Freeman believed - and had held forth stubbornly - that the aliens would
be able to understand human-engineered jet aircraft with little
difficulty.  Fritz Hume had already impressed upon him what sort of
magic they could work.

 

And now it was time to see for sure.  In the distance, Freeman
could hear the PA squawking as Air Traffic Control announced the
inbound.  Here it is, right on schedule.  Dammit, why do you people
(?) have to be so understanding?  Freeman laughed inwardly at such
an absurd thought.  But what else could he think, at a time like this?

 

The cloud cover was low, and he could overhear a pair of officials -
anxious as he to see the newcomers, no doubt - cursing the weather. 
Nevertheless, all conversation stopped as the distant whine of jet
engines grew audible.  Even before they would have drowned out casual
murmurs on the tarmac, the men and women waiting for the arrival fell
silent.

 

It looked like a Cessna Citation XV, the very craft that had been
submitted for observation by the brass.  It was a plain, functional
business craft, certainly comfortable, and certainly not armed with
anything anyone could see from here.  The craft touched down gently,
taxiing about with an eerie smoothness.  It came about, then maneuvered
its way slowly across the smooth surface of the field.  Freeman's gut as
an engineer told him it was different than the plane which had gone up
earlier.  Stranger, more advanced - of course, a replica.  Had they
actually built the jet to aerobrake down to Earth from orbit? 
Questions tumbled after each other in his thoughts.

 

Around him, Air Force servicemen were dashing across the tarmac
with wheel chocks flailing behind them, shouting at each other over the
roar of the engines.  The Marine detachment assigned as the group's
security detail had already taken their positions, and Freeman glanced
upward and behind him, noting the snipers positioned atop the roofs of
the terminals and hangars nearby.

By the time he looked back, the
door-ramp was already down.  A man was descending the steps.  A male
human - or something that looked like one.  Five foot six, give or take,
properly proportioned as far as Freeman could see, and dressed in a
business suit straight out of an Armani catalog.  He had a severe
crew-cut, brunette, and was even wearing sunglasses.