Resistance: Hathe Book One (41 page)

It was
his voice Marthe found the hardest to endure. That uncaring,
constant battering of scorn, tearing away at her defenses. A
nightmare parody of the deep tones that had bathed her in past
delight.

Much
later, she retreated to a stool, still poised for combat despite
the pains beginning to throb in her head.

Laren
watched her, a big sister frown on her face. Don’t do it, thought
Marthe. Don’t beg. But it was a forlorn hope. Laren had seen the
fatigue she could no longer hide.

“
Major, since the Terran case is now hopeless, can you not
accept defeat gracefully? There is really no point in continuing
this ridiculous resistance,” said Laren.

“
But
it is so amusing, madame. And if you’re so assured of victory, why
waste your time here?”

“
Estimate of casualty figures following premature discovery is
a thousand fatalities.” It was Marthe who replied, her voice flat,
hiding all trace of the wearisome burden that number had become.
“We will win, though. It is too late for you to change that,” she
added, before again relapsing into silence.

They
were the first words she’d returned to his banter for a long while,
and Hamon’s aching, angry heart cried out in disappointment that
she didn’t fight back more. Did what they had mean so little to
her?

Marthe
didn’t have enough energy left to wonder what lay behind that
closed face. All she could do was endure. There was no hope of
anything else, and now she must concentrate on what she could win,
not on forlorn hopes. From the moment she’d been forced to draw her
blaster, she knew she’d lost Hamon. For months, she’d been dreading
this day. Unlike Hamon, she had never expected what they had to
survive, but having failed so disastrously in her marriage, she
must succeed in her duty. Her people must be safe.

Yet
need he make the end so hard? His taunts were all that penetrated
the growing haze in her head. They had been in this room for days,
it seemed. Soon, her concentration would break. She glanced
surreptitiously at the clock. Not long now. Valiantly, she roused
herself for the last spell. Just a little longer, stomach. Don’t
forsake me yet.

Always
the shielded eyes of her husband watched her. Waiting for that
final moment when she could no longer anticipate his subtle
maneuvers. She’d had to use her blaster once already as he tested
her concentration. It wouldn’t be long till he would do so again,
and succeed.

Their
deadly play continued. The drift of the talk changed. No longer did
Hamon prod and jeer. His words were now the ordinary gossip of
their evenings, achingly familiar and even harder to endure. She
could only retreat, deep into the fastness inside her. When would
this day finish?

Hamon
watched her closely, searching for signs of collapse under the
stony façade. It was usually Laren who met his sallies now, but
from time to time Marthe would answer, her voice always the same.
Dead and stripped of all that was personal. He asked about the
crowd scene on the morning of their wedding, so obviously staged,
now he looked back. He was not surprised to hear that the victims
were mere dummies, only awed by the incredible skill required to
hit two small targets so far away and so quickly.

At
last his waiting paid out, and not a moment too soon. There was
less than an hour left. Quietly, he signaled to Ferdo, also
intently watching the nodding woman as her blaster hand began to
wilt. He pointed Ferdo to the control panel, signing that he would
take the weapon and go for the door. A few minutes longer, the
relaxed pose carefully held.

“
Now!” he cried. They leapt as one, Ferdo to the panel, Hamon
to Marthe, grabbing the blaster as she collapsed in a heap on the
floor. He ignored the wretched bundle and raced to the door,
slamming it open…

To
meet Jacquel des Trurain, in military dress, with a patrol of
strangely uniformed men. Still he refused to give up. He brought up
the blaster and pressed the button. Nothing. He threw it away,
thrusting madly through the body of men in front of him, but his
enemies were too many. They beat him down, though more than one was
left maimed on the floor, felled by moves learnt in the streets of
Earth, and all would wear his marks for some days. In the end, des
Trurains grabbed his lower tunic, raised it to slam a hand against
his lower back, and next second a shock wave blasted through
Hamon’s backbone, dropping him to the floor in helpless fury, his
legs numb and unresponsive.

“
The
effect is temporary—usually,” growled the Hathian. “I’ve patched
you, so lie still or I’ll repeat the shock till it’s
permanent.”

From
the look on the man’s face, he would be only too pleased for an
excuse to do just that. Not that Hamon could move anyway, as other
troopers swiftly bound him hand and foot, leaving him trussed up
against the wall. From there, he saw Ferdo reach the controls and
Laren an Castre politely relinquish them. Ferdo frantically
attempted to raise some help. It didn’t need the silence to tell
Hamon the result. The Hathians had already made that plain. No
matter what Ferdo tried, the result was the same. Nobody answered.
All that came from the console was an eerie whistle.

“
It’s no use,” said Laren apologetically, kneeling to check on
her sister. “You made your move too late, Captain.”

“
But
the attack was scheduled for 19.00 hours,” he heard Ferdo
protest.

“
The
Zenith of the Pillars of Mathe will begin at 19.00 hours. The
unique alignment of our solar system, which causes the failure of
all Terran equipment, took effect at 18.00 hours. Ten minutes
ago.”

Hamon
heard the words. Too late.

He
felt his captors haul him up, felt the agony of his wound as they
dragged on his arms. None of it registered. He was too late. He’d
failed Earth and his people would die.

Lying
on her side on the floor, Marthe woke to the hard stare of her
husband’s eyes from his position on the other side of the room.
Eons away, she heard the words of a patrolman.

“
Shall we take the Terrans away now, sir?”

“
Yes, except Major Radcliff. As husband of Marthe an Castre,
he merits privileged accommodation,” said Jacquel.

He was
interrupted by the harsh voice of his prisoner. “You are mistaken,”
said her husband. “I have no connection to any Hathian. The union
you refer to was nothing but a military stratagem.”

He
would not look at her again. She lay still, watching as they
dragged him up and took him away, and could do nothing. She had
lost the right. It had been so short, their time. Now it was
over.

Voices. That was her next memory. Voices forcing their way
into her misty fastness. Anxious, fearful, nervous, the voices of
love and childhood memories. Then smells, of anesthetics and
disinfectants.
I am in a hospital,
came the thought, the
smells familiar, the voices safe.

“
Wake up, Marthe, please.” Father, his voice deep, gruff,
male.

“
Marthe love, wake up. Open your eyes.” Another voice filled
with memories of childhood and love. Laren.

“
Agent an Castre, wake up. Now.” A military order from her
commander, Gof deln Crantz.

So
many voices, all demanding she return.
But none was the right
voice.

She
kept her eyes shut and sought oblivion once more.

Later,
it was much later. More voices, the brisk talk of nurses and
medics. The reality of her years before the war, when peace and
routine filled her days. No more. There was an emptiness inside her
now. An emptiness that could never be filled, not after what she
had done to him. She fled to the darkness and welcomed the floating
mists that kept out the world.

A
sharp sting, awareness spreading, unwelcome and unwanted. She had
been trained in this. Someone, some doctor was forcing her to
return to the world.

“
No.” Dry lips and a voice long unused. She heard only a
cracked whisper. “No, leave me,” she tried again.

“
I
am sorry but that is not possible, madame.” A new voice, and a new
face leaning over her. The voice of an older man, vaguely familiar.
Doctor, said a memory in her head. He has the manner of a
doctor—like you.

She
had been a doctor once, a lifetime ago. Another trace of memory
returned. She was one no longer. Now she was a soldier, now she
destroyed lives.

“
You
will wake, madame, for your baby’s sake. You cannot go, not
yet.”

She
placed the voice now. Dr an Dothen, from her maternity care team on
the moon base. She concentrated, let her senses test the gravity
well. No, she was still on Hathe, still planetside.

“
You
should be on Mathe, not down here.”

“
The
war is over, madame. We are all returned to Hathe, thanks to the
heroism of you and your comrades.”

It was
over?
Yes,
truth. A part of the memory she sought to
escape.

“
All
over, all gone, nothing left,” she murmured. “Time to
go.”

“
Not
yet,” said the voice of her doctor. “There is one more life left
for you to save.”

“
I
don’t save lives,” she muttered. “I destroy them.” Just as she had
destroyed her husband’s.

A
shaking, nurses forcing her to sit up. She tried to struggle, but
her body failed her. So weak, so useless. She opened her eyes and
saw tubing and grey walls, then her doctor’s face, grim and
uncompromising.

“
There is an old saying, Madame an Castre. While there’s life,
there is hope. So, equally, without life, there is no hope. Would
you deny your baby all hope?”

It was
the one demand she could not refuse. Not even when the pain of it
tore through her. She nodded her surrender. “What do I have to
do?”

This
time when the grey mists claimed her, she knew she would be
returning. She had made him a promise: her baby would survive, and
he would see it.

Thank you for reading
RESISTANCE. I hope you enjoyed this start to the story of Hathe as
much as I enjoyed creating it. Please consider posting a review or
letting your friends know about this book. I appreciate all honest
reviews.

Read
on for an excerpt from Hathe Book Two: Pay the Piper.

PAY
THE PIPER

HATHE
BOOK TWO

BY
MARY BROCK JONES

Secrets are revealed; questions must be answered, as two
lovers caught in a maelstrom of opposing loyalties face their
toughest fights yet.

For
five years, the Terrans ruled Hathe, taking whatever they needed,
especially the energy-rich mineral, urgonium, Earth must have to
survive. For five years, the Hathians kept their world safe by
hiding behind a façade, posing as subservient peasants and
pretending all the wealth and knowledge of Hathe had vanished. Then
came the time for Hathe to fight back, and for the Terrans to learn
how wrong they were.

Now
the war is over.

Hamon
Radcliff was Head of Security for the Terran forces; his wife,
Marthe an Castre, belonged to the Hathian resistance. Surviving the
peace was always going to be tough for lovers caught on opposite
sides. Both have done what they must to protect their home worlds
and those actions have consequences. Nor does the end of war take
away all the bitter anger between Hathe and Earth. When that anger
finds an outlet, and turns its glare on Marthe and Hamon, peace
time becomes downright dangerous.

Please enjoy this excerpt from the next chapter in the story
of Marthe and Hamon:

The
Hathians had trussed him like an animal and discarded him here in
the corner of the room. Hamon Radcliff glared at his
enemies.

It was
all he could do. He’d tried to resist, fighting back with all the
bottled up rage within him. Bruised and battered, held down by
enemy soldiers, still he kept punching, kicking, using every half
remembered, low down street trick he’d learned growing up on Earth.
But then the leader of the Hathian soldiers slapped one of their
patches on his back and used it to blast his spine with a shock
wave that dropped him flat, his legs flopping uselessly and
refusing to answer his furious need for action. Defeated, swiftly
bound hand and foot, he was left with nothing. All he could do was
watch as the Hathian troops finished rounding up the rest of the
Terrans in the communications wing.

Cleaning up the leftover flotsam. That’s what it felt
like.

He’d
nearly won. So close. After all the months of trying to pierce the
enigma that lay behind the facade of this world, he thought he’d
finally succeeded in keeping Hathe and its precious urgonium firmly
in Terran hands. That was before he opened the control room door
and met Jacquel des Trurain holding a blaster on him. Now, the
Hathian was master and Hamon the conquered; very soon, by the look
of it, the rest of the Terran forces on Hathe would join
him.