Marianne's Abduction

Evernight
Publishing ®

www.evernightpublishing.com

Copyright© 2015 Ravenna Tate

 
ISBN: 978-1-77233-297-1

Cover Artist: Jay
Aheer

Editor:
Karyn
White

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

WARNING: The unauthorized
reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.
 
No part of this book may be used or
reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the
case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All
names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events,
locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

DEDICATION

To the real Marianne.

Thank you
for allowing me to use your name in this one.

MARIANNE’S ABDUCTION

Voyeur Moon, 3

Ravenna Tate

Copyright © 2015

Chapter One

Marianne
Kowalski hadn’t had a girls’ night out with friends since before the first
invasion of the Tyranns nearly two years ago, so she was due. There were plenty
of bars still open because the people left behind on Earth had little else to do
besides drink.

The
only jobs that still remained were those whose importance or necessity still
existed, or had increased since the Tyranns first destroyed all the satellites
in orbit and then began landing on the planet. Commerce and communication between
countries was essentially gone. It was even difficult now to get information
from one state to another. There had been a few attempts to restore the postal
system, but delivery was sporadic at best.

Marianne
had earned an MBA with a concentration in marketing before the first invasion,
and had been working for an up and coming IT consulting service, advising
clients on needed hardware and software to maximize their business. Then
they
had landed on the planet, and
within three months the business was gone.

There
was no need for such jobs now, because the Internet was
more
sporadic than the mail delivery, and the only people consistently online were
the hackers or survivalists. And they weren’t buying new hardware or software.

So
Marianne had taken a job in a local grocery store, stocking shelves with what
little food they could get. She lived in a nearby apartment building where the
landlord had fled six months ago, and where residents now lived in a bizarre
co-op, often having to defend their building from would-be squatters or gangs
of people who tried to take it over. Most days they simply hoped the water and
electricity would be on that day. Both were hit and miss.

Marianne
lived moment to moment caught between fear for her life, and the hope that soon
the ships from the Alpha Centauri system would stop landing on the planet.
Surely there was nothing left here they wanted.

Up
until a few months ago, they had taken to peppering the streets of the city
with fliers, explaining in their language and in American English that they had
conquered Earth, and would be taking all the inhabitants to their own planets,
little by little. No explanation why, and of course that only fed the
speculation.

If
rumors from other cities or online were to be believed, only the women were
being transported off Earth in droves, and they were being taken to be used as
sex slaves. No one knew what had happened to the men who’d been taken. But
Marianne knew rumors like that often proved to be nothing more than urban
legends, so she wasn’t terribly worried about a spacecraft landing in front of
her building and sweeping her away one night. She had more important things on
her mind.
Like simply surviving.

But
tonight, she and five women who had formed an odd friendship during the past few
months were going to one of the local bars that had been around long before the
invasion began, and whose owner steadfastly refused to close his business, no
matter what. He’d formed an alliance with other bar owners around the state to
smuggle in booze, since that was almost as difficult to get these days as food.

Greebo’s
Place was one of the few bars in town that hadn’t been taken over by gangs of
rough looking men on motorcycles, largely due to the fact that George Greebo,
the owner, knew how to use a shotgun and wasn’t afraid to let everyone know it.
Prior to the invasions, Marianne wouldn’t have gone near his place, but tonight
it was a safe haven. She needed to let loose and have some fun. They all did.

George
still served greasy burgers and onion rings every night, so she indulged in
those, plus a plate of loaded nachos the six women shared, and she drank her
first margarita in over a year. It tasted like heaven. The women talked about
their crappy jobs, the almost primitive living conditions most of them had been
forced into, and what they each thought would become of their planet.

“Do
you think the rumors about the sex slaves are true?” asked Kathie, a wide-eyed
blonde with whom Marianne worked.

Jennifer
raised her glass. “Well if they are, I wish they’d get around to picking me. I
haven’t had sex in like five years.”

The
others laughed, including Marianne, whose thoughts turned to Jacob. They always
did whenever she was among a group of women discussing sex or significant
others. Jacob Mariner had gone to Europe about a month before the first
invasion to backpack with two male friends. He hadn’t been seen or heard from
since the first alien ships landed.

The
plan had been for him to be gone no longer than a few months, and then return
home where he had a job waiting alongside Marianne. They’d dated through most
of their undergrad years, and had become engaged during graduate school. The
only reason Marianne hadn’t gone to Europe with him was because they’d already
planned to go there on their honeymoon, and she wanted him to have his bonding
time with friends.

Marianne
glanced down at her ring finger on her left hand. She’d stopped wearing her
engagement ring about six months ago when someone had tried to pry it off her
hand. Jewelry could be bartered for food or cigarettes. Now, she wore it on a
thin chain around her neck, but the chain was long enough that she could tuck
the ring into her cleavage and hide it.

She
had no idea to this day whether Jacob was alive and unable to reach her, or if
he was dead. And unless the satellites were rebuilt and launched again one day,
she might never find out. Travel by airplane or steamship across the ocean was
gone. There weren’t even any local flights these days, and she hadn’t seen a
military plane fly overhead in at least six months.

“Earth to Marianne.
Did you hear me?”

She
glanced up at Bonnie, frowning. “No. Sorry. What did you say?”

“I
asked if you saw that new guy at work.
The one who started
last week.”

“Barry?
He’s eighteen if he’s a day.”

“Yeah,
but he’s cute.”

“Good
lord. I’m not that desperate to get laid.” She was only twenty-six. Surely her
sex life wasn’t over already, was it? Then again, it was difficult these days
to imagine having an intimate relationship with a man ever again.

“Well
I am that desperate,” said Sasha, raising her glass.

“Same
here,” said Pam, clinking glasses with each of them in turn. “I say we all take
him on and show him how it’s done.”

Laughter
filled the air, but Marianne’s thoughts drifted back to her life before all
this began. She missed Jacob, and she missed her aunt and uncle. They’d been
gone for over a year now, having left voluntarily on one of the large transport
ships to take jobs on a planet called Sera. Marianne had thought they were out
of their minds to go and had begged them not to, but they’d insisted it was a
legit opportunity, and told her they’d send for her in a few months, once they
were settled.

They’d
left their home in Marianne’s care, with enough money for her to take care of
upkeep on the house for six months. She’d never heard from them again. Once
Marianne lost her job, she couldn’t make ends meet on both their home and her
apartment, and had been forced to try to sell the house. Homes weren’t selling
by then, and since the mortgage wasn’t being paid, the bank eventually
foreclosed on it.

Marianne
clutched her small bag. In it was the first shred of hope she’d had that she
might see her aunt and uncle again one day. But if she left Earth to do that,
what would happen if Jacob were still alive?

Tucked
into her bag was a letter she’d found inside her mailbox at the apartment
complex two weeks ago. It had an embossed seal at the top of the paper, and
indicated Blake and Betsy Williams were working in an official capacity at the
Ministry on Sera for the Regum as attorneys, involved in the contract
negotiations between the Regum and the Tyranns.

Whatever
the hell that meant.

The
letter went on to say that should Marianne wish to join them, she would need to
present herself for transport in three weeks’ time. The letter explained that
the Office of Earth Retrieval had placed her on the list of those approved for
transport to Sera, and it gave detailed instructions as to where and when she
needed to be.

Marianne
hadn’t shown it to anyone. There were no liaisons that she knew of here on
Earth who could verify all this was true. She was faced with a difficult
choice. Go to the designated place and hope this was real, and that she would
be taken to join her aunt and uncle on another planet, or stay and wait to hear
news of Jacob.

She
didn’t know what to do. She had no frame of reference for this. No one did. But
Aunt Betsy and Uncle Blake were the closest family she had. Shouldn’t she want
to be with them again?

Her
aunt and uncle had become her legal guardians once they’d taken her in. They’d
never had children of their own. Aunt Betsy and her mother had been sisters,
and she and Uncle Blake had given Marianne a home after her parents had been
killed in a boating accident when she was thirteen. Marianne was an only child,
and the remainder of her family lived out of state or was always traveling
overseas. She hadn’t heard from any of them since the first invasion.

It
had made for a lonely life, but Marianne had never complained. She came from a
long line of overachievers and hadn’t needed anyone to motivate her to attend
college and do well in school. Aunt Betsy and Uncle Blake had given her a
comfortable home and an expensive education. The loneliness and isolation had
gone along with the territory.

And
now here she was, still lonely and still isolated, drinking bootleg tequila and
eating her body weight in nachos and greasy food with five women. Five women
who, before the invasion had occurred, were merely people Marianne might have
passed on the street while walking to the nearest salon or clothing boutique.
She wouldn’t have given them a second glance, but now they were her best
friends.
Her
only
friends.

The
conversation moved onto other things, including their jobs again, but
Marianne’s thoughts kept wandering. She drank two more margaritas, knowing it
hardly mattered since she lived close enough to walk home, and was off for the
next two days. Not that it even mattered whether she showed up for work,
hungover or otherwise. The pay was lousy, and no one there gave a shit how well
she did her job. Most days, no one cared whether she did it at all.

When
they finally left Greebo’s Place, the streets were deserted. It was a warm
summer night, but no insects sang and there was barely a breeze. The six women
lived close to one another, so they walked together, their shoes sounding
unnaturally loud on the pavement. As they approached her building, Marianne
told them she wanted to stay outside a bit longer. No one protested, but even
if they had, she would have ignored them. They told her to be careful and went
on their way.

Marianne
felt like she was suffocating. Although the booze and food were likely
contributing to the sensation, she knew it had as much to do with everything
that had happened in two years as it
did
with what
she’d ingested tonight. Talking about her plight with five others for four
solid hours had brought it all
home
.

She
should have gone to Sera with her aunt and uncle in the first place. What did
she have here to look forward to? And if she was taken one day, what would
happen to her? Marianne reached into her bag and took out the letter. Its edges
were already frayed from reading it so many times. It was her only chance to be
with them once more, but it also meant she’d likely never see Jacob again.

Yet
if she stayed, she risked being taken by the Tyranns, if the rumors were true.
The women were being taken to Voyeur Moon, one of three planets in the Alpha
Centauri system. Sera, where her aunt and uncle had gone,
was
the planet where the Regum lived. They were the ruling class that the Tyranns
were fighting. The Tyranns were said to be freedom fighters—
who
just happened to be looking for sex slaves.

You
couldn’t make this shit up.

She
wasn’t sure who the Addonians were, but again if the urban legends were correct,
they were a new class who weren’t exactly on the side of the Regum, but who
also opposed what the Tyranns were doing with the Earth women.

And
did it even matter? The bottom line was that they’d left Earth in shambles, and
anyone still on the planet lived a half life, where they never knew from day to
day if they’d have food, drinkable water, or a place to live. Leaving was the
sensible thing to do. At least if she went to live with her aunt and uncle
again, she wouldn’t have to find out firsthand if the rumors about what the
Tyranns were doing with Earth women were true.