Worlds Away Read online

  Worlds Away

  An Action Adventure Sci-Fi Novel

  Book 1

  J.L. Hendricks

  This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Copyright (c) 2016, 2019 J.L. Hendricks

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy.

  First Edition September 2016

  Second Edition January 2019

  Third Edition April 2019

  All rights reserved. Copyright © 2016 J.L. Hendricks, 2019 J.L. Hendricks

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Epilogue

  Author’s Notes

  Acknowledgements

  Other Books by J.L. Hendricks

  Worlds Collide Sneak Peek

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Prologue

  The peal of the claxon bells could be heard all through the ship, and the crew rushed to and fro as they took their duty stations to prepare for the inevitable. “Rotna, get off the comm with your mate. NOW is the time to focus on the ship, not some female.” the Commander yelled as he gave Rotna a stern frown and pointed to the weapons console.

  Rotna usually manned the weapons console during battles. However, it has been a few years since this crew had seen any battles. All had been calm during these trips until this one.

  “I must go now, stay safe and know that I love you!” Rotna ended his comm with his mate and focused back on the weapons console, but he was too late. A charged torpedo hit the side of the ship where Rotna was stationed. The console discharged an energy blast that threw him against the metallic desk that housed the science scanners behind him. His back hit the hard surface, and he fell to the ground unconscious.

  “Someone get a medic here immediately! I need my weapons officer back on task.“ The Commander gave Rotna one more look and arched an eyebrow with the realization he wouldn’t get his weapons officer back on duty any time soon. The ship warbled as another torpedo hit a different spot on the same side of the ship. All the warriors on the bridge looked to the Commander as he stumbled to the weapons console. At the same time his second in command, Eereen, made his way to the weapons station from across the bridge.

  The Commander arrived first so he loaded and launched four torpedoes and sent them off one after the other in rapid fire towards the enemy ship that had attacked them. This enemy had supposedly agreed to a tentative truce some years back and would on occasion play chicken with the V’Zenian ships, but they never would have openly attacked like this. The Commander wondered what would have caused them to attack without provocation.

  “Eereen, fire the laser cannons at will and target their port engine. Let’s see if we can’t damage their ship enough to keep them from firing any more torpedoes,” the Commander yelled as he handed over the weapons con to his First Officer.

  “Yes, Sir!” Eereen stated as he sat at the console. He quickly reviewed the ship in front of them and targeted the port side engines with both laser cannons and another round of torpedoes. He had to be careful since they did not have many left. This ship should not have seen any combat on this trip. It was only on a trip to Earth to pick up another load of slaves and possible mates for their species. In the four trips he has made, they never saw anything more than space dust in their path.

  The Chief Engineer reported to the Commander, “Sir, that last set of torpedoes damaged our engines along with the artificial gravity generator. I sent technicians to fix them, but I can’t guarantee that parts of the ship will have enough gravity to function properly.”

  He pushed the green button on his console. “Listen up, this is the Commander. We have an issue with our gravity generator and certain areas could intermittently lose artificial gravity. Use the hand rails if you must move about the ship, otherwise strap in and prepare for a bumpy flight.” The Commander knew that his slaves in the holding cells had nothing to help them stay secure. He briefly wondered if he shouldn’t release their cell doors so they could at least find some seats to strap themselves into. But before he could think of it anymore, another round of torpedoes made their way past the energy shield his ship had up.

  “Someone tell me how those torpedoes are making their way past our shields! They should not have access to such technology! I want a solution before they blow us out of the universe! And I want something that will destroy them- five minutes ago!” The Commander sat down and strapped himself into his command chair. Then reviewed the schematics they had of the enemy ship based on their scans over the past twelve hours.

  The slaves in the holding cells had bumped around and most had nothing more severe than contusions. A few broke some bones and had cried out for help, but all of the guards who had been in their holding areas, had left before the battle began.

  “Hey, listen up! Grab ahold of the bars and wrap yourselves around them as best you can. This is worse than a ‘bumpy flight,’” one man yelled out to everyone.

  The ship kept taking hits from torpedoes and laser cannons, and it jumped and jostled. When the gravity generator in the section housing the slaves died, most had already wrapped themselves around the bars. However, a few did not, they sat on the ground and held onto each other and tried to wait out the ride.

  This proved to be a fatal mistake. Three of the human slaves who had not held on tightly to the bars flew around like a cow in a tornado, hit their heads and died immediately. One had her head twisted so far back that she looked more like a rag doll thrown to the ground. The other two women continued to bump around their cell and hit the other women who were trying to hold on for their lives.

  “Oh please God, if you can hear me, help me to survive this, and I will do whatever you want me to do for the rest of my life. Even if that means I have to marry one of these alien freaks, I will do it.” One human woman, Natalie, prayed as she closed her eyes and tried not to think about the horrible ways she might die on this ship.

  Chapter 1

  Jenna

  One week earlier

  One minute I was checking out a nice-looking man across the field, the next I was in his arms inside of some strange metallic room. “Wha…who are you? Where am I?” I whispered as my head spun.

  The man who held me looked into my face and his eyes widened. “Oh nuts! How are you awake already? I just transported you from Earth. You should have been out for hours.”

  I realized I was in his arms, which were as huge and firm as a cannon, no joke. “Hey big guns, you wanna let me down?” I looked into his violet eyes and was momentarily mesmerized by t
he most beautiful face I had ever laid eyes on. This man had to be pushing seven feet tall, with long, wavy, dark hair that went to his shoulders and a strong chiseled face. His clothes looked like something anyone would wear on the beach, tan board shorts and a conservative Hawaiian print shirt with surf boards on it.

  “I am not carrying any guns.” He had this perplexed look on his face, like he didn’t understand the name I had given him.

  “Dude, let me down! NOW!” I took my one free arm and banged it on his chest in hopes that he would get my meaning. Instead, my hand ached from hitting something as hard as concrete. There was a tingling sensation going throughout my hand, so I shook it out in hopes of that feeling dissipating faster, “Ow!”

  He set me down and took one step back. “I won’t hurt you.” Then he took one step closer and lightly brushed the hair away that had fallen into my face. His touch sent chills down my back as I gasped from the connection I felt with him.

  In a whisper I asked him, “Who are you?” Then I took a step away from him. He was too close for me to breathe properly.

  “I am Commander Venay of the V’Zenian Empire. You are on my star cruiser, The Zamaya.” He looked down at me with something akin to pride in his eyes. I got the feeling that he was proud of his title, or maybe his ship.

  I looked around at my surroundings and tried to process what he just said, but a headache was developing. “Are you punking me?” There was an ache behind one eye, and I closed it and tried to rub my eyelid while breathing heavily.

  “What is ‘punking’?” He tilted his head slightly while looking at me with narrowed eyes, and then he scratched the back of his head.

  “This is some sort of joke, right? I mean the last thing I remember is seeing you from across the field and then waking up in your arms here. Something isn’t adding up. There’s no way we’re in space right now or even on a spaceship…” I looked around with pursed lips and tried to rub the goosebumps from my arms.

  “Did you drug me and take me to some sort of sound stage? I didn’t sign up to be on a reality show or anything like that. So if this is some sort of TV or movie production, you have the wrong person.” I slowly moved away from the giant and walked around the room. We were standing on a metallic floor, and the room was small, maybe a ten by ten square room. On one wall was what looked like a door, but it didn’t open out; there appeared to be no way for it to open. I could see the lines of the door, but no hinge. There was one medium sized, circular window. Outside, they had done a great job of making it look like I was in space.

  We must have been facing out towards space because I couldn’t see Earth or even the moon. The view was filled with stars as far as I could see. One small speck looked like it could be a planet, as it was bigger than all of the other stars around us, but I couldn’t be sure. The room was pretty cold, so they were doing a great job of simulating outer space with environment as well as with the view. The room had a clean scent, like fresh laundy.

  I looked back at the man who had taken me, and he was smiling. What was that about?

  “Do you believe me now? That planet you can see is actually what you humans call Jupiter.” He looked out the window, and I took the opportunity to get a better look at him. His skin color wasn’t different from mine, but he did have some weird colored veins going up his arm. I could believe the veins were sticking out, just like any huge muscular guy’s arms. But the color had me perplexed. The veins pulsed and changed colors. One moment it was pulsing in a blueish tint, then the next it was pink, then orange.

  What kinda show was this?

  “Um, I think you have done a great job with the special effects outside this room. But I don’t believe that we are in space.” I walked over toward what appeared to be the door and pushed on it, nothing happened. “How do I open this door?”

  Venay walked up behind me and ran his hand over something on the side of the door, and it swished open, just like in the movies. The door moved sideways into the wall, and what I saw on the other side of the door freaked me out. There were more people, but they were in cages.

  I gasped and covered my mouth with my hand before any sounds of horror could escape.

  Surrounding them were guards of some sort that looked similar to my captor, but they all were wearing some type of military uniform. The uniforms were tight fitting, button up shirts with a rank of some sort on the collars, not too different from an Army uniform. The pants were black cargo style, and they had a weapons belt with a dagger on one side and what appeared to be a toy phaser gun on the other.

  I started to walk out into the room, but he put his arm around my waist and brought me back inside as the door slid shut.

  “What are you doing? I want to go home! NOW!” I turned into him since he hadn’t let go of my waist yet and tilted my head up to look into his face.

  He looked down at me and with a smug look and said, “It isn’t safe for you to go out there, unless you want to end up in a cage with the other humans?” Then he arched one eyebrow.

  “Look, I don’t know what’s going on here, but I did not sign up for this, and I want to go home. Would you please stop playing these games and let me out of here?” I put my hands on his chest and tried to push myself away from him, but he held on tight.

  “Human, tell me your name. Unless you want me to keep calling you Human?” He used his free hand to move my long auburn hair so that it fell along my back. Then he ran his hand through it. I had goosebumps again, but this time it wasn’t because I was cold. In fact, it was just the opposite. There seemed to be some sort of supernatural attraction. I didn’t want to be attracted to him, but I was. His pulsing veins were calling my name and asking me to kiss them, maybe even nibble on those along his neck. Sweat was starting to form on my brow as this man held me.

  As soon as I came back to my senses, I moved my shoulders in an effort to get his hand out of my hair.

  “Paris, my name is Paris. Can you please let me go now?” I couldn’t look into his eyes any longer. He was doing something to me with those hypnotic eyes of his. Instead, I focused on those cannons for biceps and watched as his veins pulsed out different colors, but the purple color seemed more dominant than the rest.

  “You are named after a city in France? Why?” He looked down at me with that perplexed look of his again, and then let me go. I walked back towards the wall and took a deep breath.

  “Wait, how do you know about the city in France?”

  “The last group of slaves I picked up came from there. Not too many of them spoke English, but our Universal Translator worked just fine with them. Well, until they tried taking it out of their head.” He chuckled at that moment and had a far off look on his face, as though he was remembering something funny.

  “One of them swore we were conducting human experiments on them and that the sub-dermal translator we installed into the side of the skull, near their ear, was an alien listening device.” Again, he laughed at the memory, while motioning with his arms out wide. “Where do you humans come up with this stuff? I mean, really, an alien listening device?” He shook his head as he continued to laugh.

  “If we wanted to listen in on your conversations, we have much better devices for that.” His smile helped to soften the hard lines on his face.

  “It doesn’t feel like you have implanted anything into my skull.” I moved my hands around my head feeling for anything out of place and found nothing wrong.

  “Because I haven’t - not yet anyway. During the trip, we examine and perform the implantation so that all of you can understand us before we arrive to your new home. All of the guards and soldiers on this ship speak English so there shouldn’t be any linguistic issues until we get home.” The alien Commander took a few steps toward the wall, giving me a good look outside of the window again.

  “Does that mean that all of your prisoners are from North America?” I wondered how many people they had kidnapped and what was really going on here.

  He thought for a moment, �
�Hm, I believe so. We picked up a few in Japan, but they were speaking English before we picked them up. We do try to keep similar languages on each trip. It’s much easier that way for the crew to interact with you humans until the translators are installed.”

  I thought about his earlier question and decided I might as well answer him. Maybe he would let me go if he thought I was a real person. Isn’t that what they teach you to do if you are ever kidnapped? Make the assailant view you as a real human being and hope they decided to release you, or at the very least not hurt you. But does that work if they are crazy? Cuz this guy was certifiably nuts!

  I looked at him and gave him my best smile, “My parents wanted to honeymoon in Paris, but they couldn’t afford it. However, they were happy to honeymoon in Vegas, where I was conceived. Instead of naming me Vegas, they decided to name me for the place of their dreams. She always said that she loved me more than Paris, which was kinda funny when I was a kid.” I looked down and stopped smiling when I remembered what happened to them.

  “That’s a pretty story. I like your name.” He walked over to a different wall and pushed a button I hadn’t noticed before. The wall opened up and a sofa slid out before the wall closed. He motioned for me to sit down, and then he sat next to me. He was a bit too close for my comfort.

  “Alright Venay, tell me what is really going on and where I am.” I sat straight and on the edge of the sofa. My leg bounced up and down as I waited for his story.

  “I might not look like it, but I am not from Earth, and we are on a spaceship heading to my home planet to be precise.” He put his arm along the back of the couch.

  “Um, I hate to break it to you, but we aren’t moving. Did your special effects equipment breakdown or something?” I giggled at my stupid joke, but there was no way I was falling for this lame story of his.

  “Of course we haven’t left yet. We still have a shipment of slaves we are waiting for.” He shook his head like he couldn’t believe what I said.