Conquest ~ Indian Hill 3 ~ A Michael Talbot Adventure (5 page)

“Oh God
,
where are you
,
Mike
?”
s
he
cried. But the crying did more to steel her resolve than to melt it away.

I will go on if for no other reason than to see him just one more time
—
to tell him I’m sorry, that I’m sorry for so many things
, she thought.
And if that bastard in the woods comes for me I’ll rip his throat out
.

Even she didn’t believe the last part but it sounded a lot better than,
‘
I’ll grovel at his feet for mercy
’
. Beth walked for what seemed like hours, in somewhat of a straight
line but the New England scrub
brush was doing
its
best to keep her off course.

I’ve got to get to a road, I’ll die long before I get to Walpole at this pace
. And this she knew to be the truth. She knew after her last disastrous encounter
,
she would have to be doubly careful, she didn’t even have the
Sergeant
any more for protection. And with the physicality of a punch to the stomach she bent over from the pain, the pain of loss, the pain of loneliness, the pain of it all. Beth
,
like everyone else
,
was having great difficulty assimilating all the events that had happened in the recent past. She had grown up on the far slope of the bell curve, her family was affluent, she
wanted for
naught
as a youngster. And although personally
,
she knew she was attractive
,
she didn’t wholeheartedly believe that she was the ravishing beauty that so many had labeled her as. Her whole life up to
two
years ago had been what many would consider a fantasy. She was head che
erleader and prom Queen in her j
unior and senior year
s
, boys fought over the right to date her. And she loved it, she craved the attention. And to top it off
,
she was only
point-twenty-three
percentage points from being valedictorian, beauty and brains, she
was
a deadly combination.
Then
college
started
,
where she felt for sure her inadequacies would start
to show through, but if anything the light that was Beth
had
b
egu
n to shine even brighter. Col
lege
work
had co
me as easy to her as
h
igh
s
chool and grown men stopped to stare as she walked by and then came
Mike
, he
had been
just one of many potential suitors. Sure
,
she felt something for him but of all the men that
had been
vying for her attention she wasn’t even sure he cracked the top five.
T
here
had been
something about him that she hadn’t been able to put her finger on and she
had been
eager to find out what it was. So she had toyed with him to a degree trying to ascertain his secrets. And then
had come
Red Rocks, an event for which she
’d been
wholly unprepared for. Her head hadn’t completely finished spinning when she
’d
tried to wrap her mind around what the games were about and what the ‘combatants’
had been
fighting for.
A
lthough she
’d known
it was wrong,
she
couldn’t help but smile a little at the fact that all the men
had been
fighting
over
her
. It
had been
nothing conscious but still there it was. Even aliens were able to ascertain that her beauty was above those of her peers and had placed her at the center of attention for their ‘games’. True
,
she had been shielded from
participating in the
brutality
but she had bore witness
that
had
been
the
whole spectacle. It wasn’t until she began to track the progress of
Durgan
that a deep unsettling fear began to worm its way into her very being. This wasn’t a game
.
T
his was real
;
real people were
d
y
ing and she would be among them if that monster had his way. He was a
n
animal
,
no doubt about it
,
and he would not place her on the pedestal with which she had become accustomed to her whole life. And then there was
Mike
.
S
he finally
began to understand what he was hiding from her, it was an uncontrollable rage which could be unleashed with sudden and savage fury, she felt that he had a little devil trapped inside which he could set free when the events warranted it. He scared her to the depths of her soul,

How could
anyone
contain such a force inside and be able to control it?
They couldn’t
,
she deemed, eventually it would be set loose on some unsuspecting unlucky individual. She hadn’t then been able to see the big picture as she could now
. She had been a fool, a narrow-
minded fool. He had not done anything on that ship for himself, his main concern had always been her safety and that of the women he had come to obtain. Why had she been such a
n idiot
?

W
ith a single minded determination
,
she headed out onto the fringes of the Mass pike Highway 90. There was no traffic for miles, but someone
caught witness
as she broke from the trees
two
miles outside of Amherst.

CHA
P
TER SIX

Paul walked
through
the throngs of people huddled inside the large gathering room
.
H
e
heard many grumbling
s
as he passed, some more vocal than others
,
but always just low enough as to not attract too much attention. Paul had
no
room in his universe for
complainers
but he knew that something had to be done now before any type of organized rebellion formed. Paul meandered down to the
center of the stage and the dais that been set up. He made sure to take his time making it look like he wasn’t in any sort of hurry
,
although he thought the rapid beating of his heart would surely give him away. Paul and his men had been training to fight not sit and wait, they weren’t a reactionary force, they were the rebellion. And nothing can stall a rebellion faster than stagnation. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt the aliens were preparing for a strike, where and when was the question. With stores rapidly depleting, rationing would only quicken the
unraveling of their tenuous hold on the world as they once knew it.

Paul had finally made it to the pulpit and his mouth went dry as powder, licking his lips now would only signify the tremors he
felt

All eyes were on him, even some of the more incessant grumblings had come to a halt when they realized their leader, or captor as some antagonized, was going to ‘honor’ them with some prose.

“Friends
.
” He cleared his throat, where this speech was going was anyone’s guess.
“
I come to you not only as the
leader
of the Earth Corps, but as a person the majority of
you know to some degree. To some I am a friend
,
others a classmate,
and
to
others
still
some guy you may have run across on campus or at some
barely remembered all-
night party
.” There
was a smattering of snickers throughout the crowd. “But first and foremost
,
I come to you as a human being on planet
E
arth, thrust
i
nto the position
of an endangered species. Don’t be fooled by the calm and quiet, all is not well top side. Society as any of us knew it has been completely obliterated, even though the aliens have not landed and begun their assault yet.” Paul made sure to leave no doubt that this would happen. “Man has turned against his fellow man, there is no altruism out there, it is literally every man for himself right now. There is no safe place, to begin again, as I have heard some of y
ou express. The aliens for
what
ever
reason are waiting to begin their assault, my council believes this will occur right after
Mike
fights their champion.”

“Next week?”
some
one
cried out.
Every
one
’
s
attention was now rapt, Paul had set the hook, the tricky part now was reeling them in.

“How will we stop them?”

“Is this place safe?”

Sobbing could be heard throughout the throng.

“People
,
please, this is
the safest place on the planet
.
W
ill
it be safe enough? I don’t know. What will we do? We’ll fight! We’ll either win by sheer tenacity or we will die valiantly and with honor!”

There was m
ore
than one “OOOHHH RAAAAHH!!” Thank God for bravado. “This I promise you
—
we will not go quietly scampering into the dark, we will stand and make them pay dearly for every precious inch of our home, all of our homes, all of our kinsmen and family and loved ones who have died. They will pay for it with the blood of their countrymen
and
of their loved ones
.
T
hey
will rue the day they ever viewed our planet. These coming days will forever be immortalized in song and story and poem on both our sides. This I swear to you today as God
a
s
my witness, these aliens will leave our planet and they will leave not nearly as in good shape as they arrived. They will learn that humanity can be an unkind host!” With the end of Paul’s speech he thrust his fist into the air amidst the shouting and cheering
e
rupting
all around him. Paul walked straight out the chamber as the crowd parted clapping him on the shoulder and cheering wildly.

“Great speech
,
Paul
,
”
Major
Sa
lazar said from the entrywa
y he
was leaning on.

“I think I bought
us
another week.” Paul replied as he walked briskly past.