Xen Episode One

All characters in this publication are fictitious, any
resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely
coincidental.

Xen

Episode One

Copyright © 2015 Odette C Bell

Cover art stock photos: Blonde woman in black blazer ©
alexannabuts, Clouds atmosphere from space © 1xpert Licensed from
Depositphotos.

www.odettecbell.com

XEN

EPISODE ONE

She came
here to keep the peace, but first she’ll have to break
it….
When three aliens crash land on Earth, they must
integrate to survive.
One of them can’t. A member of an ancient and astoundingly powerful
race, she wasn’t born to sit still. She was born to protect.
On Earth, she can’t. So she waits, alone and without purpose, until
her commander dies is a brutal and sudden crash. After years of
inactivity, she is once more drawn into the hunt

…
.
Irreverent, action-packed, and fast-paced, Xen is sure to please
fans of Odette C. Bell’s Axira and Zero.

All three of them sat in the front seat of
the pickup truck, staring up at the night sky above.

There were 10 trucks and cars parked in the
meadow that night. While everybody else was outside, leaning on
their bumpers, hands on their door frames, chatting excitedly as
they listened to the radio, these three would not leave their
vehicle.

One man, middle-aged, slightly
balding hair rimming his round shiny skull, sat in the
d
river’s
seat, staring with thin-lipped concentration at the dashboard. By
the driver’s-side door was a tall, broad shouldered fellow in
overalls and a checked shirt. With a mop of thick, black hair, he
intermittently glanced at the driver and then up at the night sky
above.

Pressed
between them, with her hands on
her lap, was a woman. In a thick woolen skirt and a light blue
cardigan, she stared at her hands.

They listened to the radio. But they were
not listening to the same station that the other cars parked in
that meadow were tuned in to.

“Any signal yet?”
the man in the
overalls asked, his voice low and husky.

The driver shook his head, never shifting
his gaze from the dashboard.

“Oh my God, can you hear that? That’s got
to be aliens,” a woman outside said in an excited voice, her
distinct Southern American accent making her words twang. She was
standing near a car, waving to a young man, an excited but nervous
look on her face. It was an expression that was shared by almost
every individual there that night.

They’d come to this small field out in the
rolling pastures behind the town for a special broadcast. The
topic? Aliens.

Ever since the end of World War II,
humanity’s fascination with the heavens had turned into mania.
Unidentified flying objects were reported every other day, whole
magazines and digests were filled with fantastic stories about
abductions and sightings, and UFO had entered the common
vernacular.

Any light in the sky was cause for nervous
hope.

“The broadcast is about to begin, Gerry.”
The woman outside the car waved again at the young man. “Stop
playing with your cigarettes, and get over here.”

“I’m not playing with my cigarettes, Sue,
I’m trying to get this telescope to sit right. Do you want to quit
ordering me around?”

“We’ve got to make sure we’re tuned into
the right station, come over here and check,” the woman
insisted.

Every car or truck in that meadow had their
headlights on, and beams of illumination darted out at all angles,
lighting up slices of people’s faces as they moved in and out
amongst the vehicles, leaned down to fiddle with their car stereos,
or stared up in wonder at the night sky above.

It was an unusually starry night. Though it
was autumn and a chill had caught the air, the conditions did not
account for the startlingly clear visibility.

But it was a fact lost on nearly everyone
there. Everyone save for the three individuals in the pickup
truck.

“Captain,”
the man in the overalls turned
back to the driver, “we are running out of time.”

“I told you, you can’t call me Captain.
Not here. I am John, you are Adam, and she is Jenny.”

The woman in the cardigan, Jenny, finally
looked up. There was a poignant, almost palpable sense of sorrow
plastered over her face.

“Adam is correct:
unless we can
narrow in on the right signal, our opportunity will be lost. My
estimation is that we have approximately two more minutes. By that
time the fold will close. There will be no further contact.” Jenny
turned to face John. But anyone could tell that her attention was
elsewhere. Quickly her eyes darted towards the windscreen and out
into the night.

They all knew what was at stake.

If they couldn’t find the correct signal, if
they couldn’t get a message off, they would be stuck.

“Look at them all out
there,”
Adam
said, his characteristically deep voice resonating in his powerful
chest, “they’re looking up for the aliens, when we are sitting
right here.”

John let out a low, warning growl.

Adam seemed to understand it.

“It is ironic,”
Jenny added after a
moment, “but characteristic of this race.”

“Characteristic or not,” John grabbed the
steering wheel and tapped his hands on it heavily, “we don’t get
that signal off and...” he trailed off.

She understood. So did Adam. It was a
conclusion no one in that vehicle could escape.

Unless they got off their message they would
be trapped on Earth, with no possible hope for escape.

As Jenny waited, her body tense, her
shoulders locked under the light touch of her cotton blue sweater,
she thought.

Everyone else in that field was
tuning in to a broadcast about extra-terres
trials. She and her fellow crewmates
were tuning out, trying to get a message to the beyond.

It would not work. The three of
them under their assumed names of John, Adam, and Jenny, would be
stuck. Earth
’s newest inhabitants. Three aliens huddled in a pickup
truck, staring at a field full of humans imagining the above and
beyond.

As the window closed, and it became clear
they would not send their message, silence descended upon them.
Heavy, laden, and bitter.

Jenny returned her attention to her hands.
Her human hands.

They did not look like her own, and she knew
instinctively it would take years, if not centuries to become
accustomed to this new body. It had been built for her to hide the
alien within. Without it there would have been no way she could
blend in with the humans of Earth.

As they sat in silence, she
felt her fingers curl into tight
fists. “What do we do now?”

She knew the answer. Yet still she
asked.

“We hide. We blend in. This is our new
home. We are now humans,” John said, eventually tearing his gaze
from the dashboard. His narrow dark eyes rippled with unmistakable
sorrow.

Hide. Blend in. Those were their only
options. There would be no rescue, there would be no escape.

Just life on Earth as a human being.

It had been over 60 years since that night
in the field. If I closed my eyes, I could conjure up that memory
perfectly. I could still smell the damp scent of the wet grass. I
could still hear the hum and crackle of the radio. And I could
still remember, in exact detail, the expressions of John and
Adam.

I had done as ordered. I’d assumed a life as
a human. I’d blended in. I had endeavored to always keep the secret
of my existence and my arrival on Earth. And I had not given it up
yet.

Blinking my eyes open slowly, I pushed
myself forward, standing from my chair. A blanket fell from my
knees and tumbled to my feet. I stepped over it lightly. If I’d
felt like it, or circumstances had dictated, I could have leaped
over it, curled into a somersault, thrown myself at the wall, run
up it, and flipped backwards. I could have turned around, and with
a single, easy blow, shattered the chair. I could have obliterated
it as easily as a human child slapping a hand into a puddle.

Though it had been 60 years, I had not
aged.

I had the appearance of a human, but that
was it. I was not one. My true identity was as a Peacekeeper. A
member of a rare and ancient race capable of withstanding extreme
conditions, and built for brutal if elegant combat.

Leaning down to grab up the blanket, I
placed it on the chair behind me and walked out into the kitchen.
Sun was streaming in through the windows, and though I barely
glanced its way, it still warmed up my cheeks and arms.

It was a pleasant sensation. One I had
trained myself to enjoy over the past 60 years. It had been hard,
egregiously hard at first, but I had settled in.

I’d trained myself to accept a life of
eating, work, and sleep. Of biscuits, TV, coffee, and blankets.

I had adjusted.

‘I have adjusted,’ I said out loud,
reinforcing that fact.

In the 60 years I’d been on
Earth, I’d never had a single incident. No fights, no run-ins with
the law, and to my knowledg
e, no one but my two other crewmates knew of my
existence. Peacekeepers were known to follow through with their
orders, no matter how hard they were, and no matter how long the
mission lasted.

Walking into the kitchen, I glanced at the
reflective, ever clean surface of my stove.

I saw myself. Saw my aged face, the
wrinkles, the gray hair. I couldn’t identify with any of it, but I
knew academically that it was me.

I didn’t feel any corresponding
deterioration in my physical abilities or mental acuity to match
the old woman I saw in the surface of my stove.

Because there was no deterioration. My
appearance had been artificially aged to help me better fit in. The
wrinkles were only skin deep.

Pressing my fingers into my cheek and
feeling the folds of skin push against my nails, I glanced towards
the clock.

I had a routine. Though I was
technically classed as a
pensioner, every day I took myself to work. In the
morning I would prepare food and eat it. Then I would go for a walk
around the block and into the park. I would spend approximately
half an hour sitting on a bench, staring out at the trees and
roses, and then I would walk back to my house. At about 11:30 I
would head to the store to buy bread, biscuits, and tea;
unimaginative but usual fare for somebody my age. I would head home
around midday, and then I would spend the next several hours on the
Internet. I would not look at knitting sites, and neither would I
peruse local news to find out when the closest bingo hall was
having their next get-together.

Instead I would gather information on
everything that was going wrong with Earth. Once a Peacekeeper,
always a Peacekeeper.

I had been born into a life of service. The
creed of my race was a simple one. Protect. All who require
protection – protect them. Shepherd life wherever you find it so
that it can grow in security and safety.

I was no longer a Peacekeeper, but despite
the fact I’d changed my appearance, I could not alter what was
within.

I did nothing that would draw attention to
myself. Yet I possessed technical skills far in excess of an
ordinary human being, and understood technology that would not be
developed on Earth for hundreds of years.