Hena Day One: Hena, #1

By Odette C. Bell

What will you be doing when the world ends?
Nick Hancock's waiting for a plane when someone tries to kill him. He wakes in a puddle of his own blood to a new world. A dying one.
An alien race has invaded Earth, and humanity can't stop them. But there are others. Aliens from far and wide who now call this planet home. There is one among them with the power to save everyone, Hena. A weapon of incalculable power, she now holds the world in her hands. She must rise, or all will fall.

….

Hena follows a castaway superweapon and a hidden alien prince fighting to save Earth from an alien invasion. If you love your space operas with action, comradery, and a splash of romance, grab Hena Day One today and soar free with an Odette C. Bell series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Odette C. Bell
• Release date: Feb 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386161080

Book preview

1

Nick Hancock

02:00 Heathrow Airport, London, United Kingdom

Flight 747 for Sydney has been delayed. New estimated time of departure is 0400 hours.

The clipped British voice came over the intercom, echoing around the cramped departure room.

Nicholas Hancock sighed into his hand as he clamped it onto his chin and drummed his fingers against his stubble-covered jaw.

More wasted time, ha? This ill-fated business trip had already gone on too long. The Brits weren’t interested in what his brother’s company, Nano-Wire Armaments, had to offer. And it was time to come to terms with that fact.

Further delays may be expected, the voice over the intercom advised to a chorus of groans around the lounge.

Nick kept his frustration to himself as he settled further into the unyielding plastic of his chair, crossed his arms, and tried not to count just how many hours this was adding to this worthless trip. If the Brits weren’t interested, he doubted the Australians would care, either.

Nick would pack it all in, if it weren’t for one thing – he owed his brother. Without him, Nick would have jumped off a bridge two years ago.

After a disastrous stint in Afghanistan in private security, Nick had returned to the States a broken man. The Army had chewed him up and spat him out, and private security had been worse.

For a man who’d once known exactly what he had to fight for, he’d returned a man who’d had his fight taken, broken, and twisted.

Even now, two years later, Nick could remember the moment his brother had dragged him off that bridge.

The look in Jake’s eyes. Nick would never forget it. And even now, as his frustration mounted at the continued delays, he could close his eyes and see it.

You’ve got to live. Because you save people, Nick. That’s what you’ve always done, and it’s what you’re meant for.

What I’m meant for, ha? Nick whispered under his breath as he let his hand drop over his mouth. He breathed into it, feeling the air pressure pool against his palm then press through his fingers.

Nick took another breath, then finally let his hand drop.

He let his eyes scan the departure lounge around him. It was packed with pissed-off, tired passengers. Most of them were on their phones or buried in their respective devices. A few weren’t. A few, like Nick, were just waiting.

And, to a T, those not on devices were looking at the two massive TVs on either side of the lounge.

Nick frowned as he looked up at them.

He’d caught snippets of conversation through the airport and on the shuttle ride over here.

There’d been some kind of meteorite impact in the South China Sea.

At the time of the impact, there’d been a tsunami warning for southern China and Vietnam. A big one. But there’d been no tsunami. Not even a blip in wave height.

What was weirder was none of the space agencies had picked up the meteor in the first place. It had come from nowhere, struck the middle of nowhere, and disappeared without a trace, apparently.

Nick stared at the TV closest to him for a few minutes, but the banner down the bottom was just rehashing what was already known.

If Nick were in a different mood, maybe he’d care. As it was, he tilted his head back, checked the departure board, and sighed.

Time to get something to eat.

He stood, stretched his large form, and headed out of the lounge.

It’s got to be the meteor, he caught a couple saying in front of him.

Meteorite, he corrected under his breath, not interrupting. Though Nick had always been a soldier, once upon a time – a long, long damn time ago – he’d wanted to be an astronaut. Space… had called to him since forever. Fitting, considering his biological father had apparently had something to do with the space industry, though the exact details weren’t known.

Not the point. As soon as a meteor impacts the Earth, it’s called a meteorite. But that’s even assuming the object that supposedly struck the South China Sea survived its impact. Presumably it was burned up in the atmosphere, and that’s why there was no tsunami.

The Earth got lucky today. Which was more than could be said for Nick. He glanced to the side as he saw two airport staff jogging past, their faces pale.

They say they haven’t heard anything new – just what’s been in official communications, one of them said.

Why on earth is the government keeping us in the dark? If we have to cancel these flights, we need to know now, or we’re going to have a riot on our hands.

Nick stopped, pivoted, and watched the two staff members jog out of sight.

… What the hell was going on?

He hesitated, wondering whether to head back to the departure lounge in case there was any news, but then he figured it would just come over the intercom, anyway.

Nick kept picking up snippets of conversation as he made his way to the food court.

TVs were on around the court, and people were glued to them as they ate their burgers and overpriced sandwiches.

Nick paused in front of one and watched as the animated news anchors discussed whether this could be the result of some secret Chinese weapon launch.

He doubted it. Likely it was some artifact on someone’s radar, and there’d never been a meteor in the first place. That, or it had burned up in the atmosphere like he’d said before.

This would just blow over, and the news would move on to the next sensational piece.

Nick scratched at his jaw and yawned. Then he stood in line at the first café he could find and bought a sandwich with the few bob still in his pocket.

When he was done, he walked through the court, resisted the urge to stop and watch the TVs again, and headed back to the lounge.

On his way, he saw more staff rushing around. Their expressions were heavy with worry and stress.

Nick could ignore a lot, but his body was primed to pick up expressions just like those. It was in the way their eyebrows were flattened, in the stiff skin around their eyes, in the height of their shoulders. All of it suggested something was going on.

Most other passengers were in their own worlds, reading the news on their phones or chatting excitedly among themselves. If people did look up, it was only ever a brief glance before they buried themselves back in their devices.

He reached the split in the corridor that would lead back to the departure lounge to the left. He paused.

Jake had always told Nick that he had a talent for sensing danger. As kids, they used to head out to the woods behind their house and spend long afternoons in the fir and larch forests of western Montana. A few times, they’d crossed paths with bears and mountain lions, but every time – according to Jake, at least – Nick had sensed danger and saved their necks.

Nick knew he didn’t have some magical, god-given gift to sense danger before other people did. He had good hearing. He also had a body that was primed to adrenaline. Which wasn’t a good thing. It might save your life when you correctly interpret the crack of a twig as an enemy pressing in from behind, but it’ll ruin your life after you come back from war. Your adrenaline will tell you the whir overhead is a chopper. It’ll tell you the scratching sound at your back door is a burglar lifting the window with a crowbar. It will haunt your every damn moment, promising that there is nowhere safe in this world anymore.

Right now, Nick could try to convince himself that his adrenaline was acting up.

And for a few seconds, he tried to do just that as he tightened his grip on his sandwich and shifted a single foot toward the left.

Then he heard something.

A hiss.

It wasn’t someone breathing. It wasn’t some pipe leaking air.

It was way too mechanical for that.

Nick’s body reacted, charging with adrenaline that blasted through his torso and jumped into his feet like electricity grounding itself.

Before he knew what he was doing, he shifted to the right. He walked down a ramp, his heart speeding up with every step, blood pounding into his body, blasting into his chest, promising him it was time to act. It was time to run. It was time to fight.

As a kid, Nick had gotten into trouble too many times for starting fights. He’d flare up over the smallest thing. No, wait – though other people would tell him it was over the smallest thing, it never was. Nick could forgive and ignore a lot. But there was one thing his damn body was primed to react to. Injustice. If he saw a weaker kid getting beaten up in the playground, he would act. If he saw someone bullying others, he would act. If he saw someone stealing or breaking the rules, he would act. Because if he didn’t, he’d never be able to live with himself.

So you live with yourself. If you can’t stop yourself from protecting others, then you do that to live. That’s what Jake had told Nick up on that bridge, the rain pounding down around them, the wind slamming into Jake’s wet jacket. If this is the only way you can live, then you live this way.

… You live this way.

Those words echoed in Nick’s ears as he walked around another turn in a corridor.

That’s when he saw the guy in the hoody. The first two things Nick noticed was that the hoody was too large, the hood completely obscuring the guy’s face, and that he had his hands in his pockets, the fabric stretched, meaning there was something much larger in those pockets than hands.

Nick was instantly bombarded with images of his private security gigs in Kabul. Watching the dust-covered streets for trouble, checking cars, checking people, and knowing if you lost your attention or nerve for a second, it could be your last.

He’d lost count of the number of times he’d picked up a hidden weapon or IED others hadn’t.

Energy would always pick up through his back, race to his neck, and set his hair standing on end. It would always pluck at his senses, always tug his head forward and focus him on what needed to be seen.

And right now, nothing would be able to tear his gaze away from the man in the hoody.

The guy had his back to Nick now. His gait was slow but determined, apparently easy, and yet obviously measured. It was the unmistakable walk of someone trying to look innocuous.

Shit.

The guy was up to something.

Nick jerked his gaze down the corridor, searching out security or a staff member, but in the time it took him to scan the crowd further down the corridor, the man moved. Quickly. With the snapped efficiency of someone who’d been trained their entire life to use their body as a damn weapon.

He closed the distance to a door – a security door – and jammed something from his pocket onto the keypad next to it.

What the hell are you doing? Nick spat.

He could only see the side of whatever device the guy had in his hand. It was bulky and looked home-made.

A thrill of terror shot up Nick’s spine.

Hey, security! he bellowed at the top of his lungs, his voice carrying right through the corridor like the blare of a horn.

But the guy was too quick, and his home-made device worked. With a beep, the door unlocked and swung open. The