Hena Day One Read online

  It took a few more seconds until she answered. “Because I reassessed the situation. There’s hope after all.” She looked at him. “Not that I believe in hope.”

  “What do you believe in, then?”

  “Matching—”

  “Goals to reality, got it.”

  They dwindled into silence.

  It was heavy.

  Before his current stint in Vietnam, Harry had once been a war correspondent. It had taken him across war-torn Afghanistan, deep into Iraq, and out into the insurgencies of Syria.

  In other words, he’d been in terrifying situations. Situations where you didn’t know if your next step would bring you into a fatal dance with an IED. Situations that unfolded so quickly, you could go from being in an apparently safe section of town, to being right in the center of a gun battle.

  But this….

  Was on another level.

  And he didn’t have the guts to process this.

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Linh suddenly said.

  Harry balked. “Wait, can you read minds?”

  She snorted. “Of course I can’t read minds. It’s obvious from the sudden change in your temperature, breathing rate, and heart rate that you’re engaged in negative introspection. I suggest you stop. It will not help you going forward.”

  Harry didn’t have time to be awed by the fact that she could detect his physical symptoms with all the accuracy of a machine. He turned his head toward the white consoles on the side of the room. “Where are we headed, anyway? And is there any way for me to see what’s going on?”

  “I can create a view screen if you need it. But why would you need it?”

  Harry turned and looked at her. “You said before you came back because you sensed an opportunity. What opportunity did you sense?”

  “When I logged in to the sensors of the ship, I realized that there are others like me. Not battle minds, but others.”

  “The other alien residents you spoke of?”

  She nodded. “Some of them are strong. There’s a guy out in South Korea that’s an Endo,” she said, a touch of awe infiltrating her tone. “He’s already reached out on the web to the rest of us. And if there’s someone like him—”

  “Then statistically, there might be more. That’s hope, you know,” Harry said, somehow managing a smile.

  Linh looked at him, her expression trying. “Incorrect, it’s probability.”

  “Call it what you will. It changed your mind, made you want to risk something. In my books, that’s hope. But to answer your question, what I want to do is this – get the word out.”

  It took Linh a moment, then she arched an eyebrow. “You mean continue our report?”

  Harry nodded. “It’s what you’re taught in journalism school, remember? You get information out to people because it’s often the difference—”

  “Between life and death.”

  Harry found himself swallowing as he stared at Linh, as he waited for her to torpedo his plan.

  She didn’t. With a slight tick of her head to the side, the consoles he’d been pointing to suddenly changed. The metal along them pooled and slid upward, almost as if gravity was nothing more than a name to it, and then it collected together and formed a screen.

  It was a screen unlike any he’d ever seen – as the images that flickered over it a second later were made out of moving metal – but it was a screen nonetheless.

  “The Cartaxians haven’t shut down all cellular networks, nor have they interfered with any satellites in orbit. They haven’t bothered yet,” Linh said as she nodded toward the footage coming across the screen. “Even if they do, the resident aliens left on Earth will find a way to keep those networks running, even if they have to rebuild them themselves. What you’re seeing here—”

  “Is the invasion,” Harry said quietly as he took one soft step after another toward the screen.

  Somehow, even though it was small, he could see it crystal clear from across the room, but that didn’t stop him from walking closer, the pound of his footfall like the sullen beat of a drum.

  He saw footage from key cities all around the world, and all of them were the same. Massive black bellied ships appearing out of huge formations of clouds.

  “How long—” he stuttered.

  “Until the invasion occurs in full? Right now.”

  Harry winced, expecting the worst – expecting those 10 vessels to open up above their respective cities and completely blast them off the Earth.

  But that didn’t happen.

  Harry didn’t know that much about war, but there were a few germane facts he could appreciate. When you had an advantage, you used it. And those ships no doubt had the advantage.

  But they didn’t begin an air assault.

  “I don’t understand it, either,” Linh said, obviously reading his mind from his body language once more. “There’s no good reason for them not to obliterate those cities and move on, taking down every single last trace of human civilization.”

  Harry turned to her, somehow pulling his attention off that terrifying footage. “What does this mean?”

  “There are innumerable things this could mean.”

  “Whittle it down to the most likely.”

  “They’re after something. After something they can’t afford to destroy.”

  “If that theory is correct, then they would have to be after something in every single one of those cities.”

  Linh paused, and he heard her shifting, those creepy connector tubes slithering over the ground with her every movement. “I appreciate that.”

  “What the hell could they want?”

  “I don’t know. But I have a feeling it could be the key to saving Earth.”

  Harry took a breath. Then he pulled himself forward, got down on his knees, considering there was no chair, and he watched the footage. “How do we get this out to everyone?”

  “Leave that to me. What you need to focus on is figuring out what to say.”

  Harry bristled as he turned to her. “But I’m not the anchorwoman.”

  Linh took a moment, then laughed. “Really? You’re gonna take now to point out that you’re more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it?”

  Harry shrugged, conceding her observation.

  “You’re human, Harry. And you were right back there. Hell, you were right in general.”

  “About what?”

  “Maybe hope does exist. Maybe it’s taken me a while to understand that. And maybe I have further to go. But you already understand it. And that’s what you have to give them.”

  Harry felt cold. All over. Except for one point. It wasn’t his heart; hell, it wasn’t necessarily located anywhere in his body. It was like a flickering flame on an otherwise dark night. One that told you that the darkness could be pushed back.

  “You find the message that will give hope, and I’ll broadcast it. I’m confident that I can stay out of the Cartaxian’s clutches. But it will take my full attention. You have to do the rest.” With that, she leaned back in her seat, the connector tubes shifting further across her chest, again looking like chains.

  Harry took several seconds to stare at her, then he finally pulled his attention back to the screen.

  Him? Really? It was gonna be up to him to give humanity hope?

  He just hoped he was up to it. And no, that was not meant to be a pun.

  Chapter 17

  Nick

  The first battle had begun.

  Nick had stood there on the corner of the city street, staring up at the belly of that massive vessel, watching the armor-clad alien warriors line up.

  And as he had, the ringing in his skull had only intensified until it had felt as if someone was banging on massive church bells embedded between his ears. He’d fallen down on one knee, and he’d had to clutch at his ears, had to press his palms against his eardrums as hard as he could.

  It hadn’t made any difference.

  And now Nick stood there a
nd watched in utter horror as line after line of warriors jumped down from the low flying vessel.

  He couldn’t even hear the sound of their armored feet slamming into rooftops, into pavement, into parked cars.

  Though several had landed only a block away from him, there wasn’t the clash and bang that should accompany it. Just this dull, muted sense you might get as if you were watching TV with the volume turned down.

  But nothing could turn down the volume in Nick’s head.

  It grew louder with every second. And it pushed him into action.

  The next thing he knew, he threw himself forward, turning around one of the cramped streets of inner London.

  Further out into the city, he heard the sounds of combat. Sporadic blasts of gunfire, assault rifles, even handguns.

  He didn’t hear the ping of metal bullets slamming against armor. Just these tiny, muted thumps. He fancied he could only pick those up because of whatever the hell had happened to his hearing since he’d awoken in the airport.

  None of that mattered right now. The only thing that mattered to Nick were the two massive seven-foot-tall armor-clad aliens standing several meters in front of him.

  They both landed on top of a lorry, and the thing was crushed as if it had been hit by a meteorite.

  The both of them turned at his approach.

  Though Nick had been hurtling forward at full speed, now he backtracked, shunting hard into his foot and stopping his momentum as he staggered a step to the side. He snatched a hand around a lamp post, fingers pushing in, bending until he started to hear the sound of the metal being pushed in, as if he were crumpling paper.

  He didn’t have time to appreciate that his newfound skills gave him the apparent ability to crush metal with ease.

  He noticed as both of the armored aliens twitched their heads to the side. Nick may have absolutely no founding with aliens, and no reason to believe that he could understand their emotional reactions, but something told him that those two quick twitches were curiosity. Maybe they were accessing some kind of scanner, or maybe they recognized something in Nick.

  “Should be dead,” one of them said in perfect clipped English that nevertheless lacked the correct syntax.

  The alien who spoke pointed forward with three of its seven fingers, and the other alien beside it took a step off the lorry. The front chassis of the lorry buckled further, finally releasing as the wheel suspension bounced like a spring.

  The alien took a step toward Nick, then another.

  Should be dead?

  So it was them, ha? The guy who’d tried to kill Nick at the airport had been one of them, ha?

  It made sense. And yet, it didn’t make any damn sense. Because why the hell would they want Nick dead?

  “Call for backup. Change has begun,” the alien who hadn’t yet moved off the top of the lorry said. Why he was bothering speaking, Nick didn’t know, but he could guess it was probably to do two things. And neither of them would be to communicate with his fellow alien. Presumably, if they had the technology to invade Earth, they’d already mastered wireless communication. Hell, maybe they even had access to mental communication.

  The only reason this alien was speaking out loud was to grab Nick’s attention and to hold it.

  But Nick had no intention of dying today.

  Just as the alien nearest reached out a hand toward him – a hand which Nick knew would have a grip just as crushing as an industrial vice – Nick pivoted to the side. He threw himself forward. But at the same time, he didn’t let go of the lamp pole.

  Though it was hollow inside, its outer casing was made from thick, durable painted steel.

  There was no way an ordinary man should be able to bend it. But one thing had become abundantly clear in the last several hours since the invasion had begun. Nick Hancock was no longer a normal man, if he had ever been one.

  He broke the pole right in half just as the alien reached him. And before he could give into his surprise at his move, Nick pivoted forward, grabbed the side of the massive steel pole, and slammed it into the alien like a bat.

  Though Nick had absolutely no idea about the capabilities of the alien’s armor, he could tell it should be strong enough to withstand Nick’s strike. The ship hanging low over London was still a hell of a long way up, and Nick had watched these armor units jump down without parachutes and without heed to the crushing forces of gravity.

  It meant Nick’s blow should do nothing. But it sure as hell did something. It slammed into the alien with enough force that Nick heard a strange click. Those heat sensors overlaid over his vision went crazy, too, and for some reason he got the crazy impression that he’d managed to overload some kind of gravity generator in the alien’s armor – whatever it was using to maintain a lock with the ground to steady its balance.

  The alien went flying. Just a meter or so – but it was enough to get it out of Nick’s way.

  Neither of the aliens said another word. Instead, the leader jumped down from the lorry and pushed toward Nick. The alien didn’t run. Suddenly two lines of almost invisible thrusters appeared on its back, and it used them to launch forward as if it’d been shot from a gun.

  A microsecond passed, then the next thing he knew, the alien wrapped its arms around Nick’s middle and slammed him into the side of the shop front to his left.

  The move was strong enough that Nick’s body blasted through the double brick wall.

  Masonry scattered around Nick as his brain told him he was dead.

  Nick wasn’t dead. But as he struck the floor behind him, bricks slamming over his body, one even striking him right in the center of his head, Nick didn’t pass out, and God knows he didn’t take his last breath. Instead, instinct unlike anything he’d ever felt pulsed through him. It saw him wrap his arms around the alien’s middle.

  Nick had always been a good wrestler in high school. Blame it on his heavyset form. But there’s a difference between grappling a man and grappling a seven-foot alien in sophisticated armor. A difference that Nick should not have been able to overcome simply with the rage pulsing through his body.

  You tell that to his body, though. His muscles were different. Tenser somehow. Taut, not like rope, but like the strongest and yet most flexible substance he could think of.

  And his mind wasn’t so much ringing anymore as pounding with this certainty, one that told him exactly what to do.

  Nick had never felt like this. And God knows he’d never seen an alien before. But suddenly neither of those two things mattered. The heat readings still overlaid over his vision did. They were joined with more information. Echoing patterns of intersecting sound waves, frequencies of electrical interference, and more.

  They gave him all the information he required to appreciate the exact point of greatest weakness in the alien’s armor.

  And Nick’s growing rage and strength did the rest.

  He hooked his fingers – his unprotected, apparently human fingers – into a joint just under the left ear of the alien’s helmet. Or at least, where the left ear would be on a human.

  And Nick pressed. With all his might. With everything his body could give. And then more.

  The rage pounding through him was doing something. Unlocking energy on a level Nick hadn’t just never experienced, but one that shouldn’t be possible.

  It pulsed through him, in wave after wave of energy.

  And somehow, it was enough. Just as the alien brought up its left hand, and Nick saw an impossible sight as strips of metal peeled back from the equivalent of its palm and revealed a long, hollow shaft up to its elbow, his prying fingers dented the alien’s helmet.

  And the energy pulsing through Nick did the rest.

  Though Nick couldn’t see the alien’s face, and God knows he probably would freak out if he could, he could tell that right now, the equivalent of the alien’s eyes were opening in surprise. Fatal surprise.

  With one last pitching scream, Nick pressed his fingers in with all his might until t
here was an almighty crack.

  Energy pulsed through the alien’s helmet as its body jolted hard to the side.

  Nick followed the move, wrapping an arm around its middle, throwing his weight into it as he pushed the alien off him. He straddled the alien, jamming his fingers straight back into that point under its left ear. With another earsplitting groan, Nick pulled the helmet off.

  But if he expected to see an alien face staring back at him, he didn’t. As soon as he damaged the armor, there was this flicker.

  For a split second, he saw something.

  A large, animalistic face with two pinprick eyes no larger than thumbnails. A long mouth with jagged teeth with two yellow tusks pressing hard up into the creature’s bulbous nose.

  But the vision didn’t last.

  Something happened to the alien. It disappeared. It was like an image suddenly turning off – like a TV that was having signal troubles.

  Something was happening within the armor, and a split second later, the alien body within it was destroyed. Though destroyed was the wrong term. Those tusks weren’t suddenly crushed into bone dust. Its bulbous lips weren’t suddenly burst like two blood-filled balloons. Its flesh wasn’t suddenly burnt until it blistered like cooking sugar.

  It was as if it was broken down on the minute molecular level, every constituent atom that made up the alien being reabsorbed by the armor.

  Though everything Nick had – or at least his human side had – told him to jolt away and protect himself, whatever was now running his body ensured he didn’t lose his grip on the alien’s middle.

  It also ensured something else.

  Just as the alien’s form was disrupted, he heard something click within the armor. Again it was imperceptible, and again the only reason he could hear it was because of whatever extraordinary processes were going on in his once-human form.

  His body reacted to it. Something deep down in his stomach. A level of instinct so precise and so powerful no ordinary person would be able to ignore it.

  It saw him reach up, shove a hand in through the now empty helmet recess of the armor, and grab something.

  What that thing was was a small glowing cube. It was no bigger than a sugar cube. As soon as Nick pulled it out of the alien’s armor, he heard something whirring down. And that instinct that had told him he was seconds from dying if he didn’t act finally subsided.